Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive ^{Beam me up, Scotty.}

Chapter Text

The number of are you sure that’s a good idea? reactions Plo had gotten when he’d mentioned introducing her to Senator Amidala led Chester to look forward to this conversation very, very much. Someone who was a good friend to Anakin Skywalker probably couldn’t have been any other way.

Senator Amidala herself was tiny. Between that and her beautiful outfit━a multilayered rusty-gold dress with shaped shoulderpads, loose puffed sleeves and an incredibly voluminous skirt, studded with metal and precious stones like something out of a fantasy novel━it was easy to imagine her as some fragile little doll, who might break if you looked at her too hard. Apparently, that couldn’t be further from the truth. This woman had racked up more powerful enemies than Chester herself could dream of in the short time she hoped she’d be in the galaxy. She also had the distinction of being one of Dooku’s other least favorite people, though apparently he hadn’t bothered with an absurd bounty on her… yet.

Chester looked down at the Senator. The Senator looked up at Chester, and then smiled in a way that cemented Chester’s suspicions that they were going to get along just fine. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Senator,” she said, offering a hand. “Diane Chester.”

“Yes, so I heard,” said Senator Amidala, her small hand delivering an iron grip. “And likewise, Commander.”

Chester hesitated, considering her best approach; the Senator would be an important ally. “Diane,” she said. “Diane is fine.”

“Padmé, then,” said the Senator. The smile on her painted lips deepened. “It’s lovely to meet you, Diane.”

Behind Padmé’s shoulder, Anakin suddenly looked deeply put out. For doubtless petty reasons, Chester thought, uncharitably. 

Depa Billaba, the Councillor currently in charge of Chester's whereabouts, looked between them and smiled. "Senator Amidala, you have our utmost gratitude for agreeing to help with this matter."

Padmé smiled up at her. "I am always glad to assist the Order," she said, and Chester was struck by how deeply the words resonated for such a formulaic phrasing. She gave Master Billaba a short, Jedi-style bow, then smirked good-naturedly as she straightened. "I will also admit to satisfying some personal curiosity━it isn't every day that one has the opportunity to meet with someone from so far outside the Republic, least of all one who comes with such impressive testimonials."

Testimonials, Anakin mouthed, and rolled his eyes behind her shoulder.

"Indeed," said Master Billaba, with a somewhat resigned tilt to her brows. "I must attend to my own duties, but I will leave you with Knight Skywalker's attentive guardianship. If you require materials or information, the Archives will gladly assist. Please also feel free to take advantage of the refectory whenever you find yourselves in need of sustenance." She smiled, humor dancing in her dark eyes, and returned Padmé's bow. "May your studies always be fruitful."

"Goodness, if only," said Padmé, as the Jedi left. “We have rather a lot of ground to cover, Diane. The Senate can be an exceedingly complicated place.” Needlessly complicated, said the tone of her voice.

“I’m a quick study,” said Chester, softening it with a grin. “I’ve got a lot of practice.”

“Yes, Anakin did mention that your people were explorers,” said Padmé, and a glimmer of real interest appeared in her deep brown eyes. “I’m afraid we’re throwing you in rather the deep end of the pond, however. This war…” She sighed. 

Chester nodded. “My sentiments exactly.”

Padmé gave her a bland, politician’s smile. “Anakin also mentioned you were dubious about this war.”

“Very,” said Chester. “I take it I’ll need to be keeping that to myself.”

Padmé’s smile faded into something genuine. “Unfortunately, yes. My anti-war stance has made me a number of enemies even as a Senator with some standing in the Republic. You are…” she trailed off, diplomatically, and gestured to Chester's borrowed Jedi-style robes.

“An outsider,” said Chester, finishing the sentence herself. “And recently under suspicion by Intelligence, and also the person who paroled a few hundred droids into the galaxy. I’m well aware I have very little political margin of error, and my adventure with Dooku will be seen as far-fetched if not entirely contrived.”

Padmé nodded, her brown curls cascading over the puffed-silk shoulders of her dress. Her presence warmed; Chester guessed she was relieved not to be starting from a completely blank slate. “I’m glad that you are aware of the complexities of your situation,” she said, “regrettable though they are.”

