Chapter Text
The Fruits of Labor
The galaxy watches as Count Yan Dooku — former Jedi Knight, absentee ruler of Serenno, presumed dead leader of the Separatist Council, and current grandmaster of two of the most famous Jedi in the Republic — explain the facts of life to the small Jedi initiate everyone in the livestream calls Sors. Then they watch Ahsoka Tano poke her head out of the cockpit of the ship and say, “That’s not remotely how it works!”
“It’s not?” Sors twists his canny blue gaze in Ahsoka’s direction.
“In my day,” rumbles Dooku, “young padawans were seen and not heard.”
“Is that the philosophy you subscribed to when you managed to raise the most loud-mouthed Jedi in the Order?” asks Obi-Wan Kenobi in bright tones. He is crouched beside the jump seat containing Padme Amidala, looking as though he wishes he were anywhere else. The galaxy reflects that this might be due to the fact that Padme’s fingers are knotted in his hair. The galaxy winces in sympathy when she twists her wrist in the wake of another contraction.
Dooku directs a glare in his direction. “In my day, grandpadawans didn’t have smart mouths, either.”
“In my day,” says Obi-Wan, “masters didn’t vow allegiance to the person who got their padawan killed.”
Dooku rearranges his robes, glancing at the prone form of Chancellor — current? Former? The galaxy is deeply uncertain — Palpatine. “That was a low blow.”
“You know what else was a low blow? Darth Maul’s lightsaber to Qui-Gon’s waist, just before he —”
He is interrupted by a scream and more hair-pulling from Padme.
“I’ll explain it to you, Sors,” says Asajj Ventress, the — former? Current? The galaxy really has lost track — favored assassin of the Confederacy, magnanimously, standing up from the jumpseat she sat entwined with Quinlan Vos on.
“You will not,” manages Anakin Skywalker. He is faring better than Obi-Wan is in Padme’s grip, though the bones in his hand look on the verge of breaking and skin should probably never be the exact combination of white and purple that the skin on his hand is at the moment.
Ventress lifts her brows. “And why not?”
“Principle!”
Quinlan Vos — and the galaxy still isn’t quite sure why he’s involved in all this — opens his mouth. Obi-Wan snaps, “Not you either!”
“Oh for the love of the worlds.” Padme levers herself up on her elbow, panting. Sweat stands out on her skin, and she is redder than the sky on Mustafar. She gives Sors a look that is so manic that he takes a step back. “Sors, sweetheart, it’s like this. At the beginning, you’re young, you fall asleep immediately when you get into bed, you can lie on your back without feeling like you can’t breathe, you can sprint, you can put on your own shoes, and then you fall in love with someone. And one of you says something stupid, like, ‘Oh, I would love to see you be a mother,” and the next thing you know, you’re pushing out his babies in the back of a shuttle!”
There is a stretch of silence as Sors regards her, and the galaxy holds its breath. Then, Sors says, “But that doesn’t answer my question about how they’re made.”
Padme flops back on the jumpseat. “Ani, I don’t want children anymore.”
# # #
From the balcony of the throne room, Bo-Katan eyes the multitudes of Jedi and clones currently crowding into the courtyard of Satine’s palace. This, she feels, is entirely too many Force users in one place. She can just about tolerate Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Ahsoka, but anyone else is pushing it. The clones, however, seem pleased. Every now and then, a battalion that got separated from their Jedi General will catch sight of their missing leader and descend with a glad cry and a suddenness that makes every other Jedi in the courtyard, all still recovering from the revelation about Palpatine’s plans for the clones, flinch.
As chaotic as it is to have so many people needing to shelter on Mandalore at once, Bo-Katan can handle it. She’s prepared for this, and she and Satine coordinated everything.
Satine herself would be here, if she hadn’t chosen the exact wrong moment to have her baby.
What Bo-Katan can’t handle is the sudden influx of uninvited guests.
She turns from the courtyard and folds her arms, regarding Tech and the Bad Batch with narrowed eyes. A hundred different things to say — none of them diplomatic — race through her mind. Eventually, she settles on a short, clipped, “Why?”
Without speaking, Tech slides his gaze in Hunter’s direction. As an elder sibling herself, Bo-Katan immediately recognizes what she fondly refers to as the sibling shift, where the younger sibling gently slides both the mess and the consequences of said mess over to the nearest elder sibling. In some of the larger Mandalorian families, she has seen the sibling shift repeated upwards of twelve times, starting with the youngest and ending with the resigned eldest.
Hopefully, Hunter cuts his gaze over to Depa Billaba, a Jedi Bo-Katan only recognizes from the amount of times Obi-Wan has called her up to complain about “Mace Windu’s oh-so-perfect padawan” who made the Council before him “because of gross favoritism”. He was not pleased when Bo-Katan informed him that it was likely less favoritism that won Depa her position and more the fact that the Council was relatively certain she was dogmatically adherent.
And a virgin.
Obi-Wan had hung up on her after that.
Depa, hunched over her scrawny, messy-haired padawan like she is a mother goose, shoots Hunter a venomous glare in response and wraps her cloak more tightly around her padawan. He looks persecuted. She looks harried.
Hunter sighs deeply and rubs the back of his neck. “Well, ma’am,” he starts.
“Prime Minister,” interrupts Bo-Katan. “Or, Al’Ori’Ramikade. If you prefer.” It is an ancient position, but it is her and Satine’s compromise. Satine handles Mandalore; Bo-Katan handles the army.
“Bless you,” mutters Crosshair.
Bo-Katan stabs a finger at him, wishing it was a gun. “Don’t test me, soldier. And it’s Mando’a. You’re Mandalorian.”
“Technically,” says Tech, raising one finger, “we are Kaminoan.”
“Technically,” says Bo-Katan through her teeth, “my boot is one more stupid response from ending so far up your shebs that you’ll taste my laces.”
“Then you’ll have to go through me,” snaps a woman with vast quantities of fluffy brown hair. She’s dressed like a pirate, she walks like a pirate, and she probably stabs like a pirate, but Bo-Katan doesn’t intend to get close enough to find out.
Tech gives the woman an appreciative look, and she gives him a look of the same sort Bo-Katan had to endure during Mandalore’s civil war, when she was trying to keep the Kryze dynasty afloat and suffering Obi-Wan and Satine making eyes at each other at the same time.
