Star Wars fic: Bad Moon Rising (4)
May. 23rd, 2012 08:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardOne | Two | Three | AO3
A/N: As I do elsewhere, I'm basically picking and choosing characters and backstory from both the Star Wars: Republic comics and the Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV series, as well as from movie canon.
The last time Obi-Wan had been in the presence of this many politicians, she’d been briefly undercover as one of Queen Amidala’s handmaidens as Amidala addressed the Senate. She’d been told later that Qui-Gon’s orders for the temporary assignment had seemed to border on paranoid, but the encounter with the Sith Lord on Tatooine had disturbed him more than the Council had realized. He couldn’t openly place a Jedi with the Queen without tipping his hand, but once in uniform, with her lightsaber hidden beneath her skirts and her hair covered, her padawan braid pulled out of the way, Obi-Wan had been indistinguishable from the other handmaidens. Fortunately she hadn’t been needed; Darth Maul’s target hadn’t been Amidala, but the Jedi. As Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had learned only too well.
This time she was with Padmé again, but openly as a Jedi Knight, wearing her usual plain Jedi robes and her lightsaber on her belt. She relinquished her cloak at the door to a protocol droid and followed Padmé into the wide, well-lit room, ignoring the prickle at the back of her neck. The problem with being in the presence of a lot of politicians was that their greed and selfishness – among other, even less attractive traits, depending on the politician – tended to overwhelm everything else in the Force. Obi-Wan had the strong suspicion that was why she got a headache every time she went to the Senate Building to pick up Anakin from the Supreme Chancellor’s office. It needn’t even have been the Chancellor, just the combined presence of the Senate Building itself and all its occupants.
She snagged two glasses of wine from a passing rabbit droid carrying a tray of them, handing one to Padmé and keeping the other in hopes that the alcohol would help her concentrate on whatever the Force was trying to tell her. Senator Mothma hadn’t gone so far as to ask her to use the Force to find out which senators were going to vote yay or nay on the bill, which Obi-Wan wouldn’t have agreed to even if she had, but there was no harm in paying attention. Knowing the intentions of various senators could be very helpful to a Jedi Knight.
“I’m sorry Mon dragged you into this,” Padmé murmured to her as they went down the steps into the main room, which was wide and open, with a verandah that looked out over the city. “I know you dislike politics.”
“I’m considering it an educational experience,” Obi-Wan replied, letting her gaze flicker across the crowd without settling on anyone in particular. There were several dozen senators here, with more representatives and an equal number of lobbyists, along with their spouses, children, aides, and assorted hangers-on. Blue-uniformed Senate guards were stationed discreetly all around the room, still as statues, though Obi-Wan could see their gazes flickering across the room, constantly cautious. Mon Mothma had hired a band for the evening, made up of several different species, which had set up on a small stage apparently built for the occasion and was playing the usual uninspiring collection of classical Coruscanti music. Both server droids and guests were ignoring them. Everyone glittered, dressed up for the occasion as if it was more than just a dinner to cozen votes for a bill in its preliminary stages. In her unadorned Jedi robes, Obi-Wan was fairly certain she was the most plainly-dressed being in the room, though that wasn’t exactly an unusual feeling.
“If I’d known she’d try something like this, I would have stopped her,” Padmé replied, stopping to greet the representative from Umbara. Obi-Wan let herself be introduced, then returned the Umbaran’s bow, standing back and sipping at her wine as Padmé and the other woman exchanged a few words about the weather, then the bill before they both moved on.
“It’s all right,” Obi-Wan said, taking up the conversation’s dropped thread. “I wasn’t forced to be here; if I’d been that opposed to it I wouldn’t have come.”
“Well, I’m glad you came,” Padmé said, turning her brilliant smile on Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan smiled back, unable to resist. Padmé Amidala always had had that effect on her.
She was about to reply when she felt a tremor in the Force, like a fly stepping on a spider’s web – or maybe a fellow spider, come to think of it; Obi-Wan knew a Jedi when one entered the room, even if they’d never met. She touched Padmé’s wrist to get her attention and turned to see what had caused the disturbance.
It was the Supreme Chancellor and two of his friends, Senator Viento and the Jedi Master Ronhar Kim. Padmé held out her hand to be kissed, while Obi-Wan bowed slightly as they exchanged greetings. The two Jedi stepped aside as the politicians spoke.
“It’s Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, isn’t it?” said Kim, a tall human male with most of his dark hair pulled back into a topknot, the rest of it in two tails on either side of his face. “I don’t believe we’ve ever been introduced, but I’ve met your padawan once or twice.”
“I don’t know whether to be flattered or alarmed,” Obi-Wan said, smiling.
He tipped his head at the Chancellor, who had been joined by Mon Mothma and Bail Organa. “We have a mutual friend. I believe that our padawans share classes as well.”
“Of course,” Obi-Wan murmured, wondering why Anakin had never mentioned Master Kim before. She finished her wine and handed the empty glass off to a passing droid, tucking her hands into her sleeves. “You and Chancellor Palpatine are close friends?”
“My birth father was his predecessor as the senator from Naboo,” Kim explained. “We met at his funeral. Just before he died, Vidar Kim asked me to leave the Jedi and return to Naboo with him. His wife and son – my mother and brother – had just been killed.” He spoke of his birth family in the same impersonal tones that most of the Jedi did. “It was Palpatine who convinced me that remaining with the Order was the best decision for the Republic.”
“Well, I’m glad he did,” Obi-Wan said. “Give me a Jedi over a politician any day.”
He gave her an edge of a smile. “You don’t like politicians, Master Kenobi?” The faint tilt of his head encompassed the entire room.
Obi-Wan grinned back. “There are a few whom I’m not utterly opposed to.”
“Ah, Master Kenobi,” said Palpatine, moving his attention from Padmé to her.
Obi-Wan turned to face him, bowing from the waist. “Your Excellency.”
“It’s a pleasure to see you, as always,” he said, with that faintly disbelieving mental undertone that Obi-Wan was used to by now, as if he wasn’t quite sure why he was talking to her and not someone more important. “I see you haven’t brought Anakin with you,” he went on, looking around as if he expected to see Anakin appear out of the crowd.
Obi-Wan gave him a thin smile, not feeling particularly inclined to go for the effort it would take to make it seem genuine. “My padawan has his studies to attend to.”
“Of course,” Palpatine said, this time with an undertone that meant, not at all. Obi-Wan gripped her wrists beneath her sleeves, keeping her expression placid as she returned his steady gaze. After a moment he dropped his gaze, unable to hold a Jedi’s eyes for very long. If Obi-Wan had been a pettier woman, she might have smirked; as it was, she was left with a faint sense of unease that she couldn’t quite place, a faint chill running down her spine as the Force tried and failed to tell her something.
