Naboo was not called the jewel of the Mid Rim for nothing.

Leia glanced around as she exited the docking port. Theed's classic domed buildings arching above her. She'd changed out of her Imperial-style clothes—not a uniform, per se, but too close to one nevertheless—into something more nondescript.

Well, she thought, not quite frowning down at the ruffled aquamarine top she was wearing. Nondescript on Naboo. She still looked well-dressed enough to invite attack in a lot of areas of Coruscant—and any number of other planets—but she supposed that if she had to blend in. . .

And it wasn't as though she disliked it.

So she set off, slinging a small bag over her shoulder and hiding her lightsaber inside. Having it out in the open would just be inviting questions, she knew—but that didn't mean she had to like not having it immediately on hand.

She had to stick a tiny—laughably tiny—blaster in there as well, and her comlink, and her identification chips, and her datapad—

She sighed.

She was going to need a bigger bag.

Finally, though, she did manage to squeeze everything she needed into one History Students of Theed rucksack she bought. She slung it over her back and set off.

The first place she was planning on visiting was obvious. Padmé Amidala's tomb and accompanying gardens were a public attraction that anyone could visit, except on specific days and when her relatives requested they had private access to her memorial. Leia didn't even have to pull Imperial rank to get herself in.

Once she was in, she looked around. The gardens were surrounded by a high wall, decked with a climbing plant whose scarlet blossoms she distantly recognised, but she couldn't have said more than that. The small pavilion over the entrance was an elegant thing: all pale blue stone and flowing lines. She glanced at the mosaic under her feet briefly—an image of the senator's face, still in death and frozen in art, white flowers adorning her hair—then up when there was a prickle at the back of her neck.

For a moment, she froze at what she saw.

Then the moment passed, and logic kicked in. That painting was not Palpatine.

It was a life-sized painting of him, certainly. An oil painting—seriously? What an indulgence—of him standing in a Chancellor's garb, a loving hand resting on Senator Amidala's shoulder. She too was dressed in the formal clothes her work required, and they both looked happy, contented, smiling at the painting with all the satisfaction of people in power.

But in all of Leia's research, she'd never come across any mention of Senator Amidala posing for an oil painting.

"It was painted after her death," a voice behind her said, warm and friendly. "The artist's impression of what her future in the Empire might have been."

Before she'd even turned around, Leia knew the woman was a politician, a staunch supporter of democracy, and a personal friend of Padmé Amidala.

Her voice was flat and controlled while her Force sense exploded in distaste: politician. Or some sort of civil servant. Or bodyguard.

The distaste in question for Palpatine in particular and the Empire at large, plus the Naboo accent: a staunch supporter of democracy.

And a personal friend of Padmé Amidala: just how strong her distaste was. Either she'd been a fanatic—which was admittedly not that far-fetched, she'd had her fair share of supporters—or she'd been her friend.

She turned to see a brown-haired woman standing behind her, dressed in clothes that blended in with Naboo's. Something about her face, her accent, the way she tilted her head, reminded Leia of the woman in the painting in a way that went beyond the simple fact that they looked similar.

She smiled at her when she met her eye, and something in her made her smile back. She was wary though—and not just because in the Force, this person was walled off as thoroughly as this garden was.

"It was commissioned for the last curator of these gardens," she continued, nodding to the portrait again, "but he didn't feel it was fitting to the tone of the place. He thought the portrait already up, of Amidala as queen, was more suitable. He died a few weeks ago."

Leia blinked at the sudden change of topic, the weight in the tone the woman said it in. Then the pieces fell into place.

A man had died because he refused to show a portrait of the Emperor in his building.

Leia was familiar with the tactic. It wasn't law to always pay lip service to the Empire at the very least, but one might find themselves. . . disadvantaged. . . if they didn't.

She didn't know how to feel about that.

She'd been fine with it for years. A few weeks ago, she would have scoffed and said good riddance. But some of Luke's nightmares and fears had started bleeding over into her mind now.

She could no longer separate traitor from family.

And she had to wonder how that family of the dead man felt.

"Well, you didn't come to hear depressing things like that." The woman smiled at her, so Leia bit back her snarky response of I came to visit a tomb—she got the hint that wasn't what she was trying to say. "Would you like me to show you around?" She glanced at the emblem emblazoned onto Leia's rucksack. "If you're doing research on her, I knew Senator Amidala personally. I can tell you things you won't find in history books." A pause, then a calculated— "For example, you look a lot like her."

Luke had said that. Leia still didn't like the idea of looking like a traitor.

Traitor and family. . .

But she smiled prettily—she'd certainly need the information being offered—and said, "I'd love that. It'd be extremely useful."

