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Chapter Text

Qui-Gon’s funeral, like all funerals, had been a somber affair. After the last flames had died down and the ashes had been ceremoniously cast into the river that flowed by the small temple, the attendees drifted away. Only three stood fast; Queen Amidala, staring at the plinth where the pyre had been laid, Obi-Wan Kenobi, his hands folded in the sleeves of his robes, and Anakin Skywalker, who had shaken his head and clutched Obi-Wan’s robe when Yoda had offered to lead him to the hostel the Jedi had been granted for their stay on Naboo. Yoda had simply looked between Anakin and Obi-Wan with a raised eyebrow and nodded before stumping away, his gimer stick tapping on the flagstones. Obi-Wan, for his part, had simply waited with Jedi patience. It had been the Queen’s request that he stay, after all.

He did not have to wait long. “We should not have won this battle, Obi-Wan,” Padmé said flatly. “We had only one plan, which was to pick three separate fights at the same time and win all three of them. We couldn’t even afford to not lose.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “It was the best plan that could be made with the time and the means available to you, Your Highness,” he said. “And we prevailed in the end.”

“At what cost, Obi-Wan?” Padmé asked, anger heating her voice. “More than a thousand dead? Thousands more wounded or impoverished? And for all the sacrifice, we would still have lost, but for Anakin getting luckier than we had any right to be.” She shook her head. “We are a peaceful people, Obi-Wan. But I will not leave my people’s fate to chance, or the will of the Force, again. Not while I am responsible for their safety and their well-being.”

Obi-Wan frowned. “Would you make Naboo a power, Your Highness?” he asked carefully.

Padmé shook her head. “No,” she said. “I will not turn Naboo into the Trade Federation. I would only make us strong enough that neither the Federation, nor anyone else, thinks of us as easy prey again. I will not let my people be made vulnerable to anyone who thinks they can take advantage of the Republic’s weakness. What if it is the Hutts next time? Or the Zygerrians? Or the Pyke Syndicate?”

Obi-Wan turned to stare at the plinth, his mind churning. He wanted to tell the young Queen that her fears were unfounded, that not even the Hutts would dare raise a finger against Naboo. Not now. But the Code required honesty, especially with oneself. And Obi-Wan remembered how it had taken the personal intervention of Chancellor Valorum to send him and Qui-Gon to negotiate with the Trade Federation. The Trade Federation might have been accustomed to strongarming recalcitrant planets in the Outer Rim or the Unknown Regions, where the Republic’s writ only ran as far as a Jedi’s lightsaber or a Judicial Officer’s blaster. But Naboo was not just a member planet of the Republic from time out of mind, but very solidly Mid-Rim. For all the support the Trade Federation could have mustered in the Senate, they shouldn’t have been able to get away with blockading Naboo for a standard day.

It had been one of the questions that he and Qui-Gon had pondered during the flight from Coruscant to Naboo, before the crisis came to a head. What had made the Trade Federation think they could get away with blockading Naboo? Whatever justification they could have weaved together from trade deficits and balances of payments, a blockade was still an act of war. To follow that up by destroying a consular ship, attempting to murder two Jedi, and invading a member world of the Republic? It bordered on the fantastical. Even with the Sith on their side . . .

Obi-Wan shook his head. Leave that to the Council, he told himself. Focus on what you can do. “I think, Your Highness,” he said slowly, “that I should introduce you to an old friend of mine.”

An hour later, Anakin had been put to bed and Obi-Wan and Padmé were standing in one of the Palace’s communications rooms and Obi-Wan was forcing his heart to beat at its regular pace as the face of Satine Kryze swam into focus. Seven long years after they had bade each other farewell, Satine still made him feel like a boy. He covered up his nervousness as Jedi so often did, by bowing and saying, “Your Grace, I hope you are well?”

“As well as always, Ben,” Satine said with a smile. “Is Qui-Gon there?”

Obi-Wan closed his eyes against a stab of grief. “Master Jinn was killed in the line of duty two days ago,” he said, burying grief under formality. “By a Sith Lord.”

Satine’s face fell. “Oh no,” she said softly. “Ben . . . I’m so sorry. I know what he meant to you.”

Obi-Wan bowed his head, holding sorrow at bay with Jedi serenity. “He died as he lived, in service to the Force,” he said, a betraying tremor slipping past his self-control. “And the Sith who killed him will kill no more.”

“A Sith?” Satine said, doubt plain on her sharp-featured face. “Ben, you know those legends better than I; they’re your legends, after all. The Sith have been extinct for, what, a thousand years?”

“I fought him blade to blade and will to will, Satine,” Obi-Wan replied flatly. “Only Qui-Gon’s training and the will of the Force kept me alive. He was not some petty sensitive who stumbled on old teachings that should have stayed buried. He was every inch my equal in skill and strength. If he had been less arrogant, I would not be here.”

Satine opened her mouth, then closed it as she reconsidered. “If you say he was a Sith, then I trust you, Ben,” she said finally. “But what led him to cross paths with you and Qui-Gon? If the Sith have returned, why reveal themselves?”

Obi-Wan’s lips quirked in a half-smile. “The Council would love to know the answer to those questions even more than I do, Satine,” he said. “But that will be a question for the future. In the meantime, allow me to present Padmé Amidala, Queen of Naboo. Your Highness, allow me to introduce Satine Kryze, Duchess of Kalevala and Lady of Mandalore.”

Satine straightened into regal formality as Padmé stepped forward into the view of the holocam. “Your Highness,” she said with a deep nod, monarch to monarch, “allow me to congratulate you on overcoming the Trade Federation’s blockade. We of Mandalore prayed that some way might be found for peace to be restored.”

Padmé nodded back. “Thank you, Your Grace,” she said in her Queen of Naboo voice. “We have paid a heavy price to retake our freedom. And I fear that I must ask you for something that you will not wish to give.”

Satine made a small gesture with her hand, as if she were brushing away an insect. “Mandalore is not rich, save in the hearts of its people,” she said. “We have our own world to rebuild from the ravages of war. But ask, and I will see what can be done.”

Padmé raised her chin. “The Trade Federation only blockaded us because they knew we could not resist them,” she declared. “And they only invaded us because they believed that the Senate was so weak that they would not even denounce overt acts of war against a member system of the Republic. We have defeated them, yes, but more than a thousand of my people are dead as a result. I will not let us continue in that weakness.” She spread her hands. “I would have my people become warriors, Your Grace,” she said. “And there are no better warriors in the galaxy than the Mandalorians.”

Satine froze. Obi-Wan didn’t grimace; even after so long, he remembered the warning signs. “We have been a warrior people, Your Highness,” Satine said finally. “But no longer. Not after our wars turned Mandalore into a wasteland. We may learn slowly, but we have finally learned that war yields nothing but death and destruction.” She shook her head. “I cannot let us turn back down that road. Not without risking the lives of my whole people.”

“With respect, Your Grace, it is not true that war yields nothing but death and destruction,” Padmé shot back. “It yields those things regardless of what it is fought for, yes. And it yields them in plenty. But the only reason my people are free today is because they made war. If we had placed our trust in the Republic, the Trade Federation would have starved us into submission.”

Satine shook her head. “Your Highness, do you really think a blockade and a battle constitute a war?” she asked. “Let me tell you what war is. It is forests and plains bombed into deserts of glass sand. It is rivers packed bank to bank with dead fish because poison was deliberately dumped into the waters. It is children burying their parents, and parents burying their children, in mass graves because there is no time to dig individual ones.” Satine’s face was stark, and Obi-Wan knew what was being replayed behind her eyes. “War, Your Highness,” she went on, “is cities laid waste with fire and beskad, with ash falling like snow and blood flowing in streams in the gutters.” She leaned forward into the holocam. “I know what war is, Padmé Amidala of Naboo,” she said coldly. “And it is because I know what war is that I cannot help your people become warriors. I will not be responsible for another people bringing that curse down upon the heads of their children.

Padmé’s eyes flashed fire, but Obi-Wan stepped forward before she could retort. “Satine,” he interjected, “I know why you hate war so. I walked those deserts at your side, and saw the ruins of Keldabe. It is because you hate war so that I suggested that Queen Amidala ask you for aid.” He spread his hands. “You are seeking to make a warrior people peaceful. Queen Amidala is seeking to make a peaceful people into warriors. It is my hope that, between you, you can find balance between the two. Between the thoughtless brute who fights only for their own bloodlust, and the apathetic stoic that will not raise a hand to save themselves.”

“Balance,” Satine spat. “You know as well as I that there is no such thing as balance in war, Obi-Wan. There is only brutality, and more brutality to avenge it, and on, and on, and on, until the brutality no longer needs a reason. Until the brutality is the point. You of all people not Mandalorian . . .”

“I know, Satine,” Obi-Wan shot back. “I know. I saw it, on Melida/Daan. I saw children shot down in cold blood for the sake of hatred.” Satine flinched; out of the corner of his eye, Obi-Wan saw Padmé glance sharply at him, but he pressed on. “But even for all of war’s brutality, sometimes there is nothing else to do but fight, to preserve life and put an end to evil. That is why I carry my lightsaber. So that when all the words fail, I can still defend the people who look to me to protect them.” He gestured at Padmé. “It is Queen Amidala’s duty to protect her people,” he pressed on. “As it is your duty to protect your people, even from themselves. The Trade Federation are beaten this time. But what will stop them from trying a second time? The Republic?” He shook his head. “Satine, it took Chancellor Valorum’s personal intervention to send me and Qui-Gon to negotiate with the Trade Federation. Negotiate, with people who were committing an act of war against a member world of the Republic and who, so it seems, were working hand-in-glove with the Sith, because there were not enough Jedi to compel the Federation to lift the blockade. Even if Chancellor Palpatine is all that his supporters claim he is, what makes you think that he will be able to do better than Valorum?”

There was a ringing silence for a long moment. Then Padmé leaned forward. “Your Grace,” she said softly, “I have no intention of letting my people forget who they were before the battle droids came for them. We are, have always been, a peaceful people. But that peacefulness led the Trade Federation to believe that we were easy prey, and more than a thousand of us have died as a result. Thousands more have been wounded or impoverished. I cannot, will not, let my people be made a prey again.” She placed a hand over her heart. “I swear to you, by the blood my people have shed for their freedom, that I will never lead my people in a war of conquest, nor allow any other to do so. I ask only for the strength to defend my people. Will you help me gain it?”

Satine bowed her head for a long moment. When she raised it her face was carefully blank. “I cannot make this decision alone,” she said. “I am the ruler of Mandalore, but I am not a tyrant. I must take this proposition to my council.”

Padmé nodded deeply enough that it could have been called a bow. “Thank you, Your Grace,” she said.

“And now, Your Highness,” Satine said wearily, “I must ask that you let me speak with Kenobi in private.”

Padmé nodded again. “Then I will bid you good night, Your Grace, and thank you again.” Padmé walked out of the room, leaving Obi-Wan alone with Satine’s image shimmering above the projector of the holocomm. Even through the impersonal blues of the holo-image, the gaze Satine turned on Obi-Wan was distinctly sour. “This was not the act of a friend, Obi-Wan,” she said flatly. “Half a year since our last correspondence, and when you do contact me again it is to subject me to emotional blackmail?”

Obi-Wan bowed in apology. “I know, Your Grace,” he said. “And I am sorry that I put you in this position. But Qui-Gon is dead. More than a thousand Naboo are dead, humans and Gungans alike. And if my new apprentice had not been guided by the Force, or simply luckier than any of us deserved, we would all be dead, or wishing we were.” He spread his hands. “I did what I thought was right, Your Grace,” he went on. “And if doing so prevents another disaster such as this, then I would do so again in a heartbeat. My duty as a Jedi would demand it of me.”

Satine cocked her head. “Apprentice?” she asked. “You’ve taken a Padawan already?”

Obi-Wan nodded. “A boy that Qui-Gon found on Tatooine,” he said. “Anakin Skywalker by name. Very strong in the Force, but somehow undiscovered by the Searchers. He’s nine years old.”

Satine arched an eyebrow. “And the Council agreed to let you train him?” she said in surprise. “I was under the impression that the Order does not accept anyone for training who didn’t grow up in the Temple.”

“There is precedent,” Obi-Wan said. “Few and far between, but precedent nonetheless. And Qui-Gon . . .” He fought back the tremor that tried to steal into his voice. “Qui-Gon begged me with his last words to train Anakin,” he said finally. “And after earning the first battlefield Knighting in almost five centuries . . . well, my stock was high enough with the Council that they were willing to grant even a request as unorthodox as that.”

Satine sniffed. “Well, if I ever need something from the Council, I’ll just show up with a dead Sith in tow, then, shall I?” she said archly, startling a laugh from Obi-Wan. She shook her head. “I’m still not happy, Ben,” she went on. “I understand. But I’m not happy. About any of this, much less that this is the first time we’ve actually spoken since we parted ways on Mandalore all those years ago.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “I know, Satine,” he said heavily. “I know, and I am sorry for it. But it seems that the Force only brings us across each other’s path in times of darkness.” He sighed. “I’ve kept all your messages, over the years,” he added. “Qui-Gon didn’t approve. But since we only wrote about conditions in Mandalorian space or Republic politics, he didn’t have grounds to forbid it. It’s not uncommon for Jedi to correspond with people we have met in the course of our service.”

Satine snorted. “When it comes to things Qui-Gon wouldn’t approve of, our being pen pals would have been the least of it, if you’ll recall,” she said with a smile. Obi-Wan smiled back. He did recall. Sometimes very vividly. Satine sighed, her face turning somber again. “I really am sorry about Qui-Gon, Ben,” she said. “We had our differences, he and I, but he helped you keep me alive, that year. If you don’t mind, can I add him to my Remembrances?”

This time, Obi-Wan couldn’t keep the tremor out of his voice, for all his Jedi self-discipline. “I think Qui-Gon would have considered it an honor, Satine,” he said thickly.

Satine nodded. “Mhi su'cuyi, kaysh kyr'adyc. Mhi partayli, kaysh darasuum,” she said, like one saying a prayer. “We still live, but he is dead. We remember him, so he is eternal.” She paused, her jaw working, then added. “Qui-Gon Jinn.”

“Qui-Gon Jinn,” Obi-Wan echoed.

Satine nodded sharply. “I will take Queen Amidala’s proposal to my council,” she said firmly. “Next time you call me, Ben, try to call me with better news.”

Obi-Wan bowed. “I shall endeavor to do so, Your Grace,” he said. “And thank you, again.”

XXX

“On Naboo in the Chommell Sector, so recently the site of such distressing crises and rumors, another brow-raising development has occurred! In a joint statement today in the Royal Palace, Queen Padmé Amidala of Naboo and Duchess Satine Kryze of Mandalore announced the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding between their systems. The two royals described this Memorandum as, quote, ‘not an alliance, but a codification of an agreement between two friendly peoples, the better to maintain that friendship.’ Tomas Sal, on the ground in Theed, has more.”

(cut to a reporter standing in a hallway of the Naboo Royal Palace)

“In a hallway still pockmarked with the scars of blaster fire a month after what is now called the Battle of Naboo, Queen Padmé Amidala and Duchess Satine Kryze of Mandalore announced that, at the recommendation of their respective governments, they had signed a Memorandum of Understanding outlining a slew of commercial and diplomatic agreements between the Naboo and Mandalore systems. Most notably, the Memorandum pledges that the Mandalorian government shall dispatch fifty members of the Mandalorian Royal Guard to Naboo to act as advisors to the Royal Naboo Security Forces. At the announcement of the Memorandum, Duchess Satine also declared that any Mandalorian citizen wishing to serve with the Royal Naboo Security Forces in a non-frontline capacity is henceforward permitted to do so without risking the loss of Mandalorian citizenship.”

(cut to an image of SATINE KRYZE standing at a speaker’s podium)

“We of Mandalore know better than anyone the unbearable cost and ultimate futility of war. But our dedication to peace does not allow us to sit with folded hands while innocent people are attacked and oppressed without cause. Our duty to abhor violence does not obligate us to tolerate injustice.”

(cut back to reporter)

“In return, the Memorandum pledges that Naboo will give Mandalore preferential treatment as regards the sale and carriage of refined plasma and other trade goods. A spokesperson for the Naboo Ministry of Trade claimed that talks with the Ministry’s Mandalorian counterparts are still ongoing, but that those talks have already yielded some results and more are looked for in the coming weeks. Anyone with questions as to the specifics of those terms is encouraged to submit their questions to the Naboo or Mandalorian Ministries of Trade. Tomas Sal, GHN News, Theed, Naboo.”

“Thank you, Tomas. Senator Lott Dod of the Trade Federation has already issued a statement denouncing the Memorandum of Understanding between Naboo and Mandalore. The Senator said, quote, “This so-called Memorandum is in fact a military alliance between Naboo and Mandalore.” He has called upon the Senate to investigate the Memorandum for compliance with the Republic Constitution and has petitioned the Supreme Court for a legal opinion on whether the Constitution allows for Memoranda of Understanding between member systems of the Republic and independent polities such as Mandalore.”

Obi-Wan was grateful for the training that allowed him to keep his countenance as Master Windu turned off the holoprojector and fixed him with a gaze just short of accusatory. At least it was only Master Windu and Master Yoda, instead of the whole Council. “Masters, I’m as surprised as you are,” he said. “I introduced the Queen and the Duchess to each other, yes, but I never suspected that they would do . . . this.”

“What did you expect would happen?” Master Windu asked bluntly. “You introduced a young Queen whose people had just suffered a traumatic invasion to the Duchess of Mandalore. Leaving aside that the Duchess in question is a pacifist, what did you expect to happen?”

Obi-Wan spread his hands. “I expected them to talk, Master,” he replied. “At the most, I expected the Duchess to turn a blind eye to any Mandalorian who chose to go to Naboo. I did not expect them to come to an agreement that would see the Naboo Security Forces trained by Mandalorian commandoes!”

Master Windu’s next question was silenced by Yoda’s raised hand. “What young Obi-Wan expected, or did not expect, matters not,” he said firmly. “What matters, this is; that begin to bind their fortunes together, Naboo and Mandalore have. Leave their peaceful past behind, the Naboo will. Out of their isolation, the Mandalorians will come. Nervous, this will make the Senate.”

“More than the Senate,” Master Windu added. “Lott Dod’s reaction will only be the tip of the iceberg of the Trade Federation’s reaction. The Rim Territories have been their preserve for years. If they get the idea that Naboo and Mandalore really are coming to an alliance, and that the goal of that alliance is to punish them . . .”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “Masters, that is the one thing that will not happen,” he declared. “I heard Queen Amidala swear on her people’s blood that she would not become a conqueror, and Satine . . .” he paused at the sharpened looks of the Masters, then forged on. “Duchess Kryze would rather turn a blaster on herself than make war, even at direst need.”

“Certain of this, are you?” Yoda asked, leaving forward over his gimer stick and narrowing his eyes. “So certain you are, that you can see into the Duchess’s heart? Long years it has been, since you walked by each other’s side.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “Master, when the Duchess and I were on the run, she never fired a blaster with intent to kill. Not even when Kyr’tsad commandoes stormed an inn we were hiding in on Draboon. She only ever shot to stun, or to wound.” He paused, then shrugged. “Of course, she was also a good enough shot that she could shoot to wound, by aiming for the gaps in a beskar’gam on the limbs.”

Master Windu nodded. “Which supports the argument,” he said. “If she’s good enough to shoot to wound rather than to kill, even when fighting for her life, then she’s good enough that she could kill if she wished. Easily.”

Yoda smiled. “A pacifist, the Duchess may be,” he said impishly. “But a Mandalorian pacifist, she evidently is.” He chuckled. “Almost like a Jedi, that contradiction is. To have a warrior’s skills, diligently trained and finely honed, but at the same time to wish never to use those skills.”

Obi-Wan nodded again. “That’s Duchess Satine to the millimeter, Master,” he said. “Or so it was when we parted ways seven years ago. I don’t know if she has trained since she took the throne.”

“Correspond with her, you do?” Yoda asked. “Qui-Gon mentioned it, before your last mission.”

“Only on political matters, Master,” Obi-Wan said. “She needed someone she could vent to about Mandalorian politics, and also someone who had a relatively unbiased view on the Senate’s doings.”

Yoda nodded. “A solution to the problem, I think I see.”

“Problem, Master?” Obi-Wan asked cautiously.

“Seek to become strong enough to defend themselves, do the Naboo,” Yoda said. “Their right this is, as members of the Republic and as sentient beings. Seek to end their poverty and become part of the wider galaxy, do the Mandalorians. That too, their right is as sentient beings. If they choose to use each other to do these things, between the Naboo and the Mandalorians, that is. But,” he raised a hand, “within its rights the Senate is, to demand that they be allowed an observer to send. To see that Naboo and Mandalore keep the peace, and that no ulterior motives they develop.”

Master Windu raised an eyebrow. “And you think that Obi-Wan will be an acceptable observer?”

“Good relations with the Queen and the Duchess alike, he has,” Yoda replied. “Respected on Mandalore he is, for keeping the Duchess alive and bringing her to the throne, and respected on Naboo he is, for fighting alongside them against the Trade Federation. And the first Jedi to slay a Sith,” Yoda raised his hand again. “Your pardon, the first Jedi to slay a Dark Side adept in single combat in almost a century he is. The first Jedi in five centuries, on the field of battle to be knighted. A hero of the Order and of the Republic this makes him. Were a moderate senator to suggest an observer be sent, and nominate young Kenobi, very difficult it would be for even the Trade Federation to object.”

Obi-Wan grimaced. The Council had decided to downplay what had happened on Naboo as far as the Zabrak that had killed Qui-Gon had been concerned. If it was announced that the Sith had returned . . . The most charitable forecast had been that such an announcement would cause widespread panic. And even if panic or pogroms of suspected Sith were averted, the possibility that the public would react with apathy had been even more worrisome to the Council. Would the Republic take the return of the Sith seriously, when a Sith Lord had been killed by a Padawan, albeit a senior and highly gifted one who probably could have undergone the Trials years ago? So it had been decided to call the Zabrak a Dark Side adept, and keep the truth of his nature to the Order and those of its friends who could be trusted to be closemouthed. Obi-Wan could see the logic, but he disliked it. It felt insulting to Qui-Gon’s memory, to call his killer a mere adept.

Mace Windu nodded. “Especially after they have been caught red-handed in flagrant illegality, with one of their senior leaders facing trial before the Supreme Court,” he added. “Who do we ask to broach the subject?"

"A friend of the Order, the Senator from Alderaan is,” Yoda said, folding his hands on his gimer stick. “And well known is Alderaan’s commitment to peace. Natural, it will seem, for him to suggest that a Jedi be sent to see that peace is kept.”

Obi-Wan was looking back and forth between the two most-senior members of the Order. “Is this how this works?” he asked skeptically. “We just . . . casually decide to influence the Senate’s decision?”

Mace Windu fixed him with an unamused look. “It is our duty to obey the Senate’s commands, Knight Kenobi,” he said firmly. “But it is also our duty to advise the Senate, if our advice is solicited or if the need is great. And if a Senator asks us if we see a way past a particular problem, and we happen to have the solution to that problem ready to hand, then it would be a breach of our duty to refuse to offer it.”

“Eight hundred years and more I have served the Republic,” Yoda said, his ears drooping. “Many Jedi have I seen the Senate send on missions they were not suited for. Some, because our judgment they did not trust. Others, because their power over the Order they wished to demonstrate. Others still, because responsibility for the problem, none would take, and the only thing the Senate could agree to do was send a Jedi.” He shook his head. “Some Jedi, those missions survived. Others, wounded returned, in body and in spirit. Still others, in coffins returned, or returned not at all. So,” he went on, a steely note entering his voice, “when the chance we have, to guide the Senate into sending the right Jedi on a mission, take it we do. So do we seek to balance our duty to the Republic with our need to preserve our fellow Jedi.”

Master Windu nodded. “And this mission will be good for you,” he said. “A reminder that not all our work as Jedi involves fighting lightsaber duels and running blockades.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “Will Anakin remain in the creche?” he asked.

Master Windu nodded. “Until he turns thirteen, or maybe fourteen, the creche will be the best place for him. He will gain friends, learn what he must of our ways and of the Force.”

“And learn, we will, what we must of him,” Yoda added, a grave look on his face. “A slave from birth, he was, or very nearly. Such wounds as that inflicts, not healed easily are. Removed, his slave chip may be, but time it will take, to remove the shackles from his mind and his spirit.”

Mace Windu couldn’t help an internal wince. The discovery that young Skywalker had been a slave had been . . . disconcerting. That the discovery had only happened because a routine medical scan had found the slave chip implanted in his leg had been even more troubling. Not for the first time Mace couldn’t help cursing Qui-Gon’s breezy confidence that the will of the Force would see all things come out right in the end. If he had told the Council that the boy he thought might be the Chosen One had been a slave . . . Well, the Council would have handled its evaluation of him very differently, to say the least. When Healer Che had learned that Qui-Gon had either forgotten to mention Skywalker’s history of enslavement to the Council or had deliberately concealed it, she had had some sharp opinions to voice about his ‘evident lack of good judgment’ and ‘cavalier disregard for a minor’s mental health’.

