(Specific dialogues appear in color-coded text:  Anakin Skywalker's comments appear in yellow and  Obi-Wan Kenobi's comments appear in blue, while other character's comments appear in various colors.)

(A more detailed examination of the relationship between Anakin Skywalker & Obi-Wan Kenobi can be found here.)

32 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 9 years of age)

____________________

    Anakin leveled out his pod, lifting slightly from the rock-strewn floor of the channel, letting his memory and his instincts take him down the winding cut.  When he raced, everything around him slowed down rather than sped up.  It was different than you'd expect.  Rock and sand and shadows flew past in a wild mix of patterns and shapes, and still he could see so clearly.  All the details seemed to jump out at him, as if illuminated by exactly what should make them so difficult to distinguish.  He could almost close his eyes and drive, he thought.  He was that much in tune with everything around him, that much aware of where he was.

____________________

    Signing in frustration, he turned and went out the back of the shop into the yard.  He was a small boy, even at nine years of age, rather compactly built, with a mop of sandy hair, blue eyes, a pug nose, and an inquisitive stare.  He was quick and strong for his age, and he was gifted in ways that constantly surprised those around him.  He was already an accomplished driver in the Podraces, something no human of any age had even been before.  He was gifted with building skills that allowed him to put together almost anything.  He was useful to Watto in both areas, and Watto was not one to waste a slave's talent.

    But what no one knew about him except his mother was the way he sensed things.  Frequently he sensed them before anyone even knew they would happen.  It was like a stirring in the air, a whisper of warning or suggestion that no one else could feel.  It had served him will in the Podraces, but it was also there at other times.  He had an affinity for recognizing how things were or how they ought to be.  He was only nine years old and he could already see the world in ways most adults never would.

____________________

    The boys turned as one.  An old spacer stood leaning on a speeder hitch, watching them.  They knew what he was right away from his clothing, weapons, and the small, worn fighter corps insignia he wore stitched to his tunic.  It was a Republic insignia.  You didn't see many of those on Tatooine.

    "Saw you race today," the old spacer said to Anakin...  "What's your name?"

    "Anakin Skywalker.  These are my friends, Kitster and Wald."

    "You fly like your name, Anakin.  You walk the sky like you own it.  You show promise...  You want to fly the big ships someday?"

    All three boys nodded as one.  The old spacer smiled.  "There's nothing like it.  Nothing.  Flew all the big boys, once upon a time, when I was younger.  Flew everything there was to fly, in and out of the corps.  You recognize the insignia, boys?"

    Again, they nodded, interested now, caught up in the wonder of coming face-to-face with a real pilot - not just of Podracers, but of fighters and cruisers and mainline ships.

    "It was a long time ago," the spacer said, his voice suddenly distant.  "I left the corps six years back.  Too old.  Time passes you by, leaves you to find something else to do with what's left of your life.  How're those ruby bliels?  Still good?  Haven't had one in years.  Maybe now's a good time.  You boys care to join me?  Care to drink a ruby bliel with an old pilot of the Republic?"

    He didn't have to ask twice.

    ...

    "Flew all my life.  Flew everywhere I could manage, and you know what?  I couldn't get to a hundredth of what's out there.  Couldn't get to a millionth.  But it was fun trying.  A whole lot of fun.  Flew a cruiser filled with Republic soldiers into Makem Te during its rebellion.  That was a scary business.  Flew Jedi Knights once upon a time, too."

    "Jedi!" Kitster exhaled sharply.  "Wow!"

    "Really?  You really flew Jedi?" Anakin pressed, eyes wide.

    "Cross my heart and call me bantha fodder if I'm lying.  It was a long time ago, but I flew four of them to a place I'm not supposed to talk about even now.  Told you.  I've been everywhere a man can get to in one lifetime.  Everywhere."

    "I want to fly ships to those worlds one day."

    Wald snorted doubtfully.  "You're a slave, Annie.  You can't go anywhere."

    The old pilot looked down at Anakin.  The boy couldn't look at him.  "Well, in this life you're often born one thing and die another.  You don't have to accept that what you're given when you come in is all you'll have when you leave."

    "Reminds me of something.  I flew the Kessel Run once, long ago.  Not many have done that and lived to tell about it.  Lots told me I couldn't do it, told me not to bother trying, to give it up and go on to something else.  But I wanted that experience, so I just went ahead and found a way to prove them wrong."

    He looked down at Anakin.  "Could be that's what you'll have to do, young Skywalker.  I've seen how you handle a Podracer.  You got the eyes for it, the feel.  You're better than I was at twice your age."  He nodded solemnly.  "You want to fly the big ships, I think maybe you will."

    He stared at the boy, and Anakin stared back.  The old spacer smiled and nodded slowly.  "Yep, Anakin Skywalker, I do think maybe one day you will."

____________________

    He gazed skyward, his mother's hand resting lightly on his arm, and thought about what it would be like to be out there, flying battle cruisers and fighters, traveling to far worlds and strange places.  He didn't care what Wald said, he wouldn't be a slave all his life.  Just as he wouldn't always be a boy.  He would find a way to leave Tatooine.  He would find a way to take his mother with him.  His dreams whirled through his head as he watched the stars, a kaleidoscope of bright images.  He imagined how it would be.  He saw it clearly in his mind, and it made him smile.

    One day, he thought, seeing the old spacer's face in the darkness before him, the wry smile and strange gray eyes, I'll do everything you've done.  Everything.

    He took a deep breath and held it.

    I'll even fly with Jedi Knights.

    Slowly, he exhaled, the promise sealed.

____________________

    There was a great deal Watto didn't know about Anakin Skywalker, the boy thought to himself as he went out the door to claim his speeder and begin his journey.  One of the tricks to being a successful slave was to know things that your master didn't know and to take advantage of that knowledge when it would do you some good.  Anakin had a gift for Podracing and a gift for taking things apart and putting them back together and making them work better than they had before.  But it was his strange ability to sense things, to gain insights through changes in temperament, reactions, and words, that served him best.  He could tune in to other creatures, bond with them so closely he could sense what they were thinking and what they would do almost before they did.  It had served him well in dealing with the Jawas, among others, and it gave him a distinct edge in bartering on Watto's behalf.

____________________

    To all intents and purposes, it would never run.  It was just another childish project.  It was just a little boy's dream.

    But for Anakin Skywalker, it was the first step in his life plan.  He would build the fastest Podracer ever, and he would win ever race in which it was entered.  He would build a starfighter next, and he would pilot it off Tatooine to other worlds.  He would take his mother with him, and they would find a new home.  He would become the greatest pilot ever, flying all the ships of the mainline, and his mother would be so proud of him.

    And one day, when he had done all this, they would be slaves no longer.  They would be free.

    He thought about this often, not because his mother encouraged him in any way or because he was given any reason to think it might happen, but simply because he believed, deep down inside where it mattered, that it must.

____________________

    Anakin Skywalker wasn't afraid of anything.

    Was he?

    Staring into the opaque lenses of the goggles that hid the Tusken Raider's eyes, he contemplated this matter.  Most times he thought there was nothing that could frighten him.  Most times he thought he was brave enough that he would never be afraid.

    But in that most secret part of himself where he hid things he would reveal to no one, he knew he was cheating on the truth.  He might not ever be afraid for himself, but he was sometimes very afraid for his mother.

    What if something were to happen to her?  What if something awful were to happen to her, something he could do nothing to prevent?

    He felt a shiver go down his spine.

    What if he were to lose her?

    How brave would he be then, if the person he was closest to in the whole, endless universe was suddenly taken away from him?  It would never happen, of course.  It couldn't possibly happen.

    But what if it did?

    He stared at the Tusken Raider, and in the deep silence of the night he felt his confidence tremble like a leaf caught in the wind.

____________________

    Anakin Skywalker could not take his eyes off the girl.  He noticed her the moment he entered Watto's shop, even before Watto said anything, and he hadn't been able to stop looking at he since.  He barely heard what Watto said to him about watching the shop.  He barely noticed the strange-looking creature that had come in with her and was poking around in the shelves and bins.  Even after she noticed he was staring at her, he could not help himself.

    He moved now to an open space on the counter, hoisted himself up, and sat watching her while pretending to clean a transmitter cell.  She was looking back at him now, embarrassment turning to curiosity.  She was small and slender with long, braided brown hair, brown eyes, and a face he found so beautiful that he had nothing to which he could compare it.  She was dressed in rough peasant's clothing, but she seemed very self-possessed.

    She gave him an amused smile, and he felt himself melting in confusion and wonder.  He took a deep breath.  "Are you an angel?" he asked quietly.

    The girl stared.  "What?"

    "An angel."  Anakin straightened a bit.  "They live on the moons of Iego, I think.  They are the most beautiful creatures in the universe.  They are good and kind, and so pretty they make even the most hardened space pirates cry like small children."

    She gave him a confused look.  "I've never heard of angels," she said.

    "You must be one of them," Anakin insisted.  "Maybe you just don't know it."

    "You're a funny little boy."  The amused smile returned.  "How do you know so much?"

    Anakin smiled back and shrugged.  "I listen to all the traders and pilots who come through here."  He glanced toward the salvage yard.  "I'm a pilot, you know.  Someday, I'm going to fly away from this place."

    The girl wandered to one end of the counter, looked away, then back again.  "Have you been here long?"

    "Since I was very little - three, I think.  My mom and I were sold to Gardulla the Hutt, but she lost us to Watto, betting on the podraces.  Watto's a lot better master, I think."

    She stared at him in shock.  "You're a slave?"

    The way she said it made Anakin feel ashamed and angry.  He glared at her defiantly.  "I am a person!"

    "I'm sorry," she said quickly, looking upset and embarrassed.  "I don't fully understand, I guess.  This is a strange world to me."

    He studied her intently for a moment, thinking of other things, wanting to tell her of them.  "You are a strange girl to me," he said instead.  He swung his legs out from the counter.  "My name is Anakin Skywalker."

    She brushed at her hair.  "Padme Naberrie."

    The strange creature she had come in with wandered back to the front of the shop and bent over a stout little droid body with a bulbous nose.  Reaching up curiously, it pushed at the nose with one finger.  Instantly, armatures popped out from every direction, metal limbs swinging into place.  The droid's motors whizzed and whirred, and it jerked to life and began moving forward.  Padme's odd companion went after it with a moan of dismay, grabbing on in an effort to slow it down, but the droid continued marching through the shop, knocking over everything it came in contact with.

    "Hit the nose!" Anakin called out, unable to keep himself from laughing.

    The creature did as it was told, pounding the droid's nose wildly.  The droid stopped at once, the arms and legs retracted, the motors shut down, and the droid went still.  Both Anakin and Padme were laughing now, and their laughter increased as they saw the look on the unfortunate creature's long-billed face.

    Anakin looked at Padme and the girl at him.  Their laughter died away.  The girl reached up to touch her hair self-consciously, but she did not divert her gaze.

    "I'm going to marry you," the boy said suddenly.

    There was a moment of silence, and she began laughing again, a sweet musical sound he didn't mind at all.  The creature who accompanied her rolled his eyes.

    "I mean it," he insisted.

    "You are an odd one," she said, her laughter dying away.  "Why do you say that?"

    He hesitated.  "I guess because it's what I believe..."

    Her smile was dazzling.  "Well, I'm afraid I can't marry you..."  She paused, searching her memory for his name.

    "Anakin," he said.

    "Anakin."  She cocked her head.  "You're just a little boy."

    His gaze was intense as he faced her.  "I won't always be," he said quietly.

____________________

    "Me doen nutten!" Jar Jar insisted, still trying to defend himself, hands gesturing for emphasis.

    "You were afraid," the boy told him, looking up at the long-billed face solemnly.  "Fear attracts the fearful.  Sebulba was trying to overcome his fear by squashing you."  He cocked his head at the Gungan.  "You can help yourself by being less afraid."

    "And that works for you?" Padme asked skeptically, giving him a wry look.

    Anakin smiled and shrugged.  "Well... up to a point."

____________________

    Even as he fought his way through the storm, Anakin's thoughts were directed elsewhere.  He was thinking of Padme, of having the chance to take her home to meet his mother, of being able to show her his projects, of holding her hand some more.  It send a flush through him that was both warm and kind of scary.  It made him feel good about himself.  He was thinking of the farmer, too - if that's what he was, which Anakin was pretty sure he wasn't.  He carried a lightsaber, and only Jedi carried lightsabers.  It was almost too much to hope for, tha a real Jedi might be going to his home, to visit him.  But Anakin's instincts told him he was not mistaken, and that something mysterious and exciting had brought this little group to him.

    He was thinking, finally, of his dreams and his hopes for himself and his mother, thinking that maybe something wonderful would come out of this unexpected encounter, something that would change his life forever.

____________________

    "Have you ever seen a Podrace?" Anakin asked, trying to ease her discomfort.

    Padme shook her head no.  She glanced at Shmi, noting the sudden concern on the woman's lined face.  Jar Jar launched his tongue at a morsel of food nestled deep in a serving bowl at the far end of the table, deftly plucking it out, drawing it in, swallowing it, and smacking his lips in satisfaction.  A disapproving look from Qui-Gon quickly silenced him.

    "They have Podracing on Malastare," the Jedi Master observed.  "Very fast, very dangerous."

    Anakin grinned.  "I'm the only human who can do it!"  A sharp glance from his mother wiped the grin from his face.  "Mom, what?  I'm not bragging.  It's true!  Watto says he's never heard of a human doing it."

    Qui-Gon studied him carefully.  "You must have Jedi reflexes if you race Pods."

    Anakin smiled broadly at the compliment.

____________________

    Anakin's young face lifted to the older man's, and his voice was hesitant.  "I... I was wondering something."

    Qui-Gon nodded for him to continue.

    The boy cleared his throat, screwing up his courage.  "You're a Jedi Knight, aren't you?"

    There was a long moment of silence as the man and the boy stared at each other.  "What makes you think that" Qui-Gon asked finally.

    Anakin swallowed.  "I saw your lightsaber.  Only Jedi Knights carry that kind of weapon."

    Qui-Gon continued to stare at him, then leaned back slowly in his chair and smiled.  "Perhaps I killed a Jedi and stole it from him."

    Anakin shook his head quickly.  "I don't think so.  No one can kill a Jedi."

    Qui-Gon's smile faded and there was a hint of sadness in his dark eyes.  "I wish that were so..."

    "I had a dream I was a Jedi," the boy said quickly, anxious to talk about it now.  "I came back here and freed all the slaves.  I dreamed it just the other night, when I was out in the desert."  He paused, his young face expectant.  "Have you come to free us?"

    Qui-Gon Jinn shook his head.  "No, I'm afraid not..."  He trailed off, hesitating.

    "I think you have," the boy insisted, defiance in his eyes.  "Why else would you be here?"

    Shmi was about to say something, to chastise her son for his impudence perhaps, but Qui-Gon spoke first, leaning forward conspiratorially.  "I can see there's no fooling you, Anakin.  But you mustn't let anyone know about us.  We're on our way to Coruscant, the central system in the Republic, on a very important mission.  It must be kept secret."

    Anakin's eyes widened.  "Coruscant?  Wow!  How did you end up out here in the Outer Rim?"

    "Our ship was damaged," Padme answered him.  "We're stranded here until we can repair it."

    "I can help!" the boy announced quickly, anxious to be of service to them.  "I can fix anything!"

    Qui-Gon smiled at his enthusiasm.  "I believe you can, but our first task, as you know from our visit to Watto's shop, is to acquire the parts we need."

____________________

    Anakin leapt to his feet.  "I've built a racer!" he declared triumphantly.  His boy's face shone with pride.  "It's the fastest ever!  There's a big race day after tomorrow, on Boonta Eve.  You could enter my Pod!  It's all but finished-"

    "Anakin, settle down!" his mother said sharply, cutting him short.  Here eyes were bright with concern.  "Watto won't let you race!"

    "Watto doesn't have to know the racer is mine!" the boy replied quickly, his mind working through the problem.  He turned back to Qui-Gon.  "You could make him think it was yours!  You could get him to let me pilot it for you!"

    The Jedi Master had caught the look in Shmi's eyes.  He met her gaze, silently acknowledged her consternation, and waited patiently for her response.

    "I don't want you to race, Annie," his mother said quietly.  She shook her head to emphasize her words, weariness and concern reflected in her eyes.  "It's awful.  I die every time Watto make you do it.  Every time."

    Anakin bit his lip.  "But, Mom, I love it!"  He gestured at Qui-Gon.  "And they need my help.  They're in trouble.  The prize money would more than pay for the parts they need."

    Qui-Gon walked over to Anakin and looked down at him.  "Your mother's right.  Let's drop the matter."  He held the boy's gaze for a moment, then turned back to his mother.  "Do you know of anyone friendly to the Republic who might be able to help us?"

    Shmi stood silent and unmoving as she thought the matter through.  She shook her head no.

    "We have to help them, Mom," Anakin insisted, knowing he was right about this, that he was meant to help the Jedi and his companions.  "Remember what you said?  You said the biggest problem in the universe is that no one helps anyone."

    Shmi sighed.  "Anakin, don't-"

    "But you said it, Mom."  The boy refused to back down, his eyes locked on hers.

    Shmi Skywalker made no response this time, her brow furrowed, her body still.

    "I'm sure Qui-Gon doesn't want to put your son in danger," Padme said suddenly, uncomfortable with the confrontation they had brought about between mother and son, trying to ease the tension.  "We will find another way..."

    Shmi looked over at the girl and shook her head slowly.  "No, Annie's right.  There is no other way.  I may not like it, but he can help you."  She paused.  "Maybe he was meant to help you."

    She said it as if coming to a conclusion that had eluded her until now, as if discovering a truth that, while painful, was obvious.

    Anakin's face lit up.  "Is that a yes?"  He clapped his hands in glee.  "That is a yes!"

____________________

    In the home of Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn stood silently at the doorway of the boy's bedroom and watched him sleep.  His mother and Padme occupied the other bedroom, and Jar Jar Binks was curled up on the kitchen floor in a fetal position snoring loudly.

    But Qui-Gon could not sleep.  It was this boy - this boy!  There was something about him.  The Jedi Master watched the soft rise and fall of his chest as he lay locked in slumber, unaware of Qui-Gon's presence.  The boy was special, he had told Shmi Skywalker, and she had agreed.  She knew it, too.  She sensed it as he did.  Anakin Skywalker was different.

____________________

    The Jedi folded his arms over his broad chest.  The Force was a complex and difficult concept.  The Force was rooted in the balance of all things, and every movement within its flow risked an upsetting of that balance.  A Jedi sought to keep the balance in place, to move in concert to its pace and will.  But the Force existed on more than one plane, and achieving mastery of its multiple passages was a lifetime's work.  Or more.  He knew his own weakness.  He was too close to the life Force when he should have been more attentive to the unifying Force.  He found himself reaching out to the creatures of the present, to those living in the here and now.  He had less regard for the past of the future, to the creatures that had or would occupy those times and spaces.

    It was the life Force that bound him, that gave him heart and mind and spirit.

    So it was he empathized with Anakin Skywalker in ways that other Jedi would discourage, finding in this boy a promise he could not ignore.  Obi-Wan would see the boy and Jar Jar in the same light - useless burdens, pointless projects, unnecessary distractions.  Obi-Wan was grounded in the need to focus on the larger picture, on the unifying Force.  He lacked Qui-Gon's intuitive nature.  He lacked his teacher's compassion for and interest in all living things.  He did not see the same things Qui-Gon saw.

    Qui-Gon sighed.  This was not a criticism, only an observation.  Who was to say that either of them was the better for how they interpreted the demands of the Force?  But it placed them at odds sometimes, and more often than not it was Obi-Wan's position the Council supported, not Qui-Gon's.  It would be that way again, he knew.  Many times.

    But this would not deter him from doing what he believed he must.  He would know the truth about Anakin Skywalker.  He would discover his place in the Force, both living and unifying.  He would learn who this boy was meant to be.

____________________

    "You should be proud of your son," Qui-Gon said after a moment.  "He gives without any thought of reward."

    Shmi nodded, a smile flitting over her worn face.  "He knows nothing of greed.  Only of dreams.  He has..."

    "Special powers."

    The woman glanced at him warily.  "Yes"

    "He can see things before they happen," the Jedi Master continued.  "That's why he appears to have such quick reflexes.  It is a Jedi trait."

    Her eyes were fixed on him, and he did not miss the glimmer of hope that shone there.  "He deserves better than a slave's life," she said quietly.

    Qui-Gon kept his gaze directed out at the courtyard.  "The Force is unusually strong with him, that much is clear.  Who was his father?"

    There was a long pause, long enough for the Jedi Master to realize he had asked a question she was not prepared to answer.  He gave her time and space to deal with the matter, not pressing her, not making it seem as if it were necessary she answer at all.

    "There is no father," she said finally.  She shook her head slowly.  "I carried him, I gave birth to him.  I raised him.  I can't tell you any more than that."

    She touched his arm, drawing his eyes to meet hers.  "Can you help him?"

    Qui-Gon was silent for a long time, thinking.  He felt an attachment to Anakin Skywalker he could not explain.  In the back of his mind, he sensed he was meant to do something for this boy, that it was necessary he try.  But all Jedi were identified within the first six months of birth and given over to their training.  It was true for him, for Obi-Wan, for everyone he knew or had heard about.  There were no exceptions.

    Can you help him?  He did not know how that was possible.

    "I don't know," he told her, keeping his voice gentle, but firm.  "I didn't come here to free slaves.  Had he been born in the Republic, we would have identified him early, and he might have become a Jedi.  He has the way.  I'm not sure what I can do for him."

    She nodded in resignation, but her face revealed, beneath the mask of her acceptance, a glimmer of hope.

____________________

    "Yes, Master?" his protege responded, alert in spite of the lateness of the hour.

    "I'm transmitting a blood sample," Qui-Gon advised, glancing about guardedly as he spoke.  "Run a midi-chlorian test on it."

    He sent the blood readings through the comlink to Obi-Wan and stood waiting in the silence.  He could feel the beating of his heart, quick and excited.  If he was right about this...

    "Master," Obi-Wan interrupted his musings.  "There must be something wrong with the sample."

    Qui-Gon took a slow, deep breath and exhaled softly.  "What do the readings say, Obi-Wan?"

    "They say the midi-chlorian count is twenty thousand."  The younger Jedi's voice tightened.  "No one has a count that high.  Not even Master Yoda."

    No one.  Qui-Gon stood staring out into the night, staggered by the immensity of his discovery.  Then he let his gaze wander back toward the hovel where the boy was sleeping, and stiffened.

____________________

    Anakin walked home with his mother and C-3PO, still wrapped in the euphoria of his victory, but wrestling as well with his sadness over the departure of Padme.  He hadn't thought about what would happen to her if he won the Boonta Eve, that it would mean Qui-Gon would secure the hyperdrive generator he needed to make their transport functional.  So when she bent to kiss and hug him good-bye, it was the first time he had given the matter any serious thought since her arrival.  He was stunned, caught in a mix of emotions, and all of a sudden he wanted to tell her to stay.  But he couldn't bring himself to speak the words, knowing how foolish they would sound, realizing she couldn't do so in any case.

    So he stood there like a droid without its vocoder, watching her ride away behind Qui-Gon, thinking it might well be the last time he would ever see her, and wondering how he was going to live with himself if it was.

____________________

    He was just approaching the connector to Mos Espa Way when a Rodian youngster, bigger than himself, blocked his way.  Anakin had cheated, the Rodian sneered.  He couldn't have won the Boonta Eve any other other way.  No slave could win anthing.

    Anakin was on top of him so fast the bigger being barely had time to put up his arms in defense before he was on the ground.  Anakin was hitting him as hard and fast as he could, not thinking about anything but how angry he was, not even aware that the source of his anger had nothing to do with his victim and everything to do with losing Padme.

    Then Qui-Gon, returned by now with the eopies, was looming over him.  He pulled Anakin away separating the two fighters, and demanded to know what this was all about.  Somewhat sheepishly, but still angry, Anakin told him.  Qui-Gon studied him carefully, disappointment registering on his broad features.  He fixed the young Rodian with his gaze and asked him if he still believed Anakin had cheated.  The youngster, glowering at Anakin, said he did.

    Qui-Gon put his hand on Anakin's shoulder and steered him away from the crowd, not saying anything until they were out of hearing.

    "You know, Annie," he said then, his deep voice thoughtful, "fighting didn't change his opinion.  The opinions of others, whether you agree with them or not, are something you have to learn to tolerate."

____________________

    "Annie has been freed," he said.

    The boy's eyes went wide.  "What?"

    Qui-Gon glanced down at him.  "You are no longer a slave."

    Shmi Skywalker stared at the Jedi in disbelief, her worn face rigid, her eyes mirroring her shock and disbelief.

    "Mom?  Did you hear that, Mom?"  Anakin let out a whoop and jumped as high as he could manage.  It wasn't possible!  But he knew it was true, knew that it really was!

    He managed to collect himself.  "Was that part of the prize, or what?" he asked, grinning.

    Qui-Gon grinned back.  "Let's just say Watto learned an important lesson about gambling."

    Shmi Skywalker was shaking her head, still stunned by the news, still working it through.  But the sight of Anakin's face made everything come clear for her in an instant.  She reached out to him and pressed him to her.

    "Now you can make your dreams come true, Annie," she whispered, her face radiant as she touched his cheek.  "You're free."

    She released him and turned to Qui-Gon, her eyes bright and expectant.  "Will you take him with you?  Is he to become a Jedi?"

    Anakin beamed at the suggestion, wheeling quickly on Qui-Gon, waiting for an answer.

    The Jedi Master hesitated.  "Our meeting was not a coincidence.  Nothing happens by accident.  You are strong with the Force, Annie, but you may not be accepted by the Council."

    Anakin heard what he wanted to hear, blocking away everything else, seeing the possibilities that had fueled his hopes and dreams for so long come alive in a single moment.

    "A Jedi?" he gasped.  "You mean I get to go with you in your starship and everything!"

    And be with Padme again!  The thought struck him like a thunderbolt, wrapping him in such expectancy that it was all he could do to listen to what the Jedi Master said next.

    Qui-Gon knelt before the boy, his face somber.  "Anakin, training to be a Jedi will not be easy.  It will be a challenge.  And if you succeed, it will be a hard life."

    Anakin shook his head quickly.  "But it's what I want!  It's what I've always dreamed about!"  He looked quickly to his mother.  "Can I go, Mom?"

    But Qui-Gon drew him back with a touch.  "This path has been placed before you, Annie.  The choice to take it must be yours alone."

    The man and the boy stared at each other.  A mix of emotions roiled through Anakin, threatening to sweep him away, but at their forefront was the happiness he felt at finding the thing he wanted most in all the world within reach - to be a Jedi, to journey down the space lanes of the galaxy.

    He glanced quickly at his mother, at her worn, accepting face, seeing in her eyes that in this, as in all things, she wanted what was best for him.

    His gaze returned to Qui-Gon.  "I want to go," he said.

    "Then pack your things," the Jedi Master advised.  "We haven't much time."

    "Yippie!" the boy shouted, jumping up and down, anxious already to be on his way.  He rushed to his mother and hugged her as hard as he could manage, then broke away for his bedroom.

    He was almost to the doorway when he realized he had forgotten something.  A chill swept through him as he wheeled back to Qui-Gon.  "What about Mom?" he asked hurriedly, eyes darting from one to the other.  "Is she free, too?  You're coming, aren't you, Mom?"

    Qui-Gon and his mother exchanged a worried glance, and he knew the answer before the Jedi spoke the words.  "I tried to free your mother, Annie, but Watto wouldn't have it.  Slaves give status and lend prestige to their owners here on Tatooine."

    The boy felt his chest and throat tighten.  "But the money from selling..."

    Qui-Gon shook his head.  "It's not nearly enough."

    There was a hushed silence, and then Shmi Skywalker came to her son and sat down in a chair next to him, taking both of his hands in hers and drawing him close.  Here eyes were steady as she looked into his.

    "Annie, my place is here," she said quietly.  "My future is here.  It is time for you to let go... to let go of me.  I cannot go with you."

    The boy swallowed hard.  "I want to stay with you, then.  I don't want things to change."

    She gave him an encouraging smile, her brow knitting.  "You can't stop the change any more than you can stop the suns from setting.  Listen to your feelings, Annie.  You know what's right."

    Anakin Skywalker took a long, slow breath and dropped his gaze, his head lowering.  Everything was coming apart inside, all the happiness melting away, all the expectancy fading.  But then he felt his mother's hands tighten over his own, and in her touch he found the strength he needed to do what he knew he must.

    Nevertheless, his eyes were brimming as he lifted his gaze once more.  "I'm going to miss you so much, Mom," he whispered.

    His mother nodded.  "I love you, Annie."  She released his hands.  "Now, hurry."

    Anakin gave her a quick, hard hug, and raced from the room, tears streaking his face.

____________________

    Once within his own room, Anakin stood staring about in sudden bewilderment.  He was leaving, and he did not know when he would be coming back.  He had never been anywhere but here, never known anyone but the people of Mos Espa and those who came to trade with them.  He had dreamed about other worlds and other lives, about becoming a pilot of a mainline ship, and about becoming a Jedi.  But the impact of what it actually meant to be standing at the threshold of an embarkation to the life he had so often wished for was overwhelming.

    He found himself thinking of the old spacer, telling him that he wouldn't be surprised at all if Anakin Skywalker became something more than a slave.  He had wanted that more than anything, had hoped with all his heart for it to happen.

    But he had never, ever considered the possibility he would have to leave his mother behind.

    He wiped the tears from his eyes, fighting back new ones, hearing his mother's and Qui-Gon's voices from the other room.

    "Thank You," his mother was saying softly.

    "I will watch after him.  You have my word."  The Jedi's deep voice was warm and reassuring.  "Will you be all right?"

