Here's chapter ten. It's all still IC's brilliance.

And sadly, we STILL don't own Star Wars :-(

Chapter 10

Cold.

It was all Elysabeth was aware of. The bone chilling cold that seeped readily through her thin desert clothing. They had left Tatooine behind several hours ago, the ship had entered its night cycle and there was nobody around to distract her from her thoughts. She missed her mother, more than she thought it was possible to miss someone.

No one they had met since boarding the ship had been anymore friendly towards them than Obi-Wan had and so she and Anakin were sitting on a bench in the same room Qui-Gon had left them in with instructions to keep an eye on Jar Jar, who was now asleep with his feet on the table and his head hanging back, every now and then he would snore loudly, but Anakin and Elysabeth ignored him. They sat in silence, huddled together against the cold, taking comfort from each other's presence.

Elysabeth didn't look up as she heard someone enter the room, but she felt Anakin shift slightly at her side. A soft blue light filled the room and a slightly garbled voice broke the silence.

"Must bow to their wishes… the death toll is catastrophic… please your majesty, you must contact me." Elysabeth looked up as the holorecording ended to see one of the handmaidens standing in front of the projector with her head bowed.

Anakin shifted again and Padmé looked around. She smiled sadly at them and crossed the room to crouch down in front of them.

"What's happening?" Anakin's voice sounded as small and miserable as Elysabeth felt, but hearing it cheered Elysabeth, because there was, even then, a good deal of Anakin's trademark curiosity in it.

"The queen is very worried." Padmé told him softly, "Her people are dying."

Elysabeth shut her eyes and shut out the sound of their voices. She didn't know for sure, but she didn't think the people were dying, it didn't feel right. She thought again about Naboo. The beautiful blue and Green planet she had seen in her dream about Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. The peaceful Plaza she had seen droids marching through. The stunning mountain ranges she had seen as a backdrop to the village full of people. The great corridor she had seen the Nemoidians scuttling along.

The sun was bright at the horizon and the air was still and warm. Elysabeth opened her eyes and saw that she was standing in a village, a different one to before, there were no mountains and there was a strange sound; like a very old engine turning over again and again, but softer, gentler, coming from somewhere to her left. There were people here too, like in the other village. They were huddled in groups and different groups were being marched in different directions by the droids. It was sunset and the droids seemed to be directing the tired looking people indoors.

One boy caught Elysabeth's eye; he looked a lot like Anakin. When Elysabeth looked closer she realised that this wasn't her brother, but the boy did look a lot like him. She followed this boy through the streets and stopped when the droids led his group into a house. She cast a critical eye over the house, there was no way that there was enough room for that many people to live comfortably in such a small place. She turned away from the house, frowning slightly from the injustice of the situation and stopped short.

There was a small enclosure behind her with a high fence she couldn't see over, but the door was open and a droid was approaching, with a body on a hoversledge before it.

She ran closer, she didn't want to see anymore, but she knew she had to find out how many people were dying, if it was as bad as Padmé had feared then They would need to hurry to stop anymore from dying, if it wasn't then at least she could reassure Padmé and they could hurry anyway. She reached the gate just after the droid and followed it through. There were people, lying on the ground in neat rows. All were dead. Many had blaster wounds and Elysabeth suspected they had fought back against the droids. She looked quickly about, trying not to look at what she was seeing and guessed there were about a dozen people there.

Elysabeth opened her eyes. She shuddered.

"They are dying." Her voice was barely a whisper but it was loud in the very sudden silence. "The people, those who fight back against the droids, they're killed."

Padmé's voice was as quiet and Elysabeth's and it shook as she responded. "How many?"

"In total, I'm not sure. But I saw one village, there must have been a couple of thousand people there, I saw maybe a dozen dead."

"12 in a thousand? Across the whole of Naboo that could be millions!"

The pain in Elysabeth's heart was clearly mirrored in Padmé's eyes as she stared, aghast, at the older girl crouched on the bench before her.

_

"These control the thrust." Ric Olié was explaining all the controls to Anakin, and Elysabeth was half listening, her mind still on Naboo.

