Chapter Three: Alderaan
The eight cloaked men in dark blue robes surrounded Shamo brandishing an assortment of weapons, varying from blasters to vibro-swords. The paused, confused, for a moment when a vibrant heliotrope blade jumped out of Shamo's lightsaber hilt, but quickly overcame that confusion and assailed the lone Jedi.
Three at a time attacked her as the others covered their comrade's backs.
In the fury of their attack Shamo felt herself working up a sweat. Parrying a lethal thrust to her neck, Shamo ducked under the man's arm and punched him in a particularly painful spot between his shoulder blades, causing him to drop his blade and tumble forwards into one of his friends. Using the momentary confusion to her advantage, the Jedi kicked a mace out of another man's hand and caught it in her left hand. More of the aggressors dashed forewards, only to be knocked down both by a blow of the mace and a surge of wind caused by Shamo pushing with the Force.
A blaster bolt cut through the blade she carried.
Discarding it Shamo reached into her cloaks near her back and smiled widely at the attackers. With a swish vroom, she ignited a second blade, this one vivaciously ginger in colour. The assailants took a step back and looked questioningly at one another.
Never one to let her enemies regroup easily, Shamo used the force to flip over their heads and land at the top of the expansive staircase.
Flourishing her twin blades in front of her menacingly, the Jedi waited in calm repose for what would happen next.
What did happen next completely surprised the young Haltijatan.
The men picked their friends up off the ground, put away their weapons, and nearly disappeared into the dense foliage around the base of the stair.
Shamo stood amazed and looked around her.
There wasn't anyone in the vicinity to her eyes – she reached out with the Force, yet could find no trace of her attackers.
The Jedi straitened out of her defensive stance and deactivated her second lightsaber, letting the other fall to her side, although still humming with energy.
After a few more minutes of silence, the humming ended as the purple blade extinguished.
Confused, Shamo turned and slowly began walking, once more, towards the large doors to the palace entrance.
Just as she reached out to open a smaller side door, it swung open and out stepped a contingent of guards dressed in robes much the same as those of her attackers only with insignias embroidered in silver and ruby red thread on their sleeves.
"Sub-Lieutenant Jedi Zemmeck?"
Shamo cocked an eyebrow at the leader of the guards.
"I thought that the Alderaanian's had no weapons? A peaceful people, I had heard."
The captain's face was emotionless and his eyes cold, "For the most part, you are correct. But we must protect our royal household from imposters and those who would do them harm. So I ask, are you the Jedi Azaria Zemmeck, former Sub-Lieutenant in the old Republic's fleet?"
Putting on her best Jedi face, Shamo pulled herself up to her full height and bowed her head towards him.
"Greetings! Indeed, I was both the Jedi Azaria and Sub-Leftie Zemmeck, but in the last few years I have found it necessary to go by another identity. You can call me Shamo."
The captain moved aside so she could go past him inside the door.
"Well met, Shamo. I am Captain Organa of the Royal Guard, and if you will follow me, I will take you to the council hall."
Bail sighed as he cut off the communication with his cousin of the same name.
The Jedi Shamo had arrived safely and passed the tests of Bail Organa's second cousin, and was now being debriefed by the high council of the Barons.
It turned out that not only had this 'Shamo' character intercepted a few messages while hacking into the Imperial database, but had discovered vital information as to the location of secret research facilities where new and terrible weapons were being created.
This information would be 'accidentally' revealed to the fledgling rebellion and action now planned to happen.
Antilles smiled, maybe this wasn't such a bad thing after all. They had gained a powerful ally, one of the last Jedi left in the galaxy, and a pot load of new information.
As his mother used to say, every asteroid has a diamond inside.
The nanny droid warbled a warning for Shamo to keep a firm hold on the squirming toddler. The little princess Leia Organa, formerly Skywalker, gurgled in the Jedi's arms and waved her pudgy little arms in the air. Shamo smiled.
It had been a long time since she had held a small child, a longer time since it was under relatively pleasant circumstances.
Bail Organa stood nearby, pride written on his face as his adopted daughter grabbed his finger and jabbed it into her mouth.
"She is strong in the force, just as much as Anakin was," Shamo commented. "She'll be a heart-breaker for sure, if genetics have anything to say about it."
Organa grinned, "That indeed it true. Her mother was a beautiful young woman, and from what I hear her father was once a very good looking young man."
