“Helping! Since you and Dooku won’t, I will. Welcome to Padmeland the realm of wood, blasters and a couple of detonators I found just lying around. All hail Queen Padme Amidala, and kneel before her fortress of death.”
As concerning as it was that some random woman was able to find detonators just lying around Anakin was actually impressed. Not so much at her ingenuity, this was a terrible idea. Starwerids weren’t affected by solid objects to this little castle of furniture would just act as a cage. Still, the fact that she had been able to stack these large wooden tabled upon eachother was remarkable. How had she done that?
“You realise this won’t work right?” Anakin enhanced himself with The Force to leap up as so he could reach the top of the little fortress.
Padme looked like she hadn’t slept at all tonight. Her hair was a mess, really to call it a mess would be generous. Anakin had seen planets undergo nuclear holocausts and still maintain themselves better than Padme had.
“You didn’t sleep.” Anakin narrowed his eyes examining the royalty. She only glared at him, her bloodshot eyes promising a fiery death reminiscent of that time Obi-Wan left him on Mustafar.
“You slept?! There are space ghosts waiting outside to kill us! How can you sleep?”
“Wine mostly.”
Padme gave an annoyed growl, as if his alcoholism was somehow her problem. Her real problem was exhaustion. Anakin didn’t need to probe her mind to know she hadn’t been eating and had barely been drinking any water. How long had she spent last night creating this monstrosity of wood?
Rolling Anakin’s eyes, he pointed at a chair that thankfully wasn’t load-bearing and ripped it out of the fortress, much to Padme’s dismay.
“What are you doing?!”
“Sit,” Anakin said annoyed. Padme did struggle for a bit but in her tired state, it didn’t take a lot for the chosen one to keep her seated. “You’re going to die if you keep this up. You need food and water, and frankly, a bath.”
“What I need is for Padmeland to be complete. Dooku has already written up unfair trade deals with Republican senators who are so cowardly they would put their own lives before their own people. If they hadn’t already sold their soul then they are thinking about it, I have to finish this so that people don’t have to be blackmailed by Dooku.”
Anakin scratched his chin in thought. As much as Anakin hated Dooku he couldn’t deny he was effective. No wonder Palpatine scouted him. Dooku really had no weakness. Insanely good with a lightsaber, powerful in The Force and while there were certainly a lot of combat-capable Jedi, Dooku was one of the few who could navigate the political battlefield as well. Had Maul led the CIS The clone wars probably would have been more brutal but short-lived. Dooku had created an Empire one that could have thrived outside of war, something Maul wouldn’t have the patience for.
“If you keep at it like this, the Starweirds won’t even bother to attack you. You’ll be so close to death they’ll just walk right over you’re husk of a corpse barely clinging to life.”
“Would… would that actually happen?”
“Would what happen?”
“Being close to death causes those thingies to not attack you?”
Anakin shrugged, despite his thousands of years of experience he actually had no clue. In his defence, the brain can only store a finite amount of information and most of it was being taken up with key details of the Galaxy over the next century. Even then, there are times when Palpatine hides for a long time or finds a way around aging, which was a bit more fair game for the annoying Sith Lord as Anakin couldn’t rely on his knowledge of the past.
Through a bit of trial and error, Anakin was able to figure out the rules of the loops.
- Anakin would always reset back to when he was 17 in the Jedi Temple
- Anakin’s death would cause a reset
- If Palpatine was dead at the time of his death then the loop would not reset
- Palpatine has to STAY dead. If Anakin dies and Palpatine has a secret clone lab then the Whills will wait and watch and if Palps returns, the loop resets.
You would think that after so many loops Anakin could just go through step by step to win constantly restarting the repeating the same thing only changing very small details. Anakin had thought that too, and had tried it but to little success.
Loops were too different, even if Anakin stayed out of certain things, they would change. He could never talk once to random individuals but on some loops, they would die in a variety of different ways. No two loops were the same.
The point he was getting at was that there was no set loop. There were just factors that almost always happened. For example, Luke and Leia. While it wasn’t always, almost ninety per cent of the Padme and Anakin had children it would be those two. Genetically it shouldn’t be possible, the right sperm with the right egg. He would have to have sex at just the right time and had the exact same amount of… sexual experiences whether that was with someone or by himself. The Force finds a way, though. He wouldn’t be surprised if the Force was playing a part, Luke and Leia were loved by it.
