(Naboo, Bank of Lake Paonga, 21.9 BBY)
The hatch in the side of the dull yellow and brown submarine opened up and outward with a faint hiss, like the upstroke of a wing. This was followed by a few muted machine sounds, as the vehicle settled flush beside the dock, then even the surface of the water disturbed by the sub's emergence grew still once more.
That stillness and silence lasted only a moment, before a thin, surprisingly human figure appeared in the hatchway. The low, rough, masculine voice belonging to the figure standing in the shadow of the overhanging hatch-door was a barked whip-crack, "You brave ones comin' aboard, or we going to park it here, and go on temptin' the mid-column monsters for nothing? If it's all the same to you, I'd like to live to spend my pay."
Reaching out to assess the two beings I could sense aboard the submersible, I felt the sort of focused tension I associated with professionals doing dangerous work, but none of the hungry anticipation, or sharply anxious highs and lows that often gave away treacherous intentions. It was by no means a perfect method of assessing motive, but in this case, what the Force whispered to me fell well within my expectations for individuals in this sort of situation.
It was enough, under the circumstances, so I turned and motioned for the others to follow, then glided forward to be the first aboard. If I was wrong, I was the one best-suited to handle betrayal at close quarters.
Three steps had me through the hatchway and able to see who it was that had snapped at us. It was something of a surprise to see a young, working-class Corellian man, co-piloting a Gungan sub out here in the Mid Rim. Given the isolationist sentiment that was particularly strong among those Corellians who'd come of age during the almost decade-long decay of relations between the Republic and the Separatists, I seldom saw Corellians near to my own age these days. It made me curious about this one.
Several centimeters shy of two meters tall, the hawk-nosed, sandy brown-haired man looked thin but reasonably fit, though his skin had the wan paleness of someone who didn't get much sun. His eyes were a common shade of medium brown, but there was a sharp glint of assessing appraisal in them, as he studied each of us while we boarded. His hair was short, straight, and parted down the middle, while his clothes were the customary Corellian spacer's white undershirt, dark sleeveless vest, and workman's slacks. It didn't escape my notice that the toes of the submariner's black boots were capped with durasteel, or that he had a telescoping stun-baton sheathed down the back of his right boot. A heavy blaster of an older model hung from a thin synth-leather utility belt, completing the Corellian's equipment.
Despite his already having gleaned what he could from my appearance, the Corellian made a production of looking me up and down, as I moved deeper into the four-seated chamber behind the pilot's pod to make way for the others. Following me to the two pairs of seats sitting opposite each other, he seemed to be on the point of saying something critical, but instead the submariner simply shook his head silently and tramped fore into the pilot's pod.
No sooner had the pod's hatch door hissed shut behind him, then I heard a different voice speaking to us over an intercom, "Please take your seats and strap yourselves in. We will be forced to take evasive action, and I do not think any of you would enjoy a fall to the roof of the sub, when it momentarily becomes the floor. Master Jedi, you will need to find some means of securing your droid. We were not informed you would be accompanied by such a sizable machine, and do not accept responsibility for any mishaps that may arise from its presence," The speaker, the pilot, I guessed, and from the high, faintly reverberating tone of voice likely a Rodian, informed us with a businesslike directness.
Looking at the others, who seemed to be waiting to take their cues from me, I motioned toward the two pairs of harnessed seating positioned opposite each other, saying, "You heard the captain. Ahsoka, that small flatscreen to the right of the seats nearest the pod hatch is undoubtedly connected to cameras set into the exterior of the hull in lieu of windows. Unless I'm very much mistaken, you'll find the closed-circuit footage rather exciting."
Turning my attention to IG-1 for a moment, I inquired, "Can you find a position to remain immobile by bracing yourself? One that won't result in damage to you or the sub, I mean."
Photoreceptors sweeping across the relatively small square chamber, the droid responded immediately in a voice that was still a touch tinny despite my best efforts, "Affirmative."
Instead of elaborating on that reply, the tall droid stopped short of the pair of seats nearest to us. Taking a wide stance that placed his knees against the outer edge of one seat and the opposite bulkhead, he reached up to place both his palms flat against the ceiling of the compartment. I sensed as much as heard the actuators in his elbow joints lock themselves in place, along with a number of other mechanisms intended to reduce recoil from the fully automatic blasters in his forearms, before IG-1 announced flatly, "Barring movements that will result in significant damage to this vehicle, my frame is secure against unintended motion, Knight Skywalker."
