Anakin's head was whirling as he got into the speeder.
The Chancellor was a Sith. Chancellor Palpatine was a Sith.
The man had been a close friend for – well, since Anakin had left Tatooine, really.
And he was a Sith.
It was… too big. There was too much to grasp.
Anakin backed his speeder out of the parking spot, turned to fly to the Jedi Temple, and yawned.
This led to him nearly crashing into an air lorry, and he skidded abruptly to a halt in mid-air before shaking his head and groaning.
"I can't believe it," he said, out loud.
He needed to speak to someone about this.
He should probably speak to Padme about this.
Turning the speeder, Anakin took the air way to their apartment instead, doing his best to concentrate on flying instead of on the fact that Palpatine was a Sith.
The door opened, and Anakin raised his voice.
"Padme?" he called.
"Ah!" C-3P0 said, coming in from one of the rooms leading off the entrance hall. "Sir, I am afraid that Mistress Padme is not currently in. She is involved in a meeting."
Anakin almost demanded to know if that meeting was with Obi-Wan, before shaking his head as he remembered that Obi-Wan was on Utapau.
"Should I… let her know you want to see her?" C-3P0 asked.
"No, Threepio," Anakin waved the offer off. "I'll just wait for her to get back. It's… something I need to think about before we talk, anyway."
"Oh, I see," C-3P0 decided. "Or, rather, I don't. But I'm quite used to such things. Do you want something to eat, Sir?"
Anakin waved that offer off as well. "No thanks. I'll just sit down."
He divested himself of his cloak, hanging it up on one of the hooks by the door, then went through to the main living area and sat down on the couch.
Within a few minutes, four days of no sleep had caught up with him, and he passed out.
Mace Windu glanced at the time – almost eight in the morning – and then flicked on his comlink.
The first comm code he called produced no reply, even after a wait of several minutes, and he frowned slightly before switching to a new combination.
That one, fortunately, produced a response almost immediately. Senator Padme Amidala answered the call.
"Master Jedi?" she asked. "This is Master Windu, yes?"
"That's correct, Senator," Mace confirmed. "I was wondering if you knew where Anakin was. I've called his comlink, and he hasn't answered."
"I don't know where he is, no, I've been involved in a meeting all night," Padme replied. "Master Jedi – did you know about the Abolition Act?"
Mace blinked.
"I'd heard of it, yes," he said. "So far as we're aware, it's a legal mechanism to try and dissolve the Jedi… we'd believed it was a scheme by Darth Sidious, an attack against the Jedi."
He glanced in the direction of the Council chamber. "That's one reason why Obi-Wan launched his attack on General Grievous on Utapau. We hoped to draw Sidious out."
"I don't know if that's what's going on, but the Chancellor just announced that the Abolition Act was coming up for a vote," Padme said. "I didn't have a clue why, but if Sidious is involved… do you think he managed to get to the Chancellor?"
"It's possible," Mace admitted. "When is the vote?"
"It's outside normal order, so… now," Padme answered.
Mace turned, striding to the doors of the council chamber, and Kit, Agen, Sasee and Coleman looked up from their seats as he entered.
"Something's happening," he said. "Senator, can you keep us updated?"
"I'll do my best, Master Jedi," Padme promised.
"How important?" Kit asked.
"As important as it can get," Mace replied. "The whole Order needs to hear this… I can feel it."
The vote counts began coming in, and Palpatine tried to suppress a nervous twitch.
He was having to improvise. Improvising in the end game was a difficult thing to do, especially when he had no idea why his gambit had failed.
What should have happened was that he would have his new apprentice, or he would have an open break with the Jedi Order… which would earn him his new apprentice anyway.
But as of now, he had neither. And without his new apprentice, he didn't have nearly as good an excuse for an open break with the Jedi Order… he could not very well have Anakin give his account of how the Council had been planning to bypass and replace the Chancellor.
If he was going to get his empire out of this, he needed that break. Order 66 could not take place without some kind of reason behind it, something he could point to, and yet it had to take place as soon as possible… the war was entering its final phase, and within days the Jedi would be returning home. Away from their loyal soldiers… away from their hidden assassins.
So be it.
If there was anything that would force a break with the Jedi, it was this. And, as the votes rolled in, Palpatine saw that he had managed it… at a great cost, but he had managed it.
At least four factions in the Senate had been persuaded that they had to vote in favour of the Abolition Act despite Palpatine's professed wishes to keep the Jedi around. Two of those factions had been persuaded by Palpatine himself arguing that their votes were necessary for political reasons, and that the Act would never pass anyway.
