=Courtyard, Theed Royal Palace=
Kloré and the four younglings settled into an outdoor cloister filled with ornamental trees and hedges to wait. It was softly lit with golden glow rods. Arin kicked a rock across the cobblestones and it skittered into a flowerbed.
"So…" said Zade, turning to Kloré. "You're going to be the decoy of the decoy, huh?"
"I'm sorry?" Kloré asked.
"Well, since Sairdé is being the decoy, that means a bad guy might think she's a handmaiden and the queen is actually pretending to be one of them. So someone might actually think you're the fake handmaiden… the queen."
Kloré took a moment to unravel what Zade was saying, and her eyebrows shrugged as she considered that. "Someone might. It's a risk all the handmaidens are prepared to take."
"I like her," said Naia suddenly.
"The queen?" Kloré asked.
"Yeah. She didn't act like a big know-it-all grown-up and treat us like babies."
Kloré smiled. "On Naboo, we don't regard age as an indicator of maturity. Senator Amidala took the throne when she was only two years older than you."
"Really?" Arin asked.
"That's right." Kloré nodded.
Naia grinned at Arin. "Let's move to Naboo. We can be queens, too. Could you imagine?!" Her smile spread from ear to ear. Arin couldn't help but smile, too. Naia was always so optimistic, and Arin usually couldn't understand how she could remain that way even when everything looked so dark.
Zade asked, "Are Moraye and Kel-Ani doing okay?"
"They'll be fine," Kloré assured them. "Our medical staff is taking good care of them."
"Where's the bathrooms?" asked Naia.
"Oh, this way," said Kloré, and led Naia back inside. Arin and Zade began kicking rocks back and forth.
"There!" cried Halyon. Arin jumped. "That's the Sith!"
"Huh?" Arin looked around wildly, then realized what Halyon was talking about. A small airspeeder zoomed over the courtyard, and with it came the strange sensation Arin knew was the dark side of the Force. It was the Sith acolyte, all right.
"Stop! Halyon, wait!" Arin's voice and Halyon's footsteps echoed as he ran down a colonnade around to the palace plaza. Zade and Arin both ran after him. Her pulse quickened, suddenly gripped by fear.
"Halyon, here!" yelled Zade. Arin looked over to see Zade standing in front of a parked Palace Guard airspeeder.
"What are you doing?" Arin cried, as Halyon whirled around and Zade leaped into the driver's seat. Halyon flew in next to him, and Zade shut his eyes, screwing up his face trying to start the speeder using the Force. It bucked and whined, but it started.
"You're crazy!" said Arin.
"Come on!"
Spurred by an insane curiosity, Arin clambered into the back seat. What am I doing? She thought woefully as the speeder shot up into the air.
"How are we gonna stop him?! We don't have any blasters!" she cried over the wind rushing around them.
"First we have to catch up!" called Zade over his shoulder. Buildings fell beneath them as they rose, and Zade punched the speeder forward, in hot pursuit of the Sith acolyte.
"Do you even know how to drive this thing?" Halyon asked.
"I'm a fast learner!" Arin was not comforted by his response. If they fell, maybe they could use the Force to slow their momentum. Maybe.
"What if we hit the shield? What happens?" Arin yelled.
"I guess we won't hit the shield!" replied Halyon with a wild laugh.
"We're catching up!" said Zade excitedly. They were getting closer. Above the roar of the wind Arin could hear the high-pitched whine of the Sith acolyte's speeder.
"Reach for him!" Halyon stretched out his arms, evidently trying to grab and slow their target with the Force. Arin followed suit.
"I can't grab him!" Arin yelled. "He's moving too fast!"
"Keep trying!"
Both airpseeders raced towards the edge of the city where the dome of the translucent purple shields became a wall. The world beyond it swam, appearing quite distorted. Captain Panaka had said the shields meant that no one got in or out of the city. What was the Sith acolyte going to do, try to ram it?
