From outside the small office where they hid, Caleb heard the lift doors open. Master Windu and the other Jedi sent with him had come to arrest the Chancellor. He knew this story. The other Masters would die, leaving Mace alone to fight the Sith Lord. Anakin Skywalker would appear in a few minutes, and he would strike down Palpatine. This was history.

Leia clearly understood the time had come as well. She pulled out her blaster and aimed it between them. "I have to get out there now." Someone had set the history Caleb knew into motion from this point. Someone Skywalker would trust. Someone he would change the universe for at her word.

"You're here to tell Anakin that Palpatine is using and betraying him," Caleb said. She nodded. "Leia, you can't." Hera startled, peering more closely at their adversary. Time and woes they couldn't imagine had aged her, chiseling deep lines across her face, and deeper ones in her soul. His Padawan had grown old, but her eyes remained clear and the determination written there could drill through to the core of this planet.

"I have to."

Leia fired. Caleb deflected the bolt easily.

From the Chancellor's office, he heard lightsabers flare, and felt the stabbing cold as Master Kolar and Master Tiin fell in rapid succession. Moments later, Master Fisto died, leaving Master Windu alone with the Sith Lord. History marched onwards. Every cell within him urged Caleb to join Windu in his battle, to offer his lightsaber in the service of the Order and cut down the terrible threat before them.

A worse threat stood before him now, wearing the face of someone he cared about.

Leia fired again. As Caleb caught the blast, Hera rushed her, getting a hard elbow to her stomach for the trouble. She kicked out, sending Leia sprawling, and throwing her weight over her.

"You don't understand!" Leia said, pushing Hera away. "I can stop it all. He'll listen to me. The Empire never has to exist!"

"What Empire?" Hera asked.

Leia's face changed, watching the confusion in Hera's eyes. "You're here from the other timeline?" Caleb nodded. "Then you know it works. I have to go now. He'll build a weapon that can destroy planets!" He sensed the agony inside her, mourning the loss of millions. "He destroyed my world."

This was his Padawan, older and harder and far more desperate, but the woman was the same girl he'd said goodbye to yesterday. He'd jumped back in time to stop the interloper, even kill them if necessary. He held his lightsaber at the ready while knowing he could never strike her down. His Leia had learned to like and respect him because of his honesty. It was his only possible weapon now.

He lower his lightsaber. "In our timeline, everyone is dead."

She went still. "How?"

"The Separatists. If you go in there now, a thousand worlds will die."

Power flared, dark energy he'd never sensed before, filling his head with a screeching din as light he couldn't see flowed in a great tide. Caleb turned to the wall as though he could see Anakin Skywalker arrive to witness the powerful exchange. In one universe, Skywalker would strike down Sidious and earn the galaxy a terrible peace. In this one...

Caleb had been far from home when the hammer fell upon the people he loved back in his timeline, not a few meters away from a man he'd admired and cared about most of his life. Agony ripped through Caleb as Windu fell. "I'm so sorry," he tried to say. Somewhere on a distant world, he knew Depa was wracked with the same sudden loss.

Taking advantage of his lapse in concentration, Leia kicked him away, reaching for her blaster. "We can still stop them," she said, back on her feet. "They won't be expecting us. Anakin is becoming Darth Vader at this moment, but I can pull him back from the Dark Side if I go right now!"

"Who died?" Hera stepped back as the blaster swung towards her.

"All the Jedi will die. He'll murder them, even the younglings. Vader and his Master will take over the galaxy, and even when we defeat them, they'll still be dragging their dark shadows behind them for decades." She stepped closer to the door. "I can prevent it. He'll know me and he'll listen to me."

Hera said, "You came here to save your father."

Leia gave a short, hard bark of a laugh, and in it, Caleb heard the same thick cough Depa had when her illness relapsed. The bitter laugh turned to an equally bitter smile. "My father can rot in hell for all I care. I came here to save my son from him." The words ripped from her like a scab off a wound, bleeding with every word.

No wonder Master Windu couldn't foretell the future they'd lived in. Leia and her brother hadn't even been born yet when all of history spun on a single point out of Leia's love for her child.

"You said 'all the Jedi,'" Caleb said, cold fear moving through his mind, clouding his vision. He didn't dare let it consume him now.

Leia took another step towards the door. On her face, he could see the awful battle between what she'd come here to prevent, and what they'd told her the outcome would be if she succeeded. "They're about to send out an order. The clone troopers have been programmed to murder the Jedi they serve. Vader will go back to the Jedi Temple and slaughter everyone there. We can stop them."

He recalled the screams in his mind as world after world snuffed out. In his timeline, the Jedi had already died. Grief reached out, seeking a planet he only remembered for the sorrow he'd learned there. "Depa," he thought at her. "Run!" Across time and space, he felt her, the familiar, beloved touch of her mind filled with confusion as she heard his thoughts while staring at the boy he'd been.

