Ornate sculptures of ancient warriors adorned the walls of Palpatine's senatorial offices. A single desk a few meters wide positioned in front of a large, glass window overlooking the daily activities of Coruscant. A vacant chair presided over the pristine paristeel desk confined inside the crimson-draped room. A circular inset punched into the floor marked by a rounded staircase leading into a small table. In front of the desk were installed a pair of audience chairs for the Chancellor's guests.
Commodore Panaka removed himself from the Chancellor's offices as Teek chased behind him, the door sealing in front of him.
"Wait! This isn't Senator Amidala's offices!" Teek began to question his task. The urgency of his delivery to Senator Amidala was now undermined. Palpatine had played him all along and now Rité would suffer with him. Two disloyal citizens of the Republic, one of which was tasked to betray his people for the greater glory of the Republic was now held captive in the offices of the one he devoted to serve. He questioned Palpatine's leadership, then was entrusted with a piece of vital information to trick the Senate into believing the Sith. Teek could not fulfill his duties to the Republic if he could not reach Amidala.
His stay on Dagobah taught him something new. Rité carried his child, and his urgency to the Republic could not be fulfilled. If Palpatine truly was a Sith, he had to inform the Jedi. He vowed to betray the Chancellor on Dagobah so that his family would not reside in a galaxy ruled by those who would wish to entangle it in a web of corruption.
"You're very astute, young Teek," a decrepit voice haunted from a dark recess of the Chancellor's offices, "I knew enough not to trust you with that recording, now return it to me."
The raven-robed menace approached into the office whose eyes were encompassed by an equally ebony cowl revealing only the jaw line. Teek recognized him to be Darth Sidious, the Sith Lord in the holorecording. Withdrawing his DC-15 blaster from under his tunics, he aimed at the Sith Lord.
"Your anger swells in you, Teek," Sidious lured, the DC-15 blaster jerked from Teek's hands onto the floor beside the desk. Sidious' right hand regained its original posture clasped in front of him.
Teek's eyes gaped wide, scanning toward Sidious ominous presence, toward Rité who firmly postured in the middle of the room, motionless. Teek lunged in her direction, grasping her hard by her forearm, "Rité, we must leave. Palpatine is a Sith Lord, we need to leave now!"
Rité returned a soft, icy glare with her jade eyes echoing through her fire-locked hair. She gazed at the ruffled tunics imposed by Teek's firm grasp. She smiled her familiar lovely smile toward her lover, only to brandish a silver-tipped blaster barrel onto his forehead from underneath her tunics.
"Rité, what are you doing?" Teek muttered in fear, his arms raised in surrender, staring cross-eyed at the blaster in his face.
Sidious' visage formed a smirking grin as he motioned in front of his desk. Teek responded and shoved Rité's forearm away, knocking the blaster out of her hand. A kick planted into his thigh from her sending him back a few feet.
"Sithspawn!" Teek muttered. Sidious' face scowled in contempt of the word.
Quickly rising into a fighting position, he proceeded to land a punching blow into her face marking her with a purple bruise. She returned with a lunge, knocking the pair into a plush, crimson sofa above the circular indentation of the office. Mounted on top, legs straddling his chest, she proceeded with a pair of quick punches into his face. He returned the favor by throwing her onto the floor as her body spiraled into the indentation.
She rose onto all fours, spitting a drop of blood from her lip. Eyes furious with anger, Rité stared towards her former lover with a dark side fury that seared into his soul. Sidious cackled with a hopeful glee. One of these two will prove victorious. Either candidate will prove their loyalty by killing the one they love, ensuring their loyalty is to the New Order. Sidious reveled in pitting enemies against one another ensuring a survival of the fittest of which he would use and exploit to his advantage and this battle was no exception.
Teek arose from the couch, panting in anticipation of what Rité would do. He rushed toward the DC-15 lying on the floor as Rité grasped for her own blaster on the precipice beside her. Cerulean blaster fire turned Teek's heel into meaty splinters. Grasping his foot, he stumbled onto the floor, writhing with his pain. Rité now had the upper hand.
She strode over toward his body, aching from his wound. She waved a lock of matted, red hair away from her bruised face, returning her left hand to place onto her hip, the blaster extended from her right arm aimed at Teek's forehead.
Crackled static of blaster-torn flesh sizzled through Teek's thoughts. Pulsating and pounding his thoughts, consuming his mind like a fiery wash of pain and heat. The soft lips of Rite's chilled his nerves upon his own cold, purple flesh. The soft echoes of I love you signified the painful loss. Azure light permeated his eyes in a blinding flash of brilliance masking the beauty he saw from Rité's features.
Her laughter, her grace, her beauty rewound into his thoughts awash in a bloody memory. The spunky red-headed little girl that mocked and teased him as a child grew to become a woman of intelligence and beauty. All of that was a faded, distant memory now. Rité's radiance glowed and etched into his thoughts as the cold darkness consumed him closing her out forever.
