The steel walls of a spaceship always seemed so cold and unwelcoming to Padme. She was used to the trappings of royalty and the warmth of a palace. The senate chambers on Coruscant suited her fine, but the metallic shells of spacecraft would always feel more alien to her than any other planet. The thing was though, that Padme really didn't mind that. A sniff of adventure and a sense of the unknown accompanied the feeling of dread every-time she stepped on board one. It was like she was finally breaking the chains of her childhood.
The bumpy panelled walls of the Quesilian Star Cruiser was no exception, and Padme found herself absentmindedly tracing the lines of red paint down the corridor with her fingertips. Her gentle touch contrasted brilliantly with the consistent thudding of soldiers' footsteps. A squadron of clone troopers in polished white armour followed her every move, supposedly there for her protection. Padme didn't like the way some of them kept thumbing at their blasters, even while they were holstered. They were new soldiers, shinies, eager for their first taste of battle. Only the captain showed the signs of having seen war, his armour a darker shade of white than his soldiers, and a reluctance to even acknowledge his blaster until he had to.
Padme could have been one of the Clones herself at first glance, wearing pure white herself. One might have reasonably expected a former queen to wear something glamorous for a diplomatic meeting, but the Quesilians were a species known to respect warriors and shows of strength, and Padme was always far more comfortable in clothes she could move quickly in. The tight-fitting white jumpsuit was the same style as the one she'd worn on Geonosis when this war had begun. She tried not to think about that.
"Ah Senator, I was told you had arrived," the Quesilian negotiator greeted her with open arms. Padme was surprised that he didn't seem to have brought any security of his own. The Quesilian scratched his feathered face nervously as he glanced at the clone troopers. Padme put on her most winning smile to win him back over. "It's an honour," Padme replied, tailing off just enough to make it clear she needed a name. "Tobas," he nodded with a slight smile of his own. "Padme," she shook his hand.
The Quesilians were a race of bird-headed lifeforms but without the beaks - a square always-open mouth displayed at least 3 rows of teeth which shifted like lips into the myriad of facial expressions that left Quesilians capable of. Padme couldn't help noticing that his back row of teeth appeared to have sharpened into points. She didn't know enough about their biology to know whether that indicated aggression or fear.
"I was pleased to receive your invitation, Tobas," Padme adopted a friendly tone of voice as he led her into the circular chamber set aside for their negotiations. The clone captain signalled for two of his men to remain outside the room by the door. The other members of the squad silently lined the wall of the chamber. Tobas took a seat on a soft red cushion and gestured for Padme to do the same on the one laid out opposite. Gracefully, Padme knelt down and settled into a comfortable sitting lesson, crossing her legs like she'd been taught to as a young girl.
"Your reputation precedes you, Senator Amidala," Tobas bowed his head slightly, "the Republic's finest negotiator in both skill and beauty." Padme forced her smile to stay as warm as before and shifted her position slightly. Other diplomats' tendency to focus on her appearance always made her uncomfortable. Sometimes, it could be useful. Most of the time it was just annoying. "Let us discuss your Clone War," Tobas continued, his eagle-eyes shooting over to the troopers for a moment before resting comfortably on Padme again.
The Quesilians were a race who embraced war not as conflict but as sport. Once a year, their clans would wage all-out, unrestricted war on each other for exactly 6 weeks, then the ceasefire would be called and the week of feasts would follow. The Quesilians had chosen to remain neutral in the Clone War though, disgusted by the idea of actual dispute between the two sides, and wishing to focus on their own internal warfare.
As the conflict raged on across the galaxy though, each neutral party was slowly, inevitably, dragged into the atrocious war between the Republic and the Separatists. More and more species were beginning to appreciate the age of neutrality was ending and reaching out pre-emptively to one side or the other. Padme was grateful that the Quesilians had reached out to the Republic and not their enemies.
Halfway through explaining what resources Quesilia had to offer, Tobas suddenly fell silent, his front row of teeth shaping into a frown, and his head dropped forwards. "What's wrong?" Padme leant forwards immediately, reaching out to touch his shoulder. She could see tears forming in his eyes and starting to roll down his cheeks, wetting his feathers. "I'm sorry, Padme" he choked on the words, "I'm so sorry."
