With the characteristic robes and the cowl of his cloak shading his face, Shinai looked like any other Jedi who didn't wish to be noticed. This was not only his intention but was part of his instructions.

He emerged from a turbolift into the senator's office, the red Twi'lek receptionist eyed him nervously.

"Another Jedi?" she spat. "I'm sorry I have to tell you that the senator is not—"

That was as far as she got before she collapsed onto the desk, her eyes wide with surprise. Shinai was satisfied, but he still needed to recognisable, or seem to be…

Shinai ignited his lightsaber, the blue blade glowing as he walked towards the senator's office, the light and hum attracting the attention of the guards. They formed a line before the door.

"You…Jedi!" the guard in the middle barked. "The senator has said—" The guard started to choke, his hands grappling at his throat. The others either side of him aimed their weapons but Shinai fought them all back with quick blows from his lightsaber. The remaining guard he threw across the room with the Force and then he opened the door.

Senator Stokra turned to stare at him. "You again!" He reached out his sleeve for a small hold-out blaster. "I don't know how you managed to get past my guards, Skywalker, but this confrontation is unwarranted."

Shinai didn't speak, this was another part of his instructions. He simply reached into the Force and plucked the blaster from the senator's hand. He brought his lightsaber down on the senator's desk, gouging it into two parts.

Stokra's eyes grew wide and fearful, he backed away. "You'll never take me alive!" he barked, grappling at the wall behind him and pressing a hidden button. A loud alarm started to blare, Stokra smiled. "The general alarm," he said, smiling slightly. "Not even you Jedi can stop that."

Shinai's expression seemed to challenge this, he swung his lightsaber towards the senator and threw Stokra against the wall with the Force. Stokra's skull made a crack as it impacted, his limp body slumped to the floor.

Shinai smiled, it was time to leave.

--

While he would have preferred to wait until Obi-Wan returned, Anakin felt an odd sense of pleasure in the thought that he might be able to sort out a diplomatic problem without the Jedi Order's most renowned negotiator. Anakin personally preferred to settle negotiations with his lightsaber; it was fast, clean and left others in no doubt as to where you stood.

Yet as his airspeeder set down on the landing pad he could feel…something…some kind of threat, something that gave him a very bad feeling about this.

His suspicions had proved correct when he entered the building, the Twi'lek receptionist was slumped against her desk and it took but a simple touch to confirm she was dead. Anakin stretched out with his senses, if there was a threat he didn't detect it but this didn't mean that it wasn't there.

With one hand on his lightsaber he walked towards the senator's office, the guards were lying dead on the ground and the door showed signs of forced entry but he did not stop to examine them. Inside the office Senator Stokra was collapsed against a wall, his head limp on his shoulders.

"No, you can't be dead," Anakin said, quickly kneeling at Stokra's side. He knew that the bulk of this could fall on him as so far he had seen no witnesses. He reached out a hand, the back of Stokra's scalp was caked with blood, but there was a pulse.

At the sound of running footsteps Anakin looked up, it was security.

"You guys took your time," he told them, "someone's already been and gone."

"Secure the area, check for survivors," the sergeant ordered, his men dispersed. "Do you know what happened here?"

Anakin started to answer that he had just arrived, but senator Stokra regained consciousness. With a shaking hand he pointed at the Jedi. "You!" he spat, his voice thin but determined. "What are you still doing here?"

--

In the middle of a meeting with Senators Bel Iblis and Orn Free Taa, Danta's aide Varné entered.

"Excuse me, senators," she said in a hushed voice, "but there appears to have been an attack on Senator Stokra."

There was a long silence.

"When was theess?" Danta asked finally.

"About thirty minutes ago," Varné replied.

Bel Iblis let out a low whistle. "Bad news has good legs," he murmured. "Some assassin I assume?"

Varné shook her head. "The reports say the attacker was a Jedi," she confessed, "but I'm not sure if that's accurate."

She quickly excused herself and Danta considered this thoughtfully. "Thesa cannot be possible," the Gungan said finally.

"Yet it has happened," Bel Iblis pointed out, "or it has appeared to have happened."

"Very bombad," Danta agreed.

--

"This is injustice!" Stokra shouted.

"My apologies senator, but these are the procedures laid down by law," the sergeant explained. "I simply follow the law, making them is your job I believe."

Even Stokra knew better than to argue with this. "I am agreeing with this under protest," he said, glowering at Anakin who sat in the corner of the room.

Anakin knew better than to look back, he even knew better than to even talk to Stokra. As the sergeant had explained to him, the standard procedure when a Jedi's actions were brought into question was to contact the Jedi Council. Two Council members would then take custody of the wayward Jedi and then they would be answerable to the Council's ruling.

