The Imperial Palace had been designed to be impenetrable, but despite the many quirks of construction required to make it so, the edifice was completed ahead of schedule. The Emperor stood on the broad portico at the Grand Entrance and declared once again the beginning of a new age, one of unrivaled security and stability.

Most of the HoloNet reporters knew better than to take their focus off the Emperor, resplendent in full formal scarlet and darkest black, but their curiosity rested solely on the figure two paces behind. Most – all – recognized the Hero With No Fear, and all knew he was one of the few surviving Jedi. Six months ago, a statement had been released out of the newly-created Office of the Supreme Commander that former Naboo Senator Padmé Amidala was married to Darth Vader, and that they had two children. And there she was behind him, the woman who had barely been seen in public since the attempted coup by the Jedi, in an almost somber gown. Even more fascinating: the twin children who stood unsteadily with her. They were at least a year old by now. It didn't take a genius to do the math.

So, while the reporters were all smart enough to keep Emperor Palpatine front and center, they made sure that Padmé Amidala remained in the frame.

Business was business, after all.


"I don't like this."

Vader took deep breaths – the small aspects of Jedi life he kept around – and looked at his wife, standing amid packed crates of their belongings. The twins were in what would be their playroom once it was completed, staying out of the way of the adults and the red-and-black liveried servants that roamed around unpacking. "It's what's best for you and for the children. You'll be safe here when I'm sent out on tasks around the galaxy."

"I'm all but a prisoner," Padmé snapped in protest. "Did you even pay attention to the number of security checkpoints we had to pass coming back inside from that horrible ceremony—"she flung her hand wide in a gesture toward the door and opened her mouth to continue, but Vader cut her off.

"Now, listen—"

Padmé wasn't having any of it. "And leaving the Palace requires getting through those checkpoints and multiple other layers of security, plus ones I probably don't know about. Messages are decrypted and read before being passed on to 'non-essential personnel' whatever that means, all I know is that I don't have more than a gram of privacy—"

"Everything is provided, you have a personal staff, the children are going to have the best tutors—"

"All while under the watchful eye of Palpatine—no, don't glare at me like that, I won't call him 'Emperor Palpatine' when I don't have to. And I know he's bugged these rooms. I found three already and that was just with a visual inspection. How many more do you suppose I'll find with an electronic scan?"

"For security reasons!" Vader was getting more irritated. Growing up on Tatooine, he had nothing, and now that he had everything, the one he'd wanted to give it all to was being so unappreciative as to scandalize even him.

"I think this place wasn't just designed to keep people out. It's designed to keep us in. Everyone right where that man wants us."

Tired of arguing, Vader angrily turned and glowered at two worker droids carrying in one of the couches for the family sitting room. "I want you to be safe while I'm out with the Fleet. That's all."

"I was safe before." Padmé, tired as well, came up beside him and slipped her arm through his. "I'm tired of arguing, tired of seeing you boarding troop ships, too. I'd feel better if Palpatine was actually stopping the fighting like he promised. But every time you come home, a week later you're leaving again for some Rim world with another uprising. It's like the Clone Wars never ended, they just reached a lull." She sighed. "And there wouldn't be uprisings if the Republic hadn't become the Empire."

Vader felt her lean her head wearily on his shoulder, and reached out, stroking her hair. He'd come back to Coruscant, or Imperial Center as it was now being called, every few months. Every time he expected to be grounded so that he could be given more training than the rough instructions he got via hyperwave transmitter. And every time within the week he received new marching orders.

Even the time he spent planetside wasn't necessarily relaxing. As Supreme Commander, it was his duty to manage separate fleet maneuvers, give the sector groups their tasks, designate priority assignments, read intelligence reports, and generally keep the Navy running from the top down. In other words, exactly the kind of thing he was terrible at. The Dark Side granted a certain clarity, but that was more useful in battles he was personally involved in. And while the Super Star Destroyer that would be his flagship was powerful, even it couldn't be in all places at once.

"Have faith," he murmured, turning to look at her. "Things will calm down eventually when the galaxy realize the good my master will do. Then I'll be home more with you and with Luke and Leia."

