The council nearly filled the ring of seats. Anakin noticed a few members missing, not entirely surprising as matters had been heating up around the outer rim. He was about to make such a comment to Obi-Wan, when he caught the pickled glare of Padmé. Normally, she'd be clinging to her Master's skirt, but she put a buffer around herself and everyone else in the room. Had he gotten that easily under her skin without even trying?
It was her fault for starting the duel in the first place.
"You're all here, good," Master Windu spoke, shaking away Anakin's thoughts. "Our guest is ready to talk." He turned from his position to reveal that same gungan they pulled out of the cargo crate. Now in a trim tunic and trousers instead of the worn-out rags, he looked like any other hired help working to keep the Jedi temple in shape.
"This is Junn La," Windu continued, clearly waiting for the gungan to speak, but the ex-slave's bulging eyes rotated cautiously around the room before landing square upon Padmé.
"Your Majesty," he took a full step forward and collapsed to a knee. While the force hummed from the awkward situation, it was Padmé's blaring red aura that yanked Anakin's attention straight to her. A cherry blush stained her cheeks, her doe eyes wide in shock as she staggered back.
"Please, please don't…I'm not. I'm only a Jedi," she finally spat out, her body trying to slide further and further from the man kowtowing at her feet.
What was the gungan doing? Bowing to her — the scraggly, scrub brush know-it-all? Could they not tell other people apart?
"What you know, tell us Mister Junn La…" Master Yoda spoke through the confounding awkwardness. With a wave of the Master's small hand, the tension dissipated, allowing Anakin's chest to lift along with the pressure. Still, he kept the side of his eye trained upon Padmé. He'd never seen her so off put, not in nearly ten years of training. What was all that about?
The gungan drew his fingers together, clenching them tighter as if he had to gasp out whatever was weighing on his mind. "There is to be an attack upon Naboo."
"When?" Obi-Wan took control, a finger rifling through his beard in thought.
"Soon. Within a galactic week for certain. They intend to…" once again those watery eyes drifted to Padmé as if she was leading this, "to assassinate the Queen."
Gasps of concern broke from the gathered Jedi while Anakin folded his arms and scoffed, "What, again?"
"Apprentice…" Obi-Wan warned, but he couldn't understand this line of attack.
"We saved her once before."
"We?" Master Kenobi's eyebrow shot up, his icy eyes glaring at the boy they scrounged up out of a scrap shop.
"You did, Master. Why would the Federation…?"
"It is not the Federation," Junn La interrupted, his throat bobbing as he swallowed deep. "The Separatists are the ones behind this."
Yoda wiggled out of his chair, his small form sliding across the polished floor. Every tongue was held in respect for the elderly Jedi until he reached the middle and started up a hologram projection. Naboo, a planet he had barely any memories of, formed into view and began to rotate.
"Problem, this can be," the Master Jedi explained. "Not as welcoming as they once were. Distrust of the Jedi has grown."
"The Queen will…"
Anakin's jaw dropped to find that out of everyone in the room it was Miss Perfect Padmé that dared to interrupt Master Yoda. She seemed to catch her folly instantly, a hand flying up to cover her impetuous mouth. Funny, she was accusing him of the same not two minutes earlier and look at her now.
"Please continue, Apprentice," Mace Windu gave her the leave.
"I only mean," her head dipped down, hiding away her eyes from everyone, "the Queen would not turn her back upon the Jedi order. She couldn't."
"Hm," Yoda tapped his walking cane upon the floor thrice in contemplation. "Could, could not? Much of the galaxy is formed by the could not."
"Naboo is well fortified by both the Republic, despite the testy alliance at the moment, and its own army. Why would any think they could take it?" Master Lan'vass spoke, her golden eyes cutting across the council. Some wondered why she didn't have a seat, often loudly enough the sitting members growled at the accusations. No one had the courage to ask the woman herself.
Yoda nodded to her, then shifted to the ramrod straight gungan who kept his hands conspicuously in front of himself, "The rest, you must tell."
"Right. Of course. I will, it's only…the Separatists, they don't." He swallowed and stared straight ahead at Padmé, "They have all of the security codes for the palace."
