Eclipse

Part 39 - The Saurian Planet

Dooku jerked his head round just in time to see a gigantic, thick tail swung through the branches and knock him flying from the tree, away into the darkness!

"Serenn!" Padmé cried after him again. Her attention was soon required elsewhere, however, as, charging through the trees came a beast to rival the size of any fambaa. Padmé recoiled quickly until her back hit a tree trunk, and she took a moment to examine the creature: it was a massive, bipedal thing, looking lizard-like, yet covered in a coat of fur. The head was long and thin, with nostrils perched on the tip of its jaw and a fine set of teeth present within. Above each of its smallish eyes was a rise, protruding upwards like a pair of stunted horns, and this head altogether rested on the end of a fairly long neck, which joined a small torso. Longish, thin arms extended from its body, whilst thick, powerful legs, built for running, supported its form. A solid tail completed the picture, an appendage that both gave the creature balance and, as so recently observed, could be used as an offensive weapon. It was notable that this animal's body and features were not so very different in proportion to those of a bird, and, had it been covered in feathers rather than a coat of coarse, brown-and-red fur, Padmé might have thought it to be one - at least one of monstrous proportions.

The creature sniffed after Serenn, looking for the easy prey it had knocked from the tree, until, failing in this, it spied out Padmé, cowering below. It looked at her and blinked, thinking for a moment.

As this beast eyed her up, Padmé took the opportunity to scuttle off to the side. Moving across the ground, she then heard a gentle 'chink' as her foot caught something in the grass. Looking down, she came across the Count's lightsabre, waylaid upon the floor. It must have fallen when he had been hit, she surmised, and, without thinking, she picked it up, and held it before her.

Though there wasn't much light in the woods, what light there was caught the edge of the glittering weapon and dazzled the bipedal beast. The creature cocked its head to one side and then to the other as Padmé held the hilt in vain before her.

Padmé was beginning to think, as she held on to that tiny, fraying thread of hope, that she may actually get away unharmed… that was until this peaceful lull ended with the beast opening its mouth, emitting a great hiss and drawing its head back, ready to strike.

With a cry, Padmé quickly activated the lightsabre and swung it at the animal as its great head, jaws gaping, plunged down toward her. Padmé knew she had hit it when the giant mammal-saurian screeched in turn and drew back, flailing at its face with its thin, stunted arms. She didn't stay to see the fruits of her assault, though, for, discretion being the better part of valour, she just deactivated the hazardous lightsabre and ran off into the woods.

Trees flashed passed as Padmé ran, and she felt thin branches and sharp thorns hit her across her body and face, leaving small scratches all over as she rushed blindly onward. She had no idea where she was heading - all she knew was that she wanted to keep that thing behind her. Her eyes, meanwhile, searched every which way for any sign of Dooku, but the night was closing in so fast now that she had little chance of seeing anything at all. It wasn't long until she knew that her beastly lizard friend was in pursuit, for its giant legs could be heard ruthlessly crushing all the vegetation and greenery in her wake.

"Serenn!" Padmé cried out again, stumbling over a root, before picking herself up and taking a left turning, hoping to throw off the creature. The monster behind followed, though, weaving through the trees as smoothly as a stream through a cove.

"Serenn! Where are you?" she yelled once more.

Padmé turned again, then again, trying in desperation to lose the creature - but it was of no use. It was clearly not slow or stupid.

Things like this didn't happen in real life, Padmé had once thought. So much for that.

"SERENN!" she screamed again.

Back on Naboo, there was a serious lack of communication between the Trade Federation and the populace. Rather there was currently no communication at all, excepting the fact that a message had been put out over the local holo'-proj' network this morning, announcing a sudden obstruction of the common Nubian trade routes.

"Something's wrong," Jobal said, as she returned home to Ruwee that morning with an empty wicker basket, one that would usually be full after a visit to the market, "They said there were problems with the trading routes, I know, but things don't disappear overnight. There really is nothing at market today, as if everything's just… vanished. It's just not possible."

Ruwee looked downcast, his mind filled with worries and concerns. "There's something suspicious about the whole thing, I know," he concurred, but then, shifting restlessly, he voiced the true core of his current worries. "For the Force's sake, where's our Padmé, Jobal?"