“Regrettable complexities are a common theme these days,” said Chester. She followed Padmé into an adjoining room, small and comfortable; evidently a place teacher and student could sit in some privacy. Padmé offered her a simple chair; Chester accepted, and they sat together at a small wooden table by the window, the broad leaves of a climbing vine hanging from the wall above their heads. Anakin dragged in a larger chair from somewhere down the hall and lounged in it, listening and occasionally interjecting with his own dubious wisdom.

What followed was the sort of cramming session Chester was all too familiar with from the First Contact and various diplomatic missions she’d worked before the war (and a small handful during, in which tactical considerations played an outsized role); the cramming of an entire planet’s worth of history and governance into a frantic short session before you waded in and started trying to negotiate. 

It felt good to be getting back to this kind of work, settling into familiar patterns. She crammed down the information about factions and investments and who was suspected to have their fingers in what illicit business; who was very probably banging whom and who was going to get hung up on archaic gender norms or simple species prejudice, or more esoteric bigotry; who was in good with the Chancellor at the moment, and who was in debt. 

All right, getting up to speed on the doings of an entire galactic senate was a rather bigger task than a single planet, but Chester was pleased enough with her retention. Judging by the way Padmé steadily began to relax as they went on, it seemed she was too.

They broke for lunch, which meant a delivery of the sort of cuisine Chester had henceforth associated with formal dinners. This turned out to have a practical purpose: Padmé sat her down in front of a full dinner set and ran her through the Coruscanti etiquette. It reminded her a little uncomfortably of those dinners with Dooku, although Padmé was a much more pleasant dinner partner.

“You’re picking this all up very well,” the Senator observed, demonstrating the correct use of an interesting sort of knife on a cut of seared meat that appeared to have delicate bones honeycombed throughout it. “I imagine, as a first-contact specialist, that this sort of thing is something you are trained for?”

“It is, yes.” Chester frowned down at the meat. The tip of the knife had a little hook to the blade, which allowed it to winkle in between those bones and pry the meat away. If the meat had been anything less than beautifully succulent, it would not have been worth the effort. Unfortunately, it was perfectly cooked and truly delicious, and Chester was hungry.

“Our missions often entail this sort of… crash-course in culture and politics,” she explained, swallowing the last of the very odd steak and setting that hooked knife aside. “Of course, I’d usually be doing this in conjunction with my crew, including experts in history and culture.”

“It sounds like a wonderfully fulfilling career,” Padmé said, with a faintly wistful smile. Her dark eyes went to Chester’s for a long moment. “I went into politics to make a difference in the lives of the people who had little power to make that change for themselves, but your way sounds rather more direct. It must be satisfying to see the results of your work first-hand.”

“It is,” said Chester. “I’m very fortunate to be in Starfleet. I wouldn’t give it up for anything—but we do not face the challenges that you do.”

“Everyone, every organization, faces their own challenges; all we can do is tackle them according to their needs.” Padmé smiled. “Master Skywalker told me a little of your Federation’s values. There is little either of us can do to establish a formal relationship yet, but after you return, and after the war in this galaxy is over, I hope we can build a peaceful relationship between our respective governments.”

Chester looked down, thinking unhappily of the horrors she’d seen this Republic perpetrating, and of the ones she suspected it would perpetuate in the future. “I hope so as well,” she said, and meant it━maybe that would mean they’d pull out of the tailspin they were in.

“Back to business. I think our final task is to establish your wardrobe.” Padmé clapped her hands together, and smiled brightly at Chester from behind her fingertips. “Had you any thoughts of what to wear?”

“I’ll be obliged to be in uniform for meeting the Chancellor, at least,” said Chester, and huffed a breath of frustrated amusement. “I wish I’d had the foresight to get kidnapped in my dress uniform, but here we are.” 

Padmé gave her an assessing look. “Would you model what you have for me?”

This involved going upstairs and collecting it from her rooms. Chester walked back into the meeting room feeling slightly underdressed; the new wartime uniform had a sort of dignity, but it was awfully gray compared to the brighter jumpsuit that had preceded it.

Padmé looked her up and down, then walked in a circle around her. She clasped her hands, and pressed them to her chest.

“We can work with this,” she declared, “but it needs a little tweaking. Your people, Commander, are they… given to minimalism?”

Padmé’s tone was nothing but professional, and yet there was a wealth of information in her word choice. Chester smiled wryly to herself.

