Author's Note: This isn't that very long of a chapter, but I promise the next, which I'll post tomorrow, will be much longer and more informative as some interesting things are revealed within it about the Grievous sisters' past and unspoken of family. Enjoy!
Episode VI: The Golden Age of the Empire
Chapter 12: Presences Disappear
A month later, two events happened. Antellica, Obi-Wan, and Yoda's presences in the Force completely and utterly vanished, and the divorce between Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala was finally finalized.
Though he was supposed to, Anakin did not attend the court finaling on Coruscant due to still being in the Mid Rim and refusing to take a break from it. The divorce finalized fine without him however. The papers he was supposed to sign were sent to him via terminal download. After he printed them off and signed them, they were sent back via email. He was happy and glad to be a single, unmarried man again. Though for how long that status would last he did not know. He thought about this as he returned to his duties on the Executor. Padme was equally glad to be out of the marriage, if not more. She felt as though a heavy weight had finally been lifted off her shoulders.
As for Antellica's Force signature vanishing, she wasn't dead as some may have thought. She and Obi-Wan had finally mastered the art of vanishing Force signatures into the Force at will. They'd quickly shared this information with Yoda and between the three of them were able to find away at dimming Alexander's Force signature a bit since they couldn't vanish it. Only he could do that when he was older. Yoda suggested he be taught this. But teaching him this would also mean he'd need to be taught the ways of the Force, something Obi-Wan wasn't too keen on.
"If it's all the same with you master," Obi-Wan said to the holographic form of Yoda that stood before he, Antellica, and baby Alexander in the main room of their Tatooine hut – the last of which were on the floor playing with rattles and a stuffed bantha, "I'd prefer Alexander not to be trained in the ways of the Force."
"What?! Why?!" Antellica asked in surprised confusion, drawing her attention for a moment away from their one-month-old son.
Yoda was frowning. "Strong in the Force your son is, Obi-Wan. A powerful Jedi Knight he will become."
It was the stern defiance in Yoda's voice that irritated Obi-Wan somewhat. "I'm afraid that's for me to decide Master Yoda. I am his father, and if I say I don't want him trained-"
"Well I want him trained," Antellica spoke up, cutting him off. "If you won't train him Obi-Wan, I will."
"You?" Obi-Wan gave a small chuckle. "Forgive me for saying so my beautiful wife, but you can't train him because you aren't fully trained yourself. The blind can't lead the blind."
Before Antellica's anger could flair up, Yoda banged down his gimmer stick in frustration.
"Upset you are Obi-Wan," he said. "Think that lead another down the dark side you will, if train another you do."
Obi-Wan was on the verge of a sarcastic retort, but than sighed and lowered his head towards the floor. The small Jedi Master was all too right. Glancing over at Alexander, he spoke. "I failed Anakin master. I couldn't bear to have that happen again, not to Alexander."
Once more, Yoda banged down his gimmer stick. "Your fault it was not that Vader turned. His own choice that was. Beat yourself up, you should not. Not the only to have a pupil turn to the dark side you are."
Obi-Wan nodded at this in remembrance. Qui-Gon's first apprentice, Xanatos had turned and became a dark rogue Jedi. And one of Yoda's own Padawans, Count Dooku, had became a Sith.
"Obi-Wan," Antellica said gently, sitting next to her husband on the room's only couch. "We all know how dark the Force is with the domination of the Sith, but it doesn't have to stay that way. If ever we want peace and justice to return to the galaxy, and the Force to return to being in the light, we must do what we must by training the next generation in the ways of the Jedi: Luke, Leila, Alexander, and any other children we may have."
Obi-Wan softly turned to gaze at his wife's reassuring face and than glanced at Yoda. "Listen to Antellica you should. Much wisdom she has, though young she is."
Antellica smiled softly at the green Jedi. "Thank you Master Yoda."
Obi-Wan glanced from Yoda to Alexander again–he was currently hitting the toy bantha he was holding over the head with his rattle, chattering nonsense. Obi-Wan smiled slightly and looked back over at Antellica's still smiling face and kissed her. Eventually, he sighed and placed his hand down onto his wife's shoulder before looking back over at Yoda.
