Yeah, can't do this...I have stories outside of the CB that I need to work on.

"This is Obi-Wan Kenobi. The Republic will fall. You have been warned."

There were those who heard, and those who did not hear.

Plo Koon heard. He was relaxing with his troopers in their camp on Cato Nemoidia, chatting and joking and eating those awful bland ration bars and generally pretending this wasn't just the calm before the storm, when the message came in on his comlink. He was right in the middle of the one where a Twi'lek, a Lasat, and a Mando walk into a bar when he heard that special ping, the one that meant urgent Temple directive, sent on the same circuit as that infamous everybody come home signal. Plo broke off the joke, sent a hard look in Surge's direction to make sure he didn't spoil the punch line again, and hurried into a nearby cave to listen to whatever the rest of the Council had to say.

It wasn't the rest of the Council. It was Obi-Wan, and he meant business.

Plo played the message. Then he played it again, to make sure he had heard right. Then he played it a third time and let it stall at the end, Obi-Wan's decimeter-tall blue ghost standing frozen, immobile, trapped by lack of further data, by lack of knowing what will happen now. 

************

To be continued...

TOPTOPTOPTOPTOPTOPTOPTOPTOP!!!!!!!!!!! 

With a rough shake of his head, Plo grabbed his comlink and rose to his feet, letting Obi-Wan blink out. Almost as soon as he ducked out of the cave, Wolffe wanted to know, "Who was that, General? The Jedi?"

Thinking quickly, Plo replied, "Yes, Commander, it was the Jedi, Master Tholme specifically. He's just come into possession of a lot of new intel. Most of it doesn't apply to us, but he said the Seps are very unlikely to attack tonight- something about the Nemoidians plotting against each other again."

"Mmh..." Wolffe grunted. "Are you sure you can trust what he says, sir? I dunno about you, but I trust Nemoidians not a centimeter further than I can throw 'em, and Master Tholme being a spy..."

"Despite the fact that Master Tholme is a spy, I remain convinced that he is a spy only for the Republic. However, if it would allay your fears, I'll take first watch tonight."

"Thank you, sir. I'm only trying to be careful."

They sat down at the fire again. Plo took a moment to release his roiling emotions into the Force and push what he couldn't release aside, then said, "I know, Commander, and I respect that. Now, where was I? Oh, yes, and then the Twi'lek stands up, puts a finger in the waitress' face, and says..." 

That night, Wolffe and Jag put their heads together and ended up assigning Surge and Lido, the legion's "shiniest" members, to keep first watch with Plo. It was child's play for the Jedi Master to put them to sleep with a Force-suggestion, then grab his satchel of personal accoutrements from the middle of the camp and leave his datapad in its place, with a note expressing his apologies and leaving Wolffe in charge. Plo made his way to his Delta-7b starfighter, fired up the sublight drives, soared out to high-orbit range, located his hyperdrive ring, and plotted a course for Coruscant.

Stass Allie did not hear. She was conducting a campaign on Saleucami under total radio silence, due to the fact that she'd been switched in for the over-reckless General Vos in secret, and as the Seppies didn't know about this she wanted to keep her potential advantage as long as she could. Her comlink was off altogether when the message tried to come through. Her first day on patrol with Commander Neyo and CT-3423 (she privately called him Weave in her head, for the way he couldn't seem to fly his speeder bike in a straight line) yielded little. As it turned out, Kal, Pump, and Halfwit had found quite a lot, including a choi-fruit tree that had somehow remained lush and pristine amid the bleak landscape. They shared the fruit they'd picked with her, and she shared several Tholothian bedtime stories with them: Khilli the spinner, the princess and the draigon, the Lost Twins now immortalized in the stars.

So much for daily fic snippets...I guess it'll be more like twice daily, until school starts or I run out.

************

"This is Obi-Wan Kenobi. The Republic will fall. You have been warned."

There were those who listened, and those who did not listen.

Eeth Koth did not listen. While he had a good deal of respect for Kenobi as a warrior, a diplomat, and even a seer, the slightly younger human had always struck Eeth as someone who tended to worry over needless things. Kenobi's propositions were so ludicrous that, though they gave Eeth pause as what if he's telling the truth slid unbidden across his consciousness, the canny Zabrak was ready to dismiss them out of hand. He'd have to see some of Kenobi's "overwhelming evidence" to believe that the man wasn't just grasping at shadows.

When Kenobi got to the bit about not trusting his clone troopers, Eeth shut off his comlink. Attachment might be forbidden, but trust was another thing altogether! He firmly believed that not only was trust beneficial, but it was absolutely essential to the proper function of an army. If he didn't trust his men, they'd never trust him, and if they didn't trust him, his authority would be moot. The legion would be like a headless gundark, either dead in the water or destroying everything and everyone in its path.

"What was the General on about?" Commander Perrin asked from his post at the next console over. Perrin had met Kenobi, or at least laid eyes on him, during the whole incident with Grievous.

"He's not a General anymore," Eeth replied. "Set course for Mon Gazza. Most of the Separatists have left the planet to go deal with General Tajjis' forces at Herdessa. We must strike while we have the chance."