    Anakin couldn't hear her reply.  But then she said, "He was in my life for such a short time..."

    She trailed off, distracted.  Anakin forced himself to quit listening, and he began pulling clothes out and stuffing them into a backpack.  He didn't have much, and it didn't take him long.

____________________

    He said good-bye to his mother, braver now, more determined, and walked out the door with Qui-Gon, his course of action settled.  He had gotten barely a dozen meters from his home when Kitster, who had trailed them back from the fight, came rushing up to him.

    "Where are you going, Annie?" his friend asked doubtfully.

    Anakin took a deep breath.  "I've been freed, Kitster.  I'm going away with Qui-Gon.  On a spaceship."

    Kitster's eyes went wide, and his mouth opened in a silent exclamation.  Anakin fished in his pockets and came out with a handful of credits, which he shoved at his friend.  "Here.  These are for you."

    Kitster's dark face looked down at the credits, then back up at Anakin.  "Do you have to go, Annie?  Do you have to?  Can't you stay?  Annie, you're a hero!"

    Anakin swallowed hard.  "I..."  He glanced past Kitster to his mother, still standing in the doorway looking after him, then down to where Qui-Gon was waiting.  He shook his head.  "I can't."

    Kitster nodded.  "Well."

    "Well," Anakin repeated, looking at him.

    "Thanks for everything, Annie," the other boy said.  There were tears in his eyes as he accepted the credits.  "You're my best friend."

    Anakin bit his lip.  "I won't forget."

    He hugged Kitster impulsively, then broke away and raced toward Qui-Gon.  But before he reached him, he glanced back one more time at his mother.  Seeing her standing in the doorway brought him about.  He stood there momentarily, undecided, conflicting emotions tearing at him.  Then his already shaky resolve collapsed altogether, and he raced back to her.  By the time he reached her, he was crying freely.

    "I can't do it, Mom," he whispered, clinging to her.  "I just can't!"

    He was shaking, wracked with sobs, disintegrating inside so quickly that all he could think about was holding on to her.  Shmi let him do so for a moment, comforting him with her warmth, then backed him away.

    She knelt before him, her worn face solemn.  "Annie, remember when you climbed that dune in order to chase the banthas away so they wouldn't be shot?  You were only five.  Remember how you collapsed several times in the heat, exhausted, thinking you couldn't do it, that it was too hard?"

    Anakin nodded, his face streaked with tears.

    Shmi held his gaze.  "This is one of those times when you have to do something you don't think you can do.  But I know how strong you are, Annie.  I know you can do this."

    The boy swallowed his tears, thinking she was wrong, he was not strong at all, but knowing, too, she had decided he must go, even if he found it hard, even if he resisted.

    "Will I ever see you again?" he asked in desperation, giving voice to the worst of his fears.

    "What does your heart tell you?" she asked quietly.

    Anakin shook his head doubtfully.  "I don't know.  Yes, I guess."

    His mother nodded.  "Then it will happen, Annie."

    Anakin took a deep breath to steady himself.  He had stopped crying now, and he wiped the dampness of his tears from his face.

    "I will become a Jedi," he declared in a small voice.  "And I will come back and free you, Mom.  I promise."

    "No matter where you are, my love will be with you," Shmi told him, her kind face bent close to his.  "Now, be brave, and don't look back."

    "I love you, Mom," Anakin said.

    She hugged him one final time, then turned him around so he was facing away from her.  "Don't look back, Annie," she whispered.

    She gave him a small push, and he strode determinedly away, shouldering his pack, keeping his eyes fixed on a point well past where Qui-Gon stood waiting.  He walked toward that point without slowing, marching right past the Jedi Master, fighting back the tears that threatened to come yet again.  It took him only a few minutes, and his mother and his home were behind him.

____________________

    At Anakin's urging, they walked to Jira's fruit stand a short distance away.  Anakin, much recovered from the trauma of leaving his mother, marched up to the old woman and put a handful of credits into her frail hands.

    "I've been freed, Jira," he told her, a determined set to his jaw.  "I'm going away.  Use these for that cooling unit I promised you.  Otherwise, I'll worry."

    Jira looked at the credits in disbelief.  She shook her white head.  "Can I give you a hug?" she asked him softly.  She reached out for him, drawing him against her thin body, her eyes closing as she held him.  "I'll miss you, Annie," she said, releasing him.  "There isn't a kinder boy in the galaxy.  You be careful."

    He left her in a rush, racing after Qui-Gon, who was already moving away, anxious to get going.  They walked in silence down a series of side streets, the boy's eyes taking in familiar sights he would not soon see again, remembering his life here, saying good-bye.

____________________

    Obi-Wan turned to leave.  He stopped when Qui-Gon did not follow, but instead remained standing before the Council.  Obi-Wan held his breath, knowing what was coming.

    Yoda cocked his head questioningly.  "More to say, have you, Qui-Gon Jinn?"

    "With your permission, my Master," the Jedi replied, gaze steady.  "I have encountered a vergence in the Force."

    Yoda's eyes widened slightly.  "A vergence, you say?"

    "Located around a person?" Mace Windu asked quickly.

    Qui-Gon nodded.  "A boy.  His cells have the highest concentration of midi-chlorians I have ever seen in a life-form."  He paused.  "It is possible he was conceived by midi-chlorians."

    There was a shocked silence this time.  Qui-Gon Jinn was suggesting the impossible, that the boy was conceived not by human contact, but by the essence of all life, by the connectors to the Force itself, the midi-chlorians.  Comprising collective consciousness and intelligence, the midi-chlorians formed the link between everything living and the Force.

    But there was more that troubled the Jedi Council.  There was a prophecy, so old its origins had long since been lost, that a chosen one would appear, imbued with an abundance of midi-chlorians, a being strong with the Force and destined to alter it forever.

    It was Mace Windu who gave voice to the Council's thoughts.  "You refer to the prophecy," he said quietly.  "Of the one who will bring balance to the Force.  You believe it is this boy."

    Qui-Gon hesitated.  "I don't presume-"

    "But you do!" Yoda snapped challengingly.  "Revealed, your opinion is, Qui-Gon!"

    The Jedi Master took a deep breath.  "I request the boy be tested."

    Again, there was silence as the members of the Council exchanged glances, communicating without words.

    Eyes shifted back to Qui-Gon.  "To be trained as a Jedi, you request for him?" Yoda asked softly.

    "Finding him was the will of the Force."  Qui-Gon pressed ahead recklessly.  "I have no doubt of it.  There is too much happening here for it to be anything else."

    Mace Windu held up one hand, bringing the debate to a close.  "Bring him before us, then."

    Yoda nodded somberly, eyes closing.  "Tested, he will be."

____________________

    Inside, Anakin Skywalker faced the Jedi Council, standing in the same place Qui-Gon Jinn had stood some hours earlier.  He was nervous as first, brought to the chamber by Qui-Gon, then left alone with the twelve members of the Council.  Standing in the mosaic circle and ringed by the silent assemblage, awestruck and uncertain of what was expected of him, he felt vulnerable and exposed.  The eyes of the Jedi were distant as they viewed him, but he sensed they were looking not past him, but inside.

    They began to question him then, without preliminary introductions or explanations, without expending any effort at all to make him feel comfortable or welcome.  He knew some of them by name, for Qui-Gon had described a few, and he was quick to put faces to names.  They questioned him at great length, testing memory and knowledge, seeking insights at which he could only guess.  They knew of his existence as a slave.  They knew of his background on Tatooine, of his mother and his friends, of his Podracing, of Watto, of everything factual and past, of the order of life.

    Now Mace Windu was looking at a screen the boy could not see, and Anakin was giving names to images that flashed across its liquid surface.  Images appeared in Anakin's mind with such speed he was reminded of the strange blur of desert and mountains whipping past his cockpit during a Podrace.

    "A bantha.  A hyperdrive.  A proton blaster."  The images whizzed through his mind as he named them off.  "A Republic cruiser.  A Rodian cup.  A Hutt speeder."

    The screen went blank, and Mace looked up at the boy.

    "Good, good, young one," the wizened alien called Yoda praised.  The sleepy eyes fixed on him, intent behind their lids.  "How feel you?"

    "Cold, sir," Anakin confessed.

    "Afraid, are you?"

    The boy shook his head.  "No, sir."

    "Afraid to give up your life?" the dark one called Mace Windu asked, leaning forward slightly.

    "I don't think so," he answered, then hesitated.  Something about the answer didn't feel right.

    Yoda blinked and his long ears cocked forward.  "See through you, we can," he said quietly.

    "Be mindful of your feelings," Mace Windu said.

    The old one called Ki-Adi-Mundi stroked his beard.  "Your thoughts dwell on your mother."

    Anakin felt his stomach lurch at the mention of her.  He bit his lip.  "I miss her."

    Yoda exchanged glances with several others on the Council.  "Afraid to lose her, I think."

    Anakin flushed.  "What's that got to do with anything?" he asked defensively.

    Yoda's sleepy eyes fixed on him.  "Everything.  To the Dark side, fear leads.  To anger and to hate.  To suffering."

    "I am not afraid!" the boy snapped irritably, anxious to leave this discussion and move on.

    Yoda did not seem to hear him.  "The deepest commitment, a Jedi must have.  The most serious mind.  Much fear in you, I sense, young one."

    Anakin took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  When he spoke, his voice was calm again.  "I am not afraid."

    Yoda studied him a moment.  "Then continue, we will," he said softly, and the examination resumed.

____________________

    In the Temple of the Jedi, Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Anakin Skywalker stood before the Council of twelve.  Clustered together at the center of the speaker's platform, they faced the circle of chairs in which the members of the Council were seated, and awaited their decision on the boy.  Outside, the light was pale and wan as twilight replaced sunset, and night began its slow descent across the city.

    "Finished, we are, with our examination of the boy," Yoda advised in his guttural, whispery voice.  His eyes were lidded and sleepy, his pointed ears pricked forward.  "Correct, you were, Qui-Gon."

    Mace Windu nodded his concurrence, his dark, smooth face expressionless in the dim light.  "His cells contain a very high concentration of midi-chlorians."  There was emphasis on the word very as he spoke.

    "The Force is strong in him," Ki-Adi-Mundi agreed.

    Qui-Gon felt a rush of satisfaction on hearing the words, a vindication of his insistence on freeing the boy from his life on Tatooine and bringing him here.  "He is to be trained, then," he declared in triumph.

    There was an uncomfortable silence as the Council members looked from one to the other.

    "No," Mace Windu said quietly.  "He will not be trained."

    Anakin's face crumpled, and there were tears in his eyes as he glanced quickly at Qui-Gon.

    "No?" the Jedi Master repeated in disbelief, shocked almost speechless.  He tried hard to ignore the I-told-you-so look on Obi-Wan's face.

    Mace Windu nodded, dark eyes steady.  "He is too old.  There is already too much anger in him."

    Qui-Gon was incensed, but he held himself in check.  This decision made no sense.  It could not be allowed to stand.  "He is the chosen one," he insisted vehemently.  "You must see it!"

    Yoda cocked his round head contemplatively.  "Clouded, this boy's future is.  Masked by his youth."

____________________

    Aboard the Queen's transport, coming out of hyperspace and approaching the Naboo star system, Qui-Gon Jinn paused on his way to a meeting with the Queen to study Anakin Skywalker.

    The boy stood at the pilot's console next to Ric Olie.  The Naboo pilot was bent forward over the controls, pointing each one out in turn and explaining its function.  Anakin was absorbing the information with astonishing quickness, brow furrowed, eyes intense, concentration total.

    "And that one?"  The boy pointed.

    "The forward stabilizer."  Ric Olie glanced up at him expectantly, waiting.

    "And those control the pitch?"  Anakin indicated a bank of levers by the pilot's right hand.

    Ric Olie's weathered face broke into a grin.  "You catch on pretty quick."

    As quick as anyone he had ever encountered, Qui-Gon Jinn thought.  That was the reason Anakin was so special.  It gave evidence of his high midi-chlorian count.  It suggested anew that he was the chosen one.

    The Jedi Master sighed.  Why could the Council not accept that this was so?  Why were they so afraid of taking a chance on the boy, when the signs were so clear?

    Qui-Gon found himself frustrated all over again.  He understood their thinking.  It was bad that Anakin was so old, but not fatal to his chances.  What troubled them was not his age, but the conflict they sensed within him.  Anakin was wrestling with his parentage, with his separation from his mother, his friends, and his home.  Especially his mother.  He was old enough to appreciate what might happen, and the result was an uncertainty that worked within him like a caged animal seeking to break free.  The Jedi Council knew that it could not tame that uncertainty from without, that it could be mastered only from within.  They believed Anakin Skywalker too old for this, his thinking and his beliefs too settled to be safely reshaped.  He was vulnerable to his inner conflict, and the Dark side would be quick to take advantage of this.

    Qui-Gon shook his head, staring over at the boy from the back of the cockpit.  Yes, there were risks in accepting him as an apprentice.  But few things of worth were accomplished in life without risk.  The Jedi Order was founded on strict adherence to established procedures in the raising and educating of young Jedi, but there were exceptions to all things, even this.  That the Jedi Council was refusing even to consider that this was an instance in which an exception should be made was intolerable.

    Still, he must keep faith, he knew.  He must believe.  The decision not to train Anakin would be reconsidered on their return and reversed.  If the Council did not embrace the boy's training as a Jedi voluntarily, then it would be up to Qui-Gon to find a way to make it do so.

____________________

    Then something moved at the end of a long corridor, no more than a shadow, and deep inside, his instincts kicked into high gear, shrieking at him in a frenzy of need.  He didn't know if what he was seeing was a weapon or a machine or something else, and it didn't matter.  He was back in the Podraces, locked in battle with Sebulba, and he could see what no one else could, what was hidden from all others.  He reacted without thinking, responding to a voice that spoke to him alone, that whispered always of the future while warding him in the present.

____________________

    Obi-Wan did not pause to consider what it had cost him to win his victory over Darth Maul, but rushed immediately to Qui-Gon.  Kneeling at the Jedi Master's side, he lifted his head and shoulders and cradled him gently in his arms.

    "Master!" he breathed in a whisper.

    Qui-Gon's eyes opened.  "Too late, my young Padawan."

    "No!"  Obi-Wan shook his head violently in denial.

    "Now you must be ready, whether the Council thinks you so or not.  You must be the teacher."  The strong face twisted in pain, but the dark eyes were steady.  "Obi-Wan.  Promise me you will train the boy."

    Obi-Wan nodded instantly, agreeing without thinking, willing to say or do anything that would ease the other's pain, desperate to save him.  "Yes, Master."

    Qui-Gon's breathing quickened.  "He is the chosen one, Obi-Wan.  He will bring balance to the Force.  Train him well."

    His eyes locked on Obi-Wan's and lost focus.  His breathing stopped.  The strength and the life went out of him.

____________________

    But it was a nine-year-old boy who had saved them all.  Even without knowing exactly what he was doing, Anakin Skywalker had flown a starfighter into the teeth of the Federation defense, penetrated their shields, landed in the belly of the Neimoidian flagship, torpedoed the ship's reactor, and set off a chain reaction of explosions that destroyed the control station.  It was the destruction of the central transmitter that had caused the droid army to freeze in place, their communications effectively short-circuited.  Anakin claimed not to have attacked with any sort of plan in mind or fired his starfighter's torpedoes with any expectation of hitting the reactor.  But after hearing the boy's tale and questioning him thoroughly, Obi-Wan believed Anakin was guided by something more than the thinking of ordinary men.  That extraordinary midi-chlorian count gave the boy a connection to the Force that even Jedi Masters on the order of Yoda might never achieve.  Qui-Gon, he now believed, had been right.  Anakin Skywalker was the chosen one.

____________________

    "Master Yoda," Obi-Wan greeted, hurrying forward to meet him, bowing deferentially.

    The Jedi Master nodded.  "Confer on you the level of Jedi Knight, the Council does.  Decided about the boy, the Council is, Obi-Wan," he advised solemnly.

    "He is to be trained?"

    The big ears cocked forward, and the lids to those sleepy eyes widened.  "So impatient, you are.  So sure of what has been decided?"

    Obi-Wan bit his tongue and kept his silence, waiting dutifully on the other.  Yoda studied him carefully.  "A great warrior, was Qui-Gon Jinn," he gargled softly, his strange voice sad.  "But so much more he could have been, if not so fast he had run.  More slowly, you must proceed, Obi-Wan."

    Obi-Wan stood his ground.  "He understood what the rest of us did not about the boy."

    But Yoda shook his head.  "Be not so quick to judge.  Not everything, is understanding.  Not all at once, is it revealed.  Years, it takes, to become a Jedi Knight.  Years more, to become one with the Force."

    He moved over to a place where the fading light shone in through a window, soft and golden.  Sunset approached, the appointed time for their farewell to Qui-Gon.

    Yoda's gaze was distant when he spoke.  "Decided, the Council is," he repeated.  "Trained, the boy shall be."

    Obi-Wan felt a surge of relief and joy flood through him, and a grateful smile escaped him.

    Yoda saw the smile.  "Pleased, are you?  So certain this is right?"  The wrinkled face tightened.  "Clouded, this boy's future remains, Obi-Wan.  A mistake to train him, it is."

    "But the Council-"

    "Yes, decided."  The sleepy eyes lifted.  "Disagree with that decision, I must."

    There was a long silence as the two faced each other, listening to the sounds of the funeral preparations taking place without.  Obi-Wan did not know what to say.  Clearly the Council had decided against the advice of Yoda.  That in itself was unusual.  That the Jedi Master chose to make a point of it here emphasized the extent of his concerns about Anakin Skywalker.

    Obi-Wan spoke carefully.  "I will take this boy as my Padawan, Master.  I will train him in the best way I can.  But I will bear in mind what you have told me here.  I will go carefully.  I will heed your warnings.  I will keep close watch over his progress."

    Yoda studied him a moment, then nodded.  "Your promise, then, remember well, young Jedi," he said softly.  "Sufficient, it is, if you do."

    Obi-Wan bowed in acknowledgment.  "I will remember."

____________________

    Anakin Skywalker stood with Obi-Wan, his young face intense as he fought to hold back his tears.

    A long, sustained drum roll traced the passage of the flames as they reduced Qui-Gon to spirit and ash.  When the fire had taken him away, a flight of snowy doves was released into a crimson sunset.  The birds rose in a flutter of wings and a splash of pale brilliance, winging swiftly away.

    ...

    He looked down at Anakin.  The boy was staring at the ashes of the funeral bier, crying softly.

    He put his hand on one slim shoulder.  "He is one with the Force, Anakin.  You must let him go."

    The boy shook his head.  "I miss him."

    Obi-Wan nodded.  "I miss him, too.  And I will remember him always.  But he is gone."

    Anakin wiped the tears from his face.  "What will happen to me now?"

    The hand tightened on the boy's shoulder.  "I will train you, just as Qui-Gon would have done," Obi-Wan Kenobi said softly.  "I am your new Master, Anakin.  You will study with me, and you will become a Jedi Knight, I promise you."

    The boy straightened, a barely perceptible act.  Obi-Wan nodded to himself.  Somewhere, he thought, Qui-Gon Jinn would be smiling.

____________________

    Across the way, Mace Windu stood with Yoda, his strong dark face contemplative as he watched Obi-Wan put his hand on Anakin Skywalker's shoulder.

    "One life ends and a new one begins in the Jedi Order," he murmured, almost to himself.

    Yoda hunched forward, leaning on his gnarled staff, and shook his head.  "Not so sure of this one as of Qui-Gon, do I feel.  Troubled, he is.  Wrapped in shadows and difficult choices."

    Mace Windu nodded.  He knew Yoda's feelings on the matter, but the Council had made its decision.  "Obi-Wan will do a good job with him," he said, shifting the subject.  "Qui-Gon was right.  He is ready."

    They knew of what the young Padawan had done to save himself from the Sith Lord in the melting pit after Qui-Gon had been struck down.  It took an act of extraordinary courage and strength of will.  Only a Jedi Knight fully in tune with the Force could have saved himself against such an adversary.  Obi-Wan Kenobi had proved himself beyond everyone's expectations that day.

    "Ready this time, he was," Yoda acknowledged grudgingly.  "Ready to train the boy, he may not be."

____________________

    Anakin Skywalker stood with Obi-Wan Kenobi near the Queen.  He was feeling out of place and embarrassed.  He thought the parade wonderful, and he appreciated being honored with the others, but his mind was elsewhere.

    It was with Qui-Gon, gone back into the Force.

    It was with Padme, who had barely spoken to him since he had been accepted for training by the Jedi Council.

    It was with his home, to which he might never return.

    It was with his mother, whom he wished could see him now.

    He wore the clothing of a Jedi Padawan, his hair cut short in the Padawan style, a student in training to become a Knight of the Order.  He had achieved all that he had hoped in coming with Qui-Gon to Coruscant and beyond.  He should have been happy and satisfied, and he was.  But his happiness and satisfaction were clouded by the sadness he could not banish at losing Qui-Gon and his mother both.  They were lost to him in different ways, to be sure, but there were gone out of his life.  Qui-Gon had provided the stability he required to leave his mother behind.  With the Jedi Master's death, Anakin was left adrift.  There was no one who could give him the grounding that Qui-Gon had provided - not Obi-Wan, not even Padme.  One day, perhaps.  One day, each of them would play a part in his life that would change him forever.  He could sense that.  But for now, when it mattered most, he felt all alone.

    So he smiled, but he was sick in spirit and lost in his heart.

    Perhaps, sensing his discomfort, Obi-Wan reached over to put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.  "It's the beginning of a new life for you, Anakin," he ventured.

    The boy smiled back dutifully, but said nothing.

    Obi-Wan looked off at the crowds in front of them.  "Qui-Gon always disdained celebrations.  But he understood the need for them, as well.  I wonder what he would have made of this one."

    Anakin shrugged.

    The Jedi smiled.  "He would have been proud to see you a part of it."

    The boy looked at him.  "Do you think so?"

    "I do.  Your mother would be proud of you as well."

    Anakin's mouth tightened, and he looked away.  "I wish she was here.  I miss her."

    The Jedi's hand tightened on his shoulder.  "One day you will see her again.  But when you do, you will be a Jedi Knight."

29 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 12 years of age)

____________________

    Fear, hatred, anger...  The old trio Anakin fought every day of his life, though he revealed his deepest emotions to only one man: Obi-Wan Kenobi, his Master in the Jedi Temple.

    The Blood Carver stooped slightly on his three-jointed legs.  "You smell like a slave," he said softly, for Anakin's ears alone.

    It was all Anakin could do to keep from throwing off his wings and going for the Blood Carver's long throat.  He swallowed his emotions down into a private cold place and stored them with the other dark things left over from Tatooine.  The Blood Carver was on target with his insult, which stiffened Anakin's anger and made it harder to control himself.  Both he and his mother, Shmi, had been slaves to the supercilious junk dealer, Watto.  When the Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn had won him from Watto, they had had to leave Shmi behind... something Anakin thought about every day of his life.

____________________

    "A very interesting problem you face, and so we all face, Obi-Wan Kenobi."

    Obi-Wan, ever the polite one, had tilted his head as if he were not acquainted with any particular problem.

    "The Chosen One Qui-Gon gave to us all, not proven, full of fear, and yours to save.  And if you do not save him..."

    Yoda had said nothing more to Obi-Wan about Anakin thereafter.

____________________

    This was a place most would find terrifying, where most beings would certainly die, yet he was only a boy, a mere child, a former slave, relying not on Jedi training so much as raw native courage.  He was alone, happy to be alone!  He would gladly live out the rest of his life in this kind of immediate peril if he could simply forget the past failures that haunted him at night, whenever he tried to sleep.  The failures - and the terrifying sense of carrying something beyond his power to control.

    The dark empty boots that trod the worst of his nightmares.

____________________

    This raised his neck hair in a way no static discharge could explain.  It was as if he faced the primitive gods of the garbage pit, the real masters of this place, yet to think this even for a moment went against all of his training.  The Force is everywhere and demands nothing, neither obedience nor awe.

    But this, of course, was what he needed to experience in order to forget.  He needed to strip down to pure savagery, to that place below his name, his memory, his self, where ominous shadows dwelled, and where one could turn in an instant from the light side of the Force to the dark and hardly know they were different.

____________________

    Obi-Wan Kenobi had never felt so close to such a powerful connection with the Force, not in Qui-Gon, nor Mace Windu.  Not even in Yoda.

____________________

    He did not like the fact that he had won.  It seemed wrong that he had stepped so far out of line, and yet had been retained as a Padawan.  He did not like the unease this victory, if victory it was, produced in him.  Above all weaknesses, arrogance was the most costly.

    They keep me here because I have potential they've never seen before.  They keep me in training because they're curious to see what I can do.  I feel like a rich man who never knows whether his friends are true - or whether they just want his money.

    This was a particularly galling thought, and certainly neither true nor fair.  Why do they put up with me, then?  Why do I keep testing them?  They tell me to use my pain - but sometimes I don't even know where the pain comes from!  I worried my mother - and I tested her, again and again, to make sure she loved me.  She sent me away so I could be brought up by stronger people.  So I could control myself.  And I still haven't learned.

____________________

    Anakin dreaded sleep.

    It seemed, in his dreams, that something inside was testing him, something very strong, and it did not care whether it was loved or feared.

____________________

    Anakin sat in the small side seat on the bridge with his elbows propped on his knees, watching Zonoma Sekot.  He had performed his first set of exercises for the day, and his thoughts were particularly clear.  It seemed sometimes, when his mind was settled, when he had tamed his turbulence for the moment, that he was no longer a boy or even a human.  His perspective seemed crystalline and universal, and he felt as if he could see all his life laid out before him, filled with accomplishment and heroism - selfless heroism, of course, as befitted a Jedi.  Somewhere in that life would be a woman, though Jedi did not often marry.  He imagined the woman to be like Queen Amidala of Naboo, a powerful personality in her own right, lovely and dignified, yet sad and shouldered with great burdens - which Anakin would help lift.

____________________

     Many paths to many futures flowed from any single moment, and yet, by being in tune with the Force, an adept could chart the most likely path for his awareness to follow.  It seemed contradictory that one could prepare a path into a future, without knowing what that future would hold - yet that is what ultimately happened, and that is what a Jedi Master could do.

     Obi-Wan was not yet so lofty in his accomplishments, he had told Anakin, but there had been hints that before any mission, any disciplined Jedi - even a mere Padawan - could also do a kind of looking forward.

     Anakin was sure he was doing something like that now.  It felt as if the cells in his body were tuned to a severely faded signal from the future, a voice, large and heavy, as if weighed down, unlike any other voice he had ever heard...

____________________

    Anakin felt as if he were in a gigantic colony of myrmins.

    Then he felt the voices of the seeds.  They are afraid.  The heat is baking them.  Their shells are crisping.

    Most of the heat rose in rippling sheets of air, but as the fuel blazed and embers settled out, the seeds were being roasted like sugar hulls in a campfire.

    Perversely, Anakin shivered as if with cold.

    Obi-Wan put an arm on his shoulders.  Anakin saw that his Master's face was beaded with sweat.  He, too, could feel the seeds in the fire.

    "Something wrong?"  Vagno asked...

    "We're fine," Obi-Wan said.

    But Anakin did not feel fine.  He wanted to curl up and hide, or run, but he knew the seeds no longer had legs, no way of escaping, even if they wanted to.

    "I've never lost a client.  No fear, no fear," Vagno said.

    "The seeds were afraid but did not move under their burden of embers and flame.  Theirs was courage, and also an awareness of fate or destiny.

    The seeds were not nearly as intelligent as a human - they did not really think for themselves - but inside of each was the potential for awareness and intelligence.  The fire was bringing that awareness to the fore.

    This will happen to you.

    Anakin gasped.  He was not dreaming.

    This is your destiny, your fate.

    Obi-Wan had said nothing.  Anakin knew where the voice was coming from, whom it belonged to, but could not believe what he knew.

    There will be heat and death and resurrection.  A seed will quicken.  Will it burn or shine?  Will it think and create or be ruled by fear and destroy?

    And then the voice fell silent.

____________________

    The mind's fear - his worst enemy, the deepest and darkest failing of Anakin Skywalker - was another problem, one he was not sure he would ever overcome.

____________________

    He was taking the Blood Carver away from Obi-Wan, giving his Master time to recover.  It was unfortunate that Jabitha had crawled into the ship.  Anakin was more than just concerned for her safety.

    He could feel his strength returning, and then building.  To his dismay, the primary component of that strength was a red heat of anger.

    It is the way, boy.  Anger and hatred are the fuel.  Stoke them, gather strength.

    Again, the voice, terrifying in its power.  Anakin could not identify its intent - it was raw, the voice of loyalty and survival, and it seemed to sneer at any second-guessing.

    Anakin did not want Jabitha to see what that voice would make him be, what he would become, in order to save Obi-Wan, defeat his enemies, and survive.

____________________

    "You still have honor," Anakin said.  "You can still make up for what you did."  But something else built inside, a shadow far thicker than the descending night.  It could easily fill his being.

    The Blood Carver had hurt Obi-Wan, threatened Jabitha, called Anakin a slave.  For these things there was no possible redemption.  The banked anger threatened to spill over, unconverted, pure and very raw, hot as a sun's core.  Anakin's fingers curled tighter.

    "My benefactor cursed me," Ke Daiv said.

    Let it be done now.  Anakin had made his decision, or it had been made for him.  No matter.

    Anakin let the fingers go straight.

    Ke Daiv closed on the boy, swinging his lance.

    "Stop that," Anakin said coldly.

    "What will you do, slave boy?"

