THE QUARRY

By: Scatterheart a.k.a. Hallospacegirl

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CHAPTER FIVE: COMPLICATIONS

"Bail, I must apologize to you for the comments I made earlier—"

"No, Obi-Wan, I'm the one who owes you an apology." Bail Organa let his shoulders slouch tiredly as he strolled with the Jedi down the pebbled garden path. "What you said was exactly what I had wanted to say."

"Just incredibly crudely," Kenobi answered with a wry smile, catching a stray yellow leaf by the stem as it cartwheeled from a nearby shade-tree. "I'm no politician, Bail. I never was, and I never will be."

"I wholeheartedly agree, old friend." They shared a quiet laugh; a slight breeze wafted from the east, and the Jedi master released the leaf into the air, following its passage beyond the trees and around the base of the metallic Rebellion headquarters, until up, up it flew, and out of sight.

They continued on, lapsing into a comfortable silence.

The oblique, late afternoon sun was slanting through the emerald shade-trees lining the walk, and beyond the silhouettes of the rustling large leaves, the first of three silvery moons could be been emerging wispily into the swirling azure sky.

While Kenobi took in the sights around him with a thinly veiled thirst glittering in his otherwise steady, tranquil blue eyes, Organa felt strangely detached from the beauty of the garden – the fatigue of a sleepless thirty-six standard hours had overridden the minor adrenalin stimulants coursing through his circulatory system and had caught up with him at last. The flat yet persistent headache that had been plaguing him since morning gave a sour jolt as the senator realized that the approaching evening provided him no luxury of resting his head against a pillow for even a minute.

He considered briefly – very briefly – leaving his friend and retreating inside for a quick nap… but no, dual senatorial and Rebellion duties required even this. A hospitable stroll with a friend. A sandbox romp with his daughter. A dance of the Alderaanian Reel at a ball with his wife. All preferably within sight of a few galactic Rebel journalists, who would then go on to ease the minds of the rest of the Rebel Alliance with stories of a successful, strong, and even happy Rebellion.

And as he glanced at the Jedi master, who was admiring a violet tree-flower with as much unabashed curiosity as a child, he felt another twinge of guilt biting into his heart. He detested thinking of his loved ones as but necessary accessories to the great political scheme, and he detested the fact that the more the Empire spread its inky fingers across the galaxy, the more he found himself wandering in those murky, ungrateful areas of his mind. But what else was there for him to do? Rebellion morale was falling, and the Empire was rising.

And now, this. Larmé Sarena Narona of Naboo. By the Maker, if she could just tell them this one name, that one tiny name of the Imperial planet, then all of this would end right now. He would force her to do it himself, if he could. Force her do to it himself if it weren't for the laws and the eyes and journalists guiding and chiding his every move…

"You shouldn't be here with me, Bail," Kenobi's mellifluous voice flowed smoothly into the quiet.

Organa started, tucked the dangerous thoughts that had somehow crawled into his mind away from the Jedi's always-inquisitive eyes. And from himself. He absolutely couldn't think this way; there were lines that he had pledged he wouldn't cross, no matter what the situation. "And why is that?" he queried, attempting – miserably, he figured – to inject some semblance of humor into his tone.

"You're tired. Your entire aura shakes of it. Go to sleep for a while."

He stopped in his tracks and leaned against the rough trunk of a shade tree, ignoring the protesting snags of the blue silk robe on his back. There would always be another robe, another ridiculously expensive set of attire he would be forced to wear in order to boost the credibility of the Rebellion image. "There's still much to do before tomorrow morning, Obi-Wan. Contacting other Rebellion leaders about the budget on Dantooine, inquiring about the hostage situation on Chad, sending out personal invitations to an Alliance gala coming up next month. And the Imperial operation. Larmé Sarena." He winced. He sounded like a whining adolescent.

"You need someone to take the burden from you, my friend," Kenobi replied.

"No, these are all things I must do myself." Then he smiled, resignedly. "I guess the only person who can help me is my cafeena-drink brewer droid."

It seemed as though the joke had been lost on the Jedi master, who continued in a concerned, even tone, "I'll be honest, Bail. I won't be able to help you on issues I have no knowledge of. But what about Lena?"

"What about Lena?" Organa returned, and wondered if Kenobi's hidden invitation was what he had been yearning to hear all along.

"I've had personal contact with Lena. I know her – I know her slightly better than any of you, that is. If you're looking for someone to lead the interrogations—"

"You, Obi-Wan? But I can't." He eased himself from the tree and continued down the path.

