Ok, a couple of author's notes. First of all, please, please, please help me out and review this. Any constructive criticism is welcome - I'm trying to make this story better.
Also, thanks to BlackWings/Master Solo and SpazticPoetGrl for your reviews...they are much appreciated.
Finally, a short note about the Jedi policy on relationships in the story. I know that canon really says that no romantic relationships are allowed among Jedi, but in the story, they are allowed but not encouraged among Padawans, Padawans are expressly forbidden to marry anyone, and Knights and Masters may only wed within the Order. Just to clear that up.
One more thing, this story is an Episode III speculation fic. It is not intended to be AU, it follows what I thknk the story will be from Sammi's point of view. That does mean that good people die when the Empire takes over; if that bothers you, don't read this fic.
Chapter Five
"Blast!"
Sammi slapped her hand to her forehead and groaned.
"I can't believe," she said to herself out loud, "that I could forget the Festival presents!"
Amila, grinning with quite festive seasonal cheer, poked her head into Sammi's room.
"And I can't believe that you're talking to yourself! But you don't see me complaining."
"Master!" Sammi exclaimed. "I left the new storydisks I was going to give the initiates for Festival in the salle after practice last night!"
"Well," said Amila, rolling her eyes, "go and get them!"
Sammi laughed, somewhat ruefully. "I wasn't really asking for your advice, Master," she explained with a bright grin, "I was just stating facts."
"Whatever you say, Padawan. But I think all of this holiday cheer is getting to you." With a bell-like laugh, she left the room.
Though the war news, deaths, and continual grieving of the Clone Wars still rocked the Temple, all of Coruscant seemed to be coming out to make sure that this Festival season wasn't dimmed by the pervading sadness and worry. The Jedi Temple was no exception, and everyone seemed to be in a good mood.
Sammi, Regan, and Ray hadn't forgotten about Anakin Skywalker and the enigmas surrounding him, either, but in the rush of holiday excitement, the mystery had been pushed aside. It had been more than a month since the three Padawans had overheard his conversation with the unknown girl, and nothing more about her or about Anakin's strange behavior had presented itself.
Tomorrow was Festival Day, though, and Sammi needed to get the new storydisks wrapped and ready to give to the crèche children. She remembered exactly where she'd left them, in one of the storage chambers in the far end of the salle, and straightening her tunic, she headed towards the large saber practice room.
The salle actually consisted of three smaller arenas, with adjoining walls that could be removed to have a more space-consuming duel. Beams crisscrossed the ceiling overhead, where the more acrobatic Jedi could carry on their battles far above the ground, and a fenced-off perimeter allowed others to watch ongoing duels. Several storage rooms and changing rooms adjoined the main room, and it was the second chamber along the back wall in which Sammi had left her presents.
When she opened the main door to the salle, Sammi could hear the hissing buzz of an ignited lightsaber, and the soft whir of training droids. In itself, that wasn't odd. What was odd, on the other hand, was the sudden whine and wail of metal being burnt.
Sammi stepped into the viewing perimeter. Anakin Skywalker, blue lightsaber ignited to its highest power, was facing off against five training droids, each wielding a saber blade of white light. A sixth droid lay in scorched pieces near Anakin's feet, still glowing faintly red where the young Jedi's lightsaber had sliced through it.
He gestured towards the still-smoldering shrapnel with his left hand, and the dismembered head of the training droid lifted from the ground and hurled itself at the droid farthest to Anakin's right. The droid went flying, smashing into the back wall of the salle with a resounding bang.
Anakin drew back his saber, and, in a parody of fury, flew into battle with the remaining droids. They didn't stand a chance, and the tall Padawan hacked them to bits mercilessly.
Sammi gaped, stunned. She'd watched many a battle in the salle, and seen untold duels. No one - no one - ever outright destroyed the training droids. One might incapacitate them, but the six droids in the salle, still sparking where wires had torn, were beyond any hope of repair. She could also feel waves of emotion coming from the training chamber, and they matched nothing she had ever felt in a duel at the Temple. Through the Force, one might sense a competitive spirit during a battle, a desire to win, even a passion for victory. Anakin raged. He attacked with pure aggression, and Sammi felt his every emotion, projected to her through the Force as clearly as if they were glowing beams of light.
Anakin turned, and Sammi ducked back outside the room. She felt him focus the Force, and there was a sudden feeling of explosion in her mind, then a sense of him stalking towards the doorway in which she was standing.
Sammi jerked back, and dodged into a side hallway, watching him stride pass her. There was a dark glower to his face, and—were those ashes? —on the hem of his robe.
