During the course of the next week, I ran into Obi-Wan in the Senate building many times. He seemed to have been watching me. Sometimes he would glance in my direction or nod at me in acknowledgment. Sometimes he would use a Jedi mind trick, and I wouldn't even notice he was there until I was already passed him. I would turn around and see him turning down another corridor. This kind of behavior was very odd for him, and I was suspicious.

At the end of the week, I went in for my regular meeting with Palpatine to see if he had any assignments for me. After I had sat down, he began.

"I have an assignment for you, my boy. I need you to travel to Terrigna. I have heard that your Jedi friends are planning on taking the senator from her quarters here and take her there for safe-keeping."

"But that whole planet is an active volcano!"

"They do not plan on keeping her there for very long, just long enough for us to look in all the obvious places. They don't think us clever enough to look for her there. But they underestimate my connections. I need you to go and keep an eye and ear out for them. I do not think you will need to stay there too long, a couple of days, maximum. You will leave tomorrow morning."

I stood up and bowed. "Yes, Master. I will go prepare now."

I went back to my room and packed a few things that I would need. Then I went to the floor where they were keeping Padmé. After getting past the guards, I reached Padmé's door and pressed the chime button. There was stirring inside the room, and she called through the intercom, "Who is it?"

"It's me."

She hesitated but answered the door. Looking at the floor, she stepped aside and let me in. The door slid closed as she followed me to a couple of chairs. We sat down and she kept her eyes on the floor.

"What do you want?"

"I just wanted to tell you that I will be gone on assignment for a few days."

"And why are you telling me this?"

I thought to myself, Why am I telling her? "I . . . don't know." Turning my eyes to her, I said, "Padmé, look at me."

She raised her eyes, keeping her head lowered sadly. Her eyes were turning red yet again.

I reached over and took her left hand. Rubbing it gently, I discovered that the ring was gone. I ignored this and said, "Padmé, please don't cry. It was never my intention to hurt you. I just have to live my own life. I even came up with a little plan. Palpatine said that soon I will be able to rule beside him openly. We have to keep it quiet for now for security reasons. But when that happens, you could rule as third in command, being my wife and all. We could even have the family we have always wanted, raise our child." I glanced at her stomach. "If you will just -- "

She jerked her hand away and stood up, fury in her usually soft eyes. "If I will just what? How can I be sure that this isn't another of your many lies, just to keep me quiet? No, I will not be a part of a dictatorship, which is what this Republic is becoming. Don't you see, Ana-- " She paused and inhaled deeply to correct her mistake and regain her composure. "Don't you see that your Master is a dictator? He has proclaimed himself Emperor so he can have complete power and control! I will have no part of that."

I stood up, fighting to keep the anger inside. She is insulting my master! You can't hurt her, Vader. Calm down. I turned to her and said, "If that is how you want it, so be it. I'll just have you know that I have been disobeying my Master the whole time by still loving you. I was disobeying the Jedi by even falling in love with you in the first place. I guess that my love was misplaced."

She glared at me through narrow slits and quietly said, "You stopped loving me the minute you walked out on me for that monster. Power and greed are jealous mistresses. I have no more place in your heart -- what heart you have left -- than a passing stranger." She turned and fled into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.

Fuming, I turned on my heel and stalked out of the door.

Back in my room, I threw myself onto the bed. The tears pricked behind my eyes, but I would not allow them to fall.

"Crying is for little girls and weak men!" I yelled at myself. "Are you weak, Vader? Are you going to let some woman who doesn't love you to make you weak? No, you will not! You have not come this far just to fall victim to your weaknesses yet again!" I punched the headboard and the wall, punched them so hard that the synthflesh on my right hand prosthetic came loose.

I knelt on the bed, sitting on my feet, and stared at the palms of my hands. I clenched and unclenched them, hearing the gears inside the now exposed cyborg. Closing my eyes, I finally allowed one tear to leave my eye.

