Chapter Text
Turmoil engulfs the galaxy! SUPREME CHANCELLOR PALPATINE has declared the birth of a NEW EMPIRE, tightening his grip through overwhelming military force.
THE DELEGATION OF 2000 is destroyed as its members face either execution or imprisonment, coerced into swearing fealty to THE EMPEROR’S iron rule. Only ALDERAAN stands in open defiance — its resistance sending shockwaves through the Core Worlds and threatening to fracture THE SITH’S carefully laid plans.
The JEDI ORDER has been all but annihilated by the very clone army they once served alongside.
Yet whispers of survival persist.
Having recovered his counterpart THREEPIO from an abandoned apartment, the loyal astromech ARTOO-DETOO undertakes a search of his own and follows a shared encrypted comlink that eventually leads them to Jedi Knight ANAKIN SKYWALKER in a hidden underground bunker alongside PADMÉ AMIDALA, BAIL ORGANA, as well as CAPTAIN TYPHO protecting two newborn children.
Seeking refuge, the fugitives set course for KASHYYYK where GENERAL SKYWALKER believes a Jedi presence may yet remain. It is only upon their arrival that Wookiee warriors CHEWBACCA and TARFFUL inform them of GRAND MASTER YODA’S emergency departure. He had left behind a hidden transmission frequency, however, a signal intended for any survivors of the Order. SKYWALKER somehow establishes contact with OBI-WAN KENOBI as result… but he only has grave news in return. YODA had fallen during a brutal confrontation with DARTH SIDIOUS on CORUSCANT while KENOBI barely escaped with his life.
As more and more Wookies are enslaved in the meantime, an unlikely alliance is forged where Imperial forces dare not tread. The first sparks of REBELLION ignite.
— and from the edges of war, many rotations later, old friends are slowly drawn towards its flame…
Ancient wroshyrs have stood for centuries, their colossal trunks somehow swallowing time itself as sunlight fractures into wavering ribbons of green and gold that never quite reach the forest floor whole. Everything amidst the deep wilds here exists in a state of becoming, suspended between concealment and revelation.
Breathing it all in, Anakin stands by the edge of a newly constructed platform — a framework salvaged from war materials long since overcome with moss against the wood it clings to. The Force surrounds him here. Alive in a way Coruscant, or rather Imperial Center, had never been. Yet he still cannot quiet himself within it.
“They are coming. They are coming…” He knew it before lookout ever relayed word for such awareness had settled deep inside his chest, not unlike the echo of a memory.
Obi-Wan lingers in the open threshold of what passes for their dimly lit command centre. “Even now… the Force has a way of drawing us exactly where we are meant to be.”
Anakin doesn’t turn at his friend’s observation, gaze instead fixed on the endless descent of branches below. The breeze catches his right sleeve — pinned and secured where his prosthetic once was. To say that Order Sixty-Six still visits him in flashes of blasterfire a year later may be an understatement. The moment he hadn’t been able to preserve whatever remained of his damaged mechnohand.
Building a replacement with their scant resources here on Kashyyyk hasn’t been an option and thus Anakin simply learned to do without for the time being. Most of the technology they salvage usually go to their command centre where Padmé mans a console buzzing with coded transmissions and fragmented reports like she does now beside Chewbacca’s wife, Mallatobuck. One hand rests against the edge of a makeshift bassinet woven from broad wroshyr leaves and pliant branch fibres where Luke is sound asleep. Another occasionally steadies the soft sling wrapped across her torso, with Leia tucked close.
“They’re here!” she calls out to her husband just as the distant whine of an incoming ship cuts through, prompting both Anakin and Obi-Wan into swift action.
It isn’t long before their nearest landing platform shudders in response to a foreign shuttle’s descent, its hull obviously worn from being patched up again and again. The ramp at last lowers with a hiss and a figure stands there, taller than memory insists she should be.
“Ahsoka,” her name barely makes it somewhere between Anakin’s chest and throat when she starts running down; arms wrapping tight around his torso as soon as the young Togruta collides into him, solid and safe. She nearly knocks the breath out of his lungs. “Hey. Easy…” words come out less steady than he intends. “I’ve got you.”
A shaky breath thus turns into near hysterical laughter when Ahsoka pulls back to look at him. “I can’t believe you’re alive. We all thought you were killed at the Temple.”
“I could say the same about you, Snips.” His expression shifts into something gentler beneath the relief “Are you alright? Where have you been hiding?”
She nods to his first question even as her shining blue eyes betray the weight of all she’s seen. Though the sound of measured footsteps down aforementioned ramp interrupts any further explanation. They both turn and the shift in atmosphere is immediate. That face.
Anakin freezes and so does Obi-Wan, for when they last saw it? Brothers in arms had turned into enemies. Regardless. There is no plastoid sheen or stark white in accompaniment now. Only a man in worn travel clothes, moving with a discipline they would recognise anywhere.
The clone slows as he approaches, reading it all in an instant, and stops a few paces away. “Generals.”
If not for the pale blond hair, then his voice alone would have been instantly recognisable to Anakin. The same voice that had stood by his side through almost every campaign. One who had cracked dry jokes in the middle of firefights and trusted him when others wouldn’t.
