Archive of Our Own

Such a waste, Yan thought as he looked upon the smoldering wreckage of what was once a Republic-issue starfighter.

What a banal thing to die to. Not a showdown against an army of droids, not a desperate lightsaber duel to the death. War dealt death in the simplest of ways, and not even a master of the Force was protected from being shot out of the sky.

In the end it had only been a matter of time before Sidious decided to roll the dice on Kenobi’s life. Too many battles during the war that ended in a Republic victory when they shouldn’t have, too many touches of the Light side on Sidious’ plaything Skywalker.

Sidious rarely directly showed his hand by using his power as Chancellor, but this time he had seemed to be willing to pay the price of losing some of the trustworthiness of his office. A covert mission, a peace offering by the Separatist side – that didn’t exist – brought to the Chancellor by sources above reproach, only one person could go, and surely the Order had to sent their best negotiator, had to send The Negotiator, for this once in a wartime opportunity?

A single shot, and Kenobi’s starfighter had been plucked out of the sky like a sparrow skewered by a hawk’s claw.

Yan hadn’t been informed about this venture by his master, but then their communication was kept to necessities most times. Or to what Sidious deemed for his apprentice to be allowed to hear. He had only heard the whispers, without Kenobi’s name attached though, and came to see why Sidious would gamble that much political capital.

The war was nearing its end. Sidious would never have attempted such a maneouvre otherwise. The Jedi would investigate of course, maybe they’d even find something. But it would mean nothing once Sidious decimated them. The trap was already closing in, and they were all caught in the noose.

Yan could feel it closing around his own neck as well. When the war had started, he had thought he was in control. Sidious’ plans had always envisioned him as the leader of the Separatist army. He already had status and money thanks to retaking his title as Count of Serenno, and he’d have weapons and droids en masse on top of it all. He had been one of the most revered Jedi Master of the Order even before he left, even before he had become stronger thanks to the teachings of the Dark Side. What could possibly touch him with all the power he had amassed?

And yet Sidious outmaneouvred him at every juncture. Years of serving his master, and he had little to show for it. His own attempts to train apprentices had failed miserably, and he stood alone with no allies that wouldn’t bow before Sidious instead. All the political connections to the Separatists would be rendered meaningless when the war was ultimately decided in the Republic’s, or rather, the Empire’s favor.

Soon Sidious would have no more use for him. And if the past years taught him anything, it was that the man didn’t leave loose ends. Time was running out, and once things came to a head, it would be kill or be killed.

Yan was powerful, a skilled Jedi Master and an even more skilled Sith Lord. But he knew that if he dueled Sidious, he would lose. And that was if he managed to even the battle field to a one-on-one, which was not going to happen since the man never left Coruscant these days.

Death was coming for Yan, just like it had already come for Kenobi.

Starfighters didn’t burn well, but what little could was still smoldering when he had found the wreckage, hours after it had been shot down. None of the droids had bothered to check as the starfighter had crashed a fair distance from the land-based artillery in an uninhabited jungle forest, and he nearly hadn’t as well, but something had still drawn him here. Some nostalgic urge to pay respect to someone who had been part of his lineage perhaps?

What remained of the starfighter was mostly grey metal, folded and crumbled like thin foil, blackened by fire. The shot hadn’t hit the cockpit but the middle of the ship, yet even with an indirect hit the fall from atmospheric height would not have left any…

…survivors?

The cockpit window was covered in a spiderweb of fractures, turning it opaque. A piece of cladding from the front must have detached when the starfighter had hit ground, and embedded itself into the transparisteel. The window had to only be held in place by the foils that usually were applied on the inside and outside to keep the pilot from being showered in a thousand blade-like piece of glass.

It was easy to tear the window apart at the point where the piece of durasteel had pierced it, the glass shards raining down on the ground-dwelling plants of the jungle. The Force screamed as he took from it without permission, but he was used to its cries occupying every waking and sleeping second.

And inside the cockpit…

Copper hair, turned rust-red with blood from a wound somewhere on the head. Closed eyes, and a thin trickle of blood from slack lips.

