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.

It looked like many of the courtrooms scattered about the galaxy, a round room sectioned by curving ceilings and tall boxed-off areas, with rows of seats behind the main area for interested onlookers. But the makeup of the principals told Padmé that the resemblance to a hall of justice ended right there. Poggle the Lesser, the Archduke of Geonosis, presided over the gathering, helped by his Geonosian aide, Sun Fac, but clearly there would be no possibility of open-mindedness. Padmé recognized the others as separatist Senators, dignitaries of the various commercials guilds and the InterGalactic Banking Clan.

She watched them carefully, noting the visceral hatred in their eyes. This was no hearing, no trial. It was a proclamation of hatred, and nothing more.

And so Padmé was hardly surprised when Sun Fac stepped forward and announced, "You have been charged and found guilty of espionage."

So much for evidence, thought Padmé

"Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out?" Archduke Poggle the Lesser asked.

Unshaken, the cool Senator stared the Geonosian straight in the eye. "You are committing an act of war, Archduke. I hope you are prepared for the consequences."

The Geonosian chuckled. "We build weapons, Senator. That is our business! Of course we're prepared!"

"Get on with it!" came the voice of Nute Gunray from the side. "Carry out the sentence. I want to see her suffer."

Padmé only shook her head. All this because she had foiled the Nemoidian's plans to exploit her planet when she was Queen. All this because she hadn't rolled over before the power of Gunray and his followers. And to think that she had agreed to mercy for the Nemoidians after their defeat on Naboo!

"Your other Jedi friend is waiting for you, Senator," Archduke Poggle the Lesser announced, and he waved to the guards. "Take them to the arena."

At the back of the hall, the young boy soaked it all in and looked up at his father, a perfect older-version replica of himself.

"Are they going to be fed to the beasts?" Boba Fett asked.

Jango Fett looked down at his eager son and chuckled. "Yes, Boba." He had many times told Boba stories of the Geonosian arena.

"Oh, I hope they use an acklay," said Boba matter-of-factly. "I want to see if it's as powerful as I've read."

Jango just smiled and nodded, amused that his son was already so interested in such things, and glad for the dispassion in his tone. Boba was being strictly pragmatic here, even in the face of the executions of three people. He was taking in the entire scenario with the cool and collected pragmatism that would allow him to survive in the harsh galaxy. He is a good learner, Jango thought.

Much to his dismay, C-3PO soon found out what the Geonosian had meant when he had said, "Put him in the line!"

He was in a group of drilling battle droids, a dozen lines of twenty in a rectangular formation, going through the extensive programming testing before being herded onto great landing pads to be scooped up by the Trade Federation warships.

So flustered was the out-of-place protocol droid, and so unfamiliar with his new body, that when the Geonosian ordered "left face," he turned to the right, and when the drill leader then commanded, "March," the battle droid now facing him stomped right into him, bearing him backward, following its orders to a T without the ability to improvise.

"Oh, do stop!" C-3PO pleaded. "You are scratching me! Oh, I do beg you to stop!"

No response followed, because the droids had been programmed to respond only to the drill leader.

"Oh, do stop!" C-3PO begged again, fearful that he was going to be knocked over and trampled by the battle droid, and the four others marching behind it. His sensors, tied in to his new torso, showed him an effective solutionto his problem. Without even realizing what he was doing, C-3PO fired his right-arm laser, point blank, into the pushing battle droid's chest, blasting the thing apart.

"Oh my!" C-3PO cried.

"Halt!" the Geonosian drill leader screamed, and all the droids immediately froze in place. Except for poor C-3PO, who stood there positively flummoxed, his torso rotating side to side as he tried to figure out what to do next. He heard the drill leader call out to "take four dot seven back for more training," and when he considered his position in the ranks, he knew the Geonosian was talking about him.

"Wait, no, it is a mistake," he cried as a pair of burly maintenance droids rolled over and scooped him up in their vise-grip arms. "Oh, but this is all wrong. I am programmed in over three million languages, not for marching!"

The jumble of information they were downloading into C-3PO would surely have overwhelmed the droid, conditioning him as intended, had his circuits not already been filled to near capacity with linguistic information. C-3PO engaged in multiple translations of each instruction pattern, and in doing so, managed to water them down enough so that they lost any real effect.

His subtlety seemed lost on the brutes programming him, and after a few short hours, they led him out of the room and across the large assembly hall.

It was there that C-3PO heard a plaintive, somewhat familiar, whine.

"Artoo!" he called, swiveling his head. There was his dome-shaped companion, working at a console. R2-D2 swiveled his head and gave another "ooooo".

"Oh, Artoo!" C-3PO wailed, and before he could even consider the action, he brought a laser sight up before his eyes, focusing on the restraining bolt set into his friend.

A single blast flew out, skimming the bolt from R2-D2, the ricocheting around the room.

"Hey!" cried one of the instructor droids, moving fast to C-3PO's side.

"Looks like this one needs more programming," another said.

The chief maintenance droid looked about the room and shook his dome. "Nah," he said. "No damage done. Get this one out to the yard and out of here!"

They led C-3PO away.

Soon after they were gone, R2-D2 rolled away from his console without notice. Since all of the relatively benign droids working in here were restrained by bolts, there were no real guards in the room.

The little droid was out and free soon after.

After downloading the schematics, R2-D2 had little trouble navigating the huge factory complex. The small droid rolled along, whistling casually to deflect any suspicion on the part of the many Geonosians milling about.

None of them seemed interested in him, anyway, though, and R2 thought he knew why. He had learned of a huge event taking place, a triple execution. He could easily enough guess the identities of the unfortunate prisoners.

He wandered along a meandering course through the complex, avoiding as many Geonosians as possible, passing those he could not with an air of detachment, trying not to look out of place.

He knew that it would get more crowded as he neared the arena, though, and could only hope that the Geonosians there would be too distracted by the thrilling events to bother with a little astromech droid.