Mutual Feelings

Aftermath

Anakin glanced around, stunned by the volume and speed of the response. Behind the force of Jedi, he could see the brightly painted armour of clone commandos, and even what looked like a small number of ARC troopers.

"Master Skywalker?" Yoda asked, from the front rank. "Here what happened did?"

"The Chancellor... attempted... to recruit me." Anakin said. "He... was... the Sith Lord."

"He admitted it?" Mace asked.

"All but. He said he knew the Dark Side of the Force." Anakin replied. "I recorded him."

"Anakin..." Mace said, gently. "He was too dangerous to take alive." Carefully, the veteran master lifted away the outer layer of the chancellor's robe, where one of his hands rested near a pocket. Underneath, Anakin saw the unmistakable cylinder of a lightsaber hilt. "If you'd hesitated, or refused to back him... he'd have used this."

"Why did you come here?" Anakin asked.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

"Master Shaak-Ti?" Ahsoka asked.

"Ahsoka?" Shaak-Ti sounded slightly surprised. "I'd have thought you and Anakin would still be reconnecting." She said it with a faint smile.

"We were." She replied, having little doubt about what was meant by the euphemism, even though weeks before, she'd have been baffled. If she had figured it out before having been seriously involved with someone, she'd have been left with montrals that felt like they were about to spontaneously combust. "The Chancellor called him on his comlink. I didn't hear what was said, but he looked like he'd seen a Force Ghost afterwards. Then... he made sure he could reach his lightsaber instantly, and told me to call you, or another member of the Council, and tell you that he thought Chancellor Palpatine was an enemy of the Republic."

"He... said that about the chancellor?" Shaak-Ti asked.

"Yes." Ahsoka replied.

"Thank you." Shaak-Ti said. "Master Windu?" She called. Ahsoka realised that the older togruta was in an annex off the main council chamber. "Condition Janus." She called.

Ahsoka knew a lot of the Jedi Order contingency codes. Condition Mynock meant: 'we have reporters outside the main entrance. Use a side door, or come in through the hangar.' Condition Scutum meant: 'the temple is under attack, but we are holding them off.' Condition Demeter meant: 'My Padawan has been kidnapped.' She'd heard Anakin cancelling that one a lot.

Condition Janus, though, was new to her.

"You've gotta be kidding!" Mace shot back. "Janus? Do we have proof of that?"

"Master Skywalker..."

"He thinks... well... sithspit." Mace said, moving into the holocomm's pickup range. "Ahsoka, he thinks this?"

"He went to see the chancellor a few minutes ago, prepared for a fight."

"He's planning to try and arrest him?" Mace asked.

"I think so..." Ahsoka stated. She really hoped that her Master wasn't planning the alternative solution.

"Ahsoka, you know that you are in no fit state to do this. I want your word that you'll stay away."

Ahsoka responded with a simple gesture. She raised her left hand to the pickup.

Mace blinked slightly when he saw the ring.

"I won't try and help, Master Windu." She said. "And I'll stay out of the immediate vicinity until you say it's safe. But I'm not going to sit here waiting."

Mace just looked at her, for a second. "I can't see the harm in that, then." He chuckled. Ahsoka killed the connection, before using the Force to summon her clothes and help her clamber into them.

A few minutes later, two senior padawans her own age arrived, before assisting her into her hoverchair, supporting various sections of her body in ways that suggested a great deal of medical training. Once she had been loaded up, they rushed her to a turbolift at the trot.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

There was a flutter of activity, before several clones stood aside, allowing Ahsoka through. Anakin didn't quite know how to react to her appearance. When she saw the Chancellor's remains, now being packed into a standard GAR bodybag, she blinked.

"He..."

"Him." Anakin confirmed. "He did that to you."

Mace, off to one side, was on his comlink. "... Yes, you need to cancel the impeachment session." He said, before pausing. "No, it won't be a state funeral. Do we have a waste incinerator handy?"

Anakin left him to get on with the process of organising the transfer of power, for the more important business of snuggling with Ahsoka. After a few moments, they followed the rest of the Jedi into an antechamber

"...We can't give him the damned job..." Mace said. "I agree that it would be a suitable punishment for this stunt, but he doesn't have the experience, and I can barely imagine what he'd do if his pizza order was late."

Ahsoka began spluttering with laughter at the look on Anakin's face.

"I'm not going to have any members of the Order in the upper echelons of government." Mace said. "We have different concerns. Ok, I suppose you can have the accountancy team, and the revenue inspectors."

Anakin couldn't entirely keep a straight face as he heard a Jedi Master attempting to offload the Jedi in charge of the prevention of purchase of anything unsuitable. As that usually included buzzweed, high performance sports airspeeders and scatterguns, it left him nonplussed, although he accepted that trying to put a ATT on his Jedi credit chip had been what is technically described as a piss-take. And that he had been three sheets, a mizzen topgallant and a flying jib to the wind when he put in the order.

It now occupied a spare hangar bay at the temple.

Ahsoka had been helping him retrofit a proper sound system and a system-level racing repulsorlift. They were also replacing the interior fittings with the contents of a luxury yacht with a similar sized main deck. He'd recovered the yacht from pirates and claimed it as salvage. They were also fitting a caf dispenser that hadn't been stolen from Galbucks, despite it carrying their livery, and having scars suggesting it had been lightsabered off of a wall.

They'd threatened to check the caf machine on the CSF systems when he tried to get hold of a hyperdrive ring.

"Yeah, and we'll let you have a whole bunch of Padawans as well." He said. "Internships for as many as we can send you, yeah?"

Anakin shook his head, before a small squad of CSF patrollers stepped into the room, looking out of place among the Jedi and clone Special Forces troops.

"Jedi Master Anakin Skywalker?" The leading officer asked.

Anakin nodded at him.

"It is my duty to inform you that you are under arrest for the murder of Chancellor Sheev Palpatine. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything that you do say may be taken down and given in evidence against you." The officer said.