Chapter 2
"Are you certain?"
To anyone looking in from the outside they were the picture of two Senators having a working lunch that was of a higher grade than what was provided by the Senate kitchens, in a restaurant that catered to those of the planet's inhabitants that had the means to come here and afford cuisine that contained delicacies from all over the core worlds. Nowadays this meant the upper five percent of wealthy humans. And of course anyone within the Imperial Bureaucracy, mostly because Emperor Palpatine had once frequented the restaurant many years before, before even the Clone War when he had been Senator for Naboo.
What no one but them could have expected was that the constant murmur caused by the Empire's elite and those that wished to be part of it rendered every recording device that was possibly hidden in the vast expanse of the dining hall useless, which was why Mon Mothma had suggested this venue for today's conspiratorial meeting.
"As certain as you can be." Organa replied, "You can imagine that the Fleet is putting it's thumb down on the particulars, especially when you consider that Palpatine would rather they had died in the crash and not Strikefast."
"So you think she's alive and with them?"
Organa raised his eyebrows, leaned back in his seat and grinned, remembering a certain incident he had witnessed out of the corner of his eye right after the Battle of Coruscant. "I do."
He took a few bites of his food, a delicious salad made from Alderaani vegetables with meat from some sort of Corellian poultry.
When he had swallowed, he looked at his dinner companion. "Besides, do you have a better idea?"
"Bail, she might really be dead."
He shook his head. "No, I don't think so. If they knew for certain, they would still be going on about it. I doubt Palpatine knows that she was the leader of the 2000. He probably knows the group existed, but since we never got around to presenting our proposal to him, he probably isn't quite sure who is a part of it. Amidala's death would be the perfect heinous crime to blame the Jedi for, but it's a lot harder to make it stick without a body than 'killed accidentally in the crossfire when a missile hit her apartment'."
For a moment Organa considered telling her about who he thought was the father of her child, but decided that it was best not to spread that news until he had concrete evidence. He still felt too much respect for the Jedi Order.
Mothma considered what he had said. "You're probably right. But Bail, that still leaves us with the task at hand."
"I agree. We need to decide what to do. What's more, even if she isn't with them, if she's dead, with her parents or what have you, we need to open a channel of communication with the Jedi. They are likely to be the biggest and best organized group we've come across so far."
"It's still early days, Bail." Mothma replied, "But you're right, I suppose."
He grinned. "I'm not suggesting we do anything... to direct. But putting the first steps into place is something we should have done right after the declaration. Instead we sat around and watched how he dismantled everything we believed in for months."
"Any ideas how we can do what you suggest, Bail?"
"Don't worry. While you get our Corellian issues untangled, I will work on this in my own way."
"Somehow that doesn't make me feel any better." Mothma said with a wry smile. Next she waved for the waiter and while the Droid came over, she asked: "Why are you doing this?"
"Because it's what she would do for us, what they would do for us. We are here, with every creature comfort modern technology can provide, and where are they?"
The waiter arrived and both Senators handed the Droid the necessary credit chips. When he had departed, Bail continued: "Besides, my wife would skin me alive if I didn't return in time for the festival."
"You are leaving tonight?"
Organa nodded. "After session close today, yes."
"Greet your wife and your daughter from me, Bail." she said, rose and left.
Mothma hadn't even suggested doing this from Coruscant. Nowadays even the Alderaani communications systems weren't fully trustworthy, but on Coruscant it could be assumed that the Imperials sifted through outgoing message traffic. Droids with a key-word search software were cheap enough to do it. On Alderaan on the other hand he and his wife controlled the biggest provider as silent partners, and not many people knew. It was easy to slip in an untraceable HoloNet access shunt that, if someone really did try to trace it would lead him on a wild chase all over the Galaxy before ending up where it started, one of any number of random public HoloNet terminals somewhere on Alderaan. Not a perfect system, but that would have been a fully untraceable HoloNet access point, and such a thing was simply not possible.
Upon stepping off the shuttle that had taken him back to his homeworld, Bail Organa was all but assaulted by the preparations for the Harvest Festival that, while technically the season only applied around the capital at this time of the local year, was usually celebrated planet-wide. His wife was usually very involved in the preparations, but for obvious reasons not this year. He could still remember as if it was yesterday when one warm summer's evening she had appeared holding the infant in her arms, cooing at the girl and twirling the white tufts of hair that poked out from between the blanket little Winter had been wrapped in.