The last part of what he said came out bitterly, as if even the thought of the little girl's biological father made a bad taste in his mouth.
"I'm very sorry that Amidala is unable to see her little one grow up."
Shamo placed and unoccupied hand on the King's shoulder comfortingly.
"Leia will only know you as her father, Your Majesty; nothing will be able to change her love for you. I can promise you that," the Jedi vowed in a low voice. "But I must ask where the senator is now?"
Bail hesitated, then took the happy child out of Shamo's arms, kissed her cubby little face, then handed her off to a nanny droid.
"Come with me, please. We must talk in my office where it is safe to speak more freely."
The two left the nursery and went through a mirage of tunnels and passageways before entering the office through a hidden doorway.
"We can never be sure where bugs might have been placed – the palace is routinely swept every half hour, but there are new tricks that allow the imperial technology to hide them from us. The office and council halls are continuously swept."
"Very cool, Your Majesty."
Bail sat down in a puffy looking chair and motioned for Shamo to do the same.
"Jedi Zemmeck... or would you prefer Azaria?"
"Shamo, actually. I prefer that name."
"Shamo? That's an unusual name, why Shamo?"
"It was a nickname that my friends in the temple gave me when I was just an initiate..."
"Azaria, how come you get to make two lightsabers?"
The young Haltija looked over at the indignant Rodian.
"Because I'm great with one lightsaber, of course."
Derrick laughed, "No, it's because she managed to convince Master B'Vand that she lost her first one."
The young Jedi initiates laughed and Azaria blushed crimson.
"That's a lie, I convinced her to let me make another because I wanted to try with both and so I'd have a back up if I ever needed it."
The children laughed.
"What do you expect, a sith to pop out and chase you? Jedi don't use lightsabers in real fights anymore! Blasters are where it's at," Derrick giggled.
One of the younger initiates that the close group had sort of taken under their wings shook her small fist at Azaria and admonished, "Shame, shame!"
Yet due to her child's lisp and her Mon-Calmari accenting, it came out as 'shamo, shamo.'
The rest of the children, from that point on, forever called their companion 'Shamo'.
"And you trust that the Empire will never track down her whereabouts? It seems a bit risky to me."
Organa nodded, "I thought so too, until Amidala convinced me that, as it is the opposite of what most people would do, no one would expect her to do dormant and stay in one place. Truthfully, I had ever even heard of the planet before, but she left not long ago with five friends and bodyguards. She said if the Empire ever falls, that she'll return... but this iron grip that the Emperor has on the galaxy... I cannot see her return for at least five or six years. She'll have missed her little girl's growing up."
Shamo nearly laughed at the naivety of the King's words.
"I must protest, I think you are underestimating the losses the free world have suffered – as far as I know, there's only a few handfuls of Jedi left, and even fewer members of the Republic Fleet. And many of those that are alive are in hiding such as I was, or are in an Imperial detention centre. To be realistic, we might have to accept that the Empire is here to stay, maybe not forever, but for a long time. The Sith do not give up easy, and the army is made up of young, zealous, brainwashed youths who've listened to the sermons of Palpatine and his underling's teachings of human superiority and the cleansing of the galaxy.
"The rebellion is but a small force, one of several such small forces in the known worlds. They need to be united, but hidden from the sight of Coruscant."
Organa nodded, "my cousin is seeking out, discreetly, of course, other senators who have similar... differences in their ideals. My brother, Neil, and my wife went a few months ago to secure a sight for a base, under the cover of a safari trip around some of the more tropical planetary systems. We haven't heard much from them, but Joaquima sent an update a little while ago saying that there was a potential spot in the Yavin system. Supposedly some old temples hidden in the jungles. Anyways, that's about it."
"Ah... that's it as in that's all there is or as in that's all you'll tell me?"
Bail grinned mischievously, "a little of column A, and a little of column B."
Shamo laughed, "Alright, okay. I can deal with that, your Majesty."
