Author – Gaswn
Rating – T (For violence, language, and dark themes)
Genre – Romance, Mystery
Pairings – SabewanSummary – Sequel to Smoke and Mirrors. History is often only the edge of a chasm of secrets. While investigating a mysterious attack, Sabe is confronted with the prejudices of her people and the truths of her heart. Sabewan.
Disclaimer – I have $1.90 in my checking account. If you really think my little whimsies are copyright infringement, I'll just buy you a Big Mac.
That said, most of the characters are George Lucas's, and a few are mine. Credit where credit is due ;-)
Author's Note : This story is a sequel to Smoke and Mirrors, a TPM fic. I suggest you read that one first, since it is not entirely Canon. This fic is post-AOTC.
Dramatis Personae
Sabe Naberrie – human female - Naboovian Investigative Agent
Queen Jamillia Dharkar – human female - successor to Queen Amidala
Veruna Magneta – human male – predecessor to Queen Amidala
Obi-Wan Kenobi – human male – Jedi Knight
Anakin Skywalker – human male – Jedi Padawan
Duey Opadda – Gungan male –Leader of the Ankura Tribe
Ganya Yumi – Gungan female – partner to Duey Opadda
Ome Yumi – Gungan female – child of Duey Opadda and Ganya Yumi
Eirtae Vergere – human female – scientist, Theed Academy
Chapter One
Southern
Wastelands, Naboo
31
BBY
The rocky expanse lined by giant trees appeared to be the work of some cataclysmic explosion. But it had been the whims of civilization that stripped the vegetation from 150 square miles, laying the land bare to the teeth and claws of erosion.
Now, a century later, thunder percussed the earth and stinging rain fell sideways, as if the forces of nature had still not forgiven the violation. Lightning struck one of the more exposed trees nearby, sparks showering as it fell into open space.
The walls of the abandoned mining office did very little to muffle the noise of the storm, and thin ribbons of rainwater streamed through the badly patched roof. Though he was continuously splattered, the man hunched over the table in the center made no effort to escape the leaks. A scattered mess of flimsy and data chips was spread before him, but he only rested his elbows on the clutter. His round, bald head sagged into his meaty hands, one blood shot eye peering through his fingers and rolling wildly. He was a big man, but he seemed frail as his broad shoulders shuddered with suppressed sobs.
Suddenly, the old-fashioned holovid projector at his elbow beeped insistently. For several moments he only stared at the flashing light indicating an incoming message. Finally, with listlessness born of the complete loss of hope, he reached out a trembling hand and keyed in the code to receive it.
The projection was grainy and flickering, no surprise in this desolate place. But the cloaked figure with its face shadowed by an oversized hood was not to be mistaken. A few months ago he would have prostrated himself before the image. Now he only stared at it lifelessly, waiting for the Dark Lord to speak.
"So you no longer pay obeisance to your benefactor, Veruna?" The Lord said.
"Benefactor?" A little energy reanimated him as the word left his mouth with the sharpness of a curse. "Your charity has left me in torment!"
Only half of the Lord's face was clearly visible; the tip of a strong, hawkish nose, and a granite-hard mouth. The deep lines, weathered skin, and loosened jowls placed his age somewhere between fifty and sixty.
"You promised to make me an emperor!" Veruna continued. "Now I find myself a hermit."
The smile on the death-white face was almost mild. But the sight of it gave Veruna a chill, as if he might never feel warmth again. "It was not the name of Sidious that brought you to this."
"No, it was this…Palpatine," Veruna spat. "This sniveling puppy lapping at the feet of the Queen."
The thin, colorless lips quirked in amusement, but Veruna failed to see the joke. He shoved back his chair with a screech and jumped to his feet. "After all I've done, all the efforts I've made to serve you, you leave me to disgrace and then laugh at my misfortune?"
"Palpatine has done you a favor," the Lord said calmly. "I still have work for you."
Veruna shook with rage as his face purpled. "How can you imagine that I would continue to serve you?"
He could not see the Lord's eyes narrow, but there was a feeling as if the air in the office was thickening and pressing down on him. The color faded from his face as the Lord spoke coldly. "Be cautious, Veruna. You may believe you desire divorce from my service and then find yourself…dissatisfied with the results."
Veruna swallowed thickly.
Then the air cleared again, and the Lord smiled affably. "Besides, my ambitions are set far beyond the control of one little mid-rim planet. There may yet be a place for you in my larger design."
Veruna straightened, feeling a little life coming back to him. His eyes glistened greedily. "But…but how?"
"There are certain parties in the Core who are intrigued by your research. Your secluded retreat –" Again the lord's lips curved in amusement. " - Will provide a unique advantage to continuing your work. And you have a sizeable population of test subjects at your disposal."
"The new Queen may complicate things," Veruna remarked darkly.
