Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones Read online

  More than that, though, Anakin always felt as if he was welcome here.

  “I will talk to her,” Palpatine agreed, upon hearing Anakin's request that he speak with Padmé about leaving Coruscant for the relative safety of Naboo. “Senator Amidala will not refuse an executive order. I know her well enough to assure you of that.”

  “Thank you, Your Excellency.”

  “And so, my young Padawan, they have finally given you an assignment,” the Chancellor said with a wide and warm smile, the way a father might talk to a son. “Your patience has paid off.”

  “Your guidance more than my patience,” Anakin replied. “I doubt my patience would have held, had it not been for your assurances that my Jedi Masters were watching me, and that they would trust me with some important duties before too long.”

  Palpatine nodded and smiled. “You don't need guidance, Anakin,” he said. “In time you will learn to trust your feelings. Then you will be invincible. I have said it many times, you are the most gifted Jedi I have ever met.”

  “Thank you, Your Excellency,” Anakin replied coolly, though in truth, he had to consciously stop himself from trembling. Hearing such a compliment from one who did not understand—like from his mother—was much different than hearing it from Palpatine, the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic. This was an accomplished man, more accomplished, perhaps, than anyone else in all the galaxy. He was not an underling of Yoda or Mace Windu. Anakin understood that a man like Palpatine would not throw out such compliments if he did not believe them.

  “I see you becoming the greatest of all the Jedi, Anakin,” Palpatine went on. “Even more powerful than Master Yoda.”

  Anakin hoped his legs wouldn't simply buckle beneath him. He could hardly believe the words, and yet a part of him did believe them. There was a strength within him, a power beyond the limits the Jedi seemed to place upon him, and upon themselves. Anakin sensed that clearly. He knew that Obi-Wan didn't understand, and that was his biggest frustration with his Master. To Anakin's thinking, Obi-Wan's leash was far too short.

  He had no idea of how he might answer Palpatine's continuing compliments, so he just stood in the center of the room and smiled for a bit, while the Chancellor stood by the window, looking out at the endless streams of Coruscant traffic.

  After many moments had passed, Anakin worked up the courage to move around the desk and join him following the Supreme Chancellor's gaze up at the traffic lanes.

  “I am concerned for my Padawan,” Obi-Wan Kenobi said to Yoda and Mace Windu as the three walked along the corridors of the Jedi Temple. “He is not ready to be given this assignment on his own.”

  “The Council is confident in this decision, Obi-Wan,” Yoda said.

  “The boy has exceptional skills,” Mace agreed.

  “But he still has much to learn, Master,” Obi-Wan explained. “His skills have made him... well, arrogant.”

  “Yes, yes,” Yoda agreed. “It's a flaw more and more common among Jedi. Too sure of themselves, they are. Even the older, more experienced Jedi.”

  Obi-Wan considered the words with an assenting nod. They certainly rang true, and the current conditions among the Jedi in this time of mounting tension were a bit unsettling, with many off on their own far from Coruscant. And had not arrogance played a major role in Count Dooku's decision to depart the Order, and the Republic?

  “Remember, Obi-Wan,” Mace remarked, “if the prophecy is true, your apprentice is the only one who can bring the Force into balance.”

  How could Obi-Wan ever forget that little fact? Qui-Gon had been the first to see it, the first to predict that Anakin would be the one to fulfill the prophecy. What Qui-Gon, or anyone else for that matter, had failed to explain, was exactly what bringing balance to the Force might mean.

  “If he follows the right path,” the Jedi Knight said to the two Masters, and neither of them corrected him.

  “Attend to your own duties, you must,” Yoda reminded, drawing Obi-Wan from his distracting contemplation as surely as if he was reading the Jedi's mind. “When solved is this mystery of the assassin, other riddles might be answered.”

  “Yes, Master,” Obi-Wan replied, and he held the small dart he had taken from the dead Clawdite up before his eyes.

