This meeting could not have been planned at a better time. Tarrth, a small world in the mid-rim with cultural and racial ties to Alderaan was revolting against Imperial rule. All across the planet, mobs demanding bread and justice were storming Imperial garrisons with hunting rifles and improvised incendiary cocktails. Imperial officials were being hanged and eviscerated in the streets. The governor was besieged in his own capital.
Word from his intel connections was that that would be the Death Star's next deployment. It would seem that there was no limit to Tarkin's blood lust.
The doors to the briefing room slid open and a squad of stormtroopers walked in.
"Gentlemen," Veers said, considering the stormtroopers thoughtfully, before nodding to Aigel Thazj and Horan Kor, his Colonels. Thazj opened a small tablet device that Veers knew was a wireless a scrambler and started typing in commands. After a moment, he nodded to Veers, indicating that all of the cameras in this particular briefing room aboard the ISD Devastator had been set in a feedback loop.
The stormtroopers started taking off their helmets, revealing their true idenities. Crix Madine, General of the 501st Legion, was at the head of the squad, followed by his retainers, Colonel Mardos Pell and Commander Daine Jir. Captains Xamuel Lennox, Lorth Needa and Gaman Kelemann were amongst the others, along with a handful of Commanders and Lieutenants-important bridge officers-from their respective Star Destroyers. Altogether, Madine, Veers, Needa, Lennox and Kelemann represented men that Vader had hand-picked to serve aboard Death Squadron. Their retainers were men that they had selected themselves, men whose silence and loyalty were assured.
Veers and his colonels rose to greet the officers and exchange handshakes and pleasantries. There were some deep bows and nods of respect, sincere shows of loyalty and the deepest commitment. It was, for them, the last expressions of uncertainty, a violent stamping to solve the problem of cold feet before they got on to their real business.
Just before they broke to take their seats at the table, Veers pulled Kelemann aside and whispered a question beyond an earshot of the others.
"Did you have any people on Alderaan when it happened?" Veers asked.
Kelemann's stony face said little, but his eyes said enough. "My parents were living in a retirement home on Aldera."
"I am so sorry, my friend."
Kelemann said nothing else, he just nodded, then broke off and took his seat at the table.
"Well?" Lennox said, lips quivering for a moment. "Where shall we begin?"
Thazj leaned forward, his hands folded over the table. "I think this should go without saying, but for posterity's sake, I should put it out there: nothing said here can leave this room, not until we have decided our course of action and made sure that our men are with us."
"Agreed," one of Lennox's officers said. Then the rest of them nodded, still unable to push past the anxiety that settled over all of them. These were all career officers, men whose lives had been almost entirely spent in the service of the Empire and its ideals. If defection-or at least, desertion-was to be the topic of this meeting, then where could any of them possibly begin?
"How about a declaration of intent?" Veers proposed.
"Or at least a reasoning behind it," Madine said, twiddling his thumbs. "I'm sick. Sick of Tarkin, Palpatine, the Empire, everything. I don't know about the rest of you. I know some of you are younger than me, some of you older, but I was...just an enlisted man when Palpatine come to power. I believed his promise of a new order. I believed his mantra about security and peace..."
"We all did, Crix," Needa said.
"It's sickening, isn't it?" Lennox asked. "What our Empire is becoming."
Veers tapped his fingers on the table "When I took my first first command, the Emperor was still the Supreme Chancellor. We still voted."
Madine nodded. "And now he's uncontested Emperor and he has a superweapon and all of us here are at least partly responsible."
Lennox chuckled bitterly. "Oh, how far gone is our honor. The glory of our victories tainted by sick pittins like Tarkin."
"Or Vader," Madine said.
Lennox's eyes twinged with pain and he pursed his lips and looked away. Needa just kept silent. Madine knew; all of them, to an extent, hated themselves for allowing themselves to change so easily with the Empire.
"But what do we do now?" Madine asked. "No matter how skilled or competent Vader might have found us, our lives as we knew them are over."
Veers closed his eyes and scratched the bridge of his nose. If there was one thing that infuriated him the most about the events of the past few days, it was this. "And pretty soon," he began, "we won't even have a place in the house of sins we built. Listen, I have friends in intelligence."
