Chapter Text
Three months before the anniversary
GAR Military Complex, Coruscant
Fox clenched his jaw as he stared at the screens lining the wall, his eyes flitting between HUDs, a headache pounding behind his eyes. Five days ago, intelligence and a team of commandos had located the command center of the terrorists in a seedy apartment in the lower levels. They’d spent the last week planning an attack, and now Fox, Stone, Fist, Drake and a smattering of Corrie Guard and Intelligence officers watched the HUDs of six men as they infiltrated the location. Fox should be there. He should be in that squad, risking his own life, rather than sitting here behind a screen, safe and comfortable.
“See anything, Clip?” the sergeant, Randy, asked his sniper in the internal comms. Fox’s eyes flitted to Clip’s HUD, distinguishable by the sniper data filtering across the view. Clip switched his HUD view to infrared, and five blobs of red and purple illuminated the center of his darkened view. There were others around his periphery, in other apartments. A parent chasing their child across the apartment upstairs, a couple having sex in the apartment next door, a large family gathered around a table in the floor below. Fox wondered if they knew their neighbor was a Separatist. Or if they would even care.
“Five hostiles,” Clip said. He lined up his scope with his HUD and more data flashed across the screen, including a crosshair and guiding lines for easier targeting. “All in the central room.”
“No one hiding in a bedroom or anything?” Captain Kant asked. Fox looked for Kant’s HUD. He was crouched in a stairwell they’d blocked off earlier in anticipation of the infiltration. Kant glanced at another trooper, Birch, kneeling behind him, his blaster pointing forward and his helmet switching between the stairways going up and down, covering Kant.
“Unless they’re cold blooded or dead, no.”
“Randy, you three ready up there?” Kant asked.
“Ready, sir,” Randy answered. Fox looked for Randy’s HUD, and saw him checking over the other two troopers’ harness clips. The dazzling whirlwind of lights that made up the undercity was just visible over the wall behind which they were crouched.
“On your word, Commander,” Kant said.
Fox glanced to his left, where the others sat around a long table in a darkened room all facing the screens. Even though Fox and Stone were the highest-ranking officers as Marshal Commanders, Drake was Kant’s CO, and it was he who finally said, “You have a go.”
“Go go go,” Kant said into his comm, and then the screens were all a flurry of activity. Randy and his two troopers dropped down the side of the building. The windows and neon advertisements were a blur of color and light flashing past their HUDs as they dropped a hundred floors in seconds, only slowing as they reached their target floor. Meanwhile, Kant and Birch slid from the stairwell silently and hustled down the corridor, long lines of apartment doors flashing by in their periphery.
All five crashed into the target apartment simultaneously. Kant and Birch’s HUDs flashed with blaster fire as they burst through the front door. Birch tackled a large Devaronian, his red and white armor blurring in the transmission lag as he slammed his elbow into the man’s face. Randy and his troopers each cleared the three rooms—a bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen—as Kant and Birch fought the terrorists in the central room. Clip fired through the only accessible window into the main room, incapacitating the hostiles by shooting them in the legs with deadly precision. Once Randy, March, and Zeff reached the central room, they were able to disarm the last of the terrorists and subdue them.
The whole ordeal took less than two minutes. Kant rolled over a thin Umbaran man with a nudge from his boot, and Fox recognized his face, even with his swollen and blackening eye. Ewall Luandan, the leader of the terrorists on Coruscant.
“Got ‘im,” Kant said, no trace of triumph in his cool voice.
Fox sighed and ran his hands through his hair as he leaned his elbows on his knees. Thin applause broke out in the room like the pop and fizzle of a pressurized can. They caught him. Alive. Someone slapped him on the shoulder, and Fox turned to see Stone grinning broadly at him. He was glad he’d asked Stone to come help him with the investigation. As the Marshal Commander of GAR Intelligence, he was an incredibly busy man. And, also, probably the best suited for the job, since he’d once been Commander of Intelligence for the Coruscant Guard. Fox stood and shook Stone’s hand, then he leaned across the table to shake Drake’s and Fist’s. He made sure to shake the hand of every officer in that room, congratulating them on a job well done.
“What will you do now?” Stone teased as they stood watching Kant’s squad drag the five hostiles out of the apartment building and into a waiting larty. After the silent tension of the past hour before the mission, the room felt overwhelmingly loud and buzzy with relieved conversation. Next to them, Fist already had his wrist comm raised, and was telling someone on his team to thoroughly search the apartment.
Fox snorted. “Didn’t you hear? We’re under martial law. I’m busy running all of Coruscant,” he replied. The headache building behind his eyes throbbed again, making his sneer falter.
“Do you think the Senate will lift it after this?” Stone asked, his own smile sliding off his face. “If you’ve captured the leader of the terrorists, the attacks should end, and there’s no emergency anymore, right?”
“I hope the Senate sees it that way,” Fox sighed. “The people will be happier to have their lives back to normal. And so will I.”
Stone huffed and frowned. “Yeah, normal,” he grumbled. “Quelling riots and babysitting senators all day, every day until the end of time.”
