Author's Notes: How's this? Two updates at once with Part 33 well on the way? Enjoy it while it lasts! ;)

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Eclipse

Part 32

Contrasting greatly with the last time he took to the court room, Anakin walked into a chamber imbued with silence today. The stands were filled as before, but the collective held their breath as one, waiting for the bubble to burst. Anakin wasn't just uncaring this time round, though - he was smiling. He might have given a few people a caustic wave if his hands were not shackled. Taking his place above the stalls and looking to the stone-faced jury, he heard, with no great surprise, that he was guilty of all he was accused of. He glared at them apathetically as they continued to tell him that he was to be stripped of all Jedi privileges, to have his lightsabre confiscated and his braid severed, and was to be exiled from the Republic for the rest of his life, on pain of death.

His face seemed to ask them if that was the best they could do, and the entire room, feeling a communal sense of unease sweep over them, continued to maintain their silence as the hostile youth stalked out of the court.

The fall of the Jedi had begun.

---

"Exiled?" Obi-Wan spluttered as he heard the result of Anakin's hearing, "Why exile? That's an old, outdated penalty."

Mace exchanged glances with Yoda, both looking equally troubled; "It does seem odd," Windu acquiesced, "But it's not execution, at least. And for that, I'm thankful."

"The Separatists will be baying for our blood, you know," Obi went on, "This will be a great injustice to them."

"Let them stew in their own juices," Mace sneered in an uncharacteristic manner, getting up from his chair opposite Obi and walking away, his body speaking of his weariness already of these unproductive 'Clone Wars'.

Kenobi followed him with his eyes, before looking back to Yoda, hoping to find some consolation there. The small, green Jedi could offer him little in the way of comfort, though.

Making one of his quiet sighs, a sign that he was caught in the midst of his own maze of thoughts, Yoda eventually said, "Something troubles you, Master Windu. Share it with us, will you not?"

Mace had that resolute look of incense in his eyes when he turned back to them; "It's not accidental," he said quietly, "Anakin being thrown out into exile. Isn't this, when all layers are stripped away, actually far worse a punishment than death? He will be out there, presumably in the Outer Rim, alone and unguarded."

"He won't be under surveillance?" Obi-Wan gasped in surprise.

"Use your head, Master Kenobi," Mace persisted, "He'll be in the Outer Rim. The Republic has little or no control passed the Mid Rim boundary. Not really."

Comprehension dawned in Kenobi's eyes, "But the Confederacy does."

Windu nodded, "Exactly. They now hold garrisons at Naboo and Geonosis, and Force knows where else. Wherever Anakin flees, they'll not be far behind. And if they want to exact revenge on him, it shouldn't be too difficult. All-in-all, it looks like they've construed his death sentence without seeming to present him with one directly."

Obi-Wan went pale, "They can't do that!"

"They can, Obi…" Windu sighed, rubbing his hand over his face, "Anakin gave them the excuse, and they'll be looking to deal the blow. We just have to hope that fortune is on Anakin's side, out there on the edge. Maybe he'll be sensible and go back to where he came from."

Obi would have scoffed at Mace's use of the word 'sensible' had he not been overcome by a personal feeling of great discrimination; "How has this all happened?" he spluttered, "How has our system have become so… so…"

"Corrupt?"

Mace and Obi-Wan looked to Yoda as he piped up in the midst of their conversation. Obi stared at the Jedi Master for some time before he reluctantly made to nod; "Yes," he agreed.

"The question we need to ask ourselves," Mace went on, "Is where the bad egg in our system is? Who is it who is coordinating all this? Or who are they, if there are more than one?"

"Two there will be," Yoda ascertained, "Always known this, have I. An efficient team they make, and evade us with skill, they do."

"The Sith…" Kenobi snarled, treating the word almost as though it were a curse, something so filthy that he had to spit it from his mouth. He bit down on his tongue, the very thought of two Sith being able to take on an institution of thousands - and overcome it - insulting him to his core; he felt so helpless, lost in the haystack, looking desperately for the needle, whilst the Sith Master stood outside, holding it and laughing.

"So," Windu continued, "How do we root them out? How is it that they're evading us?"

Obi scuffed the floor, shaking his head wretchedly, "The Force is favouring them. It's not hard to notice. It's been so cloudy as of late, so gloomy and dark."