    It was the connection Anakin had sought, the link between his anger and his power.  Like a switch being thrown, a circuit being connected, he returned full circle to the pit race, to the sting he had felt with the Blood Carver's first insult, with the first unfair and sneaky move that had sent Anakin tumbling off the apron.  Then, back farther, to the dingy slave quarters on Tatooine, to the Boonta Eve Podrace and the treachery of the Dug, and to the last sight of Shmi, still in bondage to the disgusting Watto, to all the insults and injuries and shames and night sweats and disgrace piled upon disgrace that he had never asked for, never deserved, and had borne with almost infinite patience.

    Call it instinct, animal nature, call it the upwelling of hatred and the Dark side - in Anakin Skywalker, all this lay just beneath the surface, at the end of its journey out of a long, deep cave leading down to unimaginable strength.

    "No!  Stop it, please!" Anakin yelled.  "Help me stop it!"  The rumbling of his ascending power drowned out this plea for his Master to come and prevent a hideous mistake.  I am so afraid, so full of hate and anger.  I still don't know how to fight.

    Jabitha appeared in the doorway, eyes wide, watching the boy crouched low before the Blood Carver.  Ke Daiv lifted his lance.  What would have once seemed quick as lightning was now, in the eyes of the young Padawan, a slow, curiously protracted swing."

    Anakin raised his hands in the twin and supremely graceful gestures of Jedi compulsion.  Pure willful self flooded his tissues.  The urge to protect and to destroy became one.  He straightened and seemed to grow taller.  His eyes became black as pitch.

    "Stop it, please!" Anakin shouted.  "I can't hold it back any longer!"

____________________

    Ke Daiv stepped toward her and lifted a hand.  She was almost too afraid to look at his face, but when she did, she screamed.  His eyes had turned white, and the flesh around his head and neck had cracked.  He was bleeding profusely, and his dark orange blood dripped down over his shoulders.  He was trying to say something.

    Jabitha backed away, speechless with terror.

    "I tried to control it," Anakin said, and emerged into the twilight.  The pinwheel's purple glory illuminated them with the fading of the dusk.  The Blood Carver lurched forward step by step toward the edge of the field, away from the Sekotan ship.

    "Stop him," Anakin said.  "Please help me stop him."

    Jabitha walked beside the boy toward the pitiful figure of their enemy.

    "Is he dying?" she asked.

    "I hope not," Anakin said as if ashamed.  "By the Force, I hope not."

    "He was going to kill you," she said.

    "That doesn't matter," Anakin said.  "I should never have let it loose like that.  I did it all wrong."

    "Let what loose?"

    He shook his head, trying to erase a nightmare, and grabbed the Blood Carver's arm.  Ke Daiv swung about as if on a turntable and fell to his knees.  Blood dripped from his mouth.

    Jabitha stood before the two, the young boy with the short, light brown hair and the tall, gold-colored Blood Carver who might be dying.  She shook her head in desperate confusion.  "You saved us, Anakin," she said.

    "Not like this," he said.  "He was being brave in the only way he knew, the only way they taught him.  He's like me, but he never had the Jedi to help."  To Ke Daiv, he said, "Please be strong.  Don't die."

    ...

    Ke Daiv spoke in his native language.  Each sound cost him an agony.  By the cadence, he was repeating something familiar, a poem or chant.  He fell to one hand, then lowered himself to the ground.

    Anakin stayed beside him, holding his arm, until he died.  Then the boy rose, turned around once, and screamed, heard only by the mountain, the skies, the broken and charred stones, the crumbling ruins of the Magister's palace.

____________________

    Anakin Skywalker understood the nature of the Force - the many natures of the Force - better then a century of teaching in the Temple could have taught him.  And he understood now that his trial was far from over.  He had to remove Jabitha from the mountain and get back to Obi-Wan, and he had to wrestle with what he had discovered about himself.

    But the wrestling would have to wait.  A Jedi with responsibilities had to put away the personal and get on with his duty, no matter what it might cost him.

____________________

    Anakin felt as if he had been swallowed alive.  He huddled next to his ship, hand on the fuselage, feeling her quiver in the capture harness.  Shoulders hunched, he controlled his rapid breathing and tried to come up with a plan, any plan, to regain control over his life.

    He could not shake the vision of the dying Blood Carver.  Firing lasers and droids were no preparation for his first personal kill, and the way he had done it...

____________________

    Anakin looked up at Tarkin, and his eyes seemed to lose all focus.  Tarkin felt something twitch in his chest, in his abdomen.

    Alarms rang out all around the ship.  Sienar jerked his gaze away from Tarkin and the boy and squinted at the flashing red lights, the wailing of horns.

    Anakin stepped back and pulled in his anger.  I was going to do it again!

____________________

    Anakin cried out for joy, and then felt a hot flash of shame.  He had not believed in his Master or in the near miracles a dedicated Jedi could work, and that shamed him.

29 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 12 years of age)

____________________

    Barely two weeks ago, Yoda and Mace Windu had expressed doubts that Anakin was ready for a mission.  Anakin lacked discipline, they said.  Obi-Wan disagreed.  It wasn't so much a lack of discipline that caused Anakin to break rules and send his droids scurrying over the Temple corridors.  It was partially boredom, he thought.  No matter what he threw at Anakin, the boy mastered it.  He needed more challenges.  Where Yoda and Mace Windu saw a lack of discipline, Obi-Wan saw an emotional restlessness that could not be cured by hard study or physical trials.

____________________

    Anakin gazed at the ship.  "How fast does she go?"

    "As fast as you want," Garen answered.  He looked at Anakin curiously.  "Why do you like to go fast, Anakin?"

    The dreamy, shuttered look came over Anakin's face.  "Because I can leave myself behind," he said, his eyes on the ship.

    Garen glanced at Obi-Wan.  He raised one eyebrow.  It was not a Jedi answer.  Obi-Wan frowned, troubled by it.  There were still places in Anakin he could not reach.

    No.  You will reach them.  Yoda and Mace Windu are wrong.  Qui-Gon was right.  Anakin is not too old to learn.

____________________

    Anakin trudged alongside Obi-Wan wondering about the title of Padawan Learner.  That implied that he was supposed to learn, didn't it?

    Yoda was full of riddles.  Mace Windu spoke in hints and allusions.  Even his Master deflected most talk of the past, except for affectionate or respectful references to his old Master.  Sometimes it seemed to Anakin that everyone at the Temple spoke a different language from the one he knew.  It was at such times that he missed his mother's warm clarity.  But remembering Shmi brought back an ache so deep it never went away.

____________________

    Anakin went into his quarters.  He felt a buzzing in his head, as if his thoughts were so numerous and confused that they could not register.  He could not take in what Obi-Wan had told him.  He could not imagine that such a thing could happen.  How could a Jedi turn to the Dark side?  How could a Padawan betray his Master?  If he hadn't heard the story from Obi-Wan, he would have refused to believe it.

    At last Obi-Wan had shared something real with him.  There were times, especially early on, when Anakin questioned Obi-Wan's motive in taking him on as Padawan.  He knew Obi-Wan had done it because it was Qui-Gon's wish.  Was he a burden to Obi-Wan?  Just a promise made to a dying friend?  More than anything, Anakin longed to have the kind of bond with Obi-Wan that his Master had had with Qui-Gon.  There were times when that closeness seemed very far away.

____________________

    Whatever was in Obi-Wan's past was a wound that went deep.  He understood that.  He had his own wounds.  Maybe someday he would stand as a man, just like Obi-Wan, and feel the burden lift.

    He thought again of Kad, cradling his father as he died, tears falling from his eyes.  There were levels to compassion he still did not understand.  How did a being go about transforming anger into mercy?

    Frustration bit inside him.  Obi-Wan tried to understand him.  He loved his Master for that.  But no one could understand.  Not his fellow students at the Temple, not his teachers, not even Yoda, who seemed to understand so much.  Would he always feel apart from the others because of his background?  And would that feeling of separation mean that he would never become as great a Knight as Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan?  It was his greatest fear.

29 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 12 years of age)

____________________

    Obi-Wan remembered Anakin's angry outburst at Lundi when they were first on the ship.  Anger was dangerous.  Perhaps he should be warning his apprentice about the Dark side - that it was an easy path to power, but also to self-destruction.

    The problem was, he did not know how to put the words together.  He did not know what exactly to say.  And whenever he offered Anakin this kind of guidance, the boy brushed it aside.  It was almost as if Anakin thought that the things Obi-Wan was trying to warn him about did not apply to him.

____________________

    He is so different from me, he thought.  Our relationship is so different from the one I shared with Qui-Gon.

    Of course with Anakin, Obi-Wan was no longer the Padawan.  He was the Master, and it was his job to lead, to teach.  He often found himself wondering if he was ready for this awesome responsibility.  It had all happened so fast - one day he was a Padawan Learner himself, and the next he was Anakin's Master.  He could not help but feel that it was really a role for Qui-Gon.

    Like Qui-Gon, Anakin had a tendency to break the rules.  He often chose to follow his instincts instead of the Jedi Code.  But his decisions, while sometimes rash, almost always got results.  They almost always put the mission a step ahead, and often left Obi-Wan at odds.

____________________

    Obi-Wan rushed onto the bridge, eager to see his Padawan.  But what he saw from the doorway was so surprising it stopped him in his tracks.

    The professor's cage was empty and its door was hung open.  Anakin sat on the floor.  He was cradling Lundi in his lap.

    "I understand now," Lundi said in a hoarse whisper.  "Some things are better left at the bottom of the sea."

    Lundi gasped for air, and Obi-Wan suddenly realized that the Quermian was dying.  He stepped forward and looked briefly into his eye.  He finally saw what he'd always hoped he's see - remorse and fear.

    "I just... just hope it's not too late," Lundi finished.  His fragile body shuddered and went limp, and Anakin laid him gently on the floor.  Dr. Murk Lundi was dead.

    Several emotions clashed inside Obi-Wan.  Confusion, frustration, relief...

    Anakin turned to face him.  "I knew he was going to die," he explained.  "And I didn't think he should end his life in a cage.  So I let him out.  I thought it was the right thing to do."

28 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 13 years of age)

____________________

    Somehow he knew that the terror he'd seen on her face was not just because she could not find him.  It was because of what she had seen.  Of what had almost happened to her.

    But that fear, the fear that his mother could disappear, that she could be hurt or killed, that she could be at the mercy of her own terror, was just too great for him to face.  He pushed the thought of her anguished face away and breathed in her warmth, felt the strength and gentleness of her hands soothing him.

____________________

    As a matter of fact, the Council was divided on Anakin Skywalker's readiness to take on the full rights of a Jedi.  There were those who thought he had come to Jedi training too late.  They worried about the anger and fear that he pushed away deep inside him.  They worried about his early life as a slave, about his fierce ties to the mother who had let him go.

____________________

    He never knew a mission could be so boring.

    If only Krayn would attack!

    Anakin stopped, appalled at the thought that had risen so buoyantly into his mind.  Jedi did not wish for confrontation, but met it squarely when it came.  They looked for peaceful outcomes.  He should not long for a pirate invasion to spice up a dull trip.  It was as wrong as wrong could be.

____________________

    In the beginning, when he'd first arrived at the Temple, he could call up her voice and smile so easily.  He could repeat her soft words to him: The greatest gift you can give me, Annie, is to take your freedom.

    But her voice was growing fainter, and her smile growing dim.  Sometimes he had to struggle to recall the living reality of her face, the texture of her skin.  He had not seen her in four years.  He had been so young when he left.  His greatest fear was that one day she would leave him completely.  That he would lose her like a dream.  Then he would be hollow inside.

____________________

    Obi-Wan Kenobi had been raised in the Temple since he was a baby.  He could not truly know how a childhood could be one of terror and shame mixed with comfort and love.  He only knew this through his intellect, not his experience.  It is one thing to see the effects of a terrible childhood.  It is another to live them every day.  So when his beloved Master told him he must accept his anger and let it move through him, a small, mean voice in Anakin whispered that his Master did not know what he was talking about.  He did not truly know anger.

    How could he let such rage move through him?  Obi-Wan could never understand how it beat inside him, threatening never to leave.  It had the power to consume him.  It frightened him, and Anakin did not want to accept fear, either.  Did this mean he could never be a Jedi Knight?

____________________

    "It is time to pay for your crimes," he said.

    "Not by the likes of you, boy," Krayn sneered.

    Anakin attacked.  He felt no fear.  There was something in his blood, something strange, as though ice now move through his veins.  It was not anger, he told himself.  It did not feel like anger.  It felt like justice.  Purpose.

    ...

    Memories pounded in him, of his mother, of Amee's tears for months after Hala was captured.  He matched Krayn's viciousness with his own, driving him back toward the wall so he would have him at bay.  He saw the first flicker of fear in Krayn's eyes and he enjoyed it.

    "You will die at my hands, Krayn" he said through his teeth.  "You will die at the hands of a boy."

    ...

    Anakin had him now.  He would show no mercy.  Krayn deserved none.  There was no capturing him.  There was only killing him.

    ...

    "Anakin!" Obi-Wan shouted...  His Padawan did not hear him.  On his face was an intensity that Obi-Wan had never seen before.

    Anakin raised his lightsaber to deliver the fatal blow.

    "Don't!" Obi-Wan shouted.

    The lightsaber slashed downward.

____________________

    I will not abandon him, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan privately vowed.  I see what you see.  I see how he struggles.  I see his immense capacity for good.

27 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 14 years of age)

____________________

    Not in living memory - not even among the oldest Jedi Masters - could they remember a Padawan who was as gifted as Anakin Skywalker.  He could have advanced through his Temple training in half the time it had taken him.  From the beginning, he had been far beyond his classmates in lightsaber skills and mastery of the Force.  Yet in matters of the heart and mind, he still had much to learn, as Yoda continually pointed out.

    His teachers had known how gifted he was, but they gave him the same drills and assignments as the other students.  They knew he was bored at times, but it was important not to single him out, not to treat him as special.

    But Anakin was special, and they all knew it.  The trouble was that he knew it as well.

    He had been a unique case from the moment he entered Jedi training at the Temple.  For one thing, he had been allowed to enter despite having passed the usual age.  For another, he had been chosen as a Padawan by Obi-Wan Kenobi from the start.  While the other students wondered when they would be chosen, and by whom, Anakin's destiny was assured.

    Obi-Wan watched Anakin's progress with an eye that was both loving and careful.  In one hand he held Qui-Gon's faith; in the other he held Yoda's caution.  There were times it was hard to balance these two powerful influences.    

____________________

    Ferus Olin had excelled at everything he tried.  Yet no student was jealous of him.  They admired him and wanted to be like him.  He was also popular with the Jedi Council.  Anakin knew they expected great things of him.  There was no one at the Temple who did not speak the name Ferus without praise.

    Except for Anakin.  There was something about Ferus he did not like.  That was not appropriate, of course.  It was not up to Anakin to like or dislike a student.  Judgment was forbidden in the Jedi Order.

    He tried to control the feeling.  He would control it.  He knew well that he couldn't be a Jedi without doing so.

____________________

    Anakin trailed after the others.  His whole body itched to follow the raiders.  He always felt more comfortable in physical activity.  He always ached to move.  But he hoped he was wise enough to realize when it was better to wait.  He just wasn't crazy about the fact that Ferus was the one to suggest it.

    He knew what Obi-Wan would say.  It didn't matter who suggested it.  The outcome was the goal.  Resentment was ego.  He knew all this, but it did not chase the resentment away.

    You can feel the emotion, Obi-Wan would say.  Just let it go.

    Anakin gritted his teeth.  I'm trying, Master.

____________________

    "Failure is part of being a Jedi, too.  The one who does not have to work hard for his gifts will one day fail, as we all do.  He will try his hardest, he will sacrifice everything he has to give, and still he will not win.  I suspect his failure will be rougher than it needs to be.  I wait for that day, and I worry."

    Obi-Wan feared the same for Anakin; Siri had put to words a certain dread he carried in his heart.

____________________

    "I am proud of you," he told him.  "Not only did you act bravely, you worked well with the other Padawans.  I heard how you collaborated on the final plan to rescue us.  You have learned a valuable Jedi lesson.  You submitted your own will to listen to others.  As a result, you gained strength."

    "I was ready to rush after you to fight the droids," Anakin admitted.  "It was Ferus who stopped me.  He was right."  He was also lucky, Anakin thought.  The plan had almost gone awry.  If Anakin had not managed to blast through the rock slide, four Jedi Masters and two Padawans would be dead.

    But no one was bringing that up.  Was Anakin the only one thinking it?

    Obi-Wan would say it did not matter.  What had happened, had happened.  Jedi did not waste their time on ifs.  

    But Anakin couldn't look at it that way.  The ifs were what intrigued him.  The spaces between the rules.

    If Ferus had been more lucky than right, had submitting his will been the right thing after all?  He knew the question was not a Jedi question.  He would not ask it of Obi-Wan.

    It was his question.  Only he could find the answer.

____________________

    "You did not tell the truth," he said.  "You did not truly learn the Jedi lesson.  You didn't learn anything."

    "That isn't so."  Anakin kept his voice steady.  "And it is not your business.  It is my Master's business what I learn."

    "Obi-Wan doesn't see you clearly," Ferus said softly.  "He is a great Jedi Knight, but he is blinded by affection.  But I see.  And I will keep looking.  I will watch you, Anakin Skywalker."

    Ferus turned and strode up the ramp.  Anakin had to stop himself from hurrling after him and tackling him to the floor.  His body shook with rage.

    Take a breath.  Then another.

    Anakin willed his beating heart to slow.  Slowly the red mist before his eyes cleared.

    I will watch you, too, Ferus.  And if there is a battle between us, I will win.

27 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 14 years of age)

____________________

    There was darkness here, but the feeling was confused.  He could not pinpoint why or how the Force was affected.  That was the trouble, Anakin thought ruefully.  He could access the Force easily.  Interpreting it was another matter.  At such times he fully realized why he was still a Padawan, and not a Jedi.

____________________

    Anakin could speak so easily of his feelings.  He often spoke without thinking, often spilled out exactly what was in his heart.  It was behavior that was not like a Jedi.

____________________

    Anakin's mother had given him a great gift.  She had given him an open heart.  His feelings were deep and spontaneous.  That was a good thing.  But they sometimes led him to act too fast, to make quick judgments.

____________________

    Obi-Wan and Anakin reached out and gathered the Force around them.  A fellow Jedi was in danger.  That made their connection to the Force even stronger, made their ability to gather it more urgent.

    Obi-Wan felt the power of Anakin's grasp of the Force.  As always, it staggered him.

27 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 14 years of age)

____________________

    He nodded a greeting at Ferus, who nodded stiffly back.  There was no need to pretend that they liked each other.  Ferus had warned him once that he did not trust him and would keep an eye on him.  This had infuriated Anakin, and he still wasn't over it.  He had let his anger go, but his resentment still simmered.  He knew how a Jedi was supposed to handle that, but he couldn't.

    He could not speak to Obi-Wan about it, either.  He didn't want his Master to know that a fellow Padawan, especially one as gifted and respected as Ferus, did not trust him.

____________________

    Anakin connected to the Living Force as Qui-Gon had.  He had that gift.  What he needed to develop was Qui-Gon's wisdom.  That would only take time and missions.

    And mistakes.

____________________

    Anakin's face was pale.  He had seen death before, but he was still affected by it.  Obi-Wan was glad to see this.  He hoped Anakin would never lose that particular vulnerability.  There had been a time when he had wondered if Anakin failed to connect, a time when he had seen a curious blankness on the boy's face after he had killed in battle.  Since that time, Obi-Wan had watched Anakin carefully.  When he saw his Padawan fell the enormity of a life lost, he was reassured.

____________________

    Tru hung back as Ferus walked off.  "He's just being careful," he told Anakin.

    Anakin's teeth gritted.  "Is that what you call it?"

    "You'll understand him one day," Tru said.  "After you become friends."

    "I will never be friends with Ferus Olin," Anakin answered savagely.

    Tru studied him for a moment.  "I feel... some darkness from you, Anakin.  Your enemy is here.  But Sebulba cannot hurt you anymore.  Remember, Jedi do not have enemies."

    "I just want to win," Anakin said.

    "You mean you want to prevent injury and ensure fairness," Tru corrected.

    Anakin nodded.  "That too."

____________________

    He felt the Force around him and in him.  In moments like this, Anakin felt capable of anything.  The Force was like a gifted companion, a far-seeing guide, a power that gave his muscles strength and his mind and heart vision and will.  He felt at the center of the moving Force.  Ready.

26 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 15 years of age)

____________________

    Anakin watched his Master walk away from him.  There was no doubt or hesitation in how Obi-Wan moved.  Ever.  Anakin wanted to move through his own life with the same assurance.  Yet time and again he found himself confronting miscalculation and error.  Time and again he moved when he shouldn't have moved, said what he shouldn't have said, or turned when he should have stayed still.

    It was times like this when his connection to the Force felt like a burden more than a gift.  It pulsed around him so strongly and he could feel it so easily that he used it to act instead of to strategize.  Obi-Wan had told him the Force must be used for caution and control as well as action.  So far he had not learned that lesson.  It was because he did not understand it.  During the battle he had seen which way the blaster fire would come.  He had exactly determined its movement and speed.  But he had not factored in the notion that Darra would be moving, too.

    If it had been a Temple exercise, it wouldn't have mattered.  Darra would have perhaps received a bruise at most.  She would have landed lightly on her feet, the way she always did, and turned to him with a quick retort and smile.  Instead, she was wounded and in shock.

    Nothing had gone right on this planet, Anakin thought, almost angry now.  He felt lost in a dark world, spinning in a system he did not know.

____________________

    He crossed the room and crouched by Darra.  Her eyelashes cast shadows on her pale cheeks.  There was a fine sheen of perspiration on her skin.  He watched her breathe in and out.

    I'm sorry, he spoke in his mind.

    He felt a presence by his shoulder.  The scientist Tic Verdun looked down at Darra.  "It is hard to see a friend this way, I know."

    "Yes," Anakin said.  He did not want to discuss his feelings with this stranger.

    "Yesterday I would have said that Jedi are used to pain and suffering and thus can bear it better than we do," Tic Verdun continued.  "Today I find I would be wrong.  You seem to feel it more."

    "Not more," Anakin said.  "It's just that we put ourselves in the way of danger.  It is our path.  We see one another's strength.  We see one another at our best.  So we know exactly how much we lose when one of us goes down.  And we feel... if only we could have been the one to fall."

____________________

    "The Force," he said.  "You have to see how it would be intriguing to a scientist.  Something that cannot be seen, cannot be measured.  And it can only be felt by a select few.  Here I am with someone who can feel it and use it.  I saw it happen just a short while ago.  Can you explain how it works to me?  Can you tell me anything at all?"  He added hastily, "or is it forbidden to speak of it?"

    "It is not forbidden," Anakin said.  "But it is not done."

    Tic wrapped his arms around his knees.  "I see."

    Now Anakin was afraid he'd been rude.  "It is hard to talk about it.  It is something I can feel around me.  Something I can gather and tap into, like a deep well.  It sustains me and frustrates me -"

    "Frustrates you?" Tic's dark eyes were alive, curious.

    Anakin leaned back against the cold stone wall.  He felt very tired.  "Sometimes.  It is so vast..."

    "That you feel small."  Tic gave a sad smile.  "I study the galaxy.  I know how that feels.  How simple it is, and yet how intricate and complex.  It is all around you and you are at the center of it, yet you are nothing compared to it."

    "Yes," Anakin said.  Tic had put into words what he had been feeling.  No one had ever done that before.  Not even Obi-Wan.  Sometimes the Force made him feel... lonely.

    "And you will never truly understand it," Tic added softly, "yet you will spend your life trying.  And sometimes you ask yourself, is it worth it?  Is it foolish of you to devote yourself to trying to know the unknowable?"  He laughed.  "All I know is, it can't be wise."

    "Wisdom is not what we seek," Anakin said, repeating a Jedi saying.  "Wisdom can only be found."

____________________

    "Argue with you I will not," Yoda said.  "Your decision, this is.  But think I do that you need a better reason to spend time on this.  Heard I have that your Padawan needs you.  Events on Haariden marked him, they have."

    "Yes," Obi-Wan said.  "He feels responsible for Darra's injury.  She'll be fine, but she lost her lightsaber.  He feels terrible about that.  And I was not happy with his actions during the battle."

    "Lightsaber skills, important they are," Yoda said.  "How to use as well as how not to use.  When to move as well as when not to move.  Restraint, your young Padawan needs, as well as direction."

    "I've spoken to him," Obi-Wan said.  "He listens.  Yet I've come to see that Anakin really learns by doing.  With every mission, he grows."

    "Yet sometimes one Knight is not enough to teach a Padawan," Yoda said.

____________________

    "I called it a draw, but you lost," Soara said.  "And you lost in the worst sort of way."

    Anakin looked at her with new attention, surprised.  "What?"

    "If you want to become great, you must fight without emotion," Soara said.  "You obviously have not learned this.  You must fight without anger, without fear, without rage.  Without ego."

    "Without ego?  But-"

    "No buts.  Listen.  On Haariden, you made the same mistake.  Because you know Darra, you rushed in to protect her.  Today you protected Tru.  You think you are doing this as a mark of friendship.  But you're really doing it to boost your own ego."

    "My own ego?"  Anakin was astonished.

    Soara crossed her arms.  "You know, Anakin, things will go a lot faster if you don't repeat everything I say.  Yes, your own ego.  You think you're a better fighter than your friends.  You think you're faster.  You think you need to go easy on them.  Let me tell you something.  You're not better.  As a matter of fact, you're a good deal worse."

    The words stung.  Anakin felt his face grow hot.  The evening wind was cool and drying his sweat.

    Soara whirled and kicked backward at his hand.  He did not even feel the blow, but his lightsaber was suddenly shooting out of his hand and clattering to the stone pavement.

    "And another thing," she said.  "Never let down your guard."

    Anakin picked up the hilt of his lightsaber and stuck it in his belt.  He vowed to himself that Soara Antana would not take him by surprise again.  He would use what she gave him.  He would absorb her hard words and her lessons.  By the end of this tutorial, he would change her opinion about him.  He would be the best Padawan she'd ever taught.

____________________

    He landed and looked up.  Soara had seen everything.  He had never fought so well.

    She called down from the cliff, "Thank you, Ferus.  Stay there, Anakin."

    "Good fight," Ferus said, sticking his training lightsaber in his belt.  "Except for one thing."

    "What one thing?" Anakin asked, irritated.  He wiped the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve.

    Ferus only smiled.  Then he walked off.

    Anakin jammed his lightsaber hilt into his belt.  No one could get to him like Ferus could.

    Soara walked toward him.  "That was your last lesson," she said.

    Anakin was surprised and pleased.  She must have seen how seamlessly he had connected with the Force.

    "Before this, I had been impressed with your gifts," Soara said.  "I had thought you had the potential to be one of the great Jedi fighters of all time.  I thought I could teach you.  Now I have grave doubts about you, Anakin."

    Anakin couldn't believe what he was hearing.  "What did I do wrong?"

    "That question is the problem," Soara said, shaking her head.  "That is what is wrong.  You don't know what you did.  Didn't you feel your anger, Anakin?  Didn't you realize it was fueling the battle?"

    "Obi-Wan told you that Ferus and I do not get along," Anakin said sullenly.

    "Obi-Wan didn't need to tell me," Soara snapped.  "I saw it.  Not from Ferus.  From you."

    "He wanted to win," Anakin said.  "I saw triumph in his eyes when he surprised me."

    "And it made you angry," Soara sighed.  "Ferus did not fight from his emotion, Anakin.  If you saw triumph in his eyes, he absorbed it and went on.  That is the lesson you must learn.  You will feel the emotion.  You must let it go."

    To his surprise, she suddenly strode forward and grabbed him by the shoulders.  "You must do this, Anakin.  You must learn this lesson.  It is the most important one of all."

    He didn't know what to say.  He could promise her that he would learn it, but his promise would mean nothing.  He knew that as a Jedi only his actions would convince her.

    "Thank you for the time you devoted to teaching me," he said.

    She dropped her hands.  Now sadness was in her eyes.  That was the worst thing of all.

____________________

    What he did not know was how to sort out his feelings about Granta Omega.  He was not naive enough to think that evil announced itself by knocking on one's door with an iron fist.  But he had not expected evil to come cloaked in quite so much charm.

    He had enjoyed the earlier time he'd spent with Granta Omega.  When he's known him as Tic Verdun, he had laughed at the things he said and felt warmed by his friendship.  They had not known each other long, but Anakin had to admit it: he'd felt kinship with Tic.  On Haariden, he had offered him friendship.  He had made him feel a little less alone.

    How could he reconcile his feelings with the knowledge that Omega's one desire was to worship at the heart of evil?  An evil that had murdered the one being who had saved Anakin from a life of slavery: Qui-Gon Jinn.

25 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 16 years of age)

____________________

    The Council believed that Anakin was ready for more independence, but no doubt they had chosen Ferus as a counterbalance.  His stability would keep Anakin's impulsiveness in check.

    Or so they believed.

    Obi-Wan watched the cruiser shoot into a space-lane, suddenly reverse engines, and drop into a lane several levels below between an airspeeder and an air taxi with barely a millimeter to spare.  Obi-Wan shook his head ruefully.  There was no doubt in his mind that Anakin had suggested the close maneuver just to annoy Ferus.

    He was glad Mace Windu had not seen it.

    He watched the cruiser until it disappeared into the dusk.  Yes, the Council was wise.  Wiser than him.  No doubt about that.  Yet he knew his Padawan better than the Council, and his uneasiness gathered within him, as dark and heavy as the coming storm.

____________________

    Slowly, he began to find it strange and liberating to be just another student.  From the moment he had arrived at the Temple, he was whispered about.  As the Chosen One, the other students had kept an eye on his progress.  Some were envious, some polite, some friendly, and some steered clear of him completely.  But everyone noticed him.  It was something that had been difficult for him in the beginning, but he had gotten used to it.  Obi-Wan had told him that it was the best preparation for being a Jedi.  He had to learn to screen out what others thought or speculated.  He had to concentrate on his own path.

