by A. L. Singer
Table of Contents
COPYRIGHT
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
Naboo.
It made perfect sense.
The planet was small, remote, unprotected. A place of artists and thinkers. It kept no standing army and depended on the Galactic Republic for most of its goods and services.
Naboo, in short, was a perfect target for the Trade Federation.
Qui-Gon Jinn knew the logic of greed. It lived in all creatures. It encouraged the dark side of the Force, threatening the very fabric of good that bound the galaxy.
As the Republic cruiser neared the planet, Qui-Gon considered the facts. The Trade Federation, which was funded by taxes, sought a higher rate from the longer trade routes. When it did not get its way, it blockaded the planet.
The blockade of Naboo was a dangerous situation. As a Jedi, Qui-Gon hoped it would be easily resolved.
The blockade would be dealt with quickly. The Trade Federation was led by Neimoidians. Though highly organized and ruthlessly competitive, they were of weak character. The sight of a Jedi alone should be more than able to persuade them to leave.
Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan sat behind the ship’s bridge, looking through the cockpit window over the shoulders of the captain and first mate.
The first glimpse of Naboo was, as always, breathtaking. The planet radiated a lush, turquoise-green that was both welcoming and cool. But Obi-Wan sat forward agitatedly, drawn not to the planet itself but to the cluster of objects in the airspace above it, barely visible but growing. “What are those?” he asked.
“Freighters,” Qui-Gon answered.
“With defense shields?” Obi-Wan said.
Qui-Gon glanced at his captain’s shield detector. His Padawan was right. The screen showed the slow disappearance of a formidable shield around the lead ship. “War Freighters. Battleships.”
The young man tensed. He had been trained well. He knew that there were two reasons a ship withdrew its shield.
One was to allow visiting ships to dock.
The other was to attack.
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Qui-Gon gripped his Padawan’s arm firmly. The young man was wise beyond his years, but he was assuming evil motivation before there was a definite sign of it.
The Trade Federation had not shown weapons, although its ships were assembled in an aggressive formation. For them to attack a Jedi in this way would invite war. Even the Trade Federation was not that foolish.
“Tell them we wish to board at once,” Qui-Gon commanded the captain of the Republic cruiser.
“Yes, sir.” Instantly the communication view screen flickered to life, revealing the unmistakable face of a Neimoidian — his skin green and leathery, his eyes glowing red. Qui-Gon knew from the blue, three-crested crown that he was a Trade Federation viceroy, Nute Gunray.
“With all due respect,” said Qui-Gon’s captain, “the ambassadors for the Supreme Chancellor wish to board immediately.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Nute replied. “Ahhh, as you know, our blockade is perfectly legal, and we’d be happy to receive the ambassador.”
He seemed jittery. Fearful.
As the cruiser sped forward, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan strapped on their equipment: first utility pouches, which carried food capsules, tools, and medical supplies. Then lightsabers. And because most of Naboo’s surface was water, A99 aquata breathers with two compressed-air tanks, each no larger than a thumb.
Through the screen, the lead ship loomed closer. It was shaped like a massive ring with a section missing. In its center was a sphere, housing the ship’s bridge and officers.
A docking bay door slowly yawned open. The cruiser decelerated and landed smoothly within the ship. The bay was quiet. Nearly empty. There was no sign that anything was wrong.
A protocol droid, its silver sheathing polished to a mirrorlike glow, approached the cruiser as the two Jedi stepped out. “I’m TC-14 at your service,” it said. “This way, please.”
The droid led them out of the bay, through the labyrinthine corridors of the freighter, and into a formal conference room. It was sparely decorated, empty except for a large, bare table and a cage containing a vibrantly colored bird. There, bowing to the two men, TC-14 backed away. “Make yourselves comfortable. My master will be with you shortly.”
As the droid left, Qui-Gon surveyed the room for hidden observation devices and saw nothing — but Obi-Wan seemed tense, suspicious. “I have a bad feeling about this,” he said.