"Is that why you always seem to know more than you should?" Kelemann asked.
Veers only smiled. "My friends have intercepted this transmission, between Admiral Ozzel and Grand Moff Tarkin."
Veers placed his palm-sized projector on the table and a hologram of Kendall Ozzel appeared.
"As per your request, Grand Moff, I have learned some more information about possible conspirators within my command. After speaking with some of our Captains and Generals, I have come to these conclusions-Wermis, though incompetent and cowardly, is loyal and will continue to serve you as he had served Lord Vader. The rest...they are too committed to accept you as a new commander. Vader kept them on long leashes because he trusted them and they served him well. But they are all very suspicious of you and of what happened to Vader in the Battle of Yavin. They could be plotting against you as we speak. I will continue to monitor them until I have further orders."
Madine swallowed hard as the intercepted transmission ended.
Needa's jaw clamped. "That filthy scrag."
"Tarkin's going to have our heads before long," Lennox said.
"Maybe," Needa began, his voice barely over a strained whisper, "it's time that we leave the Empire. I've been saving my money away. Last month, I used an alias to make a stealthy purchase of several thousand acres of farmland on a small, insignificant planet outside the Empire's jurisdiction. It is absolutely beautiful."
"So that's it?" Kelemann scoffed. "You're just going to run?"
"Well, you know what's happening, Gaman!" Needa countered. "Blast, it, the Emperor's got no more use for us. We're dead."
Lennox gave a sharp nod. "Now that the sides are being drawn, do you see any honor in our choices?"
"Sirs, if I may?" Mardos Pell interjected. "After seeing that video, I would give anything-even my life-to get back at that bastard Ozzel. If you're looking for honor, Captain Lennox, then there might be some in taking that stang down a notch or two."
"Gentlemen," Veers said, "there's more. My friends in intel had information on the Death Star's latest deployment. They're going to Tarrth."
Needa's camp immediately fell into disarray. Captain Needa, and as a result of his prejudices, all of his handpicked bridge officers, were natives of Tarrth. Needa was shaking his head part in panic, part in anger. "They won't have a chance. Tarrth doesn't even have a deflector shield!"
Madine was equally horrified. "It'll be a genocide..."
"That kriffing Eriduian stang!" A commander from Needa's ship roared, slamming his fist on his desk. "Tarkin won't rest until he's spilled every drop of Old Alderaan blood, will he?"
"We have options, gentlemen," Madine said. "I know someone. Someone...who can get us in touch with Rebel High Command."
"Defect?" Lennox gasped. "I think there's no point in that now, given how Tarkin annihilated most of their military."
"There will always be people willing to rise up against injustice," Madine said firmly. "That is the flaw in Tarkin's doctrine. The spirit cannot be broken by fear alone. The only question that remains is if we are men willing to take such a stand."
Lennox's visage sharpened. "But how could we look at our men in the eyes, and tell them to betray their vows, the loyalty they swore to the Empire?"
"An Empire that no longer exists!" Madine said. "That's been corrupted from the very top! Besides, don't you remember what you said in that briefing room? Our men are loyal to us!"
Veers raised his hand, trying to calm the table and break up the staccato of side-arguments that Madine's comments had triggered. Even after the table had calmed, he took a moment, several clarifying breaths to compose his thoughts.
"How close are you to your men? How well do you know them? I can say, with confidence, and without any embellishment, that I am closer to my men than any Imperial commander I have ever met."
Madine raised his brows. "You still ride point, all the time."
"And they think I'm a hero for it. They will love any commander willing to ride or die with them. But that's not the point. The point is, if any of you were as close to your men as I am, then you would know that they are deeply unhappy. Ever since the emergence of the Death Star and news of Alderaan, morale has been in a free fall. We've had years of dealing directly with a man as cold and harsh as Vader, of reading the Emperor's orders for ourselves. We've been thoroughly desensitized to the sorts of cruelty that our leadership is capable of. But our men aren't. And now that the Emperor has unleashed this new weapon, so destructive that even his galaxy-sized propaganda machine can't hide its effects, our men are starting to realize just what a horrible thing they are a part of.
