Chapter 29
Disclaimer: Today I watched one of the "Futurama"-movies, and I almost laughed my head off when that one evil guy said to the Professor: "You are my father! Search your feelings, you know it to be true!" And just so you know, I neither own Star Wars nor Futurama.
oOo
„So now we'll have to go back all the way to the spaceshuttle?" Anakin whined. "Do you even remember where we parked it?"
"Yes, Anakin, I do," Obi-Wan replied absent-mindedly. He was much more interested in staying away from a few of the handmaidens who were obviously planning some kind of attack – they had been whispering eagerly for the last half hour and sneaking peeks at the Padawan when they thought he wasn't paying enough attention to notice. In fact, though, Obi-Wan had been uncomfortably aware of their attention and was currently trying to hide between the Gungan Boss and Anakin – an endeavour that was not exactly crowned with success since Anakin was much too small for Obi-Wan to hide behind, and Boss Nass was not up to the task, either. He was plenty wide enough, but it seemed Jar Jar had inherited his lanky height from his mother's side of the family.
"But Obi-Wan, my feet are all soggy from this stupid swamp," Anakin complained, "and something is trying to eat me, I swear!"
"Jedi do not swear, Anakin," Obi-Wan told the boy, still not paying very much attention.
"Huh?" Anakin seemed confused. Firstly, he hadn't even used any bad words, and secondly, if Jedi weren't allowed to swear, than how did they express their annoyance at certain inconveniences or just vent their anger?
When he asked as much, Anakin got a rather distracted answer about how it was very un-Jedi-like to say things that might offend others.
In Anakin's opinion, Obi-Wan was not nearly paying enough attention to him. He decided that that had to be changed right away.
"Hey, Obi-Wan," he cried, pulling on Obi-Wan's sleeve, "Hey, talk to me! Pay attention! Look at me! I know that you know that I get bored easily, and I don't want to be bored! You have to keep me entertained at all times!" Anakin's tone had taken on the grating quality of a nagging child.
Finally, Obi-Wan fully turned to Anakin and offered him a small smile.
"My, you are persistent!" he said, thinking that Anakin was one of the more demanding projects of Qui-Gon's.
"No, I'm not!", Anakin protested, having no idea what Obi-Wan had just said. "Obi-Wan, tell me some more about the Jedi, about Qui-Gon!" Anakin begged.
"Oh, alright, Anakin. I guess there is no end to your curiosity, is there?" Obi-Wan sighed. "Well, what else can I think of to tell you? I already told you about Master Yoda, about the gardens in the Temple, about my friends, about Master Qui-Gon. What else do you want to know?" he asked, smiling a bit.
"Um, I don't know?" Anakin shrugged.
Obi-Wan thought for a moment. Had he warned Anakin about all of Qui-Gon's peculiarities and eccentricities? He remembered mentioning the strays, the bad cooking, the bigger fish…
Obi-Wan thought about his first days as Qui-Gon's apprentice and what he would have liked to know about his master back then.
Yes, there was definitely at least one more thing Anakin needed to know about Qui-Gon.
"For some reason that still eludes me, Master Qui-Gon likes to rise at an ungodly hour every morning – and he will make you get up, as well. That is not so bad once you get used to it, though. The problem is that you will need a good night's sleep before getting up so early, and that is not always easy because Master Qui-Gon snores. And I mean not just the usual occasional loud breathing. We are talking about a full-blown snore the volume of a stampeding bantha herd. It took me a solid two weeks of insomnia to finally find a way to get some sleep after I became his apprentice. I did extensive research in the library and found that there was a meditative technique that allowed me to shut out the thunderous snores that emanated from Qui-Gon's room."
Anakin grimaced. Meditative technique? That sounded like a lot of work – and pretty boring, at that.
Still, Anakin was grateful for the advice.
Qui-Gon quietly chuckled at the conversation between Anakin and Obi-Wan. He, too, was grateful for the advice his current Padawan was giving his future Padawan. It would make the start for Anakin, which would be extremely rough under the circumstances, anyway, so much easier – both for Anakin and for his future Master.
oOo
Darth Maul carefully lowered his craft and set it down on the hidden landing platform that was in fact the Queen's balcony. He glowered at the black ship. It was not to his liking at all.
Darth Maul was a Sith, true, but he was a Sith who was a convinced and fierce environmentalist. He had even requested that his Master buy a more environmentally friendly vehicle, like the ultra-modern Solar Sailer he had seen in one of the ads in the magazine "Sith Today". The highly polished advertisement had sported a detailed description about how the Sailer used huge photovoltaic "sails" to produce energy from sunlight.