“I don’t sense anything,” Qui-Gon replied.
“It’s not about the mission, Master. It’s something... elsewhere... elusive...”
“Don’t center on your anxiety, Obi-Wan. Keep your concentration here and now, where it belongs.”
“But Master Yoda said I should be mindful of the future —”
“But not at the expense of the moment. Be mindful of the living Force, young Padawan.”
“Yes, Master.” Obi-Wan nodded gravely. “How do you think this Trade Federation viceroy will deal with the Chancellor’s demands?”
“These Federation types are cowards,” Qui-Gon reassured him. “The negotiations will be short.”
The men sat and waited. And waited. No sound penetrated the room’s thick walls save a faint electric buzz — and Qui-Gon began to feel uneasy. The longer the Neimoidians kept them there, the more he sensed that something was off. It made no sense to leave two Jedi alone for so long. This was a meeting of tremendous importance —
Shhhhhhiiiip!
Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan leaped to their feet, instantly activating their lightsabers as they turned toward the noise.
Qui-Gon sensed a strong disturbance in the Force. His crew and cruiser were gone.
Destroyed.
“Ahhh!” With a yelp of surprise, TC-14 jumped. The noise had been a door. The droid was merely bringing in a tray of drinks.
“Sorry,” TC-14 said. “The viceroy —”
Ssssssssssssss...
This was a new sound.
And it was not the door.
Qui-Gon turned off his lightsaber. The hissing was faint, but coming from all around them.
The bird wobbled on its perch and fell dead. “Gas!” Qui-Gon exclaimed.
The conference room door was sealed shut.
Gray, acrid smoke billowed into the room. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan held their breaths. A Jedi was trained to survive lack of air, drawing on body reserves for an extraordinary amount of time.
Obi-Wan drew his lightsaber and aimed it at the door, but Qui-Gon held him back. Outside he heard the heavy clank of approaching droids.
Then the smoke, thick and stagnant, began to swirl. The door was opening.
“Oh!” TC-14’s voice cried out from within the eddies of smoke. “Excuse me, so sorry!”
Now.
At the sight of the first battle droid, they swung.
DZZZZZZZZZZTT! DZZZZZZZZZZTT!
Two droids became four charred half-droids.
DZZZZZZZZZZTT! DZZZZZZZZZZTT! DZZZZZZZZZ
ZTT!
With each thrust, battle droids fell to the floor in a pile of charred metal. But they kept coming, in twos and threes.
Attacked by a squadron, Obi-Wan lifted his hand, harnessing the Force and sending the entire group crashing against the wall.
Qui-Gon fought his way across the corridor. Gripping his lightsaber in two hands, he pointed it at the door and cut into it.
The door glowed red. Qui-Gon traced an arc and the metal melted away.
He looked back. Obi-Wan was a whirlwind of Jedi strength, cutting down the last of the droids.
The two men raced for the docking bay. Ahead of them a massive door thumped shut, blocking off the hallway.
Then another door, in the path to the right.
And another.
Blast doors. Made of thick, nearly impervious metal.
As the bridge’s blast doors sealed shut, Qui-Gon plunged his lightsaber into the center of the first door, its beam melting the metal. He had almost made a hole large enough to escape through when the droidekas wheeled in.
“Destroyer droids!” Obi-Wan called, rushing to his Master’s side. “Offhand, I’d say this mission is past the negotiation stage.”
Two destroyer droids rapidly unfolded, activated their shields, and showered the Jedi with continual fire. Obi-Wan stood ready to fight, but Qui-Gon shook his head. Even a Jedi’s abilities had limited effectiveness against destroyer droids. And above all, a Jedi knew what to do when outmatched.
“They have shield generators!” Obi-Wan shouted.
“It’s a standoff,” Qui-Gon said. “Let’s go!”
They retreated. Their only hope would be to find a place to hide and stage an ambush. Destroy them with stealth and quickness.
