"What the hell does that mean?" Han automatically juked the stick again as he shot out of the side-trench of the nearest Destroyer, waiting for those TIEs to pick him up…still nothing. In fact, the amount of TIEs in the field had noticeably thinned now, most of them heading away from him, powering for the Patriot.

Han frowned, glancing to the two Destroyers which boxed in the battlefield with heavy fire. Since the Patriot's arrival they'd maneuvered into key positions at the edge of the field of combat, one firing over its opposite's head, the other creating a wide barrier of heavy fire below and beneath its opposite, effectively boxing the field of combat. Now, that box was beginning to loosen slightly as both Destroyers brought their noses clear of the melee.

Brought their noses clear… TIEs had thinned… powering up…Han slowed his fighter, pulling its nose up to stare again at the Patriot, mind racing.
"You're gonna lose three front-line ships… "
"No, I'm going to exchange one Interdictor…"
Brought their noses clear…
"Lose three front line ships.."
"No …one Interdictor…"

Sith! "The Destroyers are gonna jump clear so you can fire the DEMP, aren't they?!" Han was already bringing his interceptor screaming around in a tight loop and powering back towards the nearest Destroyer, knowing that in seconds it would be gone and he'd have a clear exit to hyperspace as the Interdictor collapsed its gravity well to allow the Destroyers to hit lightspeed and escape the DEMP's crippling charge.

He could hear the smile in Luke's assured voice over the strained scream of his A-Wing's engines. "I have to go now, Han—and I suppose you'll need a short break to tell your cohorts that yes, the Destroyer they're looking at does indeed have DEMP capability."

Han paused... Fact was, he'd toggled the comm to broadcast this conversation over the open Alliance channel moments after Luke had first answered, so there was a slightly apologetic tone to next words. "You're already patched through to the fleet."

All around Han, other Rebel craft were reorienting and pushing for safety, their frigate taking the insane risk of turning directly into the path of the Star Destroyer's fire…

Onboard the Patriot, Luke smiled for a second, tilting his head. "Ah. Well then, there's nothing more to be said. I'll speak to you shortly, Han."

"Whoa, whoa, wait a minute…"

"Comm, cut the transmission. Order the Hurricane and the Sentry to lightspeed. Inform the Thorn to collapse the gravity cone on their mark."

"Sir, we have confirmation from all three ships."

"Do it. Tactical, set a one-eighty spread, single DEMP pulse….." Luke paused, waiting for the brief flicker of motion from the Destroyers which forewarned their jump to lightspeed. "... Fire."

Han's dead A-Wing drifted randomly in the ominous silence, one of a myriad of small fighters tumbling helplessly without power, the light of the Fondor Shipyards picking out their angled surfaces as they spun slowly, no way to correct their arbitrary drift. He'd spent the last minute or so letting loose a string of curses in Corellian, Bocce and Huttese, and had stopped now only because he'd run out of words.

Releasing his now pointless joystick, he brought his hands up to rub his face…and his small A-Wing jolted with teeth-rattling impact, jostling Han in the flight harness he wore. "What the hell?"

The darkened battlefield before him began to slowly retreat, and it took a few disorienting seconds for Han to realize that he was being pulled backwards by a tractor beam. Luke's last words, forgotten in the heat of the moment, came keenly back to mind: "I'll speak to you shortly, Han."

Awareness of the room—of the fact that he was under close scrutiny by Leia, her curiosity blasting out through the Force—dragged Luke back to the moment. To the musty room whose austere proportions reminded him once more of the cell that had once held him…or was it more than that? Was it the room, or something else?

He blinked, dragging his thoughts into line as he focused on Leia, who watched him as he reflexively turned the heavy blue-stoned ring on his little finger. Her eyes came to his, still uncertain which was the act and which was the man—unsure if Luke himself knew anymore.

“Who are you?” The same question she’d asked of him so often… But this time, the tone of her voice was softened by compassion, by deep uncertainty, by a real willingness to believe. Another question left her lips, formed by some deeper insight which left Luke deeply uneasy. “Who were you?”

“It’s immaterial.” Luke fought to bury old memories which only left him exposed, his voice tight with warning and dark with self-reproach at his momentary lapse. “I know what I am now… I told you I have no illusions. It’s you who’s trying to deceive yourself. You’re looking for the shadow of someone long dead, and every moment that you see the slightest shade of it, you try to twist it and force it and fit it into your vision of what you wish to see. You think that you can will that person back into being but you’re wrong. I can tell you for a fact that you’re wrong.”

He wanted her to understand—to realize that the man she was now clearly trying so hard to reach was shattered and broken beyond repair. If it were possible to resurrect him, did she not think that Luke himself would have done so long ago? Did she not understand the danger she placed herself in, just by being here—that from minute to minute, he could change; he could not be trusted. The knowledge of that moved him with the urgent need to make her protect herself, for her sake. Because every time that she came here, every time that he had her so completely in his power, he walked the knife-edge of temptation to simply remove her—destroy her. To fulfill the plan he’d told others was in effect, and convince Leia to bring the Rebellion’s leadership here simply to destroy them. All of them, completely.

It would be so easy and he knew it. Had made plans for it again and again. This plan, everything he did now, in speaking to her, in gaining her trust…it could all so easily be channeled to that goal. The Rebel Alliance continued to exist by the most slender of threads, and even Luke knew that his own good grace was a capricious, precarious thing.

“You're searching for understanding…then understand this: I will always do whatever I perceive of as necessary to achieve my goal. I will always pay that price.”

Leia frowned, hearing the implied warning. “Then why are you telling me this?”

That flicker of emotion had ignited his eyes in a spark of frustration, his demeanor changing again before Leia’s eyes, from calm and controlled to volatile and dangerous. “I want you to understand what I am. What I’m capable of. How likely do you think it is that you, whom I’ve spoken with so little in the last six years, could see within me so clearly, and judge my character more accurately than those who are closest to me? Because believe me when I say that they were amazed that you came here—that you were willing to give me the benefit of the doubt a second time.”

“And yet here I am, still in one piece.”

Luke shook his head. “I could so very easily destroy you. Remove you from the equation completely and continue with my plans unchallenged.”

“Just like that?”

His lip twitched just slightly at the resolute confidence radiating from her. Too much: it was no use to him, and it was plain dangerous to her. He straightened slowly, loosing a little of the darkness at his core—let her see that. “It took me three months to get Mothma.”





It was calculated to shock, Leia knew; spoken to instigate a reaction, and despite the edge that his eyes and his demeanor had taken on as he’d straightened, she wouldn’t be so easily led. “It would take a good deal longer to get me, I assure you.”

Again that smile, like a garrall staring down at its dinner. “Not too long, considering you’re four steps away from me right now.”

Leia felt a surge of adrenaline as her heart skipped a beat, but she clamped her jaw shut against the threat… And surprisingly Luke backed down, standing to turn and walk a few steps back, putting some space between them, as much to cool his own temper as to reassure her, Leia felt.

“That was unfair—I apologize.” He turned back towards her, voice even now. The fire didn’t leave his eyes though; that sense of a feral edge held in check. “Though that doesn’t make it any less true.”

It wasn’t a threat, that last. When she looked to him, his face, like his voice, remained neutral…and in an unexpected flash of insight Leia remembered her own words to Han just days ago: that she suspected it was because from one moment to the next Luke didn’t even know himself what he would do anymore.

“Why do you say these things?” she asked at last, no challenge in her words.

“I told you.” He turned coolly aside, though there was something in his eyes, something that couldn’t hold her gaze anymore. “I take no life lightly.”

“But you still take them.”

He straightened, instantly shifting to the offensive again. “If I have to. And don’t deny the same; you’re a leader—you’ve sent soldiers into battle knowing they wouldn’t return.”

“I haven’t shot them myself.”

“You’ve killed soldiers on the battlefield.”

“I’ve killed my enemies,” Leia emphasized.

“So have I.”

She could so easily have flinched at that; at the ripping awareness of just how much the man she’d thought she’d known had changed, that he did this so easily, twisting words and intent with equal ease.

Or had he changed at all? Had this always been the speed of his mind, and he’d simply hidden it before, behind easy smiles and gentle shrugs—because when she thought back, Luke Skywalker had always been sharp in the actual field of conflict. Always been smart enough to think on his feet and stay cool and logical enough under pressure, to get himself and those around him out of whatever trouble they were in.

Those around him… Hadn’t he always fought so hard for those around him, always tried so very hard to bring the same amount of people back from any conflict that he had entered it with? Hadn’t he always seemed so devastated if he didn’t?

Hadn't he always been the man who took no life lightly.

Leia paused, looking at the man who stood five paces back from the table now, remaining in the shadows of the room as if he belonged there. “Please…sit down.”

Luke held back a few seconds longer, then sighed and strode quickly forward, sitting, and they both glanced down, neither willing to launch into another round of arguments.

Leia too sighed, shaking her head wryly. “You make it so difficult sometimes.”

“To do what?” he asked. “Argue or talk?”

“Either,” she said. “Both.”

He glanced away with a half-smile, the atmosphere dropping a few degrees closer to comfort for both of them. Resettling in his chair, Luke stretched his legs to the side, resting his chin in his hand, the act familiar and unassuming and very…Luke.

“I was born around the same time as the Empire,” he said at last. “We grew up together. It’s always been here, my whole life. I was born into a totalitarian state and lived my whole life in the same, never once knowing this…ideal that’s been taken from the past, dusted down and held up as some paradigm of perfection. In that, I acknowledge my weakness; I’m trying to reinstate something that I’ve never myself seen or been a part of: democracy. I guess we’re the same in this…because for all your claims that you wish it reinstated, you're asking for something that you have no knowledge or experience of.”

“Meaning?” He didn’t move as Leia narrowed her eyes, only now it was because she wondered whether that relaxed, unassuming position was more empty contrivance than unaffected habit.

“I guess I’m asking whether the democracy you’re fighting to reinstate is true democracy, or some idealistic notion. I, at least, am realistic in what I can achieve, and how. Or do you think that toppling the present regime will bring about instant democracy? Because I don’t believe you that naïve.”

“Are you claiming that Palpatine’s Empire can ever give birth to true democracy? I don’t believe you that naïve.”

“This isn’t Palpatine’s Empire,” Luke corrected. “It’s mine. I’m offering a genuine, realistic alternative to the endless fighting. My intent is to make this Empire a democracy—but to do that I realize that I’ll have to make compromises.”

Leia remained silent, aware that he was asking the same of her.

When she didn’t reply, he straightened slightly, maintaining that deceptively open tone. “I don’t think there’s any such thing as a simple, overnight solution; I think that it may require years to do this—to achieve a bloodless coup without the military turning on its own and the Empire devolving into civil war. But believe this—if you accept nothing else today, believe this: I am committed to it. I will do it. If possible I will do it with your help; I will reabsorb the Alliance, and give it a political voice and entitlement.” He tilted his head. “If not…I’ll do it without you.”

“You can’t bring democracy about by threats and ultimatums.”

“How about by debate and compromise?” Luke asked. “The former is what your vaunted democracy stands on, isn’t it? And the latter is what’s necessary to make it work.”

"I can't..."

“Work with me.”

“Which means we stop opposing you.”

“Which means that you’re required to do your part in creating a peace that will enable us to move forward, yes.” Luke shook his head, mismatched eyes searching her face. “You seem so eager to give up your life for freedom… Is it so hard to give up this—this distrust, this suspicion, this cynicism? You were always prepared to take up arms in the name of peace…are you willing to lay them down for the same?”

Leia glanced away, more torn than ever, more hopeful, more afraid. He’d become the consummate statesman, pulling stirring speeches from the air about him and launching them with unerring aim. But how much was true? How much was empty persuasion from the man who was tutored by Palpatine—Palpatine, who had instigated a war and undermined the Senate at its height, never once under suspicion…until it was too late.

Leia brought her hands to her face and sighed, irresolute. “Tell me how I can trust you?”

He leaned forward. “You want a display of how serious I really am? You want a true gesture of good faith?” Resting his weight on his elbow he turned his hand palm-up, holding out his first two fingers—and between them was a data chip. “There’s a set of co-ordinates here. Follow them. Go alone. Along with the co-ordinates is a security access code and transmission frequency, which you must broadcast as soon as you drop from lightspeed to stop the unmanned automated defenses from firing on you.”

Leia glanced down to the chip, the gravity in his voice as Luke continued making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

“There will be a single Destroyer in orbit, but if you’ve transmitted the code it won’t challenge you. Understand: this must be kept secret…” He hesitated… “If you choose to make my actions public, then it may well topple me from power. The choice is yours, Leia… I’ll just have to trust you.”





Luke stood when she rose to leave, the data chip he’d given her clutched in her hand as she paused just once to meet his gaze…and again, Luke had that momentary sense of recognition as he stared into serious, strong, mahogany-brown eyes… Then it was gone, as she was, and he was standing alone in the shabby, austere room which could well have spawned the beginning of a democracy…or the end of a two-decade-long rebellion.

She didn’t know whether to trust him or not, that much was clear, and Luke couldn't blame her. But maybe she understood now; recognized his resolve if not his incentive. Because Force help her if she stood in his way—if she crossed him. He didn’t know what he would…

Luke shook his head, interrupting that thought; no, he would make it work. He’d sworn to his rancorous old Master, who had taken such delight in breaking Luke to pieces, that he would do the self-same thing to the Empire that Palpatine so loved. His one true child.

Because Luke wouldn’t give Palpatine his victory—wouldn’t give him his precious Sith Dynasty. He’d vowed that he would take down everything that Palpatine had done, everything he’d built. Take the Empire whose casual cruelty had destroyed Luke’s own and so many other lives apart, a piece at a time, until there was nothing left. Until even the memory of it was gone, a momentary aberration fading to nothing.

And when he had done that, he’d take his Master’s ashes and he’d scatter them to the wind, just as he’d sworn. He would do it. As he'd said to Leia, he would pay any price. He’d known what the price had been when he'd first made that vow, and he knew what the price might be now.

He sighed, gazing again to the empty door through which the woman he’d once been so close to had just left, giving him one final glance, so full of wary distrust. The fact was that there were people on both sides of the divide queuing up for the honor of slaying him. He had no illusions…but he had his goal. And he would see it through. Then maybe the Force would be through with him. Maybe it would let him sleep—for one night or an eternity; it didn’t matter anymore.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Mara entered through the same door of the small, spartan room in which Luke and Leia Organa had just spoken, having watched she and Solo walk down the long corridor which led back to the relative safety of Hosk Station and the plain-clothes Rebel troops who waited there, closely watched by their Imperial counterparts. Organa hadn’t spoken, her arms wrapped about herself, her thoughts clearly on the meeting.

Luke too was quiet when she entered, though he had that air of volatility about him, that brittleness, chest rising quickly in short breaths, obviously on edge.

