Title: Star Wars Episode II: Rise of the Twin Suns (3/?)

Author: Opal Lynn (opal . lynn (at) gmail . com) For more updates, spoilers and images from the story, please visit tsrii . livejournal . com

Rating: PG-13

Characters/Pairings: Anakin/Padmé, Obi-Wan, Darth Nathema (OC), Reysuu (OC)

Category:AU, Action, General

Disclaimer:This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Lucasfilm, Ltd. No money is being made and no infringement is intended.

This Chapter: A transmission from the Jedi Council leaves our heroes in shock, and a mission into the unknown Elysian Cluster turns out to be more trouble than expected.

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T H R E E
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Light, inviting music and the din of conversation wafted through the musky air of a grand receiving chamber. Courtiers and bounty hunters mingled and laughed, gamblers wagered quietly in the wings, and servants scrambled to and fro, offering up delectable treats to the palace's many guests. In the corner, a band played lightheartedly and slave girls danced, their adornments jingling with the beat of the playful drums. In the center of the chamber, a vast Hutt languished and smiled, its enormous eyes surveying the room with pleasure as its thick arm coiled around the waist of a tall human slave. Smiling like a feral animal, she was relaxed into the fleshy abdomen of her keeper, and she ate hungrily from a dish filled with fruit.

Two identical golden-skinned twi-lek girls rushed gracefully into the chamber, hurrying to the throne of the massive Hutt and bowing at its feet.

"Mondula, we have grave news to report." Said one of them in quiet Huttese.

"We have found something of terrible importance." Said the other, just as quietly.

The slave girl on Mondula's lap narrowed her eyes and stared at the twins, her face stony. The Hutt lord beckoned the twi'leks forward, and each stood on either side of the behemoth. One at a time, they leaned toward their master and whispered, taking turns to tell their news. As they whispered, the Hutt's eyes widened and his gigantic pupils narrowed menacingly. The slave on his lap looked ever more sour, and she crossed her arms, no longer interested in the fruit.

In a voice as quiet as the sonorous Hutt could mange, he grumbled,

"Feed the corpse to the beasts before they return. If the police bother you again, dispose of them."

The twin slaves nodded and stepped down from the dais together, striding from the room in perfect syncopation.

Mondula's blubbery arm circled tighter around his human pet, and she hissed in discomfort, her face fiery.

"You defy me again, Reysuu. This does not please me." She winced again as he clamped down ever tighter. "For this discrepancy you will be punished most severely. You shall face the arena every day..." Her eyes widened and she looked hopelessly about the room. "And you shall face not one battle, but two, until I am satisfied or until you are dead. Either way, you will earn back what unpleasantness you have cost me. Now go. The Mandalorian is waiting for you."

With a resonant grunt, Mondula tossed Reysuu away and she stumbled out of the chamber.

"Now!" Declared Mondula, wide face jubilant once more. "Who would like to wager on the fate of She Who Spits as she battles until death?"

The many gamblers in the chamber clattered to the fore and waved their money about, and Mondula reclined into the throne, clearly pleased.

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It would be difficult to say whose face appeared more astonished. Obi-Wan was uncharacteristically slack-jawed, while Anakin merely gaped; Padmé appeared quite floored, and Adi Gallia suddenly frowned, before her expresion morphed quickly into one of pure confusion.

"Your ship has just appeared in the Elysian cluster," she stated, obviously dumbfounded.

Regaining his composure, Obi-Wan quickly cut to the point.

"We are tracking a Sith spacecraft. The new Sith apprentice has emerged, it appears she is after the Queen."

"So you know." Gallia's voice was somber. "The Chancellor has informed us of his suspicions. None of the Council had detected a disturbance, so we were wary to jump to a definite conclusion. Unfortunately it seems that the Chancellor's suspicion is correct." She paused and thought for a moment, and when she spoke again, her voice was dark. "So it appears that the Elysian cluster is more dangerous than we originally thought."

Padmé seemed to mumble something under her breath and she scowled.

"As I said before, Tarlan Voss dispatched a message to the Council two days ago. He expressed his intent to bring a Potential before the Council. We believe he is attempting to undo past deeds by bribing us with a newcomer. But regardless of Voss' intentions, it is critical that the Potential not be removed from Elysian space." Gallia paused for emphasis. "This cluster is not allied with the Republic, and for millennia it has been governed by the Hutts, along with an army of ruthless gangsters.