"Tell me, how many of your men are Alderaanians? How many are Tarrthi? How many of them serve directly under a Lieutenant or Sergeant or that is? And how many of your men don't give a blind nerf about politics or policy, so long as they get to serve alongside the men of their platoons, whom they have, over the years, learned to call 'brother?'" Veers took a moment to let his words sink in. "When all of you can answer these questions-as I am-then maybe, we might be able to move together."
Kelemann looked up from his hands. "And if we were to move, exactly how would we?"
"Ozzel would have to be dealt with first, obviously," Veers said.
"He's quartered aboard the Tyrant," Lennox said, referring to the ship that was his own command. "I'll deal with that scum."
Veers nodded. "Capture him. He might be worth interrogating. I can move against Wermis. My men are stationed here and his crew too much respect for me and my reputation to stop me."
"And then?" Needa asked.
"We set a course, somewhere far and away," Veers said. "Perhaps beyond the galactic rim. But of course, this is all speculatory. I know that I am ready. My men would follow me into hell in a hand basket if that was my wish. Can you be certain of your own?"
Madine and his retainers were already nodding. His command was stormtroopers, the 501st, which had been Vader's personal legion since fall of the Old Republic. They had a solidarity that matched Veers' own Thundering Herd. If Madine made the call to defect, they would follow him. But as Veers looked further down the table, he was surprised to see nods from Kelemann, then Lennox, then Needa.
Zevulon Veers sat in the quarters of his Starlight-Class light freighter, the Durasteel Gull, browsing through a codex on his datapad. Twenty years ago, after Operation: Knightfall and Darth Vader's slaughter of all the Jedi in the Temple, Obi-Wan Kenobi managed to secretly enter the Temple and download a portion of the vast archives into a data disc, which he brought back to the new Jedi Council in hiding. This codex, a manual on training novices by Master Gromo, was a part of that archive Kenobi had rescued all those years ago.
Zev sighed and put the datapad down. His eyes stung from reading day-and-night, trying to get his mind around some of the training techniques Ahsoka had used to teach him years ago. He knew then, when he made his commitment to the Jedi Order, that training an apprentice would be one of his duties. This was his pledge: to be a protector of the Jedi Order's secrets and a custodian to its teachings. To seek out those sensitive to the Force and protect them from the machinations of the Empire. To teach them the Jedi way so that they might strengthen the Order to its former might and bring down the Sith that now rule the galaxy unopposed.
Yes, he had pledged that much when he accepted Ahsoka's tutelage eight years ago, but he had never thought that the time for him to pass on what he learned would come so quickly. He hardly considered himself a fully trained Jedi Knight. After all, there were some abilities-Force speed, Telekinesis-that he still had not learned to use. And perhaps he would never learn. After all, his body was far less attuned to the Force than others'.
Master Ahsoka had told him, time and time again, that he had made the best of his potential, that he surpassed all of her expectations. That was enough to be proud of. And besides, he was born on a highly populated Core World, a place where the Empire used scanners to ferret out anyone with a count higher than five thousand. If he had a greater attunement to the Force, then he would have been abducted and murdered during his childhood, just like the thousands of other Force-Sensitives Vader and Sidious had discovered over the years.
He took another deep breath and exhaled slowly, once again feeling his insecurities grow more distant. As Master Ahsoka had said, everything happens for a reason. He was grateful enough to have met her and have learned the ways of the Force under her tutelage. Despite his limitations, he knew he was a great asset to the Jedi Order in hiding and a great asset to the Rebellion. The powers he had were enough to enable him to do his duty.
But did that qualify him to teach? He wasn't a natural teacher like Pooja was-his attempts to lead a class at the academy on Naboo often produced mixed results, with his explanations and examples sometimes getting the children to understand and sometimes leaving them bewildered. Furthermore, who want to take lessons from a weak master?
Either way, Ahsoka had also instructed him to teach Leia some Force Meditation techniques and some of the basics of Teräs Käsi. This struck him as strange-the Jedi Order was not known to take people into training so lightly. Ahsoka and Ferus had screened him intensively when he first met them all those years ago. What made the Princess so worthy as to be accepted without such an evaluation?