But the past could not be undone; they could only smooth the way for the future. So one of the Order’s best Mind Healers had been assigned to Skywalker’s case, and Kenobi, once he had calmed down, had sent a message to his friend Quinlan Vos through the Shadows; Vos, it transpired, had also rescued a youngling from slavery, Initiate Aayla Secura, and declared his intent to take her as his Padawan when she was of an age. Mace had seen the sense of it immediately. If anyone was likely to be able to connect with Skywalker, it was Secura, and if anyone was likely to be able to help Kenobi train Skywalker, it was Vos.

Obi-Wan nodded. “I will have to tell him that I’ll be away for a long time,” he said. “I’m not sure he truly trusts anyone in the Order aside from me.”

“Look in on him I shall, when my other duties permit,” Yoda assured him. “Of my lineage, he is. And introduce him to Master Tiin, I shall. Heard of young Skywalker’s destruction of the droid control ship above Naboo, he has, and is eager to meet such a prodigy.”

Obi-Wan bowed. “In that case, masters, may I take my leave to await the word of the Council? I promised Anakin I would take him to the Archives.”

“Yes, yes, a promise to your Padawan you must keep,” Yoda said, waving a hand. “Go, young Kenobi, and show your Padawan how much in the galaxy there is to know.”

XXX

Ingold Hihl, sometime Lieutenant in the Mandalorian Royal Guard and now senior officer of the Mandalorian advisory group sent to Naboo, leaned back in his chair and scrolled through his datapad. It had been an exciting first month, introducing his fellow Mando’ade to the Naboo, and his report to Duchess Satine would be an optimistic one. Guardedly optimistic, but optimistic.

It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with the Naboo. The RNSF troopers who had survived the invasion and the battle were veterans now, tested in the hellfire of combat, and the new recruits were an admirable set of fire-eaters with their minds focused by the ordeal their homeworld had been through so recently. Training that volatile mixture up to Mandalorian standards would take careful handling, but nothing the Guard didn’t do every time they took in a new draft of recruits.

No, he had no issues with the Naboo as people. Their equipment and their numbers, on the other hand . . . He couldn’t help a snort. Naboo had been a pacifist planet until very recently, he knew that well enough. But they could have done better than this, surely?

The Palace Guard was perfectly adequate to their task of protecting the Queen and the Royal Palace. Essentially an overstrength company of light infantry, they were the acknowledged elite of the RNSF and had the training to back up that claim. They were as good as any non-Mandalorian human infantry that Ingold had seen in a life that had included two decades of bounty hunting and mercenary work before taking service with the Duchess. The squad of Royal Handmaidens was especially interesting. Sometimes a little too interesting, Ingold acknowledged to himself with a half-smile. After one hand-to-hand spar, one of his corporals had gone down on one knee before Handmaiden Rabé and declared his intent to win her hand, in reply to which Rabé had promptly concussed him with a roundhouse kick to the side of the head, to the uproarious laughter of the other Mando’ade present. The discovery that all the Handmaidens were like that had only piqued the interest of all of the advisory group who found human women attractive. A hasty conversation between Ingold, the Queen, and Captain Panaka had led to Ingold’s announcement to the advisory group that any Mandalorian who wanted to court a Handmaiden would have to earn the approval not just of the Handmaiden in question, but of Ingold and the Queen as well. The advisory group’s interest in learning about Naboo culture had skyrocketed as a result; if, reportedly, much of the interest was in courtship rituals, Ingold was willing to let that serve as a gateway. He would, however, mention to the Duchess that it would probably be a good idea if any future advisors that were sent from the Guard were already married. And also that the Duchess might consider forming a corps of Handmaidens herself, if Queen Amidala could be persuaded to loan any of hers to train them.

As for the rest of the RNSF . . . The Royal Space Fighter Corps was adequately skilled, although the N-1 starfighter seemed a bit underpowered for a proper space superiority fighter. But there were only four squadron’s worth of them at full strength; enough to patrol and contest the space around Naboo itself, but not the rest of the system. And certainly not enough to hold open Naboo’s trade routes against serious opposition. As for the Security Guard . . . they were more peacekeepers and police than soldiers, and even Theed, the capital and largest city on Naboo, only had the equivalent of two short battalions. And those battalions were, essentially, light speeder-mounted infantry, at best. Their Seraph-class light speeders and V-19 medium speeders were perfectly adequate for handling criminals and the V-19s apparently had some anti-armor capability. But there were only thirty V-19s in the whole RNSF inventory after their losses in the battle, and their successes against the Trade Federation’s AAT’s had been hit-and-run ambushes that relied on the nerve and aim of the gunners and the skill of the pilots. Of heavier assets such as heavy combat speeders, repulsortanks, walkers, or artillery they had none. There simply hadn’t been any need for them before the Federation’s blockade.

Ingold lowered his datapad and stared at the far wall, giving the wheels his mind free rein. The Naboo had claimed a battalion’s worth of AAT’s as “war reparations”, which partially solved the heavy equipment problem, but they could have claimed all the AAT’s that the Federation had left behind on Naboo and not solved the overarching problem. From what he understood, Naboo had had less than a standard month’s worth of food left on-planet when the Federation invaded; if the Jetii hadn’t spooked the Federation into acting, the Naboo would have been forced to surrender for fear of starvation. Ingold was hardly a Naval Academy graduate, but he knew as well as anyone with more than a layman’s knowledge of war that the best defense a planet could have was a fleet strong enough to hold the orbitals and keep its trade lanes open. If those two conditions were met, then there wasn’t much an enemy fleet could do to force a surrender. If they were sufficiently insane, they could try pulling a sufficiently large asteroid into a collision course with the planet via tractor beam, but what for? Not only would doing that make the perpetrators the most wanted beings since the Sith, but it would negate the point of the whole exercise. You couldn’t extract resources or revenue from a planet that had been sterilized by an asteroid strike. Or by more conventional orbital bombardment, for that matter.

He picked up his datapad and began typing. My optimism about training the Naboo aside, Your Grace, I am not confident that simply training the RNSF to Mandalorian standards will be sufficient to allow the Naboo to maintain their freedom. Four squadrons of starfighters are simply not enough to defend the planetary orbit against a serious enemy, much less do so and hold open the trade routes that Naboo relies on for its food surplus. If Naboo means to become strong enough to defend itself, it will need to build, or buy, a fleet . . .

Chapter Text

A slight cough drew Rabé’s attention from the wraps on her hands to find Cab Wren standing before her. The big Mando raised his hands at her glower. “Peace between us, verd,” he said. “I just want to talk. Sha’kajir?”

Rabé’s eyes narrowed. “Sha’ka-what?” she asked suspiciously.

“Sha’kajir,” Cab repeated. “Truce, you know? Parley?”

Rabé frowned, then nodded. She was sitting on one of the benches along the wall of the salle in the Palace Guard barracks; there were plenty of other Naboo and Mandalorians winding down from another session of hand-to-hand practice in case something happened. Cab nodded back and folded down to his knees, sitting back on his heels. He had at least fifteen centimeters and easily twenty kilos of muscle on her, which was somehow even more obvious in training gear than in armor, but . . . Rabé’s frown deepened. Cab was visibly slumped, instead of his usual tower-like posture, and he had knelt outside of arm’s reach. Whatever else this was, it wasn’t a prelude to an attack. Which didn’t mean it wasn’t another proposal. “I owe you an apology,” Cab said. “I shouldn’t have sprung that on you all of a sudden, especially not when we had just met, and doubly especially not in front of everyone. It was rude and unbecoming of me.” He looked her dead in the eyes and said, as formally as she had ever heard one of the Mandalorians speak, “Ni ceta. I’m sorry,” before bowing his head.

Rabé blinked. She knew enough Mando’a by now to know that Ni ceta was not just an apology. As the Handmaidens’ Mando’a tutor had explained, under normal circumstances the only way to make a Mandalorian kneel was to literally beat them to their knees. For a Mandalorian to kneel voluntarily was a gesture of either abject submission or groveling apology. She wouldn’t have thought it was the kind of thing that an unwelcome proposal would have called for, even if she had given him a concussion for it.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said finally. “I accept your apology.”

Cab lowered his head a fraction more in acknowledgement and raised it to look her in the eye. “Thank you,” he said softly, then he rose to his feet and walked away, leaving Rabé with one of her hands half-unwrapped and her mind a-whirl, until Eirtaé plopped down on the bench next to her.

“He has it bad for you, you know,” Eirtaé said off-handedly as she began to unwrap her own hands. “Wren. Mareia told me that Lieutenant Hihl chewed him out in front of the whole advisory group for embarrassing you, and he looked like he wanted to cry. Or possibly jump off the falls without his jetpack.”

Rabé snorted and began unwrapping her hands again. “Mareia can say what she likes, to whom she likes,” she said shortly. “Just because you decided to let a Mandalorian court you doesn’t mean I will.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t recommend it,” Eirtaé said with a grin. “There’s something to be said for Mandalorian bluntness; you don’t have to try and puzzle out any poetic messages or flower arrangements to find out if there’s anything romantic in them. If they like you, they just come right out and say it. Do you have any idea how refreshing that is, after a lifetime of hesitating?”

“You’re an engineer, Eirtaé; to you, coming right out and saying something is romantic,” Rabé shot back as she rolled up her left-hand wrap and started to unwind the wrap on her right hand. “Some of us actually like being handed a puzzle and trying to work out if it means something more than what it seems.”

Eirtaé raised an eyebrow. “Cab Wren, who might as well have Badass Manly Supercommando tattooed across his forehead in neon colors, went down on his knees, bowed, and apologized to you,” she said slowly, as if to someone hard of hearing. “After you kicked him in the head hard enough to send him to the medbay. According to Mareia, Lieutenant Hihl just told him to apologize; he didn’t say a thing about kneeling. Literally or otherwise. That might mean more than what it seems to, but do you really want to know what I think that meaning is?”

Rabé paused in rolling up her right-hand wrap to look Eirtaé in the eye. “No, I do not,” she said flatly. “I don’t want to know what Sabé thinks it means, either. Or Yané, or Saché, or anyone else. I certainly, gods and goddesses forfend, do not want to hear what the Queen thinks it means. Understand me, Eirtaé?”

Eirtaé shrugged and stood up, her hand wraps hanging loose in her hand. “Whatever you say, Rabé,” she said. “I’ll just say this, first; are you sure that you want to let Cab Wren pass you by? I know you haven’t dated anyone since that boy at the Academy dumped you, but you can’t put your life on hold forever.” Eirtaé shrugged again. “You haven’t asked me, but if you did, I’d say Cab’s worth a shot.”

Eirtaé walked off to the women’s showers, leaving Rabé to stare at the hand wrap she had mechanically rolled up. The damnable thing was that Eirtaé’s words had landed closer to home than she was willing to admit; her last boyfriend had dumped her after she had been forced to leave the Academy, and by comm message, at that. It had been the capstone of what had been, all told, the most painful and humiliating experience of her life up to that point. The only saving grace was that the whole episode had been swept under the rug, and that her parents had accepted her explanation at face value. It had still pretty thoroughly soured her on men, though. Especially since the boyfriend in question had been just as deep in the forgery ring as she was and had let her take the fall for the whole deal instead of owning up to his part.

Cab Wren, though . . . It had been a pretty impressive apology, she had to admit. And Goddess knew he was much more visually impressive than her last boyfriend could have ever dreamed of being. It wasn’t simply that Cab was one hundred and eighty centimeters and ninety kilos of strap-like muscle and wiry sinew, either. Ursal had been funny, kind, gentle, the picture of a good Naboo boy. But Cab had a presence that would have put Ursal completely in the shade. Part of that was simply the intensity of focus that came with being a royal bodyguard; Rabé had that same intensity herself, and the last time she had seen her parents they had remarked on what a different woman she was from the girl who had gone to the Academy. But the other part of it was the complete self-assurance that all but radiated off Cab’s bronze skin. Ursal had always been a little diffident, a little hesitant in the face of challenge. Not so with Cab, or else he wouldn’t have proposed the way he did.

Rabé shook her head and pushed herself off the bench; she had duty starting in three hours, and she had to get cleaned up and presentable as one of the Queen’s shadows. Speculating about the possible pros and cons of having Cab Wren as a boyfriend would simply have to wait.

XXX

Of all the places in the Jedi Temple, the one that amazed Anakin every time he set foot in it was the refectory. A whole room, larger even than a Hutt’s throne room, where there was all the food you could eat? A room full of money or jewels wouldn’t have astounded him more.

And such food! Bread, actual risen bread, baked in an oven, rather than instaloaf. Vegetables, fresh enough you could feel them crunch between your teeth or cooked more ways than he had known existed, whichever you preferred. Fresh fruit, in wondrous varieties! Meat, Ar-Amu witness, and not the mystery meat the Mos Espa street sellers put in their slumgullion and which was mostly womp rat or worse, but actual identifiable meat, roasted, fried, grilled, braised, however you wanted it, not simply boiled or stewed! And then there were the desserts! The one candy store in Mos Espa had seemed the height of unimaginable luxury to Anakin, but if the old Bith who owned that store could have seen the cakes and pies and cookies and custards and tarts and pastries that the refectory put out on a daily basis, he would have died of shame.

The first time Master Obi-Wan had taken Anakin to the refectory, Anakin had asked if it was a festival day. Obi-Wan’s assurance that no, this was simply a normal day and that the kitchen workers hadn’t put any special effort into making today’s food had been even more astounding than the food had been. All this food, better food than anything Anakin had ever eaten that hadn’t been scraps from Gardulla’s table, every day? Simply as a matter of course? Anakin had tried to calculate how much money that would cost and given up. The figure he had gotten to before giving up was more money than he and his mother and every slave in Mos Espa could have earned in a dozen lifetimes of constant toil all put together.

Which was why, whenever Anakin ate in the refectory, he devoted himself entirely to the food before him. Bultar Swan and Barriss Offee and Aaylas’ecura and Ferus Olin might chatter away at each other about lessons or other Initiates or a hundred other things, but food like this deserved not just attention, but reverence. So Anakin shut out all the noise of conversation and focused on eating, carefully cutting bites of meat and vegetables and other amazingly delicious things and chewing them with single-minded focus, determined to wring every gram of goodness out of them. Every drop of sauce, richer and more flavorful than anything his mother could have afforded to make, mopped up with the eternally-amazing bread and savored as if for the first time. And all washed down with all the milk or water you could drink! That had been almost as stupefying as the food, that if you were thirsty, all you had to do was turn the tap and water would flow for as long as you left it open! The first time he had been shown the sink in the creche and told that if he was ever thirsty he could simply take a cup and drink, he had thought it was a trick, a joke to play on the newcomer. When Barriss had demonstrated, repeatedly, that it wasn’t a trick, Anakin had been flabbergasted. All the water you could drink? Whenever you wanted it? That was, quite literally, wealth beyond his wildest dreams.

Soon (too soon!), his plate was clear. Anakin stood, picked up his tray, and went back to the serving window. The Mind Healer he was seeing was working with him on what they called malnutrition-related anxiety of all silly things, and he knew that overeating would make him slow and queasy later, but there was always room for more of that wonderful bread.

XXX

Obi-Wan couldn’t help a shiver as he looked down at Naboo. It was certainly a beautiful world; one of the gardens of the galaxy. And he knew he was lucky to see it again. Very few Jedi saw a world more than once. But for him, Naboo would always be the place where his Master had died.

“A beautiful world, is it not, Master Jedi?” came a reedy voice from over his shoulder, making Obi-Wan glance back to see that Graf Neemal had decided to join him at the viewport. Neemal was one of the staff attorneys at the Judicial Department, an aged Duros whose voice, slight frame, and diffident manner concealed a mind like a durasteel trap. In addition to his duties at the Judicial Department, Neemal was an associate professor at the Law School of Coruscant University on military regulatory law; he had, in fact, written not just the current galactic-standard textbook on the subject, but the last two previous textbooks on the subject as well.

Obi-Wan more than half-suspected that the official explanation that Neemal had been sent with him as an expert advisor was only half the truth. There were pro-Jedi and anti-Jedi factions in the Judicial Department as in the rest of the galaxy, and by all reports Neemal leaned toward the latter end of the spectrum. It wasn’t hard to imagine one of the Trade Federation’s allies insisting that he be sent along to act as a brake on any Jedi favoritism that might be shown towards the Naboo. But Neemal had been perfectly polite thus far, so Obi-Wan simply nodded and said, “Yes, very beautiful. I hope I will have the chance to appreciate its beauty this time.”

Neemal nodded back. “Yes, yes, I imagine it must be difficult. Coming back so soon to a place with such . . . vivid memories.” Obi-Wan concealed a twist of his mouth as he turned back towards the viewport. That was one way of putting it. Neemal walked up beside him and clasped his hands behind his back. “I am led to understand that you are, ah, acquainted with Mandalorians, Master Kenobi?” he asked.

“My late Master and I spent a year in Mandalorian Space, counselor,” Obi-Wan replied. “Towards the end of their civil war. We were charged with protecting Lady Kryze.”

“Yes, the pacifist Duchess of Mandalore,” Neemal said, skepticism entering his voice. “Truly we live in an age of miracles, that the Mandalorians should be ruled by an avowed pacifist.”

Obi-Wan shrugged. “Mandalore was devastated by the wars,” he said. “The planet has been fought over for so long that only the domed cities can support most forms of life. Is it so surprising that the Mando’ade should finally realize that they had to stop fighting, if only to avoid extinction?”

Neemal tipped his head to one side briefly in a Duros shrug. “One hears such stories, of the Mandalorians,” he said.

Obi-Wan smiled slightly. “Which stories are those, counselor?” he asked, half-teasingly. “That the Mando’ade pass down feuds with the other family heirlooms? That all their songs are paeans to ancient gods of war and bloodshed? That they steal children and mold them into hardened killers before they reach puberty?”

Neemal chuckled slightly. “Among others, Master Jedi,” he admitted. “Notwithstanding that many of those stories seem too far-fetched to be believed, you must admit they remain compelling.”

Obi-Wan’s smile faded. “The story about the feuds is true,” he said, memories surging up behind the façade of Jedi tranquility. “Or it was, before the Duchess forbade private vengeance. The story about stealing children is not true. The Mando’ade will adopt abandoned or orphaned children at the least provocation, but if a child already has a family, then they honor that bond as sacrosanct. And all Mandalorians are trained to fight, or were, but by Creed a verd, a warrior, could not go into the field before the age of fifteen, and even then, only at direst need. Seventeen is the traditional age of majority on Mandalore. As for their songs . . .” He paused for a moment as a memory surfaced. At one point in their travels, he and Satine had been sheltered by a minor Mandalorian clan, the head of which had noticed that Satine had been uncomfortable with the song his bard had been singing about the Battle of Coruscant in the Great Sith War. He had asked Satine if there was a song she would prefer to hear, in reply to which Satine had risen from her chair and sung a lament that had moved everyone in the hall to tears. Later that evening, she had told him that her father had written it after her mother’s death. “Their songs are like any other songs in the galaxy, counselor,” Obi-Wan said finally. “Just in a different language.”

Neemal gave him a sidelong look. “You use the Mandalorian’s name for themselves,” he observed. “Do you speak their language?”

“Ni jorhaa’ir Mando’a” Obi-Wan confirmed. “It’s been seven years since I practiced it regularly, and even then, I couldn’t pass for a native; my accent was irredeemably Coruscanti, or so Duchess Kryze said. But I do speak it, and the Force helps with understanding even when I don’t know the literal meaning of a word or phrase.”

Neemal nodded. “That must be a useful gift for a diplomat,” he said. “Let us hope it helps us convince the Mandalorians to cease disturbing the peace of the galaxy.”

Obi-Wan flicked a glance at Neemal, then decided against arguing the matter. Neemal was too good a lawyer to swayed by debate alone. Convincing him of the benefits of the Mandalorians ending their isolation would take evidence.

XXX

Ingold Hihl concealed unease behind Mandalorian self-discipline as he watched the Republic consular ship make its stately descent towards Theed Central Spaceport. Mandalore had suffered too much at the hands of the Republic, and of the Jedi, for any Mando’ad to be comfortable at the sight of a Republic ship approaching on official business. Especially when that ship was carrying a Jedi, and never mind that the Jedi in question was, reportedly, a good friend of the Duchess.

Beside him, Quarsh Panaka’s mouth quirked in a half-frown. “I hope that this observer team doesn’t take it into their heads to invoke the regulatory limits on ship acquisition,” he said out the side of his mouth. “Or that if they do, Kenobi doesn’t go along with them.”

Ingold shrugged slightly; a harder feat than it sounded in armor, even armor as light as beskar’gam. “You would know better than I whether he would do that,” he muttered back. “You’ve met him.”

Panaka flicked a glance at him under the brim of his cap. “You haven’t?” he asked dubiously. “I thought Kenobi spent a year in Mandalorian Space, bodyguarding your Duchess.”

“I was tied up in a contract on Nar Shaddaa that year,” Ingold replied. “And for a year on either side of that year, too. You know how Hutts are; sometimes they just don’t understand escape clauses unless they’re written in blaster bolts.” He jerked his chin incrementally at the consular ship, which had deployed landing gear and was coasting down on repulsors. “I’ve heard stories about him, though. Went blade to blade with a Kyr’tsad swordmaster and beat him in six blows, the way I heard it. And then left him alive to report his failure to his alor, who put him to cleaning refreshers as being clearly unfit to be a warrior.”

Panaka nodded slightly. “I can believe it,” he replied. “Both the beating him and the leaving him alive. You remember the holo-footage I showed you, of him and Jinn going up against that Zabrak?”

Ingold nodded back. “Never seen anything humanoid move that fast before,” he admitted, remembering how sometimes the footage had been reduced to a blur of limbs and lightsabers. “If that’s what Jedi are like in a fight . . .”

“It is,” Panaka said flatly. “At least, it’s what Jinn and Kenobi were like. But that’s not what I’m worried about.”

“Faith, Captain,” Queen Padmé said from in front of them without turning her head. “I’m sure that Master Kenobi will have only the friendliest intentions towards us, and will convince the other observers to see reason.”

Panaka and Ingold braced back to attention at the unspoken reproof. As the Republic cruiser settled on its landing gear and the boarding ramp lowered, Ingold couldn’t help raising an eyebrow as the observers walked down the ramp. Wouldn’t think a Jedi would look so . . . average.

XXX

Kuat Drive Yards Research and Analysis Department internal comm system partial transcript

“Hey, do you have time to run a Needs analysis for a Mid-Rim world by the end of the week?”

“Maybe. Who’s the customer and what do they want to do?”

“Naboo. They want to know what they’d need to hold their orbitals and keep their trade routes open.”

“That’s all? They don’t want a fleet that can blow Cato Nemoidia off the map?”

“First off, they were pacifists until about three months ago, so I imagine they still have hangups about that kind of thing. Second, they’re only a Mid-Rim world; they can’t afford a fleet that big.”

“They can afford another blockade even less, right?”

“Well, yes, but bad form to say so, old chap.”

“Yeah, yeah. Well, I’ll see what I can do by the end of the week. Is there any kind of priority on this?”

“They’re not paying for a rush order or anything like that. On the other hand, the Naboo are kind of the darlings of the Senate at the moment, so let’s not drag our feet on them.”

“Oh, Force forbid we upset the Senate. Send me their Strategic Needs Packet and I’ll hop on it.”

“Thanks.”

Chapter Text

Padmé looked up from the datapad with a disbelieving expression. “Ten cruisers and twenty frigates?” sha asked. “That’s what KDY thinks it will take for us to defend ourselves?”

Graf Neemal waggled one of his hands in a gesture of uncertainty. “It is the force that KDY thinks will be optimal to defend Naboo, Your Highness,” he replied. “Their report also includes a spectrum of other force packages that would be adequate to protect Naboo and its trade, but those packages are progressively less capable.”

Governor Sio Bibble shook his head. “Ten cruisers and twenty frigates is beyond our capacity to acquire, much less maintain,” he snapped. “A single Dreadnought-class heavy cruiser of the type that KDY recommends we buy requires a crew of at least nine thousand; more than three times the current strength of the entire aerospace component of our Security Forces! How do they expect us to pay for such a, a ballooning of our military establishment?!”

“Kuat Drive Yards’s usual customers are Core worlds,” Obi-Wan noted. “Worlds that have both much greater financial resources than Naboo and a much larger pool of underemployed people ripe for military recruitment. So long as such worlds’ System Defense Forces offer wages that are above the poverty line, they can consistently count on having enough volunteers to meet their force staffing requirements.” He shrugged at Governor Bibble’s raised eyebrow. “I wrote a paper on the subject a few years ago, for my Planetary Governmental Policy class. The Order contracts with Coruscant University to provide correspondence courses for senior Padawans and Knights.”

Neemal nodded. “I’ve had the pleasure of having a few Padawans take classes that I offer at the University,” he added. “Very sharp minds, the Order produces. And much less given to childish excuses about the quality of their briefs than the average student.”

“I’m more concerned about KDY’s suggestion that we buy a pair of destroyers,” said Ruto Graven, the Assistant Minister of Internal Affairs. “Leaving aside the difficulties of crewing and maintaining them, surely such vessels would not be legal for us to possess.”