The durasteel piece was longer than Yan had first thought, and its end was pierced through the side of the man in the cockpit, a bloom of red on the sand-colored tunics. But the bleeding hadn’t spread far, the durasteel must have been hot enough to cauterize at least part of the wound.

A chest that was moving ever so slightly with shallow but steady breaths.

A head wound, a pierced side, and some scraps. From the ruin that remained of the rest of the starfighter, no one would have, no one could have expected its pilot to be this lucky.

Yan knew that someone proficient enough with using the Force could have slowed the ship’s descent, could have protected themselves inside the small cockpit, but a Jedi was only capable of so much on their own. Yet it really seemed like Kenobi had defied the odds once again.

Or he would have, had Darth Tyrannus not arrived.

The Force might have protected Kenobi before, but it had failed him in the end all the same when the fates had brought Yan here.

The thrum of his lightsaber was powerful in his hand, the red reflecting off the ship’s metal as sure feet climbed onto the nose of the fighter. The plasma blade bathed the shadowed inside of the cockpit in its hue.

An easy kill. His chosen lightsaber form might have heralded from the halcyon days of respectful duels, but Yan hadn’t had too much stake into the concept of honor even when he had been a cynical Jedi, and becoming a Sith had unsurprisingly not changed things.

The Force was crying, pleading for the life of its child. Yan was used to its pathetic wails, and they hadn’t manage to stay his blade a single time before.

Death came for all of them, Jedi Master and Sith Lord alike.

Such a waste, he thought again as he looked down.

And looked.

…why hadn’t he killed Kenobi already?

Why was he hesitating?

Yan had come with his own ship, the solar sailer, landing it in a clearing not far from the wreckage. It was a yacht model, outfitted with one of the best hyperdrives money could buy for this size, which kept it mobile while still having basic amenities to live on it. It had weapons and shields that would let it to survive a firefight, and cloaking technology that could dupe both Separatist and Republic sensors.

The droids wouldn’t have bothered to check for other ships, and even if they had they wouldn’t have detected his.

No one knew he was here.

No one knew Kenobi had survived.

Kenobi’s chest rose and fell in a shallow, but calm indraw of breath, the man oblivious in his unconsciousness.

For once in a long time, the Force didn’t balk at his call as he used it to lift Kenobi’s body out of the cockpit, including the embedded durasteel piece. Its silent approval almost made him twist his hand to snap Kenobi’s neck out of sheer spite.

He broke off part of the shielding piece to a more manageable length on both sides, careful to not disturb the edge that had been embedded into flesh. Whatever inane decision he was making with this, he didn’t want to render it moot by having the man bleed out all over his ship.

Kenobi’s body levitated at his side as he made the brief walk back through the jungle towards his own ship, the peaceful form disturbed by the jagged edge of the durasteel shard.

Inside Yan’s ship was a room for recreational purposes, with seating and a table that could be raised or lowered into the floor. He laid Kenobi onto one of the benches, putting away the table for easier access.

He ventured into the cockpit, powering up the ship and lifting off. They crossed the blue hued atmosphere on the insignificant planet, and as soon as they were in the black, Yan engaged the hyperdrive, sending them into the middle of nowhere, to the hiddenness that could only be achieved by a random set of coordinates inside the impossible vastness of space.

Returning to the rec room, he found himself into a new mundane dilemma. There wasn’t a med-droid on the ship. While they were useful, he was too paranoid to trust something that could easily be hacked or whose memory could be traced.

But Kenobi was still majorly injured as he lay on the bench. And the only person here to treat him was Yan.

He hadn’t touched another sentient in… Force knew how long. Not since he had become a Sith, that much was sure, and he hadn’t been someone for physical contact before that.

He retrieved the medical kit. To access the wound, he’d need to cut away the tunic, and that much was easy, just the slide of the medical scissor over the thick cloth. The sand-colored fabric fell away, baring toned arms, the definition of which spoke of dedicated saber training, and the dark, sleeveless undertunic that covered the torso, the fabric stretched over the body. It was ripped over the shard, and he cut along the side to and from the cut, splitting the fabric to reveal pale skin and more blood, leaving the man bare-chested.

