MAIA'S FATE

It seemed they would never have a palace. Not the one in Sundari that he had wanted to bring her home to when they were young or the one in Iziz that should have been her birthright. But this old B-7 freighter had become all the palace that either Soniee or Korkie needed. They had spent their wedding night in the little cabin and she remembered a fantasy she had once had about the two of them just flying around the galaxy alone together.

After a long and bumpy road they had finally come back here, she realized, and she wouldn't have it any other way. All she wanted was to lie here in his arms, here in their berth and forget that the rest of the galaxy existed. And then as usual when she had just gotten comfortable, the Galaxy called. This time it actually used the comm.

"Aww, let it go to the message system," Korkie purred in her ear.

She was inclined to agree. "It could be Dalla telling us they changed their mind and they're going to give us another godchild."

"While I'm sure that would be terribly interesting, there are other issues that I find much more pressing at the moment."

She gasped and chuckled with pleasure and decided to let him have his way. "I was just glad when she commed before that it wasn't because Ros was sick or Noah had gotten hurt."

"Mmmhmm," he agreed wordlessly. He was still thinking about what she had said about Dalla and Lux having another child. He didn't have to say it aloud.

"No, you're right, after the scare with Noah they decided that he would be their last." They both remembered too well the pain of losing their little Oron, all the heartbreak and years of healing that followed for both of them.

Korkie left off his lovemaking and just held her. "What would you think about us having another one?" He seemed to be reading her thoughts, or maybe she was projecting them, or maybe they had been together so long that she was just that easy for him to read.

"The dreams that I had before Oron, I've never had anything like that since. I think maybe that if we did, that this one would be okay." She rolled over on the tiny bunk and looked at him intently.

He swept her hair out of her face with one hand. "But you're worried about what sort of world we would be bringing another child into."

She nodded and then tucked her head against his chest. "Losing our child… it was horrible, but everything we've seen with my work as Fulcrum, it could be so much worse."

He tipped her chin up to look at him again. "Soniee, we can't let the bad things keep us from reaching for the good. And who knows if our child might not be one of those who helps make this galaxy a better place."

"Well it's not going to happen tonight." She smiled at him. "That hypo I took is still good for a while longer."

"Let's not let that go to waste, then," he growled.

After another enjoyable hour together and then a shower, Soniee was getting redressed when she noticed the message light on the comm system. She pulled it up distractedly while checking the other power and navigation systems. As soon as the message began however, it had her full attention. It was one of her rebel agents in the field.

"I need to speak to Fulcrum! There's been… Goddess it's awful! An attack on a ceremony where a new Imperial governor was being honored." The agent tried to get all the pertinent information out. "They used flechette launchers… hundreds dead, just bystanders most of them." He took a breath. "You said you wanted to know immediately if anything happened to the girl from Saw's group. Well, they were involved and… Maia Harkon didn't come back."

It didn't require any further thought. Soniee immediately dropped into the pilot seat and began to reprogram the nav computer's destination. She had just finished the calculations and had placed her hand on the control that would launch them into hyperspace when her husband entered the cockpit. She forgot to warn him. The acceleration of the engines knocked him back off his feet.

"Whoa! What the kriff!" He clambered up to stand rubbing a bruised region of his shebs but laughing. "Sudden change in plans?"

"I'm sorry." Her breath caught in her throat and at the same time they both realized that she was crying. "Elek, I… We need to go to Onderon." She had been so focused on getting them where they needed to go that the tears had come without her even noticing.

"Is it your Father?" Korkie hurried to her side and knelt next to her seat. He turned it to face him and took both her hands in his. "Shara? The Blackwells?"

"No." She shook her head and closed her eyes letting the tears flood over her cheeks. Something happening to any of those people, their friends, their family, would have a devastating blow. But after just having discussed losing their own child, and the prospect of possibly trying for another…

A little girl. Soniee blinked at the sudden sense of inspiration. She wanted a baby girl.

"What is it then?" Korkie asked as calmly as he could. He had witnessed her having visions before. He had seen her fall into a deep trance that nothing seemed to wake her from. This wasn't like that. This was something different but he knew something bad was about to happen, or else it already had. "Cyar'ika?"

She opened her eyes and looked at him steadily. "It was that comm, the one we let go to the message system. The Harkon girl who joined Saw's band of partizans, she was killed in action."

"Lux's goddaughter?" Korkie covered his mouth with his hand and stroked it down his beard. Soniee knew he was thinking of their own goddaughter, of the ceremony that had taken place at the pool of the salt formation at Blackhold. Neither of them knew all the ins and outs of the religion but they knew how important it was to the people of the north sea and they knew the words that were traditionally said at a time like this. "In the light of the salt gods."

Soniee quietly repeated the phrase touched her thumb to her lips as she had often seen Aunt Shara do and raised her palm outward in reverence. "I couldn't let her parents and her brother and her sister find out about this from a holo. I thought we should go there and tell them."

"Of course," Korkie agreed. "Pantora can wait."

