Sabédala Week 2019 - October 27 (Day 7): Power
Sabédala Week 2019 - October 27 (Day 7): Power
This one’s a little . . . odd. (And I’m sorry if the Queenly references look unwieldy, but TPM has firmly established that, even though Amidala is a Queen, everyone refers to her as though she were a Princess [i.e., “Your Highness”] instead of a ruling monarch [i.e., “Your Majesty”], so it makes use of the royal voice and royal plurals kind of awkward.) Bear with me here, folks . . .
Also, this probably reads more like gen (sorry about that! On top of everything else, we had company in from out of town this weekend, so I kind of just ran out of time to try to do anything else with this particular piece), but the backstory is the same here as with pretty much all of my SW stuff, in that these two (Padmé and Sabé) have essentially grown up together since the Naberries moved to Theed essentially fulltime and have been all but joined at the hip, to the point where, before Padmé became quite so serious about having a political career, their families pretty much were expecting them to either find a third and have a joint marriage and handfasting (which is what tends to happen on Naboo, for triads and other polyamorous relationships) someday or else simply marry and contract with a temporary third (and/or two of them, depending) for children at some point down the line.
Story (or story fragment) below the cut!
Her face is wet with tears, but it feels as though her entire head might split open from the sheer force of her smile.
(They’ve won. The plan actually worked and they’ve won! She can barely believe it!)
What they’re getting on comms is still somewhat garbled, but it’s clear that the Trade Federation’s droid armies have all been disabled by the destruction of the Trade Federation’s main battleship and its Central Control Computer (no one is claiming responsibility for it, yet, but reports indicate that a Naboo Royal N-1 starfighter definitely flew out of the Lucrehulk-class Droid Control Ship as it was already beginning to explode, so it seems clear that someone on their side has managed to pull off what amounts to a miracle for Naboo). Apparently, it’s as though someone has simply suddenly pulled the power cord on everything, from the individual droids all the way up to the armored tanks. The Gungans are reporting victory and, with Gunray captured, Theed Palace is theirs, which means that the city and the province (and, thus, the whole world) will follow.
She’s honestly just starting to think (to hope) that maybe they’ve actually pulled this off (that they’ve won, that the fighting is over and no one else is going to have to be hurt or killed to win back their freedom from the oppression of the Trade Federation) and that everything is going to be alright, now, when she suddenly hears a harsh indrawn breath behind her, as though in shock or pain or both. Normally, a noise that soft wouldn’t necessarily register on her; Sabé’s been working with her lately on situational awareness, though, and, perhaps more importantly, less a heartbeat later the sound comes again, only much louder, as though multiple individuals have all simultaneously been shocked or startled or wounded into drawing a breath, and that’s enough to thoroughly catch her attention. She turns slightly away from where she’s been firmly dictating the terms of the new treaty to that mhalldaichte phéist of a mná, Gunray, just enough to see that, at some point during their discussion, Sabé has brought Eirtaé and Rabé (and several other guards) back into the throne room.
Sabé looks positively stricken – Eirtaé actually has a hand on her shoulder, as though to brace her upright on her feet, while Rabé basically hovers over them both, all but wringing her hands together in distress – though she cannot see any visible marks of physical injury. Her first thought is to demand to know what’s wrong (and what she can do to fix it), and only the fact that Sabé’s right hand is rather emphatically signaling her to not react keeps her from immediately turning all the way away from Gunray and going straight to her handmaidens. She forces herself turn back to Gunray through sheer power of will alone, but cannot quite keep from being brusque and at least a little bit distracted (thankfully, she’s had a revised treaty ready for Gunray since shortly before landing on Coruscant and, given the circumstances, he can’t exactly try to argue or weasel his way out of agreeing to exactly those terms). As soon as the Neimoidian and his posse of sniveling hangers on have finally been dealt with (dozens of their people have made their way to the throne room, by then, so Panaka is able to send what seems like an entire troupe of his best guards to escort them to a suitable cell in the ancient dungeons below the old heart of the Palace complex), she turns towards Sabé, striding over to her and demanding to know, “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Sabé is so pale – even under the makeup – that she looks as though she might be sick. “I fear something terrible has happened,” she replies, voice low and dull. She’s hugging herself hard enough that her shoulders are hunched inwards at an almost painful angle, and, to either side of her, Eirtaé and Rabé stand, physically bracing her, each one supporting her by an arm, as though afraid she might faint dead away or else simply fall into the floor without their support. When she looks up, her dark eyes are wet with unshed tears as she miserably explains, “I could swear I heard Bendu Kenobi screaming.”
