Author Notes: Thank you for the reviews, favorites, and follows. This is the last "setup" chapter which means the next ones will probably be much longer.
Chapter 7. We Elect a Queen
Annabeth and I had been on Naboo for about six months now, and we were no closer to finding a way home. Even though her relationship with him wasn't the best, I knew Annabeth worried about her father and missed him and our other friends, but there was still nothing we could do about it. Besides, if Annabeth and I had to be stranded on a strange planet, we couldn't have picked a better one. Between Naboo's amazing architecture and the cool underground oceans, plus no meddling gods or monsters, we were as happy as we could be away from our friends and family. I don't think even New Rome could have been this great.
Unfortunately, we could not say the same for our guardian. Panaka seemed to be extra stressed lately. There had been rumors about assassination attempts on King Veruna. If even half the stories I'd heard about scandal and corruption were true, then I can't say I'm particularly surprised. Annabeth and I did our best to cheer him up by talking about our day, but there was only so much we could do. When we were alone one evening waiting for Annabeth to come back for dinner, I asked him if he wanted to talk about it. He just shook his head and quickly asked about the latest lost Voorpak I helped a child find on my last Security Guard patrol.
By the end of the week, King Veruna had abdicated leaving the planet's government in chaos. Governor Bibble was quickly trying to organize an emergency election for a new monarch. Something, I was still trying to wrap me head around. How can you elect a monarch? Needless to say, the gossip at our lunch group, filled with wanna-be politicians, had reached a new high.
"Annabeth, my father heard from a friend that the head of that restoration center you volunteer at is good friends with one of the candidates. Is it true?" a particularly pompous and smug boy asked.
Annabeth just shrugged, "We worked with the one that's going by Amidala when the center was restoring the concert hall." Hiding the candidates' real names was Panaka's idea. With all the corruption Veruna had been involved in, the captain thought it would be easier to protect the next monarch if they had a secret identity for some reason. Something like that definitely wouldn't work back home, but since Naboo didn't have Facebook or Twitter or Google maybe he could pull it off.
"Is it true she's only fourteen?" someone else asked.
"I don't know her exact age, but she did look young. I guess we'll have to see at the campaign speeches today," Annabeth told the group.
Well it turned out that we couldn't 'see' at the campaign speeches because both candidates had on really thick make-up that might as well have been masks and were wearing ridiculous clothes. "I think Panaka is taking this secret identity thing to a whole new level. He should have just stuck with the classic cape. Everyone knows you wear a cape if you have a secret identity."
Annabeth smiled, "They do look a little strange, but I think this is a custom and not so much Panaka. They do it, so the people will know how the candidates intend to present themselves when they represent the planet. The make-up and the clothes are part of Naboo tradition."
The first candidate to speak was an older man, maybe between 30 and 50. With his costume it was really hard to tell. After the first few minutes into his speech, I stopped paying attention. Sure, I could blame my ADHD, but I had heard enough. He had been one of Veruna's advisors, and therefore was emphasizing his wisdom and experience, saying something like, "due to my previous and extremely important position, blah, blah, blah, I can promise a smooth transition that will benefit everyone, blah, blah, blah" He was definitely one of those smug, conniving politicians, and if he wasn't as corrupt as Veruna yet, then he would be soon.
Then Amidala stood up for her speech. Whoever dressed her did a really good job, even if the dress looked like it weighed more than she did. She didn't look anywhere close to a fourteen-year-old girl. She looked proud and strong and determined. Unlike with the man's speech, I couldn't have stopped listening if I tried. She talked so passionately about her love of Naboo, of her plans to make it better. She promised to enact a two-term limit to the monarchy to try and limit the power of any corrupt monarch in the future. She was just so full of hope and optimism. It was a little contagious.
"She's going to win," Annabeth said with certainty as we walked back to the house.
I wasn't as sure. "I hope she wins, but the other guy seems really well connected. And she is really young. I have trouble believing a whole planet would elect a fourteen-year-old to govern them."
Annabeth shook her head, "The Naboo are tired of all the corruption from the previous administration, so they are going to want the exact opposite. Besides the Naboo have always admired and encouraged the innocence and purity of youth in their politicians."
"So, the fate of this planet will rest on the shoulders of a fourteen-year-old girl?" I asked amused.
"Why not?" Annabeth replied with a smile, "After all, both of us literally held the weight of the world on our shoulders when we were that age."
A few days later, I felt a little silly voting for someone younger than me to run a whole planet. But then I thought about Nico and Hazel and all the other young campers at Camp Half-Blood, and I realized that I knew a lot of accomplished fourteen-year-olds. Maybe Amidala was up to the task.