Their next mission was supposed to be to the system of Orto Plutonia. They meant to meet with her old friend Chi'ann Kree about a safe place for Myat and some of the other workers at the Iziz refugee center to be relocated to themselves if things got too hot in the capital city for their continued presence on Onderon.

Bail Organa had also given Soniee the go ahead to reveal her identity and continued existence to the Chairman of that moon, Baron Notluiski Papanoida. They had met once years ago on Coruscant. He had given her season tickets to the productions of the Royal Bards Company. Possibly most importantly he had had a relationship with her mother before Soniee was born and had always had a soft spot for the Princess of Onderon as he'd called her. Perhaps with his connections the rebellion might have another powerful ally.

And then there were Korkie's investigations to consider also. They knew that there were ice caves on the frozen planet around which the moon revolved. It was possible that some of these caves possessed growths of crystals like the famed caves of Ilum that had already been mined and devastated by the Empire.

Korkie still wore his purified crystal on a cord around his neck just as Soniee wore the one that had called to her from the cave on Concord Dawn. He couldn't feel its warmth or see it glow like she could hers when the Force swirled around her with particular strength. He might not be able to locate a site on his own. If they visited the place together, however, he felt certain that Soniee might be able to prove or disprove the existence of a kyber deposit.

All of that, though important to their shared cause, paled in comparison to delivering this heartbreaking news first hand to the family of a girl who had died in the service of that same cause.

Was it though? Soniee wondered as they zoomed through the silence of hyperspace. The inaction of the journey made her more jittery than usual. She generally found the quiet relaxing, a pleasant change from the press of minds in a populated area, but now with only the worry in her own head and running through her husband's she felt trapped.

Soniee paced from the corridor from the cockpit to the galley and back again several times like an anxious nexu in a cage. Finally Korkie, whether because it was driving him crazy or just because he hated seeing her like this, took her by the shoulders and pulled her into a hug.

"Cyar'ika," he soothed. "I know this isn't the kind of news you want to deliver. I can do the talking if you like. I have… passed on this sort of information before."

He had been the one to tell everyone that she was dead after Oron's stillborn delivery and he was undeniably the best orator of the two of them. She was the writer, the researcher but he was the one who gave the words power and emotion when spoken aloud.

She wanted to let him do it. She could even sit down now and put her thoughts on flimsy. It would give her something to do for the next several hours of the journey. But, no. She knew she couldn't.

"No, I should be the one." She shook herself out of his embrace. "Saw and I… He wanted me to be out there saving the galaxy with him. Instead he starts…" she flailed her arms, "recruiting children?"

Again she paced. "I should have gone after him as soon as I found out what had happened and demand that he send that girl home to her family! I could have forced him to do it! That little girl had no business…" She covered her mouth remembering the mention of flechette launchers from the agent's comm. "She should have been home with her family fishing or sailing or I don't know! She should never have been out there participating in one of Saw Gerrera's kriffing mad schemes!"

Soniee broke down weeping under the weight of all her anger and frustration and sadness. Korkie gathered her in his arms and lowered them both to the plasticrete floor tiles. He rocked her back and forth and brushed her hair back from her face and whispered softly, "Kuur, Cyar'ika. It wasn't your fault. She was young, elek, but she wanted to be out there doing her part, fighting the Empire. She believed she was protecting her planet and her family and making the galaxy a better place."

She knew that was true and allowed his comforting words to wash over her.

"I know how you feel wanting to blame yourself but you can't live like that and naming names doesn't help either. I seem to remember a few headstrong fifteen year olds who rushed heedlessly into danger to save their duchess."

Soniee reached up and touched his neck where Prime Minister Almec had ordered a shock collar to be bound to force the duchess to sign a false confession of guilt. "Were we really that young?" She sniffed.

"Ad'ike in the nursery." He brushed a tear from her cheek with his thumb.

"We saved her though, that time anyway. Eventually it got to be too much for us to handle on our own."

"Even then we had help from Ahsoka." he reminded her.

"But we all did our part and we wanted to be there to help save your mother and the rest of Mandalore." At least that's what it had seemed like at the time, and maybe that's what they had done.

"Except maybe Amis," Korkie frowned. "I think he just went along with us because he was hungry."

Soniee laughed at the memory of their friend and then sobered but still with a smile. "He was the bravest of us all for admitting his fear and going along with us anyway."

"Elek." Korkie hugged his wife with a chuckle of his own. "And after all this time that's still the way we remember him and he lives on in our hearts and our memories and Manda! In Tracen!"

They sat that way for a long time talking about friends and events from days gone by. They were sore from all that time sitting on the hard floor when the command console in the cockpit finally announced that they were near the point of reentering real space in the Onderon system.

"When did we get so old?" Korkie complained as he got up and stretched while Soniee went to do the final bit of piloting to their destination.

"Speak for yourself. I'm still spry as a dalgo." She taunted.

He sat next to her in the co-pilot's chair with a grin. "It's a good thing too. This galaxy isn't through with you yet and neither am I."

She gave him a sidelong glance before she returned the lever to its setting for sublight speed. Then she saw what was waiting for them outside the viewport and cursed, "Osik!"

