CHAPTER THREE: THE BIG KAHUNA

STEELA

Tandin hands me a paper cup filled with a pinkish liquid.

"Here. It's the same thing I gave your brother after the Separatists tortured him. Hopefully it'll perk you up same as him." He says

"I really don't want to puke all over you, Tandin." I fret, cautiously taking the cup.

"Don't worry. It's designed so weak prisoners can keep it down." He reassures. "You shouldn't have a problem."

I take a sip. The liquid has a mild fruity taste, but nothing cloying. And after a few seconds, it gives a pretty big jolt of energy.

"Ever thought of going into the energy drink business?" I joke after gulping down what's left.

Tandin turns to the other occupants of the room and takes a bow.

"Ladies and gentlemen, she's back."

A couple people applaud. Mina's too tired to do anything but give a thumbs-up.

Poor Mina. She's been taking care of me, trying to help with the trial, and getting her family back together all at the same time. Now that I can keep fluids down (Thank you, thank you, thank you Tandin) it'll take a load off her shoulders.

And then I get an idea. While the adults are occupied, I wave Saw over.

"Saw, there isn't a wheelchair lying around, is there?"

…..

One afternoon when I was in the hospital, Tandin came down to my room with a hair comb and asked me if I'd like him to do my hair.

"Why?" I asked. He had already given me a kidney, he should be working instead of deepening the debt I owed him.

"I thought you might like a visitor." He replied.

Code for: "Dendup isn't above making me comb your hair to remind me of the crime going on beneath the palace floors."

But it didn't seem like he minded too much. He propped me up and started to work on the tangles. I winced a little at the tugging.

"Sorry," he apologized. "I usually don't comb girls' hair."

"Try starting at the ends and going up." I suggested.

Once Tandin figured out how to comb my hair without murdering my scalp, he did his best to be gentle and soothing.

"You can close your eyes if you want," he suggested, running the comb through my hair. "It doesn't look very pretty."

"Thank you," I said after a while. "I never got the chance to thank you before, for the kidney."

"You are very welcome, my dear." He said, just as the comb caught on a tangle.

After he combed my hair, Tandin came down to have his lunch in my room every day. I don't think Dendup made him do it. I think he just didn't want me to be lonely. When Dendup finally caught on, I was thrown into the cell with the Mary Sues.

A king believes in kindness and compassion. He is gentle, good, and fair. All the qualities that Dendup said he had…

I think Tandin actually has them.

….

Saw wrestles a wheelchair through the Bonteris' back door about a half hour later. John helps him put me in it.

"Saw…" I say, staring at the words PROPERTY OF SACRED HEART HOSPITAL emblazoned across the back of the chair in huge block letters.

"I'll cover them up." Saw shrugs.

"I have duct tape," Sierra offers.

Sierra covers PROPERTY OF SACRED HEART HOSPITAL in light blue duct tape while Saw and John figure out how to get the wheelchair's footrests in place.

"There." John pats the side of the chair. "You're good to go. Just please don't give Mina too many heart attacks."

SIERRA

After I finish affixing the duct tape to Steela's wheelchair, Dad hands me a manila envelope full of papers. I duck into my room and start sorting through them.

Steela wheels her way into our room and raises her eyebrow.

"What are those?"

"Tandin asked his coworkers to send him all the details on the Lazarus Project," I say, sifting through the documents and forming piles. "He had the office staff send it to a fax machine at my dad's work."

"Please tell me they didn't say 'send this to John Bonteri.'"

"No. It's addressed to Cooper. According to Tandin, they're filling Cooper in on my dad's situation. Mind helping me sort these?"

Steela puts half the papers on her lap and nods to my bare bedroom wall.

"Got any tape? We should hang them up so we can see them all at the same time."

Thirty minutes and a roll of tape later, all the documents are hanging on my bedroom wall.

"What do we do?" I ask.

"I'm going to look at them and try to find any connections."

Saw walks in and sees the wall.

"What the heck are you doing?" he demands.

I throw up my hands. "It works in crime shows."

Saw approaches the board. "In the cop shows, they also say everything out loud."

"Beats what we've already been doing." Steela mutters. "All right. The first Lazaruses are attempted: Chairman Papanoida's daughters. They were kidnapped, and files indicate that a report was to be sent out claiming they'd been found dead. Fortunately for them, Senator Chuchi rescued them before the project went into action."

I skim over the file in my hand. "Second instance seems to have been successful…" I look up from the papers. "Guys, can we not do anything for this one?"

"Who is it?" Saw asks.

"Miraj Scintel. She ran a slave empire."

"Then why'd they take her?"

"Maybe because she decided to make Ahsoka dangle in a cage just for fun and giggles?"

"Motion seconded." Saw announces. "All right. The third Lazarus is an Agnes Syndulla. This one was effective, too."

"Why does that name sound familiar?" Steela asks.