After the blonde Padawan disappeared around a corner, Sammi walked back into the salle. A scorched spot on the floor and a slightly metallic tang to the air were the only traces left of the fallen training droids. Had Anakin simply destroyed them? Sammi didn't doubt that, power-wise, he was capable of incinerating a pile of metal with his mind, but . . . .
Her festive spirit was gone now, as obliterated as the six droids, but she still slid into the room where she had left the storydisks, and scooped up the package. She returned to her chambers, but with a much heavier heart than when she'd left it.
Sammi had picked out a separate story for each one of the nineteen children in the crèche group, though she didn't put nametags on the packages, since they were all to be shared equally. A few of the book were her old childhood favorites, though nothing she had ever read had seemed to match the excitement of the fairy tale Obi-Wan had told her the first time she'd seen him.
As she enfolded each story in the colorful paper, she puzzled over Anakin and the anger that seemed to haunt him. Furrowing her forehead, though, she pushed away the insidious words that nudged the back of her mind, and tried to worry about Festival and the children.
The forced train of thought, though, was suddenly aided when a grinning Ray, colorful rainbow garlands draped over his head and shoulders, stepped into the room.
"Happy Festival!" He exclaimed, and draped a bunch of multicolored ribbons over her shoulders as a very gaudy stole.
"Uh, Ray, Festival's tomorrow," she laughed, heart lightening immediately. She put her hand to his forehead. "Are you feeling all right?"
"Wonderful!" the Padawan laughed brightly. "I'm just getting in the holiday spirit a little early!" His brow furrowed. "Master Koru doesn't seem too happy about it, though."
Sammi giggled, imagining what the stern Master's reaction might have been to Ray's clowning.
"Ah, presents, I see," Ray noted, scooping up an armful of the now-wrapped stories. "Some new bedtime tales?"
"It's what they asked for," Sammi explained. "They're actually from me and Master Amila, but I'm the one who's going to end up reading them." She frowned. "Not that I resent that, actually. I love telling them stories, especially when it takes their minds off heavier things."
Ray ignored the reference to the war; though he stored it in the back of his mind, he wanted to distract Sammi—and himself—from troubled thoughts. "Well, Regan's waiting in the crèche for us. We're supposed to be keeping an eye on the little ones while Master Amila helps get everything organized for tomorrow."
The crèche was a wonderland. Festival was a winter holiday, and, though the Jedi children growing up on climate-controlled Coruscant had never seen snow, the giant shimmering snowflakes that decorated the walls gave a delightfully joyful feel to the room. Colorful garlands and streamers crisscrossed the ceiling, and the children, surprisingly enough, had refrained from tearing them down in excited play.
The lightsabers that Obi-Wan had given the children a month ago were very much in evidence, as several of the young ones swatted at each other with the glowing toys. The subdued fear of the war had been forgotten, and the children played with all of their former abandon.
Regan sat cross-legged on the poufy cushions that were scattered across the floor, supervising the "saber practice." When the door hissed open to admit Sammi and Ray, she stood up to greet them.
"Happy Festival, Sammi." Her eyes traveled over the colorful tangles of ribbon adorning Sammi and her brother. A corner of her mouth twitched with subdued laughter.
"Right! I almost forgot!" Ray said, pulling more handfuls of ribbon from the pocket of his robe and draping them over his twin.
An excited pack of initiates chose that moment to rush over to the three Padawans and attach themselves to the older children's legs. Sammi couldn't make out much over the general din, but "Festival!" "Party!" and "Presents!" seemed to be the general idea.
She laughed with abandon, feeling, for an instant, absolute joy at their perfect innocence. "Festival's tomorrow, darlings, you know."
Allie, a wispy Zabrak girl with ten iridescent horns crowning her head, tugged on Sammi's pant leg. She looked down at the brightly smiling little girl. "We know. But it's so much fun!"
By the time the little ones had pulled the ribbons off of Sammi and the twins, adorning themselves with the recycled decorations, Sammi was laughing gleefully, worries truly forgotten.
Festival was the observance of year's turning, a celebration of the new and a cleansing away of the old. Once the younger children were tucked into bed, the older Padawans and Masters stayed awake to watch the dawn of the first day of the new year. Festivities continued throughout the night, and in the morning gifts were exchanged among friends.
Even the climate-controlled, polluted atmosphere of Coruscant could not dim the glory of the rising sun, bringing with it a new year, and—Force-willing—a new hope for peace. Sammi sat, half dozing off, her head rested against Master Amila's shoulder, when Amila gently shook the girl awake to point out the sunrise.