Jobal placed her wicker basket aside and took a seat by Ruwee. They were sat in their house's front room, which overlooked the pleasant, cobbled street outside. A troop of battledroids suddenly marched by, though, ruining the view and offering up an unwanted reminder of the Federation's presence. Ruwee turned his lip up at the sight of the beige, bland soldiers and pivoted his seat away from the window; "I'm worried about her," he went on, "Something's been wrong for a long time… and she's just dropped out of the news like a ship into a blackhole."

"I know…" Jobal sighed.

Their conversation, too, faded into an equal state of oblivion as the world, nay, the universe itself, just seemed to just crumble around them. The old idiom was wrong - nothing was fair in love and war.

Kit Fisto had somehow ended up at Toola. He wasn't sure how, but this war wasn't exactly organised, and he could do very little except what he was told. His Jedi comrades at Mon Calamari, who had afterwards followed him to aid the battle at Raxus, had since fallen in action, and like Master Kenobi and his convoy, replacements had not been found in other Jedi, but in military men and women, selected by the senate, or perhaps even handpicked by the Chancellor himself.

Toola was a planet that existed just on the edge of the Perlemian Trade Route, and one that the Republic had been chased to by the overpowering Separatists. Raxus was lost, and Kit had found that he had had no choice but to try and ground his troops at Toola before they were chased right out of the galaxy altogether! The Mortal Militia weren't exactly thrilled by this change of events, by this 'cowardly' flight out of the Tion Cluster in which Raxus was housed, and they refused to listen to Fisto's reasoning that they would have been otherwise destroyed if they had remained there.

Kit sighed - he couldn't help but feel, deep down, that this was the beginning of an end - not the end, just one of many ends. He didn't really want to find out what this end entailed, though - it made him feel uncomfortable just thinking about it.

He was currently down on the planet's surface, seeing to it that his ships were in a good enough shape to face the onslaught of the Separatists. The people of Toola were fairly accommodating to him and his troops, which was at least one problem off his back, but these people had also adopted the common 'wait and see' policy in this war rather than commit themselves to any side. This meant that if they lost the next battle to the Confederacy, they would have to get out of here pretty quick - the people of Toola would otherwise waste no time in siding with General Grievous, which would be further bad news for the Republic…

'We had better win' Kit resolved.

'One day, I'll look back on this and laugh' Padmé vainly hoped as she continued, quite breathlessly, to stumble and careen through the darkness of the Sauria forests. She had to try to keep her spirits up because nothing else would, and she had to hope that this beast, still in heavy pursuit, would get tired and find something else upon which to prey in good time.

At the moment, none of this looked likely, for the creature was hardly dilapidated and - as far as Padmé's ears could serve her, for she refused to look back with her eyes - it was still not far behind.

Padmé felt rather sick and her legs were really beginning to tire. She could feel many little cuts and gashes across her body now, inflicted upon her by the unkind foliage, and, on top of that, there were bruises on her knees and legs, from where she had consistently fallen down. Her hands were filthy from cushioning her falls and her hair was a tangled mess better left unmentioned. As the night in the sky only deepened, the going only got worse. Her eyes almost gave up on her altogether; nothing was clearly visible more than a few feet away, and, as is always the case, her eyes began to play tricks on her too. More often than not, she now found herself stumbling into trees, which before had looked like open ground, and tumbling into holes which had previously looked like solid land.

Falling again, Padmé yelped as she felt a sharp pain in her ankle. She could hear the bipedal carnivore coming up behind her but still she refused to give up - with that strong will that had long since kept her alive, she managed to drag herself back onto her feet and to limp on.

Running was agony now, and she wasn't sure she could keep it up. She had no time to climb a tree - the thing would see her and pick her off halfway up - and there looked to be absolutely no other form of respite in any direction. She pushed herself through a thicket of bushes, then hopped over a set of fallen trees. She then turned right, tore through some low-hanging vines, and on she went again, all the time feeling more and more exhausted, more and more nauseous, and more and more doomed.

She had given up shouting for Dooku a long time ago, but, even if she now wanted to, she could not shout for him anymore - her voice was caught in her throat, which ached with every laborious breath she took. It felt as though her heart had climbed up into her gullet, leaving no room for her voice in there besides.

The creature behind roared, getting impatient - or so Padmé thought, until, tearing through the trees just ahead, another of the blasted things came into view.

Padmé found the energy, at least, to scream in utter surprise, before she managed to skid down a small mossy hill to her left and continue on down that route. This new beast was of the same species as the other, no doubt, but was obviously of the other sex, for he sported a pair of huge horns atop his head, whereas the other only sported stunted lumps. And he, unlike his mate, was not injured by Padmé's lightsabre, and was fresh to the chase. He was going to give the poor girl a real run for her money.