So instead of meeting him as he arrived, he found her sitting beside their daughter's crib, staring at her as if she was the most precious thing in the Universe. "She asleep?" he whispered as he slowly made his way over from the door to join her.
"Half an hour ago." his wife replied and kissed him on the cheek in greeting.
He knelt down next to her and joined her in staring at the sleeping child. "Do you ever regret it?"
"How could I?" Bail asked with a smile. "She had me wrapped around her finger the moment you stepped into my office."
Nothing more was said for what seemed to both of them a very long time, but eventually Bail tore himself away from his sleeping daughter.
"We need to talk."
Unlike the weekly sweeps of the Palace, the office was swept for bugs daily, and had been since before the Clone War. He still activated a small device meant to defeat anything hidden.
"I've heard those rumours again."
Breha clutched her husband's office chair. "Anything more to it this time?"
Bail shrugged. "More than last time at any rate. Still very, very thin, but at least enough for me to start looking into it."
"Then do it."
Bail knew that his wife had become fast friends with Senator Amidala during and before the war, and he knew that she missed her friend terribly. He knew that it had been hard for her to watch the Senator from Naboo glow with her child and herself be unable to have one, but they had both bonded over absentee men in their lives, though even there Amidala had refused to say who it was.
"Are you certain? We might not like what we find."
"Force, B. I need to know either way."
He sighed. "Very well then. I need to make some calls, and we should have this thing going by tomorrow."
"Good." Breha said, pinching the bridge of her nose in thought. "Did she ever tell you who the father was? Maybe she's with him."
Bail hated lying to his wife, but he still felt bound by a promise he had only ever made to himself. At the same time he saw that to say Breha was distressed was an understatement.
"I have had my... suspicions."
"Then why should she be with the Jedi like you believe?"
And she knew she had him in a corner. They had discussed the matter at length, he had told her everything he'd heard, and now she turned that knowledge around on him. He didn't reply, but he was torn. He had seen Amidala and Skywalker in after the Battle of Coruscant, he'd seen the Jedi sneak out of her office on several occasions, but he also knew that what the two of them had been doing was very, very illegal by the Jedi Code. But he had seen how happy it had made her, and it was more than obvious that sentiment went both ways, so he had resolved not to say anything to anyone.
Here he was then, confronted with the hopeful face of the woman he loved, their own daughter sleeping a few rooms down, and he knew that now was not the time to hold back.
"Do you remember that time shortly after First Geonosis? Well, I..."
And he told her everything he knew.
Breha had to process it for a long time. When she was done, she looked up at Bail. "Do it." she said, and the fierce look on her face told him that he better get moving. Half an hour and not a few tears later, she left him and he set about doing it. Fortified by a quick meal he left notice that he was not to be disturbed by anyone but his wife, and entered a very long and very complicated access code into his Comm terminal.
"Sir?"
"It seems the order we discussed last week needs to be placed after all."
"Yes, Sir. I have someone we can be trusted not to screw it up."
"Tell him to come to me the day after tomorrow to discuss delivery and payment."[/I]
"Yes, Sir."
The connection was severed and he powered down the terminal, but instead of doing some of the work that always seemed to chase him, Bail rose and went to his daughter's room once more. This time his wife wasn't there, she was probably in the kitchen giving directions for the next meal or preparing to feed Winter, something she insisted on doing herself. Bail saw that she was awake, not crying, but only fuzzing around and reaching for the blanket she had thrown off at some point. Instead of just giving it to her, he took both out of the crib and wrapped his daughter in it.
"Why can't you sleep, hmm?" he asked, and kissed her on her forehead. Yes, risks or not, he would do this, he would fight the good fight for her. He would find the Jedi.
tbc
I hope no one minds that I invented a few (a few?!) things about Alderaan in this chapter. The planet has always intrigued me, from the moment I first saw ANH in the original version on TV in the early 90s and then later when the special editions came out in the theatre.
Regarding Winter, since TTL the Organa's won't be raising Leia for obvious reasons, the part of me that goes 'aaaw!' when he sees something cute or nice wanted them to be at least partly compensated for that. Since I don't have access to the comics that show her and Leia as kids, I am assuming that she always had that white hair, since that is implied by her article on Wookiepedia. As for her arrival, I hope no one minds that I'm fudging things a bit.