Shaak Ti listened. She was on a balcony on Kamino when the call came in, gazing down at several hundred troopers-in-training all doing the same unarmed combat exercise, trying to ignore the ache in her knees and back from standing stock-still for so long and the ache in her head from blocking out the sick feeling this place had in the Force. Kenu Pa, the Kaminoan standing just as straight and motionless nest to her, queried, "You have an incoming transmission, Master Jedi. Would you like me to show you to a comm room?"

"No, thank you, that won't be necessary," Shaak answered, trying her utmost not to let her fatigue show in her voice even though there was no try. "Excuse me for a moment."

Kenu Pa dipped his head in acknowledgment; Shaak made her way to the nearest 'fresher. Pulling out her portable scanner, she swept every stall for bugs, then entered one of them and locked the door. As if that would help, but at least it gave her some false sense of security.

When Obi-Wan had finished, Shaak simply stared at his glowing effigy for a moment, with the eyes so sad beyond their years even in hologram. Then her shields crumbled (because there was no try, in this case, there was only do not), and she was suddenly glad she'd picked a 'fresher to take the call in.

The reality of Kamino pressed in cold and clammy around her. The Force was twisted here, the very essence of life convoluted and turned against itself, forced into the same artificial pattern over and over again. It was enough to make any Sensitive lose her lunch.

As Shaak wiped her lips with the back of her hand and checked to make sure that no half-digested nerf steak had gotten on the comlink, she wondered how she could have been so blind.

No, not just me, she thought as she shakily got to her feet and went to rinse the taste of bile out of her mouth. The entire Council. Jah krohoi tai, the entire Jedi Order! And you knew, Shaak Ti. You knew there was something the Kaminoans weren't telling you, and you chose to think it wasn't important. Like there's anything more important than the welfare of a kriffing clone army that holds the fate of the galaxy in its millions and millions of hands.

Shaak knew the inner workings of that clone army better than anyone, save for the Kaminoans. She suspected that the clones themselves only knew what the Kaminoans had deemed it necessary to tell them. Over the past couple of months, since Grievous died and the Council decided to remain in the war, Shaak had made it her business to find out whatever she could about the clones' early lives, in the hopes that that might somehow lead to the traitor in the Chancellor's office– the way in which the clones had been ordered was certainly sketchy enough.

What she'd found had left her both fascinated and terrified. Across-the-board genetic manipulation, hormonal control by carefully calibrated injection, bioelectric stimulation during training sims, and of course, progress monitoring in every way she could think of and many that she couldn't. All meant to produce perfect soldiers, perfect products, for the Republic, their paying customer. Not people. Products.

That was the terrifying part. 

Shaak splashed some water on her face, feeling the odd false-movement sensation as it trickled down her two front lekku. It all made sense– of course it did. If the Kaminoans could do all that to the clones, why not something else as well? Something subtle, invisible to almost any technology, capable of something truly horrific should it ever activate? She remembered what Obi-Wan had said, and shuddered. Do not trust your clone troopers. It all made sense.

"May I ask for what reason you chose to take your transmission in a refresher unit?" Kenu Pa asked when she returned, his voice perfectly neutral but a twinge of irritated suspicion bleeding over into the Force. No doubt because there were generally no hidden cameras in 'freshers, and he knew it. There was no way his superiors could have heard what the message said. 

"I also needed to...use the refresher unit for its intended purpose," Shaak countered coolly. "As the message was a prerecorded one not requiring a reply, I figured I would not waste time."

"Ah. That is reasonable." Shaak could tell he was unconvinced, but too prudent to press the issue further. 

They watched the trainees in silence for a few minutes, until the exercise ended and the young clones headed for the edges of the room, grabbing towels and water bottles in various states of exhaustion and triumph. Shaak tapped around a little on her datapad, then said suddenly, "Have CT-29/184, CT-29/165, and CT-27/308 brought in for possible ARC review. Inform CT-28/441 and CT-28/442 that I saw how they cheated. If you'll excuse me, I'm afraid I must make ready for a trip back to Coruscant. The message required that I do so at my soonest possible convenience. I did not mention it sooner because I did not wish to interrupt our oversight of the proceedings down below."

Kenu Pa dipped his head again. "Thank you for your consideration, Master Jedi. I shall have your ship refueled while you collect your personal items. Kamino wishes you safe journey."

Wishing me safe journey. Fat chance of that, Shaak thought, as she walked away down the corridor. 

"This is Obi-Wan Kenobi. The Republic will fall. You have been warned."

There were those who believed, and those who did not believe.

Luminara Unduli did not believe. The message came during a lull in the fighting on Kashyyyk, which was not going well for the Republic. The troopers fouhgt valiantly, as they always did, but both they and the indigenous Wookiees had lost more fighters than Luminara cared to admit. She wanted nothing more than to heal some of the wounded with the Force, but she knew she'd need every ounce of her strength once the battle recommenced, and besides, Barriss was better at it anyway.

The comlink's ping, ping, ping roused Luminara from a fitful, disturbed meditation. With a sigh, she extended a hand to bring the 'link to her from where it sat, abandoned, among the folds of her discarded outer robe on the other side of the tent. When the thing hit her palm she belatedly realized just exactly what that special ping, ping meant. She held on to the tiny device for a moment, a nameless dread turning her stomach.

As soon as Luminara pressed the answer button, Obi-Wan Kenobi sprang to life above the device's holoprojector. Even now, when she'd had a little over two months to get used to it, the sight of him in full beskar'gam instead of Jedi robes still threw her off.