Padm knew that the vote would be close, with the Senate almost evenly divided over whether the Republic should create a formal army. It galled her to think that so many of her colleagues would be voting based on personal gain--everything from potential contracts to supply the army for their home systems to direct payoffs from some of the commerce guilds--rather than on what was best for the Republic.
In her heart, Padm remained steadfast that she had to work defeat the creation of this army. The Republic was built on tolerance. It was a vast network of tens of thousands of systems, and even more species, each with a distinct perspective. The only element they shared was tolerance--tolerance of one another. The creation of an army might prove unsettling, even threatening, to so many of those systems and species, beings far removed from the great city-planet of Coruscant.
A commotion outside drew Padm to the window, and she looked down upon the complex courtyard to see a group of men jostling and fighting as the Naboo security forces rushed in to control the situation.
There came a sharp rap on the door to her office, and as she turned back that way, the portal slid open and Captain Panaka strode in.
"Just checking, Senator," said the man who had served as her personal bodyguard when she was Queen. Tall and dark-skinned, he had a steely gaze and an athletic physique only accentuated by the cut of his brown leather jerkin, blue shirt, and pants, and the mere sight of Panaka filled Padm with comfort. He was in his forties now, but still looked as if he could outfight any man on Naboo.
"Shouldn't you be seeing to the security of Queen Jamillia?" Padm asked.
Panaka nodded. "She is well protected, I assure you."
"From?" Padm prompted, nodding toward the window and the continuing disturbance beyond.
"Spice miners," Panaka explained. "Contract issues. Nothing to concern you, Senator. Actually, I was on my way here to speak with you about security for your return trip to Coruscant."
"That is weeks away." Panaka looked to the window.
"Which gives us more time to properly prepare."
Padm knew better than to argue with the stubborn man. Since she would be flying an official starship of the Naboo fleet Panaka had the right, if not the responsibility, to get involved. And in truth, his concern pleased her, although she'd never admit it to him.
A shout outside and renewed fighting drew her attention briefly, making her wince. Another problem. There was always a problem, somewhere. Padm had to wonder if that was just the nature of people, to create some excitement when all seemed well. Given that unsettling thought, Sola's words came back to her, along with images of Ryoo and Pooja. How she loved those two carefree little sprites!
"Senator?" Panaka said, drawing her out of her private contemplations.
"Yes?"
"We should discuss the security procedures."
It pained Padm to let go of the images of her nieces at that moment, but she nodded and forced herself back into her responsible mode. Captain Panaka had said that they had to discuss security, and so Padm Amidala had to discuss security.
* * *
The Lars family was being serenaded through yet another night by the lowing of many banthas. None of the four had any doubt that Tuskens were out there, not far from the farm, perhaps even then watching its lights.
"They're wild beasts, and we should have gotten the Mos Eisley authorities to exterminate them like the vermin they are. Them and the stinking Jawas!"
Shmi sighed and put her hand on her husband's tense forearm. "The Jawas have helped us," she reminded him gently.
"Then not the Jawas!" Cliegg roared back, and Shmi jumped. Taking note of Shmi's horrified expression, Cliegg calmed at once. "I'm sorry. Not the Jawas, then. But the Tuskens. They kill and steal whenever and wherever they can. No good comes of them!"
"If they try to come in here, there'll be less of them to chase back out into the desert," Owen offered, and Cliegg gave him an appreciative nod.
They tried to finish their dinner, but every time a bantha sounded, they all tensed, hands shifting from utensils to readied blasters.
"Listen," Shmi said suddenly, and they all went perfectly quiet, straining their ears. All was quiet outside; no banthas were lowing.
"Perhaps they were just moving by," Shmi offered when she was certain the others had caught on. "Heading back out into the open desert where they belong."
"We'll go out to the Dorrs' in the morning," Cliegg said to Owen. "We'll get all the farmers organized, and maybe get a call in to Mos Eisley, as well." He looked to Shmi and nodded. "Just to make sure."
"In the morning," Owen agreed.
* * *
At dawn the next day, Owen and Cliegg started out from the compound before they had even eaten a good breakfast, for Shmi had gone out ahead of them, as she did most mornings, to pick some mushrooms at the vaporators.
They expected to pass her on their way out to the Dorrs' farm but instead found her footprints, surrounded by the imprints of many others, the soft boots of the Tuskens. Cliegg Lars, as strong and tough a man as the region had ever known, fell to his knees and wept.
"We have to go after her, Dad," came a suddenly solid and unwavering voice.
Cliegg looked up and back to see Owen standing there, a man indeed and no more a boy, his expression grim and determined.
"She is alive and we cannot leave her to them," Owen said with a strange, almost supernatural calm.
Cliegg wiped away the last of his tears and stared hard at his son, then nodded grimly. "Spread the word to the neighboring farms."
Chapter Three
"There they are!" Sholh Dorr cried, pointing straight ahead, while keeping his speeder bike at full throttle.