***

The journey to Terrigna was uneventful. When we landed, the pilot asked if he was needed. I said no, so he returned to his cabin on the ship to wait until my business on the planet was finished. I stepped off of the ramp onto the surface, noticing that the ground was almost entirely composed of hardened lava that had been ground down by continual winds. There were many mounds, hills, and mountains of the volcanic rock towering across the landscape. Pits of molten lava interrupted the openness at frequent intervals.

"What a desolate place," I said aloud to myself. "No wonder there were no life readings."

I used the Force and stretched out with my feelings, searching for a sign of anything other than the bleak nothingness that surrounded me. Almost immediately, I felt a familiar sensation.

Obi-Wan . . .

He was near. I wondered how I didn't feel his presence immediately upon entering the atmosphere of this forlorn hunk of rock. We used to be so close, so connected . . .

I started to walk away from the ship, closer toward the presence of the man I once looked to as my father and teacher. After walking for about five minutes, I spotted the Jedi on a mound in the distance and stopped as he continued to advance.

Once I was within hearing range, about fifty yards away, he called out above the wind, "Anakin, come back to the Light Side!"

I resumed my advance and called to him in reply, "You old fool! Don't you realize that I am beyond turning back!?"

He shook his head and said, "No, you're not! The Emperor has only brain-washed you."

I was indignant at his insult to my Master. I unlatched the lightsaber from my belt and activated it. "Come closer and say that again."

He put up his hands and shook his head adamantly. "No, Anakin, I will not fight you."

I cocked an eyebrow and sneered. "Then you will die!"

By now, he was within twenty feet, so I broke into a run and yelled in attack. He swiftly pulled his lightsaber -- Qui-Gon's green lightsaber -- from his belt and extended it in defense. I attacked in a fury, feeling the anger flow through me, allowing it to give me strength.

Even while parrying, Obi-Wan continued trying to coax me back to the Light Side.

"Anakin, you know that this isn't you! Can't you see that Palaptine is using you? And think about Padmé and the child . . . "

At this last statement, my fury increased fourfold and my offensive strikes reflected this. "She doesn't love me! Why should I care what happens to her and that . . . that thing inside her?" I forced him up onto a mound, where he almost lost his balance. During the second he hesitated, I found a hole in his defense, striking at his arm, causing a long cut down the length of it. He cried out but tightened his defense.

Feeling a sense of satisfaction at finally causing him some pain, I relented my attack and said, "Ready to give up, old man, and meet your fate?"

He looked up at me, his blue eyes ablaze. "I don't understand, Anakin. Why are you -- ?"

"My name is not Anakin! Stop calling me that!"

I resumed my attack as he did a backflip off of the mound. I followed and continued the duel.

"You still love her," he said suddenly. "I can feel it."

"Love makes one weak, and I am not weak!"

We were closing in on a narrow path between two large lava pits, but I was not worried. I had always prided myself on my dexterity and balance.

Obi-Wan caught me off-guard with his next comment. "What would your mother think of you now?"

Simultaneously, we lowered our lightsabers. I felt that familiar feeling I always had when someone mentioned her. I felt the anger turning to sadness. Distantly, I felt myself losing my balance. My mind was on my mother, how I had left her to pursue my own selfish desires, how I had failed her, how I had let her die. I absent-mindedly backed up and fell into a pit.

I snapped back just in time and grabbed at a rock jutting out of the wall of the pit a few feet from the lip, but I knew it wouldn't hold me up for very much longer. The anger immediately returned as I glared up at Obi-Wan.

"Traitor," I whispered sharply.

He fell to his knees and yelled, "Anakin, grab on to my hand!" He was reaching as far as he possibly could, and I could easily have grabbed onto his outstretched hand.

"You have betrayed me for the last time, old man!" I yelled as I felt my grasp slipping. Finally I gave in to the gravity pulling me down into the pit.

"Anakin!" he yelled as I hit the lava.

The heat of the lava burned my body, ate away at my hair and skin. I was slowly engulfed. As I was going under, I called as loud as I could, "Traitor!"

Then all went black.