“Has anyone been in contact with the Jedi?” Padmé immediately demands, turning back towards Panaka and the other guards. She’s not one who’s blessed to be able to touch (and to use) the living mantle of power of Asherah, the Great Lady of Life, Goddess of Seas and Stars, but she’s well aware of the fact that Sabé (like many native Nabooians. The distrust between Nabooians and the Jedi Order has almost certainly stood for so long because Nabooians tend to be more strongly Force-sensitive than most average humans or near-humans and yet are entirely uninterested in becoming Jedi, in essence culturally dissuaded from willingly sending their younglings to the Jedi to train) quite assuredly is, and she’s so utterly used to trusting Sabé’s feelings about things – not just her intuition, but the whisperings of the criosanna teinedíait in her very veins – that it doesn’t even occur to her to doubt that her beloved’s right and something truly awful has happened. “Do we know anything about how their battle has gone?”
Panaka (who’s been listening to the comms and at least attempting to keep them all informed of what’s going on) raises one hand in a fairly universal manner to request a moment, clearly listening intently, before eventually offering, “They seem to have pursued the creature out of the hangar and into the Theed power generator.”
“The Plasma Refinery Complex?” Padmé asks, utterly aghast at the thought of a running fight in anywhere near the main reactor. Between the seemingly bottomless extraction shaft and its mazelike crisscross latticework of catwalks, the twelve acceleration shafts for the plasma, and the facility’s main activator and purification chamber, with its safety corridor of constantly cycling laser gates (in case of potentially dangerous levels of energy output), combatants would be in constant danger of being separated, becoming disoriented and lost, and in simple danger of falling from what would amount to immense heights. Short of battling it out in an actual river (or the edge of a waterfall), she can’t actually think of a worse place on Naboo for a fight.
Panaka grimaces as he nods. “There’s safety footage from the power generator facilities, but it’s taking some time to pin down which cameras need to be accessed to accurately trace their path. One of our teams is on it, already, since we don’t want the Sith to escape,” he explains (and that makes sense, both because the Sith is a virtual unknown and a major potential threat and since the power generator, itself, is just two buildings over from the headquarters for the Royal Naboo Security Forces, so that it’s members can better guard both the plasma being harvested and refined for use and the refined plasma being stored in the massive drum-shaped holding tank that’s literally next door to the power generator. Plus, the Trade Federation’s interest in Naboo has always pretty much begun and ended with their plasma, so securing the Plasma Refinery Complex has always been their next immediate concern, after taking out the Droid Control Ship and seizing Gunray and, thus, the Palace). “We know they all went in; we don’t know, yet, if any of them have come back out again.”
She lets herself close her eyes for a moment and just breathe before replying. “If the Sith is still at large and fighting, then our victory here is incomplete and potentially little more than a minor setback for our enemies.”
Panaka nods in agreement, a little reluctantly. “I agree. But Highness – ”
“We will just have to go and see for ourselves,” Padmé firmly interjects, cutting him off before he can finish giving whatever excuse it is that he’s wanting to give for keeping her away from those facilities, deliberately adopting what she and Sabé refer to as the royal voice for emphasis. “If our Jedi allies need us, then we are honor-bound to provide our aid, if only in response to their earlier support and protection.”
