Chapter Six : Turbulence

Tatooine

11:34 CT

"Please, Sabe, leave off the pacing!" Rabe pleaded.

Sabe stopped mid-stride "Sorry," she mumbled, sitting on the edge of her bed.

She had nearly worn a track through the brilliant crimson carpeting of the Queen's quarters. She had done everything she could think of to alleviate the nervous thought that the pod race was finishing as they sat there. She had helped Rabe mend yet another cloak, had read Eirtae's datapad over her shoulder until the girl threatened her with painful punishments if she did not stop, and had nervously nibbled the food that Rabe fetched from the kitchen. But she was now out of options and felt she might very well be slipping toward madness.

Padme had comlinked two hours previously to tell them that the race was beginning. Since then, there had not been a word. Not knowing how long a pod race lasted, Sabe wondered seriously if they ought to start thinking about a rescue mission. She had heard the Hutts had very unpleasant punishments for those who renigged on their gambling debts.

Sabe expelled a tortured sigh and turned to the mirror, straightening her dress and hood and checking her makeup as she prepared to venture to the receiving chamber.

"What are you doing?" Eirtae asked.

"Relax, Eirtae, I'm only going to the receiving chamber," Sabe replied. "Everyone is too busy to notice me, and I need some privacy to set my mind in order."

She just caught the perplexed look Eirtae and Rabe exchanged as she went through the door. Meditation was not a common practice on Naboo, and neither of them knew anything about her past other than the fact that she was from Coruscant. Suddenly she felt a little guilty about not being more forthright. She had expected this time alone with them to be terribly unpleasant. And in some ways, it had been. But she was beginning to feel strong respect for the both of them. Perhaps I'll tell them everything later, she thought, as she quietly passed through the corridor and let herself into the empty receiving chamber.

She made herself comfortable on the throne, and rested her hands across her knees. As a child in the academy she would often engage in meditation without really even meaning to, missing whole lectures to the dismay of her instructors as she allowed her mind to roam unbridled through the passions and vibrations all around her. But since, she had restrained herself. Sometimes what she found behind closed eyes was just too difficult to handle. Other times it was so easy, and she felt herself sliding toward a place she feared to go.

But today she felt solace as she allowed her senses to dull until the only one left was her sense of herself. Her physical perceptions receded to a comfortable distance. What she found within always surprised her to some degree. She turned over her thoughts like scattered pages, examining, considering, and then gently replacing them where she had found them. Here was Naboo, and here was Padme. She held those thoughts close to her, letting them warm her. Here was her fear for herself, her fear of the past. And here…here was something new, the smallest particle of something. It was hidden, like static waiting to spark in dark cloth. It somehow related to the long line of Obi-Wan's arm, directing her eyes towards the night sky, the fall of brown cloth from that arm, and the curl of a light breeze past, causing the cloth to brush against her cheek.

Sabe cast it away. Later. I'll look at that one later.

She reached out, and if the products of her physical senses were like a holovid projection, now she looked at the static, the grainy lines weaving through, the blue glow that lit it. She found herself alone, a small figure on the edge of some infinite expanse, an undulating white sea. And then, with two more measured breaths, she was the sea, fluid and indefinable. She was nothing but a small part of the consciousness that some called the Gods and others called the Force. She had never chosen a side. She could just simply be there, soothed by its continuous white noise.

She knew they were all there, though she was not skilled enough to discriminate them. They were all represented by the small points of light sliding over and around her; Rabe, the peacemaker, Eirtae, the firebrand, Obi-Wan the sentinal, Qui-Gon the Master, and Padme the warrior Queen. There were also the Tusken Raiders, the residents of Mos Espa, the lizards that scrambled in the sand, and the sand itself. She couldn't pinpoint which sparks rushing past were which but she knew that everything real and imagined was there, past, present, and future. The sense of interconnectedness was a drugging calm, and she was able to let go of the parts of herself she usually clung to tooth and nail. Her physical body responded. Her heartbeat slowed, and her breath evened out. Even her body temperature cooled a fraction.

Suddenly, a tremor rippled through her haven, and a shadow was cast upon her, stretching from far away. She turned her awareness slowly toward the source, focusing her senses.

It was an approaching… something. It was as violent as a cyclone, purple-black against the metaphysical sea in which she floated. But unlike her and everything around her, it was brutally separate and defined. It had consciousness and intention, and ripped and tore through continuity, poisoning it. Anger, hatred, bloodlust, and self-loathing emanated from it, washing over her mind like acid rain. In the epicenter of the purple-black, sentient storm, it seemed to her that a low voice echoed like distant thunder.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion.

Her soul seemed to turn to stone as it reached across miles of space and caught her with an icy touch. With the brush of its consciousness she could feel what it offered; dark shadows and endless tunnels, limitless power and the absence of consequence. And as she examined it with horrified fascination, she realized that it could feel her looking. She had a vague impression of yellow eyes turning in her direction. They were the color of leprosy, and they were sneering… It was inviting her. Beckoning her. The freezing touch was almost…seductive.

Sabe's eyes snapped open. There was a hand shaking her by the shoulder. She focused her vision to see Eirtae's concerned face in front of her.

Eirtae rocked back, her hand over her heart. "Gods, you gave us a start. What just happened?"

Sabe looked around. Rabe was standing on her other side, her face as worried as Eirtae's.

"I'm not sure…" Sabe murmured. "How long have I been sitting here?"

"Two hours," Rabe said.