“Caleb had a vision,” says Hunter, in the hurried voice of someone trying to start talking before anyone else opens their mouth. He paces to the front of the rather large crowd, which includes his brothers, the pirate woman, Depa and her padawan, too many clone cadets and babies to count, and an unnumbered horde of refugees of various shapes, sizes, and species.
Bo-Katan drops her gaze to Caleb, who shrinks a little. Without a word, Depa draws her cloak over Caleb’s head, cutting him off from both Bo-Katan’s view and the world as a whole.
“He had a vision,” Bo-Katan repeats. She hopes the full ocean of her skepticism fits into the single sentence. No matter how much time she spends around Jedi, visions will never seem worth her time.
“Yes,” says Hunter. “He kept crying about a giant wave and telling us these random coordinates. No one could get him to calm down — not even General Billaba.”
“He was having a real tooka about it,” adds Wrecker earnestly.
“He was deeply upset,” clarifies Tech.
“He has a kriffing annoying voice,” growls Crosshair.
“So anyway,” says Hunter, with a quelling look at his brothers, “we eventually just had to go to the coordinates. Which is why we’re late. And it turned out the coordinates were her home.” He waves a hand vaguely in the pirate’s direction. She accepts his hand-waving with the same sort of gracious entitlement of a princess. “And there’d been an earthquake, and Tech said there was going to be a tsunami, and…” He rubs the back of his neck again. “It would have just about destroyed their island, so.”
“So,” echoes Bo-Katan. She makes a vague gesture at the hordes of clone cadets and babies interspersed between the refugees. “And them?”
“Wrecker,” says Hunter, at the same time as Wrecker says, “Tech!” and Tech says, “Crosshair.”
Bo-Katan turns to Crosshair, struggling to believe that he would even smile at babies, much less volunteer to travel with them.
Crosshair shifts his omnipresent toothpick, tucking it in the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t want to make two trips. Figured Skywalker or Rex would send us there eventually.”
“He assumed — correctly — that with Palpatine’s schemes being revealed, the Kaminoans would be eager to get rid of all evidence of their connection to him,” says Tech. “It was quite astute of him.”
“What are you?” asks Bo-Katan. “His defense attorney?”
Tech doesn’t miss a beat. “Not officially.”
“He wanted to save the tubies and cadets,” says Wrecker — loudly. The people around him wince at the noise. “That’s Crosshair all over — the Kaminoans had already set all these charges that would’ve sent us all right to the bottom of the ocean.” Wrecker plunges a hand downward to demonstrate. Bo-Katan reflects that she’s never seen a man built more like a mountain before. “All the littles were panicking, but Crosshair kept ‘em all calm and steady while I defused the bombs. He’s just got a way with them. Especially the cadets,” he adds, apparently completely unaware of how Crosshair seems intent on finding a hole in the ground to sink into. Already, he seems to have shrunk several inches. His toothpick has wilted, and he avoids Bo-Katan’s eyes.
“Anyway,” finishes Wrecker, “we got everyone out.” Giving Bo-Katan an intent look, he says, “Did you know the Kaminoans had a secret research level?”
Bo-Katan isn’t surprised. “I didn’t. But none of this explains her.” She points at the small girl — of about ten years of age — who is clinging to Crosshair like a proprietary limpet, with her arms wrapped around his neck and her legs wrapped around his hips. The little girl presses her face against Crosshair’s cheek and gives Bo-Katan a look of suspicion that is identical to Crosshair’s expression.
“Sure it does,” says Wrecker. “Secret research lab…” He elbows Tech.
Tech sighs. “Secret research subject,” he finishes.
“My name’s Omega,” comes the little girl’s chirrupy voice. “I’m a clone.”
“Charmed,” says Bo-Katan. She supposes she should be flabbergasted at the idea of a female clone, but the realm of science — at least beyond the science behind weaponry — has never particularly interested her. Clearly, a female clone is possible, as she’s looking right at one.
She surveys the crowd one more time. “I don’t have this many beds.”
Hunter grimaces. “General Vos said you could manage.”
“Oh, did he now?”
“Yes, ma’am. Prime Minister. Whatever the second thing you said you were. He was a bit… busy when we commed.”
“Why?”
“Haven’t you been watching the livestream, ma’am?”
Bo-Katan has better things to do. “No.”
“Oh.” Hunter clears his throat. “Well, the good news is Chancellor Palpatine has been exposed.”
“Great.” Bo-Katan expected little else. “What’s the bad news? Were Yoda or Dooku killed in the battle? Oh, what a great shame. The galaxy will sorely miss them, they will never be forgotten, et cetera, et cetera.”
“Er, no…”
“Then what?”
It’s Tech who answers. “Padme Amidala went into preterm labor. It’s actually rather common with twins, and statistically —”
Bo-Katan swears, loudly. With equal volume, one of the smaller cadets repeats the swear. Depa pivots on her heel, points at him, and says, “No.”
Caleb pokes his head out from between the folds of her cloak. “Can I say that?”
Depa shoves his head back under cover. “No.”
Then, Wrecker says, “Do you have any room in your prisons?”
“For the refugees?” Bo-Katan lifts her eyebrows.
“No, no.” He points behind him, to the large ships he and all the others arrived in. “For the Kaminoan scientists we took into custody.”
Bo-Katan swears again. The same cadet imitates her again. Depa reaches over and puts a hand over his mouth. Crosshair says, “I advocated for killing them. I was overruled.”
Sighing through her teeth, Bo-Katan says, “Of course. If we redid the vote, would you still be overruled?”
Depa hunches lower over Caleb. “Ah, yes, Sergeant Hunter,” she says waspishly. “I feel ever so safe here. Wonderful choice!”
Hunter gives her a sideways look. “You picked it, ma’am.”
Depa puts her nose in the air and forges in the direction of the palace. “That is immaterial.” As she passes Bo-Katan, her and Caleb’s legs somehow get tangled together as they play at being a two-headed, four-legged creature. There’s a wonderful moment of wheeling arms and prim Jedi shrieks before she and Caleb both go down in a tangled heap of limbs.
Caleb emerges first, wriggling free of the cloak and taking great, dramatic breaths of air as he mutters about how hot being wrapped in a woolen cloak is. He scrambles over to the Bad Batch before Depa can catch hold of him again, leaving Depa to prop herself up on her elbow and glare at Bo-Katan as she tries to pick up the scattered pieces of her dignity.