Mace nodded his assent, "You are right, Obi-Wan. We are powerless. The Republic will have its way with us, and the Sith will then truly be triumphant…"

"Give up, we cannot!" Yoda pressed with an amazing gusto, thumping the floor with his cane. Mace and Obi jumped a little; sometimes his presence filled a room so suddenly that it surprised one.

Yoda looked between the two in a way that made them both feel like schoolboys caught trying to climb out, over the fence, and they simultaneously looked to their feet; "Only over our plight is if give up the struggle, we do," he added, "And give up, we shall not."

Mace and Obi-Wan concurred, nodding their heads, feeling suddenly ashamed of themselves. After an uneasy pause, Mace suddenly seemed to remember something and, reaching into his robes, he withdrew something and offered it to Kenobi; "Here. They told me to give this to you."

Yoda watched as Obi-Wan took the item, his large ears sagging in sorrow.

Obi looked at it hard; "Who's is this?" he asked as he turned the plain, metallic cylinder over in his palms.

"Anakin's," Mace said, looking down at the bland lightsabre hilt, "It seems that, even in custody, he couldn't resist tinkering about with things."

Obi ran his fingers over the instrument, a simple lightsabre handle, yet something that would still take any normal Jedi a good two days to build - but not Anakin, who could build these things in his sleep. Trust him to think of doing this whilst he was under duress.

Kenobi swallowed, a lump building in his throat; "I remember," he said quietly, blinking away his deep-seated grief, "When Anakin was but twelve, he…" He laughed for a moment, fond of the memory.

Mace smiled back sadly in return whilst Yoda seemed unable to look Kenobi in the face, caught up in his own hurtful memoirs.

"I remember," Obi went on, "When Anakin built an entire droid out of spare parts and brought it to life and everything… And he even once dressed it up in his Jedi robes and sent it parading about my room." Kenobi smiled, "He was such a joker at times… Qui-Gon would have loved him."

Mace placed a hand on Obi's shoulder, comforting his friend empathetically, whilst Yoda made an indiscreet sigh and nodded. He understood completely how Kenobi felt.

----

Nute Gunray beamed. It was a rare sight, but he knew that, very soon, that little green and blue orb, that had once caused him so much humiliation and strife, would soon be his again. Or at least his on loan.

He had high hopes for this Confederacy - as long as he didn't have to get near any of the fighting, he was content. The secessionist movement was tightening its hold around the Mid Rim and Core systems like a noose, strangling the life of the Republic out of it. He was to make Naboo his main garrison, whilst Poggle would act as his backup, from the nearby world of Geonosis. Though the Republic had, in the past, treated the Outer Rim worlds with distain and aloofness, they would soon come to appreciate the vitality of these planets to their cause - albeit being too late - for the more Count Dooku took control of this 'circumference' of systems, the more he trapped the Republic within their own den. If you drew a dot-to-dot on a map of the galaxy, linking all the Separatist worlds together, you'd see a nice wreath making its presence known on all sides of the Core, an intergalactic paddock keeping all of its globular livestock in check. The Separatists were closing in from the outside, chasing the Republicans all the time toward its nucleus.

Gunray was surprised that none of this had occurred to the Supreme Chancellor, an export from Naboo himself, who should know better than most of the significance of the Outer Rim. Nute might have pitied the man if he didn't love the sight of another failing worse than he had so much…

---

Padmé stared at her luggage. She was sure she'd forgotten to pack something, and she might have continued to think about it, had the very concept of her finding this worth worrying about not suddenly occurred to her as being absurd. After all that had happened, she was worried about leaving some trivial piece of clothing behind?! She half-heartedly scoffed at herself, at the same time loathing her own vanity and tactlessness, though it, in truth, harmed no one but herself.

She hadn't really noticed the shadow by the door watching her for the past five minutes; "I wanted to know, my lady," Serenn said, making Padm's heart do another acrobatic leap into her throat, "Why you said 'yes'?"

Padmé scowled. There was a book on her bed. She considered throwing it; "Can't you knock or something, please?" she murmured through clenched teeth, fingers itching for the book, but restraint holding her back.

He didn't reply - she'd half expected him too, but was rather glad he hadn't. Taking a calming breath, she turned to face him and saw him leant back against the open door with arms folded, seeming, overall, too composed. His eyebrows gradually arched and she got the message.

"I just… don't belong here anymore," she belatedly replied his question, shrugging, "It's as simple as that."

