Chapter Text
A few irritable beeps issued forth from the console, and Durdo grumbled incomprehensibly to himself as he pressed different buttons, squinting at the computer interface. Finally, he sat back in his seat and said, "well, that's as much as wesa can do, probably."
"All transmissions signatures switched over? Even for the shuttle?"
"Yes."
M'renn sighed, shaking her head. "I had hoped we wouldn't need all this again, but I suppose it's inevitable, in these times."
"Bad times," Durdo agreed. "Always good to have a mask - but especially in thesa times."
"Suppose you’ve dug me up another name to use, too?" she asked.
"Mariel Tarron. Mesa Dorrin Bassal. This boat, she’s the Aurelian Star again."
M'renn nodded curtly. Mariel and Dorrin hadn't been too far Rimward in several years, but they'd used those names often enough, coming and going, that she expected it would be relatively easy to slip them back into the easily-obscured thick of things if it became necessary. If the Emperor had his personal gang of slicers on the case, then they were completely doomed, but even Skywalker's resources weren't, technically, limitless. There were too many ships active at any one time in the galaxy for him to have a prayer of closely inspecting all of their credentials, and using established names increased the odds of human error, if it came down to it - the odds that they could just be waved through without anyone bothering to check too closely were higher. Or would have been, if not for the three massive problems currently on board....
"Not sure how we'll explain having an old soldier and a couple of teenaged nobs with us, if it comes to that."
"Wesa best hope it doesn't come to that," Durdo muttered darkly. "Best story, I guess, is the same one Leané had with Velissa - just this time, we also got an old man following them around." M'renn nodded again, seeing no need to point out the bloody obvious, which was how thin of a story that had been to begin with. After a moment, Durdo asked, "M'renn?"
"Hm?"
"Why wesa doing this?"
"Be more specific."
"Leané and Velissa sneaking on, that's not our fault. Maybe we would have saved Princess Padmah anyway, damn you for a soft old fool. But Leané, she was telling us to leave her. Wesa coulda been long-gone, not had the Emperor after us, probably. So what's she here for?"
M'renn considered this for a long moment. "You've gotta good point," she conceded, noting how Durdo kept referring to the girl as Leané even though it seemed pretty well-established, now, that she was the heir to the Empire. "I don't know. Just didn't occur to me for some reason. Too soft for my own good, I guess."
"Yeah, but it didn’t occur to mesa, either, then."
"Don't try to convince me you've got better sense than me, Durdo. We're both damn fools. How else would we put up with each other this long?"
"We wouldn’t. I keep thinking, though...."
"Dangerous pastime, thinking. I don't recommend it."
"Huh. But yousa know, too - the Emperor. He was one of those Jedi, before there was an empire. People say they had all kinds of powers - witch-powers, and witch-ways...."
"Eh, don't believe everything you hear about what it was like - before," M'renn muttered. "Most of it's exaggerated. If the Jedi were as powerful as all that, then the Emperor wouldn't've been able to kill 'em all so fast, would he? And besides, even if he's a witch, it doesn't follow that she is, too,” she reasoned. “They never had families, in the old days, so no way to know if it's hereditary." Durdo didn't reply, but she could tell from the set of his ears that he was still uneasy, and so she tapped the side of her head. "And even if she is a witch - nobody's running anything up here except me. You really think a fourteen-year-old girl could - what - magic my brains out without me noticing?"
"Mesa hope not," said Durdo, sounding more morosely resigned than skeptical.
Me, too, my friend, she thought, wishing that he could have helpfully failed to make her think about this in the first place. She didn't feel like she'd been prodded around by a witch or anything of the sort, but....Me, too.
* * * * * * * *
More mist than ever seemed to roll in off the river, obscuring the uninspiring view of plain mud and reeds and scrubby grass, and there were no visible corpses in the water. It still took Leia one glance around the area to realize where she was and mutter, "oh, not this, again."
"I'm afraid so, my dear."
It was the disembodied man's voice again. Leia realized it was difficult to be sure she was glaring at someone she could not see and took a moment to turn around and scowl in every direction, just to increase the odds that she'd hit the right one sooner or later.