Although Darth Maul despised the thought of needing the light to get from point A to point B when he was a creature of the darkness himself, he also deeply appreciated the irony of it: a Sith using the light to further the darkness. But this magnificent new space ship was obscenely expensive. The only way one could possibly afford to buy that ship was if one was obscenely wealthy – for example if one were the Count of a reasonably rich planet, like, say, Serenno. And that truly was a shame in Maul's opinion, because he really wanted one.
He threw one last scornful glance at his comparably old-fashioned ship before he stalked off to find the Neimoidians. The Trade Federation had enough money to equip their whole fleet with the latest energy-saving technology, but it seemed that their whole disingenuous syndicate didn't care one iota about the conservation of the environment.
Dart Maul found the Viceroy and his assistant in the absolute mecca for anyone interested in fashion: the Queen's bedroom. They were dressed in frilly clothes and pink shoes, dancing to vivacious music which boomed from the speakers discreetly hidden behind the curtains and furnishings of the sumptuous chamber. The green aliens looked perfectly ridiculous.
The Sith had to suppress a giggle that would be entirely unacceptable for any self-respecting darksider.
He loudly cleared his throat to get the Viceroy's attention. Two reptilian heads snapped around and four moist eyes widened in shock and utter mortification to be caught in Padmé's favourite nightgowns complete with matching slippers.
The Neimoidians fled in a flurry of pink cloth and returned soon after, dressed more suitably but faces still flushed a curious shade of bluish purple – the typical colour for any deeply embarrassed Neimoidian.
Thankfully, the uncomfortable, awkward silence was suddenly disrupted by the shrill beeping of a comm. link.
Beep-beep-beep-beep
Beep-beep-beep-beep
Beep-beep-beep-beep
Nute Gunray was startled by the sudden noise. He looked around until he spotted the offending device. He was pretty sure that he had told his flunkies to get him a more stylish ringtone, so why hadn't that happened yet?
The Viceroy was just about to throw a fit of rage when his assistant Rune Haaku scurried over and poked him.
"You have to pick up the phone, Viceroy, that's your comm. link for important people. So either this is some important Senator like Senator Palpatine calling, or it's Lord Sidious. Anyway, you wouldn't want to miss that call," the assistant whispered while pressing the answering button.
Viceroy Gunray took a moment to gather his scanty wits before turning to the caller. He was immensely relieved that they had already discarded the Queen's clothes.
"Ah, Senator Palpatine," Nute Gunray greeted the caller. The Viceroy wondered why the respected Senator had his hood pulled down low over his face. Some very tasteful allegretto elevator music could be heard in the background, and the red and black décor were strongly reminiscent of the Senator's office.
For a moment, the person on the comm. link seemed startled and shocked, though he quickly recovered. "I am not Senator Palpatine, you fool," his voice rasped, "I am Lord Sidious!"
The Neimoidians turned a sickly shade of lime green. They almost stumbled over each other in their hurry to bow and scrape and apologize to the frightening Sith Lord.
"I am truly sorry, my Lord, truly sorry indeed," Gunray expressed his regret at his unforgivable blunder. "I should have noticed that you were not Senator Palpatine. Your noble features are far more remarkable than the dull and simple Senator's," he tried to pacify the enraged Sith Lord.
Said Sith Lord was not quite sure whether to feel flattered or offended, so he settled for his favourite state of mind: one of cold disdain towards anything and anyone, coupled with an evil and condescending smirk that hinted at a masterplan to enslave the whole galaxy and kill every last one of these pathetic life forms daring to defile his benighted presence with their worthless existence.
That's exactly what he considered everyone except himself to be: pathetic life forms. But unlike Obi-Wan's teasing that always included a mischievous wink and an impish half-smile, Sidious considered almost everyone just that: pathetic life forms to be used for his ends and which he'd rather prefer to have lynched that very second rather than tomorrow or even the day after.
Sidious heaved a deep sigh. Having to socialise with these feeble and inadequate idiots greatly annoyed him, but with their almost endless supply of money and the thousands of battle droids they had procured… well, they had their uses, he had to admit, albeit reluctantly.
Sidious hoped that they had managed the rather simple task he had assigned to them. With their huge droid army, they shouldn't have had any problems eliminating every last Gungan.
When he inquired after their progress in that matter, though, he desperately wanted to throw a tantrum and kill one or two or, better yet, two dozen of these imbeciles.
Yet, it seemed that they were even unable to do that.
