Part 35 (2/2)
”Yes, sir. We know. Senate Emergency Response has announced a state of martial law, and the Temple is under lockdown. There's been some kind of Jedi rebellion.”
”What are you talking about? That's impossible. Why aren't there fires.h.i.+ps onstation?”
”I don't have any details, my lord; we only know what SER is telling us.”
”Look, I'm right on top of it. I'm going down there to find out what's happening.”
”My lord, I wouldn't recommend it-”
”I won't take any chances.” Bail hauled the control yoke to slew the speeder toward the broad landing deck on the roof of the Temple ziggurat. ”Speaking of not taking chances, Captain: order the duty crew onto the Tantive and get her engines warm. I've got a bad feeling about this.”
”Sir?”
”Just do it.”
Bail set the speeder down only a few meters from the deck entrance and hopped out. A squad of clone troopers stood in the open doorway. Smoke billowed out from the hallway behind them.
One of the troopers lifted a hand as Bail approached. ”Don't worry, sir, everything is under control here.”
”Under control? Where are the SER teams? What is the army doing here?”
”I'm sorry, I can't talk about that, sir.”
”Has there been some kind of attack on the Temple?”
”I'm sorry, I can't talk about that, sir.”
”Listen to me, Sergeant, I am a Senator of the Galactic Republic,” Bail said, improvising, ”and I am late for a meeting with the Jedi Council-”
”The Jedi Council is not in session, sir.”
”Maybe you should let me see for myself.”
The four clones moved together to block his path. ”I'm sorry, sir. Entry is forbidden.”
”I am a Senator-”
”Yes, sir.” The clone sergeant snapped his DC-15 to his shoulder, and Bail, blinking, found himself staring into its blackened muzzle from close enough to kiss it. ”And it is time for you to leave, sir.”
”When you put it that way ...” Bail backed off, lifting his hands. ”Yes, all right, I'm going.”
A burst of blasterfire ripped through the smoke and scattered into the dawn outside. Bail stared with an open mouth as a Jedi flashed out of nowhere and started cutting down clones. No: not a Jedi.
A boy.
A child, no more than ten years old, swinging a lightsaber whose blade was almost as long as he was tall. More blasterfire came from inside, and a whole platoon of clones came pelting toward the landing deck, and the ten-year-old was. .h.i.t, and hit again, and then just shot to rags among the bodies of the troopers he'd killed, and Bail started backing away, faster now, and in the middle of it all, a clone wearing the colors of a commander came out of the smoke and pointed at Bail Organa. ”No witnesses,” the commmander said. ”Kill him.”
Bail ran.
He dived through a hail of blasterfire, hit the deck, and rolled under his speeder to the opposite side. He grabbed on to its pilot's-side door and swung his leg onto a tail fin, using the vehicle's body as cover while he stabbed the keys to reinitialize its autorouter. Clones charged toward him, firing as they came.
His speeder heeled over and blasted away.
Bail pulled himself inside as the speeder curved up into the congested traffic lanes. He was white as flimsiplast, and his hands were shaking so badly he could barely activate his comm.
”Antilles! Organa to Antilles. Come in, Captain!”
”Antilles here, my lord.”
”It's worse than I thought. Far worse than you've heard. Send someone to Chance Palp-no, strike that. Go yourself. Take five men and go to the s.p.a.ceport. I know at least one Jedi s.h.i.+p is on the ground there; Saesee Tiin brought in Sharp Spiral late last night. I need you to steal his homing beacon.”
”What? His beacon? Why?”
”No time to explain. Get the beacon and meet me at the Tantive. We're leaving the planet.”
He stared back at the vast column of smoke that boiled from the Jedi Temple.
”While we still can.”
Clone Wars have always been, in and of themselves, from their very inception, the revenge of the Sith.
They were irresistible bait. They took place in remote locations, on planets that belonged, primarily, to ”somebody else.” They were fought by expendable proxies. And they were constructed as a win-win situation.
The Clone Wars were the perfect Jedi trap.
By fighting at all, the Jedi lost.
With the Jedi Order overextended, spread thin across the galaxy, each Jedi is alone, surrounded only by whatever clone troops he, she, or it commands. War itself pours darkness into the Force, deepening the cloud that limits Jedi perception. And the clones have no malice, no hatred, not the slightest ill intent that might give warning. They are only following orders.
In this case, Order Sixty-Six.
Hold-out blasters appear in clone hands. ARC-170s drop back onto the tails of Jedi star fighters. AT-STs swivel their guns. Turrets on hovertanks swung silently.
Clones open fire, and Jedi die.
All across the galaxy. All at once.
Jedi die.
Order Sixty-Six is the climax of the Clone Wars.
Not the end-the Clone Wars will end some few hours from now, when a coded signal, sent by Nute Gunray from the secret Separatist bunker on Mustafar, deactivates every combat droid in the galaxy at once-but the climax.
It's not a thrilling climax; it's not the culmination of an epic struggle. Just the opposite, in fact. The Clone Wars were never an epic struggle. They were never intended to be.
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