“You could have tried to help,” she says in an accusing tone.
Bo-Katan brushes imaginary dirt from her beskar’gam. “I could have, yes.”
# # #
Padme didn’t have a birth plan. She didn’t have time for a birth plan; she was too busy with her plan to save the Republic. At best, she had vague birth goals. Certainly, she knew she wanted to have the baby — or in this case, babies — on Naboo. She wanted her merè to be there. She wanted it to be after they overthrew Palpatine. She hoped it would be on a nice day and in the morning. Ideally, her husband and friends wouldn’t be stripped of their weapons by the safety protocols of a Rim med station that administered care to too many spacers, bounty hunters, and criminals — occasionally all at once — to allow its patients to be armed.
Essentially, Polis Massa looks at every one of her goals and laughs.
As Anakin, carrying her, barrels through the swinging doors leading to the main waiting room in the medstation, she wails, “Where’s your amu?”
“On her way,” Anakin manages, almost bashing her head against the intake desk in his haste. “So are your parents.”
Padme whimpers. “They’re not going to make it.”
Anakin raps his knuckles against the plasteel window separating him from the protocol droid manning the intake desk. “My wife’s in labor! She’s too early — hurry!”
The droid slides a datapad at Anakin through the slot in the plasteel window. “Please fill out this form,” she says in a perky, feminine voice.
Anakin looks at the datapad, looks at the droid, picks up the datapad’s stylus, and scrawls, Actively pushing out twins, over the entire form. Shoving it back at the droid, he says, “There. Done. Get us a room. We’re going to need all the childcare droids you can spare too — we have kids already.” That is, Padme supposes, the quickest way to bypass explaining, We have roughly an entire creche’s worth of children ten and under tagging along with us.
As the droid processes this gross breach of protocol, the rest of the occupants of the transport ship pile in behind Anakin, all but skidding on the slick floor. If the protocol droid thinks it strange that the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic is being lugged in between Quinlan and Obi-Wan, she says nothing.
“Why couldn’t we have left him in the transport ship with the Separatists?” groans Quinlan as Palpatine, unconscious still, swings between him and Obi-Wan.
“Oh, right,” Obi-Wan snaps. “That’s smart. That way, the conspirator and his coconspirators can jet off to the far edge of the galaxy and continue to kriff us over for the next decade.”
“Oh come on, do you really think Palpatine has a decade left in him?”
Obi-Wan opens his mouth to respond, but a croaking, rasping voice interrupts him.
“Kenobi.”
For a split second, Padme thinks, General Grievous? before remembering that he is likely busy looking at real estate on Shili with Shaak Ti.
Then Obi-Wan lets out what can only be described as a strangled squeak at the same time as Anakin spins around, giving Padme a view of the entire waiting room, which is one of those rather dilapidated rooms full of plasteel and too much of the color yellow.
Sitting — crouching? Lurking? — in one of the worn, cheap chairs is a red zabrak. Well, half of a red zabrak. The rest of him is a terrifying, spiderlike construction of trash and droid parts. The spider legs are looped around the back of his chair and resting on several chairs near him On either side of him are two other zabraks: one a burnt orange and the other yellow.
Padme imitates Obi-Wan’s squeak and grips Anakin around the neck so tightly that he also lets out a strained squeak and fumbles to loosen her grip. “Angel,” he croaks. “Angel, angel, I can’t breathe.”
On the other end of the waiting room, near the door, Dooku suddenly ducks behind Yoda. The sheltering effect is ruined somewhat by the fact that Yoda just peers over two feet tall, while Dooku towers at over six feet tall. As it is, Dooku is left looking like a giant hiding behind a small, wrinkled child.
The red zabrak lurches — unfolds? Crawls? Skitters? — to his feet. “Kenobi,” he hisses again.
“Maul,” Obi-Wan gulps.
“Is that Count Dooku?” the orange zabrak asks.
“Demon witch!” yells the yellow one, jumping to his feet and stabbing a finger at Ventress.
“Kriff,” says Ventress.
Dooku says nothing, largely because he’s already gathered up his cloak and taken off running, barging through the waiting room and diving into the depths of the facility.
Ignoring Dooku — or rather, Dooku’s absence — for the moment, Maul skitters closer to Obi-Wan, eyes wide and maddened.
Then those same eyes fall on Palpatine, dangling between Obi-Wan and Quinlan. He bares his teeth and runs his tongue over his lips. “My master.”
Obi-Wan stares at Maul like an eopie caught in speeder headlights. “I’m very sorry?” he attempts.
“I have dreamed,” says Maul in a faraway voice, “of tearing him into pieces so many times.”
“Ah.” Obi-Wan clears his throat and throws Anakin a desperate look. Padme feels Anakin just shrug helplessly.
“In that case,” says Quinlan, nodding to Palpatine’s prone form, “you’re welcome.”
“I’m so hungry,” says Maul in a whisper, not appearing to hear Quinlan at all. “Savage, I’m so —”
“We talked about this.” The yellow zabrak — Savage — takes hold of Maul’s shoulder and draws him back. “No eating people. At least not until you’re more…” He seems to struggle for the right word. “Hinged.”
Maul says, in an almost petulant voice, “This is the Jedi who cut me in two. And this is the man who stole me.” He nods to Palpatine as he speaks. He turns childishly beguiling eyes on Savage. “Please, brother?”
Savage tips his head to one side, seeming to consider things. Prudently, Obi-Wan takes a sliding step back, and Quinlan takes Palpatine’s full weight and drapes him over his shoulders. After a moment, Savage says, “Well, in that case.”
Padme manages to sit up in Anakin’s arms. “Run!”
# # #
As Quinlan, carrying Palpatine, and Obi-Wan explode into dead sprints with Maul on their heels, Savage turns to Asajj. She eyes him, wishing she had her lightsabers. Behind her are all the crechelings, along with Ahsoka and Barriss.
“So.” Savage clears his throat and examines his claws meaningfully. “It’s unusual to see a Nightsister so far from Dathomir.”
“I was sold,” replies Asajj. “And then freed. And then sold again. And then I freed myself.”
Savage lowers his claws, still studying her. “And then?”
Asajj grins. “I got married.”
If Savage is surprised by this — and he surely is, since Nightsisters as a rule are far more likely to have a large harem of Nightbrothers hoping to curry favor within Dathomir’s power structure than a single husband — he doesn’t show it. Instead, he says, “Nightbrother?”
