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Minas Velti sucks a breath in through her teeth.
“What do you mean, like the others?”
Kelleran Beq clenches his jaw, his brow furrowed with anxiety. “Initiate Sevander is not the only one who had a vision of the ‘red blades’ last night. So far, there’s been four others. Three initiates and a Padawan.”
Minas isn’t sure if this should be a relief or if it should make her even more worried. “What do we think it is?”
“We don’t know yet. I was planning to ask for an additional clone guard around the Creche until we knew for certain that the children were in no danger, but…” He grimaces. “With Initiate Sevander’s statement about the attack on the Temple, perhaps clones would not be the best idea. If for no other reason than the children’s peace of mind.”
“Temple guards?” Minas suggests.
“My thought as well. I’m planning to speak to the Council about it as soon as they have a moment to spare.”
Minas nods. “What should I do in the meantime?”
“Bring Initiate Sevander here. Padawan Suduri has also had the vision and seems to be the only one who can comfort the children.” Kelleran Beq sighs, closing his eyes. “I will try to learn more of what is happening.”
“Yeah, they’re in everyone’s brains,” Ahsoka says, peeling open a bacta bandage and handing it to Rex. “Put this over the cut. We want it to heal without a scar so the Sith Master behind the operation doesn’t realize we’ve started removing them.”
She can feel Rex gaping at her, but she doesn’t look up as she prepares the med-droid for the next surgery.
“Commander… how did you…”
“Force stuff,” she answers quickly, then peels open another bacta bandage and hands it to the next clone. She’s gathered every single one of them on the ship into the main hangar bay in the middle of the night—and what’s more impressive, she’s managed to do it without Anakin’s knowledge. It’s too risky for him to be in on it—he might let something slip to the Chancellor. “They’re implanted by the Kaminoans. They’ve got a mind control switch in them. When the Sith Master gives the order, you’ll all try to murder me. Unless we remove the chips first, of course.”
She’s sitting beside one of several open crates in the middle of the room. Every one of them is full of boxes of bacta bandages.
“These aren’t Republic-issue, are they, sir?” one of the clones asks, glancing at the bin of discarded wrappers.
“No. I didn’t want this to show up on the requisition records, or they’d ask questions.”
“Then how’d you get them?”
“I called in a favor from a friend,” she says.
(Actually, she bribed/blackmailed Hondo Ohnaka into sending them to her.)
There’s a knock on the door, and then a girl peeps inside. She’s about five years old, with yellow-green skin and frightened brown eyes.
Trilla recognizes her instantly, even if she doesn’t know her name.
“I was going to ask if this was the Inquisitorius Support Group, but it looks like most of us are here already,” the girl who was once (but never will be) an Inquisitor remarks, the grown words sounding discordant in her little voice. Her next words, toned soft and frightened, fit better. “Can—can I come in?”
Trilla understands her hesitation. They’ve all done horrible things, and not all of them are as lucky as Lyn and Reva—turning back before the time travel. She knows the sickening sensation of having the Darkness ripped from her mind, and realizing just what she had become. It’s probably even worse for this girl. Who knows how long she was part of the Inquisitorius?
“Of course,” Trilla says, gesturing to a spot between two of the others, and the girl hesitantly creeps across the room towards it. “What’s your name?”
Quietly, and fearful: “Delyla.”
“Hi, Delyla,” Trilla says, smiling as kindly as she can. “It’s great to meet you… again.”
“I need to talk to Obi-Wan!”
Commander Cody plants himself more firmly between Ahsoka and the door to Master Obi-Wan’s quarters. “Sorry, Commander. General’s orders. He’s not to be disturbed.”
Ahsoka huffs, slouching in frustration.
“Okay. Fine.” She leans past Cody, and raises her voice to a holler. “BUT WHEN OBI-WAN’S READY TO BE DISTURBED, PLEASE TELL HIM THAT THE SITH HE FOUGHT ON NABOO IS ACTUALLY ALIVE AND WILL EVENTUALLY GET HIS REVENGE BY MURDERING THE DUCHESS OF MANDALORE UNLESS WE DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!”
Instantly, there’s the sound of movement behind the door, and Ahsoka smirks.
Knew that would work.
“It’s Kanan, right?”
The boy startles so hard he almost drops his satchel. Turning around, he eyes Cal curiously.
“That… depends on who’s asking.”
Cal crosses the empty hangar bay, careful to keep his voice low. “Cal Kestis. Also a fugitive.”