____________________

    "All right, I give up the battle," Marit said from behind him.

    He turned.  "I didn't know we were in a war."

    She held up the stone.  "You know I have this.  Don't you want it back?"

    "Yes," Anakin said.  Even in the gloom, the river stone shone, its shiny black surface like a mirror full of reflected light.

    "And you didn't report me."

    "No."

    "This stone is important to you.  I can tell.  Why?"

    "It was a gift," Anakin said.

    "From your father?"

    Longing burst inside him.  He did not have a father.  Shmi had been very clear about that.  He didn't understand it, but he accepted it.  He did not think about his lack; he never had.  But unexpectedly the ache would well up in him and take him by surprise.

    Then he thought of Obi-Wan, and the ache went away.

____________________

    All his life, he had known only two ways to live: as a slave, or as a Jedi.  As a young boy on Tatooine he had looked to the Jedi as the most free beings in the galaxy.  Even before he knew much about them, he had dreamed of being a Jedi.

    But was being a Jedi being free?  Or had he traded one form of slavery for another?

    The thought was so shocking that Anakin couldn't face it once he dredged it up.  He tucked it away in the place in his mind that he did not visit.  It was a place where fear ruled.  He never went there, not even in the middle of the night when he woke, his head full of dreams, and did not know where he was or why his mother was not near.

____________________

    Elation roared through Anakin.  Then he realized something startling.  He hadn't been glad because of the Jedi mission.  He'd been glad because he wanted to go.  Not for the Jedi.  For himself.

____________________

    Anakin quickly filled in Ferus on what had happened.

    Ferus frowned.  "You told Marit that you would go?"

    "I think I should," Anakin said.  "I still have a feeling about Gilliam."

    "That's fine," Ferus said.  "But penetrating a planet's airspace?  You can't do that."

    "No one will be hurt."

    "How can you be sure of that?  Are you saying that no one will fire their laser cannons?  Are you saying that if they fire on you or the others, you won't fire back?  Think about it, Anakin!  And what about the reaction in the Senate?  This will be seen as an unprovoked attack on Andara."

    "Not unprovoked," Anakin argued.  "Senator Tarturi refuses to negotiate a compromise.  This will force him to."

    Ferus shook his head.  "Jedi can't take part in such things.  Have you told Obi-Wan this?"

    "No," Anakin admitted.  "Our next scheduled communication isn't until tonight."

    "We can use the emergency signaling system," Ferus said.

    "But that could blow our cover!  We're on comm-silence.  The school could trace the frequency."

    "We have to risk it," Ferus said.  "I can't believe that you even considered going without consulting him.  Even you should know that -"

    "Even me?"  Anakin took a step toward Ferus, angry now.  "What does that mean, Ferus?"

    Ferus went very still.  "A personal argument is not productive," he said stiffly.  "Will you meet me later and contact Obi-Wan?"

    Anakin counted several beats of his tripping heart.  He accepted his anger and tried to let it go.  He pictured it leaving him like a black storm cloud blown by a high wind, but traces of it clung to him and he could not shake it off.

    "Yes," he said reluctantly.

____________________

    "Ferus is missing!" she exclaimed.  "Don't tell me you didn't know."

    Obi-Wan's mild amusement faded immediately.  "No, I didn't."

    "Didn't Anakin contact you?"

    "Our next scheduled communication isn't until tonight, and I received no emergency signal.  Are you sure about this?"

    "Ferus contacted me via the emergency channel.  I was on a mission and couldn't answer for an hour.  When I tried to reach him, he didn't answer."

    "He never sent me a signal," Obi-Wan said.

    "I think something happened before he could," Siri said.  "His message was cut off.  But he did say that Anakin was taking off on a mission with the secret squad.  They're going to conduct an air strike on the Andaran security transport landing platform."

    Obi-Wan stopped short.  "What?"

    "You didn't know?"

    "Of course not."  Obi-Wan was staggered by this news.  He couldn't absorb it.  A Jedi was missing, and Anakin had not informed him?  Anakin had agreed to take part in an air strike against a non-hostile planet?  It seemed inconceivable.

    "I don't understand," he said.  "Was Anakin captured, or forced to leave with this squad?"

    "No," Siri said.  "It was his own free will.  Ferus was clear about that.  He sounded worried about Anakin."

    Ferus was often worried about Anakin, Obi-Wan thought.  He had noted that already.  Ferus was concerned that Anakin would let down the Order in some way.

    And so he had.  Obi-Wan felt the betrayal like a hard blow to his stomach.  He had trouble getting air.  he struggled with his own emotions, surprised at the depth of them.  He felt betrayed, he realized.  Why hadn't Anakin trusted him?

____________________

    Never had Obi-Wan seen such a display of the Force from a Padawan.  From the great Jedi Masters, yes.  From Qui-Gon, near the end of his life.  But from someone so young?  Anakin's power astonished him.  He had glimpsed it before, but now he had seen it unfurl, and it staggered him.

    He had not a chance to move, to help.  Anakin had been a blur.  He had seemed to be everywhere at once.  He had destroyed ten attack droids, disarmed his aggressors, and disabled two laser cannons without hesitation, with even a slight smile on his face.

    He could see that Siri and Ferus had been just as astonished at Anakin's deep connection to the Force, the way he had seemed to know what was going to happen before it happened, the way he was able to dodge fire before it occurred.  Astonished, yes - and disturbed.

    Unease settled into Obi-Wan's bones, joining his disappointment and the anger he had tried to eliminate from his heart.  To have a Padawan so gifted who was capable of being so wrong - it was his gift to be able to teach him.  It was his burden as well.

____________________

    Obi-Wan was left alone with Anakin.  At last it was time for him to speak to his Padawan.  Yet he could not find the right words.  He knew, glancing at his Padawan's eager face, that Anakin meant well from the bottom of his heart.  If Obi-Wan saw a shadow on that heart, he knew it would pain his Padawan to know it.  In many ways, Anakin was still a boy.  A wounded, loving, anxious boy with great gifts he did not fully understand.

    Yet he was also a young man, close to maturity, who could do great harm.  To others, yes.  To himself, the most of all.

    "They were going to conduct a raid on Andara," Anakin said, tired of Obi-Wan's silence.  "But first they were going to kill me -"

    "I know," Obi-Wan said.  "Everything was on Gilliam's datapad.  Which you would have known if you had searched for Ferus."

    Anakin flushed.  "I didn't know where he was."

    "You did not look."

    "I thought perhaps he was on Ieria or Andara.  I thought the secret squad knew where he was -"

    "You did not even look!" Obi-Wan shouted.  "Your fellow Jedi was missing, and you did not even look!"

    "I thought it best to continue under cover," Anakin said.  His face showed his surprise at Obi-Wan's harshness.  Obi-Wan never raised his voice.  "I had infiltrated the squad.  I thought my best chance of finding both Gilliam and Ferus was to continue."

    "You were willing to participate in a raid that would have started a war," Obi-Wan continued.  He had to struggle to keep his voice level.  He needed to keep as calm as possible.

    "I didn't know about the raid!" Anakin protested.  "I mean, I knew they were going to do something, but it was a dry run, designed to show the Andarans that they had the capability of invading their airspace.  I didn't know they had plans to destroy their fleet.  As soon as I did, I sabotaged the laser cannons."

    "Anakin, you left your fellow Jedi imprisoned and went off on a mission with a group of beings who you had no reason to trust," Obi-Wan said.  "You were wrong at every point.  Can't you see that?"

    Anakin said nothing.

    "You did not contact me to tell me Ferus was missing -"

    "I would have compromised our cover -"

    "You had a responsibility!"  Obi-Wan's voice cut like a laser whip.  "Just as I had one to Siri.  You betrayed me and the Order by your actions.  And your inability to see that troubles me the worst of all."

    "I am sorry, Master."

    Obi-Wan shook his head.  Grief rose in him.  "Those are words you speak so easily, Padawan."

    Anakin's mouth closed in a line.  "I don't know what you want from me."

    Honesty.  Loyalty.  Patience.  Obedience.  Obi-Wan thought these things but did not say them.  Because, after all, they were only words, too.

    "I can only show you the path," Obi-Wan said.  "You must choose to walk on it."

    "I just..."  Anakin stopped.  He took a ragged breath.  "I thought you would be proud of me."

    I am proud of you.  Obi-Wan wanted to say the words.  They were true.  He was proud of so much in Anakin.  But now was not the time to tell him that.

    Or was it?

    Help me, Qui-Gon.

    But no matter how hard Obi-Wan listened, he could not hear the quiet wisdom of his Master.  And now it was too late.  Siri returned and signaled to him.  It was time to go.

    "I will take this matter up with the Council," he said.

    "Of course," Anakin said.  "The Council.  We can't take a step without it."

    "That's enough!" Obi-Wan snapped.  "Come.  The others are waiting."

    Anakin hesitated.  The set of his mouth was stubborn.

    "Come, Padawan."  Obi-Wan's tone rang with authority.  Anakin's hesitation cast a chill on his heart.

    Anakin followed him.  Obi-Wan did not glance back again.

    He felt shaken.  Did Anakin understand that he had violated an essential part of the Jedi Code?  Did he know he had broken something between them?  He had not fully trusted Obi-Wan.  And so Obi-Wan had lost his trust in him.

    Not for good, he tried to reassure himself.  And maybe not for long.

    Still, his step was heavy as he climbed up the loading ramp of the transport.  His anger faded.  Left behind was a feeling he was not used to experiencing.  It was fear.

25 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 16 years of age)

____________________

    The vision came, and the peaceful scene before him fell away.  The rushing water became a rush of air so intense that it hurt his ears.  Images came and went so quickly they were like pulses of light: a massive fleet at his command; a revolt of hundreds of slaves as they shouted his name; striding through the dusty streets of Mos Espa and reaching the door of his old home.  The images stopped and froze only once.  His mother's face as he clasped her against him.  He touched the slave cuffs at her wrists and they fell to the floor.  He heard the clang.

    And then there was as explosion of light and sorrow, and he knew he had lost Shmi, had lost, in fact, everyone he loved, including Obi-Wan.

____________________

    Anakin had been wrong on Andara.  The fact that he had concealed the disappearance of a Jedi still astonished Obi-Wan.  His actions did not take away from the fact that Anakin was special.  When he made mistakes, they were big ones.  His need to be perfect, to be powerful, was a flaw.  Try as he might, Obi-Wan could not show Anakin that if he held himself back, everything would come to him.  Anakin just kept pushing.

____________________

    At least I'm alive, Anakin thought.  I may be stupid, but I'm alive.

    It was a very un-Jedi thought.  Jedi did not berate themselves.  Anakin didn't care.  He felt stupid and careless.  He tried to rearrange himself within the garbage container he found himself in, but there was no room, and whenever he moved, his shoulder send out a scream of protest.  He wasn't hurt badly.  He had landed on his shoulder when the thermal detonator hit.  He has seen it, but not soon enough.  It had exploded, and he'd been hit.

    And dropped his lightsaber.  Something a Jedi was never, ever supposed to do.

____________________

    Yaddle was high above, but he heard her voice clearly.  It was in his head, he realized.

    If you lose your anger find you it will.  Embrace it and disappear it will.  Chosen, you may be.  But for what?  Your question to answer, it is.

    He barely registered her words.  A terrible certainty was growing.  And then everything was suddenly clear to Anakin, as clear as the hard-edged stars.  He realized what Yaddle was about to do.

    "No!" he shouted.  But he could already feel it.  Yaddle was drawing in the great net of the Force she had created, drawing it around her so tightly and fiercely and strongly that Anakin fell to his knees.  He had never felt the Force move like this.  He couldn't speak or move.

    From far below, Granta detonated the explosives.  Anakin heard a sharp pop, nothing more.  The Force grew until Anakin was dazzled.  Instead of exploding, the canister imploded, and Yaddle drew the toxic gas and explosive power in, absorbing them into her body.

    Then she simply disappeared.  A shower of light particles swirled, hung in the air, then evaporated.

    Anakin's face was wet.  Tears flowed and he did not feel them.  The night sky was empty, and Jedi Master Yaddle was dead.

____________________

    Anakin sat, staring at the ground.  He did not feel time passing.  Somewhere in his mind he knew he should find a comlink, find a way to contact Obi-Wan, but the thought was distant and he did not pursue it.

    Yaddle was dead.  He knew it, but he couldn't grasp it.  A member of the Jedi Council, a wise being so practiced in the Force that she was a legend.  A being whose strength and wisdom the Jedi needed in these times.  She had sacrificed himself for him.  Because he had seen a thermal detonator too late.  Because he had been captured.  Because he had been tricked.  A chain of events had brought him to this moment.  At any time he could have changed his course.  Instead he had blundered on.

____________________

    Revenge was on his mind, and it frightened him.  He hated Granta Omega, hated him with a burning rage that threatened to go out of control.  He was grateful Yoda had joined them.  The presence of the great, perhaps the greatest, Jedi Master was as deep and huge as Anakin's rage.  Surely it would keep his anger in check.  He would look to his Master and Yoda for the control he needed.

    He knew that Yoda and Obi-Wan also felt anger and grief.  He saw it in their eyes, felt it in the air around them, noted it in the way they moved and spoke.  Yet they were not deflected from their mission.  He had watched in awe as they exchanged information.  Their shared glances told him that they had both come up with the same plan, at the same time.  Yoda was obviously grief-stricken, yet he had traveled here to finish a job that Yaddle has begun, and he would let nothing stand in his way, not even his own sorrow.

    He had been so wrong, Anakin thought suddenly.  On Andara, he had briefly imagined what it could be like to have no Master, no Council to answer to.  But he needed the Council.  He needed his Master.  They showed him how far he had to go.

    Their inner calm was something he desperately wanted.  He would learn, he promised himself.  On every mission he was brought up short and shown what he needed to concentrate on.  But he would learn.

    If I can get Obi-Wan's trust back.

    Anakin felt as though he were drowning.  Drowning in his guilt.  Everything had changed for him now.  Master Yaddle had died before his eyes, and it had marked him forever.  He knew that as firmly as he knew his own name.  As surely as he knew he would do anything now to be a Jedi Knight.

____________________

    Anakin nodded obediently, but something in his face must have alerted Yoda, for suddenly his gray-blue gaze grew keen.  "Know you do that Yaddle's death was not your fault," he said.

    "I had the vision," Anakin burst out.  "I should have known!"

    "And Obi-Wan and myself?" Yoda asked sharply.  "Told us of the visions you did, and yet know we did not.  Blame us as well, do you?"

    "Of course not," Anakin said.  "But things in the vision started to come true when I was with Omega.  I should never have asked Yaddle to meet with him.  I should have refused.  I should have tried to escape."

    "When you look back, lose your place on the path, you do."  Yoda's voice gentled.  "Learn you will, Anakin, that stars move and stars fall, and nothing at all do they have to do with you."

    Yoda walked off with his Master.  Anakin was grateful for his words.

    Why hadn't his Master said them?  When he's said that Yaddle's death was his fault, Obi-Wan had remained silent.

    He knew in his bones that he had caused a chain of events that led to a Jedi Master's murder.  Even if that didn't make him responsible, he knew it would make it hard for him to sleep at night.

    The vision hadn't been wrong.  The essential truth it had left him with was part of him now.  He felt it inside him like a wound.  It was loss.

25 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 16 years of age)

____________________

    The memory of Yaddle had pulsed through the room.  Anakin had felt the power of every mind and heart focused on one being.  The absence of Yaddle grew until it filled the Great Hall.

    And it is my fault she is gone.

    The blank space had expanded in his mind until it had seemed enormous enough to swallow him.  He could not turn away.  He could not reveal his emotion to the Jedi who surrounded him.  It took all of his discipline, all of his will, to remain with his eyes fixed on the spot.  The grief had coiled around his chest like a great serpent, squeezing the air from his lungs.

    He couldn't forgive himself for the mistakes he had made.  He didn't know how to get to a place where he could forgive himself.

    He still carried that feeling.  He could not find a way to live with grief comfortably, as Obi-Wan could.  Anakin remembered the days immediately following Qui-Gon's death.  Anakin knew that Obi-Wan had been deeply affected by his Master's death, yet Obi-Wan had continued on the same steady path.  How could he have felt so much, and yet not be changed?

    He doesn't feel things as I do.

    Was that it?  Anakin wondered.  Did he feel too much to be a Jedi?  He hadn't yet managed to achieve the distance from the Living Force that other Jedi could maintain.  How could he learn to shut out his feelings, to close a door against them and keep on going?

____________________

    Anakin was powerful.  Anakin was young.  These two facts could collide with the power and heat of a fusion furnace.

____________________

    Anakin's pure connection to the Force meant that in some ways Obi-Wan had little to teach him.  At least it seemed that Anakin was beginning to think that.  Yet Obi-Wan knew he still had so much to give him.  Being a Jedi involved more than commanding the Force - it involved the inner serenity needed to access that Force in the best way.  Was it possible that Anakin had too much power?

____________________

    When Obi-Wan had been blasted into the crater, Anakin hadn't had more than a second to react.  He assumed that his Master could handle whatever was down there.  Obi-Wan could get out by himself.

    Somewhere inside, Anakin knew this was a curious decision for him to make, one that he wouldn't have made normally.  But it seemed logical, too.  Obi-Wan was a Jedi, used to getting out of tight spots.

    Besides, Obi-Wan had always told him not to jump into things, to take his time.  So why shouldn't he?  His first priority was to take care of the droids and get the disk to Typha-Dor.

    Anakin felt the veil slip again.  It was happening more frequently now.  He missed his calm.  He wanted to be back in the garden.  He didn't want to feel fear, or apprehension, or pain.  He wanted to feel serene, as though nothing could touch him.  He wanted it so badly.

    Gundarks in the crater suddenly roared.  Anakin fended off blaster rifle fire and drew closer to the crater.  He thought he heard Obi-Wan calling him.  The call came from within him, as though he heard it in his heart.

    Something tugged at him.  The hook that was buried so deep that he could barely feel it.  He did not want to reach for it.  He wanted it to lay buried.

    Obi-Wan needed him.

    But I needed him.  And when he came, he asked for the disk.  He did not come for me.

    The pain of this thought caused him to grab the remains of the veil.  He wanted to wrap himself into its brand of unconsciousness.

    I don't want to feel anymore!

    Anakin leaped up and severed a droid in two that had the misfortune to pilot his STAP too close to the ground.  Hunks of smoking metal clattered to the rocks below.

    He realized what was wrong, what the essential conflict within him was.  To be a Jedi was to follow his feelings.  But if his feelings tortured him, what was he to do with them?

    Grief.

    Guilt.

    Resentment.

    Shame.

    He had felt all of these things.  Because of leaving his mother, because of Yaddle, because of Obi-Wan.

    I don't want to feel.

    He struck out savagely at a STAP that had come in low, its lone droid pilot firing dual blaster rifles.  He cut the droid's head off.

    "Anakin!"  He could hear Obi-Wan clearly now, his voice strained and desperate.

    I don't want to feel.

    The hook in his heart seared him, and he knew its name.  It was love.

    The love he felt for his Master was lodged firmly within him.  It was a connection that had grown from the first moment Obi-Wan had told him that he would take him and train him.

    He had learned one thing about love: it was besides the point.  It didn't make anything smoother, or better.  Most of the time, it just complicated things.

    Why would he want to feel again, when feelings hurt so much?

    Why would he want to remember Shmi with guilt as well as pleasure?

    Why would he want to revisit his torment over the death of Yaddle?

    Why would he want to take up the burden of caring what Obi-Wan thought or felt about him?

    Because it's right.

    Anakin groaned aloud.  The thing he couldn't get away from, the certainty within him, the essential truth he had learned through all his training at the Temple, that was what he could see now.  He knew what was right.

____________________

    Suddenly he felt the Force fill the cavernous space.  A flash of light appeared overhead, and Obi-Wan heard a whistling noise.  It was Anakin, leaping straight into the circle of gundarks, his lightsaber held in attack position.

    When Obi-Wan had wondered if Anakin had abandoned him, he hadn't blamed him.  He knew their mission demanded that Anakin get to Typha-Dor.  But it had hurt him to think his Padawan could leave him.

    How could he have held such a thought?  Anakin would never have abandoned him.  Anakin would never betray him.

____________________

    Obi-Wan marveled at that.  It was what made Anakin a great Jedi.  His battle mind was total and went everywhere.  He saw every possibility, planned every move, and even planned his escape.

____________________

    It was not that he enjoyed battle.  Battle was a necessity to an end.  It was that battle filled his mind in a way that other things could not.  Focus was absolute.  He felt in the midst of the Force.  With the other Jedi around him, the Force was especially powerful.  It made every decision easy, every move fluid.

____________________

    "Do you ever wonder about detachment, Tru?"

    One of the reasons Tru was his friend was that he didn't have to explain things to him.  "Of course.  It is the hardest Jedi lesson," Tru said.  "I wonder about it all the time.  How can we follow our feelings and yet be detached?  Master Ry-Gaul says that feeling deeply is necessary for all living beings.  It is how we use those feelings that is crucial.  If we let them determine our actions, we can go astray."

    "I guess I still don't know how to free myself," Anakin said.

    "Me neither.  I guess that's why we're Padawans, and they're Masters," Tru said.  "The thing is not to worry."

____________________

    "I hear you're wondering why I didn't tell Obi-Wan about what happened at the prison camp," Anakin said in a challenging tone.

    Ferus gazed at him.  "Yes, I did wonder," he said.  "But then I figured it out."

    "Oh, really?  Why don't you enlighten us?" Anakin suggested.

    "You were afraid to tell Obi-Wan because you enjoyed it," he said.  "You enjoyed feeling nothing.  It even overcame your loyalty."

    "Nothing overcomes Anakin's loyalty to his Master, Ferus," Tru said sharply.  "And it is none of your business, anyway.  You weren't there.  You don't know what happened.  You have no right to judge."

    Ferus seemed to struggle against Tru's words for a moment.  Then he inclined his head.  "You're right, Tru, as always.  I apologize, Anakin.  I shouldn't have said it."

    That's right, Ferus.  You stepped over the line.  But maybe Anakin owed him one, after their mission on Andara.

    "All right," Anakin said.  He noted that Ferus hadn't said he was wrong.  Just that he shouldn't have said it.

____________________

    "You said torment," Obi-Wan remarked, still looking at the sky.

    "Excuse me?"  Anakin pretended confusion, but he knew exactly what Obi-Wan was referring to.

    "You said 'the things that normally torment you don't bother you at all.'  Not the things that trouble you, but torment you."  Obi-Wan turned to face him.  "It was a strong word.  What torments you, Anakin?"

    He looked at the ground.  "Perhaps I spoke more strongly than I meant to."

    "That is not an answer."

    "Sometimes I don't want to be the Chosen One," Anakin said.  The words broke free.  They felt like stones in his mouth.

    "That's not surprising," Obi-Wan said.  "Many gifts can be burdens."

    "The Force is so strong.  I can feel it so much.  I feel so much.  I don't want to feel so much!"  Anakin hardly recognized his voice, choked and aching.  Obi-Wan looked startled at his vehemence.  "Why am I chosen?  Why is it me?  Can't I refuse it?  Can't you let me refuse it?  Can't you take it away?"

    "Anakin -"

    "Take it from me.  Please, Master."  Anakin wanted to fall to his knees.  A deep tide of feeling, of dread, had risen up within him and choked him.  He felt tears in the back of his throat.  Even his friend Tru was afraid for him.  Just as Ferus was.  Just as his own Master was, the person who knew him the best.

    What do they see that I cannot?

    The sudden panic shocked him.  It had sprung up so abruptly.  He hadn't meant to say what he had said.  He hadn't even known he had been feeling it.  Now it felt like the truest thing he had ever said.  The dread was always there.  He lived with it, but he didn't understand it.  He just wanted it to go away.

    The depth of Obi-Wan's shock and compassion showed in his eyes, in the way he gently placed his hands on Anakin's shoulders.  "My Padawan.  I would do anything for you.  I would bear your burdens for you if I could.  But I cannot."

    Anakin bowed his head.  The panic and fear whirled inside him, and he was ashamed.

    Obi-Wan bent closer to speak softly.  He did not release his grip on Anakin's shoulders.  "But I will help you.  I will always help you.  I will not leave you."

    The words reverberated like a bell.  Obi-Wan's touch brought Anakin back to himself.  He raised his head.

    "Things between us have not run smoothly lately," Obi-Wan said.  "But you must never doubt my commitment to you."

    "And mine to you," Anakin said.

24 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 17 years of age)

____________________

    "He is a criminal," Siri said impatiently.  "So why do we have to listen to him?"

    "Because he is a duly elected ruler," Tyro said.

    "But he rigged the elections!" Anakin burst out.

    "That makes no difference," Tyro answered.  "We must still obey the laws of Romin.  And there is a law forbidding any bounty hunters to enter,"

    "We are not bounty hunters," Ferus said.  His dignity rang through his words.  "We are Jedi."

    Tyro swallowed.  "Yes," he said, "but the law says that no one can arrest or transport a galactic criminal off Romin.  And that's what you mean to do.  Teda has made himself wealthy by offering his planet as a refuge to the most-wanted criminals.  They're happy to pay him a hefty bribe in order to relocate to his planet.  In return, he makes sure that any bounty hunters are forcibly expelled.  If his security police find them, they are made to 'disappear.'"

    "Then we'll just go to Romin without Senate approval," Anakin said.

    Ferus frowned.  Obi-Wan noted how Anakin bristled when he saw it.  The two had never gotten along, and Obi-Wan wasn't surprised.  Ferus followed the rules.  Anakin had no hesitation about bending them to get a job done.

____________________

    Anakin nodded.  He bent his head closer to Siri and Obi-Wan as they discussed their next step.  Ferus was silent throughout their entire discussion.  For once, Ferus was the outsider.  For once, it wasn't him.

____________________

    The Jedi walked away several kilograms of credits lighter.

    "I can't believe this," Ferus said.  "Ths children of Romin will never see those credits."

    "Not to mention the plants," Anakin said.

    "This isn't a joke," Ferus said.  "We just paid a fortune to a crook."

    "We knew it was the only way to remain on Romin," Anakin said.  "It does no good to question the decision now."

    "But I'm not questioning it," Ferus said defensively.  "But I don't have to like it, either."

    Obi-Wan listened to their bickering but decided not to interfere.  Anakin and Ferus had to work out their mutual dislike on their own.  Besides, he sympathized with Anakin.  Ferus's self-righteousness could wear on the nerves.  Paying the bribe had been a necessary step.  It is useless to regret it.

____________________

    He had been busy while chatting with Zan Arbor.  He had practiced seeing without looking.  He knew that the intricate and beautiful cabinetry concealed something.  The joinery at the hinges and openings told him that.

    He ran his fingers over the cabinet, calling on the Force to help his instinct, his vision, the very cells on his fingertips.  He wished Anakin were here.  Anakin's Force connection never failed to astonish him, even in his ease with inanimate objects.  Once Anakin had told him that Soara Antana, the great Jedi fighter, had taught him how to let walls speak to him.  Since then, Anakin had seemed to be able to judge the space between molecules as well as the objects the molecules made up.

____________________

    They had seen the rich part of the city, so Anakin and Ferus searched out the scruffier streets, the places where commerce took place.  Here there were small shops and businesses are warehouses, the engine that made the city run.  It didn't take them long to realize how great the poverty of the workers was in contrast to the grand palaces in Teda's section of the city, and they weren't even outside the city walls yet.

    Anakin's heart swelled with disgust.  He had to concentrate to keep his breathing even.  He had grown up with injustice.  He has tasted it in his mouth like the sand that filled the air of Tatooine.  The hatred he felt was bred in his bones.

    "I hope one day Teda will pay for his crimes," Ferus said quietly.  "He is robbing his citizens."

    "He is killing them," Anakin said fiercely.  "You don't know what it's like to be them.  I do."

    He had spoken angrily, dismissively.  But Ferus didn't take offense.  He merely nodded.

    "Yes, you do," he agreed.  "That is your great strength, Anakin."

    His strength?  Anakin had always thought of it as his weakness.

____________________

    "An invitation could've been sent to our villa.  He suspects us of something," Ferus said.

    "He just doesn't know what," Anakin said.  "But we'll be gone before he figures it out.  Well, I guess we should back."

    "I guess," Ferus said.  "It's hard to know when we're done, isn't it?  We had no clear objective.  I like a clear objective.  Otherwise I feel like I'm getting it wrong."

    Anakin looked at him curiously as they began to walk.  "I didn't think you ever thought you were wrong."

    "I know that's what other Padawans think.  It's because I try not to let it show.  Don't you?"

    Anakin snapped his mouth shut.  Just when he thought he'd have a normal conversation with Ferus, he got caught up short again.  Ferus was trying to trap him.  He wanted him to admit weakness so he'd so he'd have something on him.

____________________

    Anakin looked at Ferus.  It was strange.  He didn't even like Ferus, but now that they were together in this situation, he could read him without speaking.  They were in tune.  They needed to get more information.  To do that, they had to draw Joylin out.  They would do it in tandem.

    Ferus shook his head.  "I'm sorry, but we have to refuse."

    Joylin's face tightened.  "Can you tell me your objections?"

    "Delighted," Ferus said.  "You're asking us to stake out future on a bet.  That normally wouldn't be a problem.  We risk our future all the time.  But the reason we're successful is that we're careful.  You're asking us to make a powerful man our enemy, just when he's offered us safe refuge."

    "This is not safe refuge," Joylin argued.  "I assure you, your protection will disappear.  Unless you throw your support to the ultimate winners."

    "But if we don't steal the codes, you have no chance," Ferus argued back.

