Chapter 21 – Moves in the Dark

Note: This was written before the final season of the Bad Batch and before the second season of Tales of the Jedi and so is to some extent inconsistent with both.

Years had passed for Anakin, and so years had passed for Rey. She floated in that great emptiness where nothing was but all could be, watching, listening and feeling. She could feel Anakin's mind hardening, feel the cold walls go up around his heart. It was not the same as the first attempt. He did not make the same mistakes as in his real life, his first life. But in the place of Vader some new terror was growing. There was, years after the fall of the Jedi, so little left tying him to the man he had been. But in those moments where he let himself be Anakin Skywalker, Rey still felt hope. Only time would tell, and Rey settled into this third run through Anakin's life. She did not feel her age physically, for there was nothing physical left of her, but in her spirit she could feel the fact that she was an old woman. Perhaps it would feel different this time, now that things had changed and there was a new world she could watch form. She wondered whether it was enough yet, whether the Cosmic Force had shifted time and reality to accord with this new world Anakin had created. She also wondered whether she would ever, here in world between worlds, ever know whether they had succeeded.

It had been five years since the fall of the Jedi, five years since the Republic had died in all but name. In the aftermath of that fall the Confederacy of Independent Systems had died with a whimper, Anakin and the other Jedi had learned from their new clone soldiers. Its leaders had been swiftly located on the planet Mustafar and apprehended. There were a few executions, but there were survivors from each delegation to the CIS council, survivors who could take the message of mercy back with them to their people. The message was that if they surrendered not all of them would be killed. The Separatists rushed to sign individual peace treaties, and the concessions left them a shell of what they once were. The Trade Federation, the Banking Clan, all the various corporate guilds and alliances, saw their resources plundered, their accounts emptied, their planets seized. And all those resources were controlled not by the Senate, but rather by special executive committees, each one with Palpatine as their chair.

This would have mattered little to the people of the Republic if only the demise of the CIS had brought peace. They were not fated for such luck. Anakin's attack on Kamino and the theft of the 501st and their ship, renamed the Restoration by her crew, had shocked the Republican military establishment. It served Palpatine's purposes though. In the place of the now suspect clones he announced a drive to fill the ranks of the depleted Grand Army of the Republic with natural born soldiers. The recruitment did not go smoothly. Whether this was a failure on Palpatine's part, or part of his plan, the clumsy efforts of recruiting officers to meet absurdly high quotas in the mid and outer Rim led to widespread resistance. Claiming this resistance was the result of a plot by the Jedi, Palpatine responded with force. Clones, supplemented by soldiers from the core worlds, where recruitment efforts went better, crushed small rebellions across hundreds of worlds, and forcibly conscripted large numbers of soldiers from the ranks of the prisoners. These isolated conflicts were not as bloody or destructive as the Clone Wars had been, but to the people of the galaxy it was hard to tell that the war had ever ended. It was in these years that the words 'Imperial' and 'Empire' started being used to describe the Republic. Palpatine was clever enough not to declare any major change himself. He let the press and the Senate do that slowly, almost imperceptibly.

What shocked observers used to the old ways was how quickly so much of the galaxy accepted Palpatine's tales of Jedi conspiracies. Only Anakin was left relatively unsurprised when major worlds like Correllia and Kuat flocked to the Chancellor's cause. During the Clone Wars their economies had been completely reorganized and reoriented towards the manufacture of weapons of war, and when given an opportunity to keep business booming, they did so. The war needed to continue so that the war could continue to be supplied. And so the Republic entered a permanent war footing. It became the Empire. The conscription resistance efforts failed after a couple of years, but it seemed that there was always either a secessionist movement in the Outer Rim, a problem with pirates, a revolt against the authorities on Coruscant, or some previously independent minor power that suddenly posed a terrible threat to the safety of the people of the Empire.

