A/N: I remain neither George Lucas nor the owner of Star Wars. Consequently, I own the rights to nothing which my readers recognize from the galaxy far, far away ... No profit being made, no intended infringement-just good fun inconveniencing a few electrons and hopefully entertaining my readers.
Nial entered the garage at dawn. "Well, there you are," he said to Padmé. "We've been looking all over for you."
"I had trouble sleeping," said Padmé.
"He's back! He's back!" Kirsi called from outside the garage.
Padmé and Nial came out to Kirsi, as Len emerged from the house.
"Where?" asked Padmé.
Kirsi pointed across the desert.
Squinting and shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun, Padmé finally marked the black dot that was Anakin, rushing toward them. As the speck grew into a distinguishable form, she realized that he was not alone, that there was someone tied over the back of the speeder.
Anakin crossed into the compound a few moments later, pulling up short of the stunned group. Without a word, he dismounted and moved to unstrap his dead mother, lifting her and cradling her in his arms. Then, still without speaking, Anakin walked past them and into the house.
All the time, the thing that struck Padmé the most was the look upon Anakin's face, an expression unlike anything she had ever seen on the Padawan: part rage, part grief, part guilt, and part resignation, even defeat. She knew that Anakin would need her, and soon.
But she had no idea of what she might do for him.
X - x - X - x - X
For the rest of the day, folk in the homestead went about their chores as though trying not to think about what had befallen Shmi. At work preparing a meal for Anakin, Padmé was surprised when Kirsi came up to help her.
"What's it like there?" Kirsi asked, her tone curious.
"I'm sorry?" said Padmé, looking at Kirsi with curiosity and confusion.
"On Naboo. What's it like?"
Padmé could hardly register the question, for her thoughts remained with Anakin and his grief. It took her a long time to respond, but finally she managed to say, "Oh, it's very ... very green. You know, with lots of water, and trees and plants everywhere. It's not like here at all."
"I think I like it here better," Kirsi said, seeming to bristle at the criticism of her home.
"Maybe you'll come and see it someday," said Padmé politely.
"I don't think so. I don't like to travel," said Kirsi.
Padmé picked up the tray and turned to go. How odd that she would ask such questions, then. With as much smile as she could muster, Padmé said, "Thank you, Kirsi."
She found Anakin standing at a workbench in the garage, working on a part from the speeder bike.
"I brought you something to eat."
Anakin glanced at her, but immediately went back to his work. She noted that he was exaggerating every movement, obviously frustrated, obviously distracted from the task at hand.
"The shifter broke," he explained, too intently. "Life seems so much simpler when you're fixing things. I should be better at fixing things. I ..." He slammed down the wrench he was using, head bowed.
A moment of silence stretched between them, Padmé finding herself unable to come up with the words to comfort Anakin.
"Why did she have to die?" he asked.
Padmé put the tray down on the workbench, setting a hand on him, trying to comfort him.
"Why couldn't I save her?" Anakin asked. "I know I could have!"
"Dee, you tried," said Padmé. "Sometimes there are things no one can fix. You're not all-powerful."
He stiffened at her words and pulled away from her suddenly-and angrily, she realized.
"But I should be!" he growled, and then he looked at her, his face a mask of grim determination. "And someday I will be!"
"Anakin, don't say such things," Padmé replied fearfully, but he didn't even seem to hear her.
"I'll be the most powerful Jedi ever!" he railed on. "I promise you! I will even learn to stop people from dying!"
"Anakin-"
"It's all Obi-Wan's fault!" He stormed across the room and slammed his fist onto the workbench again, nearly dislodging the plate of food. "He put me out of the way."
"To guard me," said Padmé quietly.
"I should have been out there with him, hunting the assassins and terrorists! I"d have had them a long time ago, and would've gotten here in time and my mother would still be alive!"
"You can't know-"
"He's jealous of me," Anakin rambled on, paying no attention to her at all.
He isn't talking to me, realized Padmé. He's just letting it out verbally, what he's been thinking. And I can hardly believe what I'm hearing.
"He put me out of the way because he knows that I'm already more powerful than he is. He's holding me back!"
He finished by picking up his wrench and throwing it across the garage, where it smashed against a far wall and clattered down among some spare parts.
"Anakin, what's wrong?" she cried at him.
Her volume and tone finally got his attention.
"I just told you!" he snapped.