Neemal spread his hands. “Sovereign polities have historically had rather broad latitude when it comes to self-defense policy,” he said in his professorial voice. “As far as size and force composition goes, there are limits under both the Ruusan Reformations and subsequent regulatory law, but we in the Judicial Department have often found that we do not need to apply those limits. Far more often, SDFs are limited in size and composition by what the polity in question is willing and able to pay for. So on the one hand you have planets like Talasea, which as I recall has a grand total of six fighters and two shuttles, and on the other hand you have systems like Kuat and Corellia, which maintain full-spectrum fleets. Corellia and Kuat, in particular, field fleets that could, in all probability, stand up to a Judicial battlegroup and hope to win, unless the battlegroup in question brought along units from other SDFs to bolster their strength.”

Bibble frowned. “Then what keeps systems like Kuat and Corellia from leveraging that military strength against their neighbors?” he asked.

Neemal smiled slightly. “For one thing, Governor, they do have to abide by the limits on fleet size placed upon them by Ruusan, especially as regards capital ships,” he replied. “And for another, both the governments and the voting taxpayers of those systems know that there are very few circumstances under which they would ever have to use their fleets. They are, after all, Core worlds, surrounded by other Core worlds. Their fleets are symbols of prestige among their fellows as much as they are serious fighting forces. From time to time, divisions or squadrons of ships will be requisitioned by the Judicial Department to support a battlegroup sent to the Rim territories, if the Department thinks there is a need, or such worlds will make deals of their own with Rim worlds to loan them squadrons for defensive purposes in exchange for preferential trade deals or support in the Senate for their pet proposals. But none of the Core fleets have fought a major engagement against a true peer opponent in . . . generations. Certainly not one that required the deployment of capital ships in mass.”

“And even when Core fleets are summoned to support the Judicials,” Obi-Wan added, “it isn’t the capital ships like heavy cruisers and destroyers that are sent. It’s the light cruisers and frigates that are sent. For one thing they are more useful against the pirate bands that the Judicials usually fight when they go to the Rim. And for another, they are the ships that are actually equipped for such operations.”

Neemal pointed a slender finger at Obi-Wan. “Knight Kenobi brings up another reason why the Republic is willing to let member worlds own capital ships,” he said. “Under Ruusan, warships more than six hundred meters long are limited to Class Five hyperdrives and their navicomputers can only contain local charts, commonly defined as charts for their home system and immediately-neighboring systems. This makes them essentially useless for military operations outside of their home systems; not only are they effectively flying blind once they’re out of reach of their onboard charts, but they’re simply too slow to be useful. Especially since, as Knight Kenobi pointed out, the usual enemies encountered in the Rim are pirates and other outlaws, rather than formal fleets. Most Rim worlds, forgive me, are simply too poor, either in wealth or in people, to afford fleets large enough to pose much threat to a Judicial battlegroup. Especially one with SDF reinforcements.”

There was a slight pause, then Quarsh Panaka raised a finger. “I agree that KDY’s optimal estimate is beyond our means,” he said. “But the fact remains that we do need a fleet of some kind. And not just for practical purposes. I’m not a politician, but I can read an opinion poll as well as anyone; seventy percent of the planet thinks we need to increase our self-defense capabilities. Sixty percent supports the creation of a fleet in order to do so. Sixty-five percent are willing to pay new or increased taxes in order to fund a fleet. And those numbers have stayed steady since the week after the battle. If we don’t come up with a plan to give the legislature to vote on, they’re liable to come up with one themselves. Does anyone think that’s a good idea?”

Sio Bibble set his jaw and glared down at the table while the other counselors exchanged glances. The Naboo were not a wrathful people by nature, but the invasion had frightened them. And frightened people, it was well known, did foolish things. Like vote to create a military they couldn’t support. And then vote to go a-conquering in order to gain the resources to support that military.

“I would point out,” Ingold Hihl said cautiously, “that even the lower estimates KDY has offered are still substantial. Their estimate of two light cruisers, six frigates, and twelve corvettes is a perfectly respectable force by the standards of the Rim, especially for a single world. And while Kuat and Rendili’s designs are crew-intensive, Corellian designs are much less so; many of their ships are meant either for the civilian market or for Rim worlds for whom manpower is a significant concern, after all. A Corellian DP20 frigate, for instance, requires only ninety-one crew, counting gunners, and can make do with as little as ten. The Corellian CR90 corvette likewise requires only one hundred and sixty-five crew, maximum, and can get by with a minimum of seven. In my mercenary days, one of the crews I ran with used a CR90 that had been modified to carry a pair of snubfighters and a shuttle. We found that we were strong enough to handle anything short of a dedicated warship, and fast enough to outrun or outmaneuver most warships larger than snubfighters or assault shuttles.”

Hela Brandes, the Music Advisor, raised an eyebrow at him. “How many people were in that crew, Lieutenant Hihl?” she asked.

“Between thirty-two and forty-seven,” Ingold replied with a reminiscent half-smile. “Depending on how good the times were. And we had some pretty good times, Counselor.”

“Can two light cruisers, six frigates, and twelve corvettes hold our orbitals and keep our trade lanes open, though?” asked Hugo Eckener, the Chief Architect. “Forgive me, but I doubt that frigates and corvettes can go up against Trade Federation battleships of the type that blockaded us and win.”

“They wouldn’t need to,” Panaka said. “At least, not necessarily. We’re working with the Gungans to develop a planetary shield network that can prevent another landing so long as it remains up, remember? Well, battleships like the ones the Federation used against us are slow; they can’t cover the whole planet unless there are enough of them to carry out a full englobement. If freighter convoys can outrun the battleships and drop down into atmosphere through a momentarily open gap in the shield, then they can keep us supplied and prevent a blockade from starving us out. All the frigates and corvettes would need to do would be to escort the freighters and keep enemy light units off them. Which is what they are designed to do anyway.”

Ingold nodded. “My crew and I did that exactly that a few times, in the Outer Rim,” he said. “Some of them against Trade Federation blockades, even.” As the rest of the Council looked at him with raised eyebrows, he shrugged. “The Trade Federation has been strongarming planets longer than any of us have been alive,” he went on. “They just never tried it on a member world of the Republic before they did to you. There’s a lot of worlds out there that try to make a go of it on their own. Sometimes they do, but most of the time they don’t. Especially if they have something the Trade Federation or one of the other megacorps want.”

Padmé looked at Neemal. “Counselor, if we went with the two, six, and twelve option, what regulations would we have to abide by?”

Neemal’s expression was half-smile, half-grimace. “Functionally none, Your Highness,” he admitted. “Two light cruisers, six frigates, and twelve corvettes is well within the fleet size limit stipulated for Naboo under the Ruusan terms. And later regulatory law doesn’t touch upon frigates and corvettes nearly as much as cruisers and capital ships. There’s only so much you can fit into a hull that small in the way of armament or engine power, even with modern miniaturized technology.”

Padmé nodded, then turned to Sio Bibble. “Governor Bibble, have your office draft a bill for the legislature that will provide for the acquisition of two light cruisers, six frigates, and twelve corvettes, and for their crewing and maintenance,” she commanded. “I want it ratified and on my desk for signature by the end of the next legislative session.”

Bibble bowed in his chair, concealing his feelings with an effort of will. He did not approve of the Queen’s militaristic turn, for all that he understood it. On the other hand, he also knew that he could do more to restrain and guide that turn in the Queen’s government, as prime minister in all but name, than he could outside it as leader of the opposition. And two of his grandchildren now lived with him and his wife, after their parents had been killed fighting against the occupation. He loved peace as only a child of Naboo could, and the use of violence repulsed him. But when he went home and saw his grandchildren . . .

XXX

Excerpted from Title 10, Section 715 through Section 801, Revised Statutes of Naboo (commonly known as “The Defense of Naboo Act”)

Section 715

1. It is the intent of the Legislature to strengthen the defenses of Naboo to such a degree as shall be necessary to:
a) preserve the peace and security of Naboo, of its orbital installations, of its extraterrestrial possessions, of its commerce with other worlds, and of Naboo’s citizens abroad;

b) Support such policies as shall be best served by the judicious use of force, upon due consideration by the Legislature and by the Monarch; And

c) Assist the Galactic Republic, and the allies and friends of Naboo, in war, disaster, or other emergency when called upon to do so and when the Monarch and the Legislature see fit to honor such call.

2. Those forces maintained up to the date of passage of this legislation, heretofore known as ‘The Royal Naboo Security Forces’, shall be known henceforth as the ‘Royal Naboo Defense Forces’.

3. In general, the Royal Naboo Defense Forces shall include all uniformed and armed forces raised and maintained at the expense of the government of Naboo, including both ground and space combat and support units, and such water or air-going units, vehicles, or other assets as may from time to time be necessary for the best operation and support thereof.

Section 757

1. The Royal Naboo Navy shall acquire, crew, and maintain in a condition fit for action sufficient force to:

a) Guard the orbitals of the planet of Naboo;

b) Protect such orbital and lunar installations as may from time to time be extant in Naboo’s orbit or on its moons;

c) Protect Naboo’s interstellar commerce;

d) Uphold the safety of Naboo’s citizens abroad; and

e) Render such aid to the Galactic Republic and to Naboo’s allies and friends as may from time to time be necessary in the interests of the maintenance of peace, justice, and interstellar amity.

2. Sufficient force, as used in this Section, shall mean not less than two light cruisers, six frigates, twelve corvettes, and six squadrons of hyperspace-capable starfighters.

3. A condition fit for action, as used in this Section, shall mean that the force in question shall be adequately staffed, trained, maintained, equipped, and provisioned to carry out its missions.

Section 801

1. The limitations placed upon Naboo by the Ruusan Reformations, and by subsequent regulatory legislation adopted by the Galactic Republic and in force as of the effective date of this Section, with regard to the size, composition, and capabilities of hyperspace-capable warships, are hereby acknowledged and adopted by the Legislature.

2. It shall, at all times, be the intent of Naboo to adhere to the aforementioned limitations in good faith, reserving the right to challenge or disregard them in the face of actionable information of a clear and present danger necessitating such challenge or disregard.

3. If any branch of the government of Naboo shall believe itself to be in possession of such actionable information of a clear and present danger, it shall inform the other branches of government by presenting such actionable information before the Legislature in general session at the earliest opportunity. The branch presenting such information shall be empowered to call the Legislature into special session, or to extend a then-current session, for the purpose of presenting said information and shall do so within one planetary rotation of receiving the information in question. Said information and the response of the government thereto, if a response is deemed appropriate, shall be the only item on the agenda of said session, whether special or extended.

XXX

Anakin wasn’t sure why Aaylas’ecura had asked him to meet her in one of the Archive’s independent study rooms. The note had simply said Study Room 94, after latemeal. He had gone of course; Aayla was one of the few other Initiates he actually liked. But when he found that Aayla had been waiting in the company of Barriss Offee, Bultar Swan, and A’Sharad Hett, he had almost walked right back out of the door. He probably would have if Bultar had not closed the door behind him and sat down in front of it with that look she got on her face when she had decided that something would be done.

“Anakin,” Barriss said first, “we want to start by saying that we are your friends, or hope to be. And that we want nothing more than for you to be a Jedi alongside us. But you cannot go on as you have been doing.”

Anakin frowned. “What do you mean by that?” he demanded, tension starting to sing through his body.

“As a loner,” Bultar said. “Eating alone. Not talking to us or any of our age-mates unless you have to. Clamming up whenever one of the Masters comes by. Doing . . . everything alone unless it’s something you absolutely cannot do alone.”

“I can do things alone, though,” Anakin said defensively. “I can if I want to, and I want to.”

A’Sharad raised a hand. “Absolutely, you can,” he said. “Whether you should, on the other hand . . . Anakin, one thing I have learned from Master Mundi is this; we all, ultimately, stand alone against the Darkness. But it is far better that when we do, we stand on as broad a foundation as possible. The Code and the teachings of the Order, certainly. But empathy, compassion, the friendships we develop with our fellow Jedi, and with others outside the Order, all these serve to broaden the base we stand upon, like the stance of a wrestler. The broader the foundation we have to stand upon, the harder it is for the Darkness to tempt us to Fall.”

“You think I’m going to Fall, just because I want to do things by myself?” Anakin asked, the tension in his body starting to howl. He knew it, he knew this had been coming. They were going to tell him that they had made a mistake letting Mister Qui-Gon take him as a Padawan, that they had made a mistake letting Obi-Wan fulfill Qui-Gon’s promise. They were going to send him back, back to Tatooine and Watto and . . .

“Storm-Brother,” Aayla said suddenly, in heavily accented Amatakka that struck Anakin like a gaffi stick to the head. “I would tell you a story. Will you hear?”

Anakin gaped at her. Another of Ar-Amu’s children?! Here?! He had thought he was the only one! Who would dare enslave a Jedi?! But . . . He glanced at Barriss, and Bultar, and A’Sharad. Surely they were not all Amavikka, too? No, they couldn’t be, there was nothing on their faces to indicate that they knew Amatakka. And in A’Sharad’s case, trying to enslave a Tusken was even crazier than trying to enslave a Jedi. And if they were not Amavikka . . . He looked at Aayla, trying to convey anger and pleading in the same look, anger that she would so casually betray the secret of secrets, and pleading that she understand why the secret had to be kept, in the face of all Depur’s torments and temptations. Depur was still Depur, whether he threatened you with the lash or tempted you with riches. But Aayla said only, “This story is as much theirs as it is ours, for Ekkreth has many faces and there is a story for each face He wears. Will you hear?”

For a long moment Anakin stood frozen as need and fear warred against each other, but in the end need won out. “I will hear,” he said in the language he hadn’t spoken since he left his mother on Tatooine, except in whispers in the dark when he was alone.

Aayla nodded. “Hear, then. I tell you this story to save your life. One day, as Ekkreth was going along the ways of the People . . .”

And Anakin heard. Heard how Ekkreth, in the guise of a Kiffar, had come across a young Twi’leki girl who had fallen into Depur’s hands, and saved her by his cunning. How Ekkreth had taken the girl to the Core, even to Coruscant itself, and shown her that there was a whole Order of people called Jedi, many thousands strong, whose seemings Ekkreth could take as a guise to help the People and confound Depur. How Ekkreth had shown the girl that the people of this Order, though not bound as the People were, by chains and chips, were still bound by oaths and laws, but not as Depur bound the People. Rather, the people of the Order bound themselves, for they knew, better than any, how very easy it would be for them to become Depur, whether by choice or by accident. For the people of this Order were gifted with the ability to see into the hearts and minds of others, and had the power to set their will upon others and change them, breaking them to obedience as surely as any torture that Depur could devise.

He heard also how the girl had learned that when the people of the Order said ‘Master’, they did not mean depur. To be depur was anathema to the people of the Order, so that any of them who became depur was cast out, and hunted as a dangerous beast was hunted. Rather, when the people of the Order said ‘Master’, they meant pashar, ‘Teacher’, and ger-enu, “Elder”, to honor the wisdom that only came with age and experience. He heard how the girl had learned that it was the way of the people of the Order to listen to the wisdom of the Teacher-Elders, for they had faced the temptation to become depur and defied it, and to confide in each other, for it was ever the way of Depur to make a prey of those who stood alone, without the help of others to remind them that Depur was a liar and only ever sought the increase of his own power. It was the curse of the Order that the same power that made them Friends of the People could also tempt them to become depuran, by false promises and the lie that power was the only answer, and so the people of the Order had always to be on guard, watching themselves and each other, to ensure that none of them fell prey to Depur’s enticements. For the people of the Order loved each other as family, and for even one of them to succumb to Depur’s blandishments broke the hearts of all.

Tears were streaming unheeded down Anakin’s face as Aayla’s story wound down, and no sooner had Aayla finished speaking than Anakin sprang forward and embraced her. Not alone, he thought wildly as he sobbed into Aayla’s shoulder and shock and relief and hope all crashed together in his mind. Not alone, not alone, not alone, not alone.

No, brother, he felt/heard at the edge of his mind as Aayla embraced him back and Barriss and Bultar and A’Sharad closed in to add their own arms to the embrace. Not alone. Never alone again. We are all of us one with the Force, and the Force is with each of us. You are ours, and we are yours, forever. By water and blood, on our names and in the sight of Ar-Amu, we swear it.

Chapter Text

Rabé didn’t know quite what she expected when she knocked on the door of the Mandalorian barracks, but she hadn’t been expecting a youngling to answer the door. A youngling who was unmistakably Naboo, even if they were wearing a tabard with the mythosaur skull of Mandalore on the left pectoral, both obviously hand stitched. “Good evening,” she said finally. “Is Corporal Cab Wren available?”

The youngling nodded, deeply enough that it was almost a bow. “Yes, ijaatyc ori’dala,” he said seriously. “Follow me, please.” Rabé swallowed her misgivings and followed the youngling into the barracks, finding it to be as neat and tidy as any such facility, but cluttered with Mandalorians. Some were hunched over armor or weapons with buffing cloths and small bottles of lubricant or solvent, some were reclining on their bunks reading or typing on datapads, and the central aisle was dominated by a pair of tables pushed together to hold a raucous game of sabacc. Fortunately, they didn’t have to squeeze their way past the sabacc game; instead, the youngling stopped at one of the first bunks on the left and announced, “Alor’uus, you have a visitor.”

Cab Wren looked up from the button he was sewing onto what looked like a vest and was visibly surprised to see Rabé standing before him. “Handmaiden,” he said, laying aside his sewing and rising to his feet. “What brings you here?”

“I would like to have a word with you,” Rabé replied, schooling her features to blankness. “In private, if at all possible.”

Cab blinked, then shrugged. “I’m told the Palace Gardens are lovely at this hour,” he said with what Rabé could tell was feigned casualness. “Shall we walk?”

Rabé nodded; the Gardens would be empty enough at this hour of the evening. Cab turned towards the room. “Eh, vode!” he called out, drawing the attention of the room. “I’m going for a walk with the Handmaiden here. Corporal Birdan, you have command while I’m gone. Comm me if you need to, don’t let these besoms burn the place down before the officers get back.”

One of the other Mandalorians shouted something back in Mando’a that provoked gales of laughter and to which Cab responded with a gesture that Rabé could tell was rude before turning back to her and gesturing towards the door. The youngling who had shown Rabé in saw them both to the door, where Cab laid a hand on his shoulder and said, “Well done, verd’ika,” making the youngling flush with pride as he bowed them out the door. Rabé waited until they were halfway down the corridor before asking, “What did that one person say that everyone found so funny?”

Cab hesitated. “Do you want the polite literal translation? Or the uncouth colloquial translation?” he asked finally.

Rabé shot him a glance. “Whichever translation was so amusing,” she said.

Cab shrugged broad shoulders. “Both would have been amusing, to Mandalorians,” he said. “But the funnier one would be, ‘Don’t forget to use protection’.”

Rabé glared at him. “This is what passes for humor among Mandalorians?” she demanded.

Cab shrugged again. “We are not a subtle people,” he said defensively. “And really, that’s one of the tamer jokes I’ve had to deal with since . . . that day. Some of them have been writing poetry about it.”

Rabé shuddered at the thought of Mandalorian poetry about her and changed the subject. “So Lieutenant Hihl was serious when he asked the Queen if you could take in orphans on a temporary basis. How many do you have in the barracks?”

“Four,” Cab replied. “All orphaned in the invasion, all with no living family. We checked.” He looked at her, caught her stare, and raised his hands defensively. “We weren’t going to just leave them there, in that orphanage!” he said vehemently. “Might as well leave them in a jail. This way at least they get looked after properly and get an education, until their situations get more . . . settled. And none of us are going to adopt any of them while we’re on deployment, when we can’t get them properly settled into House and Clan. Wouldn’t be right, and most of us are still too young to take responsibility for a child on our own. Although you can tell the Queen from us,” he added, his face setting like the cliffs below the city, “that if she doesn’t find families for those kids before we end up leaving here, they will get adopted. Not that we don’t trust you to take care of your own or anything, but someone has to step up for those kids. And if that someone has to be us . . .” he shrugged again. “Children are the future,” he said flatly, like a man declaring a law of nature. “Ade vencuuyot. This is the Way.”

Rabé held his gaze for a moment, then shook her head. “I’ll tell her,” she said, turning to walk on, “but that’s not what I wanted to talk about.”

Cab lowered his hands and got up to her in three easy long-legged strides. “What did you want to talk about, then?” he asked as he effortlessly matched her pace. Rabé couldn’t help rolling her eyes; being short was a good thing for her, it meant that she could double for the Queen if Sabé couldn’t. And one hundred and sixty-five centimeters was a perfectly respectable height for a human. But it was a simple fact that she wasn’t going to make anyone hurry after her the way Cab almost certainly could, not unless she outright ran. And sometimes that grated a bit.

Fortunately, they didn’t have long to go before they reached the Palace Gardens. Ten acres of flowerbeds, arbors, and hedges, shot through with walking paths and benches, it was one of the most popular attractions in Theed during the three days every standard week that it was open to the public. By some miracle, the Gardens had been only lightly damaged by the occupation and the fighting, and old Silmun, the Head Gardener, had painstakingly restored it, fretting over each flower and tree until all was as it was before the Trade Federation had come. The Queen had mentioned once that she had offered to let Silmun retire after the Gardens were restored, but Silmun had turned the offer down in indignation; the Gardens were his life, he had said, and that was that.

Rabé turned under the first arbor that they came to, crossed her arms, and looked Cab square in the face. “Why did you declare your intent to win my hand, that day?” she demanded.

Cab looked down at the ground for a long moment, then looked back up at her. “We are not taught to have much respect for aruetii, foreigners, on Mandalore,” he began. “Especially not when it comes to anything to do with fighting. Whether it’s starfighters in the black, or blasters, blades, and boots on the ground, Mandalorians are the best, full stop, no others need apply. We learn that down in our bone marrow, growing up. So when we were told that we were coming here, to Naboo, to teach a planet full of pacifists how to become warriors . . .” He shrugged. “We expected to have our work cut out for us training you up to the standards of our militia. Then we got here, and we found that you took that training and ate it up. So we changed gears, and we started giving the Security Guard commando training. As for the Palace Guard, and you Handmaidens . . . we’ve been giving you supercommando training, the same kind of training we get in the Guard. And you’ve been taking to it like razorgulls to water, and still carrying on with your regular duties as you do. That, in and of itself, is impressive, and it made a lot of attitudes change really quickly on our end. But you, personally . . .” Cab's brown eyes were intense. “When the Queen met us when we arrived, I thought you and your vode were just . . . decorative. Ornaments to make your Queen seem more important. Then I found out that you had gone into battle alongside her, like a Mand’alor’s ijaat’aran, their honor guard, and I decided to put that judgment aside until I saw how you did in training. And what I saw made me change my mind. Especially that spar.”

Cab spread his hands. “There aren’t many human women my age that can beat me hand-to-hand,” he said simply. “That has as much to do with how big I am as it does with how well-trained I am. Even most human men my age hesitate to fight me. But you . . . you stepped onto that mat and you went straight for my throat in the next breath. Didn’t even stop to size me up first. That was fucking mandokar of you, Rabé. By the time we were halfway through that fight, I knew that you were ori’beskaryc, like we are. I couldn’t believe my luck. Here you were, one of the most beautiful people I had ever seen, and you were as mandokarla as even a Death Watch fanatic could ask for.” He let his hands fall. “So, I got carried away, and . . . well, you know what happened next better than I do.”

Rabé’s mouth had dropped open at some point during Cab’s explanation; she had to remind herself to close it. “I didn’t mean to do that,” she said half-defensively. “I just . . . it just happened.”

“Well, I deserved it,” Cab replied. He looked back down at the ground, then looked her in the eye again. “If this is going to be a problem,” he said slowly, “I can ask Ingold for a transfer back to Mandalore. One of the other troopers from the Guard can replace me.”

“It’s not a problem . . .” Rabé started, then stopped herself to think for a moment. Was it a problem that Cab Wren, Mandalorian Royal Guardsman and general badass supercommando, had confessed that he had fallen for her as much because she had tried her level best to beat the snot out of him in a sparring session as because she was ‘one of the most beautiful people he had ever seen’? Was it a problem that she had actually given some thought to Eirtaé’s words and decided that no, she didn’t want to let this man pass her by? Was it a problem that he was sworn to Duchess Satine as irrevocably as she was sworn to Queen Padmé? She forced the questions to the back of her mind. There would be time enough to answer those questions, and others besides, later. Answering those questions was the point of courtship, after all. “The only problem,” she said, “is that there are only five Handmaidens, and at least three of us have to be on duty at any given time; two in personal attendance and one on the console to provide technical support. That’s just for normal business; if there’s an event, more of us have to be in personal attendance. For formal occasions of State, all of us have to be in personal attendance, as a measure of the gravity with which the Queen views the occasion.”

Cab nodded. “Like the Guard with the Duchess,” he said. “The more formal the occasion, the more of us have to turn out in full beskar’gam, all polished to a shine. How is that a problem, though?”

Rabé raised an eyebrow. “Because,” she said slowly, “a schedule like that doesn’t leave much time for courting. Goddess knows how Eirtaé manages it.”

“Convenient niches and corners, from what Mareia’s let slip,” Cab replied automatically, before he caught the full meaning of her words and blinked. “So,” he said hesitantly, “you wouldn’t object to my courting you? If we could find the time?”

