"Of all the situations I've gotten myself into…" he grumbled under his breath as he checked the loaded power cell for his blaster pistol. It was almost empty. He sighed. "I have bad feeling about this…"

Two years. Two years after he had left the Jedi Order, of fighting this war, and he still didn't hate using a blaster any less. They were clumsy, unreliable, and just completely uncivilized. It was demeaning. Well, perhaps not as demeaning as his current situation. He was alone on this barren moon, in a cave, pinned behind a slanted rock as the droid army fired a barrage of red bolts at him, pelting the stone, gradually chipping away at it. All the while, he was talking to himself and just generally not having a very good time.

Obi-Wan Kenobi was practically flat on his back on the ground, the blaster in his hand, and his head thrumming a little from the constant bombardment around him. There was a small chirp from the belt around his hips and he took out his holoprojector, tapping the answer button with his thumb. The tiny, grotesque shape that appeared had more or less been haunting him all day, constantly calling.

"I'm rather busy at the moment, General Grievous…" he grunted when another spray of sharp rocks rained on his head. "Would you mind terribly if I call you back later?"

"There won't be a later for you, Jedi Scum! Or should I just call you… SCUM." Grievous hacked at his own joke. "The great General Kenobi, a Jedi reject!"

"Oh, General… You're making me blush… You've never called me 'great' before…" He managed a smirk as he shook the chalky pebbles from his hair.

"My droids have you surrounded! Your attempts at securing this moon for the Republic have been in vain! Already my army is overtaking your meager Two-Hundred-and-Twelfth!"

He had been separated from Commander Cody and the rest of the battalion. It seemed a large chunk of Grievous's army was eager to go after Kenobi. Obi-Wan didn't exactly balk at the idea of being chased down by a troop of droids, even without a lightsaber, but the constant blaster fire was beginning to get to him.

"Your first mistake is thinking of the Two-Hundred-and-Twelfth as anything even remotely close to meager, General…" Obi-Wan blew a strand of hair from his eyes. "You can't even kill me."

The tiny ghost of Grievous in his palm shook an enraged metal fist and made a growling wheeze before suddenly ending the transmission. That was about how every conversation played out throughout the day. Grievous would threaten him, Obi-Wan would sass him, Grievous would shake his fist, and the fight goes on.

Obi-Wan sighed and tucked the holoprojector back into his belt, just in time for another blast to shake the ground beneath him, nearly knocking him out from his cover. "That's quite enough of that!"

"Surrender, Jedi!" a battle droid shrilled out to him over the noise.

"We can flank him! Move around the back!"

"Roger, roger!"

"Kill the Jedi!"

"Roger!"

"Roger!"

He had given up on correcting them that he was no longer a Jedi. The title was still inescapable, after two years. It didn't matter to their programming.

These couple of hours sitting behind a rock hadn't been for the fun of it—he had some kind of plan formulating. He waited patiently, counting on them coming around the back of this cave. Of course, it was surprising that it took them this long to reach that plan. His own blaster was on the last of its power cell, and he had no back up. He had perhaps three or four bolts left. The rock continued to shake with the bursts of droid fire, and he could now hear the mechanical marching coming towards him from the other end of the cave tunnel.

They had him surrounded. He smiled.

He closed his eyes, opened himself to the Force and the eddies that flowed through the universe around him. He could feel every footfall of every battle droid, every gear that turned and every circuit that buzzed. He was centered, he was part of the moon, part of the droid army, part of the cave and the fissures in the rocks that constructed it. He let the Force aim his blaster.

"There he is!" one of the droids pointed at him with its three fingers. In perfect unison, their rifles pointed.

He fired one bolt and the cave dropped on top of them in a flurry of droid screams and annoyed groans. The cloud of white moondust that exploded out of the cave effectively obscured the view of the battalion outside, and Obi-Wan charged out from his hiding place. He fired into the cloud, the Force guiding his hand, the blaster hitting home with a sharp PLUNK every time it hit a droid. They fired blindly back into the cloud, their photoreceptors only able to track the diffused flashes of his blaster fire. They fired two steps ahead of him—or at least where they predicted he would be.

"Stop tryin' to shoot him!" A commanding droid shouted. "Use a grenade!"

"Roger, roger!"

He could hear the objects whistling through the air towards him.

"Oh, not good…"

He fired upward at the projectiles and managed to detonate three of the grenades in the air in blinding fireballs before his blaster ran out of energy. Two of them landed.

The first explosion threw more rocks at his face, pelting and cutting his skin, but it was the second that knocked him a clear ten feet, his body spinning from the force of it, dropping him onto the jagged rock surface of the ground in a violent tumble.

Everything was ringing, and for a moment his vision went black, his useless weapon knocked from his hand. He didn't know how long he was lying there when his sight slowly returned in bleary shapes. Those were clankers standing over him, alright, their elongated heads nodding, the ends of their blasters pointed at him. Then he was pretty sure he heard some 'Jedi dog' remark.