"Why don't you show your face, whoever you are?" she demanded.
"Still haven't quite figured out how to do so, I'm afraid. Perhaps another time. For now - as much as I hate to encourage you to act at all like Anakin, you should be as insistent as you need to be about traveling to those coordinates you found in the good Senator's computer."
"Why?"
"The coordinates indicate the most habitable world of the Dagobah system - not that that's saying much." The voice assumed a very faint note of distaste. "I suppose Master Yoda must have felt the need to do penance as well as hide from the Emperor, to settle there, when he had at least thirty other options. But he is one of the two sentient life-forms on Dagobah, and I think you'll find it...educational...to meet them both."
"Why is my education any of your concern?" Leia asked. "I don't suppose you're going to say you're my real father on top of the dead lady being my real mother?"
"Oh, goodness, no. Your real father...the good man your mother and I loved...I do consider him dead, but he'd dispute the claim on the grounds that he still walks about and talks...He never really understood. But then, neither do you - yet. That's why you need to go to Dagobah. In the meantime, think of me as...perhaps more of an eccentric uncle."
Leia's eyes opened, and for a moment, looking up at an expanse of unadorned metal and noticing that she appeared to be lying down on another one, she didn't know where she was, or why, and she was almost afraid. Then her memory came back to her, and she felt even worse.
What am I doing? What have I done?
It was bad enough to think about being on the run from - everyone, really, at this point - by herself, but that wasn't the situation at hand. The situation at hand was much worse. She had led people who had shown her....at least a rough sort of kindness into danger, she'd kidnapped the daughter of one of the more influential couples in the Core Worlds, and one of her friends was dead. And it was her fault.
Velena hadn't even known why they were running away from home. She'd never asked - just followed, or occasionally dragged Leia after her if they ran out of better options. And now she was -
She sat up too fast, and could feel her teeth chattering as she wrapped her arms around herself, even though she could tell it wasn't cold. Why was she shaking so much? A reassuring hand patted her back while a familiar voice assured her that she was safe.
Oh, yes. She'd dragged Book into this, too.
"I - I fell asleep?" she managed. "How did I - "
"That was partially my fault," said Book. "You were dead on your feet anyway, the closest thing to a decent anxiety medication they had on here was a sedative, and it looked like you were starting to go into shock. Thought you'd be better off sleeping the worst of it off - nothing to gain from overwhelming yourself into a malfunction."
Leia pulled her knees up toward her chest and wrapped her arms around them, hoping to at least reduce the shaking as she blinked at her bodyguard, a piece of home that couldn't have looked more bizarre in their current settings if he'd tried. "I thought you were angry with me," she said, and hated how small her voice sounded as she did.
"You thought right. Still am, too. But it's my duty to take care of you, and I'm not so angry that I expect to stay that way forever, anyway." He raised an eyebrow at her and added, "it might help if you told me why we're here. How any of this started. Why you didn't just come to one of us to begin with. You know any of us would take a bolt for you - you know I've done it, twice. So what made you think any of this was a good idea?"
"I don't know," Leia whispered, her eyes fixed on her knees. "I didn't think of it. I didn't think of - anything - after I saw - "
Words failed her for a moment, and with an effort, she forced herself to look at Book's face again as she found other ones. "Did you know the Empress wasn't really my mother?"
She felt a little bad for how relieved she was by the confusion this question seemed to elicit. "As far as I know, I don't know that yet," he said. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know exactly - it just started when I - realized that a wall wasn't supposed to be where it was, and I found a window, and in the room, there was a woman I've been having nightmares about all my life...."
* * * * * * *
Twenty to forty seconds.
One of the Imperial guardsmen, unreadable behind his white helmet, had accompanied Bail into his office, but if it came to it, he still thought he could access the affide crystal hidden in the carved edges of his desk before anyone could stop him. Short of catastrophic failure, he'd need perhaps ten seconds to flip the switch, retrieve the crystal from its tiny hiding place, and throw it into his mouth; after that, he would have roughly half a minute left to live, give or take ten seconds. Either way, he'd be dead well before anyone could get any answers out of him.