When they stepped out from the pavilion into the sunshine, Leia was instantly assaulted by the smell of hundreds of different types of flower.

"My name is Tsabin," the woman said as they began to wander the gardens. "I was one of Padmé's handmaidens, when she ruled as queen, and I helped her as senator for a while as well. And you?"

Leia swallowed. She didn't have the time to come up with an alias on the fly, so she just said, "Leia," and hoped this woman wasn't a Rebel who might recognise the name.

There was no flicker of recognition from his mind—but then again, with shields like those, here was barely a flicker of anything. It didn't put Leia's mind at ease.

The woman's distaste for Palpatine must be strong if it had leaked through that.

"Are you on exchange from Coruscant?" Tsabin asked. "Your accent certainly isn't from Naboo."

"Yes." She didn't want to add any more to a lie she hadn't meticulously planned out, so she pretended to be very absorbed in studying a brightly-coloured flower instead.

"That's a nova lily," Tsabin added helpfully. "Padmé actually helped design these gardens during her second term as queen, and the gardeners do their best to keep it in line with how she wanted it." She paused. Leia waited for her to make conversation—it might mean she accidentally let something important slip.

She didn't know what important would be, but she already had an impossible job to fulfil. She might as well do it to the best of her ability.

Finally, Tsabin asked, "Are you enjoying living on Naboo?"

Leia let her hand drop from the flower blossom. "Yes," she lied lightly, then added—because the best lies had pieces of truth in them—"I miss my family, though. My brother in particular."

"Ah, I understand. I don't have any siblings, but the other handmaidens were like sisters to me, and it was sad when we parted ways." Again, Leia didn't say anything as they turned another bend and ducked underneath a trellis of pink buds, some of them opened towards the sun.

Tsabin shot her a look. "What was the topic of your paper again? It was Padmé, correct?"

Leia nodded quickly—she'd never said that, but she had no problems lying. "I'm interested in how her personal ideology and policies affected her popularity."

"Well!" Tsabin said, her face lighting up as she went for the bag slung over her shoulder. "If it's her personal ideology you're looking for, you won't find much about it near her tomb—it's just about her personal life and relationships, not her politics. But I have some datachips here," she plucked three out of the bag and waved them in her hand, "with recordings of her speeches, transcripts of letters she wrote to and received from other senators or politicians, drafts of bills, as well as articles and essays she wrote in her own free time."

Leia's eyes blew wide as the woman held them out, palm up. This— it couldn't be this easy, could it? Something was wrong here.

Especially with how closed off Tsabin felt through the Force.

"I've been trying to get them published for a while now, but nowhere wants to take them. They say Amidala's of a bygone age." Leia had to laugh at the irony of that—if the theory she was trying to prove was correct, then Padmé Amidala was anything but bygone. "Feel free to take them. Maybe if you do well in your essay more people will be interested in what they have to say."

Leia waited for more, more ultimatums, more conditions, but there were none. The woman just held the datachips out, an earnest look on her face.

If Leia didn't have the Force, she might have believed it. But Tsabin's Force sense was anything but earnest.

Yet she needed that information.

Refusing it would only make this impossible task more impossible.

So she clasped her hands round the chips and dropped them into her bag. Quickly, as if they might be coated in poison.

"Thank you," she said. "It's convenient for me that you had them on you."

"It is, isn't it?" Tsabin smiled. There was something sharp about the expression, and Leia was just about to press further when the woman's comlink buzzed.

She glanced down and grimaced. "I have to go," she said. Her voice was slightly apologetic—but it was also oddly gleeful. "I hope you make good use of them."

"I will," Leia said. She narrowed her eyes at Tsabin's back as the woman jogged off, quickly disappearing into the flowers.

Her hand tightened on the strap of her rucksack, then she set off for the tomb itself.

Tsabin had been right—there wasn't much of any worth around the tomb or on the information panels beside it. And Leia just felt cold standing there. It was like a recurring nightmare she remembered in half-snatches from when she was little, of two babies crying and a woman dying.

Padmé Amidala had been pregnant when she died.

And she knew Luke had already convinced himself that—

She shook the thought away, but a spidery sense of dread lingered, skittering up and down her back.

She fled the tomb quickly enough, seeking refuge in the gardens outside—places of warmth, light, life. But the feeling dogged her for several hours afterwards.

And so did the thought that created it.

Sabé was sitting in the café opposite the entrance to the gardens when she saw Leia come out, brow creased in thought and confusion. The girl glanced one way and another, then set off without really taking it all in. Sabé watched her go and made a note to make sure wherever, Padmé's daughter was staying, it was safe.

Not everyone cowed before Imperial might on Naboo—least of all Sabé, but she wasn't the threat here. Something was stirring, and she didn't want the girl caught up in it.