The disturbance in the Force, if that was what it was, was quickly eclipsed by her own annoyance as the Chancellor changed the subject. “My dear girl,” he said, in that placid tone that made Obi-Wan grate her back teeth, “I’ve heard a rumor that you and Count Dooku of Serenno have been corresponding.”
Obi-Wan gripped her wrists beneath her sleeves. “‘Corresponding’ is a rather strong word, your Excellency. Before he left the Jedi Order, the Count was my master Qui-Gon’s master. Think of it as an unfortunate and unavoidable family reunion.” Not that many Jedi were privy to those, thank the Force.
Palpatine raised one white eyebrow. Obi-Wan was uncomfortably aware of everyone watching – the four senators, Master Kim, the rest of the room (even if most of their attention wasn’t on the conversation, just the Chancellor’s presence). “Don’t you find it curious that Count Dooku has contacted you just as you’ve expressed an interest in politics?”
“He actually contacted me before Senator Mothma did,” Obi-Wan said. “I truly believe that it’s just a coincidence, your Excellency, not a conspiracy.”
“Is a man who left the Jedi Order so – publicly – really the best influence to have around young Anakin?” said the Chancellor, with the faintest emphasis on the adverb.
Obi-Wan gritted her teeth, but smoothed her voice out for her reply. “My padawan knows what he is, your Excellency. A five minute meeting with a former Jedi Master will hardly change his mind.” If you haven’t managed to do so in the past six years, but she tamped down the thought quickly, cursing herself for the near slip.
The Chancellor paused long enough that Obi-Wan started counting her quickening heartbeats – what was it about the man, anyway? – before replying, “Of course you know best, my dear girl. Anakin is so lucky to have you as his master.”
Obi-Wan gave him a thin smile. “Thank you for your kind words, your Excellency.”
“I do hope your new interest in politics won’t impact his training at all,” the Chancellor added breezily.
He turned away before Obi-Wan could reply. She gripped her wrists so hard that she could feel her fingernails digging into the soft flesh, certain she was radiating cold fury at anyone sensitive enough to pick up on it and trying furiously to get herself under control. She was a Jedi Knight, after all, and the Supreme Chancellor was only another politician who didn’t know any better, he shouldn’t have been able to make her that angry with only a few words –
Ronhar Kim, who was probably the only Force-sensitive being in the room, leveled his steady, patient gaze on her, calm radiating out from him through the Force; Obi-Wan closed her eyes and gave herself until the count of five to open them again, adding a slight mental tendril of thanks in Kim’s direction. She got a tendril of acknowledgment back from him, but no disapproval, for which she was grateful.
“My dear Senator Mothma,” the Chancellor was saying when Obi-Wan drew her attention back to him, “I do appreciate this. I’m glad that you understand how dangerous this bill could be to the Republic if it advances.”
Senator Mothma made a noise of assent. “Thank you for coming, your Excellency, I know that you are a busy man –”
“Indeed, though I’m afraid I can’t stay –”
“Of course, I understand –”
Their voices overlapped each other, and Obi-Wan stopped paying attention to the words. She took another glass of wine from a passing droid, this time a pale pink Coruscant blush, and stood sipping at it slowly, watching the ebb and flow of people in the room. She could feel the Force curled quiescent at the back of her mind, mostly overwhelmed by the intense emotions of the guests. Obi-Wan could have sorted through it, but it wasn’t worth the trouble; the wine was keeping it at a bearable distance. It wasn’t, at this point, as if she needed the Force to make any of the politicians’ intentions clear to her; neither Mothma nor Padmé seemed to expect it.
Eventually the Chancellor departed, having made his approval for Senator Mothma clear, trailing Senator Viento and Master Kim in his wake. Obi-Wan murmured her farewells, fighting through the sudden flash of precognition as she turned towards them: Palpatine, his face wrinkled and twisted in a rictus of hatred; Viento, pleading for his life as a red lightsaber slashed down at him; Kim, his lightsaber falling from his hand as his body was riddled with dozens of blaster shots. Obi-Wan drew in a sharp breath, her hand closing so hard on the stem of the wineglass that it snapped. The images were gone as quickly as they had appeared, leaving her clutching the broken wineglass, blood starting to seep slowly from her palm.
“Obi-Wan?” Padmé said immediately, touching her elbow and drawing her aside behind a column. Bail and Mothma started towards them, then Bail thought better of it and steered Mothma away, leaving Obi-Wan and Padmé as alone as they could be in a crowded room. Padmé motioned a droid over to take the broken glass and produced a handkerchief, pressing it to Obi-Wan’s bloody hand. “Are you all right? What’s wrong?”
Obi-Wan looked down at the red soaking through the pale purple of Padmé’s handkerchief with a faint sense of disbelief. She made herself breathe in and out, a familiar quick meditative pattern that steadied her immediately, enough that she could retrieve her hand from Padmé’s blaster-callused grip. She took the handkerchief away and held her other hand out over her palm, gathering the Force around it. “It’s nothing,” she said, as the cuts closed up, skin knitting together over the wounds until there was nothing left except a few thin red lines. “Just – blast it, Quinlan was right. My precognition is spiking again.”
Padmé was staring at her healed hand, but she dragged her gaze back up to Obi-Wan’s face with a visible jerk. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Shadow on my grave,” Obi-Wan said, making herself smile at her. She snagged a flute of champagne from a server droid and drained it in one gulp. “It’s nothing, really. Don’t worry about me.”
“I do worry,” Padmé said, taking the ruined handkerchief from her and folding a cocktail napkin around it before putting it back into her reticule. “What else are friends for?”
“Backup?” Obi-Wan suggested, replacing the empty flute on the droid’s tray. It chirped at her, and she obediently took another glass, looking down at the faintly colored liquid.
Padmé shook her head. “You Jedi. Are you sure you’re all right? I’ve never seen you do that before.”
“I’m fine,” Obi-Wan said, casting her gaze over the rest of the room. Nobody appeared to have noticed that Senator Mothma’s Jedi guest had broken a glass and bloodied her hand over a vision. Well, most of them probably had other, more important things to be interested in.
Padmé gave her an uncertain look, hesitating, but she was stopped from saying anything more by the approach of Rush Clovis. The Banking Clan’s senator wound his way towards them, trailing several droids bearing plates of hors d’oeuvres. “Senator Amidala,” he said, pressing a kiss to her cheek, then, “Master Kenobi,” bowing over Obi-Wan’s hand. “I thought you might like something to eat.”
