FicWad

Additional Author's Notes: 1) Some of the colorful language in this posting (and elsewhere) is genuine SW vernacular, not modified Gaelic of one sort or another. The curious should feel free to visit http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Slang and have a good laugh over some of the so-called expletives of the 'verse!
3) It's been brought to my attention that my nonstandard Gaelic might be confusing to some. Please keep in mind that these Gaelic-seeming words are meant to represent related languages that are spoken (alongside Basic, mind, and really only by certain parts of some of the different populations) on planets scattered across the galaxy from the Core to the Mid Rim. These languages have had thousands of years and lots of parsecs to evolve in different directions. I'm no linguist, but it seems natural to me that the spelling and pronounciations would be a wee bit different from world to world. It's really only logical . . .





If she who was born as Padmé Sharian Naberrie ever was so furious while living, she cannot remember it. It is doubtlessly a good thing that she took after her mother’s side of the family and so is no more sensitive to the ways of the Force than a stone might be. Otherwise, she is quite certain that she would find a way to take a physical form, if only long enough to reach out and slaughter her sister by ripping out her heart with her bare hands, before reaching up to call down fire from the sky and blast her body out of existence. If only she could find a way to call upon the power of the Force, she is quite certain that she would it, if only to smite that foul blood-traitor and drop her in her tracks. She could have spit, if only she’d still had mouth, the knowledge of what Sola apparently is fills her with such fury. She simply cannot even begin to comprehend how her zealous husband or the passionately just Obi-Wan are managing to take the news of Sola’s treachery so calmly. If she were Anakin Skywalker, she would bone Sola like a fish: every last bone in her body would be meticulously broken and extracted through small slits in the skin, until she was naught but a mass of guts in a sack of flesh, gasping and flopping on the floor by the carefully stacked pile of her own bloody bones, and then Sola would be left there to flail about until she finally died. Though perhaps, instead, she might have taken Sola up from that floor, after a time, and fed her through an old-fashioned winepress so that she might dance upon her face when it broke through on the other side of the rollers. Then, she could take up the flattened skull and nail it to the wall by the Naberrie home’s front door to serve as a warning, as a farmer might hang a ragged weasel carcass or a stoat’s broken body upon a garden gate or a barndoor. And if she were Obi-Wan Kenobi, she would see to it that Sola’s nose and ears were all sealed shut before piping her mouth full of wasps and hornets and other such stinging insects, and then would bind her jaws behind a gag of hot soft lead. The insects, having nowhere else to go, would crawl down Sola’s throat, even into her lungs and stomach, and up into the passages of her ears and nose, stinging furiously as they went, until finally insects and offender alike died. It would be only fitting. Stings for the stings of her base lying and false advice . . .

Fierfek! If only she had a skroggin’ body, still, she would damn well challenge that kung Sola to fíor-comlainn and would be ruthlessly just, giving no quarter. Bas no beatha. Sola would die like the bleitair she is, crying her forgiveness and begging for mercy that she would never receive. If only she still had a /body /– !

All of the hard-won calmness and acceptance she has managed to gather in to herself, since the moment when she first realized that her body had died and her spirit had been caught by the Force spirt of Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn – kept from being reabsorbed back into the flow of the Force by being gathered in by him before then being placed, carefully and firmly enough to allow for no accidental dislodgment, within the bounds of Anakin Skywalker’s beatified Padawan braid – through hours upon hours of unflinching, unremitting self-examination and unblinking contemplation of Obi-Wan and Anakin together at last, as they were always meant to be, falls away from her in the moment that she first understands that her sister has been an agent of Darth Sidious. And all of her determination to simply watch and see things through until she is completely certain that all she has set awry in life has returned to the path that should have been taken goes with that shattering serenity. Padmé is, for the third time in her existence, so furious that she could gladly torture someone to death and then dance upon the corpse.

The then unknown Sith Master who had set his Iridonian apprentice upon the two Jedi who had come to Naboo in an attempt to help save its peoples from the deprivations of the Trade Federations (and then murdered Qui-Gon Jinn in an attempt to stop him from aiding her in her plan to capture and defeat the Neimoidian Trade Federation Viceroy) had been the first being to ever rouse such ire in her, and the fury had been formless and all but directionless, given that it had neither face nor form to attach itself to. The second person to ever anger her so thoroughly – Asajj Ventress, for her kidnaping and torture of Obi-Wan Kenobi as well as the agony that her husband had suffered while Obi-Wan had been missing and the Jedi High Council had insisted on declaring him killed in action, on Jabiim – had filled her with so much high-focused rage that she had often imagined how sweet it would be to be able to flay the white-skinned harlot alive, drop her in the midst of a desert wasteland to die, and then have her skin tanned and mounted upon her bedroom wall. Yet, for all the fury she had felt against both the Sith Master and Asajj Ventress, neither being had ever quite managed to inspire the level of sheer unreasoning rage that her own sister now so effortlessly triggers within her. Padmé never would have guessed, before now, that it was even possible for a person to feel so much anger and not simply choke upon it. It would seem, though, that death still has a few more lessons left to teach her before she can be free to pass on into the Force. And unmitigated hatred and fury for the person who was once her own and only sibling are apparently both a part of those lessons.

Thus, within the confines of the necklace that is Anakin’s Padawan braid, she who was Padmé Amidala Naberrie Skywalker basks within the reflected glow of her righteous fury and silently begins to plan out her mercilessly just response to the treachery of one who has rightly been named blood-traitor and stripped of all right to her surname. Obi-Wan and Anakin may be able to view Sola’s crimes with the kind of calm detachment that comes from the kind of simple but immovable serene determination to see to it that Sola will never be able to commit any more such crimes ever again, but by Force it will be Padmé who makes sure that Sola will receive and suffer her just desserts not only for what she has done, but also for what her conniving and lying and manipulation helped to bring about, in the temporary union between Padmé and Anakin that nearly acted as a fatal wedge between Anakin and Obi-Wan and almost tipped the balance of the galaxy towards a darkness that would have crowned Sidious as Emperor Palpatine and then all but destroyed every last bit of remaining goodness and light in the galaxy under his unforgiving crushing heel.

Padmé, the very least, will have true justice. All she need do is to wait, and plan, and let herself be carried up into Sola’s presence, and then, /then/, she will make her final appearance and by the pitiless stars she will make it a memorable one!

