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~written in datapad format~
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Well, I'm still alive. And I'm still dressed as the Queen, although our Great Deception has been revealed. Here's what happened. We landed on Naboo and Jar-Jar headed for the Gungans' underwater city. It was deserted, but Jar-Jar took us to the Gungans' sacred place in the swamps. There, we were surrounded by armed Gungan's on kaadu and brought before Boss Nass.
By that time, I had managed to settle my nerves a bit. Eirtaé, Rabé, and Padmé helped by encouraging me, but in the end, I just had to reach down deep and find the center of my strength and convince myself that I can do this. Which I did. I was still nervous, but I felt this strange calm and confidence at the same time. "I can do this, I can do this, I can do this," I kept repeating in my head.
Of course, in the end, I couldn't do it, but that wasn't really my fault. I did exactly what Padmé and Eirtaé had coached me to do, but that strategy wouldn't work. So Padmé stepped forward and revealed herself to be the Queen. I half wonder if she didn't have that planned all along. What better way to convince someone to trust you than to trust them with your most important secret. In any case, she convinced Boss Nass to trust us and ally with us, and did it brilliantly. Even now, Eirtaé is practically in tears talking about how we saw history accomplished. I'm glad it's over. I wish that I could have done it, that Padmé wouldn't have had to step forward, and that I could have been the one to make history, but oh, well.
In a few moments, we'll be heading for Theed. While the Gungans fight the droid armies out on the plains, the rest of us (Padmé, Rabé, Eirtaé, and I; the Jedi and Anakain; Panaka, Olié, and some of Naboo's security forces that they managed to round up) will sneak into the city and the Palace and try to capture the Viceroy. We also need to release some pilots to try to knock out the droid control ship.
I'm nervous–this will be my first real battle and I'll be fighting it dressed as the Queen–but also excited. I'm an excellent shot and I find this less daunting than all those political games I've been trying to play. Oops, got to go!
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