Even he didn't buy that lie completely anymore, and by her sigh and the sense he got in the Force, he could tell Padmé didn't either. But she didn't push the point further. Every time they argued, it upset the twins, and their cries cut both of them deeply. They'd become her main source of happiness when he was gone, and she was his very reason for being, so as long as they were happy, she was happy, and so was Vader. As much as he could be, anyway. Thankfully, most of their attentions had been given over to the care and management of their children, so there wasn't so much energy left over for disagreements.

"I was thinking of taking the children and going to Naboo," Padmé said carefully. "The next time you leave. Mother wants to see her grandchildren, and I need to get off this planet. There's something... something poisonous about it." She smiled up at him tentatively. "It'd be good for me and the children to be around people who don't call us sir or ma'am all the time. And if we go with you on your ship, you can make sure we arrive safe."

She'd covered all her bases, all his possible complains so well that Vader felt some of the darkness he shrouded himself in lift. "How long have you been planning this?"

The smile became a little wider and less tentative. "About a month." A pause. "And I'll take Threepio with us for security, if that makes you feel better."

Vader actually laughed at that. "You're good," he murmured, and kissed her.

The good thing about being a Sith: passion wasn't frowned upon.


Palpatine watched the silvery ship clear Palace airspace and fire its sublight engines on the way up to matching orbits with Vader's ship above the planet. He'd cleared this departure a week ago with a flippant wave of his hand, but inside he was frustrated. While there had been a note of dissonance between them for some time it obviously wasn't strong enough. The same singleminded approach that made Vader invaluable as an agent in the galaxy made him very devoted – obsessed was a better term – with his family.

But he could be patient. He had waited decades to rise to power. He could take the time, engineer this split perfectly so that when it happened, his hand in it would only be obvious to Padmé, and Vader would not heed her words.

The desk comm beeped, and turning his thronelike chair back around, Sidious keyed his acceptance code. "What is it?" he demanded of the willowy being that appeared before him in holo blue.

"Your Excellency," the male Kaminoan said solemnly. "The next batch of clones will be released on time."

One thing to be said of the Kaminoans; as long as the credits kept flowing, they would call you whatever you wanted. "Good," Sidious replied. Conscription and volunteer rates were still low, and the clones formed the bulk of the military. "And our other project?"

"Also good news to report. We have a small success; cloning from the material you gave us, we have at last produced a stable zygote. We needed to remove our work to the facilities you provided us at the Beta Site to accomplish it, however; working with material from former Jedi has proved to be troublesome."

Sidious frowned. "How so?"

"It is almost as though it rebels against the process itself. Cells wither, or else go into uncontrolled growth, unless we work with them in a void area. We are not quite sure, but it seems that somehow the cell can detect what we are doing, and changes gene expression accordingly. We have noted marked decreases in the concentrations of proteins controlling the growth cycle in such cells."

"Indeed." Sidious steepled his fingers together, brows furrowing. This was an odd development indeed, though unsurprisingly not much genetic research had been done with material from Jedi. If it had, all this business wouldn't have been necessary, and his plans wouldn't have been delayed perhaps years. But it was all good to know; some of the samples they had to work with, and the plans for the outcomes, were of vital importance to his long-term goals. Better to refine the process now. "And yet you report a victory."

"This success we report is more in getting the two chosen samples spliced together, without even adding in the extra genetic modifications you specified. But work is proceeding and we have no doubt that we will produce for you a fine specimen before the year is up."

"Very well. Continue at the Beta Site; I'll see to it that you have all the materials you require. I will be the first to know if there are any new developments."

"As you wish," the Kaminoan replied, and the feed cut.

Sidious sat back in his chair, pondering this. Rebellious even in death, as you were in life, he thought, a sneer curling his mouth up. And those twins growing ever older. Thrice-cursed Jedi.

But it didn't seem to matter; the Kaminoans were bringing their project under control, as he had done with the Jedi before he utterly destroyed them, and sent his dogs after those who had fled. And when this project was complete, he would have his marshals.

The fleet under command of the Incorrigible dropped out of hyperspace. Below them, Naboo spun on its axis peacefully, with only a minimum of comm traffic from control as the fleet dropped into orbit.

In the hangar of the Incorrigible, Vader stepped back, letting his arms slip from around his wife. "There's a fleet stationed in this sector, so if you need anything..."