Frowning a little, I replied, "I told you that you can call me Anakin, IG-1. I've been wrist-deep in your neural architecture. I know you're fully sapient."
There was a momentary pause, before IG-1 replied in his usual flat affect, "This unit's comprehension of the mission in progress suggests this is a non-optimal time and location for a discussion of this nature."
Opening my mouth to respond, I closed it a moment later, when I silently realized how neatly I'd trapped myself. "If Padme or Ahsoka told me, 'I don't want to talk about this right now,' I'd respect their wishes, barring a compelling reason to the contrary. If IG-1's a person, he's entitled to the same courtesy."
Resolving that the issue was by no means closed, I shifted my attention to getting my harness on, then to making sure Ahsoka and Padme were also strapped in securely. We were just in time, too, because a moment later, a powerful lateral move on the submersible's part threw me sharply to the left against my harness. This movement was immediately followed by a continued tilting in the same direction, then I was thrown forward in my seat. It only took me a moment to realize the sub was finishing its arc away from the dock, before nosing down sharply at speed.
"Do they have to throw us around like that, Master?" Ahsoka complained, as soon as the sub achieved a relatively constant angle of descent. Opening myself more completely to the impressions of my apprentice's emotions that the Force was willing to supply, I wasn't surprised to sense the swelling distaste my apprentice felt for being passenger rather than pilot. What was surprising, at least a little, was how clearly my young apprentice could sense the growing danger of our circumstances.
"This is a trip aboard a luxury-liner, compared to a few of the missions I went on with my Master. When Dark Woman decided we needed to look into the rumors that a cabal of Dark Adepts were insinuating themselves among the Kiffu Guardians, she had us smuggled aboard a droid-manned resupply craft that never landed on the prison-planet," I replied rather breezily.
Looking rather skeptical after another burst of acceleration threw us to the right in our harnesses, my apprentice sulkily responded, "That doesn't sound so bad."
"The company with the supply contract was cutting expenses wherever they could. Meaning they didn't see the need to pressurize a vessel manned entirely by droids. I spent seventy hours in a cargo container wearing an e-vac-exposure suit, reliant on canister-air. Nothing will make you gladder you didn't skimp on your trance training than only having thirty-six hours of air, when your cargo-pod is expected to begin it's 4-gee air-braking maneuver two thousand meters up, seventy-two hours after we were loaded aboard," I finished reminiscing with a fond smile of remembrance.
"That's horrible!" Ahsoka and Padme declared, almost in unison. It took me a moment to understand the nature of their objection, then I hurried to explain myself.
"I would not have been there, if Dark Woman hadn't already tested my ability to carry out the mission by burying me underground for the full seventy-two hours, with the same amount of available air, plus failure-air, twice. It was the first time my Master ever truly relied on me, the way she would a Knight or another Master. Of course I remember successfully apprehending the Commandant and her nine acolytes, after incapacitating most of the misguided Guardians on-duty fondly!" My explanation probably came out a little more harshly than I intended, but I'd always been sensitive about people thinking ill of my former Master, just because she could be a little, intense.
Ahsoka's voice had lost its edge and become rather small, as she hesitantly asked, "Is, are, are those the kind of umm, challenges, you'll expect me to overcome during my training, Master?" The sub was regularly tossing us in one direction or another as the pilots raced from one gap-corridor in the Gungans' sonar-curtain to another, but the Togruta no longer seemed to notice the admittedly uncomfortable jostling.
Brow knitting slightly as I considered the question for only the briefest moment, I replied seriously, "Absolutely!" Drawing another breath, I continued, because I'd been taught precision in communication was extremely important, "The strength of your connection to the Force places you in the top one percentile of the Order, Snips. After a decade of real training, not that beat-cop-Judicial-with-a-lightsaber, if-you-can-pass-the-Trials-it-must-have-been-good-enough nonsense, you'll be able to do things you can't even imagine right now. Your potential is nearly limitless, and I will do everything in my power to help you realize it. Just like I'll never ask you to take one step down a path you don't want to walk. I'll push you, yes, but only when you're allowing fear or self-doubt to hold you back. I'm your Master, it's my honor and obligation to always be there for you. Just like Dark Woman has always, always been there, for me."