***

When asked about whether or not they will show them the way inside, Pooja pipes up authoritatively (if, granted, while peering shyly up at them from around Artoo’s sheltering bulk) and declares that dama’mâthair Jobal told them that they should stay out on the lawn with Threepio and Artoo and wait until dama’mâthair’cairdha Ryoo comes out to tell them that it’s alright for them to come inside and go to bed. Anakin opening his mouth to ask where, precisely, C-3PO is when the highly polished golden protocol droid opens the door and steps out of the house in what for him is a measure of extreme haste but which clearly is a gait that two energetic little girls could (and did, apparently) easily outrun. The girls don’t seem to mind Threepio’s relative slowness, though. They immediately begin to chatter away at him and Artoo both happily and with much obvious affection, exclaiming over the reunion of the droids as if over the reunion of a pair of heart-friends long parted and grinning like mad when Artoo rocks excitedly from side to side and bleeps and blurps happily away at Threepio. Threepio, in turn, after resting his right hand with casual possessiveness on Artoo’s dome and loosing a short burst of supercompressed beeping droid-talk at the little astromech that sounds rather like a burst of static (but apparently means a great deal to Artoo, judging from the high-pitched electronic warble he greets it with), exclaims happily over the two Jedi Bendu Masters, remarking about how good it is to see his Maker again in such good health (and thanking Padawan Bail for bringing him and Master Obi-Wan from the Palace in such good order) and praising Anakin’s and Master Obi-Wan’s skills in permanently dispatching that horrible abomination of mechanics, General Grievous, without so much as getting a scratch upon either themselves or R2-D2, to whom Threepio refers with the same kind of casual possessiveness as his counterpart, eliciting a somewhat bemused smile from Obi-Wan and a wide grin from Anakin.

After trading a few pleasantries with the gleaming protocol droid (whose right forearm is securely wrapped with a dark purple band of Ottegan silk, to show that he is considered part of a household in mourning), the three men continue on towards the Naberrie home alone, leaving the two girls and two droids behind, still chattering and beeping away animatedly at each other, a quietly thoughtful Bail leading the way inside since he has the most recent knowledge of the household. In comparison to the bright and joyous noise of the group on the lawn, the Naberrie home is, at first, ominously quiet. Leery of the unnatural silence, Anakin automatically finds himself dropping into place a half step behind Obi-Wan, on his left – the proper position of defense and cover for a right-handed apprentice since, if an apprentice were to draw and ignite his lightsaber in a less than precise manner, from such a position that apprentice wouldn’t be able to accidentally bisect his Master – letting Bail draw far enough ahead of them to be out of their potential line of reflected fire, should anyone try to attack them using such conventional weapons. The house is much the same as Anakin recalls it – same plush, well-made furniture same highly polished cool stone floor, covered here and there with softly colored, deep, soft carpets and vibrantly gem-toned rugs; same gorgeous paintings and charming holopics scattered along the walls – but it feels like an entirely different place. It feels more like a dungeon might. Or perhaps a mortuary. Anakin is seriously considering calling Bail back to them and retreating from the house just because of the sheer /wrongness /to the feel of it all when Bail abruptly exclaims, "Darred, there you are!" before he ducks out of the hallway they have been slowly traversing and into an open doorway to his left.

Neither one of them has to ask anything of the other. They follow Bail immediately, sliding off to either side of the doorway to allow themselves room to act, should they need to protect themselves quickly. They needn’t have bothered, though. There are four people in the room – obviously a sitting chamber of some sort – besides their Padawan, and three of them are instantly recognizable, due to their mourning garb and the memories both men have of either meeting them face-to-face or of seeing holos of them. The fourth person present is a man who looks exhausted enough that he could have easily been taken for a man in his early to mid thirties, though in truth he is not quite thirty standard years of age – taller than Ruwee Naberrie, but not by very much, with eyes so dark as to appear black under eyebrows that form natural (if bluntly wide) triangles, a relatively short mop of riotously curly dark brown hair with cinnamon colored highlights, a neatly trimmed goatee (in essence, a neatly trimmed moustache, a line of hair down the center of his sharp chin that only serves to accentuate its cleft, and an extremely closely trimmed line of hair along his jaw and the bottom of his chin that serves only to accentuate how sharply angled and triangular the lower half of his face is, despite the firmness of his jaw and a shape to his face that is more like an elongated oval from about the jaw upwards), a slender build (if also one possessing surprisingly wide shoulders), and sharp, thin features that, oddly enough, remind both Jedi Bendu of what they remember of Sola Naberrie – dressed a suit of clothes that match Ruwee Naberrie’s except for their color, which is a uniform plum so dark that it might be taken for black in dim lighting. He is smiling as he reaches out to Bail, clasping his forearm warmly in greeting, but his eyes are tired and full of pain, and his gaze rests solely on Anakin and Obi-Wan.

The first real shock comes then, for Darred Janren, like his daughter Ryoo, is a small but steady blaze of untapped power in the Force. Perhaps not quite as bright, not quite as strong, as Ryoo, but still easily with enough potential power in the Force to have been trained as a Jedi.

Anakin and Obi-Wan are staring at each other helplessly, the same shock in their eyes, when the deathly quietude of the house is abruptly shattered. The sound that issues from the uppermost storey of the building is inhumanly shrill, a piercing scream of pure rage and unrefined hatred that tears through both the quiet and the Force like the blast of a firing weapon. And as that keening storm of fury continues to rip at them – at both their ears and other sense as well, through the Force – the room trembles wildly. Literally. The walls shake as if they were alive, as if they were the limbs of some beast being driven mad with agony and hate and anger and convulsively trying to shake off the sound of the wailing shriek that is assaulting it, shaking until the very foundation of the building rock so violently that Ryoo Thule and her daughter, Jobal, are pitched off of the low couch where they have been seated into a tangled mass on the floor while Ruwee Naberrie, caught in the act of standing, is thrown violently and gracelessly back down into his seat. Anakin and Obi-Wan manage to keep their feet by shifting gracefully with (instead of against) the movements of the house, as if moving with the thrashing of a infuriated mount or ship so damaged as to be experiencing minor fluxes in its gravity field, but Bail manages to stay upright only because Darred Janren quickly grabs hold of him and refuses to let him fall, the slender man seeming to dance lightly from foot to foot with each shift of the room, his strong grip pulling Bail along with him in a rather more awkward (if not just so entirely graceless as to topple them both into the floor) dance.

Three times, the unearthly, inhuman shriek sounds, and three times the room and the building shake, thrashing with increasing violence. And then, as suddenly and unexpectedly as it had begun, sound and fury and motion alike all abruptly end, leaving behind them a crushingly loud silence and a fine cloud of dust hanging in the air.

