Chapter Text
“Designed by the Dark Lord of the Sith, this web is,” Yoda said, calmly, as his brainpan was cracked open by an enormous black carrion crow. “For now, play his game we must.”
Mace relived the council meeting. Except all its members were corpses—a feast for a giant bird . Obi-Wan and Anakin called from their mission to Oba Diah and delivered a report. Dooku, under the name Tyrannus, had created the clone army. Then the council, led by Mace, decided to keep it secret, to avoid chaos. His own words.
Mace had missed the shatterpoint in the force. Combined with the incident on Ringo Vinda, where Clone trooper ‘Tup’ CT-5385 had killed Master Tiplar, the evidence was overwhelming. The clones were created by the Sith to destroy the Jedi. The inhibitor chip wasn’t a precaution but a trigger. And it had been pulled.
As Mace’s dream shade spoke, the crow tugged at its eyes— as if to say “See! See! How could you not see?” The Jedi let the force flow through him. Mace was done here, what he needed to see was over. He grasped for awakeness.
The force slipped away from his grasp and Mace hit the floor hard. Every nerve screamed. Whatever stressors his body was under, Mace couldn’t regain any control.
So the Jedi Master waited, with time he could awake, Mace knew so. Instead of wasting effort he watched.
The crow pecked at Kit Fisto’s entrails, sending them sloughing to the ground. As council leader I had all the evidence and failed, Mace thought. Knowing now was too late.
His memories acted out the meeting of ghosts again and again. When the meeting finished his world distorted and the crow came back to feast. On the eleventh replay he knew every council member’s lines down to the inflection.
By the fifteenth, he was reciting with them.
On the thirtieth replay of the council meeting, Mace threw up his hands and sat next to his shade humming quietly The Death of the Soammei .
On the fortieth, he spoke the truth to his eyeless shade, hoping, somehow he could reach back to the moment.
By the fiftieth, Mace could no longer control his breathing. The bird circled him waiting for him to die so that it could feast. Its eyes were sickly gold, its feathers black as shadow.
On the seventieth Mace stared out the window at nonexistent Coruscanti traffic trying desperately to tune out his fellow council members.
By the hundred and eighty second Mace lost track.
So he waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Until…
The vision cracked and wavered, his imagination entirely distorted. Mace fell down and down. Then he had a second of control, reality flipped and Mace fell upward. The Jedi Master grabbed at consciousness.. and entered his body.
His eyes fluttered awake, greeted by light and… “Luminara?” His voice crackled and popped. The green figure shuddered and wavered. Ghosts, Mace thought, more ghosts. Even his mind was failing him. Mace was failing. FAILING. He reached for the force…
The darkness bounded to his call. Mace recoiled but it was onto him like sticky tar, he wrenched at the darkness but it wouldn’t let go. Mace blabbered at the ghost. He needed to escape. He needed to get away from it. The force shuddered.
SLEEP
His mind fought but the body obeyed. Everything was pulled into darkness.
…
Master Windu recovered from his injuries in a fashion that could only be called brutal. The worm burrowed under his skin knitting together torn ligaments, reviving burnt nerves and twisting bones back into the correct shape.
His hair was regrowing in sandblasted white clumps, stimulated and growing faster than hair should grow. As his wounds began to close and Mace Windu began to look… hale. Where the stump once was they’d found a magnaguard hand, filed off the second thumb and grafted it on. Barris felt sick when the worm, attracted to the latent power, burst out of the sealed stump to slither into the prosthetic.
Against all her best instincts Barriss used the force to guide the parasite deeper beneath his skin. When he wakes up, she thought, what will I tell him?
…
Mace Windu opened his eyes on a medical table of soft bedding. He felt strong again. When Mace looked his wounds were closed, and he could move. Mace sat up, he was in a small boxy room. When he moved his limbs felt… slippery. It felt like there were snakes under his skin, moving. Something was wrong, he stretched his fingers— why do I have a right hand?
The hand was covered with a thick black glove that reached up his forearm. Mace used his real hand to peel it back, filling the room with the thick sterile scent of bacta gel. He continued, peeling off the rubber turning it inside out— like a flayed animal— to reveal skeletal metal beneath. It was laced with something organic?