Kanan breaks into a grin. “Cal! Hey, I saw your wanted posters! So, Cal’s your real name? That’s gutsy. I used an alias.”
“Wait, Kanan isn’t your name?” Cal asks.
Kanan shifts his satchel to one arm and holds out a hand for a handshake. It’s telling that he doesn’t do the typical Jedi bow—they’ve been away from home for a long time. “Caleb Dume, currently.”
Cal accepts the handshake. “So, what are you doing in the hangar bay at midnight?”
Kanan-Caleb laughs nervously. “Well, uh… I got a comm this afternoon… from…” He lowers his voice to a mumble. “Uh, my wife.”
“Your what?!” Cal squawks, barely remembering to keep his voice low in time.
“Yeah, I know, I know, against the Jedi Code,” Kanan-Caleb winces. “But, y’know, there wasn’t really an Order when we got married, and I—I died, in the future, and she came back too and she asked me to come visit, just for a little bit, because she missed me and so I was gonna borrow a ship to go visit her and I know I probably shouldn’t but I really miss her and—”
“No, I’m not judging you or anything!” Cal interrupts. “I was actually here to borrow a ship to go pick up my girlfriend.”
Kanan-Caleb’s eyebrows go up, and they stare at each other for a second.
“Road trip?” Kanan-Caleb suggests.
“We need a PR team,” Ahsoka announces.
The Council just gives her weird looks.
“People don’t like the Jedi much anymore,” she explains. “We need a PR team.”
“We do have slightly bigger concerns,” Master Windu points out dryly.
“Yeah, but—hypothetically, just consider this.” Ahsoka crosses her arms. “What if there’s a Sith out there scheming the extinction of our Order, and unless we do some publicity work, nobody’s gonna care if/when he does his plan because they think we’re all a bunch of holier-than-thou baby snatchers and attack dogs of the Republic?”
Master Plo steeples his fingers. “That seems quite specific for a hypothetical.”
Ahsoka shrugs. “Yeah, I lied. It’s not hypothetical. So, what are we gonna do about it? I vote that we get the Temple theater troupe up and running again.” She grins at Mace. “I think the general population would see us all differently if the Grandmaster of the Jedi Order played the lead in a reproduction of an Old Republic comedy! Just sayin’.”
Kelleran Beq pauses in his tracks as he hears the sound of childish voices in a sort of chant. Backing up a few steps, he looks through a doorway.
A group of six kids sit in a circle. He recognizes all of them as the ones who had the shared vision of the “red blades.” They’re all cross-legged, eyes closed like in meditation, but they’re all holding hands and speaking aloud, in a comforting rhythm.
“I do not have to be who I was. The Light is stronger than my weaknesses. We are more than our mistakes. We are not alone. I do not have to be who I was. The Light is—”
Kelleran steps away before they can notice him, and wonders if maybe he should talk to Master Yoda about this. He’s worried about his kids.
It’s been ten years since Kanan died.
Hera never managed to move on.
Back then, she was almost sorry for it—she was alone, raising a fatherless son, watching many of her friends and their partners live happy lives together.
Now, she’s glad of it.
She feels tears welling up in her eyes before the two-person Jedi starfighter even lands, and her mother’s comforting arm gives her a squeeze.
She told her parents everything—the initial shock was so strong that she just blurted it all out. Now they wait with her as the ship touches down and the hatch opens, excruciatingly slow.
Then, a form swings up and out of the ship, and she sees him.
He’s younger (of course he is) and much taller than her now and his eyes are so blue it hurts to look at.
He’s here.
He’s here.
It’s Kanan, alive and whole.
Hera has the emotional regulation of an eight-year old.
Hera runs forward, throws herself into his arms, and starts bawling.
He hugs her tightly, letting her sob into his Jedi robes, and then she feels him start to cry too, and they both cry together.
“Toldja,” he mumbles.
“Told me—what?” she hiccups, feeling so many feelings all at once that it feels like her chest will explode.
Kanan sniffles, hugging her tighter. “Toldja we’d see each other again.”
She laughs, and the laugh turns back into a sob, and she rests her head on his chest and listens for his heartbeat.
It’s there.
She smiles, and weeps with joy.
“Hey, Master?”
“Yeah, Snips?”
“If you ever fell to the Dark side, why do you think you’d do it?”
Anakin turns in his seat, giving her a confused look. “Huh?”
Ahsoka kicks her feet up onto the control panel of the Twilight, leaning back in her seat. “Just… curious.”
“Well, I’d like to think I’d never Fall.”