Panaka sighs but inclines his head. “Yes, Your Highness. I’ll tell the tech to keep looking through the footage, though, just in case.”
She nods regally and waits a few moments for Panaka to comm in his orders before heading towards the doors, allowing guards to proceed and to essentially surround her, sticking determinedly by Sabé, Eirtaé and Rabé on their heels.
They manage to make it just over halfway there before Panaka signals for a halt, hand to his ear as he listens to his comm. Face grave, he tells her, “They’re at the main activator. The Sith’s apparently been dealt with, but Master Jinn is down. He doesn’t seem to be moving.”
“Dhiabhail!” she curses, quietly but fervently, eyes slipping shut, even as she hears Sabé suck in a ragged breath in shock (as though she’s been punched in the gut) beside her. A moment later her eyes fly back open as she demands, “Obi-Wan?”
“He’s the one who cut the Sith in half,” Panaka explains, sounding a little impressed, in spite of himself (but then, Panaka hasn’t approved of or trusted the Jedi at all, not this entire time, and, as she well knows, he can hold a grudge. He’s not likely to forgive Master Jinn for anything, simply because he’s fallen essentially in the Queen’s service, nor is he likely to warm towards Obi-Wan now, just because his Master has been slain). “He doesn’t seem to be injured – not visibly, anyway.”
Sabé’s sigh sounds like a sob. “He’s never going to forgive himself.”
She only just manages to swallow back a reflexive, I’m sure it was Jinn’s own damn fault, the arrogant bastard. She sighs, even as she rather furiously thinks, All that blasted foresight and knowledge and power, but he couldn’t stand to ask anyone else for help or advice and the whole damned ’verse would end before he’d ever admit that another way than his own chosen pathway might actually be the preferable tack to take. Scowling, she declares, “We won’t let him blame himself. Come on. It may not be too late. Call for a medic!” she throws over her shoulder at Panaka as she takes off at a near run, Sabé automatically keeping pace as she hurries towards the area informally known as melting pit.
They very nearly make it – she can see Obi-Wan, kneeling on the floor like a statue, next to his fallen Master – before a small tan colored blur races past them, so quickly that her eyes honestly can’t quite more than a blurry blob of motion.
Obi-Wan stands in one long oddly graceful unfurling of motion, just in time to catch a sobbing Anakin Skywalker as he hurtles himself into his arms.
She stops, startled and taken somewhat aback, and her handmaidens and the guards (about half of them Palace Guard and the others Security Guards or Security Officers, a mass of reds and oranges and maroons and blues all rushing in her wake) all stop moving with her.
Anakin is sobbing like his heart is breaking. “I’m sorry – I’m sorry! I stayed in the ship, but the ship didn’t stay put!” he wails, the words slightly muffled against Obi-Wan’s shoulder.
Obi-Wan holds Anakin with an oddly almost detached tenderness, cradling him securely against his larger bulk but not seeming to know what to do with his hands. Anakin clings to him like a Kowakian monkey-lizard, legs wound securely around his waist and arms visibly all but strangling tight around his neck. Obi-Wan kind of . . . pats at him, awkwardly but kindly, even as he makes a sort of odd half crooning hushing noise. “You did very well, young one. I know he would have been proud of you. The Force took you where you most needed to be, in that moment, and was able, thus, to work its will through you,” he murmurs, just barely loudly enough that Padmé can understand what he’s saying over the sound of Anakin’s disconsolate crying (his voice hoarse, as though he’s also been sobbing . . . or screaming).
“I didn’t – I wasn’t – I didn’t mean to – ”
“You took out the Droid Control Ship, which took out the Central Control Computer and so deactivated all the battle droids and armaments of the Trade Federation’s droid armies,” Obi-Wan calmly proclaims, and Padmé’s so shocked that she gasps gracelessly, staring at them like some thunderstruck yokel. “You did well, young one, honestly.
