Nothing seemed to have changed in the room since the last time Anakin had been in this room, but the blonde was gone. Anakin waited a moment, uncertain of where he was supposed to go, but then the woman appeared from around the corner. She looked surprised to see him only for a second.

"Are you the one who's supposed to help with the filing?" she asked. Anakin nodded.

"I guess news travels fast around here," he said wryly. She allowed him a small smile before getting down to business.

"We use a digital filing system for school business," she said, "but for student paperwork we still have a paper system. There are still plenty of papers that we haven't gone through yet over there—" She pointed down the hall from which she had just come, her wrist dangling a delicate gold bracelet. "—so you can just organize them into separate piles by category for starters. If you don't get all of it done today, that's fine."

No kidding was Anakin's first thought as he entered the room to which she had directed him. There were piles of flimsies everywhere, neatly stacked but in no particular order. He paged through a few of them—a student record, a graded test, a request for an off-planet trip…

After a few moments of aimless shuffling, Anakin devised a rough form of organization. Official records went in one pile; anything with student handwriting on it went in another. With such general standards, the job should have been easy, but Anakin had somehow only finished half of the papers before the sky outside grew dark.

"I can leave now, right?" he asked the blonde at her desk. She grinned.

"Just as long as you're back here tomorrow," she said. "Hope you didn't have any plans for the next two weeks."

Anakin laughed—but muttered under his breath as he walked away, "No, nothing big, not like a kidnapping investigation or anything…"

The work was not hard, but tedious, and mind-numbingly dull. After only a few days, Anakin was beginning to seriously regret getting caught. The little information they had gained by his break-in, while perplexing, did not actually lend itself in any way to their purpose. What was worse, this punishment deprived him of several hours in which he could have been looking for more significant clues, leaving Ferus by himself to continue their Jedi business.

As time went by, working in such close quarters as they were, it became almost impossible for Anakin and the blonde to ignore each other. They were forced instead to become friends, or at least friendly. Her name, as Anakin found out, was Dura-Na. Through her face was young, she was actually Anakin's elder by five years years, and she was not married.

This last bit of information was volunteered with a tiny sigh and a glance, almost unnoticeable, at the bracelet on her wrist that she always wore. A gift from a boyfriend, Anakin guessed, as a substitute for the ring that Dura-Na obviously wanted.

For Anakin's part, he had to come up with a background story on the spot while talking to her one day. It wasn't as comprehensive as he would have liked, since it had come off the top of his head, and he was pretty sure that by the time it was over he'd somehow managed to claim citizenship of three different planets. Still, it seemed to satisfy.

It was during one of these conversations that Anakin first noticed something amiss. As they were talking, Dura-Na's right hand would begin to caress the delicate links of that bracelet on her left. The action seemed automatic, as though she did not even realize what she was doing, but each time that it happened, her manner grew more reserved, and Anakin could sense an unobtrusive sadness emanating quietly from her as she did so.

It wasn't the sort of thing one could normally bring up in conversation, but Anakin was intrigued by it, and that, by his way of thinking, allowed for an exception. He came in one afternoon and Dura-Na's hand was on her bracelet, and her face was tight in a way that meant she was trying very hard not to cry. Leaning over her desk, Anakin asked impulsively, "What's wrong?"

Dura-Na looked startled. "I—nothing's wrong."

She was lying miserably, once again. Biting down on his lower lip, Anakin fixed his eyes upon hers. "You can tell me," he assured her, layering his words with a Force-suggestion of trust. Her feelings were transparent as she warred visibly between instinctive silence and a need to speak of what lay heavily upon her heart.

"It's nothing," she choked out breathlessly. "I'm just—I'm so worried. I haven't heard anything from him in so long. He said he was leaving, but I know something's gone wrong, I can feel it!"

Anakin's mind had gone blank for a moment. Then his eyes went to the bracelet once more, and something clicked in his brain that ought to have been realized much sooner.

"Are you talking about Piran Macket?" he asked, disbelieving. He felt like a fool. 'Dinner with D—bring brac'. So the bracelet was a gift from a boyfriend, after all.

Dura-Na nodded distractedly, dodging Anakin's gaze. "He told me—oh, Piran always found a way to talk about it—that there were big people interested in him, and they were going to make him rich, and important, and on and on and on…"

She trailed off. Her hands wrung themselves nervously on her desk, and Anakin decided to take another chance.

"But you think something's wrong," he pressed. "What makes you think that?"

"Nothing," she murmured. "Just a feeling…a silly feeling."

"Dura-Na—I could, maybe, help you find him."

She eyed him warily. Anakin felt his Force-suggestions being shrugged off her consciousness. "What are you, a cop?"

He gulped in a breath before plunging in. "No. I'm a Jedi."

Instantly her whole body stiffened in suspicion. "What the kriff are you doing here?" she muttered. She had bared her fears to him, and he had proved to be a complete stranger. "Jedi are hardly welcome on this planet."