"Two in the morning dusty space-port town
The river rolls in the night
Little gypsy moth she's all tied down
She quiver in the wind and the light
Yeah and a spacer's ship is just held down in chains
From the lazy days of sail
She's just a lying there in silent pain
He lean on the tourist rail
A mother and her baby and the college of war
In the concrete graves
You never wanna fight against the stars' law
Nobody rules the waves
Yeah and on a night when the lazy wind is a-wailing
Around the Cutty Sark
The single handed spacer goes sailing
Sailing away in the dark
He's upon the bridge on the self same night
The spacer of dry dusty land
Two in the morning but there's one green light
And a man on a barge of sand
She's gonna slip away below him
Away from the things he's done
But he just shouts 'hey man what you call this thing'
He could have said 'Pride of Mimbon'
On a night when the lazy wind is a-wailing
Around the Cutty Sark
Yeah the single handed spacer goes sailing
Sailing away in the dark"
The Padawans all sat, raptured, with the beautiful yet sad song that young Maarae sang. Maarae, the same youngster that had given Shamo her nickname, had just returned from a journey to the temple ruins on Dantoonie and was sharing one of the many beautiful songs that she had learned on her visit.
Of the old group of friends only the younger Mon-Calmari girl wasn't yet a padawan, but that was not ill – she was only eleven while the rest were well into their fifteenth year.
Those days had been blissful, it was sad when they were away with their masters on missions, but that only made the time together that much sweeter. Of course, the Padawan's all loved their masters and wouldn't give up being apprentices for anything in the worlds, but they did miss their close circle of friends.
Even up to the end of the Clone Wars and the near extinction of the Jedi order, they stuck together as much as possible... but their numbers dwindled and friends saw friends being slaughtered and companions cut down by the ruthless enemy.
Yes, those days were held fondly in remembrance, but not without a taste of bitterness.
But still the words of Shamo's master rang through her mind.
"A Jedi must learn to avoid expecting the impossible, grieving the irretrievable, and fearing the inevitable."
A hooded and cloaked figure snuck into a dark room.
Grabbing a keypad he began typing up a message onto the computer.
He paused, scanned the computer screen, and then snarled.
Someone had hacked his files... luckily he had built in firewalls to protect his identity... but this hacker hadn't built any of their own.
With a sadistic grin on his face, the man began tracing the hacker back to its source...
Shamo accessed her data pad only to frown.
Her files were all messed around with and the classic signs of a hacker were all over her programs.
Shamo could barely stand the irony – the hacker had been hacked!
Though she tried to trace the hacker back to its roots, and she over-road the programming on several firewalls, the Jedi discovered she was only following cold tracks....yet the tracks were familiar.
With a yelp Shamo recognized the signature of her hacker – the mystery source in the Alderaan court!
The mysterious spy smiled as he saw the traces of the hacker trying to find his source, only to go in circles. He laughed in a deep, scratchy voice.
This one would regret snooping in his files.
Yet what the spy didn't know was that his hacker had changed the info in his files. The spy continued to send updates to the Emperor, telling his master of the young woman who had appeared one day on a Corellian corvette and addressed the high council on secret matters. Little did he know that those messages never reached the Emperor in their true form. He always recived the same answer:
'Stay as you are, do not reveal yourself. Stay in your current position and await orders otherwise.'
Shamo kept a running tab on this spy – he knew of her yet not that she was his hacker. Through the messages she intercepted the Jedi developed a strong idea of who this traitor might be – she built a profile of the man and watched as it took form.
It wouldn't be long now until she discovered who this spy was, not long before he makes a mistake that will lead her strait to him.
The spy swore under his breath – another dead end.
He had traced the data pad back to Coruscant and then to a name.
'Revii Zemmeck'
This name held no meaning; there were no life forms that he could find with that name that would fit the profile of a hacker. Hence, he began searching both names separately, looking for connections.
Eventually he came across two names that were connected.
Revii Aelfhald and Azaria Zemmeck, both Jedi, both dead in the Clone Wars.
This search was taking him no-where.
He searched the names again, this time – for no real reason – in the Imperial criminal watch system. He got a hit.
Azaria Zemmeck wanted for the theft of Imperial fighter prototype plans.
The spy smiled. There were three possibilities: one, which someone had the same name as the dead Jedi, two, which someone took over the identity of the dead Jedi, or three, that the dead Jedi isn't actually dead.
Shamo got the break she needed, but it wasn't the most heart warming thing in the worlds – the spy had sent a message to the Emperor and signed his name on the bottom. Unfortunatly for Shamo – the spy's message to the Emperor was informing his master that he possibly knew the identity of a hacker and a criminal. Her.
Quickly changing the message to suit her purposes, Shamo copied down the spy's name onto a piece of paper and ran to the King's office.
"Your Majesty! I know who the leak is!"