Anakin half screams and half sobs, “But I wasn’t here! I didn’t make it in time! I couldn’t help you and Master Qui-Gon!”
“But you helped with the Trade Federation ship, which in turned deactivated the droids, which saved our Gungan allies and inspired Nute Gunray to surrender peacefully,” Obi-Wan calmly but firmly insists (and seriously, how in the frakking hells does he even know all of that? Does the fact that he’s a Jedi mean that the Force skips straight past the relatively gentle nudging and hints of feeling and presentiment to essentially whispering in his ear like a voice on an open commlink?). “The day has been saved, for Naboo, in large part because of your efforts.”
“I could have helped! I could have – I could have helped him, but I – I wasn’t even – ”
Obi-Wan makes a hushing noise and stokes his hand firmly down the length of Anakin’s back. “No, you couldn’t’ve. You would’ve only been in danger, too, and driven him to run ahead of us all the harder.”
Sabé’s right hand tightens convulsively around her left hand, at that, because of course Padmé’s right and apparently this actually was that mhalldaichte arrogant idiot’s fault, because evidently it is her lot in life, now that she’s Queen of Naboo, to have to deal with this kind of insanely ridiculous deàrgámadí dúr focáelirí all the bloody time. (She’s not even surprised. What does that say about her – about the kind of life she’s been living, since she became Queen – that she’s not even capable of being surprised by this kind of sheer idiocy, anymore?)
Goddess bless, she just really wants to smack the life back into Qui-Gon, right now.
Anakin, of course, just keeps sobbing, brokenly apologizing for not being able to help save Master Jinn from the Sith and for thinking that, since the autopilot took his ship straight up to the Trade Federation’s battleship, he should go with it and try to help by firing everything he possibly could, while inside the battleship’s own shields, instead of immediately fighting to get back down to the surface and to them, which, of course, leads right back to him blaming himself and apologizing for not having been better and quicker and for failing to get to them in time. Obi-Wan keeps making that oddly flat, not quite crooning hushing noise, one large hand circling slowly over Anakin’s shaking back, awkwardly trying to offer comfort, until eventually Anakin mostly just cries himself out. Obi-Wan pats as his back awkwardly as the boy half sighs and half hiccoughs tiredly against his shoulder, slowly murmuring, “It will be alright. You’re overtired. You need to rest. Everything else can keep, for now. Go to sleep, Anakin. Sleep. We’ll work out what to do later.”
Her eyes actually glaze over, at the command to sleep, and it’s not until Sabé physically jolts against her that she realizes she was actually about to just drift off, right there, standing on her feet. By the time she’s finished blinking herself back to full awareness, Anakin is out like a proverbial light, slumped seemingly bonelessly in Obi-Wan’s arms. She’s still staring at them, wondering if that wasn’t some kind of Force-suggestion (the Jedi are able to use the Force to influence the weak-willed, she knows, but can they actually do the same thing to those who’re as strong-minded and self-aware as Anakin Skywalker?), when he shifts around, slowly but surely (moving Anakin up to his right hip as he turns, so he can free a hand to wipe off his own face, rubbing away the signs of his own tears, before facing them), until he’s looking at them (instead of out at the melting pit, so that Anakin’s face would be turned away from the sight of Qui-Gon Jinn’s body). There’s a crowd of them – her and Sabé and Rabé and Eirtaé and a double handful of guards under Panaka, plus three fighter pilots, who’d apparently been following Anakin – though he hardly seems to notice, his gaze (gray as a winter storm and cold as death) fixed at some empty point somewhere between her and Sabé. “Forgive me,” he murmurs after several long moments of silence, chillingly dry-eyed and composed. “Do you require my aid?”