    "There will still be a revolt," Joylin said.  "It just won't be bloodless.  You will be in more danger the other way, because I won't protect you.

    Ferus started to say something, but Anakin broke in.  It was time to draw Joylin in.  Sometimes Anakin wasn't sure if it was the Force or his instincts, but he was getting better at seeing inside beings, sensing their fears and motivations.

____________________

    "He tells us there is no risk, but of course there is risk," Ferus said later that evening.  Obi-Wan, Siri, Anakin, and Ferus had eaten a meal around a tiled table in a small, lovely room overlooking the garden.  They were careful to speak nothing of consequence during the meal.  They had to assume that the villa had listening devices.  But afterward they had gone into the garden.  Then they had continued the discussion that had begun when Anakin and Ferus had first returned to the villa and beckoned to Obi-Wan and Siri to come outside.

    "It's a risk worth taking," Anakin said.  Obi-Wan was glad to hear that there was not the usual edge in his voice.  Anakin was disagreeing with Ferus.  That was usual.  But he was doing it without resentment.  That was good.

    Their adventure together had brought Anakin and Ferus closer.  Obi-wan didn't delude himself that they were friends.  But he did think something had changed.

____________________

    Siri was hanging back, letting the two apprentices discuss the situation.  It was good for them to do so, and they were doing it well.

    "If we help them, we will be actively supporting an overthrow of power on a planet," Ferus said.  "We have no Senate authorization to do so."

    "We are not the ones overthrowing Teda," Anakin objected.  "And the citizens of Romin are suffering.  If we can help them and achieve our mission, why shouldn't we?"

    "Because it can get out of control," Ferus argued.  "Joylin can surprise us.  We don't know anything about this resistance movement.  We don't know who they are or what they want, apart from overthrowing Teda."

    "They are an established resistance group," Siri broke in.  "I contacted Jocasta Nu to ask about them.  They have been put down in brutal reprisals, but the movement has been growing steadily in response to Teda's crackdowns.  Madame Nu believes there may be support within Teda's government as well.  They, too, are tired of living in fear.  Teda's prisons are notorious and overcrowded, and you earn a harsh sentence if you displease him.  She would not be surprised if many in the army desert.  Many of them have families who live outside the wall.  They know firsthand the misery and poverty there."

    "You see?" Anakin said.  "Joylin and his group are fighting for justice.  As we are.  We can help them and bring Zan Arbor back to the prison world.  You're making this complicated, Ferus.  It isn't."

____________________

    Obi-Wan followed a path crowded with bushes that suddenly opened into a small grassy clearing.  Ferus sat cross-legged in the middle of the clearing, his eyes closed.  Obi-Wan stopped, not wishing to disturb him.

    He was turning to go back to the house when Ferus spoke.

    “You couldn’t sleep either, Master Kenobi?”

    Obi-Wan moved forward.  He sat on the grass next to Ferus.  It was slightly damp and smelled sweet.

    “There are many questions on my mind,” Obi-Wan said.  “Sleep won’t come.”

    “We face a great enemy,” Ferus said.  “And now we find that she’s met with a greater one.”

    “Exactly.”

    “And that is why you and my Master made your decision this evening,” Ferus said.

    “You don’t agree.”  Obi-Wan spoke carefully.

    “I don’t disagree,” Ferus said.  “I recognize that I don’t have the experience to refute what you say.”

    Obi-Wan stifled a sigh.  He could see why Anakin had a hard time with Ferus.  Ferus always said the correct thing.  Obi-Wan preferred the spontaneity of his own apprentice.

    “I sense your impatience,” Ferus went on.  “You think I only say the correct thing just to impress your or my Master.”

    “I don’t think that,” Obi-Wan said.  “Well, not exactly.”

    “Can I help it if the Jedi wisdom I have learned by rote speaks to my heart?” Ferus asked.  “I don’t say things because they will please you.  I say them because I feel they are true.  It’s always been that way, from my earliest memory of the Temple.  When I was taught, it was as though I already knew.  Every Jedi lesson seemed to fit a groove inside my mind that had already been worn.  It was why learning was so easy for me.”

    “You have a great connection to the Force,” Obi-Wan said.  “No doubt that is why.”

    “So does Anakin,” Ferus pointed out.  “Far greater than mine.  I can see that.  Yet he did not have the problems I did at the Temple.  He has made great friends there.”

    Obi-Wan was surprised.  “But you were popular in your class.  Everyone looked up to you.”

    “Yes, I was the one whom everybody liked, but whom nobody wanted to talk to.  I was welcome at every table in the eating areas, but not invited to any particular one.  Everyone was my friend, but nobody was my particular friend.”  Ferus picked some grass and let it fall idly through his fingers.  “I’ve heard the names they call me.  A tunic stuffed with feathers and the Force.  The ruler of Planet Dull.”

    Obi-Wan frowned.  He had not known these things.

    Ferus waved a hand.  “It’s all right.  It’s all true, isn’t it?  I’ve never been able to joke like the others.  I know I can be pompous, too correct.  I never learned how to tease the other students.  They came to me for help with their studies, they looked to me for answers, but no one wanted to be my friend.  Not my true friend, the way Anakin had Tru Veld and Darra.”

    Was it a trick of the moonlight, or did Ferus suddenly look younger than his years?  Usually, he looked much older.  His noble features and the streak of gold in his dark hair had given him a look of maturity early on.

    But now he looked uncertain, questioning.  Young.

    “You will find friendships later in life,” Obi-Wan said, after a pause.  “Friendships are hard to maintain for the Jedi.  It is why we treasure them.  Let go of your longing, and what you want will come.”

    “Or else I am meant to stay the way I am,” Ferus said.  “I wish I had what Anakin has.  His connection to the Force is strong, yet he also connects to beings strongly.”

    “Yes,” Obi-Wan agreed.  “I’ve seen this.  It’s something Qui-Gon Jinn had, too.”

    “I know that Anakin will never be my friend.  He knows I fear for him.  I give him warnings when I know I shouldn’t, when I know it’s none of my business.  So he resents me.  I thought in the beginning… since I was a little older… that I could tell him things that other students couldn’t.  It’s just I see things a fellow student would see.”

    Here it was.  Ferus had been leading to this.  He wanted to tell him something.  Obi-Wan felt impatient with him, but he calmed the impulse.  He felt protective of Anakin.  Ferus didn’t understand him.  He had always been the correct student, the one who did everything right.  He could not begin to know the fears and regrets Anakin had to deal with.

    “And what do you see Ferus?”

    “I fear for him,” Ferus said quietly.  “To admire him and feel fear for him at the same time didn’t make sense to me.  It took me a long time to understand why I feared for him.  I wanted to be sure there was no envy in it.”

    “Do you envy him?” Obi-Wan asked.

    “I suppose all the students do, in a way,” Ferus said.  “He is the Chosen On.  But what worries me is his will.”  Ferus hesitated.  “His power is so great that he thinks his judgment is as well.  You saw his arguments tonight.  He sees something is right, so therefore he must do it.  He argues against you without hearing you.  He thinks he can change situations, beings.  Maybe he can’t do it alone, not yet.  But someday he will.  Should we trust someone who always believes he speaks with the voice of absolute right?”

    That is it, Obi-Wan thought.  That is what I see.  What surprised him was that it was coming out of the mouth of one of Anakin’s peers, a boy only a year or two older than Anakin, someone who had only been on a couple of missions with him.

    Ferus is always watching me, Anakin had told Obi-Wan resentfully.

    And so Ferus was.  But Ferus’s mature judgment surprised Obi-Wan.  Surprised him and irritated him, he had to admit.  Ferus did not allow for the goodness of Anakin’s heart.  He did not see how hard Anakin tried.  He did not know that Anakin questioned himself all the time.

    “You are very observant, Ferus, but you must accept that I know him better than you,” Obi-Wan said carefully.  “Anakin can be arrogant.  I know that.  But he is also learning and growing.  He is respectful of his great power.  He does not abuse it.  He is younger than you, but he has seen much injustice, many terrible things.  I do not think it so wrong that he wants to change things.  You must understand that it isn’t ambition that drives him.  It’s compassion.”

    Ferus nodded slowly.  “I will think about what you said.”  He stood.  “Please know that I say these things only because he is the Chosen One, and the stakes are so high.  Good night, Master Kenobi.”

    “Good night,” Obi-Wan said.

    He could have said more, but it wasn’t appropriate to debate Anakin’s character with another apprentice.  He would have to sift through Ferus’s words and ponder them.  He would have to let go of his impulse to protect Anakin and search for the truth in what Ferus had said.  Ferus had touched on his own fears, and he needed to think about that.

    He breathed in the night air.  Not tonight, he decided.  He valued his new confidence in Anakin.  He needed to guard it.  He needed to forget what he feared, just for a little while longer.  He wanted to treasure what he had.

____________________

    "A long night," Anakin said.

    "Yes."

    "Even after this night, I still think we weren't wrong."

    Obi-Wan sighed.  He tried to smooth the trampled grass underneath his hand.  "Wrong or right - I'm not ready to make that call.  We made the decision using the facts we had."

    "But we were right," Anakin insisted.

    Obi-Wan saw the will Ferus had been talking about, the need to bend the situation to Anakin's own vision of it.  The need to be right.

    "Anakin, sometimes sureness is not what you should strive for.  A little confusion in your mind can be a good thing.  Will we be proved right ultimately?  I hope so.  Did we do the best we could?  Yes.  That I firmly believe.  That's enough for now."

____________________

    "Ferus is wise beyond his years," Obi-Wan went on.  "He thinks deeply.  But even though an outcome may seem likely, sometimes one has to risk for the right result."

    "Yes, Ferus is reluctant to risk too much.  Not like Anakin," Siri said.  "He's willing to risk everything."

    She meant it as a compliment, Obi-Wan knew.  Siri admired Anakin's daring, his sureness, how fluidly he used the Force.  It was unusual for Siri to second-guess a decision, just like Anakin.  In some ways, Obi-Wan was more like Ferus.  How odd that he and Anakin had become a team.  Their temperaments were so different.

    Choose the Master, the Padawan does.

    Yoda had said that to him many times, from when he himself was an apprentice.  The old Jedi Master believed in most cases that the Force drew the Master and his apprentice together for reasons they couldn't see themselves.  Obi-Wan felt strongly that this was true.

____________________

    "The Chosen One," Jenna Zan Arbor said softly to Anakin, so that no one else could hear.  "I was told about you.  My interest in the Force is deep.  Enough to know how your destiny is your burden.  Do you remember the Zone of Self-Containment?  I can bring that back to you."

    He remembered feeling content, a contentment without a tether to sadness or guilt.  There was just the sun and serenity, a serenity he had never achieved as a Jedi.  The Jedi had promised him that, and it had not happened.  Perhaps it never would.

    "Ah," she said softly, "speaking of temptation..."

    He pulled of the mask.  There was no need for it now.  "I'm not tempted by you," he responded.

    "I saw how you enjoyed it," she said.  "I can make all your burdens disappear."

    "My only burden at the moment is having to talk to you," Anakin shot back.

    She smiled.  Anakin could see that once, before evil had twisted her, she had been seductive.  Her smile was lush, appreciative, inviting.

    "You remind me of someone I knew a long time ago," she said.

    Obi-Wan heard that.  "Qui-Gon Jinn," he said.

____________________

    Anakin hung back, watching Joylin carefully.  He knew the Force was helping him, he knew that this sudden power was a new side of the Force that he hadn't yet tapped, and he was filled with a sudden sense of exultation.  He had even more power than he knew.  Suddenly, he saw into the heart of Joylin.  He did not see just what Joylin wanted them to see, or didn't care if they saw, but the most secret part of him.  Joylin suddenly looked so small.  He was such easy prey.

    I didn't know this, Anakin thought.  The Force isn't just about manipulating objects.  I can manipulate beings, too.  I can use their fears and secrets.

____________________

    The Force.  He could use it.  He wasn't sure how.  But he reached out for it and gathered it, formed it to his pleasure, to what he needed.

24 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 18 years of age)

____________________

    "Guardsmen Omin.  I sense that the Force is strong with you...  Were you ever tested for potential as a Jedi?"

    "Yes.  However, I was deemed too old to begin my training - I was already two-years of age, you see, and had bonded with my parents."

    "I was nine when I became a Jedi."

    "Ah.  Well.  According to the Supreme Chancellor, you are extraordinary.  I am merely ordinary, it seems."

    "I... I didn't mean..."

____________________

    "Two assassin droids attacked the Senator.  This one was a modified THX servant droid."

    "This is interesting.  A Psicom 126 interface module, Master.  They use these in cybernetic limbs to connect nerves to the wiring.  This one seems to have a transceiver connected to it."

    "I'm impressed.  I didn't realize you Jedi were quite so knowledgeable about technology."

    "I sometimes think Anakin is part machine."

    "Thank you, Master."

    "That wasn't necessarily a compliment, Padawan."

____________________

    "I'm sorry, Master, to have disappointed you.  I shouldn't have let the Senator out on the balcony."

    "An error in judgment, my Padawan.  It is to be expected at your age.  Your response to the Senate Guard, however, was from wounded pride, and that has no place with a Jedi.  That's something you need to focus on, Anakin.

23 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 19 years of age)

____________________

    "So, how come I get to freeze on a factory floor while you hang around a luxury hotel?" Anakin grumbled good naturedly to Ferus.

    Ferus grinned.  "Just lucky, I guess."

    Obi-Wan was glad to see the ease between them.  Ferus had unburdened himself on Romin and spoken to Obi-Wan of his fears about Anakin.  Obi-Wan had been both irritated and alarmed by Ferus's insights.  But it was as though passing along his worries had freed Ferus to unbend around Anakin.  As a result, the tension between the two Padawans had lessened considerably.

____________________

    "I recognize the importance of your mission," he said gravely.  "But your mission is one of hundreds, which all involve peacekeeping, saving lives, helping governments, fostering alliances.  The Jedi are involved in missions throughout the galaxy, which will be compromised if this faction is not dealt with."

    "What do you mean?  How could one faction in the Senate harm thousands of Jedi?" Siri asked.

    "By organizing the withdrawal of official Senate support for the Jedi Council," Mace said.  He let his words settle over them.

    "You understand what this would mean," he continued, when he was sure he had their complete attention.  "To operate without Senate approval would make us rogue diplomats and would completely undercut our authority.  In short, without Senate support the effectiveness of the Jedi will be decimated."

    "But why did you call us back to fight this?" Anakin asked.

    Ferus glanced at Anakin, amazed.  Obi-Wan had to admit that the question did sound more like a complaint than a query.

    Mace settled his severe gaze on Anakin.  Obi-Wan thought that Anakin was most likely the only Jedi apprentice who could take it without flinching.  Most Padawans seemed to visibly shrink as Master Windu's eyes plumbed their depths, seeming to find every petty motivation, every secret weakness they had.

    Anakin merely waited.  Strong, graceful, sure of himself.

    "I chose this team because of your special skills," Mace told Anakin.  "Obi-Wan may hate it, but he has a great knowledge of the Senate workings.  I contacted Yoda on Kashyyyk, and he was in agreement."

    Obi-Wan tried not to groan aloud.  Siri allowed herself one small smile at his discomfort.

    "His contacts are invaluable," Mace went on.  "I chose Master Tachi for her lack of patience."

    Siri's small grin disappeared.  Mace raised an eyebrow at her.

    "A fault she has tried to correct, but on that often gets in her way," he said.  "I have a feeling it will be useful in this situation.  Senators are used to deference.  Without it, they feel lost.  I wouldn't mind some of them feeling a bit unbalanced.  And Ferus, of course, is a worthy addition.  He studied Senate structure and knows more about it than any apprentice.  And you, Anakin..."

    Anakin waited.

    "You have two things that can help us.  One, of course, if your Force connection.  You are just beginning to realize how it can work on beings as well as objects."

    Anakin look startled, as if he didn't understand that anyone else knew this.  Obi-Wan suddenly realized it was true, and that he had known it without acknowledging it.  How had Mace Windu discovered this?  He had been with the group on Romin for only a short time.

    Well.  That was why Mace was on the Jedi Council.  That was why, except for Yoda, Obi-Wan thought him the most powerful Jedi he'd ever known.

    "Yes, together with observation and intuition the Force can help you see into the hearts and minds of others," Mace said softly, his eyes not leaving Anakin's face.  "That is why the Force must be respected and handled with care."

    "I know that, Master Windu," Anakin said.

    "Perhaps you do.  Or perhaps you will learn it more with every mission, the way the rest of us do.  And there is one other thing," Mace said, resuming his walk.  "Chancellor Palpatine has asked to see you and Obi-Wan specifically."

____________________

    Palpatine seemed to sense his mood.  "You think you are wasting your time here," he observed.

    Anakin searched for a way to be honest without being rude.  "We were on an important mission."

    "I can understand being frustrated by the Senate," Palpatine replied.  "Yet here is where the power lies."

    "It's not power I'm interested in," Anakin said.

    "Really."  The former Senator from Naboo smiled.  "That is a very Jedi-like response.  Yet, can I say this - it is not entirely true.  The Jedi do not seek power, yet they have it.  Why is that?"

    The words sounded oddly familiar to him, as if he'd heard them before, but Anakin could not figure out where.  He had a feeling that Palpatine was posing the question just to hear what Anakin had to say.

    "Because we have the Force," Anakin said.  "It is a source of power, yet we do not seek it.  It is simply there."

    "And it is a Jedi's choice to use it." Palpatine said.

    Anakin smiled.  "You sound almost like one of our critics."

    "Hardly.  I am the Jedi Council's biggest supporter.  What I am trying to do is discover a way to fight those who seek to take away their power, their influence.  I have come to several conclusions, though, and they aren't helpful.  Would you care to hear them?"

    "Of course."  Anakin leaned forward slightly to show his interest.  He felt flattered that Palpatine took him seriously enough to talk to him this way.  He had imagined that the Chancellor did not waste his time with mere Padawan learners.  He dealt directly with the Jedi Council, with powerful Jedi like Mace Windu and Yoda.

    Palpatine looked out his windows toward the spires of the Jedi Temple.  His gaze was clouded.  "One reason that the Jedi Order has become the object of jealousy in the Senate is that the Jedi don't know how to defend themselves.  Of course the Jedi are bold warriors, but when it comesto the war of words in the Senate, the simply disengage.  This is a grave mistake."

    "Our actions and our results speak for themselves."

    "There you are wrong.  Results do not speak for themselves, not in the Senate.  There must always be someone to explain why results are good."  Palpatine shrugged.  "Everything must be interpreted, or someone else will do the interpreting.  Facts are not important, only the twist that helps the Senators understand them.  It is the way it is.  They must be fed their diet of truth."

    "You make the Senators sound like children," Anakin observed.

    "Ah, but they are."  Palpatine shook his head.  "I did not seek this office, yet I must carry out the burden of carrying on its duties.  One of these duties is to recognize that what the Senate needs is a strong hand, just as children do."

    "The Jedi don't believe that," Anakin argued.  "In the Jedi Order, children are given the freedom to dissent and be independent."

    Palpatine smiled.  "Unlike the Jedi, Senators are not gifted in the Force.  Jedi can afford to give their younglings freedom, because they know they are exceptional.  Most beings are not exceptional, Anakin.  They need someone to tell them what to do, and sometimes what to believe.

    Anakin struggled to grasp this.  It went against what he believed.  Yet he could not deny that Palpatine's strong hand had kept the Senate together during these years of growing strife with the Separatist movement.

    "You want to turn the Jedi into politicians," he finally said.

    "No.  I want them to recognize that they are politicians, whether they like it or not.  Power and politics are inseperable."  Chancellor Palpatine rose.  "You, Anakin Skywalker, you have power.  I can see it in you.  Your connection to the Force gives you clarity and boldness.  The Jedi Order need more like you."

    "I am still a student," Anakin said, standing.

    "Then learn," Palpatine told him.  "Take this opportunity.  Find out how to maneuver in Senate politics.  It might turn out to be the skill the Jedi Council needs most.  Not exactly the glory of lightsaber battles, but crucial nonetheless."

    "How can I do that?" Anakin asked.

    "Come with me to meetings while you're here," Palpatine said.  "Watch.  Listen.  Tell me what your think, and I will share my thoughts with you."

    It was an extraordinary offer.  Anakin knew he had to take it.

    "I will have to request permission from my Master."

    Palpatine inclined his head.  "Of course.  And in the end, who knows?  Perhaps you'll be able to teach Master Kenobi a thing or two."

____________________

    They headed for the Senate.  While Obi-Wan called ahead to request a meeting with Chancellor Palpatine, Anakin brooded on his mistake.  He had seen the uneasiness in his Master's eyes, though it had passed quickly.  Sometimes he made mistakes and wasn't sure why they were wrong.  He knew that his Master's deepest desire was to capture Omega.  Anakin wondered how much it was permissible to risk in order to accomplish that.  How much risk was too much?  Who was the best to judge?  He wished he could ask Obi-Wan those questions, but he didn't want to displease him further.

____________________

    "You look lost, Anakin," Palpatine said with a slight smile as Anakin swung into step beside him.

    "Well, I have to admit I'm surprised.  Why did you allow Bog to win?"

    "I gave Bog what he wanted because I am sure he will fail," Palpatine replied.

    Anakin was suddenly struck.  Wasn't this what he had suggested to Obi-Wan earlier?  He had wanted to do the same for their enemy, Omega.

    "Bog doesn't know it, but he just destroyed his career," Palpatine said.

    Palpatine wasn't gloating, Anakin thought.  That would be beneath him.  But he did look rather... satisfied.

    He remembered back on Romin, when he had felt a surge of power, realizing that the Force could not only allow him to move objects, but also to see into motivations and consequences.  Many beings were transparent in their greed and ego, just as Bog was.  Thinking several steps ahead was not that difficult.

    Palpatine understood this; did his Master?  Obi-Wan was so cautious.  Anakin glanced at Palpatine, admiring how he moved through the Senate halls.  He did not exaggerate his power but he did not diminish it.  He accepted it and accepted the ways in which he would have to use it.

    How satisfying it must feel to simply wait for events to unfold as you have forseen them, Anakin thought.  How powerful to know the outcome before it happened.  This was what he could learn - and not from his Master.  From Palpatine.

____________________

    Stay.

    Obi-Wan was off to face Granta Omega, and Anakin was just a bodyguard.

    Palpatine's pale gaze studied him.

    "You can go."

    "I can't disobey my Maste.  I can't leave you alone."

    "If I call my Red Guard, they can be here in three minutes.  Less."

    "It would not matter," Anakin said miserably.  "Obi-Wan told me to stay."

    "Well, let us walk, then.  I am scheduled to preside over the vote on Senator Divinian's proposal."

    "But my Master told you not to go."

    "True.  But unlike you, I do not have to obey an order of caution."

    Caution.  Obi-Wan's caution drove Anakin crazy.

    "The work of the Senate goes on," Palpatine continued as they began to walk.  "To keep going on, no matter what the obstacles - that is what a leader must do.  I have learned, Anakin, over the course of my political career, one important thing: I cannot let anyone get in the way of my service.  In the beginning, I doubted myself.  Who am I, I asked myself, to decide fates, to make rulings?  Then the answer came to me.  I must do it because there is no one else who can do it better."  Palpatine chuckled.  "Oh, I'm not saying I'm keeping the Republic together single-handedly.  But fate has thrust me into this position - and I would be untrue to myself as well as the galaxy if I did not utilize everything I have and everything I am in order to succeed at it."

    Palpatine's serenity was almost eerie.  It was as though, Anakin thought suddenly, Palpatine was above this, looking down.  As though criminals like Granta Omega were merely toys to be observed.  Where did he get that confidence?  Anakin was reaching out blindly, trying to probe the Supreme Chancellor, but his powers were not that developed.  He kept meeting a wall.

    "What I wish," Palpatine said, "is that you will realize this one day, too.  That it is right to use every means at your disposal.  I'm sure your Master would agree."

    Anakin had his doubts.  He saw Siri and Ferus pounding down the hallway.

    "Ah," Palpatine said.  "Reinforcements."

    Siri halted in front of them.  "Where is Obi-Wan?"

    "There was a security breach and he went to check it out," Anakin explained.

    "Coordinates," Siri rapped out.

    Anakin gave them to her, and she turned to Ferus.  "Stay here with the Supreme Chancellor.  I'll contact you if you're needed."

    Ferus nodded.  He did not seem to have the same conflict about the order than Anakin did.  Siri raced down the hall.

    "You go too, Anakin," Palpatine urged him.  "One Jedi is enough for protection."

    Anakin hesitated.  He would be disobeying a direct order from Obi-Wan.  But Obi-Wan had given the order before Ferus had shown up.  And even though Palpatine had dismissed the idea that the water valve malfunction could be a security breach, Anakin felt in his bones that it was Omega, just as Obi-Wan had.

    "If it is Omega, he is too dangerous an opponent to allow to escape," Palpatine said.  "The future of the Senate is at stake."

    Ferus said nothing.  His dark eyes moved from Palpatine to Anakin.  He knew whatever he said, Anakin would not take it into consideration.

    Anakin made his decision.  He turned to Ferus.  "I have to go.  Don't leave his side."

    He didn't have time to wonder if Ferus was annoyed that he had given a fellow Padawan an order.  He felt the urgency of his mission.  Everything in him pointed the way to a showdown with Omega.  And it was just as Palpatine had said: only he knew what he was capable of.  Only he knew the right thing to do.

____________________

    "I don't understand," he said to Palpatine.  "You gave Senator Sauro the position of Deputy Chancellor.  We are certain that he was in on the plot to assassinate you."

    "I offered it before the vote on the Jedi petition, knowing he could not refuse," Palpatine said.  "I knew he would betray Bog.  The assurance of a powerful office would be enough to abandon a risky scheme."

    "But you rewarded him for betraying you."

    "I have made my enemy my friend," Palpatine said.  "His fate is now linked with mine.  And I will always know what he's up to."

    Anakin nodded.  He would miss these talks with Palpatine.  He felt that he was learning, even though he had not yet been able to sift through the nuggets of wisdom.

    "I have asked you here to thank you for your efforts on that day," Palpatine said.  "The Senate came close to being destroyed.  Please do not fault me for saying this, but I feel that your Jedi Council did not fully appreciate what you did that day.  I watched you.  I saw how many you saved.  I understand that Ferus Olin was given a special commendation for what he did.  I don't understand."

    "You don't?  He saved your life."

    Palpatine stared out at the vast Coruscant cityscape.  "Good of him, of course.  But no more than he was asked to do.  Whereas you, Anakin, always do more.  I just think it's a pity that the Council doesn't see that.  Perhaps I should talk to Master Yoda-"

    "No," Anakin said quickly.  "He would think I wanted you to speak to him about me, that I was seeking approval.  Jedi do not seek approval."

    "Then tell me, Anakin.  From the point of view of a Jedi, since it is sometimes difficult for those of us outside your Order to understand it.  Why did Ferus Olin receive special notice, and you did not?"

    "Because he did his duty," Anakin said.  He tasted bitterness in his mouth.  "He obeyed his Master and stayed at his post.  He saved your life and dozens of other lives."

    "You saved more."

    "It was not a contest."

    "No.  It was a battle."

    Through the transparent screen that separated them, Anakin saw Obi-Wan enter Palpatine's office.  His Master saw them outside.  He waited, not wanting to interrupt.

    "I see your Master has arrived to fetch you," Palpatine said, rising.  "I want you to feel free to visit my from time to time, Anakin.  I know you have other missions.  And I know you will perform splendidly.  I for one am glad you are on my side,"

    "I am honored," Anakin said.  He bowed his goodbye.

____________________

    Anakin looked back at Palpatine.  Studying the Senate had not been as bad as he'd thought.  He'd been close to great power, the greatest in the galaxy, and he felt he was just on the verge of learning more about it.

    But he felt he was not meant for power struggles and intrigue - not yet.  He did not like to think about why the Jedi Council was so hard on him, about why Ferus earned recognition from the Council when he did not.

    He did not want these feelings.  He wanted them to fall away and leave him with his core, a core that was not threatened by what other beings thought or said.  On a mission, everything else did fall away.  He was able to concentrate, to focus.

    He turned back to his Master.  He was ready to go.

23 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 19 years of age)

____________________

    Anakin took his anger and focused it.  For a moment, the water from the many fountains around him hung suspended in the air.  He used the Force to keep the water frozen in midair, just to prove he could do it.  The silence filled his ears.  Then he let it fall, all the fountains gushing, trickling, racing once again.  The noise seemed enormous now, a torrent.  As though he could hear every drop of water hit every pebble.

    Anakin felt a surge of power.  This was only part of what he was capable of.  Soon they would all know it.  He would show them that they had made a serious mistake.  He should be the first apprentice to move up to Jedi Knight.  He knew it.  And soon everyone else would know it, too.

    He would make them know it.

____________________

    He would have to wear a mask.  A mask of friendship.  Anakin had decided this before he'd left the temple.  Ferus could never know his true feelings.  He would defeat him without Ferus knowing they were in competition.

    That had been his plan, but it was hard to follow through when faced with Ferus himself.  Anakin could feel his resentment leaking out like a gas.  It was only a question of time before he exploded.

    No.  I will prove I am a better Jedi.  I will not explode in anger.

____________________

    "We've come a long way from the Galactic Games, that's for certain," Ferus said.  "Remember how nervous we were on our early missions?"

    "Sure," Tru said.  "I still am."  He looked out at Dreshdae, and the humor drained from his face.  "Especially here."

    "What about you Ferus?" Anakin asked as he bent over to tighten a strap that didn't need tightening.  "Nervous?  Or is that not allowed for a Jedi Knight?"

    "I'm not a Jedi Knight yet," Ferus answered.

    "But you're closer than any of us," Anakin said, straightening.  "Does that make you more nervous or less?  I mean, let's face it, the Jedi Council's eyes are on you."