"I'll be fine, Ana—Vader." Padmé smiled a little, but Vader didn't fly into a rage like he sometimes did at the mention of his former name. "I'll be perfectly safe, the children will be safe. When you come back through this sector you can pick us up and take us back to Coruscant."

"Imperial Center," he corrected absently, but his focus was on Padmé and the nanny droid wheeling across the hangar floor with Luke and Leia in two of its arms. He didn't like that there was something as cold and impersonal as a droid that had more contact with his children than he did, but while he was at the behest of his master, he had no choice. Plucking Luke out of the spindly arms, he held his son close against his shoulder. Baby-soft skin nestling against his reminded Vader of what he had given up his life for. "Be careful," he said to his wife. "Not everyone is sympathetic to the Empire."

Her face closed up as he did whenever he talked about the Empire in such a way. A year later, she still mourned for democracy. But she carefully stood up on tiptoe and kissed him, then collected Luke and she and the nanny droid walked up the ramp of her ship. A few too-short moments later, his cloak whipped around his legs as the ship rose on repulsorlifts through the magcon field, and fired sublight engines once it was free.

The fleet left orbit half an hour later, and with a flicker of pseudomotion, vanished again into hyperspace.


Padmé glanced over at Leia and Luke, playing happily in an enclosed area under the watchful gaze of the nanny droid. She would have been there herself, but the guests she had right now commanded her attention.

"I'm glad you both could come, I know Naboo is a little out of the way," she said. Bail Organa took a sip of the tea that had been brought out for them by Threepio.

"I"m guessing you want to know how things are proceeding in the Senate since you resigned your position," Mon Mothma said. At her nod, the Senator sighed. "It's a farce. Palpatine maintains the semblance of democracy but controls everything. He holds court over the Senate sessions, arbitrarily deciding matters regardless of the Senate's votes."

"Some of the new laws enacted are appalling – the Galactic Security Act has clauses scattered throughout that essentially relegate entire species to second-class status There's talk of another that will create institutionalized slavery in all but name. And there's nothing Senators can do to stop it, because like Senator Mothma said, it's a farce. A complete catastrophe." Bail flicked his fingers, brow furrowed deeply. "It's unthinkable."

"And all the while, millions of credits are being funneled not just into military expansion, but into secret projects, there's no transparency at all. Attempts at tracing the funds run into brand-new Imperial Intelligence Security walls."

"I guess we should have expected as much from a Sith," Padmé murmured, heart and mind racing. So much had changed so fast, and the Republic she knew had fallen away almost entirely.

"We hear reports of the Navy aggressively taking action against even the slightest sign of dissent, whether or not there's violence involved." Mon Mothma fixed Padmé with an intense stare. "The Navy your husband is in command of."

Padmé's hands twisted in her lap. "I've tried talking to him about it, but he's deep in Palpatine's grasp. I barely know my own husband anymore."

"So he's lost to us," Bail murmured sadly. "I'm sorry, my lady. I didn't know him well before the end of the Clone War, but he seemed an honorable man then. It's hard to think of him doing wrong by anyone."

She shook her head. "Don't be. The man I married is still there, I know. I just have to find him." She looked at the children playing on the patio. "But we have to find a way to restore democracy and the Republic. If we don't... if we don't, I don't know what will happen."

The three of them sat in silence for a long time. Mon Mothma broke it first. "We won't risk open rebellion, not yet," she said carefully. "A resolution may yet be reached through diplomacy and talks with Palpatine. We have just ended one war. I would not want to immediately launch another."

"Do you think it will come to that?" Bail Organa stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Can we even justify this turning into a military campaign – to open treason?"

"We might have no choice."

"And I must keep my part in all this a secret from my husband," Padmé added. "His moods are easily shifted now, and..." she glanced over her shoulder at the twins. "I have to be here for them. If nothing else, they are my light." She smiled gently, watching the way Luke's hair shone in the warm sunlight, then turned back to look at her guests. "But I will do what I can. Anakin – Vader – has Palpatine's ear as his apprentice. It's possible I could ask him to intercede."