Glancing away abruptly, I focused on thickening the outermost layer of my shielding, as a pouncing fear with claws made of "What if she never wakes up?" suddenly tried to rend my insides without the least warning.
Jaw tightening, I consciously forced my breathing to remain even. I didn't release the fear into the Force, because that would make something deeply personal, impersonal. Instead, I simply breathed and focused on the beating of my heart. It was thumping a bit faster than normal, so I focused on silently counting those beats. My count had reached one hundred and fourteen, by the time the beats were slow and even again.
A voice almost startled me, as I pushed the last wisps of the fear into oblivion, but something pricked me before the first words came from the intercom overhead, "We'll be docking in fifteen, Master Jedi. When you feel the sub come to a jarring halt, you'll have forty-five seconds to get unstrapped and move to the hatch. Once the hatch opens, I expect to see the last of you off my ship before another thirty seconds have passed. If the Gungan exile-hunters haven't found, beaten senseless, and turned in for credits Panaka's local errand-girl, someone should meet you before you all reach the first T-intersection. Either way, it's not my problem any longer. Docking in three, two, one-" The unnamed Rodian pilot suddenly announced over the intercom, his reedy voice sharp with suppressed nerves.
I was suddenly thrown forward and to the right with painful force, as a loud, hollow sounding tha-buunk noise echoed through the submersible when it shuddered to a sudden stop. Depressing the quick-release button where the four straps of the harness formed an "X" across my chest, I leaped to my feet the moment the harness straps fell away, then turned to make sure my Padawan was free. IG-1 had crossed to do the same for Padme in a single long stride, so the four of us were indeed waiting at the hatch for it to open outward in the allotted time.
The hiss of the hatch unsealing and swinging away from us was considerably louder in here than it had sounded outside, but I took it as a cue to see my companions off the sub as soon as IG-1 had exited. If anyone unfriendly was lying in wait for us, chances were the last thing they'd be equipped to encounter was a battle-droid capable of tanking military blaster-fire and laughing at ion-grenades. It wouldn't win me any friends among the Gungans, bringing one of the hated Clankers who'd killed so many of their brave soldiers here, but I wasn't feeling very kindly toward the Gungans at the present moment. If we were wrong, and the amphibians really were colluding with the Separatists of their own free will, we were going to find ourselves glad to have IG-1 with us.
My booted feet hadn't even touched the durasteel of this small docking area, before I began to feel a subtle wrongness. The traces of it were so faint, I might not have noticed it under different circumstances, but I'd had more than my fair share of encounters with the Dark Side in its many unnatural manifestations recently. Cautiously, I allowed my interest in any hazards that might surround us to act as my request to the Force, for aid in intuiting what was not natural in this place. It was a limited and roundabout technique of discernment, but it possessed the distinct advantage of being an almost entirely passive means of acquiring information. I wasn't extending my awareness out beyond my shielding, and into potential contact with the contamination. Instead, I opened myself to the impressions carried to me by the Force.
Envy, sour and curdled, as only something that had once been wholesome could become. It was laid like a brittle crust over, hunger, disgust, maybe a disgust that hungered? Deepest of the impressions, and so faint there was no way to be sure it wasn't unconscious speculation born from the nudges of intuition, I thought there might have been something like a sanctimoniousness which was somehow deceitful. Nothing which provided an explanation as to how the very metal and stone surrounding us had begun to be corrupted by the Dark Side.
It was even more disquieting, when I considered the relative unimportance of this location. If the contamination could be found in a maintenance dock that hadn't seen legitimate use in years, was it already entrenched elsewhere in Otoh Gunga?
Looking about the elliptical chamber, I noted two thirds of what could have been floorspace were taken up by the docking bay's circular wet entry pool. The rest of the space, minus a narrow walkway leading to a closed hatch in the upper end of the room, was taken up by a raised walkway that circled the round pool. The longer walls of the ellipse were each inset with large transparisteel windows that opened onto dark waters outside. Obviously buttressed by the Gungans odd forcefield technology, the windows, hatch, pool, and the surrounding walk were the dock's only distinct features. The facility was so conspicuously bare of anything that might have once lent itself to the room's function, its emptiness seemed somehow sinister.