He looked unconvinced, nodding in the way that tells one he has severe doubts; "So you belong with me instead, do you?"

She frowned, though his voice held no insinuation or spite; he was simply asking her a question, and he didn't do that often; "I didn't say that," she rallied.

He paused and stared at her; she had the feeling that he was reading her through her eyes, turning the pages of her internal book until he found something interesting to use.

"Did you want to ask me something?" he finally said.

She blinked, taking a mental back step; "I guess…" she murmured, realising there was something she'd been meaning to ask, but had forgotten sometime between packing and re-packing her gowns and her gloves.

She squirmed a little under his gaze, picking up the book from her bed and running it between her hands, just to give her some kind of semi-distraction from him; "You seemed uneasy back there," she said, and, turning her eyes to him, added, "As if Ryoo and Pooja touched a nerve."

His eyes wandered again, but this time in a way that told her she was spot on rather than far-off; "Yes," he sighed, "Children are such amazing little things. So truthful and honest."

She looked back at the old book and flicked blankly through some pages; "What are you going to do about it?"

"About what?"

"Whatever they touched upon?" She stared at him again - for once, she felt as though she were actually the one manoeuvring him in the conversation, rather than vice versa. And she liked it.

He looked mildly amused, though also a tad bitter and uncomfortable; "'Do'? Frankly, what can I do?"

Padmé paused, fiddling with the spine of the book, running a finger down and over its ridges and folds; "Why did you stop?" she suddenly asked in a more tense tone.

He blinked, "I'm sorry?"

"The other night," she whispered, casting aside the book and looking him bravely in the face, "Why did you stop? You've never stopped whenever I've asked you to, for whatever reason, before - you've never listened to me - so why start now?"

Ah, so here was the real question.

Serenn stared at her.

"I saw it in your eyes," she went on, "Something different. What made you stop?"

If he hadn't glanced briefly aside, Padmé would have thought he wasn't listening; "Look, we know one another much more intimately that I care to think about," she said, losing patience and walking toward him, "Please, for Force's sake, just be honest with me!"

He heaved a great sigh and looked down on her with a gentle awe; "You made me stop," he muttered matter-of-factly, "Can't you see that?"

She looked taken aback, her brow furrowing; "Me?"

"Yes."

They both turned as they heard footsteps in the hallway. A Nubian guard walked by, giving them a quick glance and a nod of courtesy as he went, before he was gone again.

They looked back at one another.

"We'll depart tonight," he said suddenly, making to leave.

"Where are we going now?"

"Alderaan."

Padmé hoped he was joking, "Alderaan?" she spluttered, "Are you mad?"

"Quite possibly," he smirked, turning to her with a low bow in the hallway, "Good day."

---

"What will happen to me now?"

"The Council have granted me permission to train you. You will be a Jedi, I promise."

His braid dropped to the floor with a muted rap. His old clothes were forfeit and he was forced to dress in normal robes, clothing that reminded him of the peasant folk back home, on Tatooine. His lightsabre, or that stunted thing he'd taken about two hours to build in his cell, was taken from him. Under oath, he was forced to swear never to build a new one, never to abuse the skills he'd been taught as a Padawan, and never to return to the Core Worlds. All this was on pain of death.

He looked in the reflection of a window as he walked by, amidst a body of guards, feeling a little odd without his braid swinging by the side of his face, feeling almost as though he were naked whilst he dressed in this strange, baggy attire, feeling lost without his trusty lightsabre, but, above all, he felt strangely free. Even when Qui-Gon had taken him from Tatooine, and released him from Watto's service, he had never been completely free. He had jumped from one form of slavery to another, become a flunky of the Jedi rather than a servant to a junk dealer.

Now he was free. What fools they were, giving him this wild sentence, with boundless freedom, in the Outer Rim! And how were they going to instigate this sentence, exactly? Who was to know that he wasn't using his Force powers to do what he liked, that he wasn't building a lightsabre? How could they keep these sort of tabs on him? Yes, the Republic was a failing institution, throwing sentences at prisoners that they couldn't enforce, and giving the criminals more liberties than the law-abiding citizens, and, despite the obvious injustice in the system, he was damn grateful for it! The fools.

This did eventually beg the question of how he'd get from the Outer Rim back to the Sith Master. He guessed that Palpatine already had this worked out. He would lay his trust in the Sith Master and he would wait and see. He was sure he wouldn't have to wait long.

TBC…