The puncture wound from the shard was about 5 centimetres long, and went all the way through. He'd have to disinfect as much as he could before he could take out the shard, to avoid contamination when he’d have to reopen the wound. There was some good quality bacta inside the medkit, which should be able to take care of most of the internal injury, and he could stem the bleeding with tightly applied bacta patches.

He’d just… have to touch Kenobi.

The fingertips of his free hand hovered over the man’s abdomen, just a fraction shy of touching. This close he could feel the physical warmth, and the warmth that suffused through his Force senses. Master Yoda’s preaching of luminous beings might be a metaphor to non-Force sensitives, but to everyone else, especially a Sith, it was true when one knew how to look for it.

A breath, and Yan’s fingers splayed over Kenobi’s torso. The skin was damp with sweat and a touch feverish. It was soft, and warm, but with a hard core beneath, the supple skin stretching over trained muscles.

And through the Force… he could almost feel the power in Kenobi’s blood sing, the thrum of his heartbeat mixing with the thrum of the cosmic power. The Force couldn’t have clearer staked its claim on its child. There was a friction where he touched, a spark and crackle between Kenobi’s Light and his Dark, two sides that were utterly incompatible with each other.

How fascinating that they could be from the same lineage, and grow to be so polary opposed.

He was wasting time. His fingers strayed to the edge of the sticky spot of blood that had the shard at its center. The edges were already dried and flaking off the skin, but the center was more fresh and wet still. Every breath, even as shallow as Kenobi’s were, slightly moved the shard, fraying the edges of the wound. The flesh was an ugly burned dark red and black next to where the metal had to have been glowing hot when it struck. But it was that same fiery cauterization that had most likely allowed Kenobi to survive the hours he had been stuck in the wreckage without help.

He disinfected the outside of the wound best he could with the small spray he had available, before he had to move onto the main problem. He decided to use the Force to pull out the shard, just to have more control about what angle he was pulling from, and the cosmic power sprung into his fingertips with an atypical eagerness.

The shard tore free easily, and Kenobi’s body jerked under his hand at the sudden pain, Yan having to hold him down with one hand against his chest, which was done easily enough with Kenobi’s weakened state.

Blood flowed from the wound, but it was a slow gushing, not an arterial spray. It dripped over the edge of the bench in a small liquid fall, pooling against the edges of Yan’s shoes.

He sprayed the bacta into the center of the mess, before covering it with the biggest bacta patch that was in the kit. Turning the body around with use of the Force, he did the same on the exit wound on the other side, before reinforcing his work with old-fashioned bandages to ensure that the patches didn’t dislodge.

Turning the limp body back onto its back, he surveyed his work. There was a bit of pink coming through the bandages, but it was the stain of already spilled blood, not active bleeding. The bacta patches held, keeping both the blood and the liquid bacta inside. Kenobi was a bit paler than he should be, his pulse weak when Yan put two fingers to his neck, but the blood loss shouldn’t be enough to kill him, even if Yan didn’t have the means to do a transfusion.

Yan looked at his hands, sticky and smeared with blood. What a mess. Although his eyes wandered to Kenobi’s hair, the copper still matted with rusted blood, a trickle of the same running down the side of his face.

If he was already treating the man, he might as well do a proper job with it.

He cleaned the hair and wound as best he could, revealing a laceration that on a more backwater planet would have warranted stitches, but here could be taken care of with a bacta patch cut to size.

With that covered, he decided that he had more than enough of touching another sentient. He washed the red smears of his hands with real water, a frivolity on such a small ship even if it was just a small tank with good filters.

While between the head wound and the shock from injury in his side he didn’t expect Kenobi to wake before a few more hours had passed, he still took the precautions of putting a Force collar and a pair of handcuffs on the man. The Jedi Master was a crafty one afterall, and even in his weakened state he wouldn’t put it past him to do all he could to wreak havoc in the small ship.