Sensing a dull thrum of tightly controlled uneasiness, I heard Padme's light footfalls before her hushed voice, "I think we should be moving on, Knight Skywalker. I can't say why, but this place brings to mind the outermost chambers of that madman Vindi's underground lab. I toured that vile place, when his attorneys made a final appeal to the Crown."
"Feels like a place where bad things happen," Ahsoka echoed simply. She made her feelings clear in the same sort of near whisper that Padme had, yet her eyes never stopped scanning the room while she'd done so.
IG-1 had positioned himself so the inward-opening hatch would swing past and then away from him. That told me what the droid thought of our course, so I demonstrated my agreement by moving to the hatch.
One counterclockwise rotation of the wheel in the center of the hatch caused it to begin swinging inward without any help from me. Soundless in its motion, I quickly sidestepped the opening portal to gain a clear view of the passage beyond. As I moved, the silence made me wonder if someone had recently lubricated the hatch's workings, but I quickly pushed the distracting thought from my mind.
Running straight as an arrow, the passageway terminated at the T-intersection our Rodian pilot had described after no more than fifteen meters. Utterly featureless, the short corridor had an industrial character about it. One entirely at odds with my notion of Gungan aesthetics. Silent and somehow forlorn, it was tinged with the same contamination as the docking bay. Thankfully, the taint was so slight, it was only detectable as a continuation of the corruption in the room just behind them. Unwilling to be surprised by someone who could be lying in wait down one branch of the "T" or the other, I sent my awareness coursing out ahead of us, as my steps took me closer to the intersection.
Anxiety and impatience in equal measure. Hints of fear, that had been corralled and cut down to almost nothing, by a focused, needle-sharp concern for, someone.
Taking a left at the intersection, I came face to face with a Gungan female a few inches shorter than me, but nearly twice as wide. The dark green skin of the Ankuran Gungan woman was offset by her vibrant violet robes adorned liberally with golden brocade. Long golden ribbons crisscrossed her neck to lay down the front of her stocky torso in a manner reminiscent of a stole, but it was the large almost neon-green eyes on the ends of her eyestalks that snared one's attention. I wasn't absolutely positive, but the female's dress gave me the impression she was part of the influential body of Gungans involved in the city's politics. Many of the Ankurans were, male and female, irregardless of the fact the present Boss of the Rep Council, Lyonie, was notably one of the Otolla.
Fixing her attention on Padme to the exclusion of everything else, the Gungan female immediately gushed in a squeak that seemed as excited as it was relieved, "Senator Amidala, mesa Nuri Ress, Boss Lyonie's Big-Time Assistant. Captainin Panaka, hesa ben tellin mesa that yous ben helpin us findin the reason the Boss's thinking gotten strange-like. Hesa ben seein fake friends wheresa true ones ben, and makin Big-Bombad enemies fromsa swamp-stink!"
It would have been difficult to tell, going only by the female's broad alien features, but the Force clearly announced the deep embarrassment the intensely loyal attaché was feeling, as she named the failings being exhibited by the Gungan leader. It didn't seem to matter to Nuri that her reason for doing so was to seek help for Boss Lyonie, or that the person listening was a staunch and deeply respected friend of her people. Every syllable she'd spoken seemed painfully wrung from her, leaving her an exhausted bundle of raw nerves.
Stepping past me, Padme laid a comforting hand on Nuri's forearm, as the anxious woman wrung her stubby-fingered hands. Speaking in a quiet tone full of confidence and determination, she assured the Gungan, "I mean to do everything in my power to set things right, Nuri. That's why I, ahh, brought Knight Skywalker and his apprentice with me. If you can get us in to see Boss Lyonie, Master Skywalker can tell us what's wrong, then we can help the Boss."
Appearing to really register my presence for the first time, one of Nuri's hands flew to her mouth, as she excitedly squeaked, "Jedi Knighting Skywalker! Hesa havin ben hanging-gliding from a bat, chop-chopping-up the Wicked Root-Beastie, before-time hesa been helping Masterin Dark Woman to be catchin the Big-Bombad-Bad Madness Doctorin Vindi! Isa be watchin Jedi Against the Mad Doctor twelve times! It'sa being an adaptationing of da truthful story-timin!"