“No, I wouldn’t object,” Rabé said. “But first, there’s something you should know about me.” And she told him everything about her life before the Handmaidens. About being accepted at the Academy, about the forgery ring she had helped found, about how she and her fellows had made a habit, and quite a few credits, out of scamming wealthy offworlders. About how the authorities had found out about the ring, about how she had been left holding the bag while her co-conspirators dived for cover and denied everything, about how she had only escaped expulsion and arrest because the Academy hadn’t wanted a scandal.

“Is that all?” Cab asked when she had finished. “Rabé, there are people in the Guard who are former Death Watch, or whose families are still Death Watch. Terrorists, for Manda’s sake! And that’s leaving aside the ex-mercenaries and the former bounty hunters. Some of whom have bounties on their heads themselves. Lieutenant Hihl has a death mark on his head in Hutt Space, and he’s not the only one.”

Rabé gaped at him. The Mandalorians had brought former Death Watch into the Palace? “And you trust these people near the Queen?!” she demanded when she found her voice. “Near your Duchess?!”

“Cin vhetin,” Cab said. “Whatever you were and whatever you did before you came to the Guard doesn’t matter. If you make it through training, if we don’t find anything absolutely unforgivable in your past, and if you swear the oath, then you’re one of us, and that’s that. We have people in the Guard who have renounced their House and their Clan, who have taken new names or even named themselves Naasade, because when you join the Guard, you are reborn.” He crossed his arms. “By the sound of it, the same thing happened to you. I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t give you the same grace I give my vode every day of the week.”

Rabé blinked thrice, rapidly, then drew in a breath. “All right, then,” she said, trying to act as if the man standing before her hadn’t just heard what was supposed to be a relationship-ending admission, a career-ending admission, and brushed it off. “I’m still telling the Queen you’ve brought former Death Watch into the Palace, though.”

“She already knows,” Cab said. “The Duchess told her, before we came.” He shrugged. “We’re friends now, aren’t we? Mandalore and Naboo? Friends are honest with each other. Especially about things that might be dangerous. I’ll say this, though; the Duchess has had her share of trouble since she came to the throne. But none of it has come from the Guard. One of us . . .” He faltered a moment, then forged on. “One of us, Jak Naasade, took a blaster bolt meant for the Duchess a year ago. He jumped in front of the assassin, took the bolt right in the throat between his bucket and his breastplate. Died before he hit the ground. His family were Death Watch. The shabuir who used to be Jak’s father said it was ‘a fitting end for a coward and a traitor.’” He shook his head. “We all Remember him, those of us who knew him,” he said, enunciating the capital R. “The Duchess Remembers him, too, and her nephew.”

Rabé nodded. “He should be remembered,” she said. “That was . . . very brave of him.” She knew just how brave. She had only doubled for the Queen a few times, but every time she had, she had been aware that she was deliberately putting herself in the line of fire. Assassination was uncommon on Naboo, but not unheard of.

Cab nodded sharply, then shook himself. “So,” he said, with the air of a man forcing himself to change the subject, “we will have to communicate, and that closely, if we are to find times when we are both off duty.”

Rabé pulled out her personal commlink. “Give me your frequency,” she said.

XXX

Yoda had literally hundreds of demands on his time. Reports and requests for advice from Jedi in the field, administrative decisions at the Temple, petitions from various Senators (invariably urgent), requests from the Supreme Chancellor’s office for meetings (if anything, even more invariably urgent). But Yoda had not grown so old in the Force without learning that there were times when even requests from the Chancellor could wait, and keeping an eye on the newest member of his lineage was one of them.

So he went stumping down to the Room of a Thousand Fountains to find Anakin Skywalker sitting on a stone bench by one of the waterfalls, watching it with something akin to religious awe. Of course, Yoda reminded himself. From Tatooine, he is. Never, in all likelihood, has he seen water flow freely before coming here. He cleared his throat slightly, and then chuckled as young Skywalker shot to his feet. “Sit, sit, young Skywalker,” he said, fluttering a hand as he walked up to the bench. “Deserves more admiration than I, a waterfall does. A living work of art, such a thing is.”

“Yes, Master,” Skywalker said, sitting back down on the bench as Yoda hopped up beside him and laid his gimer stick across his knees. They sat in silence for a moment, watching the water flow, then Anakin broke the silence. “I had a question, Master,” he said.

Yoda nodded. “More than one, I should think,” he said genially. “But ask, and answer I shall, if I can.”

“Master Leem was teaching us about the dangers of attachment today . . .” Anakin began, “and I was wondering . . . well . . .”

“How great a danger attachment could be, when the attachment between you and your mother so sustaining was?” Yoda asked. Anakin nodded. Yoda ran a hand along the haft of his gimer stick. “Good reason the Jedi have, to be cautious of attachment,” he said. “And the rule has been, for so long, that better it is to avoid the possibility of temptation than to run the risk. But lead to the dark side, attachment does not. Not in and of itself, when healthy and good it is. Natural, love is, Anakin, in all its variety. And when true and pure it is, honoring and respecting all the people involved in it . . .” he sighed, struck by memories. “Shine in the Force like a beacon it does, burning away the darkness.” He sighed again, and shook his head. “But rare it is, for such love to endure, unsullied by life’s trials. And when twisted, love becomes, by jealousy, distrust, fear . . . Poisonous, it becomes. So easy, it is, for love to turn to hate, and so deadly are the consequences.”

Yoda turned to look at Anakin. “Nor is that the only pitfall. Die, all things do, Anakin. Luminous beings, we are in the Force, and eternal is the Force. But these shells we inhabit, mortal are, and die they must. And when that happens to one we love . . .” He looked back at the waterfall as memories surged up again. “Multiply, do the temptations of the dark side, when that happens. The fear that we will lose them. The pain and anger of their deaths. The resentment, that so unfair is the universe to take one that we love from us so soon. The jealousy that suffer as we do, others do not. The wish to never again feel such pain, and the temptation one’s heart to harden.” Yoda’s ears drooped. “Eight hundred and seventy years, I have seen. In that time, many Jedi have I seen Fall, or walk to the very edge of the precipice. Some for hate, some for greed, some for pride. But so many, for love gone wrong.”

Anakin stared at the stream, emotions running across his face. “What can we do, Master?” he asked in a small voice.

Yoda laid a hand on Anakin’s shoulder. “Grieve for those who go before us,” he said, “and then, let them go. Recognize that temporary, all things are. For those whose lives we share, give thanks, and then, let them go. All that lives, one is, in the Force. And in the Force, reunited we shall all be.”

XXX

Ingold raised a brow. “Your student’s ten years old, now?” he asked. “And he just joined the Order a few months ago? I thought you Jedi only took people into the Order when they were too young to talk.”

Obi-Wan shrugged. “There are precedents,” he explained. “Sometimes our Searchers do not find someone until they are Anakin’s age or even older. And Anakin . . . is special.”

“I’ve heard the stories,” Ingold said with a nod. “Nine years old and he blew up a Trade Fed flagship. By accident. Ka’ra knows what he’ll be able to do on purpose when he’s trained.”

Obi-Wan nodded back. “His teachers back at the Temple send glowing reports of his progress. Most of the time anyway.” He shrugged. “Anakin is apparently much better at practicalities than theory.”

He glanced down at the glass in his hand and frowned to find it empty. Ingold slid the bottle of Concordian whisky across the table towards him and Obi-Wan accepted with a smile. What had started as curiosity on Ingold’s part about the Duchess’s famous Jetii protector had evolved into a tentative friendship fueled by reminiscences of their respective adventures and a mutual taste for Mandalorian liquor, whether Sundari brandy or Concordian whisky or even tihaar.

“A lot of kids are like that,” Ingold replied as he topped up his own glass. “One of my vod’ade, my younger sister’s oldest boy . . . Put an engine in front of him and give him a toolbox and he’ll take it apart and put it back together without a nut or a bolt out of place. And it’ll run smoother and faster for him doing so. Give him a technical manual and ask him to explain how he did it and he’ll look at you like you’re speaking Jawaese.” He shrugged. “People’s brains are just . . . wired different, sometimes.” He shook his head. “How’d you convince his buire to let him go, though? Nine years old going on ten, that’s old for that, isn’t it?”

Obi-Wan swirled his drink in his glass. “We were stranded on Tatooine,” he said slowly. “We’d run the blockade here in the Royal Yacht, but the hyperdrive was damaged. And the only parts dealer on the planet with the parts we needed wouldn’t take Republic credits. So Qui-Gon wagered the ship against the parts that Anakin would win the Boonta Eve Classic.”

Ingold’s jaw dropped as he stared at Obi-Wan dumbfoundedly. “A nine-year-old won the Boonta Eve?” he asked finally. “A nine-year-old human?” At Obi-Wan’s nod, he shook his head. “I have got to meet this kid,” he said. “That explains how you got off Tatooine, but not how the boy went with you, though.”

“Qui-Gon made a side bet with the parts dealer; if Anakin won the race, he would be free,” Obi-Wan said. “He tried to convince him to free Anakin and his mother both, but the parts dealer refused.” He grimaced. “Anakin puts a brave face on it, but I know he misses his mother.”

Ingold nodded. “Father not in the picture?” he asked.

“Anakin’s mother, Shmi, always told him there was no father, and apparently said as much to Qui-Gon as well,” Obi-Wan replied. He shrugged. “Which could mean anything or nothing, coming from a slave woman.”

Ingold nodded, a bitter look crossing his face. “I’ve heard that before too,” he said, his eyes sliding away to glower at the wall. Or, more likely, at the memories that were visibly playing out in his memory. “Usually, it means either that she doesn’t remember who the father is, or that there are too many candidates to be sure which one is the father. Or simply that she doesn’t want to think about it too much. And most slaver cultures don’t care who fathers a slave child anyway; by their laws slave children follow their mother until they reach a certain age. And it’s not like any slaver culture permits their slaves to marry.” He downed half his glass at a gulp and hissed at the burn, then turned to Obi-Wan. “I did a lot of things, in my mercenary and bounty hunting days,” he said. “Some good things and a lot of things that weren’t. Things that keep me up at night. But I stayed as far away from slavery as possible. I didn’t take bounties on escaped slaves, and I didn’t take a contract to take or traffic slaves. I took a bodyguarding contract for Turba the Hutt once, and I got out of it as fast as I could after I found out how deep in the slave trade he was.” He glared down at his glass. “Some things you can’t ignore, even when you make your living by your blaster. You just simply can’t.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “No, you can’t, any more than I can,” he agreed. “Otherwise, what are we? What are the Jedi for?”

They passed the rest of the evening in silence before finishing their drinks and parting for the evening. Obi-Wan would have thought nothing of it, except that two days later four of the Mandalorian advisors walked up to him and casually mentioned that they were going on leave. To Tatooine.

“Tatooine?” Obi-Wan asked, dumbfounded. “Whatever for?”

“I like deserts,” said Dots Trahl, a lean human man with a slightly feral and hungry look about him, who was one of the small unit tactics instructors. “They remind me of home.”

“I like to sunbathe,” Ro Shalbai chimed in. She was an amber-furred Bothan, and a sniper. “The sun here’s nice, but you can get really tan on Tatooine.”

“Qualifiers for the Boonta Eve Classic are coming ‘round again,” Rhaaz Covhust added in his basso rumble. He was a Zabrak, a head taller than Obi-Wan and broad enough that he seemed shorter, and was a hand-to-hand instructor. In his beskar’gam, he looked like a tower of metal and muscle. “I’ve never seen them in person before, and I’m curious.”

Bassi Drost, a wiry human female with one of the fastest pistol draws Obi-Wan had ever seen and a degree of self-possession that reminded him of Luminara, simply shrugged. “I’m just going along to keep these three out of trouble. Someone has to be the sensible one.”

“Only thing is,” Dots said, “we heard that there was a parts dealer we should avoid. Slave-owning sleemo you’d run into when you were there with the Queen?”

Obi-Wan folded his hands into the sleeves of his robe, surveying the Mando’ade before him. All of them returned his gaze with innocent expressions that belied their armor, their arms, and their attentive demeanors. It was mildly disconcerting to realize that he was older than all save one of them, and even Dots was only a year his senior. “Watto was his name,” Obi-Wan said finally. “A Toydarian in Mos Espa.”

The Mandalorians nodded. “Watto the Toydarian, of Mos Espa,” Bassi said softly, clearly fixing it in her memory. “We’ll be sure to steer well clear of him, Master Jedi.”

There was a round of nods from the other Mandos. “Dangerous characters, slavers,” Ro said off-handedly.

“Oh yes,” Dots added. “Shoot you as soon as look at you.”

Rhaaz nodded again. “This is known,” he said with the air of a man stating an absolute fact along the lines of Water is wet.

There were more nods from the Mandos, then Ro perked up and snapped her fingers. “Also,” she said, “we were wanting to meet the mother of your hibir-to-be. Anakin, his name was, right?”

Obi-Wan nodded. “His mother’s name is Shmi Skywalker,” he said. “But she’s Watto’s slave.”

There were winces from the Mandos; Obi-Wan might have found them convincing if Dots hadn’t theatrically whistled. “We’ll just have to careful, then, won’t we, vode?” he asked. “Wouldn’t want this Watto to catch us.”

“No, we would not,” Bassi said. “I don’t know what the punishment is for messing around with someone else’s slave on Tatooine, but I bet it isn’t good.”

“Probably stake you out in the desert and let you fry,” Rhaaz said lugubriously. “If the massifs or the anoobas didn’t get you first.”

“Or the Tuskens,” Ro added. “Thanks, Master Jedi. We should be back in a week. Maybe two, depending.”

Obi-Wan watched the four Mandos walk away, wondering if he should try to dissuade them, then shook his head. If they wanted to spend their leave on Tatooine, that was their affair. And what they didn’t tell him, he didn’t have to report to the Council or the Senate. Not that four members of the advisory group choosing to spend their leave on an impoverished desert world on the edge of Hutt Space was properly the business of the Council or the Senate.

XXX

Watto jerked his head up at the sound of the doorbell jingling. “Hi chuba du naga!?” he demanded angrily. Dammit, if I say it once, I say it a hundred times . . . “Can’t you read the sign? We’re closed!”

“We’re looking for Shmi Skywalker,” said the armored figure that lumbered through the door of his shop. “We’re told this is where we can find her.”

Watto twitched upright; he knew that style of armor as well as anyone. Mandalorians? Here? In full kit? What the kriff? “Whaddya want with her?” he asked suspiciously.

“We want to buy her,” said the tall Mando, holding up a small bag and shaking it once so that Watto could hear the jingle of credits inside. A second Mando, this one slimmer and with a different-shaped helmet, stepped off to his left and glanced around the store.

Watto narrowed his eyes. “She’s not for sale,” he grated out. I swear, if Gardulla thinks she can get Mandos to put the squeeze on me just because I lost the boy . . .

“She’s a slave; of course she’s for sale,” the second Mando said in a voice that was unmistakably feminine, even through a helmet vocoder and with that kind of coldness. “If you can’t run your business without her, buy another. Or are you going to tell us you can’t buy another slave on Tatooine?"

"Not like her, I can’t,” Watto growled, flapping his wings and hovering up from his seat to drift over the counter. “Best machinist I ever seen in my life, she is. And she ain’t for sale unless I say so, got it, wermo? Now if you wanna talk other business, let’s talk other business. Otherwise, don’t let the door hit you on your way out, huh?”

There was a moment of silence, then the tall Mando lowered his arm and tucked the bag into his belt. “Alright, then,” he said. “We’ll do this the hard way.”

The next thing Watto knew, he was lying on the floor and his right wing was on fire. “What the kark . . .” he groaned, then he yowled as a boot the size of a plate came down on his right wing and the pain went from fire to volcanic eruption.

“Do we have your attention now, Watto?” the tall Mando snapped, blaster pistol in hand and aimed between Watto’s eyes. Watto nodded, groaning. “Good. Then listen up. You have four other appendages we can put a blaster bolt through before we have to get creative. And we don’t have any other plans for today. So, where is Shmi Skywalker?”

“Kark yourself, sleemo!” Watto spat, then there was a blaster shot and his left wing exploded in pain. “She’s in the slave quarter!” he gasped out when the pain would let him talk again. “She was moping about her brat being gone and it was slow, so I sent her home. She does half her work there anyways.”

“What’s the address of her home?” the second Mando asked.

Address? Watto thought weakly as he turned his head to glare at the Mando who had evidently brought him down; her blaster pistol was still in her hand. You really aren’t from around here, are you? “It’s the slave quarter,” he ground out, putting as much contempt as he could muster into his voice. “They don’t exactly have house numbers.”

“No, I suppose not,” the Mando still standing on his karking wing mused. “In that case, a description of the house will have to do. Come on, out with it.”

“Go suck Jawa cock . . .” Watto snarled before the rest of his curse trailed off in a howl as a blaster bolt tore through his right leg.

When the Mandalorians left, they had a description of Shmi Skywalker’s home, a description of Shmi herself, the location and deactivation code of her slave chip, and a deed of manumission granting Shmi Skywalker her freedom, with Watto’s signature and retinal print affixed. Watto, on the other hand, had blaster bolts through every limb but his right arm, four broken ribs where the tall Mando had kicked him, two blaster bolts through his chest, and another blaster bolt through his cranium. He also had a small bag of Republic credits stuffed in his mouth.

The deed of manumission, after all, had specified that Shmi Skywalker had been freed “for due consideration”. None of the Mandalorians wanted to have it challenged in a Hutt court on the grounds that no money had actually changed hands. Not when they had put so much effort into getting Watto to sign the bloody thing.

Chapter Text

Pre Vizsla honestly didn’t know what to think as he stared at the holonews article announcing that Mandalore and Naboo were upgrading their Memorandum of Understanding to a Treaty of Mutual Assistance. On the one hand, that Treaty meant that more Mandalorians would be putting their beskar’gam back on and going forth into the galaxy as the warriors they were, instead of staying in sniveling, self-congratulating peace on Mandalore. The news that Naboo was not just acquiring a fleet but building up a full-spectrum military would see to that due to the increased need for verde to train Naboo’s new forces. On the other hand, they would be doing so under the banner, and with the full consent and support, of that self-righteous dar’manda who called herself a Duchess.

The worst part, he stewed as he closed the article with a savage gesture of his hand and rose from his chair to pace like a caged nexu, was that Kryze was gaining ground among their people by doing it! The New Mandalorians had always been a movement of the upper and upper-middle classes, and especially of the nobility and their household retainers. Such people, after all, were the true warrior class of Mandalore, the people with the time and the wealth to spend training for war and going on campaign, as opposed to feeding their families. He could, grudgingly and with boundless contempt, see how certain weaklings who should have died at birth might get it into their heads that there had been enough war on Mandalore, and that it was, to use Kryze’s puerile mantra, ‘time for peace’.

The common people, the true people, of Mandalore had never been such cowards. They knew the Resol’nare, and knew that the Six Actions were as absolute as gravity. They might go along with the New Mandalorians out of exhaustion and a wish not to draw the ire of their betters, but Pre knew that they chafed under the yoke of Satine Kryze’s vision of a world without violence, without passion, without mandokar, in the end without even Manda. It was those people, as much as those members of the nobility that had rejected Kryze’s debased philosophy, that Pre had placed his wagers on in his attempt to restore Mandalore to its rightful glory. They might cringe under Kryze’s patronizing gaze now, but let them glimpse a true Mand’alor . . .

But now those common people were starting to see benefits in Kryze’s rule. The trade deal with the Naboo had opened the door to others, and the Sundari spaceport was busier than it had been in fifty years, by all reports. On top of which, the fact that Naboo had turned to Mandalorian advisors to train their new warriors had led to a flurry of offers from other worlds. It was, it seemed, popular to have Mandalorians training your troops these days, especially your special forces. Whether the Mandalorians in question had been ramikade themselves was, apparently, neither here nor entirely there; it was the mystique of Mandalore that was truly being sought after. Men and women who had hung up their armor years ago at Satine’s command to make peace were now putting it back on again to teach the hard-earned lessons of the civil war to students across the galaxy. And not only were their remittances providing a steady and ever-growing stream of revenue for their Clans and for the central government, but Kryze was giving them her blessing as they left, after years of exiling anyone who so much as raised an empty hand to defend the honor of their House and Clan.

Pre only restrained himself from spitting by reminding himself that he was indoors. How like a Kryze, he thought savagely, to change her mind and claim it to be wisdom. Pre’s father had known when Adaanis Kryze had been the most bloodthirsty verd’ika on Kalevala, a true believer in the glory of Mandalore and the need and right to reclaim it at the point of a beskad. But then Adaanis Kryze had fallen in love with a New Mandalorian, and been seduced from the Way. Pre’s father had never forgiven that betrayal, and had passed the feud to Pre on his deathbed. I will avenge your honor, buir, he vowed to himself. I will tear House Kryze out of the Manda, root and branch, and see it burned to ash and scattered before the wind.

But how, that was the question. The New Mandalorians might have been weak and dull, but they were gaining in strength by the day with every ship that docked at the Sundari spaceport to do business or carry Mandalorian advisors to yet another world to train yet another System Defense Force. The Death Watch was also gaining strength, and Pre had managed to send some of them along with some of the advisor groups that had gone forth into the galaxy, to see who they could convert to the cause. But some of those members had stopped reporting in. Whether they had fallen from the Way or whether they had been discovered and either arrested or slain mattered little. Pre had always based his strategy on swaying popular opinion to his side in order to displace Kryze. Concordia simply couldn’t support enough warriors to defeat the numbers that Kryze could command, and another outright war might render Mandalore truly uninhabitable. Instead of conquering the throne, Pre had planned on being invited to assume it, after showing that for all her prattle of peace and prosperity, Kryze could not fulfill Mandalore’s needs. But if public opinion kept swinging to Kryze the way it had been these past months . . .

Pre turned his scowl towards the holoreader as something jogged his mind. What was that article he had read last week? The one that had been going on about the idea of Mandalore and Mandalorians in . . . what was the phrase . . . popular culture? Ah, yes, that was it; the article had claimed that the true allure of Mandalorians, and the reason so many SDF’s were hiring them as advisors, was the vision of Mandalorians as all-conquering supercommandoes, the only people in the galaxy who could defeat both Jedi and Sith with ease. A shark-like grin spread slowly across his face. The galaxy wants Mandalorians, do they? Alright, then. I’ll give them Mandalorians. Veman Mando’ade, true and pure.

XXX

“Welcome back to GHN news! In the Chommell Sector, the Naboo Royal Navy officially took delivery of its first warships this standard day. The ships arrived two standard weeks ago, but final inspections were completed just yesterday. Tomas Sal, on the ground in Theed, has more.”

(Cut to Tomas Sal, in front of the Theed Royal Palace.)

“Scenes of somber pride broke out across Naboo today as the new Royal Navy took official delivery of its first tranche of warships. In an official ceremony today at noon local, Charen Westyn, Vice President of the Corellian Engineering Corporation, officially handed over the access codes to two DP20 frigates and three CR90 corvettes to Queen Padmé Amidala, who accepted them on behalf of the government of Naboo.”

(Cut to a scene of Padmé Amidala, in royal regalia, standing on a podium before two docked DP20 frigates.)

“Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that we may never again be forced to make war. But freedom, justice, and peace are the birthright of every sentient being. And when those rights are threatened, it is the right and duty of every sentient being to take up arms to defend them.”

(Cut back to Tomas Sal.)

“Spokespersons for the Royal Naboo Defense Forces unveiled the names of the new ships at the ceremony. The two frigates are named Guardian and Defender, while the corvettes are named Narglatch, Opee, Colo, and Veermok. The spokespersons also said that their recruitment drive has exceeded expectations and they expect to be able to fully staff both their new fleet and their rapidly forming army. We had the opportunity to ask some of those recruits about their decision to leave behind Naboo’s long tradition of pacifism.

(Cut to a young woman in the new uniform of the Naboo Royal Navy.)

“This is our home, and someone tried to take it from us. We don’t want that to happen again. If it does happen again, then we’ll fight them for it. Whoever it is.”

(Cut back to Tomas Sal)

“VP Westyn of the CEC confirmed that the ships were modified from dockyard specifications, but he refused to elaborate on what those modifications entailed. Spokespersons for the Defense Forces also refused to comment on modifications. The Royal Navy expects to receive another tranche of warships sometime within the next standard month; that tranche is expected to include a Caravel-class light cruiser from Damorian Manufacturing Corporation built under license in a CEC yard on Corellia. Tomas Sal, GHN News, Theed, Naboo.”

XXX

Satine and Padmé’s twice weekly holocalls had become a fixture of their schedules since the Memorandum of Understanding had been signed. Officially, they were meant to serve as the primary channel of communication between their respective governments on matters concerning the Memorandum, and later the Treaty. Unofficially, they had become a means by which two friends could hash out their respective problems with someone who had a relatively unbiased perspective. Among other things.

“Did you have a chance to review the materials I sent you last time?” Padmé asked after they had finished talking about the differences between family law on Naboo and Mandalore, and especially regarding the adoption of orphans.

Satine nodded, her face falling. “I did,” she confirmed. She shook her head. “I knew slavery was bad in Hutt Space, but that bad?”

Padmé nodded. “And Tatooine is just an outpost of the Hutts,” she said. “Would you like to think about what Nal Hutta is like? Or anywhere else in Hutt Space proper?”