“Jedi.”
This time, he does choke but covers it by clearing his throat. “And how do you feel about the current sociopolitical state of Dathomir?”
“Can you be more specific?” Asajj lifts a hand to shield the children behind her.
“Do you think you’re superior to me? Do you see my brothers as animals to be used?”
Asajj gestures to the children behind her. “Does it look like I do?”
“Well, what do you think?”
She lifts her chin. “Do you remember the airstrike on Dathomir?”
“No.”
Asajj lets a smile cross her face. “That’s because I stopped it. Let’s just say when Dooku was trying to lead it, he became… occupied with an incursion on his flagship.” That time, there hadn’t been any windows for him to leap out of. “Do you remember the meteor shower about six months ago?”
Savage’s eyes widen. “That was…”
“A ship. Dooku’s old flagship, to be exact.” There had, unfortunately, been an escape pod for Dooku to leap into, but one of his favored generals hadn’t been so lucky. “You’re welcome.”
It is Feral who speaks next. “You’re telling me,” he says, “that Count Dooku tried —”
“To obliterate Dathomir, yes.” Asajj folds her arms. “Does this tell you enough about my political leanings?”
Savage takes a step forward. “You’re still here with the man who almost killed my little brother.”
As quickly as she can, Asajj adjust to the idea of Maul having brothers. Then, she says, “Well, we can’t choose our family.”
Up go Savage’s heavy brow ridges. “Family?”
“He’s a bit like my brother-in-law,” replies Asajj. She heaves a sigh. It’s a truth she struggles with as well. “We all have our crosses to bear. But I’d rather your brother didn’t kill him.”
“And if he did?”
“Well, I think my husband would kill him.”
“What makes you think your husband would win?”
Asajj shakes her head. “I don’t marry people who lose.”
This Savage seems to believe. Heaving a heavy sigh of his own, he says, “Do I have to stop him from killing the Sith as well?”
“No,” says Asajj.
“Yes!” shrieks Padme from the intake desk, drawing Savage’s gaze. “We need to put him on trial!”
Asajj spreads her arms as she twists to look at Padme. “Why?”
“Optics!” shouts Padme, at the same time as Anakin yells, “He’s family!” and Ahsoka drowns them out by bellowing, “Morality!” at the top of her lungs.
Asajj has never understood optics, nor has she ever cared about them. Family is still new to her, and morality is something she is also still struggling to get her head around. However, Padme and Anakin are nominally in charge. Obi-Wan thinks it’s him, of course, but as far as Asajj can tell, Padme and Anakin have been twin ringleaders of this circus for over a decade. Turning back to Savage, she says, “Apparently, he can’t kill the Sith.”
“What about Count Dooku?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“See why not, I do.” Yoda stalks up to her and Savage, bristling like a small, knee-height tooka. “My apprentice, he is. Kill him, only I get to.”
Savage glances at Asajj. “Is this…” He waves a vague hand in Yoda’s direction. “Small… thing,” he finishes, evidently giving up on properly categorizing Yoda, “also family to you?”
Asajj purses her lips and looks down at Yoda. “Not really, no.”
A slow smile crawls over Savage’s face. He takes a few steps back toward the doors leading into the main part of the station. Yoda takes a few corresponding steps forward. Savage lifts both brow ridges at him in an expression that clearly says, Oh, if that’s how you want to play it, old man. Yoda lifts his hoary eyebrows in an expression that clearly replies, I was playing this game when your great-grandparents weren’t even zygotes.
“Savage,” starts Feral.
“Feral,” interrupts Savage, “fill out Maul’s intake paperwork.” He sends a sideways grin Asajj’s way. “He’s the educated one. I can’t even read. He’s going to go far.”
“Before or after your double murder?” asks Asajj.
“You’re already betting that I can’t take the green thing?” asks Savage. “I’m offended.”
“I think my husband will have something to say about that too. Unfortunately.”
Yoda has time to shoot Asajj a single, resentful look before Savage explodes into motion, hurtling across the waiting room and through the intake doors. Before they’ve even had a chance to shunt shut, Yoda is after him, robe hiked up to his knobbly green knees.
Coming up beside Asajj, Ahsoka looks after them both a little helplessly. “Do you think,” she says, as Barriss joins them, “that I have to go after them? He is my…” She pauses briefly to count on her fingers. “Great-great-great grandmaster.”
Asajj tilts her head sideways to look down at Ahsoka. “Are you really asking me that question?”
“Yeah, you’re right. Forgot who I was talking to.” Ahsoka glances behind her, at the veritable army of nurses that has suddenly appeared from the depths of the facility. They are absorbed in shepherding all the crechelings toward another exit, lurking at the corner of the waiting room. Beyond that doorway, Asajj thinks she sees a room painted with rainbows, colorful and motivational sayings, and with stuffed animals of varyingly realistic colors, shapes, and species scattered about. “New question. What are the chances of Barriss and me getting folded in with the little ones?”
Asajj leans back a little to see the nurses better. She’s seen more humor on Dooku’s face on a good day and that’s saying something. Judging by the staff’s reaction — or rather lack of reaction — to… everything so far, Polis Massa is more than used to servicing patients of the untraditional variety. Probably they weren’t even fazed by a crazed cyborg zabrak chasing down two Jedi, the former commander of the entire Separatist army, and one very drugged Supreme Chancellor. She imagines similar things happen all the time between the rival crews of spacers that come in for medical treatment.
All this means that a creche worth of children and two resistant padawans wouldn’t be much of a strain for these nurses to manage. “I would say quite high.”
“Great.” Ahsoka blows air through her lips. “That settles it.”
“Don’t you want to play with the other children?” asks Asajj, innocently.
Ahsoka gives her a withering look. “There’re rainbows in there.”
Asajj, who has had the privilege of seeing Ahsoka’s personal quarters on the Resolute, therefore knows that her berth is covered in hand-done doodles of tookas, mythosaurs, and more creatures — all of whose colorings could only be described as radioactively and toxically bright. She can only imagine Barriss’s berth is much the same. “And that is just intolerable.”
“Exactly. Barriss.” Ahsoka jerks her head toward the main doors. “Let’s go. Master,” she calls out as she and Barriss break into a jog, “I’m going after them!”
