the way, Dolphe was up and similarly running toward the fallen form of the Senator.
The female fighter pilot arrived first, dropping to one knee beside the fallen woman. She pulled the helmet from her head and quickly shook her brown tresses free.
'Senator!' Typho yelled. It was indeed Padme Amidala kneeling beside the dying woman, her decoy. 'Come, the danger has not passed!' But Padme waved the captain back furiously, then bent low to her fallen friend.
'Corde,' she said quietly, her voice breaking. Corde was one of her beloved bodyguards, a woman who had been with her, serving her and serving Naboo, for many years. Padme gathered Corde up in her arms, hugging her gently. Corde opened her eyes, rich brown orbs so similar to Padme's own. 'I'm sorry, M'Lady,' she gasped, struggling for breath with every word. 'I'm. . not sure I…' She paused and lay there, staring at Padme. 'I've failed you.'
'No!' Padme insisted, arguing the bodyguard's reasoning, arguing against all of this insanity. 'No, no, no!'
Corde continued to stare at her, or stare past her, it seemed to the grief- stricken young Senator. Looking past her and past everything, Corde's eyes stared into a far different place.
Padme felt her relax suddenly, as if her spirit simply leapt from her corporeal form.
'Corde!' the Senator cried, and she hugged her friend close, rocking back and forth, denying this awful reality.
'M'Lady, you are still in danger!' Typho declared, trying to sound sympathetic, but with a clear sense of urgency in his voice.
Padme lifted her head from the side of Corde's face, and took a deep and steadying breath. Looking upon her dead friend, remembering all at once the many times they had spent together, she gently lowered Corde to the ground. 'I shouldn't have come back,' she said as she stood up beside the wary Typho, tears streaking her cheeks.
Captain Typho came up out of his ready stance long enough to lock stares with his Senator. 'This vote is very important,' he reminded her, his tone uncompromising, the voice of a man sworn to duty above all else. So much like his uncle. 'You did your duty, Senator, and Corde did hers. Now come.' He started away, grabbing Padme's arm, but she shrugged off his grasp and stood there, staring down at her lost friend. 'Senator Amidala! Please!' Padme looked over at the man. 'Would you so diminish Corde's death as to stand here and risk your own life?' Typho bluntly stated. 'What good will her sacrifice be if-'
'Enough, Captain,' Padme interrupted.
Typho motioned for Dolphe to run a defensive perimeter behind them, then he led the stricken Padme away.
Back over at Padme's Naboo fighter, R2-D2 beeped and squealed and fell into line behind them.
Chapter Five
The Senate Building on Coruscant wasn't one of the tallest buildings in the city. Dome-shaped and relatively low, it did not soar up to the clouds, catching the afternoon sun as the others did in a brilliant display of shining amber. And yet the magnificent structure was not dwarfed by those towering skyscrapers about it, including the various Senate apartment complexes. Centrally located in the complex, and with a design very different from the typical squared skyscraper, the bluish smooth dome provided a welcome relief to the eye of the beholder, a piece of art within a community of simple efficiency.
The interior of the building was no less vast and impressive, its gigantic rotunda encircled, row upon row, by the floating platforms of the many Senators of the Republic, representing the great majority of the galaxy's inhabitable worlds. A significant number of those platforms stood empty now, because of the separatist movement. Several thousand systems had joined in with Count Dooku over the last couple of years to secede from a Republic that had, in their eyes, grown too ponderous to be effective, a claim that even the staunchest supporters of the Republic could not completely dispute.
Still, with this most important vote scheduled, the walls of the circular room echoed, hundreds and hundreds of voices chattering all at once, expressing emotions from anger to regret to determination.
In the middle of the main floor, standing at the stationary dais, the one unmoving speaking platform in the entire building, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine watched and listened, taking in the tumult and wearing an expression that showed deep concern. He was past middle age now, with silver hair and a face creased by deep lines of experience. His term limit had ended several years ago, but a series of crises had allowed him to stay in office well beyond the legal limit. From a distance, one might have thought him frail, but up close there could be no doubt of the strength and fortitude of this accomplished man.
'They are afraid, Supreme Chancellor,' Palpatine's aide, Uv Gizen, remarked to him. 'Many have heard reports of the demonstrations, even violent activity near this very building. The separatists-'
Palpatine held up his hand to quiet the nervous aide. 'They are a troublesome group,' he replied. 'It would seem that Count Dooku has whipped them into murderous frenzy. Or perhaps,' he said with apparent reflection, 'their frustrations are mounting despite the effort of that estimable former Jedi to calm them. Either way, the separatists must be taken seriously.'
Uv Gizen started to respond again, but Palpatine put a finger to pursed lips to silence him, then nodded to the main podium, where his majordomo, Mas Amedda, was calling for order.
'Order! We shall have order!' the majordomo cried, his bluish skin brightening with agitation. His lethorn head tentacles, protruding from the back side of his skull and wrapping down over his collar to frame his head like a cowl, twitched anxiously, their brownish-tipped horns bobbing on his chest. And as he turned side to side, his primary horns, standing straight for almost half a meter above his head, rotated like antennae gathering information on the crowd. Mas Amedda was an imposing figure in the Senate, but the chatter, the thousand private conversations, continued.
'Senators, please!' Mas Amedda called loudly. 'Indeed, we have much to discuss. Many important issues. But the motion before us at this time, to commission an army to protect the Republic, takes precedence. That is what we will vote on at this time, and that alone! Other business must defer.' A few complaints came back at Mas Amedda, and a few conversations seemed to gather momentum, but then Supreme Chancellor Palpatine stepped up to the podium, staring out over the gathering, and the great hall went silent. Mas Amedda bowed in deference