And all the while the Jedi stayed hidden. Palpatine demanded briefings every day on the search for the Jedi, at least at first. But when, day after day, no news came in, he eventually downgraded the briefings to weekly and then monthly affairs. There were stories of a rogue fleet operating just beyond the Empire's borders, only ever stopping at a planet to resupply and then quickly leave. But in five years no Imperial force had ever encountered this fleet, or if they had, no one returned to report it. The only confirmation in five years that the Jedi still existed came from the watch stations Palpatine had ordered built on every planet with a known association with the Jedi. If a planet had a temple, or had once upon a time had a temple, it had a garrison. If a world was the reputed burial site of some great master from the past, then there was an Imperial Intelligence presence. Even if a world was personally important to any of the Jedi reputed to still be alive, worlds like Tatooine or Naboo, then it was watched carefully. And sometimes that watch would reveal surreptitious visits by Jedi some identified as Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, or others thought to have survived Order 66. But nothing was definite. The Jedi had become what the Sith had once been, a rumor, a story. Smoke lingering in the darkness.

The planet of Atollon was in darkness. Not literally of course. The sun shone there, if not quite as brightly as its small number of inhabitants liked, still enough that it could not be said to be dark. But to the Imperial fleet and intelligence services it might as well not have existed. There was a small presence on nearby Lothal, due to the insignificant Jedi Temple found there, but that garrison had shrunk over the years to a few regiments of soldiers, a handful of intelligence officers and quarters for a single member of Palpatine's Inquisitors. But that single Inquisitor was very often not at home, and merely used Lothal as a base for his investigations into Jedi reported in that part of the galaxy. No one was looking at Atollon, which is why, after a year spent first in the small Jedi fleet and then in one of the emptier quarters of Lothal, Anakin had relocated his family to the planet.

He had felt drawn to the region for reasons he could not express, even to himself. Whenever he tried to think hard about his own motivation his mind went back to that fateful night on Coruscant, and the voice that had guided him towards what, in retrospect, seemed to him the most heroic moments of his life. It was not that the voice had reappeared. It had been silent these last five years. But it seemed to him he could nonetheless feel its presence from time to time, and felt it more when he was in the vicinity of Lothal. If not for Palpatine's search for the Jedi, he would have preferred to keep Padme and his children on Lothal for good, but Atollon was a reasonable substitute.

It had been harder work clearing their region of the planet of the spiders and establishing a homestead than it had been setting themselves up on Lothal. Lothal's climate wasn't exactly easy but it was far easier to grow crops there than on Atollon. Of course Anakin knew that there was little need for that. The network the Jedi had established was able to deliver supplies regularly enough that even a total crop failure would not have caused significant hardship for Padme and the twins. But he felt it gave them something like a normal life. Luke and Leia had work to do, a rhythm to their days and their years. Or they would when they were old enough to do actual work.

The most important thing had been to get them off of ships. Padme had insisted that they could not allow them to spend their entire childhood just moving from one starship to another, an existence their family had seemed headed towards during their first year together. That year had been as hectic as any in Anakin's life, including all the years of the Clone Wars. After taking control of the 501st and the Restoration, Anakin had led several lightning strikes on any Imperial naval units he could find without proper escort. In this way he had grown the Jedi fleet to eight warships, three of them Old Republic frigates, two Pelta-class strike frigates, an Acclamator class assault ship and of course the Restoration itself, the fleet's Venator class flagship.

But they had reached the point where if the fleet grew much larger they were going to need a steadier source of supply than they had. And tying themselves down to some high population, heavy industry planet was a sure way to bring the Empire down on them. And so the mission of the fleet had moved more decisively towards protecting the Jedi Order as it rebuilt itself, as well as providing a temporary home for refugees from the Empire's many wars. Enough of those refugees stayed on that the fleet was fully crewed, but the majority were resettled onto sparsely populated Outer Rim worlds, where the fleet got most of its food and other supplies. It now made an irregular migration around the edge of the galaxy, picking up resources where it could.

Atollon was just one of its stops, and that left Anakin free to enjoy months at a time with Padme and their children. They lived together in a farm house on the plains of Atollon. Anakin had cleared the area of spiders in a few weeks, weeks Padme and the twins spent on the fleet after they had given up on Lothal. He had killed hundreds of the creatures before realizing that they had a kind of sensitivity to the feelings of those around them. He had then been able to create a gigantic shroud of fear for the spiders, driving them out of their underground homes and far, far away from the spot he had chosen for his family. It was a valley fed by what passed for large rivers on Atollon. To Padme they seemed like small streams, but to Anakin, a child of the desert, they were quite impressive. Despite Padme's occasional sarcastic remarks, they were enough to allow real farming. Or they were once they were able to get more hospitable soil, which they were given by Obi-Wan. It was with only a few comments about not having to steal everything, or turn everything into a fight, that Obi-Wan delivered from one of the refugee worlds enough high quality soil that, with the right regimen of nutrient treatments, the Skywalkers were able to become homesteaders. And so life had gone on for several years.