She felt ill, betraying Anakin in even this way. The last time he'd thought she had... Padmé clenched her fists to keep them from going to brush her throat. The bruises may have been long faded, but they may as well have been fresh there for all the difference it made to her. Sometimes – in the moment before sleeping, when her husband's hands caressed her bare skin, that terrifying feeling of an invisible force wrapping around her throat crept up on her, and she would cling tightly to Anakin and will it away. He never would have understood, not as every day brought him farther along the path into darkness. Not when they were now ensconced in the Palace so much, where the very air seemed toxic to her, and where even Luke's bubbly toddler personality was dampened and replaced with a quiet, pale child, who cried often.

"My lady?"

She jerked herself out of her dark thoughts, and forced a smile at Bail. "When will you stop addressing me that way, Senator – do you not remember I was relieved of my position by our dear emperor? I've no claim to that title anymore."

"You always will – my lady." Bail smiled at her, laugh lines creasing. "Your actions and demeanor have earned the respect of many beings across the galaxy."

"Had," Padmé corrected. "I wonder what they think of me now that I am wife of their dictator's right hand? But you're too kind, Senator Organa."

Her mood lightened somewhat after that, and the rest of the meeting was spent discussing groundwork, goals, hopes and dreams for the future. Things that could be undertaken over another year to assess their position and other opinions in the galaxy, and rally more to the cause if it was thought it would be useful. It gave her the sense of being needed on a wider scale again, grounded her in the well-being of the galaxy. Being a full-time mother was bliss and playing with her children made her happier than ever, but Padmé always knew in the back of her mind that there was something else yet left for her to accomplish.

Still, her walk after dinner with Luke and Leia could only make her smile. Luke had gotten pretty good at walking, but still had that odd waddle that was so adorable to watch. The grassy slope leading down to the sandy crescent of a beach was soft enough that when he fell, it didn't hurt too much.

Water was something that seemed to fascinate them, too. Maybe it was their Tatooine heritage, or Padmé's own love of water, but she'd realized after many baths that they both loved to sit in the water and touch it, splash it around, try to drink it, or smear it on her face, or any number of other things. So she sat on a bench, watching them sit in the lapping shallows and play with water. They were thus far very calm children, though she figured Luke would end up more like his father. He already favored Anakin in appearance, but she hoped he wouldn't follow in his father's footsteps completely. These children – all children – deserved a galaxy that was free, that didn't live under a manipulative and evil leader.

If only her husband could understand that.


The Emperor pulled the crushed velvet sleeve back down over his shriveled arm when the Emdee droid finished applying a bacta patch to the place the needle had pierced, and turned to stare at the hologram of the Theed spaceport worker. "You are certain of this?"

"Very, Your Excellency," the woman replied. Her voice shook. "They made no attempt to hide their identity."

"Most interesting. Dismissed." The hologram flickered away on the start of the worker's request for a reward, and Palpatine sat back, thinking. There weren't yet enough well-ranked spies among the former senator's entourage to know what she'd discussed with Senators Organa and Mothma, but prior to his rise to power, they'd been known as opponents for nearly every wartime bill. It was no stretch to think that perhaps they were thinking of ways to depose him and restore the democracy that had been broken long before any of them came to their titles.

He would have to keep an eye on this. Conspiracy, if that was the aim of this cabal, was a crime warranting unpleasant consequences.


Grasses hissed around his legs and his cloak snagged on bushes as he ran across the plain toward the thick forest half a kilometer distant. Behind him, a detachment of troops was in hot pursuit; occasionally one would get a shot off, but Seth Rossa was a Jedi and could easily dodge them, and most were wide anyway. The brown-nosers and those who didn't wish to get caught could say what they wanted about the superior training of clone troopers; in Seth's experience, they weren't nearly as reliable as the bright green blade of his lightsaber.

But they were numerous and annoying, and they clouded his mind. So many similar presences in the same place made perception of the Force more difficult, and Seth had to concentrate to use it at all. As he made the treeline, he heard the distant whine of their new starfighters. It didn't bother him too much. During the war, he'd blasted off from worse situations with half a hundred anti-air droids shooting at him and still managed to evade being hit. The Jedi didn't believe in luck, but if they had, Seth would have been the first one to start asking for it to hold out for him a little bit longer.