With that taken care of, he decided to take a bit of rest. Sleep was something he rarely achieved these days, the peace and quiet he would need staying elusive as the Force screamed and howled at him.

Both Sith and Jedi breathed together with the Force, but whereas the Jedi’s relation to the Force was symbiotic, a Sith’s was parasitic. And once a Sith had stolen from the Force without permission, there was not a moment of quiet left for them in the hum of the universe.

It was a Sith’s place to relish taming something so powerful to their will, and something could be said about the euphoric feeling he felt each time from having this power at his fingertips when he sank into meditation.

But something was different today, the touch of the Force around him less like the black thundercloud it usually was, and more like an open blue sky, like wispy clouds painted gold by a setting sun.

You spared him.

There was nothing his eyes could see when he opened them, but he recognized the voice all the same.

Are you here to beg for his life as the Force did? Yan projected.

Do I have to?

Yan sidestepped the question. If not for incessant whining, why are you speaking to me now? It has been years since you last felt the need to weigh your judgement on me.

You are hard to reach through the shroud of the dark side. But… the universe is changing. You are changing. I just wanted to tell you that I hope it will be in the right direction.

I would have hoped that a former student of mine would be less of a fool.

You had also hoped that I would be a better duelist.

You were supposed to be one of the best!

Yan belatedly realized that he had gotten to his feet, agitation running through his tense frame.

You know as well as I did that every fight is a toss of the dice. No matter how weighted they are, they can always fall to your disfavor.

There was nothing Yan could say to that. He let himself fall back into his seat, elbows on his knees, hands clasped before his face as he leaned forward.

You were not meant to die.

And yet I did.

The words were spoken calmly. So utterly at blasted peace with his own death and his passing into the Force.

I only ask that you give my padawan a chance.

No answer came from Yan, but somehow that seemed enough for Qui-Gon. The warm feeling of the open sky faded, and he was once again left with the cold darkness of space and his own decisions.

And with Kenobi, who was waking up.

Non-Force sensitive sentients might have been fooled by the faked calm breaths, by the stillness of the body. But there was little that could escape the perception of someone who had achieved the rank of Jedi Master.

Kenobi opened his eyes, a sliver of blue only, but they became wide when they fell upon Yan. A jerk went through Kenobi’s body, a chime of metal as the chain of the handcuffs was pulled taut as the man scrambled into an upright position, before nearly folding in on himself as what had to be brutal agony from the wound let itself be noticed.

The other man’s breaths were more like a hiss of pain through clenched teeth, his body half-curled around his wounded side. The paleness of his face from the blood loss was further acerbated by the paleness that came with heavy pain. After a moment of recollecting, Kenobi sat up as far as he could, eyes flitting over the narrow interior of the ship in a moment of cataloguing, before they focussed back on Yan.

“Count Dooku,” Kenobi said, his Coruscanti accent giving the words a gentle lilt. “Do I have you to thank for the negotiations to fall flat then?”

“Your naivety does you a disservice, Master Kenobi,” Yan said, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back against the seat. “The negotiations were never going to happen.”

“I should have expected that anything positive happening in this war could never be true,” Kenobi said. It had the levity of a jest, but there was an undercurrent of bitterness that didn’t belong. It paired with the tiredness that had carved stress lines into Kenobi’s face. Nearly three years of war had let exhaustion settle deep.

“So,” Kenobi continued, “congratulations on fooling the Chancellor’s office and the Council, however you did it. I must say, I would have waited with the taking prisoners until after I had set the ship down, instead of shooting and hoping for the best.”

“As always you prove to be too persistent to die,” Yan said.

“Quite.” Kenobi idly picked at the bandages stretching over his otherwise bare torso, his fingers straying over the slight bulge where Yan had applied the bacta patches. “While I would always relish the opportunity to insult your horrible plans… this does not seem like a planned approach at all.”

Yan stayed silent. Kenobi’s eyes focused back on him for a second, a sharp and calculating gaze that betrayed the quick mind behind it.

