It is Your Destiny…
Byss
Leia could feel Bail's comforting presence from somewhere nearby. He wasn't in any of the adjoining rooms; that had been established days ago when her subtle knocking on walls was answered with sharp reprimands and, hitherto, idle threats. If she wasn't being held against her will, she would have nothing to complain about as far as accommodations went. Her quarters were expansive and well-appointed. She had already puzzled out a few dozen means of escape but something had been telling her to wait.
As the days wore on, she could feel her brother's concern and reassurance stronger and stronger through the Force. Surely he was on his way by now. She remained vigilant, taking an inventory of makeshift weapons available to her and remaining well-rested and well-fed. At least thus far, they hadn't tried to poison her or harm her in any way. And from Bail's calm Force signature, just a few meters away, he was undoubtedly being treated well, and likewise preparing for anything, just as she was.
And so it was, when she felt the ripple of surprise from Bail, that she was ready and waiting when the door to her quarters slid open. No less than fifteen elite stormtroopers filed into her room and surrounded her. She searched for Bail, but he wasn't with them. Her muscles twitched in anticipation as all manners of attack and escape that she had envisioned these past several days flitted through her mind. Two stormtroopers approached her, each with a pair of stun cuffs in their hands, holding them up to her like a trainer approaching a wild animal.
"Easy now," one of them said. "We're going to slip these one you. Don't give us any trouble and there won't be any trouble."
A million scenarios ran through her mind in that instant. What if she fought? What if she didn't? Advantages and disadvantages, pros and cons, odds and outcomes. In the end, she held her hands out in submission. Without Bail in her sights. Without knowing exactly what she was walking into, fighting now, she decided, might do more harm than good.
But that didn't mean she had to like it.
"Aren't you the least bit embarrassed that it takes so many of you to subdue a twenty-year-old girl?" She asked as the binders clamped down uncomfortably on her wrists.
"Shut up, Jedi," the trooper snapped as he bent down and bound her ankles in the same manner.
"Is that what they told you?" She asked through amused laughter. "I'm not-"
Before she could finish, someone pushed her from behind and she instinctively took a step forward to keep from falling on her face. The binders on her ankles sent a paralyzing shock that radiated through every muscle in her body, contorting them and causing her to crumple to the ground in a mess of quivering limbs. The movement of her fall caused both sets of cuffs to activate, amplifying the effect until all she could do was work furiously at trying to remain still, using every bit of the Force to accomplish the task while dampening the painful effects of the electrifying currents.
"Works every time," a voice came from behind her as she felt dozens of hands grabbing at her and pulling her to her feet.
As the cuffs went idle and she slowly composed herself, she actually felt a flood of relief course through her veins. At least now I know for sure that this is no longer a diplomatic visit. The thought seemed a little ironic, considering the circumstances, but half the battle over these past several days had been in not knowing exactly how to react. It was easy now to know that she could pull out all of the stops. Of course, that information would've been a lot more useful before she had been put into these stun cuffs.
"Now," one of the troopers said. "Shut up and walk slowly."
She did as she was told; only receiving mild shocks as she took very small steps in the direction in which her escorts shoved her. The more they walked, the closer she could feel Bail's presence. As before, it seemed as though he was being similarly treated, only now the thought wasn't so comforting. Perhaps now they would figure out what the Imperials wanted.
"Make no mistake," Tarkin said calmly. "You will tell us what we want to know."
Leia stood, still bound at the wrists and ankles, in front of Grand Moff Tarkin and his blue-skinned Grand Admiral that he called Thrawn with what looked like a full accompaniment of stormtroopers behind him. Bail was next to her, similarly restrained. They had already been through several rounds of questioning.
From what Leia could gather, it seemed as if they knew of the Jedi squadron but were missing the critical stealth technology component. She had offered a few red herrings, but so far the pair hadn't bitten. Not really knowing what it was he was hiding, Bail had remained relatively quiet, only refusing to say anything at all. They had each taken a few shoves, resulting in the same pool of limbs that Leia had become back in her quarters. It had been hard for her to see Bail Organa suffer that way, but when it had happened to her, if he had known anything, she was sure he would've spilled it.
