Assassin (A Star Wars Fan-Fiction) Book 4

Chapter Twenty-One

The attack came so quickly, Master Yoda was too disturbed, too shocked to react as quickly as he could have in a situation such as this. As if in slow motion, the little green alien watched in horror as the first youngling, a silly little yellow Twi'lek boy he recognized with a gap in his two front teeth, was shot and fell to his knees before hitting the ground, still as a stone. In the quick two seconds it took the old jedi master to ignite his lightsaber and reflect the bolts of blue back at their attackers, four younglings had already collapsed to the floor in motionless heaps.

"Get back!" Master Yoda leaped between Maris and a small human boy. Almost as quickly as the slaughter began, it was over when Yoda sent every shot made at him straight back to the sender, killing every clone trooper til the white-armored bodies lay among the smaller brown-clad ones. Small spouts of smoke rose from each corpse where blaster fire had struck their bodies, and not a single victim moved or made a sound. With his lungs heaving more from shock than exhaustion, the grand master of the Order felt his knees hit the floor and his green lightsaber blade disappeared back into its hilt.

One by one, Yoda's heart-broken gaze fell to each dead child, each youngling he'd taught and trained and cared for. The little Twi'lek boy...oh how he used to be the class clown, always trying to cheer up the kids around him when they were feeling blue, how he used to whistle with the gap in his teeth. The teacher wracked his brain to recall what the little scamp's name had been, but he just...

"M-m...Master?"

He turned around and saw his remaining two pupils, faces pale, eyes wide, arms wrapped around each other and huddled in the farthest corner of the room. The two students were quaking in fear and Maris's cheeks were streaked with tears of fright and sorrow at the sight of her classmates' murder. The blond human boy, who couldn't have been more than a year older than her, looked just as mortified with his lower lip quivering and hands gripping Maris's robe so tight they turned pure white.

The sound of screams and blaster-shots scraped through the room's open doorway like a savage animal, but they were background noise compared to the beeping of a wrist-comm attached to one of the dead clones' arm.

"Polar Squadron, report."

The even thudding of armored boots against the ground began to approach the classroom.

"Moth, report. Was your mission a success?"

"Master Yoda!" Maris pleaded desperately with the wail of a little girl knowing she was about to die if the jedi she looked up to couldn't think of a plan. "What do we do?"

He didn't know, there was no possible way he could've been prepared for such a drastic change, for such a rapid, downward turn of events....Turn of events...Events....Vents! He glanced around the room so fast a normal person would've gotten whiplash. It didn't take long for him to find it, a cooling-system vent near the ceiling at least fifteen feet up built into the wall. That would be their chance of escape.

"Quickly, children," With a wave of his hand, the metal grate fell from the new opening and clattered to the floor. "Jump. Lift you up to the vent, I will." The younglings obeyed, though still very frightened, and the boy nodded to Maris to jump first. Without objection, the little zabrak girl bent her knees, then leaped into the air as high as she could. With the aid of Master Yoda's force abilities, her hands managed to grab onto the edge of the vent and she wiggled her way into the small space. 

The blond boy was next, and although the trauma from the sight of his friends being shot down was still apparent on his face, he jumped and Maris grabbed his hand once Master Yoda lifted him high enough. 

"Moth, report!"

At first, Yoda thought the voice was coming from the dead clone's comm-link again. But it was too clear, too real. Too close. As soon as Maris had helped her friend all the way into the safety of the vent, the little green jedi leaped the fifteen-feet it took to reach their exit and quickly extended his hand towards the metal grate.

Just as a whole other squad of clone troopers entered the classroom, Yoda silently pulled the piece of metal back over the opening, then followed the two younglings through the maze of ventilation shafts.

**********

It was twenty minutes before 3PO and R2 got to Padme's apartment with her sleek, silver ship. Twenty minutes longer than Anakin would've liked, but he couldn't complain. At least they had a ship in the first place. After the jedi hid the clone bodies in one of Padme's multiple closets, he pressed a button on his comm-link to signal his wife and Bail that the droids had brought their means of escape and were ready to go.

When Padme and Senator Organa returned, they had the blue-skinned Senator Riyo Chuchi of Pantora and Senator Mon Mothma of Chandrila in tow.

"They're arresting senators," Bail began as the four of them quickly made their way up the ship's ramp and took seats in the passenger's hold. "Anyone who's even just spoken to a jedi in the last twenty-four hours is being brought in for questioning."

"They're shooting anyone who refuses as well," the Pantoran senator added with an angry hiss. "They killed my assistant who answered the door when I wasn't there. She told them I was in a meeting and that I'd be back in a minute, but they... they didn't believe her." Riyo took a deep breath to try and calm herself, but they all knew just how much pain she must've been in. "Then they just left her in my apartment for me to find when I got back."

"We tried to convince others to come," Bail started again while Anakin was flying the ship into the city traffic and away from the Senate building. "But they were too scared of getting caught and killed for trying to run."

There was a long moment of sullen silence, the only sounds being the whirring of the ship's engine and the city life outside, before Bail spoke again.

"We need to head for Mustafar."

"Mustafar?" Anakin questioned with a puzzled expression on his face. A request like that was certainly out of the ordinary, especially when it came to a man like him. "Out of all the planets you want to escape to, you want to go there? Why?"

"Because Master Fisto, Master Kota, and I have all agreed to take one of Denali's triplets. And that is where we decided to meet."