Four Jedi Masters enter the Supreme Chancellor’s office, their intent clear. They force away the Secretary manning the desk and barge through Chancellors two red guards. They fan out as the Chancellor inspects them.

  “Master Windu, I take it General Grievous has been disposed of? I must say you are sooner here than expected.”

  “In the name of the Galactic Senate of the Republic, you are under arrest.” Master Windu says, Masters Fisto and Kcaj preparing themselves to fall into their preferred styles, ready for whatever comes next as each and every Jedi ignites their lightsabers one by one.

  “Are you threatening me, Master Jedi?” The Chancellor asks.

  “The Senate will decide your fate.” Windu ignores the man.

  “I am the Senate.” The Supreme Chancellor spits.

  “Not yet.” The Master of the Order replies evenly.

  “On what charges do you even plan to arrest me on?” The Chancellor asks, hidden fury emerging from his eyes..

  “Being a Sith Lord, treason, crimes against peace, murder, manslaughter, corruption and collusion.” Master Windu replies.

  “I assure you, even if I was a Sith, such religious beliefs are far from illegal, Master Jedi.” The Sith Lord replies with a slight grin.

  “That does not matter.” The Master of the Order spits.

  “It’s treason then.” Sidious says with an evil grin, his now openly Sith eyes, sickly and yellow, reveling in the pure agony he was about to inflict upon these fools.

  “This is your last chance. We will guarantee a fair trial.” Windu offers.

  “No. This is where you die.” The Sith spits, his lightsabers flying out from his chair as he pushes himself off of it with the Force yielding to his demands. Two red blades ignite as the old yet lithe human slams into Master Kolar, piercing him with both blades and pulling them outwards to force the other Jedi back while he finishes the Zabrak off in a simple maneuver. A bisected corpse collapses unto the floor of the Supreme Chancellor’s office.

  A quick slash from one blade and a parry from the other to keep Windu back and to put Fisto on the defense. A push from the force to throw Master Kcaj into the wall as the Sith Lord doubles down onto eliminating the weakest link here. The Nautolan Jedi may be a true threat in the oceans, but here? Here Sidious was the Master. Here he was indomitable.

  A series of nigh-on vision defying strikes and the Nautolan finds himself a head shorter, halved head-tresses joining the Master’s head in a mess upon the floor. Sidious allows himself to inhale the wonderful smells of scorched flesh that have begun to permeate his office as he parries the slashes from Masters Kcaj and Windu behind him. He allows the strikes to push him forwards, the Sith Lord flipping again to face the two remaining Jedi Masters of the High Council head on, the corpse of Fisto now between them.

  Sith Lightening flies from his hands, frying Kcaj and giving Sidious a chance to finish the pesky Jedi while Windu struggles in deflecting the Force imbued electricity. A final strike and only one Jedi remains. Victory is certain, even as Sidious finds himself on the back-foot, allowing the Jedi to force him further and further back.

  He is surprised when he looses one of his lightsabers, then shocked when the Master of the Order continues to force him back despite his efforts to turn the duel around. He was loosing control. A moment of fear. Then he feels it, a familiar presence and he smiles victoriously. All was going to plan. He was about to right the wrongs done to his order by the Jedi. Avenge those foolish enough to be killed by the power hoarding hypocrites. He would complete a thousand years of scheming. He would be triumphant.

  On a distant world, almost on the other side of the Galaxy to where the Separatist capitol lays in smoldering ruins, Republic banners now swaying in the smokey wind, the Marshal Commander of the 7th Sky Corps hears a phrase that would end his commanding officer’s career, if not his life. A phrase that would echo across the galaxy and change its face forever. Three words that would destroy an organization as old as the Republic itself. An organization that had fought for the Republic’s very existence against those who would usurp her ideals for religious fanaticism, would hold her, defend her against foreign warlords, monsters and rivals alike. An organization whose members had too often given their very lives to the Republic.

  A moment of regret, the Commander had just handed his friend his lightsaber back after all, then programmed action. An AT-TE adjusts its aim and with a gesture of his arm. Commander Cody orders the walker to fire on his Jedi General and friend.

  Obi-Wan Kenobi falls into a distant pool of water, presumed dead.

