She really didn't mind that she was one of the few students of the Royal Academy of Government who didn't go home for the holidays. Soniee loved how quiet the place was and how she could just sit at her desk and tinker with the datapad she was currently rebuilding. Wires and circuits and hardware were spread across the surface and she immersed herself in them. No other distractions, just the tangy smell of the solder and the satisfaction of fitting each tiny piece in its proper place.
Well almost no distractions. Soniee had to stop herself from calling out to him before he knocked. She sighed put down her tools and waited for the soft rap of knuckles on durasteel.
"It's open, Korkie. Come on in." She didn't tell him that she had sensed that he was on his way down the hall before she had even heard his footsteps. The lack of other cadets and instructors in the building made his presence easier to feel but the Duchess's nephew had always seemed to resonate stronger in her awareness than anyone else at the academy.
She had never really told anyone about her hyper-sensitivity. By the time she was old enough to realize that not everyone could read another individual's emotions from a room away, she'd known it wasn't polite to pry. Her friends knew she occasionally got headaches when a room got too loud. They didn't know that she sometimes just pulled her blank, display visor down over her eyes to block out the excess stimulation.
"How did you know it was me?"
"Everyone else is on holiday." She invented, which was technically true. Soniee kept her eyes on her work, as Korkie entered and crossed the room, curious to see what she was working on this time.
"How was tea with the Duchess?" she asked him.
He picked up a tiny plasma injector and inspected it. "Insightful." He started to place the piece back on the desk but Soniee took it from his hand and moved it to a spot a safer distance from her soldering iron.
"She just got back from Coruscant, didn't she? Was it a nice trip?" The girl always found it easier to talk when her hands were busy. She tended to be shy in conversation with most people, especially boys. But Korkie was different. He had been her first friend at the Academy. They were both orphans taken in by the clans and she had always felt a connection to him because of it.
"She..." he paused and for the first time since he entered the room she felt a wave of sadness from her friend.
Soniee stopped what she was doing and turned to give him her full attention.
"She went to attend a funeral."
"Oh, I'm so sorry. Please give her my condolences the next time you see her. Was it someone we knew?"
"I never got the chance. It was the Jedi, Kenobi."
Something clenched in Soniee's chest. She had never met the man either, but she had always been curious about the Jedi given her own abilities. She had been wary of the fabled knights as a child, wondering if they'd come and snatch her away and take her to their temple if they found out what she could do. But after meeting Padawan Tano she had a greater respect for the Order.
Soniee looked up at her friend. "What is it, Korkie? What do you need my help with?"
His smile held a measure of awe at her sudden intuition. "I ... would like your help with something."
She looked back down at her disembowelled datapad, embarrassed by his expression, and waited for him to continue.
Korkie began to pace and she chanced a glance back up at him. "The Duchess told me something just now, something about her past." One of his hands that had been clasped behind his back went to stroke his chin. He stopped walking and gave Soniee another winning smile. "I want to check the old holorecordings and see if I can find proof."
Ah, technology! This Soniee could do! She brightened and began to search for a device that was in a less dissected state and could bring up the information he wanted. "How old are we talking here?" She found the holonotebook she was looking for and began typing something into it while she carried it over to the couch where they could sit next to each other and both see the results.
Korkie followed. "The first year of her reign, from when she arrived in Sundari after her exile."
"Alright..." Soniee keyed in a few more search parameters and then turned the screen so they could both see. He grinned that she had found it so quickly. "This would be the footage from when she first arrived back..." There was no sound on the vid. They watched as Satine descended the ramp of a small shuttle.
"She looks so young and sad," Korkie remarked.
"Who's that behind her?" Soniee paused the frame and pointed to the figure who exited the shuttle after the young Duchess. "It looked like you for a moment." She glanced up at the boy next to her who was staring intently at the screen.
"I think that's Kenobi." Korkie smiled.
She looked at the image again. "The same Kenobi who's funeral she just attended?"
"Yes. He was one of the Jedi who protected her during the Civil War." Korkie seemed thrilled with their discovery.
Soniee, on the other hand, studied the young Jedi. There was something about the way his eyes followed the duchess. Soniee wondered if a boy would ever look at her like that and, "He looks... heartbroken. They must have been very close." She looked up again and this time Korkie held her gaze intently for a few seconds. She broke the link first with a sigh and began keying in data again. "What next?" she asked knowing their search wasn't over.
"Well... that's just it. What happened to her next? Are there stills, vids of where she went and what she did that first year?"
"Holy stars are there ever?" Soniee showed him the search results. "Looks like your aunt was just about the hottest thing on the net for a while."
Korkie grinned. "Let's start at the beginning, shall we?"
Soniee nodded and tapped the first results.
"Is that supposed to be her in the hood?"
"I don't know." She scrolled forward through the images of the cloaked girl with the academy cadet until they came to a still of the young duchess, hood now dropped back to her shoulders, kissing the cadet.
Korkie scowled. "I guess it didn't take her long to get over, Obi-wan."
"We don't know that for sure." Soniee tried to console him. She wasn't sure why he was reacting so harshly but she supposed he had always been protective of his aunt. "Let's see what else there is." She scrolled down through stills of the dedication of Peace Park and then came to something else interesting. "Look this is the first ever Royal Academy graduation ceremony." Soniee pulled up another silent vid.
