Chapter 9
The Battle of Naboo turned out not to be that much of a battle. The Naboo had only lost Gregar and the pilot that had been shot down, and technically they had lost Qui-Gon Jinn who had fought on their side although he wasn't a native of Naboo. Amidala wasn't sure whether to include him in the official statistics, it would mean that he would get a place on the eventual war memorial that was built which she didn't really care for. She had no desire to immortalize a Jedi, but once the Sith Empire came to power it would stand as a monument to her ability to trick a Jedi into fighting for the Sith, who he thought he was fighting against. That thought pleased her so she decided to have Qui-Gon included.
Once Sabé and the others handmaidens had capture the control ship the droids had all turned on their former masters and the Trade Federation quickly surrendered. Amidala wanted to have them all summarily executed but that wouldn't have looked good in the eyes of the Republic who she had to appease right now so she decided just to keep them imprisoned until the Republic judicial system decided what to do with them.
Another issue that caused a lot of strife was that many Jedi came to Naboo to pay homage to Qui-Gon who had his funeral there. Many of the Sith did not like the idea of a large number of Jedi being on Naboo and wanted to attack them since so many would be gather unsuspecting in one place, but Amidala argued against that with the council who agreed that while in the short term it would hurt the Jedi in the long term it would likely doom Naboo, because while they had a droid army if several planets united behind the Jedi they would be in trouble and at the moment they had no definitive allies to assist them.
Eirtaé returned to Naboo along with Obi-Wan who brought Anakin who he had taken on as his Padawan for Qui-Gon's funeral. The council decided that Eirtaé could remain as Senator in the meantime provided that she passed her Sith Trials. Eirtaé's trial had her face Ian Veruna, the son of the previous king, in combat where she easily defeated him. Both Sabé and Eirtaé were inducted as full-fledged members of the Sith order and bestowed with the names Darth Clades for Sabé and Darth Allogi for Eirtaé.
Sabé remained as Amidala's handmaiden as she was invaluable as a double and bodyguard, but Amidala needed to replace Eirtaé, so she chose Cordé to become her fifth handmaiden as Cordé had been close to being one of her handmaidens when she first chose them and had proven herself quite capable during the mission to capture the Droid Control Ship.
The members of the Trade Federation that they had captured were eventually turned over the Republic judicial system. There they faced trial and some were found guilty, but the majority were acquitted. Amidala suspected that the Trade Federation had bought the acquittals of most of them and sacrificed a few so as not to look quite as guilty. The Trade Federation also tried to demand that the Naboo return the droid army they had captured, but Eirtaé insisted in the Senate that the Naboo should be allowed to keep the army to help prevent any future invasions, an argument which won much support with the Senate since Eirtaé argued that the one ship they had was incapable of carrying the bulk of the droids they had captured and they did not plan on building more ships for the transportation of the droid army. The Senate ruled that Naboo would be allowed to keep it as reparations for the invasion by the Trade Federation.
Amidala was the most popular monarch in the history of Naboo and the people wished to make her family the hereditary line of the new monarchy. Amidala accepted but then almost immediately abdicated the throne to allow her older sister Sola become Queen. Sola was not particularly strong in the force like her younger sister, but she had two younger daughters, Ryoo and Pooja both of whom were strong in the force, Pooja more so than Ryoo. Amidala intended for Pooja to become Queen when she came of age, but for now was content to let her sister act as Queen as her sister was a pawn she could control.
Upon stepping down, Amidala took over from Eirtaé as the Senator, Eirtaé however remained on her staff as her representative to act on Proxy whenever Amidala had to return to Naboo for Sith Council meetings or the like. In her many years on Coruscant Eirtaé had managed to develop a secret relationship with Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan believed that nobody else knew about their relationship, although Eirtaé was only too eager to tell Amidala and the handmaidens about her sexual encounters with the Jedi. Eirtaé was quite convinced that Obi-Wan was madly in love with her as he even kept their relationship secret from his Padawan, Anakin. Eirtaé however had no such similar feelings for Obi-Wan as she would take any number of other men to bed with her whenever Obi-Wan was off planet on a mission for the Jedi.
Obi-Wan's Padawan Anakin was the one obstacle that Padmé still had yet to deal with. She was still worried about the prophecy that he would bring balance to the force. Whatever role he was to play she did not believe it would be favourable to her plans, especially since was being trained as a Jedi. But despite her desire to have him eliminated, the opportunity never came up.