“No, I would not,” Satine said flatly. “I have enough nightmares already.”

The two sovereigns shared a moment of silence. After Shmi Skywalker had shown up on Naboo, in the company of four studiously innocent-seeming Mandalorians who had given a great many vague and prevaricating answers as to how she had gotten onto their vessel without having her slave chip activated, Padmé had asked if she would be willing to be debriefed about what life was like as a slave on Tatooine. The resulting transcript ran to more than five hundred pages of twenty-two by twenty-eight flimsiplast and made for harrowing reading, even for Mandalorians. Lieutenant Hihl had read it, in order to corroborate what he could from his time as a mercenary and bounty hunter. Immediately after turning in his report, he had requested, and gotten, three standard days’ leave; from what Padmé had heard, he had spent two of those days blind drunk and the third day nursing a hangover of epic proportions. When he had reported back for duty, she had apologized for making him read Shmi’s debriefing, which had at least softened the resentful looks from his sergeants.

“Shmi Skywalker is safe now, I trust?” Satine asked casually.

Padmé nodded. “As safe as I can make her,” she said. In fact, Shmi Skywalker was now a member of the Theed Palace Engineering Corps, having been tested by the Corps’ chapter of the Interstellar Association of Machinists and accepted as a master machinist, but the number of people who needed to know that could be counted on two human hands with fingers to spare. According to Obi-Wan, Anakin had broken down and wept when he received the news that his mother had been freed. Master Yoda was reportedly meditating on whether it would be good to allow contact between mother and son, given the circumstances. “But you know as well as I do, Satine, that Shmi Skywalker is just one of thousands, if not tens of thousands, on Tatooine alone. And I cannot, I will not, stand by and allow this, this barbarity, to continue unchecked.”

Satine raised an eyebrow. “What do you plan to do?” she asked. “Browbeat the Hutt Council into abolition?”

Padmé shook her head. “From everything I’ve seen and heard of the Hutts, that would be a waste of time and breath,” she replied. “If they could be persuaded to give up slavery, it would have happened centuries ago. But there are more ways to fight slavery than simply passing laws abolishing it. Remember the other part of the packet I sent you last week?”

Satine nodded. “I found it . . . interesting,” she said. “But simply because a thing is legal, it does not necessarily follow that the thing is right. And I understand that even the legality of what I think you’re suggesting is ambiguous?”

“Strictly speaking,” Padmé answered. “But what are the Hutts going to do? Complain to the Judicial Department? And Satine, do you really think I haven’t been doing my research? Not just with Shmi, but with other freedpersons? And others who have knowledge of slavery?”

Satine’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” she allowed. “But Padmé . . . our peoples are still recovering from war. Are you really so sure that you want to start another one?”

Padmé’s hands tightened on the edge of the table. “According to Shmi, between fifty and one hundred ships a year pass through Tatooine carrying slaves,” she said. “Sometimes more. And the Republic lets it happen. The Jedi do what they can, or so Knight Kenobi tells me, but there are more worlds in the Rim than there are Jedi in the whole Order, including younglings and elders. The only thing that could stamp out slavery in the Rim is the Republic, and the Republic doesn’t so much as lift a finger. Even Chancellor Palpatine doesn’t seem to care about what happens in the Rim, for all his promises.”

Satine’s mouth twisted in a grimace. “Comes of the Core worlds being so heavily overrepresented in the Senate,” she said cynically. “The Rim might outnumber the Core by sheer number of worlds, but since there are individual Core worlds that have their own senators, while the Rim has to make do with representation by sector . . .“ She shrugged. “A candidate for Chancellor can give all the lip service to the Mid and Outer Rim that they like, but they can’t hope to win the election without carrying a majority of the Core, the Colonies, and the Inner Rim. And the Core and the Colonies couldn’t care less about what goes on in the Mid Rim, much less the Outer Rim, so long as it doesn’t affect them. It’s one of the reasons why Mandalore isn’t a member of the Republic, despite that we’re surrounded on every side by Republic signatories. We know the Republic does not and will not care about what happens to us, so long as their sleep is not disturbed.”

Padmé nodded. “I asked Lieutenant Hihl what he thought about the course I proposed, in our last meeting,” she said. “He told me, ‘Your Highness, it’s the Outer Rim. So long as you’re not glassing worlds, you can do whatever you can get away with. Especially if the Hutts are involved.’” She looked Satine in the eye. “Who, if not us?” she asked softly. “When, if not now? Where, if not here? Why, if not for this?”

Satine’s eyes had a faraway look in them. “Ben was a slave once, briefly,” she said, surprising Padmé; Satine rarely talked about Obi-Wan, or their year on the run together. “Years before he met me, just after he became Qui-Gon’s apprentice. They’d been separated, and Ben was captured. He still had the collar-scar on his neck. Had nightmares about it too; he’d bolt awake, white as a Talz and shaking like a leaf . . .” She shook her head, then steeled her face. “I don’t like the idea of leading my people to the brink of war, Padmé,” she said. “We have had too much of war for our own good. And I might be convinced, but we still have to convince our governments. Both of what we should do and what we should do next.”

Padmé smiled. “Then we had better get to strategizing, hadn’t we?” she asked.

XXX

Alone in the privacy of his inner sanctum, Darth Sidious couldn’t help a frown as he read the latest new reports from Naboo. What, by all the powers of the Dark, did the girl think she was playing at? Did she really think she could make Naboo into a power? A power great enough to be noteworthy, much less actually dangerous? If so, then she was more willful and more foolish than he had suspected from their previous acquaintance.

Damn it, he knew Naboo, as well as anyone who had grown up there. He knew the scope of its economy, the capacity of its industry, the limitations of its manpower. Most importantly, he knew the hearts and minds of its people. To be sure there were wars in Naboo’s past, some of them notably bloody. But a race of conquerors the Naboo were not, nor even a race of warriors, anymore. Slow to anger, quick to forgive, quicker to forget, and desirous of nothing more than to be able to go back to their gardens and make their art in peace. That was the way of Naboo, the way that had chafed him as he grew to manhood in the knowledge that he was surely destined for great things, if only he could get off the backwater planet he had been born on and go somewhere where there was real power to be dealt in. He knew that Padmé Amidala knew that better than anyone. She wouldn’t have been elected if she didn’t.

So why, by all the bones of his forerunners, was the girl trying to make a power of Naboo? Two light cruisers, six frigates, and twelve corvettes might be pitiful by the standards of Kuat or Corellia or Duros or even Alderaan, but it was strong enough for a Rim world. Especially for a single system polity like Naboo, which might be the richest and most populous planet in the Chommell Sector, but which wasn’t a sector hegemon the way Corellia was. The other worlds of the Chommell Sector looked to Naboo for guidance, and Naboo habitually appointed the Sector’s Senator and Representatives, but they paid no tax or tribute, sent no one to serve in Naboo’s fleet or its armies, and ran their internal affairs without reference to the wishes of Naboo or its monarch.

Sidious’s frown deepened. He could understand the need to buy a fleet for the purposes of keeping the Trade Federation from trying their luck again; fear was ever a powerful motivator. But if the fleet had been purely defensively-minded, then why that composition? Two or three destroyers would have been more impressive, more suited to a defensive posture within Naboo’s mass shadow, and arguably more efficient than such a wide array of smaller ships. As it was, the girl had bought a raiding fleet, not a battle fleet. By any standards except those of the Rim, anyway.

Sidious shook his head, impatient with himself. His former master had often chastised him for trying to discern his strategy in the first few moves of their interminable games of shah-tzeh. He could hear the old Muun’s dry mutter of, “Patience, my young apprentice. Let the board develop. With patience, even the murkiest waters become clear.”

Sidious had come to hate shah-tzeh. Not so much because of the punishment that came when he invariably lost, as much as because it was too sedate, too orderly a game for him. Politics, now, was shah-tzeh played at lightspeed, with pieces that could argue with you and move of their own volition in entirely unexpected ways. That was the kind of game he could enjoy playing, and the kind of mastery he could enjoy displaying.

Sidious shook his head; sometimes there really was nothing to do but wait and see. And if Naboo really did become a power, then that too he could work with. He closed the news reports, checked his inbox, and frowned to see that the Jedi were again refusing his request to see young Skywalker. “Hard at work in the creche” and “long-established policy” were the watchwords of those politely-worded refusals, and they made Sidious’s blood boil. How like the Jedi, he sneered to himself, to use antiquity as an excuse.

He tapped his fingers against the desk as he stared at the message. Stirring up trouble for the Jedi in the Senate to punish them for their intransigence would be easy and gratifying, but pointless. Punishment that was disconnected from the infraction that earned it was punishment wasted; he had learned this from his master. A surprise visit perhaps, and try to reroute the tour that would inevitably result to the creche? No, that would look suspicious. He tapped his fingers twice more, then began drafting another message. Not to Adi Gallia, the Order’s representative on The Hill, as the Senate district was called, but straight to Mace Windu. The Korun “Master” was a fanatic about the Republic and a firm believer in the respect owed to the Chancellor’s office. Surely, he would see reason.

XXX

Obi-Wan Kenobi recognized that he occupied a somewhat ambiguous position vis-à-vis the RNDF and their Mandalorian advisors. On the one hand, he was an acknowledged hero on Naboo for his part in keeping the Queen safe and breaking the Trade Federation’s occupation. And apparently there were stories told in Mandalorian Space of his year as Duchess Satine’s protector. On the other hand, he was here as a watchdog for the Senate. The same Senate that had turned its back on Mandalore and failed to send help to Naboo in their hour of desperate need.

The upshot was that he tended to do most of his training alone when he was in the salle or on one of the outdoor training fields. Which suited him well enough, actually. The simple fact was that he was the only Jedi on Naboo, and most Jedi martial training had little practicality for non-Jedi. The lightsaber was notoriously difficult to use without Force sensitivity, and even hand-to-hand training as the Jedi practiced it relied on the Force. And not just for strength or speed, either. The greatest advantage the Force gave a Jedi in combat, the advantage that Jedi ultimately relied upon more than any other and which no one without Force sensitivity could hope to emulate, was that the Force allowed a Jedi to feel what Battlemaster Drallig called “the flow of battle”, and act upon it, instinctively.

Combat might appear to be a perfectly random environment, especially at larger scales, but that was an illusion. Like any natural occurrence, combat had rhythms, and chains of events that could be followed to logical conclusions if one could perceive clearly enough and process what they perceived rapidly enough. Usually, such skill took a lifetime to master. Jedi learned how to do it starting at the age of five, in elementary lightsaber training.

It was, after all, a large part of what allowed them to deflect blaster bolts and other projectiles.

Which was precisely the exercise Obi-Wan had set for himself today. After Qui-Gon’s death, he had decided against continuing with Ataru; he had seen how Ataru’s lack of defensive ability had gotten Qui-Gon killed. And he had also seen how the Zabrak Sith’s arrogance and impatience had eventually gotten him killed. So instead of taking up Djem So or going back to Shii-Cho, Obi-Wan had applied himself to Soresu. The Resilience Form specialized in defense, against blade and bolt alike. The velocities were easy enough to learn, being the tightly-controlled, conservative things they were. Soresu had none of the gymnastics of Ataru, nor any of Djem So’s flamboyance. No, the trick with Soresu was being able to do those drills at full speed, against multiple opponents, for as long as possible

The Way of the Mynock could be accurately described as the Way of Endurance.

So Obi-Wan had gone on a five-kilometer run through the city, heedless of the raw early-morning cold and the drizzling rain, before coming to the salle, run through the first five velocities as solo drills, ramping up from one-quarter speed to full speed over multiple repetitions, and then taken out the training remotes he had brought to Naboo. Master-level remotes, these, of the kind that Battlemaster Drallig used on Knights he thought were letting themselves slip. Obi-Wan had brought four of them to Naboo, and today he sent two of them into the air around him. As the remotes hummed around him, their directional jets hissing, he let himself sink into the flow of the Force, letting his conscious mind relax as he settled into the ready stance.

The remotes started slow, to begin with, but they quickly ramped up to bouts of rapid fire, loosing salvos that would be terrifying if Obi-Wan hadn’t let go of his fear when he surrendered to the guidance of the Force. In this altered state he felt like he had all the time in the world to deflect or dodge the stinging bolts, his lightsaber flowing from cover to cover and his body twisting to let bolts zip past him close enough to feel the edge of static that enshrouded the blast. Fatigue weighed at his arms and dragged at his feet, but he drew strength from the Force and fought on as the remotes stepped up the intensity of their fire yet again.

“You know, every time I see you do that, I can’t help but wonder how you would do it without your Force,” he dimly heard someone say. Deactivating his saber, he turned to find Ingold standing at a respectful distance. The former mercenary had evidently just finished a run; his short trousers and close-fitting shirt were dark with sweat, and he was breathing with the intentional deep breaths of a man forcing himself not to gulp for air.

“Not very well, if at all,” Obi-Wan admitted as he hooked his saber onto his belt and the drones hissed outward and upward to wait for him to renew the exercise. “Some things are only possible with the help of the Force. But the Force is as much a part of me as my arms, so training to use it is no different from training to use my body.”

“Still seems like cheating, to me,” Ingold said with a shrug. “But that’s neither here nor there. I have a question to ask.”

Obi-Wan nodded as he dismissed the drones. “Fire away,” he said.

“Force-users are rare, right?” Ingold asked. “At least, Force-users like you Jetii.”

Obi-Wan shrugged. “It depends on how you define a Force-user,” he said. “Being able to sense the Force is more common than you might think. Being able to sense the Force enough to make use of it, either consciously or not, is uncommon, but not rare per se. Most sensitives, though, either can’t use the Force intentionally or only have some specific minor talent. People with an uncanny sense of direction, for instance, or who always know when their spouse is coming home. One time, Qui-Gon and I came across a sensitive who made their living as a pastry chef because their baking recipes always came out right, even the most intricate ones. When Qui-Gon told him that he was using the Force to make his tarts come out perfectly, he thought we were pulling his leg. But people who can use the Force the way a Jedi can . . . Yes, they are rare. I don’t remember the exact statistic, but one in several dozen million.”

Ingold nodded. “And using the Force the way you do, that takes training, right?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe, my friend,” Obi-Wan said with a laugh. “What I was doing just now . . . that’s part of a normal day’s exercise, for a Knight. And that’s just the physical part of it. The mental and . . . well, spiritual aspects of using the Force take a literal lifetime of training. And not just in how to use it, but in when to use it.”

Ingold frowned. “How do you mean?” he asked.

Obi-Wan gestured at him. “You habitually carry a blaster,” he said. “Do you use it to solve every problem you encounter in the course of your day?”

“Of course not,” Ingold said with a frown. “Can’t fix a broken-down speeder with a blaster any more than you can calculate a hyperspace jump with one.”

“True,” Obi-Wan replied. “But suppose you wanted something, and someone said you couldn’t have it, not for any money. You could solve the problem with your blaster, couldn’t you?”

Ingold’s mouth quirked in a half smile. “Sure, I could,” he said. “If I didn’t mind being called a thief and possibly a murderer.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “It is the same with the Force,” he said. “I could settle, say, a border dispute, simply by setting my will upon the parties involved and forcing them to accept my judgment in the matter. But quite aside from the fact that their obedience would wear off if I did not constantly keep them under my will, it would be a gross violation of their rights as sentient beings and a stunning act of evil on my part. Which is why we train, from infancy, to only use the Force for ethical reasons, in service of others. Never in service of ourselves alone. Selfishness in all its forms, pride, greed, jealousy, impatience, and so forth, is the surest path to the dark side ever devised.”

Ingold nodded. “I can see that,” he said. “So someone like that Zabrak you fought, he would have to have been trained the way you were trained, wouldn’t he?”

Obi-Wan felt his shoulders stiffen. “Yes,” he admitted. “But he didn’t train as a Jedi.”

Ingold looked at him. “Who besides the Jedi could have trained him like you were trained?” he asked, his square and stoutly-featured face utterly serious.

Obi-Wan forced himself to shrug. “The Jedi aren’t the only Force users in the galaxy,” he said as casually as he could force himself to. “The Fallanassi, the Dagoyans, the Frangawl Cult, the Sorcerers of Tund . . ."

"The Sith?" Ingold asked bluntly.

“The Sith have been extinct for a thousand years,” Obi-Wan replied smoothly. Too smoothly, he realized, as Ingold raised a skeptical eyebrow. He shrugged. “Simply being a user of the dark side does not make one a Sith,” he went on. “And there are Force traditions that do not recognize the distinctions the Order makes, between the light and the dark.”

Ingold frowned. “Cut the crap, Kenobi,” he said bluntly. “I saw the holofootage of you and your baji’buir fighting that Zabrak. If the Sith have come back, we need to know.” He crossed his arms. “Mandalore has been used as a pawn by the Sith before. We won’t let ourselves be gulled into serving them simply because they say so. But we can’t resist something if we don’t know it’s coming.”

Obi-Wan looked at Ingold, feeling the older man’s sincerity in the Force. “Then listen to me carefully, lieutenant,” he said, choosing his words with care. “The Council has investigated what happened here on Naboo. They have declared that the Zabrak that killed Master Qui-Gon was an adept of the Dark Side, but not a Sith. They have declared that they have insufficient evidence to determine where he came from or how he was trained, but that their investigations are still ongoing. There is, at this time, no proof that the Sith have returned.”

Ingold regarded him for a long moment, then nodded. “That’s the Council’s story?” he asked evenly.

Obi-Wan nodded back. “That is what the Council has declared publicly,” he said. “Further inquiries should be directed to Master Adi Gallia, who is the Order’s chief liaison with the Senate, or to the Council of Reconciliation. If you would like, I can arrange an introduction.”

Ingold nodded. “We might take you up on that,” he said. Obi-Wan nodded, the Force whispering in his ear that by We Ingold meant Duchess Satine. “And privately?”

Obi-Wan hesitated. Ingold could be a hard man to read, even in the Force; Mandalorian training and discipline went beyond the mere physical almost as much as a Jedi’s did. But Ingold was making no attempt to steel his mind. Concern all but radiated off his frame, with a healthy dose of apprehension. But both of those were rooted in resolution; Ingold, Obi-Wan realized, might be afraid, but there were two important qualifications to that state. The first was that he was not afraid for himself, but for his Duchess and his people. The second was that he was productively afraid. Instead of retreating into denial, or succumbing to panic, he was looking for answers.

And the first answer had to regard what he was facing. Going into battle unprepared was a good way to get killed. And blind secrecy could be just as dangerous as blind trust. “Privately,” Obi-Wan said finally, “and solely between you, me, and the Duchess, the Council is in agreement that the Zabrak was a Sith. What he was doing in company with the Trade Federation is unclear, as is whether he was the Master or the Apprentice. The Order’s investigations into both subjects are ongoing.”

Ingold shuddered involuntarily, then turned half-away and stared into space for a long moment. “Haar’chak,” he eventually said feelingly. “I am too old for osik like this.” He turned back to Obi-Wan, his square face set like Kalevalan flint. “Our people are not friends, Jetii,” he said flatly. “But if the Sith are back . . . they’ve used us as pawns before. Never again. Nu draar.”

Obi-Wan nodded deeply. “May the Force will it so,” he said fervently.

Chapter Text

Rabé raised an eyebrow. “Your family are farmers?” she asked in half-mock, half-genuine disbelief. “And here I thought all Mandalorians were warriors.”

Cab Wren shrugged. “We have the same proportion of farmers and tradespeople and merchants and whatnot as everyone,” he said matter-of-factly. “We just have the reputation of all being warriors because we can all be warriors, if we have to. And nine times out of ten, the only Mando’ad anyone outside of Mandalorian Space meets is a mercenary or a bounty hunter, which reinforces the perception. It’s like Naboo; the only Nab’ade most people meet are poets or musicians or artists or suchlike.”

Rabé nodded. “That’s certainly true,” she allowed. “My parents work for a merchant bank, and Shiraya knows how many people have been surprised by how sharp they are at trading. What drove you to join the Guard, then?”

Cab’s mouth quirked in a half-smile. “Same thing that drives so many Mando’ade to become mercenaries or bounty hunters,” he said. “I have two older siblings, and the farm couldn’t support more than four people and still be economical. Our farm is under one of the city-domes, but that just means there isn’t room for it to expand, and the soil can only bear so much before it gives out. I was always good at fighting, even as a youngling, and my buir had fought for the Duchess’s buir during the war. So I went to the Guard’s recruiting station with a note from my buir in my pocket and the sergeant said he’d pretend I wasn’t underage and give me a try. Two years later, here I am.”

It was one of the rare days when both Rabé and Cab were off duty, and they had decided to get lunch at a café in Theed’s Riverside District as winter rain tapped on the windows. The café was slightly off the beaten path, so they weren’t getting as many odd looks from the other patrons for being a Mandalorian and a Naboo on what appeared to be, and in fact was, a date. But both Cab and Rabé had gotten used to odd looks and ignored them, albeit for different reasons. Rabé because the Handmaidens were trained to ignore any kind of pressure as part of their duty to their Queen, and Cab because a Mandalorian warrior, and especially a verd of the Royal Guard, did not care for such trivialities as social disapproval when it came from someone who hadn’t proved their worth. When Cab had asked Queen Amidala’s permission to court Rabé, she had warned him that he might draw opprobrium from some quarters of Naboo society for doing so. Cab’s reply that he didn’t care what such people might think of him, only what they might think of Rabé, had been one of the factors that earned the Queen’s approval. And Rabé’s, when she had heard.

“Buir,” Rabé mused. “Father? Or mother?”

“In this case, my father,” Cab said. “But buir can refer to either a father or a mother, or just mean parent generally.” He shrugged. “Mando’a doesn’t really go into genders much. Most of the time, it has to be inferred from context.”

Rabé raised an eyebrow. “That sounds . . . complicated.”

Cab smiled, his grey eyes dancing merrily. “Not compared to some languages,” he said. “Apparently there’s a fungoid species in the Outer Rim, near Felucia, that has something like five hundred different gender terms. Compared to that, Mando’a is simplicity itself.”

“I’m pretty sure anything would be simplicity itself, compared to that,” Rabé said with a grin, and she and Cab both laughed. After they had both calmed down, she waved a hand. “Your parents, they’re still doing well?” she asked.

Cab nodded. “The district they’re in had one of the Disaster Mitigation and Recovery teams from Alderaan come through,” he said. “Only so much even a Core World can do when most of the planetary surface is sand desert and wasteland, but according to my father, they’re doing everything they can. Apparently, our corner of the district had good luck in that there was an unexploded bomb with a chemical warhead under the next farm over. It’s been defused and removed, so the DMR team is hopeful that they can get some of the toxins and heavy metals out of the soil.” He shook his head. “You know, if you had told me a year ago that Alderaan would send us help, I would have laughed in your face. The most peace-loving planet in the galaxy? Helping us?”

Rabé shrugged. “Alderaan helps a lot of worlds with their DMR efforts,” she said. “And apparently Queen Breha was very impressed with Her Highness’s New Year’s address.”

Cab snorted. “Anyone with a brain and a heart would have been impressed, watching that,” he agreed fervently. “Mandokar for days, your Queen has. And some of your people wonder why we all like her so much.” He paused, his eyes dancing again. “Say,” he said in the slow, teasing voice he used for telling jokes, “do you suppose that when her time as Queen is up, we’d be able to borrow her? Be like having a proper Mand’alor again, it would. And she and the Duchess would get along.”

Rabé raised an eyebrow. “Really?” she asked with playful archness. “Don’t you already have a Mand’alor?”

Cab shook his head, then paused, frowned, and waggled his hand from side to side. “It’s complicated,” he said. “The Duchess is the ruler of Mandalore, but she is not Mand’alor. She is our Alor, our leader, but there can be many alore. The Mand’alor, by definition, stands supreme above all others, and leads our people to victory by their strength and their spirit and their craft. Like your Queen did, when the Federation came. If this were Mandalore, she would have been hailed Mand’alor after her victory, if she had not been already.”

Rabé nodded. “So the Mand’alor is a warlord, primarily?” she asked.

Cab nodded back. “Which is why the Duchess does not claim the title, by her own choice,” he replied. “She says that Mandalore has had enough warlords, and not enough builders. And also,” he went on, his face darkening, “the title of Mand’alor is open to defiance. If the Duchess claimed the title of Mand’alor, then any who disagreed with her rule could challenge her to single combat, and the Duchess would have no choice but to fight if she wished to hold on to the throne.” We looked down at his plate, which held the remains of a shaak-steak sandwich. “We can forgive many things, we Mando’ade,” he said softly, “but not weakness, and not cowardice. If you are challenged, you must fight, or be held in contempt. Of course, someone who challenges someone that they know cannot or will not fight back is also held in contempt, but not as much as the one who does not stand forth and fight when challenged.”

There was an awkward moment of silence as Rabé processed Cab’s words. It was one of the things that lay between them, that the Mandalorian Creed did not admit of negotiation or of compromise without some test of might and main. Blow for blow, blood for blood, death for death, that was the Way of Mandalore. But not Naboo, not even now after the Trade Federation. And, Rabé prayed, not ever. “And you would have my Queen be Mand’alor,” she asked softly, “knowing that any who doubted her could seek her death?”