The only downside was that there were no children for the twins to play with, but when they were young this hardly seemed a bother. Padme and Anakin both preferred spending every moment they could with the Luke and Leia. It was on Atollon that they got their first teeth, took their first steps, said their first words, had their first adventures, and heard their first story. Despite their different temperaments, the twins were inseparable. Luke was the more impulsive of the two, and the less focused. Even Leia would sometimes become annoyed with his tendency to daydream, which often got in the way of her carefully planned adventures. Neither was what any parent would call obedient or easy. But their disobedience would just as often draw a smile from their mother and a hearty laugh from their father. Both were quick learners, or at least Luke was capable of learning quickly when he actually kept his mind on the task at hand. Both could read and write; both were gaining mastery of the machines and tools that could be found around their house.

And both were already manifesting the ability to use the Force. The first time she had caught one of them moving an object with their mind, Padme had broken down crying. She had expressed on more than one occasion to Anakin her fear that she would lose them to the Jedi. He had reassured her that he would not allow them to be raised as he had been, cut off from their family in some Temple somewhere, but her fears went deeper. She feared that they would want to leave, that the romance of the Jedi was too alluring and they would, when they were old enough, rush off to join the galactic fight. Like any mother she wanted her children, the lives she had grown and protected from their first moments, kept away from danger. And she knew that danger found those with the Force, no matter what you did to protect them. That night, with the Twins fast asleep after another day of boisterous adventuring, with Padme collapsing into him, Anakin had promised her that he would save them from that danger. That he would make the galaxy safe for their children. He promised he would end the war before anyone could think to allow them to take part in it.

And so it was that the goal of destroying Palpatine, a goal driven by feelings of anger and vengeance, was supplemented by an even more powerful motive, that of a father seeking to eliminate all threats to his children. It was that night that the balance tipped. Rey, floating in something like a dream on the other side of the Great Divide, could feel the future of the galaxy shifting. The years on Atollon, and their effect on Anakin, had been her great hope. His children had saved him in his first life, and she had hoped they would be the key to keeping him on the path towards the light again. But on that night on Atollon something altogether stronger and altogether more terrifying than Darth Vader was born.

The first step down that path was taken not long after, when Anakin informed Padme that the Jedi fleet was going to be close by Atollon soon. There was a small detachment of the 501st who manned a listening station on Lothal. Their job was to keep abreast of Imperial communications as well as the secret channels through which Obi-Wan, the effective commander of the fleet after Anakin settled on Lothal and then Atollon, could communicate with his former Padawan. They also had some short range shuttles that Anakin could use if he was needed at the fleet. A clone trooper was flying the ship towards Atollon as Padme came in the house from harvesting some fruit from their garden.

Anakin, who had been working on the sensor grid he had installed over the course of years around the planet, was waiting for her and greeted her with a warm smile. As she began to sort the fruit into containers he told her of his upcoming trip.

"What do they have for you this time?" Padme asked.

"They have a lead on some Force sensitive children who have been on the run. In case there are Inquisitors after them they want me to lead the party to find them," Anakin answered.

"How did Obi-Wan and Yoda respond to my suggestion?" she said.

"Well I haven't give it to them yet," Anakin said.

"Really?" she said, somewhat perturbed.

"I think undoing thousands of years of tradition is something you talk about in person. This mission will provide a good opportunity to bring it up. If we are successful we will have several children and their parents. I can make it about them and not Luke and Leia," Anakin said while stealing a berry from Padme, who playfully swatted at his hand.

"How long do you think you will be gone?" she asked.

"Hard to say. They were last seen on Mapuzo. They were supposed to head to Jabiim but they never arrived. Coded message on the network said they had run into an Imperial patrol and had to divert to a backup planet, but no one is sure which one it was," Anakin said.

"A patrol over Jabiim? Is the network compromised?" Padme asked. She steadfastly refused to refer to any Empire. To her there was a Republic perverted that needed to be restored, nothing more

"If they knew what was there, they would have attacked. But they might be closing in. Maybe we move that leg of the Path," Anakin said. "Anyway the shuttle is in route and I wanted to say bye before it got here. Where are the kids?"