Amila sent a pulse of wordless love along the Master-Padawan bond, and Sammi dragged her eyes open to see the glory of pinks, purples, oranges and golds painted in broad swaths of color across the brightening sky.
With a sudden feeling of calm, an absolute trust in the Force, Sammi stretched out her feelings to embrace the world and everything in it, a celebration of love. She withdrew painfully, though, when the shock of shadowy hate scored like a burn across her Force-sense, the militant coldness of the Clone army. She shivered.
When Sammi looked into her Master's face, though, motherly love and comfort washed away the feeling of violation, and, when Ray and Regan, accompanied by their respective Masters, came in the door without knocking, Sammi realized that, war or no, she could find happiness in the universe, in the peace of her friends.
When Amila and Sammi entered the crèche that morning to wake up the initiates, the shining joy on each little face moved Sammi beyond her ability to describe, and the little pulses of elation in the Force as they unwrapped the new storydisks awoke in her a protective instinct she hadn't known she had.
Andra, the dark-haired human girl, rested her tousled head against Sammi's shoulder. "Will you read us a story now?" "Please?" she added as an afterthought.
The other little ones responded immediately with a chorus of agreement. Amila watched as Sammi picked out one of the stories randomly from the pile, and the children formed a semi-circle around the comfortable cushion where she was perched.
She slid the disk into a datapad to activate the words on the screen, then pushed the small button on the disk that turned on the holographic projector of the illustrations beside her.
"The Baby Angel," she read aloud, her words warm and soothing as she wove the tale of a young angel, a type of wispy creature more light than substance from the moons of Iego, who one day became separated from his parents and ended up on a spaceship that took him to a planet very different from his home. The angel was the most beautiful creature the people there had ever seen, and though at first they wanted to keep him, they, with much reluctance, sent him home, where he was reunited with his family after gaining great insight on the rest of the galaxy.
Sammi read two more tales before the initiates were distracted, suddenly, by the hiss of the opening door.
Obi-Wan Kenobi walked into the room, cheerful smile plastered to his face, bearing an armful of presents for the children, which they tore open with great gusto, jumping up and down around the Knight pleading for hugs. He granted them their wishes, and the initiates shrieked with glee, with a noise that probably matched the sound of a space station exploding in volume.
Sammi couldn't resist going up for a hug herself. The handsome Knight kissed her on the cheek and murmured, "Happy Festival, Sammi."
When she looked in his eyes, though, she saw pain there that she couldn't have imagined.
She sat down hard, and he folded himself to the ground beside her. Amila ignored their conversation, instead watching the children busily setting to work with their new gifts, which included a set of blocks that seemed to defy gravity with the help of tiny repulsojets.
"What's wrong, Obi-Wan?" Sammi asked, not entirely sure she wanted to know the answer.
"Anakin's gone. He left a note, saying he'd be back tomorrow morning, without a word about where he'd gone or what he was doing."
The young knight's face was in his hands, and he looked almost as though he were trying not to cry. His voice was hoarse when he spoke again, in a low tone that Sammi could barely hear and wasn't sure she was supposed to. "Does he hate me so much, then, that he couldn't stay for Festival?" It sounded—resigned, almost, and that terrified Sammi as nothing else could have.
"He doesn't hate you," she blurted. "How could he…you love him so much." Her voice died out as she recalled Anakin's words to her a month before.
"He's too busy criticizing everything I do…" Anakin, somehow ignoring all reality, had indeed convinced himself that Obi-Wan didn't love him. He'd been talking to that girl, the nameless one, but Sammi couldn't tell Obi-Wan that; she had promised not to, though, as she though more about it, Anakin hadn't been entirely ethical in obtaining that promise.
They sat in silence, then Obi-Wan spoke again. "They're sending us out again. There's a huge Separatist faction on a backwater planet somewhere…Dantooine, I think, and they want me to act as general for the army. There's a whole team of Jedi coming, though I don't know who's on it yet."
Sammi couldn't breathe. They were sending him back into battle, against the army that had massacred so many Jedi already. "When…when are you leaving?"
"Tomorrow afternoon. And I won't even be able to tell Anakin to get ready until tomorrow morning…." His voice was tight with pain when he spoke his Padawan's name. "I don't understand what's happening to him."
When Sammi returned to her quarters that evening, the second blow fell. When she opened the door, Ray was already sitting there, his face white and twisted with anguish.