Cab snorted. “Who would dare fight a duel against her?” he asked. “Take a jare’la fool to do that. And any who tried to kill her by other means . . .” He looked up from his plate, his grey eyes turned to chips of stone. “They would have me to deal with, and all my vode,” he vowed. “Cuun oyace par Manda’yaim. Our lives for Mandalore, like yours for Naboo. I make that bargain every day when I wear the Duchess’s colors on my armor.” He tapped his breastplate; green for duty, red for honor, and black for justice, with the mythosaur skull of Mandalore and the lilies of House Kryze in yellow for loyalty. “It’s a bargain I would gladly make for Queen Amidala, if she became our Mand’alor.”

Rabé couldn’t help a smile. “Get in line, Cab,” she said half-teasingly. “We have her for another year yet, at least. Probably two more after that, if she’s reelected.”

“If?” Cab asked, with an affected scoff. “She is Padmé Amidala! The Lioness of Naboo! Of course she will be reelected!”

Rabé laughed. Gods, she couldn’t help thinking to herself, how is it that the funniest man I know is a Mandalorian supercommando? And how is it that I can so easily imagine myself listening to his jokes for a lifetime?

I’m in deep shit, aren’t I?

XXX

Cin Drallig had been Battlemaster of the Jedi Order for almost a decade. Before that, he had been his predecessor’s chief assistant. In all that time as one of the Order’s acknowledged experts on lightsaber combat, he had trained many students, and helped many others hone their skills. He and Sora Bulq had helped Master Windu develop Vaapad, and he was one of the few who could face the Korun Master on even terms.

But in all his years, he had not seen anything like Anakin Skywalker.

When he had learned that the boy was a newcomer to the Order at the age of nine, he had thought that he would have his work cut out for him making a decent swordsman out of the boy. Lightsaber training began at five, after all. But Skywalker had a remarkable degree of hand-eye coordination, he had a cooler head in action than half the Initiates in the Order, his reflexes were so fast as to border on the ludicrous, and he appeared to have discovered how to read the flow of battle on his own, without knowing what it was he had been doing. Even more impressively, he had made the blindfold test look easy. The senior students who usually taught the younger Initiates had come to Cin in a body to tell him that Skywalker was something special. After seeing the boy, who at the time hadn’t even seen a lightsaber six months before, go up against two training remotes set on Knight-level difficulty on his own and block every bolt, Cin had been intrigued. After seeing him best Initiates with years of experience on him, Cin had been convinced. Skywalker might be the newest Initiate of his age to hold a saber, but he wasn’t just talented.

He was a natural.

That, however, was only one of the reasons why Cin had decided to take a personal hand in Skywalker’s lightsaber training. The other was that Skywalker, in the polite phrase of one of the senior Padawans, didn’t have middle gears. The boy was either statue-like, so still and so quiet that people could have genuine trouble remembering he was there, or he was a wild vornskr, all teeth and claws and snarling ferocity. One incident in particular had caught Cin’s attention. Apparently, Skywalker had been in a sparring match with Initiate Ferus Olin and been disarmed; normally a fight-ender and conceded with a polite bow, especially among Initiates that age. Skywalker, however, hadn’t even paused before charging Olin, tackling him to the mat and starting to pound on him with his fists. The senior Padawan coaching the spar had had to literally take Skywalker by the scruff of the neck and drag him off. Olin had flatly refused to spar against Skywalker ever since.

Cin would have found it hard to believe such a story, and harder still to believe that the boy could be trained safely, except that Master Yoda had come to see him in his quarters one morning and told him that Skywalker had been a slave. That had made perfect sense; Cin had only come across slavery a few times when he still did field work, but he knew as well as anyone that the only two ways for a slave to survive were either by docile invisibility, or by lethal savagery. The trick to training Skywalker, Cin had realized in the course of that conversation, wouldn’t be training Skywalker how to fight as much as it would be training him how to restrain himself. Left unchecked, the boy would turn into a Ralltiir tiger of a duelist; skilled and powerful, but unstable.

So now Skywalker spent an hour with Cin, every third day, in a series of exercises that the Order had developed centuries ago to teach hot-blooded young warriors restraint. Slow-motion drills, both empty-handed and with a lightsaber, in the course of which the trainee would balance a dish of water on their heads or have bells tied to their limbs. Drills, or sparring, to the accompaniment of slow-paced music. Empty-handed sparring where no kicks, punches, or other strikes were allowed, but only throws, locks, and other grappling techniques, and those only to be executed out of continuous slow movements.

Progress was . . . mixed. Skywalker was a fast learner, no doubt about that; Cin rarely had to show him something twice. Internalizing the exercises, on the other hand . . .

Fortunately, Cin had been a teacher long enough that he didn’t react when Skywalker lost his patience and swore in vile street Huttese at the bells on his arms except to say, “Young Skywalker, the bells do not have ears to hear your curses, any more than they have hearts and minds to care for them.”

Skywalker accepted the reproof with a bowed head and a muttered, “Yes, Master, sorry, Master,” that made Cin frown slightly. He kept in touch with the boy’s Mind Healer, and the gentle Ithorian swore they were working on Skywalker’s ability to accept correction with his head held high. Of course, the same Ithorian also called Skywalker the worst post-trauma case she had seen in a youngling that age in her whole career. Instead of remonstrating with the boy, however, Cin simply said. “That’s enough for today, at any rate. Let’s take those bells off and get you cooled down.”

Two walking laps around the salle later, Skywalker broke. “I’m sorry, Master,” he said dejectedly. “I just get so frustrated at the,” he glanced upwards and revised his choice of words, “bells. I’m supposed to be the Chosen One and all and when the bells go off because I’m not slow enough it makes me feel . . . stupid.”

Cin nodded; the Mind Healer’s efforts at getting Skywalker to identify and name his emotions seemed to be bearing fruit at least. “A perfectly understandable reaction,” he replied. “Force knows I had my share of frustrations at the bells when I had to train with them.” He smiled down at the youngling. “Not as many curses, though; I didn’t know that many,” he added impishly, making Skywalker giggle before reverting back to seriousness. “Do you think that, because you are the Chosen One, you need to do things correctly the first time, every time, without exception?”

Skywalker shrugged. “I have to, don’t I?” he asked.

Cin took a half circuit of the salle to collect his thoughts before asking, “Will it shock you, Anakin, if I say that I do not put much stock in prophecy? That sometimes I think we focus too much on prophecy?”

Skywalker stopped dead in his tracks as he looked up at him with round eyes. “You do? Master?” he asked hesitantly.

Cin nodded as he turned to face the young Initiate. “Partly that is a function of the Jedi I am,” he said. “I am a Battlemaster, not a Seer; my concern is the body, the mind, and the heart, not the future. And as Chief of Temple Security, prophecy does not concern me; I must base my assessment of a threat on the intelligence brought to me by the Shadows and by the Judicial Department, not on prophecy. But the other part is that, from what I have read, prophecies are easily misinterpreted. If nothing else, the meanings of words change, over time, so that a word might have an entirely different meaning today than it did even a century ago, much less a millennium ago. And the prophecy of the Chosen One in particular . . .” He shrugged. “Suffice to say that ‘born of no father’ has enough potential meanings to spill an ocean of ink on, much less ‘balance’.” He knelt and placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “But this much I do know, Anakin Skywalker,” he said, projecting reassurance through the Force, “whatever this prophecy or that foretelling may say or mean, whatever befalls by chance or the will of the Force, you are still yourself, and you are still a Jedi. And that will always be enough. You understand?”

Anakin Skywalker nodded. “Yes, Master,” he said.

Cin nodded back. “Good lad,” he said. “Now four more laps around the salle, to make sure you’re cool, and then off to class with you. Systems of the Republic today, right?”

Anakin nodded, a smile breaking out across his face. “Yes, Master!” he piped, and Cin Drallig stood to spend a happy few minutes walking around the salle listening to Skywalker chatter about the worlds he had learned about last week.

XXX

It had not taken Ruban Haneen more than a standard week to decide that he hated Tatooine. He was mature enough to know that part of that was simple climate shock; you could not design a planet to be more the climatic antithesis of Naboo than Tatooine. Between the blistering heat of the days, the startling cold of the nights, the lack of surface water and of rain, and the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned sand that got everywhere . . .

But mere climate shock was nothing compared to what he really, truly hated about Tatooine, which was its culture. Not that he had anything against the moisture farmers out in the deserts or the shopkeepers of the various towns. They were sturdy, mostly-honest folk who for the most part simply wanted to be left alone to get on with their lives. What he hated was the way they accepted the blatant criminality that seemed to permeate every aspect of Tatooine’s society above their own subsistence level. The Hutts had sunk themselves into Tatooine like nails, and the crime that they lived off of had sunk in with them to the degree that Tatooine was now a major hub for smuggling of all varieties. Spice, obviously, but for once, spice was the least of what was being smuggled. There were harder drugs than spice, even glitterstim or polstine. But even the rest of what was smuggled through Tatooine, weapons, stolen cultural treasures, exotic wildlife, and all the rest, paled in comparison to the traffic in slaves.

Tatooine was the entry point into Hutt Space for the whole galactic southern third of the Outer Rim. That alone would have made it a major waystation for the slave trade. What made it a true hub was the fact that it was just off the Corellian Run, and far enough Rimward that it was past Bothan Space. The Bothans were stalwart enemies of the Hutts and had no truck with slavery, so if a slave smuggler was coming down the Corellian Run from the Core, they had to go all the way down to the Arkanis Sector and Tatooine to get around the usual patrol radius of the Bothan fleet. And on the way down the Run, the slave smugglers had to keep their cargo concealed for fear of Republic patrols. So by the time they got to Tatooine, the slave smugglers usually took the opportunity to set down at Mos Espa or Mos Eisley, take the slaves out of the smuggling holds, and make sure they were in acceptable condition for the voyage into Hutt Space proper while they refueled their ships. It was also common, Ruban had found, for various Hutts to maintain agents on Tatooine, in order to keep an eye out for particularly attractive slaves and place down payments on them, with payment-in-full to be completed on delivery to Nal Hutta or Nar Shaddaa or points elsewhere in Hutt Space.

So much Ruban had been able to determine within a month of his arrival on Tatooine, in the guise of a former spaceport traffic controller in sudden need of a new job a long way from home. Fortunately, Mos Espa spaceport had been hiring, and now Ruban spent ten hours a day helping manage the intricate ballet that was traffic control even at a spaceport as modest and informal as Mos Espa’s. Equally fortunately, neither his boss nor his coworkers had proved curious about his past. As one of his coworkers had put it, the fact that he’d taken a job on Tatooine said everything that needed to be said. Which was a good thing, because Ruban Haneen was, in fact, Corporal Ruban Haneen of the Royal Naboo Security Guard’s Special Investigations Unit, Naboo’s de facto military intelligence arm. And instead of being here because he had had to leave his homeworld in a hurry, he was here because he had been personally ordered by his Queen, face to face, to compile a dossier of all the ships that visited Tatooine carrying slaves.

That dossier, despite being only three months old, already contained the names, and more importantly the transponder codes, of more than forty ships. A ship’s name, after all, could be easily changed. But transponder codes were assigned at the shipyard, and hard-coded into a ship’s central computer. They could be changed, but it took some serious slicer work. A more common smuggler’s dodge was to install multiple transponders and switch between them at intervals. Some smugglers, however, by either laziness or complacency, didn’t meddle with their transponders at all. From what Ruban had overhead in the cantinas around the spaceport, it was usually the smugglers who plied their trade in the Rim that didn’t play transponder tag, as it was called. The Republic might maintain registries of transponder codes that were regularly updated and distributed throughout Republic Space, but many of the independent systems of the Rim simply didn’t have the administrative bandwidth to spare for such a mammoth exercise in recordkeeping. And even if a smuggler was caught out, it was a big galaxy. If they were rumbled as a smuggler on Bespin or Utapau or Christophsis, they could simply take themselves to a different sector and ply their trade there. A smuggler’s skills were always in demand everywhere, after all.

Ruban added the day’s haul of ship names and transponder codes to the dossier, stashed it in the strongbox under his bed, and poured himself a small measure of water. That was another thing he hated about Tatooine, the expense of water. For someone used to the abundance of Naboo, the thought that someone would charge more than a pittance for water was unheard of. That people would be deliberately deprived of water, as the Hutts were widely known to do to slaves who displeased them, was not far short of blasphemy. Ruban sipped slowly at the glass, feeling his heart harden as he did so. Someday, he rued, the Hutts would have their cruelty repaid, measure for measure. Someday, soon. Please, gods and goddesses.

XXX

Since the battle and the solemnization of peace between the Naboo and the Gungans, Padmé had made a point of meeting with Boss Nass on a monthly basis in Moenia, on the edge of the Lianorm Swamp. The grudges between the Naboo and the Gungans were many and long-standing, after all, and even if the camaraderie of the invasion had smoothed the way towards mending those grudges, the work of mending them still remained. Water use policies and land title negotiations were only the most obvious points of contention.

And there were other things she had to discuss with Boss Nass.

“Have you had time to review the documents I gave you last month?” she asked after they had finished discussing a new agreement their governments were negotiating about expanding plasma mining operations in the Lasay Swamp. “The ones about the slave trade, and Tatooine?”

Nass nodded. “Yes, mesa readen,” he said, his jowly face turning grave. “Was bombad bad readen, little queen. Verrry bombad bad.” He raised a brow at her. “Iffen mesa knowen yousa, little queen, yousa gotta plan. Plans for everyting elsen, you got.”

Padmé smiled slightly; if Boss Nass had been a human, then little queen might have grated, but she knew him well enough to know that he meant it as a sincere term of endearment. And, in all fairness, Nass was old enough to be her father. “I do have a plan, Boss,” she said. “At this point, only two people in the galaxy know about it other than my Handmaidens. If it becomes public knowledge, people will die. So I must ask that you keep it in strictest confidence.”

Nass nodded. “Mesa been keepen secrets since mesa was a bitty pollywog,” he said seriously. “One more be no big ting.”

Padmé told him. Nass blinked, then got up from the small table they were sitting at and strode over to the window to look out at the swamp. “Disa bombad plan, little queen,” he said when Padmé joined him at the window. “Disa plan putten us on bad side of deese Hutts. Bad enough to maken deese Hutts go to war wit us, mesa tink.”

Padmé nodded. “That is the risk, Boss,” she replied. “But I think they will not go to war with us openly, like the Trade Federation did. The Trade Federation had a pretext under which they could claim to the Senate that their invasion was legal. The Hutts will not; they are outside the Republic, by their own choice. For them to attack a Republic planet would be an act of war, not just against Naboo, but against the whole Republic.”

Nass’s jowls twitched. “Yousa tinken deese Hutts not pick a fight wit de whole Republic, little queen?” he asked.

“I think they will not dare,” Padmé said. “The Hutts are powerful, but not powerful enough to fight the Republic. And if the Hutts attack a member of the Republic simply for enforcing the Republic’s own laws against slavery, even the Senate would be compelled to act. Otherwise, the other members of the Republic would start to wonder which of them would be abandoned to the Hutts next. And the Hutts are cowards, like most criminals; they will not want to take the risk of open war. Especially,” she went on with a grimace, “not against the Lioness of Naboo.”

Nass chuckled. “Reputation be a good ting to have,” he said. “Reputation o’ bein’ bombad, even better. Mesa spent thirty-five year buildin’ mesa own reputation, an’ every day o’ it pay mesa back big-time, every day.” He nodded. “When deese slaves be freed, where would deysa go?”

“Those who wanted to return home, and had homes to return to, would be helped to go home,” she said. “Those who didn’t, would be given passage to wherever they wanted to go. But it is my hope that at least some of them, if not most of them, will choose to come here.”

Nass turned to look at her. “Yousa wanten to bring deese slaves here, little queen?” he asked dubiously. “Deese slaves not Gungans. Not even Naboosen. Deysa not know disa world like we do. Deysa not loven disa world like we do.” He shook his jowls for emphasis.

Padmé nodded. “Not at first,” she agreed. “But they will. Certainly their children and their grandchildren will, when they grow up on a world where they are free.”

Nass looked back out the window. “Disa bombad plan, little queen,” he said after staring at the distant swamp for a long time. "Gonna take a longo time, convincen de other bosses disa good plan.”

“Not too long, I hope,” Padmé said. “If I am re-elected, I will have only two more years on the throne. We should have enough intelligence to begin well, but making it stick will require at least a year. Possibly both years.”

Nass turned to her and nodded. “Den mesa help, little queen,” he vowed. “Gungans never been slaves. Disa Trade Federation and deysa meccaneeks, deysa woulda made us slaves.” His eyes hardened. “Wesa not let that happen. Wesa not let it happen to others. People gotta live by de rules, but first rule dis one: People gotta be free.”

Padmé held out her hand; Nass engulfed it in his own. “Together, then,” she said.  “The Naboo and the Gungans, together.”

Nass nodded. “Naboo and Gungans always together, little queen,” he said. “Wesa friends. Friends always be together.”

Chapter Text

It was past midnight when Rabé finally walked through the door of her rooms in the Palace’s residential wing, where the Queen and the Royal Household slept. Midspring was one of the most important festivals of the year on Naboo, and this year’s more than any in living memory. Last year’s Midspring had been overshadowed by the escalating tensions with the Trade Federation, and there had been an unstated fear that it might have been the last Midspring Festival the Naboo celebrated as a free and prosperous people. As a result, this year’s Midspring festivities had been even more energetic than usual, in order to commemorate the survival of their culture and flaunt their victory.

Which had meant that the Queen’s schedule, and perforce that of the Handmaidens, had been even busier than usual. Boss Nass had made an official visit to Theed, along with half the other Gungan bosses, and the Queen had invited him to preside over the official ceremonies with her. Which meant that all five of the Handmaidens had had to be in personal attendance, for eighteen standard hours a day, for four days straight, in front of mass crowds. Even standing in the background would have been exhausting. Keeping an eye out for potential assassins or other disturbances had made it a heroic ordeal. Captain Joran Myrus, newly promoted to command the Palace Guard after Quarsh Panaka had been named the Defense Advisor, had not wanted to give the Trade Federation the opportunity to exact revenge for their humiliation. Today, Midspring Day, had been the climax of the festivities and the pinnacle of the challenge; the Handmaidens had been on duty for twenty straight hours, standing in the Queen’s shadow as she oversaw the great floral parade along Jafan Street, the great throughfare that ran across Theed parallel to the cliffs, presided over the open-air banquet on Palace Plaza, and hosted the gala in the Royal Palace that had closed the day but run long into the night.

Rabé was so tired that she had shucked off her robe, peeled off the armored vest she wore underneath it, and unstrapped the hold-out blaster holstered on her left forearm before she realized that there was a bouquet on her bedside table.

At first glance it was such a bouquet as might be found in any flower shop in Theed; indeed, the envelope that held the flimsiplast card bore the logo of one of the more successful florist chains. But the flowers it held were . . . an odd mixture. Red and yellow roses were a common pairing, of course, red roses for passionate love and yellow roses for faithfulness in love. But gladiolus, iris, myrtle, white heather, and ivy? Rabé cudgeled her brain for meanings as she reached for the envelope and drew out the folded rectangle of flimisplast. What was written on it, in neatly printed Mando’a and laboriously scribed archaic Nabooan, cleared her mind like a shot of caf.

To my beloved, the brightest star in the sky.

Rabé pulled out her comm and called Eirtaé. “Did Cab ask you for advice on flowers?” she demanded as soon as Eirtaé picked up.

“Mareia asked on his behalf,” Eirtaé replied, sounding as punch-drunk as Rabé had felt. “I sent him one of those holobooklets the Ministry of Culture puts out. Why?”

“Tell you later,” Rabé said, cutting the connection. Gladiolus for strength, she thought, iris for valor, myrtle for duty, white heather for protection, ivy for loyalty . . . Combined with the roses, it all but screamed “I love how mandokar you are.” She looked down at the card, a smile spreading across her face. The way Cab had of finding ways to compliment her in terms of uniqueness, or of being first and foremost, was incredibly endearing. She loved being a Handmaiden, and would be forever grateful to Padmé for taking her as a Handmaiden, but there were times when it was easy to feel . . . faceless. Partly because being a Handmaiden meant being in the background, almost part of the scenery, unless you were called upon by the Queen or something went horribly wrong. And partly because she and her fellow Handmaidens all looked enough like each other and the Queen for a casual observer to think that they were all sisters or at least cousins. In their uniform robes and with cosmetics applied, they could all look identical, even interchangeable. The fact that that was the point of the Handmaidens didn’t make it any less . . . subsuming was the closest word Rabé had for it.

And that he had sent it to her on Midspring . . . It had long been considered good luck to make new beginnings in the Midspring season, whether that was new business ventures, new careers, new relationships, or new families. The tradition was ingrained enough that demographic surveys had found that more human children were born on Naboo within the period of time fifty-four to fifty-six standard weeks after Midspring Day than in any other comparable period of the year. Sending someone a bouquet like this on Midspring was not just a romantic gesture, but a statement of serious intent. Whether Cab knew that or not . . .

Rabé stroked one of the myrtle flowers. She and Cab had yet to discuss marriage as such. She suspected that Cab was waiting for her to make the first move on that front, given how his first proposal had gone. What a marriage between them would look like, though . . . Rabé shook her head. Romantic gesture or no, she was too tired to think through the implications of her marrying Cab tonight. And at the very least, they had the rest of the year to consider that question, and almost certainly two more years after that. Padmé would almost certainly be re-elected, and Rabé would stay at her side; what else could she do for the woman who had given her a second chance? And Cab had agreed that they couldn’t discuss anything serious while Rabé was still a Handmaiden and her commitment to the Queen had to be undiluted. Time enough for that, yet, Rabé told herself as she sat down and pulled her boots off. In the meantime, we still have more to learn about each other.

XXX

“Ladies and gentlemen, our mission was to design and prototype a worthy replacement to the N-1 space superiority fighter that could be manufactured at scale using our existing industrial base,” the balding captain from the Theed Palace Space Vessel Engineering Corps told the panel of Defense Force officers and senior Legislators. “I am proud to say that we have met that objective and then some.” The captain typed a quick command into the holotable and summoned up a rotating image like an overgrown N-1.

“This, ladies and gentlemen, is the N-2 space superiority fighter. It is fifty percent larger than the current N-1, but the extra mass allows for significant upgrades. Firstly, the addition of a third J-type radial engine here, underneath the rear of the central fuselage, increases the ship’s thrust throughput by twenty percent. Secondly, the increased power budget provided by the larger powerplant and the extra fuel the craft can hold, as well as the extra space in the front section of the hull, allows for the N-1’s twin blaster cannons to be replaced with twin laser cannons, which approximately doubles the craft’s energy-weapon firepower. Thirdly, the extra space in the front section of the hull not only allows for the installation of a more powerful sensor and electronic warfare suite, but it also allows for the installation of a second proton torpedo tube, allowing the craft to fire two torpedoes at a time.”

As the captain pointed out the new fighter’s features, sections of the ship highlighted to emphasize the improvements. “Of course, the N-1’s environmental awareness features have been retained,” the captain went on. “And we have taken the opportunity to review the efficiency of the J-type engine. We believe that, with some work, we can create a variant of the J-type engine that will increase thrust by between five and ten percent while still preserving its current fuel efficiency and emissions levels. Studies for that, however, are ongoing.” The captain noticed at least one of the Legislators nodding, and was relieved to see that it was the member of the panel that sat on the Legislature’s Environmental Affairs Committee. “Fast, well-armed, well-defended, and solidly engineered, our pilots will ride into the battle in the very finest that Naboo science and technology has to offer,” he continued. “And, at only forty percent more cost than the N-1, a real bargain.”

Colonel Ric Olié, recently promoted Commanding Officer of the newly-redesignated Royal Starfighter Command, nodded. “Well done, captain,” he said warmly. “Please wait outside.” As the captain stepped out, he turned to the other members of the committee. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is it. We need as many of the N-2 as we can build.”

Legislator Neithan Rocré, a member of the newly created Defense Committee, flipped through the proposal. “I quite agree, Colonel,” he said, “but I would note two items. Firstly, the appropriations for new acquisitions are already earmarked to pay for the remaining ships we have ordered from CEC. Secondly, the current N-1 is perfectly adequate for our current needs, is it not? Especially with the new ships we are acquiring.”

“For now, maybe,” said Iann Cornak, a former King of Naboo who was the oldest member of the panel by almost thirty years. “But we cannot look only to today; we must also look to ten years from now. And in that regard, the N-2 is not just a valuable replacement, but a vital necessity. And not simply as a snubfighter.”

Neithan raised an eyebrow. “Please explain, M’Lord,” he said; Iann regularly asked his fellow Legislators to forego the honorific on the grounds that he had only served one unremarkable term many years ago and accomplished nothing of real importance. Those whose parents had fondly remembered Iann’s earnestness and the care he had exercised with public funds in contrast to the duplicity and spendthrift ways of King Veruna regularly ignored him.

Iann spread his hands. “The whole point of acquiring the Fleet, ladies and gentlemen, is so that we can stand alone if we must, is it not?” he asked rhetorically. “Part of being able to do that is not only being able to defend ourselves, but being able to create the means to defend ourselves, ourselves. How if we lost one of our light cruisers, and could not buy a replacement? We do not currently have the facilities to build a replacement of our own making, or the skilled workforce to man those facilities if they existed.”