“I take it from Organa’s expression that there wasn’t an epiphany. You don’t seem to be getting any closer.”

“I don’t need to yet,” Luke replied, straightening, visibly pulling himself back into a more steady, authoritative mindset, aware that Mara would pick up on his mental state. “I told you, there’s no timetable for this.”

“But there is a goal?”

“There are always goals,” Luke evaded, as he rose and strode quickly to the door.

She sensed something then—a nervousness, a wired tenseness that had nothing to do with the meeting that had just taken place… This room—it was this room that he didn’t like. Mara glanced about, unsure what had unsettled him. He paused at the threshold, eyes flicking between the corridor that Organa and Solo had left down, and the small, stark room, mind immersed in the Force, as if chasing something down. Instead, he became aware of her scrutiny, and shook his head briefly, pulling his thoughts back to present goals by force of will.

“There’s more going on than my persuading her to come here. She’s now keeping secrets from her own leadership. Withholding information and making decisions on their behalf, that they’re not even aware of. Even if she never brings her Council to the table, if this all amounts to nothing, then I still have that fact to use.”

“You’re dividing them,” Mara realized.

Luke nodded. “I don’t need her to bring them to the table to do that.”

“You’re going to leak it?”

“No—and neither will you. Everything goes to my schedule.”

Mara faltered. “No? But the damage is done—she’ll be ousted from power.”

“And then what—be replaced by another? By Madine maybe? Then I would have to bring them down.”

Mara's voice dropped shrewdly. “As opposed to…?”

“Stop trying to corner me, Mara.” Luke didn’t turn, his voice hardening.

“Why?” There was more force than she’d meant in the challenge, and it turned him about, furious. From the tense way he’d whirled on her, Mara had expected an outburst, a reprimand, an argument…something. So when he simply stared at her, jaw locked, eyes teeming with suppressed emotion, Mara stared…

It was a slow comprehension, gathering momentum as more and more facts fell into place, realization burning through her thoughts like wildfire, widening her eyes.

“You don’t know yourself, do you? You don’t know what you’re going to do—whether you’re going to use her or not…” All the vague claims Luke had made so many times, always shifting, always evolving as the situation changed—but never willing to elucidate, never giving enough to be tied down, even among those he trusted. “You don’t even know whether you’re going to do this… This whole plan, this whole strategy...you haven’t decided yet.”

Luke turned about and started walking mechanically down the corridor, eyes ahead. “My goal remains the same, whatever path I choose,” he replied levelly.

Mara shook her head, more at her own blindness than anything else, because what had she claimed to have learned so well about him: if it seemed perfectly logical, the obvious choice, then Luke was at the very least misleading and probably outright lying. That was what he did; what he'd always done, even with Palpatine—how he'd learned to survive. He presented the logical choice and made it seem the only choice, then hid his real intent beneath the facts and somehow made you see them as the same thing.

If it seemed flawlessly logical and patently obvious, he was probably using it to hide the facts… She’d said it to herself a hundred times, applied it without fail to even his smallest actions…yet never once thought to bring it to bear on the greater picture. “Why do I get the feeling that I don’t even know what that goal is? The plan you’re speaking out loud isn’t the one you intend, is it….is it?”

She took his arm and he turned on her, that perfect façade cracking in a burst of anger. “I don’t know, okay?! I can’t tell you what I don’t know myself. Because it changes from day to day, Mara, from minute to minute sometimes, and I can’t...” He broke off, turning away, frustration and bewilderment obvious.

Because it wasn’t just this; it wasn’t just Leia Organa, Mara realized. It really was everything. It was the Empire, the future…everything. It was Light and Darkness, it was his soul and his sanity…and from one moment to the next that was shifting, the fractures deepening. He simply couldn’t be what Palpatine had forced him to be—not completely—but he couldn’t step back from it, not any more.

“Everyone’s trying to second-guess me. You, Nathan, Han, Leia Organa…everyone’s watching and analyzing and trying to second-guess me when I don’t even know myself… I don’t know if Leia is safe around me or not! I’m balancing every day on the edge of the blade and I don’t know what it will take to make me stumble—all I know is that I will…sooner or later, I always do. I can’t…”

The words locked in his throat and Mara stepped in close, voice quiet now as she brought one arm up to wrap about his neck, moved by his anguish, by the nerve-edge desperation in this rare outburst, more emotion overflowing those tight, locked-up shields in this last minute than she’d seen in months.

She tightened her arm about him, felt his own wrap about her back as he pulled her tight and she shook her head against his chest. “Luke, you can’t go on like this.”

He tensed beneath her genuine concern, those perfect shields raised again in quicksilver rejection, the flash of shredded torment tempered to that familiar brittle edge, all else locked away. “You’re right,” he stated, deadpan. “I’ll just stop now, shall I?”

“Stop this at least. Don’t see her again, find another way.”

He straightened, slipping free of her to start walking again, jaw flexing. “I have to.”

“Why?”

“Because the fact remains that I have those goals, and they're the constant here. Only how I achieve them is…flexible. Either I destroy her, or I incorporate her into them. Either way my goal remains the same.”

“Then remove her from the equation.”

“No. I can handle this.”

Mara shook her head—he was still the most stubborn man she’d ever met. “What if she’s using you?”

“She won’t use me. I won’t let her,” Luke said coolly, completely in control again, though Mara knew how tenuous that poise really was.

“She’s saying exactly the same thing to Solo right now!” Mara was rushing to keep up with his stride, frustrated that he couldn’t see this—that he wouldn’t. “She’s saying ‘He won’t use me because I won’t let him.’ Can’t you see that? Can’t you see how much alike you are?”

Luke almost smiled at that. “I’m like the leader of the rebellion against me?”

“Yes! You’re both commanders by the strength of your own accomplishments, you both lead from the front, by action not words. You both think you still have to get in there and get your hands dirty or you feel you’re no longer in touch with what you’re fighting for. You both look at your greater cause, the bigger picture. You’re both stubborn and willful and once you lock onto a course you won’t back down or let go, whatever the cost to yourself.”

Luke paused at the doorway to the more public sections, his undercover guards loitering beyond. “You could say the same of over half the people you know.”

“No, I couldn’t,” Mara said, her voice quieting. “You just don’t see that; don’t know how exceptional that makes you.”

“And her?”

Mara turned away, sullen. “It just makes her dangerous.”

“That’s what I have you for,” Luke soothed, tone teasing now, though Mara didn’t let it drop.

“Yeah, well, I’m not much good if you don’t tell me what’s really going on, am I?”

“You know everything that’s going on in my life, Red.”

Oh, how quickly he could flip it round, even now. From explosive to distraught to charming in the space of twenty steps, twisting his own emotions as easily as he twisted the facts to fit the moment. “No, I just know more than other people—which isn’t saying very much.”

“You know I’m not very good with the trust thing,” Luke dismissed lightly. He stopped abruptly, and for a second—just a second—his hand raised, the backs of his fingers brushing against her cheek, and it would be so easy to fall for this proffered closeness…

But those sky-blue eyes were too bright and too beguiling, and she knew him better than to be so easily led. “And yet you came here with less than two dozen soldiers.”

His hand dropped—but his smile remained, genuine now, no artifice behind it. “That doesn’t mean I trust her, simply that I accepted the necessity in this instance, just as she did.”

Mara nodded. “Just as she did. Just as you knew she would, because she’s just like you. Because she’ll do what she believes is right…and so will you. Because she’ll suffer and she’ll fight and she’ll take outrageous, unreasonable risks for what she believes in.”

“Perhaps we both believe in the same thing,” Luke said evenly.

Mara frowned, wary, because that made no sense whatsoever…which filled her with trepidation. “Perhaps you do. But if so that’s the most dangerous thing of all…because you’ll trust her. In the end, that’ll make you trust her, because you’ll think that you have the same views, the same goals. And that really is the most dangerous thing of all, Luke, because I’m damn sure you’re walking two very different paths to achieve them.”











Leia sat in silence curled up on the Navigator’s seat in the Falcon’s cockpit, considering. Chewie had gone back to the engineering bay to check out the sublight engines now that they’d gone to lightspeed, after Han had claimed that they’d made some worrying noises on takeoff. But then, they always did that, to Leia's ears.

She hadn’t even batted an eyebrow as Han had grumbled yet again that Luke had held the Falcon for four years and he hadn’t even fixed the rattle in the sublights. Hadn’t blinked when, as if it were a legitimate complaint, Chewie had argued that the cub probably had more pressing things to deal with at the time. Hadn’t reacted when Han had replied in kind, grumbling, “Whatever. I’m just sayin’ it’s a small job and I’m figuring he had a whole Star Destroyer’s worth of engineers hanging around, waitin’ to be told what to do.”

To them it was all so simple. All so clear.

She’d remained in the cockpit, lost in thought, as Chewie headed aft, running the debate on Hosk Station over and over in her mind. There was so much to consider, so much to weigh up, personal feelings against the greater good… What felt right in her gut weighed against larger responsibilities and duties.

'It’s not what you call us and it’s not where we stand. It’s what we do which defines us.’

Her father’s words, long ago. Had it been this hard for him too? He’d always seemed so sure to Leia, as if every decision had only one possible right answer, every objective only one path. What would he say now—what would he do, confronted with this? Would he tell her to answer her conscience, as he always had, or would he admonish her to bear in mind all those whose lives were dependant on her decisions; that duty came before personal feelings?

One thing was slowly percolating down into a troubled realization for Leia, and she didn’t know if it was the truth or just another manipulation, carefully calculated to mislead. Because for so much of that conversation, she had argued with Luke Skywalker. Not the Emperor—not Vader’s son or Palpatine’s protégé, or the spy who had infiltrated the Rebellion to take secrets back to his Master—but Luke Skywalker.

“Everything I do is for a reason… why do you assume that reason has changed?”
“Seriously? Because you once wanted to overthrow the Empire you now rule.”
“Because I wanted to change a system I believed unfair. I find I’m now in a position to do that.”

The man in that room had spoken today as if Luke Skywalker were real.

Luke Skywalker, who had lived on Tatooine and rescued a princess and joined a Rebellion, to fight for what he believed in. Luke Skywalker, who had been taken by force from everything he knew and had lost his way so completely. At the time, in the moment, Leia hadn’t even considered it, hadn’t even realized that as she quarreled and queried today, it was with Luke. Not the Emperor, not Palpatine’s advocate; she was arguing with Luke Skywalker that he’d lost his way…and his replies had remained totally in character, his arguments stemming exclusively from that point of view, that reality, as if it had all been true…

And Leia found herself secretly wondering all over again…what if it was?




“Quiet?” Han didn’t turn.

“Hmm?”

“I said you’re quiet,” Han repeated. “Not that I’m complaining, it’s just such a rarity that I thought it deserved a mention.”

“Thanks,” Leia said dryly.

Han turned back from the glazed twists of light which whipped through the void of lightspeed. “So how’d it go?”

Leia shook her head, pulling her knees up tighter.

“That good, huh?” Han asked easily, giving her a lopsided half-smile.

Leia buried her head in her hands with a long sigh. “Ohhhh… I think I should tell the Council.”

She hadn’t yet. She should have, but she hadn’t. She should have told them the first time she’d met with the Emperor, and now she was compounding the error….because the fact was, she had no intention of telling them—not yet. She absolutely would do so, but she wanted to do it when she understood what was going on, when she knew what Luke was really trying to do. It had to be when she had a clear idea as to whether they should either help or hinder—and she sure as hell didn’t know that yet.

“He gave me something,” she said at last to Han.

“Keys to the Empire?” he quipped.

Leia pulled the small chip from her pocket. “It could well be. He gave me a data chip…then he told me if anyone knew he’d given this to me, it could depose him.”

Han swung his chair completely around from the console to look at Leia, who held up the data chip. “That’s it?”

“This is it.”

“What’s on it?”

She turned it over in her hand. “You know, I have no idea. Co-ordinates, he said.”

Han took the chip. “And you didn’t think to mention this earlier?”

“I was…deciding,” Leia said slowly.

Han apparently didn’t feel a similar uncertainty, having already taken the chip and fed it into a data slot in the navigator’s console.

“Wait!” Leia said. “It could have a relay signal or…”

Han gave her his best dry glance from the corner of his eye, already leaning forward to the small viewer. “Co-ordinates all right. Way out though. What’s all this stuff with it?”

Leia leaned in, unable to stop herself now that the decision had been made for her. She’d spent the last hour deliberating over whether or not to view the chip, agonizing over whether to play Luke's games or take this to the Council. Whether it was a ploy or a persuasion, or neither or both…and Han had just plain looked at the damn thing.

Sometimes you had to love him.

She frowned at the run of code. “Wait, he said something about a security code and a transmission frequency.”

“This is some serious code,” Han said, watching the numbers scroll. “This is high-end stuff; it’s self-perpetuating… Look at this; it’s rewriting algorithms as we’re watching it.”

Leia leaned in, a cold twist writhing down her spine and making her shiver. “I don’t like this.”

Han grinned. “We have got to find out what this is for.”

Leia nodded. “As soon as we’ve been back.”

“Seriously…you’re seriously telling me you don’t want to find out what this is to, right now?”

“I don’t know,” Leia said reluctantly.

“C’mon, this is a day out of our way. Two at the most.”

“This could take us straight into the middle of an Imperial fleet putting out a code that everyone’s waiting for.”

“Hey, if he wanted to catch us, he was sitting right opposite you a few hours ago. Anyway, this isn’t an identity code, it’s way too complex. This is something bigger.”

Han turned, and Leia knew he must have seen the doubt in her face, because he pulled out his best grin—the one he kept for when he wanted to fly in the face of all reasonable logic. “C'mon, it’s us…what could possibly go wrong?”









They came out of lightspeed to make a brief course change, sending a short message to Home One to inform them that the Falcon would be a day or so behind. In doing so, they lost their escort, still unreachable in lightspeed, winging their way back to the fleet.

They didn’t mention why they were detained, some part of Leia wanting to uphold the faith that had been placed in her by Luke in giving her this, though she couldn’t bring herself yet to consider whether he deserved such consideration.

It was barely a day’s travel, and Han seemed determined to fill most of it by quizzing Leia again and again on what instructions Luke had given her when he gave her the chip.

“I’ve told you, that’s all he said,” Leia sighed, tired of repeating herself. “He said there’d be a Star Destroyer in orbit, but as long as we broadcast the main code on that frequency as soon as we arrived, it wouldn’t challenge us.”

Han and Chewie had spent hours tinkering with the code, trying to unravel it, but though they’d gotten as far as separating out two individual codes within the transmission, one complex, the other a more standard recognition code, they’d been unable to unravel the compound, self-writing cipher which took up most of the bandwidth of the transmission.

Leia was saved from further questions when the navi-computer pipped its first warning, and everyone rushed to the cockpit, the frequency loaded and ready to transmit.