“You’re welcome to stay,” Fox smirked, “since you’re feeling so sentimental.”
Stone glared at him from the corner of his eye. “I’ll take the monotony of the Intelligence station any day over the shit we used to deal with here.”
“Sir, my team should have the apartment search finished in three shifts,” Fist said to Fox.
“Thanks, Fist,” Fox said with a nod. “Can you have a report ready for a briefing with Commander Cody next week?”
“Cody? Why are you briefing him?” Stone asked, raising an eyebrow at Fox.
“Cody and General Kenobi are on orders from the Jedi to investigate the attacks. They’ll want to know what we found.”
“Yes, sir,” Fist nodded. “Do you want a written report, or do you want me to present it?”
“I’d like you there, if you have the time,” Fox sighed. They were all stretched so thin these days.
“I’ll make time, sir,” Fist said, the left corner of his lips turning up in his usual small smile. He nodded to Stone, who clapped him on the shoulder, and slipped out of the room with the rest of the officers.
Fox congratulated every officer who passed by him again, feeling a small smile creep on his own lips. This operation was six weeks in the making, since Fox had noticed the little black pin on Palo’s lapel. He couldn’t have done it without Stone and the small team he’d brought from the Intel Station. Especially after simultaneous attacks on twenty power plants left ten districts across the planet without power. The Senate had then called for an emergency instatement of martial law so that the terrorists could be caught swiftly. Since then, his men worked longer hours with wider patrols, and the CSF, which was normally separate from the military and handled civilian crime and safety across the planet, reported directly to Fox and his men, which placed twice as much work on his officers. Fox hadn’t slept in three days. And he’d only gotten a total of ten hours in the past week. He looked over at Stone once the room had emptied, and saw the exhaustion in his brother’s eyes.
“Honestly, I think we both need some sleep,” Fox commented.
“I feel like I could sleep for a tenday,” Stone said with a yawn.
“You get four hours,” Fox smirked. “I recommend you spend it in your own bunk.”
Stone snorted and shook his head as Fox chuckled. Stone used to be the one constantly reprimanding him for spending his few precious hours of sleep at Riyo’s apartment. Some days Fox wished he’d listened to Stone instead of his hormones.
“Have you talked to Chuchi yet about Demoni’s involvement in this whole conspiracy?” Stone asked.
Fox sighed tersely. “I asked her the last time I saw her if she knew what the pin was, and she thought it was a corporate syndicate.”
“Do you think she was telling the truth?”
“I don’t know,” Fox said, letting out a long slow breath. “I don’t know what the symbol would have to do with corporations except for arms manufacturers. Palo’s company distributes luxury goods.”
“That’s not exactly the kind of business I’d expect to profit from war,” Stone mused, running a hand over his scalp.
“I might have some time tomorrow to talk to her about it,” Fox said. He chewed on his tongue and stared into the corridor, his mind buzzing with unanswered questions.
“Have you talked to her about your other discovery?” Stone whispered.
Fox forgot he’d told Stone about his suspicion that Lettix was his son. His stomach twisted, and he ran his hand through his hair again. A concerned frown creased Stone’s brow.
“No,” Fox answered.
“Will you?”
Fox sighed, a weight dropping onto his shoulders, compressing his chest. Deep down, in some primal part of him, he wanted to recognize Lettix as his son. He wanted to hold the boy in his arms and claim him as his own. He wanted to hear Riyo tell him that their love had created something more beautiful than any memory or emotion. But he didn’t know what good that could do, except quell his own burning desire.
“I don’t even know if he is mine for sure,” Fox said, lowering his voice to match Stone’s whisper. “It’s supposed to be impossible.”
“Do you think it could be a coincidence the kid looks like a clone cadet?”
Fox bit his tongue. His gut response was no. Then again, he never really understood genetics after their flash training. “I’d need proof to be sure. DNA proof.”
Stone’s expression slid into a disapproving frown Fox knew well. It had never mattered to Stone that Fox outranked him. Stone wasn’t afraid to let Fox know when he didn’t approve of Fox’s actions. Fox had gotten this look a lot in the early days of the war, when he spent more time in Riyo’s bed than in the Guard barracks.
“And if you proved he was your son? Then what?”
Fox swallowed and grimaced. He wouldn’t be able to do anything. Admitting Lettix was his son would put them all in danger. Palo would finally have his proof of their affair, proof enough to have Fox decommissioned. Riyo could lose her job in the Senate. Palo would surely leave her and disown Lettix, and then they would have nothing. And if the Kaminoans found out, who knew what they would do to Riyo, or worse, to Lettix. Cold fear ran down Fox’s spine. He couldn’t claim Lettix as his own. No matter how brightly that primal urge burned within him.
“Nothing good,” Fox answered sullenly.
“It’s better if you don’t have a paper trail, vod,” Stone said softly, placing a hand on Fox’s shoulder. “Someone is bound to find it. Trust me.”
Fox nodded. Stone would know, it was his job to find and follow paper trails. And the look in Stone’s brown eyes told Fox that he should listen, for once in his miserable life, to his advice. Maybe if he had listened to Stone seventeen years ago, he wouldn’t be in this situation.