Saw looks at her. "You're thinking of Cham Syndulla, we researched him during the rebellion. He led freedom fighters on Ryloth, and apparently this Agnes girl is his niece." He glances back down at the file for a minute. "She was taken during the Battle of Ryloth."

I blink. "But that was over two years ago."

"If they're using Mary Sues, she might have given in." Steela muses. "I was only in there for five months and they were really getting to me."

Saw shakes his head. "They're not using the Sues. Apparently she's patient enough to handle them."

"Somebody deserves a medal." I mutter.

Steela's head snaps up.

"Oh my God."

"What?"

Steela wheels herself over to the wall, picks up a marker and starts to write on the pictures.

Under the Papanoidas, she writes PANTORA.

Miraj, ZYGERRIA.

Me and my family, ONDERON

Agnes, RYLOTH.

And her own photograph, ONDERON.

She wheels herself back, admiring her handiwork.

I look at Saw, confused.

"Don't look at me. She's the one who does all the planning!" Saw protests.

Steela swivels her chair around. "You don't see it?"

Saw and I give her a blank stare.

"Um…see what?"

Steela rests her face in her hands as if to say I am surrounded by idiots.

"I'm going to call Hutch and Hero. You guys get Lux on a hologram. They need to see this."

SAW

When we get Hutch and Hero on a hologram, I set a disk on the table next to their holograms and punch in Lux's number.

"Is he going to answer?" Sierra wonders.

"He'd better," I reply. "This secret meeting only can last as long as Mina's at the grocery store."

John and Mina have been excluded from this meeting. For obvious, Lux-related reasons.

There's a buzzing sound, and suddenly Lux's holographic image pops up.

"Hi, Saw."

"Dude, do you have any idea how dead you are?" I ask. "Your mom hit the roof when she found out you were gone."

"It can't be any worse than Carlaac."

Sierra looks over her shoulder and says offhandedly "Mom says when you get home, you're grounded."

Lux rubs the back of his neck. "I expected that."

"I'm not running interference for you this time."

"Come on, Sierra. Please?"

"No. Where are you?"

Suddenly, there's a sound coming from Lux's hologram. A very drunkclone staggers into view.

"Are these Ahsoka's friends? Hi, Ahsoka's friends!" He slurs, waving at us.

Steela waves back. Lux gently grabs the clone's shoulders and turns him around.

"Blitz, how about you go back to your brothers?" he suggests.

"Yayyy…" Blitz stumbles off

"What was that about?" Tandin asks.

"This is what happens when you give a bunch of stressed-out soldiers a still and a military discount at the supermarket." Lux responds. "I'm pretty sure Captain Rex and I are the only sober ones here. Did you know that most of them are silly drunks?"

Steela rolls her eyes. "This is exactly why I only let Dono buy one bottle of spirits for all of us."

Hutch glares at her. "I thought you were just being cheap."

Steela looks like she couldn't care less whether Hutch thought she was just being cheap. "Anyway. On to the matters at hand."

The implications of Blitz's appearance dawn on Sierra. "Lux, you're in a clone barracks?"

Steel taps her yardstick three times. "Ahem?"

"Sorry."

Steela keeps on rolling. "Vying for precious space on Sierra's wall are several pictures. If you didn't realize it from my God-awful driver's license picture, they are the Lazaruses."

She wheels herself over to the wall and whacks the first picture with the yardstick. "First up are Chi Eckway and Che Amanwe Papanoida. They're from Pantora. Next is Miraj Scintel, the Queen of Zygerria and a generally awful person."

THWAP! She plows the yardstick onto Queen Psycho's picture with a ferocity that makes me jump.

"Followed quickly by her carbon opposite Mina Bonteri and her family, from Onderon…"

She circles the Bonteris' picture with the ruler.

"Up next is Agnes Syndulla, the niece of Ryloth's Cham Syndulla…"

THWAP!

"And lastly is the most important person…me." she smirks.

I roll my eyes. You wish, sis.

"Okay, so what's the big deal here?" I ask.

Steela waves the yardstick. "Don't you see? Four of these Lazaruses came from a planet other than Onderon. Dendup couldn't have had anything to do with those!"

Hero's jaw drops. "What? Are you saying-?"

"This isn't just another of Dendup's schemes. This is a galaxy-wide project. Dendup's just another pawn in the game."

"If it's not Dendup, then who's behind this?" Sierra queries.

"If I knew, I would tell you. But these documents don't give any identifying details. Just fake names."

"How do you know they're fake names?" Hero asks.

Sierra snorts. "Because they're even dumber than 'Taylor Swift.'"

There's silence until Hutch breaks it.

"Hold it. During the commercials for the University of Onderon game, I watched this show called 'Criminal Minds.'" He says. "It's about cops who study behavior to catch criminals. Could we do something like that?"

"We're not calling the guy behind this 'the unsub.'" Hero snaps.

Suddenly, a clone's voice screams "I AM THE BIG KAHUNA!"

