Darth Vader: Hero of Naboo

Chapter 32

Rune Haako stared listlessly at the ceiling while lying awake on the comfortable, reclined seat the droids had placed him on. The medical droids had patched him up as best they could. The Gungans had struck him with a spear in the arm. Thankfully, it was the left arm. He hid it well these days, but his left side was basically useless. A disease from his youth saw to that. So it was of little concern- losing the entire arm would have been no great loss really. If anything, he'd be relieved not having to hide and compensate for it constantly.

He kept playing it over and over again in his mind. The negotiations with the Gungans were going well, or as well as they could. The natives were bitter about the idea of abandoning the planet for the moon, and Rune doubted that this Boss Nass could truly convince the entire population to go along with the migration attempt. But they were not hostile, and there were some shared jabs made at the expense of the Naboo humans. And he had made some concessions that would realistically cost the Trade Federation nothing. There were no set plans for what they'd do with Naboo once it was theirs, so the Gungans would have plenty of time to settle their issues, and the Trade Federation would supply the transportation. The droids would avoid the swamps as much as possible, and the Gungans would drive out the resistance that attempted to hide there.

It was all going so easy. Then the blaster went off.

The Gungan emissary had been shot, and the Gungans quickly turned hostile, stabbing him before he could attempt to defuse the situation. Both sides tried to kill each other while dragging the negotiators away. Rune wondered, did that Gungan live? Maybe. He didn't have the slightest idea about Gungan biology. They weren't as hard to kill as Hutts were, allegedly.

But what had set the droid off? Had it just been a defect in the droid or the weapon? It wasn't impossible. Accidental firing was the thing they tried to iron out the most when they gave the droids any updates, but it still happened sometimes. And on occasion, those were very bad times to have a blaster go off by accident. Realistically, it had to happen eventually, a droid shooting someone on accident during this operation. This many weapons and organic involved almost guaranteed it.

So why did it feel too perfect of a time?

The Gungans would likely sever all attempts to talk with them. Maybe he could salvage this eventually, if Gunray hadn't already made the situation worse, but that would be too long to get their aid in dealing with the current situation. By then, they'd either have Naboo secured or their enemies will have forced the Federation off this planet. It was unlikely but possible, their own defeat.

After all, Sidious was dead.

Or as good as. Maybe the Dark Lord lived and plotted, maybe he didn't. Either way, if this operation was still viable or important to his plans, he would have contacted them or sent some enforcer to make sure they knew they still had to finish dealing with this world. Dead or alive, it didn't matter. Something had happened on Coruscant, something terrible. If Rune had to guess, this "Darth Vader" had outsmarted Sidious in some way, and Sidious in turn unleashed some final trap to make any victory against him a bitter one.

That sounded about right for Sidious.

Unlike Gunray, Rune's mind didn't latch onto the worst possible scenario. As it stood, the most likely scenario was that Sidious was indeed dead or in hiding. And Gunray, having dismissed most of the blockade, had them all fluttering in the solar winds with what forces they had left. More to the point, Rune decided he'd fear the Sith Lord he knew was coming rather than the one that was currently missing.

So, Rune began to ponder what was most important now: Not how to secure this planet for the Trade Federation, but secure his own life if the situation turned against them.