"Why not?" The Jedi master matched his steps. "You say with your voice that you can't, but I sense that you do."

It was useless trying to feign anything from him; Organa abandoned the effort. "There are two reasons why you can't, and neither one of them is because I don't want you to. It just doesn't feel right to me, as a friend, to put you to work like we've been doing. You've already done us the biggest of all favors by just showing up with her. And now you're supposed to be our guest – but what are you doing instead? Working from the moment you stepped from that ship. If—"

"Bail," the Jedi interjected gently, "in times like these we're not allowed in indulge in hospitality. Leave our personal friendship for the peace after the storm. Work now for the greater good, both of us. The peace will come sooner if we do."

He sighed, raggedly. "There's a second reason."

"And what's that?"

"Some at this base have wanted an opportunity like this – have trained and dreamt of an opportunity like this – for years. No, decades."

"For a chance to interrogate an Imperial?"

"For the information that it will gain," he responded firmly. "For the chance to revive the Rebellion from its current stagnation. You do it and you take away their dreams."

"I have no desire for recognition."

"I know. But they do."

"What do you mean by 'they'? All the members at this base, or just several in particular?"

He glanced sidelong at the Jedi, and realized that the slightly younger man had already read him like a holo-book. He took a furtive scan of the serenity around them, a habitual action from the years of war that he could not hope to unlearn. Then he said, "Chig Nugla. He's a trained interrogator. From the beginning, he's been pressuring me to let him to take control of the interrogations. But last night I only sent untrained cadets. Chig, understandably, grew very dissatisfied with that. So now either I personally take over, or he'll find a way to muscle himself past the cadets."

They had reached a small gazebo at the end of the walk; it was constructed from a seamless blend of buffed durasteel and a mesh of entwined white vines. A web as complicated as the mess they were getting into now, he thought as he entered with Kenobi and settled into the nearest bench.

The Jedi chose the bench opposite him. "There's more," he stated. It wasn't even a question.

"Yes, there's more," Organa responded. "If you remember from this morning, Chig mentioned that two hundred Ithorians were captured by the Empire as hostages. Tortured brutally, then killed. He didn't mention that five of these Ithorians were members of his family. His wife, his two sons, his uncle, and his sister." He searched Kenobi's face for any sign of surprise, but the Jedi continued regarding him with the same serene and focused gaze.

"Personal entanglements complicate things," Kenobi finally said, running his hand along the web of vines that formed the seat of his bench. "It's best if you employed someone with a neutral background."

"Neutral? Who here at this base can possibly be entirely neutral, Obi-Wan? Are you neutral? That's why we're here – we've all lost something to the Empire. Some more than others."

The Jedi's features formed a sad little smile at that. "Yes, you're right, Bail. I was wrong," he replied, quietly.

Organa inhaled deeply in an effort to dissipate the tension that had gathered in his brain and that he had unfortunately released upon his friend. "What I'm trying to say is that I want you to do it. By the Maker, you may be no politician, but you talk better than him or me. You have those – those Jedi mind skills to help you out. And it's true you know that Stormtrooper better than any of us, combined. Obi-Wan, if you truly want this assignment, then I'm prepared to talk to Chig, and—"

Through the trees and bushes, a small flurry of pink appeared, running toward the gazebo with lacy arms outstretched. With a little cry of "Daddy!" it clambered up the steps and leapt into Organa's arms, a tiny, warm ball that made his heart swell, ache with emotion.

"Leia, darling," he whispered into his daughter's tangled brown hair, and held her close, as though at any moment an Imperial speeder would swoop down from the sky and spirit her away. And maybe it could. He had been repeatedly assured that this Rebel base was completely hidden from the Empire – and perhaps it was – still, he didn't know anymore. "Leia, what are you doing by yourself?" he asked, peering into her flushed, dirt-stained face. He wiped a smudge away from her cheek with a thumb. "And what were you doing?"

"Playing soldiers with C-5MO." She grinned. "He chased me but I got away."

"Leia, I don't think he was playing. I think he was telling you to stop running around in the mud in your new dress that you're not supposed to wear until the gala."

"But Mommy said I could."

"Well, then your mommy's spoiling you way too much." He gave her a smacking kiss on the top of her forehead. By the Maker, he would spoil her, give her anything she wanted, build her a castle out of diamonds and never let her go…

She squirmed in his lap. "Daddy, who's that?"