In the aftermath, Anakin looks around, wide-eyed, lightsaber hissing as motes of agitated dust sizzle out on the ignited blade. Obi-Wan doesn’t look much better than he does, lightsaber already raised high as if to ward off enemy fire. "What – what in /kriffing /Sith hells – ?!" Anakin gasps, stunned, shaking his head to try to clear it, ears ringing painfully with phantom echoes of those unearthly screams.

"Sithspawn." It’s more a sigh of weary resignation than it is an exclamatory curse, and the exhaustion in that voice draws the attention of the two Jedi Bendu back to the man, giving them reason to examine him more closely than before – and to notice the deep hollows under both Darred Janren’s eyes and cheekbones, hollows of a kind that silently but eloquently attest to the fact that either the man has not been either eating or sleeping very well for an extremely long time – much longer than the few weeks that have passed since Padmé Amidala’s death and the violent and telling reaction that Sola had to it – or else that he has been suffering from a malady of some kind that has badly damaged his health. Voice toneless with tiredness (an exhaustion so complete that it has apparently resulted in the same kind of numbness or deadening of spirit that both Jedi have unfortunately have cause to observe before – though usually in civilians who have been caught up in unexpected outbreaks of horrible violence or in nonJedi, nonclone combatants in the war who have seen or experienced things so awful that they have given up all hope, their spirits essentially dying within them), Sola’s husband carefully releases his tight grip on their wide-eyed Padawan and then explains, "She’s awake again. Fully awake. I was certain we’d drugged her deeply enough to keep her unconscious for at least another two hours, but this sort of disturbance only happens when she regains full consciousness. She must be able to sense you, /Athros/, and that knowledge must make her extremely unhappy. She’s never been able to do more than rock the entire house once, before now, even when she deliberately tried to turn her power against us to escape. You don’t need to worry, though. We have her securely bound. And she couldn’t get out of that room even if she could find a way out of the electrobinders. We learned our lesson, after that second time she regained full consciousness and attacked Jobal mentally and physically in an attempt to escape."

At that, Obi-Wan and Anakin exchange a look of obvious dismay and confusion. "If Sola is able to do so much, there can be no doubt of her association with the Sith Lord. Why, then, do you need us to render judgment?" Obi-Wan asks after a few more heartbeats of shocked silence, thumbing his lightsaber off but pointedly not returning the deactivated hilt to his belt.

"And if you knew she’s strong enough in the Force to do things like this, then why didn’t you tell Bail?" Anakin demands, warily echoing Obi-Wan’s motions and deactivating his ’saber, despite the fact that his danger sense is still all but screaming at him, making him acutely aware that it’s a very bad idea to go unarmed in this house. "I thought you told him about Obi-Wan and Padmé and I so he’d understand enough to be able to prepare us for the Sola’s betrayal before we got here!"

"It’s not a matter of needing you to render judgment, /Athros/. It’s a matter of needing you to make sure that she cannot reveal any knowledge that she should not, in spite of where her loyalty and her wishes on the matter may lie," Darred explains in the same dead voice. "We cannot trust her to remain silent about what she knows and none of us have the ability to remove that knowledge from her mind. The two of you do. And when Padmé shared the truth with Sola, she extracted a promise that would give you both the right to take the knowledge away from her, at need. She may have no intention of keeping that promise, but that does not mean we do not have the right to hold her to it. I honestly believe Sola would sell her life, if it became necessary, if only she thought she could inflict enough harm upon the two of you and the memory others hold of her sister. The threat of us being able to legally demand her life in /éraic-ven/, as proper recompense for the betrayal of sharing such information, under the rules of /eneach-clannd/, certainly has seemed to make little impression upon her."

Still gripping his deactivated lightsaber hilt in a ready guard position, in response Anakin only suspiciously asks, "If you’re so afraid that someone will reveal something they shouldn’t, then why did you tell those two little girls about us? They’re only, what, six and nine?"

Another man might have bristled at the caustic tone or shrugged away the borderline slight. Darred Janren merely looks at them, as though certain that they already know the answer and checking to make sure that they want him to state it out loud, so drained that he doesn’t even want to make the effort to speak words if they might be unnecessary. After a few uncomfortable heartbeats of silence in which Anakin’s challenging look fades into an outright scowl, he finally replies, saying, "A month away from the seventh anniversary of her natal day and over nine and a half actually, as they would explain. And they are both good girls. They understand honor and the obligations of family. I have made certain of that. They know how to keep necessary secrets – have known how to do and have done so both since they were old enough to speak, with mór Amidala for their /mâthair’uir/."

"Besides which, child," Jobal Naberrie quietly adds, looking up at him from where she has been smoothing her skirts and hair back into order, after being forced to pick herself up out of the floor, "it is safer to explain the truth of such things than to be silent and leave them to imagine all sorts of wilder fancies, in an effort to explain their /mâthair/’s behavior. Also, this way, they understand the extent of their /mâthair/’s betrayal and can be as firm as we in the conviction that she must be cast out of our family and banished from this place, so that she will be able to work no more mischief here."

"And they are not difficult secrets to keep, Athro/," Ryoo Thule adds, her voice slightly sharper than her daughter’s gentle tone. "Our world revers you as our /sét vénníandi/, Anakin Skywalker, and Athro Kenobi as our /clíaranach vêsugheantach/. You are both /caúaradh and fâtidhean to the peoples of Naboo. Athro Qui-Gon Jinn is also a biùthaidh to the peoples of Naboo, though he is seen more as a márthyr/, a willing sacrifice, than a hero proper. And the people, human and Gungan alike, all know that it was /benâ Padmé, as ríoghan Amidala, whose bravery brought you to us. You are therefore identified with her and with this family because it was through her that you were brought to us. So you are seen as being a part of our clannachd/. Others expect for those two little girls to speak of you as /daltram/, good sons. So long as they keep certain words from leaving their mouths in the presence of those who are not of our family, anything they might say or imply will be disregarded because all know that we consider you to be our good sons by virtue of your bravery and generosity and association with /ríoghan Amidala, who is our beanabh Padmé. Others of Naboo will know that and so will not think beyond it."

"Then what would the ravings of one woman – one who has been named streppoch /and legally declared /khiel-streppain – matter?" Anakin only demands, clearly losing patience.

