Yeah, late again, not even gonna talk about why, anyway, today's a chapter, and tomorrow a chapter, and Im gonna try and pump out next week's chapters on Saturday, cause Im on vacation this next week.
P@treon has been updated as well.
Yall should be getting into the next arc after tommorow, its kinda slow at first, but is super fun after a minute. Anyway, enjoy
P@treon Hermit47
...
Weeks had passed since Vel Astra, but Luminara Unduli had not found peace with it.
The Jedi Council chamber was half empty again.
War had made absence ordinary.
Only a handful of Masters were physically present in the high circular room: Yoda in his central seat, Mace Windu sitting rigid and grim beside him, Plo Koon quiet behind his mask, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, whose presence on the Council still seemed new enough that some of the chamber's old silence had not yet adjusted to him. Other seats held blue holograms instead of bodies. Shaak Ti appeared from Kamino, her image occasionally wavering with distant interference. Kit Fisto's projection shimmered faintly from some fleet command post. Ki-Adi-Mundi's holo sat in his proper place, hands folded and expression severe.
The rest of the seats remained empty.
Some Masters were fighting. Some were negotiating. Some were recovering. Some had not answered the call at all because the war had swallowed their time, their fleets, or perhaps something worse.
Luminara stood in the center of the chamber in her dark robes, green face calm, posture perfect. Only someone who knew her well would have noticed the anger beneath the composure.
She had finished the official debriefing without interruption.
Vel Astra's Prime Minister had been found dead. The royal household had been killed during the palace assault. Several nobles connected to the conspiracy had died as well. The Republic had retained control of the refinement formula and hyperspace junction. Public reports blamed a Separatist assassination network. The planet had not fallen into civil disorder. The war effort had benefited.
The facts arranged themselves cleanly.
The truth underneath them did not.
Luminara lifted her chin.
"I recommend that General Skywalker be formally reprimanded," she said. "Furthermore, I recommend that Oblivion Cell be dismantled immediately and its surviving personnel removed from active operations pending investigation."
For a moment, the chamber did not answer.
It was not surprise, exactly. That was what unsettled her most.
The silence that followed her words was not the silence of Masters hearing the unthinkable. It was the silence of people hearing something reasonable that they already knew could not be done.
Mace Windu's expression darkened.
Obi-Wan looked down briefly, hands folded before him.
Plo Koon remained motionless.
Yoda's ears lowered slightly.
"Dismantle it," Yoda said at last, voice grave, "we cannot."
Luminara turned toward him. "Cannot, Master Yoda? Or will not?"
The question sharpened the air.
Mace answered before Yoda could.
"Cannot," he said. "Not in any practical sense."
Luminara's gaze shifted to him. "Oblivion Cell entered an active Republic protection assignment, killed officials and nobles under Jedi guard, attacked clone troopers, and removed a prisoner from my custody under threat of executive authority. If that does not justify action from this Council, then what does?"
"It does justify action," Mace replied. "It does not guarantee power."
That answer visibly dissatisfied her.
Plo Koon leaned forward slightly, his voice carrying through the chamber with its familiar filtered calm. "Oblivion Cell operates under the direct authority of the Supreme Chancellor. Select members of this Council were made aware of its existence because the alternative was allowing the unit to exist entirely outside Jedi knowledge."
Luminara's eyes narrowed. "So we accepted partial blindness and called it oversight."
Obi-Wan looked up at that, and for the first time since she began, he spoke.
"I don't think anyone here is pleased by the arrangement."
"No?" Luminara asked. "Then perhaps someone should explain why it remains an arrangement at all."
Mace exhaled slowly. "Because the Chancellor values it. Because the Republic needs what is necessary. Because the war has created circumstances in which tools like this become attractive to people who don't have to see them used."
"And because," Plo added quietly, "by the time the Council understood how far the program had developed, dismantling it would have required open confrontation with the Chancellor during wartime."
Luminara stared at him. "Then we have allowed fear of politics to become doctrine."
Shaak Ti's hologram flickered as she leaned forward.