“Get some sleep, Fox,” Stone said, squeezing Fox’s shoulder gently. “And let me know when your meeting with Cody is. I’d like to be there.”
Fox nodded and watched Stone leave, headed in the direction of the barracks. Exhaustion settled over Fox like a warm and heavy blanket. He wanted to follow Stone to the barracks and sleep. But he needed to meet Kant’s squad at the prison, make sure all five men were booked, then write a report for the Senate, so that they could read about his success with their morning cup of caf. Fox would be lucky if he got to sleep before sunrise.
He envisioned a different life as he made his way to the prison, a life he could only ever fantasize about. A life where he and Riyo lived in her luxurious apartment. A life where there was no war to fight, no terrorists to capture. A life where Riyo’s children were his children, and they lived together as one big happy family. The thought settled near his heart, warm and soft and beautiful, until he stepped over the threshold of the prison and into his real life.
The next afternoon, he met Riyo in her Rotunda repulsor pod, the first time he’d seen her in weeks. She smiled warmly at him as she stood from her seat, and when he closed the door to the corridor behind him, heat slid into his belly at the lustful look in her eyes. The Rotunda behind her, the cavernous room where the Senate gathered, was empty and silent. He didn’t even see any of his men, red and white ghosts that normally stood guard at strategic locations around the Rotunda when the Senate was in session. He did a quick check with the settings in his helmet, but found no one.
Riyo pressed herself against him as he took off his helmet, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and running her fingers through his hair. His eyes fluttered closed as her nails scratched lightly across his scalp. Her lips grazed across his, a question, an invitation. He placed his hands on her waist, digging his fingers into the softness of her curves as their lips moved together. Her mouth tasted like sweet citrus candy when his tongue caressed hers. She let out a soft, involuntary moan as Fox pressed his leg between her thighs. Warmth bloomed in his chest as arousal pooled low in his groin, beating hot and steady in time with his heart. He never wanted this moment to end. He wanted to hold Riyo in his arms forever, make love to her here in the Rotunda without worrying who might see. He wanted to know that she was his, and no one else could claim her.
But that wasn’t his life. And eventually Riyo stepped out of his embrace, flushed and panting and a little disheveled. She looked around the Rotunda, a nervous frown on her brow, and smoothed down the front of her dress. They’d forgotten themselves for a moment too long. Anyone could walk in here.
“Can we go to your office?” Fox whispered. He winced as his whisper echoed through the Rotunda, an unintelligible hiss that bounced across the cavernous space. Riyo smirked, then squeezed Fox’s hand and pulled him toward the door.
In the corridor, they were professional again. Fox put his helmet on and walked straight-backed with his hands at his sides. A mask to hide the thrashing of his heart and his desire to slip his hands under Riyo’s dress. They walked in silence, Fox one step behind Riyo. He spotted two people, a human and a Rhodian, with little black pins on their lapels talking quietly in the corridor. The human man’s face was pale, and his dark eyes tracked Fox as he and Riyo approached. The Rhodian shook his head, his shoulders tense and his back hunched. Fox tried to listen to what they said as he and Riyo passed by, but the pair fell silent. He’d found himself walking past a lot of silent conversations today, after news of Luandan’s capture had been submitted to the Senate. Fox made sure to look each of them full in the face so that he could put them into the intelligence database later. They may have cut off the head of the snake, but the rest of the insurgents still slithered beneath the surface, waiting to regain strength.
He turned away from the pair and his eyes fell on Riyo. Her lavender hair was wrapped around a golden hairpiece, the wings of some kind of bird flaring out from the back of her head. Fox recalled that the bird was a symbol of justice and peace on Pantora. He narrowed his eyes at her, anxiety gnawing at his gut. How much did she know but wouldn’t tell him? She claimed she didn’t know what the pin was, or why her husband wore one. A voice in his head reminded him not to let his attraction and attachment to Riyo cloud his judgement. The voice sounded suspiciously like Stone.
Riyo paused at the door to her office and leaned toward it, frowning. Fox’s body tensed and his hand slid instinctively to the pistol at his hip. Then he heard what she heard. Laughter. High-pitched and wild. Riyo’s shoulders relaxed and a little smile perched on her lips. Fox recognized the laughter a moment after she did. Thisen, her middle son. And beneath his laughter were the voices of Palo Jr. and Lettix. Fox’s heart skipped a beat.
“I didn’t realize how late it was,” Riyo admitted, a sheepish frown on her face. “I’ve been keeping the boys here after school since the power incident.”
Fox nodded. His men had to grant security passes for several children of Senators the last few weeks. Parents who wanted their children close, in the safest building on the planet—except the GAR base, but younglings weren’t allowed there.
“I should go, then,” Fox said, his stomach squirming. Stone’s advice echoed through his head. It’s best not to know.
“You should stay, if you can,” Riyo countered. “They’ll be happy to see you.”
Fox sighed, his emotions warring within him. He nodded and followed Riyo into her office. Sweat pricked at his palms. His heart thundered in his throat. And when the three faces of Riyo’s children landed on him, he thought he might be sick as his happiness and anxiety clashed violently.