As Annabeth predicted, Amidala won in a landslide. But even Annabeth was surprised when Amidala asked her boss at the restoration center, Hugo Eckener, to be the new Chief Architect. Annabeth was even more surprised when Eckener asked her to join him at the palace and work as his assistant. She said yes in a heartbeat.
Two weeks after Annabeth started her new job, I found myself walking through the rose marbled hallways of the palace. Ever since Queen Amidala was elected, Panaka had not so subtlety been trying to recruit me to join the Palace Guard again. Today, he offered me a sort of behind the scenes tour. I agreed to come, but only if I got to surprise Annabeth with lunch.
"Really, Tasia was that necessary?" Annabeth's annoyed voice carried into the hallway.
Uh-oh someone got Annabeth riled up. I hesitantly knocked on the half open door with "Ministry of Architecture" written elegantly in Futhark next to it. "Hello," I called.
As I stepped through the door, I saw Annabeth scowling at another woman, who looked maybe a few years older than us, with long dark hair in an intricate braid and wearing one of the long dresses the Naboo favored. I always admired that Annabeth continued to wear pants and a loose top even though many people tried to get her to switch to the Naboo dresses. As a rising architect on Naboo, they said she had to look the part. Clearly, they didn't know how stubborn Annabeth was, and also Demigod 101: when you constantly have to run and fight for your life, you must wear something you can actually run and fight in. Naboo dresses definitely did not fit that criteria.
The strange woman turned to look at me, and her hazel eyes quickly scanned up and down my body before she got this hungry look in her eyes. I felt like I was in front of those flesh-eating horses again. She started prowling toward me. I gulped and looked for possible hiding spots. Behind the large potted plant looked appealing.
"Why, hello there," she purred. "Is there anything I can do to help you?"
She had enough make-up to make Drew Tanaka, daughter of Aphrodite, proud. I quickly looked at Annabeth and silently mouthed, "Help me!" Annabeth just ducked her head and looked like she was trying hard not to laugh.
The woman said, "My name is Tasia, and I am the lobbyist for the Ministry of Architecture." She extended her hand with red tipped fingernails that resembled a claw.
A claw! Maybe, she's some kind of empousa or something. I quickly brought out Riptide in pen form, ready just in case she sprung at me.
"Oh, do wish to give me your contact information?" she asked hopefully.
Annabeth finally got control of herself and walked to me with a big smile on her face. "Seaweed Brain! I wasn't expecting you to show up here," she said.
Tasia looked confused and asked, "Annabeth, you know this handsome man?"
"Yes, Tasia, this is my boyfriend Percy Jackson," Annabeth answered, wrapping her arm around mine and giving me a peck on the cheek.
Tasia's mouth opened and closed several times looking like Frank in giant goldfish form. "But you… and him?" she stuttered.
Annabeth just smiled even more and led me back into the hallway while I was still trying to figure out what had just happened.
"Really, Seaweed Brain were you going to stab a mortal with Riptide again?" Annabeth asked sounding exasperated.
I blushed and scoffed my shoe against the polished marble floor. "I thought she was like an empousa."
Annabeth snorted, "A woman shows interest in you, and you automatically think she is a monster. Sometimes I forget how oblivious you are to the female signs of attraction."
Oh, so that's what was going on. "Can you blame me," I responded, "after Alecto, Medusa, Echidna, Circe, Tammi, and Kelli, it's a miracle I don't stab every woman who looks at me."
"True but exactly how many Greek monsters have attacked us since we fell into this galaxy or alternate universe?" Annabeth asked, amused.
I huffed, "You never know. Just because they are not necessarily Greek monsters doesn't mean they aren't still monsters. Bessie Jr., the sando aqua monster I befriended by the Gungans, could totally give any Greek sea monster a run for his money."
Shocked, Annabeth said, "Wait, you befriended a sando aqua monster! And named it Bessie Jr.?"
I nodded. "Yep, I help her hunt by telling her where all the annoying opee sea killers and colo claw fish are."
"And is this Bessie actually female, unlike Bessie senior, the Ophiotaurus?" Annabeth questioned.
"Umm, I think so? It's kinda hard to tell with the alien anatomy and all." I replied.
Annabeth just laughed, "Only you would name a sando aqua monster, Bessie Jr., Seaweed Brain." I smiled, glad that I could still make her laugh after everything we've been through, and asked Annabeth where she wanted to go for lunch.
During lunch, Annabeth filled me in some more on her new job. "Eckener is stuck in meetings all day, so I'm the one that gets to work on designing the projects," Annabeth said excitedly. "Currently, I'm trying to design something for the queen. It's a tradition that the new monarch builds an addition to the palace to symbolize their ability to add to Naboo culture while still honoring their traditions. King Veruna built this amazing library during his reign, but I don't know what to build for Queen Amidala. Plus, the palace is already an architectural masterpiece. I don't know how I'm going to add something to it without detracting from its current beauty."
