*** Chapter 14 ***

Padme was a young Queen, but the adults that often met her did not view as such. She spoke with an authority not just well beyond her years, but not often achieved by most leaders. Once, when she met the Prime minster of Yago, was absolutely convinced she had discovered some sort fountain of youth. Surly, there was no way she looked her age. There was no way a child could speak such wisdom.

The Life and Times of Amidala, the People's Queen, By: Softa Jiane, Oralist and Historian

Leia had finally finished a near three-hour dinner with the Queen and her Handmaidens. The sun had set hours ago and while she felt she need to review the days progress, she really just wanted to go bed. The day had been trying to say the least.

She entered the bedroom she had been assigned. First, she tried Han on the Holo, seeing his face and hearing his voice would help negate some of the day's challenges. She was unfortunately met disappointment, Han was still out of range. Next, she began the long process of undoing her braids. Like all Alderaan girls and woman she had worn her braids from an early age and the ritual of taking them down had become almost meditative. Each clip and pin was like letting another piece of the day go.

Leia her mind wonder, acknowledging each moment and then letting it go without additional analysis. The meeting with Queen, gone from her mind, the altercation with Erickson, put away, the House of Madden…. Suddenly, Leia was drawn out of her wondering mind. Something was wrong.

"Luke," she gasped. She'd once before had this sort of feeling, in cloud city when she found Luke hanging from an antenna, missing a hand. At the time she had assumed Luke was able to reach her because he was a Jedi, but now she sure it is because they were bound through the force before they had even taken their first breaths.

Leia quickly bound her hair back into a bun on the nap of her neck. She pulled off the white dinner dress she had been wearing and pulled on a pair leggings and tunic. She checked her blaster and made sure it was on full charge. In addition, she pulled on her utility belt, double checking that the allergy patches were included. She had a feeling they would useful.

"C-3PO," She called the droid who had powered down for the night in the corner.

"Yes princess," The Droid responded in his modulated voice.

"If any asks for me, I went to run an errand and I should be back soon." Leia instructed.

"Oh, well, Princess that does not provide much explanation. Surely people are going to ask after you." The droid articulated.

"Well, let's just hope I'm back before any can ask questions." Leia's reply was foreboding, but she did not have time think on it. Luke was in trouble and she needed to find them.

The New Republic Security force maintained a small fleet of speeders on Naboo. Luke had taken one for his journey to the Lake Country, but Leia quickly located another. Surely it would be noticed missing if not returned by morning, though, Leia hoped that she would be back by then anyways.

Leia punched in the coordinates for the Queen's lake house into the local geo positing system built into the speeder, but she knew not need it. She had been able to find Luke on Bespin with only her intuition. Leia progressed through Theeds, anxious to leave the city and speed up in the open country. Leia was not exactly a tried and trued pilot like Luke and Han, but she could hold her own and flying the speeder did not exactly require expertise.

While it felt like hours, Leia was outside the city limits in minutes and it just took a few minutes longer before the infrastructure had decreased enough for her to really ramp up the speed. She could feel that she was getting closer and then her Nav system cut out. It didn't matter, she could see the path to where she was going through what must have been the force, but in the urgency of the situation, she did not take the time to evaluate the meaning of such a use of the force. Had she been able to worry about anything else besides the task in front of her, she would have been most concerned about the journey back, but that was not on her mind.

Leia could now see the lake house; it was lighting the wilderness as if were a beacon. It seemed like a good sign, maybe nothing was wrong, maybe the force had deceived her, but even with this thought Leia killed the lights on speeder, worried they would give away her arrival. When she was a full kilometer away she slowly parked the speeder, guided only by the moon and the light from house.

Leia expected solid ground but instead met with a squishy moist mud covered with tough grass. The plant life protected her boots from the mud, but the soft ground made each step twice as much work. While she had been able to forge a path in front of her, the brush pulled at clothes ripping and catching and throwing her off even more. The entire effect turned her desired jog into slow trudge.