Lasers came at them. The Master and Padawan ran until Qui-Gon spotted a large ventilation grating in the wall. Together the two ripped off the grate, stepped into the ventilation shaft, and hurried into the darkness. Gusts of cold air blew around them, generated by the ship’s central atmospheric system.
The sound of the destroyer droids faded, giving way to the hollow metallic thumps of the Jedis’ footsteps. Stumbling around a corner, Qui-Gon caught sight of a distant shaft of light, stippled by a metal grid. He and Obi-Wan approached cautiously and peered through.
Below them was a vast hangar bay, far bigger than the one in which they had landed. Battle droids, hundreds of them, were marching onto an extraordinarily large landing craft. Qui-Gon knew the design — a C-9979 with repulsorlift wings and the capacity to hold a legion of droids and transport vehicles.
They were far enough away to avoid detection, but they would have to work fast. Quietly they pried loose the grid.
As they slid down the walls of the hangar bay, Qui-Gon tried to think. Nothing about this incident made sense.
“It’s an invasion army,” Obi-Wan said softly.
“An odd play for the Trade Federation,” Qui-Gon replied. “We’ve got to warn the Naboo and contact Chancellor Valorum. Let’s split up. Stow aboard separate ships and meet down on the planet.”
“You were right about one thing, Master,” Obi-Wan observed. “The negotiations were short.”
If the Trade Federation had merely wanted higher taxes, a blockade was an aggressive enough statement.
But now they were guilty of attempting to assassinate two Jedi ambassadors.
This was far beyond a tax dispute.
This was an act of war.
Landing in a forested Naboo swamp had its pluses and minuses.
On the one hand, Qui-Gon could finally leave the cramped storage area were he’d stowed away. And in the surrounding trees, he stood a fighting chance to escape.
On the other hand, he couldn’t exactly sprint. The MTT troop transports were already after him.
The mud pulled at the Jedi Master’s feet as he scrambled through the undergrowth. Behind him, a monstrous MTT thundered forward, trampling trees as if they were toothpicks. Strange birds and lizardlike creatures screeched and skittered away from the chase.
Where was Obi-Wan? It was impossible to see where the other ships had landed. Most of them were hidden behind trees.
Qui-Gon spotted a clearing in the near distance — an open marsh, perhaps. There he could drop out of sight. His A99 aquata breather would provide him with air underwater.
The MTT was closing in fast. Qui-Gon ran hard. He saw a creature straight ahead, right in the path of the attack.
“Hey, hep me!!”
It was a lanky being with mottled skin. Its eyes formed two stalks above a long snout, and two thick flaps of ear cascaded from its head down its back.
It was deathly afraid. And its grip was strong.
“Let go!” Qui-Gon shouted.
Too late.
The MTT was upon them. Qui-Gon could only go one way — down. He pulled the creature with him.
They plunged into the muck. The transport rolled close overhead.
As it trundled into the dense forest, Qui-Gon pulled himself up.
“Oyi, mooie-mooie!” The creature leaped up and threw its long arms around Qui-Gon. “I luv yous!”
Qui-Gon pulled away. “Are you brainless? You almost got us killed!”
“Brainless?” The thing looked deeply hurt. Qui-Gon saw a bizarre-looking amphibian that moved in a slinky, gawky way, its facial expressions exaggerated and quick-changing. “I spake.”
“The ability to speak does not make you intelligent,” Qui-Gon snapped. “Now get out of here!”
He walked swiftly toward the clearing, but the creature loped after him. “No, no! Mesa stay. Mesa called Jar Jar Binks. Mesa your humble servaunt.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Qui-Gon replied curtly.
“Oh, boot ’tis! ’Tis demunded... byda guds. ’Tis a life debit, ’tis.”
The mist rolled toward them off the surface of a small pool of muddy water. Qui-Gon thought he could see something through the fog, a moving object.
The sudden whine of airborne engines made him turn.