“Coming up on reversion,” Han said, hands resting on the sublights as Chewie toggled through systems, pulling up shields and diverting power to charge up the quads…just in case.

Leia licked dry lips as the blaze of lights reverted back to streaks then pinpoints of distant stars…and they dropped into realspace in the midst of a gas giant’s system, whose one inhabitable moon glowed like an emerald in the inky darkness.

For a second, for a long, silent second, she didn't see it... Then Leia felt her knees giving way as she fell back into the seat behind her in the same moment as Han half-rose from his own, voice low with disbelief, eyes focused not on the verdant moon, but in space above it…

“What the hell…is that what I think it is?”

The planet's name was Endor.







Leia stared, simply stared at the abomination which hung like death itself over the tiny, lush world, massive in scale, its metal-gray surfaces reflecting in dull, lifeless tones the burst of forest green from Endor’s moon.

A thousand memories assaulted her: of Alderaan, of the moment, the instant when everything she’d ever known was destroyed in a vivid flash of violent color and energy. Of Tarkin, smug and arrogant, proud of the carnage he’d unleashed, the massacre he’d committed in Palpatine’s name.

Of her time in the small cell, metal gray, cold and stark… Of Vader. Vader, with his machines and his malice and his cold, brutal demands.

And Luke. Luke, who’d released her. “I’m here to rescue you.”

Luke, Vader’s son—by his own admission. Palpatine’s prodigy…

Chewie howled out his discontent, furious, his voice filling the small space and dragging Leia back to the moment, surreal as it was.

Han slumped back down into his chair, shaking his head. “I know, I know! What the hell is this, why would he send us here?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Leia said, voice laced with bitter disillusionment. “It’s a threat. We do as we’re told, or he uses this.”

Han was shaking his head. “No, he doesn’t work like that.”

“Do you have another explanation?”

All Han could do was continue shaking his head, turning back to the behemoth.

Leia was pulling herself together now, angry that she’d actually begun to believe Luke, to trust him. Grief, what a fool she'd been, if only for a second. “Is it operational?”

Han turned to his boards. “Yeah, I think so. It has power and an internal atmosphere… It’s pulling an awful lot of juice up from that moon though. Structural integrity, propulsion… This is…it’s almost twice the mass of the original.”

Leia glanced about. “The Star Destroyer?”

“Less than a thousand clicks, behind and above, you see it? The Spur.”

“Is it powering up?”

“No, leaving us alone. Must know we’re here though, at this range.” They were still gliding slowly forward, the massive Death Star looming ever larger in their field of view. Han paused, looking back to his boards. “Wait a minute…I’m not getting any lifesigns.”

“On the Destroyer?”

“No, on that…thing. The Death Star’s big brother. Breathable atmosphere but no lifesigns—none at all.”

Chewie keened a question, and Han looked again to his boards. “No, it has shields up but they’re defensive. I can get a scan on everything else, so...”

The console let out a loud pip, and Han leaned in slightly. “Uh-oh.”

Leia was on her feet. “Uh-oh…what’s uh-oh for?”

“I think we just tripped somethin’… Hold on.”

They waited long seconds, Leia's eyes flicking between the near-complete Death Star and the distant Destroyer, as Han toggled through readouts, Chewie checking his own boards before leaning back to the ops boards behind him.

“Yep…yeah, we definitely tripped something.”

“That’s it?!” Leia heard the panic in her own voice. “What did we trip?”

“That I don’t know. I just keep gettin’–”

Chewie let out another long howl, and Han swung his chair about and stood to look into the reader on the console to back of the cramped cockpit.

“What is it?” Leia asked.

“That damn code, is what it is,” Han said. “That self-perpetuating code is transmitting to the Death Star, it’s…”

Han fell to silence, staring, and Leia resisted the urge to shake him. Chewie too leaned in, whuffing a question.

“Uh-oh,” Han repeated—and if possible, it sounded worse this time.

“Solo, if you say that again, I swear I’ll choke you.”

“It’s changed,” Han said. “The code—it’s counting down.”

“From what?”

“I think we should be more worried about ‘to what’,” Han said, shouldering through the cockpit and dropping into his seat to bring the engines to full power, the Falcon rumbling beneath their feet.

“What do you mean?”

“In my experience, at the end of countdowns things generally go boom.”

Leia glanced out to the Death Star, lost.

Han's console lit up a warning and he leaned in, voice tight as he read the message aloud. “It says, ‘Two minutes to safe distance’.”

“Safe distance from what?”

“Well, I can see three things in front of me, sweetheart. I don’t think that Death Star’s firing on its own Star Destroyer, and it’d be pretty pointless for the Destroyer to fire on the Death Star…which leaves the Death Star and that moon.”

Leia's heart skipped; she felt it miss a beat then boom in her chest. “Is it inhabited?”

Han was already checking his scopes. “No technology…teeming with life though.”

Leia's hand came to her mouth, Alderaan’s fiery death burning through her memories. “Can we stop it?”

“I’m looking,” Han said. “I can’t see any… It’s powering up. Levels are off the scale.”

“We have to do something!”

“Against that?! It has shields up, we wouldn’t even get close—and if we did, what would we actually do?” Despite his words, Han was still accelerating towards it, the Death Star filling a quarter of the viewports now, its scale increasingly daunting.

“You can’t let it fire… Han, we have to do something.”

“Find me something to do!”

Leia's eyes searched the steely surface as her mind spun, searching for something, anything…

“Still waiting…”

“The exhaust port!”

“Don’t know where it is, this Death Star’s got high-power shields up, and I’m guessing even Imperial designers wouldn’t make that mistake twice.”

“Go for the dish.”

“Seriously, you want me to shoot at the dish. In this? I may as well go out there and try kickin’ it.”

Still, the Falcon changed her course slightly, the colossal orb reeling in Leia's vision. “Aim for the dish's emitters.”

“Leia, the ports are wider than the Falcon. I could fly down one of ‘em.”

“We have to do something!”

The Falcon was arcing about now, the stars spinning as it turned, the massive Death Star trailing from the edge of the cockpit’s line of vision as Han pushed for open space.

"Wait, what are you doing?" Leia stood, desperate.

Han was shaking his head. “Leia, we can’t, not this time. We can’t even get to it in time, and now we’re not gonna make safe distance as it is.”

The Falcon powered away, everyone silent, the weight of her own helplessness pressing in against Leia, her breaths shallow, thoughts in turmoil. At the last moment Han wheeled the freighter about, tiling all shields to front as everyone stared in mute, morbid fascination, unable to look away as the console pipped down the last seconds out loud from ten…



The blast was incredible, immense, whiting out the blackness of space in its expanding glare as everyone flinched back. When Leia opened her eyes again, blinking the brightness away, the shockwave was carrying still-burning debris out in a blazing glow, chunks the size of office blocks disintegrating as they burned the last of their oxygen, spinning apart in the fury of the flare, the Falcon rattling and bucking as the outer edge of the shockwave whipped past, her shields glowing momentarily.

When it was done, the last of the debris collapsing in on itself and glowing in the darkness, its energy spent, all three could only stare, shocked, at the tiny green moon that still hung before them, completely unharmed.

The Death Star was gone; destroyed. Reduced to wreckage in the blink of an eye.

The relief was overwhelming, buzzing through Leia like a charge, so that for long seconds all she could do was hold her hands to her mouth and breathe.

It was Han who laughed aloud, whooping as he stood. “Yeah!” He whipped about, grabbing Leia and pulling her in for an exultant kiss, his relief infectious. “Why didn’t I realize?! What the hell’s wrong with me! He was showing us, Leia! He was showing you he had it, showing you he could have used it. Showing you he never would!”

Chewie too was grinning as he let out a jubilant howl, long arms waving and punching the air, the relief of tension in the cramped cockpit incredible as Han yelled again, still grinning widely. “We were transmitting the auto-destruct—that’s why it was so damn complex! That’s why it was tied up with the recognition code, to get us safe conduct. It was for us—it was a message for us.”

Leia sat slowly, the reprieve leaving her dizzy. A message: proof of his intentions, that was what he’d said. A gesture of good faith. Was it real? Grief, let it be real. Her head spun at the wildly yawing change of events, doubts and hopes tangled together, her misgivings, her fears, the weight of her responsibilities pressing down on her, pushing on to that single, star-bright hope—that today she’d been talking to Luke Skywalker.

It was stupid, of course; it was naïve and gullible and hopelessly credulous, and every time she thought it, she had a hundred sound reasons to dismiss it…

But oh…what if it were true?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The ball was to be a lavish affair, as befitting a proclamation of such import—the public announcement of the Emperor's intended matrimony and the presentation of the future Empress. Invitations were like gold-dust, handed out to the select elite, those among the Moffs and the dignitaries who had received them preening at their own influence and eminence, the attending Royal Houses discreetly satisfied, gratified in their stately poise and pride, already approving on principle this most advantageous and significant event.

Rather less auspicious were the tentative coercions leading up to the event, when Luke had arrived at Kiria D'Arca’s apartments in the Palace to present her with a gift. Not out of any great attachment, but simply because it seemed the right thing to do, now that everything was being formalized and announced.

“It’s so very beautiful,” Kiria had said, lifting it from the ornate gilt box, the refracted glow of many faceted stones catching across her caramel skin. “Absolutely exquisite. I adore it.”

You should, Luke reflected privately, you chose it.

Made to order based on requirements Kiria had left in advance with some in-vogue jeweler whose name she’d dropped hints of, both subtle and patent, it was ostentatious, extravagant and exclusive, as the woman herself was. It was also elegant, opulent and richly refined—as the woman herself was. The most exceptional stones had been pre-selected by Kiria, ready to be cut and set, and were now crusted together in dazzling brilliance, an impressive and spectacular display not only of her impending rank, Luke knew, but also of her status, that Kiria could ask for such an incredible, incomparable thing and be given it—by the Emperor himself.

She held it out to him, and for a moment Luke hesitated, then took the heavy ruby-stoned necklace. Kiria turned about, her back to him as she stepped intimately nearer and lifted her glossy raven hair, and Luke lowered the exceptional necklace, fastening it about the curve of her neck, aware of her closeness and the scent on her skin.

She brought her hands up to touch its weight, voice tinged with laughter. “Cold.”

“Stones always are,” Luke said evenly.

“I love them anyway.” Kiria smiled. “It’s an exquisite gift—I’ll treasure it.” Luke lowered his hands but Kiria didn’t immediately turn. “Still, magnificent as it is, I’d swap it for another gift…one that costs not a credit.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t bring…your usual bodyguard to the ball.”

He was silent just a second too long. “You should have asked me a week ago.”

She turned just slightly, hand still to the elaborate necklace. “Would you have granted it?”

“No. But at least you would have known, and had a week to come to terms with it.”

Kiria lifted one hand as she turned, making a subtle play of almost placing it to his chest and then refraining. “Oh, but it’s such a small thing to ask, surely?”

He had to smile; she was very, very good—maybe because she half-believed it, and certainly genuinely wanted it. But she also knew full well what she was asking. “If it’s so small, then why bother to ask?”

“Just tonight?”

“And then the next time, and then the next time, and the next. I’m sure you’ll find the reasons. I won’t exclude a member of my entourage on your whim, not when I made it plain that it wouldn’t happen.”

“I’m not asking you to exclude her from your life—I never would.”

“How very generous.”

“But public functions… We surely need to present a proper front…”

Luke looked down, letting out a brief, soundless laugh before he lifted his head. She was still looking at him, expectant, imploring, gracefully persuasive… Only not, because he knew with perfect clarity the flawless performance she gave.

“I thought I’d explained this, but clearly not, so I’ll try again,” he said tolerantly. “You’re a clever, astute woman, Kiria,” a half-smile touched her lips, and Luke knew damn well it wouldn’t be there when he’d finished, “and supremely manipulative… Don’t be offended, I’m simply acknowledging a fellow player. As my Master once said, we recognize our own. So if you want to try to run your schemes and your little manipulations past me, then fine. But let me be clear on this: Mara Jade is outside of your games—understand?”

Kiria hesitated, then tried an engaging smile. “I’m sure she’s capable of taking care of hersel—”

“Oh, she’s very capable,” Luke said confidently. “But that’s not the point. The point is, I just said she’s off-limits.”

Kiria took a breath to speak, but Luke cut her off before she began. “No, this isn’t a discussion. This is a statement of how things will be. If you find you’re unable to comply, then now is the time to cut and run.” He took a step back, composed and self-possessed. “You can keep the necklace.”










Nathan caught up with Luke in the corridor of his apartments less than an hour later, his sense suspiciously cagey—as was his oh-so-innocent smile. “Hello.”

Luke frowned warily. “What now?”

“I think I’m supposed to hold your attention until Reece has sneaked up on you that so that you can’t…ah, here he is.”

“Excellency,” Reece said as he came up on Luke's other side, automemo in hand. “I just wanted to discuss with you the final arrangement for the processional into the hall this evening.”

“What do you mean, processional?”

Reece looked to Nathan, who loosed his best ‘You’re on your own’ shrug. “I told you not to call it that.”

“I simply mean the order in which people will enter the hall, Excellency. This is, after all, the most formal of occasions.” As he spoke, Reece indicated the doors to Luke's office with one hand.

“I think the order is that I put one foot in front of the other.” Luke could hear his own Rim-world accent coming out in automatic reaction against what always seemed pointless protocol.

“Perhaps we should discuss this later,” Reece said, pausing at the tall office doors as they entered.

“No, come on,” Luke relented, sitting. “Tell me now, then I’ll be over it by the time it starts.”

Reece sat, taking a long pause to look at his autoreader. “Your proce…your entrance time has been given as twenty-one hundred precisely. Everyone attending will already be in the hall, of course, including Lady D’Arca. You…”

“Wait, she doesn’t come in with me?”

“No, sir. You will, however, proceed immediately towards her down the central aisle, where she will be waiting at its head, near the official dais.”

Luke could feel himself gritting his teeth already against the comments that he was bursting to make. If Reece was too steeped in his task to notice, then the ever-perceptive Nathan certainly wasn’t, turning his head casually to the side as he scratched his hair in a mock attempt to hide his murmured words to Reece. “Hurry it up.”

Nathan’s act brought the ghost of a smile to Luke's lips at his own transparency, and bought Reece a few more minutes’ grace.

“You should speak to no one before her, and immediately take her hand to lead her in the first dance of the evening. In doing so, you will acknowledge her new status.”

Luke let it hang a heartbeat. “You know what I’m gonna say, don’t you?”

Reece stifled a sigh. “You’re going to say can’t we just send out cards to this effect.”

“Yes I am.”

“We did, Sir. This is the commemorative occasion to which you invited everyone who received such, in order to formally and publicly ratify your intentions.”

Luke glanced once to Nathan, then shook his head slightly, unwilling to get dragged in.