Anakin has time to spin around, still carrying Padme, and shout, “Oh no, you’re —” before the intake doors slam shut again.
“Not,” finishes Anakin doomishly. “I take it back, Maul and his brother can go right kriffing ahead and kill Dooku.”
Feral, laboring over a veritable tome of intake paperwork, looks up hopefully. “Shall I go tell them that?”
“No,” growls Anakin and the harried intake nurse at the same time.
“I think I feel a head,” says Padme in a conversational tone.
The six words serve to make the entire waiting room freeze. Feral’s eyes stretch wider than the starry disk of a galaxy. The intake nurse makes several hurried tapping motions on her datapad and says, “We have a room for you.”
“Oh, good.” Padme lets her head loll into the crook of Anakin’s neck. “I thought that would get things moving.”
Anakin heaves a great exhale. “So you don’t actually —”
“Yet.”
Anakin boosts Padme higher in his arms. “So we’ll need that room now.”
The intake nurse does a little more tapping on her datapad. “And your insurance provider?”
“The Jedi Order.”
Some more taps. “They don’t offer maternity coverage.”
Without missing a beat, Anakin says, “By the time I get a hold of Grandmaster Yoda, they will.”
“Mm.” The nurse taps some more. “We also offer a sanctuary package, if you or anyone you love is currently on the run from galactic authorities.” She lifts a neutral, disinterested gaze to Anakin. “Are you interested?”
Asajj follows Anakin’s gaze to the holoscreen behind the intake nurse, which is currently broadcasting their still-running livestream side-by-side with footage of various senators being detained by the Coruscant Guard; empty battlefields previously populated by clones and Jedi; the blockades Mandalore, Zygerria, Alderaan, Naboo, and Tatooine had set up to prevent unwelcome visitors as they took in said clones and Jedi; the smoking Jedi Temple; and a vocal and angry looking Zeri apparently preventing CSF agents from entering the Temple proper. She then follows his gaze over to Tracene, who is happily set up in a corner of the waiting room, taking notes with such fervor that it’s a wonder she hasn’t worn her stylus down to a nub or carved divots into her datapad screen.
Turning back to the nurse, Anakin says, a little faintly, “You know what, I think we are interested in that package.”
“It costs extra.”
“The Order’s good for it,” says Anakin, with complete confidence. “And if they’re not, I’m sure the Duchess of Mandalore is.”
“Mm.” The nurse taps one more time. Then, not looking up, she adds, “I never supported Chancellor Palpatine.”
Anakin’s expression is utterly blank as he replies, “You know, neither did I.”
# # #
An interesting function of the cam-droids, the galaxy is finding, is that they’re programmed to track and follow movement. This means that, when two Jedi, an unconscious Sith Lord, the leader of the Separatists, two zabraks, and two padawans all sprint into the depths of an otherwise fairly quiet med-station, the cam-droids naturally trail after them.
This further means that the galaxy gets a front row seat to what is perhaps the most interesting chase they’ve seen since they watched many of the same players chase the zillo beast across the Federal District.
The betting is getting a bit out of hand.
# # #
“Don’t you think this is a bit in bad taste?” asks Tsuni as Zeri returns from collecting yet more betting slips from the rescued twi’leks and togrutas. All of them are currently bedded down in the Temple mess hall, which had access to food and tables, as well as space to spread out the bedding Zeri, Tsuni, and several twi’lek volunteers stole — or liberated, as Zeri prefers to think of it — from various Temple apartments.
It also has a massive holo-screen that is currently tuned to Operation Fountain’s livestream.
“Not in the slightest,” says Zeri, sorting through the betting slips. “At least, no more in bad taste that attempted murder in a med-station is.” She holds up a slip, squinting at it. “Is that a seven or a nine?”
“A nine,” replies Tsuni, hardly glancing at the slip. A secretary, Zeri supposes, is more than used to deciphering bad handwriting. “But this is serious!”
Zeri keeps sorting through the slips. The women were quite generous with their bets. They wouldn’t have had any money at all, but given that they had helped Zeri rob the trafficking operation blind on their way out, all of them were looking a significant windfall of credits. “So is everything else that’s happened. And look —” she held out a bundle of the slips “— most of them are betting on Obi-Wan, Quinlan, and Yoda!”
“But you’re not.”
Zeri sniffs. “That’s between me and the Jedi Order.”
# # #
“Do you suppose,” says Arla meditatively as she watches the livestream from her throne room, “it would be wrong to bet on Maul?” She rests her chin languidly in one hand as she sits in her gilded throne.
On one of the cushions scattered next to her throne and trying not to think about how much his current posture makes him look like a male concubine, Mace manages to tear his gaze from the screen at the head of her throne room long enough to give her a crushing look. “Yes.”
Sitting on the dais beside the throne, Jango Fett, with Boba asleep with his head in his lap, keeps scrolling through the odds listed on the most popular betting site in the Republic. Minutes after the chase began, a dedicated betting pool for it sprang up on that site, with bets pouring in. “Didn’t stop me.”
Mace turns his glare on Jango, who is unperturbed. “Of course it wouldn’t.” All at once, everything seems horribly unfair. “I’m going to kill Anakin.”
“There’s a betting pool for that,” says Arla. “Or for anyone in the Jedi Order snapping and killing Skywalker, rather.” She holds up her own datapad to show him. “Good odds too. We’re even betting on individual Jedi we think’ll do it.”
Mace thinks about protesting — the Jedi are peaceful, after all — but in the end, he just holds out his hand for Arla’s datapad. “Give that to me. I want to put money on Yoda.”
“On him catching Maul and Dooku and the other one?” asks Arla, with an innocent lift of her eyebrows.
“No.” Mace snatches the datapad from her. “On Yoda killing Anakin.”
# # #
“Can I be sworn in as Chancellor if Palpatine hasn’t been officially impeached and charged yet?” asks Riyo.
She, Mon, and Bail are all camped out in the antechamber of Palpatine’s office, while the Coruscant Guard tears through his office and official quarters, gathering evidence. Mas Amedda is languishing in binders on one of the red couches the occupy the antechamber. Riyo is perched on the other, while Mon and Bail stay standing, staring at the livestream as it plays out on the big holoscreen affixed to one corner of the room.
Mon spares a moment in her transfixed fascination to say, “Not without a full Senate to call a vote of no confidence.”