"We have a precarious agreement with the cluster which declares that no sentient being may be removed from the cluster, and absolutely no Republic Jedi are allowed admittance without specific permission. If Tarlan is discovered, he will be assassinated on sight, and if he is found smuggling a Potential... things could get extremely unpleasant."

"Bureaucratically unpleasant, or dismemberingly unpleasant?" asked Anakin, who immediately balked when Obi-Wan shot him a glare.

Gallia seemed unfazed.

"Unpleasant in every sense. It is an inconvenient burden when the Republic can endure no more strain - we are having a hard enough time dealing with the clone debate - this would be a very troublesome time for an entire system to revolt outright against the Republic. We need you to find Tarlan and stop him. His ship is still on the cluster's primary planet, so there is still time to undo the damage. Do not reveal yourselves to anyone, and do not speak of the Republic. We require a silent operation." Gallia sighed with frustration.

"The sudden appearance of the Sith is most unfortunate. We cannot risk deploying another Jedi ship into enemy space, so you will have to track her yourselves. But I warn you - this complication with Tarlan is no easy matter. Do not disregard it because of a shadowy threat. The Hutt's have far-reaching friends, and we cannot risk a war." Gallia bowed her head and sharply declared, "May the Force guide you well," before the hologram disappeared and the cockpit was silent save for the mechanical sounds of the ship's computer receiving Gallia's profile of the mission.

Padmé was the first to speak.

"We will need to split up. One of us must track the Sith, one of us most track down Tarlan, and one of us..."

Obi-Wan spun around slowly to face the queen. "We?" He repeated slowly. "Us?"

Anakin could see where his Master was going with this, and he quickly interjected.

"Master, we can't just leave her alone to wait for us. The Sith is after her. It would be reckless to simply abandon her on a hostile world."

"No, it would be reckless to parade her around before a cotillion of gangsters and Huttese warlords who would like to see each of us very painfully dead."

"Then what do you propose we do?" Anakin asked unpleasantly.

Padmé growled and unfastened her harness, standing up and angrily throwing her arms over her chest. "I propose you stop talking about me as if I'm not present and as me what I would like to do, since apparently I am causing such a problem. As the senior delegate of democratic world, I would think that I could be of use for such a clearly political matter, but apparently I am too much of a burden to even be allowed off the ship!"

Anakin gaped. He had never heard Padmé use the word "I" so many times in his life, and he had certainly never seen her so enraged. Obi-Wan raised a stony eyebrow and leaned back in his chair, but said nothing.

"We are all going to find something shabby to wear, and then Anakin and I will go in search of Tarlan while you, Master Jedi," Padmé looked at Obi-Wan as if she doubted he was a Master of anything, "will go in search of the Sith."

With that, Padmé turned on her heel and strode to the rear of the ship, and she could be heard rummaging about the closets looking for some sort of disguise. Anakin turned to Obi-Wan.

"It's as good a plan as any, Master. And it's unfair to ask her to do anything else."

With a tired sort of admonition, Obi-Wan said, "The Queen is upset and distraught, she wants to find her friend's killer, but this Tarlan Voss has put a rather sizable roadblock in her way. We would be unwise to encourage any wrathful behavior on her part, and it would be extremely foolish of us to allow a prominent Republic delegate to be exposed to this system." When Anakin looked ready to interrupt, Obi-Wan harshly added, "Especially when her life as already been threatened once today."

"So then what options do we have? She can't just stay here. The ship could be boarded, or raided, or destroyed..."

"She will not stay here. And neither will you. I will take care of this Voss character, and I want you to escort the Queen back to Coruscant. In a few days time, return for me in an unregistered fighter - "

"But what about the Sith?"

"We will see about the Sith. But I am sure that the further away the Queen is from this system, the safer she will be."

Anakin wanted to object, but Padmé had returned to the cockpit, sporting a vastly over-sized robe. Her face was completely obscured by the massive hood, and Anakin could not shake the ridiculous impression that the Queen had morphed into a five foot jawa. However, he was glad that her face was masked, because when Obi-Wan told her of his plan, the low sound she made suggested that her expression would have been an utter terror to behold.

Anakin spun around quickly in his chair and fiddled with the ship's controls, bringing the Halcyon closer to the system's main planet, where the enemy ship had clearly landed. He hoped that piloting the ship would be enough of an excuse for him not to get involved in the argument that was about to nastily unfold.

Padmé threw back her hood and stared at Obi-Wan with astonishment, her face almost disgusted.