“Fine, okay. I actually have a bigger problem… It’s protocol, kind of,” he added to Reece, “you’ll like it.”

“Go on?”

“You need to have someone spot Kiria D'Arca and someone else—who’s very, very good at it—to spot Mara, and make sure they don’t come to blows.”

“Wait, I thought you said Kiria was alright with Mara?” Nathan asked.

“That was yesterday,” Luke said dryly. “Today she’s not. Unfortunately that also coincides with us having…how many guests here?”

“Two thousand, Sir,” Reece said distractedly.

“Two thousand,” Luke said dryly, “…excellent.”

“As a matter of fact, I’ve already assigned Clem to you this evening,” Reece said.

“That isn’t the point. The point is that Mara will be attending.” Luke had no intention of caving to Kiria D'Arca this early in the game; Mara would come tonight if he had to go over there and ask her himself. She’d received an official invitation, and remained the only guest who hadn’t made a formal, written reply, though Luke had instructed Reece not to push the issue.

“Maybe she doesn’t want to come?” Nathan suggested.

Luke turned. “Oh, she will, when she hears what D'Arca asked.”

“Would it be completely out of order to suggest that the prudent path may be not to tell her, then?”

“She won’t hear it from me.” Luke was more amused than affronted, that Nath thought he might still be that naïve. “But she’ll find out…somehow.” His eyes stayed on Nathan, who moved uncomfortably beneath Luke’s consideration. “In fact, she should be your dinner guest. You can spot her, can’t you?”

“Me?” Nathan straightened. “You realize I’m scared of her, don’t you?”

“You’re not scared of anyone, Nath,” Luke dismissed. “Look at it this way: you just get tonight—this is my life.”

Nathan grinned, impish amusement in his eyes. “How’s this year’s club membership coming along?”

“Fantastic,” Luke deadpanned. “Really great.”

“Actually I think it’s a good idea,” Reece said evenly, turning both men’s eyes to him. “I think it’s good for Commander Jade to step out of other people’s concept of her as your bodyguard and into a more recognized, higher ranking public position such as Senior Aide, especially in consideration of her status in the line of succession.”

Luke shook his head. “I’m not going to put Mara in the line of fire, politically or physically, by making the line of succession public.”

“You don’t have to make it public, Sir, you’ve never done so before. However, you’ll be strengthening her hand if future events push her unexpectedly from her position as bodyguard. Who knows, she may well desire a more significant position in the near future anyway. Even if not, it’s something I would recommend, considering Jade’s abilities. This could be a first step in that direction.”

Luke narrowed his eyes just slightly before looking away, privately wondering at Reece’s rare intervention on Mara's behalf, his sudden interest in her taking a more public station. “Fine. That’s a plan then.”

“Wait a minute,” Nathan said quickly. “I haven’t agreed. Everybody’s organizing things to their own requirements behind my back!”

“Welcome to my life,” Luke repeated, the slightest shade of knowing sarcasm in his voice.









The levee was held in the Pageant Ballroom, one of the larger venues in the main Palace Monolith. Apparently, there were various theories for why the Emperor always used this particular ballroom when he intended to be present at a function, Luke knew, ranging from Mara's speculation that the pale sands and warm reds of the décor, combined with the incredible stretch of the painted ceiling—a perfect representation of a clouded blue sky—reminded Luke of Tatooine, to the more common belief that it was his favorite because it was this ballroom which had been used on the day of his accession to Emperor. But it was Nathan who’d guessed right, though Luke had never acknowledged it; the simple fact was that Luke had never once attended an event here during Palpatine’s reign.

So now it was his favored venue for larger, more formal gatherings, where numbers would fill the vast three-story hall, crowding onto the wide columned arcades which lined the walls of the second and third levels, or strolling the long cantilevered walkways at the second level, which seemed to defy gravity in hanging balanced over the ballroom below. To either end of the vast space grand staircases turned in wide, sweeping curves, crossing at deeply staged platforms, the space beneath each of the soaring stairwells given over to shallow mosaic-tiled pools. Between the colonnades to one wall, the vast run of the external Pageant balcony extended out along the front of the Palace, the long row of flags set above it constantly changed on an ever-rotating schedule, to display the pennants of all the planets which comprised the far-reaching Empire.

Luke also secretly suspected it was one of his favorites for the simple reason that it had the most possible places, in its staggered levels and many colonnades and balconies, to hide away.

It was late spring, so the long bank of dark, mercury-glass balcony doors were opened wide onto the night, the slightest of breezes reaching in to cool the vast space, carrying the mingled murmur of many voices and languages with it: the eminent, the elite, the influential. In his years in the Palace, Luke had learned their names and their habits. There were few he wished to know further. If he had his way, over half of them would be replaced within two years.

It went flawlessly; anything organized by Reece always did. Whatever his private machinations, he maintained the public face of both the Emperor and the Empire with dedicated, unswerving zeal…which left Luke to wonder all the more.

Kiria D'Arca wore deep, ruby red vinesilk overlaid with gossamer layers of black lace so fine as to create an ever-changing pattern in a haze of shades from scarlet to darkest claret, to true black, against the ruby silk. The heavy, opulent necklace Luke had given her flashed vividly against her tawny skin, her dress set low on the graceful arc of her shoulders, a simple rose-gold circlet holding sleek sable hair in place, nothing intended to detract from the elaborate magnificence—and just as importantly, the explicit significance—of the jewels at her throat.

She smiled genuinely as they danced, the perfect companion. “Am I pardoned?”

“For what?”

“For my request earlier. You’ll forgive me…I can’t help but fight my corner at times. But I realize that this shouldn’t have been one of them.”

“Too soon,” Luke said simply, of her disingenuous, though flawlessly delivered, apology.

“I was wondering that—whether it was too soon to seem sincere,” Kiria smiled conspiratorially.

And Luke too had to smile at her openness. “Is this a new tactic?”

“Yes… I’ve decided to try honest candor and blatant, undisguised persuasion…combined with my own special line in beguiling charm and natural charisma.” She glanced up through long dark lashes, self-assured mischief in her eyes. “One should play to one’s strengths, after all. What do you think so far?”

“Ask me again in a month.”

Kiria leaned back just slightly to look into Luke’s face as they danced, the act arching the small of her back against his hand. “Now I don’t know whether you’re serious or not.”

“What, losing control of the game?”

“Never!” She smiled irreverently. “Just making a few slight modifications—this is simply a period of adjustment.”

“Ah, always interesting.” Luke felt the edge of a smile curl his lips unbidden, as ever drawn by her charm but hardly blinded by it.

“Is she here tonight?” She was better than to look round as she said it.

His smile melted away. “Yes.”

“Will you speak to her?”

“Yes.” Kiria held her eyes on him, and Luke raised his eyebrows briefly in a subtle shrug. “Just playing by your rules: blatant honesty.”

“I said blatant persuasion.”

“I think the title of Empress is that.”

Kiria smiled again as she leaned closer to him, her dazzling smile made exceptional by the fact that she meant it. “Yes, it is.”




They remained together for a while, and Kiria was charming and elegant and captivating, and all that she’d declared she would be. Spontaneously, effortlessly, sincerely. There was a certain ease in being around her, Luke felt. They each played the game and neither hid the fact from the other; there was an honesty to it, a freedom from the guilt that plagued Luke so often with others. This was manageable; this was workable, he reflected. They both know exactly where they stood, and as long as Kiria didn’t try to shift the floor beneath his feet too often, Luke could deal with this—this strange, almost painfully candid deal which gained each what they wanted without the complications of any closer commitment.

He could do this, he really could…

The sense which whispered against his own lingered only a moment but it was enough to turn him about, knowing who stood to the wall a good distance away, forest-green eyes watching him.

The crowd parted, and for an instant Mara stood in isolation, fiery russet hair an unmistakable flare of color.

She wore a black gown…which didn’t for a second do it justice. The top was a fitted jacket clasped tight at the waist in a knowing, unmistakably feminine nod to the formal black jackets worn by all the men here tonight. But Mara's tightly traced the sweep of her slim hips and flared daringly open down its deep-cut collar-line, with the barest skim of black gauze beneath. Heavy and sumptuous, it shimmered, incandescent in the low light, woven with tiny darkest green and black glass beads—nothing sparkling, Mara Jade didn’t do glitz—but a subtle gleam, black on black, understated and restrained.

The lustrous black skirt held a close-fitting line over her hips to flare out into unstructured folds, its hemline brushing the floor in the slightest of trains. Subtle highlights shifted with every move, the dull sheen of the heavy satin following precisely the line of her body as she straightened, setting her head just slightly to one side, the barest hint of an evocative smile catching her lips as she met Luke's eye.

Then she turned deliberately away and disappeared into the crowds, Luke leaning back automatically to watch her, vaguely aware of Nathan trailing close behind.

And she was gone…and Luke was left to smile at his own reaction—and at her knowledge of it.






For Nathan, the night was not going so well. Mara had already managed to lose him three times on principle, and had skimmed close to Kiria D'Arca on countless occasions when Luke had been elsewhere, raising Nathan’s heartrate to what, as a medic, he knew had to be unhealthy levels. There were probably less than a dozen people in the whole of the Empire who knew the complete truth about the little drama that was playing out tonight and of them all, Nathan wondered how he had come to be in this position. He was hardly the consummate politician, and equally unlikely to be able to control Mara Jade if she really wanted to pick a fight. Luke had claimed that it would be ‘good practice,’ but for what, Nathan didn’t know. Presumably what it felt like to have an extended coronary.

Mara paused beneath the overhanging colonnades, glancing about the crowd with a professional eye. “I need a drink,” she said without looking to him. “Do you need a drink?”

“Good grief, yes,” Nathan said quickly.

“See what you can find,” Mara said smoothly. “I’ll have ansynthe or a grappa, just ice, no mixers.”

Nathan made to go then stopped as it hit him. “I’m not that gullible.”

“Admit it, you almost went.”

“That’s a reflection of how much I need a drink, not of how easy it is to pull the wool over my eyes.”

“Relax, Nathan. If I were going to make a scene I’d have done it before now…about two months before, actually.”

“Well, one never quite knows with you,” Nathan said wryly, fingering the uncomfortably high collar of his dress jacket.

“Thank you. I try my best.”

“You succeed.”

Level height with the slight medic, Mara turned now to look him appraisingly in the eye. “We never really talk much, do we, Nathan?”

“That’s because you don’t like me,” Nathan said solicitously but without any offense.

“Not true,” Mara said easily, eyes returning on the assembled dignitaries. “In fact, you’re one of the few people who I actually trust around here.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely. I know you try to do the right thing.”

“Well, thank you.”

“You don’t often manage it, but you try,” Mara added dryly.

“I like to think I keep the Emperor on the straight and narrow more than you know,” Nathan defended with quiet pride, rocking on his heels.

“Really? And which side of the straight and narrow do I fall?”





Having turned face-on to Nathan, Mara had expected some reflexive cringe from the medic, at being caught out. Perhaps even a guilty gulp as he avoided her eye… In the event, he seemed genuinely hurt that she would even ask.

“I don’t think I should dignify that with an answer.” He actually managed a good ten seconds of silence before he turned back with his usual earnest sincerity. “Mara, Luke argued to have you attend tonight—in fact he insisted on it, despite…requests to the contrary.”

Mara glanced back to the distant scarlet-clad figure of D'Arca, presently surrounded by a gaggle of ambitious career-climbers. They all laughed on cue, absurdly attentive, D'Arca clearly reveling in the attention; holding Court already, Mara reflected caustically.

She’d received a memo three days ago from one of D'Arca’s aides, copied to all attending females, politely requesting in the most roundabout but unmistakable terms, that no one wear gowns in any shade of red for the levee. Words couldn’t describe how tempted Mara had been to go out and buy one based solely on that message… In fact, if she were the petty type, she would have loved to have put her considerable skills to the task of finding out what D'Arca was wearing, and had an exact replica created in black… Strictly speaking, she would have abided by the ‘rules’ by not wearing red...

“What?” Nathan asked into her thoughts.

“What?” Mara turned.

“I just wondered what you’re smiling at?”

“Just thinking about D'Arca.”

“A hundred and one ways to kill her?” Nathan joked.

Mara smiled. “Oh, I had something far worse than that in mind.”

“See, now you’re making me nervous all over again.”

“Oh don’t worry, the moment for this one's passed.”

“You’re sure now?”

“Yes.” She couldn’t resist adding, after a heartbeat, “and if it wasn’t, do you think I’d admit it to you?”

It hadn’t exactly been a stretch to work out what was going on when Nathan had turned up at her door tonight sporting the kind of petrified expression that she normally associated with small animals in headlights. Privately, Mara had to admit that Nathan had been an inspired choice on Luke's part—though Nathan strongly denied any such strategy, of course. Had it been some unknown, unshakably professional diplomat trying to tail her, it would just have egged Mara on, and Luke had known it. But having Nathan trail her tonight like a little back-up conscience was a master move; doing anything with the fretful, overanxious medic in tow would be rather like kicking a big, brown-eyed puppy.

“You should probably know I handle stressful situations very badly,” Nathan tried plaintively. “I hyperventilate… I also talk, non-stop.”

“You always talk non-stop.”

“I have a very stressful life.”

“That’s because you have an uncanny ability to say exactly the wrong thing at any given moment.”

Nathan smiled disarmingly, voice laced with mock-injury. “I like to think of it as an uncanny ability to say the right thing…just to the wrong people and at the wrong time.”

Mara couldn’t help but smile. “I can go along with that.”

Nathan turned to watch Mara for long seconds, in which time she studiously ignored him, attention on the primped and preening crowds. When he spoke there was genuine warmth in his voice. “Well, this is nice.”

“What?”

“This little heart-to-heart. I feel we’re bonding here.”

Mara turned, not sure whether to be offended or appalled. “We’re not bonding, Nathan—there’s no bonding going on here. This is yet another perfect example of your saying the right thing to the wrong person at the wrong time.”

Nathan only smiled. “In fact…would you like to dance?”

“Don’t push it.”

Nathan turned away again, for once amused rather than unsettled by Mara's usual brusque manner. He too searched the milling crowds, a riot of color and heady perfume. “I seem to have lost Luke—can you see him?”

“I would imagine that by now, he’s figuring that he’s seen everyone he was obliged to see and made any covert little plays he intended, so I assume he’s lying low.”

“I know that, I was just wondering where… And when he was going to come back out.”

“So is D'Arca,” Mara said knowingly. “That’s three people she’s sent out looking for him now.”

“How can you tell?”

Mara shrugged. “The way she pulls them close to tell them, the way they walk away, looking round. The fact that none have gone back to her yet, but they haven’t left the ballroom.”

“You know I forget sometimes what you do,” Nathan said, impressed. “And how good you are at it.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be very good at it if you didn’t, would I?” Mara kept her gaze on D'Arca. “So what do you think of her—really?”