And the blasts began.

"It's too late," he said to Leia. He doused his blade, sensing the first wave of deaths, feeling the bright spark of Depa's mind shimmer into nothingness. He'd come back to try to save her, to save all of them. He'd failed. He wondered how the mirrored ripple of his own death would feel, if he would wink out of existence as a younger Caleb died under a barrage of blaster bolts.

No. Leia had recognized him. Somehow, somewhere, the child he was would survive this catastrophe while all others fell and died. Again.

Leia closed her eyes.

"How far away is the Temple?" Hera asked. They both looked at her. "Can we get there first?"

"We can't stop them at the Temple," said Leia, voice ragged and wan. "Vader struck down all the Jedi he found there, from the smallest younglings to the most experienced warriors. I'm not good enough to kill him. I had one chance to turn him." Her shoulders sagged.

"In our world, you saved him," Caleb said, placing a hand on her shoulder. Dozens of stories played through his head, from his own teachers, from his friends, and from his apprentice and her twin as they trained under his and Ahsoka's watchful gaze. "He was a good man. He died trying to prevent the disaster that struck our timeline. You and Luke were really proud of him."

"But it wasn't enough," she said.

"No."

Hera was already through the door. Caleb went with her, letting Leia come with them or stay in her own private hell as she chose. She followed.

The building was in chaos. They rushed through the crowds, headed for their stolen ship. "What's your plan?" Caleb asked, his mind echoing with the faraway deaths cascading into pain and silence. Leia joined them on the ship.

Hera said, "You said they were headed to the Temple to kill everyone there."

"Yes. It's a matter of history now."

"Did anyone ever count the bodies?"

Leia froze. Then she shook her head.

"History is what gets written down," said Hera, and in moments, they'd touched down on a landing pad near the top tier of the Jedi Temple. "Caleb, where are the youngling quarters?"

Leia stunned both landing bay guards with her blaster. Caleb hurried through the corridors. He'd grown up here. His feet knew the way to the same rooms where he'd spent the nights of his childhood. As he opened the door, he saw faces lit up by the corridor lights. None of the younglings were asleep yet, too anxious from the eddies they felt in the Force.

He turned to the first child he saw, and his heart skipped as he saw who it was. Channeling his inner Master Windu, he said, "Byph, gather the Padawans. We are leaving immediately."

"Who are you?" asked a girl.

He was sure he'd know who she was in a moment, as the young face was overlaid with the woman she'd become, but now he merely lit his lightsaber. "We're friends."

"We've come from the Temple on Ryloth," Hera said with urgency. "There's been a security breach. You need to come with us at once." The lie worked. At once, the dozen or so children in the room slipped out of bed and obediently lined up.

"There's a nursery," Leia said, gazing into the next room. "Children," she ordered, "come with me. Everyone grab the hand of a little one. We must hurry."

The smallest younglings were less obedient than the older children, and they fussed as they toddled along or were carried. Below them, the Temple rumbled with the sound of blasters, and Caleb ached with pain as others died. This was only one floor. Jedi lived throughout the Temple, from younglings to Masters, and those on the lower floors were dying. "Hurry," he said to the children beside them, and helped load them onto their stolen transport.

A blaster shot hit the ship beside him.

Caleb spun, lightsaber lit. Clones flowed out from the hangar entrance, spilling into the docking bay in a white wave of death. He blocked the blasts, aiming them away from the soldiers. These troopers shared everything with the men he'd known, from the clones he'd seen die when he was a boy to the clones who'd stayed behind at the Temple on Lothal to give them this chance. He couldn't stand the thought of killing their brothers here and now.

The troopers closed in on his position as he blocked more and more bolts. "Launch!" he shouted back. "Get them out of here!" The engines fired, and the clones turned their attention to the transport. Caleb stepped further from the ship, trying to draw their fire.

Everyone he'd ever known was dead. The world had ended twice under his watch. As the intensity of the blaster bolts increased, a curious peace settled into his limbs. The Force worked through him, his muscles responding to a lifetime of training and keyed in to the same prescient energy flow that Luke and Leia had always tapped as they'd sparred. Should he attack his attackers now, he knew his lessons in Vaapad would come back to him, using the shadow of the Dark Side to guide his steps, slaughtering the clones where they stood. He felt that power calling to him as he walked away from the ship, not the dangerous fire of anger but a beckoning flame alighting him with purpose. Protect the children, both the scared little bodies aboard the transport and the too-young faces behind the cold, white masks, operating under programming they didn't understand. If all else was lost, he could give the last of his strength for this one, good thing.

Caleb faced the clone troopers, and he forgave them.

Blasts ricocheted harmlessly from his lightsaber into the walls and the ceiling. He would not harm the clone troopers. He would not allow them to harm the younglings. He would protect the transport while Hera and Leia got the children safely away. This was his purpose. This was why he'd lived while others had perished. The Force had chosen Caleb for this task, guiding all the steps of his life's journey to this one perfect moment.

