Chapter 76
I've got a bad feeling about this. Padme thought as they had turned around another corner and somehow her instinct told her that the enemy still had one last ace up their sleeves. Outside of the Space Pirates Ship the New Republic Military Boarding Party was on the way to rescue the Queen of Naboo, but of course they neither knew what secret was hidden on the ship and that it was about to be blown into pieces in a few minutes. Meanwhile on board of Grand Admiral Thrawn's Flagship, Thrawn was busy with studying the latest Battle Reports and he was quite pleased with how everything was going so far. He was interrupted in his train of thought for a moment, as a visitor announced his arrival and so put away the two pads to take a little break.
„As expected, the pathetic remnants of the New Republic Military Fleet have fled the System, after our reinforcements had arrived to turn around the battle in our favor. "Captain Palleon said and of course it was an honor to work under such a strategic mastermind, like Grand Admiral Thrawn.
Yes, the loss of the Space Pirates had been a great loss to their cause but Grand Admiral Thrawn knew from his long military career that you sometimes needed to make a sacrifice to make sure that the great big plan would still be a success at the very end.
"That's good news Captain and aside from one little setback, my plan to crush the New Republic is working to perfection. That means I've got only one question for you at this point:
Are we ready to deliver the final blow to New Republic Outpost?"
Captain Palleon couldn't help but grin a little bit, as he knew exactly what Grand Admiral Thrawn was referring to at this point: "Yes, Admiral I'm glad to tell you that we have prepared everything to deliver the surgical strike right on schedule. "Meanwhile the first escape pods were leaving the flagship of the Space Pirates, as all of the crewmen were pretty confident that there would be no escape for the Queen and the New Republic Soldiers who were foolish enough to try to rescue the Monarch from Naboo. At the same time on the bridge of the New Republic Military Flagship, Mon Mothma watched the little transport ship heading for the Space Pirates Flagship with a lot of concern and deep down she knew that something was totally off here: I can't really say why at this moment, but my instincts keep telling me that something isn't right at that our soldiers are flying right into a trap. But what if my gut is wrong this time and it costs the life of the Queen of Naboo? I definitely wouldn't forgive myself, if a decision that I make results in a big disaster which could have been avoided.
Back on the Space Pirates Flagship, Padme and Queen Mairayn had almost reached the end of another long hallway when Padme was suddenly struck to ground by a hit from a vibro axe from outside of her field of view. Queen Mairayn was so surprised by this, that she didn't know what to do for a while but she quickly recovered and thought to herself: Sure, I'm at the disadvantage but I need to at least try to survive against those two massive opponents.
With a menacing look on their faces the personal security of Captain Larkin stood in front of Queen Mairayn and one of them finally said:
"You know that you're outnumbered and outpowered, so give up now and maybe we will think about sparing your life your majesty!" Of course, Queen Mairayn was very well aware of the fact that the man in front of her was right, but not even for one single second did she believe that they would keep her alive if she would decide to surrender right now.
"Thank you for the "kind" offer, but I think I'll pass on that and try my luck with fighting for my life against all odds." Ok, I guess that there are two ways how this thing can end: Either I defy the odds, which are highly against me right now and somehow manage to win against two guys. No matter how much I hate to think about, there's still the worst case which means that I go down swinging and probably die in the middle of nowhere!
Signaling that the time for talk was over now, Larkins two henchmen delivered their first two blows in this fight and both of the vibro axes only missed the Queen with a lot of luck. Queen Mairayn answered with some jabs but her opponents easily deflected all of them. Meanwhile Padme slowly but surely regained conscious, taking her time with making herself familiar with her surroundings again as her vision was still quite blurry and also an enormous headache made it presence felt at the same time. I have to focus on getting out of this trance like state as quickly as possible, or Queen Mairayn has no chance at all to survive this battle. Padme thought as tried her best to get all her energy together, to get herself off the ground even if that was easier than done. At the same she also knew that she just couldn't give up right now, as too much was at stake right now and this was also probably not the first situation where things weren't looking so good for her.
Of course, it didn't go by Larkin's henchmen unnoticed that Padme had started regain consciousness and so one of them started to concentrate on attacking the former Queen and Senator, while the other man was still focused on dealing with Queen Mairayn. As the current Queen of Naboo wasn't that experienced in doing hand to hand combat like Padme was for example, it was a lot easier for her opponent to deliver some hard strikes to her body with the axe but she tried her best to not let it show how much those hurt her body.
With a lot of hard work, the Queen was able to dodge the next blows to her body as good as possible in her already weakened state. Even if tried her best not think about this particular question at the moment, she just couldn't ban the thought from her mind completely: How much longer can I withstand this onslaught? As things were looking very bad for the both of them, their two opponents were distracted for one moment by a big explosion, which rocked the ship so much that both of them lost their footing just enough so that Queen Mairayn and Padme could knock out both of Larkin's henchmen.
AN: Thanks to- drake 305 for adding this story to his author alert subscription. Please read and review
