Secrets and Suspicion (Book 1)

Separatist Spies

"Ani!" Padmé ran to Anakin when he walked in the house. She embraced him, her baby bump putting only a little more space between them than before.

"Hey," he said, and he hugged her back.

She looked up at his face happily. "Oh, Anakin, I can't wait for the baby to finally be here in our arms."

"Yeah, me too," Anakin said slowly. He was watching intently at something out the window. 

"Anakin, what's wrong?" He didn't answer. "Anakin?"

"Probe droid," he whispered. He backed away to the door slowly. "Padmé, go hide somewhere."

"What? Why? What's happening?"

"Padmé, just go!"

She tried to come over and hug him, but he refused.

"Go. Now! I'm going to go get this droid before it gets anywhere it's not supposed to."

She hesitated but obeyed, knowing her reckless Jedi Knight would keep her safe.

He ran out the door. The camera-droid had been floating outside of the living room window, capturing Anakin and Padmé's images. As he ran after it, he wondered if Obi-Wan sent it. But he wouldn't do that, Anakin thought. He banished the thought and took a back way through two restaurant buildings. The camera was facing him, and he sliced it in half with his lightsaber. Once it cooled down from the heat, he picked the two halves up from the ground and took them home. He got in the door, telling Padmé everything was fine now.

"Someone sent a camera to watch us, probably to spy. I don't know who it was, but I'm going to find out," Anakin explained.

"Is it okay if I..," Padmé asked.

"What?"

"Is it okay if I just kiss you right now?"

 Anakin started to smirk and looked down at her. "Um...what?"

She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. He bent over with her and she hung onto his neck. Once Padmé stopped, she laughed. "I love you, Anakin."

"I love you too," he said. He cleared his throat, standing back up and acted like nothing happened. "So, as I was saying, I'm going to take this thing apart and see what's in it."

"I love that you can be home most nights now. I guess the only thing I can thank the Separatists for, is not attacking so you can be home with me instead of at work."

Anakin smirked. "I never thank them for anything. Thank Obi-Wan for letting me go every night."

Padmé smiled. "So, Mr. My Hero, can you show me how to do what you do?"

Anakin raised his eyebrows. "I guess."

He set the two parts on the caf table. "So pretty much all you do is..well, if you cut it in half, you take it apart. But if it's not destroyed, you can take the part, like the head of a droid, and extract information from it that way. I mean, set it on a holotable and plug it in."

"Oh. So, in this case, you would take it apart and examine it?"

Anakin nodded. "Exactly that." He began to pull it apart piece by piece. "Now, you find the identification number. If it's somewhere around the code 'SEP3461' it's a separatist weapon."

Padmé nodded.

"Do you want to find the code?" He offered it to Padmé.

She smiled. "Sure."

"It's usually in the frontal region of the device, like behind the lens of the camera."

Padmé fingered around in the front part of the camera, and she found a small disc.

"That's it," Anakin said. "Now look on the back of it."

She turned it over to find a code that read, 'SEP346298300.' "Here it is."

"Yeah, it was what I thought. A separatist. They're the biggest spies."

"So what do we do with the parts and code?" Padmé asked.

"Keep the spare parts, throw the useless ones away. And for the code, I'll probably report it to the Council. Or at least to Obi-Wan."

There was a knock at the door. Anakin did his usual routine, which was running back to the bedroom to hide.

Padmé stood up from the couch and smoothed her clothes and hair. She was relieved that Anakin had taken the parts of the camera back to their room. She walked to the door and opened it, to find the person anyone would least expect.