I wasn't absolutely positive, but the female's dress gave me the impression she was part of the influential body of Gungans involved in the city's politics. Many of the Ankurans were, male and female, irregardless of the fact the present Boss of the Rep Council, Lyonie, was notably one of the Otolla.
...
Fixing her attention on Padme to the exclusion of everything else, the Gungan female immediately gushed in a squeak that seemed as excited as it was relieved.
"Senator Amidala, mesa Nuri Ress, Boss Lyonie's Big-Time Assistant. Captainin Panaka, hesa ben tellin mesa that yous ben helpin us findin the reason the Boss's thinking gotten strange-like. Hesa ben seein fake friends wheresa true ones ben, and makin Big-Bombad enemies fromsa swamp-stink!"
It would have been difficult to tell, going only by the female's broad alien features, but the Force clearly announced the deep embarrassment the intensely loyal attaché was feeling, as she named the failings being exhibited by the Gungan leader.
It didn't seem to matter to Nuri that her reason for doing so was to seek help for Boss Lyonie, or that the person listening was a staunch and deeply respected friend of her people. Every syllable she'd spoken seemed painfully wrung from her, leaving her an exhausted bundle of raw nerves.
Stepping past me, Padme laid a comforting hand on Nuri's forearm, as the anxious woman wrung her stubby-fingered hands. Speaking in a quiet tone full of confidence and determination, she assured the Gungan.
"I mean to do everything in my power to set things right, Nuri. That's why I, ahh, brought Knight Skywalker and his apprentice with me. If you can get us in to see Boss Lyonie, Master Skywalker can tell us what's wrong, then we can help the Boss."
Appearing to really register my presence for the first time, one of Nuri's hands flew to her mouth, as she excitedly squeaked, "Jedi Knighting Skywalker! Hesa havin ben hanging-gliding from a bat, chop-chopping-up the Wicked Root-Beastie, before-time hesa been helping Masterin Dark Woman to be catchin the Big-Bombad-Bad Madness Doctorin Vindi! Isa be watchin Jedi Against the Mad Doctor twelve times! It'sa being an adaptationing of da truthful story-timin!"
Suppressing the impulse to cringe with a supreme act of willpower, I looked into those fluorescent green eyes and forced myself to smile confidently. The calm self-assurance with which I responded to the excited, anticipatory hope now blazing in Nuri's eyes one hundred percent the product of Dark Woman's relentless drilling.
"Senator Amidala speaks the truth, Nuri. Someone is either drugging the Boss, or much more likely, using what I believe your people call 'The Mind Powers' to force Lyonie to behave this way."
Pausing a moment to give the Gungan politician time to come to terms with the overwhelming likelihood that her leader was the victim of one sort of mind-control or another, I declared with genuine confidence, "I know we're asking a lot from you, Assistant Ress, but on my honor as a Jedi, I mean to see Boss Lyonie himself once more. Get us close enough, and with the Force as my ally, it will be done."
Eyes turned suddenly sharp and penetrating, Nuri studied me for several long heartbeats. The examination reminding me that this female had to be an able politician in her own right, to have ended up standing at Lyonie's right hand.
Someone who hadn't made a study of the Gungans would likely make the mistake of assuming someone who referred to themselves as an "Assistant" was exactly that. A secretary or attaché, when in truth Nuri was one split hair from being something very much like a Deputy Boss.
Finally, her broad cheeks suddenly inflating like a bullfrog, she let out a great hrr-uump as her cheeks deflated. Upper body shaking as if she was terribly chilled, Nuri suddenly replied, "Mesa will be bringing yous to be seeing da Boss. Yousa ben bein provin yous a friend to da Gungans, Knighting Skywalker.
Senator Amidala ben being oursa great friend for da longest time. I's be believing yous both, and da Boss sure bein needin dis helping. Come, thinking-time's a done. Wesa need to be going now."
Caught out by the unexpectedly decisive shift in the conversation, I spoke up quickly as the Gungan woman began to turn, "Wait, Nuri, there's something you need to see, first. You need to stay calm, though, and give me a chance to explain."
Turning back to look at me with a gaze that was not quite suspicious, but intensely speculative. Nuri's demeanor chilled rather dramatically as she waited expectantly.
Sighing, I ignored that chill, as well as the look of sudden exasperation on Padme's face, as I called out, "IG-1, could you join us now, slowly?"
Watching Nuri intently, I waited for the moment the fright I was anticipating would steal over her face as the battle-droid rounded the corner. Only to find myself surprised, when Nuri eyed IG-1 at length during his approach, then asked very simply, "Why?"
Knowing exactly what Lyonie's lieutenant was asking, I looked her square in the eye, and responded with equal simplicity, "I needed help, none was available, so I rebuilt and reprogrammed some. IG-1 was a murder-machine. Now, he's a person. One who chooses to help me protect people. Make sense?"
Nuri's eyes flicked from me to IG-1, then back to me, before finally coming to rest on the droid for a very long time. I kept my face calmly impassive as she silently studied my cybernetic companion, but inside, I was mentally crossing my fingers.
Saying the Gungans disliked battle-droids was like saying Jedi and Sith didn't get along very well, and here I was, asking one very stressed-out public servant to bring a battle-droid within reach of her people's compromised commander-in-chief.
Surprisingly, Nuri's response was a study in the concise. Shrugging her stocky shoulders, she let out another bullfrog Hrrr-uump, then answered, "Dis be making sense. Come."
