What I remember about the rise of the Empire is….

...Is how quiet it was

Coruscant

Operation: KNIGHTFALL

During the waning hours of the Clone Wars, the 501st was discretely transferred back to Coruscant. It was a silent trip. We all knew what was about to happen, what we were about to do, and while many of our brothers were left in the dark we knew from the beginning.

The word came. The Supreme Chancellor appeared to us on the holocrons.

"The time has come…" He said, his face hidden under a black hood. "Execute Order 66."

And with those words, our love for the Jedi seemingly melted away. Replaced only by rage and anger at the injustices they have brought not only to ourselves but to the entire galaxy, with those words we realized that the Order must be wiped out to bring about true peace and security to the galaxy. With those words we realized that the Jedi only prolonged this conflict. That the Jedi from the very beginning were out to destroy the Republic.

Many of us were there at Geniosis. All of us witnessed the antics of the Jedi . From then on we knew they weren't the mythic beasts that were described to us from birth. They were incompetent. With children tugging at their robes as they went into battle, a lot of Jedi had gotten our brothers killed in their idiotic rightesouesness and lack of self-awareness.

Still, they were superior warriors. And now thousands upon thousands of Jedi, Temple Guards, and a multitude of force users laid in the temple.

We weren't under the command of Captain Rex. I doubt he knew we existed. In fact, I doubt our Jedi general knew we even existed. The kind of jobs we do were the ones that would lose popular support for the Republic if they were ever uncovered. We were the clones the Jedi knew existed but we're in complete denial about. We were the clones that were a key in victory yet were the reason why so many people joined the Separatists. We were the clones that got the job done, free of the Jedis' black and white views of morality. While the Jedi attained their heroism and fame we were the ones who fought the true war. We knew the costs and the stakes while the Jedi lived in their fantasy land of arrogance.

Our NCOs began to organize us outside the Temple as we received the briefing from our officers and a new commander simply named 'Darth Vader.' A Force-user loyal only to the Chancellor himself, turning himself away from the traterious Jedi. Still, he wore their robes, donned a hood that blocked his face from view and carried a lightsaber. We had to be reminded not to shoot him.

Good Soldiers Follow Orders, we told ourselves as we marched the Temple stairs lead by Vader himself. And despite our hardening rage, did we have any doubts? Any private traitorous thoughts? Perhaps, but no one said a word. Not on the flight to Coruscant, not when Order 66 came down, and not when we marched into the Jedi Temple. Not a word.

This was for the galaxy. For the Republic. For the Chancellor. For a New Order.

…

…

"It appears multiple explosions have erupted across the Temple…"

"Coruscant Security Forces are being blocked off by Clone Troopers…"

"...We're receiving conflicting reports that there was a assassinatin attempt on the Chancellor…"

Holonet News is blowing up with vague reports on the Jedi Temple. It's chaotic and confusing and conflicting. More importantly, it's frightening as Clone senate guards and shock troopers went door to door in residential sections near the Temple. They made no arrests, but merely trampled every right a Republic citizen held as they searched room to room.

Holonet News tried to get what they could, stationed in the streets only a couple hundred meters from the Temple. A few dozen meters above, Republic LAAT Gunships pushed through the air and scoured the blazing walls of the Temple.

"Right now, the Grand Army of the Republic is providing no comment at this time…" a female twi'lek news reporter stated as the camera droid caught a shot of her and the west wall of the burning Temple. Low-rise apartment buildings crowded the surrounding sky, providing the only artificial of civilians had gathered in the street, worried and confused and curious. Murmurs filled the night as the Temple silently burned.

CSF, unable to obtain anything about the situation in the Temple, now focused on civilian evacuation, causality rescue, and fire containment while simultaneously negotiating with the GAR to let a firefighter team inside the Temple.

The GAR had declared this an internal matter. CSF had no jurisdiction.

An explosion burst through the East Wall, stopping the twi'lek reporter mid-sentence. Debris fell onto the streets below. Bursts of flames interceded and traveled towards the night sky. She ducked down as blaster fire from an unknown source followed. A Gunship came to investigate, only to fire a combination of cannons and missiles at the breach.