  With gen tle hands, Shmi Skywalker Lars lifted the dull bronze chest piece up to the wiry droid, setting it in place. She smiled at C-3PO, and, though his face could not similarly twist, she could tell that he, too, in that curious droidlike way, was pleased. How often he had complained about the sand blowing into his wiring, chipping away at the silicon coverings, even breaking through and causing jarring jolts on a couple of occasions. And now Shmi was taking care of that problem, was finishing what Anakin had started in building the droid.

  “Now?” she managed to ask aloud, through lips caked with dried blood. No, she realized, it was not now. She had covered C-3PO all those days ago—or was it weeks ago, or even years ago?—when Cliegg had taken her to the moisture farm. Yes, there were spare coverings to fit the protocol droid in the garage area, against the wall, under an old workbench.

  She remembered that, so clearly, but she had no idea of when it had been.

  And now... now she was... somewhere.

  She couldn't open her eyes to look around; she didn't have the strength at that moment, and the blood on them had dried, making any flutter of her eyelids painful.

  She thought it curious that her eyelids were the only place where she actually felt any real pain at that moment. She thought she was injured.

  She thought...

  Shmi heard something behind her. Shuffling footsteps? Then some mumbling. Yes, they were always mumbling.

  Her thoughts went back to C-3PO, poor 3PO, who still needed his battered wiry arms covered. Gently, she lifted the covering...

  She heard a sharp sound—or she knew it was a sharp sound, though she heard it only distantly—then felt a brush across her back.

  There were no nerves left there to register the bite of the whip any more clearly than that.

  = X =

  Anakin Skywalker and Jar Jar Binks stood at the door separating Padmé's bedroom from the anteroom where Anakin and Obi-Wan had kept watch the night before. Looking through the room to the broken window, the pair watched the Coruscant skyline, the endless lines of traffic.

  Padmé and her handmaiden Dorm rushed about the bedroom, throwing the luggage together, and from her sharp movements, both Anakin and Jar Jar knew that they would do well to keep a fair distance from the upset and angry young Senator. As the Jedi had requested, Chancellor Palpatine had intervened to bid Padmé to return to Naboo. She was complying, but that did not mean that she was happy about it.

  With a profound sigh, Padmé stood straight, one hand on her lower back, which ached from all the bending. She sighed again and moved before the two observers.

  “I'm taking an extended leave of absence,” she said to Jar Jar, her voice thick and somber, as if she was hoping to inject some of that gravity into the goofy Gungan. “It will be your responsibility to take my place in the Senate. Representative Binks, I know I can count on you.”

  “Mesa honored...” Jar Jar blurted in reply, standing at attention, except that his head was wagging, and his ears were flopping. One could dress a Gungan up like a dignitary, but such a creature's nature was not so easily changed.

  “What?” Padmé's voice was stern and showed more than a little exasperation. She was entrusting something important to Jar Jar, and was obviously not thrilled to hear him acting like his old, goofy self.

  Obviously embarrassed, Jar Jar cleared his throat and stood a bit straighter. “Mesa honored to be taken on dissa heavy burden. Mesa accept this with muy... muy humility andda—”

  “Jar Jar, I don't wish to hold you up,” Padmé interrupted. “I'm sure you have a great deal to do.”

  “Of course, M'Lady.” With a great bow, as if trying to use pretense to cover up the fact that he was blushing like a Darellian fire crab, the Gung
an turned and left, flashing a bright smile Anakin's way as he passed.

  Anakin's eyes followed the retreating Gungan, but any levity or sense of calm he felt from that last exchange was washed away a moment later, when Padmé addressed him in a tone that reminded him that she was not in the best of moods.

  “I do not like this idea of hiding,” she said emphatically.

  “Don't worry. Now that the Council has ordered an investigation, it won't take Master Obi-Wan long to find out who hired that bounty hunter. We should have done that from the beginning. It is better to take the offensive against such a threat, to find out the source rather than try to react to the situation.” He meant to go on, to claim credit for asking for such an investigation from the very beginning, to let Padmé know that he had been right all along and that it had taken the Council long enough to come around to his way of thinking. He could see, though, that her eyes were already beginning to glaze over, so he quieted and let her speak.