He did not think he'd need to kill himself today, but it was reassuring to remind himself of how easily he could do so. Reassuring enough that he was able to sit calmly at the desk, his hands folded in front of him, carefully not doing anything. He tried not to think about Breha, or Padmah, or how he had no idea where either of them was. If Breha had a last option, wherever they were holding her - if Padmah was anything even resembling safe. He tried not to think of anything at all until he heard the too-rhythmic strikes of boots on the tiled floor outside the room. When they stopped outside his door, he stood up; the guardsman in the room adjusted his grip on his blaster in response to the movement, but took no further action before the door opened and admitted a small, dark-haired woman in a dark dress, the worry lines sharp around her eyes and forehead.
"What happened?" asked Dormé, without preamble.
"Princess Leia seems to have escaped," he said. He decided to take the liberty of sitting down again, here in his own office; he was not entirely surprised when Dormé also took a seat, without asking. They were old friends. Of a sort. He had been friends with her employer, once, and had mostly seen her as a feature of the background...but matters had changed. "And to have kidnapped my daughter on her way out the door."
She stared at him, incredulous. "Leia kidnapped Padmah?"
"That's what it looked like on the footage I saw, before it...became unclear if I'm under arrest or not." Dormé inhaled sharply, almost a hiss. "In more good news for you," Bail added, "the other girl you mentioned - her companion - she's still in surgery. She covered for her mistress by opening fire on a group of guards who were searching for them all and got shot twice for her trouble. The Emperor's orders meant they weren't shooting to kill, but she'll need a complete joint replacement at the very least, if they can save her leg at all. Or her at all; I'm not exactly sure how severe the second wound was."
"Oh, shit."
"That's more or less my assessment of the situation as well."
Dormé's brown eyes scanned his face, though he was confident that she'd find nothing. "You're very calm about this, Bail."
"I'm a politician. It's called bluffing."
Amidala's Hand managed a rueful laugh, though her bitter attempt at a smile faded quickly as she asked, "and the Emperor...?"
"Is not a politician, which is what worries me." He waited for some response, but got none, and so he spoke again. "What happened, Dormé? What's the girl running from, and what induced her to run here looking for it? What have you all brought upon my house?"
Dormé remained silent for a long moment more, then said, "I wish I knew."
* * * * * * * *
"I don't know about this," said Karin. She was speaking toward Carré's ear, but her eyes were on her sister, who was carrying on a happy-sounding one-sided conversation with a computer terminal. "If Lady Dormé comes back and doesn't approve - "
"Then she should have given us clearer instructions," said Carré, hopefully with more confidence than she felt.
Karin sighed and closed her eyes. "Why did my sister have to be recruited by Royal intelligence?"
"Because she has a gift," Carré said warmly, knowing that one twin would always take at least a glimmer of reflected pride when her sister was praised. "Kanna's practically a planetary asset, with her mind...."
"What does that make you, then?" asked Faraé.
"I'm just a public servant," Carré demurred. "I'm sure they only brought me along because I had that internship with Her Majesty's friend, and because you're all too valuable to have you waste your time listening to court rumors."
Faraé scoffed a little, but Carré could tell she was pleased.
They had a common curriculum, of course, across their disciplines - Carré and Riya and the twins had learned bodyguard tactics and assassination techniques right along with Faraé and Velena, even though none of them would ever compare to the two former dancers in physical strength and speed. After three months together, they all knew at least a little about courtly graces, close-quarter combat, use and concealment of weapons, basic interrogation resistance, misdirection, computer slicing, disguise, and the makeup and purposes of all three of the major offices of the government. There was no denying, though, that each of them was just a little better at something than any of the others were. Kanna, of course, was a standout, she was probably too dangerous to ever be allowed to leave government service, but Karin's artistic skills had translated well into the management of the Queen's appearances and make-up, which was a more serious business than people gave it credit for. Velena was the ground tactician, the one who was best in an open fight, whereas Faraé was the one they'd prefer to have holding the knife if someone needed sneaking up on. And so on.