“How kind of you, Senator Clovis,” Padmé said, taking the proffered plate. She and Clovis immediately launched into a spirited discussion of the bill, which attracted the attention of a number of other senators and representatives who drifted over to weigh in.
Obi-Wan stood comfortably back and listened, nibbling at the hors d’oeuvres Clovis had brought them. Several times senators and representatives came up to her, wanting to know the Jedi’s views on the bill or merely curious to speak with a Jedi Knight for the first time. She’d done enough research that she could converse knowledgeably about the bill, using her experience from dozens of missions throughout the galaxy to discuss its repercussions on numerous worlds. There was something strangely enjoyable about it; Obi-Wan would never go so far as to say that she took pleasure in showing off, but it reminded her a little of logic classes at the Temple back when she’d been a padawan. She’d always been good at making connections that other padawans didn’t see.
Senators and representatives drifted in and out throughout the evening, while the mixed species band continued to play insipid music and failed to improve. Obi-Wan finished off several more glasses of wine and another plate of hors d’oeuvres, fending off the clumsy flirtations of several senators who were more interested in her breasts than her words or the lightsaber on her belt. There was nothing in the Jedi Code that forbade Jedi from having affairs outside the Order – so long as there was no attachment involved, at least – and there were a number of beings on Coruscant who practically fetishized Jedi. Obi-Wan had heard from Master Shaak Ti that Senator Tal Merrik of Kalevala kept a list of Jedi he had slept with and wasn’t surprised when he approached her, smiling and with a distinct mental overtone that he thought he was irresistible. Obi-Wan took the glass of wine he offered her but refused to leave with him, which he accepted with a smile and a shrug, chatting with her for a few minutes about the year-long mission she and Qui-Gon had been on in his home system almost ten years ago now.
A few minutes after he left her, Bail Organa came over, carrying two plates with an assortment of small cakes on them. He offered one to her. “I saw you talking with Senator Merrik,” he explained. “I thought you might like a rescue.”
“We have an acquaintance in common,” Obi-Wan explained. “Satine Kryze, the Duchess of Mandalore.” She smiled a little, digging a little silver fork into one of the cakes. “Senator Merrik’s not my type, anyway.”
Bail laughed a little, eating one of the little cakes in three bites. “How do you like your first taste of politics?”
“More when I pretend that these aren’t actually the people making policy for the entire Republic,” Obi-Wan said, canting her hip and shoulder against a column. “No offense meant, Senator.”
“None taken. I have the same feeling sometimes.” He forked up another bite of cake.
It was past midnight now, and most of the guests had already left, while the remaining few began to filter out as Mon Mothma’s droids and human servants made a pointed and concerted effort to clean up the evening’s detritus. Most of the Senate Guards had left with the guests, leaving only a few Blues behind to watch over the room until the remainder had gone. Mothma was talking with Merrik now, gesturing expansively with her free hand; the other one was holding a half-empty wineglass. Obi-Wan was glad to see that Padmé had finally gotten a chance to sit down; her laugh carrying across the room as Rush Clovis apparently said something clever.
Obi-Wan pointed at him with her fork. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Bail, but isn’t Senator Clovis part of the opposition?”
“You aren’t wrong,” Bail affirmed. “If you ask him, he’ll say he’s here to see how many votes he’s losing. Really he’s here to flirt with Senator Amidala and take notes on everyone who came, so he can send agents from the Banking Clan to remind certain senators that their planets are mortgaged to the hilt, so they ought to consider how attached they are to voting against the bill or else –” He made an expressive gesture with his fork, and Obi-Wan glanced across the room at Padmé and Clovis again. She hadn’t pegged Clovis for being that ruthless, but then again – one of the less pleasant in a litany of unpleasant truths about the Banking Clan was the amount of power they held in the galaxy.
Her comlink buzzed on her belt. Obi-Wan juggled her plate for a moment before she managed to unhook it. “This is Kenobi.”
“Master, it’s me,” Anakin said, with an undertone of worry Obi-Wan didn’t like. “Master Vos says you don’t have to come back, but the Temple’s gone on high alert; Master Ti’s padawan Fe Sun was murdered down in the city an hour ago.”
“What?” Obi-Wan said, passing her plate off to Bail as he held out his hand for it. She stepped away from him, into a quiet corner of the room behind a column. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Anakin said. “I haven’t been out of the Temple all evening. Nobody’s saying much, but Master Vos came by because he knew you weren’t going to be in the Temple tonight. Master Ti and some of the other knights are down in the city right now trying to find the murderer.”
“Do they know why?” Obi-Wan questioned, reaching out with her mind. From here she could touch Anakin’s anxiety and the aura of disquiet and fear that hung over the Jedi Temple, but she wasn’t skilled enough to reach down into the city and touch the minds of the Jedi that had searched, the murderer hiding themselves amongst the billions of beings on the city-planet’s surface. She drew her consciousness back, letting it settle inside the confines of her body.
There was a pause before her padawan’s reply, as presumably Anakin shook his head and then remembered Obi-Wan couldn’t see him. “No, Master. Master Ti and Fe Sun were on assignment down there, but I don’t know what they were doing; Fe Sun’s a lot younger than me.”
“Twelve,” Obi-Wan said, with a faint chill. All the wine she’d been drinking seemed to be burning off fast with the severity of the situation. “Fe Sun was twelve.”
“Was a lot younger than me,” Anakin corrected softly. “I – anyway, Master Vos said that you don’t have to come back immediately, because anyone who targets a padawan probably won’t go after a knight, and you’re with a bunch of senators, there’s probably nowhere safer to be, but –”
“I’ll come back as soon as I can,” Obi-Wan said, and heard his sigh of relief. “The party is finishing up anyway. Stay in the Temple until I get back.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice, Master,” Anakin said. “Skywalker out.”
Obi-Wan replaced the comlink on her belt and went back to Bail, who was eyeing her with concern. “That sounded like bad news.”
“Someone murdered a Jedi Padawan on assignment here on Coruscant,” Obi-Wan said.
His eyebrows shot up. “You go,” he said immediately. “I’ll explain to Mon and Padmé.”
“Thanks,” Obi-Wan said, starting towards the entrance. She stopped at the coat check to get her cloak from the protocol droid and was reaching for the door control when it opened in front of her and someone put a blaster in her face.