Perhaps this really was it, Padmé then resolved - she was never going to get off this planet. She was going to die here, forgotten and quite alone.

She thus nearly had a heart attack when, breaking this reverie, her arm was grabbed by a hand in the darkness and she was dragged on, at a fast pace, in another direction.

"Greetings, my lady."

So here was Serenn, defying all logic, and suddenly appearing from out of nowhere, forcing her to just run yet more. She couldn't bring herself to even ask him how he had got there, where he had been, or what he was doing… none of it. She couldn't care less as long as he helped her get out of this mess.

The Count wasn't in a talking humour himself and sounded equally short on breath. It wasn't easy to make him out in the darkness, so Padmé couldn't see how he looked at all; she just followed his lead, hearing the incessant thumping of those giant, clawed feet behind them. She thought it were a miracle when, leaping over a tree trunk (or stumbling over, in Padmé's case), they came out into the open air - it was the first time since they'd crash-landed here that they had done. A wonderful fresh wind rushed upon them, refreshing and clear, and an open sky looked down on them from the heavens above. This all nearly rendered Padmé insensible to the situation until she felt Serenn tear his lightsabre from her tight grasp and force her behind him.

When her senses came to, Padmé realised they had come out onto a projection, a cliff face high above the rest of the forest below.

As the two beasts then emerged from out of the woods, slowing their pace with a realisation that their prey was trapped, Padmé in turn realised that there was only one way out of this situation, and that was blocked by the ferocious bipeds. "Oh no…" she sighed, her recent flame of hope dashed by the waters of defeat.

Serenn just gestured for her to step back with a wave of his hand and, activating the lightsabre, he then followed her in steadily retreating down the outcrop, one which grew ever the more narrow the further back they went.

The two carnivores plodded toward them all the time, a look of triumph in their eyes as they beheld the spoils of their troubles, as good as dead.

"What are you doing?" Padmé asked Serenn through arduous breaths, watching him do little but give ground after her, "What are you ?"

"Shh!" he growled, giving her a quick glance whilst the two furry lizards continued to watch him and his glowing, red lightsabre.

Padmé did silence and turned her eyes back to the two giants. They were impressive creatures, she had to admit, and she could now clearly see the damage she had caused to the female, who sported a gash across her left eye. Padmé gasped suddenly, though, as she felt her back-foot slip on some mossy rocks, announcing the edge of the precipice. Quickly grasping onto Serenn so that she didn't fall, and scrambling away from the edge, she stared over the cliff and looked down. She could only just make out the line of a river and the small shapes of the trees and rocks, many hundreds of feet below... It was a long way down.

"We're trapped, aren't we?" she murmured with the frankness of someone close to death, looking back at Serenn as he joined her right on the edge. He gave the distant ground below a quick glance, then looked at Padmé in a way that told her she was gravely mistaken. "Can you swim?" he asked.

Her brow knotted as she took slight offence at this simple question - she'd grown up in the Lake Country back home, hadn't she?; "Don't be stupid, of course I can swim!"

The two beasts roared, their patience thinning, and both prepared to strike.

Serenn deactivated his weapon and thrust it upon his belt; "Good," he replied, before he swung her up into his arms and vaulted over the edge.

The two lizard-like carnivores watched the space with disappointment and looked down at the ravine far below. They then opted unanimously to return into the forest, and must undoubtedly have been thinking about how stupid some creatures were.

Senator Tikkes's hologram flickered before Grievous as the Droid General reclined on the bridge of his flagship; "General," the Quarren warbled, "I have forced the Republic out to Toola from Raxus. They still hold Mon Calamari, and Munto Codru remains undecided. I await your further orders."

Grievous, sat down in some throne-like chair, tapped his fingers idly on its arm and took a moment to think about this; "Well done, Senator," he said at last, "They shall expect an attack from you. I would like this faction of the Republic squeezed out of the picture - they are a liability." He rose to his feet. "I shall join you and we shall wipe them out together."

The Quarren bowed and faded away into nothingness. Grievous then turned and left the room, casting his eyes over his flagship bridge as he went. It was silent, a vacuum of conformity and rigid obedience. He rapped his fingers lightly against his ever-growing belt of lightsabres as he went, which swung and hit one another like morbid chimes - it was time to add another to his collection.