Organa blinked; he had momentarily forgotten about Obi-Wan Kenobi. He looked over at the Jedi, and found that the Jedi was regarding the two of them with a smile… and yet he seemed sad, Organa guessed. Utterly sad and a billion light years away. "Obi-Wan, this is Leia," he said. "Leia, this is Obi-Wan Kenobi. He's a—" He hesitated, searched for words. "He's a politician. And he's a friend of Mommy and Daddy's."

Kenobi bent over and extended a hand. Leia took his index finger in a grubby grip, and they shook. "Hello there, Leia Organa."

For the most fleeting of moments Organa met eyes with the Jedi and he recalled the day before on the landing strip; Kenobi had called her Leia Skywalker then, and had flushed in awkward shame at the senator's curt reply. And perhaps he should not have had bristled in that fashion, since Skywalker was her given surname… but Leia was an Organa, pure and simple, Bail reminded himself. In heart, in spirit, and in soul.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi, you don't look like a pol'tician," Leia was saying. "They're all fat and angry. They don't like me. They don't talk to me."

"Leia—" Organa frowned at her. "—don't be rude."

Kenobi grinned, laughed. "Appearances can be very deceiving, little one. Maybe not all politicians are fat and angry."

"But I don't feel that you're a pol'tician," she declared, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. "And my feelings are always right."

Kenobi gravitated closer. "Oh? And what else do these… feelings of yours tell you about me, little one?"

"I saw you before."

"You saw me before? How peculiar. What was I doing?"

"I don't know. It was a long, long time ago. I think you looked diff'rent – all brown and hairy and stuff. I was very small. Not big like I am now."

Organa felt his heart skip a beat. Maker, she couldn't have remembered. But as fiercely as he tried to deny it, the truth couldn't be erased – it had been Obi-Wan Kenobi, not him, who had helped deliver her from Padmé Amidala's womb, who had been the first to hold her bloody, raw newborn body in his arms and look into that round, angelic little face.

But no five-year-old could remember an event from birth!

Or maybe she possessed the same special Force sensitivity that Kenobi and the rest of the Jedis did. Maybe she had inherited it from her fath – from Anakin Skywalker. The same curse. Almost subconsciously, he held her closer.

"Hey, Obi-Wan," she said, struggling halfheartedly to loosen Organa's embrace. "Do you want to talk to my invis'ble friend?"

"Invisible friend? Why, certainly. What's her name?"

"It's a boy."

"Is he your boyfriend, little one?"

"Ugh, no!" She wrinkled her nose in distaste. "I don't like boys in that way. This one's diff'rent, though. He's like my brother. His name's Lu—"

Enough. "Leia, run along. You have to leave Daddy and Obi-Wan alone now," Organa said, barely keeping the tightness in his throat in check. "We've got a lot of grown-up business to talk about. I'll see you at dinner, all right?"

"But, Daddy, you never listen to me about my invis'ble friend!"

"I know, dear, but now you have to run along."

"Daddy, I want to talk to Obi-Wan—"

"Bail, excuse me, but it's time for me to go." It was Kenobi. He rose from the bench, smoothed his white tunic with his hands, and gave an almost apologetic bow. "As the situation stands, I suggest you let Secretary Nugla handle the Imperial situation for now. I implore you, Bail, to get some rest. I'll see you at the meeting tomorrow."

"I… of course. Until tomorrow then, Obi-Wan," Organa said, and watched as the Jedi waved to Leia and, amid the sound of Leia's protests, strolled down the path that led to the headquarters and disappeared within.

Organa sighed in his wake, rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers. He wondered why he hadn't refused the Jedi's request to leave, and wondered why he hadn't let the conversation between his daughter and Kenobi continue. It would have been the most civil course of action, but somehow, the words they had exchanged had unnerved him.

No, he was lying to himself – they had frightened him out of his wits. And he felt a sudden, irrational resentment toward Obi-Wan Kenobi for continuing with it, exploring the side of his daughter that he would never be strong enough to face himself.

"Daddy?" Leia was poking at his arm gently and searching him with large blue eyes. "You're not happy," she said, simply.

