8

The ship flew smoothly under Obi Wan's commandment. On their way, they even managed to rescue Yoda, who was running away from the Clone troops in Kashyyk. Then it suddenly struck them that they actually had nowhere to go to. The Separatist was hiding everywhere and a false planet as their destination could mean that they would lose their lives.

Padme still remained motionless, still got shaken at the previous event. She seemed unaware of the confusion that happened around her, but all of the sudden she voiced, first dimly, but then firmly, "Fly West, Master Kenobi! There's a safe planet."

Everyone else turned silent at her unbelievable direction, even Obi Wan declined to follow her instruction. He looked up at the map at the cockpit; a planet named Dagobbah was the planet at the West she called safe. He didn't give any significant reaction, but she knew he kept flying straight, straight to the enemy's lair.

She turned to Obi Wan. Her facial looked as strong as her tone when she shrieked, "I know you said you don't trust a politician, but you have to believe me on this one!"

Reluctant as he was, Obi Wan finally consented. Besides, Yoda had started his speech on her sense being right for it was guided by The Force. Obi Wan was a little ashamed, because his Force wasn't the one who was telling it. Embarrassed and unwilling, he rolled the steer to the West.

Not so distant journey after, they had floated above the planet. It looked gloomy and no inhabitant was detected there by the ship's radar. Obi Wan finally admitted that Padme was right all along, but of course he didn't want to say it all aloud. But Padme, somehow feeling his guiltiness, then added aloud, as if deliberately, "And I'm a queen no longer."

---

They just had landed on the strange planet. From the land, they were able to see that the gloominess they noted from the ship was mainly caused by the swamps that were dominating the planet's geographical condition. The Jedi, Padme, and Organa had to tread carefully as to not step into one of them.

The planet must have once been a refuge for criminals and runaways of the Republic, because not far from the place their ship embarked, they found a building secure enough to be called a 'place to stay', though not exactly a 'home'. Later that night, each one of them had slept –uncomfortably, though- in a room, for it has only one room, inside their 'staying place'.

Yet, before the day hadn't even passed yet, Yoda considered that they had already been wasting a lot of time. He told Obi Wan that it was time to inform Padme his plan right away. And Obi Wan alone must do that plan. "Trust nobody she does, but you," Yoda reasoned. That second, Organa appeared next to them. His face looked exhausted and disappointed. Obi Wan assumed that Yoda had told him the whole tale. He held an apple in his palm and while handing it over to Obi Wan, he said, "You should tell him, Obi Wan. And give this to her, she hasn't eaten anything. It'll be bad for the baby." He quickly turned away from them, but before he moved out, he added morosely, as if it hurt him to speak the words, "She trusts nobody but you."

---

A couple of feets away behind the building was one of the few dry lands the planet owned, with a fallen tree trunk on it where you could sit and overlook the swamps outside. Yet, Obi Wan was sure, when he found Padme sitting there, her reason wasn't to sit and to overlook the swamps.

Padme heard footsteps behind her and turned around to see who the intruder was, and found Obi Wan with an apple in his hand.

He started, "You haven't eaten all morning."

"I'm not hungry," she retorted. Her voice chord was harsh and rusty, like it had been long when she had last used it.

At that very moment, he rejoiced the fact that he had met and paid attention to what Organa had spoken just then. "You may not be hungry, but your baby may," replied he, quickly and without hesitation.

She looked at his face, then at the apple, then back at his face, and finally rejoined, "Since when you started caring for my baby?" But she walked closer and took the apple from his hand nevertheless.

When it was the right moment for her to hear what he wanted to inform her –and the right time for him to inform her- he began, "Nice weather, isn't it?" which was a very stupid thing to begin a conversation with.

"Stop it, will you?" she said, sounded angry.

"Stop what?" asked Obi Wan, confused.

"Isn't it obvious? You're not here to talk about my baby, or about me either!"

"The cynical thing again!" sighed Obi Wan, but Padme pretended not to hear him and proceeded, "Just be honest! You're here because you want to take advantage of me!"

"Take advantage? What…"

"There's The Force," continued Padme, unheeding Obi Wan's protest, "growing inside me now! And you know it could be the only way to win the Sith. So, Yoda sent you here, so you can persuade me to take lessons to drive the so-called Force. But tell me! How exactly 2 Jedi Masters can imagine that a baby, hasn't even born yet, can beat an army, you have to give me a lesson on that one first!"