Was she strongly attuned to the Force? Zev didn't think so. He certainly didn't sense a great amount of power emanating from her aura. She appeared to him and his Force-Sense as any other normal human. Which made him wonder again: why was Ahsoka so eager to see her trained? Especially when Leia wasn't entirely receptive to the idea?
They'd had a few sessions after hypering out of of Ansion, while en route to rendezvous with Home One beyond the galactic rim. Zev tried to teach Leia about clearing her mind and catching the current of the Force. Several grumbling hours later, Leia stood and announced she was giving up before retreating to the isolation of the guest quarters.
Zev took another deep breath and dismissed the doubts. It wasn't his place to question his master's wisdom. He had faith she was making the right decision. If she felt he was ready for this responsibility, then he was, even if he himself did not. Besides, there was too much he didn't yet know. Something else was at work here, and he wouldn't be surprised if the Princess was the focal point of the action.
He exhaled, trying to clear his mind. The Force would reveal things to him in the coming weeks, of that, he was sure. For now, it would be best to stay sharp. To that end, he did a set of push-ups, sit-ups and pull-ups, resourcefully utilizing the ledge that extended over the top of the door frame to his room. His comm rang in the middle of his exercise. He wiped a few beads of sweat from his brow as he picked up the device.
"Hello?" he asked.
"Are we safe to talk?"
Zev set the comm down for a moment then closed the door to his quarters. He unfurled the fold-out console over his roll and accessed the scanners to make sure there were no listening devices active in the docking bay outside. Home One was the Rebel flagship, and supposed to be the ultimate Alliance safe house, yet Zev was beginning to have his doubts. Toprawa was supposed to be a top secret mission-yet the Imps had found out about that. In this day and age, it was impossible to be too safe.
"This is kind of short notice, don't you think?" Zev said back into the comm. "I wasn't planning on hearing back from you for a while. I'm putting you on visual."
He plugged the comm into his console and a holographic projection of Crix Madine appeared. The General's beard looked gruffer and more unkempt than usual.
Zev sat back on his bed. "So what's going on, General?"
"Everything has changed since the last time we spoke. Darth Vader is dead."
Zev blinked. "What?"
"That dogfight over the Death Star at the Battle of Yavin-"
"How?"
"I don't know," Madine said, shaking his head quickly. "Vader was basically separated from us the whole time he was on the Death Star. Not even the 501st went with him there. All I know is what Tarkin told us-which is that Vader flew his own TIE-an advanced model at that-into the dogfight and was shot down."
Zev shook his head. "No, it couldn't have happened that way. All of our fighters were shot down except for one-and according to his debriefing, he saw that special TIE fighter-it hit him several times before he pulled out of his attack run."
"Then Tarkin lied."
"But why?"
"Because he had Vader killed." Madine gave a sardonic grin. "I'd suspected it all along, but this...this confirms it. It had to have happened that way, there's no other explanation."
"No...That doesn't make sense. Why would he do that?" Zev rubbed his forehead, trying to make sense of all the ramifications of these developments. "What else has happened? What haven't you told me yet?"
"A day after-not even a day after, hours after, we were summoned to the Death Star for a grand military reception. There was a woman there, some redhead. A Sith."
"Sith? How can you be sure?"
"She had a lightsaber."
Force. If Vader had been killed and there was a new Sith, then... That could only mean one thing: that the Emperor had found an even stronger apprentice to replace Vader with, someone that the Alliance could only expect to be crueler and more destructive-more dangerous. Master Ahsoka needed to be told right away.
"Listen, Zev." Madine was shuffling his fingers together pensively. "Everything has changed for us over here. Our own intel sources have told us that Tarkin has it out for us. He thinks we're dangerous just because we served under Vader."
"The Emperor's new apprentice wants the Military wiped clean of any proof Vader ever existed," Zev said glumly.
Madine nodded.
"Do you need extraction?" Zev was already typing up a request for resources on his tablet. "I can get the brass to organize a rescue operation for you-or I can go through some of my master's mercenary contacts if you want something a little more low key-"
"That won't be necessary."
"What do you mean?" Zev frowned. "I know you've got durasteel nerves, General, to have been reporting from within Darth Vader's inner-circle for a year...but don't push your luck. You're in a dangerous situation and you need an out. No one will doubt your bravery for bowing out now."
