"...because the council did not trust you, my young apprentice, I believe you are the only Jedi with no knowledge of this plot," Sidious said, pulling on his cloak.

He frowned. "What are you doing, Vader?"

"I'm going to get proof," Anakin replied, pressing some buttons on his comlink. "I don't know if Obi-Wan was involved with the plot, and – I have to know."

"Don't-" Sidious began.

The comlink beeped, interrupting him, and Anakin lifted the device to his mouth.

"Obi-Wan!" he said.

"Anakin!" Obi-Wan replied. "Good news – General Grievous is dead. I've lost my lightsaber, though."

Anakin hid a snort. "Right – that's, uh, really funny. Listen, I've got some good news too."

"You have?" Obi-Wan replied. "Let's hear it – down, Boga, down! Sorry, Anakin, she's a bit excited… you were saying?"

"The Chancellor's dead," Anakin said, winking at Sidious.

"What?" Obi-Wan asked. "How is that good news – how did he die? I swear, I leave Coruscant for two days-"

"The Jedi killed him," Anakin explained.

"Why?" Obi-Wan said, sounding completely and honestly baffled. "Which Jedi? I don't think they could all do it, after the first couple of dozen there simply wouldn't be any politician left if nothing else – but why would they do that?"

"Because he's a Sith, I think," Anakin said, then corrected himself. "Was a Sith, I mean. Because he's definitely dead now."

There was silence from the comlink for a couple of seconds, interrupted by a sort of rippling hwaa hwaa sound from some kind of animal, and some blasterfire.

"Obi-Wan?" Anakin said.

"I'm sorry, Anakin, you did just drop an extremely large bombshell on me," Obi-Wan said, sounding quite distracted now. "I'm rethinking the last several years. That means he was behind – he was behind the war, behind the invasion of Naboo, behind the assassination attempts on Padme, behind everything."

Anakin blinked down at his comlink.

"...that's… a good point," he said, slowly, then glanced over at Sidious.

Who wasn't where he'd been before.

Anakin kept turning, and saw that Sidious had pulled a bookshelf off the wall of his office and was halfway through getting into a concealed escape pod.

The Dark Lord of the Sith froze, staring back at Anakin.

"...there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this," he said, waving his hand.

In hindsight, this would be the last error he would ever make.

Anakin was never one for perfectly reasonable explanations.

"...Anakin? Anakin?" Obi-Wan said, frowning at his comlink. "Anakin, you can't just tell me something like that and then disappear… or, well, apparently you can but it's very inconvenient."

There seemed to be an awful lot of noise coming down the comlink, but none of it made much sense. In fact, it sounded like someone was testing a lightsaber in the middle of a thunderstorm, and Obi-Wan frowned at the little device before nearly losing his grip on it as Boga skidded to a halt next to Commander Cody.

"Sir," Cody said, with a nod.

"Commander!" Obi-Wan replied. "Contact your troops – tell them to move to the higher levels. We'll want to clear out this force and then move on Mustafar, though since the Sith Lord is dead that might actually mean this war is over soon."

"I'll keep that in mind, sir," Cody replied, then tossed Obi-Wan his lightsaber.

Obi-Wan caught it. "Thank you, Commander! I do apologize-"

The comlink crackled again, and Obi-Wan dropped Boga's reins so he could hold both devices at once without potentially cutting his head off. "Anakin!"

"Sorry about that, Master," Anakin replied. "Bit of a workplace disagreement. Anyway, uh… Masters Windu, Fisto, Tiin and Kolar are all dead in the fight with the Chancellor. Please send help, there's not many Councillors left and I don't want to have to ask Master Nu what a quorum is…"

"Oh, Anakin," Obi-Wan said, fondly. "I'm sure we'll be able to rescue you from the deadly perils of procedure. Until then, ask Padme if you need advice."

He paused.

"Do you have any names picked out yet, by the way? I'm quite partial to the name Ben. It has a nice sound to it, even as a middle name."

He clicked the comlink off and set it to silent, smiling slightly.

"Getting the last word, General?" Cody asked.

"It's about the only way I can, with Anakin, I find," Obi-Wan agreed, pocketing the comlink. "Now, let's see about clearing those upper levels. Come on, Boga!"

AN:

The downside of blatant lying, of course.