Even though the circumstances appeared slightly dubious to the sergeant—and he explained this at length to Anakin—this was the way it had to be.

Anakin wanted to argue with him, or better still run out the door and go somewhere else. Mon Calamari might do nicely with half the galaxy between him and Coruscant. Yet even he could understand how this could be taken as an admission of guilt, something Stokra would not hesitate to throw at him and the Jedi Order.

Eventually the sergeant's comlink informed that the Jedi's transport had landed, and soon enough Yoda arrived with Shaak Ti. Yoda looked sternly around the room. Anakin, feeling his composure in tatters, got to his feet.

"Master Yoda this is all a mistake," he quickly said. "I can explain—"

Yoda cut him off with a gesture. "Explain you can later." He nodded to the sergeant. "Take young Skywalker we will, trouble us he will not."

Stokra glared at this. "Are you sure of that Master Yoda?"

Yoda returned the senator's stare with one of his own, Stokra had the sense not to say anything more. Yet he glowered as Anakin was taken out of the room with Shaak Ti shadowing him.

--

When they were in the speeder on the way back to the Temple Yoda let out a long sigh. He looked up at Anakin.

"Understand you do what mean this will?" he asked

"But I didn't—"

Yoda rapped Anakin impatiently on the knee with his gimer stick. "Means nothing that does!" he admonished. "Dissent he will create and more precarious our position will be!"

"Anakin, what were you doing in Senator Stokra's office in the first place?" Shaak Ti asked kindly.

"He asked me to be there," Anakin answered.

The Togrutan gave Anakin a strange look, Yoda closed his eyes meditatively.

"Tighter the dark side binds us," he murmured, "yet abound our adversaries are."

--

Without an appointment, Bail Organa burst into Chancellor Amedda's office.

"I'm not sure whether to believe this or not," he told the Chagrian. "Anakin Skywalker has been arrested?"

"I'm afraid that is true, senator," Amedda replied regretfully. "I was surprised at the news myself but it cannot be denied."

"But Stokra…" Bail shook his head in frustration. "I don't like this; it's far too convenient given what he said last week on the Holonet."

"Like it or not the evidence is there," Amedda told him. "It's far from conclusive but I doubt Stokra will pay any attention to that."

--

The Temple was abuzz with the news, rumours were flying everywhere and Sona was not sure who to believe. She asked several Jedi, even Master Kenobi when she saw him walking through the Temple, though when she was reminded that she was better to focus on her studies Sona sought out more definite answers.

Why she came to the lower levels of the Temple where Jedi Skywalker was reportedly held she did not know exactly. She asked the Jedi on duty if she might see him, and when there appeared to be no objections she went in.

But before she did she spotted something sitting on the shelves where Skywalker's belongings were held. There, with his lightsaber and comlink was a flat river stone, black in colour and round and smooth. When she touched it she could feel…a ripple of sensations flooding through her, places she had never seen, faces she could not identify.

She went in with it in her hands.

--

Anakin, who had been staring angrily at the wall, looked up when he heard he had a visitor. At first he had expected it to be Obi-Wan, or even Yoda but walking towards him was the last person he had expected to see.

It was Sona, the young Jedi initiate in his—no Obi-Wan's—'saber training class. She held something out to him.

"I…thought you might want this," she said in a small voice, more curious than nervous.

Anakin took it from her, it was the river stone that Obi-Wan had given him on his thirteenth birthday. The same stone that Obi-Wan had been given when he was Qui-Gon's Padawan.

"I thought it might be important," Sona said.

Anakin stared at her. "How could you know this?"

Sona shrugged. "I don't know," she confessed. "It's just…a feeling I had."

There was silence for a few moments. Finally, Anakin knew he had to get rid of her. "Why have you come?" he asked her, hoping she would take the hint and leave.

She shrugged again. "I think I wanted to find out some answers," she said slowly, her dark eyes examining his face carefully. "But I also wanted to talk to you, ever since that night with the lambent poppies I've wanted to."

Anakin didn't know what to say, and this alone stunned him. The only ones he knew who could disarm him like this were Obi-Wan and Yoda, and of course there had been Palpatine and Padmé… But this twelve year old girl who he had not even known up until about a week ago? Why?

Sona's soft voice interrupted his thoughts. "I wanted to ask you something." Her eyes were still on him, watching his every movement. "What is it that you have seen that makes you like this? I mean," she continued, "that you keep trying to look angry with everyone but there's something else there that you're trying to hide, isn't there? Something that you don't want to even mention."