"With all due respect Master Kenobi I am not some youngling you can order around! Nor am I some half-wit shut-in politician who cannot handle themselves in a fight. I happen to be tagging along on this little misadventure by choice, and you are not my bodyguard nor my superior, so if you think you can just casually decide what is best for me you are seriously mistaken.

"If you are truly so worried about me being captured by some back-world pirate, then perhaps it would be good of you to remember that when we picked up your Padawan some ten years ago on a planet much like this, it was I, not you, who was out in the sand playing with the baddies. I've evaded the Hutts before, and they have no interest in me aside from using me as ransom bait. As Jedi, you two are the ones who will draw truly unwanted attention."

Anakin sat very still, his eyes very wide. He tried not to move, tried not to breathe, hoping that the Queen's wrath would pass over him. Mercifully, she made no attempt to attack him, and the cockpit became breathlessly silent as Obi-Wan and Padmé stared each other down.

Finally, with a very hefty sigh, Obi-Wan relented.

"FINE! You and Anakin will search for Tarlan Voss and find a diplomatic solution to this mess, and I will pursue the Sith woman."

"That will be excellent." Declared Padmé, as casually as if she were ordering breakfast. Then, under the pretense of finding more disguises, she vanished once more to the back of the ship.

Obi-Wan turned toward Anakin very slowly, looking tense.

"Apparently I was mistaken," he drawled, a bit of dry sarcasm tinting his voice. "It would be most unfortunate for some lawless scoundrel to come across the Queen." He glanced at Anakin, a sparkle in his eye. "Unfortunate forthem."

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Some time later, after Anakin had circled the planet a few times and found a suitably remote hiding place within an immense, teeming forest, the Halcyon's small crew prepared to go their separate ways. Padmé had outfitted Anakin with a set of dark, ominous robes - where she had found these Obi-Wan had little idea - and the two of them had decided to investigate Tarlan Voss under the guise of a pair of bounty hunters looking to collect the fallen Jedi's head. Obi-Wan opted against any strange attire; he was going to need comfort and reliability over stealth in order to catch the Sith; and besides, he was rather convinced that he wouldn't be able to pull of a ludicrous bounty hunter costume without looking like a fool.

The group moved towards the hatch and Obi-Wan pressed the release. All at once, a rush of sweaty, fragrant air seeped into through the opening, and all three of them staggered as it washed over them in a thick, hot wave.

"I think we might be overdressed." chirped Anakin as he fanned himself with the neck of his robe.

Obi-Wan allowed himself to adjust for a moment and decided to weather the climate in his Jedi Robes. He had no idea what the natives of this planet looked for in a Jedi, but a large, hooded cloak could usually pass unnoticed in a crowd of vermin. Slowly, he stepped from the Halcyon, his skin already sticky and warm. An unpleasant feeling spread through his stomach. This would not be an easy trek. He turned back to Anakin and Padmé, who were adjusting their disguises to be more comfortable in the raging heat.

"Remember, contact me when you have something. And whatever happens, do not reveal Tarlan's intentions nor your identities. No one must know of the Jedi's presence here."

Anakin adjusted his shirt and nodded.

"Be careful, Master."

"May the Force be with you both," replied Obi-Wan, looking at Padmé in hopes that she would take his words to heart. The Queen met his eyes for a moment before relenting and inclining her head towards him; their quarrel over.

With a final breath of the cool cabin air, Obi-Wan stepped from the ship. The air was thick; almost liquid, and Obi-Wan had to make a very conscious and desperate attempt to move as little as possible in order to keep from overheating. The verdant forest floor was green as far as the eye could see. Between the monsterous trees, plush moss covered every spare inch of ground that was not consumed by ferns and exotic flowers which let out strong, suffocating perfumes that were almost visible in their potency.

He set off on the bearing they had calculated from the Sith's last known position, but before the Halcyon was even out of sight, Obi-Wan need to rest. He leaned against the nearest tree and tried to center himself. His only real option was to follow his gut and seek the Sith through the Force, which would prove difficult on such a teeming planet. He reached out slowly and calmly with his mind, careful not to overexert himself or use too much strain; he wasn't sure how much energy he would need for whatever lay between him and his goal.

Sorting though the crushing mass of life was confusing, like trying to place the melody of a song by the feel of a vibration. The heat pressed in on all sides like a deafaning blanket of water, but Obi-Wan simply inched nearer to the tree, attempting to use it's lifeforce as a grounding spot, attempting to separate himself from the dampness, from the claustrophobic noise of the Living Force crowding in from all directions.

