Star Wars: From the Clone Wars to Starfaring Heroes

Chapter 302 - The Force's Lament (Part 300)

Thorne never intended to engage in a prolonged battle with the Jedi.

He quickly switched communication channels, his tone cold and hard: "This is Thorne, requesting flamethrower support, to be delivered to the Thousand Springs area immediately."

At this moment, Master Sin Delarig was leading the temple guards in a desperate resistance, every second of delay giving the fleeing group above a better chance of survival.

Barris led the charge, her green lightsaber flashing coldly, and the first clone soldier to rush in from around the corner was instantly cut down.

Behind her, Jedi Knights formed a protective vanguard, spreading out in a fan shape to intercept the enemy.

Apprentices and caregivers then lead the young children through a wide passageway and up the stairs.

Their target was the Temple hangar, their only way out.

The children clung tightly to their caregivers' robes, the youngest being held in the arms of a nurse and a medical robot.

Someone sobbed softly, their cries muffled by their robes and lost in the cacophony of explosions.

Others stared wide-eyed in silence, their innocence stripped away by fear in just one day.

"We're almost there!" Paris shouted, her voice trembling slightly, whether to encourage herself or to reassure the panicked child beside her.

Just as they were moving toward the top of the steps, toward the outer layer of the pyramid, the roar of engines suddenly erupted.

Dozens of LAAT attack helicopters circled above the temple spire, while proton torpedoes bombarded the armored doors of the hangar.

This desperate situation, where survival was at stake, naturally became the focus of attacks.

A bombing raid shook the pyramid structure, and the fallen Dura steel scaffolding blocked the route to the secondary hangar.

Another wave of attacks struck the base of the Reconciliation Tower, causing the spire to break off from its foundation. Stones groaned as they collapsed, and moored flags were torn apart and twisted as they fell toward the hangar area.

Just as Paris was about to issue a warning, the shockwave swept in, knocking everyone to the ground.

Smoke and dust filled the air, obscuring the light of the sea of ​​fire above.

"Get up!" she said firmly, helping her badly injured apprentice to his feet. "We must move on!"

"Where can we go?!" the apprentice cried out in despair. "There's nowhere to go!"

“To the next hangar.” Shaktie’s brow furrowed. “We can only pray it hasn’t been blown up yet.”

A hundred floors below them, the garden of the Thousand Springs Chamber was engulfed in flames.

The waterfall that once brought tranquility has turned into scalding steam, hissing in the flames and rising amidst thick smoke.

The water in the pool boiled, and the rising steam swirled like a giant cloud.

The trees crackled and popped, their leaves curling into ashes.

The stone slabs, polished smooth by thousands of years of flowing water, cracked and shattered under high temperatures.

Sin Delalig could clearly feel the oxygen in the air being consumed by the flames, making each breath increasingly difficult.

The Jedi around them must fight against clone troop soldiers and defend against fire.

The high temperature pressed in from all directions, and the sweat on the skin was immediately evaporated into water vapor as soon as it seeped out. The long robe was soaked with sweat, and the edges were already steaming.

Some people collapsed from exhaustion, their bodies curled up, their fingers weakly scratching their throats, but they didn't even have the strength to call for help.

But the clone troop, clad in vacuum-sealed armor, continued their relentless advance.

The temple guards are still fighting, emerging from the smoke, knocking down soldiers, and then disappearing back into the burning mist.

But for every clone soldier that falls, three more take their place. The guards are outnumbered and outgunned, and the Force has little time left to sustain them.

Outside Thousand Springs, the Jedi Temple was suffocating from the inside.

Thick smoke billowed outwards, so thick it was suffocating, flowing along the corridor, covering the thousand-year-old murals and inscriptions, and shrouding the golden walls in soot.

The Jedi Guardians who had scattered to lure away the clone troopers were now staggering blindly in the acrid smoke, coughing incessantly.

Some people were trapped in a closed meditation room, scratching at the door in vain, as thick smoke accumulated much faster than they could find a way out.

Deep within the archives, Master Yocasta Nu, alone with her sword, lured an entire clone trooper squad into a holographic shelf of ancient books.

She had intended to use the labyrinth of knowledge to buy time, but when thick smoke enveloped the area first and the heat became unbearable, she realized her mistake.

After hours of fierce fighting, the chief librarian collapsed in a corner strewn with corpses, his lungs heaving violently, his throat burning and bleeding profusely, and his blood-stained lightsaber slipping from his hand.

With her last ounce of strength, she pulled an inconspicuous detonator from her robe.

The clone soldiers had arrived, their blaster muzzles pointed at her.

A distant explosion came from the direction of the Thousand Springs Chamber; it was the final counterattack launched by the last guardians of the temple amidst the flames.

Sin Delarig's lightsaber still traced an emerald arc, parrying fire, severing blasters, and splitting through armor.

