Bail Organa frowned at the datapad, then transferred the frown to the woman who had delivered it. "This is confirmed?"
"Yes, Viceroy." Alderaan's intelligence chief gave a brisk nod. "Verified by one of our own spies. There have been whispers of a massive military project under the direct supervision of the Emperor for some time, but this is the first detailed assessment we've been able to confirm."
Beside him, Breha rested a hand on his. "This is an escalation of unprecedented proportions. Do we know the parameters of its power?"
"No, Your Majesty," the chief answered. "Only the information you see here."
Breha looked at Bail, her dark eyes filled with dread. "It's overkill," she said. "He has a whole fleet of Star Destroyers and Super Star Destroyers; they're more than capable of planetary blockades and bombardments, never mind ship-to-ship combat. The size of this station—it can only mean something beyond any of that."
"What good can it be against the Alliance?" Bail asked, thinking hard. "Palpatine knows how they're structured. Even if this monster has hyperdrive, how could it possibly be effective against scattered and isolated cells? As you said, the Fleet is vastly better equipped to deal with such a mobile threat."
"It could easily be a secondary threat," Breha suggested. "The Fleet can continue to be set against the Alliance itself, while this is turned on planets suspected of harboring them. With that in orbit, what planetary government wouldn't give wholehearted support to rooting out any Alliance cells? That alone could turn the tide."
"I must point out," the other woman said with obvious reluctance, "that we still lack any evidence of its armaments or capabilities, let alone the Emperor's true intentions."
"Yes," Bail agreed slowly. "But the man who overthrew the Republic and ended the Jedi Order wouldn't put resources such as this into something purely ornamental. We have to assume the worst."
"Thank you, Anaya," Breha said. "Please contact us immediately whenever further information on this development is available."
"Of course, Your Majesty." The intelligence chief bowed, then left the room.
Alone, Bail and Breha looked at each other for a long moment. "You spoke to Mon Mothma last," Breha said. "Had they any knowledge of this?"
Bail shook his head. "Nothing of this detail. They also knew of the diversion of military resources, and suspected a massive project in the works, but that was all. We'll need to inform them."
"Agreed," Breha said, sighing and sitting back in her chair. "And as soon as possible. But with the equinox festivities coming up, it would be too obvious if either of us left. Another month…"
"Do we dare leave it that long?" Bail rubbed a hand over his forehead wearily. "It's clearly finished, or very nearly so. If we cut it too close, and Palpatine sends that out before they're warned—"
"We can't risk this information across the HoloNet," Breha said. "Nor with an unaccompanied droid. If Palpatine ever had evidence that we knew this, and had tried to pass it on to the Alliance…"
"No, it has to be by courier," Bail agreed. "And one we trust completely. Fortunately, her absence from the build up to the equinox festivities can be excused by the call of other diplomatic duties, particularly if she's back before the actual day."
Breha covered her face with her hands and took a deep breath, then lowered her hands to her lap again, though her eyes were pained. "I hate risking her like this, Bail."
He put an arm around her. "I know. But she's supremely capable, you know that. You've taught her well."
"I trust her implicitly," Breha said. "It's the rest of the galaxy I don't trust, especially now. But I don't think there's any other way. And if Winter goes with her, we won't even have to risk her carrying this information physically."
"An excellent point." Bail looked again at the datapad before them and sighed, then rose, taking Breha's hand as she also stood. "They're due back soon. We'd better have everything ready for them before they arrive."
Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan sat in her assigned place in the Imperial Senate on Coruscant and thought about hairpins.
More specifically, she thought about how nice it would be to take out all the hairpins currently holding her elaborately braided updo in place, and possibly to throw them out the window of her apartment. Even nicer if the senator currently droning away about the virtue of the Emperor and the necessity of supporting his military ambitions just happened to be walking by below as she did…
"Your Highness," Winter murmured beside her.
Leia sighed and straightened up from her unconscious slouch. "I'm listening," she muttered. "Not that anyone is saying anything worth listening to."
"Nevertheless," Winter murmured back.
Leia pressed her lips together in exasperation, then picked up her datapad and made a show of scrolling through her earlier notes from today's session, knowing even as she did so that it wouldn't fool Winter. Her adoptive sister and senatorial aide was far too insightful for that, and knew Leia far too well. Not for the first time, Leia wished she possessed a fraction of Winter's cool, patient composure. It would have made it much easier to listen to the Emperor's fawning sycophants posing as senators.
Not that the Imperial Senate had any real powers these days, anyway. With tactics both stealthy and straightforward, Palpatine had long since effectively rendered it toothless. She knew that her parents still held out hope that the Senate could one day regain the democratic powers it had held during the Old Republic, but Leia found it hard to share that optimism. Despite her pacifistic upbringing, Leia was increasingly convinced that the military actions of the Rebel Alliance would be the only thing that could potentially end Palpatine's empire and restore democracy to the galaxy. She didn't necessarily like that conclusion, but it was hard to see what else could accomplish such a goal. Of course, the Alliance was hopelessly outnumbered by the Empire, to the extent that even with the best of guerrilla tactics, there could only be a long, slow war of attrition between the two, with the Empire always holding the upper hand. Some larger change was needed, either to weaken the Empire or strengthen the Alliance.