Tipsy from wine and champagne or not, her training took over. Obi-Wan slammed her left hand against the man’s grip on the blaster, shoving it sideways and down against his own body as she punched him in the neck with her free hand, hearing his choked-off gasp. In the next movement she’d taken the blaster away from him, leveling the weapon at him with both hands as he staggered away from her, holding his broken trigger finger.
“Stang!” he croaked, his gaze going to the lightsaber on her belt. “No one said there’d be a Jedi here!”
“You’re useless, sleemo!” snapped a woman from behind Obi-Wan, over the sound of someone’s hastily muffled scream.
Obi-Wan took a quick step sideways and back, kicking her dropped cloak out of the way as she put her back to the wall. The protocol droid from the coat check was wittering uselessly as Obi-Wan took in the situation, removing one hand from the blaster to unclip her lightsaber and ignite it. The warmth of the hilt was reassuring against her palm.
“Well,” she said, “that explains why the band was so bad.”
Only Bail Organa looked amused by the quip, though the faint twitch of his lips was the only sight he showed. He was still holding both plates, but he stood very still; two of the men who’d been passing as Mon Mothma’s servants had dropped their trays and pulled blasters from within their suit jackets, both barrels pointed at Bail’s head. The remainder of the false servants had done likewise, along with the band, so that the two remaining Senate Blues and the four Senators were completely surrounded, all of them held at blaster-point. Several of those blasters, including two rifles presumably pulled from the instrument cases, were pointed at Obi-Wan.
Mon Mothma had her hands spread out, open and empty, but her face was blazing with outrage. “What in blazes is this!” she demanded, her gaze focused on the blaster pointed at her face. Obi-Wan couldn’t sense any fear coming from her, though the room was soaked in it; Mothma seemed to be genuinely furious.
“Just a job, Senator,” said a Twi’lek female about Obi-Wan’s age, with a thin smile. She was holding a customized blaster, with a long narrow barrel and red stripes on the butt. Even in the bland bandmaster’s uniform she looked as deadly and dangerous as the quarra Obi-Wan had seen on Devaron, a vicious predator waiting for her chance to strike. Obi-Wan knew her type. Bounty hunter.
“I would advise,” Obi-Wan said coldly, putting a little compulsion behind it, though it wouldn’t have much effect on a group, “that you all rethink your life choices and leave.”
“Sorry, Jedi,” said the bounty hunter. “Can’t do that. Blasters down, boys,” she said to the Senate guards, who looked at each other uncertainly, then at the strangers. They were still holding their ceremonial blasters – as deadly and dangerous as the ones the bounty hunters had produced – but Obi-Wan could tell that they knew they were outnumbered and outgunned, even with a Jedi Knight on their side.
“Do it,” she said, more forcefully, “or I’ll start killing senators.”
“If you wanted to kill senators, you had more than enough chance before you revealed yourselves,” Obi-Wan said. Only Mothma, Bail, Padmé, and Clovis remained in the room. Padmé and Clovis, previously seated, had both stood up; Obi-Wan could tell that both of them were carrying weapons, though neither one made a move to reach for them. The Twi’lek, apparently the bounty hunter in charge, could apparently tell to; she gestured to one of her men, who patted both senators down roughly before removing one of Padmé’s elegant Naboo blasters and a small droid deactivator pistol from Clovis. The Weequay tucked the blaster into the back of his belt and tossed the deactivator aside, laughing. Clovis’s eyes flashed in anger. Obi-Wan shifted forward, onto the balls of her feet, and stopped when Padmé shook her head slightly. She wasn’t the only one that saw the gesture; the Twi’lek woman did too.
Out of the corner of her eye, Obi-Wan saw the bounty hunter she’d taken the blaster from produce a second weapon, but before he could do anything with it she flared the fingers of her left hand, still holding the blaster, and sent man and blaster flying backwards into the hallway, where his head hit the wall with a sickening crack. He slid limply to the floor and didn’t get up again.
The Twi’lek woman laughed. “Very impressive, Master Jedi. But if you try that trick again, I’ll have to start killing innocents – and we all know that you Jedi won’t stand for that, will you?”
“Whatever you’re being paid, I’ll double it,” Clovis insisted, flinching a little as the Twi’lek’s attention – and her blaster – swung around towards him. “I mean it! I represent the Banking Clan, anything you want –”
“Tempting, Senator,” said the Twi’lek. “But I’m afraid that I don’t break contracts. Come on, Blues,” she said to the Senate Guards, “put your blasters down.”
The two men looked at Senator Mothma, who must have been their principal, then at Obi-Wan. She could see the calculation in their eyes – whether or not two highly-trained Senate Guards, the best security force in the galaxy, and a Jedi Knight could defeat more than a dozen bounty hunters without harming any of the Senators. Obi-Wan tipped her head in acknowledgment, and they looked back at Mothma, both clearly unhappy and still calculating the odds.
If the original intention of the bounty hunters had been to harm the senators, they would already have done so. That didn’t mean that they couldn’t suddenly change their minds if the situation seemed to be going in a direction they didn’t like.
Senator Mothma had clearly had the same thought, because she nodded a little at the Guards. They looked unhappy, but they both knelt and put their blaster rifles down on the floor in front of them.
“Helmets too,” the Twi’lek ordered, and they obeyed before standing back up, bare hands upraised.
“What do you want?” Padmé demanded.
“Just a job, Senator Amidala,” said the woman again. She looked back at Obi-Wan, who hadn’t moved since her first threat. “What do you say, Master Jedi? Maybe I won’t do it – but some of my friends here aren’t as kind and gentle-hearted as I am. And I don’t really need all these senators alive.” She glanced around, then closed one purple hand around the back of Padmé’s dress and threw her to the ground, pressing her blaster to the back of her head.
Padmé didn’t scream, just breathed in once, very quickly and dug her fingers into the carpet, looking up at Obi-Wan. Clovis’s voice was rising in protest, Mothma’s and Bail’s as well, but Obi-Wan couldn’t make out any of the words.
“Or maybe I will pull the trigger,” said the Twi’lek cheerfully. “What do you say, Master Jedi?”
Obi-Wan reached out with the Force and knew instantly that she wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. She could stop the woman – but not the other bounty hunters, not all at once.
The Twi’lek’s finger tightened on the trigger.
“All right,” Obi-Wan said quickly, pressing the control for her lightsaber. She held it and the captured blaster up so that the bounty hunter could see them, then knelt and placed them slowly on the tile. She straightened back up with her empty hands still raised.
The Twi’lek bounty hunter smiled. “Jedi are so easy to deal with once you know what makes them tick. Good choice, Master Jedi,” she said in a conversational voice, then pointed the blaster at Obi-Wan and pulled the trigger.