    Ferus frowned as he picked up the taunt buried in Anakin's easy tone.  "I'm not thinking about that.  I'm thinking about the mission."

    "We're all thinking about the mission, Anakin," Darra said.

    "Of course, we all want to capture Omega," Tru added.  His eyes told Anakin to back off.

    "But Ferus wants to be the one to do it, I'll bet," Anakin said.  "Once you start impressing the Jedi Council, you have to keep on doing it."

    "It doesn't matter who does it," Ferus said.  "It matters that it's done."

    "Spoken like a true Jedi Knight," Anakin said.

    Ferus's neck flushed red.  "Just what are you trying to say?"

    "Anakin-" Darra murmured warningly.

    Anakin took a step closer to Ferus.  He couldn't help himself.  Despite his best intentions, the words spilled out in a torrent.  "That you'll do whatever you can to succeed on this mission, but not because you want to catch Omega.  You want to be a Knight."

    "Anakin!" Tru exclaimed.

    But Ferus and Anakin were past listening to their fellow Padawans.  They were careful to pitch their voices low, however, to avoid attracting the attention of their Masters.

    Ferus's dark eyes flashed with anger.  "That's a serious charge, and an untrue one."

    "I've got news for you," Anakin said.  "You won't be the one to find Omega.  I will.  I'd bet on it."  The remark seemed to burst out of him without his directing it.

    Darra sucked in a breath through her teeth.  Tru shook his head.

    Ferus turned away.  "I'm not going to bet on a mission."

    "Because you have too much riding on it?  If you lose, you might lose the Council's favor," Anakin said.  "No wonder you won't take me up on it."

    Anakin had gotten to Ferus at last.  He could see it.  Suddenly Ferus spun around and came within centimeters of Anakin.

    "Okay, sure, I'll take the bet," he said.  "Whatever you say, Anakin.  I wouldn't want to stand in the way of you and your ego."

    "Ego?  You're the one who spends all his time showing off!"

    But if Anakin was heat, Ferus was ice.  He buckled his utility belt.  "Someone has to teach you that you are not as powerful as you think."

____________________

    "Wait," Ferus said.  "Those aren't ordinary battle droids."

    "They have reinforced armor," Anakin said swallowing.  "And the control center is lower... you can't cut off their heads."

    "Too many," Ferus said.  "We have to retreat."

    "We can take them," Anakin insisted.

    "Anakin, this is no time to play hero.  The two of us can't do it by ourselves."

    "That's your trouble, Ferus," Anakin said coolly.  "You always look at the odds."

    He stepped out into the darkness of the hangar.  He saw the infrared tracking devices on the droids move over the sapce.  They would find him.  He had seconds.

    Ferus moved out next to him.  Of course if Anakin went out to meet the droids, Ferus would have to as well.  He wouldn't leave him.  Anakin knew that.

____________________

    The eerie space and the darkness, the glint of metal, the pull of battle.  Anakin saw nothing, felt nothing, but what was before him.  He wasn't a fool.  He knew their chances of beating so many droids were slim to none.  But he also knew that it was only in gestures like this that a true Jedi would be revealed.  He Force-pushed a droid and slammed it into another.  He slashed them both into one smoking pile.

    Compared to him, Ferus's hold on the Force was puny.  Anakin reached out for it in the way he knew, reached for the Force in the stones and the dust and the very air he breathed.  The Force was part of him and around him.  His vision was sharper now, his control perfect.  He didn't count the droids he dismantled.  He didn't hesitate or second-guess his choices.  He just kept moving.

    Even while he moved, he kept track of the Padawans behind him and next to him.  In battle, his problems with Ferus went away.  They were fellow Jedi, and they had to cover one another.

____________________

    "I saw someone trying to escape, so I had to go after him," Anakin said.  "It turned out to be a Sith.  Obi-Wan is sure of it."

    "Well, that's not surprising," Darra said.  "We're on Korriban, after all."

    There was an unfamiliar hard note in Darra's voice, as if she resented Anakin.

    "Our mission is to find Granta Omega," Anakin said.  "You had things under control, so I went after him - or, who I thought was him."

    "So you were sure we had everything under control?"  Ferus straightened, wiping his hands on his tunic.

    "That's what I said."

    "Tru was wounded, I was helping him, and Darra had to face off against a dozen droids, but everything was under control?"

    "Obviously I made the right call," Anakin said, gesturing at the fallen droids.

    "And you were only thinking of the mission, of course," Ferus said.

    "Of course."  Anakin knew what Ferus was getting at.  He felt his neck heat up, and he turned away before the flush could reach his cheeks and betray him.  The truth was less certain than his words.  He was thinking of the mission, but he also was thinking of himself.  He had been in a position to capture Omega without help.  He had left Ferus behind with a secret satisfaction.  He had wanted to win.

    He sneaked a look back at Tru.  His friend looked strained and unhappy.  Anakin resolved to talk to him as soon as he could do so privately.  Tru's friendship was very important to him.  But Tru had to understand what was important to Anakin, too.

____________________

    There was a disturbance in the air, as though the dark energy of the Force still pulsed around the wall of debris.  As if the Sith had vanished, but left a pool of his darkness behind.

    He felt something new inside him, but he couldn't put a name on it.  He looked out into the grayness of the valley, just visible past the dark outlines of his Master and the other Jedi as they conferred on the landing platform.  He concentrated hard.  What was he feeling?

    A beating heart.  A being out there - somewhere - reaching out to him?  It wasn't a connection... it was a call.  It was something he didn't want, but something that drew him, pulled him...

    Granta Omega?  Did he have the same connection as his Master did?  He didn't think so.  Not this time.  It didn't feel right.  It felt... bigger.  Hidden.

    The Sith.

    Anakin faced out to the valley.  He felt the cold wind blow against his face.  The Sith was calling him.

____________________

    Thinking of Ferus made anger spurt through Anakin.  It was something hard inside him.  It filled him up.  It felt natural, it felt right, to allow his anger to grow.  Why had he tried to quell it?  He had every right to feel it!  Just feeling it now gave him strength.

____________________

    The tomb narrowed at the rear.  The stench almost made Anakin gag.  It was as though everything foul was concentrated back here.  He could barely make out Obi-Wan ahead, running, attacking the undead that guarded Omega, circling him constantly like a cloud of rotting flesh.

    Anakin put on a burst of speed.  His Master was battling with incredible speed and accuracy.  Anakin could feel the Force like a great pulsing, speeding, enveloping wave that barreled Obi-Wan toward his opponent.  Toward his destiny.

    My destiny, Anakin thought.  Mine!

    He focused so much on his Master, on his need to catch him, that he blundered into an energy trap.

    Anakin was caught.  He couldn't move.  Frustrated, enraged, he slashed at the invisible cage with his lightsaber.  He could not free himself.  He kicked.  He hammered.  Caught.

    He had met a power greater than his.  Impossible!

    "Master!" he called, but Obi-Wan didn't hear him.  The energy trap sucked his voice out of the air and imprisoned it.

    I just need the Force.  Obi-Wan said a Master can summon the Force and fight this.  I am as good as a Master.  I can do this.

____________________

    What is happening to me?  Anakin wondered.  His mind felt suddenly clear, sharp.  Why didn't I help my friends?  Have I changed?  Am I changing?  What am I becoming?

    When he had first become a Padawan, he would not have hesitated.  His first loyalty had been to them.

    Things were more complicated now.  There was more at stake.

    Maybe he was changing for the better.

    Control rule supremacy greatness...

    Was he more mature now?  A better fighter?  Better able to assess a situation, move toward the goal?  Was that why he had raced to confront Omega?  Or had his own jealously propelled him?  How could he separate those things?  Why did he have to?

____________________

    Anakin beat at the trap again.  He felt the rage rise inside him.  He knew the rage was interfering with the Force, but he couldn't control it.  If only... if only he could use the rage.  But that was something a Jedi should not do.

____________________

    Anakin waited until he saw Obi-Wan leave the outer chamber.  He wasn't ready to talk to his Master yet.  He waited until Obi-Wan was gone, then slipped inside.

    He didn't want to see Ferus face-to-face, but he had to find out what was going on.  What would the Council do?  Now, of all times, Anakin felt a strange attachment to his fellow Padawan.

    The shock of Darra's death hadn't worn off.  He still couldn't grasp it.  He still couldn't believe it wasn't possible to see her again, to hear her voice.  If the Force was so powerful, why couldn't he stop death?  Why couldn't he break through the wall and see his friend again?

    He felt a rustle behind him, and saw Tru backing out of the chamber.

    "Tru!" Anakin called.  Reluctantly, Tru edged in a few steps.  "Do you know anything?"

    Tru shook his head.  He didn't quite meet Anakin's eyes.

    "I haven't seen much of you since we've been back," Anakin said.

    "I know."

    "I'm sorry about the censure."

    "I deserved it."

    The question burned on Anakin's tongue.  "Why did you go to Ferus instead of me to fix your lightsaber?  I would have done a better job."

    "I didn't go to Ferus," Tru said.  "He came to me.  He had noticed that it was on half-power at the end of the battle in the monastery.  But I wouldn't have gone to you because I wouldn't have wanted to get you in trouble.  You would have kept my secret.  Just like Ferus did.  I was wrong not to tell my Master.  I was wrong to let Ferus stay silent.  I was just about as wrong as I could be."

    "You were thinking of the mission," Anakin said.

    "We were all wrong," Tru continued, as if he hadn't even registered what Anakin had said.

    "We did our best," Anakin said.  "And Omega is dead."

    "So is Darra."

    Tru turned and walked out.

    Anakin started after him.  Something was wrong.  Something had changed between him and his friend, and he didn't know why.

    He stopped when the Council doors opened.  Ferus walked out.  He almost walked by Anakin without seeing him, as though he was blinded by his feelings.

    "Ferus?"

    Ferus turned.  "Anakin.  Well.  I think you should be the first to know.  I have resigned from the Jedi Order."

    "What?!"  Anakin felt shock ripple through him.  "But why?"

    "Because I was responsible for Darra's death."

    "That's not true!  You couldn't have known-"

    "But I did.  I knew that Tru's lightsaber had malfunctioned.  I offered to fix it secretly.  I did not tell his Master or urge him to do so.  His lightsaber failed in battle, and Darra was killed trying to protect me."

    "But you thought you'd fixed it!"

    Ferus stopped.  He gazed at Anakin for a long moment.

    "You knew?" he asked.  "You knew Tru's lightsaber had broken?  You must have seen me fixing it."

    "I didn't say that."

    "No.  You didn't.  But there are only the two of us here, Anakin.  You don't have to lie."

    Anakin said nothing.  As usual, Ferus was trying to trap him, trying to show Anakin how much nobler he was.

    "When we got back, I took it to the Jedi Master Tolan Hing," Ferus said, naming the Jedi who was known for his expertise in the workings of a lightsaber.  "He told me that the fusing between the flux aperature and the power cell needed a slight adjustment.  Nothing major - Tru might never have noticed it.  Except that in battle, the power drained faster than normal."

    "I don't know why you're telling me this..."

    Tru's voice came from behind him.  "Because you fixed the flux aperature.  And you would have known that it needed to be rechecked after the power cell boost."

    Anakin turned.  "You didn't come to me!"

    Tru shook his head.  "That's funny.  Shouldn't you have said, But I didn't know it was broken?"

    "You're trying to trap me," Anakin said.  "Both of you," he added, with an angry look at Ferus.  "Tru, I would never do anything deliberately to put you in a position..."

    Tru's face hardened.  His silver eyes held a sheen Anakin had never seen before.  They were icy, as though Anakin could slip off his gaze.

    "I wondered," Tru said.  "When we got back here, I wondered if you knew.  I saw how you froze in the tomb.  'But not my friend,' I said to myself.  'My friend would not do that.'  But then I thought about how you feel about Ferus, how angry you had been.  You would want him to get in trouble, even if it meant exposing me."

    "That's not fair!"

    "And suddenly I realized - yes, Anakin could have done that."

    "You're looking at it all wrong," Anakin said.  But how could he explain?  He couldn't admit that he knew that Tru's lightsaber was broken because he couldn't explain why he'd forgotten to tell him to readjust it.  He still didn't know how he'd forgotten something so crucial.  Tru would think he'd deliberately forgotten it.

    There was nothing he could say to convince him otherwise, because he himself didn't know.

    "I don't think so," Tru said.  "I think I'm truly seeing you for the first time."

    Anakin swallowed.  He didn't know what to say.  This was an unfamiliar Tru, not the friend of his childhood.

    "I'll see you outside," Tru said to Ferus, and walked out.

    "Do you see what you've done?" Anakin said, turning savagely to Ferus.

    "Yes, I see what I've done," Ferus said.  "Do you?"  He shook his head.  "I'm afraid for you.  You think admitting you were wrong opens you up to attack."

    "That's not true," Anakin countered.  "I think you should save your fears for yourself."

    A spasm of pain crossed Ferus's face.  Anakin could not imagine how awful it must feel, to give up the Jedi Order.  It would be like giving up everything he lived for.

    "If the Jedi ever need me, I will be there," Ferus said quietly.  "That includes you, Anakin."

    Ferus walked away quickly.  Anakin looked after him angrily.  Ferus got the last word.  Not only that, but it had been a kind one.  The noble Padawan to the last.

    Not a Padawan, though.  Not any longer.

    Satisfaction soon curdled into frustration.  Anakin felt as though he'd been beaten, but he didn't know why.  He remembered the helplessness he'd felt in the energy trap.  He never wanted to feel that way again.  Yet he was trapped in his envy, in his anger, just as surely.  Even if Ferus left the Temple forever, he would still remember this feeling.

    No.  The feeling would fade.  He would make it fade.  He would push it down, down with his memories of Shmi.  Now that Ferus was gone, Anakin could fulfill his promise.  He would bring balance to the Force.

    Tru was angry at him, but he had never truly understood the burden Anakin carried.  Maybe Tru had never understood him at all.  Maybe no one did, except for his Master.

____________________

23 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 19 years of age)

____________________

    Letting go of the wall, Barriss dropped the considerable distance to the ground, to find herself facing an attractive young man who wore confidence like a handmade suit.  Smiling cockily, he deactivated his lightsaber and regarded her appraisingly.

____________________

    "So, you were on Naboo, too?"  Feeling left out of the conversation between the two older Jedi, barriss turned curiously to her counterpart.

    "I was."  The pride in the younger man's voice was unapologetic.  He's a strange one, she mused.  Strange, but not unlikable.  As stuffed full of internal conflicts as a momus bush was with seeds.  But there was no denying that the Force was strong within him.

    "How long have you been Master Luminara's Padawan?" he asked.

    "Long enough to know that those who have their mouths open all the time generally have their ears shut."

    "Oh great," Anakin muttered.  "You're not going to spend all our time together speaking in aphorisms, are you?"

    "At least I can talk about something besides myself," she shot back.  "Somehow I don't think you scored well in modesty."

    To her surprise, he was immediately contrite.  "Was I just talking about myself?  I'm sorry."  He indicated two figures preceding them up the busy street.  "Master Obi-Wan says that I suffer from from a surfeit of impatience.  I want to know, to do, everything right now.  Yesterday.  And I'm not very good at disguising the fact that I'd rather be elsewhere.  This isn't a very exciting assignment."

    She gestured back in the direction of the side street they had left piled high with bodies.  "You're here less than a day and already you've been forced into life-or-death hand-to-hand combat.  Your definition of excitement must be particularly eclectic."

    He almost laughed.  "And you have a really dry sense of humor.  I'm sure we'll get along fine."

    Reaching the commercial district on the other side of the square and plunging back into the surging crowds of humans and aliens, Barriss wasn't so certain.  He was very sure of himself, this tall, blue-eyed Padawan.  Maybe it was true what he said about wanting to know everything.  His attitude was that he already did.  Or was she mistaking confidence for arrogance?

    Abruptly, he broke away from her.  She watched as he stopped before a stall selling dried fruits and vegetables from the Kander region to the north of Cuipernam.  When he returned without buying anything, she eyed him uncertainly.

    "What was that all about?  Did you see something that looked tasty but on closer inspection turned out not to be?"

    "What?"  He seemed suddenly preoccupied.  "No.  No, it wasn't the food at all."  He glanced back at the simple food stand as they hurried to catch up to their teachers.  "Didn't you see?  That boy over there, the one in the vest and long pants, was arguing with his mother.  Yelling at her."  He shook his head dolefully.  "Someday when he's older he'll regret having done that.  I didn't tell him so directly, but I think I got the point across."  He sank into deep contemplation.  "People are so busy getting on with their lives they frequently forget what's really important."

    What a strange Padawan, she mused, and what an even stranger young man.  They were more or less the same age, yet in some ways he struck her as childlike, while in others he seemed much older than her.  She wondered if she would have time enough to get to know him better.  She wondered if anyone would have time enough to get to know him.  She certainly hadn't, during their brief encounters at the Jedi Temple.  Just then thunder boomed overhead, and for some reason she could not quite put a finger on, she was afraid it signified the approach of more than just rain.

____________________

    Luminara's gaze narrowed as she regarded the Padawan.  One could sense the strength of the Force within him, as well as other potentialities.  Though she knew little about him, she knew that Obi-Wan Kenobi would not take on a Padawan who did not show considerable promise.  He was just the Jedi to rein such a headstrong youth in, to take the sharp edges off the rough diamond and polish him into a true Jedi.  There was nothing wrong with the Padawan's words, or with him speaking out.  It was only that there was a fine line between confident and headstrong, between bold and arrogant.  Glancing slightly to her right, she saw that Barriss visibly disapproved of her male counterpart.  Well, the young woman would keep her doubts to herself - unless Skywalker provoked her.  Barriss was reserved by nature, but she was not easily intimidated.  Especially by another Padawan.

____________________

    "As Master Yoda says, there are many paths through life, so it is best to be happy with whichever one we finally decide to take."

    "Ah yes, Master Yoda."  He slipped deep into thought.

    Along with watching the crowd for signs of trouble, she also stole occasional glances at her fellow Padawan.  A hard one to read, this Anakin Skywalker.  Strength boiled within him.  Strength, and - other things.  Already, she saw that he was far more complicated than anyone else she had trained with at the Temple.  That in itself was unusual.  Once chosen, a Jedi's path was straight and uncomplicated.  That was not what she perceived within Anakin Skywalker.

    "You said you were preoccupied," she finally said to him.  "I sense that it's an unhappy preoccupation."

    "Do you, now?"  She couldn't decide if he was being sarcastic, or merely agreeable.  Behind them, Jedi and guides continued to haggle for mounts.  He found himself wishing they would get on with it.  He was tired of this place, tired of this assignment.  What did it matter if Ansion, or even several dozen allied worlds, seceded from the Republic?  Given the current state of galactic governance and of the Senate, with its proven record of corruption and confusion, who could blame them?  It might serve as a wake-up call to the rest of the Republic, a warning to clean things up or risk worse to come.

    Strong thoughts for a Padawan.  He smiled to himself.  Obi-Wan was wrong.  I do think about the state of things, sometimes, and not just about myself.

    "Yes, I do," Barriss continued.  She was not in the least intimidated by him.  "With what are you so preoccupied, Anakin Skywalker?  Why are you always so pensive?"

    He thought about telling her the truth.  In the end, he decided to only explain part of it.  With a wave of one hand, he took in the travel market, the surrounding streets, the mixed throng of Ansionians and offworlders, and the city beyond.

    "Why are we here?  Master Obi-Wan has tried to explain it to me, but I'm afraid I'm not very sympathetic to the intricacies of politics.  I find them difficult to understand, even irrelevant to life.  Ever since I was a child, I've always had to be a direct sort of person."  He looked over at her.  "Where I grew up, the way I grew up, if you dissipated your energies, idled away your time, you didn't last long.  You want my sincere opinion of this assignment?"

    She nodded, watching him.

    "It's a waste of time.  A job for jabbering diplomats, not Jedi."

    "I see.  And what would you do if you were in charge, Anakin?"

    He didn't hesitate.  "I'd round up the leaders of both factions, city and nomad alike, lock them all in the same room, and tell them that if they didn't make peace within a week, the Republic would send a full task force and assume direct control of local affairs."

    She was nodding slowly, an infuriatingly tranquil expression on her face.  "And how would the Commerce Guild respond to that, given its extensive interests in this sector?"

    "The Commerce Guild does what is profitable.  War with the Republic is not profitable."  He looked convinced.  "That much I've learned."

    "And if the Ansionian Unity of cities and towns, in consequence of this action of yours, makes good on its threat to join the new secessionist movement, and the other worlds that are allied to Ansion decide to join in?"

    "It wouldn't make any difference to people's daily lives.  Trade would continue, everyday life would on the worlds involved wouldn't change," he huffed.

    "Are you so certain that you would risk thousands of lives to find out?  And what would happen to the Alwari, who disagree with the present path of the Unity?  Would not the Commerce Guild and its allies come down hard on them?"

    "Well, I'm not sure that..."  Under her relentless reasoning, his wall of certainty was beginning to crack.

    She looked away from him, returned to studying the lively crowd.  "Better, I think, to send a pair of Jedi and their Padawans to try to fix things.  Far less threatening than a task force.  Also cheaper, a course of action that always pleases the Senate."

    He sighed.  "You argue plausibly.  But Ansion is such a nowhere world!  Even Obi-Wan wonders if it is very important.  He's spoken to me about it several times, as well as about what he thinks is wrong these days with the Republic itself."

    "Flashpoints," she shot back.  "Surely he has spoken to you about flashpoints, and the need to stamp them out before they can grow into uncontainable conflagrations."

    "Interminably."  He sighed resignedly as he resumed surveying the crowd with her.

____________________

    Luminara eyed the Padawans.  "There is still tension between Barriss and Anakin."

    "Yes."  Obi-Wan sighed.  "I've noticed it, too.  But they appear to be getting on better since her ordeal.  A fine student, Barriss.  The Force flows strongly within her."

    "So it does, but not like it does in young Anakin.  He is a wild river, your Padawan, full of repressed energy that needs channeling."

    "He came unreasonably late to training, and was raised by his mother to a greater age than the usual apprentice."

    Luminara looked again in the Padawan's direction.  "He knew his mother?  That is a bond Jedi apprentices do not normally carry with them.  It presents all manner of potential complications and difficulties."

    "I know.  For that reason alone I would not have accepted him, but he was taken up by my own Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, whose dying wishes I vowed to respect.  Among other matters that had to be dealt with subsequent to his passing, that meant dealing with and bringing along this unusually volatile youth."

    "How has it gone?" she asked earnestly.

    Obi-Wan stroked his beard absently.  "He's often impetuous, which is worrying.  Sometimes it carries over to impatience, which is dangerous.  But he has gone through and survived a great deal, and he is an avid student of Jedi lore.  There are subjects in which he excels, such as lightsaber combat.  And he's a natural pilot.  But he has little time for the intricacies of history or diplomacy, and politics positively make him ill.  Yet he perseveres.  A trait he gets, I believe, from his mother, whom Qui-Gon knew but briefly as a quiet yet strong-willed woman."

    She nodded thoughtfully.  "If anyone can turn such unwieldy raw material into a polished Jedi Knight, I suspect it is you, Obi-Wan.  Many have the knowledge, but few have the patience."

____________________

    "Why is he so stressed all the time?"

    The central campfire was reflected in Obi-Wan's eyes.  "Anakin?  As is common in such instances, there's more than one reason.  For one thing, he feels obligated to excel.  This is largely a product of his difficult upbringing, so different from that of the average Padawan.  Also, he misses many things."

    "Anyone who trains to become a Jedi knows they will have to give up many things."

    He nodded in agreement.  "He fears he will never see his mother, whom he loves very much, ever again."

    "That was a terrible mistake.  Force-sensitive infants are removed from their families before they can form such dangerously lasting attachments."  She sounded momentarily wistful.  "I sometimes wonder what my own mother is doing, even at this moment, as we sit here discussing such things.  I wonder if she is thinking the same thing about me."  She looked away, off into the darkening prairie.  "What about you, Obi-Wan?  Do you ever think of your parents?"

    "I have too much else to think about.  Besides, every Jedi who is given charge of an apprentice has become a kind of parent.  Being one leaves me with no time to think of my own.  When such feelings do intrude, I find myself thinking of my teachers or Master Qui-Gon, and not my birth parents.  Sometimes - sometimes I wonder if it isn't a flaw in Jedi training to take infants from their families."

    "The proof of the truth lies in the success of the system.  That, no one can doubt."

    "I suppose," he replied.  With a slight smile he added, "No Jedi would be a true devotee who didn't question the system, along with everything else."

    She looked to her right, to the other side of the camp.  "Your Anakin may be subject to many flaws, but an unwillingness to question things certainly isn't one of them.  Will he ever see his mother again, do you think?" she asked thoughtfully.

    "Who can say?  If it were up to him, he would.  But it's not up to him, any more than the direction of my future travelings are up to me.  We go where the Council sends us.  Better to ask such questions to Master Yoda than me."

____________________

    "As for Anakin, there are other things occupying his thoughts besides his mother.  I can sense the turmoil that bubbles inside him.  But when I bring it up, he refuses to acknowledge that such disturbances exist.  Strange, how he is willing to question the validity of everything but his own inner uncertainties."

    "Ah."  Reaching down, she picked up the self-heating tumbler of hot Ansionian tea.  It was black and sweet, with a distinctive tang of the open plains.  Everything here tasted of the prairie, she was coming to realize.  "Given so much powerful self-denial, do you really think he can become a full Jedi Knight?"

    "I don't know.  I really don't know.  But I promised Master Qui-Gon that I would try my best to make it happen.  To that end I have disagreed, before the Council, with Master Yoda himself.  Yes, I have my doubts.  But a promise is a promise.  If Anakin succeeds in overcoming his own internal demons, he will make a great Jedi, and Master Qui-Gon's judgment will be vindicated."

    "And you?  What of your judgment, Obi-Wan?"

    "I try not to make judgments."  Rising, he dusted off his robe.  "Anakin knows he has problems.  I teach, I advise, I offer a sympathetic ear.  But in the end, only Anakin can decide what Anakin will become.  I think he knows that, but refuses to accept it.  He wants me, or someone else, to make everything right, from his mother's condition to the condition of the galaxy."  The smile widened slightly.  "As you may have noted, he can be very headstrong when there is something that he wants."

    "I would prefer to think 'resolute.'"  She lowered the tumbler from her lips.  Steam rose from the container, snaking slowly up in front of her face, blurring the distinct outlines of the tattoos on her chin.  "What's the biggest problem?  His mother?  The deliberate pace of his education?"

    "If I knew that, I would try to cure it.  I think it is buried much deeper.  So deep he isn't even aware of it himself.  Someday it will come out."  He turned and started to walk way.  "When it does, I have a feeling it will make for some interesting times."

    'Is that a feeling that emanates from the Force?" she called after him.

    "No."  Glancing back over his shoulder, he smiled one more time.  "It's a feeling that emanates from Obi-Wan Kenobi."

____________________

    "All Jedi are lonely to one degree or another, Padawan.  You'll learn that soon enough.  The difference lies in the degree.  There are those who are more comfortable with an ascetic lifestyle than others.  Within the rules, there is some flexibility.  You simply have to seek it out."

    Barriss looked to the other side of the fire.  "Is that what Anakin is trying to do?  Find flexibility?"

    Sensitive, she was, Luminara marveled.  Her Padawan was going to make an exceptional healer.  "He's certainly searching for something.  Answers to questions he hasn't even formed yet.  Whether he can find enough of them to make him happy remains to be seen.  I've spoken to Obi-Wan about it.  He isn't sure, either.  He knows only that his Padawan has enormous potenial."

    Barriss rose.  "Potential that goes unrealized is potential that might as well not exist in the first place."

    From her recumbent position, Luminara looked up into the night.  "Don't be so quick to judge, Barriss.  Some of us suffer from greater uncertainties than others.  I would as soon have Anakin Skywalker by my side in a fight as any Padawan I have ever met."

    "In a fight, yes, Master.  At other times..."  She left the thought unfinished as she pivoted and walked back to her own sleeping place.

____________________

    ...the work of a Jedi was never done, whether it was bludgeoning recalcitrant planetary councils like the Ansionian Unity into seeing reason, fighting to hold the Republic together, or counseling distraught individual souls.  Burdens enough for any one entity.  She could deal with the exigencies.  So, she knew, could Obi-Wan Kenobi.  One day the same would be true for Barriss Offee.  As for Anakin Skywalker, that remained to be seen.

    Potential, Barriss had said.  Was ever a word so fraught with confliction?  As for Anakin's future happiness, where was it written that one had to be happy to perform well as a Jedi?  Content, yes.  Accepting, surely.  But happy?  Was she happy?

    Focus on the task at hand, she told herself firmly.  And the task at hand was not satisfying the curiosity of her apprentice, not trying to understand the puzzling Padawan Anakin Skywalker, not even supporting the aims and ideals of the Republic.  No, the task at hand was to get a good night's rest in the absence of a comfortable bed.  Turning onto her side, she pulled the thermosensitive blanket up to her neck, closed her eyes, and allowed herself to drift off into a deep and soothing sleep, where even a Jedi could, for a little while, openly and freely set aside all responsibilities.

____________________

    The instance he'd seen Barriss knocked off her mount and swept downstream, Anakin had gone in after her.  He hadn't thought about it.  The action was entirely reflexive.  He knew that if the circumstances had been reversed, she would now be the one swimming hard to catch up with him.

____________________

    As for Anakin, at times he seemed almost eager for another attack, as if anxious for the opportunity to prove himself.  Obi-Wan had spoken of the young man's skill with a lightsaber.  But part of that skill, she knew, was knowing when not to use the weapon.  Still, she found it hard to be critical of him.  He wanted so badly to impress, to please.

