Chapter 2
Uscru District, Coruscant
19 BBY
The Iktotchi fortune teller regarded her latest client skeptically as she chewed on the tail of a baby conduit fish. She had started her lunch when it seemed her client would be a no show, but here she was. Likely human. It was difficult to tell because of the heavy cloak covering her form and face down to her nose. The fortune teller laid down her fish, and smoothed her tentacles. "You are late. The wisdom of the spheres waits for no one."
This was, of course, utter nonsense. It was the kind of nonsense Coruscantis, and particularly human Coruscantis, expected from someone with precognition. Her species did have the ability, but the further they were from their home world, the more diminished it became. On Coruscant she was only able to see a few minutes into the future, but no one was willing to pay for that. A girl had to ham it up a bit to make an honest living.
"Yes, but I am paying the spheres very well," Her customer replied in a pleasantly low, Core-accented voice. She slid a bag toward the fortune teller that spilled a republican credit or two.
The fortune teller made the facial expression that denoted extreme satisfaction among the Iktotchi. When a girl couldn't make an honest living with fortune telling, certain other activities made up the difference very well. "It seems the spheres are receptive to your questions. I will lay the cards and you can pick the one that means something to you."
She laid the cards slowly on the satin draped table between them. There was a queen, a knight standing in front of a stone tower, a woman and a man holding a crescent moon between them, and a rider in black riding an equis.
Without hesitation, the customer selected a card and pushed it toward the fortune teller. "I find myself very interested in this image lately."
The fortune teller stared at the card, twirling one of her tentacles around a finger. It was the equis rider. She was silent as she performed some complex calculations in her head. While she weighed different probabilities, the customer laid her forearm on the table and slid back her sleeve. Tattooed on her skin was a shimmering design of complex lines and whorls.
The fortune teller bent forward and examined the tattoo carefully. Then she rose ponderously to her feet. "I will consult an even higher spiritual power for the knowledge you seek."
The customer rolled her eyes, wishing she would abandon the facade and just ask the Viggo permission to tell her something already. Seeing her expression, the fortune teller quickened her steps to a heavy curtain covering the door where the local Viggo waited to take his cut of each transaction.
She was gone a minute and half too long, so the cloaked woman was ready when she returned with two very large Falleen and their equally large blasters. She had already gathered her legs beneath her and identified an exit. The fortune teller shouted, her tentacles writhing, finally displaying her actual precognitive abilities. But as usual, they proved useless to her and everyone around her. Sabe had just enough time to curse and dive through an open window behind her, landing ten feet below with an only slightly undignified grunt.
She heard the Falleen doorman roar and sprinted. Blaster fire rang out, reducing crates and rubbish to her left to a smoking pile of ash. Cursing and ducking and running at once, she thanked the Force that she had thought to wear loose clothing and sensible footwear.
She could see the collective commerce district ahead, the neon lights and outlandishly dressed clientele of Uscru giving way to industrial complexes and tenant housing. It wasn't far, and the impediments and witnesses were even thicker there. She tried to put as many obstacles as possible between herself and her pursuers as she ran into an open air market. She remembered a few skills from her younger days in Coruscant, overturning a fruit cart in front of the nearest Falleen. At least they were slow. The fruit cart confounded them just enough to give her time to leap over a retaining wall, landing five feet down. But when she rounded the next corner, three more Falleen roared in triumph. She had to do another leap off a half wall into who-knows-what.
She was now down to level five. If she went any lower into the Underworld, she would start to collect faster, more clever pursuers. Fortunately the area seemed familiar. She picked a likely looking alleyway bedecked with ropy strands of glowing fungus. Her footsteps echoed wetly off the slimy walls. Tentacles reached from a grate, and she jumped them. Behind her she heard voices and other splashing footsteps. She paused. She could keep to the shadows and hope for the best, but there was no way to walk soundlessly through the muck. Finally, she saw the doorway she wanted and slid into it silently, flowing into the pitch blackness just in time to hear the reptilian voices of the Falleen as they thundered past. She exhaled.
Behind her she heard the unmistakable whine of a blaster powering up. She put up her hands.
"Move an inch and there will be empty space where your head used to be," A booming voice said.
Sabe relaxed. "It's me, Dex."
She lowered her hood and turned around.
Dex lowered his blaster and smiled toothily, in a way that would have been terrifying if Obi-Wan had not prepared her for it. He'd also warned her not to be fooled by his jovial manner and folksy syntax that both hid profound cunning. "Well, now! The senator's handmaiden in my humble basement! And how did your meeting with our mutual friend go?"
He eyed her disheveled hair and clothing, handing her a towel from nearby with one of his six hands. "Not too well, I gather."