  “And while your Master investigates, I have to hide away.”

  “That would be most prudent, yes.”

  Padmé gave a little sigh of frustration. “I haven't worked for a year to defeat the Military Creation Act not to be here when its fate is decided!”

  “Sometimes we have to let go of our pride and do what is requested of us,” Anakin replied—a rather unconvincing statement, coming from him—and he knew as soon as he spoke the words that he probably shouldn't have phrased things quite like that.

  “Pride!” came the roaring response. “Annie, you're young, and you don't have a very firm grip on politics. I suggest you reserve your opinions for some other time.”

  “Sorry, M'Lady, I was only trying to—”

  “Annie! No!”

  “Please don't call me that.”

  “What?”

  “Annie. Please don't call me 'Annie.' “

  “I've always called you that. It is your name, isn't it?”

  “My name is Anakin,” the young Jedi said calmly, his jaw firm, his eyes strong. “When you say Annie, it's like I'm still a little boy. And I'm not.”

  Padmé paused and looked him over, head to toe, nodding as she took the sight of him in completely. He could see sincerity on her face as she nodded her agreement, and her tone, too, became one of more respect. “I'm sorry, Anakin. It's impossible to deny you've... that you've grown up.”

  There was something in the way she said that, Anakin sensed, some suggestion, some recognition from Padmé that he was indeed a man now, and perhaps a handsome one at that. That, combined with the little smile she flashed him, had him a bit flushed and put him back up on his heels. He found an ornament sitting on a shelf to the side, then, and using the Force, picked it up, letting it hover above his fingers, needing the distraction.

  Still, he had to clear his throat to cover his embarrassment, for he was afraid that his voice would break apart as he admitted, “Master Obi-Wan manages not to see it. He criticizes my every move, as if I was still a child. He didn't listen to me when I insisted that we go in search of the source of the assassination—”

  “Mentors have a way of seeing more of our faults than we would like,” Padmé agreed. “It's the only way we grow.”

  With a thought, Anakin used the Force to lift the little globe ornament higher into the air, manipulating it all about. “Don't get me wrong,” he remarked. “Obi-Wan is a great mentor, as wise as Master Yoda and as powerful as Master Windu. I am truly thankful to be his learner. Only...” He paused and shook his head, looking for the words. “Only, although I'm a Padawan learner, in some ways—in a lot of ways—I'm ahead of him. I'm ready for the trials. I know I am! He knows it, too. He feels I'm too unpredictable—other Jedi my age have gone through the trials and made it. I know I started my training late, but he won't let me move on.”

  Padmé's expression grew curious, and Anakin could well understand her puzzlement, for he, too, was surprised at how openly he was speaking, critically, of Obi-Wan. He thought that he should stop right there, and silently berated himself.

  But then Padmé said, with all sympathy, “That must be frustrating.”

  “It's worse!” Anakin cried in response, willingly diving into that warm place. “He's overly critical! He never listens! He just doesn't understand! It's not fair!”

  He would have gone on and on, but Padmé began to laugh, and that stopped Anakin as surely as a slap across the face.

  “I'm sorry,” she said through her giggles. “You sounded exactly like that little boy I once knew, when he didn't get his way.”

  “I'm not whining! I'm not.”

  Across the room, Dorm, too, began to chuckle.

  “I didn't say it to hurt you,” Padmé explained.

  Anakin took a deep breath, then blew it all out of him, his shoulders visibly relaxing. “I know.”

  He seemed so pitiable then, not pitiful, but just like a lost little soul. Padmé couldn't resist. She walked over to him and lifted her hand to gently stroke his cheek. “Anakin.”

  For the first time since they had been reunited, Padmé truly looked into the blue eyes of the young Padawan, locked stares with him so that they each could see beneath the surface, so that they each could view the other's heart. It was a fleeting moment, made so by Padmé's common sense. She quickly altered the mood with a sincere but lighthearted request. “Don't try to grow up too fast.”

