Alliances (Star Wars: Thrawn, #2)(27)
The bartender waved a hand. “I suppose. Fine, go ahead. I can’t imagine it bothering anyone.”
Padmé took her time with the job, aware that she was running close numbers but also knowing that making it look rushed and anxious might attract the wrong kind of attention. Half an hour and a second Andoan White later, she was ready.
The bartender kept surreptitious watch on her the whole time, either because he’d been instructed to do so or just out of bored curiosity. As she finished her drink and picked up her datapad he came back to her end of the bar. “So what happens now?” he asked. “You want me to gather some folks to come watch?”
“You can come if you want to,” Padmé said. Not that she wanted an audience, but it would look suspicious if she refused the offer. “But it’s not necessary. I’ll be singing privately to her, so there won’t be anything for anyone to hear.”
The bartender grunted. “Yeah, okay. Gotta get ready for the lunch crowd anyway. Have fun.”
There were a few more people in the streets when she emerged from the bar, all of them going about their own business, most of them barely giving her a cursory glance before continuing on. She moved to the head of the casket, held her datapad over Duja’s body, and began to sing.
She’d had to write the song as if to a stranger. But beneath the vague words and simple tune she could feel her heart breaking at the loss of her friend and onetime bodyguard. Memories came flooding back of the interweaving of their lives, both the good times and the bad, the hopes and dreams and fears they’d shared that were now gone forever. There was the time when Duja helped her decipher an unintelligible communication from an angry ambassador, a potential diplomatic crisis that had been defused when Duja suddenly realized the ambassador simply hadn’t liked the way Padmé pronounced the name of a fellow envoy. There were the late-night conversations, after everyone else had gone to bed, when the two of them talked about the future, and all that they hoped those days would bring.
There was the aftermath of the attempted assassination on Coruscant that had taken Cordé’s life, and the private tears Padmé and Duja had shared together.
Now Duja was gone. And Padmé would have to leave her here, and would likely never be able to give her a proper funeral.
Duja would understand, and under the circumstances would certainly not want Padmé to risk her own life and safety merely for respect and decorum. But that didn’t make it any easier.
She finished her song and for a moment gazed down at her friend. Then, keeping her expression that of a compassionate stranger merely doing her ethical duty, she pulled out the data card on which she’d written the song and laid it on Duja’s chest.
And when she brought her hand up out of the coffin she had Duja’s brooch pressed invisibly into her palm. Giving Duja one final look, she turned away and headed back to her BARC.
The man and alien were still loitering by their freighter when she reached her ship. “Any luck?” the man called.
“No,” Padmé called back as she stowed the BARC into its hold. “I guess I’ll try some of the other outposts. Maybe he just messed up the name and coordinates.”
“Yeah, good luck,” the man said. “If you can’t find him, come on back. I’ll take it off your hands for a good price.”
“You wish,” Padmé said, forcing a casual cheerfulness she didn’t feel. With a friendly wave she walked up the ramp, sealed the hatch, and headed back across the sky.
But not very far. Certainly not all the way to the next outpost. This was where Duja had planned to meet, and here—somewhere—was where she’d hidden her ship.
Only now Padmé had the way to find it.
She’d traveled about thirty kilometers when she spotted a promising-looking clearing. She set her ship down at one edge and walked outside, blaster ready while she checked the perimeter for large animals or other threats. Satisfied that nothing was preparing to pounce, she tucked the blaster away and pulled out Duja’s brooch.
Duja had taken a fair amount of ribbing over the years by people who couldn’t understand why a woman who otherwise knew all the ways of fashion and elegance would wear something that outlandish in public. It was made of moldable plastoid, fashioned with the exuberance and total lack of skill of a five-year-old child.
But then, that was exactly the look Duja had been going for when she made it. A child’s loving creation, worn as a tribute by a proud and doting mother.
Padmé smiled sadly at the thought. Duja had talked about one day settling down and having a child who might make such an earnest gift for real. Now that would never happen.
Maybe one day, if the war ever ended, Padmé might find that kind of peaceful life for herself. If so, she would dedicate the first of her firstborn’s creations to Duja’s memory.
But that was the future. This was the present. Wiping away a sudden tear with the back of her hand, Padmé raised the brooch—the one piece of jewelry no thief would ever bother with—and squeezed it hard in the center.
Whether through luck or simply their long association enabling the two women to anticipate each other’s moves, Padmé had landed almost on top of Duja’s hiding place. Barely two minutes after triggering the beckon call buried deep within the brooch Duja’s ship suddenly appeared overhead, floating down on its repulsorlifts to a sheltered spot at the other edge of the clearing. It settled to a stop and the hatch popped open.