Leia adjusted the translation earpiece, which was growing uncomfortable after hours of being tucked into her ear. Perhaps a few words were lost, but at this point in the hearing it was clear that they were meaningless anyway—no progress was being made this afternoon. As she waited for the senator to finish his statement, she took drink of water, noting that her commlink was flashing with incoming notifications. She couldn't answer it, but it was synced to her datapad, and perhaps she could surreptitiously check the messages and make it look like she was fact checking the wildly erroneous statistics being quoted at her.
She tapped a few keys, and watched in frustration as a dozen messages from her office, the Chief of State's office, and the Council secretary populated the screen. Apparently she had yet another meeting to look forward to when this hearing ended.
"Madam Secretary?"
It hadn't been obvious that there was any kind question in the five minute long rambling statement by the senator, but apparently a response was still expected. She tapped the datapad a few more times, clearing the messages, then cleared her throat.
"I disagree with those statistics, Senator Herrik. I'm gathering the most recently cited information we have for you, and will provide it to you, and submit it for the record."
At the dais, a gavel rapped sharply. "Time, Senator. We now turn to the senator from Ralltiir."
Leia disguised her sigh as a cough, and took another drink of water as the next senator struggled with their microphone. It was going to be a very long hearing.
Three senators worth of poorly articulated non-questions later, her junior aide reached up to the table with a note. She frowned down at it, unfolding it to read in between the questions.
She could feel the blood drain from her face as she read it, but if the committee members in front of her noticed, they gave no indication.
Full Council meeting convening at 1630 to update on Wildling Mission.
Han's current mission, to the edge of Wild Space. The Council never met on routine missions, not unless something extraordinary had happened, and even then it was most often just the relevant Secretaries. She looked at her chrono—1417.
Activating the screen of her datapad again, she checked to see if there were any more specific messages. As she was doing so, she saw an aide approaching the committee chair and whisper something.
When Senator Logar finished her time, Chair Griegg tapped the gavel once more. "Unfortunately it appears a Council meeting will take Madam Secretary away from us at 1600. If members could limit their queries to three minutes rather than five, we will try to get through all committee members prior to that time."
She did allow herself a small sigh then.
"Would you like a five minute break before we continue, Madam?"
"If I may, Chair."
She snagged her comm, and headed to the witness room to make a few quick calls. There was no information on Han's mission, but her intel deputy, Mena, was monitoring the situation and promised to update her if anything came in. Before heading back to the hearing, she grabbed a cup of instant kaffe.
There were no substantial updates from Mena during the last portion of the hearing, only a brief one page update for her to read on the way to the Council meeting so she wouldn't be going in totally blind. Only some of their fighter pilots had returned to the rendezvous point, and at least one ship had crashed.
It was unusual to have a crash in a space firefight; usually fighters were totally destroyed, and fatalities were instant. It piqued her curiosity, and wondered what about the situation merited a full meeting. It should have been a military and state matter.
Leia was the last to arrive at the meeting, and the room quieted as everyone turned to watch her enter the room.
"Apologies, I was at the Senate hearing—"
"Secretary, were you not notified?"
She took her seat at the table, just to the left of Mon Mothma. "I was notified of this meeting regarding the Wildling mission. I presumed we would be briefed here on a need to know basis."
That was standard procedure with military missions; very few were privileged with full mission information, for myriad reasons, including deniability. Han was careful about what he told her at home, too, and hadn't said much when she'd spoken to him last night, and she hadn't asked. All her updates on the mission had come through Ravitch.
General Dodonna, to the right of the Chief of State, cleared his throat. "Initial reports from Ambassador Ravitch of interactions with the Wild Space Alliance appeared positive, and they were working with General Solo and Gold Squadron on military maneuvers for over a week. For reasons currently unclear, the situation between their members soured in the course of the interactions and what was to be a security and training mission suddenly became a defensive situation."
There were murmurs around the table; it had been a somewhat controversial mission to begin with, as many were still skeptical of the loyalties of the Wild Spacers despite previous treaties. But a diplomatic emissary and some military training had seemed welcomed. Early reports had been positive, and there had already been talks of sending a larger trade delegation.
With a rap of his knuckles on the table, Dodonna hushed the group and continued. "We are still debriefing members of Gold Squadron who made the jump to the Rim rendezvous point. Several members of the squadron did not return, and reports from those who did indicate that the command shuttle, carrying Ambassador Ravitch and piloted by General Solo, was hit and may have crashed on Chio. We are working with Chionians to confirm."
Leia bit the inside of her cheek, schooling her face to remain neutral. Her ambassador and her husband, both believed lost. Why hadn't she been pulled out of the hearing immediately upon receipt of this information? The mission was at least partially her jurisdiction, and she should have been receiving regular updates on the developing situation. But before she could react, another voice spoke.