"Down by the stream," Padme said.

"The river!" Anakin said with mock anger.

"Yeah of course. What did I say?" Padme shot back with mock absentmindedness.

Anakin made his way down to what as admittedly a stream, the closest to their home of all those which wound through the valley. Luke and Leia were busy playing with mud by the edge of the water. Leia was building little houses with it, while Luke was throwing clumps of mud at the stones poking up through the water.

"I hope you little demons aren't thinking of bringing your muddy feet and hands inside that house!" Anakin called out.

"Daddy!" the twins screamed in unison as they charged towards him. When they reached him both jumped up at once and Anakin used the Force to propel them high into the air before catching each in an arm. It was their favorite game since they were old enough to realize that their father could do things of that nature.

"Are you done working?" Leia asked excitedly.

"Can you play?" Luke added.

"For a little bit, but then Daddy has to go on a trip," Anakin answered.

"No!" Luke shouted.

"No more trips!" Leia chimed in.

Anakin brought them back to the scene of their muddy adventures and they quickly forgot their objections as he joined them in play. The activity quickly turned into a game where Leia would build a structure and Luke would try to knock it down by throwing mudballs at it. Anakin would help one and then the other. After several minutes Padme appeared in the distance, having finished her chores. She watched as the children played. It was a moment she would look back to, years later, as one of the last truly happy moments on Atollon. The moment was brought to an end as she heard the shuttle's approach. The pilot must not have seen them for the shuttle came down close to the house.

Anakin walked over to Padme and kissed her softly. "Take care of these little devils while I am gone," he said.

"Hurry back," she said in return. Luke began to cry as he watched his father walk towards the house and Padme picked him up to soothe him as Leia wrapped her little arms around her mother's waist. Just before he walked over a small rise in the ground and went out of sight, Anakin turned to wave at them. A few minutes later the shuttle took off and moved quickly up and away from them.

Anakin looked down out of the window of the shuttle as they sped away. He longed to return, to spent more lazy mornings and golden afternoons in the home he and Padme had cut from this harsh world. But he had a promise to keep to the three he left behind. He had to end the war. The clone trooper flying the shuttle gave him his space. They knew, whether through intuition or Appo drilling it into them, that their commander did not like leaving what the clones called Base-Aleph. The clone's devotion, which was unquestioning, expressed itself in a silent competence as he took Anakin to the rendezvous point, which was several systems over. The shuttle had the fuel to make the jump there and back to Lothal with a little to spare. Good ships were still hard to come by, but if all went well that would change soon.

They jumped into the system of lifeless planets and waited. The clone trooper gave Anakin a report, upon Anakin's request, about the status of the small Lothal listening post garrison. The clones had to stay away from any and all population centers, given how recognizable their faces and voices were, but they had developed a small set of Lothal natives who helped acquire supplies, mostly out of their own pockets. While Anakin valued their sacrifice, their reliance on it was something he also wished to change.

After an hour or so Saw Gerrera's ship jumped into the system and the shuttle docked with it. Upon exiting his ship and transferring to Saw's Anakin thought a bit about how he had acquired it. It had been a Republic prison ship; one Anakin had known how to find due to one very important prisoner on it. The rest of the prisoners had been given a choice about joining Saw's band or getting dropped off on some outer rim world where they couldn't make too much trouble. A few, of course, had been so dangerous that they were kept in their cells, though with space now becoming limited some hard decisions would have to be made soon. At least this mission would open up one more cell, Anakin thought to himself.

He made his way to the bridge and found Saw there, armored and armed looking out at the hyperspace tunnel before them.

"You worried the prisoners are going to get out?" Anakin asked derisively.

"I am worried that laxness spreads," Saw answered.

"I take it that our friend signaled you," Anakin said, changing subjects to the business at hand.

"Yes. Meeting is on Nar Shaddaa," Saw said with a grimace.

"You don't approve of the location?" Anakin asked.

"Lots of eyes on Nar Shaddaa," Saw said.

"And even more for them to look at," Anakin said. "Better than a bunch of ships showing up on a world that is supposed to be uninhabited."

"Then why not meet on Coruscant?" Saw snapped.

