"Why are you doing this?" asked Padme as soon as her husband's form flickered off, leaving her with a hollow feeling that did not sit well with her. Her voice was quiet, so so quiet, and in the silence, she could hear her heart pounding—

"Why am I doing what?" asked the woman, not bothering to spare her a glance as she pocketed the comm.

"This," Padme didn't feel the need to reiterate everything that had happened within the last twelve hours since she had been abducted. "All of this," her thoughts drifted towards the Senate, to the dead Clones, Typho, Anakin. "What do you think you're going to accomplish?"

At that, the woman stared at her, twisting and turning that phrase inside of her mind over and over before finally saying, "even if I told you, you wouldn't understand."

Padme looked for an angle, but the woman's demeanor remained unchanging; her lips pursed and her features etched in stone. She couldn't glean any emotions off the woman, and nothing in the woman's countenance was telling Padme anything. If the situation hadn't been so dire, she might've been jealous. The way her daughter carried herself was enough to make any politician envious.

"I think," she swallowed thickly before continuing; "I think I could."

She took a step closer to the woman— her daughter. Shiraya, she can hardly believe that this woman is hers and Anakin's child… But even now in the dimming light of the cockpit, Padme can see traces of her husband in this woman's face. Eerie as it is, she can also herself. "If you explained it to me, I think I could understand."

"No," she said, leaving very little room for argument. "You wouldn't understand because you haven't lived through what I have had to," she says, squaring her shoulders and clenching her haw. "There are things that you don't know, Senator. Things I can't explain to you."

"Then explain it to me," huffs Padme, giving the woman an equal amount of stubbornness that even Anakin would be proud of. "Or at least tell me why you kidnapped me."

The woman turned to leave.

"Please," Padme has never been one to beg. Her tenure as Queen had taught her to make demands instead. But even now, she knows that won't work. She wanted answers— no, she needed answers, and if that meant having to beg… "You owe me that much."

At that, the woman paused. She was halfway to the door, her back still turned on her, but Padme didn't need the Force to feel the conflict in the other woman.

"The future that I come from," she began, turning back around and meeting Padme's imploring gaze. "You don't know what it's like… All the pain, the devastation, the suffering," she swallowed as her eyes glistened then sharpened. "I made a choice. Maybe it wasn't the best choice, but it was a choice."

"And that choice brought you here?" asked Padme.

"Yes," she watched her daughter's eyes darken. "You have no idea how much of the future depends on the here and now. I can stop it all from happening. Everything."

Padme blinked. She couldn't remember the last time she had seen someone so— broken. Not even Anakin in all of his grief at losing his mother had looked as sad as this woman was now.

For a moment, she could see the woman's eyes flicker, as if struggling to reveal the true color behind the yellow.

"What happened?"

Padme had thought that maybe she could use the moment of weakness to her own advantage; learn more about the situation and come up with a plan. But the moment she asked the question, her daughter's eyes visibly darkened, all hints of weakness disappearing in a matter of seconds as her fist clenched at her side.

"Sidious," she sneered. "That karking—"

"Sidious?" Padme asked. "Is that the Sith Lord the Jedi have been looking for?"

She remembered what Anakin had told her in passing, and so the name was familiar to her. But that was all that Padme knew. Her husband had always been cautious about sharing information like that with her so as to not scare her, but she knew enough.

At that, the woman laughed humorlessly. "Looking for? They needn't look for him, Senator. He's always been right in front of them, right under their pretentious little noses—"

"What are you talking about?"

The humored smile on the woman's lips faded, giving way to something much, much darker. It almost made Padme take a step back as she felt herself weathering an intense look that sent shivers up her spine.

"What if I told you," she began, her words painfully slow. "That the Sith Lord was in charge of the Republic?"

Was that a rhetorical question?

"I would say that's absurd," was Padme's measured response. "And impossible."

"Improbable," corrected the woman. "But not impossible."

Padme stops, startled by this new development.

"Sidious has been controlling both the Separatists and the Republic. This entire War has been nothing more than a game, and everyone in it his unwitting pawns," she finished, her words echoing as Padme stared at her in stunned silence.

