Mutual Feelings

'Once you start down the dark path...'

When his pillow vibrated slightly, Typho instantly woke up. He'd trained that ability when Padmé first moved into the senate apartment complex, over a period of weeks. Padmé had agreed to the use of the various handmaidens she'd brought with her for the purpose. The handmaidens had been both for security and to allow her not to have to attend an endless stream of charity dinners. Typho had used them to test his security perimeter, and had got them to fly assorted speeders past the window at night. Within two months, he'd been able to come awake instantly.

With a series of eye movements, Typho called up the tiny holographic display built into his pillow, coloured a dark red to preserve his night vision. On it, he could see what looked suspiciously like a CIS assassin droid hovering outside the room using a repulsorpack. The small, but extremely high resolution camera also showed the droid scanning the apartment using a small device.

"Authorisation Typho Bravo Alpha Niner." Typho said, speaking to a tiny, highly sensitive speaker mounted above the senator's bed. Padmé was sleeping in a zero-gravity tube in what was normally the guard position outside the elevator. The code caused a hydraulically moderated set of transparisteel panels to drop down silently around her, creating an airtight seal. It wouldn't stop high explosives, but anything short of that would be largely kept out. He twitched slightly at the nearly inaudible whine of the separate ventilation system kicking in. The fan was taking air from a duct that was supposed to supply a meeting room and pumping it through the senator's panic chamber.

With a smile, he waited for the droid to start cutting through the window, triggering a second alarm in the process. Once the cut was underway, he reached under his pillow and extracted a simple weapon, invented well before the era of space travel. About a foot long, with two durasteel barrels, the slugthrower contained a pair of duraplast cartridges containing chemical propellant and two ounces of duranium pellets. He just rested it on the bed, under the covers, and waited, watching everything on his screen.

When the CIS droid opened the door, it stepped through, blaster raised. As if he was turning over, slightly disturbed by the air current, Typho raised the shotgun and pulled the trigger.

He was pretty certain he'd broken his wrist as the droid flew backwards, and reached under his pillow for his carbine. It had enough stopping power for the job, and could be fired like an oversized pistol if he had to.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

The massive blast of noise dragged Senator Padmé Amidala awake far faster than she normally woke up. For a second, she thought a speeder had crashed into the side of the building. Then she realised that the security panels had been closed around her 'bed'. Her hand dipped into a pocket, and she waited for something to happen.

Perhaps a minute after she woke up, they retracted. "Typho?" she called.

"I'm here, milady." Her bodyguard replied. "Someone sent you a present."

"I'm glad your security precautions worked." She replied, with a bit of a smile. "I take it there wasn't a return address?"

"Not on the packaging." Typho replied. "I turned it inside out."

She smiled slightly once the sign and countersign routine had finished, and stepped out of the pod, heading for the guest bedroom. She took the M-6 'Rancor' she'd armed herself with with her.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Ahsoka had known for quite a while that 'basic.exe' didn't run in Anakin Skywalker's head until after his morning cup of caf. Prior to his consumption of the stimulant, he operated on grunts.

At least, that had been the norm before they became lovers. Now they were in a relationship, she found that he was very expressive prior to his first cup of caf. She growled slightly as his hands found... oh... yes... that spot. Just there, Master.