Sabe's jaw dropped. It felt as if she had only closed her eyes a moment before.

"We were going to leave you alone, but then Padawan Kenobi called us and told us to make ready for takeoff, so we came to get you," Eirtae explained. "But you were shaking from head to foot and saying things we couldn't make out."

"Is it your wound?" Rabe asked, putting a gentle hand to Sabe's forehead.

Sabe shook off her hand. "Take off?" she asked impatiently.

Eirtae grinned. "Yes! He won! That little boy came through!"

"It took no time at all for Padawan Kenobi to repair the hyperdrive," Rabe said happily. "And Padme comlinked not ten minutes ago to say she was almost back. Isn't it wonderful, Sabe?"

"But…what about Master Qui-Gon?" Sabe asked dizzily.

Eirtae shrugged. "I don't know, something about a last minute errand in Mos Espa. Wait, Sabe—!"

But Sabe was already halfway out the door. She had the presence of mind to adjust the hood around her face and check her reflection in one of the windows to ensure her face was still hidden. But her steps were hurried as she made her way to the mechanical room at the rear of the aft hold.

Reaching the doorway, she nearly ran into Obi-Wan coming out, his face as disturbed as hers. Without bothering with exposition, she grabbed his arm. "Have you sensed it?"

She needn't have asked, and he barely seemed to notice her. His eyes were already directed away from her, out the lowered ramp where R2D2 and a droid she had never seen before were carrying boxes and equipment back into the ship. Sabe saw Padme with them, speaking with the Gungun. She saw Sabe standing in the entranceway, and raised her head in a wave, smiling as she opened her mouth to say hello.

Sabe never heard her greeting. She saw something else beyond Padme; a faint cloud of dust as if an animal was kicking it up, the faintest of blue and red flashes. A bit closer, a small boy was running and stumbling across the sand in their direction, panic making him clumsy as he waved his arms frantically to get their attention.

"Get to the receiving chamber and buckle in!" Obi-Wan ordered, brushing past her and hurrying outside.

Sabe lifted her skirts and ran toward the receiving chamber. Halfway she met Eirtae and Rabe. "Come on!" she cried. "This is going to be a rough takeoff!"

"What's going on?" Eirtae demanded as they followed her, but Sabe didn't know how to answer.

They were buckled in when the door of the receiving chamber opened. It was Padme, still in her peasant's clothing. She buckled her own safety harness with fumbling fingers. "Brace yourselves. Something followed Anakin and Master Jinn from Mos Espa. Master Jinn is fighting it."

"Huh?" Rabe managed, five or six steps behind.

They heard the engines firing and a sharp bump as the ship lifted from the ground. But there was no time for celebration.

"We're flying very low," Eirtae observed.

"Yes," Padme replied. "We are going to pick him up."

A few seconds later, they heard a commotion in the corridor. Through the closed door they heard crewmen hurrying past from their quarters to the forward deck. Several blasters fired, and Sabe heard a young boy's shout.

"Did he get in?" Sabe wondered aloud, but no one could answer her. They felt the turbulence of the ship ripping through atmosphere. Then the room leveled off and they felt the uncomfortable lift of weightlessness, followed by the tug of artificial gravity.

Padme unbuckled her safety harness. "I'll go see what I can find out."

Left alone again, Rabe and Eirtae turned on Sabe. "What was that all about?" Eirtae demanded.

"I…I felt something," Sabe stuttered, realizing she couldn't think of words to explain it away.

"What do you mean you 'felt something?'" Rabe asked.

"In my meditation. I felt something…vile." Sabe explained.

Rabe and Eirtae looked at one another. "You…sensed the thing that attacked Master Jinn?" Rabe asked disbelievingly.

Sabe nodded.

"But how?" Rabe asked.

Sabe closed her eyes, shaking her head. "It's difficult to explain."

Eirtae's blue eyes were locked on her face with unnerving intensity. "You're like them, aren't you?" She said slowly. "Like the Jedi."

Sabe raised her head. "What makes you think that?"

Eirtae bit her lip, thinking. "I don't know…something. Especially when you are pretending to be the Queen. Like a cold feeling in my spine. I get the same feeling whenever they are nearby. And that raider," she said suddenly, remembering. "It was like you knew exactly where your blade was going to go before you threw it."

Sabe stared at the tops of her boots, at a loss for words.

"Sabe?" Rabe pressed.

The words seemed half pulled out of her, and she hated the way they sounded. "I was in the Temple for a short time."

Rabe unbuckled her safety harness, standing. "You did know Master Jinn and the padawan before they came to Theed."

Sabe nodded.

"You lied?"

"Padme knew," Sabe said defensively. "I...I didn't think it mattered."

Eirtae threw off her own belt. "That's just like you, Sabe. You never tell anybody anything. You just run off on your own. Like you think you are better than all of the rest of us."

"It's not like that!" Sabe protested. She looked at Rabe for help.

But Rabe shook her dark head contemplatively. "Eirtae has a point."

Sabe opened her mouth but nothing came out.

"You've never been a team player, Sabe," Rabe said. "Because you don't want to be. You don't trust anyone. Not even Padme, really."

Sabe found that she was trembling suddenly, her hands fisted in her skirt.

Padme picked that unfortunate moment to walk in. "Well, Qui-Gon seems to be unhurt, though I think even he was shaken." She looked around, suddenly noticing the strained quiet that greeted her. "Am I interrupting something?"

"Of course not, your majesty," Rabe said with forced lightness.