Nathan glanced through the crowd at the distant figure, engulfed by those seeking to court the prospective Empress. “She’s very beautiful, I suppose,” he said. “She’s intelligent and she’s shrewd, and she has a good head for the political…”

“You should probably stop speaking now,” Mara said dryly.

Nathan hesitated for a second. “But I can tell you for a fact that it’s a business arrangement, nothing more.”

“Maybe somebody should tell her that fact.” Mara's eyes remained on that vibrant flash of scarlet silk. “Do you think she can be trusted?”

“Luke does—and I assume he would know.”

“She’s very…persuasive.”

“I assume Palpatine was too, in a different way. You know Luke; he tends to walk his own path.”

“It’s not Luke I’m worried about.”

“Worried?” Nathan teased lightly. “Mara Jade is worried?”

Mara turned to glare at him from the corner of her eye. “Remember that thing where you said you sometimes forgot that I trained as an assassin…”

“I do now,” Nathan said, only half-joking. He paused for long seconds in consideration before adding, “Mara, I can look around this room and name two dozen political marriages, and that’s just the ones I can see. That’s how so many in the Royal Houses conduct their affairs, and that’s what D'Arca is to Luke.”

“And what am I?”

“Right,” Nathan replied without even thinking.

Mara wanted to hug the man. Instead she just humphed, and turned away in silence to stare into the crowds, wondering if the diminutive medic knew of his own understated abilities when it came to effortlessly smoothing the waters. “Took you a long time to decide that.”

“You know me,” Nathan smiled. “I’m the naturally cautious type,”

“In fact, I think you once out and out threatened to remove me—permanently.”

“Really?” Nathan brightened. “I’m impressed.”

“With yourself?”

“Well, yes. I don’t do threats very well. In fact, do you remember when we…”

“Let’s not do reminiscences,” Mara said without turning. Just because she like the man, that didn’t mean she’d cut him any slack.

“I was just remembering the flag,” Nathan continued regardless. “You remember the problems we had getting Luke to choose one?”

Mara let out another huff. She remembered the day of the flag-choosing very well. She’d had to practically bully the typically stubborn Skywalker into even looking at the designs, then he’d promptly turned them all over to Nathan, having him choose one instead, much to Mara's simmering annoyance. He’d always known exactly how to push her buttons, she reflected wryly.

Now, the Lorric—the flag Luke had chosen, so named because it pictured a lorric willow wreath—was synonymous with the new Emperor, flown over the Palace whenever Luke was in residence, as well as being painted as a coat of arms on many of the smaller ships which the new Emperor used, though he’d put his foot down at the suggestion that it should also grace the Patriot. Lorric wreaths were a traditional sign of royalty, originally used to crown rulers of the Teta system because they were said to encompass the aspects of great leadership: strength and flexibility which never broke under pressure. Still, at the time, Luke had maintained that Palpatine had suggested the lorric willow as a private slight between himself and the Heir; a subtle allusion to the fact that that which was flexible was also pliable, and therefore compliant and obedient.

It was the kind of complex double-meaning powergame which even then, Luke had become used to spotting and dealing with on a daily basis—and to Mara's mind, had made him so capable of eventually stepping into the position of Emperor with such innate ease, holding the massive, diverse Empire together and his own position intact against a multitude of opportunistic challengers. No matter what Luke thought of Palpatine, he had, without a shadow of a doubt, prepared Luke for this position as no one else could, and the fact that Luke knew it—that he utilized the lessons Palpatine had taught him on a daily basis—was a constant, needling irritation to him.

Still staring at Kiria D'Arca, Mara narrowed her eyes in consideration—because it would be just like Palpatine to set something like this up, to hold his Sith Dynasty together in its early years. The man who had always regarded everyone around him, even his protegé and heir, as little more than pawns in the games of his choosing…

That splash of vibrant crimson was all that was visible of D'Arca between her overly attentive little clique as she set forward across the hall, lackeys in tow. Realizing, Mara looked quickly down to catch Nathan’s eye and his attention. “Say that again?”

“The flag—I was asking, do you remember the flag?”

“Actually, I do remember the whole flag debacle…but why don’t you tell me your side of it?”




Nathan actually hesitated, so thrown was he by this sudden burst of amicable interest from the suspiciously chatty Mara Jade. She actually smiled, holding his eye expectantly as she took another half-step to the side. He was still frowning in search of the reason, when it became horribly clear…in the scarlet silhouette at the edge of his vision. Eyes still on Mara, Nathan’s face was completely mortified for long seconds before he recovered, dredging up a flustered smile as Kiria D'Arca drew level with him and an unknown Moff stepped forward to do the honors.

“My lady, may I present Nathan Hallin, one of the Emperor's Senior Aides.”

Nathan bowed politely, scrabbling to regain some composure. “Forgive me, I find I always consider myself more in terms of my original role here. I’m the Emperor's physician.”

Kiria D'Arca smiled graciously. “The Emperor's physician—so may I assume that it’s you who bears the burden of responsibility when others fail to adequately protect the Emperor?”

“No, no.” Nathan let out a nervous little laugh, realizing immediately who this conversation was actually aimed at. “No…no, no.” He was aware that he was repeating himself, but seemed unable to stop. The sight of Mara straightening in the periphery of his vision gave him a serious incentive to move the conversation forward, though. “In fact, his Excellency has an excellent and dedicated team of professionals who look after him. They do a fantastic job.”

“By and large I'm sure,” D'Arca said with a gracious nod of her head. “But...I was under the impression that the Emperor was injured quite badly in an assassination attempt just a few years ago?”

“Well, um...” Nathan blinked several times. “Yes, but the Emperor's own Guard generally deal with, diffuse and disrupt several such attempts every month.”

“Ah…” Kiria didn’t for a second look away from Nathan. “That’s most reassuring. But then one would imagine that in such an atmosphere of consummate professionalism, those who were less than exceptional—those who had perhaps failed in their duty in the past few years—would maintain their position here by the most slender of threads.”

Nathan fingered at the high collar of his jacket again; it suddenly seemed phenomenally warm in here. Hoping to gain the momentum and steer the conversation to a safer topic, he tried again. “I don’t believe I’ve offered my congratulations yet, Lady Kiria. You must be very pleased.”

“Yes, it’s good to be able to formally announce our relationship. Keeping such a thing quiet is so very testing…” Again Kiria's dark almond eyes flashed momentarily to the side without once touching on Mara. “It becomes so very tiresome and places such stress on the participants. One could imagine such pressures easily breaking such a relationship down in time.”

“Ah…” Again Nathan floundered, but Kiria pushed forward as if she hadn’t noticed.

“I thought that you would attend with Commander Reece tonight, Commander Hallin.”

“Well, you know, never off-duty.” Nathan smiled...then glanced quickly to Mara. “Not that coming with Commander Jade tonight was in any way, shape or form any kind of duty or chore!”

Mara barely spared him a glance, narrowed eyes remaining on Kiria.

Nathan blinked for long, lost seconds in the still silence before trying again, searching once more for a safer topic. “The um…your necklace is stunning, Lady Kiria…”

Looking to the magnificent necklace, Mara spoke out for the first time. “Yes, that’s very…ostentatious.”

Nathan coughed nervously. “It was a gift, I understand?”

Kiria's chin rose a fraction though she didn’t acknowledge Mara's words. “Yes, a gift…the Emperor knows me very well.”

“Yes,” Mara nodded, “yes, he does.”

Nathan was beginning to notice that several of the closer Courtiers had now begun to drift uneasily away, sensing the impending confrontation, and he couldn’t help but envy them. Kiria's eyes remained on Nathan as she again ignored Mara's words, bringing one perfectly manicured hand up to touch the heavy, faceted stones.

“They’re beautifully matched, don’t you agree? It’s so very rare to find matching stones of this exceptional size and quality.”

“You know, I was thinking…” Mara’s casual tone made Nathan sweat. “Someone once made what they clearly believed was a very sharp observation about jewels and trinkets, and their relative values. But you see sometimes trinkets can be worth more than all the jewels you can hang around your neck.”

Kiria finally turned to Mara, a perfect smile remaining on her delicate oval face, almond eyes cool. “For a moment perhaps, Commander Jade. But as you can see, novelties cannot replace significance. The Emperor's incomparable gift illustrates his appreciation of that.”

“But you see I know the Emperor so very well,” Mara glanced dismissively at the heavily encrusted necklace at Kiria's neck, “and precious stones mean very little to him…however polished they are.”

“I believe you underestimate the Emperor's acumen in such things, Commander Jade. I’m sure His Excellency is well aware that stones of equal value and consequence always compliment and enhance each other. A perfectly matched arrangement cannot be replaced by a decorative trinket—it would be tantamount to replacing logic with folly, and that’s simply not in his nature.”

“I think you may be confusing your own opinions with the Emperor's—perhaps you don’t know him quite as well as you think,” Mara said coolly.

Surprisingly, D'Arca wasn’t there with some instant, acerbic come-back—though aside from lowering her voice, it didn’t seem to inspire the same restraint in Mara, who continued before Nathan could even begin to think of anything to fill the leaden silence.

“And speaking of blinkered and biased opinions, you once accused me of being a resource to fill a temporary requirement in Palpatine’s eyes. Well, I’ve been thinking…and tonight it occurred to me that I also knew Palpatine far, far better than you ever could. And I have news for you—you were the same. You’re here because you fulfill a need, a niche—a temporary requirement. Me, I probably am now surplus to requirements these days, as you said, but—and here’s the other thing I realized—I’m still around. I’m still here, for no other reason than by the Emperor's wish. I have been for a very long time.” Mara paused, to give gravity to her next words, “That’s the thing about trinkets—they always know their value, because it’s whatever others place on them. Those big, cold, sparkling jewels…well, they’ll never know whether they have any true worth or whether they’re kept for no other reason than their incidental value—and if they’ll be discarded as soon as that value is spent.”

In the taut pause that followed, Mara held the initiative by nodding her head in a polite if minimal bow. “You’ll excuse me, my Lady. The evening’s almost gone already…sometimes time seems to fly, and I wouldn’t wish to intrude on your moment in the spotlight.”

She walked coolly away, leaving Nathan to stare at the floor for long seconds. Finally Kiria turned to him and he found his voice, lifting his hand to point hesitantly at Mara's receding form as he backed up. “Um… I should…excuse me.”








It was almost midnight when Mara finally spotted Clem standing to loose attention just inside one of the smaller, more secluded balcony doors. She loosed a private smile; one more thing that Kiria D'Arca knew in theory but not in practice was the unique protocol which surrounded Luke’s habits, and how those close to him reacted to them. Clem being alone at the half-closed balcony door meant one thing: Luke was on the balcony… And if Clem was looking into the ballroom rather than out onto the balcony, then Luke was alone.

For a scarlet second as she drew close, Mara worried that Clem might stop her from walking onto the balcony, as he would most others, but in the moment he simply nodded briefly then turned his eyes back to the crowds. Nathan, still doggedly following, slowed as he reached the doors, remaining discretely at the threshold.

She walked into the sultry, balmy night, and knew instantly why Luke had retreated here; he loved the heat, even when it was as close as this. Mara paused in the half-light between the ballroom and the shadows Luke stood among, and he turned immediately, straightening as he let out a long sigh, his dark clothes rendering him almost lost in the darkness.

He wore a flawlessly tailored dress suit in black serge, the dark enameled perennium buckle of the belt to which his lightsaber was attached a subtle gleam below his short, fitted jacket. A wide, wine-red riband sash over his right shoulder had one of the only two insignia of rank Luke ever wore in public, despite Reece’s constant attempts to add more: the six-pointed Imperial Order and, at the high, cream-piped neck of his jacket, the Order of the Star.

Despite the fact that they were both definitive, elite Orders patronized by and awarded at the discretion of the Emperor, Mara always suspected that Luke selected them for rather more specific, if less than regal reasons. The Imperial Order was enameled a dark ruby red, and the Order of the Star was faceted jet inlaid on black perennium, which meant that the red Order medal became almost invisible against the red riband sash, and the black Order of the Star was absorbed into the black of Luke's dress jacket, both so subtle as to be barely visible from a few paces back. He played the game, but as ever it was on his terms.

“Congratulations.” She didn’t mean to have her first word come out quite as hard or as cutting as it did.

“You look beautiful,” he said, ignoring the remark completely.

“It’s the dress.”

“No, it’s not,” Luke said simply, and Mara felt the heated buzz in the pit of her stomach spread slowly to her lips in a warm smile.

“Don’t ruin my irritable mood. I’ve spent a long time nursing it today.” Mara set forward to lean on the balcony, eyes roving the hazy glow of the cityscape, and sensed him turn to do the same. “It’s too hot out here.”

“I like the warmth.”

She smiled without turning. “You’d go back to your damn desert tomorrow, wouldn’t you?”

“No, I really wouldn’t.”

“But you’d walk out of here.”

He paused a long time and when he spoke his voice was thoughtful, as if examining his own answer. “No…I really wouldn’t.”

She turned to him and, realizing he was under scrutiny, Luke glanced to her then out toward the ever-changing streams of light which wove endlessly among the lofty, illuminated structures. “I like the city at night. It looks so much more appealing than in the plain light of day.”

It was hardly a subtle avoidance—but then most people would have taken the hint, Mara knew. She wasn’t one of them. “How’re you holding up?”

“It’s actually harder than I thought it would be,” he said with absolute calm. “It wasn’t…then I saw you.”

“I watched you dance.” Mara fought to keep her tone light. “You make a terrible couple, you know; she’s too short for you.”

“Thanks,” Luke said dryly.

“Maybe I should go tell her,” Mara added blithely.

Luke smiled slightly, his tone lightening. “Don’t you dare. Besides, I thought you’d had your little spat for tonight.”

“We have…and we didn’t even make a scene—aren’t we good?”

“Good would have been not to have the spat.”

“No, I think that would have been just plain unrealistic,” Mara countered. “Maybe you shouldn’t have invited me.”

“I would never do that, Red.” Luke smiled, eyes still on the horizon. “Not when it gives me the opportunity to see you looking this good.”

“See, it is just the dress,” Mara smiled

“No,” he repeated categorically. “But that’s definitely not standard Palace issue.”

“Maybe it should be.”

He tilted his head. “I’m not sure Clem could pull that off…not and wear his usual arsenal.”

“Oh, I’m carrying a blaster,” Mara said with feigned offense. “And a vibroblade.”

“Really, where?”

Luke took a step closer but Mara pulled the rustling, lustrous fabric back in mock anger. “Hey, hands off the expensive dress, Skywalker.”

He grinned now, and in the low light, despite his scars he looked very much the indomitable young pilot who had arrived here, full of attitude and indignation. Taken by the moment, Mara stepped forward to kiss him, but Luke backstepped quickly, glancing to the partially open balcony doors. She stopped, frowning.

