Rain hammered against the transparisteel windows of Tipoca City, each droplet a silver blade in the eternal storm. The Kaminoan spires pierced the clouds like needles, glowing pale and ghostly above the endless ocean.
Inside his Jedi starfighter, Obi-Wan Kenobi guided the ship through the rain with steady precision, following the signal of the assassin's dart he had retrieved from the Naboo explosion.He still didn't understand how the planet existed here.How it could have been erased from the Jedi Archives.How the Force had not warned them.
Nothing made sense.
The Force felt… murky.
Clouded.
As if someone had dragged a veil over the future.
Obi-Wan stepped onto the landing platform, robes soaked instantly. A tall Kaminoan approached with elegant, swaying steps.
"Master Jedi," she greeted, bowing. "We have been expecting you."
Obi-Wan blinked.
"Expecting… me?"
"Why, of course. Your army is ready."
Obi-Wan froze.
"…My what?"
The Kaminoan smiled politely, as if discussing the weather.
"The Clone Army ordered by Master Sifo-Dyas per your design, for the Republic."
Obi-Wan felt cold.Not from rain.
From truth.
He followed her into the white halls, past rows of growing soldiers—thousands of identical men suspended in fluid, then thousands more marching in perfect formations.
"Accelerated growth, total obedience, unbroken conditioning," the Kaminoan explained. "The ultimate soldiers."
Obi-Wan swallowed.
This wasn't coincidence.
This was a conspiracy.
He activated his comlink.
"Master Windu, Master Yoda," Obi-Wan said in a low voice, "did the Council authorize this?"
"No," Yoda replied sharply. "Know nothing of this, we do."
Wind pushed against Obi-Wan's robes as he walked past a training hall where clones fired in synchronized volleys.
"Then who began this project?" Obi-Wan demanded.
Mace Windu's voice was a blade.
"Find the bounty hunter who served as the template. Bring him here."
Obi-Wan nodded grimly.
"I have a name Jango Fett. I will capture him."
And he ended the call.
Hours later, in the storm's fury, Obi-Wan faced Jango Fett on the landing pad.Blaster fire lit the storm.Rain turned to steam on contact with hot metal.
The jetpack ignited Fett took flight, firing rockets, blasters, anything to break free.
Obi-Wan deflected everything until the Slave I blasted upward, forcing him backward across the platform.
The ship escaped into the clouds.
Obi-Wan leapt into his starfighter, drenched and breathless.
"R4, track him!"
The pursuit launched them into hyperspace toward a system none of the Jedi had visited.
Toward Geonosis.
While Obi-Wan chased shadows across galaxies, Anakin and Padmé flew toward a world of calm water and green plains.
Naboo.
Security concerns forced them into Padmé's lakeside retreat isolated, beautiful, quiet.
A place where walls did not exist.
A place where emotions slipped free.
Padmé walked the veranda overlooking the shimmering lake, her gown flowing like water itself.
"You've changed," she said softly.
Anakin stood beside her, taller now, confident yet troubled.His eyes lingered on her with emotions he tried and failed to control.
"So have you," he murmured.
They talked.They laughed.They argued about duty, destiny, the Republic.And they remembered
All the stolen moments from a decade ago.
The forbidden warmth that had never died.
And Padmé realized something that frightened her:
The Jedi Code meant nothing against Anakin's devotion.
And her heart meant nothing against time.
That night Anakin jolted awake breath ragged, heart racing.
"Anakin?" Padmé whispered, touching his shoulder.
He stared ahead eyes burning with terror.
"It's my mother. She's suffering. She's dying."
Padmé didn't hesitate.
"We're going."
They left Naboo at dawn.
Heat slammed into them as they stepped off the ship.Dust storms swirled around Mos Espa's broken buildings.
Anakin walked with urgency, robes snapping in the wind, Padmé keeping pace silently.
The shop was smaller than he remembered.Older.Weaker.
Watto turned, eyes widening.
"Anakin? Is that you, boy?"
"I need to know where my mother is."
Watto sighed, stroked his stubbled chin.
"Sold her years ago. To a moisture farmer named Lars. Freed her too. Married her."
Anakin felt a flicker of hope.
"Where?"
Watto gestured to the horizon.
"Out past the Dune Sea. The Lars homestead."
Minutes later, Anakin and Padmé sped through the sands in a borrowed speeder, the twin suns blazing overhead.
Owen Lars met them at the entrance.Beru stood behind him, nervous.
"My mother," Anakin said immediately. "Where is she?"
Owen's silence said everything.
Cliegg Lars rolled out in his repulsor lift chair, eyes heavy with grief.
"She was taken," he said. "By Tusken Raiders. We tried to rescue her. They… they're monsters."
The blood drained from Anakin's face.
Padmé reached for him.
"Anakin—"
He was already leaving.
The night air tasted of dust and death.
Anakin stalked through the dunes, lightsaber drawn, guided by instinct and grief and fury.
He found the camp.
He killed the guards.
He broke the cages.
He entered a hut
And saw her.
Shmi Skywalker lay bound, beaten, breath shallow.Her eyes fluttered open.
"Anakin… you're here…"
He held her against his chest.
"I'm here, Mom. I'm here."
But it was too late.
Her breath shuddered.
Her body went limp.
Something inside him snapped.
The scream tore from his throat raw, primal, broken.
The Tuskens stopped and looked toward the hut.
They were dead before they understood why.
Men.Women.Children.
All of them.
Anakin moved like a storm of light and blood.
And when the silence returned, he carried his mother's body home.
The funeral was quiet.
Cliegg, Owen, Beru, Anakin, Padmé.
Only five people mourning one woman who had shaped the fate of the galaxy.
Padmé touched Anakin's hand as the suns set.
"You're not alone."
But he was.
In his heart, he knew he was.
In the red deserts of Geonosis, Obi-Wan crept among towers of rusted metal and hive-like structures. He activated his comlink.
"Anakin, Padmé are you there?"
"Master?" Anakin answered.
Obi-Wan transmitted everything:
Count Dooku.
The Separatist Council.
The creation of the droid armies .The conspiracy to start a galactic war.
"Forward this to the Jedi Council," Obi-Wan instructed. "Stay away. This planet is dangerous."
Before he could continue
Droids surrounded him.
Spider droids.
Geonosian guards.
Battle droids with rifles pointed to his chest.
Obi-Wan lifted his comlink as they dragged him away.
"Anakin whatever you do not come to"
Static.
Silence.
Padmé's face paled.
Anakin didn't hesitate.
"We're going to save him."
They flew immediately no guards, no hesitation, no plan.
They were intercepted.Captured.Surrounded in the Geonosian factories deep beneath the desert.
Brought before Count Dooku.
Sentenced to execution.
Padmé's wrists were bound by chains.
Anakin stood beside her, ready to fight until the very end.
As they were marched onto the execution platform, Padmé looked at him.
"If we're going to die…" she whispered, voice trembling only slightly, "I want you to know… I love you."
Anakin's breath caught.
He leaned forward.
And kissed her.
The gates opened.
Monsters roared.
The arena screamed for blood.
Hand in hand, they stepped forward.
Ready to die.
Together.