"All right," he finally said. "I'll train him, and you," he added glancing at Antellica.
Antellica gave her husband a sly smile. "Of course you will."
The empire's four highest raking officials, now that the Skywalker twins were no longer within it, had various reactions to the Jedi's Force signatures suddenly vanishing.
Arica, who was conversing with Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin at the time she felt the disappearance, was somewhat saddened by it and quickly excused herself from the bewildered Moff's company. She was aboard her Super Star Destroyer, the Executrix in orbit around the Death Star and Mustafar.
As Commander-in-chief of the Imperial Navy, Arica had been given the older sibling of the Supreme Commander's own Super Star Destroyer, the Executor, as a flagship. Though a few years older than Anakin's newer model, it was still as effective as the Executor if not more. It was the same size as its brother, but laid out different on the in and outside. Arica had fell in love with it the moment she laid eyes on the vessel and still, after having it for a month, couldn't get over the fact that it was actually hers.
Arica and Tarkin had just been conversing over the problems with the Death Star project. It turned out that the space station was far behind schedule. It was beset with engineering problems, delays in shipments, the unreliability of contractors, and most important, a shortage of skilled laborers. As of recently, the Emperor had placed Tarkin in charge of supervising most aspects of the Death Star's production as the empress was far too busy to continue as co-head anymore, though not all of it. Which was why Arica or Anakin would continue with overseeing the project's production at times.
Strangely enough, Arica hadn't met Grand Moff Tarkin before, and so was introduced to him by the Commander of Tarkin's own Star Destroyer, Rapture when she first arrived and left her ship to board the Moff's. He was a very dolsole man in his early 40s, and a bit too arrogant and self-righteous for Arica's tastes. But that was to be expected she supposed. Tarkin had flown up in the rakes of the emperor's new military/political command faster than anyone could say "Cheating dog!" He was self-satisfied and did not take well to failure, the latter being the only quality about Tarkin that she admired.
After Arica had excused herself from the Moff, she went to the chambers that had been prepared for her while staying on Rapture and meditated on what she'd just felt.
Force signatures don't just disappear, unless of course...No. She couldn't be dead. She just couldn't be.
But yet when Arica searched the Force for her sister's once bright Force presence, all she found was what was expected when people pass on from the living to becoming one with the Force: emptiness.
Besides her anger, hurt, and confusion towards Antellica, Arica couldn't help but be a little sad and cried softly for a short while at the thought of her sister's death.
Anakin was on the beautiful Mid rim world Ord Mantell when he felt the disturbance of the three Jedi's presences disappearing in the Force. He was taken by slight surprise that they all disappeared at once, but than shrugged it off. He didn't care about Obi-Wan and Yoda. In his eyes they were bastards. It was Antellica whom he was upset over.
She was so young, only seventeen. She had her whole life ahead of her.
But anger is another thing he felt, once again at the now dead Obi-Wan for taking Antellica's whole life and future from her.
The empress was on Coruscant, arriving back at her office from the divorce finaling when she felt it. Unlike the other three however, she could've cared less. It was as she told her father later that day, "I hope she did die. And those dogs with her. My only regret is that I wasn't the one whom brought her life to an end."
The emperor shook his head at this and rose from his seat, making to look out his vast office window. "It doesn't add up," he said thoughtfully. "The possibility of the three of them all dying at once while they're in hiding doesn't make sense."
Padme shrugged. "Maybe they were found by the bounty hunters."
"That fast?" he said doubtfully. "No, I don't think so. Besides if that were so, I would've been notified at once. The bounty hunting scum would want to get their filthy hands on those credits as soon as possible. No." He continued to gaze out at the night sky of Galactic City, deep in thought. "It's something else. For some reason now Antellica and Kenobi's sons' presence is dimmer than it was before, as if it's being deliberately dimmed by another Force sensitive to keep his location from being found by other sensitives, preferably Sith."
Padme shook his head in disbelief. "Are you trying to say that- You can't mean that they're still alive?! That's impossible! Their Force signatures are gone. They've vanished. The three have moved on from this life and are now one with the Force."
The emperor though was not convinced. "I shall have to meditate on this..."