I smiled at her, "And you are totally loving this new challenge."
She grinned back, "It's a dream come true."
With that, we spent the rest of the lunch coming up with possible ideas for a new addition to the palace.
Life was quiet for the next few weeks. Besides attending my classes, I continued to explore the underwater cavern network and found many more tunnels that connected Theeds to other locations on Naboo. Since we had gotten so busy, Annabeth and I had decided that the seventh day of the week would be our day to spend together. Usually, I would take her in the sub and show her some of the cool places I had found during the week. If it was a deserted area, we would spar. We even visited the Gunguns a few times. After we both reassured them that Annabeth was not actually from Naboo, they liked her a lot more. She was amazed by what they had achieved underwater and would spend hours asking about the unique bubble designs.
Almost two months after Queen Amidala was elected, things started to heat up with foreign affairs. Apparently, some trade company was not happy and decided to surround Naboo with lots of big spaceships. When I heard that, I wanted to panic and get off the planet with Annabeth immediately, but everyone else seemed calm. Maybe surrounding planets with lots of big scary spaceships was common here? I didn't really get the details, so I asked Annabeth and Panaka the next time we had dinner together.
"The Trade Federation is protesting a new law in the senate that makes them pay taxes now in areas where they used to be able to conduct business for free," Annabeth said matter of factly.
"So, all these spaceships surrounding the planet are just for some protest over a stupid tax law?" I asked, shocked, "Whatever happened to marches with chanting and posters?"
Annabeth just rolled her eyes. "Seaweed Brain, you need a little more than a protest march to get attention on a galactic scale. But it is worrying because it basically stopped all trade to and from the planet," she said with a frown.
Panaka tried to reassure us. "The queen said Supreme Chancellor Valorum sent his best ambassadors to speak to the leaders of the Trade Federation, so the whole blockade should be gone by the end of tomorrow," he said confidently.
That night I had my first demigod dream since we got to Naboo. I was sort of just floating in space, but the whole galaxy seemed like it was spread out before me. Then, I noticed the darkness. If you've been around as many dark, evil, and powerful beings as I have, you realize there's a lot of different kinds of darkness. Hades' darkness was like being at a cemetery at night, scary, slightly creepy, but peaceful. Kronos' was cold, sharp, and cruel, and Gaea's was like being deep in a cave, unable to see and suffocating. This darkness felt like it was writhing with anger, and hatred, and a need for revenge. It felt ancient. It was concentrated around this one planet that was covered in lights, but somehow, I knew that this wasn't the source. Then, the darkness started to spread slowly until it covered the whole galaxy.
I woke up in a sweat. Even for a demigod dream, that one seemed cryptic. Usually, they were more straightforward. I would see what my enemies or allies were doing, or sometimes I would dream of a specific moment in the past that always turned out to be weirdly relevant. And then there were always the threatening visions sent from whatever immortal I had pissed off at that time. Maybe this wasn't really a demigod dream; I tried to convince myself. Because if it was, I really didn't want to think about what that would mean for Annabeth and me. I didn't get much sleep after that.
Reviewer Questions:
Guest - good question about how Annabeth and Percy compare to Jedi. It's something else I thought a lot about before I started this fic, and maybe one of the reasons there are not more Percy Jackson/Star Wars crossovers.
Short Answer: For the sake of trying to write a good story, I will try to put them on relatively equal footing just to make it more interesting, and I will do my best to justify my choices in canon (Warning, I might have a slight personal bias towards Percy). As for how Percy/Annabeth compare to specific Jedi, they will win some confrontations and lose some, so you will have to keep reading to find out.
Extended Answer: I know some Star Wars fans will be like Jedi/Sith could totally beat Percy, and there might be some Percy fans that say the exact opposite. If you expand past the Star Wars movies, the only limit to what a powerful force user can do, seems to be his experience and imagination. Likewise, Percy's powers were getting pretty limitless at the end of HoO. Between getting an energy boost and being able to heal himself in water and then House of Hades hinted that Percy could control blood and other body fluids which could theoretically let him drown someone using their own body fluids. This power at least in my mind could be the equivalent of a Force choke though Percy does seem to get tired after extensive use of his powers, the extent of his power to some degree (Mt. St. Helens) is limited to the amount of water present, and he is limited by his morals, currently. Therefore with these extremely powerful beings I will try to make any confrontation believable and entertaining. I apologize ahead of time if you think one side is more powerful and should be able to trounce the other. Also, I will mainly stick to Force abilities demonstrated in the movies since the canon books don't seem to be canon anymore, but I might stray sometimes to make the story more interesting.