"It would not matter overly much if she confined her ravings to Naboo. But she would not. She would sell herself to the gossipmongers and her evil words would be believed and used against you by those who are not of Naboo. And in any case, she is being banished from Naboo, as is only right. Do you truly believe she would go quietly?" Ruwee Naberrie – still a strong-shouldered man, despite his obvious heartbreak and exhaustion – merely asks in return, his strong features set in an expression that is somehow implacable and compassionate all at once.

Jobal flashes that same lovely smile – so innocent and sincere, so obviously generous and comforting, that it might have very well disarmed a mob of bloodthirsty Gamorrean raiders – her youngest daughter had so often bestowed on both Jedi, clearly wishing to reassure them and restore calm to the room. "This way is safer, /Athros/. Please, believe us when we tell you that we only have your best interests at heart. You are our good sons, and Padmé is our beloved /ìníghnean/. We would protect you with our lives, if necessary. You are a part of our /clannachd/."

Anakin barely notices either the smile or her quite declaration, though. He’s too busy staring at Ruwee Naberrie, trying (and failing) to get a better feel for the man so that he’ll have a better idea of what he and Obi-Wan are going to be up against, in Sola. The impact of her earlier fury (upon apparently regaining full consciousness and finding herself restrained), both to the Naberrie house and the Force itself, would seem to suggest that Sola is at least as strong in the Force as her husband and eldest daughter combined. Logically, if it is from her father that she has inherited that Force-sensitivity – and, since Ryoo Thule and Jobal Thule Naberrie are both obviously just as lacking in Force-sensitivity as Pooja is and Padmé had been, rationally any such inherited Force-talent would almost have to have come through her father’s line – then Ruwee should be as potentially strong in the Force as someone like Adi Gallia had been. And yet, instead of a blaze of energy in the Force, Ruwee appears, to his senses, as only the barest flicker of fading power. Instead of the blazing sun or the steadily shining star that, at the very least, ought to be in the Force where Ruwee Naberrie is, there is instead only the merest hint of a flicker of presence in the Force, one as weak and dim as the heat of a rapidly cooling white dwarf star would be if compared to the fierce energy and light of a Class A main sequence star, what should be a steady source of life-giving light and energy instead only registering on Anakin’s wide open, Force-amplified senses as a coldly crystalline echo of energy, as of a stray shaft of fading light flashing within the remnants of what once was a much brighter and much more energetic presence. It isn’t exactly just a lack of power. That would be easy enough to recognize and understand. No. It really is more like the ghostly echo of a bit of captured light flashing off of the crystallized remains of a once vast and brightly burning power source, one that has somehow been made to burn so rapidly through its fuel source that the leftover dregs of that source of energy have solidified, under the pressure of that unnaturally accelerated burning, into a cold diamond amongst the drift of burnt out ashes of power.

Obi-Wan –

I see it too, Anakin. He’s like a dying star. It’s as if he’s somehow burned through his own power in the Force – or as if he’s somehow been drained of almost all of that potential energy by another being. It has been noted, in several histories kept in the Jedi Archives, that Sith Lords often end up attempting to stave off the inevitable calamitous tissue degeneration caused by excessive channeling of the twisted energies of the Force either by slowly but steadily feeding off of the life-energies and Force-talents of their apprentices or by draining as much of the energy – and, therefore, the lives – out of their chosen victims all at once, so that they die suddenly, of unknown but seemingly natural causes. Master Dooku’s considerable will was kept enslaved to Sidious and his dark purposes by just such a slow parasitic link. I wouldn’t have thought the Sith Master would have risked teaching the procedure to another, for fear someone so empowered might seek to turn that talent against him, but Ruwee’s condition is obviously not natural, and he wasn’t close enough to Sidious for a long enough period of time for the Sith Master to have been able to do this to Ruwee himself. That leaves only Sola for an explanation.

Half incredulous from a complete lack of understanding as to how a daughter could so willingly harm her own father and half grimly, coldly, determined to put a stop to her evil before she could harm anyone else, Anakin nods, once, and declares, /Sola has to have been draining her own father of both his life and his power in the Force, probably for several years. She may even have begun to do so to her husband, too, judging by his haggard appearance and apparent lack of energy in comparison to Ruwee’s own appearance. After all, Ruwee Naberrie is nearly four years younger than Jobal – Padmé told me that, once, when I was feeling uncomfortable about the fact that she’s four and a half years older than I am – and when I first met him his hair was only just beginning to show some silver at the temples, and yet now he appears much older and more worn-down than his wife does. /Sithspit, Obi-Wan, do you think Ryoo –

She seemed perfectly healthy to me, Anakin. I believe Sola may have been saving her for last, keeping her intact and waiting to see if she would make a suitable apprentice. We should probably ask Dooku or one of the more specialized Jedi Healers to take a look at her, though, to make sure.

Do you think anything can be done for her husband or father?

If the process truly works as it has been described in the Archive histories, I believe that Darred Janren should recover on his own, fairly quickly, so long as the link is broken soon and he is kept away from her. For the father, though . . . Obi-Wan sighs and gives his head a small, regretful shake. I’m sorry, Anakin, but at such an advanced state . . . I fear there is nothing that can be done, aside from breaking any hold she might still have over him, advising him about what has happened and making him understand that he will need to rest a great deal if he wishes to regain even so much as his former vigor and physical strength, and then simply waiting to see what happens. His health will likely improve, in time, if he truly does rest, but unless the Force itself chooses to intervene, I’m not at all sure that his potential in the Force or innate power will recover. There are also some histories in the Archives of Jedi who attempted to push themselves beyond the limits of their own power, in the Force, and suffered from a sort of permanent burnout, as a result of the uncontrolled backlash . . .

I’m sorry, Anakin, but at such an advanced state . . . I fear there is nothing that can be done, aside from breaking any hold she might still have over him, advising him about what has happened and making him understand that he will need to rest a great deal if he wishes to regain even so much as his former vigor and physical strength, and then simply waiting to see what happens. His health will likely improve, in time, if he truly does rest, but unless the Force itself chooses to intervene, I’m not at all sure that his potential in the Force or innate power will recover. There are also some histories in the Archives of Jedi who attempted to push themselves beyond the limits of their own power, in the Force, and suffered from a sort of permanent burnout, as a result of the uncontrolled backlash . . .

The sense Obi-Wan has of Anakin, then, is of someone who would, if speaking out loud, be doing so in an extremely small, almost abashed voice. I didn’t even know that such things were possible, before Master Qui-Gon spoke about the parasitic link Sidious had established with Master Dooku. I couldn’t have imagined it was even possible to strip a Force-sensitive of his or her or its natural powers and abilities like that, much less that it could happen on accident, simply from trying to call on and channel too much of the Force. I had no idea we would be risking so much, when we agreed to cleanse the Force of the taint.

