Mace lifted the body of Obi-Wan over his shoulder and strode toward the ship. Padmé followed close behind. She started suddenly as a blue electrical bolt ricocheted off of the platform next to her feet.
"What was that?" She asked Mace who had spun to peer into the distance. His eyes widened in realization that the Sith Master was approaching. Re-igniting his lightsaber, he deflected another bolt of Dark Force lightning, while still holding onto Kenobi.
"Get on board now!" He yelled to Padmé and for once, she didn't hesitate to do as he requested. He would have loved to stay and fight the Master and try to discover his identity, but the Force was compelling him to board the ship. He could not endanger the senator any more than he already had.
He backed onto the ramp and into the ship, deflecting and absorbing two more blue bolts, his eyes focusing, glaring, attempting to possibly recognize the distant slightly hunched figure shrouded in black.
Padmé had rushed to the ship's console and began the takeoff procedures. Upon hearing Mace's yell of clearance, she raised the ramp and powered the ship up and blasted away from Mustafar.
Mace took the still-unconscious Obi-Wan to a room and laid him down upon a plain cot. Exiting the room, he accessed a control panel and activated a force field containment shield at the door's exit, hoping it would hold Kenobi if herevived before they reached Coruscant.
Once leaving the atmosphere of the blazing red planet, Mace engaged the hyperdrive. The boom of the lightspeed engines' ignition and the roar that followed were not enough to dampen the screamed obscenities that now echoed throughout the ship.
Kenobi was awake.
Padmé shuddered at the ferocity of the violent words directed at Windu, the Jedi council and ultimately the entire Jedi Order.
So much anger. So much pain. She soon found herself weeping for him.
Mace glanced at her with a somewhat sympathetic look.
The force containment room he had locked Kenobi in was just a temporary fix to a much bigger problem. What would they do with him once they reached Coruscant? Did Yoda or the Jedi Healers seriously think that they could help him?
From their experience on the Mustafar landing platform, it was obvious that Kenobi was beyond their help.
Taking a deep breath, the Force shimmered through his distraught mind. It was the voice of Yoda that he heard. 'Love is all that can save Kenobi.'
He heard the young senator sniffle softly and her voice cracked as she spoke to him. "You have to let me speak to him."
"I cannot."
"Master Windu." She implored.
Mace shook his head and looked out the viewport at the blur of stars moving at lightspeed. "Look. We already tried it your way. It didn't work."
She was silent for several minutes before she spoke again.
"Master Windu, have you ever been in love?"
He didn't expect that type of question and he wasn't sure he should answer it.
"Have you?"
So, she was going to be insistent. The young woman was stubborn, and if he didn't talk to her, it was a going to be a long trip.
"As a matter of fact, I have."
Her eyebrows raised in surprise and she turned slightly to give him her full attention.
"When I was a young. She was also a Jedi. Her name was Lurea. Lurea Krell. She was actually a friend of Qui-Gon's. He introduced us."
Mace sat silent for a moment, his eyes focused somewhere above and beyond Padmé's head, a small smile crossing his face, apparently lost in memory.
"She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen."
His gaze turned once more out the window and Padmé waited patiently.
"We were great friends. But after our knighting ceremony, something changed. She came to me in my room that night. I suppose she assumed that what we had would grow to something else. Something more. I never meant to hurt her, but I had made an oath. I was going to be a great Jedi, a powerful warrior. Someday I was going to be on the Council."
His voice had faded to where Padmé could barely hear him over the raucous noise coming from the back of the ship. She waited a long moment before quietly urging him to continue.
"What happened to her?"
He turned then to look at her and just for a flash of a moment, Padmé could see the pain of regret on his face.
"She volunteered for an extremely dangerous mission. She put herself in harm's way. She didn't survive."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It's in the past."
Windu sat facing her, his hands steepled beneath his chin.
Once more Padmé decided to try her luck.
"Thank you for sharing this with me. You should understand now why I have to go to him."
"I'm sorry, but I cannot allow you to risk your life again."
"Master Windu. Obi-Wan is my life."
Mace's brow furrowed at her statement and Padmé grasped against hope that her words had somehow changed his mind.
"All right. But I'll remain close by. If there is any danger, I'll have no choice but to intervene."