“Breaking the rules?” she bit sarcastically.

“Here, tonight—yes,” he said simply.

“Well, how very crude and uncouth of me,” Mara growled. “Maybe I’m not sophisticated and urbane enough for your little games any more.”

“Why do you always make this so very difficult?”

“Me? I’m not the one marrying some conceited little blue-blood to cement my position.”

“You wanted me to be Emperor—you wanted this. Remember that.”

It was an old accusation, leveled at her more than once, and every time Mara wondered at it—that he could somehow not have wanted this for himself; not have seen it as the ultimate goal.

She looked back to the brightly lit ballroom, then turned to meet his eyes, holding his gaze for long seconds as she carefully considered her next words. “I’m going to ask you this one last time, then I’m never going to mention it again… Are you sure this is the only way to gain what you need?”

Luke sighed, looking down. It was rare that he avoided her eyes, Mara knew.

“I’ve tried to think of another way to gain all that this does for the last year, and wasted time I could have invested in moving forward. I can’t name one other way to gain this—not in the timescale I need. Even this may not work, any more.”

“What exactly do you need?”

“The co-operation of the Royal Houses.”

“You have that!”

“No, I have their tolerance. I have their compliance.”

“That’s all you need and you know it. That’s all you’ve ever had and your reign hasn’t suffered for it.” Mara could hear the edge of her tightly controlled frustration leaking through. “You can hold the Empire easily without Kiria D'Arca.”

“Yes, I can—Palpatine’s Empire. I can stand at the head of Palpatine’s Empire. Not mine, his…and I won’t do that.”

“And what do you intend to do that’s so very different that you need the Royal Houses to…” Mara paused, realization of her casually thrown out words filtering through into her own thoughts: “so very different…”

Her voice dropped, suddenly very serious, memories of his outburst on Hosk Station coming sharply to mind, a tremor sliding up her spine. “What are you going to do, Luke?”

He glanced away, voice quiet, for her alone. “Did you really think I’d give Palpatine his dynasty, Mara…ever, for one second?”

“What are you going to do?” Mara repeated, voice a breathless whisper.

He shook his head. “I wish I could tell you, Red.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Because I think you’d disapprove.”

“Of all the things you’ve done, suddenly now you’re worried about my disapproving,” Mara observed dryly. “Maybe if you just got it over with and told me, you might be surprised—I might even be able to help you.”

“That’s a good point,” Luke said easily. “I’ll think on that.”

“No, you won’t!” Mara almost laughed. “You won’t think about it for one second. Luke, you don’t have to do it all alone.”

“Yes, I do. Right now, everyone’s safe. If this all goes wrong, you can stand in any Court and take any test and say with your hand on your heart that you knew nothing. That I was acting alone.”

“I don’t need your protection.”

“I know that. But I have to do it this way anyway, otherwise I’ll never sleep at night.”

“You never sleep anyway.” Her frustration was laced with humor now, at his enduring protective streak.

He smiled wryly. “Again, a good point. I’ll think on it tonight…”

“I know—when you should be sleeping. You know you are, without a doubt, the most single-minded, stubborn, irritating, frustrating, infuriating person I have ever met.”

“But?”

“I don’t know if there is a but, yet.”

He shook his head, indulgent, but she could see that brittle edge as close to the surface as ever, and felt her heart go out to him. He was trying so hard to be what he knew he needed to be, what he knew the aristocrats and the diplomats and the military expected him to be. What he knew would hold the Empire together and hold them at bay whilst he dragged it forward by strength of will alone, to some unnamed plan. “Why can’t you tell me—do you trust me so little?”

Luke looked down, rubbing at the bridge of his nose as he glanced back to the bright lights of the ballroom. “I can’t do this now, Mara.”

Her breath left her in a low sigh, because once again it all came back down to this; he took her everywhere, risked so much and probably complicated his life and his plans by a factor of ten by keeping her close…but he still didn’t trust her.

“I wish I could go back to that day.” The words came out in a low, defeated murmur.

Luke shook his head. “It was my fault, not yours.”

“No, it was Palpatine’s.” Had she said that—had she blamed her old master outright? It was the first time Mara had ever openly questioned Palpatine in anything.

“No. I shouldn’t have left you there—it was my fault.”

“Then why can’t you trust me?”

He shook his head in defeated silence, and she sighed again, realizing that he was trying just as hard to be what she wanted too; trying somehow to shoehorn her own expectations in with those of the military and the Royal Houses and the greater picture. Trying to be everything for everybody…because she’d asked this of him. Because she’d asked him to stay. Was it that which he couldn’t forgive her for—was it that which truly stood between them?

She sighed, smiling gently, knowing he’d see, despite the heavy shadows which concealed them both. The distant strains of the formal music reminded Mara of that night long ago in some other ballroom, celebrating the launch of the Patriot under Palpatine’s ever-watchful eye. When they’d stood inches and yet chasms apart, just as bound by outside obligations and responsibilities as they were tonight, and Mara had whispered quietly beneath the music, “Dance with me tonight—alone?”

She spoke out now on impulse, “Da–”

“Don’t. Don’t ask.” He brought his hand up, rubbing it slowly across his eyes. “Don’t make this any harder.”

“You didn’t read what I was going to ask.” She knew she’d been shielding her thoughts—how could she not, tonight?

“I don’t need to. Do you think after all this time that I don’t know you, Mara—do you think I wouldn’t know anyway?” He sighed, head down. “This is so hard, Mara. This is so phenomenally hard and every single time I look at you it makes it harder. But I have to do this—I have to do this.”

She studied him in the darkness; the tense set of his jaw, the tight line of his shoulders, the frown which pulled that heavy scar into a crescent, creasing into the lines of worry about his eyes as he spoke. “You do what you have to, Mara—whatever it is, I understand… But I have to do this.”

'Do what you have to.' Didn’t he know—if he knew her so well, didn’t he know by now? Without thinking, she’d moved towards him in the darkness, lifting her arms to wrap about him as she leaned in close...and feeling in that moment as his arms wrapped about her, that this was more than enough.

The minutes stretched as they stood still and silent in each other’s arms, hidden by the dark of the night, the music soft and distant…and Mara had no idea if this was acceptance or goodbye on either of their parts. Then slowly, she felt Luke take her hand and lift it out, sliding his other hand about her waist. Gently, he began to move to the rhythm of the faint music, taking her with him. Deeply touched, Mara melted to him, resting her head on his shoulder, hugging him closely to her, feeling him relax as he rested his cheek against her hair.

They danced together for a long time in the darkness.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Luke was in his office before dawn the following morning, Reece entering with dispatches when the working day began a few hours later, as he generally did as soon as they were available.

“Good morning, Excellency; dispatches. Also your…” Reece had the good sense to stop himself before he even tried to go any further, “the Lady Kiria has sent her compliments this morning, and has requested an audience…lunch perhaps?”

Luke didn’t look up. “Send her my compliments and my apologies. Redirect her to the social secretary and have him make an appointment at some point.”

Reece hesitated. “I thought perhaps, considering her station now, certain concessions could be made.”

“Fine; make it this week.”

“… I envisioned larger concessions than that, Sir,” Reece said dryly.

“I think we’ve made enough concessions to Lady Kiria at the moment.” Luke's eyes and his attention were on his work as he slotted the new data chip into his reader. He was aware of Wez’s continued presence but didn’t look up, instead watching his Aide’s reflection in the polished surface of his desk as Wez licked his lips before continuing.

“Incidentally, I did have a question regarding the final wording on the D'Arca agreement,” Reece added casually. “I noted that Lady Kiria is to be acknowledged as Empress Consort and wondered if you wished me to amend that.”

“Amend it why?”

Reece hesitated a second. “I simply wondered whether such a clause was necessary. Since Lady Kiria isn’t listed in the line of succession, it would seem a tad petty to…”

“You want me to remove a clause that clarifies the future line of succession of an Empire, for fear of it seeming a tad petty?” Luke didn’t look up, voice calm and distant, as if only half-interested in the discussion.

“No, Sir...”

“Because I was under the impression that acknowledging Kiria D'Arca as Empress Regent would also acknowledge her as potential ruler in my absence.”

Wez hesitated, clearly surprised that Luke would have the knowledge of such conventions, unaware that it was his own actions which were forcing Luke to learn such self-reliance. “…That is correct, Sir… However, if Lady Kiria is not listed in the official line of succession—”

“Assuming that documents pertaining to the official line of succession were to become available, should it be necessary.”
“… I cannot imagine why they would not.”

“Neither can I—but then I can’t imagine why this point is so relevant that you’d bother to bring it up right now.”

“Also in regard to this, Sir, I did mean to point out that I tried to access the succession documents this morning, in relation to the D'Arca agreement, and they seem to have been removed from the private access hub.”

“I’ve locked the documents,” Luke said simply as he glanced up, aware that Wez had neatly sidestepped answering. He gave a reassuring half-smile though, projecting subtle reassurance out into the Force. “Nothing has changed, Wez—they’re still on the coded hub in my Cabinet office. I’ve just decided to take them off the private access hub—it has too many people able to retrieve it.”

“There are twelve people able to access that hub, Sir.”

“I consider that too many. The documents remain in the Cabinet office, so they can still be accessed when needed.” The hub in Luke's office within the Cabinet was the most secure of all data bases. With no access point save from the desk within Luke's office, it was DNA coded to just six people aside from Luke, requiring three of those six separate codes to access it without Luke's permission, effectively meaning that if Luke were not present, this most comprehensive data base could only be unlocked with the consent of three of the six members of his Inner Council. Even then, there were countless codes to access individual documents, the passwords for which Luke handed out with careful consideration as to who would conceivably use or abuse them if they were unlocked on his death. As ever, even in his absence, his old Master’s guarded habits dictated Luke's actions—a fact that continually irked him, though never quite enough that he was prepared to abandon logic simply to flaunt them. It irked him even more that his old Master was right; Wez Reece, a former ally who had the gall to stand calmly in front of Luke right now and believe he could lie to a Sith, was proof of that.

Finally, it irked him one last time that thanks to his old Master, he was equally capable of the same, meeting Wez’s gaze with that same empty amity and composure. “Is there anything else?” He sensed Reece brace, and realized that this little aside wasn’t the reason that the man had entered.

“Dispatches this morning, Sir; I was checking through and came across a communiqué from Captain Tolemy of the SD Spur. It was a coded transmission, and I don’t appear to have the decrypt. I tried to clarify the situation with Captain Tolemy, but was informed that the communiqué was confidential.”

There was the barest hint of a question behind Wez’s tone, but Luke remained silent, eyes back on his dispatch notes as he pulled up Tolemy’s report, seeking reassurances that the sanctuary moon was unharmed by debris and radioactive fallout from the destruction of the second Death Star.

No damage sustained; the shield generators originally designed to protect the Death Star had successfully been inverted and phased by the specialist detachment Luke had installed onboard the Spur. Though Luke had never once set foot on the surface of the verdant, blue-green Endor, every night as he’d slept onboard the monstrosity that his old Master had delighted in building, he’d sensed the vibrant rush and swell of life from the fragile moon, a burst of mental color seeping through the endless leaden gray of Palpatine’s new toy.

Reece waited patiently, looking for some kind of reaction as Luke studied the report. None was forthcoming, but Wez was familiar enough with his Emperor that he wouldn’t be so easily derailed by silence, and so tried again. “What seems odd is that the Spur is currently well outside of its mission route parameters—almost two lightyears from Endor. When I questioned Captain Tolemy on his position, he informed me again that he was under instruction from a higher authority, and couldn’t make comment.”

Finally Luke looked up, aware of the fact that his bluff had been called; the only higher authority than Wez was the Emperor himself.

“Captain Tolemy was operating under my instructions. The report he’s returned is to confirm that Project Redress has been destroyed. That’s why he was no longer in orbit around Endor.” There was little point in trying to hide this from Wez; in spite his recent actions, he remained in his privileged position by Luke’s choice, and much as unseen restrictions had been placed, Wez still had access to high-level Fleet information, something Luke had allowed despite Mara’s misgivings. He still believed absolutely that Wez would act in the Empire's best interests—and he still hoped privately that he could turn Wez from his present course.

But if he wanted to dissuade Wez, then Luke knew he couldn’t put him off forever—and in truth, he’d rather have it out and dealt with now than let it fester. Wez was living on borrowed time, allowed him because of their past history and because Luke didn’t want to be seen to turn on his own Senior Aide without tangible proof of a kind that others in his Cabinet—especially Nathan—could understand. Mara thought he was crazy, of course, and privately there were moments when Luke agreed with her, but still, if he could, Luke wanted to pull Wez back from what was so far a few isolated indiscretions…and he couldn’t and wouldn’t do that by outright lying to his primary Aide; Wez was too smart and Luke was too stubborn for that.

The man blinked now, fighting to hold his composure. “Project Redress is… Is this confirmed? How did it happen—and why isn’t Captain Tolemy here to answer for his failure in person?”

“It happened at my command, which was followed to the letter by Captain Tolemy. Project Redress had fulfilled its requirements and was little more than a drain on Imperial resources.

“You ordered the second Death Star destroyed?”

“For my reasons and to fulfill a greater plan, yes. I gave it to the Rebellion—or rather, I gave the co-ordinates to Leia Organa at our last meeting.”

Wez looked down for long seconds, and Luke knew the man was trying to hold his temper. “To gain what?”

“Trust.”

“You gave her the co-ordinates of Project Redress… What if the Rebellion had turned up in force? What if they had commandeered it, completed it?”

“That was never an option. I told her when I gave her the co-ordinates that she could tell no one and I…trusted her to hold to that. I’ve said before, I know her; I know how she’ll act and that she’d uphold a trust placed in her personally, even from me, so she’d go alone. Within the safe-passage transmission that I gave her for entry to the area was the Death Star’s self-destruct code. Even if they’d separated it and only used the safe-entry code, it would have alerted Captain Tolemy, who would have passed the fact on immediately as ordered, and I would have triggered the self-destruct directly from Coruscant. There was never any question of them trying to return and take control of Project Redress. It was always intended as a gesture of good faith, not a gift to keep and certainly not one they would ever have the opportunity to use against us.”

“You gave them the one thing that could have effectively removed them?”

“It could never have done that, Wez, it just appeared to have that potential. That’s why I gave it to her—because she would see that danger too.”

“The Death Star had massive potential…”

“No, it didn’t.” Luke kept his voice firm but without enmity. He’d been judged in the past on his own actions without all the facts; had those he’d trusted come to premature conclusions. He wouldn’t do to Wez what he himself had endured at the hands of others; wouldn’t condemn those who had done it to him, and then turn around and do the same. “It could never be anything other than it was, Reece—an overblown relic that would only ever incite more insurgence. Another one of Palpatine’s indulgent, self-gratifying schemes that could never be what he blindly believed.”

