AN: Thank you everyone for reviewing. I should be able to get Chapter 12 up this week-end, but I can't promise. To everyone who complains about how short the updates are, please understand that I typically write around a page (maybe two) a day in addition to my school work, so the length of the pieces is inversely proportional to how long it takes for me to write it. With the holiday coming up on Monday, I should have a bit more time for writing, but I also will have more homework.

That being said, I hope you enjoy this chapter, which is slightly longer than the last one.

Chapter 11

Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi were loading into a ship to head to Naboo when Senator Palpatine walked up to them. They greeted him kindly, but quickly went back to their final checks. "I wanted to wish you luck in solving the crisis my planet is facing. The Queen is most distraught at this turn of events, as am I," he radiated concern, and it showed in his face.

"That is most kind of you, Senator." Qui-Gon said, standing up from the panel that he had been checking close to the keel of the ship.

Obi-Wan walked up to him from the back side of the ship. "That leaves just one thing," he said pointedly to his master.

"Ah, so it does." He closed his eyes in concentration briefly, and then said, "He is almost here."

Obi-Wan snorted, "Finally. We've been ready to go for an hour."

The door from the Temple hissed open, revealing a Jedi with shaggy blonde hair, headed toward them at a fair clip. He was watching his feet and not them, but then skidded to a stop after he looked up a few feet away from them.

"Good, you're here," said Obi-Wan, not noticing the quickly suppressed spike of fear that ran through Luke.

Recovering quickly enough, the young man ran his fingers through his hair, and said, "Yeah. Let's get out of here."

"Once again, please take my best wishes to have this ordeal behind us," Palpatine said, offering his hand to Qui-Gon. Qui-Gon politely shook it, and then Palpatine turned to Obi-Wan and the new Jedi. Obi-Wan took his hand, and shook it, as did the young man. Strangely, he got no sense of him through the force as he shook his right hand, but then clapped the boy on the shoulder, and got more than he bargained for. The boy's power flared through him like a knife, making him stumble as he released him.

One corner of his mouth turned up as the young man realized the effect he had caused. "Goodbye, Senator. We will take care of your planet for you." He walked up into the ship, pressing the button to close the door, leaving Palpatine in stunned silence.

Mace Windu was speaking with Yoda when the communicator went off. Yoda shuffled over to it. "Encountered problems already, have you Jedi Luke?" He said to the face that appeared before him.

"No, not really Master. I was walking out to the ship after I went and said goodbye to my father, and Palpatine met us there. It shook me up. I wasn't expecting him."

"Worry not about it, Luke. Little there is for Palpatine to do to you at the moment," he said to Luke, then, satisfied with the response that he got out of the boy, he turned his comm off. "Worrisome it is that he would venture out to see off this departure." Yoda shook his head as he went back to sit on his pillow to talk more with Mace.

"It wouldn't even be out of character though. He does come from Naboo."

"Humph. Matter not does that. Matters that he is the Dark Lord, it does."

"We shall see. Maybe we can unravel his plans if we can just find the right loose strings. Anakin can help us with that, I hope."

Padmé was bothered somewhat by their strange visitor. Captain Panaka had finally cleared her, saying that, while she could be dangerous, she was not an immediate threat. She felt as though she were someone she should know, but it was not unlike a dream she was trying to remember after waking up.

The little toad Nute Gunray, whose meeting Leia's arrival had interrupted, was calling again, and she needed to attend to him, no matter how ridiculous she thought he was.

She sat down in her throne, surrounded by the people who would need to hear this anyway. "Viceroy," she said, calmly collected. "I have been assured that we will not be interrupted further."

"Your Highness, I hope the Senate sees fit to remove the tariffs that they so rashly passed, as your own Senator sponsored those tariffs, so your planet suffers now."

She paused for long enough to make the Viceroy uncomfortable. "I trust Senator Palpatine did what he felt was right. The days of the Trade Federation bulling systems is over, Viceroy."

