Sohna - The Star Kingdom

“Senator Organa,” began Obi-Wan as he entered the senator from Alderaan’s office in the rotunda.

“Master Kenobi,” the other man greeted him in return. “What brings you to my office today?”

“I got the message from your Coruscant office and thought it might save some time if I spoke to you directly,” Obi-Wan informed him.

The senator looked confused.

“What message was that?” he asked.

“The one asking me to call a ...” he consulted the datapad “... Virginia at a number in your office.” He handed the datapad to the senator. “Don’t you know what this is about?”

Bail Organa stared down at the readout, frowning.

“I’m afraid not,” he said. His dark eyes glanced up at Obi-Wan. “And I don’t recognize the name. Not that it might not be someone new,” he hastened to add. “But would you mind if I investigated this before you respond? It shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours.”

“Not at all,” Obi-Wan assured him, now more mystified by the message than before. Was it some sort of elaborate hoax, he wondered as he left the office, or had he been hijacked into the midst of a political intrigue?

Political intrigue was the first thing Organa suspected after he had called his main office and discovered that Virginia was an exchange intern from Naboo. At the moment she hadn’t been in, so wasn’t available for him to speak to, but he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to do that just yet anyway. He’d treated the matter as if it was something trivial and told them not to bother her about it; the last thing he wanted at this point was for her to suspect she was being investigated.

He leaned back in his chair and stared absently out the window at the grey light of late afternoon, steepling his fingers against his chest. Was it a coincidence that yesterday was the first day the petition committee had invited Senator Amidala to their meeting? He himself had been the one to suggest her inclusion, as they had always seemed to have a similar outlook in the past on how government should behave. Had he been wrong to trust her? He recalled a statement she had made during that meeting: she’d wanted to include the Jedi - or at least one or two select Jedi - in their plans. While Organa had no objection, the others had not agreed. With the Jedi now reporting directly to the chancellor, they could not be certain where the order’s loyalties would lie. Was Senator Amidala intent on informing them anyway, and in such a manner as to make anyone who investigated think it was Alderaan who had gone against the committee’s decision?

He rubbed his face, smoothing his goatee. The problem was, he couldn’t see Padme doing such a thing and didn’t think he was that bad a judge of character. He might be wrong, but ...

But it was unfair to her to simply sit and speculate. He ought to ask her what was going on. No doubt it was something very simple.

Except that she did not know anything about Virginia’s message either.

“Then I hate to ask you this,” he began, “But do you think she could be working for Palpatine?”

Her warm brown eyes were full of trepidation as she replied, “I don’t know.”

She was silent a moment, and then abruptly stood up from behind the desk, which surprised him. He knew she was pregnant; it was impossible for anyone familiar with human anatomy to not know it at this point, yet she’d persisted in trying to hide herself behind any available object. A short review of Naboo law had told him the likely reason, but did little to enlighten him on her motivation.

“I ... I have a ... a date tonight,” she told him. “And I don’t really want to be late for it. Perhaps we could continue discussing this on the way to the taxi platform?”

Doubly perplexed, he could only agree, and followed her out the door. Once in the corridor, however, she walked as fast as her ungainly body would allow, and said nothing.

“Are you attending the ballet?” he finally inquired, hoping to get her to talk if he changed the subject.

“What?” she asked distractedly.

“For your date,” he elucidated. “The Mon Calamari performance has been booked for months.”

“Oh,” she replied as they reached the hypostile hall fronting on the nearest platform. “No.”

He was debating whether or not to join her in the taxi when she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him on.

“Just drive us around for a little while,” she instructed the vehicle. As it took off, she sighed with relief and closed her eyes.

“Are you all right?” he inquired with the solicitousness of a man who has seen his wife through four miscarriages.

She opened her eyes to glance at him and nodded.

“I just thought ...” she began, then changed it to, “I’m probably overreacting.”

He waited for her to go on.

“I don’t have a date tonight,” she confessed. “I just needed to get out of that office. I thought, if she is Palpatine’s agent, that there could be a listening device. The timing bothers me more than anything.”

“Because of yesterday’s meeting?”

She nodded.

“I don’t like to think he would do such a thing,” she added, “But then I never thought he’d try to assume so much power and keep it for so long, either.”

Bail carefully weighed what he was going to say next. Palpatine would certainly be aware of the antiquated Naboo law that Padme was now technically violating. If he were as devious as she was postulating, he hadn’t remained quiet about it out of simple consideration as her staff had undoubtedly done, but was holding it in a hand he intended to play to his advantage sometime in the future, if pressed. What Bail didn’t know was whether Padme herself was aware of this.

“Well, I’m sorry you don’t really have a date, anyway,” he joked. “I was hoping to get a glimpse of your husband.”

All the color drained from her face; for a moment he was afraid he’d said too much and that she was about to pass out.

“My hu ... husband?” she gasped.

“Padme,” he said, taking her gently by the arm, “Naboo is the only system in the republic with a law like that. No one is going to think less of you because ... because you have a child.”

He saw the glitter of tears in her eyes before she looked away.