“Being close to death? No clue. Every time I encounter the Starweirds I am fully conscious and it was more of a battle than a slaughter like this.”
“What did you do last time?!”
“I was surrounded by several powerful force-sensitives.” Anakin saw the small bit of life drain out of Padme’s eyes.
“Still… if the alternative is that everyone will die. Does the force improve every part of you? Like, i don’t know, your cardiovsaular and pulmonary system?”
“Yes…” Anakin raised a brow, slowly piecing together what her awful plan was. “And why exactly do you want to know that?”
“I can’t tell you, or else you’ll try and stop me.” She walked up and kissed him on the cheek, something that made him raise a brow at her.
She hadn’t developed any feelings for him, he could feel that by how forced the kiss felt. He could actually feel her heart scrunch up and her face wince as if her lips touching his cheek actually physically hurt her. But, he certainly wasn’t going to stop her from doing something that would make her miserable.
He would even be generous and pretend he didn’t feel her reaching around his waist and taking his employee ID card.
***
Padme eagerly ran down the corridors of the ship. Vader’s presence had been awful as always, she couldn’t believe he actually forced her to sit down! Her! Did her legs feel awful, yes. Was she running on no food, yes. Had she tripped several times while running cause her muscles were aching from moving a ton of furniture building Padmeland, also yes. Still, that was no reason for ‘him’ of all people to tell her to rest.
“Still, he was full of information.” She murmured to herself in her half-delirious state. The Starwerids force-hating beings of death, right? Vader seemed certain that they would target Force sensitives first. By that logic more Force equals more targeting, right? With Dooku being the strongest being on this ship, it would mean most Starweids would target him. Still the ship was large and many wouldn't target him. What she needed to do was either make Dooku a larger target or make the others almost invisible in the Force.
She didn’t really know how she could increase Dooku in the Force, but she could lower other people.
“Miss Amidala, all guests are to retire to their rooms. I have to ask you to vacate the premises.” The IG-88 droid said.
Padme was a little disgusted by the droid. Not because she had any prejudice against them but rather because of this droid-specific function. The IG-88 model was banned in the Republic, that was because they were more commonly referred to as assassin droids. They had thin but a tall build. Designed to be as little as a target as possible, the sole purpose of this droid was to kill. To have such a droid be in charge of Padme’s protection made her almost wish Vader was back. Then again this murder droid probably had better manners and treated people with more respect than Vader ever could.
“I have clearance.” Padme proudly puffed out her chest holding up the ID she stole from Vader.
“That is staff member Vader’s ID. The probability of it being stolen is 89 percent.”
“Vader gave it to me.”
“98 percent.” Oh come on!
“I just really need to get through,”
“Please vacate the premises miss Amidala. If you do not remove yourself I will be authorised henceforth to use level one force. This includes obstruction, mild pushing and if required, physical restriction.”
“Well, I guess you are politer than Vader… but can you do this.” Padme tried to side step the droid but almost instantly it held up it’s arm stopping her. “Okay I guess you can.”
“Approaching level 2.”
“Oh yeah? And what’s level 2?”
“Authorisation of shock weapons.”
“Oh… that sounds painful.”
“From the reports, it does.”
“Welp. It’s been wonderful but I’m just going to sneak through that door.”
“Auth-A-A-Au-” Sparks shot from the droid, spewing over Padme.
“Are you okay? Are you having a stroke? I didn’t know droids could do that.”
The few sparks erupted from the IG-88 droid, showering Padme, she did her best to cover herself as the droid twitched, it’s metal scraped against itself as he droid moved unnaturally till it eventuall fell to the floor.
“Well… that’s convenient.”
“Do not p-p-proceed further miss A-A-Amidala, you are entering a r-r-restricted area.” It scrieked in a broken voice.
Padme ignored the droid. At least it hadn’t died, but it seemed whatever glitch it had stopped it from being able to move. She supposed a Hutt cutting corners to save money wasn’t really a surprise, that was the problem with droid security. If you weren’t willing to put in the money for porper mainance then these kind of incidents would happen.
***
“All you have to do is sign right here and you my dear friend have guaranteed you’ll see your family by the end of this remarkibly.” Dooku tapped the contract expectingly. This had been a wonderful evening of political exploitation.
