Anakin Meets His Match
Part III
Obi-wan carried Padme's limp body and placed it on the delivery table. All around there was no other comfort for her besides mechanical nurses. Obi-wan watched in concerned silence, and was informed by the droid nurses that Padme was dying. She had lost the will to live! Obi-wan rushed to her side.
"You have to pull through, Padme, your twins need you!" Her face was squeezed into terrible lines. One of the babies was born. It was a boy. Obi-wan showed him to Padme.
"It's a boy!"
"Luke, ah, Luke!" She looked so sad to see him, knowing she was leaving him.
"He needs you, Padme! You must live for him!"
"Anakin" She whined. "I know there is still good in him."
"You won't find out if you don't get out of here."
"Oobah, oobah!" The nurse beeped, and with a pitiful pained face, Padme pushed hard. A squeak was heard. It was a baby girl! The nurse showed the mother.
"It's a girl!" Obi-wan said in a cheerful voice trying to encourage her. She looked at the girl, but said nothing. Her breath became weaker, and her eyes closed. She mumbled something Obi-wan couldn't understand.
"You will not leave these beautiful twins, Padme!"
"I haven't the strength!"
"Then you will take mine!" Obi-wan grabbed both of her hands, stared into her eyes, and felt the surge of life force flowing from himself into her. Her body moved, her head turned, and her eyes opened to look at him. His face was pale and covered with sweat beads. His body collapsed into the floor with a thud.
"Obi-wan!" Padme was able to say. When he didn't respond, she turned to the droids. "You must help him! He must not die, he was trying to save me!"
A team of medical droids picked up Obi-wan Kenobi's body and found a table for him. Padme watched anxiously as machines hooked up to him began to flicker and beep. He was alive, for now. So was she, and so were the babies.
Anakin had managed to steer his starfighter back through the same black hole it had come through. Artoo had discovered how to do it. Riding with Carrie, his new apprentice at his side, Anakin felt a tremor in the force. It was warm, it was not cold. It was good, it was not bad. Padme. He could feel her. Not only her, but the lives that had been born of her, and him. This warmth filled him, and he was certain the babies had been born, he felt their force power enter the living force strongly. Padme had not died in childbirth!
He was very happy about this, but somehow, his old infatuation with Padme had faded. He had fallen for her as a boy, been obsessed with her as a young man. She had betrayed him! She would not follow the path he had chosen for them both, though it meant glory and power. She brought Obi-wan to stop him, she didn't understand! While he was glad she hadn't died, he did not feel the same about her. His obsession had faded, his love diminished. She was after all not the perfect woman for him. Their relationship had been hard on them both, all the hiding and lying spoiled any joy they might have had, and now to find out she was against him and his plans! She had said once that living that way would destroy them both, and it almost had. There was someone in the universe for everyone, and, beautiful as she was, Padme wasn't his. His match sat beside him in the starfighter. Her name was Carrie.
Anakin returned to Coruscant and saw below the devastation of Order 66. The temple that had been his home for so long was smouldering. He saw the senate building, and the broken window of Palpatine's office. Landing on the nearest deck, he jumped out, lightsaber in hand.
"Carrie, if anyone dare challenge us, stop them, just as you did your enemies at home. This is my home, and I have enemies too."
"I will help you, Anakin. I am right beside you and behind you."
The few victims they faced along the way were easily dealt with. Anakin asked Carrie to stay out of sight until he called for her.
Entering the Chancellor's, now Emperor's office, Palpatine turned to face Anakin. "Well, Lord Vader, I see that you have returned safely.I had feared you were in trouble. Have you desposed of Kenobi?"
"I don't know where he is, but he didn't stop me. What about Yoda?"
"My little green adversary has fled in shame! There will be no one else to get in our way."
"OUR way?" Anakin raised his eyebrows, and his lightsaber.
"Are you threatening me, Lord Vader? After all I've done for you? If you kill me, Padme will die!"
