Chapter 7 Chapter 7



The grizzled freighter captain glanced nervously over his shoulder at the hooded figure standing behind him. This was his passenger's first appearance in the cockpit. In fact, it was his passenger's first foray out of the small cargo hold he was using as a cabin, and it made the old spacer distinctly uneasy. The traveler appeared to be little more than a boy, but the sheer size of the kid and his surly demeanor had prompted the captain to keep his distance.

Anakin smiled grimly beneath the hood of his cloak, his arms crossed over his chest. He had used the Force to keep the old man on edge for the entire trip. He didn't want any interaction with anyone; he just wanted to get to Tatooine. The only reason he was up here now was because they were getting ready to drop out of hyperspace.

"Coming up on Tatooine," said the captain, reaching for the hyperdrive controls.

"Take us down to the Mos Espa spaceport," ordered Anakin. These were the first words he had exchanged with the pilot since Coruscant, when he had pressed all of his money into the man's fist and demanded passage. He had only enough credits to get him to Tatooine. He wasn't worried about getting back. There's nothing to go back to.

He felt a strange tingling in his Force-sense. Something was wrong. "Drop us to sublight now!" he shouted.

"But--" protested the other man.

"Just do it!" yelled Anakin, stepping toward the pilot.

The captain pulled back on the hyperdrive lever, dropping them back into normal space. The Force-tingling grew stronger. Anakin peered through the cockpit window. "I have a bad feeling about this," he murmured.

"I don't see anything," protested the captain.

"There," said Anakin, pointing. A large dark cruiser, barely visible against the starry backdrop of space, hung over the dirty brown orb of Tatooine.

"What kind of ship is that?" the captain asked.

Anakin's reply was cut off by two small triangular craft flashing by the cockpit. A moment later, the ship rocked from the concussion of several near-misses. Fighters, Anakin thought as he regained his balance. Then the realization struck him: the Mandalorians were here! He fought back his rising panic.

The captain swore viciously and clutched the controls. He punched new coordinates into the navicomputer and started to bring the freighter about.

"What are you doing?" Anakin demanded.

"What's it look like I'm doin', kid? I'm getting the hell outta here!" The old pilot continued to turn the ship as a wave of fighters burst from the cruiser and headed their way.

"Turn this bucket around," Anakin ordered coldly. "I paid you to take me to Tatooine and that's what you're going to do."

"Are you nuts?!" exclaimed the captain. "I don't have any weapons! We could be killed going up against those fighters!"

Anakin pushed his hood back and pinned the captain with an icy blue gaze. "If we face those fighters, you only might be killed." He ignited his lightsaber and held it inches from the old man's face. The shimmering green blade cast a sickly glow across his features. "If you don't turn around, you will be killed."

Quailing in the face of Anakin's fury, the captain turned back to the controls and swung the ship back toward Tatooine. He mumbled something about a Jedi and an immovable object under his breath as his hands danced across the panel.

Anakin straightened up in satisfaction. The feeling was only momentary, as he quickly realized that the captain was not a skilled enough pilot to take on the fighters, especially with no weapons. The ship bucked under the withering fire. Lights flashed and alarms blared as the laser blasts began to take their toll on the freighter's shields.

Anakin jerked the captain out of the pilot's chair and tossed him unceremoniously to the floor of the cockpit. Taking over the controls, he yanked the safety harnesses across his body before throwing the freighter into a mad spiral, dodging between the fighters. He smiled in grim satisfaction as several fighters destroyed each other in the crossfire.

Anakin headed for the cruiser, jinking the ship in every direction to avoid the laser blasts coming from the fighters. The freighter had not taken any more direct hits since he took over the controls, but the concussions from the near-misses were taking a toll on the systems. The shields were completely gone. An engine warning light on the console flared up, and Anakin let loose a nasty stream of Huttese curses. He was losing power to the starboard engine.

Shutting down the damaged engine, Anakin rerouted the power to the remaining two. He was drawing closer to the cruiser and he wondered why it hadn't started firing on him yet. Maybe it didn't have any weapons. Acting on this hunch, he bore down full throttle on the large ship, heading for a tower that he knew had to be the bridge.

"Are they insane?!" the cruiser's captain screamed as they watched the dilapidated ship grow larger in the viewport. The bridge crew dove for cover as the freighter flashed past the transparisteel, missing the cruiser by meters.

"Track them!" ordered the captain.

"It's diving into the planet, sir," reported the sensor tech. Through the bridge viewport, they could see the old ship falling toward Tatooine, seemingly out of control. "Engines are dead, sir, and there are no life signs."

"Hmm, the fighters must have inflicted more damage than we thought," said the captain. "Let it go. Maybe it will crash close enough to the Hutt for him to salvage some of the cargo." He smiled grimly. "Or better yet, perhaps it will land on the Hutt himself."

**********


Padmé ran quickly through the pre-flight checks. The shuttle she had leased was old, but in good condition. Most importantly, the hyperdrive was well-kept. It would get her safely to Tatooine, then back home. She would have to arrange for someone to return it to Coruscant later. As far as she knew, there was no branch for Crazy Eddie's Superb Rental Shuttles on Naboo.

As she powered up the shuttle, the vehicle's proximity alarm went off. Someone was standing too close to the ship for her to bring the engines to full power. Looking through the cockpit's side window, she saw a small figure with a large duffel bag standing beside the place where the ramp would be when it was lowered. Sabé. I should have known.

She opened the side window. "Sabé, move away from the ship," she ordered. The handmaiden didn't budge. "Sabé, I can't take off if you don't move," she ground out through clinched teeth. She was starting to get angry. Sabé crossed her arms and turned to face her, expressionless. She was obviously determined to get her way.

