Title: Anakin's Paradox, Part 1
Author: Jonathan Evans
Author email: noggins_evans@hotmail.com
Summary: Contains Episode II spoilers! During a fierce battle,
Anakin Skywalker finds himself in a future that he never expected
in which the galaxy is in a state of civil war and his teacher is
now an old man
Disclaimer: George Lucas owns everything and I'm not making any
money off of thi nor do I intend to (I'd like to but that's not the
point). You can distribute this freely provided that it's
complete with this disclaimer.
Anakin's Paradox
Part 1
by Noggins
The lightsabers clashed ferociously in the Geonosian hanger bay as the young Padawan Learner battled valiently against the former Jedi Master. One quick swipe from the firey red blade was deflected just in time but it was slowly becoming apparant that the inexperienced apprentice was being toyed with. The more frustrated he became, the more his anger boiled to the surface. In the corner of his eye he could see his teacher blocked off from the battle taking place, fearful memoris of the past being brought to the surface as he watched his young ally come closer and closer to defeat.
The Padawan suddenly launched another, renewed attack, increasing in speed to the extent that the old man could barely keep up, but instead of being nervous that the upper hand was edging away from him he just smiled. "The anger is brewing in you. Good. Express that anger. Destroy me." The blue lightsaber blade whizzed towards his head with a deafening hum. He ducked easily as it embedded itself in the red stone wall from which the hanger had been carved out of. The young Jedi span around, his eyes filled with sheer hatred. He ran at the last of the Lost Twenty, spinning his weapon in his hand, creating a luminous vortex whiched buzzed with energy. With an agile movement, he launched himself into the air, somersaulting towards the Jedi Master who was taken by surprised for the first time in the entire battle.
The blade came down on him with the speed of a laser bolt yet much more difficult to avoid. The apprentice's breath became deeper and his entire body suddenly became incredible light as time itself seemed to slow down. His vision started to blur and the last thing he heard was his master's voice calling at him from his trapped position.
"Anakin!!!!"
* * * * * * * * *
Anakin Skywalker hit the metal surface with a thud. His enemy had disappeared and it didn't look like he was on Geonosis anymore.As his mind started to clear he noticed everything was made of metal, the walls, the ceilings... everything. He heard a familiar buzz behind him followed by a loud clash of one lightsaber blade impacting with another. He turned around waryingly. "Obi-Wan?"
A tall black figure covered from head to toe in armour and leather was duelling - it was more of a duel than the full-on battle he had just come from - with an old man dressed in Jedi robes. They didn't seem to notice him for several moments and continued to fight until the dark man seemed to sense something. He held his opponent off with his red blade as he turned around. Anakin almost recognised him but didn't have time to dwell on the matter.
He ignited his saber and rushed in to join the old man. With his mind focused, he held out his hand, pushing the black, saber-wielding figure back into the wall. He looked at the elderly Jedi with a grin. "Looks like you can use some help, old guy." He stabbed his weapon through the control panel on the front of the masked villain's armour before pulling it out roughly. He held back was about to go in for the death blow when he felt a hand on his arm. "No!"
Anakin noticed the old man was serious. Several blaster shots came passed his head, only just missing him. He span around to see a legion of white-armoured troops firing on them. He deflected one back before turning to his accidental companion.
"Come on!" They ran out into a huge docking bay. A beat-up old starship awaited and an exit hatch into space could be seen. Anakin wasn't sure why he was here... or how, but he guessed he'd got onto the Federation Control Ship somehow. It seemed familiar enough. He quickly grabbed the other Jedi around his waist and leapt over a large chasm that led into the heart of the hanger. Having hacked down three of the troopers, Anakin headed towards the ship where three humans, a Wookie and two droids were waiting for them.
"Ben!" a young man, around eighteen called out at the sight of the old Jedi Anakin had just rescued. He seemed ecstatic but was quickly brought back down to earth by the somewhat aggressive voice of the other man.
"Kid, I know you're enjoying this whole emotional reunion but you might have noticed we're being shot at. So how about continuing back on the Falcon!" He pulled out a blaster pistol and took out two of the troopers before running up the boarding ramp with the Wookie who was armed with a bowcaster.