"And these control the direction" Anakin indicated a set of controls which, to Elysabeth, looked as though they were all the controls the ship needed, but apparently all the other's did different things as well.

"You catch on pretty quick" Neither Elysabeth nor Anakin bothered to point out that Anakin had probably sat in more cockpits from a greater variety of planets than the man now bringing their ship out of hyperspace had or ever would.

A large planet filled the viewscreen and Elysabeth focused on it, there was something odd about this planet. It was only the third planet Elysabeth had seen from space but even she could tell that the circles of light on the dark side of the planet weren't natural. She searched the planet for a break in the lights, and couldn't find one.

"That city can't possibly cover the whole planet!" Her voice was incredulous as she stared down at the planet beneath them, even the light side was a uniform shiny grey that spoke of buildings to Elysabeth.

"Yep, Coruscant is a city planet, the planet itself disappeared long ago." Ric Olié informed the amazed children. "Nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there."

_

It took Elysabeth some time to identify Padmé among the other handmaidens waiting to leave the ship. They all looked the same with their orange hoods drawn up over their faces and it was only when Padmé turned and smiled at her and Anakin that Elysabeth recognised her. They were standing at the top of the ramp waiting for it to lower so they could leave the ship.

Anakin was exited about getting his first glimpse of a different planet with a veiwscreen between him and it, but Elysabeth was less so; she seriously doubted if it would look any different than it had from the cockpit.

Qui-Gon walked calmly down the corridor followed by Obi-Wan, the latter frowning slightly, and Elysabeth smiled a greeting at them, Qui-Gon returned it but Obi-Wan simply scowled at her. She studied Obi-Wan's face carefully, he was looking away from her know anyway, she had the feeling that his dislike of her and her brother wasn't their fault, she didn't see how it could be anyway, but rather it was his master's treatment of them that caused his… his what? Anger wasn't quite the right word, and frustration would have been directed at Qui-Gon, not at them. Elysabeth could sense distress in him, but that wasn't really directed at them either, what was directed at them, causing Obi-Wan's unfriendly behaviour, was more a bitterness, as if Obi-Wan blamed them for Qui-Gon's treatment of them and labelled them as the cause of his distress, it was almost, it seemed to Elysabeth as if he felt betrayed by them.

The ramp finally lowered and Elysabeth was forced to concentrate on holding on to Anakin and attempting to control his enthusiasm as they walked down the ramp behind the two Jedi. The stopped at the bottom and were greeted by a group of people, the Jedi bowed to them and Elysabeth, Anakin and Jar Jar, who had followed them down the ramp, followed suit, Artoo, of course, did not. They then stepped to the side as Queen Amidala and her retinue came forwards and also bowed to the group of men.

Elysabeth recognised one as the Supreme Chancellor Valorum, Qui-Gon had shown her a hologram of him and explained who he was and why he was important, he was likely to support their cause and want to help the people of Naboo. The other man she didn't recognise but she assumed he was the Senator for Naboo, Senator Palatine, or something like that.

"Wow! Look Liz!" Anakin's voice was hushed; something that rarely happened "We're in the sky! I can't even see the ground anywhere!" Elysabeth looked around, Anakin was right, there was no ground, no earth, leaves, trees, plants of any sort to be seen anywhere. She took note of their height and automatically glanced towards the edge of the platform and held Anakin's hand a little tighter.

The Queens group began to move away and Elysabeth started to follow, until she realised that the Jedi weren't following. She paused and glanced back, Qui-Gon gestured to her that she should go with the others then returned to his conversation with the Chancellor. She nodded and tugged Anakin's hand to get him to follow her them noticed the clumsy Gungan looking lost and took his hand too. They followed the Queens group to the edge of a platform where an airbus was waiting for them and clambered into it.