  On the final purse world of the Neimoidians still loyal to the Separatist cause, a Jedi starfighter is shot down by their escorting ARC-170s. The Jedi Knight, veteran of the Stark Hyperspace War, ejects and moves to flip onto the roofs below. Yet the fighter pilot who was supposed to be escorting his General simply adjusts his positioning and lets loose his strikecraft’s cannons. They shred through the Jedi, tearing and cauterizing through the Kel Dor’s body. The barely recognizable corpse falls to the floor.

  Plo Koon dies before he hits the ground.

  A single jump away from where our story truly began, a Jedi Knight and his Padawan oversee the final battle of their siege. Caluula was all but won, their mixed Corps of Volunteers and Clones having made good work against the mostly droid resistance. It is instinct more than anything that makes the Master move, his saber cutting through the blaster of his Captain. A Force push forcing the man into the wall. The two Jedi flee from the room, only to find the hallway they go down within their command post to be barricaded. Two e-web heavy repeating blasters awaiting them, manned by their Clones. Grenades fly, blasters scream and two Jedi fall.

  Knight Forte and his Padawan never even knew what was happening. They would never learn that Caluula’s Separatist Commander had just surrendered the world to them a few minutes prior. They would die with hundreds of questions racing through their minds and never know the answers to any of them.

  CT-2314 knew the dangers of his new order. He relished them. Admiral Dericote had saved them from the last Jedi, but now they would avenge themselves on this one. They had been in the reserve, called upon only after Coruscant, since Krell had died. This time they would act. CT-2314 knew the tactics the Admiral would have preferred to use against the devil. The Captain had read and reread the report too many times to count. When the order happens his men move. Flamers, boarding shields, grenades and Z-6 rotary blasters come out to play. The Captain himself pulled out the one shot slugthrower he had confiscated from a bounty hunter for this very purpose.

  Their new Jedi has a hand to her head as his men enter, weapons drawn, grim determination set in their very souls. They might not have been able to kill Krell, but this one? This one was theirs. No matter how young their General looked, how terrified like they had once been, how pained her face was when they barge onto the bridge, weapons ready and aimed. Fire spews from flamers, blasters scream and a single crack echoes through the ship’s bridge. They don’t stop shooting and burning until their recently promoted General was nothing more than ash and broken bones.

  The Togruta deflects the blasterbolts as she’s done a thousand times before, slowly carving away at the roof above her. A subtle manipulation of the Force and a jump through the smoke and she’s clear. She doesn’t hesitate and keeps moving, running through the maintenance tunnels just below the armored hull of the bridge. Fives, what did Fives have to do with … whatever this was!?

  As far as she knew he had died sometime after she had left, but before Echo had been found. And how it hurt to know that she had missed seeing him by leaving. So her decision was certain. She would find a terminal, get Rex out of his stupor and figure things out from there. The Force would provide, that much Skyguy had taught her. And if the Force wouldn’t she would provide for herself. If things went truly beyond saving, she should be able to hotwire one of the ships in the hanger and escape. Maybe meet up with Bo Katan or some of her underground … associates. Bo owed her after all and manipulating a game of Sabaac or Glory was easy enough with the Force as her guide.

  She stops above a vent, the Force telling her to stop for a moment as a half-squad of Clones run past towards the bridge. She waits a moment longer before exiting the maintenance tunnel and making a run for the closest medical bay. She needed answers and fast.

  A Jedi leads the charge over a cold, icy bridge. The Marines were close on his tail, following with their grim determination. They were so close after all. One last bridge and Mygeeto would fall. One last push and the enemy’s stronghold in the north would collapse. It meant rest, relief, reprieve and an end to the fighting in this hellish siege.

  When the Galactic Marines fire on Ki-Adi-Mundi, Admiral Tennant is already preparing the next maneuvers for the fleet above. They’d likely rest for a week, then make for Ord Trasi, he decides. When the report comes in that the Jedi High General was dead, the Admiral shrugs. The battlefield was a dangerous place after all.

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  It was a boring patrol through one of the last unsecured battlefields on Saleucami. The siege had ended months ago, but cleanup still hadn’t. Resources being pulled elsewhere as the strategic situation developed. The world that had been the grave of High General Rancisis and the home of the Separatist’s Clone army, now pockmarked and almost ruined by shell craters and burnt vegetation. Not to mention the corpses, so many corpses, even along the small stream the patrol was going down.