Berré Poruun, a Legislator who normally sat on the Education Committee, nodded. “Our universities are ramping up their science, technology, and engineering programs to build that workforce,” she said. “But it will take time for those efforts to bear fruit. In three years, we should have sufficient skilled workers to keep the whole fleet in top condition and repair anything short of catastrophic damage. Actually building a new one of any of our current ships, however . . .” She shook her head. “Four years at least, and more probably five, until we have a workforce that large and that skilled. Assuming that we can build an orbital shipyard that quickly.”

Iann nodded. “And in the meantime, we need some way of retaining the workers we do train, so that they stay here long enough to take part in that building rather than taking themselves off to Nubia or Corellia or Kuat. Building the N-2 will help with that.”

“It will also free up the N-1s for sale or auction,” said Mors Randar, a Defense Forces major from the newly created Joint Forces Command. “We’ve already had offers for them from other systems, some of them quite lucrative.”

Berré looked surprised. “Other worlds want to buy our N-1s?” she asked dubiously.

“Part of it is that they are now a battle-proven design, ma’am,” Mors said. “Even better, however, is this,” He grinned. “Those N-1s took part in a historic event. They are collectible. The Republic Naval Academy Museum is not even trying to hide how badly they want the fighter that young Skywalker flew when he blew up the Trade Federation’s flagship. The Bothan Military Academy wants one for their museum as well; Skywalker’s again, for preference, but they’ll take Colonel Olié’s in lieu if they have to. Advisor Panaka’s office is putting together a proposal that we accept at least some of the offers, both for the money and for the goodwill from the buyers. The current estimate is that we can get somewhere between five hundred thousand and one million credits each, possibly one and a quarter, on average.”

Berré nodded. “That would do a substantial amount to alleviate the cost of new appropriations,” she said. “And the goodwill from other systems could be almost as valuable as the credits from the initial sale.”

“Especially,” Iann said with a smile, “since the commonality of parts between the N-1 and the N-2 means that we can produce spare parts for the new N-2 and fill demand for spares from customers for the N-1. Which will create even more demand for skilled technicians and engineers to remain on Naboo.”

Neithan nodded decisively. “I concur,” he said. “And I’m sold on this idea. I’ll recommend to the Defense Committee that we forward appropriations for the N-2 to the Legislature floor for approval in the next budget cycle.”

“It will take time for the factories to tool up for production of the N-2 at scale,” Iann cautioned. “Maybe six months, once the appropriations are passed and contracts are placed. Actually replacing the N-1 with the N-2 completely will take . . . years, most likely.”

And much might happen in those years, the Legislators knew. The Queen would almost certainly be reelected, but the right of free expression during the election cycle was sacrosanct. The memory of the invasion and the Queen’s personal prestige might mute opposition to the Defense Forces in this election, but voices would still be raised against them, even if only on the fringe. And what those voices being raised might lead to, no one could say. Neithan smiled. Strike while the metal’s hot had always been his motto, and even more so now that he was one of the people in charge of securing the safety of his world. “In that case, M’Lord, there’s not a moment to lose, is there?” he said lightly.

XXX

Satine Kryze could not remember the last time she had felt so hopeful about her people’s future. The hard fact had been that getting the Mando’ade to stop fighting had only been the beginning of her life’s labor. And not the most heartbreaking part, either.

After generations of civil war, Mandalore’s civilian economy had been laid waste. Even worse, her people had lost the habits of peace. People who had been warriors all their lives, accustomed to solving all their problems with blaster and beskad, did not make good farmers. Or shopkeepers, or tradespeople, or merchants, or bankers, or any of the myriad other occupations that a modern society needed. It was hard for such people to remember that interpersonal disputes could be resolved by mediation, or by lawsuits, rather than by a duel. Or by simple murder, depending on the people involved.

She had exiled more people than she liked to remember, those first few years. But the lesson that violence would not be tolerated as a means of problem-solving had had to be taught rigorously, lest the civil wars begin all over again.

But the alliance with Naboo had proved a godsend. And not just for the trade and the opportunity to give some of her more . . . incorrigible people a chance to exercise their proclivities in a useful manner, but for all that had followed from it. Alderaan, of all worlds, had sent their Disaster Mitigation and Recovery teams to see what could be done to mitigate the environmental damage of the wars after Queen Padmé’s speech extolling Mandalore and its people for their aid and their attempt to change their ways. Other worlds had sent similar aid, or opened their spaceports to Mandalorian shipping and their banks to Mandalorian businesses in need of credit. She could wish that fewer of those worlds asked that she send advisors to train their own armies, as Naboo was famously doing. Not only did it reinforce the stereotype of Mandalore as a world of warriors, first, last, and only, but the holocalls and correspondence from those advisors to their friends and family back home invariably spread tales of the fortune and glory to be found off Mandalore, living the life of arms. Which was not exactly what she wanted her people to have on their minds, when the rebuilding of Mandalore depended on having them at home, and thinking of how to build a life in the civilian economy.

All that being said, however, she couldn’t argue with the value of those advisory missions. And not just in the form of the trade deals and subsidies that were the quid pro quo for those advisors being dispatched, but in the form of the remittances those advisors were sending home to their clans. If Mandalore’s small business sector had flourished over the last several months, it was largely due to the clans using those remittances as startup capital for new businesses, or ploughing them into businesses run by members of the clan in order to finance expansions.

What kept her from thinking the advisory policy an unalloyed success, however, was how much use those advisors were being put to. The Core, the Inner Rim, and the Colonies might be peaceful, and the advisors sent to systems in those areas might be status symbols in the same vein as the fleets those systems maintained as much as they were serious trainers. But the Mid and Outer Rim seemed ablaze with petty conflicts that her people kept finding themselves getting sucked into. They might be advisors, strictly and legally speaking, but often enough “advising” became “commanding” in all but name. Especially since, often enough, local commanders might be corrupt, incompetent, indifferent, or all three at once. As the alor of one advisory group had put it, “We cannot stand by and allow soldiers we have trained to be sacrificed on the altar of their commanders’ stupidity and cowardice. We are aware that direct involvement in the fighting is against your orders, Alor, but duty and honor both demand this of us.” And the absolute hell of it was that she couldn’t help but sympathize after reading the reports her people were sending her. She could forbid her people to take part in any unjust or immoral conflict, and withdraw them as soon as decently practicable, but she knew that forbidding her people to intervene on behalf of the soldiers they trained would be an invitation to defiance. One of the lessons her father had taught her before sending her to Coruscant, and which Master Jinn had seconded later, had been that it was bad policy to give an order that you knew would not be obeyed.

Which was why she was staring at the report from Concord Dawn with anger burning through her heart. If Pre Vizsla wanted to send verde of his House and Clan to act as advisors for anyone willing to pay them, then that was as much his right as it was old Rieman’s right as head of House and Clan Kast, or her right as head of House and Clan Kryze, for that matter. That Vizsla was accepting contracts not just from legitimate governments, but from factions that were rebels at best and outright criminals at worst, if the Protectors’ information was accurate, did not strictly matter. If she tried to tell Vizsla that people sworn to him and his House were not free to go where he sent them, he would have all the grounds he needed to rebel against her.

She closed the report and banished the anger with an effort of will. Pre Vizsla had been a thorn in her side since the end of the wars and the death of his father. He might have foresworn the feud that his father had held against her father, but that had not stopped him from doing everything he could within the bounds of law and custom to oppose her attempts to restore Mandalore. So far, he had been able to do so without doing anything that she could lawfully have him arrested for. But sooner or later, he would slip up; men like him always did. And when he did . . .

Chapter Text

Mace Windu closed the door to the meditation room and turned back to the other Masters who were already sitting cross-legged on the floor. Plo Koon sat with his habitual poise, his face as unreadable as ever behind his mask and goggles. Depa Billaba also projected calm solidity, but her eyes kept flicking to Mace. Adi Gallia didn’t bother with appearing calm; there were days when Mace wondered if Adi’s face was permanently frozen in a slight frown on account of being the Order’s primary liaison with the Senate. Yoda, on the other hand, looked up at Mace expectantly. It was Mace, after all, who had specified that this meeting be held here, rather than in the Council chamber, and that it include only these people, and not the whole Council.

Mace sank to the floor and rested his hands on his knees. “Masters,” he said without preamble, “I have been meditating on the troubles that have faced the Republic in recent years ever since Qui-Gon Jinn was killed, as I am sure you have also done. And all my meditations have led me to one conclusion.” He looked around the small circle of Masters. “We are facing the gravest threat to the Republic, and to the Order, since Darth Bane, if not since the Mandalorian Wars.”

Yoda eyed him. “Momentous, events always appear to those who live through them,” he said. “But every season, its crisis has, and crisis and season pass alike. Darker days than this, the Republic and the Order have faced.”

Mace raised an eyebrow. “The Fall of Xanatos Du Crion, and all that followed from it,” he said, beginning to count on his fingers. “The Stark Hyperspace War. Galidraan, and the Mandalorian Civil War. The Huk War. The Yinchorri Uprising. That debacle at the Eriadu Conference. And now Naboo, and the return of the Sith. Any one of these would be a crisis fit to mark a decade, Master. All of them within the span of fifteen years?”

Depa nodded. “It’s not just the wars, either,” she said. “Shortly after Naboo, Master Mundi mentioned that he felt like he had been to too many funerals recently, and I realized that I felt the same way. That made me curious, so I did some digging in the Archives. More Jedi have been killed in action in the last thirty years than were killed in action in the last three hundred years. Not just in the Stark Hyperspace War or Galidraan or the Yinchorri Uprising, but on . . . regular missions. Or missions that should have been regular but where the intelligence was bad or the situation went sideways unexpectedly or the Jedi who was sent was . . . simply not the kind of Jedi that should have been sent.”

Mace gestured at his former Padawan. “It was that piece of information that drove me to call this meeting,” he said. “When that is combined with this wave of crises, all coming one after another . . . I cannot help but think that all of this is being done deliberately. That we, and the Republic, are being besieged.”

Plo nodded agreement. “As the saying goes in the Judicial Department, ‘Once is chance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action,’” he rumbled. “I agree with Mace, Master Yoda. The coincidences protest too much. Especially since we now know that the Sith have returned. And, forgive me, but I believe we all know which Sith young Kenobi killed on Naboo. Or do we truly believe that a Sith Master would fall to a Padawan, even a Padawan like Kenobi?”

There was silence in the meditation room for a long moment. They had all read the accounts of the Sith wars, and the reports of the hunts for Dark Side adepts and suspected Sith after the wars had finally ended. Obi-Wan Kenobi might be one of the finest swordspersons of his generation, but a Sith Master would have eaten him alive without breaking a sweat. Kenobi’s own report had made clear that only the Zabrak’s arrogance had allowed him to strike the fatal blow.

Yoda nodded. “And disappeared, Master Yaddle has,” he added. “Possible, it is, that simply called away suddenly she was, on a secret mission. But troubling, it is, that the Master of Shadows should vanish without trace, especially in conjunction with the return of the Sith.”

Adi Gallia raised a finger. “There’s something else, too,” she added. “Over the last few days, some of my sources on Senate Hill have mentioned a rumor that the next budget cycle will see moves to reduce the subsidy the Order receives from the Republic. Possibly by as much as ten to fifteen percent.”

The Masters traded grim glances. By a combination of careful investments, patent and copyright royalties, and donations from thankful or faithful citizens, the Order was basically self-sufficient. But the subsidy that the Republic paid the Order in recognition of its efforts was the means by which the Order paid for its more capital-intensive projects, such as the clinics and schools that the Medical Corps and Educational Corps ran on planets across the Mid and Outer Rim, as well as the environmental remediation programs run by the Agricultural Corps. And it was standard practice that the subsidy be spent in its entirety from budget cycle to budget cycle, as a way of demonstrating that the Order was not hoarding the Republic’s wealth. A one percent cut would leave some of those projects understaffed and undersupplied. A five percent cut would lead to closures. Ten to fifteen percent . . .

“Did any of these sources say where the money would be reallocated?” Depa asked.

Adi shook her head. “Not definitively,” she said. “Senator Organa told me that his sources had heard that the impetus was that if we could not prevent the situation on Naboo from spiraling out of control, then the Republic should invest the subsidy in something that could. But my contacts in the Judicial Department’s Legislative Affairs Office tell me that they have heard nothing to indicate that their budget might be increased.”

Yoda tapped a claw against the head of his gimer stick. “Compelling, the evidence is,” he said. “But circumstantial, it remains. Proof, we need, before we bring this into the light.”

Plo nodded. “More than circumstantial, it is disjointed,” he admitted. “The only piece of evidence that connects to another piece is that the Nemoidians took over the Trade Federation after Eriadu, and it was under the Nemoidians’ leadership that Naboo was invaded.”

Mace grimaced. “If only we could interrogate Nute Gunray,” he said. “I cannot help but feel that he is a shatterpoint in this . . . web of evil.”

Adi nodded. “Unfortunately, he has the best lawyers the Trade Federation’s money can buy,” she said. “And they have repeatedly said that he has nothing to say to ‘these trumped-up and overblown charges that disgrace the name of jurisprudence.’” She smoothed her hands over her knees in what Mace could tell was a deliberate effort to ground herself. “And the Judicial Department has declined to allow us to join the investigation,” she went on. “They believe that Qui-Gon’s death fighting against the Trade Federation has compromised our impartiality.”

Yoda’s ears crooked irritably. “Pointless, it is, to stew over our problems,” he said shortly. “Decide, we must, what we shall do about them. And keep this in mind, we must.” He looked around the small circle of Masters. “Common knowledge, it is, that the Sith are extinct. That they have returned, only we know. If claim, we do, that returned they have, and proof we do not present, then not believed, we will be. Paranoid, we will seem, if not grasping for power out of fear. Cautious, we must be.”

The other Masters nodded. They all knew that the Order had enemies in the Senate, and that there were others who might not wish the Order any harm specifically but did not love it, either. One of the enduring lessons of history was that governments could not tolerate alternative centers of power if they meant to keep control of the territory they claimed. The Republic and the Order squared that circle both by the Order’s ostentatious rejection of secular power on their own behalf and by the Order’s deference to the Senate. But it was still the way of people who held power to fear losing it. And when those people were next-door neighbors of a large, well-respected, and influential religious order that both made a habit of helping people and worlds in need of help and regularly produced some of the most devastating warriors in the known galaxy . . .

Members of the Order assigned to Senate duty were strictly enjoined to appear as benign as possible. But even when they were on their best behavior, there were still Senators who were visibly intimidated by the prospect of being in the same room as a Jedi. And fear, as all Jedi learned from the creche, was a sure path to the Dark Side.

XXX

The Palace Guard fireteam moved down the corridor as smoothly as if they were on repulsors rather than their feet, with all the unhurried speed of sando aqua monsters looking for prey. The front pair’s blaster carbines were at their shoulders, the muzzles shifting minutely as they swept the corridor in front of them. Behind them, the rear pair kept their carbines at the high ready, bringing them to the shoulder as they periodically turned to check their rear arc without breaking stride.

As they approached a corner on their right, the team slowed to a halt, then the left-hand man of the front pair side-stepped his way through a smooth arc that kept him facing the corridor. When he was halfway through the arc, he fired two quick shots and ducked back towards his teammates, yelling, “Contact right!” as he did so. A volley of blaster bolts sang through the space he had occupied to splash against the wall. What followed next had all the smooth speed of drilled reflex. The right-hand man of the front pair plucked a grenade off his belt, thumbed the activation switch, held it for a count of two, and lobbed it around the corner. A heartbeat later there was a blinding flash and an earsplitting CRACK as the grenade went off, and the fireteam plunged around the corner, carbines blazing.

The grenade had done its job; the enemy fireteam was dazed and disoriented and easy prey for the BlasTech A200 carbines that the Palace Guard had adopted as their standard shoulder arm. A handful of seconds later, the fireteam had overrun their fallen enemies, the front pair continuing to aim their weapons down the corridor while the rear pair kept the bodies covered.

“ENDEX, ENDEX, ENDEX,” said a voice over an overhead loudspeaker. “All parties stand down.” The fireteam relaxed, lowering their weapons and moving to check on their comrades who had been playing the opposition; their carbines had been set to stun and the grenade had been a flashbang. On the other side of the fake building, the other fireteam in the squad being tested that afternoon also stood down and began to check their downed opponents. The exercise had been two squads, each sent into the “shooting house”, as the Mandalorians called it, from opposite ends with the simple order to find, engage, and eliminate the opposition.

On the catwalk that was reserved for trainers and spectators, Ingold turned to Defense Advisor Panaka. “They’re good,” he said simply, holding up the stopwatch in his hand. “That last engagement, the total time elapsed from first contact to final overrun was just under ten seconds. You won’t find any human infantry in the galaxy that can do much better than that.”

Panaka nodded. “The Guard has always been good,” he said proudly. “But you and your group have made them the best. The question now is whether that can be done across a whole army.”

“I don’t see any reason why not,” Ingold said as the Guardsmen down below, joined by the onsite medic team, began reviving their comrades and helping them up. “The Royal Regiment’s basic training is already going well, between both our advisors and the cadre from the Security Guard. Once the Royal Regiment is established, cadres can be spun off to train the militia. By that point, you should be self-sufficient as far as training goes. I’d already take any Palace Guardsman into any squad I commanded, if a beskar’gam could be found or made to fit them.”

Panaka nodded. The Royal Regiment was to be the new standing army of Naboo, with two battalions drawn from each city and major town on Naboo. All soldiers were to be volunteer enlistees, with the first cadre of officers to be drawn from the Security Guard, and liable for service in orbit and off-planet if required. The militia, by contrast, was to be specifically a planetary defense force, with battalions raised from each county with the population to support them and only liable for service on-planet.

It was also one of the most controversial elements of the new defense program. Naboo’s first line of defense would always be its fleet, which would of necessity also receive the narglatch’s share of the available funding in any given budget cycle. And people old enough to remember King Veruna’s machinations were apt to speculate on what Veruna might have been able to do with a proper army at his beck and call. That it had been specifically spelled out, in law and in the Royal Regiment’s oath of service, that the army’s first loyalty was to the constitution and the people of Naboo did not do much to quiet the skeptics.

“Hopefully, you won’t leave us too soon,” Panaka said. “Our troops have meshed well together, this last year. Sometimes a bit too well,” he admitted with a smile, drawing a chuckle from Ingold. Aside from Corporal Wren and Handmaiden Rabé, and Guardswoman Mareia and Handmaiden Eirtaé, a few other romances and a great many friendships had sprung up between members of the advisory group and members of the RNDF. It had gotten to the point where a bar fight involving a Mandalorian almost always involved RNDF troopers intervening on behalf of the Mando, and vice versa. No marriages had taken place yet, but Panaka wouldn’t be surprised if they did.

Officially, he didn’t know that there was a book open on if and when Rabé and Wren would marry. If he did, he would have to shut it down as bad for discipline. Unofficially, he had twenty credits on them waiting until the Queen left office to marry, and doing so within a standard month of her replacement being crowned.

“Which is to say,” he went on, “we would like to see the arrangement between us become . . . more permanent.”

Ingold snorted. “What’s more permanent than what we’ve already got?” he asked rhetorically. Then he looked at Panaka’s face, and his own face lost its half-smile. “Ka’ra, man,” he said softly. “Your Queen wants a full-blown alliance with Mandalore? A military alliance?”

Panaka nodded. “She told me as much yesterday afternoon,” he said. “And asked me to broach it with you.”

Ingold blew out his cheeks as he turned aside and rested his armored forearms on the catwalk railing. “This is so far above my pay grade,” he said. “I’m a bodyguard, for all love. And not even a high-ranking one. There’s three whole steps between me and even the Al’verde, much less the Duchess.”

“Which is why Her Highness asked me to broach it with you, not the Commander of the Royal Guard,” Panaka said. “She wants to know what the Mandalorian people would think of such an alliance.”

Ingold stared down at the corridors of the shooting house, where the Guardsmen were tapping fists and chaffering with their comrades and the advisors who had come to spectate. “We are . . . not usually comfortable with alliances,” he said finally. “We usually prefer to rely on our own strength and skill. But if what I’ve been hearing about the state of the galaxy is true . . . we might need alliances, and in a very bad way. Do you know what the term ori’beskaryc means?”

Panaka frowned. “I don’t recall hearing the term before,” he admitted.

“’Extremely tough’, is the most usual translation, or ‘hard case’,” Ingold explained as he turned back to Panaka. “It’s a compliment, and not one that’s often given to people who aren’t Mandalorian. But this past year, we’ve found that you Naboo are ori’beskaryc, like we are.” He nodded. “If your queen wants an alliance with Mandalore, the Duchess and the Council will have to sign off on it. But the people . . .“ He shrugged. “There’ll be some di’kuts; there always are. But we’ve been telling our people about you for the past year, Advisor. If it comes to an alliance, then we are with you. Haat, ijaa, haa’it.”

The two clasped forearms in a warrior’s handshake. “I’ll tell the Queen,” Panaka said.

XXX

The two figures that strode out of the stilt-city into the driving rain were visibly different even under their hooded cloaks. Both were tall and well-built, but one was slightly hunched, shoulders bowed as if under a tremendous weight, and the hands that held his brown cloak closed clenched and unclenched on the fabric rhythmically. The other held himself rigidly erect, with his arms crossed over his chest to secure his black cloak. When an errant gust blew the hood of his cloak back to reveal a graying but severely handsome human man, the hand that drew the hood back over his head was slow and controlled. He seemed wholly at ease, even in the rain, in the same way that his companion seemed wholly uneasy.

“Thank you, thank you again for helping me with this, brother,” the brown-cloaked man said over the rain. “Light knows how I would have managed without you . . .”

“Think nothing of it, my old friend,” the black-cloaked man said calmly, his cut-glass patrician accent clear even over the pelting rain. “I only hope we can find a suitable template for the Kaminoans to work from.”

“Yes, yes,” the brown-cloaked man said, nodding rapidly. “Who to pick, who to pick . . . I have a few ideas . . .”

The black-cloaked man laid a hand on the brown-cloaked man’s shoulder. “Leave it to me, brother,” he said soothingly. “Go back to Coruscant, before the Council finds it has to ask awkward questions about your travels. I will take care of everything.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” the brown-cloaked man said, bowing. “Thank you again, Dooku. I will never forget this.”

“Nor will I, Sifo-Dyas,” Count Yan Dooku said as he returned Master Sifo-Dyas’ bow and watched his old colleague stride off towards his fighter, muttering. “Nor will I,” he repeated softly.

It had been the most incredible stroke of luck, or would appear so to any who did not know how the Force could shape events to its will. That of all people, Sifo-Dyas should come to him for help with creating an army! He had probably thought that Dooku might be persuaded to fund the creation of an army out of his private purse. In fairness, he could probably do so; Serenno was a wealthy planet, and his personal fortune was large even by the standards of the galaxy as a whole. But Dooku had better ideas.

Why pay for an army, after all, when you could get someone else to pay for it? If they never knew what they were paying for, so much the better.

XXX

It was not uncommon for candidates in the Naboo royal election to meet, even when one was the sitting monarch. Part of the electoral process, after all, was that the candidates took solemn oaths before the Legislature to keep the ultimate good of the world and people of Naboo foremost in their minds during the election and to put aside both personal animosity and professional opposition if the needs of the world and the people required it. And when a candidate did meet with a sitting monarch running for re-election, the meeting was deliberately informal. For one thing, Naboo had no laws touching upon lese-majesty. For another, part of Naboo’s political tradition was that the monarch was to be respected, but not exalted. Anyone, after all, could be elected to the monarchy if they could convince enough people to vote for them. And in this case, Padmé and Réillata were explicitly equals by any stretch, as Réillata herself was a former monarch.

So when Padmé met with Réillata in her private study, they shook hands as equals, dismissed everyone but Réillata’s niece, who was acting as her aide, and Handmaiden Sabé, and sat on a pair of armchairs before the study’s fireplace, which was occupied by a large floral arrangement in deference to the fact that it was high summer.

“I will be frank and to the point,” Réillata said after they had settled themselves. “I know I can’t win the election. I can read a poll as well as anyone, and the polls all agree that unless you drop dead tomorrow, I don’t have a prayer of getting more than twenty percent of the vote. If that.”

“Not that anyone would think so judging by the way you run your campaign,” Padmé replied. “Which I approve of, by the way. The first sign a democracy is on its last legs is when elections are no longer seriously contested.”

Réillata nodded. “Especially when they are no longer seriously contested between reasonable moderates,” she said. “The reason I came out of retirement is that I heard that no one was running against you but crank candidates on the fringes of the political spectrum. People need reasonable alternatives, or else they’re liable to pick one of those crank candidates, and damn the consequences.” She shook her head. “But that’s not the point. The point is that I’m reasonably sure I can win the next election, if only on the basis of experience.” She smiled self-deprecatingly; at nineteen standard, Réillata might seem young by the standards of other worlds, but political careers on Naboo regularly started at twelve or thirteen standard. By that reckoning, Réillata would seem positively venerable, campaigning for the monarchy at the ripe age of twenty-one standard. “So the question I came here to ask, Padmé, is if there’s anything you hope to do in your next term that will likely take longer than two years. Anything . . . out of the ordinary, let us say, recognizing that ordinary has substantially changed meanings over the last two years.”