At last he found something, a dark whisper some distance away. It was as if she was calling to him, luring him closer, egging him on. His better judgement warned him that it was a trap, but his sense of duty reminded him that unfortunately, he had no other choice but to follow her lead.

He just hoped that by the time he reached her hideaway, he hadn't collapsed from heat stroke.

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After tearing off a few sleeves, discarding a few cloaks, and opting for as few layers as possible, Anakin and Padmé felt a bit more comfortable in the oppressive heat. Padmé used a strip of torn cloth to disguise her stately hair, and then she stepped back to review the credibility of their disguises. After a moment, she frowned and crossed her arms.

"No, no. You're not intimidating enough. No one will believe you're a head hunter."

Anakin scoffed and theatrically flexed his bicep, snarling. Padmé held back a laugh and rolled her eyes as Anakin attempted to strike other threatening poses.

"Don't you have any guns in here? Some ammunition belts we can string around you?"

"Not really." he clipped.

"Anything that just looks like a weapon? Something big, mean and tough?"

"N-yes!" Anakin suddenly thought of something. He rushed through the maintenance room to his cabinet of tools and equipment. He rummaged around for a moment before emerging with a belt covered in chains of cogs and rows of small pistons, which he used to repair the ship's more internal, rudimentary mechanisms. He tossed this over his shoulder and grabbed a few other things: his scope goggles and fume mask, and for Padmé, a pair of smallish, steel tipped gloves and a nasty-looking shield helmet. As a final touch, he strapped a few of his more insane-looking tools to his belt, hoping that they would be confused for strange torture implements or explosives.

Padmé tried on the gloves and slipped the scuffed and tarnished helmet over her head, lifting the visor and glaring at him.

"Am I scary?"

Anakin evaluated her for a minute. Even with the shield helmet on, her soft features and delicate posture gave her away. He looked at her eyes - warm, brown, and glaring humorously at him - and his stomach did an unusual flip. Startled, He shook his head.

"Keep the visor down. Your eyes are too beautiful for a bounty hunter."

In his head, it had sounded observational, but when he blurted it out, something in his voice gave him away. His stomach flipped over again. Padmé made a soft noise from inside the helmet and Anakin blushed and turned away quickly. He silently chided himself for saying such an awkward thing to Queen Amidala. Of course Padmé was beautiful - any living creature would be blind not to notice and admire - but Anakin didn't usually think that way about his friend. As a Jedi, he admired and cherished her beauty, but never desired it for himself. But there was just something about seeing Padmé dressed in a strange, sinister costume, glaring at him from beneath a visor, that made her seem like someone else - someone outside the worlds that governed them both - someone who's eyes suddenly seemed much too lovely for a disguise.

Trying to break up the silence, Anakin clattered around the maintenance room and reached into a closet for the long, menacing staff which he used to scrape residue from the ship's underbelly. He handed this to Padmé, who thankfully had the visor down so that he didn't have to worry about meeting her eyes again. He snapped his domed black scope goggles over his eyes and strapped his fume mask over his nose and mouth. He switched on the breathing mechanism and the mask made a tinny, rhythmic sound as it puffed air in and out. As he strode forward, he knocked into something; the goggles made everything quite dark and blocky. He grunted.

"I can't see in these things!" This was doubly proven when he knocked into something else. This time it was Padmé, and she clutched his arms, her helmet knocking against his protruding mask. She was giggling.

"You sound ridiculous!"

"What?" He said, unable to register much more than the feeling of her delicate fingers resting on his bare arms.

She laughed harder.

"Your voice is so low! That mask is..."

But she never got around to explaining just what the mask was, because she started laughing too hard to speak. After a rather disarming fit of giggling, she said,

"And now I can't see either... the steam from outside is clouding up my helmet!"

Anakin noticed that his goggles were clouding as well, making his poor vision even worse. He reached up a hand and switched on the infrared and spacial visualisers, which made everything much clearer, if not a little digitized. He flipped open Padmé's visor and she gasped, stiffening. Her eyes were locked onto his face and her expression was shocked.

"What's wrong?" A horrible nervousness spread through him. Quickly, he lifted up the goggles and pulled down the mask, looking at her fully.

"I think you'll make a very convincing bounty hunter now..."

She released his arms and stepped away, striding out of the ship with unusual haste.