Anakin laughed his most horrible, wicked laugh. "You lied to me! I would not be surprised if you did not plant those dreams in my mind. You only wanted to use me to get rid of the Jedi. 'What a shame they don't appreciate you' and all that, you were setting me up and it almost got me killed by Obi-wan in the lava pits! You only want me to advance your own agenda! Well,'master', I now have my own and it doesn't include you!" Anakin walked vicously toward Palpatine, who put on his pity act again.
"Oh, help me! I am unarmed! Windu cost me my lightsaber!"
"Pity he didn't cost you the rest of you! What an idiot I was, I should have let him kill you!"
"But Padme!"
"She lives! My children LIVE! I can sense them! I know you must, too. You have FAILED!" Anakin yelled as he advanced further and held his lightsaber to Palpatine's throat.
"I can keep people from dying!"
Anakin gave Palpatine an evil smile and said "then stop YOURSELF from dying, or that's what you're about to do!"
Just as he tried to run Palpatine through, he hissed and shot force lightning, knocking Anakin back. He fell flat on the ground, and while he was trying to right himself and get his bearings back, Palpatine got up and advanced on him, spraying lightning out of both hands! Anakin was so weak he couldn't hold his lightsaber tightly enough to reject it, and his left hand was too busy holding it to use lightning himself. His pride didn't want to think he would lose, but he took no chances. "Carrie!" His desperate voice called.
Palpatine stopped for a second in surprise. Who or what was Carrie? He didn't have to wait long to find out. The girl with long strawberry blonde hair and pink satin dress appeared in the doorway, her power already flowing through her, and her anger making it worse. "Release him!" She ordered.
Palpatine only laughed. "What have we here, my pretty thing?"
"Shut up, you melted faced monstrosity! You will leave Anakin alone, now."
Palpatine looked at Anakin, who was giving him a 'na na nu na na' type of look, and back at the furious determination of Carrie's countenance. Without warning, he launched lighting toward her! Anakin now was able to get to his feet and pull his lightsaber again. Carrie swirled around, raging with power, and with one turn of her head and evil flash of her eyes, the lightning turned into a ball and returned to its owner! Now Palpatine fell down, near the open window. His weakened body tried to create more lightning, but the sparks were very small and flickering. Carrie and Anakin stood over him. "It's OVER!" Anakin belllowed.
Palpatine tried to laugh as he turned it into the same 'no, no, no' he'd given Windu. He stood up again, and screamed "ultimate power!" out the window.
Carrie and Anakin were laughing. "You are beaten. Don't make me destroy you." Anakin told him, his lightsaber to Palpatine's chest.
Palpatine hissed again, and lunged in his sideways corkscrew move at them both! Anakin kept swinging at him with his saber, but he was so fast he was mostly missing. Then he cut off Palpatine's right arm! This angered him more than hurt him, and he tried again to use all his power of the dark side to attack them. Carrie and Anakin split up so they could surround him.
"Anakin!" She called out. "Mind if I just get rid of him?"
"You can do that? You underestimate his power!"
"Then you both underestimate mine!" Strong as she was on Earth, something about Coruscant had increased her abilities the way Superman's were on Earth!
"Do it!" Anakin screamed across the room.
"You cannot stop me, you pitiful foolish girl!"
"Shut up, gramps!" She yelled, and with one turn of her head and look of her eyes and wave of her hand, he raised up, hollering, and flew backwards as she hurled him out the window! Anakin watched in awe of her power. "You-- you killed him."
"Don't look so surprised, told you it was a piece of cake. Now go down below and make sure the old coot isn't holding onto a flagpole or something."
They both looked out the window to the ground below. Anakin turned his head in disgust. "I feel sorry for the streetcleaner who has to mop that up!" He declared. She only laughed. Palpatine was dead, he was gone! There were only two sith again, the master and the mistress of the dark side. Anakin and Carrie.
Standing together on the window ledge, the wind blowing their hair and clothes, they raised their fists together as one and announced they were now the surpreme power in to the galaxy! Their combined power was so great, no one could stop them now!