*
tbc
A/N: As I do elsewhere, I'm basically picking and choosing characters and backstory from both the Star Wars: Republic comics and the Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV series, as well as from movie canon.
The last time Obi-Wan had been in the presence of this many politicians, she’d been briefly undercover as one of Queen Amidala’s handmaidens as Amidala addressed the Senate. She’d been told later that Qui-Gon’s orders for the temporary assignment had seemed to border on paranoid, but the encounter with the Sith Lord on Tatooine had disturbed him more than the Council had realized. He couldn’t openly place a Jedi with the Queen without tipping his hand, but once in uniform, with her lightsaber hidden beneath her skirts and her hair covered, her padawan braid pulled out of the way, Obi-Wan had been indistinguishable from the other handmaidens. Fortunately she hadn’t been needed; Darth Maul’s target hadn’t been Amidala, but the Jedi. As Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had learned only too well.
This time she was with Padmé again, but openly as a Jedi Knight, wearing her usual plain Jedi robes and her lightsaber on her belt. She relinquished her cloak at the door to a protocol droid and followed Padmé into the wide, well-lit room, ignoring the prickle at the back of her neck. The problem with being in the presence of a lot of politicians was that their greed and selfishness – among other, even less attractive traits, depending on the politician – tended to overwhelm everything else in the Force. Obi-Wan had the strong suspicion that was why she got a headache every time she went to the Senate Building to pick up Anakin from the Supreme Chancellor’s office. It needn’t even have been the Chancellor, just the combined presence of the Senate Building itself and all its occupants.
She snagged two glasses of wine from a passing rabbit droid carrying a tray of them, handing one to Padmé and keeping the other in hopes that the alcohol would help her concentrate on whatever the Force was trying to tell her. Senator Mothma hadn’t gone so far as to ask her to use the Force to find out which senators were going to vote yay or nay on the bill, which Obi-Wan wouldn’t have agreed to even if she had, but there was no harm in paying attention. Knowing the intentions of various senators could be very helpful to a Jedi Knight.
“I’m sorry Mon dragged you into this,” Padmé murmured to her as they went down the steps into the main room, which was wide and open, with a verandah that looked out over the city. “I know you dislike politics.”
“I’m considering it an educational experience,” Obi-Wan replied, letting her gaze flicker across the crowd without settling on anyone in particular. There were several dozen senators here, with more representatives and an equal number of lobbyists, along with their spouses, children, aides, and assorted hangers-on. Blue-uniformed Senate guards were stationed discreetly all around the room, still as statues, though Obi-Wan could see their gazes flickering across the room, constantly cautious. Mon Mothma had hired a band for the evening, made up of several different species, which had set up on a small stage apparently built for the occasion and was playing the usual uninspiring collection of classical Coruscanti music. Both server droids and guests were ignoring them. Everyone glittered, dressed up for the occasion as if it was more than just a dinner to cozen votes for a bill in its preliminary stages. In her unadorned Jedi robes, Obi-Wan was fairly certain she was the most plainly-dressed being in the room, though that wasn’t exactly an unusual feeling.
“If I’d known she’d try something like this, I would have stopped her,” Padmé replied, stopping to greet the representative from Umbara. Obi-Wan let herself be introduced, then returned the Umbaran’s bow, standing back and sipping at her wine as Padmé and the other woman exchanged a few words about the weather, then the bill before they both moved on.
“It’s all right,” Obi-Wan said, taking up the conversation’s dropped thread. “I wasn’t forced to be here; if I’d been that opposed to it I wouldn’t have come.”
“Well, I’m glad you came,” Padmé said, turning her brilliant smile on Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan smiled back, unable to resist. Padmé Amidala always had had that effect on her.
She was about to reply when she felt a tremor in the Force, like a fly stepping on a spider’s web – or maybe a fellow spider, come to think of it; Obi-Wan knew a Jedi when one entered the room, even if they’d never met. She touched Padmé’s wrist to get her attention and turned to see what had caused the disturbance.
It was the Supreme Chancellor and two of his friends, Senator Viento and the Jedi Master Ronhar Kim. Padmé held out her hand to be kissed, while Obi-Wan bowed slightly as they exchanged greetings. The two Jedi stepped aside as the politicians spoke.
“It’s Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, isn’t it?” said Kim, a tall human male with most of his dark hair pulled back into a topknot, the rest of it in two tails on either side of his face. “I don’t believe we’ve ever been introduced, but I’ve met your padawan once or twice.”
“I don’t know whether to be flattered or alarmed,” Obi-Wan said, smiling.
He tipped his head at the Chancellor, who had been joined by Mon Mothma and Bail Organa. “We have a mutual friend. I believe that our padawans share classes as well.”
“Of course,” Obi-Wan murmured, wondering why Anakin had never mentioned Master Kim before. She finished her wine and handed the empty glass off to a passing droid, tucking her hands into her sleeves. “You and Chancellor Palpatine are close friends?”
“My birth father was his predecessor as the senator from Naboo,” Kim explained. “We met at his funeral. Just before he died, Vidar Kim asked me to leave the Jedi and return to Naboo with him. His wife and son – my mother and brother – had just been killed.” He spoke of his birth family in the same impersonal tones that most of the Jedi did. “It was Palpatine who convinced me that remaining with the Order was the best decision for the Republic.”
“Well, I’m glad he did,” Obi-Wan said. “Give me a Jedi over a politician any day.”
He gave her an edge of a smile. “You don’t like politicians, Master Kenobi?” The faint tilt of his head encompassed the entire room.
Obi-Wan grinned back. “There are a few whom I’m not utterly opposed to.”
“Ah, Master Kenobi,” said Palpatine, moving his attention from Padmé to her.
Obi-Wan turned to face him, bowing from the waist. “Your Excellency.”
“It’s a pleasure to see you, as always,” he said, with that faintly disbelieving mental undertone that Obi-Wan was used to by now, as if he wasn’t quite sure why he was talking to her and not someone more important. “I see you haven’t brought Anakin with you,” he went on, looking around as if he expected to see Anakin appear out of the crowd.
Obi-Wan gave him a thin smile, not feeling particularly inclined to go for the effort it would take to make it seem genuine. “My padawan has his studies to attend to.”
“Of course,” Palpatine said, this time with an undertone that meant, not at all. Obi-Wan gripped her wrists beneath her sleeves, keeping her expression placid as she returned his steady gaze. After a moment he dropped his gaze, unable to hold a Jedi’s eyes for very long. If Obi-Wan had been a pettier woman, she might have smirked; as it was, she was left with a faint sense of unease that she couldn’t quite place, a faint chill running down her spine as the Force tried and failed to tell her something.