He'd long had a plan in case he'd been discovered here; it was the safest way to go, one of the first things he'd come up with when setting up. With informants everywhere, and troopers right behind, he'd thought it prudent. Complacency was what had brought the Jedi down, and as one of the last, Seth had a responsibility to keep himself alive.

Dropping to his belly and sliding beneath some undergrowth, Seth drew himself in, made himself small in more ways than one. He used the Force to regulate his breathing and heart rate, to cool his body so that if any of the troops had heat-sensors or life-signs scanners, he would be little more than a blip, easily written off as an animal. It was risky, given that he could be discovered at any moment and however much time he had then inevitably wouldn't be enough to bring himself back to normal and make a run for it, but it was a risk worth taking, and Seth had become used to taking calculated risks.

It seemed that just hiding had been enough and he needn't have worried; the troops crashed through the underbrush for a while, while the fighters screamed overhead, but none of them came close to Seth's hiding place. After an hour even the fighters had gone back to their base, and the air above the forest was full only of the noises of the native avians and the calls of some small life form.

Reaching into a belt pouch, he pulled out a small remote and thumbed one of the switches as he walked briskly down an animal track deeper into the wood. Senses still acute from his flight, he could hear the hum of systems powering up, the beeping of his reactivated astromech. Parting with the droid had been surprisingly tough; even though it wasn't capable of actual speech, he'd always thought that the little droid had started to get a personality of its own, and it would have been nice to have even a droid for company on some of the nights when he got to thinking too much. He knew that Anakin Skywalker's astromech was one of the more resourceful and well-traveled droids in the coterie kept by the Order, and R7-M8 had perhaps begun to pick up some of that.

But he'd had to be kept in powered-down mode, except in the times when Seth remotely activated him to get caught up on news from the wider galaxy. And now, when he was fleeing. His thoughts he'd learned to deal with.

The Aethersprite was just where he'd left it, always a good sign; and a layer of undisturbed detritus on it, even better. Mate beeped as Seth cleared off some dead leaves from around his socket and opened the cockpit for him.

"We're getting out of here," he said to the droid as he climbed in, and smiled a little at the excited beeping. "Hopefully my plan'll work. Put in a hyperspace course for Alderaan when we're out of atmosphere." When the final flight check showed all systems green, Seth closed the canopy and lifted up on repulsorlifts, then fired the sublights. He'd stashed a hyperspace ring away in the asteroid belt in this system, and hoped it was still there. Otherwise, it was going to be a very long, very boring trip.


"...going well. We have already finished with Xagobah, ahead of schedule, and are moving on to Sluis Van. From there we will cover the rest of the planets in the Sluis sector. After that we're going to head to the Vivenda sector; there've been reports of discontent on Bespin, and since that planet supplies a lot of the Empire's Tibanna it's important we keep it secure. I think we will be back to pick you and the children up on our way home to Imperial Center in two standard months, perhaps less."

Padmé shifted Leia in her lap; the little girl was squirming, watching the hologram of her father above the projector plate. "Be still, little one," she murmured, stroking her daughter's hair. It was frizzy and fluffed up from the frigid wind that swept across the lake today. She'd brush it later. That always calmed Leia down. To her husband, she asked, "What are you doing with dissenters?"

"We are reasonable. We don't kill them." Anakin – well, he was more Vader for the moment – had the presence of mind to at least try to heed her request that he be just. "Most are imprisoned. The leaders are taken aboard our ships to be brought back to Imperial Center for questioning."

"Just because they don't agree doesn't mean they ought to be thrown in prison, Anakin."

The hologram of her husband compressed his lips; he didn't like her calling him that anymore, but she refused to call him Vader. It sounded evil and perverted to her ears. And it wasn't her name, and not the name she wanted their children to carry. More importantly, it wasn't who her husband was.

He had given her his word when they'd returned from Mustafar that he was still who she married, but she wasn't blind. She'd seen how he'd changed over a year of months-long trips through the galaxy with precious enough time to relax. He'd grown moodier, more prone to sudden fits of rage and equally sudden swings into the eager, adorably unpracticed Padawan who'd won her heart. The tension and residue of what he'd experienced in the Clone Wars had not been allowed to fade, and when he wasn't on these circuits, he was either with Palpatine or with her. It seemed to be more of the former than the latter, and she'd noticed that the company he was in brought about a distinct change in his demeanor.