The shots grew more concentrated on his position. Troopers closed in, forcing him back towards the ship as he deflected faster and faster. The Force controlled his movements now, as he moved in perfect serenity, counting his own heartbeats while he waited for the transport to take off.

Blaster shots rang out from behind him, striking the troopers in front of him dead on. He had no time to think as their attention turned back to the ship. An arm reached out, dragging him to the ground.

A moment later, an electric explosion blossomed with searing white brilliance in the middle of the cluster of troopers. Caleb faced away from them, staring at Leia. She had a blaster in one hand and a second stun grenade in the other. She tossed her grenade and yanked him towards the open hatch. "Get on the damn ship."

Only moments had passed since the clones had opened fire. It felt like a lifetime.

Caleb stumbled aboard as the hatch closed firmly behind them. He had offered his life up to the Force, had been prepared to die at the end of his one perfect moment. The moment was past, and he was still alive.

The smallest younglings began to cry. Leia picked up a child and began soothing him as Hera hit the emergency liftoff sequence. Caleb found himself pressed between two dozen frightened little bodies who could sense that everything had gone terribly wrong. He knelt down, losing his balance as the ship lifted from the landing pad. He picked up a small girl, then squeezed her in a sudden hug as blaster fire strafed the side of their ship.

Hera dodged the blasts, taking them on a steep climb. Behind them, other ships lifted off in pursuit. The Temple was already overrun, and they didn't intend to allow any escapees.

"What are our weapons?" Leia asked.

Hera spun their transport to avoid another barrage. "I don't think we have any."

Leia smiled, and her face was tired. "It was a worthy try. We might have done something good."

"We're not done," said Hera, and her fingers danced over the controls. Caleb couldn't see what she was doing, but a moment later, he felt the sudden pull of hyperspace.

"You can't do that in atmosphere," he tried to say, but it came out as a groan as his brain tried to climb out through his ears. Near-planetary jumps were ill-advised for a lot of good reasons. But they were alive.

He looked around the crowded transport. The oldest children here might have been thirteen, barely old enough to be taken on as Padawans, not nearly old enough to defend themselves. Inside his heart, he felt the death count rise. Ten thousand Jedi lived and worked across the galaxy. If Leia was right, most were dying right now, and more would follow. He crawled through his memories, desperate to recall their locations.

"We can't help the rest," Leia said, reading his thoughts as clear as if he'd spoken them. "All we can do is protect these kids until it's safe for them to come out of hiding." She watched him over the pile of children. They had come along obediently for the moment, but they understood something terrible was happening. They would have questions, and they would need food, and shelter, and more. The enormity of what the three of them had done shook him as deeply as the rocking blows he felt from across the stars. These children were Jedi he'd grown up with. Tai and Ganodi spoke together in low voices, growing distrustful of the strangers who'd abducted them.

Caleb said, "Padawan Uzuma, are you familiar with the first meditation?" Tai startled, unsure how he knew her name. "Yes." She paused. "Master."

"I'd like you to lead the older students in an exercise. Please gather them in the back and walk them through the basics of first and second. When we are settled, I will lead you through a special meditation my master taught me for hyperspace."

Caleb and Tai had trained together long ago and she'd always been a better student than he was. He couldn't teach all these younglings himself. He would have to rely on his old friends for their help. He would have to explain to them who he was and what had happened, and they would not want to believe him. Training one reluctant teenager had been trouble enough.

The headache was growing again.

When the older children had gone into the back, he asked Leia, "How long are we planning to hide? When do things get better? This is your timeline, not ours." Hera sat back in her chair, watching Leia for the answer.

"A while," she said, turning away from their matched stares. "The Empire is rising, and under Palpatine's rule, being a Jedi means an automatic death sentence. These children will be hunted. You both have doubles running around out there, and in another day or so, so will I. We need to get away from the Core, as far out into the Outer Rim as this ship will take us, even into uncharted space if we can make it. Then we wait."

Hera met his eyes. They'd traveled fourteen years to get here, and he had a bad feeling the way back was going to take them a lot longer. Without speaking, he asked her if she was up for this. Without replying, she glanced at the cockpit full of small younglings. He'd jumped into this situation without thinking first. Save the galaxy by rewriting time? Sure. Rescue a handful of Jedi initiates from the certain death he'd sentenced them all to? Naturally. Stand off a swarm of brainwashed clone troopers? Why not? Accomplish any of this with a plan? Any plan? No. He was rushing into the bar all over again, fists out and brain switched off. Somewhere in the Force, Depa was rolling her eyes at him, but he hoped wherever her spirit wandered now, she was also just a little bit proud.

Hera turned back to her console.

"Outer Rim, here we come."

end