Ki-Adi Mundi had to count himself lucky amongst his Jedi allies in that he was currently situated on Coruscant and had not needed to put up with the Mortal Militia as of yet. He was sat with Master Yoda in the Jedi Master's apartment, and the two were doing their best to interpret General Grievous and his motives. Master Yoda was doing as much as anyone to assist in the war effort right now, but things just kept getting more and more cryptic, and lives were being lost because of it.

"I believe he has something in mind for Naboo," Mundi murmured, pointing to the distant small planet on the holo-map that was currently swirling before them both, "All shipments there seem to have been halted."

"Hmm," Yoda sighed, pursing his lips, "Some kind of blockade in mind he has."

"But why?" Mundi asked, "He can have no reason."

"No," Yoda agreed, "No reason but to out there, draw us."

Ki-Adi sighed and nodded. "This General is clearly merciless."

Yoda nodded again and looked over the holo-map; the Jedi were his family, they had always been his family, and he was losing more to this sudden conflict than he had to any other in the past eight-hundred years. When he looked at a planet now, he more often than not was simply reminded of a Jedi who had fallen in battle there. Yavin - there was Master Windu's grave; Gamorr - Master Rancisis had been lost there. Serenno… well, no one there yet, but his old apprentice had come from there, his last Padawan, young Serenn.

Well, he was not so young any more.

Yoda stared at Serenno - where was Dooku now? And what madness had driven him to take part in all this?

The surface of the river rippled. Then it bubbled. And then, with a great splash, both Serenn and Padmé broke the surface, heaving great breaths and thanking the Force they were alive.

There's something about surviving a near-death experience that does strange things to one's constitution and mind, hence why Padmé looked at Serenn and shouted, "You bastard!" She thrust her hand through the water and sent a great spray of it over him, though she wasn't even sure whether she was cross or pleased with him.

Serenn gave her a brief glare before he then began to swim to the edge of the river, and Padmé soon followed. They both gladly dragged themselves onto the pebbly beach and lay there, catching their breaths, for some time.

"You could have given me a warning," Padmé said quietly at length, watching the stars that now shone down from the heavens.

"That would have wasted time," he replied.

She finally found the energy to sit up and, turning to him, looked him over. He was in pretty poor shape and actually made her condition look much less serious. He had those familiar little cuts all over the place, suggesting that he too had been running through the woods, but these were nothing compared to the bloody tear across his tunic, which announced some kind of gash on his ill-fortuned chest; "I think you've cut yourself," she said, leaning toward him to try to see the wound.

He gave her a glare that dared her to move any closer. "I know," he countered.

She took the hint and kept her distance. "How did you manage that?"

"Getting thrown from a tree at sixty kilometres an hour can do that to one," he retorted, heaving himself up and looking down at the gash in question.

She frowned at him - he seemed to be in a very standoffish mood all of a sudden, so she made no reply.

After another few moments, the Count made a move and Padmé watched him as he forced himself onto his weary legs, and took his lightsabre hilt back into his hand. Shaking the water out of it, he flicked it on and gave it a test run, then, seeing that it was working smoothly, he fiddled with a nozzle, to adjust its length, and reduced the red blade to a rather puny, humming stump.

Padmé's brow creased in puzzlement and he caught her eyes; "What baffles you, madam?" he asked, drawing his tunic off over his head.

She wafted a hand toward the weapon. "What are you doing?"

He gave her a long look, dropping the ragged tunic and pointing to the wound on his chest. "Cauterising a rather nasty wound, lest it become infected."

"Are you insane?" she cringed.

"On the contrary, if I leave it as it is, I'm not certain to last long." He threw her a sad smile, "And I believe that I have at least one more thing I need to do before I die."

She stared hard at him as he said those words; ' before I die' echoed through her mind like nothing he had ever said before. She shook her head, filing it away for future reference; "I'm sure there are better ways," she uttered softly.

"There are, but they're not available to me right now," he replied, softening a little in turn, before he then turned away to perform the procedure.

Padmé turned her back on him as well - the idea of burning oneself didn't sound at all pleasant and she didn't even want to think about it. This didn't prevented her from being able to hear the awful sound of burning flesh as he did it, though.