"Because he is there, and he would know that I am there. Not to mention our friends and our guest. Speaking of which, is she ready to go?" Anakin asked.

"The day's activities have been explained to her. Remotely of course," Saw said. "She is awake, if you want to talk to her."

"I think I will," Anakin said and set off into the prisoner's section. On the way he read the names on the screens on the wall next to the doors. With the exception of the residents who had been on the prison ship when Anakin took it, each one represented a mission he and Saw had gone on together, including the very first, on Kamino.

Reaching his intended cell Anakin opened the door to reveal a young woman. Her skin was yellow and the diamond tattoos that crossed her face from one cheek to the other stood out clearly against it. She sat looking down at her bound hands, and did not react when the door opened. Anakin sneered at her but nonetheless, with a wave of his hand, removed the restraints. She massaged her wrists for a moment before speaking and when she did she asked, "So have you come to kill me Master Skywalker?"

"No Barriss, it seems your luck in staying one step ahead of justice will continue," Anakin said.

"What do you want then?" she asked bitterly.

"I want to help you Barriss," Anakin said.

"Oh really?" Barriss said sarcastically.

"Yes really. I am here to give you what you want, and what you need," Anakin said a false smile on his face.

"Here to set me free?" she said flippantly.

Anakin's smile disappeared and Barriss Offee suddenly flew backwards, hitting her head on the wall behind her. She stayed there seemingly pinned to the wall at her neck.

"You will never be free," Anakin said. "You will pay for what you have done."

"What I did was try to expose the sickness in the Republic, the same Republic you now fight. The same Republic that killed the Jedi," she said, her voice suddenly raspy as she tried to speak around the force pinning her to the wall. Her years in a cell had left her unaware of new naming conventions.

"Yes Palpatine did kill a great many Jedi didn't he? The clones were brutally effective. But it wasn't only clones that did his work for him was it?" Anakin asked.

Her face twisted and tears appeared in her eyes as she said, "They were going to kill me!"

"I would have much preferred them killing you to them killing Luminara. I need all the Jedi I can get. And you…, you are no Jedi," Anakin said.

"Then what do you want with me?" Barriss said. Before Anakin could answer they felt the ship drop out of hyperspace.

"You will see soon enough. Follow me, and don't try anything, or I will make what the Inquisitors did to Luminara after you arranged their meeting look pleasant by comparison," he said. Barriss tried to hide the sound of her whimper. The two of them walked, Barriss in front, to the airlock with Anakin's shuttle, where they waited.

When Saw joined them Anakin asked, "I will be able to refuel on Nar Shaddaa?"

"I will take care of that while you have your little meeting," Saw said. "Going to meet a friend while I am at it. The one I told you about."

"I don't like mixing these missions together," Anakin said.

"Well running your prison ship takes money and supplies, and he can get them for me," Saw said.

"Very well. They have their own ship which we will use for the mission. I will call you when I am ready for pickup," Anakin said.

"Will our guest be returning with you?" Saw asked with a nod in Barriss' direction. She stiffened at the question.

"That all depends on her," Anakin said. The ship shook slightly as they entered the atmosphere of Nar Shaddaa and the three of them entered the shuttle. Saw went to the controls while Barriss sat down on a bench built into the wall. Anakin stood in the center of the small shuttle with his hands on his hips, and his cloak draped across his arms, making him look larger than he was. The shuttle detached from the prison ship which, Anakin knew, would head back into orbit again, pretending to be a supply ship waiting for a spot at one of the docks to open up.

Saw piloted the shuttle down below the level of floating casinos and hotels. Nar Shaddaa was like Coruscant in miniature, only instead of being a world of bureaucrats managing the galaxy, it was a world of hucksters and suckers, all attracted to the world city where anything could be bought except quiet. But beneath the glitzy top levels there were dozens of levels of mundane living quarters and businesses necessary for any world. And below those levels, to the place Saw was taking them, could be found the oldest, lowest level of the great city now given over to purely industrial and infrastructural uses. It was there that one could walk on Nar Shaddaa with some hope of not being noticed by the Hutts, who ruled the huge moon from the world it orbited, Nal Hutta.

Saw brought the shuttle to rest on the roof of an old building that had long ago had a canopy of crisscrossing walkways built above it. Anakin and Barriss exited the craft. Anakin turned back to look at Saw as he said, "Your friends are your business Saw, but I am none of theirs. Remember that."