“Rex?”
“It’s good to see you, sir.”
That is all it takes for Anakin to close the distance in a few quick strides — one hand coming down hard on Rex’s shoulder before pulling him into a firm embrace. His former captain stiffens for about half a heartbeat, surprised, but ultimately returns it just as much.
“We were delayed…” a faint tremor betrays his emotion, though he carries on smiling “but I wasn’t going to let you muck about out here without backup, sir.”
Ahsoka shoots a solemn glance between them. “He couldn’t do it, Master.” Anakin takes a beat to regard her again. “In fact, when the order came through… several of the 332nd hesitated. Rex wasn’t the only one.” She continues, quieter now. “Although many others didn’t.”
Good soldiers follow orders, after all
— but had they also turned on each other? Anakin’s frown only deepens at the thought while Ahsoka’s own expression softens as soon as she sees the past flicker to life behind his eyes. “We have a lot to catch up on…” though movement draws the former Jedi’s attention past him and her entire face suddenly lights up “Padmé!” Quick footsteps carry her forward until she stops short.
The other woman isn’t alone. There’s a sling and nestled within it, ever so delicate, appears to be a youngling. Ahsoka blinks as the joy on her face gives way to stunned disbelief. “Is that…?” incredulous blue eyes snap back to Anakin, searching for confirmation and he — despite the weight of revelations still settling — cannot help the crooked smile that he exchanges with his wife.
Walking over to Padmé then, one hand settles at her lower back. “We’ve got more to catch up on than you think.”
Kashyyyk is vast and moody. Even now, as structures rise in between wroshyr trunks? The land has a tendency to resist anything which imposes too much order upon it. Pathways are curved by necessity, not design — bending away from root systems older than the Republic itself had been. Drops that vanish into green-black nothingness or territories claimed by creatures the Empire would never dare catalogue. It is perhaps for this reason why they cannot exert their power here. Not entirely, at least.
See, the living Force is strong on this planet. A place where even impossible dreams can blossom. Many native tribes had not hesitated to push back once Palpatine’s Empire begun its reign of terror, forcing Kashyyyk’s beings into chains — and when Anakin Skywalker came forward to establish an alliance with them? The Wookies agreed to remember and honour the Jedi who had fought alongside them all this while. Thus the underground resistance grew and with it, their hidden base of operations.
Its command centre is a hollowed out chamber within a massive tree. There are star maps projected along uneven surfaces here as blue light casts shifting patterns across the assembled group. With Luke and Leia entrusted to Malla’s care after some much needed catching up? They’re ready to address a harder conversation now.
“We’ve been moving nonstop since it happened,” Ahsoka cants her head toward Rex “Preparing.”
“For what?” Obi-Wan asks.
The Captain steps forward to set his blaster down on the large table between all of them like a punctuation mark. “There are more of us than you may realise, sir. Awake. Commander Tano and I have been running a clandestine operation to find them — reach the ones who disobeyed and somehow survived what came after.”
Anakin paces, processing in silence and thinking back to that fateful day on Coruscant where he had indeed sensed a great disturbance in the Force. He looks to Rex. Trust comes easily where the other is concerned. Although, beyond him? It falters, splintered by the memory of men he led suddenly turning their rifles on him without hesitation. Other Jedi had never even gotten a chance to react at all. “How many have you been able to help?”
“Seventy-three in the last year,” he answers “but we can raise that number by establishing more safe-houses, sir. Our contacts are otherwise too scattered right now.”
“What you’re building here…” Ahsoka picks up where he leaves off. “It’s more than a hideaway. It’s a place where those of us who are fighting back can rally to.”
The clones were never considered as anything more than war dogs, enslaved to those who held their leash. Expendable. Thus as much as Anakin struggles to trust anybody outside of his own men? He is also hesitant to drag them back into a hell they have only just escaped from with their newfound anonymity. His gaze drops on an exhale. “I can’t ask them to trade one battle for another.”
“With respect, sir, we’ve been marked for treason. Our chains are intact.” Rex shakes his head and gives it to him straight as always. He waits until their eyes meet again. “… but this fight may be the one that finally frees us all.”
“Let’s take down the Empire.”
That does it, of course.
Everybody appears to reorient around Ahsoka’s words until the brunt of their conversation settles somewhere amidst numbers once more — but, standing off to the side, Padmé Amidala had never been content to think only in terms of combat. After all, what wins you an entire war rather than just one skirmish after another? The common folk. Palpatine knew that. He still does, if they are to go by propaganda established during his time in office alone.
Wordlessly then do threads of distant connection weave together behind her eyes while the others continue to talk amongst themselves. Clone troopers turned deserters. Wookiees mobilised by injustice. There is still an important element missing here, surely. Their political strategy.
“Palpatine’s focus right now is on consolidating power in the Core Worlds,” Padmé calmly interjects on the soldiers’ rapid fire back and forth while she pulls several coded identifiers up across a holomap “… which is why I feel the need to remind you that our best course of action is in building outwards, system by system. Not attack.”