“I wouldn’t usually describe us that way, but in comparison to the fashion I’ve seen here on Coruscant? Yes.”

“Perhaps a cloak in addition, then, fastened over one shoulder. Or a long coat. At the moment, I’m afraid you look like a lost clerk.” Padmé gave her an apologetic smile. “The Senate, for better or worse, turns on appearances. All representatives wear traditional dress from their own cultures, so your uniform will work as a base, but… take my dress as an example. We represent the best of our homeworlds, so our fashion choices must match up to our station.”  

Chester amended her opinion. Perhaps the older jumpsuit would have read even worse.

“I think,” Padmé continued, “that we are going to need to do some shopping.”

By shopping , Padmé apparently meant paying a visit to a palatial showroom of a shop. They were welcomed at the front door by a pair of gorgeous salespeople, one pale-skinned human and one vivid yellow twi’lek, who Padmé greeted by name. Then Padmé ushered Chester to the front, whereupon she was whisked round the racks, measured up, and eventually taken through to a cavernous backroom where garments in various stages of completion hung expensively on racks and body forms. 

Someone new came striding up; a woman of an alien species Chester hadn’t seen so far, with freckled red-and-peach skin and short orange-red hair, through which several short black horns stood out around her crown. “Ilsi!” Padmé exclaimed, and the two women embraced.

“Ilsi, this is Commander Diane Chester, of Starfleet. Commander, this is Ilsinanda Roqueart, Master Tailor.” Padmé waited just long enough for them to shake hands. “Ilsi, we have a date with the Chancellor and only a standard field uniform to wear to it. Commander Chester needs something with a little more oomph to impress the masses in the Rotunda.”

I need what, thought Chester, resigned; the idea of explaining to her superiors why she’d spent a great deal of time representing Starfleet out of uniform wasn’t the most appealing one, but cultural competence probably would be a sufficient dodge. She offered Ilsi a smile. 

Ilsi looked her up and down, and her immaculately-painted lips curved into a sharp smile. “This is your uniform, my dear?” 

Chester nodded, instinctively wary of that smile.

Ilsi hummed. “We can work with that, certainly.”

She ushered Chester further toward the back of the room, past gleaming sewing machines and piles of fabric in all textures and colors. “The elements are simple and workable, and the colors are not inspired , shall we say, but for a military uniform I can’t say I’m surprised. Have you a dress uniform at home?”

“I do.” Chester paused, and described it for her. Halfway through, Ilsi stopped her, and handed her a datapad and stylus; there was a drawing program with a blank file loaded onscreen. Chester quickly sketched the jacket and pants of her dress uniform, scribbling white and gold under the details, then handed it back.

“This is more promising,” said Ilsi. Her eyes━a stark shade of yellow━glimmered in the bright overhead lights. “First, let us mock up some shapes for you.”

Chester spent the next hour trying on a dizzying array of clothes. A few themes emerged: black dress trousers whose waists became higher and legs progressively wider, long-sleeved jackets and blazers, some full-length and others shorter in the body. Padmé offered observations from the sidelines, and made suggestions of her own. Beside her, Anakin looked like he was about to fall asleep. (Frankly, Chester envied him.)

Eventually they settled on one of the shorter jackets, white and gold with an erect collar close to the Starfleet style, the body of which cut off at about the bottom of Chester’s ribcage. Beneath that, she wore a simple white and red shirt tucked into the broad waistband of black dress trousers whose legs were so wide they almost felt like a skirt. Ilsi and Padmé hemmed and hawed over their work for a few minutes, debating; then Ilsi disappeared into the workroom and came back with a simple dark cape, which she draped artfully over Chester’s shoulders.

“Perfectly dashing,” Padmé declared.

Ilsi held Chester captive a little while longer, taking precise measurements and pinning gold braid to the chest and shoulders of the jacket. Then, at last, she released her.

Chester breathed a sigh of relief. She bent to pick up her uniform, discarded sadly under a chair.

“And, of course, you will need an evening gown,” said Padmé. 

“A what?” said Chester, who’d understood perfectly well and was wishing she hadn’t.

“An evening gown,” said Padmé, patiently. “In the morning, you will meet with the Chancellor; in the afternoon, we will introduce you to a number of the current Senators, and in the evening there will be a dinner and gala. Not to worry,” she said, possibly misreading the emotion in Chester’s eyes, “there will be a number of Jedi around to guide you, not to mention myself and my staff. I’m sure you’ll handle it perfectly well.”