The twenty-nine others saw the target, the rising dust of a line of walking banthas. With a co mmunal roar, the outraged farmers pressed on, determined to exact revenge, determined to rescue Shmi, if she was still alive among this band of Tusken Raiders.
Amidst the roar of engines and cries of revenge, they swept down the descending wash, closing fast on the banthas, eager for battle.
Cliegg pumped his head, growling all the while, as if pleading with his speederbike to accelerate even more. He swerved in from the left flank, cutting into the center of the formation, then lowered his head and opened the speederbike up, trying to catch the lead riders. All he wanted was to be in the thick of it, to get his strong arms about a Tusken throat.
The banthas were clearly in sight, then, along with their robed riders. Another cry went up, one of revenge.
One that fast turned to horror.
The leading edge of the farmer army plowed headlong into a wire cleverly strung across the field, at neck height to a man riding a speeder bike.
Cliegg's own cry also became one of horror as he watched the decapitation of several his friends and neighbors, as he watched others thrown to the ground. Purely on instinct, knowing he couldn't stop his speeder in time, Cliegg leapt up, planting one foot on the seat, then leapt again.
Then he felt a flash of pain, and he was spinning head over heels. He landed hard on the rocky ground, skidding briefly.
All the world about him became a blur, a frenzy of sudden activity. He saw the boots of his fellow farmers, heard Owen crying out to him, though it seemed as if his son's voice was far, far away.
He saw the wrapped leather of a Tusken boot, the sand-colored robes, and with a rage that could not be denied by his disorientation, Cliegg grabbed the leg as the Tusken ran past.
He looked up and raised his arms to block as the Tusken brought its staff slamming down at him. Accepting the pain, not even feeling it through his rage, Cliegg shoved forward and wrapped both his arms around the Tusken's legs, tugging the creature down to the ground before him. He crawled over it, his strong hands battering it, then finding the hold he wanted.
Cries of pain, from farmers and Tuskens alike, were all about him, but Cliegg hardly heard them. His hands remained firmly about the Tusken's throat. He choked with all hi
s considerable strength; he lifted the Tusken's head up and bashed it back down, over and over again, and continued to choke and to batter long after the Tusken stopped resisting.
"Dad!"
That cry alone brought Cliegg from his rage. He dropped the Tusken Raider back to the ground and turned about, to see Owen in close battle with another of the Raiders.
Cliegg spun about and started to rise, putting one leg under him, coming up fast...
hellip;And then he fell hard, his balance inexplicably gone. Confused, he looked down expecting that another Tusken had tripped him up. But then he saw that it was his own body that had failed him.
Only then did Cliegg Lars realize that he had lost his leg.
Blood pooled all about the ground, pouring from the severed limb. Eyes wide with horror, Cliegg grabbed at his leg.
He called for Owen. He called desperately for Shmi.
A speeder bike whipped past him, a farmer fleeing the massacre, but the man did not slow.
Cliegg tried to call out, but there was no voice to be found past the lump in his throat, the realization that he had failed and that all was lost.
Then a second speeder came by him, this one stopping fast. Reflexively, Cliegg grabbed at it, and before he could even begin to pull himself up at all, it sped away, dragging him along.
"Hold on, Dad!" Owen, the driver, cried to him.
Cliegg did. With the same stubbornness that had sustained him through all the difficult times at the moisture farm, the same gritty determination that had allowed him to conquer the harsh wild land of Tatooine, Cliegg Lars held on. For all his life, and with Tuskens in fast pursuit, Cliegg Lars held on.
And for Shmi, for the only chance she had of any rescue, Cliegg Lars held on.
Back up the slope, Owen stopped the speeder and leapt off, grabbing at his father's torn leg. He tied it off as well as he could with the few moments he had, then helped Cliegg, who was fast slipping from consciousness, to lie over the back of the speeder.
Then Owen sped away, throttle flat out. He knew that he had to get his father home, and quickly. The vicious wound had to be cleaned and sealed.
It occurred to Owen that only a single pair of speeders were to be seen fleeing the massacre ahead of him, and that through all the commotion behind, he didn't hear the hum of a single speeder engine.
Forcing despair away, finding the same grounded determination that sustained Cliegg, Owen didn't think of the many lost friends, didn't think of his father's plight, didn't think of anything except the course to his necessary destination.
* * *
"This is not good news," Captain Panaka remarked, after delivering the blow to Senator Amidala.
"We've suspected all along that Count Dooku and his separatists would court the Trade Federation and the various commercial guilds," Padm replied, trying to put a good face on it all. Panaka had just come in with Captain Typho, his nephew, with the report that the Trade Federation had thrown in with the separatist movement that now threatened to tear the Republic apart.
"Viceroy Gunray is an opportunist," she continued. "He will do anything that he believes will benefit him financially. His loyalties end at his purse. Count Dooku must be offering him favorable trade agreements, free run to produce goods without regard to the conditions of the workers or the effect on the environment. Viceroy Gunray has left more than one planet as a barren dead ball, floating in space. Or perhaps Count Dooku is offering the Trade Federation absolute control of lucrative markets, without competition."