“Not even Fall, I guess,” she hedges. “But, if you ever just used the Dark side… why?”
He huffs out a breath, slouching back as well. “If you, or Obi-Wan, or—someone else I cared about, I guess—was in danger… and I mean real danger, like you’re about to die… then maybe I’d use it, just to get you to safety.”
Ahsoka feels an anxious chill.
Someone else I cared about.
He means Padme.
Padme, who died at the same time Anakin Fell.
Now that makes sense.
“Hello!”
Hunter glances over his shoulder. He’d heard a kid following them, but had assumed it was a curious cadet, not a… little girl?
She’s staring at them expectantly, beaming.
“Hello…?” he says warily, glancing at the others to see if they know her. Wrecker shrugs. Crosshair shakes his head.
The girl deflates. “Oh. You don’t remember, do you?”
“Remember… what?”
“N—nothing,” she mumbles, dropping her head and taking a step backwards. “I thought you might—but you—never mind. Sorry.”
Hunter stares after her as she scampers away, wondering what in the galaxy that was about.
“Is this some kind of joke?!”
Cal huffs, slouching in his seat and crossing his arms. “Now who’s being judgemental?” he retorts.
Kanan-Caleb sputters, half-turned-around in his seat. “Dathomir? Dathomir?!”
“That’s what I said. Dathomir. Now are we going, or not? ‘Cause I just spent two weeks third-wheeling while you hung out with your future in-laws, so I think you kinda owe me.”
“Yeah, we’re going,” Kanan-Caleb says, making a face as he programs the hyperspace coordinates. “But you’re gonna do a lot of explaining on the way.”
“You want more?!”
“Yep,” Ahsoka says, crossing her arms and raising one brow-marking, challenging the pirate to defy her.
“What are you using all these bacta bandages for?!” Hondo demands, just like he does every time.
Ahsoka lies through her teeth, just like she does every time. “I run a daycare. You wouldn’t believe how many scraped knees I deal with each day.”
“You are right, I do not believe it!” Hondo replies, grinning at the new story. She gives him a different one every time. It keeps things interesting. “Well, well, I suppose I can get you another case… but it will cost extra!”
“I’ll take four crates and the bulk discount,” she counters.
“Four crates?! You do realize that is nearly twenty thousand bandages!”
Ahsoka widens her eyes innocently. “It’s a big daycare.”
Cal’s honestly not sure if Merrin will know him or not, but he does know it would be cruel to leave her alone on Dathomir for a moment longer than he has to.
If she doesn’t know him, it might be awkward. But he figures he owes it to her, to give her a chance to get off this place.
Cal keeps his face pressed to the window as they descend towards the surface of the planet—he lets Kanan-Caleb fly. It doesn’t take long before he sees a burst of green materialize on a rock pillar near them.
Merrin is standing there, shielding her eyes from the sun to look at them as her Nightsister robes flap in the breeze. Cal waves tentatively. She doesn’t wave back, and his stomach twists with anxiety.
Does she remember?
They land, and Cal waits inside the starfighter for her to appear, in case she really did remember. (He’d rather not face the wildlife.) But after a while, he gives up on waiting and climbs out of the starfighter. Kanan-Caleb mutters that he’s waiting inside.
Cal makes it ten paces out onto the rocky terrain when he’s faced by a flash of green so bright it’s blinding as something slams into him.
It all happens so quickly, he barely realizes what’s going on before he hits the ground.
Merrin has just tackled him to the ground, pinning him on his back with one hand gripping his throat and the other drawn back, green flame flickering in it, ready to attack.
“Who are you?!” she spits. (She looks as terrifying as she ever has, which is impressive, because she’s currently twelve with a baby-face and button nose.)
Okay. Okay okay okay. She doesn’t know him. She’s attacking him. She’s probably going to try to kill him. What does he say?! How does he—
The flame fizzles out from her hand and she lets go of his neck with a giggle as the corners of her eyes crinkle in amusement.
Understanding dawns on Cal, and he props himself up on his elbows, scooting backwards.
“Greez made a rule about you using your powers for terrifying pranks, y’know,” he grumbles.
“He did,” Merrin grins back at him, standing up and offering him a hand. “But he is not here right now.”
“Padawan Tano… would you care to explain?”
“I told you, we needed good PR,” she says. “With all due respect, Councilors, you weren’t getting around to it fast enough. So I did something.”
“By…” Mace glances at the holovid playing, muted, on a loop. “Going to a karaoke bar.”