She'd already given her enough to think about.

Padmé had wanted her daughter to know her, what she was like, and understand democracy at its heart before their inevitable meeting. After they'd found out Leia was headed to Naboo, she'd asked Sabé to plant the information chips on her to teach her that—everything Palpatine and Vader certainly wouldn't have taught her.

Few had heard about Luke's misconduct in the throne room, but they had. And they could tell the galaxy was changing.

It was like planets beginning to shift out of orbit slowly, then ever faster. It was like the start of an eclipse.

The shadow was just beginning to fall. Soon all they'd have was the corona, and they would see who could survive in the dark.

Luke tucked the datachip containing everything he'd found into the palm of his hand and set off the moment he was done with his shift.

Horada barely looked up when he retrieved his own lightsaber from the draw she always kept it in. He didn't bother saying goodbye before he darted out and headed up several levels to the landing pad.

He took his speeder along the familiar route into the Works, to where he could sense the Inquisitors' training facility like a gaping wound that bled rage into the Force.

The Inquisitors were, in name, under his father's jurisdiction as much as the Emperor's, so none of them on guard tried to stop him as he halted outside and walked right in. They knew who he was—resented him, envied him, loathed him, but knew him all the same. He could feel their eyes on his back as he strolled in.

The first set of doors hissed open onto an empty antechamber. Luke hesitated briefly.

If there had been anyone around to mock him for doing so, he wouldn't have. But perhaps the problem was that there wasn't anyone around.

Leia should be here.

He'd never walked in here alone. He hadn't given it much thought at the time, but he'd always been with his father and Leia—he'd never had cause to come here on his own.

Now it occurred to him that he was walking into a building full of people who wanted him dead, completely alone.

If both he and Leia died in one accident, it would look incredibly suspicious. But if Luke died on his own. . .

He was safer with Leia.

And even if he wasn't. . . he missed her. He felt braver when they were together.

He instinctively reached for their bond, but it was still strained, stretched and thinned. There was the barest flicker of a presence there, enough to know that she was alive and unharmed, but otherwise nothing.

You have to learn to stand alone, he thought.

And standing against Inquisitors? He could beat them any day.

He took one step, then another, and strode into the complex.

As rarely as he did come here, he knew the layout well. It was a straight shot forward to the sparring room, and he could hear the hum and clash of lightsabers even from here. No practice blades: Inquisitors won or Inquisitors suffered.

Sometimes—a lot of the time—it was both.

The door directly ahead of him hissed open, and he came to stand in the small gallery that overlooked the room. The red guards assigned to stand and watch along that same gallery barely tilted their heads at his appearance. They stood stock still, the light from the windows they stood beside casting eerie contours over their masks as well as illuminating the dust motes in the air, the training ring below.

Six Inquisitors spun their sabers, watching their opponent with the sort of razor distrust only they and the Emperor could ever practice. Three individual duels, each as fierce and brutal as the last; Luke hardly knew where to look.

The duellers hadn't noticed his presence yet, but the other Inquisitors, milling around the edges awaiting their turn, certainly had. The Sixth Sister—Mara Jade—was down there, her mask closed off to any expression she might show. But she tilted her head upwards toward the gallery, and he knew she'd seen him.

She tilted her head slightly. There was a clumsy attempt at contact with his mind, but he waved it off before she could say anything.

I have the information for you, he replied curtly. He saw no physical reaction from her—his eyes were, ostensibly, fixed on the fights—but he felt her grudging acceptance before she withdrew. He'd fulfilled this part of his promise: he was giving her this much.

Now all they needed was a way to give it to her without the other Inquisitors noticing.

Loyalty and cooperation was a shifting thing between servants of the Empire, as was perception. It was always best to cultivate your reputation, and that included who you dealt with.

So he watched, doing his best to keep a mask of careful amusement on his face, as the three duels below ended. All in all, not too brutal—someone looked like they were limping, another person was lying limp on the floor, but at least no one had lost an eye this time.

Supposedly, when his father had first started teaching the Inquisitors, he'd hacked a limb off of each of them to teach them the meaning of pain and loss. That, Luke knew, was the first step onto the path of darkness, and the first fostering of a resentment in the servant that could be twisted to serve the master.

They had served loyally ever since.

More of them were beginning to notice him now, watching them from the dais, and he felt the general anger and resentment in the room simmer ever higher.

Before another duel could begin, Jade opened her mask and snapped at him, "Come to prove why you're above us?"

The hatred spiked again—and further, as he let himself smile.

That was one way to cover up what was going on.

"I don't have anything," he told her, "to prove to you."