There were more flashes and the droids were pelted out of his view. They were being fired on, blue bolts, that meant Republic weapons. Though he was still disoriented, he knew he couldn't stay there. He rolled, grabbing onto the first weapon that he could pull into his grip with the Force. He shot down some droids, before his leg gave out under him and he hit the ground hard. He was worse off than he thought with his injuries…

It didn't matter. Everything was suddenly silent, and marching out from around the towers of rocks were Clone troopers. And cutting down the remaining droids was the blue blur of a lightsaber, sweeping and twirling, creating disks of light. Obi-Wan blinked hard, shaking the powdery moon dust from his hair and eyes.

He couldn't run and he knew it. So he stayed where he was, doubled over, bleeding from somewhere, probably broken somewhere else. When all the droids were destroyed, the Jedi was walking towards him, lightsaber still ignited. Obi-Wan was fighting to retain consciousness. He was awake enough, however, to pat at his jacket and make sure that the solid, flat object was still safe in his pocket. If anything happened to it, all of this would be for nothing.

"I didn't think I would be saving your skin again any time soon…" The voice was cold, but he would know it anywhere. "General Kenobi… In the name of the Galactic Republic, you are under arrest."

The tip of the lightsaber hummed inches from his face.

"It's good to see you, too, Anakin…" He managed a friendly smile. Then fainted.


When the news reached her through the HoloNet that Obi-Wan Kenobi left the Jedi Order, she was stunned. There was a shockwave through the Republic to hear it, he had been such an icon in the war, a hero and a symbol. The Lost Twenty of the Jedi were now the Lost Twenty-One.

He did not disappear, though. The Supreme Chancellor granted that he retained his rank as General of the 212th Battalion. Meanwhile, Anakin remained a Jedi and General of the 501st. Padme clung to every word that came her way regarding both men, but nothing made her heart stop beating like when there was unsure news of General Kenobi. And in all this time, he was no longer a Jedi, yet he still stayed away from her.

She hadn't seen Anakin either. She had days when she felt the need to find him, to ask forgiveness or to at least make sure that he was all right. She could never forget how she hurt him. Perhaps it was best that the war kept him out of her reach, though. Ever leading the charge at the battle front. It was hard to see her separation from Obi-Wan as a mercy, though. She didn't know what it was like to love him without some distance, whether it was the galaxy or his own removed feelings.

It was difficult to know where he was at any given moment. Everything she learned about him was after the fact. When he led the defeat of the Separatists in a battle, when he liberated a planet that was occupied by the enemy, or successfully defended against any offensive attack. All these things happened some place far away, or too long ago. He was no longer at the Jedi Temple, and she did not know what he called home anymore. She hoped to see him again in her dreams, but he never came. Perhaps they had finally, truly gone their separate ways.

As always it was two long years since Padme had set eyes on Obi-Wan Kenobi. It seemed to be the standard length of time that was preordained by the universe.

But then, what was two years anyway? It was an arbitrary unit of measure for time, the "standard year" as adopted by a majority of the Republic. What was determined to be "two years" was easily 73 on one planet, or only three months on another.

And yet, it was so consistent for them, that when those two standard years went crawling past, Padme's thoughts were turning back to Obi-Wan, as if it always aligned with some planetary placement. Ever since that terrible night on Naboo when she broke things off with Anakin, asking for divorce, she was able to move on in spite of her emotional agony. She had her work to heal her, the concerns of the Republic and daily issues to resolve in the senate. It was the quiet moments when she was alone and idle that she was the most miserable.

With every battle between droids and clones, every system that was strong-armed out of neutrality and into the war, Padme felt a fracture in her faith in the Republic. Every senate hearing passed a bill that gave the Army of the Republic more power, and more and more of that power was put in the hands of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. And every day he swore with the utmost humility that he was simply doing what needed to be done to bring the war to an end, then he would restore power to the people through the senate. Peace was becoming smaller and smaller on the horizon.

It was becoming more and more common that she and a handful of other Senators were meeting discreetly, discussing their concerns in the current state of the senate. Among their group was Padme, Bail Organa of Alderaan, Mon Mothma of Chandrila, and Fang Zar of Sern Prime. She was not the only one questioning what the Republic had become, and that the reality of it was increasingly unsettling. She could no longer be in denial that democracy was fading away.

She felt it more than ever, like a lead coat weighing on her shoulders, as she walked out of another Senate meeting where even more control was trickling into the Chancellor's hands. First the army, then the banks, and now there were talks of certain systems on the Outer Rim. She walked in pensive silence with Jar Jar Binks and her handmaiden when Bail Organa approached her in the halls of the Senate building, anxious and pale. She had noticed that he wasn't present for the meeting, and her curiosity was piqued.

"Has something happened?" she asked when he seemed to struggle to speak. She allowed her entourage to walk ahead.

He gently urged her towards the wall where they could speak in confidence. "Something terrible…" he whispered. "While you were in the senate, it was announced on the HoloNet that General Kenobi is a traitor to the Republic…"

"Obi-Wan?" She almost laughed. "He would never. No one cares about the Republic more than he does…"

"I know, that's why I didn't believe it at first. They didn't say what he had done, so I asked around and did some digging…" He paused as a throng of politicians marched past. "Perhaps we shouldn't speak about it here…"

"Come to my apartment for drinks," she tried not to say too eagerly. They often had such social calls, it was not out of character for them to do so.

