The occupants of the small dwelling were engaged in an extremely subdued dinner. "How…did it happen?" Anakin asked.

"We found her yesterday morning after she had been gone all night. She insisted on trying to make it out to the Wastes to bargain with the Jawas on getting some spare power coils for the vaporators. I tried to warn her about going out alone and possibly not making it back before dark, but she wouldn't listen. So when she didn't come back, Owen and I took a speeder out to look for her. She was dead when we arrived, and there were bantha tracks all around the area. Must have been those god-damned Sandpeople. We tried to follow them but the wind had already blown away the tracks."

"Sithspawned Tuskens," Owen added, "ought to just wipe out the lot of 'em. Kriffing savages."

Anakin, who had been mostly overcome with a deathly silence throughout the evening, suddenly rose abruptly and left the dinner table. Padme, concerned, followed him a few moments later.

***

He stood outside the small homestead, pacing restlessly, kicking small mounds of sand in impotent frustration. He noticed Padme approach, and turned to face her.

"Dammit, Padme," he shouted in frustration, "I should have gone earlier! I should have been there, done something."

"Anakin, don't blame yourself," she replied. "It wasn't your fault. She was freed, she married the man she loved, and even if you had come back for her the day after you joined the Jedi, it wouldn't have changed what happened."

"But I promised her I would come back for her!" he said. "And I failed. And now she is dead, Padme. What sort of great Jedi will I be if I can't even protect my own mother?"

"Listen, Anakin," she said, "I know you don't want to hear this, but even a Jedi can't protect everyone all the time."

"I know…but we should! The Order has a duty to maintain peace and justice in the Galaxy, but slavery is still rampant in the Rim because no one in the Senate gives a damn. Cliegg had to work his ass off for TWO YEARS before he could free my mother from Wattoo. He should not have had to. She should have been free and accorded the exact same rights as any other citizen in the Republic, Padme. And the Jedi have done NOTHING about it. And as a Jedi, I am also to blame. She deserved a better life than this, but she was living in the wrong place at the wrong time, and nobody cared."

"I'm sorry, Anakin. I tried to push the antislavery proposal through the Senate but it got buried in committee. Too many Senators have become corrupt and formed alliances among themselves."

"I know," he replied, continuing his tirade, "And that's precisely why the present government is good for nothing. There is no direction to the Senate beyond those who are serving themselves. Sure, there are idealists like you and Senator Organa, but what is two against several thousand? Palpatine vowed to end corruption but the Supreme Chancellor has too little power to impose his will on the Senate. And the Council has become a debating society, only stepping in after a tragedy as already happened. I was told that I had great potential in the Force, but what good is power if no one is willing to use it? What would have become of me had your ship not been forced to land on Tatooine? I would still be racing pods and working for Wattoo. Qui-Gon Jinn believed in me, but he was killed. And now my mother is dead too. And that is what I fear – that everyone who believes in me will end up dead, and I will be powerless to protect them."

"That's not true, Anakin," she said "I happen to think you could become a great Jedi if you are able to move past feeling guilty for something that wasn't your fault. Listen, I know it isn't easy. I left my family to train for politics when I was very young, and while I was studying in Theed a plague wiped out my mother and father's entire villiage. At the time I felt horrible because I felt as though I'd abandoned them, but they wanted me to succeed in government, just like your mother wanted you to become a Jedi. She loved you enough to let go of you, Anakin."

"I'm sorry, Padme, I had no idea." His anger subsided, to disappear beneath the surface for a moment. He was shocked that such a terrible thing had happened to her, for he would never have guessed. She seemed not to have a trace of bitterness in her being. "Tell me, though – do you ever get over it?"

"Not a day goes by that I don't think about them," she said, subdued. "But I realized I had to move on with my life. It will take time for you to heal, but you will."

"Thank you," he said. "But if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to be alone for awhile."



As he stood, alone, robes whipped by the ferocious winds and the setting sun turning his form to a dark, ominous silhouette of fury, his anger returned to him, and he did not hold it in check – letting it expand, filling his every thought, every cell of his being, growing within him until it seemed, any thought of Obi–Wan's teachings, of love, of sentimentality, of idealism, even memories of his mother had vanished, displaced by his fiery hatred which now completely possessed him.

He remained silent when he returned indoors, although his eyes and expression of terrible and unknown purpose precluded any desire from his companions to speak with him. And

when he slipped out later that night, to return before dawn the next morning, no one noticed.

And in his mind, beneath the echo, a small voice from his nightmares repeated incessantly a recurring mantra:

It is unavoidable. It is your destiny. For all you hold dear will be destroyed, and you will fail them.