His manner suddenly very gentle, Obi-Wan explains, That would be because you had not been cleared to read most of the histories such information is contained within, Anakin. They are restricted texts and require a Master’s permission or request for access. Most of the texts are so obscure that I doubt if even a third of those of Master-rank in the old Order know of either the possibility of being affected thus or of the possibility of burnout. It would take a certain kind of reckless disregard of one’s limits to run such a risk, and we are trained out of such unthinking action at a fairly early age, so it would never occur to most to search for texts regarding such a possibility after reaching the rank necessary to actually gain access to those articles. Burnout is a documented fact, though, even if the High Council decided that it would be best to keep such a danger largely unknown by and unknowable for a vast majority of the Order’s members. I can understand, from a certain point of view, why they made that decision. They wished to teach us know and to naturally abide by our limits rather than to live with the fear that pushing beyond those limits could potentially result in so much damage that even a fully trained Jedi would lose most if not all natural ability to sense and work with the Force. But that philosophy logically only works on those who have been so thoroughly indoctrinated with the necessity of knowing and never seeking to push beyond one’s personal limits. It would be . . . less than effective for one who has not been essentially raised entirely within the confines of the Temple. Have you never wondered why I was always so strict about the need for you to understand where the limits of your power lie, even when you did not wish to look at your own potential within the Force so closely, for fear it might prove you different from the rest of us? It has always been obvious that you are extremely powerful in the Force, Anakin, but without some idea of where your limits might rest, any task that you undertook in the Force could have run the risk of causing yourself damage, and I was not willing to run such a risk. And speaking of risk, O former Padawan-mine, if I had even suspected that we might not be strong enough to be able to safely cleanse the Force, I would not have suggested that we do it, Anakin. The Force told me that it must be done, that it was possible, and that we two alone could do it, working in tandem. I would not have risked your Force-talent if I had not been sure it would work, beloved. I would never make such a decision for you.

I know that, Obi-Wan. Truly, I do. It’s just the idea itself, that a Force-sensitive could be stripped of their power, that such things are even possible, that’s bothering me. Honestly. I would never doubt you. I just – I guess don’t understand how the Force could allow such things to happen. How could it possibly be that Sola stripping her father of his potential power in the Force is something done according to the Force’s will?

The sense Anakin has of Obi-Wan just then is of someone who, having been faced with part of an argument that he has been forced to talk out so many times that he has frankly begun to become sick of the topic, nevertheless patiently resists the urge to simply sigh and throw up his hands. One may as well ask how any action taken by the Sith or any other of the so-called Dark Side Adepts or Acolytes or Dark Jedi could ever be accomplished, if action taken through the Force is meant to be done only according to the will of the Force. One may as well ask why evil exists in the universe. And you know my opinion about that, Anakin. The short answer to both questions is that neither the universe nor the Force has the power to override free will.

I can understand your reasoning, regarding the universe’s lack of purpose (aside from existing and expanding), but I still/ don’t understand how the Jedi Order gets from that lack of purpose and the artificiality of imposing moral judgments like good and evil on something that simply /is to the conclusion that this means that it’s up to us to provide proper balance for the universe by doing only selfless good and never mind the resultant complete lack of balance in our own lives!

Padmé never understand the reasoning behind that final conclusion either. Given the magnitude of the Order’s other errors and the way such thinking seems to reinforce the same kind of dangerous distance between the Jedi and the rest of the galaxy that many of the rules associated with the Jedi Code led to, it’s all too probable that the Jedi were wrong, at least as pertains to the conclusions presented by the latter half of that particular philosophy. But I still believe that the first half of the argument holds true, Anakin. One simply cannot demand that the universe allow only good things to happen within its bounds, as if it were a sentient being able to make such distinctions and impose its will over all that helps to make it up and everything that occurs within it – including both such naturally destructive events as stars that go nova and swallow whole planets in their death-throes and some of the less natural but equally damaging actions occasionally taken by sentient beings. Good and evil simply do not come to play in such events as the natural death of stars and planets, and actions that are taken by sentient beings are the result of personal choices, not something that’s been imposed upon people from the outside by some higher cosmic power of light or darkness, good or evil. Any attempt to claim otherwise is to abrogate personal responsibility. And it is essentially the same with the Force. While the Force’s apparent purpose for existing is similar to that of the universe – the growth of its power and pervasiveness in this galaxy and, or so I would assume, the rest of the universe as well – and it can work through Force-sensitive beings towards that goal, the Force cannot compel absolute obedience, not even from the relatively few sentient beings who are sensitive enough to its flows and its will to expand to be able to sense and to work with both things. And because the Force is not, so far as we know, truly sentient, unfortunately it also cannot choose only to make itself available for use to those who would only do good with its power.

Grudgingly, Anakin finally admits, I suppose that makes sense. It’s just not very well-organized. You’d think something as powerful as the Force could at least see to it that no one with less than honorable intentions could access its power.

The Force is a vast and expanding energy field intimately connected to the presence of life in this galaxy, though it can sometimes be found or imbued within inanimate objects. The Force isn’t some created deity – omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, self-centeredly caring only about its own agenda, and selfishly sharing of itself only among those who will do naught but work towards the success of that agenda. Things might’ve been easier for the old Jedi Order if it had been, Anakin, but somehow I doubt you would appreciate being forcefully made to obey the will and whims of such a self-involved deity instead of given the choice to dedicate yourself to certain morally good principles – like the protection of life and the upholding of peace and justice, as ways to encourage the perpetuation and increased vitality and diversity of life in the galaxy – that support the will of the Force by aiding it in its purpose. You love your freedom far too much to abide such outside control.

I can take orders, Obi-Wan! Anakin snaps back, half out of irritation and half from wounded pride, not seeming to notice the soft half smile that Obi-Wan is giving him.

Patiently, his soft smile deepening, Obi-Wan simply calmly replies, /I never said that you can’t, Anakin. But you would not be a puppet dancing on strings for any being, and, if the Force were to attempt to make you nothing but an instrument of its will, it would, ultimately, morally be no better than the Hutts and others who deal in the taking and keeping and selling of other sentient beings as slaves. This way is better. It may be harder and it may be more prone to danger from the choices of other sentient beings, but it /is better, Anakin. I am certain of it.

