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| - What Padmé’s idea of fun was, Anakin had no idea. And she was showing no signs of revealing it to him anytime soon. They had gotten onto a speeder bus, and from there to an airtaxi, then boarded a hovertrain to the entertainment sector of Coruscant. “Where are we going?” Anakin asked her for what seemed the tenth time. “You’ll see.” And that was all Padmé would say. They got off the train and walked along the front of several buildings, only stopping to buy something from a food stand. Then they turned the corner and Anakin was met with a sea of…brown Jedi robes. Jedi were everywhere, of all shapes, sizes, hues and species. Talking, walking around, waving lightsabers… “Padmé, what is this?” he asked her. “Is this like some Jedi get-together that I wasn't told about?” “Not quite,” Padmé said with a smile, she went to one of the booths and spoke to the vendor. Anakin was still staring around, what were all these Jedi doing here? Then he felt through the Force at them, there was nothing unusual. No pronounced presences in the Force that a large gathering of Jedi would have given him. He tried again, the same result. This was strange, sensing other Jedi was almost effortless and with this many it would have been easier. “Padmé, what’s going on?” She handed him a small piece of durasheet, it looked remarkably like a theatre ticket. Suddenly it hit him. “These aren’t Jedi, aren’t they?” “Of course not,” Padmé said, walking into the theatre. “Quick, it’s starting soon.” On the way in they walked past a poster with a very good representation of Master Yoda on it. Below was one line of text: Jedi! “You’re meant to be Anakin Skywalker, aren’t you?” said the Twi'lek at the door done up like Aayla Secura. “Yeah, that’s kinda like it,” Anakin said, not knowing what to say. “You just about fit it, you look a bit like him,” said the Twi'lek. Anakin raised an eyebrow. “A bit?” “Well, enough to get by,” she said. “He’s a bit taller than you are, and his scar’s on the other side of his face though yours is pretty nice. What did you use for it?” “But I—” “Come on!’ laughed Padmé, pulling him in. “She said I don’t look like me!” he complained. “Look around,” Padmé suggested as they got to their seats. “There’s a few in here trying to look like you.” She was right, there were a few dressed up like him. It was annoying, why were the wasting their time trying to look like him? There were better things to do than to look like someone else. The lights darkened and a fanfare began to play below the stage. Cheers erupted form the audience as the first of the actors emerged from the wings, and the play began. Padmé sat back to watch, revelling in the pulses of joy and elation she could feel through the Force. The audience responded as one thriving mass of positive feelings, it was slightly tempting to join in with them. She hadn't come here for simply Anakin’s sake, it was one of the ways her former Master Kuan Yin Nevu had suggested for coping with what the war put her through. And not just the present experience, but the knowledge that beings still felt, breathed, smiled, laughed even after all that had happened. The memory of the experience long after it ended was something she could always go back to, something she knew that was worth fighting for. And it wouldn’t hurt Anakin to have that experience either. He apparently had a very different way of coping, and one that did not help him at all. Channelling his feelings into actions, that could be the path to raw emotion and anger which were next door to the dark side of the Force. Yet she knew there was no way of telling Anakin this, he had to find out for himself or not at all. Anakin noticed none of these things, he was focusing all his attention on the performance, particularly what was happening now. It was a lightsaber fight, well sort of. It was very well choreographed even if the performance left much to be desired. But Anakin was charitable enough to excuse this; after all they were actors, not Jedi. They weren’t bad, and the movements they went through attracted a lot of cheers and gasps from the audience. Yet there was something in their form that was unpolished, as if the actors were merely playing at what they were doing rather than actively doing it. Despite all this, it looked impressive. Yet for some reason his interest in what was going on seemed to be dwindling. There was something else stirring at the edge of his thoughts. Something elusive… Suddenly the scene changed, the