"Acute as always," Sabe grumbled, using the towel to brush dirt and slime together from her face and cloak. Dorme was going to raise a stink again. "There were some Black Sun guys after me. Are they gone?"
"If by some you mean the Viggo's entire Uscru squadron...I might have pointed them in the direction of the financial sector," Dex winked.
"That will liven up the traders a bit," Sabe chuckled. "If you would indulge me a bit longer, it might be prudent for me to turn back into a proper handmaiden."
Dex grinned. "As you say. Did you find what you was after?"
"No," Sabe said. "But it wasn't your fault. She was definitely in contact with Black Sun, and whoever is using the symbol. Unfortunately my other sources failed to supply me with the most up-to-date tattoo ident."
"Hmph. They don't usually change them so fast. There must be some moving and shaking happening in the Underworld."
"I'm beginning to think this is a total dead end," Sabe said, pulling an object from her cloak.
The metal cylinder in her hand was an aerosol container. Once it had contained a Separatist-linked chemical weapon that had killed thousands of Gungans on Naboo's moon, Ohma D'un. Now it was empty and unmarked aside from the distinctive engraving of the equis on the bottom. "Everyone seems to recognize the symbol, but no one wants to talk about it."
"Let me see that," Dex said. He took the cylinder and turned it over carefully in two of his huge, thick-fingered hands. "Well, I dunno about the symbol, but this technology rings a bell."
"It's Nubian," Sabe said, surprised.
"Used by Naboo, sure. Manufactured there too, judging by the alloy. But designed and patented right here in our fair capital."
Sabe's mouth went dry. "By who?"
"The Incom corporation. Seti Ashgad's work, I'd say. He's been known to rub shoulders with a Separatist or two in his time. Some of his designs found their way into Black Sun hands, too," Dex said, his black eyes glittering.
"Dex, I could kiss you," Sabe breathed.
Dex guffawed. "Don't do that! Wouldn't want to risk stepping on my favorite Jedi's toes! If only he could see you now; red face, red hair, plumb red all over!"
From the burning in her cheeks, Sabe suspected that he was right. But she couldn't bring herself to be mad at him even as his laughter got louder at her expression.
Dex picked up her fallen bag and handed it to her, still chuckling. "Now, you better get along home. Lots of chatter over the Holonet. Something big going down. There's talk they might order everybody to shelters later."
Sabe took the cylinder back and put it in her bag. "I'll do that. And Dex, truly...thank you."
She was halfway home when the pre-alerts sounded. All around her, Coruscanti citizens of every shape and color filed obediently into buildings marked as shelters. She noticed the heavy presence of the clone troopers on the streets, but many were still holding their helmets in their hands. Surely that meant she had enough time to get back to 500 Republica. She tried not to let their eerie shared faces get to her, but still couldn't shake the coldness they gave her. They were sentient beings after all, and bearing the brunt of the war to keep the Republic intact. Several of them called out to her. "To the shelters, Miss! Bombardment is expected!"
She shook her head and kept going. This wasn't her first invasion, if that was what it turned out to be. Funny, she thought. I spent the first few minutes of the last one looking for Padme as well.
That had been a very long time ago. They thought they had known then what it was like to have a lot at stake. Now it was hard enough to steady her own shaking hands, much less Padme's. Most times it was better for her sanity to not know much about the details of the war.
The lobby of 500 Republica was wartime quiet. Normally the curtained nooks and settees were packed with politicians, lobbyists and journalists, all trading favors and information in equal measure. Today everyone else seemed to have already headed down to the shelter beneath the massive building. She wondered at first if Padme had joined them. But as soon as she entered Padme's apartment, she knew Padme was there. She stopped just inside the door as she was hit by another kind of knowing. Something had changed. The wheel had turned.
Slowly she put one foot in front of the other, the thick carpeting absorbing all sound. She stood rigid, listening, stretching forth all of her senses. What was it? The gauzy curtains in front of the balcony swelled inward from a light breeze. Even the air traffic had gone quiet due to lockdown. Padme always waited until full dark to turn on the illuminators, so the salon was all shadowed silence. The air itself had a chemical tang that today was somehow sharper than usual. But nothing betrayed itself to her physical senses as amiss...until she spotted a thin file of flimsy fallen to the floor, a few pieces scattered.
She smiled and gathered them. That must be it; the day's experiences coupled with this one article out of place. Then she stiffened again as she heard the lightest sound, like a tiny sob. Moving quickly to the door of the 'fresher, she opened it to find Padme inside vomiting quietly into a towel.
"Padme!" She exclaimed, dropping to her knees to support the Senator's trembling shoulders. "Let me get you something."
"Don't trouble yourself," Padme protested weakly with colorless lips.