“I make for a horrible hostage and a worse bargaining chip.” Yan’s continued silence seemed to be taken as a go ahead with the man’s hypothesizing. “The Senate won’t care, the Order won’t be able to do much, and keeping a Force user prisoner requires a lot of effort spend. Killing me would be much better for the continuation of the war and for weakening the Republic’s side. And that shot was not something that was meant to be survived. And it really should not have ended with me receiving medical care on your private ship instead of a Separatist Star Destroyer.”

The soft clicking of chain links as Kenobi used one hand to stroke his beard in thought, his eyes looking into the distance. “Since we can conclude that this was not set up by you, and Grievous would not use such tactics, that only leaves your Sith master as the one who tried to kill me. Which in turn means that you are defying them by keeping me alive.” Intense blue eyes focussed back on Yan. “That does not seem like a healthy approach.”

“Do you want me to kill you?” Yan asked with an amused twist to his lips.

“You are rebelling against your master,” Kenobi said slowly, ignoring Yan’s remark. “Why would you do such a thing this late into the war, over something like this?”

“Oh, do not let my humble self stop you with your wild speculations now,” Yan said. Despite the condescending words, there was a mix of apprehension and fascination within him at Kenobi drawing his inferences.

Kenobi’s eyes flitted over his face. Yan knew that there should be nothing there, years of training having eliminated all tells of any emotions he might be feeling. And yet Kenobi seemed to come to a conclusion anyway.

“…you need allies.”

“A Sith has no need for allies,” Yan said, the previous amused difference replaced by a chilling cold as Kenobi landed too close for comfort.

“And yet you trained apprentices. Asajj was well on her way to become a powerful warrior… before you discarded her, that is.”

“You speak of things you know nothing about,” Yan hissed.

“Hm.” Kenobi cocked his head. “I would have expected you to tell me that she was a mere weapon, and yet I seem to have struck a nerve. I thought it odd that you’d kill her when she had never shown signs of disloyalty to you before, but then maybe the choice wasn’t yours. Did your master think that you were training her to fight them? Maybe their response to that perceived threat was more severe than you had expected.”

“Maybe,” Yan said, a reluctant agreement in all but name. He had to admit it was impressive how many at least somewhat correct conclusions Kenobi could draw from what little information he had.

“Well then, no darksider allies, but at least you have me,” Kenobi said with an obnoxious smile. “And at the moment, I am not going anywhere.” He demonstratedly lifted his bound hands.

Yan chuckled humorlessly. “A firm lightsider who always sticks his nose where it doesn’t belong and who talks too much, yes, how blessed I have been by the Force,” he said, the words dripping with sarcasm.

“You are too kind with your compliments.” Kenobi leaned forward. “You have been dealt these cards and this singular not-really ally. Now, will you share what it is that you would like to have an ally for?”

“Aren’t you forward?” Yan asked, a warning flicker of gold in his eyes as he raised his chin.

“I am not the one with the benefit of time here. When we arrive anywhere where people will see me alive and well, I will be more liability to you than any potential worth, and I’ll be killed.” There was an uncanny certainty with how Kenobi spoke about his potential death. “No one else will know what was spoken here. And your master is higher on my list of threats than you, so I might actually help you, who knows?”

Kenobi had put into words what Yan had already considered himself. Still, a certain reluctance remained.

“I could tell you, but you would immediately spring into denial, just as you did before.”

“Before? Are you referring to your nebulous accusation that ‘someone in the Senate’ was the Sith Lord, a statement that was put out in between lies and more lies? I wonder why anyone would take something like that with a grain of salt.”

Well, if the man wanted to hear it so badly…

“Chancellor Palpatine is the Sith Lord,” Yan said.

He could almost see the knee jerk reaction in Kenobi to immediately deny his accusation before he held his tongue instead. Blue eyes searched his face, the other man having to rely on physical clues instead of the natural empathy of the Force. Not that it would have told him much, Yan’s own shielding too strong, and the power of Sidious too all encompassing as that his identity could simply be divined through the Force.

“Why?” Kenobi asked.

“Why?” Yan repeated, almost amused. “Are you asking me why he is a Sith Lord? We don’t exactly don’t have heart-to-hearts with each other.”