  Marshal Commander Neo doesn’t hesitate when he hears the order. Orders were orders. Good Soldiers follow orders, but he would have followed them anyway, especially after what had happened here. A few well placed shots from behind and Jedi High General Strass Allie, Marshal Administrator of the Greater Halla Sector Command, dies on Saleucami. Her body eventually dumped into one of the mass graves dug out for the, too many, casualties of the siege.

  Felucia was a hostile planet by its very nature. It was one of the last major holdouts, a fortress that had rebuffed many a Republic assault before, meaning it was one of the last Separatist worlds that could defend itself without support from another world. The world’s orbit was still contested by a nimble and well commanded Separatist Fleet. The Jedi and her battalion of Clones though, marching through a secured trail, stumble on a Separatist regiment quite by accident. Even so, they quickly prepare to fight in the open of the small clearing.

  Yet just as she was about to order her men’s charge, a blasterbolt strikes Aayla Secura in the back, followed by another and another. Dozens of blasterbolts striking the already smoking corpse. A tear falls down her Commander’s eye as his brain tries to understand what he did while his mind and mouth order his men to fall back, they’d call in the enemy position and hope someone would bother to glass this accursed valley.

  On a world in a mild winter a Padawan flees, his Master begging him to run as her own men gun her down in a daze. A Commando unit begins pursuing the kid, confused and worried about the orders they didn’t truly understand. The kid runs for his life anyway, he can’t trust the Clones anymore, not after this.

  And so Depa Bilaba and Caleb Dume die very different deaths.

  General Kota feels like he’s having a heart-attack as more and more lights go out throughout the galaxy. His Staff Sergeant catches him before he falls to his knees, his eyes wide in horror. He had to contact the Republic now. Whoever was doing this needed to be stopped!

  The General’s attempts at communication are all rebuffed, no matter who he sent them to. Old allies and comrades in arms ignoring his pleas, his shouts, his questions, his very being.

  After minutes of terror and rage and innate sadness comes action. He orders his men to prepare to abandon the world, asks them to report him as dead and mount their LAATs and MAATs and return to the Liberation. The following battle within the Venator is short. Confusion and shouts of treason echo through the ship as Kota secures it for his men, for his vengeance.

  Master Saesee Tiin was busy overseeing the final preparations of his taskforce, they were a sole jump away from Serenno.

  He had been ordered to finally break the Separatist resistance along the northern Hydian Way and ensure a stable route to the Corporate Sector Authority, securing Serenno along the way. It would be another symbolic victory for the Republic, though likely the least meaningful. After all, Coruscant had ended Dooku, Kenobi was busy finishing off Grievous at Utapau and the Navy had demanded the seizure of Raxus, the Separatist Capitol, be done by the favored son of the HONO Clique, Admiral Dericote.

  Yet it was him here among the Navy officers of the Republic and their crew. It was here where he felt a certain calm overtake him. He had fought alongside their kind during the Stark Hyperspace War and various lesser conflicts in the years leading up to the Clone Wars and would always appreciate their competence and skill in managing the capital ships while he lead their strikecraft, screening them and dealing the enemy devastating blows in equal measure. He had built up quite a bit of goodwill through this, though he had never sought it out. Seems veterans of one war taught the next. That alongside the aforementioned skills only increased the willingness of Navy officers and their comrades in the Starfighter Corps to see him as one of them instead of a Jedi lording over them and taking their rightfully earned posts in command.

  He feels the wrongness before it happens. A platoon of Clones emerging onto the bridge, weapons ready and their Commander feeling slightly dull in the Force. It wasn’t the dullness of a mindtrick, more the dullness which would sometimes overcome the men when they were in battle. The loss of perspective when soldiers focused on nothing but the fight.

  “Commander?” The Navy Adjunct Captain asks the Clone.

  “Sir, we’ve orders from the Supreme Chancellor, affirmed by High Command. All Jedi are to be executed for treason.” The Clone says.

  Master Tiin freezes for a moment, his hand going to his lightsaber on instinct. Had their suspicions been proven correct? Was this Palpatine’s plan?

  The Adjunct snarls, a small gesture towards Navy arms-men putting them on edge as they eye the Clones: “What proof do you have? We’ve received no such transmission.”

  The Commander reveals a holopuck and shows them the transmission. It is the Chancellor, though he looks as if he had seen better days: “Execute Order 66.”