Two tiny dots grew into view beyond the shields- they appeared to be droids. A circular spot thinned to transparent lilac and the droids passed right through- immediately followed by the speeder of the Sith acolyte. Hardly a moment after they passed through, the hole shut and the shields thickened again.
They were going to crash! Arin held her breath, powerless to do anything. She rocked sideways as Zade spun the speeder, trying to decelerate…
They hit the shield. To Arin's relief they did not disintegrate or explode. They passed right through. But-
"We're falling…" she breathed. Visible sparks jumped along the speeder.
"It shorted out!" said Zade.
Arin's stomach dropped. "We're falling!" she yelled, trying not to shriek.
"I know, I know!" shouted Zade, frantically flicking at the ruined controls.
"We're losing him!" Halyon angrily pointed to the Sith acolyte, who somehow hadn't flown through the shield at its full power. "What were those droids?"
"Halyon, we're falling!" Arin wailed. The ground was rushing towards them; they would miss any buildings but they had just flown over a huge cliff over the plains-
Halyon swore loudly. "We'll have to jump."
"What?!" Arin screamed. They were still sailing forward, at least 30 meters above the ground.
"We'll have- to jump!"
"This thing's gonna explode when it hits!" said Zade. "It's fried!"
"Now!"
"What? No!" Arin protested, but to no avail. Halyon grabbed her wrist and rolled out of the speeder, tugging her with him. This was such a stupid idea. What had she been thinking? She tumbled through the air, twisting to lay the ground before her. She pushed with the Force as hard as she could and miraculously, everything slowed…
But only slightly. She hit the ground harshly, rolling to a stop. She landed next to Halyon in a tangled heap, gasping.
"Everybody okay?" That was Zade's voice. He was alive, thank the stars.
"Halyon?" She twisted around.
Alive. He groaned as he sat up and Arin let out a deeply held breath.
CRASH.
Everyone's eyes jerked forward to see the red Palace Guard airspeeder collide with the ground in a spectacular fireball.
"We're gonna be in so much poodoo…" said Zade.
Arin's comlink chirped. She answered it readily.
"Where are you?" asked Naia. "What's going on?"
Arin frowned, looking to the other two. They shrugged. Arin sighed. "Well… the Sith acolyte got away. He left the city."
"What? What happened?"
"We chased him on an airspeeder. He got through the shields, and we didn't."
"How?"
"These two droids created a hole somehow and he passed through at the exact same time."
Kloré's voice took over. "What kind of droids?"
Arin looked to Zade and Halyon for help. "I don't know. What kind?" she asked them.
"Maybe repair droids?" suggested Zade. "They had a bunch of arms on them."
Arin held down the button on her comlink. "We think they were repair droids."
"Is anyone hurt?" Kloré asked.
"Everyone's okay," replied Arin. "The speeder blew up, though."
There was static for a moment. "I don't even want to know," said Kloré tiredly. Zade and Halyon hid lopsided grins. Poor Kloré. "You're down below the cliff, aren't you? I can see the smoke from here."
"Yeah, we're down there."
"I…" Kloré's voice faltered. "The shields are stuck, so I can't send a shuttle to pick you up. You'll have to walk to the base of the cliff and make your own way back inside the shield."
The three younglings looked at each other.
"Why can't she send a shuttle?" Zade asked. "What does she mean, the shields are stuck up?"
Halyon jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. "That apparently happens when you try to go through the shields. And if nobody can lower them, well… nothing can get through."
"But we'll be okay, right?" Arin asked. "Do you think-" she reached to her belt for her lightsaber, and ignited it. Phew, it still worked. She clipped it back to her utility belt.
"Are you there?" came Kloré's voice over the comlink again.
Arin lifted her forearm back near her mouth. "Yeah, we're here. We'll find a way up." How long would that take? An hour? Maybe more?
They glanced back at the smoldering wreckage of the speeder, then forward towards the towering cliff face, which was perhaps a kilometer in front of them.
"Well, I guess we'd better get walking," said Zade.