Madine frowned, then looked to the floor as his eyes began to betray something he'd been hiding since he opened the channel. Zev's Jedi instincts tingled as he felt something amiss.
"General...?"
"Zev, I've reached out to your father."
He twitched almost imperceptibly, his head jerking a couple degrees to his left. Then his eyes went wide like those of an enraged Ansonian bull. "You did what?"
"Look, he came to me, alright. He knew-before any of the others did-that we were all scragged by the shift in power. He wanted a way out."
Zev glared at Madine. "And how did he know to go to you for that?"
"If you're asking if I've ever said anything to him before, or done anything to compromise my cover-"
"Or yourself as a source?" Zev shook his head, not registering all of Madine's protests. "If he knew, or had any inkling that you were informing to us, then he and Vader could have set things up to give you disinformation-"
"Damn it, Zev, have I ever given you bad info?"
Zev closed his eyes, not wanting to calm down but recognizing that he had stepped out of place and allowed his anger to do the driving. He shook his head.
"Has my intel ever been anything short of spectacularly useful?"
"No, General, you've always given me good info."
"Then listen to me. I've never done anything to compromise myself, to your father or anyone else." He folded his arms the looked around for a second. "Your father...he just knows me, knows that I've been plagued by guilt and carrying doubts since Dentaal. So he thought I would be sympathetic to his plans to defect."
That could not possibly be true. His father, defecting from the Empire? He hadn't seen the man in eight years or spoken to him in six, but he knew him well enough to say, with almost absolute certainty, that he would never betray the Empire or the grand vision of a New Order that Palpatine had outlined in his commencement speech before the last meeting of the Old Republic Senate twenty years ago. This was a filthy lie. A trick of some kind.
"We called a meeting together. Some of the other officers in Death Squadron, people we were close to. People we could trust."
"Who?" Zev asked.
"Lennox, Kelemann and Needa. Their officers. And we came to an agreement that we would defect together. And all of our men would come with us."
Madine was thoroughly confused by Zev's reaction-or rather, non-reaction-to the news.
"Well?" Madine asked. "Aren't you going to congratulate us? Between us, that's four Star Destroyers, a standing army of ground troops and assault vehicles, several wings of TIEs and a Legion of Stormtroopers, all ready to jump ship to your side of the struggle."
Zev looked up at Madine, his eyes still set in that unrelenting, displeased glare. "Did you tell him about me?"
The General blinked several times then shook his head. "No, Zev. I just told him that I had a contact, not that it was you..."
Zev didn't let up. He could see through Bantha poodoo when it was being served right up to him.
"No, I swear-"
"You kriffing son of a nerf!" Zev roared, while punching the wall. "We had one caveat when we made our agreement a year ago. You broke the rules! He knows where I am now, or at least has an idea. Because of you."
"Zev-"
"I can't even help you anymore." The disgust in his voice was palpable.
"What? The scrag you mean, you 'can't help me?'" Madine paced forward, until only the upper half of his body showed on the projection. "What about the year I've put in working for you? All of those tips? All of those rebel bases, saved from raids. You owe it to me!"
"No! It doesn't work that way. My father doesn't get to just defect and wash his hands clean of everything he's done. You know what he's done, don't you? He's an evil kriff."
"Yeah, and so was I when you recruited me." Madine was poking his finger out accusingly now. "But you said that High Command would overlook that if I worked for you. You said that I could have a place at the table if I provided reliable intel. And you can't reasonably say that I'm any better or worse than your father, so he deserves a chance to be brought in to."
Zev shook his head. "You have no idea-none, whatsoever-what he's done to me, how he ruined my life. So don't you damn tell me that he deserves a chance."
The look that formed upon Madine's face middled between astonishment and pity. "Kriffin' P. So it really is just personal between you and him?"
He flushed when he realized just how much of his hand he'd exposed.
"Zev..." Madine sighed. "Come on-you can't let that get in the way. If you have a problem with him, then it's between you and him, you can't...you can't hang me out to dry for that."
"Crix." Zev's jaw set into an implacable clench. "Until I have murdered children, unleashed plagues on unsuspecting civilian populations or taken my marching orders from Darth Vader, you can't tell me anything."