"We're just trying to keep the rest of the Empire's citizens safe. Doing this keeps the peace."

She decided not to argue it. If the children weren't with her, if this hadn't been a hyperwave transmission from light-years away, she might have, but for now she just wanted to have a conversation with him. He must have sensed that, or seen something in her face, because he shook his head, and gave her a smile.

"Is that Leia?"

The little girl heard her name and looked up, right at the projection of her father, and reached for it. This time Padmé let her, because it made her husband laugh a true laugh, and that made her heart glad to hear.

"She already looks bigger than I remember."

"They grow fast at this age, Mother tells me. She's been visiting, though not too much in this season. It's cold here in autumn."

"I remember." Vader now seemed more like the man she knew and even smiled again, and she thought he must be looking at his daughter. "And Luke?"

"He'll be half-wild by the time you come back," she replied with a little laugh herself. "He might only be a year old, but he's learned to walk, and we're forever running after him to make sure he doesn't fall into the lake. It's shallow enough around the shores for the most part, but..."

"Make sure he stays safe. If anything happened to one of you—"

"We're safe here, Anakin."

To her relief he didn't snap at the use of his old name. "Anything can happen," he replied seriously, but the moment passed in the blink of an eye. "Is Luke nearby now? I'd like to see him."

Padmé set Leia on the seat to babble happily at her father for a moment and went looking for Luke. Between her, the nanny droid, and others here she trusted to watch her children, they tried to keep a perimeter established so that if he strayed out of it there was someone to catch him and bring him back, but he could be anywhere within that area. She found him in the nursery, playing with a brightly colored ball, rolling it back and forth. He threw it barely hard enough for it to go three feet and come to rest against some blocks.

"Luke," she said gently, but paused when the ball wobbled where it sat. She was certain he hadn't touched it, and groundquakes weren't common here.

She picked him up, quiet as she walked back to the comm room. It was one more reminder to her of who her children were, and what they were. Luke and Leia would grow up to be Jedi, because they couldn't – couldn't – be anything else. She wasn't about to let them become Sith, and denying their heritage would be like trying to stop a stream in its tracks. You might dam the flow, but you couldn't stop it entirely.

But Luke didn't seem bothered at the moment, clambering up onto the chair with his sister to try and grasp the blue image there. Even at a fraction of life size, Padmé could tell how happy seeing them made her husband. Both of them had learned a few words, and after each one of them had excitedly called him "Da!" and waved grubby little hands, she moved them off and sat again. Her husband's smile was as brilliant as it had ever been.

"They'll be half grown by the time I come back," he said quietly.

"There's time yet."

"I miss you," he said suddenly. "I wish you could have stayed with me. The Incorrigible isn't exactly a luxury yacht, but I'd feel better if you were here."

"It wouldn't be any place for our children." Her face softened, though, and like her children, she reached out to brush her fingers through the air the hologram was projected into. "I miss you too, though, husband. We're all safe here, and we'll be safe here until you return."

Her husband raised a hand too, and she knew it was to place his fingers along the cheek of her holographic projection. "I love you more than anything in the galaxy, Padmé. I'll think of you every day until we're together again." His hologram turned for a moment, said something, and turned back. "I've got to go. I'll comm you again as soon as I can. Goodbye, my love."

The feed cut, and she was left staring at the cool gray of the emitter. "Goodbye," she whispered.


The Tantive IV dropped out of hyperspace and swung around on an approach vector for Alderaan. Because of its size, and the elevated traffic of refugee ships from various places around the galaxy, Organa had opted to revert farther away, so he could take a look at the world he cared so deeply for.

Blue and green and white, Alderaan spun peacefully through space, bathed in the light of her star. They were close enough to see how busy local space was; Bail could hear it faintly, the bridge comms kept low as most of the important communications were either run through the viewscreen or through the pilots' headsets. But most of his consideration was for the planet ahead of them. They were close enough to see the green and brown of the continents, their distinct shapes. There was the region where Aldera was.