“And getting recorded, and going viral on the holonet.” Ahsoka shrugs, rocking back on her heels with a grin. “Say what you will about professionalism… my dance moves were fire.”
Silence.
“I thought it was very nice,” says Master Plo.
“For this week’s meeting, I just wanted to check in,” Trilla says. “I know we’re struggling with a lot of baggage, but we also have to handle being back in our past bodies. That’s a big change.”
Silence from those around her.
“I mean, me, personally—” Trilla goes on with a rueful chuckle as she points to the four bright red pimples on her face. “The teenage years were not good to me. So I thought I ought to check in on the rest of you, too. I know it’s a little awkward, but… c’mon, we’ve helped each other murder people! We can handle some awkward talk! So, how’s the adjustment going?”
Another long pause of silence.
Delyla—the youngest of them, at five-and-a-half years old—is the one to break it.
“I had a dream that I was an Inquisitor again last night. It was… beyond scary,” she says. She hesitates, looks down, and mumbles, “I wet the bed.”
With an admission like that, there’s no reason for any of the rest of them to hold back.
“I’m having a horrible time managing my temper!” Reva growls. “And it makes me really angry that I can’t control it! And that makes it worse!”
Jadan slumps, folding his arms over his stomach, and groans, “I’m so hungry all the time.”
“I got my ‘first’ period a few weeks ago and my cramps were so bad that I wanted to punch through a wall,” Lyn admits.
Marrok rests his chin on his fist, scowling. “The refectory was out of my favorite dessert last Centaxday and I actually cried over it.”
“Okay,” Trilla says, nodding. “Yeah, that’s a lot. Thank you—all of you—for being honest. I know it’s hard. Me—I fought with Master Junda recently. It was over something so stupid and I knew it, but… I couldn’t help it. I was just so… angsty. And then I remembered everything that happened in the future and got overwhelmed and… it wasn’t pretty. But we are all here for each other, okay? All of us. Any time, any day, we are here to help each other.”
Jadan raises his hand.
“Yes? Jadan?”
“Can we have snacks at all support group meetings from now on?” he asks.
Trilla raises an eyebrow at him. He shrugs.
“Well, I guess that’s not a bad idea,” she remarks.
“Fruit snacks!” Marrok adds, perking up. At six, he’s the second-youngest of them. “The ones with the juice inside!”
“I second the motion!” Reva agrees, shooting her hand up into the air.
Delyla waves both hands in the air. “Third it!”
“Majority rules,” Trilla concedes. “Fruit snacks with the juice inside.”
Bo-Katan paces back and forth across the room, hands clasped behind her back, temper bubbling.
Finally, it boils over, and she whirls on the other person in the room.
“I cannot believe you would do something this stupid!” she bursts out. “Handing yourself over to Death Watch?! What are you thinking?!”
Korkie doesn’t flinch. “If Death Watch succeeds, they’ll kill Satine, put a Sith Lord in charge of Mandalore, start a civil war, weaken our defenses, subjugate us to an evil Empire, and eventually lead to the orbital bombardment of our cities, the glassing of the surface of Mandalore, and the genocide of our people.” He shrugs. “I just thought I should let you know, in case you want to reevaluate your life choices.”
Kanan glances over his shoulder, annoyed. It was kinda his fault for picking the two-person starfighter, but he hadn’t known they were bringing Cal’s girlfriend back with them at the time. As it is, she had to sit on his lap for their trip back to Coruscant.
They’re being cutesy and cuddly and giggly and Kanan wants to hurl.
He pulls out his comm and thumbs a message to the comm number Hera gave him.
tfw when your friend from the future has a girlfriend from the future and they’re the same age so they get to cuddle and be disgustingly sappy but you’re five years older than your wife so you gotta sit and stew in your jealousy over your future friend’s love life for the next decade until your slowburn childhood-friends-to-lovers romance arc is completed and it stops being weird to the rest of the galaxy
He takes a selfie, making an ugh face at the camera, with Cal and Merrin visible over his shoulder, and sends it.
Hera replies, nearly instantly, with twelve laughing emojis.
(Kanan doesn’t think it’s very funny, but whatever)
“You believe her?” Lama Su questions, tilting his head to one side in curiosity. “How could she know this?”
Nala Se folds her hands in front of her. “I created her to be receptive to a high M-count, as was requested. Perhaps this is the cause of her precognition. As it is, she knew the true purpose of the inhibitor chips—information she never had access to. And she has foretold the destruction of Tipoca City, by an Empire. She has said much more, as well. I fear she could be correct.” Nala Se bows her head. “When Lord Tyrannus achieves his ends, we may become expendable.”