“This is extortion,” The prince narrowed his eyes. He was some sort of Royalty from some random planet in independent space that wanted to keep his neutrality.
“Yes, but not only is that not provable, there is no court for planets. If you were to join the Confederacy, we are working on a supreme court that handles planetary legal issues.”
“I already said no to joining your little rebellion. I might be weak Dooku but I didn’t get where I am by picking fights I couldn’t win. You of all people should know. My planet was targeted by the Mandoloarians, I myself heard of your ‘accomplishments’. Surely you know the Republic and more importantly the Jedi won’t allow this.” A small bit of pride warmed his chest. His battles against the Mandalorians had been some of his finest. The fact that people still spoke of it now was just a testament to his achievements during that war.
“Come now, why the hostilities. We came to this compromise of you closing your borders to the Republic for both tourism, trade and occupation. Which you are taking a remarkably long time to sign. It’s your signature, children can do it, probably faster too.”
“I just don’t like it. It’s… It’s, It’s hard to breathe.”
“No, it’s a contract. I thought we’ve been over this.” Dooku sighed. Anakin was a pain to deal with, but at least the boy seemed to be intelligent, Padme would have also not been awful company. She did accuse him of being a child abuser, but Dooku was a man of taste. He was a higher quality, cut from a finer cloth. As such he was not only a man that required the finest food, the finest wine but also the finest company. Something he was being starved for.
“No, it’s getting really hard to breathe.”
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“Just sign the paper, the contract has multiple pages. We can’t struggle this much on the first page.”
“I-I can’t. We need to get out of this room. The air- the air is so thin.”
Dooku rolled his eyes and took a deep breathe in. The prince wasn’t wrong, the was remarkably thin. Nothing a trained Jedi couldn’t handle, even before learning the Force the younglings at the temple are taught to control their breath. With a bit of meditation and channeling the Force a Jedi could lower the amount of oxygen their body they used and still function.
“I’m sure we can figure it out, after you sign the-” The prince collapsed onto the floor, his breath tried and ragged. Not dead, just unconscious. The air was too low for a regular person to stay conscious but for Dooku all he needed was a bit of concentration and he’d be fine. “Contract. Wonderful, just wonderful.”
It wasn’t just the prince who fainted, Dooku felt it, sudden drops in The Force signatures as senators throughout the ship fainted.
Those ghost-creatures perhaps? Had they struck? Dooku had noticed that more and more of them had slowly built up outside the ship, waiting to go in for the kill. Annoyingly Dooku had kept a close eye on Anakin, occasionally probing his mind to see if the annoying brat persona had finally broken and he was just a scared, exploitable child like these Senators were.
He annoyingly wasn’t, the boy was brave, Dooku would give him that. Yet, as always the boy seemed to do what inconvenienced Dooku the most, shame. Dooku was hoping to use this as a way of forcing the Chosen One to become his apprentice. Then again, even if Anakin did promise him an apprenticeship, Dooku had a very strong feeling that the teenager would never actually honour their deal.
“No, they wouldn’t attack like this. They eat fear and hatred. They kill for pleasure, not for sustenance.” Dooku murmured to himself. There would be no point in knocking out their prey when it was the hunt they enjoyed. “Which means, someone on the ship did this.”
Who would possibly do it though? This would just put everyone at risk, well, besides himself and potentially Anakin. No… it wouldn’t put everyone at risk, would it? They enjoy the hunt. These creatures would sooner walk over bodies of easy prey if it meant they could torture someone to death. Someone conscious.
“Well, you certainly have put me in a difficult position, haven’t you?” Dooku sneered at the unknown entity behind this. “Become the sole target of the creatures or allow myself to faint too and join in the slaughter.”
Just cause the Starweirds hunted for pleasure didn’t mean they were above killing knocked-out opponents if there was nothing else.
Had Anakin planned this? No, Anakin is too selfish. The boy really didn’t seem like the person who would trust his life to another. Grakkus? The Hutt certainly did have a fetish with the Jedi and by extension Dooku, he had on multiple occasions had to shoot the slug several warning glances when Grakkus had tried to reach for his lightsaber on many occasions. Grakkus was definitely a real possibility, not to mention also extremely desperate as so the Hutt clans wouldn’t be angry with him. He also had clearance to get to the life support of the ship which no doubt was restricted behind some sort of security.