"I do believe Captain Solo's suggestion is most prudent," the golden protocol droid informed the others in a voice that sounded so familiar to Anakin. "Threepio..." he muttered under his breath. 'Ben' turned to him with a frown. "Say nothing," he whispered in reply before moving up the ramp behind the droids and the attractive young woman in white robes. Anakin took one look back at the black armoured figure who was holding his chest plate in agony but remained very much alive before jumping into the bowels of the starship which had already lifted off the ground.
* * * * * * * * *
"I sure hope you got that tractor beam off-line, old man," the cocky human questioned Ben from the cockpit. "Otherwise this is gonna be a real short trip."
"Don't worry captain," the Jedi replied. "I took care of it."
The starship flew out into deep space as the pilot and his Wookie companion set up the hyperspace controls. Anakin stayed in the back with Ben and the younger two humans. "I can't believe how close we came to losing back there," the boy pondered. "We almost died, and took the Rebellion with us!"
"But we didn't," the girl pointed out. "And that's the most important thing. Anakin saw something familiar in her eyes that reminded him of Padmé who he had left back on Geonosis fighting for her life against the Confederation's droid army. He hit the metal wall loudly. "Damn it!"
The girl finally spoke to him. "Ad you... stranger. I'm not sure where you came from but it seems you saved General Kenobi's life."
"General K..." Anakin began before he was interrupted by the dusty haired boy.
"You're a Jedi, right? What's your name?"
Anakin was about to open his mouth when Ben spoke up. "Qui-Gon... Qui-Gon Jinn... his name is Qui-Gon Jinn. And yes, he's a Jedi too."
The Jedi Apprentice was about to protest when the starship's captain flew through the doors and headed towards the gun ports. "We're not outta this yet! We've got fighters out there headed towards us at high veolcity. I hope one of you two is good with guns!"
Both Anakin and the boy stood up enthusiastically. "I am!" they called out at the same time before glancing angrily at one another. The Padawan Learner suddenly looked towards the cockpit. "I've got another idea."
Anakin ran into the cockpit where the Wookie was trying to avoid the blasts coming from the pursuing fighters. Skywalker jumped instinctively into the seat that the smug pilot had made his own and began issuing orders. "Open a communications link with them!" His furry co-pilot barked an angry reply. "Just do it!"
The girl ran in quickly as soon as she heard Anakin's words. "Are you crazy? Wwe hardly know you and you're expecting us to let you just hand us over to the Empire again?" The young Jedi smiled. She was almost as difficult to deal with as Padmé. "Just trust me," he replied and looked over to the Wookie again who just shrugged and started pressing buttons on the control panel. Anakin leaned towards the microphone and spoke in a commanding tone. "You will not follow us."
The next few seconds seemed to last forever until the Imperial pilot at the other end finally gave a trance-like response. "We will not follow you."
"You will turn around and return to your base."
"We will turn around..." the pilot mumbled.
"And open fire."
"...open... fire..."
The girl watched the sensor readings in amazment. "They're breaking off and heading back to the Death Star on an attack run!" she exclaimed. "How did you do that?"
"Tthe Force can have quite an effect on the weak-minded," Anakin grinned back, pleased that the people forced onto him were finally starting to accept his presence. "Or so I've been told."
Ben entered the cockpit and summoned Anakin to come to the back with him. "Sorry gorgeous but I've gotta have a chat with the old guy." He got to his feet and stepped out of the control centre, smiling at the pilot and the boy as he strode passed them. He sat down next to Ben. "So," he asked, "I'm guessing you know where I am. And why did you call me Qui-Gon?"
"Because, my young apprentice, it could have disasterous consequences if they were to know who you really were."
"Appren..." Anakin suddenly realised who the elderly man he was talking to was and his entire world seemed to fall apart. "Obi-Wan?"
Kenobi nodded. Another time he would have smiled at his student's reaction but that time ended over twenty years earlier. Skywalker finally spoke again, his voice stuttering. "But you're so old... How? Why?"