Only a handful of temple guards remained around him, their white masks stained with soot and blood, flames licking around them, scorching their robes and skin.

Another Jedi was knocked down by the shockwave of the explosion, and his body was instantly engulfed by the sea of ​​fire.

The air had run out, and Sin Delalig's lungs burned with pain, his vision blurring and distorting in the heat.

At that moment, a flat, indifferent voice came through the clone soldier's helmet speaker: "Found him."

The last Temple Guardian of the Milky Way fell on the burning earth.

……

Inside the cockpit of the Royal Sinaga, Vinok watched as Coruscant's crystal and steel silhouette drew ever closer.

This planet, which he once called home, is now both familiar and strange, with endless noise and bustle surging beneath it.

He couldn't remember the last time he set foot on Coruscant, so long ago that he had no attachment to the planet.

When he left, he stood at the top of the transfer tower and felt as if he was being suffocated by the mountain that was the temple.

No matter how much the Transfer Committee promotes the honor of the Jedi Service Corps, every Jedi prodigy understands the truth.

Being sent to a service corps meant failure.

During your apprenticeship, you devoted yourself to learning the Way of the Force, and the high walls of the temple were your entire world. However, you ultimately failed the trials, and no warrior or master was willing to take you as an apprentice.

You will never become an apprentice, let alone a knight, and you are not even worthy of the title "Jedi".

"Missing home?" asked "Empress Illala Lota" beside her curiously.

“Not at all,” Vinok said wistfully. “I was just thinking what things would have been like if things hadn’t been the way they were back then.”

"If it were me, and someone who had forgotten you called for your help, I would probably harbor resentment." The Queen nodded slowly.

“Maybe when I was young, but not now.” Vinok smiled. “Older apprentices understand that the work of the service is just as respectable, even more meaningful than being a Jedi Knight… They serve the people directly, rooted in the grassroots. But we were just kids back then, instilled with the idea that ‘the galaxy is in our grasp,’ thinking that becoming a knight would allow us to travel freely among the stars, only to be brutally crushed by reality.”

As the HMAS Royal Sinaga continued its descent, armed helicopters from the Coruscant Guard first intercepted it, then switched to an escort formation.

Through the porthole, one could already see the plumes of smoke rising from the Senate district.

“Your Highness, thank you for granting this absurd request.” Vinok turned to the little girl beside him.

“I was born to do my job.” She shrugged. “As a stunt double, this rescue was the most exciting thing I’ve ever done. I’m the one who should be saying thank you.”

“Without your cooperation, we wouldn’t have gotten this far.” As soon as Vinok finished speaking, the Queen suddenly froze, her eyes widening as she fixed her gaze on the distance.

The Jedi Temple was ablaze, thick smoke billowing from every broken window, like a giant black serpent coiled around the ancient pyramid structure.

The five spires that once stood proudly are now just charred skeletons, one of which has completely collapsed, its remains piled up into a ruined cemetery.

Armed helicopters hovered like flies drawn to carrion, their searchlights piercing the twilight.

On the ground, clone troop forces advanced through the shattered main gate, their white armor gleaming in the orange glow of the flames.

The power of the dark side is rampant here, and Vinok can clearly feel his connection to that power.

An atmosphere of intertwined despair and ecstasy overwhelmed his senses, like the sultry heat before a rainstorm and the harbinger of lightning.

He heard the despair of the victims and the triumph of the perpetrators echoing in the air, like an unhealable scar.

The Queen was the first to regain her senses and approached to report: "Captain Chom has sent word that they have been attacked by the home fleet."

Vinok suddenly looked out the porthole at the guard helicopter.

"So fast?" He pondered for a moment, then quickly gave the order, "Have Chom hold back the home fleet until the rescue is complete. Then we'll speed things up, start marking the evacuation zone, and get the robot forces ready."

"Understood. So, how should we deal with the Coruscant guards?"

"Plan an evacuation route and retaliate."

Three hundred billion kilometers away, two sister ships are leading a remnant fleet of 32 frigates and destroyers straight toward the enemy's heartland.

Radar from the Separatist-class starship USS Lexington indicated that more than 60 Republic starships were rapidly approaching, giving the enemy overwhelming superiority in both numbers and firepower.

However, the warships under the command of the "Lexington" were rusty. They were the remnants of the "White Hand Fleet," captured and held captive in Comenore many years ago. Now they had been forcibly awakened, but they were far from being ready for combat: insufficient fuel, running out of ammunition, engine rooms in disrepair, and questionable system stability.

[Received short pulse signal, source CND_11310RV]

[Initiating the Handshake Protocol]

[From CND_11310RV]

[Access to Navy Encryption Key Wheel]

[Decoding the Conversation]

[From CND_Saratoga_1310RV] Connection established, extraction zone demarcated.