"What? How?" she cried as if it was her life at stake.
"Because I gave it to them," Junn La admitted.
"You traitor!" She spat at his feet, a finger rising as if she intended to jab through the man's chest. "Only those close to my…to the Queen would have those codes! You must have been, and to turn upon her! How dare you…?"
"It was a moment of weakness," he cried, both hands clasped together as he fell to his knees. "Forgive me, please."
Padmé sneered, an odd sight upon her usually passive face. Someone needed to read up on the Jedi manual about containing one's emotions. Her lip flexed as if she had every intention to order the pleading man's execution. "It is not mine to give," sputtered from her mouth as she turned to stand beside and slightly behind her Master. Stuffing her hands into her robes she scowled at the floor, not even glancing once at Anakin constantly staring at her.
"Wait, if you were a traitor to Naboo and informant for the Separatists how did you wind up in Hoss' slave carriage?" Anakin asked. He needed to find a way to bring back up the slavers name, to get someone on the council to give him leave to find the bastard and put him down. Caring about the traitor's life story wasn't high on his list of priorities but it served him.
"When I heard what they were going to do, I…I had to get this information to the Republic. But none would listen. The only way to stop this, to save my…my Queen was by hiding amongst a contingent of slaves."
Anakin snorted, "You damn near wound up in chains for the rest of your life."
"It was a risk," he kept confessing as if he'd already punished himself for selling his Queen out. As if there was anything he could do to make up for such a transgression.
"Naboo is our focus," Mace Windu said, standing taller so the fading Corsucant sun bounced off his bald head. "We've tried to make contact with the Queen's forces but they refuse to listen. They're also avoiding any communication from the Senate."
"Most disconcerting," Yoda agreed. Damn it. They were turning back to their own problems. Politics, agendas. Entire planets at stake. And what fell through the cracks? Hoss, yet again free to skip from world to world rounding up the helpless to line his pockets.
"What about Hoss?" Anakin shouted, all of the Masters turning to glare at him. His flesh prickled, hot nodes forming up his spine, but when he caught a sliver of Padmé's eyes shifting over to him, he shook it all off. "Who does he work for?" He rounded on the gungan. "No way someone like that does business on his own. Not with the Separatists. Who is it?"
Tell me where he is. Tell me so I can finally put a knife through his skull.
Junn La's wary eyes drifted from the apprentice that cursed him out to the one about to. He was hiding something. Anakin could practically taste it in the air, his ears pounding to find the secret. The gungan's lips opened, his jaw prepared to announce whatever he was hiding, when the council doors opened.
Four Jedi turned to the interruption, glares rising. Obi-Wan coughed out, "None are to enter and trespass upon private council business." Anakin wanted to feel sorry for whoever was stupid enough to ignore an order from the Council when that Senate leader waltzed into the room. What was his name?
"Ah, Chancellor Palpatine," Master Windu smiled bright, reaching out to clasp the man's hand.
"Master Jedi," he greeted with that political bob of his head. "I came as soon as I could."
"In time, you are," Yoda picked up the thought, hobbling towards the grandfatherly Chancellor. "News we have."
"There is to be an assassination attempt upon the Queen of Naboo," Windu continued, his eyes burning into the Chancellor's as if he expected there to be an answer from the elderly man. Way Anakin heard it, most didn't think much of Palpatine's reign. He seemed more feckless than faustian, even for a geriatric Senate.
"That is a problem," the Chancellor scratched at his clean-shaven chin, folding the wrinkles tighter together. "They are about to take a vote whether the planet shall leave the Republic or not."
"What?" Windu exclaimed. "Leave the Republic? They are a major trade route for…half of the galaxy. Why are we only hearing of this now?"
"They fear retribution from a vengeful Republic led by a Jedi attack force," Palpatine said, then winced at the ring of Jedi surrounding him. "No offense."
"And you have done nothing to stop them? You are the Chancellor of the Intergalactic Senate!" Windu wouldn't let this go for anything.
"Be that as it may, Naboo is also my home. I would not wish for them to break from tradition, but who am I to stop them? It is the will of the people."