When she finally heard him plunk himself back down onto the pebbly beach, she turned again to look at him. He sat there, cross-legged, with his lightsabre hilt in his lap, and a weary look on his face. His body was brimmed with a little sweat, but the wound was, indeed, sealed. It looked far worse to Padmé than before, but burns always did, and she could only give him the benefit of the doubt. She hadn't been trained as a Jedi, afterall.

After another of their long, mutual silences, she picked up a pebble and began to fiddle with it, saying, "Serenn…?"

"Hmm?"

"How did you know this was going to happen?"

"That what was going to happen?" he asked. His voice was different, tempered by pain.

"This." She looked straight at him. "That we were going to be shot down?"

He lowered himself fully down onto the ground and laid out flat, resting a hand over his throbbing wound; "I didn't know," he confessed, "I could just feel that something was going to happen. If you understood how the Force worked, you would know what I meant. It gave me a warning… and I just knew that I was in for some trouble." He turned his eyes on her and added, "The Force also told me, or 'imparted' to me, that if I could get you away to Alderaan, things would not end up so bad." He paused. "Or something like that. I can't explain it. It just gives one a sudden knowledge - or perhaps 'impulse' is the right word - to do, or not to do something."

She looked down thoughtfully and nodded, throwing the pebble in her hand up, then catching it as it fell, over and over again . "And how would I have been better off on my own?"

He watched her toss the pebble up and down and, fixing his eyes on it, he suddenly held it, suspended in the air, and watched her face fill with perplexity as she wondered why gravity had suddenly stopped working for her. The hovering pebble soon brought back recollections of Anakin's floating fruit on Naboo, though, and she turned to Serenn and gave him a 'very funny' glare.

He brought the pebble toward him and toyed with it in the air above his head - as much for a distraction from the pain in his chest than anything - and finally answered her question; "If you had been on your own, away from me, I could at least have hoped to keep you away from the danger I now cannot help but see you face."

Padmé's eyes followed the pebble as it bobbed up and down, somersaulting all over the place under Serenn's complete and utter control.

"You see," he went on, "Alone, I would face what I know is coming to me without fear of what might happen to you in turn, and I could hope that you would evade…" He thought better of what he was about to say, and changed course; "Well, you are with me now and you are risking your own safety because of it, and I cannot help but feel that whatever happens to you shall be all my fault." With an irate intensity, he then tossed the pebble away across the river.

"I have enough on my conscience," he growled, "I don't wish to add anymore to it…"

Padmé watched the pebble skim the water, bouncing on the ripples, until it sunk beneath the surface with a gentle 'plop'. She then sighed. "You're still not telling me much."

"I have no wish to."

Some crickets began chirping in the grasses nearby, celebrating the hours of darkness.

"I had a dream," Serenn suddenly admitted, "After you had left me that night, back on Oovo. It was terrible, and prevented me from sleeping." He bit his lip and silenced for a minute.

Padmé just stared at him, watching his chest rise and fall.

"I saw many things," he went on, sitting slowly back up and pulling his tunic back over his upper-body, "but I also saw you. I was told what might happen to you if we went to Alderaan together, but we never actually got to Alderaan in my dream - we never made it." He paused suddenly and leant on his raised knees, looking out across the inky surface of the river. "I saw fire and I felt pain," he murmured on, "And screams, I heard terrible screams... I could not make much sense of it, and I shall not tell you half of what I witnessed, but I knew… as soon as I woke up, I just knew that I had to save you from it."

"Save me from what?" she asked.

He turned and his eyes met hers. "I can't tell you."

She sighed again - it was always two steps forward, one step back with this man. "Are we going to die here, then?" she asked, staring up at the firmament.

"No. I told you, we have been imprisoned here."

"But for how long?"

"I don't know."

"And who's imprisoned us?"

Serenn paused again, wondering whether or not to answer this question. He ultimately resolved to let it out and said, "The Sith Master."

Padmé turned to look at him. "Palpatine, you mean?" She stared at him for a long time, lost thoughts bubbling up to the surface in the pool of her mind. "You know, you never did tell me how you knew he was the Sith Master."

Serenn didn't turn to face her - he just looked away.

"How did you know?" she persisted, "And why did I believe you? I don't understand why I accepted what you said."

He smiled briefly, but his lips were soon drawn back down by the weighty guilt in his heart.

"Are you going to tell me?"

He left another pause but realised that he had very little chance of getting out of this forever. "I -" he began, then stopped, but not because he couldn't find the words, but because he had sensed danger. He shot to his feet, activated his lightsabre and turned to the forest that bordered the beach, eyes darting every which way.

