Author's note: I just finished chapter two last night, and I'm already starting chapter three! Oh my gosh, I'm amazing myself here. LOL. Actually, I'm just doing the beginning now, I have homework! But at least I've written the author's note! :-D Thank you so much to all reviewers! I love this story! Oh, yeah, this chapter goes back more to Captain Typho again. I'm alternating, as you can see, so you get to know the personalities and perspectives of both of them. Fun, fun, FUN! LOL. So please read and review, lovely Star Wars fans! P.S. God loves you!
Disclaimer: Same as before.
Chapter Three
The low drone of the alarm sliced through the darkness filling Typho's head. He moaned and pressed his face into the pillow, trying to escape the faded gray light that was seeping into his room. The alarm buzzed on, and he sat up and shoved his blankets off. "All right, all right!" he muttered, setting his feet on the floor. He took the few steps from the bed to the desk and clicked the switch on the clock off.
He fumbled around for his eye patch, which had somehow become buried under a pile of holodisks. He walked into the fresher and looked in the mirror, wincing a little at the sight of his own empty eye socket. It had been eight years, and he was still a little surprised sometimes when he looked in the mirror, especially without the patch.
He turned the water on and splashed some on his face, then rubbed it dry on a towel. He snapped the eye patch in place. There. That was better.
He stuck his hand under the water again and splashed some across his hair, running his hands over the tight curls and restoring their close-cropped shape.
His neck felt a little stiff. He leaned his head to the left, then the right. The bones made a little cracking noise, which always made him feel like an arthritic old man. He stretched his arms over his head, clasped his hands and extended them in front of him, then swung them back and laced his fingers together again. He surveyed his torso in the mirror. Not too bad, he decided. But he grabbed his shirt off its hook and pulled it on quickly anyway.
A few minutes later, he was dressed and seated at his desk, reviewing his schedule for the day. Drills in the morning, then he had to meet with the handmaidens and evaluate their defense skills.
He let out an unconscious sigh as his mind skimmed over the Senator's new attendants. They seemed capable, of course. They wouldn't be here if they weren't. But very young, and not exactly intimidating; of course, the very advantage of the handmaidens, besides their ability to act as decoys, was that they seemed demure and ladylike until their bodyguard training was needed.
His main concern was their maturity, he supposed. They had been reserved at first, but he'd heard them giggling from two corridors away when they were supposedly "asking directions" from that guard.
He clicked the datapad off and stood up. Oh, well, he thought. No one starts out as the best. He certainly hadn't; he'd had many scoldings from his uncle when he first began training as a guard, and still received one every now and then.
As he walked toward the door of his room, he had a sudden wave of déjà vu. He was puzzled for a moment, then chuckled to himself as he realized that he had good reason for the sensation- lately every day felt the same. You'd think a job as tense as his would be exciting… but he still wished for something more.
The question was, of course, what the missing thing was. But before he could consider the matter, he realized that he might be late for inspections, and a new habit of tardiness was not the kind of change he was looking for.
~*~*~
Later that afternoon, the handmaidens met with Typho for their first official training session. "I guess we're going to be doing combat stuff, right?" Cordé whispered nervously into Dormé's ear. When the other girl nodded, Cordé sighed dramatically. "I'm so bad at combat! I hate that stuff."
"I don't think I've ever really done anything like that," Dormé whispered back. She was a little nervous, too, but then, long days of work in her village had made her pretty strong.
"This should be horrible for me, I'm a weakling," Zaré chuckled.
Versé, as usual, said nothing.
When they assembled in the training room, Typho babbled on about their duties for a while; Cordé studied her nails while he talked, Zaré hummed a concerto under her breath, and Dormé pulled loose threads off the new pants she was wearing. Versé looked at the Captain respectfully, but her gaze was so vacant that Dormé was almost sure the quiet girl was just daydreaming.
They were then ordered to practice with some punching bags. All the girls stared at the gym equipment like it was a new alien race, until Versé stepped forward and began pummeling the bag in a most exemplary fashion.
"Good! Very good. What are you staring at, ladies?" Typho boomed, and the other three handmaidens jumped and began hastily beating the bags with more enthusiasm than skill.
Typho sighed and rubbed his forehead like he might be getting a headache.
After a few more minutes of this, he ordered the girls to pair up and spar with each other.
"Hit each other? Isn't that kind of against team spirit?" Cordé pondered.
"Hit lightly! It's to practice technique."
So Dormé found herself standing awkwardly across from Zaré, wondering which one of them should hit first.
"Umm…ha!" Zaré cried, breaking the stalemate with a wild punch in the vague direction of Dormé's shoulder. Dormé shrieked and jumped back, and countered with a clumsy slap on Zaré's arm.
"Dormé! You might have to fight a 300-pound man! Slapping won't work! Increase your power!" Typho barked, and Dormé gulped and cringed.
The officer's face softened at the girl's visible reaction. "Don't worry, this is what training is for." Dormé nervously punched the air just in front of Zaré's jaw, and Typho nodded sagely and walked off to watch Versé and Cordé sparring. The quieter girl was surprisingly skilled; if she hadn't been restraining herself for the purpose of the exercise, Cordé would have probably been sprawled on the floor by then.
The last exercise they did was target practice. They shot phasers set on stun toward cardboard cutouts of humanoid forms. Zaré was excellent at this, and the others were passable, so Typho wasn't forced to go into full command mode again.
They finished the session with another boring speech from Typho, and then the girls walked back to their room together, taking a convenient "detour" past the cute guard from the night before.
Cordé turned on the charm and flirted shamelessly, and the others watched, admiring their friend's skill as the guard responded enthusiastically. He introduced himself as Kerns, and before the girls left, he pulled Cordé aside and whispered something to her.
"What did he say?" the others squealed as soon as they were around the corner.
"He asked me to meet him tonight," Cordé replied, a satisfied smile on her face.
The others responded with proper congratulations and awe, then a silence fell over the group.
"Are you going to go?" Dormé asked in the sudden calm.
"Yes! Of course!"
"But what if you get in trouble…" Versé murmured.
"There's no rule about going out to meet someone. It's not like I'd be leaving the building!" Cordé answered briskly.
"But still…" Dormé demurred.
"I'm not sure if it's a good idea, Cordé," Zaré said solemnly.
"You all worry too much. Anyway, if anyone gets in trouble, it would be me, so there's no use in all of you thinking about it. Forget I ever told you!"
The other handmaidens stopped protesting, but none of them forgot.
A/N: I finally updated! Yeah! I will have the next chapter up relatively soon, it will be a good one, I promise. Please review!