"What's that she's wearing?" Korkie laughed at the ostentatious feathered headgear the young duchess had on for the occasion. His laughter made Soniee smile but all too soon it was wiped away with another frown. "That's the same cadet from before." He pointed at the last graduate who crossed the stage, gave the duchess a flower, sat next to her, and held her hand.
"He looks familiar." She paused vid and tried to remember where she had seen that cadet's face before. It came to her in the same moment that Korkie blurted it out.
"That's Ex-Governor Viszla!"
"The leader of the Deathwatch. They were friends once." It made Soniee sad to think of the betrayal that the duchess had endured but Korkie seemed to take it as a personal insult.
"They were more than friends." He had let the vid continue and they watched as Viszla leaned over to give Satine a kiss on the cheek.
Korkie only seemed to grow more sullen as they looked through more vids and stills of the duchess at the opera or attending state dinners. Pre Viszla was almost always at her side, holding her hand, kissing her.
Soniee vaguely remembered something that the duchess had said in one of her speeches that they'd had to learn early in their Academy lessons. "Maybe it was just an act. Maybe she didn't want everyone to know who she really had feelings for."
"Hmmm." Korkie sounded unconvinced. And no wonder because the next batch of stills they came across certainly didn't look like an act.
Viszla was standing behind the duchess on a balcony. She was wearing a beautiful navy blue gown that left her arms and shoulders bare. Her eyes were closed and he was kissing her neck and her shoulder. The moment captured in the still was so intimate Soniee almost wanted to look away. But then Korkie pointed at the screen. "There!"
"What is it?" Soniee asked uncomfortably. She felt like she was intruding on the couple, invading their privacy. As she studied the image however she thought she saw what Korkie meant.
Viszla had placed his hands on the duchess's waist and the fabric of her dress was pulled tighter across her belly, her round, swollen belly. Soniee's eyes widened in shock. She glanced up at Korkie who was grinning again and then back at the image. "She was pregnant."
"These stills." Korkie's voice held a note of triumph as if he'd finally found the proof he was looking for. "Were taken about a month before I was born."
Soniee didn't know what to say. She and Korkie had always shared their status as orphans. It had always been a connection between them. "She's your mother." She wanted to be happy for him.
"She finally admitted it when I met her for tea today." He took one of Soniee's hands in both of his. "But you can't tell anyone."
She looked at her hand in his and then at his face and then blankly at the holoscreen. "Of course I won't tell anyone. I'm so glad you got your answer at last."
He seemed to notice her discomfort and let go of her hand. "Thanks, Soniee."
"So then..." she took a quick intake of breath and tried to regain the thread of conversation. "You don't think that Viszla..."
"No. Never." he interrupted her and advanced the image on the holo screen to the next still. The duchess had spun away from the man on the balcony with a look of fright in her eyes. "See she didn't want him to find out. I think you're right. She was acting."
"It was all a ruse to draw attention away from the fact that... you were on the way." Soniee smiled. "But then that means..." Her fingers flew over the holonotebook's keypad to return them to the first vid they had watched. Satine descended the shuttle's ramp, Kenobi's sad eyes watched her go, and then just before she was led away by her retainers she looked back at him. "Your father was a Jedi."
Korkie nodded at her. He was smiling but now he looked sad and Soniee was sure she knew why. "But you never met him and now he's gone. I'm so sorry, Korkie."
He stood, took a few steps and then turned back to face her again. "You know it's strange. I always assumed my father had died before I was born, never considered the idea of knowing who he was or meeting him. But now that I know, I do... miss him."
She understood a little of what he was feeling. She would never know her father either. Her own mother had died in a freighter crash shortly after giving birth to her with no clue of who she was or her history other than that the flight had originated on Onderon.
Soniee stood, put down the holonotebook and hugged her friend. He hugged her back for a full minute before they both started to feel awkward and he broke away clearing his throat. "So, umm, we can keep this just between us right?" Korkie asked.
"Of course." She smiled, blushing slightly. She wondered about so many things in that moment. Like why he had never exhibited any Jedi powers? And was this why her connection to him seemed so much stronger than her connection to anyone else? But she wasn't prepared to ask those questions just yet. Instead she said, "Korkie, I know your secret now. Can I... can I show you something?"
He was intrigued. "Of course."
She glanced at a bowl of fruit on the table, bringing his attention to it. Then after a deep breath she raised her hand toward the bowl and closed her eyes. Slowly a green pome rose from the dish and gracefully glided toward her. She turned her hand palm up and the fruit rested there silently.
"Soniee, you don't mean you're a..."
"I'm not a Jedi," she whispered, passing the fruit from hand to hand, staring at it so she didn't have to look him in the eye. "Sensitive to the force is what they would call it, I guess. I've never shown anyone else."
"Don't you want to be trained to use it? I've never had any powers like that but if I did..."
"I didn't want them to take me away from Mandalore, away from home."
She could sense that he knew what she meant. They had both grown up as orphans (whether that was true or not) but Mandalore with all its history and traditions had adopted them and taken them in.
Korkie smiled at her and gave her a conspiratorial wink. "I won't tell a soul."