“I’m sorry,” he said. And he was very sorry for upsetting her, though he saw now that it had been necessary, after all. He just hoped she’d be able to recover from the shock he’d dealt her. “Are you all right?” he asked again.

“What?” she asked, then seemed to realize that he meant physically all right. “Oh, yes,” she said, trying not to choke. She looked down and caressed the swell of her pregnancy. “I just can’t believe I was so stupid that I thought I could hide this by just covering it up with enough fabric. What am I going to do?”

He heard the edge of panic in her words and bit back the conclusion he’d been about to draw for her. She might still make it herself, but if not, there would be plenty of time after she’d recovered from the shock of being found out.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked again.

She glanced at him sideways and asked hesitantly, “How much ... do you know?”

He wasn’t quite sure what she meant, so he said, “About you being pregnant? Nothing, really, except that you are. Or were you asking me if there was any gossip?”

“Is there? Gossip?”

“Not much,” he replied truthfully. “Just curiosity about why you would want to hide it.”

“No questions about ... about the father? My husband?”

“A couple of senators from morally narrow systems postulated that you might be concealing your pregnancy because you’re not married, but that’s all,” he told her. “And the rest of us assured them that wouldn’t be sufficient cause for anyone other than residents of their systems.”

“I am married,” she half-whispered, her voice hoarse.

Padme pressed her hands to her temples; Bail’s revelation had given her a pounding headache, and she was having a difficult time organizing her thoughts. She felt humiliated, like she wished she could just crawl into a hole, and a large part of her thought maybe she should do just that. Palpatine might have said nothing so far, but that was only because so far she hadn’t directly opposed him. She’d been going to offer to be the spokesman for the committee when they presented the petition to the chancellor the day after tomorrow, both as a show of good faith to the committee, whom she knew had been hesitant to invite her in because she was from the chancellor’s planet, and because she’d thought it might carry more weight to convince him to relinquish his power if he saw that his own senator wished him to do so. It was only now that Bail had revealed to her how ... blind? stupid? deluded? she’d been that she realized how risky it would be to even associate herself at all with the petition.

“I can’t be on the committee, Bail,” she whispered, not trusting her voice enough to speak aloud. “He’ll just use my situation to draw attention away from the issue.”

“You can still be on the committee,” he replied immediately, as if the thought had occurred to him long before, “But in the same capacity as me: Don’t sign the petition. If your name is not on it, you’ve got plausible deniability if it comes to it. But the committee will know you’ll support them on the floor.”

She shook her head.

“I should resign,” she told him. “I’m guilty of the same thing. Worse, in a way, because he’s at least got legal sanction for staying in office. I don’t.” It didn’t matter that her primary reason for not resigning was to enable herself to remain on Coruscant, where she’d be near Anakin. And, because she knew that if she resigned, he would be likely to follow, and she wouldn’t be the cause of him leaving the order. She couldn’t allow it.

“You shouldn’t overreact,” Bail cautioned her. “As I said, no one on the senate is going to fault you for remaining in office while you’re pregnant. Palpatine is the only one who would be aware of that law. I wouldn’t have said anything to you except that I wanted to be sure you were aware of the possible problem he could cause.”

She looked at him steadily.

“But the problem is that he can cause trouble because of it, Bail,” she insisted. “I thank you for pointing out my stupidity - really I do - but now that I know I can be compromised ...”

The thought came to her suddenly: What if Palpatine knows about Anakin and me? and fear seized her heart so that she had to struggle to fight it down. He can’t know, she tried to calm herself. He can’t. But the way she’d managed to lie to herself before was still too fresh in her mind for her to consider the matter rationally.

Fortunately, Bail mistook her terror for deep thought.

“Padme,” he said after a moment had passed and she had not continued speaking, “What you ultimately do is up to you, however no matter what decision you make, I would appreciate your help with finding out who this Virginia is and what she wants. We need to know if Palpatine did send her. Once you’ve left office - if you do - that might not be possible.”

She nodded, glad to have something specific to focus on for the moment. Maybe they’d find out the whole thing was completely innocent and she wouldn’t have to leave ... no, no, stop it, she told herself. No more delusions. Just focus on the immediate problem; you’re a senator, start acting like one!

“Would you like me to call my office and ask about her?” she said.

He thought for a moment before replying, “No, I don’t think so. That might alert someone that you’ve become suspicious.”

“Well, what should we do?” she asked. “We can’t just let it go on; she expected Obi-Wan to contact her today.”

“Yes, Obi-Wan ...” he mused. After a moment, he said, “Padme, I believe that Obi-Wan will have to be let in on our plans.”

“But the committee was adamant that no Jedi should know about the petition,” she reminded him, still upset that she’d been forced to keep the secret from her husband.

“He still might not need to know,” Bail told her. “It depends entirely on what she wants. But if it comes to it, I don’t believe it would harm our cause for him, alone, to know. The committee didn’t know about this problem when it made that decision, and they aren’t here now. If you like, I will take the responsibility for informing him.”

“No, that won’t be necessary. I’m the newcomer and the one who asked about it,.” she said, adding ruefully, “And I’m politically expendable now anyway.” She tried not to think about how badly Naboo was going to look when all this was finished.

“Then let’s call him and find out what’s going on.”