“Which we don’t have,” adds Bail. To demonstrate his point, he gestures to the currently-under-arrest Mas Amedda. Mas Amedda curls back his lips in a snarl.
“Hm.” Riyo opens the betting site on her datapad again. “And if Darth Maul kills him?”
“Our problems get smaller,” says Fox, poking his head out of Palpatine’s office. Behind him are the sounds of enthusiastic and somewhat vindictive searching. From the depths of the office, something — probably something antique and priceless and illegally obtained — shatters.
“Oh lovely.” Riyo places a bet in the appropriate pool.
# # #
Shmi had told Kitster to stay and organize things. Adi remembers that quite clearly, yet somehow Kitster is still gone, disappeared with Shmi in the direction of the hangar. Which has, for no sane reason that Adi can see, left her alone in the repurposed great hall, chasing after crechelings and Tatooian children alike and trying to stop them from shimmying up the huge stone pillars lining the room.
She hardly has any time to watch the livestream, which is still playing, but she watches enough of it to tell her that Darth Maul is inexplicably still alive.
Ten minutes after that, an initiate sidles up to her as she tries to change a baby’s diaper, mediate an argument between two eight year old crechelings, and wear a fussy baby in a sling across her back, all at the same time. Adi is still in the process of swallowing down an instinctive, snapping response to the interruption when he holds out his datapad with a gap-toothed grin and says, “They’re taking bets, Master Adi.”
The words take up residence in the screaming blankness that’s been revolving in Adi’s brain since Kitster and Shmi left. “They’re what?”
He holds out the datapad more insistently. “They’re taking bets.”
Keeping one hand on the baby she’s changing, Adi uses her other hand to take the datapad, propping it between her palm and her waist and dropping her chin to study the screen, which showed a list of bets for several different pools, with the odds ordered above each pool.
Adi assesses who and what is being bet on. Then she says, “Oh.”
Then the little boy says, in a proud and excited voice, “I put three thousand credits on Master Obi-Wan beating Maul again!”
“You bet — you…” The baby on Adi’s back begins to fuss again. “Whose credits?”
“The Temple’s.”
“The…” She presses her lips together, trying to work things out. “How did you have access to the Temple’s —”
He gestures to the datapad. “That’s yours.”
That’s when Adi recognizes the datapad’s casing. Ah. She must really be sleep-deprived. Finishing changing the baby, she stands up, peels the two fighting eight year old’s apart, locks her datapad, pats the fussing baby, and says, “Don’t bet any more money, please.”
# # #
Obi-Wan is hiding in a closet when his comm rings. This wouldn’t be a problem, if he hadn’t ducked inside the closet, Quinlan and an as yet unconscious Palpatine in tow, to hide from Darth Maul, who had been close enough behind when Obi-Wan lurched inside for the rapidfire click of his spider legs against the floor to be loud.
As Quinlan all but jams an elbow through his ribs — as though the comm going off is Obi-Wan’s fault — Obi-Wan rips his comm out of his pocket and answers it. “I’m a little busy at the moment,” he hisses into it. “If you’re trying to sell me something, I swear —”
“Are you seriously hiding in a closet?” snaps Kitster from the other end of the call. “You do know zabraks hunt by smell, don’t you?”
Obi-Wan hadn’t actually known, but a quick look around the dim closet tells him it is full of cleaning supplies and stinks like it is, which helpfully prevents him from giving Kitster something fun and new to hold over his head. “It’s a cleaning closet, which means he can’t smell me,” he replies sharply. “Kit, why are you calling me when I — no, scratch that, how did you know where I was?”
“The livestream,” answers Kitster, as though it should be obvious. Obi-Wan supposes it should’ve been. “He’s not close to you right now, I don’t think. I can track him pretty well because most of the cam-droids are following him. Me and Amu are on our way. How’s Padme and the babies?”
Obi-Wan twists to look over his shoulder, rolling his eyes for Quinlan’s benefit. “Well, stars, Kit, I couldn’t really tell you. Do you want to know why?” He cradles the comm and brings it closer to his mouth. “Because I’m being hunted by a mad zabrak.”
“Two mad zabraks,” Kitster corrects. “The yellow one’s following you too.”
Obi-Wan slumps against the wall, becoming further engulfed by the smell of cleaning products. “Wonderful.” Deeper into the closet, Quinlan props Palpatine up against the back wall, arranging his robes around him with a heavy sigh.
“Oh — oh, I can see Padme and Ani again!” There’s a clattering on the other end of the line, like Kitster scrambled forward suddenly. “A cam-droid must’ve followed him too — or no. No, it’s still following that yellow zabrak. Oh, he’s not ever seen an emergency c-section, has he? I think he’s going to be sick. No, all right, now Ani’s chasing him out — now the nanny-droid is chasing him too — yeah, it’s all right. Everybody’s all right.”
Obi-Wan calms himself down from the heart attack he was working up to. “Any sign of Maul?”
“No. I think the yellow one’s looking for him, but Maul’s dodged the cam-droids. Sneaky womp rat, isn’t he?”
“Womp rat, yes.” Obi-Wan passes a hand over his face. “Yes, that’s exactly how I’d describe him. Are you almost here?”
“Soon,” says Kitster. “Oh. Oh, that’s going to be a spanner in the —”
“Kit. Elaborate.”
At Obi-Wan’s tone, Quinlan straightens up and mouths, What is it now?
Before Obi-Wan can give any response, Kitster says, “D’you remember how Ani told Barriss to break all the laws getting everyone here?”
In all honesty, Obi-Wan’s broken so many laws in the past forty-eight hours that it’s all blurring together. “Sure,” he says.
“Hyperspace transit authority noticed. They’re in the waiting room, arguing with the intake nurse.”
“How do you know that?”
“Oh, Tracene Kane has her own livestream. Do you know, she’s got more viewers than us? Says something about the Republic or about us — I can’t tell which.”
Obi-Wan rests the comm against his forehead. “Of course she does.”
“Now they’ve got inside. Maybe they’ll arrest Maul.”
“Maybe fairies are real,” snaps Obi-Wan, letting thick sarcasm coat his voice. Then, after a moment, he adds, “Is Padme all right?”
“Swearing up a storm and threatening lives left and right,” replies Kitster. “She’s all prepped for the c-section. They’re starting it properly now.” After a pause, he says, in a falsely casual voice, “And how is Palpatine?”