"No!" Padmé yelled back at him. "No. What's really wrong?"
Anakin just stared at her, and she knew that she was onto something.
"I know it hurts, Anakin, but this is more than that. What's really wrong."
He just stared at her.
"Dee?"
His body seemed to shrink then, and slump forward a bit. "I ... I killed them," he admitted. "I killed them all. They're dead. Every single one of them."
"You did battle ..." Padmé tried to reason out what he was saying.
"Not just the men," Anakin went on. "And the men are the only fighters among the Tuskens. No, not just them. The woman and the children, too." His face contorted as he teetered between anger and guilt. "They're like animals! And I slaughtered them like animals! I hate them!"
Padmé was too stunned to speak, too stunned to react.
"Why do I hate them?" he asked.
"Do you hate them, or do you hate what they did to your mother?" asked Padmé, finding her voice.
"I hate them!" he insisted.
"And they earned your anger, Anakin," she said.
"But it was more than that ..." Anakin looked up at her, trying to find the words to explain. "I didn't ... I couldn't ... I couldn't control myself. I ... I don't want to hate them-I know that there is no place for hatred. But I just can't forgive them!"
What can I say? Such hatred destroys a man, as surely as a hidden and forbidden love-and he would come to hate me as much as he hates them now ... thought Padmé as warning bells in her subconscious proclaimed "dangerous".
X - x - X - x - X
Obi-Wan Kenobi slumped back in the seat of his starfighter, shaking his head in frustration. It had taken him a long while to extract himself safely from the factory city, and when he had at last found his starfighter, he had thought the adventure over. But not so.
"The transmitter is working," he stated his thoughts aloud as R2D2 tootled his agreement. "But we're not receiving a return signal. Coruscant's too far." He spun to face the droid. "Can you boost the power?"
The beeps that came back at him were not comforting.
"Okay, then, we'll have to try something else." Obi-Wan looked around for an answer. He didn't want to lift off from the planet and risk detection, but so far out and within the heavy and metallic atmosphere of Geonosis, he had no chance of reaching distant Coruscant.
"B'reuse is much closer," he said suddenly, and R2 beeped. "Maybe we can contact Anakin and get the information relayed."
R2 replied with enthusiasm and Obi-Wan climbed back out of the cockpit to repeat the message with the changes for Anakin. A few moments later, though, the droid signaled him that something was wrong. With a frustrated growl, the Jedi climbed back into the cockpit.
"How can he not be there?" he asked, getting a determinedly negative whistle in reply from the droid. Rather than argue with the droid, Obi-Wan checked the instruments himself. Sure enough, Anakin's signal was not to be found coming from B'reuse.
"Anakin? Anakin? Do you copy? This is Obi-Wan Kenobi," he said, lifting his ship comm directly and shooting the call out into the general area of B'reuse.
After several minutes with no response, the Jedi put the comm back down, and turned to R2. "He's not there. I'm going to widen the search. I hope nothing's happened to him."
He sat back down as the minutes slipped past. He knew that he was losing precious time, but his choices were limited. He couldn't head back to the city and risk capture, not with so much vital news to relay to the Jedi Council, nor did he want to blast away, for the same reasons. He still had so much to learn here.
So he waited, and finally some time later, R2 tootled emphatically. Obi-Wan moved to the controls, his eyes widening as he got the confirmation.
"That's Anakin's tracking signal all right, but it's coming from Tatooine! What in the blazes is he doing there? He was told to stay on B'reuse ..."
R2 gave another low whistle.
"All right, we're all set-we'll get these answers later," said Obi-Wan. He climbed back out of the cockpit and jumped to the ground. "Transmit, Artoo. We haven't much time."
The droid locked onto him immediately.
"Anakin?" asked Obi-Wan. "Anakin, do you copy? This is Obi-Wan Kenobi."
"Master Kenobi, sir," came the smoothly metallic voice of C-3PO. "It is good to hear your voice. I trust everything is finding you ..."
"Good, are you reading me clearly?" said Obi-Wan, interrupting the long-winded droid.
"Yes, sir, quite clearly," said C-3PO. "I ..."
"Record this message and deliver it to the Jedi, Anakin Skywalker," Obi-Wan instructed. "Anakin, my long-range transmitter is knocked out. Re-transmit this message to Coruscant ..."