stage was gone, the theatre was gone and all the people in it. He was in a dark room, looking around for something, trying to see… “Padmé!” She suddenly appeared, her lightsaber lit but held at one side. He ran to her, arms outstretched but she collapsed to the ground, bolts of blue lightning cascading over her. Anakin! she screamed at him, pain washing over her face, Anakin…help me! Then the scene changed again, she was in his arms, tears running down her cheeks. I love you Anakin, she whispered to him. You have to let go. “No…NO!” “Anakin, are you alright?” Padmé was looking at him, the real Padmé and not the one he had seen in his vision. He tried to explain to her what he had seen, but he could barely open his mouth. “Anakin?” “I…uh, have to go,” he said quickly, pushing past her and several others towards the aisle. Padmé followed him, ignoring the glances at her. “Anakin?” She pushed open the door and walked into the cool lobby, Anakin was already outside looking for an airtaxi. “Anakin!” She stopped and caught his arm, yet when he turned to look at her she noticed the raw emotion apparent in his eyes. What had happened? “Come on, we’ll go back,” she said, knowing they would get no more done until they were back at the Temple. Anakin was silent on the way back because he was remembered. He knew what had happened, he knew what he was seen. It was when he coupled it with the memory that made his fears rise up inside him. He had had a vision of Padmé dying, he had watched her being killed by a Sith and then felt her die in his arms. As much as he wanted to tell himself it was a delusion, that it was not real, a small sneaking voice whispered to him to remember what had happened to his mother. Yet Padmé was right here next to him, what were the chances of her being killed by a Sith? How would you know? whispered the voice snakily. Yet he said nothing, and Padmé seemed to respect this. When they arrived back to the Temple she could no longer tolerate his silence. “Anakin, you know you can talk to me,” she said, clutching at the corner of his tunic. “I know there’s something wrong, you can tell me.” Anakin looked at her sceptically. “You really want to know?” “If I didn’t want to know I wouldn’t have asked,” she replied calmly Anakin sighed, they walked together in the night-lit Temple for a few minutes, she waited until he was prepared to speak. “I had another one of those dreams,” Anakin told her. “Well not really a dream as I was awake, but it was like before.” “Like the ones you had about your mother?” Padmé asked. Anakin nodded, a lump forming in his throat. “And?” Padmé gently prompted. “And it was about you,” Anakin finished. “All right,” Padmé said with a sigh, “so it was about me.” “It was about you dying,” he said in a choked voice. “I held you, you spoke to me and you died in my arms.” He stared at her, his eyes red-raw like they had been before. “I couldn’t stand it.” “It’s all right, Anakin,” Padmé reassured, but this was the wrong thing to say. “No, it’s not!” His voice came out in a strangled sob. He walked away and then turned back to look at her. “It was a Sith, the one everyone’s looking for, he killed you.” “Shh, Anakin there’s no need to get so upset,” Padmé said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “These are things you have to control, perhaps with everything that’s been going on lately it’s affected you so much. It’s no surprise.” “No.” Anakin said, completely dismissing Padmé common-sense view of the situation. “I know what you said, and I understand that,” he said, pacing before her. “But losing you, that’s something I just can’t…imagine.” Padmé watched him pace, adding no more to his anguish. She knew his reaction was perfectly normal—for Anakin anyway. Perhaps that was why he still didn’t see her as a Jedi. Anakin still had emotions, he still had passions and he still had attachments and all the reasoning and Jedi serenity there was couldn’t take them away. What she had explained to Anakin five years ago, about how she could never give herself to him, had merely kept these in reasonable boundaries. Boundaries that were starting to fail, the strain was apparent on Anakin's face. But this isn’t the time to mend fences, Padmé told herself, and it isn’t the time for Jedi reasoning either. What could be done? For clearly, Anakin meant to do something. “Anakin, you know about visions as well as I do,” she said in the calmest voice she could manage. “Sometimes everything we do to try and stop them causes them to happen.” “But I can’t do