At this point she was wondering if she should just tell them. Not because she was exhausted, even though she was, but because it just might not be worth getting one of them killed over it. What could the Imperials really do with the knowledge? After the first time the Jedi used it, the secret would be exposed regardless. Was one strike with the element of surprise worth Bail Organa's life, or hers? Actually, something in the Force told her that it was. So she drew upon her inner strength and resolved to persevere.
"I think one of them knows," Thrawn said, his red eyes glowing with ruthless calculation as he looked at Leia. "And one of them does not," he continued, his eyes tracking to Bail.
"Then we'll torture it out of her," Tarkin snapped as he followed Thrawn's lead. "Bring me an IT-3 droid."
Thrawn raised his hand. "Summon your torture droid," he said. "But don't waste your time using it on her. Use it on him." And he pointed his blue finger to Bail.
Leia's blood ran cold. She knew she could withstand any means of torture or torture droids that they could throw at her. If necessary, she could slip into a Jedi healing coma and just wait to die or be rescued before she would reveal any secrets. But Bail. She glanced up at him. His face brave and impassive, the muscles in his jaw clenched. Although he was sure to have gone through training of his own, he would not have the fortitude that the Force would provide her.
A large part of her wanted to scream, "No!" But she knew that would play right into the alien's cruel hands. They would torture Bail to get information out of her. She couldn't just shrink away from that and wait them out. Bail shook his head at her as if reading her mind. His eyes were soft with acceptance. He was ready to endure whatever he must. But was she?
The IT-3 droid made its way through the circle of stormtroopers and halted beside Bail. It was accompanied by a handler; a bone-thin man that looked as if he had personally tested each of his pet's sadistic punishments.
"I grow tired of dealing with these two, Coleman," Tarkin said to the bony man. "Don't bother with any standard ramping protocols."
The man began to punch a few buttons, the servomotors of the torturous droid whining in anticipation. An assortment of needles with tiny electric charges dancing from their tips, fanned out and stretched toward Bail.
"Wait," Leia said calmly as she took a step forward, earning her a painful stun from her anklets. Every stormtrooper in the room heaved their blasters up to the ready and trained them on her.
"You have something to say, Jedi Skywalker?" Tarkin asked, obviously pleased with himself.
"No," Bail bellowed as he reached his arms out and put them up and over the bony man's head, encircling him and choking him with his stun cuffs underneath the man's chin. The movement must have been shocking him tremendously, but Bail fought against the pain as he whirled the IT-3 droid around and pushed it into Tarkin.
Leia took a blind, backwards Force leap and pummeled herself into a few stormtroopers, wrestling a blaster from one as she rolled on the floor and opened fire, knocking a wave of troopers back as chaos broke out in the small room.
She continued rolling as she made her way back toward Bail, firing her blaster all the while. Tarkin's voice was screaming in agony and protest, calling for someone to give him aid. In her peripheral vision she could see the alien Thrawn calmly sidestepping out of the way of the melee, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
"Shoot him! Shoot him!" Tarkin was crying now as the IT-3 droid's electrified needles sunk deeper into his skin.
Lying on her stomach and picking off a swarm of encroaching troopers, Leia heard an "umph" and then a large weight fell on top of her. Unable to see anything now, her blaster fire was still spewing its charges aimlessly; her trigger finger clenched down from the shock of the stun cuffs. The debilitating effects of the shockwaves were quickly fatiguing her muscles and she fought to remain conscious and in control.
Someone yanked the blaster from her hands as she began to feel a heavy, wet warmth soak into her clothes and make contact with her skin. She thought it might be escaping oil or solution from the IT-3 droid. The noise in the room began to dissipate. She could hear heavy gasps coming from Grand Moff Tarkin as his people attended to him and he continued to reprimand them through his pain. "Fools! I'm fine. Enough," he was saying.
Leia lay still beneath the weight of the body strewn on top of her. The IT-3 droid sputtered and blatted like a soldier wounded and Leia could see the frail legs and feet of the bony man as he tenderly attended to his charge, mumbling reassuring words and curses simultaneously.
