*****
Anyway, I flattened myself against the wall and peeked around it slowly. I should be able to see all the way down that endless hall to the Throne Room doors from here.
Instead, I saw Padmé coming toward me at a flat-out run with some security officers with her. And six battle-droids behind her. I couldn't figure out why she was running rather than fighting, but I was already moving just the same. Raden had peeked out over my shoulder and now he shouted at the others to get ready to fire, and Padmé's group caught up to us. I reached my left hand out to Padmé, and she grabbed it, using it to swing herself around the corner and behind me. She was already raising her blaster, and I was already firing away with the blaster I held in my right hand. The officers with her split up, two of them ducking in behind her, the others taking refuge behind a pillar across the hall.
With the number of blasters trained on them, it's no surprise the droids didn't last very long.
It wasn't until the last one fell to the marble floor and I turned to welcome my Queen home that I realized that it was Sabé, and not Padmé, kneeling beside me.
"Sabé!" I said intelligently.
"Thanks for the help, Yané." She was breathing hard, but she managed to spit out the story. Padmé needed her to act as a decoy to lure some of the droids away from the Throne Room so she could capture the slime Viceroy.
"Now I just hope it worked," she said, casting a glance back down the hall.
"There's only one way to find out," I said."Come on!"
Well, they don't call me the reckless one for nothing.
I took off down the hall, with the others just a step behind me and we made it halfway to the Throne Room when a group of battle-droids emerged from a hallway behind us. We engaged them and were making headway when I heard more droids coming up the hall behind us, and also from the end of the hall opposite the Throne Room doors. Within seconds we were surrounded.
There is a huge difference between being the ambusher, as we had been during most of the battle, and being the ambushed. And the difference is that the ambusher usually wins, and the ambusher usually loses, as I thought we had at that point. Not that I was ready to give in, of course.
My eyes met Saché's and then Sabé's and I gave the tiny hand-signal Panaka had taught us to use. Saché gave me the tiniest of nods, and I knew that she was with me, and that we would once again work together and do the best we could. Sabé looked straight back at me, looking so much like Padmé that I almost did another double-take. I felt a flood of confidence wash through me–not confidence that we could win, but confidence that this was *right* somehow. That Saché and Sabé and I were finally doing what we had been trained to do and that we were using that training in the best way possible.
Of course, it's really doubtful if my idea would have worked–even with the three of us rushing the droids in hand-to-hand-style combat, and even if the others had caught on and helped us, we were sadly outnumbered. The droids had materialized so suddenly, as if coming out of the walls, that we had almost no chance of succeeding. But still, I tensed my muscles in preparation for a leap backwards and a swipe at the blaster arm of the nearest droid when a miracle occurred. Or at least it seemed like a miracle at the time. The droids slumped over, fell clattering to the floor, and just lay there.
It was like they had all suddenly died. Of course they couldn't really die, since they're droids, but you know what I mean--that's what it looked like.
And the point is, that was the moment that the battle was won––and by a ten-year-old boy from Tatooine who had never flown an actual fighter in his life before that day. Of course, at the time I didn't know that, so I pretty much thought the sudden deactivation of the droids was a miracle, albeit one that stole my fun. And, of course, probably saved my life, which is why I shouldn't complain like that.
"It worked," Sabé breathed. "They got the control ship down. We've won." She sounded incredulous and I couldn't blame her. Especially because at the time I had no real idea what she was talking about.
But my blood was still rushing, and we still didn't know what was happening in the Throne Room.
*****
TBC...
Anyway, I flattened myself against the wall and peeked around it slowly. I should be able to see all the way down that endless hall to the Throne Room doors from here.
Instead, I saw Padmé coming toward me at a flat-out run with some security officers with her. And six battle-droids behind her. I couldn't figure out why she was running rather than fighting, but I was already moving just the same. Raden had peeked out over my shoulder and now he shouted at the others to get ready to fire, and Padmé's group caught up to us. I reached my left hand out to Padmé, and she grabbed it, using it to swing herself around the corner and behind me. She was already raising her blaster, and I was already firing away with the blaster I held in my right hand. The officers with her split up, two of them ducking in behind her, the others taking refuge behind a pillar across the hall.
With the number of blasters trained on them, it's no surprise the droids didn't last very long.
It wasn't until the last one fell to the marble floor and I turned to welcome my Queen home that I realized that it was Sabé, and not Padmé, kneeling beside me.
"Sabé!" I said intelligently.
"Thanks for the help, Yané." She was breathing hard, but she managed to spit out the story. Padmé needed her to act as a decoy to lure some of the droids away from the Throne Room so she could capture the slime Viceroy.
"Now I just hope it worked," she said, casting a glance back down the hall.
"There's only one way to find out," I said."Come on!"
Well, they don't call me the reckless one for nothing.
I took off down the hall, with the others just a step behind me and we made it halfway to the Throne Room when a group of battle-droids emerged from a hallway behind us. We engaged them and were making headway when I heard more droids coming up the hall behind us, and also from the end of the hall opposite the Throne Room doors. Within seconds we were surrounded.
There is a huge difference between being the ambusher, as we had been during most of the battle, and being the ambushed. And the difference is that the ambusher usually wins, and the ambusher usually loses, as I thought we had at that point. Not that I was ready to give in, of course.
My eyes met Saché's and then Sabé's and I gave the tiny hand-signal Panaka had taught us to use. Saché gave me the tiniest of nods, and I knew that she was with me, and that we would once again work together and do the best we could. Sabé looked straight back at me, looking so much like Padmé that I almost did another double-take. I felt a flood of confidence wash through me–not confidence that we could win, but confidence that this was *right* somehow. That Saché and Sabé and I were finally doing what we had been trained to do and that we were using that training in the best way possible.
Of course, it's really doubtful if my idea would have worked–even with the three of us rushing the droids in hand-to-hand-style combat, and even if the others had caught on and helped us, we were sadly outnumbered. The droids had materialized so suddenly, as if coming out of the walls, that we had almost no chance of succeeding. But still, I tensed my muscles in preparation for a leap backwards and a swipe at the blaster arm of the nearest droid when a miracle occurred. Or at least it seemed like a miracle at the time. The droids slumped over, fell clattering to the floor, and just lay there.
It was like they had all suddenly died. Of course they couldn't really die, since they're droids, but you know what I mean--that's what it looked like.
And the point is, that was the moment that the battle was won––and by a ten-year-old boy from Tatooine who had never flown an actual fighter in his life before that day. Of course, at the time I didn't know that, so I pretty much thought the sudden deactivation of the droids was a miracle, albeit one that stole my fun. And, of course, probably saved my life, which is why I shouldn't complain like that.
"It worked," Sabé breathed. "They got the control ship down. We've won." She sounded incredulous and I couldn't blame her. Especially because at the time I had no real idea what she was talking about.
But my blood was still rushing, and we still didn't know what was happening in the Throne Room.
*****
TBC...