He smiled politely. "I would be delighted."

"In two hours?"

"I will be there."

They made their cordial farewells, but inside Padme was panicking.

Obi-Wan a traitor? Was he arrested? Was he a fugitive? To be a traitor meant death or horrible imprisonment. What could have possibly happened to brand him an enemy of the Republic? He was framed, that was the only explanation. And what about Anakin? Did he know about this? Was he responsible for it—she didn't want to think that Anakin was that spiteful, after all this time. But she remembered the Tusken Raiders. She also remembered how kind and fearless Anakin was in protecting his friends. Would he be as outraged as she was?

When she was home, she followed the news on the HoloNet obsessively. It spouted the victory over a Separatist outpost, and the strength of the Clone Army and its Generals. Obi-Wan Kenobi, however, was added as a footnote. The great General and former Jedi hero was disgraced. There was some verbiage too that threw suspicion, or at the very least doubt, on the Jedi Order itself.

A couple of hours later, C-3PO was ushering Bail Organa into the lobby of her apartment, and Padme rose from the couch eagerly. She had been pacing this room for the better part of an hour waiting.

"How much do you know about what happened? Where did you hear it from? Has he been arrested? Is he alright?"

The questions poured out of her and she couldn't stop them. She was terrified.

"Senator… Padme, please…" Bail was patting the air in front of her, trying to interject. "I can at least assure you he is not captured…"

He seemed to know that was her biggest concern. After all, Obi-Wan had been something of a friend to Senator Organa as well.

She was only a little relieved. "But how did this happen? Why?"

"May I sit?" he asked, waited for her to nod, and eased himself onto the edge of the couch cushion, looking weary. "I only know as much as my contact was able to tell me…" Bail had many contacts these days. "They told me that the Two-Hundred-and-Twelfth, as led by General Kenobi, was ordered to overtake and destroy a Separatist outpost on a moon in the Mid Rim, called Renoss."

She had heard of this moon but she didn't know much about the people there, they were reclusive, and last she had heard, neutral in the war. She said nothing, only listened.

"Separatists that far into the Mid Rim is dangerous, so taking this moon would have given the Republic a strategic advantage, and Obi-Wan refused to give his men the order, so another battalion was dispatched to carry out the attack instead. Kenobi was arrested and he lost command of the Two-Hundred-and-Twelfth… But it seems he escaped and has disappeared. It is being said that he has become sympathetic to the Separatist cause…"

Padme listened in dumb silence, her mouth open and her brow furrowed. "This doesn't make any sense. None of this sounds like the Obi-Wan that I know."

"And I agree…" he lightly touched her arm, heaving a sigh. "However, there is much more than you are likely to hear on the HoloNet… My contacts have told me things about this campaign that are frightening."

This whole thing felt wrong and frightening.

"It is said… and I do not dare to assume it is true one way or another, I am simply sharing with you what my contact had told me…. It is said that Renoss did not have any Separatist outpost on it at all. There were three Nemoidians, officers in the CIS, who had sought sanctuary there when their damaged ship crash landed there after fleeing a battle in the next system. The Renossians are hospitable people, they took them in without any thought to the war or sides. They were asked by the Republican Army to give up the Nemoidians, and they declined. So they were deemed enemies of the Republic, and the Two-Hundred-and-Twelfth was sent to take control of the moon and decimate the city. That was why Kenobi refused his orders. He tried peaceful negotiations for the prisoners. But it wasn't enough. The other battalion came and finished the job…"

Her hand had raised to her mouth, her breathing shallow as she listened in disbelief. The explanation at least offered some sense to all this, but she could not comprehend it.

"And now Obi-Wan's a fugitive?" that was all she could think about at the moment, though she knew she should have been more worried about the heinous crime enacted by the Republic. "We have to help him!"

"Padme…" Bail said sternly. "We cannot get involved with a fugitive of the Republic. Even expressing sympathy for him will put you in danger. We cannot risk the Chancellor, or any of his followers, to question our loyalty. You know how radical they can be. It's dangerous enough that I am telling you about any of this, but I know Kenobi is an old friend of yours, I did not want you to hear about any of this from the HoloNet first…"

An old friend. If only Bail knew.

His warning almost went into one ear and out the other, but she held onto it enough to nod and to resist running to her skiff and flying out into the stars to search for him. She didn't even know where to begin looking. How could she even send word to him?

"But how can I stand by and do nothing? Obi-Wan needs our help!"

"We'll help him where we can…" he said softly, though he was tense. "But you must remember the bigger picture. This is proof of how corrupt the Republic has become. We can use this in the senate, if we could only gather enough evidence, and enough of the senators to back us. It no longer matters whether or not the Chancellor has intentionally allowed this massacre to take place. Democracy and Peace are crumbling…"

His carefully chosen words were bringing her back to the real world, reminding her of who she was and what she had been fighting for all these years. Obi-Wan's circumstance was a symptom of a greater illness in the galaxy. If she wanted to help him, she needed to help the Republic.

"You're right…" she took a deep breath. "There's nothing we can do for him…" She was telling herself more than she was telling Bail.