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“Give us the Jedi, and nobody gets hurt,” Cody said calmly. It was the sort of calm that you could only get after two days of no sleep and the fried neuron aftereffects of brainwashing, the sort of calm necessitated by Force nonsense, the sort of calm that was really just mania wrung through a wringer of exhaustion and out the other side.
But it was still technically calm, and that was important in negotiations.
The holofigure of Supreme Chancellor Valorum that had been projected onto the deck of The Negotiatior blinked at him a little helplessly. “I’m sure whatever grievance you have can be better settled by going through the proper channels. If you would just tell us what you want – “
It was all said very politely. Cody had learned over the past few hours that people tended to be very polite when you surrounded Coruscant with what was currently the undisputed largest space armada in the galaxy.
They did not, however, accept that you meant what you said.
“We want the Jedi,” Cody repeated. “Now.”
Valorum’s gaze was caught by something off-screen. Someone prompting him, maybe, because he came back with a new idea. “Which Jedi?” he asked sounding a little defeated. “There are over ten thousand of them, and some of them aren’t even on-planet.”
Cody’s lip curled a little.
It was what they wanted, of course, but even the suggestion that there were some Jedi that it might be acceptable to give up as sacrificial offerings . . .
Well. It was half the reason they needed to do this in the first place.
“Not a specific Jedi,” Cody clarified. “All of them. From the shinies to the Council.”
Valorum’s jaw dropped. “ . . . shinies?”
“The little ones.”
To his credit, Valorum’s first reaction was to start to say, “Absolutely not – “ before he remembered that Cody was currently threatening an orbital bombardment of his planet.
Cody wouldn’t actually give the order. He didn’t think he would, at least. It was hard, at the moment, to be sure what he would or wouldn’t do, with the adrenaline still pumping through his veins and the blood still drying in his ears and his fingers still twitching with the memory of what he’d done.
What they’d all done.
There was an aching, frozen place pulsing in his head where the orders had come from, where he’d felt something scream –
(There had been a moment of utter wrongness.)
(Will stripped from a million minds twisted to betrayal. Ten thousand voices going silent in a single moment.)
(There had been a shockwave in the Force.)
(And then it had screamed for its children.)
(They had been killed before. Devastated before.)
(But never so quickly. Never so completely.)
(And the agony it cannot keep from spreading is deafening. Those with even the slightest hint of the Force recoil from it, slamming closed the walls of their mind with a strength that will scar them forever.)
(Those who are young, tiny in its embrace, cannot bear it. They have no shields. No strength.)
(It is maddening. Fatally so.)
(And another thousand voices join the cry.)
(It is screaming, and there is no one who can hear it, so it reaches out and out and outoutout until it touches the minds that have lingered so close to its favorite minds, the ones who went dark, the ones who took them away - )
(And it howls Listen, and it tears its way into their minds, and it finds a foreign presence, dark and twisted, and it throws it out, throws it away, and says, Ḷ̷̡͇̪̎̅͛͑̃̔i̴̧̺̟̱͔̤̩̭̝̫̹͓̾͒̑͐͑̌̀̍̈̓͘s̴̡̞̥̮̬͈̙̟̻̮̰͕͖̹̱̈́͌͐̌́̌͆̈́͒͑͗̇͠t̶̢̧̛̤͌̄̆ͅe̴̹͕̬̼̠̳̿͗̈́̈́͆͛̍̄́̚͠͝ǹ̶̨̢̙͙̲̟̻̣͖̤͔)
The very fabric of the air had been screaming, freezing, tearing them apart and putting them back together like piecework dolls, wailing wrongwrongwrong –
And then they were here. And they knew what they had done.
(There is blood. There are shots scattered throughout the ship and there is blood.)
(And then someone sees a chronometer, and everything . . . stills.)
It was Force nonsense of some variety, they were all sure of that much. They were just more . . . centralized to it than usual. Since the usual vict-proponents of it had been . . . unavailable.
Which was unacceptable. Generally, and to them specifically, and apparently also to the Force itself.
He wouldn’t give the order. Not while there were children on the planet. Not while there were still brothers on the planet. Not while there were still Jedi on the planet. He was sure of that much.
But he had a couple million brothers who had a bone to pick with the senate and who wouldn’t mind it fighting it out hand to hand if it came to that.
Valorum finally hit upon a decent question. He asked, “Why?”
Cody had lots of answers to that one.
Because they were the only ones in the whole galaxy to treat us like people and care if we died. Because they tried so hard to make sure we didn’t die.
Because we ended up repaying that with betrayal, and whoever set that up is still out there and can’t have the chance to try again.
Because if they stay here, they’ll keep breaking themselves trying to do their best for your cesspit of a galaxy, and you’ll blame them for breaking and blame them for not fixing everything and never ever think to put the blame a little closer to home.
Because I’m not that good anymore, if I ever was. I can’t keep fighting for a Republic that does that, and it may make me the villain of this piece, but there is blood on my hands that will never wash off no matter what the Force does to time, and I don’t think it matters anymore.
Because I haven’t slept in three days, and this is the only way out I can see.
“Because we need their help,” he said.
It was true enough, in its way. They did need the Jedi if they were ever going to have a chance to sleep through the night ever again.
More importantly, it was the only thing he thought might work, the only thing that wouldn’t end in Jedi pouring aboard lightsabers first.
“I can’t – I’m not authorized to make this kind – “
“Authorized, am I,” a wizened voice piped up. “Talk, shall we? Hmm?”
“Master Yoda,” Cody said. Obi-Wan – the General had spoken highly of him. “We’ll talk.” He hesitated for a moment before allowing himself one indulgence. “I want Gen-Master Kenobi to be part of the discussions.”
Master Yoda’s ears twitched. “Master, Kenobi is not. Padawan, Kenobi is.”
That was right. Still a shiny. Still with his own buir alive.
He had talked of him a little, after Naboo. Cody had seen the grief still etched in him all those years later.
Another thing they could fix.
“I want him,” Cody repeated firmly. “Master Jinn can also be part of the discussions if it will make Padawan Kenobi more comfortable.”
“Hmm,” Master Yoda said again, squinting at him a little. “And Master Windu, perhaps.”
Ponds had said something about Windu once. Something about the man seeing shatterpoints, points of significance in the Force.
Cody heavily suspected that every single one of his brothers would look like twice cracked windows.
“Windu’s fine,” he said. Ponds would be pleased. “And Skywalker.”
Master Yoda’s head tilted. “Know not Skywalker, do I.”
. . . and they were too early for Skywalker. Fantastic.
Hopefully Rex would know where to find him. They’d already been on one kidnapping expedition, after all. What was one more?