"I'm more concerned with the implications to you, Senator," Panaka remarked, drawing a curious stare from Padm.
"The separatists have shown themselves not to be above violence," he explained. "There have been assassination attempts across the Republic."
"But wouldn't Count Dooku and the separatists consider Senator Amidala almost an ally at this time?" Captain Typho interjected, and both Panaka and Padm looked at the usually quiet man in surprise.
Padm's look quickly turned into a stare; there was an angry edge to her fair features. "I am no friend to any who would dissolve the Republic, Captain," she insisted, her tone leaving no room for debate--and of course, there would be no debating that point. In the few years she had been a Senator, Amidala had shown herself to be among the most loyal and powerful supporters of the Republic, a legislator determined to improve the system, but to do so within the framework of the Republic's constitution. Senator Amidala fervently believed that the real beauty of the governing system was its built-in abilities, even demands, for self-improvement.
"Agreed, Senator," Typho said with a bow. He was shorter than his uncle but powerfully built, muscles filling the blue sleeves of his uniform, his chest solid under the brown leather tunic. He wore a black leather patch over his left eye, which he had lost in the battle with that same Trade Federation a decade before. Typho had been just a teenager then, but had shown himself well, and made his uncle Panaka proud. "And no offense meant. But on this issue concerning the creation of an army of the Republic, you have remained firmly in the court of negotiation over force. Would not the separatists agree with your vote?"
When Padm put her initial outrage aside and considered the point, she had to agree.
"Count Dooku has thrown in with Nute Gunray, say the reports," Panaka cut in, his tone flat and determined. "That mere fact demands that we tighten security about Senator Amidala."
"Please do not speak about me as though I am not here," she scolded, but Panaka didn't blink.
"In matters of security, Senator, you _are_ not here," he replied. "At least, your voice is not. My nephew reports to me, and his responsibilities on this matter cannot be undermined. Take all precautions."
With that, he bowed curtly and walked away, and Padm suppressed her immediate desire to rebuke him. He was right, and she was better off because he dared to point it out. She looked back at Captain Typho.
"We will be vigilant, Senator."
"I have my duty, and that duty demands that I soon return to Coruscant," she said.
"And I have my duty," Typho assured her, and like Panaka, he offered a bow and walked away.
Padm Amidala watched him go, then gave a great sigh, remembering Sola's words to her and wondering honestly if she would ever find the opportunity to follow her sister's advice--advice that she was finding strangely tempting at that particular moment. She realized then that she hadn't seen Sola, or the kids, or her parents, in nearly two weeks, not since that afternoon in the backyard with Ryoo and Pooja.
Time did seem to be slipping past her.
* * *
"It won't move fast enough to catch up to the Tuskens!" Cliegg Lars bellowed in protest as his son and future daughter-in-law helped him into a hoverchair that Owen had fashioned. He seemed oblivious to the pain of his wound, where his right leg had been sheared off at midthigh.
"The Tuskens are long gone, Dad," Owen Lars said quietly, and he put his hand on Cliegg's broad shoulder, trying to calm him. "If you won't use a mechno-leg, this powerchair will have to do."
"You'll not be making me into a half-droid, that's for sure," Cliegg retorted. "This little buggy will do fine."
"We'll get more men together," he said, his voice rising frantically, his hand instinctively moving down to the stump of his leg. "You get to Mos Eisley and see what support they'll offer. Send Beru to the farms."
"They've no more to offer," Owen replied honestly. He moved close to the chair and bent low, looking Cliegg square in the face. "All the farms will be years in recovering from the ambush. So many families have been shattered from the attack, and even more from the rescue attempt."
"How can you talk like that with your mother out there?" Cliegg Lars roared, his frustration boiling over--and all the more so because in his heart, he knew that Owen was speaking truthfully.
Owen took a deep breath, but did not back down from that imposing look. "We have to be realistic, Dad. It's been two weeks since they took her," he said grimly, leaving th
e implications unspoken. Implications that Cliegg Lars, who knew the dreaded Tuskens well, surely understood.
All of a sudden, Cliegg's broad shoulders slumped in defeat, and his fiery gaze softened as his eyes turned toward the ground. "She's gone," the wounded man whispered. "Really gone."
Behind him, Beru Whitesun started to cry.
Beside him, Owen fought back his own tears and stood calm and tall, the firm foundation determined above all to hold them together during this devastating time.
Chapter Four
The four starships skimmed past the great skyscrapers of Coruscant, weaving in and out of the huge amber structures, artificial stalagmites rising higher and higher over the years, and now obscuring the natural formations of the planet unlike anywhere else in the known galaxy. Sunlight reflected off the many mirrorlike windows of those massive structures, and gleamed brilliantly off the chrome of the sleek ships. The larger starship, which resembled a flying silver boomerang, almost glowed, smooth and flowing with huge and powerful engines set on each of its arms, a third of the way to the wingtip. Alongside it soared several Naboo starfighters, their graceful engines set out on wings from the main hulls with their distinctive elongated tails.
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