The disturbance in the Force, if that was what it was, was quickly eclipsed by her own annoyance as the Chancellor changed the subject. “My dear girl,” he said, in that placid tone that made Obi-Wan grate her back teeth, “I’ve heard a rumor that you and Count Dooku of Serenno have been corresponding.”
Obi-Wan gripped her wrists beneath her sleeves. “‘Corresponding’ is a rather strong word, your Excellency. Before he left the Jedi Order, the Count was my master Qui-Gon’s master. Think of it as an unfortunate and unavoidable family reunion.” Not that many Jedi were privy to those, thank the Force.
Palpatine raised one white eyebrow. Obi-Wan was uncomfortably aware of everyone watching – the four senators, Master Kim, the rest of the room (even if most of their attention wasn’t on the conversation, just the Chancellor’s presence). “Don’t you find it curious that Count Dooku has contacted you just as you’ve expressed an interest in politics?”
“He actually contacted me before Senator Mothma did,” Obi-Wan said. “I truly believe that it’s just a coincidence, your Excellency, not a conspiracy.”
“Is a man who left the Jedi Order so – publicly – really the best influence to have around young Anakin?” said the Chancellor, with the faintest emphasis on the adverb.
Obi-Wan gritted her teeth, but smoothed her voice out for her reply. “My padawan knows what he is, your Excellency. A five minute meeting with a former Jedi Master will hardly change his mind.” If you haven’t managed to do so in the past six years, but she tamped down the thought quickly, cursing herself for the near slip.
The Chancellor paused long enough that Obi-Wan started counting her quickening heartbeats – what was it about the man, anyway? – before replying, “Of course you know best, my dear girl. Anakin is so lucky to have you as his master.”
Obi-Wan gave him a thin smile. “Thank you for your kind words, your Excellency.”
“I do hope your new interest in politics won’t impact his training at all,” the Chancellor added breezily.
He turned away before Obi-Wan could reply. She gripped her wrists so hard that she could feel her fingernails digging into the soft flesh, certain she was radiating cold fury at anyone sensitive enough to pick up on it and trying furiously to get herself under control. She was a Jedi Knight, after all, and the Supreme Chancellor was only another politician who didn’t know any better, he shouldn’t have been able to make her that angry with only a few words –
Ronhar Kim, who was probably the only Force-sensitive being in the room, leveled his steady, patient gaze on her, calm radiating out from him through the Force; Obi-Wan closed her eyes and gave herself until the count of five to open them again, adding a slight mental tendril of thanks in Kim’s direction. She got a tendril of acknowledgment back from him, but no disapproval, for which she was grateful.
“My dear Senator Mothma,” the Chancellor was saying when Obi-Wan drew her attention back to him, “I do appreciate this. I’m glad that you understand how dangerous this bill could be to the Republic if it advances.”
Senator Mothma made a noise of assent. “Thank you for coming, your Excellency, I know that you are a busy man –”
“Indeed, though I’m afraid I can’t stay –”
“Of course, I understand –”
Their voices overlapped each other, and Obi-Wan stopped paying attention to the words. She took another glass of wine from a passing droid, this time a pale pink Coruscant blush, and stood sipping at it slowly, watching the ebb and flow of people in the room. She could feel the Force curled quiescent at the back of her mind, mostly overwhelmed by the intense emotions of the guests. Obi-Wan could have sorted through it, but it wasn’t worth the trouble; the wine was keeping it at a bearable distance. It wasn’t, at this point, as if she needed the Force to make any of the politicians’ intentions clear to her; neither Mothma nor Padmé seemed to expect it.
Eventually the Chancellor departed, having made his approval for Senator Mothma clear, trailing Senator Viento and Master Kim in his wake. Obi-Wan murmured her farewells, fighting through the sudden flash of precognition as she turned towards them: Palpatine, his face wrinkled and twisted in a rictus of hatred; Viento, pleading for his life as a red lightsaber slashed down at him; Kim, his lightsaber falling from his hand as his body was riddled with dozens of blaster shots. Obi-Wan drew in a sharp breath, her hand closing so hard on the stem of the wineglass that it snapped. The images were gone as quickly as they had appeared, leaving her clutching the broken wineglass, blood starting to seep slowly from her palm.
“Obi-Wan?” Padmé said immediately, touching her elbow and drawing her aside behind a column. Bail and Mothma started towards them, then Bail thought better of it and steered Mothma away, leaving Obi-Wan and Padmé as alone as they could be in a crowded room. Padmé motioned a droid over to take the broken glass and produced a handkerchief, pressing it to Obi-Wan’s bloody hand. “Are you all right? What’s wrong?”
Obi-Wan looked down at the red soaking through the pale purple of Padmé’s handkerchief with a faint sense of disbelief. She made herself breathe in and out, a familiar quick meditative pattern that steadied her immediately, enough that she could retrieve her hand from Padmé’s blaster-callused grip. She took the handkerchief away and held her other hand out over her palm, gathering the Force around it. “It’s nothing,” she said, as the cuts closed up, skin knitting together over the wounds until there was nothing left except a few thin red lines. “Just – blast it, Quinlan was right. My precognition is spiking again.”
Padmé was staring at her healed hand, but she dragged her gaze back up to Obi-Wan’s face with a visible jerk. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Shadow on my grave,” Obi-Wan said, making herself smile at her. She snagged a flute of champagne from a server droid and drained it in one gulp. “It’s nothing, really. Don’t worry about me.”
“I do worry,” Padmé said, taking the ruined handkerchief from her and folding a cocktail napkin around it before putting it back into her reticule. “What else are friends for?”
“Backup?” Obi-Wan suggested, replacing the empty flute on the droid’s tray. It chirped at her, and she obediently took another glass, looking down at the faintly colored liquid.
Padmé shook her head. “You Jedi. Are you sure you’re all right? I’ve never seen you do that before.”
“I’m fine,” Obi-Wan said, casting her gaze over the rest of the room. Nobody appeared to have noticed that Senator Mothma’s Jedi guest had broken a glass and bloodied her hand over a vision. Well, most of them probably had other, more important things to be interested in.
Padmé gave her an uncertain look, hesitating, but she was stopped from saying anything more by the approach of Rush Clovis. The Banking Clan’s senator wound his way towards them, trailing several droids bearing plates of hors d’oeuvres. “Senator Amidala,” he said, pressing a kiss to her cheek, then, “Master Kenobi,” bowing over Obi-Wan’s hand. “I thought you might like something to eat.”