The Jedi began to tell his tale, then. Urgency to relay his findings hid from him the knowledge that the Geonosians had picked up his signal broadcast. Nor did he think of the possibility that they had triangulated those receptions to locate his starfighter. Wound up in his tale, he didn't notice the approach of the armed droidekas, rolling up to him, and then unrolling to their attack posture.
X - x - X - x - X
Twisting slowly in the force field, restrained by crackling bolts of blue energy, Obi-Wan Kenobi could only watch helplessly as Count Rex Austerus strode into the room. Wearing an expression outwardly displaying great sympathy, the regal man walked right up before the encapsulated Obi-Wan. The falseness rang an alarm in Obi-Wan's mind as he stretched mentally for the will of the Force drowned by the noise of the energy force field.
"Traitor," Obi-Wan said.
"Hello, my friend," Rex replied. "This is a mistake. A terrible mistake. They've gone too far. This is madness!"
"I thought youwere their leader here, Austerus," Obi-Wan replied, holding his voice as steady as possible.
"This had nothing to do with me, I assure you," the former Jedi insisted. He seemed almost hurt by the accusation. "I promise you that I will petition immediately to have you set free."
"Well, I hope it doesn't take too long. I have work to do," replied Obi-Wan. He noted a slight crack in Austerus' remorseful expression, a slight twinge of ... anger?
"May I ask what a Jedi Knight is doing all the way out here on Geonosis?"
After a moment's reflection, Obi-Wan decided he had little to lose here, and he wanted to continue to press Austerus, that he might gauge the truth. "I'm following the trail set me by a bounty hunter named Jango Fett. Do you know him?"
"There are no bounty hunters here that I am aware of. Geonosians don't trust them," replied Austerus.
Trust. That's a good word-and yet I sense I cannot trust him either."Well, who can blame them?" said Obi-Wan disarmingly. "But he is here, I assure you."
Count Austerus paused for a moment, then nodded, apparently conceding the point. "It's a great pity that our paths have never crossed before, Obi-Wan," he said, his tone warm and inviting. "Qui-Gon always spoke very highly of you. I wish he was still alive-I could use his help right now."
"Qui-Gon would never join you."
"Don't be so sure, my young Jedi," immediately replied Count Austerus, a gentle smile on his face, one of confidence and calm. "You forget that Qui-Gon was once my apprentice, just as you were once his."
"You believe that brings loyalty above his loyalty to the Jedi Council and the Republic?"
"He knew all about the corruption in the Senate," Austerus went on without missing a beat. "They all do, of course. Yoda and Mace Windu. But Qui-Gon would never have gone along with the status quo, with the corruption, if he had known the truth as I have." The pause was dramatic, demanding a prompt from Obi-Wan.
"The truth?"
"The truth," replied a confident Rex Austerus. "What if I told you that the Republic was now under the control of the Dark Lords of the Sith?"
The notion hit Obi-Wan as profoundly as any of the electric bolts holding him ever could. "No! That's not possible." His mind whirled, needing a denial. He along among the living Jedi had battled a Sith Lord, and that contest had cost his beloved Master Qui-Gon his life. "The Jedi would be aware of it."
"The dark side of the Force has clouded theiir vision, my friend," explained Austerus serenely. "Hundreds of Senators are now under the influence of a Sith Lord called Darth Sidious."
"I don't believe you," Obi-Wan said flatly. I just wish I truly believed that to be the truth as solidly as I proclaimed it so.
"The viceroy of the Trade Federation was once in league with this Darth Sidious," Austerus explained, and given the events of a decade ago, it seemed a resonable claim. "But he was betrayed ten years ago by the Dark Lord. He came to me for help. He told me everything. The Jedi Council would not believe him. I tried many times to warn them, but they wouldn't listen to me. Once they sense the Dark Lord's presence and realize their error, it will be too late. You mustjoin with me, Obi-Wan, and together we will destroy the Sith."
It all seemed so reasonable, so logical, so attuned to the legend of Count Austerus as Obi-Wan had larned it. But beneath the silken words and tone was a feeling Obi-Wan had that flew in the face of that logic.
"I will never join you, Count!" Obi-Wan's cry burst through the silk web, irrevocably rending the half-woven spell.
The cultured and regal man gave a great and disappointed sigh, then turned to leave. "It may be difficult to secure your release," he tossed back at Obi-Wan as he exited the room.