Two distant Federation STAPs — Single Trooper Aerial Platforms — swooped down toward him, each driven by a battle droid.
Obi-Wan came running from the other side of the swamp...
Followed closely by a STAP.
Two bolts of laser fire streaked toward Obi-Wan.
Qui-Gon stepped into the path of the STAP. Using his lightsaber, he blocked both shots. They bounced back to the STAP, blowing it into a fireball of swamp gas and tinsel.
Breathing hard, Qui-Gon looked at Obi-Wan. The Padawan hadn’t even bothered to fight back.
“Sorry, Master,” Obi-Wan said sheepishly, “the water fried my weapon.”
He drew his lightsaber from his belt. It was charred black.
“You forgot to turn off your power again, didn’t you?” Qui-Gon reprimanded.
Obi-Wan nodded.
“It won’t take long to recharge,” Qui-Gon assured him, “but this is a lesson I hope you’ve learned, my young Padawan.”
“Yes, Master."
Jar Jar pulled himself out of the mud and bounded toward Qui-Gon. "Yousa saved my again?”
Obi-Wan was annoyed by the beast. “What’s this?”
“A local,” Qui-Gon replied. “Let's go, before more of these droids show up.”
The two men began running north, in the direction of the Royal Palace of Theed.
“Mure?” Jar Jar said in astonishment, padding along behind them. “Mure, did you spake? Ex-squeezee-me, boot da moto grande safe place would be Gungan City. ’Tis where I grew up. ’Tis a hidden city.”
Qui-Gon stopped short. “A city? Can you take us there?”
“Ahhh, will!” Jar Jar nodded enthusiastically, then suddenly dropped his head. “On second taut, no, not really, no, no.”
“No?” Qui-Gon asked.
“Iss embarrising, boot my afraid my have bean banished. My forgotten der Bosses would do terrible things to my — terrible things to my if my goen back dare.”
A buzz of
engines sounded in the distance. “You hear that?” Qui-Gon asked. “That’s the sound of a thousand terrible things heading this way.”
“When they find us,” Obi-Wan added, “they will crush us, grind us into tiny pieces, and blast us into oblivion!”
Jar Jar’s ears perked up. “Oh! Yousa point is well seen. Dis way — hurry!”
The Gungan ran back into the swamp. As Qui-Gon and his Padawan followed, the engine noise behind them grew to a deep thrum. A fleet of transports, by the sound of it.
Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had to struggle to keep up with Jar Jar as they made their way through the swamp. Their cloaks were nearly soaked with sweat as they hurried toward the shore of a murky lake, Jar Jar stopped to catch his breath.
The MTTs were closing ground. They couldn’t afford to rest long.
“Much farther?” Qui-Gon asked.
“Wesa goen underwater, okeyday?” Jar Jar said.
Perfect. Otoh Gunga would be well hidden from the MTTs.
Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan strapped on their aquata breathers and followed Jar Jar as he stepped into the water. “My warning yous,” Jar Jar said. “Gungans no liken outlaunders. Don’t expict a werm welcome.“
“Don’t worry,” Qui-Gon replied, “this has not been our day for warm welcomes.”
Jar Jar bent his knobby knees and sprang high over the water, executing a perfect double somersault before diving in.
The two Jedi chose to wade in.
Soon all three were plunging steadily downward. Rather than becoming darker, as the water should have at these depths, it began to brighten. Floating beneath them were hundreds of giant globes, pulsing with light.
The globe membranes were neither solid nor liquid, but a hydrostatic plasma that wrapped around Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan as they passed through, instantly closing behind them to seal the inner atmosphere against water.
On solid ground, the two men removed their breathers, and Qui-Gon inhaled the close, humid, nitrous air of an underwater swamp.
He preferred it to what was above.
Jar Jar led him and Obi-Wan, dripping wet, toward the center of the city. On either side of them Gungans backed away fearfully, moving with a nervous but oddly fluid grace.