“How kind of you, Senator Clovis,” Padmé said, taking the proffered plate. She and Clovis immediately launched into a spirited discussion of the bill, which attracted the attention of a number of other senators and representatives who drifted over to weigh in.
Obi-Wan stood comfortably back and listened, nibbling at the hors d’oeuvres Clovis had brought them. Several times senators and representatives came up to her, wanting to know the Jedi’s views on the bill or merely curious to speak with a Jedi Knight for the first time. She’d done enough research that she could converse knowledgeably about the bill, using her experience from dozens of missions throughout the galaxy to discuss its repercussions on numerous worlds. There was something strangely enjoyable about it; Obi-Wan would never go so far as to say that she took pleasure in showing off, but it reminded her a little of logic classes at the Temple back when she’d been a padawan. She’d always been good at making connections that other padawans didn’t see.
Senators and representatives drifted in and out throughout the evening, while the mixed species band continued to play insipid music and failed to improve. Obi-Wan finished off several more glasses of wine and another plate of hors d’oeuvres, fending off the clumsy flirtations of several senators who were more interested in her breasts than her words or the lightsaber on her belt. There was nothing in the Jedi Code that forbade Jedi from having affairs outside the Order – so long as there was no attachment involved, at least – and there were a number of beings on Coruscant who practically fetishized Jedi. Obi-Wan had heard from Master Shaak Ti that Senator Tal Merrik of Kalevala kept a list of Jedi he had slept with and wasn’t surprised when he approached her, smiling and with a distinct mental overtone that he thought he was irresistible. Obi-Wan took the glass of wine he offered her but refused to leave with him, which he accepted with a smile and a shrug, chatting with her for a few minutes about the year-long mission she and Qui-Gon had been on in his home system almost ten years ago now.
A few minutes after he left her, Bail Organa came over, carrying two plates with an assortment of small cakes on them. He offered one to her. “I saw you talking with Senator Merrik,” he explained. “I thought you might like a rescue.”
“We have an acquaintance in common,” Obi-Wan explained. “Satine Kryze, the Duchess of Mandalore.” She smiled a little, digging a little silver fork into one of the cakes. “Senator Merrik’s not my type, anyway.”
Bail laughed a little, eating one of the little cakes in three bites. “How do you like your first taste of politics?”
“More when I pretend that these aren’t actually the people making policy for the entire Republic,” Obi-Wan said, canting her hip and shoulder against a column. “No offense meant, Senator.”
“None taken. I have the same feeling sometimes.” He forked up another bite of cake.
It was past midnight now, and most of the guests had already left, while the remaining few began to filter out as Mon Mothma’s droids and human servants made a pointed and concerted effort to clean up the evening’s detritus. Most of the Senate Guards had left with the guests, leaving only a few Blues behind to watch over the room until the remainder had gone. Mothma was talking with Merrik now, gesturing expansively with her free hand; the other one was holding a half-empty wineglass. Obi-Wan was glad to see that Padmé had finally gotten a chance to sit down; her laugh carrying across the room as Rush Clovis apparently said something clever.
Obi-Wan pointed at him with her fork. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Bail, but isn’t Senator Clovis part of the opposition?”
“You aren’t wrong,” Bail affirmed. “If you ask him, he’ll say he’s here to see how many votes he’s losing. Really he’s here to flirt with Senator Amidala and take notes on everyone who came, so he can send agents from the Banking Clan to remind certain senators that their planets are mortgaged to the hilt, so they ought to consider how attached they are to voting against the bill or else –” He made an expressive gesture with his fork, and Obi-Wan glanced across the room at Padmé and Clovis again. She hadn’t pegged Clovis for being that ruthless, but then again – one of the less pleasant in a litany of unpleasant truths about the Banking Clan was the amount of power they held in the galaxy.
Her comlink buzzed on her belt. Obi-Wan juggled her plate for a moment before she managed to unhook it. “This is Kenobi.”
“Master, it’s me,” Anakin said, with an undertone of worry Obi-Wan didn’t like. “Master Vos says you don’t have to come back, but the Temple’s gone on high alert; Master Ti’s padawan Fe Sun was murdered down in the city an hour ago.”
“What?” Obi-Wan said, passing her plate off to Bail as he held out his hand for it. She stepped away from him, into a quiet corner of the room behind a column. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Anakin said. “I haven’t been out of the Temple all evening. Nobody’s saying much, but Master Vos came by because he knew you weren’t going to be in the Temple tonight. Master Ti and some of the other knights are down in the city right now trying to find the murderer.”
“Do they know why?” Obi-Wan questioned, reaching out with her mind. From here she could touch Anakin’s anxiety and the aura of disquiet and fear that hung over the Jedi Temple, but she wasn’t skilled enough to reach down into the city and touch the minds of the Jedi that had searched, the murderer hiding themselves amongst the billions of beings on the city-planet’s surface. She drew her consciousness back, letting it settle inside the confines of her body.
There was a pause before her padawan’s reply, as presumably Anakin shook his head and then remembered Obi-Wan couldn’t see him. “No, Master. Master Ti and Fe Sun were on assignment down there, but I don’t know what they were doing; Fe Sun’s a lot younger than me.”
“Twelve,” Obi-Wan said, with a faint chill. All the wine she’d been drinking seemed to be burning off fast with the severity of the situation. “Fe Sun was twelve.”
“Was a lot younger than me,” Anakin corrected softly. “I – anyway, Master Vos said that you don’t have to come back immediately, because anyone who targets a padawan probably won’t go after a knight, and you’re with a bunch of senators, there’s probably nowhere safer to be, but –”
“I’ll come back as soon as I can,” Obi-Wan said, and heard his sigh of relief. “The party is finishing up anyway. Stay in the Temple until I get back.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice, Master,” Anakin said. “Skywalker out.”
Obi-Wan replaced the comlink on her belt and went back to Bail, who was eyeing her with concern. “That sounded like bad news.”
“Someone murdered a Jedi Padawan on assignment here on Coruscant,” Obi-Wan said.
His eyebrows shot up. “You go,” he said immediately. “I’ll explain to Mon and Padmé.”
“Thanks,” Obi-Wan said, starting towards the entrance. She stopped at the coat check to get her cloak from the protocol droid and was reaching for the door control when it opened in front of her and someone put a blaster in her face.
Tipsy from wine and champagne or not, her training took over. Obi-Wan slammed her left hand against the man’s grip on the blaster, shoving it sideways and down against his own body as she punched him in the neck with her free hand, hearing his choked-off gasp. In the next movement she’d taken the blaster away from him, leveling the weapon at him with both hands as he staggered away from her, holding his broken trigger finger.