_

Jar Jar was sitting across from Elysabeth staring glumly at the ground. He was bored, and Elysabeth was too, Anakin was more annoyed than bored and was sat beside Elysabeth shooting her disgusted glances every now and then, but Elysabeth was ignoring him. He had tried to eavesdrop of the conversation the Queen was having with Senator Palpatine in the next room, Rabé had corrected Elysabeth mispronunciation of his name. Elysabeth had bade Anakin sit down that he might not be seen, he had reminded her that he hated it when she spoke like one of her novels and had been in a bad mood since, but he had sat down.

To all appearances Elysabeth had prevented Anakin from listening in on the conversation because to do so would have been rude, but in reality she just didn't want him to be caught. She was half way into the dream state she used when she wanted to know what was happening somewhere nearby. She could hear every word being spoken in the next room as though she were in the room with them.

It was a boring conversation for the most part and Elysabeth didn't really understand all of what was being said but when Anakin whined that he wanted to know what was going on Elysabeth was able to answer him.

"The Senator is telling the Queen the situation in the Senate and the best way to plead their case; they don't have many options available to them." Elysabeth sighed, "The Senator recommends calling for a vote of no confidence in Chancellor Valorum, I'm not sure what that means, but I've got a bad feeling about it. And somehow I doubt it will allow us to get aid to the Naboo quickly, we may well be left on our own this time."

Anakin stared at her, then grinned. "And you were telling me off for listening!"

Elysabeth gave her brother a stern look, "I told you off for risking getting caught."

Anakin rolled his eyes, "I wasn't going to get caught, Beth. I'm not that stupid."

Elysabeth sighed and wondered whether she should tell him that she seen one of the Handmaidens watching him through the glass in the door. She decided against it, he would find out soon enough and just then the doors opened.

The queen and one of her handmaidens swept past, the other, Eirteé, Elysabeth thought her name might be, stopped and told the three that the queen was going to prepare to meet with the Senate. They would be accompanying her and should be ready to leave. Anakin asked after Padmé, but Eirteé told him that Padmé was on an errand. Something in her voice, her eyes, the uncomfortable way she stood for just a second before shaking it off, told Elysabeth quite plainly that this was a lie.

Padmé was interesting, she clearly wasn't the handmaiden she posed as, and now they were on Coruscant they hadn't seen her once. Elysabeth had a feeling the answer was glaring her in the face, and was frustrated that she couldn't see it, but suspected she would have time to ponder the answer and even if she didn't find it, then the answer would be revealed in time. Such was the way off life, all things surfaced in the end, from secrets to lost socks.

_

The Senate building was huge. Row upon row of round boxes all around the room, from the floor many meters below to the ceiling cast in darkness that Elysabeth could barely pick out, they covered the walls of the giant room and created a pattern that Elysabeth found difficult to look at. She was grateful when she and Anakin were told to wait outside. Rabé handed Anakin a viewing screen saying that this time he wouldn't have to listen through a door. Anakin blushed and gave the handmaiden a sheepish grin before turning his attention to the screen in his hands.

Anakin stared at the viewing screen and Jar Jar peered over his shoulder, Elysabeth, disinclined to join them in staring at a very small screen fell back into her trance. There were thousands of people in that one room alone. Normally this didn't bother Elysabeth too much, but when she was in a trance the hundreds of lives seemed oppressive and she had to concentrate hard to ignore them and focus on what was happening.

Movement in the middle of the room, Elysabeth wasn't quite sure what it was but the level of noise in the vast room dropped just a notch. A voice boomed out from the central podium, which Elysabeth had no trouble hearing even without the trance, calling for order and it was slowly achieved. The oppression of a thousand consciousnesses was lessened somewhat when they all focused their attention of one point and Elysabeth saw, from every angle given by every box in the room, the central podium with the Chancellor stood in the middle looking tired but determined, surrounded by several people Elysabeth assumed were aides.

The Chancellor stepped forwards and recognised the chair from Naboo. One of the boxes detatched from the wall and floated to hover before the central podium. Elysabeth had a distinct feeling Padmé was in the box, but couldn't see the handmaiden, she added this to a list of things to consider about her new friend, before focusing on the moment; Senator Palpatine was speaking, introducing Queen Amidala of the Naboo to speak for her people.