The Skull Queen looked sternly at the man, still dressed in his grease-stained coveralls, and said, “You may have five minutes with my daughter. Then she needs to rest.”
The man bowed and said, “Thank you, Your Highness.”
Much to Calvaria’s astonishment, the Skull Queen left the room. “Oh, Rench!” the princess sighed as she gestured to the chair beside her bed, motioning him to sit beside her. “I feared you were dead!”
Seating himself, the man replied, “Woke up with a headache, that’s all.” He gulped nervously. Then, with an apologetic expression, he added, “Klara… I mean, Calvaria… I had no idea you were the Skull Queen’s daughter.”
Calvaria frowned. “Does this change your feelings for me?”
“No, not at all!”
“It does not bother you that I lied about my identity?”
He shook his head and patted her hand. “Am I wrong to assume you only hoped I’d fall in love with you for you, and not because you are a princess?” Calvaria nodded, beaming. “Yes, that’s the only reason I lied. Can you forgive me?”
“Of course. If you can forgive me, too. You see, I think I understand your situation too well. My name isn’t really Rench.”
Calvaria’s smile froze. “What?”
“I’m Prince Alto of the Raptor Clan.”
“Oh!” Calvaria said. “Oh, my!” Then she pushed Prince Alto off the chair and shouted, “Get out of my room at once!”
Stunned and sprawling on the floor, Alto looked up and said, “But… I thought you would forgive me, too.”
“Yes, I forgive you!” Calvaria snapped. “But didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding? Now get out of here, and put on some decent clothes!”
At the landing field beside the Skull Queen’s fortress, Anakin stood beside the Republic Cruiser’s landing ramp and waited for Obi-Wan. After returning the Skull Queen, Princess Calvaria, and Prince Alto to Nallastia, all the Jedi had rested for the remainder of the night. As usual, Anakin had not rested well.
He looked up to the vast, blue sky. There wasn’t a cloud in sight. When he’d been a child on Tatooine, he had always preferred a star-filled sky to daylight, but not just because it was cooler in the evening. The sight of the stars had filled him with hope that he would someday leave Tatooine and travel to faraway planets. And now here he was, standing on a faraway planet, his childhood dream come true. Yet instead of feeling powerful and free, he mostly felt alone.
Anakin was relieved that the stars were not visible in the Nallastian sky. If they had been, his eyes would have located the Tatooine system and he would have wondered about his mother. And then he would have looked to the Naboo system and wondered about Padmé Amidala. To make matters worse, he would not even have been looking at the starlight that he remembered, but at ancient starlight that had taken thousands of years to travel all the way to Nallastia. It made him sick to think that both Tatooine and Naboo were merely several hours away by hyperspace, yet he couldn’t go to either world unless he were sent there on a mission. Although he knew he had greater freedom than others, he sometimes felt as enslaved by the Jedi Order as he had once been by Watto, the junk dealer.
Obi-Wan is holding me back, he thought with resentment. It’s not fair!
Lowering his gaze, Anakin saw Obi-Wan and the Skull Queen approaching from the fortress. When they reached Anakin’s position, he bowed, then said, “Master Windu and Kit Fisto are already on the cruiser, preparing for their return to Coruscant.”
“Very good,” Obi-Wan said.
“Good-bye, Anakin Skywalker,” said the Skull Queen.
“Good-bye, Your Highness,” said Anakin.
Obi-Wan and the Skull Queen looked at each other, then Obi-Wan turned to Anakin and said, “I’ll be on board in a moment.”
Anakin looked from Obi-Wan to the Skull Queen, then said, “Oh. Yes, Master.” He turned and walked up the landing ramp.
The Skull Queen smiled. “Thank you for all your help, Obi-Wan.”
Obi-Wan replied, “I wish we could have done more. I regret we may never find out who sent the droids to the Fondor system. But Bultar Swan will remain on Fondor Spaceport until the new security system is installed.”
“Fondor Spaceport was long overdue for a new security system anyway,” the Skull Queen said. “We’ll have a lot of work to do here, too. I want to protect my world, yet also have outlanders feel welcome on Nallastian soil.”
“Any immediate plans?”