“Stang!” he croaked, his gaze going to the lightsaber on her belt. “No one said there’d be a Jedi here!”
“You’re useless, sleemo!” snapped a woman from behind Obi-Wan, over the sound of someone’s hastily muffled scream.
Obi-Wan took a quick step sideways and back, kicking her dropped cloak out of the way as she put her back to the wall. The protocol droid from the coat check was wittering uselessly as Obi-Wan took in the situation, removing one hand from the blaster to unclip her lightsaber and ignite it. The warmth of the hilt was reassuring against her palm.
“Well,” she said, “that explains why the band was so bad.”
Only Bail Organa looked amused by the quip, though the faint twitch of his lips was the only sight he showed. He was still holding both plates, but he stood very still; two of the men who’d been passing as Mon Mothma’s servants had dropped their trays and pulled blasters from within their suit jackets, both barrels pointed at Bail’s head. The remainder of the false servants had done likewise, along with the band, so that the two remaining Senate Blues and the four Senators were completely surrounded, all of them held at blaster-point. Several of those blasters, including two rifles presumably pulled from the instrument cases, were pointed at Obi-Wan.
Mon Mothma had her hands spread out, open and empty, but her face was blazing with outrage. “What in blazes is this!” she demanded, her gaze focused on the blaster pointed at her face. Obi-Wan couldn’t sense any fear coming from her, though the room was soaked in it; Mothma seemed to be genuinely furious.
“Just a job, Senator,” said a Twi’lek female about Obi-Wan’s age, with a thin smile. She was holding a customized blaster, with a long narrow barrel and red stripes on the butt. Even in the bland bandmaster’s uniform she looked as deadly and dangerous as the quarra Obi-Wan had seen on Devaron, a vicious predator waiting for her chance to strike. Obi-Wan knew her type. Bounty hunter.
“I would advise,” Obi-Wan said coldly, putting a little compulsion behind it, though it wouldn’t have much effect on a group, “that you all rethink your life choices and leave.”
“Sorry, Jedi,” said the bounty hunter. “Can’t do that. Blasters down, boys,” she said to the Senate guards, who looked at each other uncertainly, then at the strangers. They were still holding their ceremonial blasters – as deadly and dangerous as the ones the bounty hunters had produced – but Obi-Wan could tell that they knew they were outnumbered and outgunned, even with a Jedi Knight on their side.
“Do it,” she said, more forcefully, “or I’ll start killing senators.”
“If you wanted to kill senators, you had more than enough chance before you revealed yourselves,” Obi-Wan said. Only Mothma, Bail, Padmé, and Clovis remained in the room. Padmé and Clovis, previously seated, had both stood up; Obi-Wan could tell that both of them were carrying weapons, though neither one made a move to reach for them. The Twi’lek, apparently the bounty hunter in charge, could apparently tell to; she gestured to one of her men, who patted both senators down roughly before removing one of Padmé’s elegant Naboo blasters and a small droid deactivator pistol from Clovis. The Weequay tucked the blaster into the back of his belt and tossed the deactivator aside, laughing. Clovis’s eyes flashed in anger. Obi-Wan shifted forward, onto the balls of her feet, and stopped when Padmé shook her head slightly. She wasn’t the only one that saw the gesture; the Twi’lek woman did too.
Out of the corner of her eye, Obi-Wan saw the bounty hunter she’d taken the blaster from produce a second weapon, but before he could do anything with it she flared the fingers of her left hand, still holding the blaster, and sent man and blaster flying backwards into the hallway, where his head hit the wall with a sickening crack. He slid limply to the floor and didn’t get up again.
The Twi’lek woman laughed. “Very impressive, Master Jedi. But if you try that trick again, I’ll have to start killing innocents – and we all know that you Jedi won’t stand for that, will you?”
“Whatever you’re being paid, I’ll double it,” Clovis insisted, flinching a little as the Twi’lek’s attention – and her blaster – swung around towards him. “I mean it! I represent the Banking Clan, anything you want –”
“Tempting, Senator,” said the Twi’lek. “But I’m afraid that I don’t break contracts. Come on, Blues,” she said to the Senate Guards, “put your blasters down.”
The two men looked at Senator Mothma, who must have been their principal, then at Obi-Wan. She could see the calculation in their eyes – whether or not two highly-trained Senate Guards, the best security force in the galaxy, and a Jedi Knight could defeat more than a dozen bounty hunters without harming any of the Senators. Obi-Wan tipped her head in acknowledgment, and they looked back at Mothma, both clearly unhappy and still calculating the odds.
If the original intention of the bounty hunters had been to harm the senators, they would already have done so. That didn’t mean that they couldn’t suddenly change their minds if the situation seemed to be going in a direction they didn’t like.
Senator Mothma had clearly had the same thought, because she nodded a little at the Guards. They looked unhappy, but they both knelt and put their blaster rifles down on the floor in front of them.
“Helmets too,” the Twi’lek ordered, and they obeyed before standing back up, bare hands upraised.
“What do you want?” Padmé demanded.
“Just a job, Senator Amidala,” said the woman again. She looked back at Obi-Wan, who hadn’t moved since her first threat. “What do you say, Master Jedi? Maybe I won’t do it – but some of my friends here aren’t as kind and gentle-hearted as I am. And I don’t really need all these senators alive.” She glanced around, then closed one purple hand around the back of Padmé’s dress and threw her to the ground, pressing her blaster to the back of her head.
Padmé didn’t scream, just breathed in once, very quickly and dug her fingers into the carpet, looking up at Obi-Wan. Clovis’s voice was rising in protest, Mothma’s and Bail’s as well, but Obi-Wan couldn’t make out any of the words.
“Or maybe I will pull the trigger,” said the Twi’lek cheerfully. “What do you say, Master Jedi?”
Obi-Wan reached out with the Force and knew instantly that she wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. She could stop the woman – but not the other bounty hunters, not all at once.
The Twi’lek’s finger tightened on the trigger.
“All right,” Obi-Wan said quickly, pressing the control for her lightsaber. She held it and the captured blaster up so that the bounty hunter could see them, then knelt and placed them slowly on the tile. She straightened back up with her empty hands still raised.
The Twi’lek bounty hunter smiled. “Jedi are so easy to deal with once you know what makes them tick. Good choice, Master Jedi,” she said in a conversational voice, then pointed the blaster at Obi-Wan and pulled the trigger.
*
tbc