“Commander Fox!” Thisen shouted. He leapt up from where he was kneeling on the ground, and crashed into Fox as he wrapped his arms around Fox’s middle in a hug. Fox’s chest tightened as Thisen looked up at him, his toothy grin wide and uninhibited, his golden eyes the exact shape and shade as Riyo’s. Fox swiped his hand over Thisen’s lavender hair, sweeping the silky strands away from his face.
“Commander Fox! Look what we made!” Fox turned away from Thisen’s face to see Lettix crouched on the ground around a teetering pile of datapads, styli, and flimsi. Lettix looked up at him, and Fox’s heart cracked completely open. Lettix’s hair was getting curlier as he got older, while Thisen and Palo Jr. both had straight hair, like their parents. His eyes were darker than Thisen’s or Riyo’s, closer to dark amber than gold. And, depths below, the shape of his face, the width of his nose, it was all too different from them, and yet intensely familiar. Fox couldn’t deny it any longer. Lettix looked like a clone cadet. A blue-skinned, purple-haired clone cadet.
Fox swallowed down his anxiety and managed to smile at Lettix. The boy balanced another datapad on top of his teetering tower. Fox could see the calculations behind his eyes, the logic forming and building in his brilliant little mind. The datapad balanced exactly on its center of gravity. He grinned at Fox, a wide, familiar grin. A cadet’s grin.
Fuck.
“Good news, boys,” Riyo said as she skirted Lettix’s datapad tower to reach her desk. “Commander Fox caught the bad man who’s been hurting Coruscant.”
“You caught him?” Thisen asked, grinning up at Fox from where he still had his arms wrapped around his waist.
“All by yourself?” Lettix asked. His eyes brightened as he grinned, and Fox’s chest felt too tight again.
Fox chuckled. “No, I had lots of help from other clones,” he explained.
“Is the war over?” Thisen asked.
“Thisen, let go of Fox so he can sit down,” Riyo said gently. Thisen stepped away, but continued to look up at Fox with expectation and adoration on his face.
“No, the war isn’t over,” Fox said. “Not yet.”
“Do you think it will be over soon?” Palo Jr. asked from where he sat at the little table to Fox’s right. Fox pulled a chair from the table and sat in it so that he faced the room.
“I don’t know,” Fox said soberly. “It’s much more complicated than catching one bad guy.” If it hadn’t been so complicated, the war would have ended after he killed Palpatine.
“I hope the war never ends because my father says it makes him very rich,” Thisen said matter-of-factly.
Fox’s eyebrows shot up, and his gaze snapped to Riyo. A frown furrowed on her brow, and her cheeks flushed beneath her golden tattoos.
“Thisen,” Riyo scolded. “The war hurts people. We should all hope it ends very, very soon.”
“But father said—”
“That’s enough,” Riyo said tersely, and Thisen snapped his mouth shut. “I don’t want to hear any of you ever wish that this war, or any war, will continue. Do you understand me? War is a terrible thing. No matter what your father says.”
Riyo clenched her jaw and sighed as Thisen apologized. Fox studied her flushed face, his thoughts swirling. He couldn’t get the notion out of his head that she knew something. If Palo was making money off this war, she had to know how. Despite their affair, she was still his wife. It seemed unlikely she didn’t know anything. But Fox couldn’t ask her like he’d intended. Not with her sons here.
Fox stayed until the last possible minute, helping Palo with math schoolwork and watching Thisen and Lettix build a small fort out of the couch cushions and Riyo’s spare clothes. Lettix grinned at him from beneath Riyo’s pale pink dress draped across a couch cushion and the back of one of the chairs. Fox felt himself grin back, his chest tight and his heart warm and full. He wanted this to be his life. Living with Riyo, raising her sons, not worrying about war or terrorists or criminals. He wanted his life to be as soft and warm as the feeling that had settled around his heart.
Thisen, naturally, gave Fox a tight hug around his middle when he finally declared that he needed to leave. “Can’t you stay?” Thisen whined, his golden eyes imploring.
Fox swiped his hand over Thisen’s lavender hair and smiled. “No, I have to work.”
“Can we come to work with you?” Thisen asked brightly.
“No. It’s dangerous.”
“Goodbye, Commander Fox,” Lettix said, and Thisen let go of Fox’s middle so that Lettix could hug him instead. Fox wrapped his arms gingerly around the boy’s small shoulders. He swept his hand through Lettix’s purple curls and Lettix grinned up at him as he said, “I love you.”
Fox’s throat squeezed shut. The skin of his face puckered and his eyes stung. He swallowed and blinked away the tears threatening to well on his eyelids. Lettix’s face was so earnest, so open and honest and innocent. Fox tugged his lips into a smile, wanting instead to fall completely apart.
“I love you, too, Lettix,” Fox choked out. “I love all of you.” His eyes met Riyo’s. Her face was unreadable.
Lettix tightened his arms around Fox’s middle, barely a whisper of pressure through Fox’s armor. Fox pulled on his helmet as his face flushed again, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes and his heartbeat pulsing in his cheeks. He nodded goodbye to Riyo, his throat too tight to say much else, and slipped out of her office.