"There are other factors," she said gently, though not softly. "Jango Fett and Kal Skirata remain vital to the training of specialized clone units. Their influence is complicated, but effective. The Alpha-class ARC troopers and Null ARCs cannot simply be placed back into ordinary command structures. They were not made for that. Some of them would refuse it. Some would break under it. Some would become more dangerous without a defined purpose."
Luminara turned to the blue-lit image of the Togruta Master. "So we give them targets instead."
Shaak Ti's expression tightened. "We give them structure."
"They murdered Republic personnel."
"They eliminated traitors during an active Separatist transfer operation," Mace said.
Luminara's eyes cut to him. "Without trial."
"With authorization."
"That does not make it just."
"No," Mace said, and the admission was heavy. "It makes it legal under wartime emergency powers."
The distinction seemed to disgust him even as he said it.
Luminara heard that.
It did not make the answer easier to accept.
Kit Fisto's projection shimmered as he spoke, his usual warmth subdued by distance and fatigue. "What happened on Vel Astra troubles all of us. But the planet remained in the Republic. The formula did not reach the Separatists. That's the argument the Senate will accept, whether we like it or not."
"The Senate does not know what happened," Luminara replied.
"And if it did?" Ki-Adi-Mundi asked from his flickering seat. "What then? Public outrage? Investigations during active war? Separatist propaganda claiming the Jedi oversee assassinations inside allied governments? The loss of Vel Astra anyway, not by betrayal, but by scandal?"
Luminara looked at him, disbelief mixing with anger now. "So the truth is too inconvenient."
"The truth," Mundi said, "is sometimes too unstable to release without preparation."
She shook her head once. "That sounds like something a politician would say."
For once, Ki-Adi-Mundi had no immediate reply.
Obi-Wan did.
"You have a right to be angry," he said.
Luminara turned toward him again.
His face was composed, but tired. More tired than she remembered him being before the war. "I've known Anakin longer than almost anyone in this chamber. I know what he is capable of at his best, and I worry about what he may justify at his worst."
"And yet you defend him."
"I'm not defending what happened," Obi-Wan said. "I'm saying that removing Oblivion Cell from him may not make the galaxy safer."
That brought the chamber back into silence.
Luminara studied him. "You believe he restrains them."
"I believe," Obi-Wan said carefully, "that many of the beings attached to that unit would be more dangerous without someone they respect. I don't like that Anakin commands them. I like even less the thought of them answering only to the Chancellor."
Mace's jaw tightened slightly, but he did not contradict him.
Plo Koon inclined his head. "Skywalker's relationship with them is not merely administrative. Fett, Skirata, the Alpha ARCs, the Nulls, the droids, and whatever other assets he has gathered around himself—they obey the structure because he is its center."
Luminara's voice lowered. "That is precisely what concerns me."
"It concerns us as well," Mace said.
"Then why does nothing change?"
This time Yoda answered.
"Changed, much has," he said quietly. "But not always in ways seen from outside."
Luminara looked at him.
Yoda's face seemed older in that moment, the lines of centuries deepened by the war and by knowledge he clearly did not enjoy carrying.
"Watch Skywalker, we do," he continued. "Trust him, in some things we must. Fear what grows around him, we also must. Easy, this balance is not."
"Balance?" Luminara asked. "Master Yoda, he commands one of the largest clone legions in the Republic, maintains a private fortress above Korriban, holds favor with the Chancellor, and now leads a secret execution unit with authority to kill Republic officials without public accountability. I do not see balance. I see a Jedi gathering powers no Jedi should possess."
The words settled over the chamber with uncomfortable force.
Nobody rushed to deny them.
That, too, told her enough.
Mace's voice came quieter than before. "You think we don't see it?"
Luminara met his gaze. "I think you see it and continue allowing it."
"We are fighting a galactic war."
"That cannot become the answer to every violation."
"It is not the answer," Mace said. "It is the pressure around every answer."
Shaak Ti spoke again, her projection wavering briefly before stabilizing. "If we moved against Oblivion Cell directly, the Chancellor would protect it. If we moved against Skywalker publicly, we would fracture military confidence in one of the Republic's most effective generals. If we tried to isolate the ARCs and Nulls, we might drive them toward men who would use them with less restraint."