Amidala never forgot about Anakin but she had to focus on her new role as Senator. Amidala soon become one of the most popular members of the Senate. She pushed through reforms that were aimed at stopping the governmental power that was being allowed to galactic corporations like the Trade Federation and Intergalactic Banking Clan. In response to these reforms these groups resigned from the Republic to form their own separatist group called the Confederacy of Independent Systems.
The group was led by a former Jedi named Dooku who now stylized himself as a Count, as he had been born to a wealthy family from the planet Serenno but had theoretically given up the wealth and title upon joining the Jedi Order. There was debate as to whether or not he should get it back now that he had left the order.
Whatever the case may be Dooku seemed to be intent on taking this separatist group and forming his own empire, a rather un-Jedi trait. Amidala suspected that Dooku may have been another disciple of Palpatine as she doubt Palpatine put much credence in Darth Bane's Rule of Two as he had been raised amongst many other Sith on Naboo.
The separatist movement soon gained a fair bit of momentum as they conquered several backwater planets and others left the Republic to join their cause. The Republic itself was unable to defend these planets as it did not have much in the way of an army.
Cordé, Saché, Rabé and Yané all eventually faced their Sith Trials and thanks to Amidala's tutelage they all passed. Cordé became Darth Bitva, Saché became Darth Vista, Rabé became Darth Kiire and Yané became Darth Thanatos.
With the threat of the separatists Naboo chose to improve their Military. While they had starfighters as part of the captured droid army, Naboo chose to build an improvement of the N-1 fighter called the N-1T which Cordé helped design and test. Cordé was rewarded for her success with a posting as a General in the Royal Starfighter Defense Force and quickly became the head of the Defense Force.
Rabé proved to be highly skilled at droid programming and she was able to make major upgrades to the Battle Droids battle program and with Cordé's assistance she also improved the capabilities of the droid starfighters, although they were not as good as the N-1Ts.
Saché founded the Naboo Intelligence Network, where she was able to use her gift of foresight to help discern which intelligence was true and which should be acted upon. She brought in other Sith with similar talents as well as finding and recruiting Force Sensitives from amongst the non-Sith Naboo, for her organization. She trained operatives and soon her spy network spanned the galaxy. While the Bothan Spynet was larger, the Naboo Intelligence Network was far more accurate with the intelligence they provided.
Yané meanwhile disappeared, at least from the public eye. Amidala had all traces of her existence erased, and family proved to be no issue as Yané had killed her parents as the completion of her Sith Trials. As her skills developed Amidala found that Yané was skilled at masking her presence and utilizing illusions. Amidala had drilled her in all forms of combat and weaponry having her gain mastery with blasters, vibroblades, electrostaffs and grenades as well as unarmed combat turning Yané into the perfect assassin, and that is what Amidala used her for. However she never sent Yané after Anakin or any Jedi, she didn't want to risk the exposure of a Sith Assassin and she also didn't believe that Yané would be able to defeat a Jedi, particularly one as powerful as Anakin. Because as skilled as Yané was, she was not extremely powerful in the force, she probably didn't meet the Jedi's stringent qualifications to be accepted for training. But Yané was extremely valuable to Amidala to eliminate potential rivals in the Senate and anyone else who got in her way, provided they weren't a Jedi.
Chancellor Valorum had served out his term as Chancellor and vote came for a new Chancellor to be selected. Amidala's name was put forth as a candidate and she accepted running on the platform that she would stem the tide of planets leaving the Republic and stop this separatist movement as it would only fragment the galaxy. Her only major opponent was Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan who wanted to negotiate a peace with the separatists. In the end Amidala won and became the new Supreme Chancellor of the Republic. Eirtaé once again became the Senator for Naboo.
Amidala didn't view Organa as much of a threat to her Chancellorship, outwardly the two of them had similar views outside of their opinions on how to deal with the Confederacy of Independent Systems. However Valorum could have proven to be a nuisance so Amidala had him meet a mysterious death courteous of Darth Thanatos.
Under Amidala's leadership the Republic saw many systems build themselves substantial defense forces against potential attack from the separatists, but a lot more systems were not able to defend themselves and CIS continued to attack Republic Systems as they had no fear of reprisal.
The Republic needed an army to combat this problem, and they also needed to admit that this was war, something the Senators in the Senate were reluctant to do regardless of its necessity. But circumstances would soon occur that would force the Senate to change its position…
Slightly shorter chapter. This is just a sort of fill in of the fallout from the Battle of Naboo as we jump ahead about 10 years. So will this lead to a clone war? You'll find out. Please Read and Review.