“They’re a lot to digest, all at once,” Padmé said to Anakin later on, when the two were alone in her room. She had barely unpacked her things, and was now throwing clothes into her bag once more. Different clothes this time, though. Less formal than the outfits she had to wear as a representative of Naboo.
“Your mother is a fine cook,” Anakin replied, drawing a curious stare from Padmé, until she realized that he was joking and had understood her point perfectly well.
“You’re lucky to have such a wonderful family,” Anakin said more seriously, and then, with a teasing grin, he added, “Maybe you should give your sister some of your clothes.”
Padmé smirked right back at him, but then looked about at the mess and couldn’t really disagree. “Don’t worry,” she assured him. “This won’t take long.”
“I just want to get there before dark. Wherever there is, I mean.” Anakin continued to scan the room, surprised at the number of closets, all of them full. “You still live at home,” he said, shaking his head. “I didn’t expect that.”
“I move around so much,” Padmé replied. “I’ve never had the time to even begin to find a place of my own, and I’m not sure I want to. Official residences have no warmth. Not like here. I feel good here. I feel at home.”
The simple beauty of her statement gave Anakin pause. “I’ve never had a real home,” he said, speaking more to himself than to Padmé. “Home was always where my mom was.” He looked up at her then, and took comfort in her sympathetic smile.
Padmé went back to her packing. “The Lake Country is beautiful,” she started to explain, but she stopped when she glanced back at Anakin, to see him holding a holograph and grinning.
“Is this you?” he asked, pointing to the young girl, seven or eight at the most, in the holo, surrounded by dozens of little green smiling creatures, and holding one in her arms.
Padmé laughed, and seemed embarrassed. “That was when I went with a relief group to Shadda-Bi-Boran. Their sun was imploding and the planet was dying. I was helping to relocate the children.” She walked over to stand beside Anakin and placed one hand on his shoulder, pointing to the holograph with the other. “See that little one I’m holding? His name was N’a-kee-tula, which means ’sweetheart.’ He was so full of life—all those kids were.”
“Were?”
“They were never able to adapt,” she explained somberly. “They were never able to live off their native planet.”
Anakin winced, then quickly picked up another holograph, this one showing Padmé a couple of years later, wearing official robes and standing between two older and similarly robed Legislators. He looked back at the first holo, then to this one, noting that Padmé’s expression seemed much more severe here.
“My first day as an Apprentice Legislator,” Padmé explained. Then, as if she was reading his mind, she added, “See the difference?”
Anakin studied the holograph a moment longer, then looked up and laughed, seeing Padmé wearing that same long and stern expression. She laughed as well, then squeezed his shoulder and went back to her packing.
Anakin put the holographs down side by side and looked at them for a long, long time. Two sides of the woman he loved.
The water speeder zoomed above the lake, the down-thrusters churning only a slight, almost indistinguishable, wake. Every so often, a wave clipped in, and a fine spray broke over the bow. Anakin and Padmé reveled in the cool water and the wind, eyes half closed, Padme’s rich brown hair flying out behind her.
Beside them at the wheel, Paddy Accu gave a laugh at every spray, his graying hair spreading out widely. “Always better over the water!” he shouted in his gruff voice, against the wind and the noise of the speeder. “Are you liking it?”
Padmé turned a sincere smile upon him, and the grizzled man leaned in close and backed off the accelerator. “She’s even more fun if I put her down,” he explained. “You think you’ll like that, Senator?”
Both Padmé and Anakin looked at him curiously, neither quite understanding.
“We were going out to the island,” Anakin remarked, a note of concern in his voice.
“Oh, I’ll get you there!” Paddy Accu said with a wheezing laugh. He pushed forward a lever—and the speeder dropped into the water.
“Paddy?” Padmé asked.
The man laughed all the harder. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten!” he roared, kicking in the accelerator. The speeder jetted off across the water, no longer smooth in flight, but bouncing across the rippling surface.
“Oh, yes!” Padmé said to him. “I do remember!”
After a moment of initial shock, looking from Padmé to Paddy, wondering if the man was up to some dark deception, Anakin caught on, and was also swept away by the bouncing ride.
The spray was nearly continuous, thrown up by the prow and washing over them.
“It’s wonderful!” Padmé exclaimed.
Anakin couldn’t disagree. “We spend so much time in control,” he replied. His mind went back to his younger days, on Tatooine, Podracing along wild courses, skirting disaster. This was somewhat like that, especially when Paddy, in no apparent hurry to reach the island dock, flipped the speeder up and down from one edge to the other, zigzagging his way. It amazed Anakin how this little adjustment, dropping into the water instead of smoothly skimming above it, had changed the perspective of this journey. It was true, he knew, that technology had tamed the galaxy, and while that seemed a good thing in terms of efficiency and comfort, he had to believe that something, too, had been lost: the excitement of living on the edge of disaster. Or the simple tactile feeling of a ride like this, bouncing across the waves, feeling the wind and the cold spray.