____________________

    Anakin in particular could not get the Jedi Luminara's presentation out of his head.  It kept him preoccupied as he prepared for sleep and awake well into the morning hours.  He thought he had seen or read everything that could be done with the Force.  Once again, he had been shown the error of his assumptions.  He could not imagine the amount of study and control it took to realize such a feat.  The complexity of it, the skill needed to simultaneously control one's body as well as thousands of individual grains of sand, was quite beyond him.

    For now, he thought as he lay on his back in the visitor's house.  Though aware of his present limitations, his confidence in his abilities was boundless.  It was the same confidence that had allowed him to survive a difficult childhood, had gained him the skills necessary to master the intricacies of droid repair that had made him so valuable to that winged reprobate Watto, and had permitted him to participate in the liberation of Naboo from the subjugation of the Trade Federation.  It was the same confidence that would one day enable him to achieve anything he wished.  Whatever that might be.

____________________

    "Very little on this world fits me.  I wish I was elsewhere."

    "Strange world that, Elsewhere.  I've heard a lot about it."

    His expression changed.  "Now you're making fun of me."

    "No, I'm not," she insisted, though her tone and expression were ambivalent.  "It's just that sometimes I think you're a little too self-centered to be a Jedi.  A little too focused on what's good for and essential to Anakin Skywalker, as opposed to what's important to your colleagues and to the Republic."

    "The Republic."  He gestured toward where the two older Jedi were conversing with their guides.  "You should hear Master Obi-Wan talk about the Republic, sometimes.  About what's happening to it, what's going on in the government."

    "You mean the talk of a secessionist movement?"

    "That - and other things.  Don't misunderstand.  Master Obi-Wan is a true Jedi.  Anyone can see that.  He believes in everything the Jedi stand for and everything they do.  The way I see it, that's very different from believing in the current government."

    "Governments are always changing.  They're a mutable organism."  While she spoke, she continued to look on in fascination as the chawix slowly consumed the last of the unfortunate membibi.  "And like any living thing, they are always growing and maturing."

    "Or like any living thing, they die and are replaced.  Believing in the Republic isn't the same as believing in the Senate."

    "Ah - that overstuffed hothouse full of declamatory blowhards!"

    He looked at her in sudden surprise.  "I thought you disagreed with me."

    "About the Republic and what it stands for?  Yes.  About the Senate, that's something else again.  But politicians are not Jedi, Anakin, and Jedi are not politicians.  It's the Council we report to, it's there directives that lead us, and unless that changes, I'm afraid I can't share your overweening cynicism regarding the state of the Republic."

    "Your upbringing was different from mine.  You haven't seen the things I have."  He looked down at her.  "You don't feel the kind of loss I do."

    "No, that's true," she readily admitted.  "I don't."  Her tone softened from argumentative to curious.  "What's it like, to know your mother?  To grow up with one?"

    He brushed past her, moving to rejoin the others.  "It's a feeling of loss that's hard to describe.  Just know that it hurts.  You're better off without that hurt, Barriss.  Nothing personal, but it's kind of private.  Even Jedi are entitled to a few small privacies.  Even Padawans."  He forced a smile.  "Anyway, that was a long time ago.  Let's see if our good guides think it's safe for us to resume our journey."

    There was more she wanted to ask him, but he was right.  Thrown together for long periods at a time, Jedi and Padawan alike had a need for privacy.  Curious and concerned though she might be, she was going to have to respect that.  In their time together on Ansion, Anakin had done nothing to make her suspect his competence.  Where Jedi teachings were concerned, he was as reliable and aware a fellow Padawan as she had ever met - if a bit strong-headed.  What vexed her were these personal problems of his, inner quandaries that he only occasionally allowed to rise to the surface of his self, where others could perceive them.

    She didn't want to quarrel with him, or accuse him.  She wanted to help.  But in order for her to be of any use, he would have to open up.  If not to her, then to Obi-Wan.  Clearly, there was much on his mind beyond a desire to do a good job and to eventually be promoted to the status of full Jedi Knight.

    Perhaps with the passage of time, he might choose to confide in her more.  Until then, she would try her best to monitor his shifting emotions, and to be there if he needed someone besides his teacher to talk to.  Meanwhile, he would remain a bit of an enigma.  She moved to join him and the others.  If nothing else, he was certainly unique.  That uniqueness gave him something to build on.  But if he hoped to ever be promoted to full Jedi, he was going to have to sort out those problematic inner uncertainties.

    She had never met such a thing as a conflicted Jedi.  But then, she had never before met one who had been raised by his mother.

____________________

    Unbeknownst to him, Anakin continued to observe his mentor from a distance.  Most of the time, he reflected, it was impossible to tell what his Master was thinking.  Was that the fate of all Jedi - to gradually grow solitary, withdrawn, and distant?  Looking at the young woman riding along beside him, it was difficult to envision such a melancholic transformation overtaking the spirited and energetic Barriss.  His fellow Padawan was full of life.  And to be fair, he told himself, Luminara Unduli was far more animated than Obi-Wan.  Was it only male Jedi, then, who were destined to live lives of endless solemn introspection?

    That would not happen to him, he vowed silently.  Whatever the future brought, he resolved it would not include the life of dour reserve that seemed to afflict Master Obi-Wan.  He recalled the marvelous, spirited storytelling performance his teacher had put on for the enthralled Yiwa.  Was he judging Obi-Wan too harshly?  Was it the Jedi's fault he had never felt the kind of stirrings that moved his Padawan to stare for hours on end at the night sky and call out in silence to a certain distant star?  His teachings told him to be compassionate when faced with the deprivation of others.  Even a student could spare sympathy for a teacher, he decided.  Then and there he resolved to always keep that in mind when arguing with Obi-Wan.

    If I should ever forget this vow, he concluded firmly, it will be because I am no longer the person I have chosen to be.

____________________

    "That's the second time I've seen you wield a lightsaber.  You're very strong."  Unconsciously, she felt her hand where it had been cut.  That kind of experience would teach her not to relax and lower her guard, she told herself firmly, even in the face of a seemingly inferior opponent.

    "I've practiced hard."  Raising its front, then its middle, and finally its hind legs, his suubatar cleared a low ridge of gray stone.  "There are those who say you can define a Jedi by his skill with a lightsaber.  I want my ability to be respected.  Respect forestalls fights."

____________________

    "Come on, Barriss.  Master Yoda, engaged in serious dueling outside the fencing arena?  Can you actually envision such a contest?"  Of the images that sprang to mind at such a thought, each was more amusing than the next.  "Who could he reasonably be expected to fight?  Someone Tooqui's size, maybe?"

    "It's not the size of the Jedi or the amount of power running through her lightsaber, but the strength of her heart."

    Anakin nodded knowingly.  "Give me size and power any day, and keep your heart."  His response verged on blasphemy, he knew, but he was curious to see how the other Padawan would react.

    She handled it more calmly than he expected.  "You should be ashamed to say such things, Anakin Skywalker.  How can you question the proficiency of Master Yoda?"

    "I'm not questioning his proficiency," Anakin shot back.  "I can't, because I've attended his teaching sessions.  There' no one faster or more adept with a lightsaber - in a classroom.  All I'm saying is that teaching technique is not the same as using it in battle.  Besides, Master Yoda is - well, he's not young.  As for questioning anything at all, a good Jedi is supposed to question everything.  Self-assurance is the best kind."

    "It's good that you think so," she retorted.  "It means you'll never have to worry about ever making a mistake."

    "We all make mistakes," he countered.  "That's what questioning is supposed to help prevent."  He tapped himself on the chest.  "I question everything that comes my way.  Right now, we've got whole systems questioning the way the Republic is run.  Ansion is just one of them, and it's being watched closely by all the others."

    She eyed him intently.  "Are you doing that, too, Anakin?  Are you questioning the way the Republic is being governed?"

    "I'd be the odd one out if I wasn't."  He gestured past the head of his galloping mount.  "Even Master Obi-Wan has reservations.  About corruption, about the direction the government is taking, about the direction it's not taking because it's becoming more and more bogged down in bureaucratic twaddle - sure I have questions.  Don't you?"

    Straightening in her saddle, she shook her head tersely.  "I don't have time to waste on political disputations.  I'm too busy doing my job as a Padawan, trying to secure promotion to Jedi.  That's enough work to occupy anyone.  Or at least I thought so."  She stared hard at him.  "You're lucky you have room enough in your thoughts to be bothered with galactic affairs of state."

    And other things, he wanted to tell her, but did not.  Although being thrown together in adversity had given him a grudging admiration for his colleague, and for her skills, he still did not trust her entirely.  Anything he told her, he was certain, she was likely to pass straight on to her Master.  Which Luminara would then tell Obi-Wan.  So much for confiding, he thought.  Some things were better kept to oneself.

    Each time he engaged in such a verbal confrontation, it reinforced the belief that he was somehow different.  Different from Barriss as much as from Luminara or even Obi-Wan.  His mother had always told him as much.  He wished he could talk to her now, seek her sage advice on a number of matters, not least of which was the one that threatened to consume him.  And to think, he mused as he rode on, that there was a time when people thought serious separation meant finding themselves on opposite sides of the same planet.

____________________

    Having been forced to live most of his life on boldness alone, Anakin greatly admired the quality in others.

____________________

    Scuttling backward on hands and feet, Anakin tried to focus the Force while reaching urgently for his lightsaber.  Drawing it from his belt, he activated the beam - and had it slapped from his right hand by one tri-clawed paw.  Landing in nearby grass, the device struck on its control side - and switched off.  That was what came, a small part of him reflected, of trying to do two things at once without knowing how.  A true Jedi could so that.  Painfully, he was once again made aware of how much he had yet to learn.

____________________

    He remembered his shoulder.  His anger at himself had temporarily masked the pain.  Now it returned, full force.  He was glad of the burning sensation, opening himself to it, welcoming it.  He deserved it.

____________________

    An angry retort sprang immediately to mind, but he did not give voice to it.  Barriss was right, of course.  More than right.  She had given him something else to think about, something more to ponder.  Turning onto his back, wincing at the fiery pain in his shoulder, he considered the stars from a different perspective than he had earlier that night.

    There was more to mastering the Force than moving objects from point to point.  One had to be conscious of it at all times, not just in moments of danger.  It was not armor, always present to protect those who knew something of its ways.  It responded only to conscious effort, to awareness.  That was his problem, he realized.  He was aware only part of the time.

    It wouldn't happen again, he swore.  From now on, he would be with the Force at all times, rather than waiting for it to be with him.  Yet again, it had been brought home to him how much he did not yet know.

____________________

    While Barriss held her own, Anakin seemed to grow stronger.  It was as if, faced by the challenge and the very real proximity of death, the Force grew within him.  Obi-Wan did not entirely understand what was happening, but at the moment he was far too preoccupied to examine the phenomenon.

____________________

    A fine apprentice, Barriss.  Tending a bit to the pessimistic at times, but a devoted student.  Not like that Anakin Skywalker.  Greater potential there, but also greater uncertainty.  She had observed him during the battle.  More than any other non-Jedi she had ever known, she would have wanted him defending her back.  It was what he might to after such battles that concerned her.  More than a bit of an enigma, that young man.  That was not only her opinion.  Obi-Wan had indicated as much to her on more than once occasion.  But he had also insisted that the boy held within him the potential for greatness.

    Well, as she had just more or less told Barriss, that was one of those outcomes only time could decide.  Skywalker was not her responsibility, and she was glad of it.  She was not sure she would have been as patient with him as Obi-Wan.  An unusual teacher for an unusual student, she reflected.

____________________

    "We would have managed," Anakin told him.  At a stern look from his Master, he added quickly, "Though your help was certainly more than welcome."

    Bayaar bowed slightly in the Padawan's direction, and Anakin felt abashed.  Would he ever learn to think before speaking?  His training was making him more than overconfident: it was making him brash.  Somehow, he was going to have to learn how to be as patient as Obi-Wan.  Otherwise he would never stand a chance of equaling, much less surpassing, the skills of his instructor.

____________________

    "How are you feeling, Anakin?"

    He was studying the sky, clearly anxious to leave.  "Much better, now that our work here is done."  Seeing that she was still staring at him, he added, "Is something the matter?"

    "No.  It's just that I think I may have misjudged you.  I've come to know, and to understand, you a little better in the time we've been thrown together, Anakin.  I realize now that you're searching for something.  Searching harder than most of us, I think."  Reaching out, she put a hand on his arm.  "I just want to say that I hope you find whatever it is you're looking for."

    He glanced over at her in surprise.  "I'm looking to become a Jedi, Barriss.  That's all."

    "Is it?" she challenged him.  When he chose not to respond, she added, "Well, if you ever feel the need to talk to someone besides Obi-Wan about it, you're welcome to confide in me.  If nothing else, maybe I can provide a different perspective on certain things."

    He hesitated, then replied gratefully.  "I appreciate that, Barriss.  I really do.  I know it would be easier to talk to you about - certain things - than to Master Obi-Wan."  He nodded in the direction of the two conversing Jedi.

    She laughed softly.  "Anyone is easier to talk to than a Jedi Master."

22 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 20 years of age)

____________________

    "No starship tonight, Mom?"

    "No starship this night," she replied, and looked back up at the starry canopy.  "Anakin must be busy saving the galaxy or chasing smugglers and other outlaws.  He has to do those things now, you know."

    "Then I shall sleep more soundly from this night forward," Owen replied with a grin.

    Though she was kidding, of course, Shmi did realize a bit of truth in her presumption about Anakin.  He was a special child, something beyond the norm - even for a Jedi, she believed.  Anakin had always stood taller than anyone else.  Not physically - physically, as Shmi remembered him, he was just a smiling little boy, with curious eyes and sandy-blond hair.  But Annie could do things, and so very well.  Even though he was only a child at the time, he had raced Pods, defeating some of the very best racers on all of Tatooine.  He was the first human ever to win one of the Podraces, and that when he was only nine years old!  And in a racer that, Shmi remembered with an even wider smile, had been built with spare parts taken from Watto's junkyard.

    But that was Anakin's way, because he was not like the other children, or even other adults.  Anakin could "see" things before they happened, as if he was so tuned to the world about him that he understood innately the logical conclusion to any course of events.  He could often sense problems with his Podracer, for example, long before he actually saw them.  It was his special way, and that was why the Jedi who had come to Tatooine had recognized the unique nature of the boy and had freed him from Watto and taken him under their care and instruction.

    "I had to let him go," Shmi said quietly.  "I could not keep him with me, if that meant living the life of a slave."

    "I know," Owen assured her.

    "I could not have kept him with me even if we were not slaves," she went on, and looked at Owen, as if her own words had surprised her.  "Annie has so much to give to the galaxy.  His gifts could not be contained by Tatooine.  He belongs out there, flying across the stars, saving planets.  He was born to be a Jedi, born to give so much more to so many more."

____________________

    "Annie wanted to go," she went on, the same speech she had given Owen before, the same speech she had silently repeated to herself every night for the last ten years.  "His dream was to fly about the stars, to see every world in the whole galaxy, to do grand things.  He was born a slave, but he was not born to be a slave.  No, not my Annie."

    "Not my Annie."

____________________

    In truth, the two boys were very different in temperament.  Owen was solid and staid, the rock who would gladly take over the farm from Cliegg when the time came, as this moisture farm had been passed down in the Lars family from generation to generation.  Owen was ready, and even thrilled, to be the logical and rightful heir to the place, more than able to accept the often difficult lifestyle in exchange for the pride and sense of honest accomplishment that came with running the place correctly.

    But Annie...

    Shmi nearly laughed aloud as she considered her impetuous and wanderlust-filled son put in a similar situation.  She had no doubts that Anakin would give Cliegg the same fits he had always given Watto.  Anakin's adventurous spirit would not be tamed by any sense of generational responsibility, Shmit knew.  His need to leap out for adventure, to race the Pods, to fly among the stars, would not have been diminished, and it surely would have driven Cliegg crazy.

____________________

    He was indeed anxious to get there, though not for the reason Obi-Wan had stated.  It wasn't the Jedi Temple that beckoned to the Padawan, but rather a rumor he had heard over the comm-chatter that a certain Senator, formerly the Queen of Naboo, was on her way to address the Senate.

    Padme Amidala.

    The name resonated in young Anakin's heart and soul.  He hadn't seen her in a decade, not since he, along with Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, had helped her in her struggle against the Trade Federation on Naboo.  He had only been nine years old at that time, but from the moment he had first laid eyes on Padme, young Anakin had known that she was the woman he would marry.

____________________

    Yoda was referring to the prophecy, of course, that the Dark side would rise and that one would be born who would bring balance to the Force and to the galaxy.  Such a potential chosen one was now known among them, and that, too, brought more than a little trepidation to these hallowed halls.

    "Do you think Obi-Wan's learner will be able to bring balance to the Force?" Mace asked.

    Yoda stopped walking and slowly turned to regard the other Master, his expression showing a range of emotions that reminded Mace that they didn't know what bringing balance to the Force might truly mean.  "Only if he chooses to follow his destiny," Yoda replied, and as with Mace's question, the answer hung in the air between them, a spoken belief that could only lead to more uncertainty.

    Both Yoda and Mace Windu understood the places that some of the Jedi, at least, might have to travel to find the true answers, and those places, emotional stops, and not physical, could well test all of them to the very limits of their abilities and sensibilities.

____________________

    "My Master has gone to the lower levels to check on Captain Typho's security measures, but all seems quiet."

    "You sound disappointed."

    Anakin gave an embarrassed laugh.

    "You don't enjoy this," Padme remarked.

    "There is nowhere else in all the galaxy I'd rather be," Anakin blurted, and it was Padme's turn to give an embarrassed little laugh.

    "But this... inertia," she reasoned, and Anakin nodded as he caught on.

    "We should be more aggressive in our search for the assassin," he insisted.  "To sit back and wait is to invite disaster."

    "Master Kenobi does not agree."

    "Master Kenobi is bound by the letter of the orders," Anakin explained.  "He won't take a chance on doing anything that isn't explicitly asked of him by the Jedi Council."

    Padme tilted her head and considered this impetuous young man more carefully.  Was not discipline a primary lesson of the Jedi Knights?  Were they not bound, strictly so, within the structure of the Order and their Code?

    "Master Kenobi is not like his own Master," Anakin said.  "Master Qui-Gon understood the need for independent thinking and initiative - otherwise, he would have left me on Tatooine."

    "And you are more like Master Qui-Gon?" Padme asked.

    "I accept the duties I am given, but demand the leeway I need to see them to a proper conclusion."

    "Demand?"

    Anakin smiled and shrugged.  "Well, I ask, at least."

    "And presume, when you can't get the answers you desire," Padme said with a knowing grin, though in her heart she was only half teasing.

    "I do the best I can with every problem I am given," was the strongest admission Anakin would offer.

    "And so sitting around guarding me is not your idea of fun."

    "We could be doing better and more exciting things," Anakin said, and there was a double edge to his voice, one that intrigued Padme and made her pull her robe up even tighter.

    "If we catch the assassin, we might find the root of these attempts," the Padawan explained, quickly putting the discussion back on a professional level.  "Either way, you will be safer, and our duties will be made far easier."

    Padme's mind whirled as she tried to sort out Anakin's thoughts, and his motivations.  He was surprising her with every word, considering that he was a Jedi Padawan, and yet, given the fire that she clearly saw burning behind his blue eyes, he was not surprising her.  She saw trouble brewing there, in those simmering and too-passionate eyes, but even more than that, she saw excitement and the promise of thrills.

____________________

    There was sincerity in his tone, Obi-Wan clearly recognized, and a bit of regret, perhaps, and that reminded Obi-Wan of the difficult circumstances under which Anakin had entered the Order.  He had been far too old, nearly ten years of age, and Master Qui-Gon had taken him in without permission, without the blessing of the Jedi Council.  Master Yoda had seen potential danger in young Anakin Skywalker.  No one they had ever encountered had been stronger in the Force, in terms of sheer potential.  But the Jedi Order normally required training from the earliest possible age.  The Force was too powerful a tool - no, not a tool, and that was the problem.  An unwise Jedi might consider the Force a tool, a means to his own ends.  But a true Jedi understood that the Force was a partner on a concurrent course, a common pathway to true harmony and understanding.

    After Qui-Gon's death at the hands of a Sith Lord, the Jedi Council had rethought their discussion about young Anakin, and had allowed his training to go forward, with Obi-Wan fulfilling his promise to Qui-Gon that he would take the talented young boy under his tutelage.  The Council had been hesitant, though, and obviously not happy about it.  Yoda had seemed almost resigned, as if this path was one that they could not deny, rather than one they would willingly and eagerly walk.  For the whispers spoke of Anakin as the chosen one, the one who would bring balance to the Force.

    Obi-Wan wasn't sure what that meant, and he was more than a little fearful.  He looked up at Anakin, who was standing patiently, properly subdued after his tongue-lashing, and he took comfort in that image, in this incredibly likable, somewhat stubborn, and obviously brash young man.

    He hid his smile only because it would not do for Anakin to understand himself forgiven so easily for his rash actions and the loss of his weapon.

____________________

    "And so, my young Padawan, they have finally given you an assignment.  Your patience has paid off."

    "Your guidance more than my patience.  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."

    "You don't need guidance, Anakin.  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."

    "I see you becoming the greatest of all the Jedi, Anakin.  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 on 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.

____________________

    She looked over at Anakin, who was sleeping somewhat restlessly.  She could see him now, not as a Jedi Padawan and her protector, but just as a young man.  A handsome young man, and one whose actions repeatedly professed his love for her.  A dangerous young man, to be sure, a Jedi who was thinking about things he should not.  A man who was inevitably following the call of his heart above that of pragmatism and propriety.  And all for her.  Padme couldn't deny the attractiveness of that.  She and Anakin were on similar roads of public service, she as a Senator, he as a Jedi Padawan, but he was showing rebellion against the present course, or at least, against the Master who was leading him along the present course, as Padme never had.

____________________

    "It must be difficult having sworn your life to the Jedi," she said, taking a different tack to pull his gaze off her.  "Not being able to visit the places you like.  Or do the things you like."

    "Or be with the people I love?"  Anakin could easily see where she was leading him.

    "Are you allowed to love?" Padme asked bluntly.  "I thought it was forbidden for a Jedi."

    "Attachment is forbidden," Anakin began, his voice dispassionate, as if he were reciting.  "Possession is forbidden.  Compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is central to a Jedi's life, so you might say we're encouraged to love."

    "You have changed so much," Padme heard herself saying, and in a tone that seemed inappropriate to her, seemed to invite...

    She blinked as Anakin turned her words back on her.  "You haven't changed a bit.  You're exactly the way I remember you in my dreams."

____________________

    "You were dreaming about your mother earlier," she remarked, needing to change the subject.  She sat back, putting some distance between her and Anakin, gaining some margin of safety between them.  "Weren't you?"

    Anakin leaned back and looked away, nodding slowly.  "I left Tatooine so long ago.  My memory of her is fading."  He snapped his intense gaze back over Padme.  "I don't want to lose that memory.  I don't want to stop seeing her face."

    She started to say, "I know," and started to life her hand to stroke his cheek, but she held back and let him continue.

    "I've been seeing her in my dreams.  Vivid dreams.  Scary dreams.  I worry about her."

    "I'd be disappointed in you if you didn't," Padme answered him, her voice soft and full of sympathy.  "You didn't leave her in the best of circumstances."

    Anakin winced, as if those words had hurt him.

    "But it was right that you left," Padme reminded him, taking his arm.  She held his gaze with her own.  "Your leaving was what your mother wanted for you.  What she needed for you.  The opportunity that Qui-Gon offered you gave her hope.  That's what a parent needs for her child, to know that he, that you, had been given a chance at a better life."

    "But the dreams -"

    "You can't help but feel a little guilty above leaving, I suppose," Padme answered, and Anakin was shaking his head, as if she was missing the point.  But she didn't believe that to be the case, so she continued.  "It's only natural that you'd want your mother off Tatooine, out here with you, perhaps.  Or on Naboo, or Coruscant, or someplace that you feel is safer, and more beautiful.  Trust me, Anakin," she said softly but intently, and she put her hand on his forearm again.  "You did the right thing in going.  For yourself, but more importantly, for your mother."

    Her expression, so full of compassion, so full of caring, was not one that Anakin Skywalker could argue against.

____________________

    "When the Queen asked me to serve as Senator, I couldn't refuse her," she explained.

    "I agree!" Anakin replied.  "I think the Republic needs you.  I'm glad you chose to serve - I feel things are going to happen in our generation that will change the galaxy in profound ways."

    "A Jedi premonition?" Padme kidded.

    Anakin laughed.  "A feeling," he explained, or tried to explain, for it was obvious that he wasn't quite sure what he was trying to say.  "It just seems to me as if it's all grown stale, as it something has to happen -"

    "I think so too," Padme put in sincerely.

____________________

    Another image invaded Obi-Wan's meditations as he tried to sort through that puzzle, and image of Anakin and Padme together on Naboo.

    The Jedi Knight started, suddenly afraid that this was a premonition, and that some danger would visit his Padawan and the young Senator...

    But no, he realized, settling back.  No danger was about; the two were relaxed and at play.

    Obi-Wan's relief lasted only as long as it took him to realize that the continuing scene in his mind might be the most dangerous thing of all.  He dismissed it, though, unsure if this was a premonition, an image of reality, or just his own fears playing out before him.  Obi-Wan pointedly reminded himself that the sooner he solved the mystery of Kamino, the mystery of who so desperately wanted Amidala dead, the sooner he could return to Anakin and offer the proper guidance.

    The Jedi Knight focused again on the bust of Count Dooku, searching for insights, but for some reason, the image of Anakin kept becoming interposed with that of the renegade Count...

____________________

    "Be wary," he said to Obi-Wan, tilting his head back just a bit as he spoke, a posture that made him seem all the more impressive.  "The disturbance in the Force is growing stronger."

    Obi-Wan nodded, though in truth, his concerns were more focused and tangible at that moment.  "I'm concerned for my Padawan.  He is not ready to be on his own."

    Mace gave a nod, as if to remind Obi-Wan that they had covered this already.  "He has exceptional skills," the Master replied.  "The Council is confident in its decision, Obi-Wan.  Not all of the questions about him have been answered, of course, but his talents cannot be dismissed, and we are not disappointed in the progress he has made under your tutelage."

    Obi-Wan considered the words carefully and nodded again, knowing that he was walking a fine line here.  If he overstated his concerns about Anakin's temperament, he might be doing a great disservice to the Jedi and to the galaxy.  And yet, if he let the magnitude of his assignment in training Anakin Skywalker being him to silence on legitimate questions, then was he doing great harm?

    "If the prophecy is true, Anakin will be the one to bring balance to the Force," Mace finished.

    "But he still has much to learn.  His skills have made him... well -"  Obi-Wan paused, trying to walk that delicate line.  "- arrogant.  I realize now what you and Master Yoda knew from the beginning.  The boy was too old to start the training, and..."

    The frown spreading on Mace Windu's face signaled Obi-Wan that he might be pushing a bit too hard.

    "There's something else," Mace observed.

    Obi-Wan took a deep and steadying breath.  "Master, Anakin and I should not have been given this assignment.  I'm afraid Anakin won't be able to protect the Senator."

    "Why?"

    "He has a... an emotional connection with her.  It's been there since he was a boy.  Now he's confused, and distracted."  As he spoke, Obi-Wan started toward his starfighter.  He climbed up the cockpit ladder and into his seat.

    "So you have already stated," Mace reminded.  "And your concerns were weighed properly, and did not change the decision of the Council.  Obi-Wan, you must have faith that Anakin will take the right path."

    It made sense, of course.  If Anakin was to become a great leader, a creature of prophecy, then surely his character tests must be passed.  Anakin was waging one of those tests right now, Obi-Wan knew, off in seclusion on a distant planet with a woman whom he loved too deeply.  He had to be strong enough to pass that test; Obi-Wan just hoped that Anakin recognized the trial for what it was.

____________________

    "There was a very old man who lived on the island," she said.  Her brown eyes seemed to be looking far away, across the years.  "He used to make glass out of sand - and vases and necklaces out of the glass. They were magical."

    Anakin moved a bit closer, staring at her intensely until she turned to face him.  "Everything here is magical," he said.

    "You could look into the glass and see the water.  The way it ripples and moves.  It looked so real, but it wasn't."

    "Sometimes, when you believe something to be real, it becomes real."  It seemed to Anakin as if she wanted to look away.  But she didn't.  Instead, she was falling deeper into his eyes, and he into hers.

    "I used to think if you looked too deeply into the glass, you would lose yourself," she said, her voice barely a whisper.

    "I think it's true..."

____________________

    "You really don't like politicians, do you?" Padme asked, a bit of anger creeping in despite the warm wind and the idyllic setting.

    "I like two or three," Anakin replied.  "But I'm not really sure about one of them."  His smile was perfectly disarming and Padme had to work hard to keep any semblance of a frown against it.

    "I don't think the system works," Anakin finished, matter-of-factly.

    "Really?" she replied sarcastically.  "Well, how would you have it work?"

    Anakin stood up, suddenly intense.  "We need a system where the politicians sit down and discuss the problem, agree what's in the best interests of the people, and then do it," he said, as if it was perfectly simple and logical.

    "Which is exactly what we do," came Padme's unhesitating reply.

    Anakin looked at her doubtfully.

    "The trouble is that people don't always agree," she explained.  "In fact, they hardly ever do."

    "Then they should be made to."

    The statement caught Padme a bit off guard.  Was he so convinced that he had the answers that he...  No, she put that unsettling thought out of her mind.  "By whom?" she asked.  "Who is going to make them?"

    "I don't know," he answered, waving his hands again in obvious frustration.  "Someone."

    "You?"

    "Of course not me!"

    "But someone."

    "Someone wise."