Every step away from them was like dragging his legs through mud. He kept his hands clenched at his sides and was grateful for the privacy of his helmet as a sob escaped his burning throat and tears streaked down his cheeks. He couldn’t have that life. He couldn’t be with Riyo. He couldn’t claim his son. They belonged to Palo Demoni. And so long as he was Riyo’s husband, Fox could only dream of having a life with her, with any of them. No matter how much his heart yearned for it.
And so, he would need to do everything in his power to remove Palo Demoni from his path to happiness.
Three months before the anniversary
Czerka dreadnaught Indemnity, Hyperspace
Leia’s palms were slippery with sweat. She readjusted her grip on her wooden bokken, never taking her eyes off her opponent. On the mat across from her, Kyl’s brown eyes were intense as he stared back. His upper lip twitched as he tried to conceal a snarl. A dark bruise bloomed on his left jaw, still red from Leia’s wooden training saber. Satisfaction spread through her at the sight of it. She’d learned a lot in the last month on this ship. And she still had a lot left to learn.
She felt the pull of the Force before she saw Kyl move. She sidestepped his wooden blade as he swung it toward her chest and blocked with her own bokken. The wooden sabers connected with a sharp crack. Kyl’s lip finally curled into a snarl. His anger was like a blow in the Force, sharp and electric. She pulled his anger in, absorbed it into her own power. She could feel everything around her through the Force. The workers in the surrounding rooms and corridors, the ship’s engines blazing as they soared through hyperspace, the swirl of life in the galaxy beyond. And in front of her, she could feel Kyl’s intentions, his frustration and anger and exhaustion, his power, and his weaknesses.
Kyl slid his blade off hers and stepped to his left. Leia followed the movement, keeping her bokken between them, expanding the Force out. She let the darkness within swirl with the light from without to create Balance. Kyl’s Signature in the Force was dark and sharp as he pulled the Force within his mind and used his frustration and anger to draw on its power. Unbalanced. Predictable. Leia parried three of his attacks. He pushed her with the Force, creating a solid wall of air that hit her like a physical blow. She tumbled backward, feeling the Force as it rolled over her like a wave.
She hopped up to her feet, took a deep breath, and pulled on the Force around her. She could feel the space between the molecules of the air, could feel its current as it was blown in from the purification system. She reached out with one hand and grabbed the air like a fist, imagining the air itself becoming solid, and punched Kyl in the gut. He didn’t recover like she did, instead sliding across the floor, the sweat of his bare back leaving a damp smear across the plastene mat. She sprinted toward him, careful not to slide in the trail of sweat, and swung her saber. Their bokkens collided with a sharp crack just before Leia’s could hit Kyl’s face. She scowled at him, and he snarled back. She saw, like a double vision in her mind’s eye, that he would get up, swing his saber at her legs, and knock her down so that their positions would be reversed. She grit her teeth, and when he swung his arm out to hit her, she kicked him in the diaphragm.
Kyl grunted, his breath leaving him in one huff and his body slackened. She flicked her wrist and sent his saber flying into her hand. His brown eyes widened as he stared up at her in disbelief. She’d won. She panted, winded from the effort, and pointed the ends of both wooden blades at his neck. She watched his voice box bob as he swallowed.
“Finish him.” Ventress’ cold voice sent a chill down Leia’s spine. “Strike now, while he’s vulnerable.”
Leia shook her head. He was disarmed. On his back. He’d lost. There was no use striking him again.
“If you don’t kill him now, you will lose the fight,” Ventress said, circling the room to stand in Leia’s view.
“What if he doesn’t deserve to die?” Leia asked, fear rising into her throat and choking her.
“He’s trying to kill you. He should die.”
Leia stared down at Kyl. His brown eyes slowly hardened, slid from surprise and awe to derision.
“You can’t do it,” he hissed, a sneer tugging at his lips. He rose onto one elbow and stretched out his left hand. Leia felt him tug gently at his bokken, trying to take it from her.
Leia gripped the two wooden blades and gritted her teeth. Kyl tugged again.
“Finish him,” Ventress hissed.
“She won’t,” Kyl sneered. “She’s too weak.”
Leia felt a snarl rip from her mouth and her anger lashed out at Kyl like a flash of lightning. His eyes widened as she smacked her bokken into his windpipe with a satisfying thwack! Kyl grabbed his throat and lay flat on the mat, gasping for air. Ventress cackled as she approached, a wide and triumphant grin stretched across her bone-white face.
“Very good, Leia,” she said.
She placed a hand on Leia’s shoulder, and pride surged through her. She won. And more, Ventress approved. They looked down at Kyl as he coughed.
“Can you breathe, Kyl?” Ventress asked. One of her eyebrows lifted in cool indifference, but Leia felt her concern through the Force.