"Sammi," he said, a tremor in his voice, "they're sending me to Dantooine."
Also, thanks to BlackWings/Master Solo and SpazticPoetGrl for your reviews...they are much appreciated.
Finally, a short note about the Jedi policy on relationships in the story. I know that canon really says that no romantic relationships are allowed among Jedi, but in the story, they are allowed but not encouraged among Padawans, Padawans are expressly forbidden to marry anyone, and Knights and Masters may only wed within the Order. Just to clear that up.
One more thing, this story is an Episode III speculation fic. It is not intended to be AU, it follows what I thknk the story will be from Sammi's point of view. That does mean that good people die when the Empire takes over; if that bothers you, don't read this fic.
Chapter Five
"Blast!"
Sammi slapped her hand to her forehead and groaned.
"I can't believe," she said to herself out loud, "that I could forget the Festival presents!"
Amila, grinning with quite festive seasonal cheer, poked her head into Sammi's room.
"And I can't believe that you're talking to yourself! But you don't see me complaining."
"Master!" Sammi exclaimed. "I left the new storydisks I was going to give the initiates for Festival in the salle after practice last night!"
"Well," said Amila, rolling her eyes, "go and get them!"
Sammi laughed, somewhat ruefully. "I wasn't really asking for your advice, Master," she explained with a bright grin, "I was just stating facts."
"Whatever you say, Padawan. But I think all of this holiday cheer is getting to you." With a bell-like laugh, she left the room.
Though the war news, deaths, and continual grieving of the Clone Wars still rocked the Temple, all of Coruscant seemed to be coming out to make sure that this Festival season wasn't dimmed by the pervading sadness and worry. The Jedi Temple was no exception, and everyone seemed to be in a good mood.
Sammi, Regan, and Ray hadn't forgotten about Anakin Skywalker and the enigmas surrounding him, either, but in the rush of holiday excitement, the mystery had been pushed aside. It had been more than a month since the three Padawans had overheard his conversation with the unknown girl, and nothing more about her or about Anakin's strange behavior had presented itself.
Tomorrow was Festival Day, though, and Sammi needed to get the new storydisks wrapped and ready to give to the crèche children. She remembered exactly where she'd left them, in one of the storage chambers in the far end of the salle, and straightening her tunic, she headed towards the large saber practice room.
The salle actually consisted of three smaller arenas, with adjoining walls that could be removed to have a more space-consuming duel. Beams crisscrossed the ceiling overhead, where the more acrobatic Jedi could carry on their battles far above the ground, and a fenced-off perimeter allowed others to watch ongoing duels. Several storage rooms and changing rooms adjoined the main room, and it was the second chamber along the back wall in which Sammi had left her presents.
When she opened the main door to the salle, Sammi could hear the hissing buzz of an ignited lightsaber, and the soft whir of training droids. In itself, that wasn't odd. What was odd, on the other hand, was the sudden whine and wail of metal being burnt.
Sammi stepped into the viewing perimeter. Anakin Skywalker, blue lightsaber ignited to its highest power, was facing off against five training droids, each wielding a saber blade of white light. A sixth droid lay in scorched pieces near Anakin's feet, still glowing faintly red where the young Jedi's lightsaber had sliced through it.
He gestured towards the still-smoldering shrapnel with his left hand, and the dismembered head of the training droid lifted from the ground and hurled itself at the droid farthest to Anakin's right. The droid went flying, smashing into the back wall of the salle with a resounding bang.
Anakin drew back his saber, and, in a parody of fury, flew into battle with the remaining droids. They didn't stand a chance, and the tall Padawan hacked them to bits mercilessly.
Sammi gaped, stunned. She'd watched many a battle in the salle, and seen untold duels. No one - no one - ever outright destroyed the training droids. One might incapacitate them, but the six droids in the salle, still sparking where wires had torn, were beyond any hope of repair. She could also feel waves of emotion coming from the training chamber, and they matched nothing she had ever felt in a duel at the Temple. Through the Force, one might sense a competitive spirit during a battle, a desire to win, even a passion for victory. Anakin raged. He attacked with pure aggression, and Sammi felt his every emotion, projected to her through the Force as clearly as if they were glowing beams of light.
Anakin turned, and Sammi ducked back outside the room. She felt him focus the Force, and there was a sudden feeling of explosion in her mind, then a sense of him stalking towards the doorway in which she was standing.
Sammi jerked back, and dodged into a side hallway, watching him stride pass her. There was a dark glower to his face, and—were those ashes? —on the hem of his robe.