Madine's expression hardened again and he tried to protest but Zev just wouldn't hear it.
"I'll forward your request to the brass," he said, turning away while he scratched his forehead. "Let them decide if they want to take you in or not. I owe you that much, I can't lie. But after that...You and I, we're done."
Princess Leia Organa was sitting in a booth in the Flying Khasva lounge aboard Admiral Ackbar's Home One MC80 Star Cruiser. She bit her lip as she gazed at the swirl of lights that was the galaxy in the distance. She was finally coming to understand the true ramifications of Alderaan's destruction.
The murder of Leia's father had been a shattering blow to the Alliance's leadership. Mon Mothma and Garm Bel Iblis were the two most important leaders within the Alliance hierarchy and they hated each other. With Bail Organa gone, no one was there to mediate their arguments. To make matters worse, the ministers of supply, finance and industry were all killed on Yavin 4, further reducing the number of mediating voices in the Advisory Council. As much as Leia tried, she could not temper the animosity between Mon Mothma and Garm, which came to a head when the Toprawa became the subject of discussion.
Garm brought it up brusquely, annoyed after being constantly passed over by some of Mon Mothma's new appointees. According to him and his forceful, direct insults, the chair had failed to recognize him on four separate occasions during the meeting. He accused Mothma of trying to push him aside and assert complete control over the Alliance now that Bail Organa and most of the Alderaanian delegation was out of the picture. Some of the Chandrilans in Mon Mothma's camp countered with insults about Corellian crudeness, insults which Garm returned in kind.
The chaos that ensued took a dozen guards to calm, as the Corellian delegation, situated and the Chandrilans ran for each other, sandwiching the Sullustans, the Duros and the Mon Calamari between them. Admiral Ackbar, who was standing in as a temporary chair person since the last was killed on Yavin 4, banged his gavel thirty-seven times before the brawl was broken up and order was restored.
After that, Garm was given back the floor and allowed to ask his original question unmolested: who was responsible for the information leak that caused mission on Toprawa to go sideways? The mission to steal the Death Star plans was a closely guarded secret, yet Garm reasoned that word must have gotten out somehow because that is the only way that the Imperials could have discovered the robbery in progress. Fifty-seven commandos, most of them Corellian, died in the mission, including Corellian Resistance hero Bria Tharen. Only the Jedi Ahsoka Tano and a handful of commandos she could fit into her freighter survived a last-minute, cobbled-together extraction mission.
When he ceded the floor, Mon Mothma stood and said that there was no proof of any kind of information leak. Any number of things could have gone wrong and led to the strike team's discovery during the mission. A guard patrol's time table could have been advanced. There could have been an equipment malfunction or poor scouting intel on the part of the advance team.
Garm took her words for the slight that it was: the advance scouting team was composed entirely of his finest commandos, men who had served him with distinction for years. He stood, without allowing her to finish and began insulting Mon Mothma's judgment. He roared that the leak had to be from within her camp and that she was using her transparent arguments to protect the unreliable people that would protect her when push came to shove. Leia quickly jumped into the fray to defend her mentor from Garm's attacks at which point the Corellian revealed his true fear: that Mon Mothma was consolidating power to fashion herself as dictator of the Alliance.
The Chandrilan delegation starting yelling insults at the Corellians and Admiral Ackbar started banging his gavel again, but it was no use. Order would never be restored in the Advisory Council chamber again. As fists started to fly and the Duros and Mon Cals and Sullustans shuffled out of the way, Garm declared loudly over the fray that he would "rather eat Hutt excrement and ask for seconds before seeing any more Corellian blood spilled so that the Queen of Chandrila might have a chance at taking Palpatine's throne." Then the Corellian leader shuffled out of the chamber, punching and shoving Chandrilans that got in his way.
Once he and his followers were gone, Ackbar sighed and declared the meeting adjourned. He said they would reconcile once Garm had "cooled off." Despite Ackbar's optimism, Leia knew that the differences between Garm and Mon Mothma-and Chandrila and Corellia as a whole-were irreconcilable. The Alliance that her father had worked so hard to forge was coming undone.