"Chio is an independant ally, they have their own treaties with us," pointed out Secretary N'kosa.
"Yes, and they're fully cooperating in rescue and recovery. We believe there are two members of Gold who did not make the jump to the rendezvous on planet working with them."
"Believe?" Leia's tone was curious, cautious. "We haven't confirmed their whereabouts?"
"Chionian officials are supposed to be contacting us within the hour with an update and more solid information. But we felt it best to bring everyone in on this now."
Councillor Palaxa cleared his throat. "Did we all need brought in on this, now? Your initial information indicates that this was an internal conflict between members of the Wild Space Alliance, not a conflict with the Republic."
Dodonna frowned. "It is a matter of Council concern if one of our Ambassadors and one of our Generals have been shot down by them. We'll have to consider-"
With a raised palm, Mon Mothma silenced the general. "Palaxa may be right, in that we are getting ahead of ourselves. Without further information regarding what has happened and why, we cannot make any decisions. But we may want to have options ready. Immediate action may be required."
"Precisely, Madam Chief of State." Dodonna nodded.
Leia allowed herself a frown then. Not at options-she understood having response options. But at the idea of Han being shot down. The implications of that were clear enough. There was only one response she could formulate to that, and it took all her self control to think about it. As she sat silently, contemplating, there were whispers around the table, snatches of action plans and profanity and even a bit of wild gesticulation.
Then the communications array lit up like a firework.
"We've got the Chionian Foreign Secretary on comm line 2," announced an aide.
The Council was silent as they looked around the table, then all eyes fell on Mon Mothma.
"Connect us, please."
A speaker crackled to life, with a burst of feedback and static, before settling in to a low hum. Then, a voice came across the line, wavering in signal strength but clear.
"Madam Chief of State, members of the Republic Council, I am Ged Gaus, Foreign Secretary of Chio."
"Thank you for contacting us so promptly, Secretary Gaus. What can you tell us?" Mothma's voice was calm and steady.
Gaus cleared her throat. "At approximately 1335 Galactic Standard Time, Chio airspace control received a mayday signal from a ship identifying itself as the Iveston, a command shuttle of the Republic. We had been monitoring a conflict between members of Wild Space factions over our planet, so we were ready and able to follow the ship as it entered our air space. After entering our atmosphere, there were no additional transmissions from the Iveston. The ship went down in a remote polar area, and we responded as quickly as possible. As we were launching our response team, we were contacted by two pilots identifying themselves as Commander Tulven and Lieutenant Droct of the Republic, requesting permission to assist in crash response. We granted them landing clearances and sent them out with the secondary response shuttle."
She paused, and the council room was quiet enough to hear a pin drop. Dodonna finally broke the silence.
"Have your first responders reached the shuttle?"
"Yes, they reported back to us just moments ago," Gaus nodded. "Your pilots informed us that there would have been five aboard the shuttle. Reports are of two fatalities, three unresponsive and in critical condition. I don't have identification at this point. They're on their way back to a field medical station at Qache, where they will be met by the secondary response team, with your pilots. We should have more information for you after that."
"Thank you, Secretary Gaus. Please keep us updated."
Leia sat back in her seat, covering her mouth with her hand. He had to have survived. Surely she would have known if he hadn't, she would have felt it, felt something. Jaina would have felt something, and she'd have gotten a panicked call about their distraught daughter. She had to believe that.
The meeting broke up quickly after that. Even after most of the Council members had filed out, Leia remained in her seat, deciding her next move. Part of her wanted to race down to the Falcon and head straight to Chio; part of her wanted to sit right here until the update call came in.
What she did was go home to see her daughter, trying to decide as she went whether or not to tell her anything just yet. At six, it was a delicate balance of what she could sense and what she could understand. As she reached the front door, she decided to wait to tell her what had happened until she knew more about what had actually occurred. She didn't want to upset her unncessarily, and she felt so certain that he was alive.
When she entered the door, she barely made it two meters before being greeted with a shriek and arms around her waist. She took a deep breath, quieted her mind as much as she could, and returned the hug.
"Hi, sweetheart. How was your day?"
"Oh, Mama, we learned about flowers! Come see what I planted!"
She always enjoyed seeing what her daughter was learning, and actually looked forward to helping with homework, but never had she been happier for the distraction of it than at that moment. As she followed Jaina into the living room, she tried to shed her worries for the time being, and concentrate on the happy girl in front of her. If something was wrong, she would know, wouldn't be so effervescent.
But she couldn't help the worry gnawing at her, growing as the hours slipped by without an update. She kept her comm close by for the rest of the evening, desperate for more information.