Obi-Wan scratched his white beard. "It is rather odd," he mused. "I do not remember you ever disappearing... and it could not have effected the timeline so much that Vad..." he stopped himself suddenly and took a new tact. "What was the last thing you remember?"
Anakin sighed as he thought back. "I was fighting Dooku... you'd been separated from the battle..." Obi-Wan nodded as he remembered this happened decades before but for Anakin it was less than an hour. "He was taunting me, I got angry and was about to cut him to pieces..." he stopped to calm himself down before resuming his tale. "..when I got dizzy. Everything around me seemed to slow down then go white and I found myself back on that... what did that girl call it? Death Star?"
Getting slowly to his feet, and feeling his bones cracking with age in the process, Kenobi began to pace the room. He was obviously agitated and seemed to know what had happened - or had at least made an educated guess. "The Dark Side was growing in you, Anakin," he explained as best he could. "It was elevated because of your anger that you created a pathway to another time... another place... you truly are powerful, my apprentice, but that power is dangerous. You know that now."
"Yes master." Then came the ultimate question. "How do I get back?"
Obi-Wan's weather-worn face gave a blank expression. "I honestly don't know... but somehow I feel that neither of us should be here. I should have died back there... I was meant to sacrifice myself."
"But why?"
"To save Luke... the boy."
Anakin looked over to the cockpit where the topic of their discussion was arguing with the pilot and the girl. He turned back to his teacher. "But why? I grant you, the Force is with him but he's no Jedi. The Council would not permit his training. They were opposed to mine when he I nine... but he's far too old."
"Until you arrived he was the last hope for the Jedi Order." Obi-Wan decided he had to tell Anakin something about what during the years his apprentice missed even if he had to be a little liveral with the truth. "The Council is gone. The Jedi have been systematically wiped out by the Empire that formed from the ashes of the Republic and the Sith lord you almost killed back there."
An empty feeling suddenly flowed through Skywalker's body. "The Jedi are gone?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Killed by that guy in the black armour?"
"Yes."
"And you're the only survivor."
Obi-Wan shook his head. "No. Yoda still lives but he is in hiding."
"In hiding?" Anakin couldn't help but smiled. "Everyone's favourite holier-than-thou Jedi master in hiding from a guy who thinks he's a droid?" His face suddenly dropped. "He must be powerful in the dark side... and have links to the Jedi..."
"You could say that."
Skywalker got to his feet again and joined Obi-Wan in his pacing. "Mace Windu! It has to be!" he exclaimed. "I never trusted him! He never liked me."
"You must calm yourself, Anakin. Or your anger will be your downfall..." his voice trailed off as the girl entered the room. "I'd better see how the boys are. Don't say anything."
Once Obi-Wan had disappeared into the cockpit, Anakin joined the girl. She seemed so angry, but at the same time so sad. "What's your name?" he asked.
"Leia..." she replied. "Leia Organa. And you're... Qui-Gon, right?"
"Uh, yeah. Organa, huh? Old Bail's daughter? How is he doing?" Tears started rolling down Leia's cheeks and Anakin realised he'd said the wrong thing. "I'm so sorry. Is he...?"
She nodded. "Along with everyone else on Alderaan. Because I couldn't get back to the Rebellion in time..."
Anakin put his arm around her... it just felt the right thing to do. "You're not alone, you know."
She looked up. "You've lost your family too?"
"I never knew my father and my mother died... not long ago." He looked down. "I still... I still haven't recovered. I know it was my fault... if I hadn't left to train as a Jedi..."
"Being a Jedi in this time is not a bad thing..." Leia stated before she asked the question that had been on her mind for some time. "How did you come to be on the Death Sstar? And who trained you?"
"I still haven't worked out the first one," Anakin said with a sigh. "And it seems old 'Ben' back there was my teacher. I guess I haven't seen him in a long time... he's changed a lot." He stopped himself, heeding the advice Obi-Wan gave him. He couldn't reveal too much... and it wasn't as if he knew all that much anyway. "Where are we heading?"