She stalled. She hadn't expected him to make it that much more difficult for her. But Luke would rarely lower himself to fight the Inquisitors before, and as far as any of them knew, nothing had changed.

As far as he acknowledged himself, nothing had changed.

"Then do it for the good of the Empire," she challenged further. The general chatter in the room had fallen silent, even the red guards turning their heads to observe the exchange. "Teach your underlings exactly what we should strive to be."

They had everyone's full attention now.

Not the way Luke would have gone about being subtle, but he'd go along.

He inclined his head mockingly. "If you insist," he said, then vaulted off the gallery to land on the same level as them, gently, the Force billowing around him.

He, very carefully, unhooked his lightsaber from his belt and held it at his side, loose in his grip. "Would you like to be my partner?"

She grinned at him, and inclined her head just as mockingly. "It'd be my honour," she said, "my lord."

Perhaps it made him the most dramatic person in the Core, but he was thoroughly enjoying all these theatrics.

He flicked his wrist twice—firstly to shift the datachip out of a pocket in his sleeve, secondly to light the saber. Then, before she was ready, he lunged.

Panic flashed across her face briefly before she got her blade up in time to block it, gritting her teeth against the effort. Their eyes met over the crossed blades; Luke shifted his grip so their hilts were right next to each other, the emitter on his lightsaber near skimming the metal ring on hers.

It was only a moment of lost concentration that he took to pull on the dark side, and it was worth it. The cold plunged everything into crystal clarity, slower, more precise. He could feel his own heartbeat, see her press her lips together in resolve, feel the emotions of the people around him.

Amusement, from the guards. Glee, anticipation, bloodlust from the Inquisitors.

But most of all, he noticed the minute flicker of understanding that crossed Jade's face when he floated the datachip out of his sleeve and into hers.

The moment it was there he lashed out with his leg, but she dodged the kick and the following slash, ducking back. Her yellow eyes narrowed: this was no longer theatrics, played out to achieve a goal. That goal had already been achieved.

This was a duel, now.

If she lost to Darth Vader's son, she'd bear the brunt of all the other Inquisitors' wrath. They could be violent in their disappointment.

If Luke lost to the Sixth Sister, his father would be disappointed with him.

He cared about one of those things substantially more than the other.

So he focused.

All Inquisitors had a similar fighting style, and he always struggled to understand how his father had been the one the teach it to them. Vader relied on power. He never wasted time with flashy moves designed to distract or intimidate; he didn't need to. He'd taught that style of fighting to his children.

So Luke held himself still, eyes narrowed, lightsaber out and in a defensive stance. Ready to—

There. Jade spun her lightsaber, painting a swathe of red on the air, and brought it down lightning fast.

But he wasn't there.

He ducked to the side and stabbed his saber forward. She barely caught it on one of her blades and shoved it away. She spun her saber again—

He stepped aside and kicked her torso.

She toppled back, on her feet again with a grunt and a snarl. Her eyes narrowed; her mask hissed close.

That's not your tell, Jade.

But she was still off-balance: he advanced forward, forced her to parry, parry, parry, always on the defensive.

She tried to spin her saber but he wrapped the Force round her right wrist, held out from her body, and fixed it in place. She jerked, tried to get free in time to avoid the slash he aimed at her torso and just stepped back in time to avoid being skewered.

He let go of her wrist and threw her into the wall.

She collided with a thud, crumpled to the floor. Her mask opened again just long enough for her to shoot him a look loaded with such venom something inside him withered and died.

He turned off his lightsaber.

"Your main tell is that you keep spinning your saber," he told her. It was useful advice, but he supposed hearing it in front of all the other Inquisitors made it humiliating, demeaning. "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should use it exclusively. It leaves you open to attack."

She kept glaring at him.

"Learn something from the Grand Inquisitor: he always used one blade unless two was necessary."

She shoved herself to her feet.

"The Grand Inquisitor," she spat, "was bested by a half-trained Padawan who calls himself Knight. I doubt I have anything to learn from him."

He shrugged, and turned away. "Then fail."

He took several steps towards the exit, but before he got there the Force screamed a warning. He jerked round, lightsaber igniting just in time to block the strike aimed at his head.

He looked down into Jade's glittering yellow eyes, and something snapped.

He threw out his hand and she was yanked up, her hands scrabbling for her throat, suspended in mid air. She gasped for breath—then cried out when he squeezed tighter.

He let go, and she fell to the floor.

"When you next challenge me to a duel," he said calmly, "make sure it's worthy of my time."

She stared at him, more in shock that anything. He could feel the other Inquisitors staring at him too.

He dropped his fist to his side and clenched it.

That—

He had—

His father would be proud of him, he thought.

So he just turned back around, clipped his lightsaber to his belt, and walked out of there.