"Dura-Na, wait…" He grabbed her hand without thinking, and she pulled back sharply. "No, listen to me. I can help find him, I can! But I need your help."

Once again, easily read emotions flickered across her face successively: first a startled fear, then doubt, and then—then hope.

"How can I trust you?" she asked, but Anakin knew her mind had already been made up.

"The Jedi want to find the professor just as badly as you do," he told her, "albeit for slightly different reasons. All I want to do is make sure that he's safe."

Her lips parted slowly. "Then you think something's gone wrong too?" Dura-Na asked. Anakin nodded.

"The Jedi Council suspects a kidnapping."

She blanched, but to her credit, nodded. "Then I'll tell you what I know," she said, "if you promise me you'll come back and tell me what's happened to him."

"I promise I will." He could offer no more than that.

Dura-Na looked down at her hands before speaking. Deepest feelings of mistrust were not easy to overcome in an instant. "He's gone off-planet. I don't know where, he wouldn't tell me, but I know he's no longer here."

"Then how can I find him?"

"I know he took a public transport. You can ask the services that operate nearby. There aren't many." She gave a little shrug. "That's all I can tell you. I'm sorry."

"It's enough," Anakin said sincerely. "Thank you."

"Just—" For the first time in the conversation, she looked up into his eyes. "Just find where he is. Please."

It didn't take the Jedi long to find the charter ship that Macket had used; despite all his secrecy, he had not covered his tracks very well. A holo-still and a few words of description were all it took to find the rough-looking ship and its matching pilot.

"Yeah, I've seen him," nodded the man, puffing deathstick smoke from the corner of his mouth. "Took him to Korus a while back."

"Where's that?" asked Ferus. The pilot raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"One of Orest 6's moons," he replied. "S'not too far—only half a standard day's travel. I could take you two there for…" He eyed them, sizing them up. "Fifty credits apiece."

Anakin glanced at his friend. Ordinarily a decision like this was one that merited some thought, but they both knew that there was nothing more that could be found on Chalacta that would help them.

"We don't have a hundred credits," Anakin admitted, "but you'd be glad to take us for free…"

The pilot's mouth twisted into a perplexed grimace, as though the idea of not making a profit was repugnant, but he nodded. "I'd be glad to take you for free," he parroted.

The Jedi had already grabbed what few things they needed from their room; without a backward glance, they stepped onboard. The interior of the ship was shabby and small, but for only half a day's ride, it didn't make much of a difference.

When they grew close to Korus's atmosphere, the pilot came back to ask them where they wanted to be set down.

"Just take us where you took him," said Anakin. "Do you remember where that is?"

"'Course I do," said the man. "Don't know why you'd be wanting to go there, though. Or him, for that matter."

Anakin frowned. "What makes you say that?"

The man gave a gruff laugh. "Korus isn't the most user-friendly planet," he said sardonically. "It's your run of the mill collection of scumbags and cheap bounty hunters. And the place you're heading isn't the nicest part of it, either."

He left them to land the ship, and Anakin gave Ferus an uneasy look. "What do you think he's doing there?"

Ferus shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine," he said. "If what he said is true, though, I'll be keeping my lightsaber in hand."

Korus was approximately twelve hours ahead of Chalacta: as the planet they had left faded into darkness, on Orest 6's moon dawn was about to break. As they landed, the first gray streaks of sunlight could just barely be seen over the horizon.

The ship sailed off into the distance, and Anakin pulled out his commlink. While Ferus counted up what little funds they had, Anakin found his Master's signal.

"Anakin?" Windu's voice came through faintly, but clear. "Where are you?"

"How did you know we were gone?" asked Anakin, surprised, without answering. Beside him, Ferus rolled his eyes silently.

"The comm signal we gave to the school was contacted a few hours ago. They said the two of you had disappeared."

"Oh. Well, we're on Korus. We found reason to believe that this is where Macket is, or at least that he was here recently."

"We might have enough for a hotel room for one night," said Ferus suddenly. Anakin finished his comm conversation with "We'll let you know if we find anything", and then looked at his friend quizzically.

"In other words, we need to find him fast," Ferus elaborated. "Or else find an empty warehouse to sleep in."

"He wouldn't have gone far," Anakin pointed out. "Otherwise there would be no point in him wanting to be set down here."

Ferus's breath escaped him with a frustrated noise. "All right, well, let's split up."

"And do what?"

"I don't know," Ferus said irritably. "Whatever you think will work to find him. Just ask around, I suppose. Surely someone's bound to have seen him."

Admittedly it was not a very good plan, but it was the only one they had. As vestiges of light began to creep across the sky, the Jedi parted ways and spread off into the city.

At first, while it was still dark, it looked like any other place in the universe. As the light grew, however, Anakin started to understand. Every individual that passed him—and there were more now, the streets were beginning to fill—had at least a blaster at his or her hip, if not more weaponry than that. Men staggered out of alleys with their heads in their hands and their trousers loose, and though it was daylight now, a few Twi'lek women still sensuously walked the street. Their glances passed over Anakin without interest, for he hardly looked rich.