“It could have worked as part of a greater plan.”

“And it did. It was pivotal…as part of a greater plan. Now we move on—we build on what the Death Star gained us. We’re taking the wind out of the rebellion's sails by stealing their thunder a piece at a time; by negating the tenets on which they fight, as part of our bigger plan, part of the long-term scheme. You know that. We can pretty much force Leia Organa and her insurrection into an untenable position by freely enacting some of the constitutional freedoms they’re presently fighting for. On our own terms and to our own schedule. We put these changes in place and the Rebel Alliance becomes nothing more than a marginalized, redundant guerilla force which will hold no sympathy with the general populace. I always told you that I’d do this—that I’d take their support a piece at a time, if I had to.”

Wez raised his chin. “What I don’t recall is your assuring me that any of these gratuitous allowances already placed in the constitution would be retracted at a future point.”

Luke hesitated; did he do this? If he told Wez the truth, was he inspiring trust or simply pushing him further away? In the end, it didn’t really matter—because Wez deserved that opportunity to redeem himself; Luke owed him that. After all that he’d accused others of, now that he found himself in the same position with one of his own, he didn’t want to look back and question his response. Whether Wez stood or fell, it should be on the truth.

“If we hold our rule and maintain order, then why would retractions be necessary?”

Wez remained silent, lips pursed to a narrow line.

“Wez, the Empire as it stands is unsustainable. Anything that needs a massive military to keep it in power is basically untenable. You know that.”

“The Empire ended a civil war and has held the peace for almost three decades...”

“Yes. But times change, and Palpatine wouldn’t let his Empire change with them. It’s time to correct that.”

Wez’s eyes hardened. “Tell me you don’t intend to make a deal with the rebellion?”

“As it stands, no. Never. I have very specific requirements of the Alliance before talks could even begin to be considered—and always on my terms.”




Wez stiffened at the Emperor’s words but held himself in check, mentally and physically, as he’d always had the ability to do, even here. Even beneath this final truth… The Alliance; not the Rebellion, the Alliance. A slip of the tongue, or an inadvertent admission? Had that been the truth all along, Wez wondered? Despite everything, had Skywalker always been in some way sympathetic to the Rebellion at heart?

“I see,” Wez said at last in knowing monotone, nodding his head slowly.

“You disagree.”

“You never said that this was your intent before.”

“I said that my intent was to remove the Rebellion and stabilize the Empire. It still is.”

“I question your methods, Excellency, not your motives.”

“I’m not dissolving the Empire, Wez, nor am I handing it over to the Rebellion—I will never do that. You said yourself we need to move forward—this is how we do it.”

“Making a deal with the Rebellion will not– “

“I haven’t said I’ll make any deal with the Rebellion.”

“Yet you’re speaking with Leia Organa.”

“For my own reasons, and to my own ends—ends I’ve just explained to you.”

“If you believed that it would stabilize your Empire, Excellency…would you negotiate with them?”

‘If you believed’… in other words, ‘however erroneously’; Wez didn’t say it, but the Emperor was an astute man. He straightened now, putting absolute commitment into his words.

“I won’t allow the Rebellion to continue in its present form. What I’m doing now will ensure that, one way or another. And no, I have no qualms about bringing force to bear if…”

Skywalker stopped, but Wez knew his error: if

“Tell me again, Excellency, that you don’t intend to make a deal with them.”

The Emperor raised his chin, refusing to give. “I’ll tell you again what I’ve just said; in their present form, no. Absolutely not.” He sighed, looking down. “I know that you want to do what you think is right for the Empire, Wez… I’m confused as to why you suddenly don’t believe I think the same.”

“Do you?”

“I will never hand the Empire over to the Rebel Alliance—to do that would be consigning it to civil war and I can promise you, I’ll never do that. I will never sign, or be any part of, any treaty which breaks this Empire up or feeds those who would do the same. There is no question of that. But the Rebellion cannot be beaten.” Wez lifted his chin, but the Emperor pressed on, hand opening before him. “No. By its very nature it can’t be proscribed, and it can’t be removed because it will always spring back in some form. As long as people feel they have no voice, they’ll rebel. As long as people feel they have no options, they’ll fight. I could destroy every last member of every faction tomorrow—and believe me, it’s a tempting proposition—but they would be back in greater numbers within a year. New people with those same ideals, people who believe that the only option left to them is insurrection. How do I deal with that—you tell me?”

“The military…”

“What? I’ve said before, give me a target and I’ll give the order. They’re scattered, broken down into small units. I know—I know exactly how they fight.”

“You could draw them out; draw them into the open, lure them into a single action—that’s what you said, that this would place the heads of the Rebellion in one place at a set time.”

“And afterwards, when the next wave forms and they shout out the names of the supposed martyrs we’ve created?”

Wez stiffened. “We do it again.”

“And again, and again. It’s not an answer; it’s not even a postponement. If anything, it’s an escalation. Give me a solution, Wez—because I don’t have one, other than the path I’m taking. I’m trying to hold the Empire together, I’m trying to take it forward. I’m trying hard not to consign a third of its citizens to death as traitors when all they want is a fair constitution. I’m trying to make the Empire all it could be, to realize the potential that everyone saw when the Clone Wars ended. And I need you with me to do that—I need your vision, and I need your ability, and I need your belief.”

In so many ways Wez knew he was looking at—arguing with—the perfect Emperor. Skywalker was sharp and he was shrewd and he was persuasive. He had a long-term vision and he had the resolve and the drive and the pragmatism to find or create a way to bring that vision to fruition. But in others he was far, far too moderate.

Wez had never truly approved of the excessive relaxation of existing laws which had served the Empire well for decades, despite the obvious benefits their easing had brought in rooting out opponents and detractors, and Skywalker knew it. The revamp of the legal system he could understand on those terms, but the equality statutes and free speech had been grossly unwarranted and so very carefully placed; too meticulously considered and perfectly worded to ever have been a temporary charade—he should have seen that at the time. In fact he had—but persuasive as ever, Skywalker had put forward a hundred reasonable, rational motives to support them—and Wez had let it pass…and let it pass, and let it pass.

As he did now…outwardly. He nodded just once, eyes down. “You have my loyalty, Sir, and my support. You always did.”

The Emperor loosed a long, low sigh, and Wez wondered for a fraction of a second if he had seen the truth within the Force, but Saté Pestage had always assured him that Skywalker would find him unreadable, and Skywalker himself had often assured Wez of the same, if Wez were ever to have needed to face Palpatine.

Now the new Emperor spoke quietly. “I value both…more than you realize, I think.”

“Thank you, Sir.” Wez backed to the door. “If you’ll excuse me?”

Skywalker nodded, and Wez backstepped. His last glimpse of the Emperor as the heavy doors separated them was of those distinctive mismatched eyes, disconcerting in their piercing intensity.






Wez turned and walked swiftly down the wide corridor, heading for his own office within the Cabinet, slapping the door closure before he was through and leaning back to rest against the sealed doors, eyes closed, breath short.

So there it was—only not; a complete explanation without a single fact, as only the Emperor could do. Another sermon to reassure the faithful, a way to break it to Wez gently that the single, most effective means to remove the Rebellion had been destroyed—by the Emperor's own command, no less!

He’d known—he’d known that something was going on the moment he couldn’t get that damn information from Tolemy; it wasn’t part of the Spur’s general remit to be out that far. He’d tried to get more out of the Destroyer Captain, but Tolemy was completely loyal to the Emperor and would of course stick by his order to speak to no one, issued by the Emperor himself.

Recruited by Skywalker when he was still Heir, and making ongoing trips to Endor to oversee its construction, Tolemy was an unwavering backer of the new Emperor. As soon as he'd known it had existed, he’d also been a discreet detractor of the second Death Star, which was probably why Skywalker had recruited him in the first place. With the change in power, Tolemy had gained in stature and in nerve, citing the Death Star more than once as an oversized relic of Palpatine’s reign. A clumsy dinosaur at odds with the swift, reaction-oriented fleet which the new Emperor was creating. That he’d been given the remit of protecting it had seemed strange to Reece at the time, though he hadn’t for a moment considered this possibility.

He should have known—he should have known! Skywalker had showed no interest in the Death Star since Palpatine’s death, maintaining its confidentiality but having all work suspended and basically abandoning the massive battle station by relegating it to ‘standby’ status, leaving the unrivalled military structure that he had helped to build guarded but disused, destined to redundancy without once having fired a single blast. Wez knew how much Skywalker had always hated Palpatine’s opus, referring to it often as the old Emperor's folly, but this…this was outrageous in the extreme. This was a weapon that could have ended the Rebellion in no uncertain terms. Skywalker had never thought so—had said as much to Palpatine more than once—but Wez knew him; if he’d wanted to elevate the Death Star to active service, he would have found a way. Would have dovetailed it neatly into other plans, as he did so much else. If he hadn’t, then it was by choice—everything that he did was by choice. Everything.

Yes, the Death Star had been brazenly overstated, an excessive monument to Palpatine’s exaggerated hyperbole, but Skywalker could have made it work as the vanguard of the fleet. It exemplified the power and the means and the resolve of the old Empire, and knowing the Emperor as he did, knowing his constant balance between integrity and intimidation, between honesty and insinuation, between threat and compromise, Skywalker could have made it work.

He had chosen not to—had chosen to abandon the tenets of the true Empire and pursue his own ends. Because of Skywalker, this was not the Empire Wez had aspired to, not the path he had intended, and now…now, the new Emperor had all but admitted that the ‘fraudulent’ dialogue with Organa and therefore her Rebellion could yet be a prelude to legitimate talks!

Wez shook his head as he leaned back against the tall doors…because this was it. This was the point past which he could not and would not follow the Emperor.

He was becoming too lenient. Too progressive. It was time to set the Empire back on course. The method to achieve such was extreme—but then, one could not use half-measures in turning the course of an Empire. Skywalker had taught him that.

If he were to deal with this…problem, it should be in a managed fashion, with an ultimate goal: the reinstatement of the true Empire. If the line of succession hadn’t been altered—and Wez very much doubted that Skywalker would have done so without good reason—then Mara Jade was next in line to the throne. She too was strong and assertive; she didn’t have Skywalker’s breadth of vision, but then perhaps that was no bad thing—she would have no desire to change the Empire to some toothless, ungovernable shambles just a half-step away from anarchy. Jade had always been a staunch Imperialist, brought up to respect the Empire and its values.

For Wez himself to move against Skywalker was out of the question of course. What he needed was to orchestrate a situation which would not only bring Jade to power, but ideally clarify for the new Empress just exactly what depths the Rebellion that Skywalker actually intended to enter into negotiations with, was capable of and leave her intent on pursuing them with a vengeance, obliterating both the Rebellion and these ever-deteriorating and subversive statutes once and for all. He had the contacts—thanks to the procurement and presentation of a few facts, ‘on good faith’—and he’d had all the lessons he’d needed in how to enact such plans…

The present Emperor, despite all early indications to the contrary, had proved himself to be unfit to hold the title...and as a staunch and unfaltering Imperialist, it was Wez’s duty, his obligation and his honor to maintain the Empire he so revered, whatever the cost. No individual, no matter what his heritage or his status, could be placed above the continued survival of the Empire.

Yes, the Emperor was to be revered…but the Empire—the Empire was sacrosanct.












“Those were the actions of the Emperor—he gave you the code to destroy a completed Death Star? He did that firsthand?”

“Yes,” Leia said simply. “And now I’m asking you, do I take all of this to the Council?”

She watched as Tag Massa leaned back, resting her hand to her mouth as she considered all that Leia had just told her. Leia found herself holding her breath from where she sat at the desk in Tag’s office onboard Home One, the privacy glass about them dimmed. Han had slouched with typical cavalier fashion in a chair close to the door, though there was an innate tension to his frame, an unspoken agitation as he fumbled with the toggles of his flight suit, deeply uneasy. He hadn’t wanted her to come, Leia knew; had wanted to keep this between themselves. But it was too big and too important, and Leia had needed to discuss it with someone impartial. She’d chosen Tag, and already knew it was the right choice. The Intel Chief knew that Leia had met Luke once, and had remained typically unperturbed at news of a second meeting…though the outcome of this one had rocked even her, underlining its relevance.

Glancing down to the blank automemo before her, Leia reflected on the fact that the concept of relying on her own decision in this seemed completely impossible now. With the best of intentions not to, she knew she’d become personally involved—that she’d been pulled in. Slowly and gradually persuaded to make some kind of emotional investment in her continuing discussions with the Emperor. She could no longer view this with a detached, balanced viewpoint and she knew it, so she was now relying on the council of those she trusted to provide the balance she needed. Was it a limitation, her inability to come to a decision, or simply an acknowledgment of the facts? Should she follow her own heart in this, or was it too important to let personal feelings hold sway? Lost in thought, Leia doodled idly on the automemo, drawing repeats of the same image, one circle linked into another; not quite right though—something was missing. Shaking her head, she scribbled them out and they deleted.

She found herself wondering what the Emperor would do, were it him in this situation, and shook her head abruptly, furious at herself that she’d even consider such a thing! Or perhaps not; he’d held his Empire together through everything that had been hurled against it by the Rebel Alliance. Her father, Leia knew, would have told her that it wasn’t a fault to respect one’s enemy, simply the acknowledgment of a more than competent leader. One should have a healthy respect for one’s rivals, surely?

Tag was shaking her head, lips narrowed to a firm line as she came to a decision. “No. At this time, my advice would be not to go public with this, even to the Council. I’ll log the events here in my own reports so that it can be confirmed that you came to me with this, but in the present atmosphere, I would advise against telling the Council that you’d met with the Emperor. If the information’s logged, you can change that decision at any time without loss of face because you came to me and made it known, and I advised against it.”

“Not even the moderates like General Rieekan?”

“I would say that once information of this relevance is leaked in any form, you would have a hard time containing it, Ma’am. I may change my mind tomorrow myself, when I’ve had more time to consider the implications, but… no. Right now I would advise you to hold fast.”

Leia sighed uneasily, rising to pace the small Intel office. “I’m…uncomfortable keeping this from the Council.”

“I fail to see what it would gain at this time, other than to further destabilize it.”

Which was the painful truth, Leia knew; the Council was already torn by infighting from opposing factions, thanks to Madine’s constant calls for what he euphemistically referred to as a ‘more pro-active stance.’

“In fact, that may well have been the Emperor’s ulterior aim,” Tag added thoughtfully.

“Then why tell me not to tell anyone?”

“Oldest trick in the book,” Han shrugged, leaning back. “If I tell you to think of anything other than a tauntaun, what are you thinking of right now?”

Leia narrowed her eyes. “I think we’re a little past that, hotshot.”

“Worked though, didn’t it?” Han grinned.

