a/n-Hello, and thanks for reading! I hope you're enjoying it so far ;) I'm planning on updating around once a week. In other news, I wanna hear your opinions on this story, so feel free to review (but you must use the word "pineapple"). Here we go!
"I like clouds," Anakin informed his mother, "They're soft and cozy and fluffy and fly everywhere. Not like on Tatooine. Tatooine, everything is-"
"Coarse and rough," Shmi repeated his words from earlier, prepping the pile of red Chak-root before her for distillation. The head cook had showed her the process earlier. Now, Shmi had to get through this pile before she and Anakin could rest prior to his journey.
"Mo-om." Anakin dragged out the "o," scrunched his face, and paused his own work with the Chak-root. The picture of disgruntlement. He could only keep it in for so long though, before a laugh bubbled up. Shmi smiled in return, before swiping a root from his pile and adding it to hers, causing him to yelp. "Hey, no fair!"
"Quiet!" flew from across the kitchen, and they both hurriedly returned to the roots, though Anakin stole his errant root back.
"I don't see why you can't come, too," he grumbled in a whisper. "It's not fair."
This was not the first time they'd discussed it, Shmi reassuring him that the master promised it was only for a little while, reminding Ani how mechanical help was more likely to be needed than culinary help, that 3PO would be going too, and the overlying fact that there was nothing they could do about it. She also worried what it meant, that the master would take a child slave someplace he wouldn't take an older rational slave, and that most of the other laborers were servants or droids. But she wouldn't worry Anakin over that. Instead she sighed a little, before sneaking a peck on the top of his head. "Have you dreamed anything about it?"
"Nothing bad," he answered, and Shmi trusted him. Anakin was always honest about his feelings, though he lied about plenty of other things. More importantly, he trusted his visions, so that would reassure him more than she ever could.
"Then we'll be okay," she declared, shuffling the finished root pile so that the newer additions wouldn't slide and bounce away. "Just remember the wonderful person you are, Ani."
"Senator, are you still there?" Padme clamped down on her communicator, hoping the Rodian woman ahead didn't hear. The woman kept walking, though, so Padme drifted after her.
"What is it?" she hissed into her comlink, turning her face away from her prey. There were enough people around to cover her voice, and who knew how good the woman's hearing was, but Padme did it anyway.
Captain Typho's voice crackled through again. "Kreet Sabal lives nearer the senate. Wherever she's leading you, it's not official."
"Good." She would hate for this to be so simple. "Are you still able to track my location?"
"Affirmative, but be careful. It'll take a couple minutes to get to you if anything happens." She could hear a note of disapproval in his voice, but that was his job.
"I will be. You know you stand out."
"So do you," he shot back. Ahead she saw Kreet turn onto a side street.
"But people feel more nervous around someone with a gun." She slipped between a pair of Weequay down the alley.
"You have a gun, senator." His dry tone would make her laugh, but the crowd was thinner now.
"But they don't know that," she whispered instead.
Kreet stepped into an establishment with a glowing sign. Padme could already smell the smoke of death sticks from over here, but she approached. "Kreet went into a bar."
"You should not go in," Captain Typho warned. "It is too dangerous alone."
She knew he was probably right, but there had been nothing for a month! With Palpatine cutting down on senate meetings and most senators retreating to their home planets for the time being, she and her allies were stuck. She needed any information that may be valuable to stopping the Clone Wars. When Padme overheard the Kaminoan senator Halle Burtoni arguing with this random Rodian, Kreet, she decided to follow Kreet.
"Sorry Captain Typho. She might have finished business or left for a different place before you get here, and I cannot allow that." Padme pushed open the door. "Come to my location as soon as you can, but don't do anything unless I tell you to."
"Understood, Senator," Captain Typho answered crisply. "See you soon." Padme let her arm fall and pushed her way into the bar.
She didn't like to think of herself as high class, but Padme felt it whenever she entered a cheap bar. The humid atmosphere of sweating bodies close together, the smokey-sweet cloud of death-sticks, and the pervasive smell of alcohol and vomit; there was a pressure in the air, like clouds gathering.
Padme took a breath to relax herself, but ended up coughing instead. Those immediately around her hastened away, and she moved to the side to let others pass without having to crash through her.
It was hard for Padme to get a good clean breath in that didn't tickle her throat, but once she stopped hacking she looked around with watery eyes. She caught a glimpse of Kreet's green face peering back through the crowd. She ducked her head. When Padme dared look up again Kreet was disappearing into one of the hallways, so Padme moved to follow Kreet. Yet Padme wasn't sure how much farther she could follow Kreet discreetly.
Most of the patrons were stationary, happily buzzed, but she had to scoot around a couple twining Twi-leks. As she did she bumped into one of the scattered hooded figures. "Sorry," slipped from her mouth, but the person didn't react.
