The Mandalorian Jedi

Chapter Twenty One

We should have listened to Fives. To put it simply not listening to him was the end of everything good in my life, it was the downfall of everything and everyone I had ever cared about. To this day it is my biggest regret. I lay awake at night and curse myself, wondering how things would have changed if I had just believed him. Maybe it would have panned out exactly as expected, perhaps there was no stopping the decades of Sith planning but that doesn't stop the guilt. It never has and I doubt it ever will. But to get to all that piling guilt we must recount the tale of the end of the Clone Wars and that starts with the kidnapping of the man behind everything, Chancellor Palpatine. Ass.

General Grievous was behind the attack and after a whole lot of sweet talking Master Windu I joined Anakin and Obi-Wan on the mission. Grievous hadn't exactly been subtle about it, he'd parked his ships right above Coruscant which meant we had to weave our way through the battling star ships without getting hit by blasters from each side, a surprisingly easy feat in out tiny starfighters. What wasn't so easy was actually getting onto the damn ship, it was shielded and oh, just our luck, crawling with vulture droids. They were nasty things, a nice upgrade from the otherwise crappy droids the Separatists furnished themselves with. Nice for them, just to be clear. Not nice for us. Oddball and the clones under his command came up behind us, taking the brunt of the attack. Anakin naturally found the whole thing a bunch of fun,
"Did you seriously just call the threat of death fun, Ani?"
"Oh come on, don't pretend you don't find it thrilling."
"You need therapy ner vod."
"Ach, shut up Rhea."
"You first."
"If both of you would be so kind as to stop squabbling, we have a job to do."
"Sorry Master."
"Sure, sure Master. You do have to agree we are all going to need therapy after all this is over right?" Oho, I had never said something truer in my entire life but we didn't know yet what was to come so I simply got a chuckle mixed with a sigh from Obi-Wan and we continued on.

I couldn't help a flinch every time we heard a ship blow up and two clones get sent floating into deep space. They were meant to be disposable and yet they were all people, with lives, friends, personalities. Each one had someone who would miss him, a brother who would mourn him. Sorry, I'll try not to go off on a super depressing tangent, we've got plenty of that coming up.

A few missiles, several dozen buzz droids and a crash landing later we were on the ship. Of course then there B1 battle droids to worry about. I say worry, you could tap them and they would fall apart but still, I got to slice them all to pieces which was worryingly therapeutic. My sabers cut through them like butter and we were moving again not even two minutes later, R2 left behind to guard the ships or something. I doubt we could have flown the things if we tried. It was a trap, of course it was but life wouldn't be any fun if you didn't spring every trap brought your way.

First the destroyers came but they were easy enough to evade, all we had to do was step into an elevator full of B1's. I didn't even bother to draw my sabers, I simply held out my hand and squeezed, after a few moments they were crumpled piles of scrap metal,
"Show off." Anakin muttered it under his breath and I kicked him in the shin which he returned by elbowing my arm,
"You're just jealous that you're a mirsh'kyramud." The elevator jerked to a halt before he could snipe back and we both swore. Obi-Wan shook his head and muttered something about washing our mouths out with soap which was quickly interrupted by Anakin sticking his lightsaber into the top of the elevator. Genius. Truly. I rolled my eyes and leaned against the wall while Obi tried to get R2 on the line which was failing dramatically. The elevator wobbled slightly as part of its roof dropped to the floor and Anakin jumped out. How that was meant to help was beyond me but I was slightly more concerned about the whole R2 nearly plummeting us to our deaths while Anakin held on for dear life in the shaft above us. We jerked to a halt again and a moment later we were speeding back up. A bang sounded behind Obi-Wan and I and we spun around to find Anakin standing there, hair messed up and breathing heavily,
"That was- what happened?"
"The usual, R2 being way to self-thinking for a droid."
"Hey! He's trying his best down there."
"Uh huh, sure. The little guy has a mind of his own."
"The two of you, focus. We are nearly there." As he said it we jolted to a stop and the doors opened onto a large room.

Palpatine was sat in a chair, seemingly alone in the massive room. But odd but there was little reason to question it at the time, not as the illustrious Count Dooku walked through the doors with two battle droids flanking him either side,
"I'll take the droids. You two take Dooku."
"Hey don't take the easy route!"
"What?! I thought you two had about five different scores to settle?" Anakin let out a snort of discontent but moved to attack with Obi-Wan, dropping his robe to the ground alongside Obi and I.

They moved on to the Sith Lord, gods the guy liked to talk, and I aimed for the droids. I barely deflected their blasts more than once but I got to them eventually and cut them up into groaning, half melted pieces of metal. I took a moment to assess the fight happening below me. Obi-Wan was collapsed on the ground, half the bridge lying on top of him and Anakin was locked in with Dooku, both grappling for control. I jumped over the railing, landing behind the Sith Lord and provoking him just enough that Anakin was able to get free,
"Get Obi-Wan, I've got this Rhea!" He certainly wasn't playing up his abilities. He was a better fighter than me, just about and I was a better force user. I ducked beneath Dooku's flying saber and ran to Obi-Wan, fumbling for a pulse. He was fine, thank the gods. It took a crap ton of effort to move the chunk of bridge on top of him, so much so that I barely noticed as Anakin disarmed Dooku and beheaded him. I would have stopped him if I hadn't been distracted, maybe that would have changed something... by the time the bridge was out of the way Palpatine was out of his restraints and moving towards the elevator. Anakin ran over despite the insistence of the Chancellor to leave him behind and lifted his master over his shoulder and I hurried to collect our robes from the floor much to the annoyed look of Palpatine,
"Apologies Chancellor, they hate it when we loose them." Anakin shook his head and chuckled as he made his way over to the elevator, which just our luck wasn't working. I wasn't entirely sure whether or not to be relieved when the star ship started dipping down towards the planet below, at least it gave us the unique experience of running down an elevator shaft. And then the not so unique experience of falling down said elevator shaft with the elevator barrelling down towards us far to quickly. We got out of that though, straight into another bad situation that ended with General Grievous escaping and a very, very dramatic crash landing of the front of the massive ship onto a landing strip on Coruscant.
Totally normal day.

Ner vod – My brother/sister

Mirsh'kyramud – A boring person – literally 'brain killer'