Leia sighed and turned back to the transparisteel view port her booth was positioned in front of and tried to clear her mind as she gazed out to the field of stars. These politics put such a horrible burden on her shoulders. It was difficult enough sleeping at night, with that nightmare recurring every other night. Facing the possibility that her father's work could be despoiled by such pettiness was...unfathomable. It was awful enough to think that Father could have died in vain, but if things continued along this path, then even his life's work would have been for naught. If the Rebel Alliance imploded here, then the Empire's tyrannical hand would continue to squeeze the galaxy, undaunted and unpunished.
She turned away from the transparisteel window as a charming orange astromech wheeled by, whistling and beeping at her as it did. Her heart felt heavy as she remembered her astromech droid, R2-D2, and its new owner.
Luke. She hadn't allowed herself to think of him in a while. Could he have survived that battle? Even if the Empire didn't shoot him down, it was likely they captured him, then tortured him for information then condemned him to prison mine in Kessel. Her expression warped at the thought and she once again felt guilty for having a free card to escape the massacre at Yavin 4.
"Something wrong, Your Majesty?" Zev asked as he walked by.
She looked up at him. Of course he would be here. That orange astromech was his, after all. "Just...thinking of Yavin," she said after a long silence.
"Don't worry, we'll bounce back," Zev said. "I've been with the Rebellion a long time and we've recovered from some pretty bad situations."
She only gave a hollow smile. If only he'd been in the cabinet chambers with her and seen the extent of the meltdown. Perhaps he wouldn't be so enthusiastic, then.
"I'm surprised you're still here, to be honest," Leia said.
He frowned. "Why? Why shouldn't I be here?"
"Didn't you join with the Corellians? I'm not sure if you've heard about the Advisory Council meeting, but they're all long gone now."
"My place is with the alliance." He smiled. "Mind if I join you?"
"Not at all," she said. She suddenly felt conscious of the distance she'd always kept while around him. He'd saved her life on Ansion and offered to teach her some of the secrets of the Jedi. She owed it to him to be more open and courteous. "How long have you been with the Rebellion?"
"Two years," Zev said. "If you count my time with the Corellian resistance, then eight. I joined after I got out of the Imperial Youth."
"You were in the Imperial Youth?"
He gave a heavy nod. "My father forced me to join. And I've been...fighting against my father my whole life. I guess he's part of the reason why I joined the Rebellion in the first place."
Leia nodded, feeling badly within. What a hard, horrible life he must have had as a child. Zev's father must have been some kind of hardcore loyalist. Only crazies like that sent their children to the Imperial Youth.
Leia began, "who is he?"
Zev grinned. "Are you interrogating me now?"
She shrugged. "Well, I think it's only fair. After all, I'm famous and you're an intelligence officer, so its safe to presume that you already know my life story..."
"I only study famous people whose lives fall into the range of my work."
"But I'm part of your assignment now, aren't I?"
He nodded. "Master Ahsoka told me to look after you."
She sighed deeply.
Zev frowned. "Don't like Master Ahsoka much?"
"I don't know."
Honestly, Leia didn't like her at all. In fact, despite the way Father used to speak so highly of the Jedi, she felt disinclined to trust them. How could you trust anyone that could move objects with a simple gesture or deflect blaster fire with a laser sword? The power they wielded was frightening. Whenever she thought of it, Leia was quick to remind herself that those were the same powers that Vader wielded.
Then of course, there was the fact that Ahsoka was connected to a past that the Princess wanted nothing to do with.
"How long have you known her?" Leia asked.
"I've known and reported to her ever since I joined," Zev said. "She's a great patriot and a powerful Jedi. One of the greatest assets our Alliance has, if you ask me."
She'd made several inquiries into Ahsoka's background after returning. The Jedi had a reputation of pursuing her own objectives, of going AWOL for extended periods of time and for spending exorbitant amounts of Alliance money on satisfying her cadre of (mostly Corellian) mercenaries. Not exactly a stellar record.
Leia shrugged. "If you say so."
"Well, my perspective is a little biased," Zev said. "She has been my teacher for eight years."
She glanced back at the field of white dots against black space and felt a spur of curiosity surface, urging her to pursue something Ahsoka had said on Ansion. "How long did it take you to learn?" Leia asked.