He met her gaze and saw his innocent daughter and the wise, Force-sensitive Skywalker heir staring back. And he realized with a strange, breaking feeling in his chest that the latter part of her would remain entwined with the former for as long as she lived. As meshed as the vines that formed the gazebo. As tightly held together as the fabric of life itself. He crushed her to his chest. "It's nothing, my darling," he said. It's just a father's love.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Secretary Chig Nugla did not look like the most triumphant Ithorian in the galaxy, Obi-Wan Kenobi noted in wry amusement as the council filed into the conference room the following morning. His slatted brown eyes, set high on a flat, curved head, were rolling agitatedly in reddened sockets as he lumbered to the nearest chair and lowered his large frame into it.

"She won't cooperate," he croaked out as soon as the four other members had settled into their places. His voice echoed disjointedly from two mouths that refused to function quite on unison. "I tried all night. She simply wouldn't cooperate."

"No names? No contacts? Not even a hint?" Cam'ria Ban remarked, rubbing her glossy, high forehead with a palm. "What were the tactics you employed, Secretary Nugla?"

Kenobi felt the Ithorian's indignation flare furiously through the Force; visibly, however, Nugla remained deflated, weary, and slumped. His complete exhaustion was overriding the righteous, vengeful temper he had displayed in this very room the day before. "I assure you, I tried everything, Secretary Ban," he said, hoarsely. "I spent fifteen standard hours with her – enough time to test every tactic within ethical boundaries." He scoffed. "It's obvious that this Stormtrooper has been trained to handle interrogation to the limits. Why are we hesitating in dealing out our top card – her parents' tainted contract with Palpatine – when we know nothing else will win this game?"

Marina Mare drew in a prolonged, thin breath. "It's highly unusual for even a Stormtrooper not to utter a single word during an interrogation. Perhaps—"

Chig Nugla shook his ribbon-like head. "I didn't say that. She did speak."

"And?"

"And…" Nugla's stereo voice trailed off unevenly, and Kenobi realized that the Ithorian's bleary, reddened eyes had traveled from Mare and now were fixed on his, even as he addressed the entire company. "I think you should see for yourselves, ladies and gentlemen. Senator Organa, if you please, bring up the surveillance tapes from yesterday."

A button was pressed, and a moment later, the holo-projector at the center of the table buzzed into life and a blue static spread across the entire marble tabletop. Then the static shifted, swirled, and condensed into a three-dimensional image approximately a meter in height.

Obi-Wan Kenobi stared into Larmé Sarena Narona's unflinching, fiery bronze eyes.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that the woman was simply a hologram projection of the night before, a series of calculated numbers that had been fed into a machine and spat out from a bluish, high-density lens. But due to the angle of the surveillance camera and the position at which he was sitting, Kenobi could see her – really see her as though she were standing directly across from him and staring at him with that defiant, magnetic gaze.

His heart gave a very sudden lurch and began accelerating against his ribcage. Nervousness, he recognized. Why in the name of the Force was he actually nervous? It didn't matter – he needed to get rid of that blastedly juvenile emotion. He considered submersing himself in the simple breathing exercise that Qui-Gon had taught him during the early years of his training. But that would entail closing his eyes, shutting himself from the image not ten centimeters before him…

He kept his eyes open. He absorbed every flickering detail of the figure in the hologram, from the way the white, Alliance-issued knee-length tunic draped over her slim body to the way the durasteel handcuffs twisted at her wrists. Her head, mostly, he lingered over, for the tumbling black locks that had once framed her pale face had now been shaved into a hasty, three-centimeter prison cut that exposed her dainty ears, high cheekbones, slender throat.

Was that why her face now seemed so… so…

Kenobi was at a loss for words, decided not to try to dig any further. He clasped his hands under the table and resisted the irrational urge to reach out into the cool blue light and perhaps run the back of his fingers along the newly shorn nape of her neck—

"Once again, A-186, tell us the location of the Imperial planet," Chig Nugla's tinny, recorded voice issued from a speaker somewhere within the computer. "You needn't be afraid to reveal any information to us. No harm will come to you."

The Lena in the hologram smiled. It was a smile that could freeze even the lakes of Mustafar, and a smile Kenobi had never seen cross her features before.

The Ithorian released a double-sigh. Apparently several grueling hours had already passed prior to this snippet of holo-vid. "A-186, I'll been here wasting our time since dusk, and I'll continue to be here all night if the situation calls for it. You don't want that. I don't want that. So do us both a favor and tell me the location of the Imperial planet. Its name, its quadrant – anything."

The smile.

"Look, contrary to what you may have heard at the academy, the Rebel Alliance isn't a group of power-hungry Outer Rim militants who want to take over the galactic government. We stand for truth and compassion—"

The smile, wider this time.