"The fourth moon of Yavin. The Rebellion has a base there."
"Rebellion?" Anakin asked. "I've been meaning to ask... what is this Rebellion?"
"A movement that's fighting the oppression of Palpatine's Empire," Leia replied, sending a chill down Anakin's spine when she uttered Palpatine's name. "You really have been out of it haven't you, Qui-Gon... What happened to you?"
"Like I said, I don't know... I can't explain yet."
"Well, if General Kenobi trusts you then so do I," Leia replied as she moved her hand up to touch Anakin's. "The sooner the Jedi can return the better. You've already saved our lives at least once today..." Her head moved closer to the young Jedi's, her eyes closed. He realised she looked so much like Padmé as her lips came closer to his own. Their fingers entwined as their mouths finally touched. There was a moment where time seemed to stand still until a familiar bleeping sound stopped them both. Anakin turned quickly to see Artoo Detoo nudging his leg slightly. "Artoo?" he asked until he noticed the droid behind him for the second time. "Threepio!?!" He pulled himself further away from Leia as the guilt set in. Not long ago, from his point of view, he had seen Padmé having put the plates onto this droid and now, with her out of the way he was about to kiss some girl he'd never met before on the pretense they were "familiar". He turned to see Leia looking guiltily into her lap. "I'm so sorry... I shouldn't have..."
"Neither should I... should we just leave it to, uh, a lesson learnt?"
"Sounds like a plan," Anakin replied, mesmirised by Artoo, his old droid who, it seemed, had stayed with Obi-Wan after all this time. Threepio, now possessing shiny gold body plates, could have been any protocol droid but Anakin knew him straight away - he had built him, after all.
"You don't know me, do you?" he asked.
"I can't say that I do, Master Qui-Gon, sir," the gold droid responded, leaving Skywalker feeling somewhat dejected until R2-D2 chirped loudly. "But my companion here seems to believe that he does. I'm not sure where he gets such notions."
"At least someone hasn't changed," the young Jedi smiled.
TO BE CONTINUED.....
Author: Jonathan Evans
Author email: noggins_evans@hotmail.com
Summary: Contains Episode II spoilers! During a fierce battle,
Anakin Skywalker finds himself in a future that he never expected
in which the galaxy is in a state of civil war and his teacher is
now an old man
Disclaimer: George Lucas owns everything and I'm not making any
money off of thi nor do I intend to (I'd like to but that's not the
point). You can distribute this freely provided that it's
complete with this disclaimer.
Anakin's Paradox
Part 1
by Noggins
The lightsabers clashed ferociously in the Geonosian hanger bay as the young Padawan Learner battled valiently against the former Jedi Master. One quick swipe from the firey red blade was deflected just in time but it was slowly becoming apparant that the inexperienced apprentice was being toyed with. The more frustrated he became, the more his anger boiled to the surface. In the corner of his eye he could see his teacher blocked off from the battle taking place, fearful memoris of the past being brought to the surface as he watched his young ally come closer and closer to defeat.
The Padawan suddenly launched another, renewed attack, increasing in speed to the extent that the old man could barely keep up, but instead of being nervous that the upper hand was edging away from him he just smiled. "The anger is brewing in you. Good. Express that anger. Destroy me." The blue lightsaber blade whizzed towards his head with a deafening hum. He ducked easily as it embedded itself in the red stone wall from which the hanger had been carved out of. The young Jedi span around, his eyes filled with sheer hatred. He ran at the last of the Lost Twenty, spinning his weapon in his hand, creating a luminous vortex whiched buzzed with energy. With an agile movement, he launched himself into the air, somersaulting towards the Jedi Master who was taken by surprised for the first time in the entire battle.
The blade came down on him with the speed of a laser bolt yet much more difficult to avoid. The apprentice's breath became deeper and his entire body suddenly became incredible light as time itself seemed to slow down. His vision started to blur and the last thing he heard was his master's voice calling at him from his trapped position.
"Anakin!!!!"