Saw nodded and took off. Barriss watched him fly away, a hopeless, forlorn look in her eye. Anakin turned to her and said, "Don't worry Barriss. If I wanted to kill you I wouldn't need to go to all this effort. I would have just had Saw do it back on the ship. Now walk with me."

They entered the building through its roof entrance. Once inside it became clear to both of them that it seemed not to have been in regular use for a very long time, except by the vermin that were the primary residents of the deepest levels of Nar Shaddaa. The building having not had power for a very long time, there was no chance of using the elevators, so the pair had to walk down the stairs, which seemed to Barris to go on forever.

"Can we at least have some light?" she asked as they made their way down the winding stairwell that had likely only ever been meant to be used in case of emergency.

"And you thought yourself a Jedi," Anakin said mockingly, but with nothing playful in his voice. The rest of their journey passed in silence. Eventually they reached the bottom of the stairwell and they exited it into what appeared to be a large warehouse. There were large metal containers strewn around the floor, long since opened and emptied of all they had contained. A single globe floating in midair cast a pale yellow light over the warehouse but was not strong enough to reach the walls, which were shrouded in darkness.

"Come into the light!" Anakin called out.

Barriss watched as two figures, one very familiar to her, emerged from behind one of the metal containers. The unfamiliar one was still recognizable as the Jedi Master Quinlan Vos. Walking next to him with a feline grace was the unmistakable Asajj Ventress, the Zabrak immediately recognizable despite the shock of white hair on her previously bald head.

"I thought, I thought you were dead," Barriss could not help but blurt out.

"You and everyone else dear," Ventress said dismissively.

"She was dead, or nearly so," Anakin said as he pushed Barriss forward. "Until Quinlan and I went to Serrano and pulled her out of one of Dooku's stasis tubes."

It was nothing but dumb luck which had brought the pair of them there. Anakin had, in the first year on the run, decided to go poking around Dooku's home planet of Serano, hoping to find something he had stashed away to one day use against Palpatine in the unending cycle of Sith apprentices betraying their masters. He had recruited Quinlan because of his familiarity with Dooku. And they had found what he was looking for. As near as Anakin could tell Dooku had sent agents to retrieve Ventress' body from Dathomir where Quinlan had laid her to rest. Then, whether through conventional medicines, the effects of lingering Dathomiri magic, Sith sorcery, or some combination of all three, he had either brought her back from the edge of death or returned her to life. Quinlan swore that she had died, but Anakin was skeptical that Dooku possessed a power that even Palpatine did not claim to be in full possession of. Whatever Dooku had done, he had not felt comfortable waking her up. Perhaps he had intended to keep her in stasis until such time as he needed her against Palpatine, there was no way of knowing now. So many secrets had died with Dooku that Anakin could not help regretting his own victory against the Sith Lord.

The Count's estate on Serrano had been in a sorry state when they arrived, looted by the locals after Dooku's death and then set ablaze. They had found Ventress in a basement running on backup power. The battery had another few weeks on it at most, and if they had not arrived Ventress would have died for good, or died again, floating in the darkness. It had been, Anakin supposed, something of a touching moment when they had awakened her. He could recognize, at an abstract level, something of himself in Quinlan's devotion to her, but he could not get past his own years of fighting the Sith assassin, despite their cooperation during Ahsoka's trial and her subsequent efforts against Dooku. But he had gotten what he wanted. Rescuing Ventress had bound Quinlan to him, and as Ventress refused to leave Quinlan's side, they came as a package deal. The partnership was not always pleasant. Ventress in particular resented taking commands from someone she still thought of as an overgrown child, despite the fact that she acknowledged Skywalker's growing power. But Vos' gratitude and respect for Anakin's role in saving the Jedi Order he still honored kept her in line.

"What are we doing here? Why am I here?" Barriss pleaded.

"Perhaps you are here to answer for all that you have done little Padawan," Ventress said as she walked menacingly towards her. "We can start with you trying to frame me for that bombing you orchestrated."

"Ventress, enough!" Anakin said sharply. "I brought you here because you are going to help them in a task they have been attempting to carry out."

"We don't need her!" Ventress spat.