Obi-Wan glances over at him. Quinlan, never one to be serious even when the situation called for it, is absorbed in using the all-surface pen he always keeps on his person to ink a mustache and spiky eyebrows on Palpatine’s face. “He’s resting comfortably.” He opens his mouth to say something else, but noise just outside the closet pulls him up short.
Throwing a look Quinlan’s way, Obi-Wan lurches to his feet, snatching for his lightsaber at the same time as the closet shunts open. He stifles a yell, lifts his ignited saber, and nearly beheads Dooku, who jerks back just in time.
“Gods of my ancestors,” swears Dooku, almost falling over in his haste to retreat from Obi-Wan’s blade. “I can tell Qui-Gon taught you.”
Obi-Wan jerks out of the closet long enough to look up and down the corridor outside it. It’s deserted, apart from Dooku. “What are you doing here?”
Dooku straightens his clothes, which does nothing to hide the fact that they’re as wrinkled and crumpled as a balled up piece of paper. “Avoiding, er, the zabrak.”
“You mean Maul?”
“And the other one. He does not have a high opinion of me either.” Dooku peers around Obi-Wan, at the closet. For a long and silent moment, he takes in the sight of Palpatine with an inked on mustache and eyebrows. Then, he says, “What are you doing here?”
If there’s anyone Obi-Wan doesn’t want to tell that he’s hiding, it’s Dooku. “We’re assessing the situation.”
Unfortunately, Obi-Wan learned to fog the truth from Qui-Gon, who evidently learned it from Dooku, judging by the look of skepticism that Dooku levels at him. “I see,” he says in a baritone full of doubt.
Obi-Wan considers going back into the closet and leaving Dooku to languish in the hallway, but he finds he doesn’t have it within himself. With a sigh, he says, “Would you like to assess the situation with us?”
Dooku gives the far end of the hallway a hunted look. “I imagine you would benefit from my greater experience and —”
“Get inside.” Obi-Wan catches hold of his collar and hauls him inside the closet. The door shunts shut behind them, leaving all three of them — four, if Obi-Wan counts an unconscious Palpatine, which he’s trying not to — in uncomfortable closeness in uncomfortable dimness.
Shuffling over to the furthest corner of the closet he can reach, Dooku says, “Do you have a plan?”
If Obi-Wan had slept, maybe he would have a plan. Instead, he has boundless sardonicism, which has never yet failed him. “The master of strategy himself wants my plan?”
Dooku is about to respond with something cutting, but another noise from outside the door stops him short. As one, he, Obi-Wan, and Quinlan all look at each other.
This time, it is Dooku who does the almost-beheading, stopped only by Obi-Wan yanking him backwards the second he realizes that it is Barriss and Ahsoka out in the hallway.
While Obi-Wan is still remembering how speech works after having seen Dooku’s scarlet lightsaber perilously close to Ahsoka’s neck, Dooku says, “You two are the most insubordinate, undisciplined, disrespectful, impulsive padawans I have ever —”
“Get in here.” Obi-Wan snatches hold of Ahsoka, and Quinlan grabs Barriss, manhandling her inside. In another second, they have the door shut again.
As Obi-Wan draws breath to launch into a hissing tirade — one he only has half-planned but trusts his ability to improvise — Ahsoka says, “You should really stay quiet. I think he’s close. I heard, you know, claws.”
Obi-Wan shuts his mouth.
In a whisper, Barriss says, “If we said Yoda said it was all right to come, would that help?”
“No,” he answers.
“Okay,” she says. Then she adds, “He didn’t.”
“I know.”
Kitster, who Obi-Wan had almost forgotten about, whispers out of the comm, “So how many people are in the closet now?”
Ahsoka opens her mouth to respond. Obi-Wan preempts her. “Just get to your brother, Kit,” he says and hangs up.
For a beautiful moment, silence reigns.
Then Dooku ruins it by speaking. “Did…” His voice is hesitant. “Did Yoda come after me?”
Ahsoka wrinkles her nose. “Yeah. He didn’t want to let the yellow zabrak — Savage, or whatever — hurt you. Or, like, a couple other people. But mostly you.”
Dooku’s face is impassive. “Oh.” Now his voice comes out small.
“You know,” says Quinlan meditatively, “if I have to listen to you and Yoda slow-walk your reconciliation for one more minute, I might just —”
Palpatine startles awake with a jerk, almost knocking over a vat of cleaning solution. Obi-Wan just manages to choke down a shriek of an unmanly pitch, and Ahsoka and Barriss both clap their hands over each other’s mouths — each apparently assuming the other would break and scream. Dooku presses back against the closet door, trying to make it look like he isn’t. And Quinlan has the only thinking reaction and throws himself at Palpatine, pinning his arms to his sides.
In seeming slow motion, Palpatine looks around the room. In the dim light, it’s hard to make out his expression, but Obi-Wan certainly doesn’t see the dawning satisfaction he expected from a Sith Lord who had just found himself in an enclosed space with five of his enemies. Instead, there is muted puzzlement, with possibly a faint cast of drowsiness.
In a slurring voice, he speaks, apparently unaware that his voice has the same effect on Obi-Wan and the other occupants of the closet that a tooka has on a room full of mice. “Mas?” he says faintly, rolling his shoulders a little, as though he’s testing the pressure of Quinlan’s restraint. “We do not embrace.”
Quinlan looks at Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan jerks his head sideways and mouths, Get off him. Quinlan shakes his head hard at that, and what follows is a minute long argument consisting of gestures and mouthed sentences.
Finally, Quinlan sends Obi-Wan a dirty look and disentangles himself from Palpatine with aching caution. Pulling away, he says, “I’m sorry… Chancellor. After I heard the people accepted you as emperor, I just… lost my head.”
Palpatine blinks slowly in response to this. Just when Obi-Wan is thinking that perhaps the amount of medical-grade spice they pumped into him has done permanent damage to his brain, he says, “They made me emperor?”
“Oh yes, Your… Your Majesty.” Quinlan grimaces. “Unanimously.”
Palpatine preens at that — or tries to — and settles back more comfortably against the wall. “A surprisingly wise choice, for the Senate.”
“We all thought so, Your Majesty.”
Palpatine’s gaze, still unfocused, catches on Dooku. Obi-Wan holds his breath and reaches again for his lightsaber, stretching out his free arm to shield Ahsoka and Barriss. After an agonizing few seconds, Palpatine says, “Tsuni? What are you doing here so late?”