* * * * * * * * *
Anakin Skywalker hit the metal surface with a thud. His enemy had disappeared and it didn't look like he was on Geonosis anymore.As his mind started to clear he noticed everything was made of metal, the walls, the ceilings... everything. He heard a familiar buzz behind him followed by a loud clash of one lightsaber blade impacting with another. He turned around waryingly. "Obi-Wan?"
A tall black figure covered from head to toe in armour and leather was duelling - it was more of a duel than the full-on battle he had just come from - with an old man dressed in Jedi robes. They didn't seem to notice him for several moments and continued to fight until the dark man seemed to sense something. He held his opponent off with his red blade as he turned around. Anakin almost recognised him but didn't have time to dwell on the matter.
He ignited his saber and rushed in to join the old man. With his mind focused, he held out his hand, pushing the black, saber-wielding figure back into the wall. He looked at the elderly Jedi with a grin. "Looks like you can use some help, old guy." He stabbed his weapon through the control panel on the front of the masked villain's armour before pulling it out roughly. He held back was about to go in for the death blow when he felt a hand on his arm. "No!"
Anakin noticed the old man was serious. Several blaster shots came passed his head, only just missing him. He span around to see a legion of white-armoured troops firing on them. He deflected one back before turning to his accidental companion.
"Come on!" They ran out into a huge docking bay. A beat-up old starship awaited and an exit hatch into space could be seen. Anakin wasn't sure why he was here... or how, but he guessed he'd got onto the Federation Control Ship somehow. It seemed familiar enough. He quickly grabbed the other Jedi around his waist and leapt over a large chasm that led into the heart of the hanger. Having hacked down three of the troopers, Anakin headed towards the ship where three humans, a Wookie and two droids were waiting for them.
"Ben!" a young man, around eighteen called out at the sight of the old Jedi Anakin had just rescued. He seemed ecstatic but was quickly brought back down to earth by the somewhat aggressive voice of the other man.
"Kid, I know you're enjoying this whole emotional reunion but you might have noticed we're being shot at. So how about continuing back on the Falcon!" He pulled out a blaster pistol and took out two of the troopers before running up the boarding ramp with the Wookie who was armed with a bowcaster.
"I do believe Captain Solo's suggestion is most prudent," the golden protocol droid informed the others in a voice that sounded so familiar to Anakin. "Threepio..." he muttered under his breath. 'Ben' turned to him with a frown. "Say nothing," he whispered in reply before moving up the ramp behind the droids and the attractive young woman in white robes. Anakin took one look back at the black armoured figure who was holding his chest plate in agony but remained very much alive before jumping into the bowels of the starship which had already lifted off the ground.
* * * * * * * * *
"I sure hope you got that tractor beam off-line, old man," the cocky human questioned Ben from the cockpit. "Otherwise this is gonna be a real short trip."
"Don't worry captain," the Jedi replied. "I took care of it."
The starship flew out into deep space as the pilot and his Wookie companion set up the hyperspace controls. Anakin stayed in the back with Ben and the younger two humans. "I can't believe how close we came to losing back there," the boy pondered. "We almost died, and took the Rebellion with us!"
"But we didn't," the girl pointed out. "And that's the most important thing. Anakin saw something familiar in her eyes that reminded him of Padmé who he had left back on Geonosis fighting for her life against the Confederation's droid army. He hit the metal wall loudly. "Damn it!"
The girl finally spoke to him. "Ad you... stranger. I'm not sure where you came from but it seems you saved General Kenobi's life."
"General K..." Anakin began before he was interrupted by the dusty haired boy.
"You're a Jedi, right? What's your name?"
Anakin was about to open his mouth when Ben spoke up. "Qui-Gon... Qui-Gon Jinn... his name is Qui-Gon Jinn. And yes, he's a Jedi too."
The Jedi Apprentice was about to protest when the starship's captain flew through the doors and headed towards the gun ports. "We're not outta this yet! We've got fighters out there headed towards us at high veolcity. I hope one of you two is good with guns!"
Both Anakin and the boy stood up enthusiastically. "I am!" they called out at the same time before glancing angrily at one another. The Padawan Learner suddenly looked towards the cockpit. "I've got another idea."