"C'mon Artoo, let's get this over with," Anakin mumbled, feeling terrible. Artoo bumped against his leg and made a gentle cooing noise, as if trying to convice Anakin that he wasn't so scary after all.

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The Sith was not far away now; her call was nearly overpowering. It drew Obi-Wan forward, toward a tremendous compound at the edge of a plunging gully. The compound's many buildings were so overgrown with moss and brightly colored creepers that they resembled enormous hills of earth than any sort of particular architecture, but Obi-Wan could still faintly recognize the squat, round shape of a Huttese palace predominating the forms. He could sense that the Sith's dark presence was within the towering walls, but he could see no way of getting inside. Though the palace was had more windows and balconies than a typical huttese dwelling - Obi-Wan assumed this was because of the sweltering heat - all of these openings were high above the solid wall that encased the perimeter. Scaling the wall was clearly impossible, even with the vines and vegetation to aid climbing, Obi-Wan knew that no Hutt was foolish enough to erect a wall without some sort of shielding mechanism.

Well, he couldn't just knock on the door.

Just as he was about to sit down and rest on a nearby cluster of boulders, a shifting in the earth caused him to jump back with alarm. He had been so thoughtlessly distracted by the Sith's resonating presence that he had failed to sense several people approaching. He looked around quickly, hoping that he would be able to hide himself behind something before he was spotted, but no one was in sight. Confused, Obi-Wan barely had time to register that the people were approaching from below, before the cluster of boulders he had been about to lean against trembled and shifted to reveal an earthen stairway from which several people were emerging.

His heart thudding, Obi-Wan plunged into an enormous rotting log nearby and tried to settle his breathing. A small group of men stepped from the hidden tunnel, their voices confused and worried.

"I thought Lt. Dunlock said there was a body down there..." grumbled one of the smaller men, his white cleansuit rustling as he helped another man from the stairway. "I can't believe we climbed these damn stairs for nothing."

"Yeah, well, sometimes the Hutts don't like us poking around in their business..." Said the man who had emerged first. His voice was gruff, but the other men continued to speculate despite his warning.

"I heard some whispers that the Jedi are involved in this..."

"Shutup, Millo," Said the gruff-voiced man.

Obi-Wan's guts did an unpleasant sort of flip flop.

"I heard that too," said the last man to emerge as he slid the fake boulders back into place. "At first they were saying one of them had killed this guy, but now they're saying its the other way around."

"No," said the small one, astonished.

"Oh yeah... it's a good thing the Hutt's are taking care of it themselves because you know we don't need them sweeping down on us like a plague..."

The rest of the conversation was lost to the din of birds and insects as the men walked into the forest. When he was sure they were beyond sight, Obi-Wan slowly emerged from the log and crept toward the boulders, his mood dim. Tarlan must have been even more foolish than they had all thought. Something about this entire situation was smelling more and more like a trap - Obi-wan knew better than to think that it was mere coincidence that the Sith had chosen this place as her hideaway. She knew something about all of this; and she had brought them all here for a reason. Obi-Wan even had a sneaking suspicion that Sabé's murder had been a horrible form of bait, meant to lure the Jedi here, for reasons yet unclear to him.

He pulled out his comlink and dialed it to Anakin's frequency.

"What is it, Master?" rang the comlink in after a few moments. Anakin's voice was laced with clear concern.

"I think Tarlan may already be dead."

There was a long pause as Anakin digested this.

"What do you mean?"

"I overheard a group of public officers discussing it at a Huttese Compound at the southern edge of the forest... they'll suspect any sort of Jedi retaliation, so stealth is of the utmost importance now. The Sith lead me straight here, she knows about all of this and I sense this is all an elaborate trap."

"Should we leave?" asked Anakin, his voice thin. "I don't want Padmé getting tangled up in this..." Anakin's line became fuzzy and Obi-Wan rolled his eyes as he heard some squabbling in the background. Padmé's voice rang through the comlink rather sternly.

"I think you know where I stand Obi-Wan," she said. "I would like to get to the bottom of this." Padmé's voice disappeared and Anakin returned and mumbled,

"She wants to get to the bottom of this... ow!"

"Fine. Then we will investigate. We will rendezvous within the Palace. If you are disguised well enough, you two can probably walk right in as long as you bring a gift of some sort. I will see you soon."

"I have a bad feeling about this," mused Anakin before the signal cut off.

Obi-Wan sheathed his comlink and groaned as he shoved the boulder off of the stairs. The way was unlit and dank, and as he looked down into the darkness below, he said grimly, "So do I."

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