Padme tried to process this, her mouth opening and closing again when the words failed to come to her. It was too much. All of it. Too much.

"But that would mean—" ice filled her bones, her voice filled with horror as sudden realization dawned.

That would mean the Chancellor-!

"Palpatine," she choked. "He… He's Sidious?"

He had been her mentor. Ever since she had joined the Legislative Youth Program on Naboo all those years ago. He had been the one whispering in her ear, giving her advice through the guise of mentorship... She had trusted him.

They had all trusted him. And Anakin—

Anakin had trusted him most of all.

Her stomach twisted and churned, nausea pooling in the back of her throat as a bitter taste filled her mouth.

"Senator…" the woman stopped and took a deep breath. "Padme," she corrected herself, "I know this must come as a shock to you—"

"How?"

How could the Jedi not know?

"Sidious is very powerful," was the woman's response. "More powerful than the Jedi could ever know or think."

She swallowed.

"What is he trying to do?" she asked, her voice sounded strange, even to her own ears. "What… What does he want?"

"For the Republic to fall," she answered.

In a daze, Padme found herself slumped in the pilot's chair as she stared numbly at the passing stars, the cracked leather cushion beneath her all that she could feel in that moment. The cockpit controls sparked ominously as the lights flickered.

"Does… Does he succeed?" she asked, throat too dry and words too quiet.

"Yes," the woman whispered. "He did."

"In order to ensure the safety and continuing stability," she continued as Padme watched her out of her peripheral. "The Republic was reorganized into the first Galactic Empire. For a more safe and secure society."

"The War…" Padme swallowed.

"Caused the Republic to fear for its safety," she said as Padme closed her eyes. "And that fear that was what enabled the Senate to willingly give up liberty in place of security," her voice horrifically monotone as she recited history. "You wouldn't believe how much they cheered and applauded the death of the Republic… That's how dictatorships start. With excitement and fervent nationalism."

Padme's head was spinning. "What about the Jedi? They couldn't have stopped him?" asked Padme, desperation clouding her mind.

"With what power?" she asked. "Correct me if I am wrong, but don't the Jedi take orders from the Senate?"

"Well, yes. But—"

"But the Jedi don't have any political power," she finished, cutting Padmé off before she could get a word in. "The Republic is corrupt, Senator. It has been for quite some time now. There was nothing the Jedi could do to stop what had already been put into motion. Nothing they could've done would've fixed anything... Not that they didn't foolishly try to."

"What did they do?" asked Padme.

"They attempted a coup," she explained. "And of course, it failed. Spectacularly."

"Do you know how crazy that sounds?" she breathed. "You're telling me that the Jedi tried to take over the Senate?"

"No," said the woman. "But they did try to arrest the Chancellor— who had been granted so many emergency powers at that point he might as well have been the governing body of the Republic. They failed to take that into account, as well as his popularity. So when the Jedi tried and failed to kill him, Palpatine was able to turn the Senate and a large portion of the public against them," she said before adding; "and then he got rid of them."

"How?" demanded Padmé. "There are over ten thousand Jedi-"

"The Clones have organic chips built into their genetic code to make them do whatever someone wants," she explained. "Even kill the Jedi, if they are ordered too."

"Who put it there?"

"Who do you think?" she sneered.

Padmé shook her head, "no, that can't be. We know where the Clones came from. It was a Jedi who ordered their creation."

"That's what he wanted you to think," she shook her head. "Think about it, Senator. An army of Clones appears magically out of thin air when you need them most because some Jedi who's been dead for ten years supposedly ordered and paid for their commission to fight in a war that he somehow knew was coming," she said before adding; "if you ask me, that sounds a little bit… Too convenient."

Padmé was too stunned to say anything.

"It was called Order 66," she continued, her voice much softer. "But to everyone else in the galaxy, it was known as the Purge. When the Empire heroically rid the galaxy of the warmongering, power-hungry Jedi."

"When?" she choked, her voice hoarse.

"Two days before my birth. Two days before—" she started, her voice catching and threatening to break.

"Two days before what?"

She closed her eyes and inhaled, steadying herself before continuing. "We don't have much time. In less than a year Palpatine will make his move and then everything will go to ruin. I have to act quickly—"

"Two days before what?" demanded Padme, bringing the conversation back to the beginning. It hadn't escaped her attention that the woman had faltered, and something told her that she wasn't telling her everything.