"But Your Highness, this is the only way…"

"Enough," she snapped at him, cutting off his diatribe, "This is a sovereign planet and will remain so. Your threats will be answered for in the Senate." She signaled that the transmission be cut off; she was tired of dealing with the unreasonable demands.

Leia, who had been watching the proceedings from the sidelines said, "I have a suggestion, if you want to hear it."

Obi-Wan was happy to be in space. It was flying, yes, but it was good flying. They were on their way to help others sort out their differences. It was his favorite type of mission. He headed off to the back of the ship, where Luke and Qui-Gon were practicing some basic forms. He had odd ways of doing some of them, but it wasn't like he had been able to practice everything that he was supposed to, being on Dagobah for the last 5 years and his Master being so ill. The door opened to the back room, revealing the two of them in the beginning stage of a form, and Obi-Wan dropped into line, having not missed more than two of the positions. He felt peace as he reached out to the Force, through each movement. He watched Luke and Qui-Gon each doing the same, and watched them through the force as well. Luke's Force Signature was much less rough just in the one day that they had been in space.

"Alright, enough warm up," Qui-Gon announced, "I want to see how much you have improved in the Soresu Technique. You've had since yesterday morning to practice."

Luke groaned, taking up his Lightsaber, getting into the stance that marked the beginning of the Form. Obi-Wan grinned. This was his favorite form, and he excelled at Soresu like no other form. He got into stance, prepared for another easy battle.

"Remember, only the moves of the Soresu." Qui-Gon said, and gave the signal that they should start.

Luke did not fall for the same tricks that he had yesterday, and Obi-Wan was soon hard-pressed to keep himself inside the ring. Luke turned a trick that he had used the day before around, using it to push Obi-Wan out of the ring.

Qui-Gon shot his Padawan a look, "Very good, Luke. That was much better than yesterday's practice," he stood against the wall, not moving. "Again," he commanded.

Obi-Wan, not nearly so confident, took his task seriously this time.

Yoda spent some of the day dealing with some administrative matters that he had not been able to take care of due to the precedence of the arrival of the two wayward Jedi. Anakin was in the care of the Healers, Luke was in the care of Qui-Gon, and he had a bit of time to himself. He ensured that things would move along smoothly while he dealt with some other matters stemming from his discussions with Anakin. But first, he hadn't seen to his younglings in two days. He missed them, and he was sure that they had been missing him as well.

He walked into the room where the younglings were waiting for Lightsaber lessons. A cheer went up around the room, and one of the shyer little girls ran up to him and gave him a hug. "I'm glad you are back, Master Yoda," she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. "That awful Soara Antana took over while you were gone."

"And what is so awful about her?"

"She's not you."

Yoda smiled. The logic of a child, while never very logical, was always beautiful. "Back to your place then," he said, "Begin we will with the Shii-Cho Form." He began to instruct them once again in the eccentricities of the first form.

Luke had beaten Obi-Wan once in their Lightsaber duel, and Obi-Wan had won the second time, but by a much narrower margin than he had the first day. He didn't really count the first battle, and he thought that Qui-Gon hadn't either. Qui-Gon had made them go again, which he hadn't done the day before. Ben and Yoda had taught him some of the Soresu before he had gone to fight Vader, but that had been so long ago…

He shook himself out of his reverie, concentrating on going through the moves of the form again, remembering the way that Ben had described them to him. It was calming, peaceful. The Force was everything that Master Yoda and Ben had always described it as being, but had eluded him until now. He had been right about Vader, and had peace because of it.

Anakin had known Qui-Gon, apparently. Obi-Wan had never mentioned him to Luke. I wonder why Ben never talked about him. He thought about it as his body slipped into a routine within the motions of the Soresu. Anakin had mentioned something about him dying on Naboo. Maybe that was it. He died suddenly, and Ben had still felt the pain, all those years later. That didn't sound very Jedi-like. He pushed the thoughts away, focusing on his training again. He'd never had to work so hard in his life. It made him feel like a very low Padawan. He quirked a smile at that; he'd never been a Padawan, not the way that the ones at the Temple were. Distracted as he was by his thoughts, he decided it might be better to meditate for a while so that he didn't accidentally cut something off.