“Right,” excitement sparks behind Anakin’s blue eyes as he breaks away from the others to redirect their attention towards said console. “I remember. You mean other underground networks in the Outer Rim?”
“Yes. A lot of people don’t trust what’s happening… but they’re isolated and afraid, waiting to see if anyone else will act first.” Padmé looks over to Chief Tarfful then who raises a large paw and croons out a question in Shyriiwook from the control panel. “That’s right, General. I’m proposing we find a way to rally them too.”
Truth be told, she had long started laying the groundwork even before Order Sixty-Six — right under the noses of those who underestimated her as no more than a naïve diplomat. “The emergency frequency I established a while ago is active again. Several of my former handmaidens have already begun responding,” she continues as an aside. Sabé. Rabé. Eirtaé. Saché. Yané. Incredibly high value assets trained not just in service, but subterfuge.
“It will admittedly take more time to reach Queen Apailana and perhaps even Boss Lyonie. I expect others shall follow too, so long as they believe this is more than just scattered resistance.” She who had once ruled a planet at fourteen years old is unmistakable in the look she gives Anakin then. “That is where the Jedi must come in… as peacekeepers, however.” Something that directly refutes the Empire’s current propaganda.
Kenobi bristles nonetheless. “What are you trying to say?”
Padmé lifts her chin at the sharp edge of his tone, ready to counter, though Ahsoka quickly steps in between them. “That’s what the galaxy used to believe…” she meets her friend’s brown eyes and they both soften a degree “until the war.” No longer were they symbols of hope then — but rather weapons of a corrupt government. What are they now? Well, to the average person, a rogue military drunk with power. The young Togruta’s face grows sombre.
“When a Jedi showed up, it once meant that everything was going to be made right…” she looks imploringly to Obi-Wan. “The galaxy needs to see that again, or they won’t trust us” and there can be no alliance without trust.
“The Order has always stood for peace,” he returns bitterly. “If the galaxy has chosen to forget that? So be it. We will not bend our principles to suit its misgivings.”
“… and what principles are left, Obi-Wan?” The quiet force of Anakin’s interference stops his friend short. “We were so certain of our own wisdom and yet marched straight into a war orchestrated by the Sith Lord without question.”
“We did what was necessary.”
“No. We protected the Republic’s interest,” Anakin firmly corrects the older man and looks over to his wife as he always does for clarity “even when its authority stopped serving the people it was meant to represent.” A beat passes as his jaw tightens. “We followed orders too. What makes us so different from Rex and his brothers?”
Make no mistake, there is no triumph in Padmé’s own expression. Only a heavy truth long buried and never having wished to be thrust into the light. “The Senate tracked public sentiment closely over these last few years. Jedi approval ratings had begun to decline everywhere.”
Tense silence follows as Obi-Wan waits for someone, anyone, to consider the madness of this. To hear his and so many other of their brethren’s sacrifices now reframed as complicity — as if they had willingly become instruments of fear rather than a protective shield — feels like a betrayal of everything he has ever known.
It does not surprise him when Ahsoka averts her gaze, of course, having walked away from the Order herself. Regardless. He cannot muster the grace to stay and be indicted any longer. Obi-Wan strides toward the exit before this conversation can harden into that which they can no longer forgive… until he collides with a furry torso.
The impact halts him dead in place. Chewbacca fills the doorway, his towering frame silhouetted against the dying light. “Excuse me, I—” but the Wookie does not move aside and instead lets out a low, urgent series of growls whilst gesturing behind him. He’s just returned from collecting someone and there, emerging from his massive shadow then, stands a figure wrapped in worn robes similar to Obi-Wan’s colours. Met with a presence she’s known since the creche, Ahsoka freezes altogether.
“… Master?”
Light finally catches on the lines of an antiox breath mask she thought she’d never see again. “Hello, Little ‘Soka.”
Boots strike hard against the platform before Plo Koon can even finish his greeting and suddenly, his once protegé has thrown both arms around him in a tight embrace. “How?” her words are almost lost against the rough fabric of his tunic. “How are you here? I don’t understand.”
The Kel Dor waits for her to pull back if only so he can regard her with that same serenity she remembers well. “I was not the first to arrive,” he nods to Obi-Wan “and we will not be the last either. That, I know for certain now.”
Sliding an arm around Anakin’s waist, Padmé offers the old Jedi Master a warm smile as his gaze drifts over them too. Plo Koon had landed on Kashyyyk not long after Kenobi, nearly a year ago, and has since become a quiet constant within their growing refuge. Though he spends most of his days and nights withdrawn to the mist-veiled mountains, lost in meditation? His presence is nonetheless felt in the foundation they’re building here. A steady guide for whenever he chooses to descend upon them.
“I overheard your disagreement, my friends.” There is neither judgment nor reprimand when he glances over to Obi-Wan. Yet he still addresses this subject with the seriousness it deserves. “While we indeed must honour what the Jedi have been — and those who have fallen in service to that ideal — I’m afraid we must also have the courage to see where we’ve failed,” Plo Koon drifts further inside and into the middle of their assembly at that. “Reflection is not betrayal. It is the surest path forward, if we are to survive whatever awaits us in these dark times.”
Only in accepting that, can they be ready.