Leia was still trying to think of what could effect such a change when Winter nudged her. Jerking upright from the slouch she'd sunk back into unawares, she realized the day's session had finally ended. With supreme dignity, Leia gathered her things and stood. Winter rose beside her with her usual grace, and together they left the Senate chambers, for once managing to avoid the annoying Senator from Commenor who always wanted to exchange completely meaningless conversation.
"Do we need to go back to the apartments to get our things?" Leia asked, frowning at the giant statue of Emperor Palpatine that stood just outside the Senate chambers.
Winter tapped the datapad she held. "No, your Highness. Everything's been transferred to the ship, which is ready to depart once we arrive."
"Good," Leia replied, as they turned toward the docking bay where the Tantive IV waited. "I'm more than ready to get off Coruscant for a while."
"It will be nice to be home again," Winter agreed.
"A whole month at home," Leia said with a contented sigh. "A whole month of not having to think about political machinations or Imperial excesses. Just what we need."
Luke lay on the grass beneath an azuverd tree in another of Imperial City's small, out of the way parks, looking up at the pale bluish-green leaves above them, their edges shining golden in the late morning sunshine.
"Now," Mara said softly, "see that broken bit at the end of that branch there? Concentrate, and see if you can snap it entirely."
He focused on the branch end that hung crookedly, a casualty of the other night's violent thunderstorm. Taking a deep breath, he momentarily thought about dogfights, about the split concentration needed to assess the entire field of battle while focusing closely on the enemy fighter on your own tail, and tried to slip into that mindset. Maintaining his greater connection to the Force, he looked at the crack running through the branch, and channeled his awareness into it, feeling its depth and the thin strips of wood still holding the broken end. Carefully, he pressed outward against the broken sides, increasing the pressure as the crack widened, until the wood gave with a muted snap. The branch tip fell, and, careful to avoid catching anyone else's notice, he waited until it was nearly to the ground before he cushioned its landing with the Force, floating it the last few centimeters to land softly on the grass below.
Good. Mara's sense was warm with approval, and he glanced sideways to where she lay beside him, her head resting on his shoulder, his arm wrapped around her. She felt the shift in his attention, of course, and turned her head to smile at him. "You're a quick study."
I have a good teacher, he thought at her, then raised his eyebrows questioningly.
"Oh, that was very good," Mara said. "Much clearer than last time."
"Did you get the actual words?"
"No, but the sentiment was very clear. You really are a quick study."
"I really do have a good teacher," he countered.
Mara harrumphed under her breath. "Maybe. I've never really taught anything before, let alone this. I don't actually know if I'm doing it right."
"Between us, it's working," Luke said with a shrug. "Does it matter exactly how something is taught if we get results?"
"I have no idea," Mara said. "I hope not. I'd hate to have put all this work in only to have to redo it later." Luke concentrated for a moment, and the end of Mara's long braid lifted just slightly off the ground. "Stop showing off," she said, holding it down without batting an eye.
"Hey, you said I should practice."
"Practice this," she said, and though as usual he didn't catch the exact words, the sentiment was indeed very clear, and he laughed.
"I am not."
"You absolutely are," Mara replied, but she squeezed his hand at her waist.
"With a mouth like that, you should be in the Fleet."
"You're all amateurs." She resettled herself, snuggling slightly closer to him, and he tightened his arm around her. "You're not actually practicing anything when anyone else is around, are you?"
"Just in the mess hall," Luke replied, closing his eyes and settling into the warmth of Mara's nearness and the sunshine filtering through the leaves. "I figured juggling the meal trays with the Force would be a good exercise."
Her sense radiated amusement, and he marveled at the feel of it, the ability to sense her emotions and general thoughts the way he now could.
"I don't know why I bother with you," she said. He projected another thought at her, and she elbowed him. "You wish."
Luke smiled without bothering to open his eyes, and a comfortable silence fell.
As everything he did with Mara was comfortable, really. Almost from the moment they'd met, he'd felt perfectly at ease with her. They clicked in a way he hadn't experienced since losing his family and leaving Tatooine. Whether they shared a meal, or had lessons about the Force, or were silent, like now, there was always an easy understanding between them. Even the few almost-fights they'd had were defused quickly, with no lingering ill will—in fact, within the hour, they were usually laughing at the things they had nearly fought about.
The exception, of course, being their argument about the Emperor.