"You are beyond her reach now," the Lord said, pursing his lips. "The Morsa Loinga is only a river, but it may as well be a permacrete wall."
Theed, Naboo
23 BBY
Her royal highness, Queen Jamillia Dharkar, was a young woman. But she often felt that she was not young enough. She stood squarely in the shadow of a fourteen-year-old girl, and she had never quite figured out how to step out of it, short of convincing another nation to invade Theed.
But there were other heroes who preceeded her, such as the one depicted in the statue before her. King Cestus and his horse had stood in the palace throne room for two centuries. The stone face she examined was a handsome one, with a heavy brow, thin aquiline nose, and large piercing eyes. But it was a warrior's face, and there was no denying the touch of cruelty around the eyes and mouth. His outstretched hand firmly grasped a spear.
Jamillia cocked her head to the side, studying him closely. A controversial figure, Cestus. Though he had built the palace she stood in and established Theed Academy as one of the Republic's finest institutions of learning, he had not been a friend of the other tribes of Naboo. War plagued his reign. He had been cut down by an assassin in his prime, and though an outcry followed his death, many were relieved when the more moderate King Jafen assumed the throne.
Or so the history books said. Queen Jamillia gave a little sigh and clasped her hands behind her back. History was often abridged by the prejudices and agendas of historians. Every history of every kingdom was only the surface of the actual past. Naboo was no exception.
Suddenly the panel that formed the base of the statue slid away entirely, revealing a passage. The Queen gasped, her hand flying to her heart as she started back from the figure emerging from the shadows.
She only relaxed when the young woman in front of her pushed back her hood, revealing a pale, delicate countenance, keen brown eyes and a shock of tawny hair. "Agent Naberrie, I wish you would occasionally use a door."
Sabe flinched at the name she had never gotten used to, and suppressed a little smile. Queen Jamillia had never accepted her habits as Padme had. Sabe knew the present queen thought she was very peculiar, and sometimes she got the feeling Jamillia didn't like her very much. She bowed. "You asked to see me, your highness?"
"Yes," Jamillia said, turning and walking towards her throne. She sat, resting her hands on the carved arms.
Sabe came to stand in front of her and waited patiently. The queen seemed in no hurry to come to the point. In fact, she seemed nervous.
"I expect Captain Panaka has shared the Jedi Council's report with you?" The queen asked at length. "Their final report on the assassination attempt on Senator Amidala?"
Sabe straightened. "Of course." She had studied the report for days, guilt overwhelming her as she read again and again of Corde and Verse's deaths, wondering if in her training of them she had missed some lesson that might have changed things. But that had been months ago. The whole episode had been eclipsed by the war.
Queen Jamillia folded her hands in her lap. "And what was your opinion of it?"
"My…opinion?" Sabe repeated in confusion. "It seems that their opinion coincides with what we suspected. The Trade Federation was responsible."
"I am dissatisfied with their conclusions."
Sabe's eyebrows lifted. She took a step closer to the throne. "May I ask why?"
Queen Jamillia pressed her painted lips into a thin line. "I don't understand the motive."
"The Trade Federation's desire for revenge seemed like motive enough to me," Sabe remarked.
The Queen shook her head. "I cannot believe that Count Dooku would play to the whims of Nute Gunray."
Sabe frowned. It was odd that the Separatists would come after the Senator of a small mid-rim world, and a near-pacifist at that. But it was the only answer that made any sense. There was something the Queen was not saying…yet. She could feel it hanging in the air between them. She watched Jamillia expectantly.
The Queen's hands fidgeted in her lap as her brow contracted. "There has been a new development," she said carefully. "It is a matter of Naboo security in my opinion, and as the principal agent of the NIA, I feel you are the most appropriate person to look into it."
"I see," Sabe said. "What kind of development?"
Jamillia said nothing, opening a panel in the arm of the throne and pressing a button. A state-of-the-art holovid projector rose from the floor at Sabe's feet, and Sabe placed the holobead Jamillia gave her into the machine.
"Captain Panaka received this distress call last night," Jamillia explained, and nodded toward the projection.
The holograph was of very poor quality. It took a few minutes to stabilize, but when the image cleared Sabe saw a large man, quite bald, apparently sprawled on a floor. At first she thought she was looking at a corpse, but then he shifted, groaned, and weakly raised his head. Sabe stiffened, her eyes widening in recognition. As he stretched a supplicating hand in their direction, she saw the ghastly burns across his forearm, and another on his shoulder.
"Sidious," he whispered in a gravelly voice.
All at once, a beam of crackling energy appeared out of nowhere and swept over his head. It must have hit his recording device, for as soon as it neared there was a flash, followed by static.
There was no more. When the recording was finished, Sabe could think of nothing to say.
"Given the current political climate, this recording seems of no slight significance to me," Queen Jamillia said.
Sabe nodded wordlessly.
