Speaking of them!

There's a call to the Temple coming in from Republic Central Medcenter!  Senator Amidala showed up here and something really weird is wrong with her, please help.

"Yes. Security is hard. 

...Come to think of it it's strange how late we were. A lot of things went wrong in a row, all our comms offline, stonewalling at Republica, tracking chip offline - hold on, how did this hypothetical enemy Force-user know about the chip."

They could, theoretically, show up to RCM and... demand their records? Arrest Amidala? Insist on supervising her? 

... It's just, uh, it's not clear that that's the way of the Jedi. And isn't this one of those political things they're too wise to understand?

"Even with what we know now, stopping her might not have been the right move. Sometimes one makes the best move and loses in any case."

"I appreciate the secrecy but minutes count, here. Can your droid give us any more. Assuming it's the Sith Master this could be anything. Compulsions, Sith sorcery, illusions, even just brain damage from Force lightning. We're past the point where subtlety is helping. Our strength is out in the light."

Look.  Just...  Switchboard, please put them through to - 'Vokara Che'?  Or the Council.  Probably the Council if this is one of those political things but at the moment they need someone who can fix Force fuckery to come fix the Force fuckery that happened to Senator Amidala.  Help us, Jedi Temple Healers, you're our only hope.

"You already have a call for help from Republic Central awaiting you, gentlebeings.  I suggest you answer it."

That's not Mourne's voice.

"As for your timeliness problems, Ms. Sabé, we are currently operating on the assumption that the enemy Sith has proper Foresight, as has long been unavailable to the Jedi Order, available to them.  There are certain countermeasures we have undertaken, but I do not believe they would be of particular assistance generally.  There's only so much a biological processor can randomize at speed."

...Master Che and Senator Amidala actually have some acrimonious history. 

It takes a moment for this call to be routed. 

"Make her be healed, we cannot."

"If Mourne is half as right as she's been so far she's not in her right mind. We take some Healers and go in on Jedi business and get this compulsion off her."

"We could not even sense it before. Are we sure we could?"

"Our strength is not as limited as our sight."

"...A strange compulsion, this would be. To bend such a will as Amidala's, not easy would it be even for an equal of Vitiate. And to last so long... and complex, to have the victim respond anew..." He glances at Mourne. "Confused, I am."

"It's possible that the 'compulsion' may in fact be the Sith Lord, in person.  It's possible that there's some sort of ritual in play that has - anchored the compulsion more lastingly.  I do not always know how the Dark Side accomplishes what it does.  Plus, if we're right about the Sith Lord, he's had access for decades to insinuate pieces of a much more potent command than an in-the-moment effort could match."

"...I'm running expression analysis."

"May be the - you can't possibly be suggesting that Padmé -"

" - Is the Sith Lord, seduced the Chosen One, kicked off the Clone Wars, last person we'd ever suspect? It's not much less likely than Palpatine. She lives three floors below him, she could have set up the whole thing."

...A1-C3 can have their security holos.

Senator Amidala's expressions and gestures, even applying statistical models to account for possible nervous system injury and heuristic models - basically, lots of guesses - to try to loosely account for the unknown neurological impacts of the Dark Side of the Force, are not even remotely consistent with her normal ones, save a few momentary occasions, probably artefacts. Note also the pronounced dyskinesia, falling short of reaching things, trying to take steps before the other foot is laid down, and so on.

 Possible subtle somatosensory cortex lesion? Ordinarily impossible for Temple healers to miss, but - well, Sith. 

"Padmé Amidala is not the Sith Lord.

"The Sith Lord has beyond a reasonable doubt possessed Padmé Amidala, based on the analysis we've just run."

"Am I the only one who fears we are - leaping from wild guess to wild guess, here."

"It was always in my hypothesis space."

His world spins, again.

"I have spent some time with the Senator in the past. She... really did not sound like herself. Even accounting for everything."

"...You know, I thought she was still fighting it.  I just didn't know how much she was fighting.  Padmé Amidala is an exceptionally impressive woman and we are going to break her free from this Master's chains."

...You know how sometimes Sith eyes glow?

Yeah.  Hers are doing that now.  Lightly in both possible senses of the word, but in this moment she is her passion.

"...Sabé, I think you're our only hope to get the drop on him, and goodness knows he'll try to take hostages if we don't take him down cleanly the first time.  He won't know how much you know he's full of it, especially if we actually do communicate the relevant information unseen by his Foresight."

Look they're being very philosophical and wise and tolerant about this but that's creepy. 

"I apologise - this is lost on me. The relevant information? Unseen by foresight?"

"A hostage already he has, in Senator Amidala. Think it possible to overcome him and leave her alive, do you?"