[Sent to CND_Saratoga_1310RV] Received.

[From CND_Saratoga_1310RV] Target will arrive in 12 minutes. Please advise. [Sent to CND_Saratoga_1310RV] Execute standard intercept procedure. Retreat and infiltrate.

[From CND_Saratoga_1310RV] Received, maneuvering in progress.

The USS Lexington and USS Saratoga suddenly shut down their engines and slowly "retreat" into the fleet formation behind them, blending in with the other separatist ships.

From a distance, it is impossible to distinguish these two warships, equipped with robotic crews, from ordinary ships.

While the "White Hand Fleet" uses sacrificial tactics to tie down the Coruscant home fleet, they will execute a daring micro-hyperspace jump, diving directly into the Coruscant atmosphere.

Typically, faster-than-light engines have built-in safety mechanisms that automatically evacuate hyperspace once they detect large-mass shadows such as planets to avoid collisions.

But for robots that have complete control of the ship, shutting down these mechanisms is just a matter of a string of code.

Even so, few organic crew members dare to attempt this operation.

To complete the evacuation directly above the planet's surface while avoiding being swallowed by the planet's massive shadow, the precision required is comparable to threading a needle for the first time, and the number of variables that need to be calculated far exceeds that of a normal hyperspace jump.

Fortunately, there were no organic cells on the two giant ships, the Lexington and the Saratoga, which were over a kilometer long, so there was no fear or error on the part of humans.

[From CND_Saratoga_1310RV] The enemy has intercepted the "White Hand Fleet"! Preparing to execute a micro-jump, do you agree?
The interplanetary navigation computers of the two warships were synchronized and data streams were running at high speed to ensure that they could accurately enter the same hyperspace tunnel.

They have only one goal:
Galaxy City, Senate District, airspace surrounding the Jedi Temple.

[Reply to CND_Saratoga_1310RV] Agreed, proceed with the jump.

……

Paris's team finally arrived at a hangar and rendezvoused with Master Jourok's evacuation team.

Jurok's team arrived first, while the reason Barris and her group survived was precisely because they were still on their way when the original target hangar was destroyed.

Perhaps, this is a stroke of luck.

This hangar has witnessed the comings and goings of countless diplomatic envoys, Jedi and supply ships on missions, and beneath its bright durasteel dome, the hum of engines and the conversations of personnel are ever-present.

But now, all that's left is a mess.

Thick smoke clung to the Dura steel truss like a spider web, and the emergency lights at the edge of the tarmac flickered in the acrid fog, casting pale orange-red patches of light.

Starfighters, airships, and old Jedi shuttles stood silently on the launch platform; some were still operational, while others had completed their final pre-launch checks.

But a cruel reality is before us.

The number of Jedi flooding into the hangar far exceeded expectations, making the standby shuttle queue look extremely thin, with people crowding around the fuselage waiting to evacuate.

“Master Sin Delalig has bought us time.” Shak T. pointed to the blast door deep inside the hangar… The crackling sound of burning came from behind the door, and outside, the footsteps of the Coruscant guards were getting closer and closer. “But it’s only a matter of time before they break through the blast door.”

"What about the other evacuation teams?" Barris grabbed Jurock's arm and pressed, "Have they reached their respective hangars? Is there any communication?"

Zhu Luoke shook his head, his face full of exhaustion: "The clone troopers are jamming all communication channels. We can't contact anyone outside the hangar and we don't know the situation of the other squads."

Paris looked around.

The shuttle's cockpit and cabin were packed with people, and the young Jedi apprentices clutched their mentors' robes, their eyes filled with fear.

The weary apprentices huddled together in small groups, discussing their unknown fate in hushed tones.

The warriors formed a defensive line at the main gate, their lightsabers already lit, their emerald green, azure, and crimson lights intertwining, their eyes fixed on the trembling durasteel blast door in the distance.

Each tremor meant the enemy was one step closer.

There are too many people and too few boats.

A pale-faced Jedi stepped forward, his lips trembling as he spoke.

Paris didn't need to listen; just by looking into his eyes and at the crowded shuttle, she knew he was bringing bad news.

"All the ships are full," the samurai said in a desperate voice. "There isn't enough space to accommodate everyone here."

These words echoed like a death knell in the hangar, plunging everyone into a deathly silence.

Who stays? Who leaves?

Paris suddenly remembered what the Atlantean girl holding her younger brother had said many years ago.

"Protect the children first, then protect the people who can protect them."

The answer became clear to her instantly.

"Everyone, get off, empty the shuttle, and board again." Barris stepped forward, her tone firm and unquestionable. "Boarding order: first apprentices and trainees, then caregivers and mentors, then ordinary warriors, and finally Jedi Masters."

Jurok froze, instinctively retorting, "Without the Master, could the Jedi Order survive? Who will guide these children in the future?"