Anakin, having blinked awake, gave Chester a sympathetic look.

Chester drew a breath, replaced her uniform on the chair, and took a step back onto the fitting platform. “All right,” she said. “What will this evening gown entail?”

“Well,” said Padmé, brightly and somewhat ominously, “that entirely depends on what you would like it to be!”

“You’re overdoing it,” said Anakin to Padmé the second they got in the speeder. He glanced back at Chester in the rear seat. “It’s one day in the Senate. She doesn’t need a full wardrobe.”

“Three items hardly constitute a wardrobe, Anakin,” said Padmé, unruffled. 

“That was way more than three items!” Anakin fired up the speeder and pulled into the busy skylane. “You’re doing that thing where you count outfits as one thing again.”

“She needs things that aren’t Jedi robes or that uniform,” said Padmé bluntly. “Besides, she’ll need things for future Senate visits, for passing more unnoticed in the galaxy—Force’s sake, Anakin, Dooku has an enormous bounty on her, and from what I’ve heard, she’s already got a lot of enemies in the Senate itself. Too many politicians only pay attention to appearances, so she needs to look the part.”

She looked over her shoulder, apologetic. “Apologies for talking about you as if you weren’t here, Commander.”

“No offense taken,” Chester replied. She gave Padmé a sincere smile. “I’m incredibly grateful for all your help.”

Padmé smiled back. “You’re most welcome. Really, it’s my pleasure to offer that help.”

“She means that for real,” said Anakin, over his shoulder. He dropped down into the lower lane and back up, bypassing what looked like a flying tank with black smoke pouring out of its engine. Chester turned her head to stare at it in horror. “Padmé loves projects like this.”

“Anakin,” Padmé chided.

Chester kept her reactions strictly off her face. She was having a sudden suspicion about the source of Anakin’s unhappiness regarding Jedi non-attachment.

Life on Coruscant had its own rhythms, and it was a relief to settle back into them, especially given the distinct lack of a certain Commander. Wolffe was mostly just glad of the actual caf and hot meals, all things considered. It almost made up for the paperwork. 

“Afternoon, General,” he said, walking past Plo as he stepped into the barracks, and then stopped and did a very restrained double-take. 

Plo wasn’t the sort to actually hunch himself into a ball, but he was somehow projecting a feeling of being balled up, despite sitting perfectly properly on a locker by the door. 

Wolffe looked around. Life in the barracks looked perfectly normal. There was a clump of men cooing over the tooka, someone squabbling about the caf, a general susurrus of dirty magazines getting hidden under mattresses and any brother who didn’t move fast enough as an officer’s arrival was noted. Apparently, Plo hadn’t been noticed by most of them. 

“General?” said Wolffe. “What are you doing here?”

“Enjoying a sense of community,” said Plo, leaning back. The sense of gray unhappiness around him didn’t shift.

“With all due respect, sir, you don’t seem to be enjoying shit.”

The profanity earned him a startled look. “If you have time,” Wolffe continued, “I have some paperwork that could use your signature.”

Plo sighed through his mask. The sound was a little rattlier than usual, Wolffe noted, critical; could do with a filter replacement sooner rather than later. But Plo got up, his movements a little heavier than Wolffe liked, and he followed Wolffe to his poky little office without pointing out the lie at all.

Wolffe closed the door behind him, and activated the signal jammer on his desk. “Tea or caf, sir?” he asked. “Or something stronger?”

Plo tipped his head to the side, once again sitting listlessly in Wolffe’s rickety guest chair. “Perhaps something stronger.”

Wolffe dipped under his desk for the mini-fridge, trying not to let his surprise show on his face. “Here,” he said, passing a bottle over; this one was green with half a sticker remaining of 79’s house brand. “Freshly confiscated from Engineering.”

For himself, he turned the kettle on and made a cup of tea. Commander Chester’s rescued shinies had discovered online shopping. Wolffe had turned a blind eye on the basis that it brought him great joy to see Count Dooku’s credits kitting out his battalion in all sorts of junk. The kettle had turned up in his office the next day, along with several packets of extra-strength caf and a wild assortment of teas. 