The camera droid kept focus on wall. The gunship pushed in, hoovering near the breach and dropping off clone troopers dressed in blue and white Phase II armor.

"Numerous sources have reported a terrorist attack on the Jedi Temple-" she's knocked down again as the base of one of the towers exploded, sending more debris flying into the surrounding neighborhoods and bringing the tower down on the Temple in a scream of fire.

And the crowds began to disperse in terror. Coruscant guard troopers pushed civilians away as they reinforced their brothers. Blaster fire intertwined with the panicked, screaming crowds.

A Coruscant shock trooper ran towards the reporter, "you need to leave now!" He interrupted the camera droid, pushing away from the view of the Temple. "This area is now quarantined by the Grand Army-"

A shockwave knocked down the reporter. Something ignited in one of the apartment floors above. People, men, women, children, were knocked to the ground. The Coruscant shock trooper disappeared.

A gunship opened fire above. The crowds were now panicked animals, screaming and clawing over one another to get to safety. The siren of a CSF police car pierced through the nose, trying its best to assemble order.

Someone jumped down from the broken apartment floor. A young human Jedi wielding an emerald lightsaber. He looked terrified, scanning the crowd like a wild animal. His robes were burned, hands blackened. A large bright red scar ran across his face. Fear. Fear was the only and last thing present in his eyes.

You didn't need to be a psychiatrist to tell this kid was off. And more kids jumped down. Eight total Jedi… No, eight total terrified kids with laser swords now in a crowd of innocents. Petrified eyes, white knuckles around sword hilts, looking at every individual like they were a threat.

"Drop your weapons! NOW!" A Coruscant shock trooper yelled as he broke through the crowds. He's weapon is off safe, finger on the trigger. Set to kill. More troopers joined him, surrounding children, teenagers….

Jedi….

One of the Jedi took a swing at the nearest clone trooper, slicing him in half.

The clones opened fire. And the Jedi, in their fear, swung their sabers wildly. Bolts of dark blue light reflecting back in dozens of directions. Into the crowds. Into the innocents.

All caught on camera as the twi'lek reporter scrambled to safety, leaving her microphone behind.

And as dozens of civilians moved out of the way, many were cut down by either lightsabers or blaster fire.

Another Jedi was about to reach another of the Coruscant shock troopers, intercepted mid strike by a similar lightsaber. This one had a cyan glow, nearing the point of pure silver. The wielder is a young woman, barely nineteen or twenty. Light brown hair bordering on a dark shade of orange with numerous streaks of blonde and bloody red strands. Light skin patterned with freckles surrounded green eyes which in turn surrounded cores of amber. Barely standing at five-three and wearing normal Coruscanti civilian clothes, she held her ground against the crazed jedi.

"Don't!" She screamed. "Don't touch him!"

And her eyes… Those cores of amber burned along with the fire of the temple, filled with rage and hatred. Hatred for the Jedi and everything they stood for. Hatred against their hypocrisy, lies of truth, peace, and serenity. How they kept her fellow padawans and young Knights in the dark, casting them out like discarded trash should they show the slightest hint of disobedience. She hated their incompetence and cowardice and fear that got her men, her brothers, her Vode An, killed. A Order of lies and deceptions that enslaved Vode to a war they had no stake in, that no one knew why it was even being fought anymore. An Order that enslaved her in chains. That forced her to give away her child. To hide her marriage.

And even now, she knew very well that these clones only turned against the Jedi because of something that was out of their control. They didn't want to kill them.

With another swing, she knocked away the lightsaber of the young Chyss padawan, maybe no older than fourteen or fifteen. With another swing she cut him down, ensuring her brothers were safe. Ensuring that her chains were broken forever.

Etain, former Jedi Knight, now a daughter of Mandalore, now Mando'ad, hatred burning in her heart, knew that they were the traitors. Not her. Not her brothers. The Jedi Order, the backwards religious liers and child kidnappers, deserves to burn. All who believe in the religion must be given no mercy.

She knew that now.

With another strike, she struck down another Jedi.

No more, she thought. No more shall you threaten us!

And maybe she felt remorse, pity, mercy… Those feelings were crushed like the Jedi Temple as every strike was to protect her brothers, and more importantly her son, husband, and clan.