“While I’d like to know that as well,” Kenobi said, “I am not asking why the Chancellor is a Sith Lord, I am asking why the Sith Lord is Chancellor.”

“Collective incompetence from the Senate?” Yan said, starting to get annoyed.

“No, why would someone with that much might want to deal with the political innanities of the Republic? He already has an enormous amount of political power to do with however he pleases. What else is there to gain?”

“I suppose it is understandable for a Jedi to ask this question,” Yan said with a sneer. “For a Sith, there is always more power to be accumulated. He may already be the leader of the public, but the Senate still has a say. There are still planets that are not under the purview of the Republic. He still cannot do as he pleases without having to confer with others first. Only limitless authority could ever be acceptable for a Sith.”

“That sounds tiring,” Kenobi said.

“It is,” Yan said, and regretted the casual admittance when Kenobi gave a thoughtful hum. Yet the other man didn’t aim for the weakness Yan had just revealed.

“If, if,” the other man stressed, “the Chancellor is the Sith Lord, then he is playing both sides of the war and stacking the decks, no? Prolonging the war then to gain more administrative powers… does he plan to just do this forever? The war has only been going on for three years, and the drain of resources on both sides has been immense.”

“There is supposed to be a decisive battle in the future, during or after which the Separatist leaders will be disposed.”

“Including you?” Kenobi asked.

“I have been assured that I will be spared,” Yan said, his words dripping with sarcasm.

“Of course,” Kenobi said, “since I do not take you for the suicidal type yet, what is your plan for the end of the war?”

Yan hesitated for a second. But if Sidious would somehow learn of what had been spoken here, he was dead anyway, he might as well go for the whole course.

“Kill Sidious,” he said. “Instate the Order as the ruling body of the new Empire.”

“The Order?” Kenobi repeated, disbelieving. “Have you actually gone insane? We would never go along with this.”

Yan leaned forward in his seat, his eyes intense as he fixed them upon Kenobi’s.

“The Jedi have died in thousands to this pointless war. You’ve been betrayed by the people you swore to protect. You cannot tell me that there isn’t dissatisfaction with the Senate and the public in your ranks. Yes, the Jedi used to oppose taking power before. But now that they have seen what normal, non-gifted people do with it if they let them take the reigns? They too will see that power belongs best in the hands of those who can truly wield it. They might not have wanted to see it before, but now that I have shown them…”

“What, this was your plan?” Kenobi cut in. “Sow death and destruction and hope the Jedi get desperate enough? You’ve instigated the war just to make a point?”

“I’ve instigated the war to bring the Jedi into a position of power. I’ve accepted that not all Jedi will survive, but the majority of those who die in the war, those who die to droids… if one has been given control over the Force and still died to something this mundane, then it isn’t much of a loss.”

Rage struck through Kenobi’s face like lightning hitting metal, bright and fierce and deadly, the blue of his eyes liquid bright like the blade of his weapon and ready to cut and tear. A flash of bared teeth, not part of a calm measured civilised response, but a feral instinct. A reminder that the Jedi might have been diplomats, but they were also warriors, and Kenobi had seen more battle than most of them, and for all his calm words, he would spill more blood if needed.

A blink of the eye, and then it was all packed away again, the construed façade of the negotiator back in place, his voice calm once more.

“You Sith and your inane measures of strength. The Order is not supposed to be a weapon.” The words felt like they should have been a hiss, but instead they were spoken in a measured tone. “Was Qui-Gon ‘not much of a loss’ as well then?”

“Be aware that each one of your breaths is only possible by my mercy,” Yan snapped back.

“Fine,” Kenobi said, wisely dropping the subject for his continued health. “Still, we both know that you are not in any position to kill Sidious, or to create an ‘Empire’. All your lofty plans have basically failed already.”

“Is this supposed to be the help you offered so graciously?” Yan asked through gritted teeth.

“You die if you stay at Sidious’s side,” Kenobi continued calmly. “But if you come forward with your information and the Chancellor really was the Sith Lord and is caught… your compliance would spare you the death penalty.”