He'd thought often over the last year about going to Padmé, offering her sanctuary on Alderaan. It was well known that the planetary government would take in and give asylum to anyone, and they were most reluctant to bend the knee to the Emperor anyway. She always seemed so unhappy whenever he ran into her at the Palace, which was often enough that he could see the progression of the dark circles under her eyes. Though those could also be from the little ones she had in her care, the two who looked like little clones of their parents.

Even on Naboo, she'd seemed so sad. Now that he knew she'd been married to Skywalker at the start of the Clone Wars, a lot of things made sense to the Senator. And the source of her sadness was probably seeing the man she loved become a monster.

"On approach, sir," Antilles said. "We'll be entering atmosphere in five minutes—woah!"

The exclamation was followed by a sharp maneuver that rocked Organa in his seat. "What was that? Did we get hit?"

"No sir—"

The comm crackled suddenly. "...anyone copy..."

Bail leaned forward, brow furrowed. "Something's trying to come through on the comm. Can you boost the signal?"

Antilles tapped some buttons, and the voice came through again, clear this time.

"Does anyone copy? I am requesting asylum from the planetary government of Alderaan, I may have been pursued from my origin point."

Bail depressed the comm button. "This is Senator Bail Organa on board the Tantive IV. That was a pretty close call you made there, we almost collided."

"Sorry. I didn't think anyone would be out this far."

"It's been a while since I've seen home, but that's not important now. To whom am I speaking?"

The voice sounded a bit more guarded after it responded, following a longer than usual pause. "Jedi Knight Seth Rossa. Who is this?"

"Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan. Did you say you wanted asylum?"

"Yes. I may have been pursued by Imperial troops."

"Then you'd better come aboard. We're opening the ventral docking bay now."

He watched an Aethersprite in Jedi colors detach from a hyperspace ring and swoop toward them on a long, curving vector, and wondered just what he'd begun.

"It's good to know the troopers didn't follow me," Rossa said when they'd landed in Aldera. Breha and he had been adamant in not allowing Imperial troops to be garrisoned on-planet, and for that Bail had been grateful. While it hadn't earned them any points with the new Imperial Senate and certainly not with Palpatine, Bail hadn't been looking for approval from anyone, but had followed his own principles and those which his citizens adhered to, for the most part. Nonetheless the Jedi had still kept his hood up and moved quickly from the Tantive IV to the palace, but Alderaan remained a Jedi-friendly planet, its leaders not buying into the supposed Jedi Rebellion.

"It sounds like quite a tale you have to tell," Bail replied, thanking the young Devaronian female who brought them both tea. "How about we start at the beginning? Where were you stationed at the end of the war?"

"I was keeping an eye on the situation on Gyndine; the Separatists were said to have a fleet in the area, and agents on-planet, so my clones and I were doing reconnaissance to determine if that was true. I was doing my best to mediate situations as they arose, but even in the Expansion planets the Jedi didn't have a large presence, and the Separatists had been there long enough to ingrain certain bits of propaganda." He took a sip of the tea.

"So how did you keep your clones from turning on you?"

"I didn't. I escaped." Seth's face was tight, every line standing out harshly. "I had to cut down the ones that stood in my way, but I escaped. I had to get back to the Temple to warn the Council that my clones had turned on me." He laughed hollowly. "I didn't suspect, not until I heard the beacon, that something might be amiss. It was too convenient that I should get attacked by my clones, and then the Temple beacon is activated at near the same time."

"I thought Jedi didn't believe in such things as convenience and coincidence."

"We're not all the same, Senator." There was only the barest edge to Rossa's voice, but now, he just sounded tired. "Either way, I got off Gyndine and made my way to Abridon, where I've been hiding out the last year or so. It wasn't until someone tipped off the Imperials on me when I went in to the nearest town to get supplies that anyone came after me. I'd kept my interceptor stashed away in the woods nearby my shelter, so I was able to make a run for it and lose the ground pursuit and take off. I ran into trouble on the way to pick up my hyperspace ring – a couple of those new death-trap starfighters they're rolling out – but I'm pretty sure I lost them on the way here. I've been traveling for almost three days trying to make sure I've not been followed. I didn't want to put you or Alderaan in any danger."

"Alderaan will endure," Bail replied. "And I will persevere, no matter what the esteemed Emperor may or may not do to me for harboring a Jedi."

"So you'll grant me asylum?"

"Alderaan does not turn away those in need. And I've always been a friend to the Jedi."