"—for every being in this galaxy. Yes, even you. Can't you see that your Empire will give you none of these things? A-186, Lena, contrary to what you may think, your Empire doesn't care about you. To the Emperor, you're just a number that he may use in any way – legal or otherwise – to increase his own power. To him, you're a machine behind that helmet. You're laser fodder. You're nothing. He doesn't care whether you're living or dead. When he's finished with you, he'll simply toss you away like a droid – there's plenty more to take your place. So, Lena, why are you still standing beside this criminal, this thug, when we can work together to unseat him from his unreasonable power and hold him accountable for all his crimes in a galactic court? Help me, Lena. Help yourself. Help all the citizens in the galaxy. Share with me the information that you have and I don't – the name of the Imperial planet. All right? Give me a name."

The smile softened as the pause stretched out between them like a chasm. Then, "Obi-Wan Kenobi," she said, softly.

Kenobi's breath caught in his throat. An unsettled murmur fluttered through the conference room, then a suffocating tightness in the Force gripped him as all four pairs of eyes – and even the digital essences in the hologram, it seemed – turned their undivided focus to him. Hours of interrogation and the first words uttered had been his name… Kenobi felt a strange, falling sensation in the pit of his stomach.

"What – what do you mean, Obi-Wan Kenobi?" Nugla was sputtering in the hologram, his trained façade audibly crackling. "Does he have information? Is this a clue? A hint?"

She shook her head, once. "I will only speak with Obi-Wan Kenobi."

"Well, I'm afraid you can't tonight. He's unavailable now," the Ithorian replied curtly.

Kenobi let out a quick breath. Unavailable? Nugla could have come and knocked on his door, wakened him from the horrid clutches of a nightmare-laden sleep, and dragged him to the prison in two standard timeparts – it wouldn't have been difficult.

Unavailable? He smothered the churning, rising fire from the depths of his chest. It was an emotion that the Jedi code expressly forbade…

"I will only speak with Obi-Wan Kenobi," Lena repeated, and Nugla remained silent for a long time before continuing.

"You can't speak to Obi-Wan Kenobi because he's unauthorized to deal with this… situation. Regardless of what he may have told you on your trip here, he's a Jedi knight. Not a politician, nor a general. He's a Jedi."

If Lena had reacted to that statement, it didn't show upon her expressionless face. "I will only speak with him," she said again, unhurriedly. "I will only speak with Obi-Wan Kenobi."

"There is no difference speaking to Obi-Wan, or to me, or to anybody else. The information you give will go where it needs to go in the most efficient manner, in the shortest amount of time. It doesn't matter, A-186, whether you speak to Obi-Wan or not."

"I will only speak with him."

A muffled thud issued from the speakers. Off-camera, Chig Nugla must have pounded his fist against a wall in frustration. "Obi-Wan is unavailable tonight. I'm the only person who'll be able to talk to you, and if you don't like me here right now, there's nothing either one of us can do about it."

"I will only speak with Obi-Wan—"

Click.

The blue-tinged images vanished from the marble tabletop as Bail Organa pressed the deactivation button on his handheld keyboard. "I think we've seen enough," he said. "I'm assuming this continued all night in a similar vein, Secretary Nugla?"

"She must have said that sentence a thousand times," the Ithorian rasped, blinking his swollen eyes at Kenobi.

And suddenly he realized that Nugla wasn't the only person staring at him as though in expectation; everyone was, including the golden protocol droid nestled in the corner of the room. The Force droned, throbbed about him like a live wire, and he clenched his fingers tightly beneath the table to channel away the pain that had taken up residence in his chest and in his mind.

"Under the circumstances…" Kenobi began in a smooth voice that hardly matched the turmoil beneath his vocal chords. They were waiting patiently for him, nodding at every syllable that left his mouth. He swallowed and resumed. "Under the circumstances, it'll be best if I talk to her tonight. Secretary Nugla is right – I'm no politician and I have no training, but if the Imperial insists on speaking to me, it would only move our operation forward if I go to her."

- - - - - - - - - - - -

The Imperial holding cell was a small room at the end of the pearl-white basement hallway of the military complex. The complex, a smaller, significantly less spectacular structure than the Rebel headquarters, faced the shining silver building from across a wide, empty expanse of landing strip.