“Even if I were to come out and tell the public that Palpatine is a Sith Lord… as if the Senate would act on it. After three years, I only have circumstantial proof at most, recordings of Sidious speaking with me. While he gives me information only the Chancellor would have, that will not be enough for your politicians.”

“It might be enough for the Order and the Council.”

“And then? Will the Jedi march into the Senate and try to arrest the Chancellor? He would spin it as the Jedi attempting a coup. And he will retaliate.”

“How?” Kenobi asked. “He is one man.” Yan opened his mouth, and Kenobi held up a hand. “Yes, one very powerful man, I am aware, but if he starts killing Jedi that is bound to raise eyebrows even in the Senate.”

“Like he’d have to bother to do it himself,” Yan scoffed. “The clones can do all the work for him. They outnumber the Order a thousand to one.”

“The vod’e?” Kenobi asked, like the mere notion was far-fetched. “No, that’s impossible.”

“Impossible?” Yan repeated. “No, the clones will bring the end of the Order. My master told me so himself.”

Kenobi shook his head in denial. “They bled in this war too. They are loyal to the Republic, not to a Sith Empire. They are aware of the Sith and the destruction they wreak, they would believe us. Especially if they learn that this entire war was engineered… if Sidious wants to force them to continue to serve a Sith, they will turn against him.”

“What, you think the clones would try to defend the Jedi?”

“I see you know very little about the clones,” Obi Wan said, his eyes blazing. “I trust these men with my life.”

Yan scoffed. “They are nothing more than millions of identical creatures who know nothing but fighting. Why would you trust such things?”

“Because I love them,” Kenobi said, as if it were that simple. “Their creation being identical does nothing to diminish their individuality. You would see it too, if your arrogance wasn’t blinding you.” He paused, one hand going to stroke his beard in thought. “….but would it blind Sidious as well?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Would Sidious leave the continued loyalty of the army he will sorely need to take control of the Empire up to fate like this? He’s been fostering connections between the clones and the Jedi for quite some time, he should know that things wouldn’t be the simple… but he could have avoided that if he had kept us more apart, so why do so many Senate decisions push us together…”

Ah, so close to the truth and yet so far. But then for all of Kenobi’s ingenuity, the plans of Yan’s master had been decades in the making. Still, Yan couldn’t help but be curious what Kenobi would do if given the right puzzle pieces.

“Even if any of the clones were to try and go rogue, they were created with an implanted inhibitor chip. They would not be able to act against the Empire.”

“They what?” The words were close to a shout, the loudest the Negotiator had gotten in their conversation. Kenobi stood up on his feet, the pain in his side apparently forgotten before the horror that was plain to see on his face.

“There is little that Sidious leaves to chance,” Yan said, unfazed by Kenobi’s agitation.

“Inhibitor chips?” Kenobi repeated. “But how would that even be possible?”

“Sith magick has many applications,” Yan said. “You underestimate the power of the Dark Side.”

Kenobi half-fell, half-sat back down.

“And all of the vod’e have them?” Kenobi asked, to which Yan nodded. “Can they- how are they activated?”

“My master did not share this secret with me,” Yan said with a humorless grin. “It probably is a combination of code words together with a not insignificant push of dark Force energy.”

Kenobi hummed, deep in thought. “If those chips can inhibit a potential rebellion…,” he said slowly. “What else can they be used for?”

Yan’s grin widened. “Oh, how the ways of the Jedi limit your imagination, Master Kenobi. You have all the pieces, don’t hesitate to put them together. What will be the final strike of the Sith on a galaxy already ravished by war?”

He watched the colour drain from Kenobi’s face.

“He’ll order the vod’e to kill us.” The man’s voice was little more than a whisper, the inflections blank. “He’ll command them to massacre the Order.”

“And there we are,” Yan said with a not unsignificant amount of satisfaction.