"Forgive me, Senator," Rossa said just a bit dryly, "But I haven't been sure who to trust for a year."

"Well, I think we need the wisdom of the Jedi in the galaxy. It's been gone only a year, and look what's happened." Bail gestured out to the city, packed full of refugees from all corners of the galaxy. "Speciesism is rampant, troops attack without warning and give no mercy to those who ask it, all dissent is silenced either by the sword or the purse or by simply vanishing..."

"It's not a good time to be welcoming to all. But I thank you gratefully for letting me stay."

"I had an idea, actually," Bail replied slowly. "Why don't you hide in plain sight? I could use the counsel of a Jedi, and the last place anyone will think to look will be at the side of a Senator."

"That a good idea?" Rossa seemed doubtful. "Now that Skywalker's become a turncoat, he can be used as a weapon by Palpatine. He's spent the last year going around the galaxy ferreting out remnant enclaves of Jedi. He'll be able to detect what I am if he has half a mind to it."

"Yes, but Palpatine keeps him running from sector to sector. Besides, he won't be looking for a Jedi so close to the Palace, and I can keep you far enough away from where they are usually that I think you'll be safe. But if you don't feel comfortable..."

"I don't," Rossa said, a little more forcefully.

"Then I can find a place for you in my wife's retinue. But like I said, these times call more than ever for the wisdom of a Jedi."

Rossa leaned back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair. For the first time, Bail realized just how exhausted, how sad and stoop-shouldered the Jedi seemed. "I don't know how wise the Order was at its end, Senator. Looking back on it now, I don't know how we couldn't have seen it coming, all the signs were there. Maybe we were just too arrogant, too confident in our prescience and our ability to sense evil..." he shook his head. "I'm not sure. But if the Jedi are ever going to rise again, someone's going to have to figure it out."

This was all outside Bail's realm of experience, and he felt vaguely uncomfortable, as though he'd just been exposed to something personal that wasn't meant to be shown. "I am sure that they will, Jedi Rossa," he said formally, standing. Rossa stood with him. "The Jedi have always been there when the galaxy needed them."

"Except this last time." Rossa inclined his head though, after a quiet moment. "I know you're taking an awful risk, allowing me to stay. I appreciate it, and I'll try to return the favor however I can."

"I'll talk to my wife and let you know the arrangements we come up with," Bail promised. They worked out a place for Rossa to stay while he was here, and two of Bail's own personal guard escorted the Jedi to his room.

Perhaps Rossa was right, he reflected later that night while finishing up some work in his personal study. The words on the datapad's screen had long since blurred together, and he wasn't really reading what was before him, but it didn't matter right now. After his talk with Padmé, Organa knew that for now he needed to keep quiet, dissent when necessary (an alarmingly large amount of the time as of late, to be sure), but not make overt moves.

"Thinking about the Jedi?"

Bail turned, a gentle smile coming to his lips at the sight of his wife. While theirs had been a marriage of convenience, one arranged to calm the waters between their houses, they had come to have real affection and love for each other. Breha was an intelligent woman with a quick wit, talented at many things – including figuring out with incredible accuracy what it was that was on her husband's mind. "More than ever now, we need what Jedi are left to stand up to Palpatine and this dictatorship he's set up. But what if all of them are like Rossa? He has no hope."

"He has no reason to right now, at least not to his mind." Breha walked round and put her arms around his shoulders. "Many have lost hope since the Empire was established at the end of the war. Promises of restoration of planets with economies devastated by battle haven't been fulfilled; emissaries of the Empire run roughshod over planetary governments and make them bend to Palpatine's will. And beyond it all, someone who once fought for the Republic is now leading the military arm of that which has stomped it out." Bail felt her sigh against his back. "There isn't much to hold hope for."

"But we must! The Republic—"

"I'm not saying we shouldn't have hope, dear husband," his wife replied, sliding away to walk toward the door to their bedroom. "But it needs time to grow. Hope alone isn't good enough soil for oro woods to sprout, and even then they take years to reach full size. Lose hope, though, and you lose it all."

Bail sat in thought on that for a long moment, before powering down his datapad and terminal for the night and following Breha into their bedroom. He, at least, would keep hope alive.