After the blonde Padawan disappeared around a corner, Sammi walked back into the salle. A scorched spot on the floor and a slightly metallic tang to the air were the only traces left of the fallen training droids. Had Anakin simply destroyed them? Sammi didn't doubt that, power-wise, he was capable of incinerating a pile of metal with his mind, but . . . .
Her festive spirit was gone now, as obliterated as the six droids, but she still slid into the room where she had left the storydisks, and scooped up the package. She returned to her chambers, but with a much heavier heart than when she'd left it.
Sammi had picked out a separate story for each one of the nineteen children in the crèche group, though she didn't put nametags on the packages, since they were all to be shared equally. A few of the book were her old childhood favorites, though nothing she had ever read had seemed to match the excitement of the fairy tale Obi-Wan had told her the first time she'd seen him.
As she enfolded each story in the colorful paper, she puzzled over Anakin and the anger that seemed to haunt him. Furrowing her forehead, though, she pushed away the insidious words that nudged the back of her mind, and tried to worry about Festival and the children.
The forced train of thought, though, was suddenly aided when a grinning Ray, colorful rainbow garlands draped over his head and shoulders, stepped into the room.
"Happy Festival!" He exclaimed, and draped a bunch of multicolored ribbons over her shoulders as a very gaudy stole.
"Uh, Ray, Festival's tomorrow," she laughed, heart lightening immediately. She put her hand to his forehead. "Are you feeling all right?"
"Wonderful!" the Padawan laughed brightly. "I'm just getting in the holiday spirit a little early!" His brow furrowed. "Master Koru doesn't seem too happy about it, though."
Sammi giggled, imagining what the stern Master's reaction might have been to Ray's clowning.
"Ah, presents, I see," Ray noted, scooping up an armful of the now-wrapped stories. "Some new bedtime tales?"
"It's what they asked for," Sammi explained. "They're actually from me and Master Amila, but I'm the one who's going to end up reading them." She frowned. "Not that I resent that, actually. I love telling them stories, especially when it takes their minds off heavier things."
Ray ignored the reference to the war; though he stored it in the back of his mind, he wanted to distract Sammi—and himself—from troubled thoughts. "Well, Regan's waiting in the crèche for us. We're supposed to be keeping an eye on the little ones while Master Amila helps get everything organized for tomorrow."
The crèche was a wonderland. Festival was a winter holiday, and, though the Jedi children growing up on climate-controlled Coruscant had never seen snow, the giant shimmering snowflakes that decorated the walls gave a delightfully joyful feel to the room. Colorful garlands and streamers crisscrossed the ceiling, and the children, surprisingly enough, had refrained from tearing them down in excited play.
The lightsabers that Obi-Wan had given the children a month ago were very much in evidence, as several of the young ones swatted at each other with the glowing toys. The subdued fear of the war had been forgotten, and the children played with all of their former abandon.
Regan sat cross-legged on the poufy cushions that were scattered across the floor, supervising the "saber practice." When the door hissed open to admit Sammi and Ray, she stood up to greet them.
"Happy Festival, Sammi." Her eyes traveled over the colorful tangles of ribbon adorning Sammi and her brother. A corner of her mouth twitched with subdued laughter.
"Right! I almost forgot!" Ray said, pulling more handfuls of ribbon from the pocket of his robe and draping them over his twin.
An excited pack of initiates chose that moment to rush over to the three Padawans and attach themselves to the older children's legs. Sammi couldn't make out much over the general din, but "Festival!" "Party!" and "Presents!" seemed to be the general idea.
She laughed with abandon, feeling, for an instant, absolute joy at their perfect innocence. "Festival's tomorrow, darlings, you know."
Allie, a wispy Zabrak girl with ten iridescent horns crowning her head, tugged on Sammi's pant leg. She looked down at the brightly smiling little girl. "We know. But it's so much fun!"
By the time the little ones had pulled the ribbons off of Sammi and the twins, adorning themselves with the recycled decorations, Sammi was laughing gleefully, worries truly forgotten.
Festival was the observance of year's turning, a celebration of the new and a cleansing away of the old. Once the younger children were tucked into bed, the older Padawans and Masters stayed awake to watch the dawn of the first day of the new year. Festivities continued throughout the night, and in the morning gifts were exchanged among friends.
Even the climate-controlled, polluted atmosphere of Coruscant could not dim the glory of the rising sun, bringing with it a new year, and—Force-willing—a new hope for peace. Sammi sat, half dozing off, her head rested against Master Amila's shoulder, when Amila gently shook the girl awake to point out the sunrise.