Oh. Anakin blinks at him for a moment, nonplused at being caught so entirely off-guard. Well. I suppose you’re right, at that. I couldn’t and wouldn’t knowingly, willingly tolerate that kind of meddling in my life. I wasn’t thinking about the Force having that much control over me. Just that it would be nice if it could and would deny control over any part of itself from people like Sola and Sidious.

In response, Obi-Wan somehow manages to give the impression of a shrug without ever quite actually moving. That would be too arbitrary. If the Force had such control and the ability to enforce it will, thus, it would have to do so uniformly, for all Force-sensitive beings, or else it would end up being guilty of favoritism and the act of compulsion would be immoral. I would prefer not to contemplate the utter disaster that the Force would be as a sentient entity thus corrupted by power and immorality.

Ah. You’ve got a point, there. Alright, then. I concede, at least for now. But I think we should probably talk more about some of this, later – at least the part about the Order’s old way of looking at the issue of balance being wrong, because I get the feeling that essentially all Jedi and Jedi initiates have been taught to think that way. And if that many Jedi have all been taught to believe that it’s the Jedi Order’s sole responsibility to ensure that the balance between good and evil in the galaxy always tips favorably towards good and that it’s therefore the duty of all Jedi to always strive for that, even at the cost of any kind of personal balance in their own lives – and I can tell you right now that I’m pretty frakkin’ convinced that the idea is just as twisted up and wrong-headed as the Jedi Code itself turned out to be – then we’re going to have to come up with ways to watch out for and deal with any kind of possible resurgence in that kind of thinking, in the New Jedi Bendu Order. The peoples of the old Republic aren’t the only ones who’re going to need to be taught to think of both themselves and the Jedi Bendu in new ways. I know I’ve said this already, Obi-Wan, but I don’t know how seriously you took my suggestion, at the time. But it isn’t just a suggestion anymore: we are most definitely going to need more than just Healers – more, even, than Soul Healers and Jedi Minders combined – to help us close the wounds that the Jedi Code and all these other impossible expectations and rules have torn into the psyches of all of us who have been raised, even if only partially, under the old ways. It’s not just our understanding of the Force and of its will that’s been flawed. The very way we’ve been taught to think and feel about ourselves, as Jedi, has been not only wrong but actively damaging – to others as well as ourselves, since those beliefs have led to that distance between the Jedi and everyone else and all of those dangerous assumptions that our Padawan spoke so movingly about needing to avoid ever allowing to spring up again, under whatever new galactic alliance springs up in place of the old Republic. It’ll do no good to manage to avoid allowing others to repeat the one set of mistakes again if we end up allowing some of our own to slip back into the old, faulty ways of thinking that encouraged those others towards the other mistaken beliefs in the first place. And you know I’m right about this, Obi-Wan, so please don’t just agree with me to shut me up and then try to find a way out of talking about it later! Anakin adds with the haste and stubbornness of someone absolutely determined to have something out and to have it out now, no matter what, irregardless of how much it might hurt or whether or not it might interfere with other duties. I know they’re all looking at us and waiting for one of us to say something, but it’s only been a handful of heartbeats since Jobal stopped talking and no one is going to notice it if we take the time to speak frankly now and promise to finish this conversation properly later. I know that it hurts you to think about how much the Jedi Order erred and how badly those errors have hurt the Jedi, not to mention how those errors and that level of damage within the Jedi have compounded each other and either caused or helped to allow so much terrible damage to the Republic and its peoples. I know you don’t want to think of yourself as having been used, and badly, by those you looked upon as your family. And I know, beloved, believe me, I know just how hard it is for you, how much it hurts you, to make yourself look beyond everything you’d been taught to believe and embody and obey, unhesitatingly and unquestioningly, as a Jedi, and search for better, more balanced ways of being and doing and believing, both within and beyond the bounds of the Force’s embrace, /Anakin continues with the kind of earnest awkwardness of someone desperately trying to be both bluntly honest and gently understanding at the same time and therefore failing to be either thing quite completely. /We both have our trials, Obi-Wan. And if one of mine is to learn how to see myself as worthy not only of forgiveness but of acceptance and love, despite my failings, then one of yours is to learn how to see yourself as a someone worthy of and able to freely respond to love and admiration and emulation, despite the forbiddingly narrow bounds of the permissible, according to the old ways of belief and thinking in the Jedi Order. If you won’t let me turn away from or try to face my trial alone, I certainly won’t let you get away with trying one or the other, either. And don’t try to tell me it’s not that simple, either, because it /is that simple, Obi-Wan! We can get through this – and not just the two of us, but the whole New Jedi Bendu Order, too! – but only if we work together and if we’re all willing to keep each other honest about everything that we’re trying to do and why and what we need to keep in mind to do it and how we have to be willing to change and can’t afford to let ourselves be lulled into sliding back into any of the old, well-known, comfortable, and therefore comforting, despite being so hurtful and damaging, ways of thinking and believing and being again, if we truly want to succeed. And we /need to succeed in this. Not just for our sake, but for the sake of all the sentient beings of the galaxy. That storm you keep talking about is coming, and we need to be ready for it if we want anything of the galaxy that we know to survive it.

I know, Anakin. And you are right. We need to discuss this more. But it has to be later, love, Obi-Wan replies, the sense of him achingly gentle through the bond./ Our clannachd here expects us to deal with Sola, and they’re right to believe that we are the ones who must deal with her. What she knows and could do with that knowledge is far too potentially dangerous, and not just because of the damage she could do to us, personally, or to the favorable opinion that most of the sentient beings of the known galaxy currently hold for both the New Jedi Bendu Order and the new galactic government being build out of the ruins of the old Republic. Sidious has taught her too many ways to harm other beings, and her powers will only end up twisting and warping the natural flows of energy within the Force. In this case, Sola’s free will, her right to make the choices regarding certain actions she might take, ends at the point where she chooses to believe that she has the right to abrogate the same right of choice in others, simply because she has the ability to do so, just so that she might more easily and quickly gain whatever it is that she may happen to want at any given moment in time, /Obi-Wan adds with grim determination of his own.

Anakin just stares at him, blinking in shock. /"Our" /clannachd/, Obi-Wan? Not Padmé’s/clannachd, or mine?

They are our clannachd/, Anakin, because they’re Padmé’s family. And who is skirting the issue at hand now, O former Padawan-mine? /Obi-Wan all but laughs at him in reply.