Mara's admission of her true position had explained a lot of small things for Luke, like how she could be so utterly poised and confident, yet had been so baffled at the thought that someone might care enough to worry about her. Had anyone ever treated her like a person before, or just as a useful tool for the Emperor?
He was still profoundly angry over what had been stolen from her, but he knew better than to let that show again. Her confused dismay had been upsetting enough the first time. Clearly it had never occurred to her to think anything about her odd life was amiss, or to think a breath of criticism toward the Emperor. Naturally; he'd spent nearly her entire life brainwashing her to believe that her kidnapping was an honor, her childhood lost to intensive training a matter of prestige. She'd lost everything normal in life, yet thought the loss a privilege.
Yet just as clearly, she wasn't ready to consider any other possibilities, and Luke wasn't about to disrupt their growing bond by dragging her into an emotional confrontation that she, through no real fault of her own, couldn't even comprehend yet. Hopefully there would come a time when she would be ready to hear how much more she deserved from life, but in the meantime, he was pretty sure the best he could do was just continue as they were.
And that part wasn't hard at all. She was beautiful, sharply intelligent, honorable, and had a wicked sense of humor. They always enjoyed their time together, and he always looked forward to the next time he could see her.
But Luke couldn't stop thinking about the greater implications of what had happened to her, either. He'd had his doubts about the Empire over his years with the Fleet, sure—some of them serious. The way the Empire turned a blind eye to slavery throughout much of the galaxy had always been upsetting. Growing up on Tatooine, Luke had seen slavery firsthand. He'd always known that his own grandmother had been a slave once, and that it had been little more than chance that she'd met his grandfather and been freed. It could so easily have been him as well. Then there was the Empire's inherent bias against nonhumans, another issue that never stopped bothering him. Uneasy as these things made him, Luke had mostly assumed that all governments had flaws, even large flaws like these, and that probably the people in those governments were essentially working toward something fairer, and that the wheels of change just moved slowly.
Yet according to Mara, the person in charge of it all, the Emperor himself, had deliberately and cold-bloodedly stolen a small child from her parents, deprived her of any love or affection or stability, and trained her to literally murder anyone whom he chose. Was a government headed by such a person really working for the benefit of its citizens, in any way? Could it?
He didn't think so. And he had no idea what to do about it.
"Are you okay?"
"Hmm?" He opened his eyes to see Mara frowning at him.
"You're upset," she said. "What's bothering you?"
"Nothing important," he answered, pulling his thoughts back to the moment.
"Luke," Mara said, rising enough to lean on an elbow and look down at him. "You don't think I'm falling for that, do you?"
He reached up to tuck a loose strand of hair back behind her ear. "Just not happy about having to be away from you for so long."
"Well, you were bound to get a tour of duty sooner or later," Mara said with a sigh. "And at least it's a short one."
"True," Luke agreed. All squadrons assigned to Coruscant as part of the planet's standing defense got rotated out on tours of duty with capital ships occasionally, both to keep them from getting complacent and as a way of assessing performance, and his was next up. "I'd still rather stay with you. You wouldn't want to run away with me so we could finally get some real time together, would you?"
Mara smiled wryly. "Don't tempt me. What ship did you say you were assigned to?"
"I didn't. They haven't told us yet."
"That's odd," Mara said, frowning.
"Yeah," Luke agreed. "But what can you do when Command doesn't feel like talking?"
"I wonder…" Her brow creased with thought. Luke raised his eyebrows at her, and she shook her head, her hair gleaming like gilded copper in the filtered sunlight. "There's a big military project that's been extremely hush-hush; I'm not sure exactly what it is, just that immense resources have been quietly shifted its way. I wonder if you're about to be part of the next resource influx."
"Huh," he said. "And you don't have any idea what it is?"
She hesitated. "Not my remit—but it's something a whole lot bigger than even a dozen new Super Star Destroyers. I know what those cost, and the glimpses I've gotten are considerably above that amount, and I know I'm not seeing a fraction of what's actually going on."
Luke felt a shiver go up his spine. "The Fleet is already pretty massive. What could they possibly need that demanded those resources?"
Mara hesitated again. So she was uneasy about it, too. That didn't bode well. "Maybe a new shipyard?"
"There's been no shortage of ships, and all current shipyards are operating at capacity."
Mara shrugged, but her eyes were troubled. "If I hear anything that's not confidential, I'll tell you. Let me know when you know what ship you're on."
"All right," Luke said, sitting up and hunching his shoulders forward to stretch slightly stiff muscles. Nothing he could do about this mystery project, anyway, whatever it was. And for all they knew, maybe it was something perfectly innocent.
Maybe. But somehow he didn't think so.
He shook his head to disperse the foreboding. "We still have another hour today. Let's go grab some lunch."
Mara smiled and agreed, coming readily to her feet as he did, and all other concerns faded into the background as she slipped her hand into his and they turned toward the commercial area to the east of the park, discussing which restaurant to choose.