Dooku took a tired breath and took off his lightsaber. “Very well Grakkus, it was a clever move, I’ll give you that. Clever but not well thought out. What’s one more death on this ship?”
However, before Dooku could leave to slaughter the Hutt he felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. His breathe became visible as the things that were preparing to hunt him were trying their best to scare him.
Wonderful.
Dooku rolled out of the way as hands tried to grab his legs from beneath him. The ceiling, the walls and the floor, there was no surface that the ghost like creatures didn’t come out of.
It seemed that with Dooku one of the very few conscious creatures on the ship the monsters decided they were done with waiting. They only had to kill one person and then they wouldn’t have to worry about anything else.
“Shame, I would have loved to study you.” Dooku scowled.
If Dooku had to guess how powerful these things were in the Force then he’d put them around a Jedi knight. For beings with no formal training these things were able to compensate through saturating themselves in the darkside.
Maybe if there were all Jedi knights they would be able to overwelm him. Dooku was a talented duellist, but he could only defend so many attacks at once with one lightsaber, but these things didn’t use lightsabers.
Before more could show up Dooku launched himself into two of them. One tried to shatter his force shield with telekinesis while the other tried to float away whilst shooting Sith lightning.
Almost effortlessly he both dodged the lightning and swung his lightsaberdecapitating the first monster which hadn’t been nearly trained enough to destroy Dooku’s well crafted Force shield. In a fluid movement Dooku continued his swing, spinning his body around letting his momentum carry him as so his next strike bisected the one that had tried to run away.
If the monsters were bothered by the fact Dooku had just slughted two of them with relative ease then they certainly didn’t show it as almost immediately three more descended upon him. Okay, maybe this was going to be a bit more difficult then he previously thought.
***
Padme was freezing. Those Starweirds loved to mess with the temperature and lights as once again the senator was illuminated in the red of emergency lights. She once again reached up and took a deep breathe of the oxygen mask she had brought with her. It was one of those tankless breathing masks that had so little oxygen that it wouldn’t last long so she was praying that Dooku would be quick.
She had no idea how many Starwerids there were, or if Dooku had survived. She would have to guess when to turn the lifesupport back on, but as for now, she was running under the plan to last as long as possible as she could. The plan had seemed so smart back when she came up with it in Padmeland but now that she had to remind herself to breath slowly she was beginning to see the flaws.
The plan was to lower the lifesupport making everyone faint from a lack of oxygen. If what she understood about the Force was right, then being close to death should lower one’s prescence in it. Everyone but her, someone had to stay awake and turn the lifesupport back on. After all Dooku was probably going to make his way here after killing all the monsters and then maybe leave the lifesupport off as to kidnap everyone.
Only one main problem, if she was still conscious, her force signature was still normal. Unlike Vader, these ghosts and Dooku, she didn’t have the ability to apparently sense people, she had to just have faith Dooku was still alive and would have to hold off on turning back the life support.
Padme was submerged in darkness as now even the emergency lights were being messed with before they turned back on. They were preparing her, as creatures that feed on fear their idea of adding spices to a meal was to maximise her fear.
It was working, Padme had always considered herself brave. Senators getting assassinated certainly wasn’t uncommon and even as a princess, she had a target on her back as a child. The way she dealt with it was statistics, yes some senators get assassinated but most don’t. With good security and proper protocol she would be fine. That was a comforting fact back when she had armed guards patrolling her castle, something she was noticing a distinct lack of.
To put it plainly, she was terrified, her eyes had teared up, her legs where shaking and her heart was beating at what felt a hundred beats a second. Everything hurt, she was overstimulated and she knew it. But knowing you were overstimulated didn’t help much when you murder ghosts after you. This was means a proud moment for her and she’d have been lying if the thought of turning back on the life support didn’t occur to her a few times. Anything for her to get out of this hell.
“Failure.”
“Freak.”
“Spoilt bitch.”
She was unsure if that was just her thoughts being so loud in her last moments or it was the actual ghosts in the walls but it didn’t really matter. No matter how hard she tried to over her ears she heard the words she told herself a hundred times a day.
