Chapter 7: Sabé
Sabé Mabarrie-Hirota kept her face emotionless as she kissed her husband Kavin lightly on the cheek. "We'll be done as soon as we can, but don't worry if we're gone awhile."
"I won't," he replied reassuringly. "But it's okay to let Gars and me sit in on some of these meetings. We can take care of ourselves after all and we're worried about you two."
"Relax, it's just intelligence," the woman replied, cutting him off by covering his mouth with a hand. "I knew what I was signing up for when I took this job."
Smiling at Kavin, she removed her hand from his mouth and walked briskly towards the hidden conference room, pausing briefly to punch in the access code. As the doors hissed open, the two other brunettes inside turned towards her, faces expressionless as her own.
Dormé nodded in greeting, but the other remained motionless. Inwardly, Sabé frowned. Yané had never been the most outgoing person, but this quiet was just too… quiet for her. If anything, the younger woman looked a bit homesick but that wasn't possible, they were on Naboo… Unless that meant…
Shoving her thoughts aside for the moment, she slid into her seat and picked up her papers. "Well, let's get this started then, shall we. Dormé, did you want to start?"
The older woman nodded and turned slightly to face Yané since she was the one this was mostly directed to as Sabé had been told much of it two nights ago. "I don't know if you noticed out where you are, but the searches for Milady have increased in both size and frequency along with becoming more urgent recently. Bail Organa's doing everything he can to direct searches away from the current residence, but I feel that one day, whether in the near future or in several years, a search group will find Milady and when they do, I will be unable to protect her on my own."
"Wait," Yané interrupted, "Who's with Padmé now then?"
"Rabé is until Dormé returns from here," Sabé answered.
Nodding in understanding, Yané mouthed a 'go on' to Dormé before returning to leaning back and away from the table.
"I've already discussed this with Milady and she wasn't too happy, seeing how I almost forced her decision on some of this. She did, however, make it clear that she does not want Captain Panaka involved, but I think alerting him to the danger would be a smart move. Now, I know that all the handmaidens, except for me, actually have lives, and I have to have to ask this, but Milady needs protection from her handmaidens, people she already knows and can trust.
Reaching the end of her mini speech, Dormé fell back into her habitual silence. Sabé shifted her gaze slightly to watch Yané's face, but she might've well have looked at a stone wall for all the good it did her.
"How many of us can go to protect her?" Yané asked calmly.
"Dormé, Rabé, and myself for certain," Sabé replied as she mentally ran through the list of remaining handmaidens.
"No, you're needed here on Naboo," the quiet woman interjected. "I'll go instead."
Sabé did a double take as she heard her friend say that. "Yané, are you sure? I know that on Tatooine-"
"What's happening or what's happened on Tatooine is not important right now," Yané interrupted again. "Ben can watch over Luke for a little while."
"Ben?" Dormé asked curiously. "Who's Ben?"
"Obi-Wan Kenobi, I'm sure you remember him, he was Anakin's old Jedi Master," Sabé told the other.
"Ah, yes, I remember now, I met him back on Coruscaunt a few years ago," Dormé recalled. "Is there no way for us to get in better communication with Eirtaé and Saché?"
"Even if we could, they'd be unable to leave their posts, and I need them there if we are to continue to gain new intelligence," Sabé countered swiftly.
"Our numbers are most definitely declining," Dormé said dryly. "There's no longer a score of us here to protect Milady."
"Just half a dozen," Yané finished a bit glumly.
"Oh come on, girls, let's not lose hope quite yet," Sabé scolded them gently. "Now, any ideas on any other forms of security for Padmé that we can trust?"
There was silence around the table for a few moments before Yané turned her blue eyes upwards from their study of the wood grain to look Sabé straight in the eye. "I have an idea, but I do not know if it would work or not."
"What is it?"
"Bring Padmé to Tatooine where Obi-Wan can be there to guard her as well."
"No!" Dormé objected strenuously. "No, it's too risky, that's the first place they'll look for her besides Naboo."
"Not really," Yané answered. "Not many people know that Anakin came from Tatooine, except for the Jedi that is. If we can hide her there safely and successfully, they'll never find her!"
"But isn't Luke already there?" Dormé protested. "I don't think it's wise to have here on the same planet as her son."
"She's been living on the same planet as Leia for the past 3 years," Yané argued, "I don't really see the difference."
"He knows about Luke, not Leia, and we're trying to keep it that way, not to mention we're trying to keep them separated so that Luke is not found by either Vader or the Emperor!"
"Enough!" Sabé finally interjected. Mouths open, ready to argue their sides further, both Dormé and Yané shut them and sat back in their chairs, deferring to the senior handmaiden. "The idea has merits and faults, we'll consider it. But I think what might be best for now is for us handmaidens to protect Padmé, just as we always have, and not put it in the hands of another, save Captain Panaka."
Both women nodded in understanding and Sabé nodded in satisfaction. "Good, now then-"
She was cut off by the sound of a comcenter beaping, signaling an arriving message. "Excuse me for a moment," she said, gracefully hurrying over. It was a priority signal, on a line that only the handmaidens used. This might mean trouble.
Keying the comunit to play, she had to wait only a few moments before the air resolved into the image of one she had not seen in many a year and apparently, the conditions upon which the call was being made were not good ones.
"Force! What's wrong?" she exclaimed. Mere milliseconds later, the comunit went off again. Dormé rose quickly to answer the second call and another worried face filled with the display. Two of her sisters were very distressed and she was about to find out why.