The handmaiden would not move far enough away to allow her to lift off, no matter how loudly Padmé yelled at her. Huffing in frustration, she slapped the ramp control. I ought to override the alarm and toast her when I take off, she thought sourly. Sabé appeared in the cockpit a moment later. Padmé silently waved her into the co-pilot's seat, then powered up the engines and took off.

She guided the shuttle into the air lanes and scanned the sky. She spotted a large passenger liner lumbering towards space. Accelerating a bit, Padmé slid in underneath the big ship and matched its speed. She kept the shuttle in the liner's shadow until they were past Coruscant Traffic Control, then peeled away and punched Tatooine's coordinates into the navicomputer. As soon as the computer returned the route, she grabbed the hyperdrive control arm and turned it. The stars elongated as the shuttle went to lightspeed.

"Why are we sneaking away?" Sabé's voice broke the silence. Padmé glanced at her, then busied herself with the ship's panel. "You didn't announce us to Traffic Control, so there's no record of our departure."

"Handmaiden, I told you to stay in the apartment and decoy for me," Padmé said icily, her voice dropping into the tones she used as the Queen. "You disobeyed."

"I'm sorry, Your Highness," Sabé said acidly, "but there was no way in hell I was letting you run off to that sandbox of a planet by yourself. It's too dangerous. I don't care how cleverly you planned to disguise yourself."

"This is a personal matter, Sabé. I'm acting as Padmé, not as the Queen."

"You can't separate the two. Padmé is the Queen," Sabé argued. "And since the Queen couldn't be bothered to tell her Chief of Security where she is going, her personal bodyguard and best friend is tagging along." Her eyes bored into Padmé's.

Padmé reached out and squeezed Sabé's arm, touched by her friend's loyalty. "I appreciate your company, Sabé, but it was not necessary for you to follow me."

Sabé grinned. "It was as much for my protection as yours," she said. Padmé cocked an eyebrow questioningly. "You think I want to be hanging around when Panaka discovers you're gone? I'd hate to be in Rabé's shoes when he gets back from his meeting."

"Rabé is pulling decoy duty? How'd you manage that?"

"I didn't give her a choice," replied Sabé. "Besides, you know she's not intimidated by Panaka. She won't tell."

"Maybe not," said Padmé, "but what about the others?"

"No problem there. They're more afraid of me than they are of him." Sabé grinned evilly.

Padmé snickered. Her handmaidens generally got along well, but Sabé's quick temper and sharp tongue had cut through all of them at one time or another. She usually got what she wanted.

Sabé sobered. "You didn't answer my question. Why did we sneak away from Coruscant?"

"I didn't have enough cash, so I had to use a credit chip to pay for the shuttle. Panaka will trace that easily. But since we didn't file a flight plan or get a departure clearance, he won't know where we're going. And neither will the Jedi Council – I hope."

"So why don't you want them to know where we're going?"

Padmé sighed and rubbed her temples. "It's a touchy situation. The Jedi have forbidden Anakin to see his mother until after he completes his training. And they would not allow Obi-Wan to go after him, so I'm sure they wouldn't be pleased with my going. Anakin may be punished or even expelled – I don't know how they handle these things. He will most certainly try to free his mother, and probably the other slaves as well. It's been eating at him ever since Qui-Gon took him away".

She leaned back in the pilot's seat. "If Panaka finds out, he'll go in with the Royal Starship, a couple of squadrons of fighters, and a brigade of troops. Politically, we can't afford that. The Senate has not approved an emancipation mission for Tatooine, and the Naboo government cannot be officially involved in what would essentially be an illegal operation."

"But the head of the Naboo government is getting herself involved," Sabé pointed out.

"No, she's not," Padmé insisted. "Padmé Naberrie, private citizen, is getting herself involved."

Sabé rolled her eyes. "They are one and the same." She held up her hand to ward off any more argument. "But since you are determined to do this, I am convinced I made the right decision. Especially since you can't pack worth a damn."

Padmé frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Show me your weapon," ordered Sabé. The other woman looked at her in confusion, then pulled out a tiny blaster, the same kind carried by all the handmaidens. "I thought as much," Sabé said in disgust. "Come on." Grabbing Padmé by the arm, she led the way back to the shuttle's small cabin.

The large duffel bag was thrown into a corner of the room. Grabbing it, Sabé unhooked the catch and dumped the contents on one of the tiny bunks. An assortment of large blaster rifles, thermal detonators, laser pistols, and other weaponry fell onto the mattress. There was even a Gungan electropole.

"Courtesy of General Tarpals," Sabé explained as Padmé hoisted the electropole in wonder. "He gave it to me after our last exercise with the Gungan army."

"Ah," Padmé murmured in understanding. She recalled the grudging respect the old Gungan had developed for Sabé's grasp of tactics. She looked at the pile of weapons. "Well. Everything a traveling girl needs."

"Especially in that vacation spot of the Galaxy, Tatooine. Vast deserts inhabited by gangsters, slavers, smugglers, and Hutts. What more could you want from a holiday?" Sabé started putting the weapons back into the bag.

Padmé sat on the other bunk. "What I don't understand," she mused, "is why Anakin would choose to do this now. I mean, he's been worried sick about his mother for years. Why jeopardize his future now, when he's so close to his dream?"

Sabé rolled her eyes. How can someone so intelligent be so stupid? She pulled a small data reader from her cloak and tossed it to Padmé. "Look, I already told you what happened last night. Maybe this will give you another clue." She stalked out of the cabin.

Padmé watched her go, perplexed. Then she turned on the data reader. It was that day's edition of The Galactic Inquirer, the galaxy's largest-selling tabloid news source. There was a holo of her and Bail Organa arriving at the Senate.

QUEEN OF NABOO SNAGS GALAXY'S MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELOR! screamed the headline.

"Oh, no." Padmé covered her eyes and flopped back on the bed.