"I'm still learning. The process never stops." Zev leaned back in his seat. "But I guess you could say my development in the Force plateaued about a year ago."
"Can you..."
"Move things with my mind? Force choke people? Deflect blaster bolts?"
Leia blinked, barely resisting the instinct to flinch as if slapped.
"No, fortunately," he said, tone low, but playfully mischievous. "I don't think the galaxy would be a safe place if I could."
Leia turned away, at once embarrassed by the way he threw all of her thoughts and musings right back at her. Was that, too a power of the Jedi?
"Forgive me," Zev said, starting to redden a little with embarrassment. "That was a little...impolite."
"I didn't realize I had such a weak mind," Leia said.
"On the contrary, you have a very strong mind," he replied. "You just happened to be thinking loudly at that moment, that's all. I could teach you to shroud your thoughts."
She looked back at him as she felt the answer to her question unfold. A path to the training that Ahsoka had, for whatever reason, denied her, manifested. "Would you give me another chance, to learn what Ahsoka taught you?"
A long silence followed, during which Zev said nothing. He only gazed at her intently, analyzing her with his intense, watchful eyes.
"I could," he said, his voice trailing off. "But would you be willing to leave this?"
Her frown deepened. "What?"
"This." Zev gestured to the lounge, to the other rebels seated and talking, then to the transparisteel window and to the handful of other cruisers in formation. "All of this."
"Leave the rebellion?" Leia grasped. "Of course not! Why would you ask me that?"
"Becoming a Jedi requires the deepest commitment."
"But you serve the Alliance," Leia said, confused. She searched her mind for something Mon Mothma had told her just the other day. "You're one of the best agents we have."
"My duties to the Jedi Order always come first."
"So that's it for you, then?" Her voice assumed a tone. "You don't care about the Alliance? You're just here because of what your Jedi Order has instructed you to do?"
Zev gave an acrid smile. "The Jedi path is also one of moderation. We do not deal in extremes or absolutes."
"So I guess you won't be teaching me, then?"
"Maybe," Zev said. "When you're ready."
The Princess sighed bitterly. "That's exactly what Ahsoka told me. And she didn't explain what that meant."
"With all due respect, Majesty," Zev began, "you're a bit headstrong. Walking the Jedi path requires a patience that neither of us have seen in you. You'll have to learn that before you can learn anything else."
She gave a dejected nod. "Is that all you came to tell me?"
His lips spread in a grin. "Majesty, you're the one who started interrogating me as soon as I approached."
"Then what has happened?"
"I'm here for two reasons. Firstly, I'm here to fulfill my master's mandate. Master Ahsoka commanded me to protect you."
She gestured to everything around them. "We're on Home One, one of the safest places a Rebel Official can be..."
Zev sighed. "You didn't let me finish."
"Oh." She rolled her eyes. "I'm sorry, go on."
"A decree has also come down, direct from the Chief of State's office."
So quickly? That Advisory Council meeting had turned inside-out just four hours ago. How could Mon Mothma have made a decree so soon? "What is it?"
"Until the Alliance military recovers from the huge losses at Yavin, all meetings of the Advisory Council are to be suspended."
A shiver traced up her spine. "What?"
"All delegates of the advisory council are to be sequestered, to ensure the future viability of the Alliance's civilian government." Zev leaned forward candidly, hands hands folded on the table. "In case you think you're special, all delegates means all delegates. After I debriefed the Chief of State, she recommended that I fulfill my master's mandate, seeing as how it coincided with her own."
Great. Now even Mon Mothma was trying to stick her with a Jedi bodyguard. Contrary to popular belief, she did not need to have her hand held at all times, she did not need protection twenty-four seven and she certainly was not as brittle as she appeared.
"Did she give you a writ remanding me to your custody, too?" Leia quipped. "Or is this supposed to be as off the books as her suspension of the Advisory Council?"
"Come on now, Your Majesty, don't be upset with the Chief, she only cares for your safety."
"Where are we going then?" She asked while thrumming her fingers against the table.
"There's a lot of places we can hide, but one in particular that stands out," Zev said as he rose from the table. "Have you ever heard of a planet called Naboo? I have a good friend who lives there. Her name is Pooja Naberrie, and she just cannot wait to meet you."