The news spread quickly. The Chancellor was dead! He was a Sith Lord! He had made fools of all the jedi who couldn't find him right under their noses! The news was the government had fallen. It was now under the rule of Anakin Skywalker and his mysterious female companion from another galaxy far far away.
With Palpatine dead, the clones were no longer under his control. They stopped everything they were doing to wait for some kind of new orders. Anakin thought an army made up of Clones was dumb, but they were all he had now. He spoke to Commander Cody, telling him the Chancellor was gone and all his power now transferred to him, and to Carrie, for they had defeated the man who controlled the galaxy, the senate,the courts and both sides of the war! Anakin put his good arm around Carrie as they stared out at the city below. Sirens wailed here and there, and sporatic people pointed up and yelled things. Anakin smiled with much satisfaction. "Mine, all mine." He laughed
"Ours, you mean ours!" Carrie said with confidence in her voice.
"Yes, ours. With you at my side and me at yours, there is no hope we can ever be challenged." They both grinned wickedly and embraced.
Padme awoke after a long rest. "Anakin?" She tried to say but her voice was weak. "Obi-wan?"
A medical droid quieted her. "You must rest."
"No," She said, trying to get up. "I must find Anakin, nobody understands...Where is Master Kenobi? He saved my life, is he...?"
"He is alive, he is in another room."
"My babies?"
"Fine and in the nursery." She closed her eyes and sighed in relief.
"Take me to Obi-wan Kenobi, I must see him."
The droid prepared a hover chair and carefully put her in it. She floated her down the hallway to Obi-wan's room. Padme rested her chair next to his bed, and stared at all the monitors hooked up to him. "Is he going to recover?"
"He needs rest, he was weakened and dehydrated. We have restored his lost body fluids and given him medication. He will recover."
"Thank you!" Padme smiled at the droid as it left. She reached her hand over to her hero's face. "Thank you, dear Obi-wan, for everything. I owe you my life, my childrens' lives..."
Obi-wan's head turned, and he grunted. His eyes opened and took a minute to focus. "Padme? What are you doing out of bed?"
"I came to see you. After you saved me I was afraid it had cost you your own life and I couldn't live with that. You had to be okay. You gave your own strength to pull me back from death when I had none of my own and I had given up. I..."
"You don't need to thank me, it was my duty to protect you, as a jedi."
"Only as a Jedi, nothing more? Don't you care for me.."
"It is against the code to feel attachment. But I am human and I admit it. You are my friend, I care about you."
She smiled. "there's nothing wrong with that, don't let anyone tell you there is! The babies are..."
"Fine. I can sense them both."
"Remarkable! Now, can you sense Anakin? Is he all right?"
The weakened Jedi master closed his eyes and tried to concentrate in the force on his one time jedi partner. It took him some time, but at last the answer came. "He is alive, Padme."
She could read in his face the halting answer wasn't the whole story. "Alive, is he..hurt?"
"No. He's healthy, I assure you."
"I had so feared you had been forced to kill or maim him in battle...
"No, it never came to that, and for that I thank the force.Whatever becomes of him now is not on my conscience."
"What do you mean? Whatever it is, you must tell me. I can take it."
"You had better rest."
"That bad, eh? Come on, out with it, if you are strong enough, I am."
"Padme, he's back on Coruscant. He has killed Chancellor Palpatine."
She gasped. "Oh, no, he did it, he really did it!"
"You do know that your old mentor was a Sith Lord who had declared himself emperor?"
"I didn't believe it, but now, I do. So if Anakin has killed him, is he the Emperor?"
Obi-wan stared blankly. "Yes."
"He wanted me to rule at his side, he may still want that, what can I do?"
"He will not ask that of you, not now."
"What makes you say that, do you know of some other news you are withholding?"
Obi-wan closed his eyes and shook his head, unable to meet her eyes when he told her: "There is another."