The Skull Queen shrugged. “I thought I’d start by finding a way to shut down the force field between the Trinity Stones, and then return the power gems to the Cavern of Screaming Skulls.”
“Sounds like a good start,” Obi-Wan commented. He turned for one more look at the fortress, then added, “And perhaps Princess Calvaria’s marriage to Prince Alto will help strengthen the ties between the Nallastian clans.”
“Are you sure you can’t stay for the royal wedding?”
“I’m afraid not,” Obi-Wan replied, turning back to face the Skull Queen. “I am needed elsewhere.”
The Skull Queen bowed her head and looked at Obi-Wan’s boots. In a low voice, almost a whisper, she said, “And here.”
Obi-Wan reached out to place his fingers under the Skull Queen’s chin, and he gently raised her head up so her eyes met his. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I really don’t know what to say.”
“Then don’t say anything,” said the Skull Queen. “Just come back to me one day.”
Obi-Wan’s protest was silenced by an unexpected kiss from the Skull Queen. Then, as suddenly as the kiss had been given, the Skull Queen pulled away from Obi-Wan. Before Obi-Wan could speak, the Skull Queen turned and walked off the landing field, heading for her fortress. She did not look back.
Obi-Wan boarded the Republic Cruiser. The cruiser lifted from the landing field, blasted off into the sky, and was gone.
Three days later, on the planet Coruscant, a hunched, hooded figure stepped out onto the balcony of a derelict tower to face Galactic City. Night had fallen, but the densely clustered skyscrapers appeared to shimmer in the darkness under the endlessly flowing, crowded lanes of air traffic.
From an open door behind the hooded figure, a deep voice said, “Good evening, Master Sidious.” The voice belonged to a former Jedi Master, a tall, dignified man with perfectly trimmed silver hair. A black cape was clipped to his neck by a silver chain, and his tailored uniform was made of the finest materials. As a Jedi, he had been known as Count Dooku, but to his present Master, the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, he went by another name.
“Lord Tyranus,” Darth Sidious replied without turning to face his apprentice. Three days earlier, when he had first heard the reports of renegade droids and exploding starships in the Fondor system, he had asked Count Dooku to investigate. Now, Darth Sidious asked, “What news from Fondor?”
The actual procedure of Count Dooku’s investigation had been both dangerous and laborious, requiring him to send agents to secretly infiltrate Fondor Spaceport, access the station’s extensive flight logs and security records, then follow leads and search for clues without being detected. The scattered clues included the unscheduled arrival and quick departure of an extremely gaudy starship from the planet Esseles, a security holotape that showed a hooded figure’s rendezvous with the same gaudy starship, and the collected remains of several damaged droids. But despite his remarkable efforts, Dooku knew that his Master was not interested in the procedure of his investigation, only in his findings. So in a confident baritone, Dooku replied, “Groodo the Hutt, a starship manufacturer from Esseles, attempted to ruin the starship yards of Fondor. I must surmise his motive was to gain Fondor’s lost business. Groodo’s scheme was foiled by the Jedi, but he has so far managed to elude their suspicion. The Jedi do not know of his involvement.”
Darth Sidious scowled. “Had the Hutt’s scheme succeeded, it would have been a most inconvenient setback to our future plans for
Fondor. Did he have accomplices?”
Darth Sidious nodded. “Evidently, there were two. The first was a droid-engineer named Hurlo Holowan. The second was…” Count Dooku could not resist a brief, dramatic pause before he finished, “Senator Rodd of Fondor.”
“Rodd,” Darth Sidious snarled. “No doubt motivated by the Hutt’s money.”
“Indubitably,” Dooku agreed. “I must say, they all did an excellent job of avoiding detection. Like Groodo, the Senator and droid-engineer are not even suspects in the Fondor incident.”
“Despite their failure to carry out their scheme, their stealth is admirable,” Darth Sidious admitted. “However, we cannot allow them to interfere with our plans again. The Hutt and his cohorts must be dealt with accordingly. Contact the bounty hunter.”
Count Dooku smiled. “As you wish, my Master.”
NEXT ADVENTURE:
JANGO FETT VS. THE RAZOR EATERS
11.6.18.15.14.5-1
Star Wars Adventures 003 - The Hostage Princess Page 5