“Preservation?” Shakti’s voice rang out, perfectly capturing the unspoken thoughts of Barris. “What we are doing now is not preserving the lost Order of the Jedi, but preserving the future of the Jedi. We are not the future, these children are.”

All eyes were on the young apprentices beside the shuttle.

The youngest child had just learned to walk and had no concept of the danger before him; he simply clung tightly to the legs of the person next to him.

The slightly older children understood a bit, but could only suppress their fear and dare not cry out loud.

“The Force is a gift. We have already opened it and used it.” Barris’s voice was soft, yet it carried a power that pierced the heart. “These children haven’t. We owe their parents, we owe the entire Order, to let them live and witness the meaning of this gift.”

Jurok closed his eyes and remained silent for a moment. When he opened them again, the struggle in his eyes had disappeared, leaving only determination: "Alright. But at least a master will be needed to escort them... There are very few Jedi left on Coruscant. We don't know the situation in other parts of the galaxy. We must make sure these children survive the journey after leaving the hangar."

“The only Jedi Council member known to be still alive is Master Shakti,” Barris said, looking at Master Togrutta beside her.

Without hesitation, Shaktie nodded and said, "If this is a necessary responsibility, I will take it on."

Zhu Luoke turned and shouted at the throng: "Everyone get off the shuttle! Reboard in order, children first, apprentices next! Find your own care group, don't make a mess!"

Just as the youngest children were being carried onto the shuttle, a piercing cutting sound came from the blast door deep inside the hangar...

The clone troopers' plasma cutter is destroying the door lock, and Durasteel groans in pain under the intense heat.

The warriors at the main gate gripped their lightsabers tightly, their breathing becoming rapid.

Shakty was the last to board the shuttle. Standing at the door, she looked back at Paris: "You come on up too, we can squeeze in one more person."

“My mission isn’t finished yet.” Paris smiled and shook her head, walking toward the lever controlling the hangar gate. “Let’s hurry up, don’t waste time.”

Shaktie wanted to say something more, but seeing the unwavering determination in Barlis's eyes, he simply nodded: "May the Force be with you."

"And I am with you."

Paris took a deep breath and pulled the lever down sharply.

The old gears creaked and groaned as the massive hangar doors slowly opened, revealing the amber-colored twilight sky of Coruscant.

She braced herself for a barrage of clone trooper missiles... but the sight outside the door stunned her.

The Coruscant Guard's LAAT attack helicopters have disappeared, replaced by a sky full of fighting.

Next to each red-painted LAAT, three vulture robots were locked in combat.

Beside each turning AT-TE walker, two C-9799 transport ships broke through the stratosphere and dropped their robot legions.

Beside each assembled clone army camp, five robot units were attacking... The separatist army had actually arrived!
One of the separatist destroyers flashed its navigation lights three times vertically, as if sending a signal.

Paris suddenly realized... it was the "Lexington" and the "Saratoga"!
They successfully infiltrated!
Two years ago, the words of that Atlas girl surfaced in her mind and took the form of a single word.

hope.

She took a deep breath, calm and resolute.

Hope is never a gift that falls from the sky, nor is it a natural law or an ironclad rule of the universe. Rather, it is something that is created by those who are stubborn, desperate, and foolish enough not to give up.

She was fully aware of the cost when she embarked on this mission.

Paris gazed at the setting sun, and at the vast, unknown space beyond the galaxy.

There, the survivors of this destroyed Jedi will scatter like embers in the wind, to forge their own futures.

A longing flashed through her mind; she wanted to witness new possibilities with them and participate in shaping the future.

But she turned away.

The firelight of the temple overshadowed the afterglow of the setting sun.

The air was thick with the stench of burnt stones and flesh, mixed with the smell of ozone and thick smoke.

The temple, which has stood for thousands of years, is now being torn apart by flames and bursts of energy, screams and death intertwined, and the lightning of lightsabers flickering in the amber firelight.

Darkness completely enveloped everything.

She once vowed to burn down the old world and usher in a new order.

The old world has not yet completely collapsed.

Paris Orpheus raised her hand to bid a final farewell to the departing shuttle, then lowered it.

The first shuttle slowly ascended into the air, its engines spewing blue flames.

Then came the second, the third... Under the cover of the separatist warships, they flew away from the temple and gradually disappeared into the fireworks sky of Coruscant.

The blast door behind them shattered with a deafening roar, and the clone troop assault team surged into the hangar, the energy beam instantly leaving a red trail in the air.

Paris turned around and lit the lightsaber in her hand... The azure flames roared in her palm, precisely deflecting a stray bullet.

As she turned around, she had already stepped back into that inferno of smoke and fire.

The old world has not completely collapsed.

Her battle is not over yet.

(End of this chapter)