Obi-Wan cranes his head toward Dooku, raising his eyebrows as high as they can go to indicate Dooku should reply. Dooku gives a furious shake of his head, which leads to Ahsoka kicking him hard enough in the shin that he has to swallow down a yelp. When he recovers, Obi-Wan raises his eyebrows again, at the same time as Ahsoka meaningfully pulls back her leg for another go.
Pitching his voice a full octave higher than usual, Dooku says, “I had some paperwork to finish up. And I wanted to… celebrate. Your ascension.”
Palpatine nods to himself. “I understand.” Then, in a sotto voice that he probably thinks is a whisper, he says to Quinlan, “I’m going to have her executed tomorrow.”
Quinlan chokes a little. “I think that’s very reasonable, Your Majesty,” he says. “She always was annoying.”
Dooku gives him a hooded look, but Quinlan is unfazed.
Palpatine suddenly wrenches himself straighter against the wall, making everyone flinch back. In a too-loud voice, he says, “Bring me Kenobi! I’ll execute him first.”
“On… on what charges?” tries Quinlan, pulling away from the plasteel shelf he had almost climbed trying to get away from Palpatine.
Palpatine gives his hand an affected little flip. “I don’t know.” A dreamy smile passes over his face. “I shall fabricate something.”
“High treason and adultery,” offers Dooku, still in Tsuni’s intonation. This earns him another kick from Ahsoka, followed by a jab to the ribs from Obi-Wan.
As Dooku strangles both a cough and a cry of pain, Palpatine says, nodding along with Dooku’s suggestion, “That would be appropriate. I tried to kill him so many times before,” he adds, in a rather pitiful voice. “It never worked. I could never understand why. Speeders never crashing, bees stopping him from eating his salad, vows never to drink — it never ended.” He gives a sudden gasp. Obi-Wan jumps. “I think — I think Anakin must have helped him. That has to be it!” Leaning closer to Quinlan, he whispers, “I think he’s betrayed me.”
Quinlan gives Palpatine a wide-eyed look. “Oh, Your Majesty, that would never happen. General Skywalker is completely loyal to you.”
“You’re right.” Palpatine settles back against the wall, letting his eyes drift shut. He folds his hands in front of him, apparently not noticing the binders clapped around his wrists. “You’re quite right for once, Mas.”
“You give me too much credit, Your Majesty,” says Quinlan, giving Palpatine an awkward pat on the arm.
And then there is a noise out in the corridor once more. It’s a small sound — a harsh exhale. The sound of something — or someone — shuffling across the floor. A tap.
A tap from, perhaps, a metallic claw at the tip of cybernetic spiderlegs hitting the floor.
Obi-Wan has time to exchange a horrified look with Quinlan before the door he’s pressed up against opens, tipping him and Dooku out into the corridor. The floor hits his back hard and vibrates as Dooku lands next to him. As he fights to get breath back into his lungs and get a hold of his lightsaber, Obi-Wan peers upward through the flashing white lights obscuring his vision.
Two faces greet him. One is yellow and black and angular, with horns curving around its head in a halo. The other is wrinkled and green, with a shock of white hair making its own kind of halo around the face’s head.
Yoda shifts forward a little. His gimer stick makes a little tapping sound against the floor.
“Oh,” says Obi-Wan. “Neither of you are Maul.”
The yellow zabrak leans down toward him, smiling in a way that showed off sharp fangs. “No. But I am his older brother.”
“Ah.” Obi-Wan considers his options. “Would it help if I told you I aiming for his head when I —”
“No.”
“Are you going to eat me?”
“I’m weighing my options.”
“Eat you,” says Yoda, “he will not.”
“You know, Grandmaster,” says Obi-Wan, still on his back, “there was a time in my life where I accepted your word as an absolute certainty, but sadly those days are —” he rolled aside just in time to avoid getting a gimer stick to the forehead.
As Obi-Wan scrambles to his feet and Ahsoka, Barriss, and Quinlan poke their heads around the edges of the closet door, Yoda regards Dooku, who is still groaning on his back. “This kind of falling,” says Yoda after a moment, “prefer infinitely, I do.”
Dooku spares a moment in his attempts to get up to say, “I hate you.”
The yellow zabrak looks away from Obi-Wan long enough to study Palpatine as Quinlan half pulls, half lifts him to his feet. He lolls sideways, muttering something about the tailor being here to fit him for new robes. Obi-Wan isn’t certain if the tailor is Yoda or the yellow zabrak, and he isn’t certain he wants to know.
“What’s wrong with him?” asks the zabrak shortly.
Ahsoka supplies the answer, all while giving the zabrak the sideways look of someone who isn’t at all certain that grandmaster-eating is off the menu. “We drugged him,” she says.
At that moment, Palpatine’s legs give up, and Quinlan — with a long-suffering expression — sweeps him into a bridal carry, staggering only a little under the added weight.
Without missing a beat, Barriss adds, “We drugged him a lot.”
“Ah,” says the zabrak.
Finding himself still uneaten, Obi-Wan forges up the hallway, limping only a little. All at once, he is quite beyond fear. There is a space, it seems, between severe sleep deprivation and death that is an ocean of calm purposefulness.
“Where are you going?” calls the zabrak.
“If you’re not going to eat me,” replies Obi-Wan, “I’m going to go watch the twins be born and check on Padme and Anakin.”
After a pause, the zabrak says, “My brother’s still out there.”
“I’m sure you can handle him.”
There’s another pause. “I still haven’t decided if I’m going to kill you or not.”
“Kill you, he will not,” says Yoda, sounding more annoyed this time. “Or Dooku,” he adds.
“Kriff,” mutters Quinlan.
“All of you can argue about it on the way.” Obi-Wan sweeps an arm in a gesture meant to gather everyone. “Quin, come on.”
“You want me to bring Palpatine?”
“You want to leave him?”
“That’s a fair point.” In a few steps, Quinlan catches up with Obi-Wan, still carrying Palpatine. Looking over his shoulder, he calls to the zabrak, “So you’re protecting us from your brother, right?”
With a heavy sigh, the zabrak looks at Yoda, who looks back impassively. Muttering something under his breath, he starts forward, pointedly not helping Barriss and Ahsoka pull Dooku to his feet. “I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Great,” says Obi-Wan. “Let’s go.”