"Curious, now for wills to bend. For minds to cloud, fear to envelop," Yoda mused to himself clipping around in a circle. "As if the darkside is rising."
Palpatine forced on a smile, "I don't know much about this darkside, but if an assassination attempt upon Queen Amidala is successful I can assure you there is nothing the Senate can do to keep Naboo on our side. I fear it could lead to even more rattling amongst other uncertain planets if such a tragedy were to occur."
"Hm," Yoda nodded, his eyes shut tight, "War."
"We're already fighting the damn Federation and Separatist's droid army at every turn," Anakin spoke up. "How is this not war?"
He held his ground at both Windu and Yoda eyeing him up, felt an eye roll out of Obi-Wan, but it was the curious turn of the Chancellor that paused Anakin. "Have we met before?"
"Young Skywalker, he is."
"Ah, of course," the Chancellor extended his limp palm out for Anakin. With no recourse, the Jedi accepted it. He was shocked when the clammy fingers turned out to be rock solid, clamping around his hand with a tight shake. "You were the young boy who won the pod race."
Anakin sneered, yanking his fingers free and falling back. "Yes, that is all I shall ever be remembered for."
"Oh," Palpatine eyed him up, "I doubt that very much."
Striding forward from her oasis of serenity, Master Lan'vass pronounced, "I officially request leave from the Council to protect Queen Amidala from any Separatist machinations."
"We hoped you'd say as such," Mace Windu nodded to her, his eyes drifting from Lan'vass back to Padmé shrinking in the corner.
"Obi-Wan," Yoda suddenly spoke up, "assist you will."
"Of course, Master," Kenobi bent his head low, a hand saluting to his chest. Then his eyes sparkled towards Lan'vass, "Shall we flip to decide who takes the lead?"
Lan'vass chuckled, "You already know I'd win, so I see no reason in bothering."
Was that it? Were they just going to walk out of here, fly off to Naboo, save some moldy Queen, and give not a nerf-herder fart for the slaver that got away? Raising his chin higher, Anakin glared Mace Windu in the eye, "What of Hoss?"
"Who?"
"The slaver, the man who…who took all those people. Who keeps stealing people from the Republic. He needs to be stopped," Anakin said, doing his best to keep control of his voice. Even still, he felt Obi-Wan eyeing him up. He was in for more tongue wagging later, that much was certain.
"Anakin, we have greater pressing issues than…" his Master began, as he knew he would.
"Hm," Yoda closed his eyes in thought, a green finger digging into his ear. "Yes. Pursue Hoss you should. Get to the bottom of his empire, you will."
"Are you certain?" Mace Windu whipped to his fellow Jedi. "Naboo is the priority."
"Yes, it is. Handled by two Master Jedi. An apprentice will find Hoss," Yoda said bringing a smile to Anakin, the first true one since he watched Hoss slip through his fingers. "Two will." The Master turned towards Padmé, who finally glanced up from her sulk.
No. No, no, no.
The word burned in Anakin's throat, aching to be released. They wanted him to go with her? On a mission? Together? Impossible!
But he managed to tamp it down. This would get him Hoss. It didn't matter if he had the perfect princess on his tail for it. As long as that bastard's wings were finally clipped, he could put up with Padmé's prattle for a few parsecs.
"Take lead you will," Yoda paused, his eyes swinging to Anakin, "Apprentice Amidala."
What?!
"Of course, Master," she accepted without even flinching. But Anakin could feel her smug sense of superiority. It damn near radiated out in every direction. The perfect Jedi kept her head level but those brown eyes drifted towards him, the edge of her lip lifting in a smirk.
Master Windu clapped his hands, drawing their attention back to him, "You have your orders. Protect the Republic at all costs."
"We will," Lan'vass said, her head bowed.
"And may the Force be with you."
As the other Jedi all repeated back the phrase, Anakin finally tore his eyes off of the smirking Apprentice to trail over the gungan. He'd fallen silent, his eyes opening wider than a sarlaac pit. For once they weren't aimed at Padmé or even Yoda. No, he seemed shockingly terrified of their useless, grandfatherly Chancellor.
Gungans really couldn't tell humans apart.