Within the Force (Star Wars fan fic) Book One

Chapter Nine

"Lena?"

The pale faced girl with golden eyes gave her a malicious smirk. "Why, hello there, soon-to-be Jedi."

"You're alive?" Ashlyn choked out. She was happy Lena was standing right there in front of her, but the latter's appearance really brought little reassurance to her soul.

Lena rolled her eyes. "Who do think you're seeing then? Casper the friendly ghost?" she retorted sarcastically.

Ashlyn's heart clenched as her eyes squinted with shock as they took in her best friend's appearance. "What have you done?" she whispered.

Lena giggled almost childishly. "Oh, I haven't done anything..." She smirked. "Yet."

Within less than a second, Ashlyn found herself being thrown back, the hoverboard crashing into her stomach as her back crashed onto a pillar.

"Lena? What the— what are you doing?"

Her smirk never wavered as she sneered, "What I should've done a long time ago."

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While the others waited without, Queen Amidala, accompanied by her handmaidens, retreated to her chambers long enough to change into yet another ensemble, this one clearly meant to emphasize her status as leader of the Naboo. She emerged wearing a broad-shouldered cloak of crimson velvet trimmed with gold-laced a crown of woven cloth horns and tassels with a center plate of hammered gold. The gown and headdress lent both size and majesty, and she walked past a wondering Jeremy, Anakin and Jar Jar as if come down out of the clouds to mix with mortals, all cool grace and extraordinary beauty, aloof and untouchable.

Eirtaé and Rabé, the handmaidens who had accompanied her earlier, were present again, and they trailed the Queen in a silent glide, wrapped in their crimson hooded robes. Again Jeremy looked for Padmé and did not find her.

"Please lead the way," Amidala requested of Palpatine, beckoning the boys, the Gungan, and Captain Panaka to accompany them.

They walked from Palpatine's quarters down a series of corridors that connected to other chambers and, eventually, to other buildings. The halls were empty of almost everyone, save for a scattering of Republic guards, and the company proceeded unchallenged. Jeremy and Anakin glanced around in awe at the tall ceilings and high windows, at the forest of buildings visible without, imagining what it would be like to live in a place like Coruscant.

When they reached the Senate chamber, they had cause to wonder anew.

The chamber had the look of an arena, circular and massive, with doors opening off exterior rampways at various levels above the main floor. At the center of the chamber a tall, slender column supported the supreme chancellor's platform, a broad, semi-enclosed area that allowed Valorum, who was already present, to sit or stand as he chose in the company of his vice chair and staff. All around the smooth interior walls of the arena, Senate boxes jutted from hangar bays off entry doors, some fixed in place while their senators conferred with staff and visitors, others floating just off their moorings. When a senator requested permission to speak and was recognized by the chair, his box would float to the center of the arena, close to the supreme chancellor's podium, where it remained until the speech was concluded.

Jeremy picked up on all this in a matter of seconds, and so did Anakin, both trailing the Queen and Palpatine to the entry doors opening onto the Naboo Senate box, which sat waiting at its docking. Banners and curtains hung from the rounded ceiling in brilliant streamers, and indirect lighting glowed softly from every corner, brightening the rotunda's cavernous interior. Droids bustled along the exterior rampways, carrying messages from one delegation to the next, the movement of their metal bodies giving the chamber the look of a complex piece of machinery.