How could she know this? Anakin thought, his mind spinning from the questions she was posing. And what he said next surprised him more. "I…I lost someone very close to me," he said.
Sona's eyes were wide. "Someone you…loved?"

Anakin found that he couldn't answer that question. And what would she know about love anyway? he thought rather bitterly. Yet Sona appeared to understand his silence, she touched his knee. The touch was slight, barely more than a flower petal alighting on his shoulder, yet it sent up a pulse through his body as strong as last time.

And for a moment, briefer than a nanosecond Anakin's mental shields around his pain for Padmé fell, but that wasn't all that was surprising. He could feel Sona entering that space, and he didn't even fight it. He felt her reach out to him in the Force, nothing but compassion behind her impulse. It's all right, he felt her say, I know how you feel.

The spell was broken when the door to the cell was opened. Anakin and Sona jumped perceptively and looked rather guiltily at the duty Jedi.

"You'll have to go," he said to Sona, staring between them curiously, "Master Kenobi is here."
Anakin stared at the doorway after she had gone. There was something about the question she had asked that was familiar, either that or with what he had said. Yet for the life of him he couldn't name it.

--

What has he done this time? That had been Obi-Wan's first thought when he had heard the news about Anakin. Immediately he had set out for the Temple, wondering if his former apprentice could mess things up any more than he already had. Should he have been surprised? A part of Obi-Wan's mind told him that this could have almost have been expected, especially since it involved Senator Stokra.

Yet that was not what surprised him. What made Obi-Wan stop in shock when he was waiting to see Anakin was the fact that one of his initiates—Sona Cantari who had stopped him earlier when he was on his way to see Yoda—had apparently been Anakin's visitor.

She looked rather guiltily at Obi-Wan as if being caught doing something she shouldn't, yet apart from the customary greetings she chose to say nothing. What is behind all this? Obi-Wan wondered, Don't tell me they liked Anakin that much.

Yet all of these questions were out of his mind when he entered the cell. Fortunately Anakin was not in the mood for an argument even though Obi-Wan had come prepared for one. Anakin didn't even look at him when he entered, he merely continued to stare at the wall.

This was probably all the attention that Anakin would decide to give him, so Obi-Wan decided to begin.

"You'll be seeing the Jedi Council this evening, the last session." For a moment Obi-Wan was silent as if waiting for Anakin to answer. "Even with all the noise Stokra is making we've got to hurry this through with Gunray's trial impending."

Anakin did not seem to hear him. "You're late," he said, staring at the Jedi Master accusingly.

Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows. "Sorry?"

"You said you'd be only a few days and now it's a week later," Anakin explained as if it were obvious.

"Anakin, this is you we are talking about!" Obi-Wan half-shouted. "What happened this morning pretty much ruined everything my mission was about. All we have is your word against Stokra's and even if this was all a set-up, you could be in a very precarious position." He paced the cell in exasperation. "I just don't know why you were with Stokra in the first place, even you should know better than that!"

Anakin took a deep breath and gave Obi-Wan his full attention. "He called me this morning and said he wanted to make a compromise."

Obi-Wan looked at Anakin sceptically. "And what did he say?"

"He said that he had perhaps misjudged me and I had the impression he wanted to withdraw his allegations against the Jedi," Anakin answered.

Obi-Wan sighed, this was just like Anakin. "Why couldn't you wait until I had returned?"

"I wanted to," Anakin admitted, "but he said this afternoon, and it wasn't like I could argue with him. And Obi-Wan," he added for good measure, "he didn't mention you at all, he wanted to talk to me."

"Anakin, can't you see how he trapped you into this situation for his own benefit?" Obi-Wan demanded.

Anakin looked surprised. "Isn't that going too far?"

Obi-Wan ignored the question. "Here is what Stokra is saying," he told him. "He claims that his allegations were true in how the Jedi are moving against our political opponents and this is justification for reducing our jurisdiction."

Anakin's mouth opened and closed in exasperation. "But that's…that's…"

Obi-Wan nodded. "I know," he said, "but the problem is that people are believing him." When Anakin didn't reply he continued. "There are those in the Senate who are on our side, but Stokra's using this to get himself more support…"

"Against us," Anakin finished, glowering at the toes of his boots. "There's still something I don't understand, Obi-Wan," he said after a moment silence. "Why is it so important that I am at Gunray's trial? With everything that's going on isn't that a bad idea?"

Obi-Wan smiled quietly. "I can see what you mean, Anakin," he replied evenly. "But you're the only one that can give details about Sidious, and since Gunray and Sidious are connected well…"

Obi-Wan closed his arms slowly with some satisfaction. "You won't have long to wait though, the trial should take place in a matter of weeks."

Yet when Obi-Wan had left, promising he'd be back later, Anakin continued to stare at the wall.