“Maybe,” Leia conceded. “I’m just not sure why you’re the one saying it.”

“I’m not stupid, swee…Leia,” Han said, glancing to Massa as he curbed his familiarity, “and I sure as hell ain’t naïve. I know Luke's not the same kid who walked off Tatooine nine years ago. Hell, he couldn’t have been that even if he’d stayed with the Alliance—but that doesn’t mean he’s not genuine in this.”

"Perhaps we should be looking at what the Emperor, rather than ourselves, has to lose by making this public,” Tag suggested, always the voice of reason. “Looking solely at this last action, why wouldn’t he want to go public? He has some reason, or he would have done so. Why not do this publicly?”

Han sighed, lapsing to consideration, if only because he was aware of how uneasy this was making Leia. “Okay… because…it cost a lot of credits to build.”

“No… Maybe…” Leia shook her head as she paced, hands clasped before her chin; this was too hard! Being placed in a position where she was now double-thinking a man who, deep down, she maybe even wanted to believe. Where did her personal feelings end and her ability to lead begin? “He has to have a reason. He doesn’t do anything without one.”

“Okay,” Han said again, “it’s gonna upset his military; he has something that would make them practically invincible and he ups and destroys it.”

Leia clicked her fingers at him. “Point! Plus, he wouldn’t want to give his military any more power than they have already. He said that more than once when we spoke—that he didn’t trust them.”

“So if he’d admitted that he had it in the first place, he’d’ve basically handed over to whoever he appointed to command it, the power to hold him to ransom—or even overthrow him entirely—which he’d never do… But he wouldn’t have wanted them to know that he didn’t trust them.”

“Wouldn’t want to incite revolt,” Leia agreed, nodding. "It could have been classified as much from his own military as from us. Probably very few knew it existed."

“He’d never want to use it himself,” Han added, very sure. “But he’d never want to give anyone else the opportunity to use it against him.”

Tag shrugged, adding her own thoughts to the mix. “As we’ve said, he’d know as well as we do that for you to admit to this now would be a destabilizing factor within your own leadership. If he relieved you of the burden of acknowledging any of this publicly, then his intentions would remain constant—so we’re back to the question, is he genuinely trying to help you?”

“He may simply want proof that he can trust you,” Han said, voice neutral. “He asked you not to tell anyone about it.”

Leia frowned, about to ask why he would need Leia to prove her trustworthiness—then realized that she’d already told Tag. Han’s eyes, still on her, reminded her of the greater picture too; that it was she who had brought the proof about Luke’s Imperial origins to light, years ago. But why should she feel guilty about uncovering a spy?!

Tag shook her head. “This is all second-guessing and conjecture. Even if we touched on the truth, we wouldn’t know.”

“You could ask him,” Han shrugged…and both women turned to stare at him. “What—when’s the last time he lied to you?”

“I don’t know!” Leia exclaimed. “That’s the point!”

“No, that’s not the point,” Han said, looking to Leia. “The point is, whether you admit it publicly or not, he still made the gesture… My question is, what are you gonna do in reply?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said he’d done it to prove his intentions, right? By my reckoning, that means it’s now your turn.”

Leia stopped dead in her pacing of the small office; he was right, of course. Could she afford not to take the chance—to make a gesture? If she didn’t react to this, the fact was that Leia would always privately wonder if, because of her own suspicions, she had been the one to throw away the first genuine opportunity to move forward in almost three decades.

Tag sat up slightly, voice wary. “What exactly was he asking?”

“A step-down in hostilities,” Leia said. “The first stage which would lead to official talks.”

Massa nodded knowingly. “That’s why he broke off the attack at Fondor.”

“That’s what he said,” Leia confirmed.

Tag considered, on firmer ground here. “I think that’s a reasonable point which you could take to the Council—a change in Imperial policy sufficient to deserve a response from us, based solely on the Empire's actions at Fondor. You wouldn’t have to mention the Death Star, as yet. If you do intend to make a gesture as a prelude to talks, then you’re going to have to curb the Alliance’s military responses sooner or later, and people will start to ask questions.”

Han slouched further into his chair, “Well, that’ll be a fun day. Right up there with cleanin’ Chewie’s hairs outta the Falcon's air exchange.”

Leia threw Han a wry half-smile as she sighed, though it didn’t relieve the tension in her taut muscles. “Thanks. I’ll take that inspiring image with me into the meeting.”







“I’m sorry, Your Highness, could you repeat that?” It was telling that it was Ackbar, Leia's own Fleet Commander and a stout backer, who asked the question.

“I’m recommending that we tone down military hostilities against the Empire for a trial period,” Leia repeated. “As part of a larger strategy.”

“And this strategy would be?” Commander Odig asked. One of the Supreme Allied Commanders who formed the Alliance Council, and recently a supporter of Madine's more aggressive stance, she formed one third of the opposition Leia fully expected to rail against this proposal. Like General Werth, Odig had always leaned towards a more military perspective, but it was Madine's ability to play on that which had cemented her stance, and given him the backing he needed to affectively challenge any moderate proposal.

“I believe the actions taken by the Empire at the Fondor Shipyards form a clear, if presently unspoken, invitation to decrease hostilities—maybe even a precursor to enter into talks,” Leia continued. “I’ve conferred with Intel on this, and there are numerous files pertaining to the events of the day. It’s clear that the Emperor himself was present and as such, we have to appreciate that the actions taken on that day were doubtless at his command. If you check the debriefings taken from those pilots present, you’ll note that previous to the Patriot’s arrival, the Star Destroyers were mounting a solid attack.”

“You’ll also note in those debriefings that when the Patriot arrived, it fired off a DEMP charge which disabled over fifty fighters,” Madine countered. “The Patriot didn’t attack further because there was no need, Ma’am. It had won that particular fight.”

“Yes, it had. And then it promptly contacted us and allowed us to retrieve our pilots. Men it could have easily left to die.” Leia looked around the large circular table, chin high, not a shadow of a doubt visible before this most astute of audiences. “This was an unprecedented action. We were given a message, sirs. We were shown in no uncertain terms that all previous assumptions were outdated. We saw an act of good will, offered in good faith.”

“I would put it to you, Ma’am, that the message we were shown was one of dominance and ridicule.”

“In sparing lives?”

“If they had wished to spare lives, Ma’am, they would have not initiated their attack. We lost six pilots in the early stages of our retreat,” Werth ground out.

“You seriously expect them not to respond to a military attack on Sovereign territory? When we look back over the last decade, our history is one of military escalation, General—what reaction are we to expect? Was this really the intent of those political luminaries who first formed the Alliance? And again I reiterate, General Werth, that the attack was suspended when the Patriot came into the battle.”

“Because the battle was effectively over!” Madine said.

“How often does one get the opportunity to shorten a war?” Leia said, trying a different angle. “How often can one do such a thing with no further loss of life—simply by a change of attitude? Our readiness to judge replaced by a willingness to listen. To take a chance. To make a step which would in truth bring us closer in line to the Alliance’s core ideals. The first move has been made, sirs, and it wasn't by us. It costs us nothing but our patience to wait and watch the outcome of a cessation of hostilities…and it could gain us so very much.”

The table fell to silence, and Leia knew that she’d reached at least some of those sitting there. But not all.

“Those are persuasive words, Ma’am—if a little naïve,” Madine said artfully. “Perhaps I should bring in the partners of Lieutenants Ruskin and Feroll, both of whom died this week on active duty, and you could tell them of your intention. Perhaps I could request a list from Intel, of Alliance sympathizers who have simply gone…missing this week alone. Perhaps I should relay your message to the inhabitants of Bettok and Tallaso, or Kashyyyk, or Fislan, which still groan under the yoke of heavy-handed Imperial occupation.”

“I didn’t say this was an end to Imperial practice, General. I said that it was an opportunity to open talks—to begin that transformation.”

“If they wished to talk, then we were right there,” General Werth said, always one of Madine's strongest backers. “All they had to do was open a channel.”

“And would you have listened, General?” Leia asked. “Would you have considered any proposition made with the same openness that you consider this discussion today?”

The double-meaning wasn’t lost on him, and Werth fell to silence, lips narrowing.

“Fondor was one isolated incident,” Madine said. “You wish us to make a far-reaching change in the course of Alliance policy on that alone?”

For a brief second Leia considered, the temptation to tell them everything overwhelming. What would they say? What would Madine and his cohorts have to say about the fact that their own Chief-of-Staff had already spoken with the Emperor himself, twice, face to face?! She slumped just slightly, well aware of what they’d say; they’d probably make a good attempt at Court-marshalling her. “That doesn’t make the action or its intent invalid, General, particularly given its source. Every journey must begin with a single step. I genuinely believe that this was a testing of the waters... Are we so set in our ways that we’re incapable of responding? Are we no better than those in the Empire we presently call for sustaining its own narrow view?”

“If this were true, then it’s the very actions you wish to cease, that have forced the Empire to this point, Ma’am.”

“Are we sure of that, General?” It was Tag Massa, Force thank her, who finally spoke out in Leia's defense. She seldom liked to be seen to take sides, so when she did speak out, her opinion tended to hold weight. “Do we have any factual proof? As far as I’m aware, there have been no changes to our recent policies which would have forced this response, and there have been no noticeable changes to the basic efficacy of the Empire. If you have data of which I’m unaware…?”

“I’m talking of attrition.”

“As I say, there have been no measurable changes in the Empire's underlying structure which would indicate such a theory.”
“Then to what are we attributing this action?” Ackbar asked, glassy eyes swiveling to Leia.

She pursed her lips; if she did this now—if she said his name—she effectively tied her lot with the man whom she claimed as her adversary.

Again it was Tag who came to her aid, saving Leia the unwanted association. “If I were to attribute it to a single factor, Admiral, then it would be to the change in leadership.”

“Indeed?” Commander Werth said dryly. “Then he seems to have taken his time to come to this decision.”

“I would hypothesize that the new Emperor needed to place his own house in order before he made any such grand gestures, Commander Werth,” Tag replied easily without looking up, and Leia marveled again at her unerring ability to both back Leia up and yet still remain completely neutral, her professional reputation untarnished. “Considering the changes to the Imperial Edicts placed within days of his accession to power, I doubt very much that this is a sudden change of heart.”

“That’s quite an assumption, Commander,” Madine clipped. “Tell me, is it made based on careful evaluation of the available intelligence…or is it simply a guess?”

“Forgive me, General, but based on the discussion so far, I wasn’t aware that everything we brought to this table had to be backed up by empirically referenced evidence.”

“Should I take that as a no?”

“No, Sir, it is not backed up by evidence,” Tag said, unfazed. “It is simply obvious.”

“So—and forgive me if I repeat myself, but I’d like to make this clear—you wish us to stop military action based on this one event?”

“Thank you, General Madine,” General Rieekan said dryly. “I think you’ve made yourself very clear.” Another level-headed voice added to the fray. Leia smiled. Rieekan’s promotion by mutual agreement from Sector Commander to Minister of War last year had headed off Madine's play for the role. Bombproof and reliable, Rieekan hadn't particularly sought the position, but had accepted it knowing that in doing so, he had bought Leia the more open-minded, less militarily oriented Council she needed to counter Madine's schemes.

“Forgive me, but I fear I have not, General,” Madine said hotly. “Because we are still considering the cessation of the very military actions which have clearly caused the Empire to falter. I would argue that our response to this development should be to escalate incursions.”

Leia rose. “May I remind you, Sir, that this is not a military organization; it is a political one, forced into a military stance, and I won’t be the one who reduces the Alliance from its political pedigree to a junta.”

“And what would have us do, Ma’am—talk the Empire into submission?”

“Would you rather throw lives at it, General? Would you rather maim and kill on both sides of the divide in the name of freedom, when your opponent is offering a bloodless truce? Are we all so blindly mired in this conflict?”

The faces about the table turned down, no one speaking.

“With respect, Ma’am, you’re asking the members of the Council to make a decision which will change the direction of the Alliance with neither warning nor proper discussion.” Commander Odig kept her voice calm and reasonable, though Leia knew she was simply pushing to gain time for Madine to recover. He often relied on her years of experience in the Council to buy him credibility and proficiency.

And he certainly wasn’t slow to follow her lead today. “Under those circumstances, I would suggest that the Council should have a recess of four weeks in which to prepare their cases for further discussion.”

Rieekan sat up straighter as Leia turned on Madine. “We are discussing it now, General.”

“Indeed, Ma’am, however I’m sure that I speak for everyone in this meeting when I admit that I feel at something of a disadvantage here. It would be most…unconstitutional to push through a major strategic precedent on such terms, do you not agree?”

Leia blanched at the outrageous timescale, aware that Madine was playing with the tenets of democracy as he played with any other military convention, but also aware that on principle, he was correct. She had no right to force a decision from those here today when they’d had no time to consider the facts…but a month? “And in the meantime?”

“And in the meantime, I would advise you to do the same, in preparation for extended debate, Ma’am—or do you expect us to fundamentally change Alliance policy on the outcome of a single meeting? I’m sure that I speak for everyone here when I say that this development is unexpected to say the very least. Perhaps when we are a little more prepared, we can better discuss this frankly extraordinary proposition. For now I feel we should consider your demands very carefully—and our own principles and consciences, in respect to all those who’ve given their lives in this conflict.”

Oh, he was getting way too good at this, Leia knew; divisive words and guilty implications and past grudges scattered into the considerations of those here, and left to fester. And she knew damn well that if he gained a recess, he would indeed put his own arguments in order—as well as seek any support he could stir up, using any uncertainties to strengthen his own support. And he’d made it quite clear in everyone’s thoughts that the return to this subject was only an opening of discussions—yet another delaying tactic.

Leia was all too aware that Madine had become a magnet for all the fanatics and the radicals whose existence had become more a drive to hurt the Empire than to broker any possible peace. Tag Massa had warned more than once that Madine was playing his own little power games, though she’d dismissed Han’s claims that Madine was on the verge of generating a splinter-movement within the Alliance. Still, Leia was suddenly intensely aware that any attempt to force a decision today would only weaken her position; which didn’t mean to say that she thought her actions incorrect—nobody said the course of democracy was a smooth one—but she was becoming acutely aware of the friction and the rifts which one clever and ambitious individual could trigger within her own Council.

“Very well then. I propose a recess of three weeks, in which time we can all look to the greater picture as you say, General Madine, without tethering ourselves to the past, or the grudges and the prejudices that such things conjure.”

She stood, deliberately meeting the eyes of every being there, wishing them to remember her words, to understand the significance of their decisions. “We have an opportunity here as never before, sirs,” Leia said fervently, conjuring the words from some distant memory. “It’s not enough for us to have a goal—we have to find a path to get there, to get everyone there. And if we see it, whatever it is, we have to seize it with both hands…because it may never come again.”


It was only when the room had emptied and she stood alone, wondering at her words, that Leia realized where they had come from.

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