"I want you to go to the Wastelands," Jamillia said. "You may take whatever military force you deem necessary. This may turn out to be a rescue mission…"
"That seems unlikely," Sabe interrupted, but then bowed apologetically.
"If so," the Queen continued, giving her a hard look. "You will bring Veruna to Theed for medical attention and questioning. If not, you will recover the body and perform a full-scale investigation."
"Of course," Sabe murmured. "But…if I may ask?"
"I suspect you will ask whether I grant permission or not," the Queen said wryly, lifting an eyebrow.
Sabe smiled a little. "Have the Jedi heard of this?"
Jamillia shifted. "I decided to defer to your council on that issue, given your background."
"I think they ought to be consulted," Sabe said. "As soon as possible."
Sabe held her cloak tight around her as she walked the dark cobblestone avenues of Theed. It was quite late, and there were few locals to share the streets with her. Occasionally, though, she would pass an acquaintance and exchange greetings. The night was a bit chilly, but Sabe couldn't really feel it as she noted the twinkling lights in the residential towers, the sillouettes of families inside. It had taken her a long time to get to a place like this, so she could never make this walk lightly.
The Queen was insistent that she hasten to the Wastelands in case the former king still lived, but Sabe felt alerting the Jedi Council to the situation was a major priority. Fortunately, the newer aircraft could reach Coruscant in less than a day. She'd spent most of the afternoon doing research, and the rest negotiating transport. It was easy enough to secure passage on a military craft with Captain Panaka's help.
Finally Sabe reached the little boarding house with white roses crawling up its permacrete sides. She put her thumb to the little pad next to the outer door and it slid open with a hiss, emitting a burst of warmth and the smell of cooking food. She passed through halls of apartments, hearing the quiet conversations within. But her own quarters seemed dead and quiet. Sabe smiled knowingly and keyed in her entry code. As soon as the door opened her eyes fell on Eirtae hunched over the kitchen table, her head almost in the bowl of soup she'd apparently been trying to eat.
Sabe chuckled softly. It wasn't the first time she'd found Eirtae asleep at the table. After their days as handmaidens, they'd both attended advanced studies at Theed Academy. There, Eirtae's interests turned from aviation to nanotechnology, and then to cellular biology. Now she worked fourteen-hour days in an Academy lab. When she finally got home each night she rarely made it as far as their sleeping quarters before dozing off. But she was an excellent companion, and the two got along quite well... except for the time Sabe found Brainworm Rot Type A growing in a Petri dish in their refrigerator unit.
Sabe put a hand on her shoulder and shook it a little roughly. "Wake up! You are an inch away from drowning in your soup again!"
Eirtae stirred, an awful grimace contorting her otherwise attractive face. "If it isn't the dulcet tones of my roommate…" she grumbled as she raised her head.
Sabe shook her head and turned away, searching out her travelling sack from a compartment and opening it on one of the chairs. Eirtae watched her in confusion. "What are you doing?"
"I'm going to Coruscant tomorrow," Sabe replied, mentally checking off what she would need.
"What for?" Eirtae asked. "You hate Coruscant."
"I have work there," Sabe answered evasively. For once she was glad that it was customary to keep cases quiet. She wasn't ready to discuss why she was looking to involve the Jedi.
Eirtae sighed dramatically and let her head fall down on her arm again. "Fine. Be the secret squirrel. But you know I'll get most of the gory details eventually."
Sabe smiled as she began retrieving clothing and other necessities from their sleeping quarters. She had been thoroughly trained in forensics at the Academy. But when she needed more detailed analysis of evidence, Eirtae was always the first person she com-linked.
The sleepy blonde was very near to dozing off again. Sabe poked her unsympathetically as she passed, burdened with clothing. "Go to bed. You'll have the temperament of a Sarlaac in the morning."
Eirtae pushed herself to her feet, mumbling something indecipherable as she stumbled off toward the bedroom. "Wake me before you leave," she called just before shutting the door.
Sabe deposited the last load in her bag and zipped it with a little pat on top. Discarding Eirtae's abandoned soup, she settled herself at the table with her datapad. She had downloaded everything in the National Archives that concerned King Veruna. Opening the file, she stared at the grim face that popped up on the screen.
King Veruna had controlled Naboo during her first eight years in Theed, but she barely remembered him. Politics had held little interest for her at the time. She did remember his final public address, a debate with Padme. He'd proposed the creation of a conscription army, diplomatically named the Junior Defense League, to deal with what he called "the Gungan problem." Padme had revealed his pet project for what it really was; an effort to re-militarize Naboo and commit "defense" that was tantamount to genocide.
But the debate was only a footnote in his long and complicated history. Apparently he'd started out as a chemist in Theed Academy, where he had drawn controversy for performing dangerous experiments on live subjects. Soon his interests turned away from science, and he rose quickly through the ranks of Theed politics.