Suppressing the impulse to cringe with a supreme act of willpower, I looked into those fluorescent green eyes and forced myself to smile confidently. The calm self-assurance with which I responded to the excited, anticipatory hope now blazing in Nuri's eyes one hundred percent the product of Dark Woman's relentless drilling. "Senator Amidala speaks the truth, Nuri. Someone is either drugging the Boss, or much more likely, using what I believe your people call 'The Mind Powers' to force Lyonie to behave this way."
Pausing a moment to give the Gungan politician time to come to terms with the overwhelming likelihood that her leader was the victim of one sort of mind-control or another, I declared with genuine confidence, "I know we're asking a lot from you, Assistant Ress, but on my honor as a Jedi, I mean to see Boss Lyonie himself once more. Get us close enough, and with the Force as my ally, it will be done."
Eyes turned suddenly sharp and penetrating, Nuri studied me for several long heartbeats. The examination reminding me that this female had to be an able politician in her own right, to have ended up standing at Lyonie's right hand. Someone who hadn't made a study of the Gungans would likely make the mistake of assuming someone who referred to themselves as an "Assistant" was exactly that. A secretary or attaché, when in truth Nuri was one split hair from being something very much like a Deputy Boss.
Finally, her broad cheeks suddenly inflating like a bullfrog, she let out a great hrr-uump as her cheeks deflated. Upper body shaking as if she was terribly chilled, Nuri suddenly replied, "Mesa will be bringing yous to be seeing da Boss. Yousa ben bein provin yous a friend to da Gungans, Knighting Skywalker. Senator Amidala ben being oursa great friend for da longest time. I's be believing yous both, and da Boss sure bein needin dis helping. Come, thinking-time's a done. Wesa need to be going now."
Caught out by the unexpectedly decisive shift in the conversation, I spoke up quickly as the Gungan woman began to turn, "Wait, Nuri, there's something you need to see, first. You need to stay calm, though, and give me a chance to explain."
Turning back to look at me with a gaze that was not quite suspicious, but intensely speculative. Nuri's demeanor chilled rather dramatically as she waited expectantly.
Sighing, I ignored that chill, as well as the look of sudden exasperation on Padme's face, as I called out, "IG-1, could you join us now, slowly?"
Watching Nuri intently, I waited for the moment the fright I was anticipating would steal over her face as the battle-droid rounded the corner. Only to find myself surprised, when Nuri eyed IG-1 at length during his approach, then asked very simply, "Why?"
Knowing exactly what Lyonie's lieutenant was asking, I looked her square in the eye, and responded with equal simplicity, "I needed help, none was available, so I rebuilt and reprogrammed some. IG-1 was a murder-machine. Now, he's a person. One who chooses to help me protect people. Make sense?"
Nuri's eyes flicked from me to IG-1, then back to me, before finally coming to rest on the droid for a very long time. I kept my face calmly impassive as she silently studied my cybernetic companion, but inside, I was mentally crossing my fingers. Saying the Gungans disliked battle-droids was like saying Jedi and Sith didn't get along very well, and here I was, asking one very stressed-out public servant to bring a battle-droid within reach of her people's compromised commander-in-chief.
Surprisingly, Nuri's response was a study in the concise. Shrugging her stocky shoulders, she let out another bullfrog Hrrr-uump, then answered, "Dis be making sense. Come."
Turning without so much as another look at any of us, she waved an arm in a circular forward motion to urge us to follow, then set off at a quick yet unhurried march down one tunnel after another. Leaving us to follow along after.
----------------
After a dizzying number of rights, lefts, and silent pneumatic lifts upward, we eventually followed Nuri into a corridor that seemed to go nowhere. Stopping four-fifths of the way to the end of the passage, the Gungan made a sudden right turn to face a nondescript section of bulkhead. One that looked exactly like a hundred other cross-sections of passageway we'd walked past. Confidently placing her right hand on a specific spot, a slight pressure caused a hand-sized circle of metal to noiselessly sink inward by several centimeters. The revealed panel began to shine with a solid red light the moment the circular scanner stopped moving, but Nuri simply kept her hand pressed to the device. The red light continuing to play up and down the panel. There was no obvious sign of the scan's result for almost a minute, then the section of wall the stocky Gungan woman faced simply dropped with a frictionless silence into ground.