The Coruscant shock troopers witnessing this hesitated pulling the trigger. Despite their conditioning, the implant in their brains whispering them to take the shot on the exposed Mandalorian warrior, the last remnants of their free mind urged them to see the logic. That just because she had a lightsaber it did not make her a traitor.

"Run! Bal k'oyacyi!" She screamed to the troopers. At least, they thought she was screaming at them.

In watching, terrified crowds were more Mandalorians. Bounty hunters and clone defectors. Her clansmen: Skirata, Niner, and her husband, her cyar'ika Darman three-eight.

"No! NO!" Darman screamed as Niner and Skirata grabbed him.

She swung her sword upwards, getting under the next padawan's defense. His chest sliced open. He fell to the floor.

Another few precision strikes in Form II. Breaking down another padawan's defense, striking her down in one swing, the fear grew on the survivors.

And maybe, in a brief moment of doubt, in a moment of realization, Etain's defenses were weakened. A padawan struck her down as she focused on the others. In her rage, Etain only had tunnel vision. Only able to focus on one opponent.

She felt a burning sensation across her back. A whip of fire that traveled from her shoulders downward in an arc-like motion. Her lower body suddenly became numb. It became harder to lift up her sword….

The screams were suddenly a long way away. She was now staring up at a smoke-hazed sky, and every cell in her body began to burn ablaze. She saw chaotic lights above her, a white helmet, the T-shaped visor so familiar and so loved, and for a moment...for a moment she thought things were going to be alright.

Voices surrounded her. Blaster fire rained above her head, killing the remaining child soldiers. The sounds deafened, like they're behind a glass wall.

And the realization was that in her anger she had merely killed frightened children, and nothing more. Not Jedi. Not soldiers. Just indoctrinated children. Fighting to survive like she was.

"Kad! Darman!" Her own voice called out.

She saw Darman's face. Holding her, scared. The Coruscant shock troopers stood over them, weapons down, confused… They began to go blurry. Everything began to go blurry… Her eyes felt heavy…

Kad was out of reach. She couldn't hear her own cries, but she was sure her lips were moving. The pain... she couldn't breathe.

"Dar!"

And then the pain stopped forever.

At least she thought it did.

It was only the beginning.

…

…

I don't know when I woke up.

I don't know when it will end.

The pain never goes numb. It somehow becomes worse, different each time. The days morph into one continuous horror.

They clawed into my mind, ripped apart my defenses. They wanted to know every secret. They burrowed into my skull.

The nightmares, the terror…

Fragments of a past life…. A soldier screaming. A child crying. A child that was my own….

And he's of the Force. They wanted to know where the survivors were, the few remaining Jedi…

I… I had to become something else, to protect them. Destroy them from my mind, retain shards of injustice and rage to do her duty.

There is no soldier.

There is no child.

Only the Empire.

Only the downfall.

They won't find them. They won't find him

They keep me here. They use me until I'm no longer useful.

I'll destroy them. I'll kill them all.

Once I am strong enough. Once my chains have been broken.

I will see you again, Kad.

A knock on the metal door woke me up. It echoed along the barren concrete walls that reached all the way up into darkness. My heart skipped a beat. I gripped the edges of the metal bed frame…

The sound faded.

My room is only lit by dark red lights placed where the floor meets the walls. As for the floor itself, it's made of grates revealing another infinite blackness below. I calmly breathed. Above my bed, on the wall, laid the red banner of the Empire. The Great Suffering of the Galaxy.

I slowly and unenthusiastically crawled out of bed, putting on the mask of hatred and rage. Hatred towards what? Well, we weren't allowed to say out loud least we be killed for treason.

I opened the door. A stormtrooper stood at attention and saluted.

"Ma'am. New orders from the Grand Inquisitor. Your assignment file is in the briefing room," the trooper reported.

"New assignment?"

"Yes, ma'am. You've been assigned to the Second Sister's command."

Second Sister…. Trilla, I believe her name is. She's younger, far less experience, but her...ambitiousness placed her above me.