That wasn’t an attempt to change the subject! Anakin doesn’t quite snap and doesn’t quite whine in response, hands twitching as if he’d like to take a page out of Obi-Wan’s book and put them on his hips as a sign of his impatient irritation. You just – you surprised me a little, is all. I didn’t expect for you to accept that quite so quickly.

I’ve had over thirteen standard years to come to terms with how Padmé felt about me, Anakin, Obi-Wan half sighs in response, quietly matter-of-fact. It would be wrong of me – and cowardly, to boot – to seek to try to deny it, now. And in my own admittedly odd and limited fashion, I did care for her a great deal and even love her, if only as a very good friend. And she was always a true friend to me, one who never allowed fear of how I might respond to sway her or stop her from speaking the truth, as she saw it. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Padmé was like the little sister I never had. She /was family, in a way, and that means that her family is also mine, even as it is yours. Jobal is right: we are all /clannachd here, save for Sola.

Alright then. As clannachd/, I therefore formally request that we kick Sola’s evil scheming Sith-wannabe butt from here to Wild Space!/ Anakin shoots back, not quite laughing but suddenly filled with a wild exaltation that floods the bond with sudden pleasure and joy and thankfulness at both Obi-Wan’s understanding of the situation with Padmé and her family and his agreement to seriously talk about things like the need for some class of mind- and heart- and soul- Healers more skilled than anything that the galaxy or the Jedi Order have ever known, after they’re done with their duty here, and at the thought that they are indeed going to not only standing firmly with their Nabooian clannachd on the decision to cast that sneaking viper out of their midst but also helping them to make sure that Sola, once banished, shouldn’t be able to hurt either them or Padmé’s memory and reputation or anyone else ever again.

A few small things first, beloved, and then we see to her, indeed. But I do not think our Padawan needs to be with us in that room, and Ruwee Naberrie and Darred Janren have the right to know both what it is that has been and possibly is still being done to them and why she could choose them for her . . . fuel sources, Obi-Wan explains, his agreement with Anakin already hardening into the kind of unmovable righteous determination to see justice done that has made him the bane of the Sith as well as of other, more common criminals and their ilk for over two decades, now, ever since his earliest days as Qui-Gon Jinn’s Padawan learner.

Point. Alright, then. Let’s see to that, so we can get on with it and get Sola out of this house, Anakin nods firmly in understanding and agreement. Then, turning his gaze away from his former Master and back towards Jobal Naberrie – whose expression is only just beginning to show signs of transforming from calmly smiling conviction and determination into curiosity at the lack of immediate response to her explanation and declaration of family solidarity – Anakin quietly declares, "I’m afraid that Sola’s treachery goes deeper than you have suspected. There is a foul and unnatural means by which the Sith Masters have learned how to establish a kind of control over the will and ambitions of their followers, by establishing a sort of perversion of the Jedi Master-Padawan training bond between themselves and their students or chosen tools that allows them to drain off – either slowly but steadily, over time, or in great gulps of debilitating or even killing attacks – both the life-energies and the Force-potential of their victims. I don’t know if you know this, but Force-sensitivity often tends to run in families. That’s why Ryoo Naberrie is so strong in the Force: she inherited Force-sensitivity from both of her parents. Sola, it seems, was not satisfied with simply inheriting Force-sensitivity from her father, though . . . "

Silently returning his lightsaber hilt to his belt, Obi-Wan moves closer to Anakin, close enough that Anakin, after absently reattaching his own deactivated hilt to his belt, can reach out and loop his arm around Obi-Wan’s waist, pulling him into a comfortable and comforting loose half-embrace, and still keep talking all the while, explaining both about Ryoo’s obvious strength in the Force, her father’s own unexpected strength in the Force – and their suspicions regarding his apparent ill-health and exhaustion – and Ruwee Naberrie’s very apparent mostly drained away potential strength in the Force.

They take the news surprisingly well, all things considered, listening with quiet intensity while Anakin explains. Darred Janren is frankly overjoyed to hear that his eldest daughter is not only strong enough in the Force to become a Jedi Bendu but also eager to be given permission to join the New Jedi Bendu Order so that she can start her training just as soon as possible, though he seems somewhat at loss when he’s told that he is also strong enough to become a Jedi Bendu and should seriously consider relocating with both of his girls to Dala City, so that he and Ryoo can both begin training and Pooja can take advantage of the doubtlessly excellent school system that former Jedi Master and Librarian and Historian and now Jedi Bendu Master Lo-Jad and his former apprentice, Bendu Knight Sia-Lan Wezz, will have organized for the children of the city. Ryoo Thule and her daughter, Jobal, both seem quietly relieved to hear that the Force-sensitivity Sola inherited did not come down through their side of the family, though they’re both also incensed to learn that Sola has been augmenting her natural talent and power by draining her father of his untrained potential. Ruwee Naberrie just give a nearly inaudible sigh and bows his head sorrowfully before admitting that his own father’s parents had refused to give up their child to the Jedi Order for training because he had been the only one of their children who survived past childhood and that his own mother had refused to allow to have him or either of his two sisters tested, for fear that she might be asked to give them up. Otherwise, aside from a slight increase to the slump of his shoulders, Ruwee seems remarkably unaffected by the news. Rather than being angry about what has been stolen from him, he simply seems . . . distantly saddened by the thought that his daughter could have done such a thing to him – a fact that makes Obi-Wan sigh and make a mental note to remember to see about trying to get a Soul-Healer, as well as or in addition to a regular Jedi Healer, to come to Naboo, to visit Ruwee Naberrie and see if there is anything else that might be done to help heal the man, whether he might feel like he deserves the healing or not.

Their Padawan, unsurprisingly, is the first one to ask questions. "“Masters, are you certain you’ll be alright going up there alone, if Sola’s been taught so much Sith lore by Sidious? I am untrained and it makes more sense for me to stay down here, where I’ll be safely out of the way, than up there with you, unable even to protect myself from Sola’s powers, much less help you. But the Grand Masters are supposed to be here for Padmé’s funeral. If they are a part of our family, then, by extension, they are also a part of this clannachd. Shouldn’t you wait for them?"