Back on Coruscant, one of Senator Palpatine's secretaries suddenly crumpled. The medics that were called immediately said that all evidence pointed to death by asphyxiation, though they were at a complete lack as to why someone would asphyxiate without any apparent cause.
Feeling a little less enraged, Sidious demanded to know whether they had managed to realize that the Queen's ship has returned to Naboo. It seemed that the Neimoidians were at least able to interpret the readout of their extremely expensive sensor arrays because they were pleased to inform him that had established as much.
"So what have you done about them?" Sidious asked. Secretly, the Sith hoped that they had bombed the whole area to bits.
"We've sent our patrols. We already located their starship in the swamps," Nute Gunray assured a most displeased Sith Lord. The Jedi would bomb the patrol to bits, and nothing would be gained by such a useless attack. "It won't be long, my Lord," Gunray said.
Not long till the Jedi kick your ass, I think, the way you keep blundering, Sidious thought.
Although he considered the Jedi themselves rather pathetic and incapable in comparison to the unlimited power the Dark Side offered, his allies were unfortunately even more pathetic and incapable.
One of the medics in Senator Palpatine's antechamber suddenly chocked and clawed at his throat. Everyone else in the room fled in panic as the medic thrashed in the throes of a second inexplicable death.
Marginally calmer, Sidious pondered Queen Amidala's tactic.
"This is an unexpected move for her," he rasped. "It's too aggressive. I wouldn't have expected that. The swamp will certainly spoil her shoes and stain the hems of her robes. I can't imagine her doing that. That must be the Jedi's doings. Lord Maul, be mindful," Sidious turned to his apprentice and possibly the only halfway competent person in the room. "Let them make the first move. They will reveal their stupidity and incompetence soon enough," he advised his student.
"Yes, my Master," Darth Maul answered with a respectful inclination of his red and black-striped head, sounding infinitely more threatening and menacing that any Jedi Padawan saying the exact same words ever could – but then again, no Jedi Padawan hated his own Master quite as fiercely as Maul hated his, and an aspiring Jedi had neither the ambition nor the need to kill their Master to become a Master in their own right.
They ended the conversation with the usual pleasantries. When it came to comm. calls, Sidious showed more friendliness than Qui-Gon did – but that was the only occasion the Sith surpassed any Jedi when it came to that, a fact that Sidious was not aware of, or he would have done his best to end the call in the rudest manner possible.
oOo
On the edge of the forest, a Gungan sentry perched high atop one of the strange stone heads that had to belong to another than the Gungan's culture.
"Deysa comin!" he shouted down to Anakin, who was idling in the shadow of the stone sculpture.
"All right," Anakin answered, turned around and ran towards the impromptu planning session taking place beneath a tall tree at the edge of the forest.
"They're here," he shouted excitedly, informing Qui-Gon, Padmé and Obi-Wan of Captain Panaka's return.
"Good, they made it," Padmé remarked in a rather disinterested voice. She sounded neither especially relieved nor pleased that her Head of Security had come back unharmed.
Somewhere off to the side, Jar Jar was made "Bombad General" of the Gungan army.
That didn't exactly strengthen Obi-Wan's confidence in the Queen's plan. If Jar Jar was as good at being a General as he was at everything else, Obi-Wan didn't see much of a future for the Gungans. Then again, Obi-Wan didn't voice his concerns, because on the one hand, the situation was tense enough as it was without him further alarming the more anxious handmaidens, and on the second hand because Obi-Wan wondered how he would fare should he suddenly be appointed General of an army. The Padawan was not quite sure if he could handle it so well as Jar Jar – that was until the Gungan fainted with a dramatic gasp. Then Obi-Wan knew that whatever should happen in the future, he could at least be sure that he would never make such a poor General as Jar Jar.
"Captain," Padmé addressed Panaka.
"Your Highness?"
"What is the situation?"
"Almost everyone's in camps," Panaka reported, "They sleep in tents, go canoeing on the lakes, and in the evenings they sit around the campfire singing songs and roasting marshmallows. A few hundred police and guards as well as a few people strictly opposed to camping formed an underground resistance movement. I brought back as many as the leaders as I could."
Finally, the Captain turned to look at the Jedi.
"The Federation's army is also much larger than we thought and much stronger," he said with an accusatory stare at Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, as if it were their fault or their plan to fight the droid army head-on.
"Your Highness, this is a battle I do not think that we can win," Panaka finished his assessment.
