short hours, they led him out of the room and across the large assembly hall.
It was there that C-3PO heard a plaintive and familiar whine.
'Artoo!' he called, swiveling his head. There was his dome-shaped companion, working at a console. R2-D2 swiveled his head and gave another 'oooo.'
'Oh, Artoo!' C-3PO wailed, and before he could even consider the action, he brought a laser sight up before his eyes, focusing on the restraining bolt set into his friend.
A single blast flew out, skimming the bolt from R2-D2, then ricocheting about the room.
'Hey!' cried one of the instructor droids, moving fast to C-3PO's side.
'Looks like this one needs more programming,' another said.
The chief maintenance droid looked about the room and shook his dome.
'Nah,' he said. 'No damage done. Get this one out to the yard and out of here!'
They led C-3PO away.
Soon after they were gone, B2-D2 rolled away from his console without notice. Since all of the relatively benign droids working in here were restrained by bolts, there were no real guards in the room. The little droid was out and free soon after.
The tunnel was dark and fittingly gloomy, and quiet, except for the occasional echo of cheering from the huge crowd gathered in the arena stands beyond. A single cart was in there, an open oval with a sloping front end that somewhat resembled an insect's head with the top half cut away. Anakin and Padme were unceremoniously thrown into it, then strapped in place against the framework, facing each other.
Both of them jerked as the cart started into motion, gliding along the dark tunnel.
'Don't be afraid,' Anakin whispered.
Padme smiled at him, her expression one of genuine calm. 'I'm not afraid to die,' she replied, her voice thick and soft. 'I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life.'
'What are you talking about?'
Then she said it, and it was real and genuine and warm. 'I love you.'
'You love me?' he asked, overwhelmed. 'You love me! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives.' But her words had brought a wash of contentment over him.
'I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway,' Padme replied. 'My love for you is a puzzle, Annie, for which I have no answers. I can't control it-and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die, I want you to know.'
Padme leaned against her restraints and craned her head forward, and Anakin did likewise, the two coming close enough for their lips to meet in a soft and gentle kiss, one that lingered and deepened, one that said everything they both realized they should have spoken to each other before. One that, to them, mocked their false heroics in denying the feelings they'd had for each other all along.
The sweet moment was just that, though, a moment, for a crack of the driver's whip had the cart jerking out of the tunnel and into the blinding daylight, rolling onto the floor of a great stadium filled with Geonosian spectators.
Four sturdy posts, a meter in diameter, were centered on the arena floor, each set with chains, and one holding a familiar figure.
'Obi-Wan!' Anakin cried as he was pulled down from the cart, dragged over, and chained to the post beside his Master.
'I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten my message,' Obi-Wan replied. Both he and Anakin winced as Padme was similarly, roughly dragged over to the post next to Anakin, and roughly chained up. They saw her curl a bit, defensively, in what seemed a futile resistance. What they didn't see, though, was the resourceful Padme managing to slip out a wire she had hidden in her belt.
'I retransmitted your message just as you requested, Master,' Anakin explained. 'Then we decided to come and rescue you.'
'Good job!' came Obi-Wan's quick and sarcastic reply. He ended with a grunt as his arms were pulled up above his head, locking him helplessly in place. Anakin and Padme were receiving similar treatment. They could turn a bit side to side, though, and so all three were able to watch the arrival of the dignitaries, the masters of ceremony-faces they had come to know all too well.
'The felons before you have been convicted of espionage against the Sovereign System of Geonosis,' announced the lackey, Sun Fac. 'Their sentence of death is to be carried out in this arena immediately!' The wild cheering deafened the doomed trio. 'They like their executions,' Obi-Wan said dryly.
At the dignitary box, Sun Fac gave way to Archduke Poggle the Lesser, who patted his hands in the air, calling for quiet. 'I have decided on an especially entertaining contest this day,' he announced, to more appreciative roaring. 'Which of our pets would be most suited to carry out the executions of such distinguished criminals? I asked myself this over and over, and for many hours, could find no answer.
'And finally, I chose-' He paused dramatically and the crowd hushed. '-the reek!' At the side of the arena, a gate was lifted and out stepped a huge quadruped with massive shoulders, an elongated face, and three deadly horns, one sticking up from its snout and the other two protruding forward from either side of its wide mouth. The reek stood as tall as a Wookiee, as wide as a human male was tall, and more than four meters long. It was prodded forward into the arena by a line of picadors carrying long spears and riding creatures that were bovine in size, with elongated snouts. After the cheering died away, Poggle surprised the crowd by announcing,
'The nexu!' A second gate rose, revealing a large feline creature. Its head was an extraordinary thing, half the size of its body and with a fang- filled mouth that could open wide enough to bite a large human in half. A ridge of fur stood straight in a line from head to rump, ending right before its whipping, felinoid tail.
Before the surprised crowd could erupt again, Poggle shouted, 'And the acklay!' and a third gate rose and