The room that abruptly appeared looked at a glance to be almost entirely empty. There was a large, curiously round conference table in the middle of the room, with a huge circular screen set into its top. Several high-backed chairs surrounded the table, and a number of the Gungans unique light-globe fixtures were set into the walls equidistant from each other throughout the round room. Other than that, the space's only other feature was another door. One standing exactly opposite the one we were now filing into the room by. Everything, floor, walls, and ceiling included, were well-made examples of complex metallurgy, but it was yet another forlorn, entirely deserted space.
The Dark Side contamination was here as well. Stronger and much more deeply entrenched than it had been in the docking chamber. Shivers and uneasy glances all around them told me the others felt something of the taint, but for the most part, everyone's attention remained fixed on Nuri.
Turning to look at me and Padme, the short, rotund Gungan had begun to wring her hands again. Slow and deliberate, the repetitive movement seemed almost a comfort to the harried politician. Voice barely more than a murmur, it was clear that Nuri was taking exceptional pains not to be overheard by someone, when she started to quickly explain, "Dis bein Boss Nass's old situationing-room. Boss Lyonie doesn't be using dis room, but it's being beside his sitting-in room. Da other side of that rooms ben his sleeping-time room. Da door to dat room and dis one's being kept locked, but I's be knowing the codes."
Hesitating, as if she was deciding whether or not to say anything more, Nuri eventually divulged in an impassioned rush, "Da goodly Ministering Rish Loo, hesa ben trying to straighten da Boss's thinking with his priestly ways, but yousa can't be telling anybodies I's be saying dis. De ways of the gods being mysteriousness over oursa understanding!"
Asking if we were ready for her to open the door to Lyonie's chambers, Padme, in turn, looked to me, so I nodded my agreement distractedly.
"Rish Loo, where I have heard that name before?" Asking myself the question, I watched Nuri stride to the door with a determined look on her stolid face. Following along in her wake, I had to fight the urge to tense up with every step forward. The metaphorical stench of the Dark was growing thicker and more objectionable the closer to the door I drew, but it wasn't a simple quantitative matter. There were new and entirely distinct influences that swirled in the fetid, oily air I forced myself to move through with a grimace of distaste.
"Rish Loo, I know that name, but I'd swear it's nothing I ever heard in Dark Woman's company. Force-assisted mnemonics are giving me nothing, and those should dredge up anything one or more of my senses registered from the time I was about two and a half. Rish-Loo, Rish-Lew, Rishloo, why does that name seem so kriffing important all of a sudden?" The storm of silent questions competed for my attention with a pall of contamination that intensified to such an extent, it was hard to believe the Dark Side wasn't being actively used in my presence.
My senses having sharpened to an almost painful degree by the veritable alarm-klaxon continuing to sound in my mind, I was actually able to hear Nuri lightly tapping out a long string of unfamiliar numerals and characters into a keypad that had appeared out of nowhere for her.
A predatory Envy was twined tightly about a repellent-yet-cloying bitterness, like a larger and more powerful serpent bent on devouring the lesser snake snared in its coils. Primal fear of death and/or total defeat, fueling a rage so cold, it was a wonder the emotion didn't shatter the one trying to use it as drive.
The Darkness vanished like a popped soap bubble a moment later, but the instant before it did, as the door Nuri was unlocking did another of those frictionless drops rather than sliding aside, I felt a frisson of surprise jolt through the tainted space. It vanished as surely as all the Dark except the lingering residue did, but it was warning enough.
A grunt of pain and surprise whooshed out of Nuri as an invisible force began to hurl her to the right. Away from the doorway she'd just been standing before, as a blazing scarlet needle was thrust straight on. Almost in perfect time with the fall of the door.
A shriek of shocked hurt tore its way out of the Gungan as she was yanked away. The burning red brand having plunged through the substantial flesh of her left bicep, then straight out the side of her upper arm.
The loud, bizarrely flat voice of a male Gungan shouted in an emotionless affect from somewhere beyond the now open door, "The Jedi! Hesa being tryin to killing me! Gungs! Gungs!"
Framed in the doorway stood a familiar figure, still rocking the silver pageboy-cut with a confident sneer on her lips, as she drawled, "How do you plan on getting out of this one, Master Jedi? Do tell."
Sighing, my reply wasn't for her, "IG-1, power up your personal shield, blasters to rapid-fire, stun-bolts only, please. Knock out or manhandle all the misguided idiots, if you would. I'll take out the trash. Ahsoka, stay with Padme, and don't get taken hostage."
Lightsaber leaping into my hand, I charged without another word.