The woman faltered, her eyes refusing to meet Padme's as she shook her head. There was a moment in which Padme was certain the woman was not going to answer her, but then the next words out of her mouth stopped her dead in her tracks.

"Two days before your death," she said, meeting her gaze as a muscle in her jaw rippled with tension.

"How?" she breathed, gut churning and chest clenching. Maybe she didn't want to know— maybe ignorance would be better. But morbid curiosity was getting the better of her, the desire to know why she hadn't been there for her daughter—

"You died in childbirth," she said as Padme tensed and then exhaled. "I'm afraid I don't know anything more than that. I'm sorry."

Padme knew the words were meant to be comforting but coming out of this woman's mouth they were anything but. No wonder her daughter treated her like a stranger. For all intents and purposes, they were.

"And Anakin?" she asked. The thought of her own death was unpleasant, but it paled in comparison to the thought of her husband dying.

"Dead," the woman was quick to answer, her words sharp and without an ounce of compassion.

Padme closed her eyes as she felt her world crumble and fall— shattering into a billion little pieces in front of her. She had never imagined how fragile her life was until now, how suddenly it could all be taken from her.

No. Not her Ani.

She could feel tears running down her cheeks as a sob threatened to spill out of her covered mouth. The situation had gone from insane to dire in a matter of only a few seconds. The reality of what was going to happen soon— the Republic falling, the rise of an Empire, Palpatine's status as a Sith, her impending death… It was almost too much. But knowing that her husband was going to die? That was like a kick to the gut. Worse than that. Padmé felt as though her heart had just been ripped out.

She needed to compartmentalize. She was good at doing that, especially when faced with unpleasant things— the likes of which she had gotten used to seeing in the Senate. The Senate that would soon willingly allow the creation of an Empire and the murder of the Jedi…

"Okay, okay. I— I can see why you came back," she took a deep breath. "But that still doesn't explain why you kidnapped me."

For all the talking that her daughter had done, she had still managed to get around answering that one simple question.

Why?

"I thought that would be obvious by now," said the woman before adding; "to get to your husband, of course. He's the reason I came back. Why I kidnapped you… I knew he would come after you."

"So you could warn him?"

At that, the woman shook her head, unable to meet Padmé's gaze. "No… Not exactly."

Padmé kept staring at her, silently demanding an answer to her question as the other woman sighed.

"I didn't come here to warn him, Senator," she inhaled. "I came here to kill him."

"Endor, designation IX3244-A. Grid coordinates H-16," said Rex as he read the star chart in front of them before glancing over at Anakin. "A Sanctuary Moon? That's where she wants you to meet her?"

Anakin stared at the planet, slowly reading through all of the information that they had on it. It was in the Moddell Sector, which was in the Outer Rim. It was… hardly an important place. Of all the places she could have picked for their first meeting, this was not what Anakin had been expecting.

"It's… An interesting choice," Anakin admitted as Cody scoffed.

"I've never heard of this Endor before today," said Cody as he too glanced at the information. "There aren't even settlements there."

"It's pretty isolated," Anakin agreed.

"And definitely off the beaten path," said Obi-Wan as he strolled onto the bridge. "Perfect place for an ambush if you ask me."

"You think she's gonna try and ambush him, Sir?" asked Rex as he glanced back at his General.

"I wouldn't dismiss the possibility," Obi-Wan replied as he eyed the star chart. "Anakin said she was very adamant that he come alone."

"Are you sure you can trust her?" asked Rex as Anakin shook his head.

"Not one bit," replied Anakin as he crossed his arms over his chest while Obi-Wan frowned beside him, clearly not liking their prospects either.

"Anakin," he started. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Anakin snorted at that. "Oh, I know this a terrible idea. I just don't see any alternative at the moment."

"Sir, I think it goes without saying that I don't feel comfortable with General Skywalker going by himself," said Cody before adding; "I still think we should accompany him to the ground in case she tries to pull a fast one."

"I was thinking the same thing," said Obi-Wan. "In fact… I may have an idea."