“I’m fine,” Kyl bit out. His voice was hoarse, and a red welt the same size and shape as Leia’s bokken had risen on his throat. Little red lines of lightning stretched out from where she’d hit him. The consequence of her overwhelming power. She’d gained a lot of control over the ocean of darkness that churned within her. Ventress had shown her how to tap into the darkness, how to let it rise up and out of her, how to hone it into something sharp and deadly. And Leia took all the knowledge that Ventress had taught her and all the lessons her father had taught her about Balance, and swirled them together to create something truly powerful. She could feel her power as it buzzed over her skin. Could harness her anger and her fear and balance it with the light that moved around her, around every living thing.
She wasn’t afraid of her power anymore. Wasn’t afraid to let it expand. She was afraid of what could become of her if she stretched herself too much. If she reached too far, dug too deeply. The dark ocean of power within her was still doo deep to understand its depth, too deep and wild. But she could control it better. Not completely, but better than before.
Leia held out her hand to Kyl. He looked at it for a heartbeat, his face twitching into a scowl, before he took her hand and let her help him to his feet with a small tug from the Force. He was at least a head taller than her, which put her eye-level with his bare and sweaty chest when he stood up. He smelled like fear, like the sharp, metallic tang in the air after a lightning strike. Ventress handed them both canteens of water. Kyl winced as he drank from his, then turned away when he saw both Leia and Ventress staring. His back was crisscrossed with white scars he never liked to talk about.
“That’s enough for today,” Ventress said softly. A little smile perched on her lips when Leia turned to her. “You’ve done well, my apprentice.”
Leia smirked and bowed, her hands folded in front of her chest like a Jedi. Ventress scoffed and rolled her eyes, and left Kyl and Leia alone in the sparring room. Kyl glanced at her over his shoulder and the muscles in his back tensed. That sharp smell of fear filled the room again, and Leia smirked. Several weeks ago, it was she who had been afraid of Kyl. He had bombed her school, kidnapped her, and dragged her here to Maul’s ship. He was stronger and better trained than she was. And he had powerful friends, while she was alone.
Leia had stayed on the Indemnity with her kidnappers, even after she was in her mother’s arms, half way to the safety of home, for one reason: to destroy the Cult of the Sith. Maul and his followers believed they could control the Force and take over the Galaxy. They had money and influence, and all they needed was Leia and Luke and some mystic temple. But Leia wasn’t going to let anyone take over the Galaxy. People like her mother worked tirelessly to maintain democracy and justice and peace and order for one crazy Zabrak to come in and destroy it. And while there was little that she, a fourteen-year-old girl, could do to physically take Maul down herself, she knew ways to wound him so that her parents and their allies could destroy him and his cult once and for all.
“How was your mission?” Leia asked Kyl. He had just returned the night before from a secret mission on his private gunship, the same one he’d kidnapped her in. Leia knew he was looking for Luke. She was glad Kyl had thus far been unsuccessful.
“What do you care?” Kyl growled. A cleaning droid, a squat, square thing with scrubbers that rotated on its underside, beeped as it slid from a port in the wall and began to methodically scrub the mats. The scent of disinfectants and floral perfume overpowered the stink of sweat and fear that lingered on the plastene.
“Just asking,” Leia shrugged. “Maul didn’t look too pleased when you returned, is all.”
Kyl grunted but said nothing. Leia smirked at him behind his back. Kyl had returned without Luke after several days, and Maul had barely given him a passing glance. This was the second time Kyl had returned empty-handed. Maul’s patience with him was running thin.
“He doesn’t think you can do it,” Leia said. Kyl froze with his canteen at his lips. Leia smirked at him.
“He wouldn’t have given me the mission if he didn’t think I could,” Kyl said, his voice low and dangerous.
“Maybe,” Leia shrugged. “Or maybe he wants you to fail.”
Kyl turned over his shoulder and snarled at her. A vein throbbed under the scar across his eyebrow and forehead. “That’s asinine,” Kyl hissed. “Why would he want me to fail?”
“So he can punish you. He thinks your suffering will give him power.”
Kyl’s face contorted into a scowl, then softened into a skeptical frown. “He wouldn’t. Doesn’t.”
Leia shrugged and turned away from Kyl, still smirking as she drank water from her canteen and sauntered toward the door. Ventress had hung their bokken on the wall, and Leia paused to admire them, along with the collection of other wooden training swords hanging with them. Maul and Savage had huge double-bladed sabers, and Ventress had a collection of sabers carved with the symbols of the Night Sisters. Holding them made Leia feel as powerful and graceful and beautiful as Ventress was while wielding her actual lightsabers.
“Why don’t you help me?” Kyl asked as Leia put her finger on the button to open the door. She suppressed a grin before turning over her shoulder to look at him. His cheeks flushed, and she made sure to lean onto one hip a little further than she needed. His brown eyes flitted down her body before snapping back up to meet her gaze.
“You want me to help you kidnap my brother?” she said, keeping her voice soft and slick and dangerous. Kyl swallowed and his cheeks flushed darker. “I would help you, but not for Maul.”
“Then for who?” Kyl asked.
Leia shrugged and opened the door. “For you.”