  “The transmission came alongside this information packet. The Jedi attempted to assassinate the Supreme Chancellor and overthrow the Galactic Senate. All Jedi are to be seen as traitors and executed on sight, bar exemption from a Sector General or Fleet Admiral.” The Clone says.

  Convenient that their force didn’t have a Fleet Admiral or Sector General with them, Master Tiin thought. After all, he was a Jedi High General, more than enough to command such a taskforce. How foolish the Council, including himself, had been.

  “This is outrageous!” The Adjunct continues, “This is worse than the bullshit Tarkin tried with that kid! For all we know this could have been a false flag attack conducted by the Separatists to halt our advance before it can begin!”

  “Our orders are clear and so are yours.” The Commander presses.

  “At least let us open an investigation.” The Adjutant Commander requests, “Certainly some Jedi may have attempted this supposed coup, but General Tiin has been present with us since the Battle of Coruscant.”

  “Stand aside.” The Commander presses, his mind morphing from the dullness to a fog.

  “I will not stand for this!” His Adjunct barks, pulling his blasterpistol and getting gunned down for the effort.

  A lightsaber ignites and blasters scream. It is a messy melee between Navy arms-men, officers, Clones and a sole Jedi Master. More Clones enter from the elevator shafts, too many. Tiin feels like the melee drags on for an age, then a lapse in the force, the feeling of burning in his chest and finally the best Starpilot of the Jedi Order dies, falling to the floor of his bridge alongside over a dozen loyal men of the Republic.

  Wildhog feels numb, thoughtless, as if he was dreaming or blackout drunk without the high, as he marches up the steps of the Jedi temple. Clover beside him had shut down, simply repeating the mantra a good handful of his brothers had taken up when the order had begun. Good soldiers follow orders. When General Skywalker cuts down the first of the temple guards, Wildhog takes his company to cut off one of the exits, splitting off from the rest of the column as it moves to sack the temple.

  Didn’t the Admiral once mention a sack of Coruscant?

  He kills an old Jedi herding away some of the younglings, riddling the body with half a dozen blaster bolts as he continues marching forwards. Clover delivers a few of the Jedi to their deaths as Wildhog barks his orders to the rest of the company. A Knight charges them and the flamers Widhog had grabbed from the armory come forward. Fire spits and the Captain thanks his lucky stars that Chain had forwarded the Admiral’s half finished draft of a treatise on fighting Force users.

  Wildhog had asked for it in case he ever ran into Ventress or some other Dark Acolyte that seemed to pop up wherever his General went. He’d never even considered he would use these very tactics against the Jedi.

  The Jedi’s cloak catches fire and as she tries to shed it he nails her in the chest with his blaster cannon. He really does love his Z-6, especially right now. And to think his former Captains had said it was unsuitable for a man of his station! For a moment the spell breaks before shackling his mind again. Wildhog wonders what Commander Rex was doing, or Chain for that matter?

  He hasn’t heard from either of them in over a week. He was starting to get worried.

  “Keep moving forward.” His dead voice orders as he watches Clover break down the doors to a nursery, rushing in with two more men from Squall Company. They had been given their orders by Skywalker. None may survive. Not the Master on their deathbed, not the sick or wounded, not the healthy and spry, not the infant in the cradle.

  “Good soldiers follow orders.” Wildhog mutters to himself as he shoots a surprised Bothan as they emerge from the nursery down the hall.

  If Cal Kestis ever made it out of this he would probably have to punch Admiral Dericote -call me Thraken, kid- nope, Admiral Dericote, in the face, then apologize profusely for not listening more when the Admiral complained about how isolated the Jedi were from most Navy officers. Especially now, since he was crawling through the pipes and vents of the Albedo Brave above Bracca, trying to get to one of the more isolated escape pods while Master Tapal was fighting through the Iron Battalion.

  The Admiral had complained more than once about how weird he thought the almost entirely Clone and droid crewed ships the Jedi commanded from were and now Cal was starting to suspect the reason had to do with … whatever was happening here.

  Distantly he heard fighting a few halls away. Cal shoved down his feelings on Admiral Dericote as he pressed on. Force preserve him, but now was not the time to think about the infuriating man who was annoyingly kind and yet so cruel. He falls through the grate into the turbolift shaft.