“So,” he said, settling down with the steaming mug of strong tea, which was still steeping. He liked it bitter. (“Like your soul,” Joyride had muttered, failing to earn himself punishment duty only because of the kettle.) “What did the Commander do this time?”

“She has done nothing,” Plo murmured. He slid the ornate sheath off his long middle claw, and deftly removed the cap from the bottle of moonshine. The alcohol within hissed and foamed. “She has only given me a glimpse of the enormous difficulties that await her once she returns to her own galaxy.” 

Wolffe gave him a deeply dubious look. “With all respect, the Commander is very good at making her own enormous difficulties.” It was clearly something more than that, he knew, but Plo was very good at understatement even when he didn’t have someone else’s secrets to protect.  

“Has it occurred to you that her approach may be due to her previous circumstances, rather than individual recklessness?” Plo asked. 

“I can’t really imagine circumstances that would reward that kind of approach,” grumbled Wolffe, except he sort of could. They were the sort of circumstances that would lead someone to think being tortured to death by a Sith Lord was a genuinely funny prospect. He looked sharply at Plo. “What exactly did she tell you?”

Plo declined to answered that question directly, looking down at the bottle in his hands. “I fear,” he said, “that in returning Commander Chester, we will be sending her to her death.”

“Sir, I very much doubt that a rabid rancor could kill that woman,” said Wolffe. “She faced down a Sith Lord without so much as a scratch to show for it, kriff’s sake.”

Plo looked up at him, the lines of his face tense and worried at the edges of his mask. “I would generally agree with you,” he said. “Yet the fact remains; the reason the Commander is so desperate to return is so, if nothing else, she may die with her people.”

A chill crept into the room, making even the cup in Wolffe’s hands seem like scant comfort. “What the kark is going on in that galaxy of hers, then?” he asked, hearing the roughness in his own voice. 

“Her war is one of a small volunteer army of diplomats and explorers versus a massive force of genetically engineered soldiers,” said Plo. “We have enough examples of such wars in our own history to anticipate the most likely result.”

“The plucky underdog hardly ever wins,” said Wolffe. 

“It seems like a great pity,” said Plo, his voice very quiet. “A people so deeply committed to such ideals so quickly destroyed.”

“Idealism is hardly a good survival strategy, sir,” said Wolffe, but his heart wasn’t really in it. He was thinking of an entire service of people like Chester, rampaging with cheerful, brutal, determined compassion through their galaxy, an absolutely iron dedication to others and a damn-the-torpedoes attitude—and of what might happen with that light abruptly snuffed out under an imperialist boot. 

There was a reason Chester’s little group of rescuees were so loyal to her. Wolffe could count on the fingers of one hand the number of non-Jedi natborns he had encountered that would risk even moderate danger to rescue six clones. Chester had faced down a Sith fucking Lord for six clones she’d barely met, and she’d done it without hesitation, as if anything else had been simply unimaginable. 

Even with that shit with the droids, Wolffe could see the Galaxy being much better off with more people like her. 

Plo was right. A great pity. 

And of course she’d fight harder to go back the greater the danger that awaited her. A woman who’d kick Dooku in the balls for some clones wouldn’t hesitate to plunge headfirst into a meatgrinder for her own planet.

It did put her dedicated stupidity into perspective. If Chester’s banthakark galaxy had kidnapped him during the attack on Kamino, Wolffe wouldn’t be giving much of a shit about his personal safety in order to get home, either. Actually, he probably would have shot a lot more people by now. He supposed he could appreciate her restraint in that regard. 

“How bad is it, General?” he asked quietly. 

“Bad,” said Plo. “She did not say much. She did not need to. It sounds as if the enemy has taken a planet that commands hyperspace lanes to the capital planet or planets of her Federation. Including her homeworld.”

Wolffe said nothing. 

“When she was taken, it seemed the enemy had the wherewithal to launch just such an attack. If they win, it will be very unlikely they will allow her people to survive.”

That seemed ridiculous. “Surely as slave labor at least━” Wolffe started, but Plo was shaking his head. 

“She showed me what the Dominion has done to other planets who defied them and did not win the ensuing battle,” Plo said. “Simple slaughter might have been far, far kinder.”

Plo was not the sort to embrace the idea people might be better off dead. Wolffe eyed him, deeply concerned. “You think this Dominion is as bad as the Seppies?”