Kyl let out a sharp exhale, and Leia stepped into the corridor, closing the door behind her. She wrapped her arms around her chest and hurried to her room, disgust curdling in her stomach. If you’ve got a weapon, you should use it, Echo had said to her months ago. She needed to pull Kyl away from Maul. Stripping Maul of his loyal followers would help wound and destroy him. And the best way to get Kyl on her side was to use his clear attraction to her against him. She just hated the dirty way it made her feel afterwards. She wondered if her mother had ever needed to use her beauty as a weapon before. It helped her considerably to think that she had.
During lastmeal, Quinlan had them all in stitches telling a story about one of his many adventures as a Shadow Jedi, which, as far as Leia could tell, was some kind of spy. Leia laughed so hard her face and stomach muscles were sore when she finally got up from the table to go to bed, hours after they had sat down to eat. She allowed that warm and content feeling of love and happiness and home to envelope her, and her chest ached with the absence of her family. She liked Quinlan and Ventress, but they weren’t her parents.
After lastmeal, Kyl and Leia were told to stay in their rooms while Maul, Ventress, and Savage talked in the lounge. Leia wished she could find a way to implant a microphone so she could listen in, but the lounge was the most used room of the forward cabins where she and the others lived. It was never empty, and if she was caught spying, Maul would not hesitate to throw her in the brig. So, while the adults plotted and schemed, Leia used this time alone to practice meditating.
She sat cross-legged on the plush rug in the center of her private sitting room, facing the faux fireplace that warmed her suite while they soared through the cold vacuum of space. She breathed deeply and reached within, into the vast, dark ocean of her power, to find the fear and hope and love that pulsed deep in her belly, then pulled the Force of the Galaxy within. She tugged at the Galaxy like cloth, scrunching it in claws of power to bring the farthest edges closer. And there, somewhere out in the Galaxy, brighter than a star and far warmer and more familiar, was Luke’s Signature. She felt her lips curl into a smile as she wrapped her mind around his, searching for connection. He was safe. He was happy. She sent out the feelings of love and home and affection they shared, and she felt his mind stir as he reflected it back to her.
At last.
She tried to send her location, images of her life here on the Indemnity, ask where he was, what they were doing. But all she felt in return was a soft question, the reflection of her own warmth and love, and then the cold vacuum of space and time and distance as their connection faded. Leia’s throat squeezed and she reached within herself again, pulling on her power, letting it rise and churn as her fear and apprehension swelled. But without peace, she could not reach out into the Galaxy. Her fear unbalanced her. The Darkness inside her was far too deep, and she could no longer pull the Galaxy within herself to find him. Her eyes stung with the threat of tears. She pulled her knees to her chest and watched the electronic fire display in front of her, wishing she was at home instead.
Late in the night cycle, hopefully after everyone else was asleep, Leia slipped from her room as quickly and quietly as possible. The lights were dim in the forward cabin corridor, and she didn’t hear any sounds except the slow and steady whir of the engines and air recyclers. She’d been told plenty of times that so long as she cooperated, played nice, and didn’t try to escape, she wasn’t a prisoner. She was free to move about the ship as she pleased. But it still made her heart hammer in her throat to think that she might get caught on these infrequent trips out of the forward cabins and into the ship beyond.
She slipped out through the lounge, past the servants who were cleaning the floors and upholstery. No one stopped her. No one questioned her. She pulled her datapad from inside her jacket after the glittering doors to the lounge closed behind her and checked her map of the ship. The Indemnity was massive. Six kilometers long and a full kilometer wide and half as tall again. It would be easy to get lost. And she had a very specific destination marked on the map tonight.
She ran through the corridors, a full kilometer to her destination. The soft soles of her shoes tapped on the terrazzo flooring, echoing off the creamy painted walls. So far, she had run through dozens of these corridors. They were all equally opulent and clean and—blessedly—empty. She darted left through a door into a maintenance corridor, stepping out of opulence and into the industrial inner workings of the ship. The floor and walls were all the same dark gray, unpainted durasteel. The florescent lights above her head were long and straight panels, unadorned by glittering gold or crystals. She sometimes forgot they were on a ship until she stepped into one of these corridors. She checked her map again, turned right, and walked cautiously on.
Here, she needed to be careful not to be caught. There was no reason for her to be in this part of the ship. The normally soft whirring of the ship’s mechanics was louder here, a low thrumming and pulsing, like a massive heartbeat. Lining the corridor were huge pipes, directing water and air and electricity through the ship. This corridor skirted the starboard-side bulkhead, the outermost wall between the ship and space. About six meters from where she had ducked into the maintenance corridor was an access shaft that ran vertically along the bulkhead. It was accessible through a small panel large enough for a man to slip through. She squatted next to the wall, her back against a massive durasteel support beam, and expanded her senses with a deep breath. Satisfied there was no one in the access shaft, she quickly opened the hatch and slid inside.
