Dormé's unnatural reaction made Padmé tremble, aware of the seriousness of the situation if it could shake a highly trained handmaiden of Naboo to her core. She stepped closer to her friend, placed her hand on her shoulder, and gave it a gentle squeeze. "I'm fine, Dormé. I'm here," she said. "But you need to tell me, do you know what's happening?"
Padmé asked the question but halfheartedly hoped for a silent answer– or at least an answer that would downplay what she knew was a serious situation. She could see the mix of absolute terror and utter relief in her friend's eyes: a severely unpleasant combination. Something had frightened Dormé, shocking her to her inner core and stealing away her sanity. Padmé had never seen the woman so frazzled, and it was equally terrifying to know that the only thing that could calm Dormé's frantic nerves was seeing Padmé alive. This fact sent a shiver up the young senator's spine, and she tried not to dwell on the reasoning behind it. Dormé closed her eyes and shook her head as if she were casting away a bad dream. "It was madness," she said. "Utter madness. I didn't know what was happening, but I arrived in the middle of it all."
"The troopers?" Padmé asked. She knew how the troopers could stir up chaos, often bringing the same madness wherever they went. For that reason, many people had started to refer to the clone troopers by a new name: "Stormtroopers."
"The troopers, the screams," Dormé continued. "The madness!"
"What happened?" Padmé urged, gently shaking the woman to free her from the trance the memory had created. "Why are they here?"
"People. P–People have gone missing," Dormé whispered, her voice barely audible as she revealed the truth behind the phrase "madness." "Many of them are senators who attended the party last night."
Padmé couldn't hold back the gasp that escaped her lips upon hearing the news. Her eyes widen, and her heart goes rigid in her chest. People were missing—senators were missing—and she knew that could only mean one thing: investigation.
They all dreaded investigation but prepared for it accordingly. The high members of the Rebel Alliance were already professionally and politically trained to keep life-depending secrets on a daily basis, so it just came down to perfecting the art of hiding information within information. They had all been prepared for it one day, but none of them had imagined it would happen on such a ginormous scale.
Darth Vader was the game-changing factor. The Empire's Ghost appeared in physical form for all to see at the party the night before, illustrating the lengths that Palpatine would go to in order to get what he wanted. It was a step they never imagined the Emperor would take, but of course he would, the dictating bastard.
She still couldn't believe it, no matter how dreadful the news seemed. It was possible that Vader had seen something in someone's mind at the party, but that didn't justify the outright disposal or incarceration of any of them. Darth Vader wouldn't dare approach the Imperial Senate, and people couldn't just disappear without following proper protocols. Palpatine would never allow it. He couldn't control the systems without keeping the Senate intact, and the only way to do that was to retain the senators. Right?
Once more, her mind insisted it was impossible, yet the inexplicable empty halls of the Imperial Senate revealed a different truth. The silence of the typically bustling passageways screamed that the reality was, indeed, quite possible. They had reached a stalemate where Palpatine wielded too much control over the eyes and ears of the galaxy. No longer did he need to adhere to the rules of the populace– those rules of the government that had been civilly ruined before his takeover. With Lord Vader at his side, it appeared that Palpatine could do whatever he pleased, and the galaxy would thunderously applaud him. She couldn't deny it. Senators were disappearing, and she could only speculate the names on that cursed blacklist.
The names. She felt her frozen heart sink into her stomach, chills running down her spine as she looked at the woman before her with wide eyes. "Who's missing?" she pressed, unable to conceal the panic in her voice. "Bail? Mon? Are they still here? Were they taken? Are they missing?"
Dormé shook her head, but tears began to form in her eyes. "I'm not sure," she said, turning her head toward the door and back again as if they were being watched. She took a deep breath to control her emotions, glancing at the ground and then back again with a more composed expression. "I know that the senators from Anaxes, Anoat, and Nubia are missing," she said, sounding as if she were giving a report. "But there are many more than those three who have disappeared. Senator Maydar was dragged away by her antenna, kicking and screaming for dear life."
Padmé couldn't believe the information she was hearing. Senators were missing, and one was reported to have been forcibly removed from the Imperial Senate by her antenna. She imagined it was something the Empire was capable of, but to leave witnesses? Padmé didn't know the senator from Balosar well, but she knew that Senator Maydar was highly respected among her comrades and had just recently been married. The few interactions she had with her had always been quite pleasant. Maydar had not been a member of the Rebellion, but she had been a sympathizer, with her feelings aligning with those of the other Rebel Alliance leaders, yet she felt her planet was too underprotected for her to fully dedicate herself to the cause.
.
.
.
👓☕️Consider supporting me and enhance your reading experience with the ready-to-read PDFs I have on my Ko-fi.☕️👓
🎯https://ko-fi.com/bstories🎯