Padmé leaned back in her chair, thinking furiously. She had thought that something like this might be coming down the hyperlane, when Réillata’s team had said that the subject of the meeting would be “the future of Naboo”. But she hadn’t expected the next thing to a barefaced offer to coordinate policy beyond the end of her next term. She and Réillata might agree on most issues, but they did have points of divergence. And the plan she did have that might take more than two years was literally unprecedented in Naboo history.

But an implied offer to extend novel policy beyond the reign of the monarch that instituted it was also unprecedented. And if it came out, the crank candidates that Réillata had mentioned would smear her brutally for it in the news holos. If gestures of trust were to lead to anything, then they had to be reciprocated. Otherwise, the old saw about ‘once burned, twice shy’ came into play, to the detriment of everyone involved. “There is,” she said eventually. “But if it is implemented, it will have consequences beyond Naboo. So I’m afraid I must ask your word . . .” she glanced at Réillata’s niece. “Both your words,” she went on, “that what is spoken of here will not be spoken of elsewhere. Not even between us. This place is secure against eavesdropping, but few other places are. And if this comes out, people’s lives will be put in danger.”

Réillata blinked, then nodded. “You have it,” she said simply. “On my name, by the line of my people and with Shiraya and Rhaohr as my witnesses.” She glanced at her niece, who nodded and placed her left hand on her heart and raised her right hand above her head towards the heavens.

“On my name, by the line of my people and with Shiraya and Rhaohr as my witnesses,” she said solemnly, “I will say nothing of what is said here today, and hold it as secret as my own secrets.”

Padmé nodded. That was as good an oath as she could ask for. Even if someone was mad enough to break an oath to which both Shiraya of the Moon and Rhaohr of the Sun were witnesses, no one was mad enough to bring disgrace on their family line by breaking such an oath. No one born of Naboo, where family was honored and worshipped above all things save harmony and justice. She steepled her fingers. “What do you know of Anakin Skywalker?” she asked.

Réillata frowned. “Only that he destroyed the Federation control ship during the Liberation,” she said.

“Then you do not know that, less than two standard weeks prior to becoming a hero, he was a slave,” Padmé said bluntly, drawing surprised looks from Réillata and her niece. “He and his mother were both slaves, on Tatooine. Anakin’s first owner was Gardulla the Hutt, but when I was forced to land on Tatooine after running the blockade, he and his mother were owned by a Toydarian called Watto. Suffice it to say that Anakin was indispensable in getting the Royal Yacht repaired and on to Coruscant, and was later found to be Force-sensitive. He has since been accepted into the Jedi Order.”

Réillata nodded. “And his mother?” she asked.

“Was forced to remain on Tatooine,” Padmé said, bitterness tinging her voice at the memory of shame that she could not help someone to whom she, and her people, owed so much. “But she was recently freed, I suspect by the good offices of certain of our Mandalorian friends, and now lives here, on Naboo.”

Réillata nodded again. “Properly so,” she said. “It sounds like we owe her a great debt.”

“We do,” Padmé agreed. “But aside from honest work at a fair wage and the chance to live in peace, she has refused repayment. And the time I spent on Tatooine opened my eyes to a great evil that the Republic has allowed to flourish.” She gestured to Sabé, who walked over to the desk and drew a datapad out of a locked drawer. “This,” Padmé said as Sabé placed the datapad in Réillata’s hands, “is a list of all the ships that have landed at Mos Espa spaceport on Tatooine carrying slaves in the last six standard months, with their known itineraries and, for most of them, a rough estimate of how many slaves they carried.”

Réillata read for a few moments, her mobile face twisting in disgust. “Half of these ships visited Inner Rim or Colony worlds!” she spat. “Some of them came direct from the Core!”

Padmé nodded. “And Mos Espa is neither the busiest nor the largest spaceport on Tatooine,” she said. “I invite you to imagine how many are carried aboard the ships that touch down at Mos Eisley, or Bestine.”

“Doesn’t the Republic do something about this?” Réillata demanded as she raised her eyes from the datapad. “The Jedi . . .”

“Do what they can, where and when they can,” Padmé said. “But there are, perhaps, ten thousand Jedi in the whole of the Order. Maybe eleven thousand if you include elders and younglings. Maybe a quarter or a third of those are Knights and Masters fit to take the field. There simply are not enough of them to police even the Colonies and the Inner Rim, much less the Outer Rim. Doing that would require the kind of power that only the Senate can bring to bear.”

“And the Senate couldn’t care less about the Outer Rim,” Réillata said sourly. “Not so long as their own nests are properly feathered. When I remember what old Janthyr told me about the Senate when I was on the throne and he was our Senator . . .” She shook her head, clearly mastering herself by main will. “So,” she said. “I presume you plan to do something about this?”

Padmé’s face was set like flint. “Yes, I do,” she said, using the sonorous, formal tones of a Queen speaking from the Throne. “One that I hope will repay the debt that we owe.”

XXX

Graf Neemal hit the button that would transmit his report to the Senate and leaned back in his chair with a sense of triumph. The past eighteen standard months could have gone any number of ways, but he was glad that they had turned out the way they did. The fleet the Naboo had acquired for themselves was perfectly with the bounds of Ruusan and later regulatory law, they had appropriated the funds to support that fleet out of their own resources without having to go a-conquering, and there had not been a whiff of any revanchist sentiment against the Trade Federation that he had been able to detect. The Naboo might have armed themselves, but it remained a defensive armament in every respect, which was all the Judicial Department cared about.

Indeed, there had been little enough for him to do that he had managed to find the time to do some freelance work for some old contacts of his. Nothing that led him into court, of course; unlike some lawyers, Graf had little appetite for the cut-and-thrust of courtroom proceedings. He much preferred motions practice, with its even-tempered pace and ability to let his skills at writing shine through. He had also written a few advisory memos, for lawyers across Republic space who sought his advice on his specialty. One of those, however, was more interesting than the others, and it was the last item on his daily agenda that he wanted to finish before going to bed. He pulled up the file on his monitor and began to proofread.

From: Professor Graf Neemal, Esq., Attorney-At-Law

To: Queen Padmé Amidala of Naboo

RE: Republic Anti-Slavery Law and Enforcement

Your Highness,

You requested that I provide you with an overview of Republic anti-slavery law and the provisions for its enforcement by Republic member states in the absence of the Republic proper, and also for an opinion on the legal status of the planet and system of Tatooine. I advised you that I did not practice in that field and you asked that I pass the inquiry along to attorneys who do practice in that field who I could trust to be discreet. I have done so and their briefs are attached. With your permission, I will summarize their briefs here.

The abolitionist principles of Republic law have their roots in the Constitution’s recognition of the right of all sentient beings to “life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness.” However, the abolition of slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for felony  crime of which the defendant shall have been duly convicted, is codified in Republic Law in the Anti-Slavery Act of 25 AR and its subsequent amendments. In sum, slavery, indentured servitude, and other forms of involuntary servitude are illegal in the Republic, as is buying, selling, trafficking, transporting, or otherwise dealing in enslaved or indentured beings, as is causing beings to become enslaved or indentured or otherwise committed to involuntary servitude, whether by force or by fraud. Violations of the Act are punishable by between five standard years’ imprisonment (for transporting slaves unknowingly) and fifty standard years’ imprisonment at hard labor (for kidnapping with intent to enslave, selling enslaved beings, and knowingly owning enslaved beings). Slavery and related crimes are considered ‘strict liability’ crimes, where the prosecuting authority need not prove either specific or even general intent on the part of the perpetrator to commit the crime; it is sufficient for the prosecuting authority to prove that the Act was violated in order to secure a conviction.

As regards the enforcement of the Anti-Slavery Act by Republic member states in the absence of the Republic proper, matters are not so clear-cut. Republic member states are obligated to uphold and enforce Republic law within their own jurisdictions, and to cooperate with the Republic government’s efforts to do so across jurisdictional boundaries. In addition, it is a long-standing custom that states seeking to join the Republic must enact laws abolishing slavery and other forms of involuntary servitude of equal strictness to the Anti-Slavery Act. Republic member states frequently cooperate with each other, either through bilateral agreements or under the auspices of the Republic, in enforcing both the Anti-Slavery Act and their own anti-slavery laws in each other’s territory. However, efforts to enforce the Anti-Slavery Act outside of Republic Space tend to be fraught, at best. Existing case law tends to uphold the right of Republic member states to pursue suspected slavers across international boundaries, detain them, board them, inspect them, and arrest them, all under the doctrine of hot pursuit. See, for e.g., Gorba the Hutt v. Ozzel, wherein the Court held that the defendant, a Republic Judicial Department captain, was justified in overhauling a vessel the plaintiff owned which the defendant had probable cause to believe was a slaver and which had refused a lawful order to submit to boarding and inspection. 885 Rep. 85 (350) The Court further held that the elapsing of three standard days between the beginning of the chase and its termination did not suffice to void the defendant’s claim of hot pursuit, recognizing that the necessities of interstellar travel tend to require significant time for transit of ships between stars, and that defendant’s jumping to a suspected destination of the pursued vessel and lying in wait for its arrival was standard practice among law enforcement bodies if it was not possible or not feasible to contact a counterpart law enforcement body at the suspected destination to secure their cooperation. Id. at 90

However, multiple factors exist to constrain efforts to enforce the Anti-Slavery Act across international borders. Firstly, cavalier or hasty pursuit of suspected slavers into the territorial space of non-members of the Republic tends to produce sharply worded diplomatic rebukes even under the best of circumstances, as such pursuits are often viewed as infringements on territorial sovereignty. Secondly, the Convention on the Law of Space requires that hot pursuit begin in the territorial space of the pursuing party, that it be undertaken on ‘good reason to believe’ that the party being pursued violated law or regulation, and that the pursuit be continuous, which last term is generally taken to mean 'uninterrupted’. Thirdly, a failure to justify the stopping, searching, or seizing of a vessel before a court of law generally results in damages being awarded in favor of the vessel that was stopped, searched, and/or seized. Given the significant credit value of most interstellar commerce, such damages can be high, especially if punitive damages are sought. See, for e.g., Dahvo v. Tarkin, where a Zygerrian merchant successfully filed suit against a Republic Judicial Department captain who failed to prove that his stopping and searching of the Zygerrian’s ship was justified. 749 Rep. 2398 (203). In that case, the damages levied against Captain Tarkin and the Republic Judicial Department came to a total of one hundred and twenty million Republic credits.

As for the legal status of Tatooine, the best answer I can offer is that it depends on who you ask. The office of the Senator for the Arkanis Sector lists Tatooine as one of the worlds they represent, which can be taken as a prima facie case that Tatooine is a Republic world. Indeed, Tatooine is listed as a Republic world on the rolls of the Senate. However, as I understand Your Highness is aware, Tatooine is almost entirely controlled by the Hutts; the office of Planetary Governor of Tatooine has been empty for approximately forty standard years, following the death in office of the last incumbent. It should be noted that the last Governor’s death was officially ruled “accidental”, in that his pilot lost control of his skyhopper, which crashed with no survivors. However, this accident occurred only two days after the Governor had ruled against a proposal advanced by Jabba the Hutt that the budget of Tatooine’s security forces be slashed and the money reallocated to public works. I invite Your Highness to draw your own conclusions.

What a court would rule regarding Tatooine’s legal status, I cannot speculate on. As a general rule, most courts prefer to uphold the de jure legal status of worlds, rather than their de facto status. However, courts have proven willing in the past to concede to ‘facts on the ground’, especially in the face of persuasive argument and amicus briefing. As I am not engaged in an attorney-client relationship with either Naboo or with Your Highness personally, I cannot offer legal advice per se on this point. However, I can offer the common-sense advice that Your Highness tread warily. The Hutts do not take kindly to having their affairs meddled in.

I remain, Your Highness’s humble servant,

Graf Neemal, Esq.

Graf hesitated for a moment over the Send button, then clicked it. Under the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, an attorney could not give legal advice in furtherance of a crime. But Queen Amidala had not asked him anything that could be construed as legal advice in furtherance of a criminal act. She had told him that her interest in anti-slavery law and the status of Tatooine was due entirely to the fact that Anakin Skywalker, to whom she and her world were indebted, had been a slave on Tatooine. What she meant to do with the advice he had given her she had not said, and since he was not her attorney what she meant to do with it was not strictly his business.

And when all was said and done, Queen Amidala was a queen, not a Jedi. She had enough respect for law and regulation to abide by them, rather than casually ignoring longstanding legal principles simply because of “the will of the Force”. Not that the Jedi weren’t a force for good in the galaxy, of course. But Graf could wish that they might be less cavalier about how they went about doing good.

Chapter Text

The aide poked his head into Senator Harieman’s office and chirped, “Senator Vancil for you, sir,”, making Harieman lever himself out of his chair to shake the other senator’s hand. The Chommell Sector was far enough out of the Arkanis Sector’s weight class, economically, politically, and culturally, that for Vancil to visit his office was a significant occasion. “Senator, welcome,” he said. “How is your day going?”

“Quite well, thank you,” Horace Vancil replied, gauging his counterpart. They were both human men, but there the similarities petered out. Vancil had several centimeters, several years, and a great many grey hairs on Justus Harieman. Vancil was a career politician and civil servant who had come up through the Naboo Legislature before making the jump to the monarchy’s service, while Harieman had gotten his job almost as a sinecure, due to his family’s connections in the Arkanis Regency. And where Vancil was a naturally restrained man who spent considerable time and effort projecting an image of sober dignity, Harieman had a deserved reputation as one of the ringleaders of the Senate’s raffish younger set, and looked the part.

They exchanged a few more pleasantries before Harieman rubbed his palms together. “But enough of the small talk, Horace,” he said, blithely ignoring that Vancil had not given him permission to use his first name. “There’s something you want from me and my sector, I’m sure. What is it?”

Vancil leaned back in his chair and folded his hands. “I would like to discuss the slave trade,” he said baldly.

Harieman nodded, grimacing. “Vile business,” he said. “We have no truck with it in the Regency.”

Vancil happened to know for a fact that the working class in the Arkanis Regency were more on the order of serfs than free citizens, and that Harieman’s family was notorious in the Regency for how bad conditions were for the tenant farmers on their estates, but he held his peace. He needed Harieman. “Then I regret to inform you that your sector is being taken advantage of,” he said, injecting a sorrowful note into his voice.

Harieman raised an eyebrow. “How so?” he asked.

Vancil drew a folded strip of flimsi from his sleeve and handed it to Harieman. “This is a list of ships that have passed through the Arkanis Sector carrying slaves in the past standard year,” he said as Harieman took the flimsi and began to scrutinize it. “Including estimates, and in some cases actual counts, of the number of slaves they had onboard.

Harieman’s insouciance drained out of his face as he read down the list. “I know some of these ships,” he said, half to himself. “I know their owners at least. My family does business with them.” Then he stopped reading and the blood drained from his face. “Oh hells,” he said softly.

Vancil leaned forward. “Are you alright, Senator?” he asked, genuinely concerned.

Harieman handed the note back to him with a shaky hand. “I know one of those ships personally,” he said softly. “The Ebony Star. My parents gave me a quarter interest in the ship for my seventeenth nameday. She’s a CT-900 freighter that was retrofitted to carry passengers three years ago. I signed off on the retrofit request.” He shook his head. “I never even bothered to ask why,” he confessed. “It just came across my desk one day and I signed it. Didn’t think twice about it.”

Vancil nodded, concealing triumph with the ease of a lifelong politician. He had known about Harieman’s connection to the Ebony Star, thanks to Special Investigations making inquiries into the registered owners of the ships that they had identified as slavers passing through Tatooine. It wouldn’t do to let Harieman know that, though. “I’m so sorry, Senator,” he said softly. “I can only imagine what a shock this is.”

Harieman scoffed. “Shock is the least of it, Horace,” he said feelingly. “Kark. I’m in business with slavers? How did that . . . Fuck!”

Vancil nodded. “My Queen felt much the same way when she learned that the slave trade was still alive and well in the Outer Rim,” he confided. “I counseled her to report it to the Judicial Department but she is, let us say, not without reservations where the Republic’s capabilities are concerned? Especially their capabilities when it comes to enforcing the law.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Harieman said as he ran a hand through his bleached-blond hair. “If Arkanis were invaded, I don’t know what I’d do.” He looked at Vancil like a man on a sinking watercraft looking at a lifeline. “What does she plan to do instead?”

“Actually,” Vancil said, placing the list on the low table between their chairs and leaning forward to plant his elbows on his knees, “she was hoping you would be able to help her.”

Harieman blinked. “How?” he asked, an edge of suspicion in his voice.

XXX

Yoda’s eyes narrowed as he reviewed the message from the Chancellor’s office that Mace had brought to his attention. “This request, not the first it is?”

Mace shook his head. “In the past year, the Chancellor has made thirteen separate requests to see young Skywalker. Either at his office or at the Temple.”

“Aware, he must be, of our Order’s policies regarding the cloistering of Initiates,” Yoda observed. “Enshrined in Ruusan, they were, at the Republic’s request. Vital, it is, that an Initiate’s training be not interrupted.”

“Whatever the Chancellor may or may not be aware of seems to have little bearing on whether he holds it sacred,” Mace replied. “As witness his treatment of the Senate Guard.”

Yoda nodded. The Senate Guard had been publicly embarrassed by a string of security failures over the last year and a half, almost since Palpatine’s election. And Palpatine had done nothing to defend them against the questions of incompetence or corruption raised in the news, on public social media, and even in Senate debates. The creation of the Red Guard as a distinctive elite solely entrusted with the personal security of the Chancellor had been the idea of Senator Orn Free Taa and reluctantly accepted by Palpatine, but only a blind man could miss the injured pride and resentment that radiated from every member of the Senate Guard whenever they crossed paths with their red-cloaked comrades. There were rumors that hand-to-hand sparring matches between members of the two corps more closely resembled duels than training exercises.

“The Chancellor’s motive in asking to meet with young Skywalker . . . unclear to me, it is,” Yoda admitted. “Indebted to young Skywalker for his actions at Naboo, the Chancellor may think himself. But hold debts, Jedi do not. Selfless, our service is, without thought of reward or advantage.”

Mace shrugged. “That may be true, but a debt does not need to be acknowledged in order to be effective on someone’s thinking,” he said. “How many times have we received support from someone because we helped them or someone close to them, even years before? Whether that support is a Senator’s vote in our favor or a credit donated to an EduCorps school’s holobook fund?”

Yoda’s ears twitched. “A difference, there is, between a debt owed to the whole Order, and a debt to one Jedi in particular,” he said. “Play favorites, the Order does not. Go where we are sent, we are, and serve who we must, we do, without fear, without feud, and without favor.”

“Indeed, Master,” Mace replied. “And I have told the Chancellor so, twice, in response to his last two requests to meet with Skywalker. But his requests are becoming increasingly pointed. Do we really want to find out what the limits of his patience are?”

There was a grim moment of silence between the two Masters. The growing debate over the subsidy was only the most obvious point of contention between the Order and the Republic. Up until now, the Order had been able to take the support of the Chancellor’s office for granted; the Order was one of the few tools the Chancellor had to influence events in the galaxy that was not hamstrung by the Senate or by the Republic bureaucracy in the way that the Judicial Department was. If that support was withdrawn . . .

Yoda tapped a claw against the head of his gimer stick. “Aware, are you, that freed from slavery Skywalker’s mother was?”

Mace nodded. “I got the news right before I was about to dispatch Vos to Tatooine to see her freed,” he said. “I never thought I would be grateful to Mandalorians.”

Yoda nodded back. “Much improved, Skywalker’s control over his abilities is,” he said. “Not so ruled by his emotions, as when he first came before us. But . . . irregular, his Finding was.”

Mace rolled his eyes. “’Irregular’ is putting it mildly,” he said. “Damn Qui-Gon. What was he thinking, not telling us that Skywalker had been a slave?”

“More concerned, I am, with what Skywalker’s mother, he might have told,” Yoda said. “Give Skywalker to Qui-Gon, she did. But a choice, did he give her? If given, the choice was, a free choice was it? Aware, was she, that return to her Skywalker could, when trained he was?”

“She was a slave,” Mace pointed out. “What slave would want their loved one to go back into slavery for their sake?”

“Freed, we would have seen her,” Yoda said. “If unaware of this, Skywalker’s mother was, then not free, her choice to give him to Qui-Gon was.” His ears drooped as he regarded Mace. “Clarify this, we must. And any failures of Qui-Gon’s, rectify. Our responsibility, it is, as Grandmaster and Order Master.”

Mace nodded. “I will take the boy to Naboo, and put the choice before him and his mother,” he said.

Yoda shook his head. “The right Jedi for this, you are not,” he said. “A warrior you are at heart, my old student. At defending light and life with lightsaber in hand, no equal you have.” He cocked a brow. “But the Jedi to lay this choice before two former slaves, you are not. Intimidating, you are, even at rest, for any not a Jedi. And even for many Jedi, hmm?”

Mace nodded with a self-deprecating smile. He knew his own reputation, both in and out of the Order. He was only a figure of fear to the Republic’s enemies, but he knew that the younger generations of the Order were given to teasing each other about what being his Padawan might entail. “So you will take the boy to Naboo?”

Yoda nodded. “Intimidating, I am not,” he said impishly, before sobering. “And my grandpadawan, Qui-Gon was. If fail he did, then my responsibility it is to correct it.”

XXX

It was the custom for monarchical candidates to spend Election Day keeping vigil in Theed’s basilica. In elder days, it had been believed that the gods would bestow their blessings on the winning candidate, but Padmé was of the opinion that the custom owed as much to an impetus to keep the candidates out of the public eye and allow the voters to make their choice soberly, without being swayed by any last-minute speeches or announcements.

Whatever the reason, it sat perfectly well with her, because the official explanation these days was that the vigil gave the candidates the opportunity to meditate on the campaign they had waged, prepare themselves for either victory or defeat, and contemplate what that would mean for them and for Naboo. And she was not so arrogant that she did not see the value in thinking twice before making the decision she would make if she was reelected, as seemed almost certain. Which was why she was kneeling before the basilica’s statue of Naba, the goddess who was probably most likely to take issue with what she planned to do.

Shiraya and Rhaohr would approve of her decision to make war on slavery, she knew; Rhaohr was the god of justice as well as of the sun, and Shiraya of the moon was also the protector of women. Thahtar of the waters was as impersonal as the seas he guarded, and cared little for the affairs of mortals. But Naba . . . Naba was goddess of the land and all that grew on it, and the avenger of wrongs done to the land and its creatures. Naboo society might be secular, but that secularism was underlaid by a faith that was all the deeper for being so closely-held. The coronation oath was sworn with the gods as witnesses, and invoked their curse on any who broke it. Even in modern times, that belief held strong sway; King Veruna’s life after his ouster from the monarchy had been short and unhappy, and many had whispered that the gods were punishing him for his schemes.

Padmé had never been more than conventionally pious before she became queen, but the pressures of ruling had made her a “professional believer”, as she had once heard Panaka describe his own relationship with Radharr, protector of soldiers, police officers, and all others who dedicated their lives to the protection of others. When the lives and happiness of other people hung on your word and your signature, it really helped steady your nerves to have someone to pray to, even if the entire content of your prayer was ‘Please, oh please, do not let me kark this up.’ And the invasion had hardened her in that faith; the whole journey back to Naboo from Coruscant that hadn’t been spent strategizing with Panaka and Master Jinn she had spent praying to her people’s gods for courage, for wisdom, and for luck. She knew, in her bones, that her prayers had been answered when Boss Nass had cast aside centuries of enmity to accept her offer of alliance. If making war against slavery brought harm to her planet, after they had so narrowly been delivered . . . Well, the gods never looked kindly on those who pushed their luck too far, and brought disaster down upon themselves by reaching beyond their grasp. And it would be a poor reward for her people, too, to exchange the Trade Federation for the Hutts.

But Naba’s sternly gentle face reminded her of Shmi Skywalker’s face, when she had broached her plan in private. Shmi had put down the cup of strangely-flavored tea she had made for them both, placed her hand on Padmé’s, and asked her one question. “Are you doing this for the sake of justice, Queen? Or for the sake of your pride, because you cannot stand being a debtor?” Padmé’s answer that it was for justice, because she could no longer stand by now that she was no longer blind, had seemed to satisfy Shmi, who had nodded and said, “Remember that, then, when it stops being easy.” Padmé knew enough about the galaxy to know that destroying the slave trade would never be easy. She would be sending her people, men and women who had sworn to protect Naboo and its people, to liberate people who might have never heard of Naboo and possibly spark a war with people who would gladly reduce Naboo to a planetary wasteland if it served their purpose. But Padmé also knew that justice was a moral absolute, and that it was the positive duty of all sentient beings to uphold justice wherever they found themselves. Naba’s own creed was that those who by skill or by good fortune had the most were expected to do the most, for the good of their fellows and of the world that sustained them.

Padmé nodded to herself. For justice, then, she told the goddess in her mind. Justice, come what may. Behind her, the doors of the basilica opened, and she rose to her feet and turned to learn the will of her people.