The rungs of the ladder that extended along the access shaft were so cold they burned her fingers, but she grit her teeth against the pain. The roar of the engines was even louder, beating against her eardrums, drowning out the pounding of her own frantic heart. She focused on the sound, the way it pulsed against her skin, and descended the ladder a couple of meters until she was eye-level with a massive, welded seam in the bulkhead. With shaking fingers, she pulled a detonator from inside her jacket and attached it in the corner of the access shaft, directly on the seam. Her fingers recoiled as they brushed the frigid surface of the durasteel. The detonator blinked once, armed and ready. It was a small, inconspicuous thing. No one would notice it there. She looked down the length of the access shaft below her feet, a quarter klick descent to the bowels of the ship that curved in and out of sight. Below her, she could just make out the next seam in the bulkhead, about ten meters down. She gripped the frigid ladder, took another deep breath, and descended.
Once she’d placed three more detonators along the shaft, each one on a different seam, she climbed back up and through the hatch into the empty maintenance corridor again. Her fingers burned with cold. Her limbs ached with the strain of climbing over thirty meters down and then back up the ladder. But she couldn’t suppress her grin, or the wild elation that swept through her as she ran down the opulent corridors back to the forward lounge. Her plan was working. When the time was right, she could remotely detonate those explosives, and the ship would literally rip apart at the seams. She grinned, her heart soaring.
She opened the glittering doors to the forward lounge, and her heart plummeted as her eyes landed on the red and black skinned Zabrak standing at the holoconsole in the center of the lounge.
Maul.
His dark gold eyes glowed in the low light as he lifted his gaze to meet Leia’s. She stood at the threshold, frozen, fear clutching her chest. Maul narrowed his eyes at her. She swallowed and clenched her trembling fingers into fists. She was never told there was a curfew. She was never told she couldn’t wander the ship, so long as she didn’t try to escape. But she couldn’t help but feel that Maul knew she was up to something.
She took a deep breath and stepped into the lounge. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She was only out for a walk. A late-night walk to help her sleep. Maul’s eyes followed her as she crossed the lounge. She spotted something projected on the holotable, some names and a map, and her curiosity eclipsed her trepidation.
“You’re up late,” Leia said, trying to sound casual, as if it was perfectly normal for her to be awake and waltzing through the lounge at this time of night.
“As are you,” Maul said, his voice soft and slick as always.
“I needed a walk,” Leia explained. She crossed her arms across her chest to hide the way her hands shook. “What are you working on?”
Maul’s eyes narrowed again, and the slightest frown creased his brow. Her stomach flipped. She didn’t know if he had regained his connection to the Force, like Ventress and Kyl and Ahsoka had. She’d never seen him use the Force. But there was something about the way he looked at her that made her think he could read her mind.
“We will need to go to Coruscant,” Maul said carefully. “One of my contacts has gone silent and I need to… reestablish order. We will deliver the Republic’s latest shipment while I take care of business in the city.”
Coruscant. Leia’s heart jumped into her throat, and she had to blink hard to keep her surprise from flitting over her face. This was going to be easier than she thought. Her parents should already be making their way to Coruscant to ask for help from the Jedi and the GAR. And Maul was about to walk directly into their trap.
“When will we go?” Leia asked, trying to suppress the excitement in her voice.
“What does it matter to you?” Maul asked, a sneer pulling at his lips.
“I’d like to see Coruscant,” Leia shrugged. Maul stared at her. Leia let her eyes wander to the map projected above the holotable. It was just a grid of lines and boxes labeled 3.2387.897P. She quickly memorized the number in case it meant something to someone else.
“A month, or so,” Maul answered finally. “There are several meetings I must coordinate. And we need to stock the ship with the Republic’s order. It’s very tedious, to be the Director of a corporation.”
“What would you rather do, though?” Leia asked. “Being Director of Czerka has obviously made you very wealthy.” Leia gestured to the lounge, which was excessively opulent, and only a small fraction of Maul’s fortune. Not to mention the supposed political power his wealth afforded him.
Maul’s lips curled into a sneer that sent Leia’s heart skittering into her stomach. “What I would much rather do, princess,” Maul said, his voice slimy and his eyes flashing, “is rule the Galaxy.”
Leia swallowed, her excitement and curiosity turning back into cold fear. Maul chuckled, and his eyes flicked to the doors leading to the private rooms that made up the forward cabins.
“Run along, now,” Maul said softly, his voice dangerous and sharp. “Off to bed.”
Leia swallowed again and obeyed, leaving the lounge at a jog and closing the doors quickly behind her. She stood in the corridor, mind racing and heart thudding. Rule the Galaxy, was what he’d said. The thought of Maul controlling the Galaxy sent a cold finger of fear down her spine. She hurried to her room and dove into the large, plush bed with her clothes still on. She pulled her datapad out of her jacket and typed a new message to her parents. The Indemnity was headed to Coruscant in a month. Her plan was unfolding neater than she’d expected. All she needed was for everything to go smoothly on their end, and she would be home, safe, in her mother’s arms again in a month.
She hit send on the message and tucked the datapad back into its drawer by her bedside. The moment they left Hyperspace, the message would transmit, hidden among the flush of data being received and transmitted by the Indemnity.
Leia lay down on her pillow, exhaustion finally settling over her like a warm weight. A month before they met her parents on Coruscant. A month, and then Maul would be destroyed, and she would be home. A smile spread on her lips as she drifted to sleep, the warmth and love of the memory of home enveloping her.