At one point, Paddy put the speeder so far up on edge that both Anakin and Padmé thought they would tip over. Anakin almost reached into the Force to secure the craft, but stopped himself in order to enjoy the thrill.
They didn’t tip. Paddy was an expert driver who knew how to take his speeder to the very limits without crashing over. It was some time later that he slowed the craft and allowed it to drift in against the island dock.
Padmé grabbed the older man’s hand and leaned in to kiss his cheek. “Thank you!”
Anakin was surprised that he could see Paddy’s blush through the man’s ruddy skin. “It was … fun,” he admitted.
“If it isn’t, then what’s the point?” the gruff-looking man replied with a great belly laugh.
While Paddy secured the speeder, Anakin hopped onto the dock. He reached back to take Padmé’s hand, helping her stay balanced while she debarked with her suitcase in her other hand.
“I’ll bring the bags up for you,” Paddy offered, and Padmé looked back and smiled. “You go and see what you can see—don’t want to be wasting your time on the little chores!”
“Wasting time,” Padmé echoed. There was an unmistakable wistfulness in her voice.
The young couple walked up a long flight of wooden stairs, past flower beds and hanging vines. They came onto a terrace overlooking a beautiful garden, and beyond that, the shimmering lake and the mountains rising behind it, all blue and purple.
Padmé leaned her crossed forearms on the balustrade and stared out at the wondrous view.
“You can see the mountains in the water,” Anakin remarked, shaking his head and grinning. The water was still, the light just right, so that the mountains in the lake seemed almost perfect replicas.
“Of course,” she agreed without moving.
He gazed at her until she turned to look back at him.
“It seems an obvious thing to you,” he said, “but where I grew up, there weren’t any lakes. Whenever I see this much water, every detail of it …” He ended by shaking his head, obviously overwhelmed.
“Amazes you?”
“And pleases me,” he said with a warm smile.
Padmé turned back to the lake. “I guess it’s hard to hold on to appreciation for some things,” she admitted. “But after all these
years, I still see the beauty of the mountains reflected in the water. I could stare at them all day, every day.”
Anakin stepped up to the balustrade beside her, leaning in very close. He closed his eyes and inhaled the sweet scent of Padmé, felt the warmth of her skin.
“When I was in Level Three, we used to come here for school retreat,” she said. She pointed out across the way, to another island. “See that island? We used to swim there every day. I love the water.”
“I do, too. I guess it comes from growing up on a desert planet.” He was staring at her again, his eyes soaking in her beauty. He could tell that Padmé sensed his stare, but she pointedly continued to look out over the water.
“We used to lie on the sand and let the sun dry us … and try to guess the names of the birds singing.”
“I don’t like the sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating. And it gets everywhere.”
Padmé turned to look back at him
“Not here,” Anakin went on. “It’s like that on Tatooine—everything’s like that on Tatooine. But here, everything’s soft, and smooth.” As he finished, hardly even aware of the motion, he reached out and stroked Padmé’s arm.
He nearly pulled back when he realized what he was doing, but since Padmé didn’t object, he let himself stay close to her. She seemed a bit tentative, a bit scared, but she wasn’t pulling away.
“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 …” He moved forward as he spoke, brushing his lips against hers, and for a moment, she didn’t resist, closing her eyes, losing herself. Anakin pressed in closer, a real and deep kiss, sliding his lips across hers slowly. He could lose himself here, could kiss her for hours, forever …
But then Padmé pulled back, suddenly, as if waking from a dream. “No, I shouldn’t have done that.”
“I’m sorry,” Anakin said. “When I’m around you, my mind is no longer my own.”
He stared at her hard again, beginning that descent into the glass, losing himself in her beauty.
But the moment had passed, and Padmé gathered her arms in close and leaned again on the balustrade, looking out over the water.
* * *
As soon as the starlight shrank back from its speed-shift elongation, Obi-Wan Kenobi saw the “missing” planet, exactly where the gravity flux had predicted it would be.
“There it is, Arfour, right where it should be,” he said to his astromech droid, who tootled in response from the left wing of the fighter. “Our missing planet, Kamino. Those files were altered.”
R4 beeped curiously.
“I have no idea who might have done it,” Obi-Wan replied. “Maybe we’ll find some answers down there.”
He ordered R4 to disengage the hyperspace ring, a band encircling the center area of the starfighter, with a pair of powerful hyperdrive engines, one on either side. Then he took the Delta-7 away, gliding in casually, registering information on his various scanners.
As he neared the planet, he saw that it was an ocean world, with no visible landmasses showing behind the nearly solid cloud cover. He checked his sensors, searching for any other ships that might be in the area, not really sure of what he should expect. His computer registered a transmission directed his way, asking for identification, and he flipped his signal beacon on, transferring all the information. A moment later, to his relief, there came a second transmission from Kamino, this one containing approach coordinates to a place called Tipoca City.
“Well, here we go, Arfour. Time to find some answers.”