He had served four consecutive terms as king, the longest and most tumultuous reign of any ruler in recent memory. No one seemed to understand how he'd gathered enough support to be elected each time. And it seemed that whenever a voice rose to criticize him, that voice was soon mysteriously silenced.
Around the time he'd been defeated by Padme, Senator Palpatine had produced several whistle-blowers who accused him of terrible crimes. Not only had King Veruna illegally supplied a neighboring planet with weapons, he'd also attempted to reinstitute illegal spice mining on Naboo. As soon as she was settled into the throne, Padme stopped the shipments of weapons, halted illegal spice mining and banished legal mining to Otoh D'an, and banished Veruna to the wastelands beyond the Naboovian border.
After that, there was little information. Cryptic intelligence reports revealed that Veruna had taken up residence in an abandoned mining facility and that he was making repairs to it. Occasionally, southern farmers saw aircraft flying in that direction or leaving, but overall the former King seemed to live in complete isolation.
Sabe turned off the datapad and rested her chin in her hand. Maybe she had been hasty in deciding to meet with the Council. Flashes of light and a few burns would not make a very convincing case. With his history, there were easily a few thousand people who wanted to see Veruna dead. And the idea that the dark power of a Sith had returned to Naboo was almost too terrible a possibility to consider. Sighing, she rose from her chair and prepared for bed.
She was standing on the Grasslands. It was a sultry summer night, and the tall grasses swayed in a light breeze. The light of Naboo's three moons shone from the navy sky. In the distance, there was only a hazy glow to mark where she knew Theed was.
A sharp percussion began behind her, followed by the slowly building growl of a dozen didgeridoos. Faintly, she heard numerous voices rising to sing the Grand Army's battle song. As always, thick fog obscured the swamplands, but soon she saw shadows moving within it, and she thought she could see their trailing, fin-like earflaps. She could almost smell the acrid musk of their kaadus.
But when they emerged from the fog, they were not Gungans at all. The earflaps were actually oversized hoods of flowing gray cloaks, and their combined force presence was massive as they pulled a thousand lightsabers from their belts and blue and green blades hissed into the warm, humid air. They did not appear to notice her. They looked past her, and Sabe could see the whites of the nearest one's eyes as he stared in terror.
She turned slowly as she finally perceived the icy, malignant horror that she'd spent a decade trying to forget, Thick, black clouds rolled over the top of the nearby hill. There was no chance to run or even scream as the darkness enveloped them all, paralyzing her limbs and streaming down her throat like a suffocating oil. As she fought and struggled against it, she had the vague impression of a bone-white, disembodied face wearing a cruel smile.
"Peace is a lie," it whispered.
Sabe sat straight up in bed, nearly sobbing in terror. Sweet, clean air filled her lungs. She was still in her quarters, and Eirtae was still snoring soundly in the next bed. Regardless, she could not stop trembling. Eventually it dawned on her that the sound of the drums from her dream was continuing.
Looking around wildly, she realized the insistent tapping was coming from the window. She climbed from bed and tiptoed toward it nervously. When she drew the curtain aside, she laughed in relief.
A caduceus hovered just outside, its silvery body undulating frantically as it beat leathery wings against the transparisteel. Its lidless black eyes glittered, almost as if it knew a secret it wanted to share. When she'd first seen one, Padme had told her that the winged serpents were rumored to be the souls of departed kings. Sabe knew that the legend was probably owing to the caducei's tendency to nest around the palace rather than any mystical origin. But the irony was not lost on her. She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself.
Had it only been a dream? She'd only had one other as vivid, of an eagle picking her up gently in its talons and setting her down on a mountaintop. That had been when she was five years old, and the day after, she'd met Qui-Gon Jinn.
She hadn't remembered that until this very moment... Putting her fingers to her lips, she blinked through the dull ache of the old loss. She didn't have time to think of that now.
If the vision had convinced her of anything, it had convinced her that she could not handle this case alone.
A/N :
Caduceus – a winged serpent, a species unique to Naboo and especially common in Theed.
Spice – raw element used to make a multitude of illegal drugs (like Glitterstim), but also used to make flavorings for food and lubricants for different types of machinery. Highly refined spice has been outlawed by the republic, but weaker forms of spice are legal.
NIA – Naboo Investigation Agency. It operates under the direct authority of the Queen.
Brainworm Rot Type A – God, do I love that name. I found it on Wookieepedia, which is an extremely addictive Star Wars site. Symptoms include nausea, cold sweats, inability to process written instructions, syntax errors in communication, and isolated purpling of gills and blowholes. I don't know why Eirtae is studying it, since it is a Neimoidian disease. But it sounds like the kind of thing you really wouldn't want in your refrigerator.
Lot of exposition in this chapter, I know. More action in the next one, and probably Obi-Wan will show up. Read n' review!