“Worse, perhaps. While the Separatists are enthusiastic in their commission of atrocities, there is a… patience this Dominion possesses, that they do not.” 

Wolffe cast about for a way to bring this conversation back into the realm of things he was qualified for. “Do you think they might be interested in us, once they finish up with this Federation?”

“That they have not already attacked indicates that they may not even be aware of us, as we were unaware of them and of Commander Chester’s Federation. May it remain that way.” 

“Well,” said Wolffe, then realized his words had drained away before he’d finished the thought, and settled for, “Shit.”

“An elegant summation of my thoughts,” said Plo, with the level of the moonshine now substantially reduced. He looked as depressed as Wolffe had ever seen him, as he put the bottle aside. “I am… taking this harder than I ought, I suspect.”

Wolffe just raised his eyebrows at him. No shit, sir.

“It is refreshing,” Plo went on, “to have someone like Commander Chester around; she has acted on her better impulses so consistently, without thought to politics or financial obligations or even to such practicalities as self-preservation, and yet she is far from a fool or a saint. Simply someone who consistently chooses the most compassionate of the available options, even if others would see it as foolish. It is not that she assumes it won’t go wrong━it is that she is resolved to tackle the fallout if it does, and she sees that price as worthwhile. I suppose it was heartening in the middle of our war to know that there was a culture out there where that approach was not only tolerated but embraced. To think of its annihilation grieves me. To consider the wounds it will have sustained even should it survive, likewise.”

“Yeah, that and you like her,” said Wolffe, and the appalled look Plo gave him did him some good. He was more depressed than he would have liked to be contemplating their local coddled twit’s demise. “Oh don’t give me that look, sir, you like plenty of people and a lot of them who aren’t worth it. But you like her , as a person, and I’d say a lot more than you ought to, given the shit she drags everyone into because she thinks she knows better.” There wasn’t any bite to it. Wolffe had seen a lot of people die, a lot of them people like Chester, and his mind was giving him far too clear an image of that; that blank incomprehension behind the eyes, the refusal to believe that this time there was no miracle to pull off, no way out.

“Knowing her, she’ll go down with her teeth in their throats,” he offered.

As comforting words went, it sucked. 

Plo raised his brows over his goggles, but his tusks twitched in just the slightest show of amusement. “I don’t doubt that,” he said. “Perhaps it would even be literal.”

Wolffe snorted to himself. Yes, he could imagine that all too clearly.

The next stop on Padmé’s schedule was a shoe shop. This was a much smaller place, tucked into an alley of sorts lower down in the Coruscanti heights. Anakin dropped Chester and Padmé at the entrance to a bustling covered arcade, then went to park the speeder.

“It’s very handy to have a Jedi as chauffeur,” Padmé murmured to Chester as they waited. “They find all sorts of interesting parking spots, such as on rooftops and in gutters.”

Chester laughed. “Most officials in my galaxy either use public transport or—” she caught herself just ahead of the word ‘transporters’— “shared official transport, so there’s no faffing about with parking.”

Padmé's smile turned a little sad. “If only that were possible here. The risk is too great for most of us, no matter how inefficient it is to rely on personal vehicles.”

Chester remembered the attempted assassinations on Padmé's record. “I can’t imagine how stressful that must be,” she said, sympathetic. 

“Says the woman who faced down Count Dooku,” Padme said, smiling.

“Yes, but I could escape him. You can’t exactly escape your job.” She grinned, wide and impish. “Also, options were open to me with Dooku that I know aren’t advisable in most professional circumstances.”

Padmé's smile broadened. “That is true. I do frequently wish I could emulate your method of escape, I must admit. It would be extremely satisfying.”

Chester felt her cheeks warm, and hoped it wasn’t showing up. She really had done something good for their morale, hadn’t she?

It was a little disconcerting, how much fear and anxiety Dooku provoked on his own. She stood by her earlier statement that he wasn’t all that threatening. She wondered, briefly, how this galaxy might deal with a threat like the Borg, or the Dominion, and found her mood darkening. They wouldn’t. For all their size and age, they’d probably just end up assimilated, or vassal worlds. She recalled the early reports from the Dominion testing the Federation’s resolve, the description of the simulation the kidnapped Starfleet officers had found themselves in, with the Dominion starting negotiations and seeing how they’d react to the creep of Dominion influence and control and the insidiousness of authoritarianism. 