  The Zabrak was meditating, calm, collected, exhausted, even as he felt the force around him scream. Something had happened and yet the Jedi could not put a finger on it. Too tired from over a week of fighting and a full day of keeping droids from his men. It didn’t help that he still felt the malice of the civilian populace all around him, it was suffocating. He tries to focus, tries to find the source of it, even as the doors opened behind him.

  “What is it Commander Lock?” Eth Koth asks, his voice resigned with acceptance of more work to keep him from rest. This war had already taken so much, could he not be slightly selfish and beg for an hour of meditation?

  He never hears the answer, a blasterbolt to the back of his head his only response.

  As Kashyyyk burns General McClellan doesn’t even realize the new order had changed anything. There were three Jedi on world and the Marshal Administrator was rather busy trying to organize a counter to remove the Separatist forces from seizing orbital supremacy. As one Jedi kills a Clone Commander and a former Coruscant Shock Trooper, another Jedi is killed by her men and the third runs into the depths of the Jungles, McClellan fights on, coordinating the charge that would repulse the orbital forces and preparing the bombardment of the Separatist landing zones.

  He had protected the Wookies for three years and he would be damned if he allowed all his work to end like this. As Kashyyyk’s forests begin to burn from Clone reprisals and continued droid assaults McClellan deploys his reserve of Volunteers gathered from throughout the command and orders Vice Admiral Bruce to assault the Separatist center. As the Bimm, Lepan and Human Volunteer Regiments make their assaults and reinforce the desperately defended beaches, the Clones who had abandoned those chokepoints continuing their hunt for Jedi, McClellan makes a decision.

  He would defend Kashyyyk or else die trying.

  He orders the charge and has his command ship join it.

  “Sir.” Captain Chain interrupts me.

  “What is it?” I ask, glancing away from the tactical display, the surrendered ships being corralled away and their sailors interned.

  There was still a lot of cleanup to do. Escape pods to secure, though their numbers were painting a particularly bleak picture already, command modules to scour for intel, officers to interrogate, patrols to finish setting up. Maker I still had to go to the surface to accept formal surrenders because too many of the captured Senators were self-absorbed idiots who didn’t care about how busy I was.

  “We’ve been ordered to execute Order 66 by the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic.” The Captain reports.

  I blink in mild confusion. That was … a contingency order. My brows furrow together, why in the name of the Maker would we be activating one of them at this time? Victory was at hand. Sixty six … ugh, I could never remember them by themselves.

  “Sixties are the counter-coup orders.” I mutter, sixty involved detaining Government administrators joining a coup, sixty one involved detaining subversive Senators attempting a coup, sixty two detaining civilian governors attempting a coup against the Republic, seceding or committing treason, sixty three was detaining an officer of the GAR or Navy with similar ambitions, sixty four was detaining military administrators who was attempting a coup, secession or general treason on a large scale, sixty five was detaining the Supreme Chancellor if he ever went insane or tried to usurp the government, sixty six … was the one against the Jedi.

  “Sir?” Lieutenant Hursk asks.

  “Order sixty six, GAR commanders will remove those officers by lethal force, and command of the GAR will revert to the Supreme Commander until a new command structure is established.” I mutter the second half of the order.

  “Sir?” The Lieutenant asks, louder this time.

  “Did we receive an information package with this?”

  “Just that any persons affected by the order could have their immediate sentence commuted to temporary detainment by orders of a Fleet Admiral or Sector General.” Chain replies.

  “Command wide transmission asap!” I order, snapping at the comms officer.

  “Sir?” Captain Hills asks.

  “Comms ready for you, sir.”

  “This is Fleet Admiral Dericote, Marshal Administrator within the Cerulean Spear Command. All operations within Order Sixty six are to be commuted to detainment post haste. Failure to follow this order will result in censure and a court martial. All Jedi who receive this message are to submit themselves to detainment immediately or else be forced into compliance.” I order.

  “Transmitting.”

  “Sir, Commander Lock just reported the successful execution of General Koth.” A Junior Comms officer says nervously.

  “Damn it.” I mutter. Things were rapidly spiraling out of control. And I couldn’t even focus on this lizardshit because I still need to head down and formally accept the various surrenders of the Separatist Senators. Those assholes being too high and mighty to submit to anyone lesser than the commander of the taskforce that had seized the world they had commanded a secessionist movement from.

  “Damn it all.” I repeat myself. There goes any chance at sleeping tonight.