Once out of the main room she coughed more as she looked around. There were a few doorways, and through one she heard murmuring.
Palms sweaty, Padme glanced back where she came from, but no one approached the hallway. One last harrumph to clear her throat and hopefully forestall any more coughing, then she neared the doorway and sank down to the base of the wall near it, feigning a drunken stupor.
"I'm tellin' ya, she doesn' wan' it gettin' out." Kreet's voice was low but excited. "Once she pays up-"
"So she has agreed to pay?" a lower voice interrupted.
"Well, no' as such. Bu' she sure wasn' happy tha' I knew, it's true! She'll pay us a nice sum to keep her goo' name." Padme saw the shadows from the door shift. Maybe Kreet was backing away.
"Then maybe it's time I spoke to her myself."
"Aah, you don' nee' to do tha'," Kreet brushed it off. "She'll come aroun'."
"I'm sure she will. Thank you for your help," the low voice growled before a blaster shot sounded from the room. Padme startled, and jumped up. From within the door she caught the sound of multiple people moving, and one shadow approaching the doorway. She bumbled over her cloak for a moment, then speed-walked toward the main bar.
"Hey!"
She ducked through the door and raced for the outside door. A blaster bolt sizzled through the air behind her, melting a cup in someone's hands. An explosion of sound and panic surrounded her, and she struggled to push through the exiting crowd surging though doors and under tables. Once she got through the door she pushed away from the crowd into a less crowded alley. She activated her comlink. "Are you here?"
"Almost!"
"Follow my location, don't stop at the bar!" she panted.
"Copy that." Captain Typho didn't say anything else, and she focused on weaving through the thrashing crowd.
"There!" echoed from behind her.
Padme had meant to go to the main street, but soon realized that in her effort to avoid getting trampled she had gone the wrong way and isolated herself. Not that crowds ever seemed to stop killers here. Another blaster shot sounded, and she lurched into a different alley, slipping out her blaster. This alley had piles of garbage with a tiny path in the middle, so she tried running the gauntlet, but between the skinny path and slick garbage she ended up careening forward into a stinking mass.
"I got 'em!" The voice is right at the end of her alley. Padme pushed off the muck and snatched up her blaster. As she flailed over the pile she heard another blaster bolt.
She rolled over the other side, unscathed. She listened as the sounds of steps and clattering garbage halted. "Hey!" resounded again, but this time scared. "This is none of your-"
A blast and a thump caused junk to clatter. Padme peeked over to see a lone hooded figure rimmed in light, blaster drawn. For a moment her heart soared, wondering if Obi-Wan or Ahsoka had somehow gotten into this mess, but a second later she saw that the figure was not a Jedi, just a citizen in a cloak. It looked down at its handiwork, until another of her pursuers ran into the alley. "Hey!" she yelled as she drew up her weapon and fired past the hooded being. Her second pursuer fell to the ground.
The hooded figure turned to her and Padme's breath caught, unsure what would happen next.
They stared at each other, her eyes strained to see any feature against the bright light. The figure took a step forward and she aimed. "Do not come closer!" she commanded, voice set and finger ready. The person hesitated a moment longer, then replaced their blaster under their cloak and started to retreat. Surprised, she dropped her arms. "Hey!" The figure halted, and Padme considered what to say. Was this person a do-gooder, or involved with Kreet? Looking at the dead bodies, she decided gratitude before questions "Thank you." The figure saluted lazily with their right hand. She holstered her gun, wondering what to ask first, but something spooked her specter, who then loped out of the alley to the left.
Another figure dashed from the right, glancing after the hooded one, before hastening towards her. "Senator, are you alright?"
Padme sighed, suddenly exhausted. It was Captain Typho. "I'm fine, let's go."
"Yes ma'am." He prowled in front of her, gun at the ready as he directed her to the airspeeder. She hopped in, still clutching her gun. Captain Typho followed a moment later, taking off while she scanned the surroundings ready to shoot.
No one spared them a glance though, and they pulled away. "Did you find anything?" the captain yelled over the wind.
Padme shook her head, "No," and relaxed into the seat. Beneath her fingers she could feel the frayed seam, and she concentrated on that while she got her breathing under control. She thought back over the little bits of the conversation, wondering if she did find anything. She didn't like that Burtoni was being blackmailed, but was it about the clones or a personal issue? She could hardly ask Burtoni, Burtoni was contentious over everything, but this warranted more investigation.
"Who was that?" the captain called over the wind, piloting outside of the usual lanes.
"What?" She righted herself and tried to pay more attention.
"In the alley with you."
Padme thought about the moment the person appeared, coming to aid her. Another peculiar thing to investigate. They needed all the allies they could get. "I don't know. Yet."