Padmé automatically starts to reach out to him and about three things happen all at once. Sabé sucks in a breath and yanks, hard, to keep her from rushing forward, like she intends to; Panaka’s commlink trills unexpectedly to life; and Obi-Wan flinches as though struck, half drawing away (clutching Anakin protectively towards himself), right hand drifting down to the lightsaber hilt (but not the same lightsaber hilt he’s always carried. Is that actually Master Jinn’s lightsaber? Where’s Obi-Wan’s lightsaber?) secured at his belt, as though in response to a threat. She’s so startled she lets herself be held back and distracted by the noise, waiting a few moments for Obi-Wan to relax enough to realize that he’s not under attack, before finally earnestly and quite formally offering, “Apologies, Bendu. We grieve with thee. Master Jinn’s death is a grievous loss. We only want to try to help make things easier for you.”
Obi-Wan tilts his head in a considering manner, but then he just sighs, “There is no death; there is only the Force.”
Sabé very clearly growls, if low and under her breath, and she perfectly understands and shares the sentiment. There’s quite a lot that she wants to say, in response to such obvious shaak-shit, but Theed Palace and the planet are honestly only nominally regained (there’s likely chaos breaking out all over the planet, now that the droids are down) and, unfortunately, with Qui-Gon Jinn’s likely still cooling body just behind them, it’s fairly obviously not the time to try to get into an ethical argument with Obi-Wan about the sheer idiocy and unhealthiness of his entire blasted Order’s blasted main philosophy. Calmly, she tells him, “Obi-Wan, Bendu, I swear my handmaidens and I can look after Anakin for you the rest of this day, easily enough. You will need to contact your Order about what has happened here, and it will surely be easier for you to have privacy, while you are doing so. Please. Let me help.”
She steps forward, with Sabé, slowly but determinedly, and expectantly holds out her arms – essentially necessitating that Sabé hold her arms out, too – until it finally seems to register on Obi-Wan just what it is that she’s trying to do. Anakin passes to her and from her to Sabé without a hitch, if slowly, as though Obi-Wan were reluctant to let go of him. From there, it’s fairly easy to get Obi-Wan to come away from the blasted melting pit, though he refuses to leave Master Jinn’s body and won’t let anyone help carry him (he carries him with the Force, instead, which is an extremely eerie thing to watch, the corpse floating along in Obi-Wan’s wake like some kind of macabre tethered balloon) to the infirmary.
Even with everything that follows – the discovery of bodies locked in some of the Palace quarters, as though they were cells, some of them dead for days and others still clinging on to life; sporadic fighting, as collaborators and hired lackeys lash out, trying to steal everything they can and fight their way to freedom; her family showing up and her sister so distraught that she very nearly miscarries (Obi-Wan all over blood, where he’s literally put his hands on Sola to channel the Force into her and stop the bleeding, ease her bodily back into equilibrium, so the baby won’t come too early) – she somehow manages to keep it together, in public, even though all she wants to do is scream and rage and just . . . just hit that mhalldaichte ámadán focáeir, for getting himself killed.
Literally all the power in the ’verse, thanks to the Force, and Qui-Gon Jinn still couldn’t protect himself from the lightsaber (or saberstaff, she supposes, given that the Sith’s weapon had clearly been capable of emitting a blade from both of its ends) of a Sith.
(All the power in the world, as Queen, and she couldn’t keep one stupid Jedi from dying.)
She manages to keep it together until she’s finally alone with her handmaidens, and then Sabé snatches up a vase and hurtles it, screaming, into the floor, and Padmé immediately turns around and opens her arms and bursts into tears, and they rush together and cling to one another, crying and screaming because they’ve won and it’s over but people are hurt and people are dead (Qui-Gon Jinn is dead) and she is never, ever going to be able to forgive Nute Gunray and the Trade Federation for any of this, no matter what else may or may not happen or what reparations they may be forced to make to Naboo, not ever.
She will make them pay, though – she will have justice for Naboo and for that ámadán críochnáchd, Jinn – if it’s the very last thing she does, though. Asherah as her witness, Padmé will use her power and she will make them all regret having ever chosen to target Naboo.