    "That sounds an awful lot like a dictatorship," Padme said, winning the debate.  She watched Anakin as a mischievous little grin began to spread across his face.

    "Well," he said calmly, "if it works..."

____________________

    "From the moment I met you, all those years ago, a day hasn't gone by when I haven't thought of you."  His voice was husky, intense, and the sparkle in his eyes bored right through her.  "And now that I'm with you again, I'm in agony.  The closer I get to you, the worse it gets.  The thought of not being with you makes my stomach turn over, my mouth go dry.  I feel dizzy!  I can't breathe!  I'm haunted by the kiss you never should have given me.  My heart is beating, hoping that kiss will not become a scar."

    Padme's hand slowly dropped to her side and she sat listening in amazement at how honestly he was opening up before her, baring his heart though he knew she might teat it asunder with a single word.  She was honored by the thought, and truly touched.  And afraid.

    "You are in my very soul, tormenting me," Anakin went on, not a bit of falseness in his tone.  This was no ploy to garner any physical favors; this was honest and straightforward, refreshingly so to the woman who had spent most of her life being attended by handmaidens whose job it was to please and entertaining dignitaries whose agendas were never quite what they seemed.

    "What can I do?" he asked softly.  "I will do anything you ask."

    Padme looked away, overwhelmed, finding security in the distracting dance of flames in the hearth.  Several moments of silence slipped by uncomfortably.

    "If you are suffering as much as I am, please tell me," Anakin prompted.

    Padme turned on him, her own frustrations bubbling over.  "I can't!"  She sat back and struggled to collect herself.  "We can't," she said as calmly as she could.  "It's just not possible."

    "Anything's possible," Anakin replied, leaning forward.  "Padme, please listen -"

    "You listen," she scolded.  Somehow, hearing her own denial brought some strength to her - much-needed strength.  "We live in a real world.  Come back to it, Anakin.  You're studying to become a Jedi Knight.  I'm a Senator.  If you follow your thoughts through to conclusion, they will take us to a place we cannot go... regardless of the way we feel about each other."

    "Then you do feel something!"

    Padme swallowed hard.  "Jedi aren't allowed to marry," she pointed out, needing to deflect attention away from her feelings at that debilitating moment.  "You'd be expelled from the Order.  I will not let you give up your future for me."

    "You're asking me to be rational," Anakin replied without the slightest hesitation, and his confidence and boldness here caught Padme a bit by surprise.  There was no longer anything of the child in the man before her.  She felt her control slip a notch.

    "That is something I know I cannot do," he went on.  "Believe me, I wish I could wish my feelings away.  But I can't."

    "I am not going to give in to this," she said with all the conviction she could muster.  She finished with her jaw clenched very tightly, knowing that she had to be the strong one here, for Anakin's sake more than for her own.  "I have more important things to do than fall in love."

    He turned away, looking wounded, and she winced.  He stared into the fire, his face twisting  this way and that as he tried to sort through it all.  She knew he was trying to find a way around her resolve.

    "It wouldn't have to be that way," he said at length.  "We could keep it a secret."

    "Then we'd be living a lie - one we couldn't keep up even if we wanted to.  My sister saw it, so did my mother.  I couldn't do that.  Could you, Anakin?  Could you live like that?"

    He stared at her intensely for a moment, then looked back to the fire, seeming defeated.

    "No, you're right," he finally admitted.  "It would destroy us."

    Padme looked from Anakin to the fire.  Which would destroy her - destroy them - she had to wonder.  The action or the thought?

____________________

    But still, as she stood there looking upon him, he face now serene, she couldn't deny the attraction.  He seemed to her like a young hero, a budding Jedi - and she had no doubt that he would be among the greatest that great Order had ever known.  And at the same time, he seemed to her to be the same little kid she had known during the war with the Trade Federation, inquisitive and impetuous, aggravating and charming all at once.

____________________

    If his mother was indeed alive, and she believed that Shmi was, since Anakin had said so, Padme knew that no army would be strong enough to keep the young Jedi from her.

____________________

    "Mom," he breathed again, and his legs weakened beneath him.  The room was lit by doznes of candles, and by a shaft of pale moonlight, streaming through a hole in the roof, illuminating the figure of Shmi, tied facing against a rack to the side of the tent.  Her arms were outstretched, bound at bloodied wrists, and her face, when she turned to the side, showed the weeks of beatings.

    Anakin quickly cut her free and gently lowered her from the perch, into his arms and then down to the floor.

    "Mom... Mom... Mom," he whispered softly.  Anakin knew that she was alive, though she did not immediately respond and had come down so pitifully limp.  He could feel her in the Force, though she was a thin, thin sensation.

    He cradled her head and kept repeating her name softly, and finally, Shmi's eyelids fluttered open as much as she could manage through the swelling and the dried blood.

    "Annie?" she whispered back.  He could feel her wheezing as she tried to speak, and knew that many of her ribs had been crushed.  "Annie?  Is it you?"

    Gradually, her eyes began to focus upon him, and he could see a thin smile of recognition coming to her battered face.

    "I'm here, Mom," he told her.  "You're safe now.  Hang on.  I'm going to get you out of here."

    "Annie?  Annie?" Shmi replied, and she tilter her head, the way she often had when Anakin was a boy, seeming quite amused by him.  "You look so handsome."

    "Save your strength, Mom," he said, trying to calm her.  "We've got to get away from here."

    "My son," Shmi went on, and she seemed to be in a different place than Anakin, a safer place.  "My grown-up son.  I knew you'd come back to me.  I knew it all along."

    Anakin tried again to tell her to lie still and save her strength, but the words simply wouldn't came out of his mouth.

    "I'm so proud of you, Annie.  So proud.  I missed you so much."

    "I missed you, too, Mom, but we can talk later..."

    "Now I am complete," Shmi announced then, and she looked straight up, past Anakin, past the hole in the ceiling, to the shining moon, it seemed.

    Somewhere deep inside, Anakin understood.  "Just stay with me, Mom," he pleaded, and he had to work very hard to keep the desperation out of his voice.  "I'm going to make you well again.  Everything's... going to be fine."

    "I love..." Shmi started to say, but then she went very still, and Anakin saw the light leave her eyes.

    Anakin could hardly draw his breath.  Wide-eyed with disbelief, he lifted Shmi to his breast and rocked here there for a long time.  She couldn't be gone!  She just couldn't!  He pulled her back again, staring into her eyes, silently pleading with her to answer him.  But there was no light there, no flicker of life.  He hugged her close, rocking her.

    Then he laid her back to the floor and gently closed her eyes.

    Anakin didn't know what to do.  He sat motionless, staring at his dead mother, then looked up, his blue eyes blazing with hatred and rage.  He replayed all of the recent events of his life in his head, wondering what he might have done differently, done better, to keep Shmi alive.  He should never have left her here in the first place, he realized, should never have let Qui-Gon take him away from Tatooine without bringing his mother along, as well.  She said she was proud of him, but how could he deserve her pride if he could not even save her?

    He wanted Shmi to be proud of him, wanted to tell his mom all about the things that had come into his life, his Jedi training, all the good work he had already done, and most of all, about Padme.  Oh how he had wanted his mom to get to know Padme!  She would have loved her.  How could she not?  And Padme would have loved her.

    Now what was he going to do?

    The minutes slipped past and Anakin just sat there, immobilized by his confusion, by a budding rage and the most profound sense of emptiness he had ever known.  Only when the pale light began to grow around him, making the low-burning candles seem even thinner, did he remember where he was.

    He looked about, wondering how he might get his mother's body out of here - for he certainly wasn't going to leave it to the Tusken Raiders.  He could hardly move, though.  There seemed a profound pointlessness to it all, a series of motions without meaning.

    At that time, the only meaning, the only purpose, that Anakin could fathom was that of the rage building within him, and anger at losing someone he did not wish to give up.

    Some small part of him warned him not to give in to that anger, warned him that such emotions were of the Dark side.

    Then he looked at Shmi lying there, so still, seeming at peace but covered with the clear evidence of all the pain that had been inflicted upon her poor body these last days.

    The Jedi Padawan climbed to his feet and took up his lightsaber, then boldly strode through the door.

    The two Tusken guards gave a yelp and lifted their staves, rushing for him, but the blue-glowing blade ignited, and in a flash of killing light, Anakin too them down, left and right.

    The rage was not sated.

____________________

    Deep in his meditations, peering through the Dark side, Master Yoda felt a sudden surge of anger, or outrage beyond control.  The diminutive Master's eyes popped open wide at the over-whelming strength of that rage.

    And then he heard a voice, a familiar voice, crying, "No, Anakin!  No!  Don't!  No!"

    It was Qui-Gon.  Yoda knew that is was Qui-Gon.  But Qui-Gon was dead, had become one with the Force!  Once could not retain consciousness and sense of self in that state; one could not speak from beyond the grave.

    But Yoda had heard the ghostly call, and in his deep meditative state, his thoughts focused as precisely as they had even been, the Jedi Master knew that he had not been mistaken.

    He wanted to focus on that, then, perhaps to try to follow that call back to the ghostly source, but he could not, overwhelmed again by the surge of rage and pain and... power.

____________________

    "Life seems so much simpler when you're fixing things.  I'm good at fixing things.  I always was.  But I..."

    Finally he slammed down the wrench he was using and just stood there, head bowed.

    Padme recognized that he was on the verge of collapse.

    "Why did she have to die?" he mouthed quietly.  Padme slid the tray down on the workbench and moved behind him, putting her arms about his waist and resting her head comfortingly on his back.

    "Why couldn't I save her?" Anakin asked.  "I know I could have!"

    "Annie, you tried."  She squeezed him a bit tighter.  "Sometimes there are things no one can fix.  You're not all-powerful."

    He stiffened at her words and pulled away from her suddenly - and angrily, she realized.  "But I should be!" he growled, and then he looked at her, his face a mask of grim determination.  "And someday I will be!"

    "Anakin, don't say such things," Padme replied fearfully, but he didn't even seem to hear her.

    "I'll be the most powerful Jedi ever!" he railed on.  "I promise you!  I will even learn to stop people from dying!"

    "Anakin-"

    "It's all Obi-Wan's fault!"  He stormed across the room and slammed his fist onto the workbench again, nearly dislodging  the plate of food.  "He put me out of the way."

    "To guard me," she said quietly.

    "I should have been out with him, hunting the assassins!  I'd have had them a long time ago, and would've gotten here in time and my mother would still be alive!"

    "You can't know-"

    "He's jealous of me," Anakin rambled on, paying no attention to her at all.  He wasn't talking to her, she realized, but was just playing it all out verbally for himself.  She could hardly believe what she was hearing.  "He put me out of the way because he knows that I'm already more powerful than he is.  He's holding me back!"

    He finished by picking up his wrench and throwing it across the garage, where it smashed against a far wall and clattered down among some spare parts.

    "Anakin, what's wrong?" she cried at him.

    Her volume and tone finally got his attention.  "I just told you!"

    "No!" Padme yelled back at him.  "No.  What's really wrong?"

    Anakin just stared at her, and she knew that she was on to something.

    "I know it hurts, Anakin.  But this is more than that.  What's really wrong?"

    He just stared at her.

    "Annie?"

    His body seemed to shrink then, and slump forward just a bit.  "I... I killed them," he admitted, and if Padme hadn't run to him and grabbed him close, he would have fallen over.  "I killed them all," he admitted.  "They're dead.  Every single one of them."

    He looked at her then, and it seemed to her as if he had suddenly returned to her from somewhere far, far away.

    "You did battle..." she started to reason.

    He ignored her.  "Not just the men," he went on.  "And the men are the only fighters among the Tuskens.  No, not just them.  The women and the children, too."  His face contorted, as if he was teetering between anger and guilt.  "They're like animals!" he said suddenly.  "And I slaughtered them like animals!  I hate them!"

    Padme sat back a bit, too stunned to respond.  She knew that Anakin needed her to say something or do something, but she was paralyzed.  He wasn't even looking at her - he was just staring off into the distance.  But then he lowered his head and began to sob, his lean, strong shoulders shaking.

    Padme pulled him in and hugged him close, never wanting to let go.  She still didn't know what to say.

    "Why do I hate them?" Anakin asked her.

    "Do you hate them, or do you hate what they did to your mother?"

    "I hate them!" he insisted.

    "And they earned your anger, Anakin."

    He looked up at her, his eyes wet with tears.  "But it was more than that," he started to say, and then he shook his head and buried his face against the softness of her breast.

    A moment later, he looked back up, his expression showing that he was determined to explain.  "I didn't... I couldn't..."  He held one hand up outstretched, then clenched it into a fist.  "I couldn't control myself," he admitted.  "I... I don't want to hate them - I know that there is no place for hatred.  But I just can't forgive them!"

    "To be angry is to be human," Padme assured him.

    "To control your anger is to be a Jedi," Anakin was quick to reply, and he pulled away from her and stood up, turning to face the open door and the desert beyond.

    Padme was right there beside him, draping her arms about him.  "Shhh," she said softly.  She kissed him gently on the cheek.  "You're human."

    "No, I'm a Jedi.  I know I'm better than this."  He looked at her directly, shaking his head.  "I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry."

    "You're like everybody else," Padme said.  She tried to draw closer, but Anakin held himself back from her.

    He couldn't hold the pose of defiance for long, though, before he was broke down again in sobs.

    Padme was there to hold him and rock him and tell him that everything would be all right.

____________________

    Anakin stepped forward and knelt before the marker.  He picked up a handful of sand and let it slip through his fingers.

    "I wasn't strong enough to save you, Mom," the young man said, suddenly feeling more like a boy.  His shoulders bobbed once or twice, but he fought to regain control, and took a deep and determined breath.  "I wasn't strong enough.  But I promise... I won't fail again."  His breathing came in short rasps as another wave of grief nearly toppled him.  But the young Padawan squared his shoulders and determinedly stood up.  "I miss you so much."

____________________

    "We will deal with Count Dooku," Mace said through the comlink to Anakin.  "The most important thing for you, Anakin, is to stay where you are.  Protect the Senator at all costs.  That is your first priority."

    "Understood, Master," Anakin replied.

    His tone, so full of resignation and defeat, struck Padme profoundly.  It galled the fiery Senator to think that Anakin would be stuck here looking over her, when his Master was in obvious danger.

    As the hologram switched off, she moved to the ship's console and began flicking switches and checking coordinates, confirming what she already knew.  "They have to come halfway across the galaxy," she said, turning to Anakin, who seemed not to care.  "They'll never get there in time to save him."

    Still no response.

    "Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away!" Padme announced, flipping a few more controls to show the flight line on the viewscreen.  "Anakin?"

    "You heard him."

    "They can't get from Coruscant in time to save him!" Padme reiterated, her voice rising.  She started flicking the switches on the panel, preparing the engines for firing, but Anakin gently put his hands over hers, stopping her.

    "If he's still alive," the young Jedi answered somberly.

    Padme stared at him hard, and he turned away and walked off.

    "Anakin, are you just going to sit here and let him die?" she cried, chasing across the bridge to grab him roughly by the arm.  "He's your friend!  Your mentor!"

    "He's like my father!" Anakin shot back at her.  "But you heard Master Windu.  He gave me strict orders to stay here."

    Padme understood what was happening.  Anakin was doubting himself.  He felt himself a failure because of his inability to save his mother, and, perhaps for the first time in his life, he was truly doubting his inner voice, his instincts.  She had to find a way around that now, for Anakin's sake as much as for Obi-Wan's.  If they stayed here and did nothing, Padme believed that she would lose two friends: Obi-Wan to the Geonosians, and Anakin to his guilt.

    "He gave you strict orders to stay here only so that you could protect me," Padme corrected with a grin, hoping to remind him clearly that his previous orders, which he had ignored, had demanded that he stay on Naboo.  She pulled back away from him, returning to the console, and flicked a few more switches.  The engines roared to life.

    "Padme!"

    "He gave you strict orders to protect me," she said again.  "And I'm going to save Obi-Wan.  So if you plan to protect me, you'll have to come along."

    Anakin stared at her for a few moments, and she held his gaze, her head tilted, hair loose and cascading across half her face, but hardly dimming the brightness of her determination.

    Anakin knew what they were acting outside the orders of Mace Windu, whatever Padme's justification.  He knew that this was not what was expected of him as a Jedi Padawan.

    When had that ever stopped him?

    Matching Padme's determination, he went to the controls, and a few moments later, the Naboo starship roared up into the Tatooine sky.

22 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 20 years of age)

____________________

    "Padawan problems?"

    "He doesn't always listen.  He rarely ever talks.  He's impatient.  He's restless.  He's moody.  He's arrogant.  He's... difficult, Quinlan.  Since Geonosis, it's as if a chasm has opened between us.  There has been no time to stop... sort things through."

    "You feel as if you're failing him?"

    "In a way, yes.  Before he died, my Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, entrusted me with Anakin.  To make sure that he became a Jedi Knight.  I gave my oath.  I... never really chose Anakin as my Padawan."

    "Maybe it's time you did."

    "Then the question is - Do I trust him?  Do I trust myself?"

____________________

    "Having a problem, Anakin?"

    "No, Master Secura.  It's not important.  I was just trying to fix this droid while waiting.  Sometimes I just think better when my hands are busy."

    "A form of moving meditation.  I do it, too."

    "It's not working this time.  I can't fix it.  I don't know why."

    "Perhaps you try to hard?"

    "Maybe, I don't know.  Things just get so... complicated sometimes!  It's not like when I'm flying or fighting - or like when I was podracing.  Everything seems so clear then."

    "Maybe things aren't always that simple/"

    "They ought to be."

    "Let me try something."  (Whack!)

    "Amazing!  What did you do?"

    "Old mechanic's trick.  The secret, Anakin, is to know when a thing is fixed.  And to leave it alone."

22 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 20 years of age)

____________________

    Dear Padme...

    I still can't get used to being so close, yet so far away from you.

    We're in orbit around Naboo and I should be preparing for our mission, but I've spent all my time wishing that I could put your world in my hand... to protect it... and you.

    But I can't - not while I'm fighting in the Clone Wars.

____________________

    Padme, my love...

    Jedi aren't supposed to feel fear, but I am afraid.  I'm afraid for you.  The Confederacy has turned Ohma-Du'h into a graveyard... and Naboo is next.  I just want to abandon my mission and fly to you... but there are innocents here who still need to be rescued.  I know you'd want me to risk everything for them.  So I fight in the shadow of Jango Fett, and try not to be afraid.

____________________

    "So much emotion... so much fear... and... hope?  Who?"

    "The cavalry."

    "Interesting... maybe you're not as cowardly as I'd thought.  I will remember that, for when we meet again... Now I know my enemy's face - and his heart."

22 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 20 years of age)

____________________

    There was a wall between them now.  He had done things he could not tell Obi-Wan.  He knew things he could not say.  The Clone Wars had ripped the galaxy apart.  Times were difficult for all the Jedi, but Anakin knew he felt the darkness more than most.  It was like a physical presence.  It was as though he carried the weight of it in his body.

    And so he pushed the darkness away with what had always helped him forget in the past.  Speed.  Physical training.  His Jedi path.

____________________

    Obi-Wan was so good at so many things.  He could inspire loyalty.  Shift strategies in a heartbeat.  Fight harder than any Jedi Anakin had seen.

    Yet did he trust the Force enough?  If they were truly able to use the Force at its maximum potential, opposition would be nothing.  They could destroy enemies.  They could claim the galaxy for peace.

    "You can't do everything, Anakin," Obi-Wan said suddenly, as if he was reading his apprentice's mind.  "You must choose the battles to fight."

    Anakin wanted to fight them all.  He wanted to do everything.  And he knew he could.

22 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 20 years of age)

____________________

    If the prophecies are true - if Anakin Skywalker is truly the Chosen One, who will bring balance to the Force - then he is the most important being alive today.  And he is alive today because my Jedi instincts were working just fine.

    Because my mistake on Geonosis wasn't a mistake at all.

    If I had done as Depa said I should have - if I had won the Clone War with a baradium bomb on Geonosis - I would have lost the real war.  The Jedi's war.

    Anakin Skywalker may be the shatterpoint of our war against the jungle.

    If he is - if Anakin is the being born to win that war - it does not matter if every other Jedi in the galaxy dies.

    As long as Anakin lives, we have hope.  No matter how dark it gets, or how lost our cause may seem.

    He is our new hope for a Jedi future.

    May the Force be with us all.

22 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 20 years of age)

____________________

    The Clone Wars had begun... and something had changed within Anakin Skywalker.  Something that made Obi-Wan uneasy.  And now a worry had been pushed to the forefront of his mind - had his love for Qui-Gon blinded him to the faults in Anakin for too long?

    The uneasiness he felt about Anakin, the sense of dull dread that had the power to wake him up from a deep sleep, now had a partner: the conviction that it was too late to do anything about it.

    His Master could not have foreseen all that had taken place.  Yet he had placed a sure finger on the spot that was most vulnerable in Obi-Wan.  Obi-Wan had opened his heart to Anakin because of Qui-Gon's belief that Anakin was the Chosen One.  Had he tried too hard?  Had he overlooked what he should not have overlooked?

    Love had never blinded Qui-Gon.  But it has blinded me.

    There was too great a distance between him and Anakin now, at a time when he needed to keep his Padawan even closer than before.  Every instinct told him that Anakin had been profoundly changed while they were apart before the Battle of Geonosis.  He knew that Anakin had been to Tatooine and he knew Anakin's mother was dead.  He knew that a bond had grown between Anakin and the brilliant Senator Padme Amidala.

    He sensed that some of the change was for the better.  Some not.  It was as if Anakin had grown harder - and more secretive.  One thing Obi-Wan saw clearly: Anakin had lost his boyishness.  He was a man now.

    Whatever the changes were, they did not bring Anakin peace.  Obi-Wan sensed his Padawan's restlessness, his impatience.  He saw that Anakin no longer felt the same sense of peace from the Temple.  He always wanted to be moving.  He always wanted to be somewhere else.

____________________

    "You go to the Map Room when you are troubled by something," Obi-Wan said as they walked.  "Do you want to talk about it?"

    Anakin made a restless gesture.  "What is the good of talking?"

    "It can be very good," Obi-Wan said gently.  "Anakin, I see that the past months have marked you.  I am your Master.  I am here to help you in any way I can."

    He could see his Padawan only in profile, but Anakin's mouth tightened.  "I have seen things I wish I had not seen.  I did not think so many Jedi could die.  I did not think a once-great Jedi Master could fall so far."

____________________

    "I harmed my people," Lorian admitted.  "And I must say that Cilia is not one of my supporters.  She can't forget what I was.  I know all I have are excuses.  When you live a life filled with wrong, what else do you have but excuses and blame?"  He paused.  "Do you believe in redemption, Obi-Wan?"

    Obi-Wan had been asked the question, but it was Anakin who spoke up.  "I do."

    "I do, as well, young Anakin Skywalker," Lorian said.  "It is what keeps me going.  At the end of my life, I will do good.  That's all I can tell you for now."

____________________

    Distracted, he had not realized Anakin was rising until his Padawan was almost to his feet.

    "Anakin!  What are you doing?  Get down!"

    "Let's get him now," Anakin said.

    "Get down!" Obi-Wan insisted.  To his relief, Anakin crouched down again.  He faced him, his eyes full of fire and purpose.

    "We have our chance to end it here," Anakin said.  "Let's kill him.  We can take him together.  We won't make the same mistakes this time."

    "Like being reckless and rushing him without a plan?" Obi-Wan asked pointedly.  "It is what cost you your hand last time, and you are doing it again, Padawan."

    "What are we waiting for?" Anakin asked.  "We missed him at Raxus Prime, but we won't here.  If we kill him, we kill the Separatist movement.  What is one life against thousands?  Maybe millions?"

    "Anakin -"

    "He killed our brothers and sisters on Geonosis," Anakin said bitterly.  "Have you forgotten how they died?"

    "I remember it every moment," Obi-Wan said.  "But this is not the time.  This is not the way."

    "You don't know I can do," Anakin said, and there was an ominous tone in his voice.  "My connection to the Force is stronger than yours.  I'm telling you I can do it!  No matter what you say."

    Obi-Wan was shocked.  "You are still my apprentice," he said sharply.  "I am your Master.  You must obey."

    The set of Anakin's mouth was sullen.

    "Anakin, you must trust me," Obi-Wan said forcefully.  "There will be another time to face Dooku.  This is not the time."

    Anakin looked at him.  The sullen look was gone.  His gaze was clear and cool.  Obi-Wan could almost read contempt in it.  But as the thought occurred to him, the look was gone.  Had he really seen it?

    "Look below," Obi-Wan said.  "What do you think is in that transport?  Super battle droids.  We would be dead before we took two steps on that platform.  They're being unloaded now."

    Anakin looked down at the platform.  Lines of droids clicked into formation as they rolled off the transport.  Obi-Wan could see the way Anakin's mind focused on the immediate problem.  He could almost feel Anakin's anger drain away.

    But why had it been there in the first place?  Obi-Wan had a feeling he had seen a flash of something much deeper than he'd ever known before.

____________________

    "There is more going on here than the Force can sense," Anakin said, repeating Lorian's words.  "Feelings, he said.  What did he mean?"

    "I don't know," Obi-Wan said.

    "That is why we must talk to Floria," Anakin said.  He rose to his feet in one quick movement and began to run.  Obi-Wan had to put on a burst of speed to catch up.

    "Do you remember," Anakin said, "how upset she was when the body of Samish Kash was found?"

    "She had failed in her mission to protect him," Obi-Wan said.

    "I think the loss was more personal," Anakin said.  "And later, she called him 'Samish.'  Dane always calls him 'Kash.'  T think she's in love with him."

    "How is that relevant to our mission?"

    Anakin shot him a sidelong look.  Amazing that they were running hard down a mountain, and Anakin could still have the energy for a healthy dose of scorn.

    "Love is always relevant, Master," he said.

____________________

    "Lorian went up against impossible odds," Obi-Wan said.  "He was never more a Jedi than at the last."

    "So redemption is possible," Anakin said.

    "Of course it is," Obi-Wan said.  "As long as there is breath, there is hope.  If not, what are we fighting for?"

    "I wish I didn't feel that I had failed," Anakin said.  "Dooku escaped.  The Station 88 Spaceport is saved for the Republic, but for how long?  What is to stop Dooku from trying to kill them again?"

    "We are," Obi-Wan said.

    "There is such darkness ahead," Anakin said.  He stopped outside the cruiser and looked up at the stars.  They were fading in the growing light.  "I can feel it.  It weighs on me."

    You worry too much.  Qui-Gon had told Obi-Wan this, more than once.  Was that his legacy to Anakin?  He had tried to give him so much more.

    "You didn't fail here, Anakin," Obi-Wan said.  "Our mission was to ensure that the spaceport didn't fall to the Separatists, and to gather information.  We succeeded.  Dooku's villa contains valuable data."

    "A small victory," Anakin said with a curl of his lip.  "Can we win a war that way?"

    He had not reached him.  Anakin had wanted to end the Clone Wars here.  He had wanted to destroy Count Dooku.  His ambition would always be greater than every mission.  Obi-Wan saw that clearly, and it pierced him.  He had taught Anakin everything, and Anakin had learned much - but had he missed the most important things?

    I have failed, Qui-Gon.  I have failed.

    They walked up the landing ramp.  Anakin slid behind the controls.  Obi-Wan sat at the computer to enter the coordinates for their journey back.  On the surface, everything was as it had always been.

    Soon they would be ending their journey together.  They both knew it.  He had never had to bid good-bye to Qui-Gon as his Master.  He was still Qui-Gon's Padawan when he died.  Maybe that was the reason he felt so close to him still.

    He did not know if Qui-Gon would have left him with words of wisdom, with a direction to follow.  Now he had no way of knowing what else he could give Anakin.  He had given him everything he could.  It wasn't enough.

    Sadness filled Obi-Wan as they blasted into the upper atmosphere.  He loved Anakin Skywalker, but he did not truly know him.  The most important things he had to teach he had not taught.  He would have to let him go, knowing that.  He would have to let him go.

21 years before the Battle of Yavin - (Anakin Skywalker is 21 years of age)

____________________

    "No executions, Alpha.  He's wounded...  We can't end this civil war just by killing half of the planet."

    "We'll see..."

    "Anakin is right - The Jabiimi rebels will only fight harder if we teach them to hate us."

    "Unless we teach them to fear us... but it's your command, General."

    "Master, if you're now a General, what does that make me?"

    "My Padawan.  Now focus."

____________________

    "The prisoners are terrified of us, Master."

    "Anakin, you must remember that there are over a hundred thousand inhabited worlds in the Republic-"

    "One accused me of eating children!"

    "-and there are now only a few thousand of us.  Billions of beings have never seen a Jedi.  Millions have never even heard of our Order or of the Force.  When we do appear, we can be killers... but also healers.  Thank the Force for that."

____________________

    "Aubrie is adjusting well, but I sense that Anakin's mind is still in chaos.  He's grown reckless without his Master's guidance."

    "Stay out of his head, Tae."

    "I can't help it, Elora.  Anakin broadcasts his emotions like a jamming beacon.  I can't even think straight around him."

____________________

    "Supreme Chancellor!"

    "Anakin!  Thank the Force.  We feared you were dead."

    "Not yet...  How did you get through to us?"

    "Persistance.  We know the dire situation on Jabiim.  Anakin, we need you to lead the evacuation efforts."

    "I can't abandon my friends, sir... they'll die."

    "They will die with or without you, I'm afraid.  But we can't afford to let the evacuation turn to chaos.  Anakin, I've put my faith in you time and again.  You have never failed the Republic.  Do not fail me now."

    "Yes... yes, sir.  I'll leave for the mesa immediately."

    "Good.  I hope to see you soon."

____________________

    "Anakin... he's right.  You need to go."