The cold metal walls of the star cruiser started to break apart at the red lines of paint, opening into hatches. The clones reached for their blasters. Padme's eyes widened in horror. Rows of Battle Droids slid out of the walls, uncurling from their hibernating crouch and standing to attention. The clones opened fire. The captain darted towards Padme. Tobas looked at her with apologetic eyes as he ripped open his shirt to reveal the gun-metal grey vest beneath, a countdown ticking down from 10 on his chest. A bomb.
The captain grabbed Padme's wrist and yanked her back. Two other clone troopers, ignoring the droids completely, tackled the Quesilian to the ground. The timer reached zero. The Quesilian's dying scream, cut short by being engulfed by the detonation on his chest, echoed around Padme's ears and embedded itself permanently in her memory. The floor beneath him was ripped open, clones and droids alike sucked unceremoniously out into the vacuum of space. The droids kept firing, unaffected. The clones dropped their blasters to clutch at their throats, feeling the last reserves of air in their helmets dwindle and run out.
Padme was only saved by the captain's quick thinking, pulling her out of the room as the explosion sounded and smashing the button on the wall with his fist to make the metal door slide down shut, sealing them off from the carnage. The whole ship shook as a second explosion sounded and Padme grabbed the captain's arm to steady herself. "This way, ma'am" the captain said respectfully but firmly, starting to rush down one of the other corridors.
"Our ship was docked in the other direction, Captain," Padme called after him. The captain stopped and Padme could have sworn she heard him sigh as he turned back to face her: "that second explosion we just heard: that will have been our ship. We need to get to the escape pods." He didn't wait for her to answer before he turned away again.
They reached the escape pods and the captain held up his hand, instructing her to stop. Padme knew better than to argue this time. She risked peering round the corner to see what he'd seen though. There were the escape pods, a run of five of them lined up and ready to eject. In front of them though were a squad of battle droids on guard.
The captain hesitated, weighing up in his head whether he could handle a squad by himself. He glanced at Padme. Then he unclipped a blaster pistol and tossed it towards her. Padme caught it more awkwardly than she would have liked. "Can you shoot?" He asked. Padme weighed the gun in her hand then positioned her finger over the trigger confidently: "best shot on Naboo." The captain's helmet hid whatever expression he had on his face as he answered and his voice gave nothing away: "that will have to do,"
On the count of three, the two of them charged round the corner, opening fire. The element of surprise was on their side which helped. Padme rolled forwards to dodge a blast from one of the droids, landing right by its feet. Without hesitating she shot straight up and the blast went straight through its head. The dead droid crumpled, falling down towards her. She deftly moved to the side, sweeping her leg out and tripping the last battle droid which was promptly finished off by a round of fire from the captain's DC-15 blaster rifle.
The captain ripped off a panel from one of the walls and Padme watched, intrigued, as he grabbed a fistful of wires and ripped them away. He sparked two of them together twice then dropped them and darted to the console unit by the escape pod bay. He typed something in urgently then turned back to face her: "I've sent a message to the nearest star system," he explained, reading the curiosity on her face, "we'll need someone friendly to come pick us up from the planet's surface."
"Did anyone receive your message?" Padme dared to ask as he bundled her into one of the pods. "No idea," he answered bluntly, diving in behind her as a series of blaster shots fired in their direction, striking the panel next to them. The captain sealed the pod and Padme pressed the eject button. A battle droid's head appeared at the window panel as the pod launched from the main ship. The captain dropped his blaster and waved goodbye to them. Padme smirked, glad to see there was some playful spirit in the clone after all.
Padme allowed herself to slump down, safe in the pod, her heart still thumping uncontrollably. She held out the pistol, handle pointed towards the captain but he shook his head. "You might need it when we reach the surface, ma'am" he said. Padme shrugged, dropping the pistol to the floor next to her and closed her eyes, focusing on her breathing.
At that moment, the pod was struck on the left side by green laser blast from above just as it was about to enter the atmosphere. Padme screamed as she was thrown about inside, feeling the pod hurtle uncontrollably down towards the planet. She braced herself as the pod started to crack and rip apart. This wasn't going to be as smooth a landing as she'd hoped. In fact, she wasn't sure they were even going to survive it.
Writer's Notes: It was a simple challenge behind this story: write a decent Padme Clone Wars story. The episodes of Clone Wars focused on her have tended to be the weak points of the series for me and the films largely didn't do well by her either in my opinion. I do think though that there is actually a very good character there waiting to be set free, so this is my first to at doing that. It's multiple chapters so I can give you a plot to sink your teeth into this time, and there will be some other familiar characters popping up very soon...