Sabe hurried to the kitchen and back with a glass of water. "Don't be silly Padme. I'm still your handmaiden if a bit...part-time. How long have you been ill? Have you called for a medical droid?"
She trailed off when she touched Padme's shoulder. "Oh...Padme..."
Padme avoided her eyes, but took the glass. She took a long swallow from it.
"How far long are you?" Sabe asked quietly.
"This is the first time I've had any sign."
Sabe sat down beside her. She passed her a clean towel. "Does Anakin know?"
"I don't know how he would," Padme said, pressing the towel to her face.
"What are you going to do?" Sabe asked gently.
"Buy larger robes, I expect."
"Padme, I'm serious."
"Let me breathe, Sabe," Padme snapped, trying to get to her feet and almost falling.
Sabe put her arm around her and eased her into a nearby chair.
Padme patted her arm gratefully. "I could have passed this off in my mind as a touch of flu if you hadn't barged in with your keen senses and blunt manner."
"I'm sorry. Perhaps I am wrong." Sabe dampened a cloth and gently bathed Padme's face and neck with it.
"We both know you are seldom wrong," Padme said.
Sabe smiled. "I'm going to ask you to say that again, loudly, and with more witnesses at a better time."
Padme made a face at her.
Sabe patted her cheek awkwardly. "It will be alright."
"Say that again," Padme whispered.
Sabe looked into Padme's strained face and then put her arms around her shoulders, squeezing tightly. "It will be."
Padme hugged her back with surprising force for so slight a woman, and Sabe realized how scared she really was. It felt for a minute like she was clinging to Sabe like a drowning person to a life preserver. Did the situation really warrant her fear? She was a married woman of means, after all. A baby wouldn't fit easily into her life, but did they ever? Her obstacles were really only custom and people's judgment. But Sabe's reassurances died in her throat as the final alarms sounded outside.
"Dex said that would happen," Sabe said, leading her through the salon and into the hallway. "It sounds like it's not a drill. Can you walk to the lifts?"
Padme nodded, but she was still pale with dark circles beneath her eyes. Sabe stayed close to her as she gathered their cloaks and led her to the lift. On the bottom level the doors opened to the now full lobby, wall to wall with Coruscanti elite, all demonstrating their species' particular style of trepidation.
Dorme ran up to them, half forgotten market baskets over her arm. "Senator, we have to hurry! I thought you were already in the shelter!"
"What's happening?" Amidala asked her.
"At the markets they are saying a ship is coming in. Fast. Straight toward the government district."
"A suicide attack?"
"No one knows. But there is a rumor circulating that the Supreme Chancellor is missing and the ship coming in is Count Dooku's flagship."
Amidala's eyes met Sabe's, and Sabe realized that she already knew some of this. That meant what Sabe feared must be true. This was the endgame. Where that was, he would be. Both of them would be there.
So numerous and single minded was the crowd that they were swept along to the freight elevators almost without movement or effort. The freight elevators took them the last level down to the cavernous space of the building's shelter. The press of people eased somewhat as everyone spread to fill the shelter all the way to its meters-thick rock walls. Holovid projectors rose from the floor and glowing blue media reports appeared above them. Crowds gathered around the projectors in tight rings. Sabe was able to find Padme a seat within reasonable distance of one of them. Padme looked wan, and Sabe knew she would want no repeat of her earlier episode before an audience. She located a circulating staff member with containers of water and took one, pressing it into Padme's grateful hands.
The holonews switched from a view of reporters on the streets of Coruscant to an overhead view of a ship in rapid descent. The crowds gasped as they all recognized the distinctive silhouette of Count Dooku's flagship in flight.
More or less in flight. All the pieces of it were hurtling in the same direction at least. The smaller pieces were engulfed in flame and the bulk of the ship trailed huge clouds of smoke. It was impossible to tell from the news cruiser's image how far it was above ground or the speed. But it was clearly a ship no one would want to be on. The holonews reporter's voice was just audible over the noise of explosions and the shriek of the ship's descent.
"Unclear what has led to this ship's imminent crash, but reports are coming in of a large number of explosions amongst a blockade of separatist ships immediately above atmosphere. Meanwhile, sources are still unable to report on the whereabouts or status of Chancellor Palpatine."
"There isn't any reason to think they are even in this sector," Sabe whispered.
Padme looked at her sidelong and Sabe closed her eyes and swallowed. She knew better. Obi-Wan and Anakin were always at the epicenters. They were renowned for it. Right now there was no place in the galaxy more likely for them to be than on that ship.
Padme's hand found its way into Sabe's. The ship struck a watchtower with a glancing blow that nonetheless caused it to topple. The image was still unclear, but they could tell that the ship's plating was white hot from atmospheric entry. They clutched each other's cold hands, clinging together as the ship crash-landed in the heart of Coruscant.