Obi Wan grew silent, more of difficulty of exposing the fact than of astonishment to find that Padme already guessed what he wanted to talk about. But he was obliged to expose the fact to her, in spite of the difficulty, "When I finish giving you that lesson, it'll be the first lesson you'll get from me,

"It's not your baby. It's you."

It was Padme's turn to grow silent and Obi Wan seized the moment to reveal everything that was still left uncovered, "The Force is in the baby, yet somehow, you're affected. We have never seen anything like this before; thus we know your baby is special,

"The Force has different effect on different people. And on you, it gives you a power to foresee. And we need to foresee the activity of the Sith. Of Anakin."

Padme still spoke nothing at first, but her angry expression suddenly returned when she retorted, "That doesn't change the fact that all you've been trying to do is taking advantage of me! You want me to betray my own husband!"

Obi Wan shook his head, as if wanting to say "No," but suddenly changed his mind and said instead, "Yes! Yes! You know this was going to happen! You've known it since you first came to me. And what made you come to me? It was The Force! The same Force that induced you to confess it all to the Council! You had betrayed him! I can't see why you won't betray him again!"

Padme's eyes opened wider hearing him condemning, and she shouted back, "I didn't betray him! I came to you because I wanted you to save him! I shouldn't have come to you. You'll kill him!"

"I'll leave you now," Obi Wan said, making a move showing he was unwilling to hear more words coming out of her mouth. "Perhaps when we see each other next time, you'd have realized that I might be doing this because I love him."

He pivoted and started walking back inside the house when he heard Padme sneered and said, "Funny! I thought Jedi are not supposed to love."

---

That night Padme didn't show up at their humble dinner. Throughout the dinner, Obi Wan caught Organa stealing some looks at him, as if wishing for him to look for her; anywhere, as long as she came back flesh and blood. But it wasn't his looks that pushed Obi Wan to place down his fork, got up from the table, and jogged to the room. It was something else.

He stepped to the back of the house, a corner that Padme had this morning annexed. A thin piece of sheet was spreaded on the stoney floor to let her know where to lay her body at night. She slept separated from the male; a part of her wanted to keep the courtesy, while another part just wanted not to be seen. The lamp there was unlit and it was almost impossible for him to see anything. He was just making an effort to turn around and try searching somewhere else, when suddenly he sighted a womanly figure sitting at the darkness facing the window. Her expression was much more altered from the one that he confronted this morning. It was more like the expression she held on the second time he found her in his chamber.

"I saw him," she whispered, "on the day we left Coruscant. Just before the door –of the ship- shut. I saw him. His eyes were not his. They were the eyes of a murderer."

Obi Wan snatched the coat he saw lying when he stepped in. She startled when he threw it onto her lap and was more bewildered when he told her, "Wear it! It's cold outside."

---

Obi Wan led her on the tiring journey through the swamps. "There's not much to see out here," he conversed, "you have to be careful unless you want to step into one of the swamps over there."

She replied nothing and Obi Wan halted at the space they were standing at. She, too, suddenly stopped walking. They were at the same place where they had stood that morning, with its fallen tree trunk lying on the dry ground.

He finally faced her (she looked downwards) and explained, "Look, the lessons won't be so hard. One of the things that differs the Sith Lords with Jedi Knights is that they are too much distracted. Greed has shut their eyes from things other than greed itself. I will teach you how to concentrate. It's nothing physical at all,

"M'Lady, deep down inside you know it's the right thing to do!"

She kept staring earthwards, but finally some words were able to come out of her lips, though weren't exactly the words he expected, "If I agree, will you promise not to kill him?"

Obi Wan merely exhaled deeply at the question. She glanced at him for an instant second and knew that whether he answered it or not, she would find only a disappointment. "You will," she softly said.

"M'Lady…" said Obi Wan.

"I feel sick. I want to go back."

Obi Wan took no concern of her complaint, so staring at him strongly, she cried at him with the same strength, "I said I'm sick!"

Obi Wan was left with no choice but to indulge to her demand and returned to the house with Padme following him two steps behind.

---

A small amount of chaos started the next morning. The cause of it was the sudden loss of Padme Amidala. She didn't show up at breakfast, she wasn't at her bed and anywhere in the house. Can it be, Obi Wan thought, that she's there?

He ran through the same way he just trotted along the previous night. And there it was, the dry land amongst the swamps, a fallen tree trunk lying at it, with an image of a woman sitting on top of it. Padme heard him coming from behind. She turned her head around and enquired,

"When shall we start?"