From where everyone was standing, she was almost positive that the body on top of her must've been the Viceroy. She could feel his life force beating steadily, although weak with exhaustion much like her own. His muscles were still twitching from the residual effects of the stun cuffs and hers were doing the same. She was impressed by his brave silence when it was taking everything she had not to at least whimper from the overwhelming pain.
"Ah! Fools!" She heard Tarkin spit again. "Stun! I said stun only!"
"Sir, you were in direct bodily harm," a trooper replied.
"Also your fault!" Tarkin snapped. "And now you've shown your incompetence twice today!"
"Well, the gig us up now, Tarkin," Leia heard Thrawn say coolly as she watched his booted feet walk toward her. "So much for the lie and wait strategy," Thrawn added as one of his boots kicked Bail's heavy weight from atop of her.
And in that instant, she knew.
When all that she felt were his stun cuffs reacting violently to the movement, but his muscles were not answering at all. She knew what the wet warmth had been. She understood why he hadn't been whimpering in pain. As if in confirmation, she watched as the thick puddle of blood seeped across the floor under her arms and against her fingertips. Way too much blood.
"It doesn't matter," Tarkin said and she shut her eyes against the realization, refusing to let her emotions come forth. Not now. "I was tired of the games anyway and your plan was flawed. The Republic hasn't even bothered to respond to their disappearance," Tarkin snapped, as if oblivious to her continued presence.
She reached out for the comforting assurance of Bail's life force, but it was dwindling and elusive. Utilizing the Force, her invisible fingers found the blaster wounds, but there were too many and too large to apply pressure enough to close them all.
"Oh, have no fear. They are responding," Thrawn replied. "Exactly as I had predicted."
"You said they would send a response team that would single-handedly incite a war! Our sources tell us that there's been absolutely no movement by any of the Republic fleets."
Leia worked on slowing Bail's already slowly thumping heart, working furiously to keep enough blood in his veins to keep him alive.
"I never said it would be a fleet. I never said precisely what kind of response it would be…or what kind of war," Thrawn answered mysteriously.
"Don't try to impress me with your evasiveness," Tarkin replied, the shakiness in his voice still evident from his recent experience. "When you commit yourself to nothing it's easy to appear to have committed to anything."
Bail moaned and Leia's heart leapt with renewed faith. She utilized some of her concentrated efforts to relieve him of the pain.
"You impress me, Grand Moff. That," he hesitated, "is unexpected."
Tarkin made a sound that seemed to shake off the insult. "Take her away," he said and Leia immediately felt herself being pulled up to a standing position, her stun cuffs shocking already numbed muscles. "No more posh prison, either. I want every available limb in a stun cuff and her magnaclamped to the floor. I don't want her nose to twitch without receiving a shock…"
Tarkin continued with his description of how she should be restrained, but Leia couldn't hear any of it. Her eyes had fallen to the bloody lump of man that lay nearly lifeless at her feet. Her own pain and movement caused her to lose the tenuous grasp she had on all of his opened wounds and seeing how much blood he had lost already made her fragile confidence falter.
As they began to pull her away, she croaked, "He's still alive!" As she struggled to keep him in her line of sight, twisting her body around in spite of the pain.
Everyone's eyes went to the blaster-riddled body on the floor. Tarkin took a step toward Bail and nudged him with the toe of his boot, eliciting a low moan from the Viceroy.
"So it would seem," he said and then turned away. "Put him out of his misery."
Leia screamed but the arms encircling her turned her around, trying to lead her forcefully out of the room. With all the strength she had left, she Force leapt straight up and out of their grasps, crunched her body in a backwards somersault and landed crouching near Bail's body. But during her leap, while in mid-air, the sound of a lone blaster rifle bark had echoed against the walls, its report still ringing in her ears as she scrambled to get next to Bail Organa. And as Leia fumbled to place her hands on his chin, turning his face to hers, she felt the last of his life force fade away like a whisper on the wind and something inside of her turned off or on, she couldn't be sure. She only knew that her life, that nothing, would ever be the same again. That from this moment on, she would never be the same again.