The door slid open, his eyes snapped up. And Dexter Jettster, a being who deserved every medal he’d ever earned, stepped through. All other thoughts left him. “Dexter. The clones have a chip in their brain. It was supposedly to prevent the Clones from being overly independent and aggressive—”
“—but it was actually meant to kill the Jedi?”
“Yes.” Mace hung his head. “How did you know?”
“I guessed.” The Besalisk shrugged. “With what we know now, plus the files you gave me… Mace, I can put two and two together. Sith created the clones and made the biochips. And since we captured a clone I had the good doctor extract his chip. It’s real. We’re transcribing the inscribed orders now.”
Mace frowned. “Who is we?”
“Your doctors.”
At that moment a traitor and a war criminal stepped into his room.
“Barriss?”
“Master.” The room froze.
Mace moved his attention. “Vindi.”
“Doctor. But, Yea-yea-yea-yes! It is I who has perfected you!” He approached Mace, with a large needle.
Mace used the force and ripped it from his grasp. Instinctively he used his right. The tube slapped into the metal hand then crushed with the squealing of servomotors. Vindi hopped away, scared. Mace got the feeling again. Instinctively he wanted to rip off his skin. There was something inside! Instead he controlled himself. “What is this?”
“Mace,” Dexter started. “This is the doctor I could free,” he gestured to Vindi. “And this is the doctor I found along the way. I know there are disagreements here—”
“—disagreements?” Mace deadpanned, “she bombed the Jedi temple. And he,” Mace used his good hand, “Is a war criminal of the highest order.”
“But they’re both doctors.” Dexter said, “And she’s a Jedi.”
“My name is Barriss.” Barriss stepped forward.
Mace gave her a cold look.
“Don’t give me that!” She met his gaze with fire. “I am still a Jedi. I acted against a system of power that corrupted our values, tied us to a republic and made us fight a war. I became a criminal on those battlefields. A trained Jedi healer standing by watching sentients die to stop a handful of planets that wanted to be free. I complained but no one heard. I spoke and one listened! So I acted. Your council could only hear war so I made war! Now I learn we were fighting for a Sith. I was right you would lead us to ruin! And now we’re all dead!”
“You killed civilians and tried to frame Ahsoka Tano.” In the corner of his eye he saw Dexter pull Vindi from the room.
“Yes.” Barriss broke eye contact. “I should have stood up and said it was me the first time. But I was scared, unsure of what to say, full of false bravado and the desire to stay free in my home! But there was something wrong with our order. Can you see that now!”
“On that we agree.” Mace stood up on wriggly legs. “I failed—”
Barriss stared into his soul.
“—and something needs to change. Will you help me?”
“Only if I know everything .”
“You will,” Mace said. “As long as you stay with us.”
“I’m sorry,” Barriss whispered, “before all of this… I never wanted to hurt anyone.”
Mace fell, but she caught him and he regained balance. At that moment they were alone in the force, together. Mace felt her pain, and he embraced her. “I am sorry, Barriss. We should have done better.”
Tears fell, but only very few.
…
“Grand Inquisitor. We’ve found a large credit transaction from a known Jedi sympathizer and caught two men.”
The Inquisitor placed the hand back in the evidence box. Windu’s lightsaber hung on his belt. Exantor Divo, the human head investigator, was a vile careerist. But the Inquisitor had promised Palpatine results and Divo had collected Jedi evidence quickly enough. “I will interrogate them myself. Leave the accounts open and trace every transaction.” The Inquisitor read the offered datapad. Dannl Faytonni & Achk Med-Beq. Petty criminals.
…
The Emperor perched on his balcony letting the air sting his skin. The report from the Grand Inquisitor had so much promise. Palpatine would only torture him a little for damaging the prisoner’s minds. His creature Vader stood menacingly behind him, if it weren't for the blinking lights on his life support panel the boy would be invisible at night in the armor.
The newest development had made his presence a necessity. “Lord Vader… what do you know of a Beselisk named Dexter Jettster?”
Vader’s respirator breath flinched. “He is a known associate of Skywalker and… Kenobi .”
“Indeed.” Palpatine’s lips curled into a smile. Across the surface of Coruscant, propaganda holos of The Hero With No Fear winked out, never to be seen again.