Great, he though morosely, something else to look forward to.

--

"The absence of Senator Stokra of the Corporate Sector is deeply felt and must be fully attributed to the rebellious actions of vigilante Jedi," accused Jevan Tulil'ya of Bothawui. "Surely this is the time to settle once and for all the role of the Jedi in this new constitution," the Bothan continued, despite the voices of protest, "if the Jedi cannot control their members, then is it not up to us as a legislative body to ensure that they can?"

There were more shouts of protest as he finished, but there were several who clapped and cheered in support. Bail felt that he should say something, but would he just be shouted down? Fortunately, Danta stepped in.

"Naboo wishes to reminds thesa Bothawui not to speak lightly on thesa Jedi," Danta intoned after he was recognised. "Help us theysa did in the wars, save many many lives thesa Jedi did and died some did to do thees."

Yet Tulil'ya was not amused. "Yet even what the Jedi did during the war has to be brought into question," the Bothan said. "Need I remind Naboo of some of the questionable acts that were attributed to the Jedi? And the deaths that occurred after—"

"Point of order, Senator," interrupted Amedda. "The Chair wishes to advise Bothawui that the events of the Clone Wars are not up for debate. And neither is the notion of trying the Jedi for acts that can be best described as circumstantial."

"Choose your words carefully, Chancellor," threatened Tulil'ya. "This body is well aware that you hold your office because it suits the purposes of the Jedi Council."

At this the Senate erupted into a chaos that not even Dekau could disperse. At the centre of it was Tulil'ya, the eye of the growing storm. Tulil'ya met Amedda's eye without hesitation as the noise continue to grow in the Senate chamber.

--

It did not take long for Anakin to outline the facts as he knew them to the Jedi Council. There was also the report of the Senate security as well as Stokra's long-winded allegations.

There were also some rather disturbing facts that needed consideration, such as the Twi'lek receptionist. Her body had been subject to autopsy yet there were no visible marks that caused her death. And then there was the body of one of the guards; apparently his windpipe had been closed.
The official reports had been unable to account for this, yet Yoda knew otherwise. Only a trained Force-user could have done such a thing, the question was who?

Yoda set his mouth in a firm line as he viewed Anakin Skywalker. From the very day of his entry into the Temple he had caused trouble, and most of the trouble usually seemed to find him. Yoda knew that Anakin was not responsible for what happened to Stokra, yet who actually was behind the attack remained an unresolved question.

"Know you do that no proof we have of you not being involved, young Skywalker," Yoda said gravely.

Anakin bowed his head in assent. "I am well aware of this," he said, staring at the tops of his boots to avoid the Jedi Master's penetrating gaze. "But surely someone had to have seen something?"

"Of course," replied Obi-Wan dryly. "But anyone we ask will probably assume that it was you anyway, that's the way it is with asking witnesses: they see what they want to see."

Yoda shook his head. "Wrong to speculate on this we are," he muttered, "focus we must on the actual attacker."

"Could his actions expose him?" Obi-Wan asked. "Perhaps through arrogance he will reveal himself—"

"Unlikely," disagreed Shaak Ti. "The attacker may even have been hired just to do this little stunt."

"Master Yoda, may I request the Council to allow me to search for this attacker?" Anakin asked, his voice was hopeful, his face bordering on eager. Obi-Wan made to protest. but Yoda prevented him.

"Speak well, you do Anakin," the Jedi Master approved, he looked to Obi-Wan. "Looks well it does for us, but limit your search to Coruscant you must."

"I understand." Anakin bowed his head again, feeling his elation rising. He had a mission finally, even if it did mean he stayed on Coruscant.

"Quickly you must move, Anakin if you are to succeed," Yoda urged, "may the Force be with you."

--

Yet when Anakin had gone, the conversation turned darker.

"Necessary it was for young Skywalker to search for this attacker," Yoda murmured, "yet like this I do not, too convenient it is with Gunray's trial."

"And there's still the question of the identity of the attacker," added Obi-Wan., "we know he's Force-sensitive, yet that barely limits it."

"Could it be another Sith?" suggested Bant

The other Jedi Masters turned to look at her. While Obi-Wan wanted to deny this, citing that Sidious was the last of the Sith line, the existence of Darth Typhon had proven the Sith Lord's sentiments on the supposed Rule of Two.

"Close our eyes to this we cannot," averred Yoda, "yet curious it is that Senator Stokra was the target."

"Yet who can know the mind of a Sith?" queried Nat Sem. "We were all deceived during the war away from where the Sith were hiding."

"Bodes well this does not," agreed Yoda in a low voice, "meditate on this I will."