Turning without so much as another look at any of us, she waved an arm in a circular forward motion to urge us to follow, then set off at a quick yet unhurried march down one tunnel after another. Leaving us to follow along after.
...
After a dizzying number of rights, lefts, and silent pneumatic lifts upward, we eventually followed Nuri into a corridor that seemed to go nowhere. Stopping four-fifths of the way to the end of the passage, the Gungan made a sudden right turn to face a nondescript section of bulkhead.
One that looked exactly like a hundred other cross-sections of passageway we'd walked past. Confidently placing her right hand on a specific spot, a slight pressure caused a hand-sized circle of metal to noiselessly sink inward by several centimeters.
The revealed panel began to shine with a solid red light the moment the circular scanner stopped moving, but Nuri simply kept her hand pressed to the device. The red light continuing to play up and down the panel. There was no obvious sign of the scan's result for almost a minute, then the section of wall the stocky Gungan woman faced simply dropped with a frictionless silence into ground.
The room that abruptly appeared looked at a glance to be almost entirely empty. There was a large, curiously round conference table in the middle of the room, with a huge circular screen set into its top. Several high-backed chairs surrounded the table, and a number of the Gungans unique light-globe fixtures were set into the walls equidistant from each other throughout the round room.
Other than that, the space's only other feature was another door. One standing exactly opposite the one we were now filing into the room by. Everything, floor, walls, and ceiling included, were well-made examples of complex metallurgy, but it was yet another forlorn, entirely deserted space.
The Dark Side contamination was here as well. Stronger and much more deeply entrenched than it had been in the docking chamber. Shivers and uneasy glances all around them told me the others felt something of the taint, but for the most part, everyone's attention remained fixed on Nuri.
Turning to look at me and Padme, the short, rotund Gungan had begun to wring her hands again. Slow and deliberate, the repetitive movement seemed almost a comfort to the harried politician.
Voice barely more than a murmur, it was clear that Nuri was taking exceptional pains not to be overheard by someone, when she started to quickly explain.
"Dis bein Boss Nass's old situationing-room. Boss Lyonie doesn't be using dis room, but it's being beside his sitting-in room. Da other side of that rooms ben his sleeping-time room. Da door to dat room and dis one's being kept locked, but I's be knowing the codes."
Hesitating, as if she was deciding whether or not to say anything more, Nuri eventually divulged in an impassioned rush, "Da goodly Ministering Rish Loo, hesa ben trying to straighten da Boss's thinking with his priestly ways, but yousa can't be telling anybodies I's be saying dis. De ways of the gods being mysteriousness over oursa understanding!"
Asking if we were ready for her to open the door to Lyonie's chambers, Padme, in turn, looked to me, so I nodded my agreement distractedly.
"Rish Loo, where I have heard that name before?" Asking myself the question, I watched Nuri stride to the door with a determined look on her stolid face. Following along in her wake, I had to fight the urge to tense up with every step forward.
The metaphorical stench of the Dark was growing thicker and more objectionable the closer to the door I drew, but it wasn't a simple quantitative matter. There were new and entirely distinct influences that swirled in the fetid, oily air I forced myself to move through with a grimace of distaste.
"Rish Loo, I know that name, but I'd swear it's nothing I ever heard in Dark Woman's company. Force-assisted mnemonics are giving me nothing, and those should dredge up anything one or more of my senses registered from the time I was about two and a half.
Rish-Loo, Rish-Lew, Rishloo, why does that name seem so kriffing important all of a sudden?" The storm of silent questions competed for my attention with a pall of contamination that intensified to such an extent, it was hard to believe the Dark Side wasn't being actively used in my presence.
My senses having sharpened to an almost painful degree by the veritable alarm-klaxon continuing to sound in my mind, I was actually able to hear Nuri lightly tapping out a long string of unfamiliar numerals and characters into a keypad that had appeared out of nowhere for her.
A predatory Envy was twined tightly about a repellent-yet-cloying bitterness, like a larger and more powerful serpent bent on devouring the lesser snake snared in its coils. Primal fear of death and/or total defeat, fueling a rage so cold, it was a wonder the emotion didn't shatter the one trying to use it as drive.
The Darkness vanished like a popped soap bubble a moment later, but the instant before it did, as the door Nuri was unlocking did another of those frictionless drops rather than sliding aside, I felt a frisson of surprise jolt through the tainted space. It vanished as surely as all the Dark except the lingering residue did, but it was warning enough.
A grunt of pain and surprise whooshed out of Nuri as an invisible force began to hurl her to the right. Away from the doorway she'd just been standing before, as a blazing scarlet needle was thrust straight on. Almost in perfect time with the fall of the door.
A shriek of shocked hurt tore its way out of the Gungan as she was yanked away. The burning red brand having plunged through the substantial flesh of her left bicep, then straight out the side of her upper arm.
The loud, bizarrely flat voice of a male Gungan shouted in an emotionless affect from somewhere beyond the now open door, "The Jedi! Hesa being tryin to killing me! Gungs! Gungs!"
Framed in the doorway stood a familiar figure, still rocking the silver pageboy-cut with a confident sneer on her lips, as she drawled, "How do you plan on getting out of this one, Master Jedi? Do tell."
Sighing, my reply wasn't for her, "IG-1, power up your personal shield, blasters to rapid-fire, stun-bolts only, please. Knock out or manhandle all the misguided idiots, if you would. I'll take out the trash. Ahsoka, stay with Padme, and don't get taken hostage."
Lightsaber leaping into my hand, I charged without another word.
...
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