nothing,” Anakin protested. “No one is asking you to do nothing, Anakin,” Padmé said, walking over to him and staring at him squarely. “But how can you be so sure that is what you saw?” “But that’s all it can be!” Anakin whined. “There isn’t any other way to look at it!” “Isn’t there?” Padmé asked. “Or do you just don’t want to consider that?” Anakin didn’t look so sure By morning he still wasn't convinced, and the vision troubled him still. So after a few hours of sleep he went to the first place he knew where he could get answers. He timidly knocked at the door of Master Yoda’s mediation chamber and fully expected Yoda to be of no help. Surprisingly, the little Jedi Master invited him in to sit down and listened to Anakin explain the vision as best he can. “They are of pain, suffering, death,” Anakin finished, a grim silence hung in the room for a moment. “Mmmm,” murmured Yoda after a while. “Careful you must be when sensing the future, Anakin.” “I won’t allow them to come true, Master Yoda,” Anakin said with conviction. “Always in motion, the future is,” Yoda said as if he had not heard Anakin’s last remark. “Think we can act to save those we love we do, hurts them it can if know not what we are facing.” “But isn’t it obvious?” Anakin asked. “The blue lightning, Padmé told me that the Sith did such things.” “Yet so sure you are that what you saw meant her death?” Yoda countered. “Reflect our fears, visions do, show us what we do not want to see.” “But what must I do?” Anakin asked, as he had told Padmé last night, he couldn’t do nothing. “The path to the dark side, fear is,” the Jedi Master reminded him. “Name your fear you must and power over you it will not have.” When Obi-Wan had been told he could sit in at the Dooku’s next interrogation session, he didn’t know what to expect. Yet what was surprising was the fact that Renust Nju was conducting it and not Mace. Yet need I be surprised? Obi-Wan thought Mace and Dooku were friends, perhaps he thinks that will cloud his judgment. The interrogation was conducted in the lower levels of the Temple, in the small rooms that were fitted with materials to absorb the Force. Even so, both Obi-Wan and Nju were prepared to defend each other and the silver protocol droid brought to record the session could be instantly armed. When Dooku was brought in Obi-Wan noticed the thinness and colourlessness of his face even though he had not been held for very long. Yet this did not disguise the calculated, almost defiant light in his eyes as he sat down. Obi-Wan was almost glad for the table separating himself and Nju from the former Jedi even though there was little chance of Dooku attacking them. Renust Nju signalled for the droid to begin recording, and the session began. “I asked yesterday about Sidious and you refused to give me any answers as to how you met him,” Nju said, he took out a datasheet and began to examine it. “Today we’ll be referring to actual evidence, we know that you communicated with Sidious during the conference on Imbroglio five years ago.” “How do you know it was me?” Dooku asked mildly. “We can put two and two together,” Nju replied calmly. “We have a record of the transmission from Imbroglio as well as a record corresponding to an abandoned factory in The Works where we know Sidious has been.” “What I mean is, how do you know that I made that transmission?” Dooku queried. “Viceroy Nute Gunray has been known having dealing with Sith Lords, could it not likely be him?” “I am not asking about him,” stated Nju, blankly. “I am asking about you. So this is a denial then, you say you did not correspond with Sidious then?” “Well you seem to have already made up your mind about what I did and did not do,” said Dooku with a slight smile. “So it makes no difference on my account whether I say yes or no.” “Just answer the question,” Nju snapped. “My answer is no,” Dooku replied airily. “Not that it matters anyway.” “Very well.” Nju turned to the next item on the datasheet. “I’m now referring to some evidence we discovered in that same factory in The Works where your boot-prints have matched some found there. What do you make of this?” “The fact that I wear boots?” Dooku laughed. “You wear boots yourself, don’t you? As do you Obi-Wan and I don’t know how many others. Would it occur to you that my boots may be the same as someone else’s?” Nju remained unperturbed but Obi-Wan politely excused himself. He had to see to the briefing and the session had all signs of being very long.
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