Padmé soon followed and shot up by his side, her heart pounding - was this it? Were they finally going to be rescued?

Serenn's eyes had filled with that distant look, his sight seeming almost to sink into his mind as his incorporeal self wandered through the valleys and plains of the Force, seeking out the intruder he knew was approaching. He quickly reached out and took a rigid hold of Padmé's arm, holding her steady to him; the aura was tense and, for some reason, the young Nubian subsequently panicked - she didn't know what was going on, so she just clung to him in return.

The bushes rustled before them.

The night had fallen silent - no carnivores roared, no herbivores crooned, no insects fluttered. It was one of those 'calm before the storm' moments.

As if on cue, clone troopers then slowly began to emerge from the foliage, their giant rifles cocked in their arms.

Padmé didn't move; she felt Serenn's hand tighten its grip on her, though.

The troops surrounded them in a circle, yet the deadly silenced endured - it would seem that there was yet one other to materialise from out of the folds of darkness. Serenn's eyes were watching the shadows amongst the bushes and trees, fixed on something within that murky mass of nothingness.

The wait for something to happen was unbearable and drew out for what Padmé felt was an age. Then, finally, something stirred in the shadows, and a creature of the night emerged, stepping calmly into the clearing.

The river trickled through the shallows behind them, filling the uneasy silence with its innocent harmony and Padmé took this opportunity to study the intruder: He was a tall man, fairly muscular in build, and was dressed entirely in black, every inch of his body being covered in tight robes and bindings. This was all except his eyes, at least; those two, pale blue orbs gleamed out of his body of darkness like lonely stars in a forsaken night sky, and were as cold as glaciers, twinkling with what could only be called a euphoric malice. On first impressions, one would believe that this man was some sort of assassin, disguising himself thoroughly in preparation for the execution of some terrible crime.

/I have found you/

Padmé heard nothing, yet she felt a tremor surge through Dooku's chest and consequently run down her arm. She knew that something had clearly made itself apparent to him, yet not to her, and it troubled her, causing her to unintentionally clutch at the Count tighter. He tried to offer her some form of support by clasping her shoulder in return, but it was a futile gesture.

/Give her up/ the Assassin went on.

Serenn's eyes narrowed on the man a fraction; /Make me/ he said.

The smile turned sour in the stranger's eyes; he raised a hand and flexed it out toward Dooku. There followed a terrific rumble, and both Serenn and Padmé were hurled from their feet and down onto the jagged, stony terrain below. Padmé winced as the pebbles cut into her skin, and saw, as Dooku shot to his feet, that his arm was also lacerated, yet he ignored it, and, standing over her in a protective manner, held up his lightsabre and stood up, one man against the throng.

The black-clad Assassin sauntered forward. "He's wanted alive," he said to his squadron, voice muffled by the swathes over his face, "Make sure you don't kill him."

The troopers subsequently, to Padmé's surprise, unleashed a great volley of laser fire, and Serenn was forced to swing his lightsabre rapidly here and there to deflect the incoming blows. She swallowed as she tried to make out what was going on in the blur that was the blasts of laser fire and the flashing of a lightsabre blade, but could discern nothing. The assassin-like stranger soon caught her attention though, for he was now holding some kind of peculiar gun upon his shoulder; it didn't take her a moment longer to understand who he was aiming it at, though.

"Serenn!" Padmé cried out to him involuntarily.

The Count hesitated and glanced at her.

And that was all the time the man in black needed. Pulling the trigger, he unleashed a dart from his gun, which flew, with a savage hiss, straight into Dooku's neck, and there it remained firmly lodged. Serenn barked in turn and, reaching up to his throat, pulled the offending article from his skin. All shooting soon stopped around him and the Count threw the Assassin a dark glare, one that plainly said 'cheap shot'.

The grim smile was again shining in the stranger's eyes as he now watched the lofty Count begin to lose his bearings. Serenn dropped his lightsabre then staggered about, before he fell to his knees and, after a long and agonising pause, fell backward with a final thud.

All the time, Padmé had been able to do nothing but watch, mouth open: This was it - it was over.

The tall stranger surveyed the scene for a moment before he opened his own hand and drew Dooku's lightsabre hilt into it. He then stared at Padmé and she at him, before, clicking his fingers, he made back for his ship, whilst several clone troopers took the Count and the Senator prisoner.

TBC…