Chapter Three

The force of the explosion threw them back and they landed hard on the ground. They were sore, but uninjured as they began to quickly move away from the site of the explosion. Anakin had used the Force to shield them from most of the heat and shrapnel from the explosion.

Anakin quickly caught her arm and pulled her closely behind him as they ducked behind a bit of natural cover.

"Here," he said quickly, "Take this." Anakin pressed a blaster rifle that he had taken off of a dead clone into her hands. He quickly turned back to the wreckage around them. There were two other speeders besides the one that Padme had been in. They had both been blown up as well. Anakin doubted that the towering Wookie Senator was still alive. He had been one of the first senators into the speeders. For the moment he couldn't sense the others, but he had confidence in his troopers. If any of the other senators were still alive, his troopers would be protecting them.

A blaster bolt screamed across the wide clearing. A battle droid fell into view, a smoking hole blasted visible where its control center should have been. Anakin smiled grimly. His clone troopers were already at work. An instant later, it was as if that shot had broken the temporary cease-fire. A hail of blaster bolts began to rain down through the dense vegetation and a line of battle droids began to push towards Anakin's troops.

The clones held their ground courageously, but Anakin could see that they wouldn't be able to hold out against the sheer onslaught of the droids—at least not in their present position. Anakin quickly began to call orders into his comm. link, redirecting his troops, drawing them back in a strategic retreat.

In the next instant, Anakin leaped over the small rock formation and charged towards the leading edges of the approaching line of battle droids.

"Anakin!"

He hardly heard Padme's sharp cry as he ran into the fight. His lightsaber flashed eerie shadows of colors across the landscape and slashed through his opponents quickly. An instant later Anakin's defense faltered. He had turned to disarm the droid that he could feel targeting him and then suddenly nothing was there. It was hardly enough to disrupt the rhythm of Anakin's fight, but it did surprise him. He dismissed it quickly as a simple miscalculation on his part as he moved fluidly to destroy his next target. Just before his lightsaber connected with it, the battle droid was blown back, a blaster bolt slamming into its torso.

Anakin changed the direction of his lightsaber immediately, thrusting his lightsaber into the center of a nearby droid and using the Force to shove the second oncoming droid down violently. He used the brief reprieve to glance back behind him, visually retracing the trajectory of the blaster bolts that had helped him back to their source. He saw Padme staring back at him, a determined smile on her face and the blaster rifle tucked into her shoulder in firing position. He nodded to her quickly with a wide grin growing on his face, and then turned back to the fight. As he fell into the flow of the Force, he began to anticipate Padme's shots, working them into the way that he was fighting.

It was a strangely exhilarating feeling, working with Padme the way that he was, and it was like nothing that Anakin had ever experienced. It was a closeness that he had never even shared with Obi-Wan. Anakin slashed through the defenses of the next two battle droids and destroyed them with more force than necessary as he thought of his Master. It wasn't right. He was the most powerful Padawan in the Temple and he was the most experienced. He had proven his skills as a Jedi in battle after battle, surviving when many Knights and Masters had fallen and still Obi-Wan wouldn't recommend him for the Trials.

Anakin leaped forward, smashing feet first into a battle droid, and beheaded it before it hit the ground. As he jumped away from the wreckage of the droid, Anakin froze as a sudden high-pitched whine caught his attention. He glanced quickly behind him and easily spotted the troop transports skimming in low over the horizon. His clones had already called in their ride out of there. Anakin quickly deflected the next two blaster bolts flying towards him and then sprinted towards Padme.

Blaster bolts bit into the ground at his heels and screamed passed his head, but none hit him. He dove smoothly behind the rock formation that Padme was using for cover and rolled to his feet deflecting several incoming blaster bolts. He crouched down beside her for a moment. "Our ride is incoming."

She nodded, her attention still focused mainly on the droids in front of them as she squeezed off several more shots. Her silence worried him.

"Are you okay?" he asked her as he snapped his lightsaber out and deflected a shot directly back at a droid.

"I will be," she responded sharply. It wasn't the response that he had been hoping for, but it was all that they had time for. The troop transport swooped in low and cut its thrusters sharply, sliding into position within several meters of them.

"Go!" Anakin said sharply, putting himself between Padme and the approaching battle droids as they ran towards the transport. As the rest of his clone troopers and the three remaining Senators that they protected began to board it, Anakin continued to protect the transport and those on it from any incoming blaster fire. He was the last to board the transport as it lifted off and he immediately took a place beside Padme.

He glanced towards the cockpit quickly, and relaxed slightly as he saw one of his best pilots flying the transport. He shouted a few quick orders at the man before stepping back to Padme's side. Anakin wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer to him. To the Senators watching them he flashed a quick smile and offered, "So that the Senator doesn't fall out like last time."

It was a small comment, but it was enough to momentarily dispel the tension and fear in the transport. Everything that had happened that day and all of the events that conspired to bring him there to the planet were suddenly worth it as he felt Padme relax against him. Anakin savored being able to hold her and the sensation of her side pressed up against his. Just having her back beside changed everything. She was the best part of his life and whenever she was with him nothing seemed as dark as when she was gone.

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