บท 61: ED : Chapter 59: The First Sparks I
Cato Neimoidia, Outside Lot Dod's palace. (7 Hours Later)
Having retrieved from the ship several of the belongings the Neimoidians would object to under cover of darkness, I eyed the palace of Senator Dod from the roof of the nearby Lor Dev Stock & Trust Analysis headquarters.
R2-D2 had gained access to the building's external security cameras only, and was presently occupied looping footage with altered timestamps. Still, even with my own little slicer-droid, SL-R1 helping, I wasn't going to be able to stay up here forever.
Legionnaires had already been up here twice as part of their continual security-sweeps this close to the Senator's luxurious multi-spire habitation, and only my Matukai training made it possible for me to hang from the building's nearly sheer sides by fingertip-sized holds the Force alone had helped me find until they eventually departed.
Fortunately, R2-D2 had reported the building was equipped with a powerful security-field. Likely to inhibit corporate espionage, the security-field rendered the handheld bio-scanners carried by the second-in-command of each six-legionnaire unit useless. Otherwise, no amount of Felacatian burglar-like antics would have prevented my being revealed already.
"You can do this, Padme" I thought to myself. Using a technique Dark Woman had taught me shortly after Mimban to allow me to see in the near-total darkness as clearly as if it were midday, and relying on my Force Sense to warn me before a possible third sweep by the legionnaires could take me by surprise.
Padme had given me a rather pointed look when I'd advised her the data-disc she needed to acquire would almost certainly be in the main library, but she hadn't pressed me for an explanation.
Instead, we'd moved on to concoct a rather simplistic plan initial plan I had every reason to believe wouldn't be enough to realize our objective and see us off-world.
That was why we had contingency plans, and Dark Woman standing by aboard Seraph amid the debris of the system's extensive asteroid belt, but now wasn't the time to be focusing on what might happen in future.
Right now, I needed to remain watchful for her appearance on one of the eastern facing balconies which were part of the Neimoidian Senator's enormous palace. Once she tossed the data-disc from said balcony, I was just close enough to grab it with telekinesis.
I could then sneak back to the ship, and stash the disc in one of the concealed and shielded compartments. It was a plan possessing a certain elegant simplicity, and one which should have every chance of succeeding.
Unfortunately, I knew it wasn't going to be that easy. Even with Force-assisted recall, I didn't have the ability to simply call up the details of everything Star Wars-related I'd come into contact with during my first life.
I'd loved the Clone Wars animated series, but it had been twenty years, and not everything had made a deep enough impression to begin with for even Force-enhanced memory recall to make a difference. Still, the episode which dealt with these events had stuck out in memory.
Showing as they had a foundation for darker things to come during a fateful encounter on Mustafar. Padme was presently ensconced in a den of vipers who thought nothing of murder in service to their greed, and I was going to have to do something about that.
The appearance and subsequent disappearance of the shadow on a higher balcony than I was anticipating happened so quickly, I would have missed it if not expressly looking for it.
Spotting the small object flung into the night, I reached out with the Force, arrested it's fall, then reeled it in a moment later.
My hand closed over the circular disc a few seconds later. Only to find myself also holding a bit of flimsi which has been hastily bound around the disc using the wire filament-camera I'd given her.
"No problem getting in and out of the library. Went back and used the secret passageway you told me how to find to listen in on and make a holo-recording of Rush meeting with Dod and Poggle using your filament-cam.
Stayed behind after Rush left the room to record the rest of Dod and Poggle's conversation. Poggle has "something much bigger than a mere droid-foundry" he wants to bring the two of them in on, but he's leery of his new partners.
Someone named Ventress is supposed to arrive very soon to determine neither of them are serving any conflicting interests. The mere mention of this Ventress's name had Lot Dod nearly hyperventilating in the heart of his own palace, so he or she must be someone important.
After that, the two of them went back to talking about the foundry, and complaining about the terms favoring Rush too much. Dod said he had something in mind to "Persuade the good Baron to treat with them more equitably." I didn't like the sound of that at all.
Will await your implementation of contingency one or two, but I don't think things have reached the point of considering contingency three."
Padme's message ended there. Leaving me silently cursing this unanticipated divergence from the original timeline. Dealing with the fact the Neimoidian Senator obviously intended to use poisoning her as leverage over Clovis just like before was bad enough, but Ventress's presence would make the situation untenable.
"It's safe to assume Bulq is pursuing the goal of controlling the IG.BC just as Darth Tyrannus would have. Meaning Asajj will wholeheartedly endorse poisoning Padme to subvert Clovis, even if against all odds she were to somehow consider the presence of a Senator trained to conceal her thoughts a coincidence.
I have to get her out of there before Ventress arrives" I silently concluded. Releasing my fear for the fearless woman I admired so much into the Force, and weighing my alternatives with lightning speed.
Deciding I'd try the simplest of our contingency plans first despite the danger of raising the conspirators' suspicions, I swept the area around the building's perimeter for any sign of another patrol. Finding nothing, I flipped open my comm and contacted R2-D2.
The instant his domed form appeared in the center of the circular hologram-projector, I said "Give me ten seconds, then collect SL-R1 and meet me at the intersection just before the edge of the landing complex. Your mistress is going to find herself in a great deal of trouble if we don't act fast, Artoo."
I received a whirring hum and beep of confirmation from the quintessentially cool-headed droid, then his image disappeared. I pocketed the holo-comm, then made of my body the deepest channel for the Force I could in just a few moments.
Thankful in the extreme for my former Master's brutally demanding standards for performance under pressure, as I leaped from the edge of the hundred and fifty meter-tall building.
The Force carried me more than a hundred and twenty-five meters laterally to the next building-top, but rather than make a static landing, I used the Force to cushion my rolling descent. Completing my forward roll, and plunging forward using Force Speed to turn what was already a dead-sprint into a blurring passage across the rooftop.
Making my arrival and traversal nothing but a dark, indistinct, man-sized streak the cameras were welcome to as I leaped again. In less than forty-five seconds, I blazed across nine roof-tops to fling myself into empty space a final time.
More than five kilometers from where I'd started across from the Senatorial palace, and now coming down in a seedy alley one street over from the eastern edge of the landing complex. My boots made a faint thwud-thump as I landed beside a dumpster.
Frightening into motion a pair of six-legged lizards with four prominent glowing eyes each I took for the local cat-analog as I did so.
Walking out of the alley, I made as if I were readjusting my pants like a man who'd just ducked into an out of the way spot to relieve himself. Careful to proceed toward the ship in the relaxed manner of a pilot returning from liberty. I brushed bits of gravel from my tunic as I came to the intersection I'd mentioned, then waited with idle unconcern.
A six-legionnaire unit passed me headed west no more than ninety seconds later, but I'd already learned the larger nighttime units had territory-coverage quotas which left them disinclined towards shakedowns of those they couldn't expect to receive enough credits from to risk falling behind.
The data-goggles worn by the officers recorded whatever they saw, so their corporate overlords had a ready means available to determine which units were on-task, and which units needed to be assigned to more unpleasant duties. I'd heard quite a lot of.
"Hurry up, you maggots! Unless you want to be patrolling hip-deep in hatchery filth this time next week!" urging while hanging from the side of the Stock & Trust. The senior legionnaire barely glanced in my direction before prodding his subordinates onward.
R2-D2 proved adept enough to have detected the oncoming patrol in time to divert to the north. He'd rolled one street up, come one street further west, then turned south to roll up to me with SL-R1 riding atop his dome.
The slicer-droid lifted off a moment later, and I had the melon-sized droid back in my pack in less than three seconds. From there we simply walked briskly and openly back to the ship.
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