Luminara's expression hardened. "You make it sound as though we are hostages to our own soldiers."
Mundi replied, "In some ways, the Republic is hostage to every weapon it creates."
That answer was bleak enough that even Kit Fisto's projection looked down.
Luminara took one step forward.
"And what of the Jedi Code? What of trial, restraint, accountability? Are those things only useful when they do not inconvenience the war?"
Plo Koon's voice was soft. "They matter because the war makes them difficult."
"Then why are we letting Anakin Skywalker decide when they can be discarded?"
Obi-Wan's eyes closed briefly.
When he opened them again, his voice was quiet. "Because sometimes he acts before the rest of us decide what we are willing to do."
It was not praise.
It was not condemnation.
It was grief.
Luminara heard that too, and it disturbed her more than anger would have.
Mace leaned forward.
"Your recommendation is recorded," he said. "And your concerns are understood. But this Council will not move to dismantle Oblivion Cell at this time."
Luminara's shoulders remained straight. "Then what will you do?"
"We'll review its deployment authority," Mace said. "We'll press for notification before operations intersect Jedi missions. We'll require clearer boundaries."
"Boundaries?" Luminara repeated. "For a unit designed to ignore them?"
Mace did not flinch. "It is as much as we can do for now."
Yoda's gaze rested on her. "Perfect, the answer is not. But prevent worse, it may."
Luminara looked around the chamber, from one tired face to another, and understood then that the decision had already been made long before she walked in.
Not because they agreed with Vel Astra.
Not because they were blind.
Because they were afraid of what might happen if they pulled one thread and the whole war tapestry began unraveling in their hands.
That did not comfort her.
It only deepened the wound.
"General Skywalker," she said slowly, "has been given control over the most dangerous soldiers in the Republic army. Soldiers who can kill Jedi-trained guards, bypass planetary security, and execute officials under our protection. If he ever turns from the path, if his judgment fails, if his loyalty shifts even slightly—"
"Then grave danger, we would face," Yoda finished.
The calmness of the admission chilled the room.
Luminara looked at him. "And still you allow it."
Yoda's ears lowered.
"Allow many things, war has forced us to," he said. "Like them, I do not."
Mace added, "Skywalker has kept them in line. That may be the only reason this unit has not already become something worse."
Mundi's holo flickered as he nodded. "It's unpleasant to say, but true. Oblivion Cell under Skywalker is dangerous. Oblivion Cell without him may be catastrophic."
Luminara held her silence.
For a long while, no one spoke.
Then Obi-Wan said, softly, "I know what you saw shook you."
Her gaze shifted to him.
"Ahsoka too," he continued. "And Barriss. You were put in an impossible position without warning. That should not have happened."
"No," Luminara said. "It should not have."
"I'll speak with Anakin."
That almost drew a bitter laugh from her, though she restrained it.
"Will he listen?"
Obi-Wan's expression turned faintly sad. "He may pretend not to."
Kit Fisto's voice carried from his projection, quieter now. "That is sometimes the most we get from Skywalker."
A trace of grim humor passed through the room and vanished quickly.
Luminara bowed her head, but only because the conversation had reached its end, not because she was satisfied.
"Then I hope, Masters, that your faith in his restraint is not misplaced."
No one answered immediately.
Perhaps because none of them could honestly promise it was not.
Yoda finally closed his eyes.
"Hope also, I do," he murmured.
Luminara turned and left the chamber.
The doors closed behind her with a low, heavy sound.
For a time, the Council remained silent.
Then Mace looked toward Obi-Wan.
"You said you'd speak with him."
Obi-Wan nodded.
"I will."
"And?"
Obi-Wan looked toward the empty seat where Anakin might have stood if the Council had ever truly known what to do with him.
"And," he said quietly, "I'll hope there's still enough of the man I know willing to hear me."
Yoda's eyes opened.
"Enough, there is," he said.
But this time, not even the Grand Master sounded entirely certain.