“And she said we must inform the Jedi? Not the Chancellor? Surely, he would be the one to navigate the politics of this.”
“Oh, no,” Nala Se says, stiffening. “Omega was quite adamant that the Chancellor cannot believe anything has changed. She did not say so directly, but… I fear he may be a participant in Lord Tyrannus’ plan.”
“Alarming, indeed,” Lama Su muses. “I would like to speak with this clone myself. She seems to know a great deal. Perhaps… it will be useful.”
“This is totally random,” Ahsoka muses casually, “But no one should ever try to solve their problems with vigilante bombings. It only makes things worse.”
Barriss just gives her a weird look.
“Just, for future reference,” Ahsoka shrugs, and skips off down the Temple hallway.
“I know we’ve all been avoiding this,” Trilla says, “But we need to work on lightsaber combat.”
No one makes eye contact.
“We’ve all Fallen. We don’t fight like Jedi anymore. We have to re-learn it, or else people will be even more suspicious. And I’m already overwhelmed fending off questions from Master Beq.” Trilla sits up straight. “So. Who wants to go through the Shii-Cho forms?”
The avoidant looks turn into whiny groans.
Well, better than nothing.
“You wanted to see me, Councillors?” Ahsoka asks, clasping her hands behind her back.
“We’ve just had a very long, interesting comm call with the Prime Minister of Kamino,” Master Windu said. “He mentioned… inhibitor chips.”
Ahsoka is so shocked it takes her a minute to reboot her brain. “I—I wasn’t expecting them to come clean about that. Huh.” I wonder if some clone cadets got sent back, too… “Anyway, yeah, those are a thing. I’ve been working on it. About 13% of our troops are de-chipped so far. It’s been slow going, so it’s great that you know now! I can show you how to program med-droids to remove them. Oh, but, uh, don’t tell the Chancellor. Like, seriously, don’t let him know anything about this. He’s, uh… well, he’s got his fingers in both sides of the pie, if you get my drift. But you can’t confront him yet, either! We still have to undermine a lot more plans or the fallout could mean literally the extinction of our entire order and the subjugation of the galaxy under tyranny for the next twenty years.”
At this point, she thinks the Councilors are too bewildered to question her.
“Anything else?” she chirps.
Mace clears his throat. “No. No, that’s—that’s all.”
Ahsoka bounces on her toes. “Great! If that’s all, then, please excuse me, Councilors. I’ve gotta go save the galaxy. Toodles!”
Merrin has never seen a place as beautiful as the Jedi Temple.
It embraces her in warmth as they enter the hangar bay—not the hot, dry, chafing heat of Dathomir, but a gentle warmth.
She will always miss her Sisters, and Dathomir.
But she thinks that she will like to call this place home.
Delyla is walking out of their weekly meeting when she sees someone in the hallway and freezes in her tracks.
They stare at each other, and all she can think is, he knows.
It wasn’t so bad when the people who knew were people like her. Inquisitors. Those who had Fallen.
But this is the Jedi.
Kanan Jarrus.
He knows what she became, and he knows that she knows, and his gaze is not forgiving.
Delyla’s five-year-old brain decides the appropriate response is to start bawling uncontrollably in the middle of a crowded hallway.
A Master that she doesn’t know is kneeling beside her instantly, asking her oh, my, what’s wrong, sweetie? and the kindness of it hurts. She doesn’t deserve it. She’s done awful, awful things—she’s tried to kill Kanan Jarrus, she’s tried to kill his Padawan, and, oh, stars, just thinking about that makes her sick because she didn’t just try to kill the kid, she did it in the creepiest way possible and she’s a horrible person, she is, she is, and she stumbles away from the Jedi who tried to comfort her and runs as fast as she can.
“Cal Kestis.”
The voice is startling in its familiar unfamiliarity, and Cal jumps, spinning around. He nearly shrieks when he sees who it is.
Second Sister.
It’s Second Sister.
It’s—
It’s not Second Sister.
It’s Trilla Suduri, and her expression is full of regret and remorse.
“Given that she’s here, I assume you remember?” Trilla asks, nodding to Merrin.
Cal nods wordlessly, squeezing Merrin’s hand in reassurance that it’s okay.
“It’s probably not worth much, but…” Trilla shrugs. “I’m sorry.”
Cal takes a shaky breath, and makes himself smile.
“It’s okay,” he says.
Trilla looks away.
“No,” she says. “It’s not.”