Anakin spoke with the Healer several times that day, as she tested out various theories and poked and prodded him until she had nearly made him loose his temper. He had little enough patience to begin with, but she had just pushed all his buttons that morning. He meditated, releasing a good deal of his anger, and realized that it was mostly frustration, from not being able to move about under his own power, not being able to help enough, not being able to do…anything. That was it. He needed to be able to do something, anything. She had promised that they would get his limbs all rewired today, and he would be able to move about. They had already fixed the damage to his mask. The damage that his body had taken from the Force Lightning was not bothering him much any more, and the damage that he had taken on Mustafar would not get worse in the next day or so, while they decided what they could do about it.

The Healer entered the room with a droid who would be doing the repairs that he required. He caught her hand, and said to her, "I am sorry that I lost my temper with you. I am just frustrated that I have not been able to move under my own power for two days."

"Oh, that's alright. Most of my patients push themselves too hard, and I have to tie them down so that they don't leave until their bodies are ready," she giggled. "This shouldn't take more than an hour or so, but I still can't let you go anywhere. Master Yoda must release you, before you can go traipsing about."

Anakin glowered at that from behind his mask. The droid did its work, and did it well. In short order he was up and about. The Healer came back in when the droid was finished. "I'm not sure what we can do with you. There is extensive scar tissue and damage to your lungs. It may never be possible for you to go around without some form of respirator," she said to him, being very straight up about the whole mess. "But there are some procedures that we can try in order for you to be less dependant on the mechanics. I'd like to start with those if you would like to try them."

Anakin thought about it for a moment. "Yes. I would like to be able to breathe on my own as much as possible."

She smiled back at him, "Good, we can get started then."

Qui-Gon was disappointed with his Padawan's performance but considering how easily he had beaten Luke the day before, he understood. Luke had made an amazing improvement in his abilities since the day before. Qui-Gon thought that possibly the next morning that Luke would be able to beat Obi-Wan fairly easily. He wondered about that, thinking that maybe Luke had just been rusty. His master was apparently in terrible shape, and had likely been that way for some time. Maybe Luke had been unable to practice. Surely he had learned all of the forms as a Youngling. Qui-Gon sighed, releasing his thoughts as he sank into a deep meditation.

Leia's eyes narrowed as the Queen of Naboo dropped a name that she was very familiar with, although not with the title she would have expected. Something was wrong with the universe, and she didn't know quite what yet. The Queen cut the man off, at about the same point that she would have. He'd had his say, and anything else that came out of his mouth would just be a repetition of his position. A thought was forming in her mind, one that she did not at all care for. "I have a suggestion, if you want to hear it," she said, and every eye in the room riveted on her.

Used to the attention, Leia was not bothered by it, although she hadn't had to say anything to an audience this large in a while. "If we can get around their blockade, you can negotiate from a position of strength. I doubt they have the resources to englobe the planet," she said, then asked, "do you have a map detailing the positions of the blockading ships?"

Captain Panaka stepped forward, "We do," he inserted a data chip into the main viewer. As he typed a few commands into it, a globe, and ships encircling the equatorial region popped into three-dimensional view. "They have ships above all of our port locations, here, here and here," he said indicating three glowing dots on the globe near the equator.

"It would be simple enough to leave via the polar regions, would it not?" she asked, "and be out of the system before they could blink."

"We have no ports at the poles," the captain began to protest.

"Nonsense. You don't need to have ports there. You just need the ships to fly within the atmosphere. Then, being that The Trade Federation cannot make the people of Naboo trade with them, are very weak in position, and should be much more willing to negotiate."

"It is possible that this will break the blockade. I will allow it," the Queen said, trusting this stranger, but not quite knowing why.