The droid beeped and set the coordinates into the nav computer, and the fighter swooped down at the planet, breaking atmosphere and soaring along over rain-lashed, whitecapped seas. The trip across the stormy sky was rougher than the atmospheric entry, but the fighter held its course perfectly, and soon after, Obi-Wan got his first look at Tipoca City. It was all gleaming domes and angled, gracefully curving walls, built on gigantic stilts rising out of the lashing sea.
Obi-Wan spotted the appropriate landing pad, but did a flyby first, crossing the city and circling about, wanting to observe this spectacular place from all angles. It seemed as much a work of art as a practical and magnificent piece of engineering, the whole of the city reminding him more of the Senate Building and the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. It was brightly lit at all the right places to highlight the domes and curving walls.
“There’s so much to see, Arfour,” the Jedi lamented. He had visited hundreds of worlds in his life, but viewing a place as strange and beautiful as Tipoca City only reminded him that there were thousands and thousands more yet to see, too many for any one person to visit even if he did nothing else for the entirety of his life.
At last Obi-Wan put his fighter down on the designated landing pad. He pulled his hood up tight over him, then slid back his canopy and scrambled out against the wind and the rain, rushing across the permacrete to a tower across the way. A door slid open before him, spilling out brilliant light, and he went through, crossing into a brightly lit white room.
“Master Jedi, so good to see you,” came a melodic voice.
Obi-Wan pushed back his hood, which had offered little protection from the driving rain, and brushed the water from his hair. Wiping his face, he turned to face the speaker, and then he paused, caught by the image of the Kaminoan.
“I am Taun We,” she introduced herself.
She was taller than Obi-Wan, pasty white and amazingly slender, with gracefully curving lines, but there was nothing insubstantial about her. Thin, yes, but packed with a solid and powerful presence. Her eyes, huge, almond-shaped, and dark, were sparkling clear, like those of an inquisitive child. Her nose was no more than a pair of vertical slits, connected by a horizontal one, sitting on the bridge above her upper lip. She reached out gracefully toward him with an arm that moved as smoothly as any dancer might.
“The Prime Minister expects you.”
The words finally distracted Obi-Wan from his bemused perusal of her strangely beautiful physique. “I’m expected?” he asked, doing little to hide his incredulity. How in the galaxy could these beings possibly have been expecting him?
“Of course.” Taun We replied. “Lama Su is anxious to see you. After all these years, we were beginning to think you weren’t coming. Now please, this way.”
Obi-Wan nodded and tried to play it cool, hiding the million questions buzzing about in his thoughts. After all these years? They were thinking that I wasn’t coming?
The corridor was nearly as brightly lit as the room, but as his eyes adjusted, Obi-Wan found the light strangely comfortable. They passed many windows, and Obi-Wan could see other Kaminoans busy in side rooms, males—distinguished by a crest atop their heads—and females working about furniture that was highlighted at every edge by shining light, as if that light supported and defined it. He was struck by how clean this place was, everything polished and shining and smooth. He kept his questions to himself, though, as anxious to see this Prime Minister, Lama Su, as Taun We seemed to be in getting him there, judging from the swift pace.
The Kaminoan stopped at one side door and sent it sliding open with a wave of her hand, then motioned for Obi-Wan to enter first.
Another Kaminoan, a bit talle
r and with the distinctive male crest, greeted them. He looked down at Obi-Wan, blinked his huge eyes, and smiled warmly. With a wave of his hand, he brought an egg-shaped chair gracefully spiraling down from the ceiling.
“May I present Lama Su, Prime Minister of Kamino,” Taun We said, then to Lama Su, she added, “This is Master Jedi—”
“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” the Jedi finished, nodding his head deferentially.
The Prime Minister indicated the chair, then sat back in his own, but Obi-Wan remained standing, soaking in the scene before him.
“I trust you are going to enjoy your stay,” the Prime Minister said. “We are most happy you have arrived at the best part of the season.”
“You make me feel most welcome.” Obi-Wan didn’t add that if the deluge outside was “the best part of the season,” he’d hate to see the worst.
“Please …” Lama Su indicated the chair once more. When Obi-Wan finally sat down, the Kaminoan continued. “And now to business. You will be delighted to hear we are on schedule. Two hundred thousand units are ready, with another million well on the way.”
Obi-Wan’s tongue suddenly seemed fat in his mouth, but he fought past the stutter and tucked his questions away, and improvised, “That is good news.”
“We thought you would be pleased.”
“Of course.”
“Please tell your Master Sifo-Dyas that we have every confidence his order will be met, on time and in full. He is well, I hope.”
“I’m sorry,” the overwhelmed Jedi replied. “Master?…”
“Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas. He is still a leading member of the Jedi Council, is he not?”
The name, known to Obi-Wan as that of a former Jedi Master, elicited yet another surge of questions, but again, he put them out of mind and focused on keeping Lama Su talking and giving out potentially valuable information. “I’m afraid to say that Master Sifo-Dyas was killed almost ten years ago.”
Lama Su blinked his huge eyes again. “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. But I’m sure he would have been proud of the army we’ve built for him.”
“The army?” Obi-Wan asked before he could even think the direction through.
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