“Hey, kid.”
The little girl gasps, sitting up and scrubbing at her eyes.
Kanan sits down a few feet away from the nook she’s tucked herself into.
“I don’t hate you,” he says softly.
She just stares at him in silence.
“Padawan Suduri told me about… everything,” he murmurs. “About what they did to you.”
She sniffs and wipes her eyes again, but says nothing.
He holds his hand out to her. “No hard feelings?”
After a second of hesitation, she takes his hand. Hers is tiny in comparison. It just makes him feel worse about upsetting her. Maybe she was evil and creepy when he knew her before, but Seventh Sister is just a kid now. A hurt, scared kid.
“I’m Delyla,” she sniffles, voice cracking.
“Caleb Dume,” he introduces. “But… you knew me as Spectre-1.”
Most fifty-year-olds are perfectly capable of communication. Even when they’re stuck in their twenty-year-old bodies.
Grogu is not.
Grogu is very frustrated.
He just wants to go to Mandalore. Dank farrik, is that too much to ask?!
“A lack of success does not mean a failure,” Trilla states. “Get up, and let’s go again.”
Lyn hauls herself to her feet with a groan. “You’re awful.”
Trilla doesn’t bother responding. Lightsaber drills have been tough, but she knows it’s necessary. If things do go wrong again—if the Temple is attacked—then they will all need to know how to fight to protect themselves and others without using the Dark side.
They will not Fall.
Not again.
“Oh, no,” Ahsoka exhales, gazing in horror at the news. “Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no—REX!”
She doesn’t need to yell—he’s standing next to her in the gunship, looking over her shoulder.
“We need to initiate Protocol 99,” she rasps.
He nods. His presence is ice-cold with fear. “Already done on my side.”
“Protocol 99?” one of the other clones in the gunship asks.
“A counter to Order 66,” Rex explains, as Ahsoka skims over the news article. “Because 99 is 66 upside-down.”
Ahsoka glances up at him, gripping the datapad so hard that a crack appears over the glowing headline— MASSIVE CONSPIRACY AT HEART OF WAR!
“Right,” she says, turning back to the datapad and tapping out a message with fingers that tremble as they fly across the keys, warning all Jedi to separate themselves from their clones until the all-clear is given. “We need to turn the gunship around!” she hollers to the pilot. “How long until we can be in the Temple again?”
“Fifteen minutes, obeying all traffic laws!”
Not good enough. “How about if we break them?”
She can hear the grin in the pilot’s voice. “Five at most, sir!”
“Then step on it!”
The ship lurches as it spins around. Instantly, she hears Anakin’s voice on her comlink.
“Snips?! What are you doing?!”
“Long story!” she says, grabbing the comlink. “But—long story short—Chancellor Palpatine is a Sith Lord playing both sides of the war and he’s been planning to kill our entire Order and turn you to the Dark side and I’ve been secretly undermining his plans but the news found out about said plans somehow and they don’t know who did it but they’ll find out soon enough and we can’t wait any longer—we have to confront the Chancellor before it’s too late!”
“WHAT?!”
“You just have to trust me on this! Now—I have to go—I have to call Obi-Wan!”
She hangs up on him, and gulps down her fear.
She’s not ready for this.
She doesn’t have much choice.
“Lyn, Jadan, you stay here with the children,” Trilla pants, binding her hair back out of her face and snatching up her lightsaber. “Tell me the codeword again.”
“Knightfall,” all five others say in unison.
“And if you get it—”
“Get Master Beq,” Delyla says, and Marrok adds, “And someone from the Council.”
“Bring all the younglings to the archives,” Reva concludes. “And have the councilmember lock all of us inside the holocron vault until we get the safeword.”
“Good.” Trilla turns to Lyn and Jadan, the older two of the group. “You know how the Sith fight. You are our last line of defense.”
“We know,” Lyn says, putting her hand on Trilla’s arm. “Now go.”
Trilla takes a step back, then rushes forwards again, gathering them all into her arms as best she can, hugging them close.
“Be safe,” she whispers.
Ahsoka is at Anakin’s side, lightsabers drawn but not lit, as they march towards Palpatine’s office.
The Force sends shivers up her spine—a warning and a promise. She can feel danger all around them, like roaches in the walls.
This is the showdown.
This is—
The door slides open and Ahsoka stops in her tracks.
Palpatine is at his desk, slumped over, stone-cold dead.
Three Padawans and a Nightsister stand around the body.
They all stare at each other.
“You’re late,” the Nightsister says, dryly.