Rité's blaster barrel continued to release the acrid smoke of burnt energy as Sidious strode over towards her, placing an aging hand upon her bruised right shoulder.
"You have done well, Rité Jaderrie, your loyalty to the New Order has been proven." His icy voice echoed across Rité's mind as she grasped to conclude her actions. Her training on Naboo was done in secret by Darth Sidious in the ways of the Force. He taught her enough to assist in her services to his New Order which would soon be enacted.
"In time, Rité, the glorious New Order will arise, and the Sith will rule once again." Sidious proceeded towards his desk, placing his hands upon his armrests. A pair of crimson guardsmen entered the room, grabbing the feet and hands of Teek's lifeless carcass, the gaping hole upon his forehead remained to smoke.
"Lift your sleeve on your left forearm," Sidious continued, "You shall receive the mark of the Hand, branding you forever to the Empire."
Rité performed as commanded, bowing in front of Sidious' desk. Sidious raised his right hand, pointing his index finger toward the pastel canvas of which he was to mark. A single bolt of Force-lightning shot from his tip, Rité winced under the intense heat as a new tattoo formed on her skin, the eight-spoke symbol of the New Order. The aroma of cauterized flesh permeated her nose as soon as the tattoo mark started, the searing, purple hued trace smoked with completion.
"You will be assigned the Millennium Falcon as your personal ship, and to alleviate suspicions about your origins from Naboo, I will assign you a code name that only you and I will know. Ritara Jade, your fulfillment to the New Order is complete you will henceforth become a Hand of the New Order. All orders from here forward will be done in secret, telepathically. Your loyalty above others will be to me. It is a shame, however, that your services will be impeded in the next few months. Your physical condition must be kept secret, what good is an assassin if she is abated by the growth of life inside her?"
Sidious smiled. Ritara's unborn child will be to his advantage, training a newborn in the ways of the Force, to become a protégé to its own mother; a successive line of Hands of which to do his bidding. He motioned her to excuse herself from the room. Soon, the Republic would be wiped out, and a glorious Sith empire would replace it. The pieces were falling into play and Anakin Skywalker would soon become his new apprentice as he had foreseen.
Ritara exited his offices her matted tunics reflected that of her face and body. She coaxed her stomach, sensing the life growing inside of her. A wellspring of Force potential erupted inside as she detected the individual cells inside the zygote forming and responding to the midichlorians. A bruised, bloody smile formed across her lips, swaggering through the hallway leading from Palpatine's offices.
From the corner of her eye, she glanced toward a golden protocol droid staring at her with curiosity; a companion squatted next to him in the form of a blue-trimmed astromech much like her own. She sneered in the direction of See-Threepio, who returned with a distracted, surprised jerking motion as he continued with his squat companion.
Outside upon the landing bay, Ric Olié hunched over the destroyed astromech that once belonged to Rité. Combing through the wreckage, salvaging what he could to provide evidence back to Sio Bibble that Rité was not the woman they claimed she was.
"Keep away from that droid," Ritara shouted, interrupting Ric's thoughts. Her accompaniment had been two red-trimmed Homeworld Security clones.
"Rité, what happened?" He asked, noticing her tattered face and hair, "Are you alright? Where's Teek?"
"That's not important now. What is that you remove yourself from that droid, old man!"
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me, Captain Olié. Hand that droid back to its rightful owner!"
Ritara waved her hand to influence Olié via the Force.
"Very well, Rité, the droid is yours."
Ritara scurried towards the hulking shell of her former companion, rummaging inside his dome. She activated the hover platform to rise and pushed the platform into the docking bay further. Ritara stopped partway as her clones arrested Ric Olié under treasonous suspicions. Her fulfillment towards the New Order was in infancy, yet she began to sow the work from her deeds.
Ritara reflected back upon her life, wind whipping at her, magnified by the open nature of the docking bay. The tragic accident that claimed the lives of her parents during the Trade Federation takeover left her an orphan at the age of six. Years later in the Naboo Academy, she was visited by a mysterious stranger who never offered her his name, only to train in the ways of the Force. After that visit, a law passed by decree of the Chancellor to avert possible corruption of the Jedi Council, no Naboo could be trained in the ways of the Jedi during his tenure; this, she found out later, was to provide a pool of Force-adepts that Sidious could work and manipulate for his own desires free from the power-hungry Jedi.
She knew she wasn't the only one; there were others like her as evidenced by the number of Force-sensitives she felt in Academy. In time, they would seek her for their jobs to serve the new Empire as either replacements or trainees. She had to prepare for the inevitable. Ritara continued her way towards the doorway leading into the grander Senate building. Her missions were about to begin.