An Imperial star destroyer hovered above Iziz and she checked quickly that their clearance codes were in order just before it noticed them and sent a hail. Korkie stayed quiet and watched her do her magic.

"B-7 freighter, what is your business in this sector?" It wasn't the biggest in the fleet and thankfully there was only the one, probably just out patrolling, but that didn't mean she had to like it.

She wanted to ask what their business was being here but instead she put on her best idiot freighter captain voice and responded. "Beg yur pardon but we were just supposed to head down to…" she paused as if checking a manifest order. "Harkon Hall? To pick up a load of fish. It's a stinky job but somebody's gotta do it." She laughed and rolled her eyes at Korkie.

There was that moment of silence from the imperials that always turned her stomach and she wondered if she would have to reach out with the Force to persuade this shabur to let them pass.

But then the word came back. "B-7 freighter you can go about your business."

Soniee couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief as she began their descent toward the northern hemisphere of the planet.

Korkie reached over and placed his hand over hers on the control panel to give it a squeeze.

"Lux wasn't kidding when he reported the increased Imperial presence."

"No, he was not." It didn't only worry Soniee. It made her angry. This was her planet, her people! Even though Lux would act as the regent when Ramsis Dendup finally lived out his faithful years of service, and she'd officially named Roisin as her successor when their goddaughter came of age, Soniee still felt responsible for it.

That tram of thought reminded her of the premonition she'd had earlier. A little girl, a daughter for she and Korkie, with possibly a different path than inheriting the thrones of Mandalore or Onderon?

She couldn't think about that now. There was still the ugly task ahead of her to inform another family of their daughter's fate.

When they opened the door to Ephraim's office Soniee and Korkie were greeted by a wall of sound.

"...do you expect me to do?" A man in an ostentatious embroidered coat gestured wildly. "I told you last time my crew doesn't know anything about spaceships."

"You deal with black market traders all the time," Ephraim insisted. "One of them has to have a link we can use to get to the partisans."

"I'm not about to burn Ohnaka. That's suicide."

"You wouldn't be burning him Sloan. You'd use him to flush out the partisans and then someone else would -."

"You think that Saw Gerrera won't trace the attack back to Ohnaka, who will in turn trace it back to us? I want him hurting too Ephraim, after what he did to my sis, but I'm not gonna sink my crew for it."

Soniee thought the pirate's northern brogue sounded familiar but it didn't click until he turned around and she saw the eyepatch.

"I know you!" She exclaimed. "From the funeral … the one-eyed man who was looking for his friend."

Sloan Murphy nodded sagely. "You're not the only one who's supposed to be dead."

"But the Empire isn't looking for you."

"Not by name, but by reputation they are." Sloan held out his arms. He really did look like a pirate in his current ensemble, and Soniee's mind instantly flashed to the reports she'd heard of pirate activity against the Empire on the river that connected Iziz to the north sea. "I can do more against them as this than I could if they knew Sloan Murphy was still alive."

"And as long as what you need can be accomplished on Onderon." Ephraim glared.

Soniee stepped in. "Lord Harkon, if you need something to be done offworld then I might be able to help you."

"I need Saw Gerrera's head on a pike!"

Silence. Soniee thanked the gods Dalla wasn't in attendance or she wouldn't have been able to stop her from embarking on a second murder scheme. As it was she watched Ephraim Harkon's anger rise, peak, and then plummet as he collapsed onto his desk, body wracked with sobs.

"He killed my daughter," he moaned. "He killed my daughter and I want him dead!"

Sloan grabbed one of the chairs in front of the desk and dragged it around the side to sit next to his friend.

"If he shows his face on the planet again I'll bring him to you in beskar linked chains. I might rough him up a little bit on the journey, might choke the fear of me into him, but the end'll be yours. You can put his head on a pike or feed him to your cogs, whatever. All that son of a bantha has to do is walk on Onderonian soil."

Soniee and Korkie shared a look.

"I never met Maia," Korkie said. "But I heard about her a great deal. She seemed like the type of person who wanted the best thing for the galaxy."

Talia Harkon silently entered the room and wrapped an arm around her husband's shoulders.

Korkie went on. "She sounded like someone who would help everyone she saw, and never wanted to see anyone get hurt."

"Except she got hurt, didn't she?" Fiona stood in the doorway, her face red as her hair. "She got ripped apart by flechettes and it's all your fault!"

Before Korkie or any other adult could respond Fiona slammed the office door and ran away. Talia lifted her gaze to Ephraim's and the two shared an exhausted look.

"Can you…?" she shook her head. "I can't deal with her right now."

"Let her go. She'll want to be alone," Ephraim said without taking his eyes from the desk. He probably understood what she was going through better than any of them, having also lost his twin. "Gods, I wish Cornel wasn't off sailing with Arkon. He's always been good about calming her down when she's upset."

Soniee had only felt a flicker of Fiona's grief since the girl had run out so quickly, but it was mixed with something else. As concerned as she was with the girl though she knew Ephraim and Talia needed her attention far more urgently.

"We don't have to go anywhere," she said and took a seat of her own. "We'll stay with you until Lux and Dalla arrive for the funeral."