Somehow, she didn't think Lady Dormé would actually be that impressed with an argument about how Carré was simply practicing, if she found them and disapproved, but it had the advantage of being true. She could also blame the protocol droid Lady Dormé had left with vague orders to keep the five of them occupied; it was no fault of hers that nobody had told it not to show her where the Princess had been. Nor was it really her fault that Kanna was now probably breaking about forty Alderaanian laws right now; she hadn't told the other girl to go do anything, just pointed out that a computer was in the room....
Abruptly, she noticed that Kanna had gone quiet, no longer monologuing at the computer. Instead, she sat stone-faced as screens flashed in front of her before she reached out with one hand to pet the console like a cat.
"Poor baby," she said. "Please let it be Lena who did this to you, so I can break her face, whenever we catch up with her...."
"What's going on?" asked Carré, stepping closer to the computer to try to get some idea of what Kanna was doing.
"Whoever got into this didn't slice it," Kanna said irritably. "It's more like someone took a cannon and...eugh. I might need an hour or two just to straighten this out...."
A long time, for Kanna. "You probably shouldn't," she said reluctantly. "In case the Alderaanian security forces want to do it themselves. They'll be...annoyed with us, if they find out it was our people who broke their system twice in about twenty-six hours. But..." Her eyes scanned the data, taking in what she could understand. "This is interesting just by itself."
All information, after all, was worth having. The question was just when one should use it or not.
On one hand, quite a lot of people would probably find it even more interesting to know that someone - possibly Princess Leia, or some servants she'd acquired along the way; Lena was far more inclined to shoot first and ask questions later, but she had a lighter touch than what Kanna was describing and no reason to pretend otherwise that Carré could think of. In theory, she could have buried a message for Kanna in all the static or something, but how could Velena have known that the five of them would come here? - had done...something unspeakable enough to the Aldera palace's internal network that it had made Kanna want to not only choose violence, but to start a fight she couldn't possibly win. On the other, the Grand Princess' prospective ladies-in-waiting were not exactly who anyone except maybe Dormé would want to know had discovered this, and she wasn't sure of Dormé...on one hand, they were supposed to take initiative, do anything that could serve the throne, and figuring out what Leia wanted out of a computer on Alderaan could certainly count as service to the throne, but on the other hand, she was absolutely certain, now, that both Leia and Kanna had broken a lot of laws. What to do....
She bit her lip for a moment, then said, "get out of there. You can volunteer to work with the computers later, and we'll see what Lady Dormé says. It's probably why you're here."
"Probably," agreed Kanna. "I just wish I could figure out why the rest of you are here. No offense." She stroked the console gently again and said, "I'll come back, I promise."
Faraé laughed nervously. "Sometimes, it's so weird to think that you're probably one of the most dangerous people I've ever met, Kanna."
Kanna frowned, seemingly puzzled. "I am?" she asked, and if she wasn't being sincere, then Carré thought she must have underestimated the other girl all along. She'd thought Kanna was just here as an analyst, and that she and Riya were the spies.
* * * * * * * *
I, Padmah, Princess of Alderaan, write this with my own hand.
Today I was successfully kidnapped for the first time, though it was partly my own fault. More of it was the fault of Grand Princess Leia. For some reason, Her Imperial Highness is on the run in the company of some common people, criminals I imagine. Yesterday they saved me from being kidnapped, but today they kidnapped me themselves. They had another girl with them, too, at first - I don't know what her real name was, only that it was probably not Velissa. I think she's dead now. I should probably be happier about that than I am. She was the one who pulled a blaster on me, after all, and then probably did a million credits of damage to the family art collection and the palace in general. But it was all so horrible -
And the Emperor is with my parents. To hear HIH tell it, this doesn't matter, as he's a reasonable person - but my father and mother were afraid, and they wouldn't be afraid for no reason. Especially my father, since he knows the Emperor and the Empress, or used to, at least. What did HIH mean when she said she could claim he was a traitor? Surely she was bluffing.
HIH isn't what I would have expected. She seems very cold at one moment, but then she isn't. She says we are all being dramatic about her father - but she's the one who is on the run from the man!
Padmah looked up from the beginning of the chronicle of her first kidnapping. The old man they had picked up on the way out, the one who had tried to talk Leia down, seemed to be checking over his weapons, apparently for lack of anything else to do. Leia was reading a very old, battered paper book, and she wasn't crying at the moment, but looked like she had been doing so again recently.