Anakin ran into the cockpit where the Wookie was trying to avoid the blasts coming from the pursuing fighters. Skywalker jumped instinctively into the seat that the smug pilot had made his own and began issuing orders. "Open a communications link with them!" His furry co-pilot barked an angry reply. "Just do it!"
The girl ran in quickly as soon as she heard Anakin's words. "Are you crazy? Wwe hardly know you and you're expecting us to let you just hand us over to the Empire again?" The young Jedi smiled. She was almost as difficult to deal with as Padmé. "Just trust me," he replied and looked over to the Wookie again who just shrugged and started pressing buttons on the control panel. Anakin leaned towards the microphone and spoke in a commanding tone. "You will not follow us."
The next few seconds seemed to last forever until the Imperial pilot at the other end finally gave a trance-like response. "We will not follow you."
"You will turn around and return to your base."
"We will turn around..." the pilot mumbled.
"And open fire."
"...open... fire..."
The girl watched the sensor readings in amazment. "They're breaking off and heading back to the Death Star on an attack run!" she exclaimed. "How did you do that?"
"Tthe Force can have quite an effect on the weak-minded," Anakin grinned back, pleased that the people forced onto him were finally starting to accept his presence. "Or so I've been told."
Ben entered the cockpit and summoned Anakin to come to the back with him. "Sorry gorgeous but I've gotta have a chat with the old guy." He got to his feet and stepped out of the control centre, smiling at the pilot and the boy as he strode passed them. He sat down next to Ben. "So," he asked, "I'm guessing you know where I am. And why did you call me Qui-Gon?"
"Because, my young apprentice, it could have disasterous consequences if they were to know who you really were."
"Appren..." Anakin suddenly realised who the elderly man he was talking to was and his entire world seemed to fall apart. "Obi-Wan?"
Kenobi nodded. Another time he would have smiled at his student's reaction but that time ended over twenty years earlier. Skywalker finally spoke again, his voice stuttering. "But you're so old... How? Why?"
Obi-Wan scratched his white beard. "It is rather odd," he mused. "I do not remember you ever disappearing... and it could not have effected the timeline so much that Vad..." he stopped himself suddenly and took a new tact. "What was the last thing you remember?"
Anakin sighed as he thought back. "I was fighting Dooku... you'd been separated from the battle..." Obi-Wan nodded as he remembered this happened decades before but for Anakin it was less than an hour. "He was taunting me, I got angry and was about to cut him to pieces..." he stopped to calm himself down before resuming his tale. "..when I got dizzy. Everything around me seemed to slow down then go white and I found myself back on that... what did that girl call it? Death Star?"
Getting slowly to his feet, and feeling his bones cracking with age in the process, Kenobi began to pace the room. He was obviously agitated and seemed to know what had happened - or had at least made an educated guess. "The Dark Side was growing in you, Anakin," he explained as best he could. "It was elevated because of your anger that you created a pathway to another time... another place... you truly are powerful, my apprentice, but that power is dangerous. You know that now."
"Yes master." Then came the ultimate question. "How do I get back?"
Obi-Wan's weather-worn face gave a blank expression. "I honestly don't know... but somehow I feel that neither of us should be here. I should have died back there... I was meant to sacrifice myself."
"But why?"
"To save Luke... the boy."
Anakin looked over to the cockpit where the topic of their discussion was arguing with the pilot and the girl. He turned back to his teacher. "But why? I grant you, the Force is with him but he's no Jedi. The Council would not permit his training. They were opposed to mine when he I nine... but he's far too old."
"Until you arrived he was the last hope for the Jedi Order." Obi-Wan decided he had to tell Anakin something about what during the years his apprentice missed even if he had to be a little liveral with the truth. "The Council is gone. The Jedi have been systematically wiped out by the Empire that formed from the ashes of the Republic and the Sith lord you almost killed back there."
An empty feeling suddenly flowed through Skywalker's body. "The Jedi are gone?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Killed by that guy in the black armour?"