They didn’t need a Dominion simulation to test that here. 

“Speaking of colleagues I dearly wish to commit mild assault against,” said Padmé, her gentle tone of voice and smile entirely at odds with her words, “there are a few in particular you may wish to look out for.  They are all great patriots, of course, but some of their business dealings, shall we say, tread interestingly close to Separatist interests.”

“Capitalism,” said Chester dryly, “the gift that keeps on giving.”

Padmé tilted her a mildly curious look and went on. “While it’s unlikely they’ll try anything in public, I would not be surprised if Dooku’s bounty on you has attracted their attention. Some may be interested in maintaining… good unofficial relations, shall we say? Others may be more subtle about the matter, arguing that the evident Separatist interest in you makes protecting you a risky proposition and a drain on resources that would otherwise be better directed to the war.” She made a face. “There are a great many ways to communicate these things,” she said wryly. 

“I understand,” said Chester. 

“And one or two of them have connections with Admiral Tarkin and his family,” Padmé continued. “The last I heard, Tarkin feels that you have egregiously embarrassed him.”

“Of course he does,” said Chester, resigned. “It wasn’t my intention, but I’m sure that doesn’t matter to him.”

“It won’t,” said Padmé. “The Tarkin family are the current rulers of Eriadu, a very wealthy industrial planet in the Outer Rim. In theory, Eriadu’s governors are elected. In practice, a Tarkin, or one of their branch families, has held the governorship for the last two hundred years. They do not take their reputations lightly. Our Tarkin, Wilhuff, is not a man used to competition, let alone the sort of outright defiance you have shown him.”

Great. She’d picked a fight with a dynasty. A dynasty of idiots who could have been lifted from Earth’s ancient imperial ages. “He calls that outright defiance?” she started, then sighed. “Of course he does.”

Padmé nodded, sympathetic. “He’s used to effectively being king of his own fiefdom.”

“The sort of man who usually gets a rude awakening, sooner or later.” She made a face. “One hopes, at least.”

“One hopes,” murmured Padmé, wistful, and Anakin appeared out of the crowd of shoppers; Chester’s stay of execution was over; Padmé firmly escorted her into the shop where she was variously measured and presented with a bewildering array of shoes, even to someone who lived on a post-scarcity world where they could be handily ordered, in your exact measurements, from a replicator. 

Of course, she had to try all of them on. 

It wasn’t that Chester was of a particularly ascetic disposition, but the simple fact of the matter was she’d spent most of her time since she’d left for the Academy at eighteen in uniform of one kind or another. She liked her uniform. She’d worked hard for it, she looked pretty good in it, or at least no worse than anybody else, and it was comfortable in a wide variety of environments. Sure, sometimes more formality was necessary, and that was what the dress uniform was for. She liked that, too. She especially liked how good the white fabric was at shedding stains.

She didn’t really have a lot of clothes outside of the uniform, fewer still right now with the war on, and she hadn’t felt a pressing need for more. The idea that this was all made by people, not reproductions…

She’d seen how much work things like this took, or at least had a very faint idea of it, from the time that Garak took on his commissions. Something about this galaxy made her doubt that the artisans who’d made these were being as well compensated as he was.  

Padmé, at least, had led her to a more restrained section of the shop, where boots of a largely leather persuasion, or possible extragalactic equivalent thereof, stood in display. “Perhaps something like this?” she suggested, ushering Chester over; the pair she indicated were plain black and relatively simple, with only a modest heel and two thin straps fastened with silvery buckles around the ankle for decoration. 

“Yes, that would do,” said Chester, and with a sigh relinquished her own boots━replicated to her exact measurements. As much careful labor as had gone into the handmade ones, they were sadly more uncomfortable. 

The hovering salesman, a young human in a perfectly-fitted suit, clasped his chin in his hand and gave the boots a critical look. “Ill-fitting,” he declared, “not suitable for social events. If you are happy with them otherwise, ma’am and Senator, we can have a pair adjusted to your measurements and delivered to your residence.”

“If the adjustments can be done within three days, that would be ideal,” said Padmé, with a glance at Chester. “We have an appointment to keep on the fourth.”

“Certainly,” said the salesman. 

