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.
...
Once inside, I stashed the data-disc in the shielded compartment no wider than three of my fingers. It was beneath an always hot static-dispersal unit attached to internal components of the Sossen-7 sub-light engines, so it was an excellent place for such a compartment.
The sheer number and genius placement of such little hideaways all over the craft's interior made me wonder just how often Padme had reason to be in possession of items she'd rather the authorities not discover, but I shoved such extraneous speculation from my mind as I darted forward into the cockpit and dropped into the pilot's seat.
The main comm-array was already set for contact with Padme's personal communicator. Requiring nothing of me but the depressing of a single button, and a subsequent few moments tense delay as I waited for her to pick up.
Those few seconds seemed to pass like years, as I ruthlessly quashed images of Ventress strolling into the same room as Padme.
Padme's blue-white hologram appeared on the console a moment later, and her demeanor was the picture-perfect depiction of a superior interrupted by necessary minutiae brought to their attention by a subordinate, as she inquired "Yes, Anayk? I told you to only contact me if something urgent came up. What is it?"
"Forgive me, Senator Amidala, but a message just came through from Senator Robb's attache. I offered to relay her signal to your personal communicator, but I was told it's Senate business requiring a diplomatic communications seal.
It was requested you contact the Senator as soon as possible, and they made sure to reiterate the importance of your doing so immediately. If I shouldn't have contacted you, I ask your pardon" I replied with obvious deference clear in my tone.
Her beautiful features tensing in a masterful counterfeit of deep concern, she sighed, then answered "Please transmit my receipt-of-transmission to the Senator's office, Anayk. I'll be returning to the ship immediately, so please set the initial signal-encryption to running.
I have hopes of returning in time not to disrupt my host's hospitality. Meaning I won't be very understanding of any delays once I arrive. Understand?"
Bobbing my head, I didn't allow a particle of the relief I was feeling to show on my face, as I replied "I'll have everything prepared for your arrival, ma'am. Again, I ask your pardon for the interruption. The attache simply spoke in such an urgent way, I thought it best you be given the opportunity to respond as soon as possible."
Instead of replying, she simply inclined her head regally. Silently telling me she'd caught my "Hurry the fark up, or you're going to die." Her image disappeared from the console an instant later. Prompting me to turn to Artoo and say "I'm going to be needing my lightsaber, Artoo. Things never seem to come off without a hitch when I'm involved."
The droid didn't so much as beep as his dome slid back. Apparently, he agreed with me that everything was proceeding entirely too smoothly. I snagged the weapon, and immediately felt more myself.
Going to one of the larger shielded compartments, I retrieved SP-C1, then commanded the spider-droid "Hover one hundred and twenty meters up and a hundred meters to the west.
Send a burst-signal to my communicator the moment you spot Senator Amidala, a contingent of hostiles moving this way, or anyone matching your Dathomiri biometric file-specifications."
The droid's silent repulsor-lift unit whisked it out the back of the ship and into the night. I hoped I'd be given time to recover it, but situations like these were while I'd built it expressly to preclude the possibility of sapience.
SP-C1 and SL-R1 were valuable tools in which I'd invested significant time and resources, but they weren't beings whose welfare I needed to be concerned with.
One file compartment revealed my grenade-belt. Ventress was a dirty cheater with a fondness for droidekas, but so was I. We'd just have to see whether my fondness for ion and sonic grenades would trump her penchant for droids doing her dirty-work. I girded on my magnetic-lock ordinance, then stepped outside. The time for blending in and going along to get along now read 0:00.
...
The beep on my wrist came just before I personally sighted Padme walking purposefully but without any tell-tale haste through the intersection where I'd waited for Artoo. I was just about to conclude I'd been wrong, and this might all come off without a hitch, when another humming signal caused my wrist-band to pulse.
I felt the Force keen and instinctively allowed my Force Sense to blossom outwards to cover an area of more than fifty meters.
Ventress had grown truly exceptional with Force Illusions, but for one thing, the technique lost some of it's effectiveness when a prospective target was specifically on the watch for a cloaked approach, and for another, I simply had a stronger Force Sense than her facility with Dark Side illusions could compensate for.
Shimmering into existence as the Force wailed around her, I noted the silver-haired pageboy cut and the dead shark-like gray eyes were the same, Just like her whip-thin build I knew was concealing a surprising amount of strength. Now, however, she was wearing the black.
"long loincloth" style skirt and sleeveless silver tunic which had been her look for the duration of the Clone Wars in another timeline.
Her leap carried her from the far end of the northern path R2-D2 had rolled down to meet me. While a trio of droidekas rolled along in her wake, and two ten-strong squads of Neimoidian legionnaires double-timed it along far behind the droids rolling progress perhaps two hundred and seventy-five meters behind Ventress.
She'd tried to land in between me and a Captain Typho accompanied Padme, but I put the nix on that with a burst of Force Speed faster than any I'd ever kept control of before.
It actually surprised me for a split-second, finding the world turned streaky for the moment it took Force-enhanced senses to compensate.
Pouring strength into my legs, and reinforcement into my knees, hips, and connective tissues with Force-augmentation, I came to a stop on a credit beside the dark-haired woman I'd come to protect.
I could sense the fraction of an instant between Ventress's eyes losing me, and her other perceptions reacquiring me two hundred meters away at the Senator's side.
My left hand made an up-then-jabbing gesture which tore four grenades from their places on my belt. Sending two low and straight, as the other pair went high and wide.
Droideka threat-detection sensor packages were among the best possessed by any droid, but a destroyer was never more vulnerable than while rolling at maximum speed.
Their straight-line top speed enabled them to go so far as chasing down speeders, but once they'd attained that speed, their lateral maneuverability turned to bantha pudu.
All three destroyers detected the incoming threat. Resulting in two beginning shallow curving paths to the right, and the third arcing left.
My "throw" had been a little left of center, so the droideka furthest to the right was caught only by the edge of the blast as both ion grenades went off. It had also chosen differently than it's nearest compatriot automaton.
Popping emergency overrides which allowed it to unfurl despite the fact it hadn't come to a stop. It nearly overbalanced and landed on it's head as it's shield began flickering to life simultaneous with the detonation, but firing both it's turrets into the ground before it had provided just enough recoil to tip it back onto it's tripod like legs.
Now, that shield continually flickered on and off, as internal shorts and overloads caused half it's right most turret limb to actually explode in a shower of sparks. It's two companions hadn't been nearly so fortunate.
One had simply fallen over as an inert wheel, and the other lay on it's left side half-in, half-out of wheel-mode. Intermittent sparks shot from the thing as two of it's three legs weakly kicked, but it's head was a blackened mess of shorted out components.
The Neimoidians fared rather better. They'd been much further away, and the data-goggles worn by the officers had identified the fast-moving orbs as dangerous ordinance even in the dark of night.
Each of the four officers had grabbed the nearest subordinate as they dashed aside, then threw themselves right or left with all their strength.
Half the detachment made it to the furthest edges of the blast-zone created by the pair of sonic grenades, but the other half clutched their heads and dropped in boneless heaps.
Those who'd escaped most of the punishing ultra-sonic attack proved to be made of surprisingly stern stuff thought. Their movements were drunken and fitful for the present, but already they were beginning to fumble about on the ground for dropped blaster-rifles.
...
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