With a strong shake of her head, she forcefully shook the words out of her head. She couldn’t be distracted, she had to stay focused. Remember why she was here.
The lights flicked off once more. That’s right, she was here to die.
Back when the lights flicked on she was no longer alone. There in the distance of the long corridor illuminated in the red lights was a familiar form. A long floating skeleton with long talons and flowing white hair seemed to completely ignore the artificial gravity.
It didn’t rush down the corridor, it didn’t even move. It just floated there with a big, toothy grin. Then the lights went out and by the time they returned, the Starweird was a few meters closer. So that was the game it wanted to play. What a fucking cliche.
“If you're going to kill me just do it.” Padme tried to scream, but her lungs were tired and the air was thin.
The lights went off again, but this time Padme didn’t wait for the monster to stalk its way to her. She shot blaster bolt after blaster bolt at the monster. Most did miss, but Padme chose to blame the fact she didn’t have much oxygen rather than her lack of training. Yet, the corridor was narrow, and a few blue blaster bolts sped through the dark and connected against the Starweird.
Vader had said that blaster bolts were ineffective but when she saw the blue knock the head back of the ghost she felt a small smile make it’s way onto her lips… until the ghost flung it’s head back forward with it’s classic big toothy smile.
“Just fucking kill me!”
The Starweird didn’t though, instead it waited. It waited until they were once again submerged by dark before it crept further. The monster was set on dragging this out, taking as much fear as it could from her before eventually torturing her to death.
Padme’s tears openly fell as she shot again and again, each blaster bolt somehow doing less and less against the monster. With a hopeless sigh Padme lowered her blaster and looked towards the life support. Should she turn it back on now? How many had Dooku killed? It couldn’t have been that long, less than an hour definitely. Turning it back on now would still be a death sentence to everyone on this ship but leaving it off would leave them all at Dooku’s mercy.
No, she could last a little longer.
“No, you can’t.” Her own voice repeated back at her in her own head. Padme quickly turned around, her heart in her chest as she turned to come face to face with the Starweird.
She tried to get the blaster up but the long talons of the monster bit into her flesh making her scream. The ghost looked to relish in her pain, feeling her suffering through a mental connection forced upon her by the Starweird. While it could feel her pain she could feel it’s enjoyment. Her suffering made the thing feel… orgasmic, undeniable pleasure.
The other talon came up, not to cut into her flesh but so it could use that invisible power Dooku and Vader had. Something reached into her mind trying to force every terrible memory she had ever in her life to the surface of her mind. The time she cried when she found text messages of her friends only being with her for her wealth. When she burst into her father’s throne room in the middle of an important meeting claiming she had been assassinated when in reality she had just had her first period. When she had admitted in front of everyone Vader and her had shared a bed.
She was thankfully ripped from her thoughts as she heard the familiar hum of a lightsaber. Had Vader come to save her? A bright red light superheated the metal above them, dropping liquid hot metal thankfully a few feet away from her, not scarring her for life.
A figure Padme recognised dropped down from the ceiling, lightsaber in hand and looking furious as always. With a quick slice, the Starweird’s head split from its neck and dropped to the ground.
“Oh, you're not Vader.” Padme said to her saviour, she imagined that might be the first time someone ever said that, disappointed.
“No. No, I am not.” Dooku growled. “And you are not Grakkus.”
“What gave it away?” Padme giggled to herself. She was so light-headed right now that she hadn’t even come to terms with her soon-to-be death.
“You are responsible for this? Perhaps I misjudged you Amidala, you aren’t smart. You’re an idiot who does stupid things under the guise of bravery when in reality you are a simple-minded fool. Look at yourself, barely breathing and freezing to death.”
“Yeah well… you wear a cape. That’s so lame.” Padme gave a defiant middle finger to the Count.
“Charming as always. Well, you’ve caused me a great deal of annoyance. You know how many of those things attacked me? I’ll give you a hint, I stopped counting after I hit the twenties.”
“I didn’t know you could count that high.” Padme flinched as Dooku’s lightsaber cut the metal next to her head showering her in sparks and heat.
“I’m going to kill you now. I will blame the deaths of you and your Republic idiots on this incident, of course killing some CIS and Hutt representatives so as to not make it too obvious. I would have much rather trade deals, senators can be replaced after all. However, I won’t lie. A part of me is going to enjoy this very much.”