Kenobi was swaying where he was sitting, his eyes staring off into the distance, unseeing. “I have to warn them,” he said like he had forgotten the Sith Lord sitting in the room with him. “I have to-“

“You will do no such thing,” Yan said. “Even if I let you, you’d spell out the death of the Order with your noble efforts the moment Sidious would catch word of the secret being out. The Order is scattered too far for you to reach them all, and those remaining on Coruscant can be overwhelmed with the troops stationed there.”

“But how can- surely the Jedi would see it coming.” Kenobi’s eyes were fervent when they snapped back into focus on Yan’s face. “After three years, how could the Force not warn us of the danger that surrounds us like this-“

“Because there is no danger in the clones. They are not Dark. They are not even Force-sensitive. And that makes them the perfect blind spot to strike down any Force user, no matter how strong their premonition.”

Kenobi averted his eyes, looking down upon his lap where his chained hands had balled into fists. Silence stretched between them, and with it, Yan’s annoyance grew. There had been a sadistic satisfaction to seeing Kenobi realize the extent of the hopelessness of their collective situation, but his paralysis from the new information just proved how the bonds of the Jedi held them back. Yan should have left him in the burning wreckage, Kenobi just was too sentimental to be of any use to him afterall-

“Any Force user,” Kenobi said quietly, his face hidden by the fringe of red hair. “You said any Force user would be taken by surprise. Even someone of the Dark side, then?”

“I too could fall to a clones’ bullets at an inopportune moment, yes,” Yan said, barely suppressing a roll of his eyes. “Feel free to use it to fuel your fantasies of revenge, if you wish.”

“You would fall. As would Sidious?”

Yan’s annoyance vanished like dust blown away by the wind.

“Elaborate.”

“A command, and a push from the Dark Side, and the vod’e would pull the trigger on anyone the programmed chip tells them to.” Kenobi raised his head, and his eyes were burning with determination. “I can reprogram a chip. There are those under my command who would trust me no matter what I did without asking questions. And you are more than adept enough in the Dark Side.”

“You want to use a clone to kill the Chancellor,” Yan said slowly, but with each word an almost manic glee was bubbling up inside.

“The vod’e haven’t just been integrated into the ranks of the Jedi. They are also the ones who guard the Chancellor. They switch shifts all the time since no one bothers to tell them apart in the Senate. If an escort troop walks into the Chancellor’s office to bring him to his next meeting, there would be no reason to suspect anything.”

This could work, Yan thought. This could actually work.

He looked back at Kenobi, not just through his eyes but through the Force. Fury burned bright through the man, but it was banked, contained, like a furnace fired by flame, the power of it not destructive but turned constructive instead.

“The Senate could turn on the Jedi,” he mentioned, but his mind was already running through the logistics of what Kenobi had suggested.

“The Sith Lord behind the Separatist army has already been sentenced to death in absentia. Between the chips and whatever might be revealed once Sidious is dead, there is a way for us out if the Force wills it.”

Yan turned the plan around in his head like a puzzle cube. Failure means death afterall. But oh, how clever, to beat Sidious with his own weapons like this. How unexpected, as it requires someone so trusted by the clones, and someone so embroiled in the Dark. It is a plan worthy of a Sith Lord, and no less would be required to destroy the current holder of the title.

“Master Kenobi,” Yan said, “I look forward to working with you.”

The sky was mildly overcast, making for a bland weekday morning. The Chancellor, as usual, was already working on the correspondence that had accumulated overnight, making a dent before the Senate meetings started.

The troop was a group of four vod’e, the usual orange swapped for the red of the Coruscanti guard, and the Chancellor barely acknowledged them when they entered his office, the only sign that he had heard them the swish of flimsy as he put away whatever letter he had been working on. The troop settled into loose formation in the centre of the office, two in front, two in back, and the Chancellor stepped into the empty space in their middle just as always.

When usually they would have left the office, today, they had been given a different order.

CC-2224 unholstered and fired his weapon in one single, swift motion.

The body of the Chancellor fell to the ground, a smoking hole perfectly in the centre of the back of his head.

None of the other troopers moved or reacted, and CC-2224 reached to the side of his helmet to activate his communicator.

“Order 67 has been successfully executed.”