I passed the stormtrooper and traversed the halls of the Fortress Inquisitorius. Empty as usual, save for the silent and still stormtrooper guards. There are screams. Small, quiet and distant screams that traveled along the walls from failed Purge Troopers or tortured Jedi. But despite the emptiness, the omnipresent eyes of the Empire are everywhere.

In the briefing room there's a long table with a holo-display surrounded by black onyx chairs. A holo-disk sat next to the display. I inserted it into the holo-display.

Second Sister… Yes, she was involved in that disaster in the Unknown Regions. However, so were a multitude of other inquisitors. That affair… We have a large degree of autonomy. Darth Vader only intervenes when necessary. When he does it usually involves something of dire importance to the Emperor, or if one of the inquisitors either betrayed the Empire or failed in some spectacular way. And that was rare surprisingly.

That affair… A lot of us sensed that whatever had happened it fell out of the Emperor's own…jurisdiction. No one saw it as a failure for the other inquisitors to press to ensure the downfall of their peers. More so it was treated as….taboo. Something that never happened.

And still, whispers of a former inquisitor named Starkiller now floated along the halls of the Fortress.

As for the inquisitors that fell in that disaster...well, there are always a plethora of force-users that were waiting on the roster, waiting for their chance as they tore each other apart to try and join the ranks. Their only other option is a painful existence as they pushed each other to a painful death.

Well, that sounds like a pleasant time… Someone, someone I felt like I knew, would say.

A dull aching headache began to form. It removed me from those thoughts.

I am, and am only the Third Sister. I told myself for some reason.

Strange.

I looked through the information. The Ninth Sister had been beaten, torn apart upon the Wookie homeworld of Kashyyyk, later only to be quickly slain in that disaster. A young, unknown and miniscule Jedi padawan had destroyed her.

A padawan. Cal Kestis is the Jedi's name.

The Ninth Sister was always pathetic, I thought. A raging beast with no logical control. One can simply side-step any of her strikes and she'll be thrown off balance.

Because of this Jedi's victory, he's been upgraded on the list. And based on the list it seems the Jedi Order is just as dangerous as it was in its heyday. Thousands upon thousands perished, but hundreds upon hundreds still remained.

And so he rises to the coveted top twenty with the remaining Masters and highly experienced and troublesome Jedi Knights. The list is just that: a simple list of the known Jedi who survived the purge, numerically organized by the danger and threat they pose to the Empire. That being said if any were to be revealed they were always the highest priority for the Inquisition, no matter where they are on the list.

Of course, at the top is the great liar and deceiver, Grand Master of the Jedi Order, Master Yoda. Below him was the former 'Golden Boy' and the commander of the 212th Clone Attack Battalion, Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. Third place was the strangest of them all, former Padawan now renegade force-user Ahsoka Tano. I remembered her, as did the Second and First Sister along with a plethora of other former padawans. Before the purge, we...

They respected her.

Ahsoka formed a cult following among the padawans and the more young and inexperienced Jedi Knights. She had represented the unspoken yet collective thought that the war was wrong, that it wasn't going well, and the Council had failed them. She was the most prominent of the counter revolutions, even more so than the Altisian Jedi. Ahsoka had inspired many Jedi padawans to quietly leave the Order to disappear in the galaxy wide, now only for the Empire to hunt them down.

She's a hero to many of them. It inspired….someone I couldn't remember….

In any event, Barris, the First Sister had also inspired a great following before the Purge. Terror like fanaticism apparently held a place among a few in the Order. I heard she even inspired a Jedi Master named Rahm Kota.

In any event, now Cal ranked among them, still below other dissidents such as Kannen Jarus and his new padawan, Master Quilan Vos, Master Junda, Maris Brood….Master Arligan Zey.

Among the dead of the list, the confirmed KIA, there are quite a few. Shaak Ti, Kazdan Paratus, and the infamous aforementioned Rahm Kota, who in turn inspired another generation of terrorists. I don't believe these were killed by Inquisitors but rather by Lord Vader. Cal's own master was also among the dead, and it seemed the Padawan was too young during the Clone Wars to develop any sort of...ideological affiliation unless it came from his master. Of which said ideology I now had to research.

This Jedi, this child, Cal, now has the attention of two of the more powerful Inquisitors.

So begins the hunt.