More than once he tried to ask passersby whether they knew a friend of his, a Professor Macket, but never received an affirmative answer. People seemed inclined to brush him off, caught up in their own business as they were. He hadn't expected an answer, but it was discouraging all the same. It was only after Anakin entered one of the many bars along the side of the road, his hood pulled carefully over his face, that he realized he had been neglecting a most obvious source of information.

In the first two bars he visited, no one had ever seen Macket, although the men there obviously enjoyed having their opinions asked. The third bar was closed (due to excessive fire damage, said the sign), and at the fourth one Anakin could find no one sober enough to even focus their eyes upon him for more than a few seconds. At the fifth one, though, he did not even have to ask before hitting pay dirt.

"So I'm working on this site just last night, right?" said a heavy-set man sitting at the bar, his voice loud and coarse as he regaled his two friends with tales of his many exploits (made exciting only through the wonders of alcohol). "My boss's been riding me all day about getting more work done, even though I tell him again and again, those buildings don't go up by themselves, and we can't put 'em up in a day, shavvit!"

His friends agreed vehemently. Inspired by this attention, the man continued his story. "So I'm working, and this guy comes up to me outta nowhere—had this funny little beard. But I couldn't see anything else, 'cause he this cloak pulled over his head—like that guy."

The man pointed a finger at Anakin to illustrate his point. Anakin, sitting at a table only a few feet away, ducked his head and pretended he hadn't heard a word of their conversation. It was rather a useless pretense; anyone with ears within a forty-yard radius could have heard them speaking easily.

"And he asks me if I know where that old droid factory is—you know, the one that stopped working when Grievous came. So I said to him, 'What do I look like, a map?' But I told him where it was. Heh—funny little guy."

Having finished his recital, the man took a long drink from his glass, and his friends laughed. Anakin left without a word, heart pounding, scarcely able to believe his luck. This was the greatest lead he'd had since the beginning of this mission.

He needed only to ask for directions once; the factory was the largest building in the city, towering over the rest of the structures, and eerily reminiscent of its fellow on Geonosis, the only difference being that this one was made of metal and not of earth. It was even built in the same haphazard fashion, looking like some giant being had taken five or six other buildings of varying sizes and shapes and stuck them all together to create this.

The only door Anakin could see was locked, and there were too many people around to risk being seen with a lightsaber. Glancing around, Anakin waited until no one was looking in his direction, then, reaching for the Force, catapulted himself upward onto one of the building's flat lower roofs. No one appeared to have seen him—he went up one more roof, just to be safe, then ignited his lightsaber and plunged it into the thick metal.

It took him the better part of ten minutes before he was able to carve a hole large enough to fit through. Anakin looked downward to check that there was something below him, then jumped through without a second thought.

He landed on all fours on a still conveyor belt. No sooner was he inside than he felt a prickling at the back of his neck, a distinct uneasiness not his own. There was something very wrong about this place.

The factory was dark and completely deserted; Anakin activated his lightsaber again, just so he could see by its glow. The air was thick and stale, having not been breathed for almost two years now. A few solitary battle droid heads stared up at him from the floor with lightless eyes, some extra limbs were scattered under the dusty conveyor belts, but he saw no living person.

A moment later his thoughts were thrown back in his face. As Anakin walked carefully through the enormous building, he caught sight of something dark hidden behind a support, leaning against the wall. Moving toward it, the faint lightsaber glow found first a pair of legs, then a twisted torso, and then—oh Force—a still, swollen face.

Anakin froze, horror thudding through him. He knelt, tentative, and touched two fingers to Macket's cold flesh (for it was Macket, there was no denying that). It was not difficult to see how he had died; the long, sharp bruises around his neck told Anakin that he had been strangled by a thin cord, and the person holding it had known their business well.

Anakin straightened and coughed. The atmosphere in here, before merely stifling, now seemed oppressive and malicious of its own accord. He reached for his commlink to tell Ferus of this startling discovery, but his fingers felt thick and clumsy, fumbling at his belt. Had the air always been so thick in here, so difficult to see through? It looked more like smoke than air, more white than black…

Danger and adrenaline shot suddenly through every vein in his body when he realized, giving him a moment's clarity. Moving faster than he ever would have thought possible a few moments ago, Anakin managed to stumble toward the conveyor belt on which he had landed, toward that speck of light high up in the ceiling. If he could just reach that light, his muddled brain told him, then he would be safe…

One hand groped at the belt, trying useless to pull himself up onto it—but oh, he felt weak, as though someone had pricked him and let all the strength drain out of his muscles. Darkness from the back of his mind superseded the darkness around him, and with his last conscious breath Anakin saw two shadows moving above him. His arm fell limply to his side.

Trapped…he had been…trapped…