  “I am grown up,” Anakin replied. “You said it yourself.” He finished by making his reply into something suggestive, as he looked deeply into Padmé's beautiful brown eyes again, this time even more intensely, more passionately.

  “Please don't look at me like that,” she said, turning away.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I can see what you're thinking.”

  Anakin broke the tension, or tried to, with a laugh. “Oh, so you have Jedi powers, too?”

  Padmé looked past the young Padawan for a moment, glimpsing Dorm, who was watching with obvious concern and not even trying to hide her interest anymore. And Padmé understood that concern, given the strange and unexpected road this conversation had taken. She looked squarely at Anakin again and said, with n o room for debate, “It makes me feel uncomfortable.”

  Anakin relented and looked away. “Sorry, M'Lady,” he said professionally, and he stepped back, allowing her to resume her packing.

  Just the bodyguard again.

  But he wasn't, Padmé knew, no matter how much she wished it were true.

  On a water-washed, wind-lashed world, far to the most remote edges of the Outer Rim, a father and his son sat on a skirt of shining black metal, watching carefully in the few somewhat calm pools created by the currents swirling about the gigantic caryatid that climbed out of the turbulent ocean. The rain had let up a bit, a rare occasion in this watery place, allowing for some calm surface area, at least, and the pair stared hard, searching for the meter-long dark silhouettes of rollerfish.

  They were on the lowest skirt of one of the great pillars that supported Tipoca City, the greatest city on all of Kamino, a place of sleek structures, all rounded to deflect the continual wind, rather than flat-faced to battle against it. Kamino had been designed, or upgraded at least, by many of the best architects the galaxy could offer, who understood well that the best way to battle planetary elements was to subtly dodge them. Towering transparisteel windows looked out from every portal—the father, Jango, often wondered why the Kaminoans, tall and thin, pasty white creatures with huge almond-shaped eyes set in oblong heads on necks as long as his arm, wanted so many windows. What was there to see on this violent world other than rolling waters and nearly constant downpours?

  Still, even Kamino had its better moments. It was all relative, Jango supposed. Thus, when he saw that it was not raining very hard, he had taken his boy outside.

  Jango tapped his son on the shoulder and nodded toward one of the quiet eddies, and the younger one, his face showing all the exuberance of a ten-year-old boy, lifted his pocker, an ion-burst-p
owered atlatl, and took deadly aim. He didn't use the laser sighting unit, which automatically adjusted for watery refraction. No, this kill was to be a test of his skill alone.

  He exhaled deeply, as his father had taught him, using the technique to go perfectly steady, and then, as the prey turned sidelong, he snapped his arm forward, throwing the missile. Barely a meter from the boy's extended hand, the back of the missile glowed briefly, a sudden and short burst of power that shot it off like a blaster bolt, knifing through the water and taking the fish in the side, its barbed head driving through.

  With a shout of joy, the boy twisted the atlatl handle, locking the nearly invisible but tremendously strong line, and then, when the fish squirmed away enough to pull the line taut, the boy slowly and deliberately turned the handle, reeling in his catch.

  “Well done,” Jango congratulated. “But if you had hit it a centimeter forward, you would have skewered the primary muscle just below the gill and rendered it completely helpless.”

  The boy nodded, unperturbed that his father, his mentor, could always find fault, even in success. The boy knew that his beloved father did so only because it forced him to strive for perfection. And in a dangerous galaxy, perfection allowed for survival.

  The boy loved his father even more for caring enough to criticize.

  Jango went tense suddenly, sensing a movement nearby, a footfall, perhaps, or just a smell, something to tell the finely attuned bounty hunter that he and his boy were not alone. There weren't many enemies to be found on Kamino, except far out in the watery wastes, where giant tentacled creatures roamed. Here there was little life above the water, other than the Kaminoans themselves, and so Jango wasn't surprised when he saw that the newcomer was one of them Taun We, his usual contact with the Kaminoans.