Leia finally reached the house, noting the speeder Luke had taken this morning was still parked in front of the house. Now was met how the problem of entering. Any of the doors of the would be a bad idea. As a home owned by monarch, there would surely security system on all the doors and Leia had no way of knowing if it was armed or not. While she knew something was wrong, she could not pinpoint specifics, no matter how much she attempted to reach out through the sort of alert system she seemed to share with Luke, but there was nothing besides a pressing emergency. She was going into this fight blind.

Despite her desire to act now, Leia instead decided on the best course of action would be to circle the home. Luckily, the ground around the house had been drained and was solid and easy to traverse. Leia was unsurprised to find that lights in the lower part of the house off. In homes as grand as this, with views as stunning that this house likely had, it was a waste to place entertaining spaces on the ground floor where the views were often obscured by local plant life. Grand vacation homes of Alderaan had also had a similar construction. Leia looked up, noting a balcony with lights streaming out of the glass doors. Leia wondered what sort of the security these doors had, they were harder to enter and if the monarch gotten cheap, there a was a chance that these doors lacked an alarm system. At a minimum, this was a less risky entrance plan and the doors were glass which mean they could easily be shattered with a blaster fire.

Leia continued her investigation, walking toward the back of the home which faced the lake. Leia again noted another series of balconies, and on one of them, the doors were open. In haste, Leia made the decision to enter through this door. The house, in its rustic luxuries' beauty had a trellis leading up to nearly the balcony. Leia placed her foot in one the lower rungs, and stepping up slow, waiting for the wood crack underfoot. She sighed a silent sigh of relief when it held and brought her other foot up a step higher.

The climb was easy enough, and Leia was able to pull herself up over the railing of the balcony without getting in front of the open door and possibly giving away her position. Leia then took the biggest risk of the night, pressing herself against the wall so that her nose was just inches away from scrapping the stone exterior and inching slowly to the edge of the open door. Her blaster loses and ready in her hand. She arched her neck and peaked into the house.

Her attention was instantly drawn to Luke who was laying on the floor his arms and legs tied together with something that looked like kitchen twine, his breathing short and ragged, but his eyes open, he was conscious, though not moving. His lightsaber was laying just a few meters away on the dinner table which contained a mostly unconsumed meal.

Leia turned her attention to the rest of room, nothing there were no other inhabitants, but she was sure who ever tied Luke up had not gotten far. Leia took another chance and entered the room fully. She rushed towards Luke. "Leia," we wheezed, barely audible.

"Shhhhh" Leia pulled the twine around her fingers and then, when it did not quickly give way, Leia ran to the table and grabbed a knife, but before she was able to return to Luke, she heard footsteps voices. Leia frozen, waiting for a resolution before she allowed herself to move.

"Birdge, I really think that we should just leave him, I mean, if we keep him tied up we set a trap and capture the Queen." A youthful female voice said.

"HHHHHH, Palak, I've told you over and over again, Luke's a Jedi, we need to kill him now while he's weak and then it won't leave anything up to chance."

"I don't like killing…." The voice Leia now knew as Palak's argued.

Then one of the women entered the room, she had long blond hair bound in a simple ponytail and her nose came to a slight point on her face. She looked at Leia, Leia starred back. For a moment, they were in a sort of suspended animation.

"Who are you," The blond woman, Bridge, questioned.

Leia recovered from her shock, pointed her blaster at Bridge and fired, but Bridge dodged before the blast could make contact. As Bridge hit the floor her ponytail swung up and Leia got view of the back of her neck. She noticed the same crescent moon and six-pointed star tattoo she had seen on Madem Madden.

"Bridge, you didn't…." Palak rushed into the room and then stopped short when she saw Leia.

Leia turned to the new occupant to the room and only realized her distraction was likely to turn fatal when she heard the overly familiar sound a blaster release. Leia, with her war trained reflexes dove away before the blast could make contact, landing hard on the stone. She raised he blaster from her position on the ground again and let another shot fire, but this too fell flat and did not make it to either of the women, but they did both jump out of the way, giving her split second.