Metal creaked, and the pilot and her grammatically odd, amphibious-looking copilot both came into the room. The old man looked warily at the alien, but neither of them made any move to resume violence, which Padmah had to say was a relief. On one hand, the old man seemed like he was probably closer to Padmah's side than to the others', but on the other, she just...didn't want to see any more violence today. She had wanted to throw things at her cousins before when they made fun of her for her bright red hair and how obvious it was that she wasn't 'really' an Organa, but that was the closest thing to violence she'd personally come close to before today, and she wished today had never happened.
"Well," said the old woman. Her hands were on her hips, but Padmah thought that might just be how she stood by habit, rather than because she was going to make a point. "We've done what we can to obscure our callsigns, and we'll be jumping to some of your more obscure backroutes in the next five minutes. Got us pointed toward a little side post I know, good place for refueling and patching up anything that needs patching - but that's no place for staying any length of time, which raises a question."
Leia blinked slowly. "Did you look up those coordinates I found in Senator Organa's computer?"
"Aye, and there's nothing there. Nothing plotted, anyway. It's barely off the Rimma Trade Route, not far south of Triton - "
"Wesa not going to Triton," the alien said firmly.
"No - even if I had anything to pay their tithes with, which I currently don't, I still wouldn't put me or you either one through a visit there," the old woman agreed. "Not after what we've just...."
"First good news I've heard in a while," said the old man.
"What's wrong with Triton?" asked Padmah, looking between the three of them.
"Customs checkpoint," the old woman said, with obvious distaste in her voice, which only increased as she continued talking. "The natives are all religious fanatics - or at least, if there's any of them who aren't, I've never seen or heard of 'em, and I imagine they left a long time ago. Everything happens on three moons, and there's not a drop of anything to drink but water on any of them." The two males both shook their heads in evident disgust. "No uppers, no downers, nothing. No idea how the place stays operational, especially so close to Eriadu - not that there's much worth mentioning on Eriadu, either, just fake nobs with - " The old woman made a face, then shook her head and decided to drop that line of thought. "Point is, these coordinates of yours - they don't show up in the map, but I know for a fact there's several routes that don't make maps in that region, too, and it's not the end of the Rimma Route. Close, but you're not completely in wild space yet. I wouldn't be surprised if there's something there, but there's always the question of whether we actually want to know what it might be."
"It's called Dagobah," Leia said. They all looked at her, since she'd seemed as clueless as any of them about what the coordinates meant earlier. "It sounds like it should be a trade world. At least, based on everything around it...."
"But if it was a trade world, then we'd know it. Even if it was just a smuggler's den - I happen to run a decent operation, but only a fool would come out here in the Dark without knowing where other operations happen to be. Since I don't know what's there, though, that makes me think it's got to be one of a few things." The old woman started ticking off items on her fingers. "Illegal research facility, legal but top-secret research facility, prison, legal or illegal, or boneyard, again, legal or illegal."
Leia shook her head. "No," she said. "There aren't...that many people there. Just two. But I'm supposed to find them there."
Padmah tried to pretend a chill didn't run down her spine then, at the odd way the Grand Princess said that. The old man looked at the other girl and said, "where's this coming from, my lady?"
"I can't explain," Leia whispered, sounding miserable. "I just - need you to trust me."
The captain did not look best-impressed by this answer. "Can't think of any reason why anyone would have hidden coordinates for it if it was just uninhabitable, to the extent anything counts as uninhabitable these days," she said. "My money's on finding where Alderaan hides inconvenient bodies, if you're right about how many people are actually there."
"My parents wouldn't be involved in anything like that," Padmah said flatly.
"Oh, grow up," scoffed Leia. "Everybody lies."
Padmah considered throwing something at her, but decided there was still some chance that she might get home alive. If she got home after throwing things at the Grand Princess, that could be...bad. Instead, then, as the other four resumed arguing, Padmah looked back down at her notes and added to them.
If she has any idea what she's doing, or even why she's doing it, then she's doing a wonderful job of pretending not to, she wrote. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone else does, either, so I really hope she's lying, even though I'm more than half-certain she isn't.