"I say you do. You have found your target. But you have not captured him," Anakin said.

"Why are we bothering to capture him?" Ventress asked.

"You know why," Quinlan said gently.

"Because he could be useful," Anakin said. "If it turns out he isn't, then you can kill him."

"What are we talking about?" Barriss yelled. Anakin turned towards her with a furious scowl and with a wave of his hand threw her against one of the nearby storage containers. When she tried to stand up he lifted her into the air with the Force.

"You are not talking about anything. You are here to obey, to be useful, and if you do not then you will be killed as well. Do you think I forgot Barriss? Forgot your betrayal? Forgot that you are the reason Ahsoka had to leave the Order?" Anakin snarled. He threw her to the ground and she remained where she landed, cowering.

"Master Skywalker!" Quinlan said loudly. "How does this help us?"

Anakin turned slowly towards Quinlan and his expression made the Jedi Master take an involuntary step back. Then Anakin closed his eyes and breathed out slowly. When he opened them again he appeared calm and collected. "You are right Master Vos, my apologies. And you will need to know what we have planned Barriss, so listen up."

They spoke of their plan for some time. Much of the information came from Vos and Ventress, who had been on Nar Shaddaa on Anakin's orders for several months. When Barriss realized who their target was she was almost as shocked as she was when, at the end of the discussion, she was given a pair of lightsabers.

It was as this conversation was happening that Padme received an unexpected guest. She had just finished a morning walk with the children. The area Anakin had cleared and supplemented with offworld soils and seeds had grown a surprisingly diverse set of plants. There were several different kinds of grasses, a few trees too young to get much higher off the ground than bushes, and, to Padme's delight, many different varieties of flowering plants. The three of them had walked together and played a game where the children would run to some plant and Padme would name it. The Force was something she could not share with them as Anakin could, but this was something of theirs, something for her to share with her children, and she relished it. She looked forward to the day when she would be able to tell them stories of the Republic and its history, the Republic she was worried they would one day be called upon to save. It was as they returned from their walk that she saw the Windu descending towards their valley. She initially thought it was Anakin, returning from the meeting far sooner than anticipated. But then she wondered why he had not used the same shuttle to return as he had to leave.

The red and gold ship landed in the grassy area near their home and as the door lowered to become a ramp she saw Obi-Wan walking down.

"Padme!" he called out joyfully. "It has been too long."

"Obi-Wan," she called back warmly. He was right, it had been a long time. Anakin's semi-frequent trips to see Obi-Wan meant that there was very little need for him to come to Atollon, and it had been almost two years since they had seen each other.

As he approached the three of them Obi-Wan knelt down to get on the Twins' eye level and said, "Well hello there. Now I wonder whether either of you remembers me."

Luke and Leia both looked towards their mother, seeking reassurance that this was someone safe. They were used to their parents and the various clone troopers who would come to assist Anakin or take him away on a shuttle. They had seen Obi-Wan before of course, but it was hard for a five year old to remember something that had happened when they were three. To them this was a new face in a life that was mostly devoid of new faces.

"Well no matter, I am pleased to meet you both again," a smiling Obi-Wan said. Padme was looking past him towards the ship, waiting for Anakin to come down the ramp as well, but saw only the ramp lifting back up.

"What brings you here Obi-Wan?" a perplexed Padme asked.

"Well we were in the area and I thought I might have a word with Anakin about some matters," he answered.

"Did he not get to you yet?" Padme asked.

"What?" Obi-Wan responded, his turn now to sound perplexed.

"He left yesterday evening to go meet you," she said.

"What? Meet me? We had no meeting planned. I meant to surprise him. The process for getting a message through to you is so tedious, I decided to just come here in person," Obi-Wan said.

"I don't understand," Padme said.

"Neither do I," Obi-Wan said. "The normal protocols were followed? He received a message from the Lothal cell? Picked up by them?"

"Yes, the same shuttle as normal," Padme said.

Obi-Wan stroked his beard several times before saying, "I will look into this. I'm sorry Padme, but this could be a major breach of security. If they know where Anakin lives, if they know the security protocols well enough to get a false message through to him, then you and the twins are not safe here. Until we get this figured out, please come with me on the Windu."

And so it was that Luke and Leia, who had spent the first year of their lives aboard spaceships took what they would remember later as their first flight into space.