Jesse casually walked down the corridors of the Jedi Temple. It felt really weird. Not that he had never been to the Temple, it was every time he was called to the Temple, it would be some sort of huge mission waiting for them and all of them would race like maniacs to the hangar. But this time, he could walk slowly and basically enjoy his time. But he wasn't here for fun either. He had news to bring back to his brothers.

He glanced at his chrono. The trial should have ended ten minutes ago, yet no news came across his ears. All he had was clusters and clusters of Padawans running past, laughing about silly things.

He took off his helmet, just as a door on the side swung open, letting out a large bunch of Padawans. They had just finished their language class, seeing that their arms were overloaded with datapads, books and bits of whatever assignments they had received from their instructors. But they didn't look like they knew anything about the Jedi trial either because all they were chattering about was some Rodian poet, whom Jesse recognised as one of General Kenobi's favourite poets (according to Cody).

Maybe he was far too busy trying to look ahead of him, he hadn't noticed a young kid dashing past him, and colliding right into the group of Padawans. That caught Jesse's attention so he casually stuck around to eavesdrop.

' Ow! Caleb!' One of the Padawans - a Togrutan girl rubbed her arm reproachfully and glared at the kid. ' Can you actually keep your eyes on the road? And... as usual, you skipped today's language class. Master Palmer won't be tolerating this any longer, you know.'

' To be exact, you have been absent from class for three months in a row,' An Ithorian boy picked up his books from the floor.

The panting boy - Caleb, waved his hands madly around him, ' I have the most shocking news! I have just heard it from my master! They have caught the Jedi Temple bomber!'

That definitely caught the Padawans' interest. ' Wait, are you kidding? Who was that?' A Twi'lek boy demanded.

' You won't believe this! It is Padawan Ahsoka Tano!' Caleb shrieked into their faces.

' Wait. Padawan Tano, as in the Padawan of the Hero With No Fear?' The Togrutan girl gasped. ' No way! I can't believe this! She won't do that! Never in a million years?'

' She's my idol!' The Ithorian boy said, aghast. ' She fought in so many battles for the Republic, and she will never betray the Jedi Order. I agree with Ashla. So what happened then?'

' I'm not entirely sure what happened during the trial, but the end was they casted her out of the Order,' Caleb said bluntly and Jesse nearly had a heart attack on the spot.

' WHAT?' A Nautolan boy yelled out loud. ' How can this be?'

' Now, she will be judged by the Galactic Senate,' Caleb groaned. ' This is terrible! This is so-o-o-o terrible! But Senator Amidala has agreed to defend Padawan Tano.'

The group of Padawans started moving forward again, this time they groaned and groaned about injustice and made as much noise as possible.

Jesse was rooted to the spot. He couldn't breath. The Jedi had casted away one of the most loyal Jedi.

' WHAT?' Echo screamed, his reaction the same as the group of Padawans. ' How could they?'

Jesse had just returned to their dorm rooms, made sure Rex wasn't there, and reported to his fellow brothers of this distressing news.

' This is not good,' Kix murmured. ' The Galactic Senate... And I bet that Tarkin will be the prosecutor, right?'

' Tarkin... I don't really like him that much,' Fives wrinkled his nose. ' Too ambitious. But we have Senator Amidala on our side. Um, she's kind of good at debating, right? So we will have a chance of winning.'

' I hope so,' Appo mumbled.

Echo coughed twice, ' Um, we'll see. Jesse, please go and report back once you have the news.'

Then the news came to Jesse.

He had been staying around the Temple for so long. So long he had no idea how long he had been sulking around. But he heard some Jedi Masters passing around the message. Commander Tano was not guilty. Instead, Commander Barriss Offee had been the culprit, caught by General Skywalker. Though Commander Tano was offered to be reinstated into the Order, she refused, and left forever.

The shocking news was too much. Jesse immediately raced back to the clone barracks, right into the mess hall, too horrified to care whether Rex was in there or not.

Once he charged into the mess hall, he screamed, ' THE VERDICT IS OUT! THE VERDICT IS OUT!'

' What is it?' Echo cried. And everyone went silent, eager to hear.

' COMMANDER TANO IS NOT GUILTY! BUT COMMANDER BARRISS OFFEE IS THE REAL CULPRIT BEHIND THE TEMPLE BOMBINGS!' Jesse shouted.

' It can't be!' Gree cried. ' Commander Offee would never do anything like that!'

' SHE WAS OFFERED TO BE REINSTATED BY THE HIGH COUNCIL, BUT SHE TURNED DOWN THE OFFER AND LEFT THE JEDI ORDER!'

The room bursted into chaos at the news. All the clones was screaming in agony. Even Fox held a hand to his mouth, apparently too stunned. He had wrongly accused an innocent girl.

' No! She can't!'

' 501st is doomed!'

' No... Why?'

' Without Commander, we are doomed!'

Smack.

Everyone fell silent.

Standing up, looking downright murderous, was Rex. He had just pelted a cheese sandwich at Jesse. The shocking impact of the sandwich made Jesse topple to the ground.

Apparently Rex was as upset as they were, because he moodily stormed out of the room.

Everyone's attention fell back on Jesse. All the cheese had stuck onto his head and the sandwich itself stuck to his head like some fancy hat. Bly dutifully helped Jesse up and Cody kept shooting worried glances at Gree.

' But... Commander Offee, she can't...' Gree blabbered helplessly at Cody and Bly.

Wolffe, who was standing back there, shook his head sadly.

The next few days, it was almost as if someone important had died.

The 501st were tremendously saddened by the surprising news. Sure, they had thousands upon thousands of brothers, but Commander Tano was almost like a sister to them. And now she was gone. Forever. Fives was extremely sure Gree and his men felt the same for Commander Offee.

Yet, they made no complaint. Deep inside, Echo knew they should be extremely angry at Commander Offee. But looking at how sad Gree was towards the betrayal, they knew if the roles were reversed, they would have felt the same too. They understood perfectly how Gree felt. So the League of Commanders (consisting of Cody, Bly, Fox and Wolffe) tried their best to comfort Gree.

The Jedi was no better in dealing with this matter. General Skywalker seriously tried hard to let go and forget, in order to live up to his rank as the Hero with No Fear. For the first few days, being the good actor he was, he pretended that Ahsoka Tano had never existed in his life. He plodded around brightly, tried to initiate a conversation with Rex (who was in a bad mood and didn't even respond) and made terrible jokes (at which everyone looked at each other, not getting the joke at all). He acted a bit too normal, to be exact.

However, his true emotions resurfaced after a few weeks, in which he showed how upset he really was. The General would always look around during briefings as if he had lost something. He constantly (accidentally) mentioned the Commander in attack plans. Afterwards, he would fall into an endless pit of depression upon realising his mistake.

Like the General, the men were starting to think they would never see their happy Commander anymore. Well, it was until...

The end! XD

I don't know why, but I really like the friendship between Jedi and the clones (up until *cough* Order 66 *cough* but let's ignore that for the time being). :)