At least having one’s feet measured did not take so long, which was good, because it was also fairly embarrassing, having someone closely scan your feet and analyze your walk—and then also suggest a pair of formal pumps for the later evening dress. That became a bit more of a process, as both Padme and the retailers had a very different definition of an acceptable heel height than Chester did. The initial pair they suggested put her in danger of hitting her head on the light fixture, and she felt immensely unsteady; the heels on the second were far too narrow. She didn’t want to spend the entire night worrying about going flat on her face. 

They finally settled on some perfectly reasonable ones and were haggling over colors when the salesman stiffened, then eased over to where Anakin slouched in a chair. “I believe,” he said quietly, “someone on the opposite roof has taken an interest in your charges, Master Jedi. I think, perhaps, subtlety is in order?”

“It very much is in order,” said Chester, not lifting her head from contemplating the complex political dilemma of red versus white versus gold shoes. She used the cover of her hair to glance up at said roof. She wasn’t sure, but there might have been more reflections than were exactly expected. “I’d like to know who’s after me this week.”

“Don’t worry, Commander. Subtle is our specialty.” Anakin looked disturbingly happy about this turn of events, which made Chester suspect his proclamation was a goddamn lie. She couldn't blame him, though. At that moment she would have given anything to go haring off after them. 

Anakin got up and stretched, a little too exaggerated. “So where’s the fresher?” he asked the salesman, who tipped his head toward the back. “Cheers,” he said, and sauntered nonchalantly out of sight.

If Chester had been a bounty hunter, she’d have thought seriously about making a move. Warily, she kept half an eye on the roof, taking a turn around the room looking for an alternate escape route and cover under the guise of wanting to try each and every pair on. “I really like the red ones,” she said, pausing by a mirror with an excellent view of said roof. “I’m just worried they’re a bit much.” She shifted her weight, eying them critically while searching the skyline. Yes, she was certain there was something up there moving in a way that was not the wind. 

“We’ve got many different shades,” the salesman offered, and proceeded to produce an almost offensive variety of everything from candy-apple red to near-maroon. 

“I think those,” said Padmé, and leaned in close to Chester to examine the color better. “The iridescence will show up under the reception hall lights, and it will compliment the color of the dress.”

More quietly, she said, “I’m armed too, and it wouldn’t be the first time Hass here had to hide me. It’ll be fine.”

“I’ve got my lightsaber,” said Chester, just as quietly, “and my biggest problem is I’d like to be out there helping Anakin rather than having my problems solved for me like this!”

“Believe me, I sympathize,” said Padmé. “It took me forever to get used to my body guards when I became Queen. Then again, I was rather young━teenagers have such a sense of their own immortality!”

“How old were you?” asked Chester.

“Fourteen,” said Padmé, and missed entirely the horrified look Chester gave her as she leaned back. “Yes, I think we’d best take these. Diane, you should try them first, of course.”

“Of course,” said Chester, and slipped into the proffered pair. They didn’t seem much different from any of the others, but it was another excuse to pass by the mirror. There was a small dark spot working its way up the side of the building. 

“I feel silly getting this for just one evening,” she said. 

“Well, I hope it won’t be just one evening,” said Padmé. “Even if you go back, you could take it with you. I’m sure your home galaxy has formal events, too. Including ones, I hope, that you can attend in something other than uniform.”

Chester laughed. “If I show up at any family events in that dress, Grandmama is going to take it as a sign that I’m finally serious about catching some sort of spouse. She’ll activate her vast network of retired grannies, and then I’ll really be in for it. Half of them were Starfleet, they’ll know actually viable candidates, it’ll be awful!”

Padmé gave her a genuine grin at that. 

In the mirror, the small dark blot lunged for the dot of reflected light, and commotion ensued. Chester threw herself and Padme flat just before a blaster bolt melted a hole in the mirror above them. Fortunately, it was just the one shot. 

After a few moments, they all staggered back upright. “Damn,” said Chester, looking at the twin holes in mirror and window. “Sorry about that.” 

“Our clientele is the Senate,” said the salesman, sounding the most personable she’d heard him yet. “It’s a slow month when we don’t have at least one blaster bolt into the window, though usually they stop at the window. Your friend out there has something very high-powered.”

A few minutes later, Anakin returned, out of breath and disappointed. “He got away.” He looked sharply at Chester. “You’re going to get more of those, you realize. We should go back to the Temple.”

“No argument there,” said Chester.