Lux looks over his shoulder. "Oh Force, they're drinking beer out of Rex's helmet now."

"Let's call the guy 'the Big Kahuna." I suggest.

Steela throws up her hands. "Fine. Whatever. Big Kahuna it is."

Tandin clears his throat. "Militiamen are taught to look for sequences in crimes when we have an unidentified subject of an investigation. In this case, there's a very strong victimology."

"I'm sorry, what's victimology?" Sierra asks.

"Simply put, it's the study of what the victims have in common. If we can discover why they were picked, then we can better understand the Big Kahuna." Tandin replies. "If we showed these pictures to a stranger, they would be able to pick one thing, right off the bat."

"All the instances of the Project involve women." Hero realizes.

"Not just any women. Young women." Tandin clarifies. "Whoever is selecting the victims either doesn't like them, or needs them for a later stage in the project. But what's more is that these women and girls are all related to an important figure."

"The Papnoidas are Baron Papanoida's daughters, Scintel is a queen herself, my mom is a Senator, and Agnes' uncle and Steela led rebellions!" Lux blurts out.

"Exactly."

"But we already know this is a public relations tactic," Steela says. "What else?"

Tandin rubs his chin. "Steela, with a victimology this specific, the Big Kahuna wouldn't leave anything up to chance. He selected you. There's a very good chance that you've met him before."

Suddenly, Blitz staggers back into view.

"Ahsoka's boyfriend!" he cries. "Ahsoka's boyfriend, you're going to be our designated driver! We're going on a beer run!"

"I'm doing something important. Can Rex drive you?" Lux begs.

"No!" Blitz shrieks, shaking like a little kid who's been given an unlimited supply of candy. "Rex had a beer! You are the designated driver!"

Lux takes a deep breath. "Okay. Go wait in the car while I finish this up."

Blitz takes off, but through the filters I can hear drunken singing of the song "Beer Run."

"B- double E- double R -U-N, BEERRUN!"

"I have to go before they wake up the entire planet. Call me if you find anything." Lux mutters, and his hologram fizzles out.

"Hutch and Hero, get here as quickly as you can." Tandin says. "Travel under false names, pay cash, and change flights multiple times. If the Big Kahuna is as organized as we think he is, we need to throw him off the trail as best we can." Hutch and Hero fizzle out, and he turns to Steela.

"As I was saying before, you probably have met him. If you remember anything, you can help us find him."

"But I don't." she says.

"Something else militiamen are taught is that our subconscious sometimes remembers things that we don't. There are ways to access those memories." He says. "Steela, your memories might be our only hope. Will you let us try to unlock them?"

Steela nods.

"Okay."

PADME

I don't cry where Ahsoka can hear. I wait until I'm alone in my office to break down.

Nobody is listening to me! They don't care how weak the evidence is. They don't care about the fallacies, they want a scapegoat for this bombing. They want my baby dead!

Shaking with sobs, I bury my head in my arms.

She's just a little girl. If a Separatist prison guard who doesn't like Jedi can see that, then why can't the Senate see that they're going to kill a little girl?

Unless…

I raise my head from my arms.

Unless they don't want her dead.

They just want us to think she's dead.

My blood runs cold. Ahsoka is well-known throughout the galaxy. Could this be a setup for the Lazarus Project?

No.

They will not turn my girl into a Lazarus.

There's only one way to help Ahsoka's case at this point: to shock the Senate, to distract them long enough for Anakin to find the real culprit. And I have the perfect weapon.

I quickly boot up the computer, going madly to work on a speech. There's a small debate before Ahsoka's trial; the perfect time for me to drop the bombshell.

Members of the Senate. With all eyes fixed on the war, we have neglected to discover a major crime unfolding among our allied worlds. A crime of deception, of false imprisonment, of "death" that is not death.

It has come to my attention that some we believe are dead, are in fact still with us today.

As I type, there's a tiny ping at the back of my mind.

There's a child involved in this, Padme. Somebody else's little girl. If you do this, you very well could be signing her death warrant.

I shake it off.

As a mother, I have a book of priorities. My daughter comes before Steela Gerrera every time.

(A/N: And the plot thickens. But before I get into the good stuff, I have some announcements to make.

First, I do not own Agnes. She belongs to Kasai1214, who was nice enough to let me use her. Unless she tells me otherwise, pretend this didn't happen if you're reading one of her stories (which are awesome). I also don't own the song the clones are singing. It's "Beer Run," by Todd Snider. It plays on a radio show broadcast where I live.

Secondly, Steela is not the only person who's sick…Yup. I am not feeling too well, and that's going to affect my writing. So please be patient with me if future updates are slower and/or shorter, I promise I'll make up for it when I feel better.

Thanks to starwarshobbitfics, Kasai1214, and StarwarsRulz for your reviews. Speaking of those, please review! They make me so happy, and they help get chapters out quicker. )