"The motion is carried," Mos Amedda declared.
"I bow to the wishes of the Senate," Palpatine announced. "And now that it is law, I am bound to carry it out. The Jedi Order will be dissolved, effective…"
Immediately? No. He needed enough time for them to act rashly, not enough time for them to think.
"...as of ten in the morning, today, Coruscant time," he decided.
The Senator for Naboo signalled to speak the instant it became possible, and her pod floated out into the central arena.
"I have a reply from Master Windu of the Jedi Council," she said, without preamble, and Mace Windu's holographic head appeared in projection from her systems.
"Sure," Master Windu said. "The war's basically over anyway."
Palpatine blinked.
"...what?" he asked.
"The war's basically over anyway," Mace repeated. "An hour to pack might be a bit tight, but I think we can fit everything into some of the freighters."
"Are you saying you're going to just leave?" Palpatine asked, not quite sure what he was hearing.
"Yes," Mace confirmed. "We have all been working very hard for years, often without much of a rest, and we would very much like a break. If you don't want to keep us around, we'll do it elsewhere."
The image wavered, and a second hologram appeared next to it.
"We're with you, Master Windu," Clone Marshal Commander Bly stated. "Voting's going on now, but I'm sure of it. All of us are – we quit. We're your army, not the Republic's, and that's how it should be… you won't waste our lives."
"You were listening in?" Mace asked, sounding amused.
"If it affects all the Jedi, it affects all of us," Bly declared. "And speaking for myself, Master Windu… we would very much like a break as well."
Palpatine was staring at the holograms.
"...you are all listening in?" he said, then decided he was never going to get an opportunity better than this one. "Initiate Order Sixty-Six!"
Commander Bly just looked confused.
"Chancellor?" he said. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"I'd like to know that myself," Senator Amidala admitted.
It took all of Palpatine's immense self-control to avoid reacting to that bit of news.
Hiding Order Sixty-Six in the biochips of the clones forming the Grand Army of the Republic was the greatest bit of deception and complex planning the Sith had managed in-
Palpatine's train of thought screeched to a halt, backed up, and examined the proper nouns involved.
...the clones weren't part of the Grand Army of the Republic any more, or of any direct successor organization involved. They'd quit.
Someone, presumably someone Kaminoan, had simplified the programming by using a function definition that didn't apply in this situation, and he was now buggered sideways with a lightsaber.
Anakin yawned, stretching, and his hands touched metal.
"Mwuh?" he asked, blinking a few times, then rolled over on their couch and fell onto a metal floor.
That got him the rest of the way awake, and he looked around with surprise.
He was on… a starship, with a blanket half-tangled in his legs. There were crates packed and stacked haphazardly around the bed he was on, and the quiet murmur in the Force of sentients elsewhere.
"Ah!" Threepio said, appearing at the door. "Master Anakin, sir. It is good to see you are awake. Shall I inform the rest of the Council?"
"What's going on?" Anakin asked, touching the hilt of his lightsaber. "Where am I?"
"I'm not an expert at hyperspace navigation, sir," Threepio replied. "That is more Artoo's department. But I believe we are about halfway between Coruscant and the Yavin system. A lot has happened since you fell asleep."
"Including me being moved into a spaceship?" Anakin asked.
"You were very deeply asleep, sir," Threepio confirmed.
"…you quit?" Anakin asked, ten minutes later, looking between the holographic forms of the other Councillors – and the half-dozen Clone Commanders who were also on the call. "All of you?"
"The Senate voted to disband the Jedi Order," Mace told him. "The Order's not part of the Republic, but it could have caused us a lot of problems. So… we left."
"Our ally, the Force is," Yoda said, nodding sagely. "Helped with packing, it did."
"The only thing we're not sure about yet is why the Chancellor said what he said, during the meeting," Rex told him. "We've been trying to work it out since we hit hyperspace. Politics in the Republic are very confused right now."
"I could… probably help with that," Anakin said. "Though I guess first I should say… is Padme okay? We're – we're married."
That resulted in a ripple of laughter through the call.
"We know, sir," Rex said.
"All of us," Mace agreed. "You moved in with her."
"It was actually causing a problem," Ki-Adi-Mundi informed him. "Students were asking if marriage was really not allowed or just that we were supposed to pretend it wasn't."
"Clearly the second option," Sasee opined. "Clearly."
"...do you also know that the Chancellor is a Sith?" Anakin said. "He told me."
"Okay, that is new," Obi-Wan admitted. "Perhaps we should tell your wife. She might find it useful to know."