"Yes."
"And you're the only survivor."
Obi-Wan shook his head. "No. Yoda still lives but he is in hiding."
"In hiding?" Anakin couldn't help but smiled. "Everyone's favourite holier-than-thou Jedi master in hiding from a guy who thinks he's a droid?" His face suddenly dropped. "He must be powerful in the dark side... and have links to the Jedi..."
"You could say that."
Skywalker got to his feet again and joined Obi-Wan in his pacing. "Mace Windu! It has to be!" he exclaimed. "I never trusted him! He never liked me."
"You must calm yourself, Anakin. Or your anger will be your downfall..." his voice trailed off as the girl entered the room. "I'd better see how the boys are. Don't say anything."
Once Obi-Wan had disappeared into the cockpit, Anakin joined the girl. She seemed so angry, but at the same time so sad. "What's your name?" he asked.
"Leia..." she replied. "Leia Organa. And you're... Qui-Gon, right?"
"Uh, yeah. Organa, huh? Old Bail's daughter? How is he doing?" Tears started rolling down Leia's cheeks and Anakin realised he'd said the wrong thing. "I'm so sorry. Is he...?"
She nodded. "Along with everyone else on Alderaan. Because I couldn't get back to the Rebellion in time..."
Anakin put his arm around her... it just felt the right thing to do. "You're not alone, you know."
She looked up. "You've lost your family too?"
"I never knew my father and my mother died... not long ago." He looked down. "I still... I still haven't recovered. I know it was my fault... if I hadn't left to train as a Jedi..."
"Being a Jedi in this time is not a bad thing..." Leia stated before she asked the question that had been on her mind for some time. "How did you come to be on the Death Sstar? And who trained you?"
"I still haven't worked out the first one," Anakin said with a sigh. "And it seems old 'Ben' back there was my teacher. I guess I haven't seen him in a long time... he's changed a lot." He stopped himself, heeding the advice Obi-Wan gave him. He couldn't reveal too much... and it wasn't as if he knew all that much anyway. "Where are we heading?"
"The fourth moon of Yavin. The Rebellion has a base there."
"Rebellion?" Anakin asked. "I've been meaning to ask... what is this Rebellion?"
"A movement that's fighting the oppression of Palpatine's Empire," Leia replied, sending a chill down Anakin's spine when she uttered Palpatine's name. "You really have been out of it haven't you, Qui-Gon... What happened to you?"
"Like I said, I don't know... I can't explain yet."
"Well, if General Kenobi trusts you then so do I," Leia replied as she moved her hand up to touch Anakin's. "The sooner the Jedi can return the better. You've already saved our lives at least once today..." Her head moved closer to the young Jedi's, her eyes closed. He realised she looked so much like Padmé as her lips came closer to his own. Their fingers entwined as their mouths finally touched. There was a moment where time seemed to stand still until a familiar bleeping sound stopped them both. Anakin turned quickly to see Artoo Detoo nudging his leg slightly. "Artoo?" he asked until he noticed the droid behind him for the second time. "Threepio!?!" He pulled himself further away from Leia as the guilt set in. Not long ago, from his point of view, he had seen Padmé having put the plates onto this droid and now, with her out of the way he was about to kiss some girl he'd never met before on the pretense they were "familiar". He turned to see Leia looking guiltily into her lap. "I'm so sorry... I shouldn't have..."
"Neither should I... should we just leave it to, uh, a lesson learnt?"
"Sounds like a plan," Anakin replied, mesmirised by Artoo, his old droid who, it seemed, had stayed with Obi-Wan after all this time. Threepio, now possessing shiny gold body plates, could have been any protocol droid but Anakin knew him straight away - he had built him, after all.
"You don't know me, do you?" he asked.
"I can't say that I do, Master Qui-Gon, sir," the gold droid responded, leaving Skywalker feeling somewhat dejected until R2-D2 chirped loudly. "But my companion here seems to believe that he does. I'm not sure where he gets such notions."
"At least someone hasn't changed," the young Jedi smiled.
TO BE CONTINUED.....
