Star Wars: Secret Negotiations

Padme could see Ventress' growing anger as the negative reports came in from the search droids. Padme assumed she had scanned the rest of the sail barge for life as well searching the lower deck while she was down there. Jabba kept dropping hints that Ventress had worn out her welcome, but she simply ignored him. Jabba even offered to help her look for whatever it was she was searching for, but she politely declined that at well, saying she was just checking updates from her defensive screen.

Finally Ventress retreated to the far end of the deck, and started speaking into her comlink. After several minutes of hushed, intense conversation with whoever was on the other end, she announced she was leaving.

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"I'm telling you Count Dooku, Senator Amidala wasn't on Jabba's sail barge," Asajj Ventress told him over the HoloNet connection. "I scanned the entire barge, and there was only Jabba, a handful of guards, and a couple of his slaves on board. The droids searched over ten square kilometers of desert around the barge. Senator Amidala wasn't anywhere around."

Count Dooku frowned again. "My intelligence source was clear that they would be meeting on his sail barge, and that the Senator would be alone. Are you sure she wasn't on board the Republic ship you destroyed in orbit?"

"I'm positive, Count. There were only two clones on that ship, and they did not get off a signal to warn her, or the Republic."

Count Dooku frown again. "Keep the sail barge under surveillance for the time being. I'll give you further instructions soon."

"Understood, Count Dooku," Ventress replied with a nod. "Oh, one more thing, Count; Jabba has a Twi'lek slave that is Force sensitive. I attempted to buy her from the Hutt, but he refused. She might be useful in the future.

Dooku considered that a moment. "Send her information in, if we ever need her, we'll just make Jabba an offer he can't refuse."

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

"My lord, Ventress insists Senator Amidala is not on board Jabba's sail barge, or anywhere nearby," Dooku informed him over the HoloNet connection.

Darth Sidious stared back at him. "Then the schutta has the brains of a nerf," he replied. "Amidala was delivered to the Hutt's barge nearly two hours ago."

Dooku nodded his head in agreement. "Never-the-less, Master, Ventress assures me that the Senator was not present."

"If she wouldn't have destroyed the transport, she could have interrogated the clones that delivered her," Sidious countered.

"Yes Master," Dooku answered. "She will be punished for that mistake, and for failing to capture Amidala."

Sidious considered that a moment. "See that she is," he replied vehemently.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

As soon as Ventress' ship departed, Jabba ordered his guards to sweep his barge for spy devices. While the Weequay, Human, and Artoo did that, Jabba ordered the barge back to his palace. One of the Gamorean guards brought out a new chain, and quickly replaced Padme's leash.

Padme started to climb down from Jabba's dais, but he held her close. He quickly explained through his protocol droid that Ventress could still have them under observation, so they couldn't drop the charade yet. Padme didn't quite believe him, and definitely didn't want to be in this humiliating outfit any longer than she had too, but he made enough sense for her to go along. She did ask him why he had tried to sell her to Ventress when he was supposed to be hiding her though.

Jabba let out another booming laugh, and spoke in Huttese.

"The Mighty Jabba says that his planned worked perfectly. The Separatists are gone, and you are safe. You shouldn't be complaining."

Once again Padme couldn't fault his reasoning. It still didn't stop her from being mad at him for the whole thing.

Later on Padme found out that her clothes and boots had accidentally been incinerated while they had been in the garbage chute. She strongly suspected that it wasn't really an accident, but she couldn't prove otherwise. Her clothes would have smelled like Hutt trash anyway, but at least she wouldn't be wearing this humiliating slave girl outfit.

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"Master Anakin," the golden protocol droid said as he entered the apartment.

"Hi Three-Pee-Oh," Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker replied with a nod as he stepped in, and closed the door behind himself. "Where's Padme?"

"Senator Amidala is awaiting you in her bedroom," the protocol droid replied obediently.

"Thanks," Anakin answered as he headed towards the bedroom.

Padme held her breath as the door opened, and Anakin entered. "Hey Anni," she said, lifting her head off the pillow and smiling seductively at him.

"Hey," Anakin replied with his own smile. "What's this?"

Currently she was lying on he middle of her bed, completely covered with a thick black silk sheet. Artoo was at the corner by her left foot, with a few centimeters of the sheet in his grasping claw.

"Artoo, you can leave now," Padme said, still smiling at Anakin.

The astromech tweeted merrily as he rolled away from the bed, dragging the sheet along with him.

Padme watched Anakin smirk as he watched the sheet fall from her body. Then she heard him gasp, hopefully in aroused surprise.

"You like what you see?" she asked seductively.

Underneath the black silk sheet Padme was wearing the same golden durasteel and purple lashaa silk outfit she had worn on Jabba's sail barge. There were a few differences with this outfit though.

Instead of bracelets, she was wearing five centimeter wide golden durasteel shackles on her wrists, and ankles. A matching collar was locked around her neck. Each of her shackles was locked to a pre-measured length of chain that was attached to one of her bed posts. She was chained spread-eagle, with just enough slack in the chains to thrash about a bit.

Anakin smiled longingly down at her a few heartbeats. "I love it," he finally answered as he began stripping off his Jedi robes.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ The End ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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