He raised his lightsaber.
“Stop!” A voice roared from down the corridor. The voice was hoarse and pained, the thin air and stressed breathing causing damage to the voice. “Dooku, you arse. Touch her and you die.”
Dooku and Padme turned to face the corridor seeing Vader illuminated in the blue light of his lightsabre. He looked awful. His shirt had been half burned off, his hair was covered in soot and he was bleeding an alarming amount. He looked like he had been run over by a hover car which had then exploded.
“And the Chosen Brat arrives just in at the right time. I would call it fate but at this point, I think it’s more of a divine punishment rather than prophecy. I’m sorry Vader but I don’t have any drugs on me. Maybe find one of your one-night stands, you know. Besides this one of course.” Dooku gestured towards Padme. Rude. Clearly the low oxygen hadn’t affected the Count’s quick wit.
“Come on Dooku. This is beneath even someone like you.”
“Someone like me?” Dooku raised a brow. “As flattering as you are being I really want to kill her. Those things aren’t exactly easy to deal with.”
“I’m aware,” Anakin raised his left hand. Padme winced seeing it, his fingers were bent at unnatural angles and there were plenty of electric burns running down his flesh. He must be in extraordinary amounts of pain right now but he looked completely unbothered. If anything he looked more bothered by the presence of Dooku than anything. “But killing Padme is pointless, she’s barely even liked in the Republic-”
“Hey!”
“Killing her will probably just replace her with someone the Republic actually likes.”
“That isn’t… untrue, I suppose.” Dooku mused. “But I need something out of all this.”
“Anything you want, I don’t care about these Senators.”
“I want you. Six months, you’ll be under house arrest back in my estate in Serrano house at any time I want.” Wait what? Padme couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Dooku was negotiating for him of all people.
“You think you can get me to join you in six months?”
“I think I can get you in two. The other four is to fix your manners which I assume is going to take a lot more work.”
“Okay.” Vader shrugged.
No! Vader you stupid idiot don’t make deals with Dooku.
“Really? I expected more resistance. You realise I’m not bluffing. Legally you are a slave, I’ll get a contract up with Grakkus giving me full control over you. You could try fleeing to Republic space but even then it isn’t uncommon for them to just give up slave refuges to avoid conflict with high-ranking Hutt members.”
“I’m familiar, I’ll honour the deal. You have my word.”
“That really isn’t worth much to me, your word is as solid as the air it’s uttered upon.”
“Well if you are so confident that it isn’t up to me then it shouldn’t matter, should it?”
“No, I suppose not. Very well,” Dooku gave a sideways glance to Padme. “Vader. You have yourself a deal, I look forward to your visit.”
Dooku glared at Pamde.
“I killed them all, you can turn back on the life support, idiot.”
***
Padme walked out the door with some guilt, stepping over the body of the IG-88 unit who cursed her venomously.
Then she saw it… the whole corridor was covered in lightsaber marks and the walls had literally been stripped off and were thrown around the floor.
But Dooku had come from the floor above, he had cut through the floor. The Count never would have come through this way, the only person who had come this way had been Vader.
"Vader fought to get to me?” That would explain the state he had been in. His arm was a mess, he was bleeding from several places and looked like he walked through a lightning storm. But would Vader really do that? No, he wouldn’t fight his way through tons of death ghosts just for her.
“Incorrect.” The IG-88 unit hissed. Droids were often like that, they were more logic-focused than emotion, you could count on a droid to correct you if you said something that wasn’t factual. At least she was right about Vader.
“Vader was already outside the door before you had even turned off life support. After you disposed of me he waited out here, ignoring the protocol of helping damaged droids."
“What? Then why didn’t he stop me?” Padme ignored the list the IG-88 unit was spouting. All of which were just insults towards Vader. The words lazy, unprofessional and intentionally destructive came up more then once. Was that really it though? Vader being bad at his job? Why would he follow her, then stop right at the end?
He had known hadn’t he? Back when she stole his ID. He’d followed her and waited outside using himself to bait and guard her from the Starweirds. The corridor was long towards the life support and he had been quite heavily injured. Yet despite that, when a Starweird had found its way to Padme he was only a few seconds away. Before Dooku had shown up he must have been already running down the corridor.
Vader had protected her.