"The battle is a diversion," Padmé informed him with a shake of her head. "The Gungans must draw the droid army away from the cities. I don't really care how many Gungans die in the process. Nobody likes them, anyway. Besides, I have to save my beloved clothes, and I am sure the Gungans are more than willing to sacrifice their life for such a noble goal."
Obi-Wan was not quite so sure about that. Thankfully, the Gungan Boss could actually see the bigger picture and understood the necessity of defeating the droid army. The Jedi were incredibly grateful for that, because it meant they didn't have to convince the Gungans to take the almost insane risk of what Padmé was proposing against their better judgment – and it meant that the Gungans would take the risk willingly.
Padmé proceeded to explain her plan. "R2," she addressed the little droid.
R2-D2 projected a three-dimensional map of Theed .
"We can enter the city using the secret passages on the waterfall side. Once we get to the main entrance, Captain Panaka will create a diversion."
The Captain looked none too pleased with the plan, and neither did Qui-Gon. The Jedi Master suddenly experienced the feeling of a strange and very uncomfortably cold lump in his stomach. For a second, he wondered why there would be such a lump when he hadn't eaten any ice cream, then he dismissed the sensation without ever identifying it as the bad feeling that had been plaguing his Padawan since the start of this mission.
Padmé continued: "Then we can enter the palace and capture the Viceroy. Without the Viceroy, they'll be lost and confused, despite the fact that 'they' are mostly droids which don't actually have any feelings and will simply obey every order that reaches their tiny processor brains. What do you think, Master Jedi?" she asked, turning to Qui-Gon. She didn't allow herself to look at Obi-Wan for fear of losing her focus and her carefully implemented calmness.
"The Viceroy will be well-guarded" Qui-Gon said.
If the situation weren't so serious, Obi-Wan would have smiled. Usually he was the one to state the obvious, and he usually earned a rebuke from Qui-Gon for that particular habit.
"The difficulty is getting into the throne room," Panaka agreed. "Once we're inside, we shouldn't have a problem. After all, it is a rule of nature that the one sitting on the throne is the one to give the orders. So if we succeed in getting her Highness to sit on the throne, then all our troubles will simply disappear."
"Yes, that seems like a sound plan," Qui-Gon agreed. "And you are right, of course. I have also noticed that the throne seems to give a certain mysterious power the person sitting on it – why else would every monarch and most other rulers have one? But there is one thing I would like to point out: There is a possibility, with this diversion, many Gungans will be killed."
"Wesa ready to do our-san part," Boss Nass stated proudly.
"We have a plan which should immobilize the droid army. We will send what pilots we have to knock out the control ship orbiting the planet," the Queen explained.
Anakin was delighted. If one wanted to believe the highscore he had reached in his videogame back home on Tatooine, he was pretty good at shooting spaceships down. He wanted to help defeat these evil Trade Federation guys – and besides, firing at spaceships was fun!
"A well-conceived plan," Qui-Gon remarked, "however, there's great risk. The weapons on your fighters may not penetrate the shields."
Padmé blushed and chortled. "He said 'penetrate'," she whispered to Captain Panaka, who could obviously find nothing funny about that.
Despite the very likely reproach he would get for focusing too much on his anxieties and not living in the here and now, Obi-Wan had not only given some thought to the immediate consequences. He also thought of the long-term consequences, the bigger picture, a view that came with his proximity to the Unifying Force.
"There is an even bigger danger," he said, pointing out a weakness in the Queen's plan. "If the Viceroy escapes, your Highness, he will return with another droid army."
Oooh, got brains, do we? Padmé sneered. Although or probably because Padmé was so smitten with the Padawan, she couldn't accept any criticism from him.
"Well, that's why we must not fail to get the Viceroy. Everything depends on it," she retorted snappily. That didn't sound at all like an acceptable solution to Obi-Wan's objection but much rather like a childish rejoinder. It seemed the Queen was not inclined to admit even the very likely possibility of failure – which was not an impossibility, considering the odds and all the lives at stake.
Anakin's glance went from Padmé to Obi-Wan and back. If someone snapped at him like that, he would surely retort just as tersely – even though his mother had always told him that talking back was bad-mannered.
For Anakin, the fact that the Padawan silently accepted the Queen's retort and didn't seem to mind at all just added to the mystery Obi-Wan was to Anakin.
The discussion continued for some time more, but Anakin wasn't paying attention any more. He had discovered Jar Jar still lying on the ground. Anakin grabbed a stick and started poking the unconscious Gungan with it, which proved to be a lot more fun than listening to the boring discussions about the best possible strategy any longer.
oOo
Edited on 27th February, 2011