Amila sent a pulse of wordless love along the Master-Padawan bond, and Sammi dragged her eyes open to see the glory of pinks, purples, oranges and golds painted in broad swaths of color across the brightening sky.
With a sudden feeling of calm, an absolute trust in the Force, Sammi stretched out her feelings to embrace the world and everything in it, a celebration of love. She withdrew painfully, though, when the shock of shadowy hate scored like a burn across her Force-sense, the militant coldness of the Clone army. She shivered.
When Sammi looked into her Master's face, though, motherly love and comfort washed away the feeling of violation, and, when Ray and Regan, accompanied by their respective Masters, came in the door without knocking, Sammi realized that, war or no, she could find happiness in the universe, in the peace of her friends.
When Amila and Sammi entered the crèche that morning to wake up the initiates, the shining joy on each little face moved Sammi beyond her ability to describe, and the little pulses of elation in the Force as they unwrapped the new storydisks awoke in her a protective instinct she hadn't known she had.
Andra, the dark-haired human girl, rested her tousled head against Sammi's shoulder. "Will you read us a story now?" "Please?" she added as an afterthought.
The other little ones responded immediately with a chorus of agreement. Amila watched as Sammi picked out one of the stories randomly from the pile, and the children formed a semi-circle around the comfortable cushion where she was perched.
She slid the disk into a datapad to activate the words on the screen, then pushed the small button on the disk that turned on the holographic projector of the illustrations beside her.
"The Baby Angel," she read aloud, her words warm and soothing as she wove the tale of a young angel, a type of wispy creature more light than substance from the moons of Iego, who one day became separated from his parents and ended up on a spaceship that took him to a planet very different from his home. The angel was the most beautiful creature the people there had ever seen, and though at first they wanted to keep him, they, with much reluctance, sent him home, where he was reunited with his family after gaining great insight on the rest of the galaxy.
Sammi read two more tales before the initiates were distracted, suddenly, by the hiss of the opening door.
Obi-Wan Kenobi walked into the room, cheerful smile plastered to his face, bearing an armful of presents for the children, which they tore open with great gusto, jumping up and down around the Knight pleading for hugs. He granted them their wishes, and the initiates shrieked with glee, with a noise that probably matched the sound of a space station exploding in volume.
Sammi couldn't resist going up for a hug herself. The handsome Knight kissed her on the cheek and murmured, "Happy Festival, Sammi."
When she looked in his eyes, though, she saw pain there that she couldn't have imagined.
She sat down hard, and he folded himself to the ground beside her. Amila ignored their conversation, instead watching the children busily setting to work with their new gifts, which included a set of blocks that seemed to defy gravity with the help of tiny repulsojets.
"What's wrong, Obi-Wan?" Sammi asked, not entirely sure she wanted to know the answer.
"Anakin's gone. He left a note, saying he'd be back tomorrow morning, without a word about where he'd gone or what he was doing."
The young knight's face was in his hands, and he looked almost as though he were trying not to cry. His voice was hoarse when he spoke again, in a low tone that Sammi could barely hear and wasn't sure she was supposed to. "Does he hate me so much, then, that he couldn't stay for Festival?" It sounded—resigned, almost, and that terrified Sammi as nothing else could have.
"He doesn't hate you," she blurted. "How could he…you love him so much." Her voice died out as she recalled Anakin's words to her a month before.
"He's too busy criticizing everything I do…" Anakin, somehow ignoring all reality, had indeed convinced himself that Obi-Wan didn't love him. He'd been talking to that girl, the nameless one, but Sammi couldn't tell Obi-Wan that; she had promised not to, though, as she though more about it, Anakin hadn't been entirely ethical in obtaining that promise.
They sat in silence, then Obi-Wan spoke again. "They're sending us out again. There's a huge Separatist faction on a backwater planet somewhere…Dantooine, I think, and they want me to act as general for the army. There's a whole team of Jedi coming, though I don't know who's on it yet."
Sammi couldn't breathe. They were sending him back into battle, against the army that had massacred so many Jedi already. "When…when are you leaving?"
"Tomorrow afternoon. And I won't even be able to tell Anakin to get ready until tomorrow morning…." His voice was tight with pain when he spoke his Padawan's name. "I don't understand what's happening to him."
When Sammi returned to her quarters that evening, the second blow fell. When she opened the door, Ray was already sitting there, his face white and twisted with anguish.
"Sammi," he said, a tremor in his voice, "they're sending me to Dantooine."