"They are coming for the funeral and only for the funeral, Padawan. That is all the time that they can dare to be away from the Temple, with the General Recall in effect and so many certain matters still waiting to be fully settled. Sola may be many things, but she is not a fully trained Sith. Sidious had ways of hiding himself within the Force, so that others would not be able to sense his power and would believe that he, in his guise as Palpatine, had no real Force-sensitivity. But once it became know who and what he was, those methods of disguise could no longer hide him or the foulness of his carrion-bloated power within the Force. Even if Sola were attempting to hide the extent of her power, by now we would have been able to sense her real strength. There is a presence on the uppermost floor. I feel that presence," Obi-Wan explains, gaze going distant even as his gaze slides up towards the ceiling and the direction of the room they have been keeping Sola locked within, "as a knot of coldness curled about a core of bitter hatred and acrimonious jealousy. That presence is strong in the Force. But it is not so strong in the Force as to be of danger to Anakin or myself. Even glutted on the energy and potential power of others, Sola is not as strong as a trained Jedi. She will doubtlessly rage and say many hateful things that are meant to be extremely hurtful to us, and she may even be able to gather enough energy to shake the house another time or two. But she cannot truly hurt either Anakin or myself. She simply is not strong enough. So it will be safe enough, for us. You need not worry on that account. Besides which," he adds, the finality in his tone making Bail abruptly close his mouth before he can even finish opening it properly in preparation to voicing another protest, "this is our task, Padawan, not something fit for another to do. Padmé loved us and it is only right that we should be the ones to deal with this particular situation."

"It should be safe enough for us, but you should all stay put, down here, until we come back down to rejoin you. Don’t come up after us, no matter what you hear or how late it may get. This might take a while. We want to make sure that she won’t have any wriggle room left to try to use to cause us or anyone else any harm, and putting up shields and removing whole blocks of information like takes time. And she’ll doubtlessly try to fight, which means that she’ll probably shriek protests and scream a lot of invective at us while we’re trying to do our work. It could get really noisy before all’s said and done. Just remember that she can’t hurt us and you stay put down here, where it’s safe, alright?" Anakin half explains and half commands, demanding both the attention and the agreement of the five adults who are going to be left behind, to wait in safety for his and Obi-Wan’s eventual return. "We really don’t need to be interrupted as what might be a crucial moment because somebody decided he or she couldn’t stand the tension any longer and came rushing up the stairs to come charging into the room blind, all in a hurry to save us. Our job will just be that much more difficult if we end up having to rescue one or more of you from Sola’s Force-augmented clutches."

"I swear that no one and nothing will be allowed to go up after you to interrupt you in your work, /Athros/. So long as you return to us before the sun rises, none will bother you. But if you have not descended to us again by sunrise, I will personally see to it that the Grand Masters are contacted and told where you are at and why," Darred Janren declares in response, bowing his head to them once, formally, in acknowledgment and promise.

"Good enough," Anakin nods back in swift agreement. "If we aren’t back down here by then, something will have gone wrong enough that we’ll probably need the Grand Masters to get us out of whatever it is that’s got us trapped up there. I really don’t see something like that happening, but planning for the worst now saves the trouble of maybe having to try to do it later, under much less settled circumstances. And it’s generally better to over-plan than under-plan."

"Speaking of plans, /Athros/, you should know that Sola is being kept in the room at the very top of the house, in the dome. The room was meant as a kind of storage space, and, since it’s a part of the actual dome, there are no windows or any other ways in or out except through the one door. We put her in there because it’s isolated from the rest of the house and only has the one manner of egress, which is set into the floor at the center of the room," Jobal explains, her expression still quietly earnest and calm as she steadily regards them both. "We have her in an old-fashioned straitjacket that fastens together securely with devices that are like small versions of electrobinders as well as electrobinders that restrain her feet. When she couldn’t be roused after her first fit, they fitted her with a catheter and IV and such at the hospital and then gave us plenty of hyposprays filled with concentrated nutrients as a way to feed her, which is why we can safely keep her unconscious most of the time. We had a real bed moved into the room for her, at first, but since she tried to strangle me with one of her blankets, the only thing in the room now other than Sola is a bare mattress that’s pushed up against the northern-most side of the dome. The mattress has a restraining field around it that essentially keeps the mattress in place and her confined to the mattress, though she can sit up and I suppose she could, technically, even stand upright on the mattress without engaging the field’s suppressor. It seemed the safest way to keep her restrained, after the violence with which she eventually tried to flee. I’m sure it probably sounds barbaric, but it was the only way to keep her here safely until your arrival."

"You did the best that you could, given a bad situation. I wouldn’t worry about it, if I were you, Mistress Naberrie," Anakin reassuringly replies. "Is there anything else we should know about the room, or the door? Does the door swing upwards or down?"

"Neither, good son. The dome is made of bronzium, and so is the door. It slides open and shut, gliding back into a recess within the flooring itself. The central staircase will seem to lead straight up into the ceiling, but when you’ve climbed far enough, you’ll see the panel set into the bronzium that controls the door. There are currently five coded locking mechanisms on the door. We have a remote device coded to the door that can open it again from the inside, once it’s been programmed to accept either your or Master Kenobi’s thumbprint. Darred can key the device to both of you easily, and it’ll only take a few moments. It’s been programmed never to accept the addition of Sola’s information, which is why we disconnected the corresponding panel on the inside of the dome and decided to use the remote, instead. It seemed safer, that way," Jobal explains, giving Anakin a half apologetic smile and a small shrug as Darred removes a small electronic device from his belt and heads towards him. "I don’t believe there’s anything else you’ll need to know about the room. Let’s see . . . the ceiling is more than high enough for a tall man to stand fully upright, even at the edges of the room. The room itself is fairly large, but Sola is confined to the mattress. Will you need to take her out of her binders at any point?"

"That shouldn’t be necessary, Mistress Naberrie. When we are finished, I will give her a Force-compulsion to sleep until such a time as one of the seven of us return to that room, to formally complete her ritual banishment. Since there are certain ritual requirements that must be observed in such a banishment and it will be easier to see to those if she is not fighting against them every step of the way, one of us will also use the Force to convince her that she must cooperate with us all. She will leave in good order, when you tell her to, because Anakin or I will have told her that she must. That will help make things go more quickly and smoothly. If all goes well, it should be possible to accomplish everything in good enough order that she will be out of your home before the day is truly over," Obi-Wan declares, his voice polite but firm.

"Then, if there is nothing else that you wish to know, we will leave you to your work, Athros. The children will need seeing to, soon, and there are . . . certain responsibilities I should see to, regarding the upcoming funeral," Ryoo Thule announces, gravely inclining her head towards them.

"Of course," Obi-Wan nods politely back at her before turning his attention back to Darred Janren. "If you would be so kind as to please give us the passcodes, then, Anakin and I can get started."

"Easily done. The panel has a alpha-numerical touchpad, and the first code you want to enter is THX1138 . . . "

***