Chapter Text
5 BBY
Bail was waiting by his comm, anxious for confirmation that Leia had reached Obi-Wan safe and sound without any mishaps, when he was hailed by the Noble-Hearted.
He’d answered, fully expecting to see Leia’s face as she bounced on her heels excitedly after having met her hero General Kenobi.
It had taken a blink or two to process that instead of Leia, the ship’s captain had hailed and he looked nervous and a little sick, “Viceroy,”
The man straightened, lifting his chin and clearly deciding to bite the bullet when he spoke and didn’t hedge around what he was saying, “We never reached Tatooine. While we were in orbit of the planet, the Vengeance hailed us and we were boarded, then Lord Vader left with the Princess on his arm. He left us alive, but our ship has been disabled to ensure we would not pursue and rescue her ourselves. Her droids descended to the planet, so they may have made it to him.”
He looked to the side, and someone off-screen said something that made the man do a mix of a smile and a grimace.
“The three guards that boarded with her are also no longer on the Noble-Hearted, and are assumed to have followed the Princess.”
Bail was quiet for a moment, taking this information in but it hardly registered.
Obi-Wan had once commented during the Wars about how he could hardly leave Anakin unsupervised or he would be at the center of whatever chaos soon cropped up and Obi-Wan would have to extract him.
Bail had thought that just an Anakin Thing ™, and had just offered the other man more Corellian Brandy for spending all his waking hours either in the presence of, or chasing after, that walking disaster.
Then when Obi-Wan had given him Leia to raise, he’d offered a warning much along the same lines, because he’d had the feeling that it was a Skywalker Thing ™ to be at the center of chaos and Anakin wasn’t unique in that.
Considering Anakin’s many, many misadventures while as Obi-Wan’s Padawan and through the Clone Wars, it hadn’t seemed possible for that to be anything other than just evidence of how much misfortune concentrated around the two of them.
He’d seen it himself during Leia’s many misadventures as a child though, and while he had tried to blame it on Artoo’s ability to be right in the thick of things and thus why he’d nearly had to bail his five-year-old daughter out of jail, it had happened several times and Artoo was not the common denominator. Most of the time yes, because he really was always right in the thick of things, but not always.
Obi-Wan had even sent him a message, or ten, that described an incident or two, or nine, where Luke had managed to be at the center of chaos, by the time the twins were seven.
When he’d sent Leia to Obi-Wan, he’d been worried about her safety right at the heart of the Empire and forgotten to account for the Skywalker ability to find and/or cause chaos.
Bail looked at the man and sighed, because even if he was worried and scared for Leia, he had faith that she would make it out alive. He trusted that regardless of the situation, Leia would turn it around just as he had trained her.
“I understand. Thank you for informing me personally Captain. I will make sure that someone goes to your coordinates and picks you and your men up. I will inform my wife of this turn of events.”
It was only once he ended the call that he winced, because he was not looking forward to explaining what had happened to Breha.
His wife was one of the kindest, most open-hearted people he had ever met, and she often considered violence a last resort of only the highest order. Only two things in the whole of the galaxy could change that: a threat to her family, or a threat to her people.
The Empire posed both in her mind, but Breha had agreed with him that too many lives would be wasted if they had acted right after Padmé’s death, particularly when it had been paramount to hide Leia’s origins and a rebellion would risk Vader finding out about her. So, they’d waited, and their people had trained and prepared for the day they would rebel openly, many joining the rebellion in some manner or another in the meantime.
If Vader had Leia against her will, and gods forbid, hurt her, then Breha would rain holy hell on him and the Empire and there would be no mercy for anyone standing between her and her daughter. The Emperor especially, because if Vader had detained her, it was surely by his orders, as would any torture that occurred.
Bail almost felt sorry for them.
~
Bail had gone to Breha, and just barely informed her of what he’d been told when they’d received a comm from Admiral Tarkin.
Her nostrils flared and her eyes flashed in the soft light, then color bloomed on her pale cheeks and she’d nearly snarled when she’d answered.
“What is it, Admiral Tarkin? I have just received distressing news regarding my daughter-”
He smirked, and Bail never wanted to punch him in the face more than then.
“Would the news you just received be that your daughter is a guest of Lord Vader here on the Vengeance? She was removed from her ship on suspicion of being a rebel spy, and Lord Vader will find out for sure one way or another. Your treachery, Viceroy, won’t go unpunished.”
Breha narrowed her eyes until they were slits before her back went ramrod straight and her chin raised until she was all but looking down her nose at Tarkin, “She is a Senator and a Princess of Alderaan, she cannot be held on mere suspicion of being a rebel. Where is your proof? Release her before I bring this before the Senate as an act of aggression against Alderaan.”
Bail knew before Tarkin sneered that the man had forgotten Alderaan’s history and why it wasn’t an empty threat, because Alderaan had once created and enforced the creation of a galactic republic while the galaxy had been embroiled in turmoil and civil war for decades. They’d resisted the call of creating an Empire then, and had not forsaken the idea of a republic, even when it forced them to fight against their cousins on Mandalore when they’d tried to bring peace by uniting them under their banner as an Empire.
Tarkin had forgotten to consider that as long as the idea of a republic still breathed, rebellion still beat in the hearts of its citizens, and so Alderaan would fight once more for it against any threat – and in doing this, they would act as they had wanted fifteen years before.
“I know you are all a bunch of rebels, I don’t need proof. Not when the rebellion is supplied with ships that Alderaan supposedly decommissioned after the Wars. No citizen of the Empire is exempt when treason is involved. And aiding the rebels is treason. Your daughter is just the first to slip up. Lord Vader will have her singing like a canary to save her own skin, then you’ll be exposed for the whole Empire to see.”
He closed the comm before they could refute any of that.
Neither spoke for a long moment.
“Leia would never put Alderaan at risk, she would rather die before implicating us.”
“Then I will ensure she does not die in vain.”
Bail watched as his wife turned sharply on her heel, white robes snapping as she strode straight towards Alderaan’s Council.
He bowed his head, hoping that Leia would escape and that she would not be backed into a corner where she chose to use her suicide pill. He would rather take her alive, battered and bruised and broken, then dead, but he knew she would choose death before betraying the rebellion. He’d trained her too well for anything less. Padmé would have done no less as well.
Then he straightened, and followed on his wife’s heels, shedding the Imperial grey he wore in favor of the white tunic he’d worn under it because his Queen was about to declare war on the Empire and he would stand at her side.