Leia looked around room the room, the odds weren't great. She needed to get Luke to safety while defending the both of them. The room was mostly empty of any sort of prop or decoration that she could use in her favor, the designer had decided to let the scenery shine with austere decor. Leia then let her gaze travel to the celling, noticing an impressive glass skylight meant to let the sun in. Leia turned her blaster to the celling and shot true and threw herself facedown on top of Luke.

The moment Leia felt the first shared of glass hit her back, she pulled back from Luke and started to cut his bindings with the table knife. It took only a few seconds and the assailants seemed to stay distracted from the many pounds of glass that came crashing down. When the bindings were free Luke placed his hand, the real one, toward his lightsaber and it lazily flew into has hand, the slowness a side effect from suffering through an allergic reaction.

"Come on," Leia pulled Luke up and he was wobbly on feet and dragged him towards the balcony opposite the one she had entered. She could see Luke's speeder not far off. The drop was not far and at this point it seemed far safer to fall than to risk being shot while climbing. Luke seemed to catch on, grabbed Leia's waist and pulled her over the edge, before Leia could fully considered the consequences.

While exactly painless, the grass absorbed more of their fall than expected. Leia was back on her feet in seconds, but Luke struggled, the insufficient amount air making even the simplest tasks difficult. Leia reached down and helped him up and they started towards the speeder.

They reached the speeder without sign of either Bridge or Palak, Leia took the driver's seat and Luke in the passengers. Leia punched the ignition switch and the speeder started to make the tale tell noises as the engines warmed up, but they were quickly interrupted blaster fire that missed.

"Come on, come on", Leia yelled, willing to go faster, not daring to look back for fear she would miss her opportunity. The Speeder rose into the air, but it was just half of meter off the ground when she felt it dipped slightly and heard the clunk of someone landing on the back. Before Leia could hit the gas, she heard another thunk, someone else jumped on. Finally, the Speeder had risen far enough, and Leia hit gas pedal, hoping to throw them off. She looked backed to see both women hanging on to the back of the speeder, Bridge was working her blaster up to Leia's head. Luke, also noticing, pushed himself up so that he was standing in his seat. He had drawn lightsaber but was struggling to stay upright. Leia could only see him out of her periphery, and she could not see Palak or Bridge at all.

Leia saw him swing saber, but it did not seem to make contact. Luke swung again, and again it did not make contact, but the swing pushed balance and he fell out of the Speeder. Leia turned her head to look back and then she heard the sickening crack of the butt blaster meeting her temple and then Leia felt the weight gravity pull her out of the speeder and onto the soft ground that lined Naboo's surface.

Upon impact, Leia noted two things. The first was that the soupy ground shielded her from almost all impact and while bring hit with the butt of a blaster was unpleasant, it did not seem to cause any immediate ill effects. Leia remained in position as she watched the speeder zoom away, now inevitably driven by either Palak or Bridge. The house, the only landmark that Leia would be able to recognize was out of sight and Leia was unsure what direction they had come from between her erratic piloting and the fall. At the speed she had been going, they had made it at least 20 kilometers from the house.

"Luke," Leia yelled as she pushed herself up to standing. The vocalization was unnecessary. Even in the pitch black, unknown forest, Leia was able to locate Luke with in just a couple minutes.

"Luke," Leia gasped, he was laying on the soft ground, his breathing sounded even worse.

"Beeeans…." Luke wheezed.

Leia quickly realized what he meant and reached into her utility and pulled out an Allergy strip and placed it on his forearm. She then dragged him just half a meter to a near by tree where she helped him into a sitting position and leaned him up against the tree, hoping that being upright position would aid in his breathing. Leia sat next Luke and his head dropped onto her shoulder. She listened to his ragged breathing as it slowly returned to normal as the allergy strip took effect and then she let her own breath fall into synch, their internal rhythm falling into synch in a that they had both forgotten a long time ago. Soon they would have to move and begin the journey to find safety, but for now, with the moon shinning high in the sky, their best option was to stay put until the planet's sun made an appearance.