Obi-Wan Kenobi had seen the camouflaged blaster cannons and security cameras lining the landing strip all the way up to the military complex; security was well concealed but lethal here, designed to divert as much of the potential danger away from the Rebel headquarters as possible.

He was still musing over the Alderaanian architectural design as he descended the stairs to the basement, which was flanked every ten meters by a gray-uniformed guard. Leia Skywalker was safe here at the Rebel base. Sheltered here. Happy here, while her brother Luke sweated upon the Tusken-filled plains of Tattooine. Perhaps it had been a mistake splitting the two souls apart, and perhaps, Kenobi admitted grudgingly, he had not trusted the safety of Alderaan quite as much as he should have. Instinct, while a powerful tool, was not always correct – maybe that time he had relied too heavily upon his own neuroses regarding the Empire, rather than submitting himself to fact and truth…

He stopped at the opaque white durasteel door of the holding cell. The male Mon Calamari guard who had trailed three steps behind now came up beside him. "Are you ready for me to open the door, sir?"

"Yes, Tetran," Kenobi replied after a short exhalation.

As he pressed the code buttons on the wall panel, Tetran said, "Remember that we'll be monitoring the both of you on a surveillance camera. Backup forces will be dispatched should anything go wrong during the interrogation process."

"Thank you."

"Good luck, sir." The door slid open with the short whiz of compressed air.

Lena.

She sat at the small white table in the center of the cramped, bare, white cell. White, clear light hummed from the copious orbs on the ceiling, glinting off of the sleek, durasteel chains that connected each of her wrists to the wall behind her. Her prisoner's tunic, too, shimmered in white folds as it clung to her body. Even her once sun-tinged face, Kenobi noticed, seemed unnaturally porcelain pale under the merciless cast of the room.

Only her eyes burned with that bronze, old-gold fire.

He couldn't leave them as he strode into the room and sat into the empty chair opposite her. The door hissed shut; he barely heard it through the warm rushing sound that had started inside his ears.

Had it only been two days since he'd seen her last? It felt like two years of absence – perhaps the Alderaanian day stretched much longer than the Tattooinian one. Perhaps—

"You're staring, Obi-Wan Kenobi," she said. That same silky contralto that he felt he had known forever. And then she actually smiled at him, a ghost of a smirk flitting across her full lips. She folded her arms in front of her, the chains from her wrists rattling with her movements, and she regarded him coolly from underneath fringes of heavy eyelashes. Patiently.

"Lena," Kenobi said. His voice came out too rough; he cleared his throat. "Lena, I…"

Silence. The quiet tinkling of the chains.

By the Force, he didn't know what to say. Why had he not prepared a list of questions? Guidelines at the very least? And he realized that he had purposely avoided thinking of this moment up until… well, until he stepped through the door. Why?

The silence stretched between them like the shadowless expanse of white light flooding into every corner of the tiny cell, and the Force shivered around them like a muffled, unheard cry.

And then she sniffed disdainfully. Tossed her head in a fashion that would have cleared her tresses from her shoulders, had they not been cut cleanly away. "Say something, Obi-Wan Kenobi. News bulletin: you're supposed to be interrogating me."

Kenobi sighed. A minute into the session and the fatigue had already settled into his bones. "Lena, listen—"

"At this rate, you're not going to be able to interrogate the name out of a three-year-old child. You've already done the glorious task of capturing a living Stormtrooper. Congratulations, Obi-Wan. Now why are they forcing such an… accomplished man like yourself to do their dirty work?"

He knew the answer to that. "You asked for me, Lena."

"And now you're here. Just like that." Her smile twisted into a sneer. "What is this game that you're playing, Obi-Wan? What? Your attempt at an apology for what you did?"

"It's not a game, and I'm not apologizing for anything. I did what I needed to do in my position."

Now even the sneer dropped into something thoroughly frozen. Deadly. "I thought so… Jedi." It sounded like a curse. "I suppose that among the countless rules of your little religion –no anger, no love, no revenge – no deceit isn't one of them? Or what about using people like pawns? Doing your clever mind tricks and making them agree to anything you want? Then making them forget at your convenience?" Her voice escalated in volume as she leaned across the table, a rising tide of pure emotion that was threatening to explode.

Kenobi couldn't move, couldn't breathe as her presence in the Force assaulted him like a weapon.

"Don't look at me like that, Obi-Wan. You fooled me before, but you can't do it again. They told me all about your kind at the Academy. What was your creed again? 'There is no emotion – there is only peace'? It's not hard to figure out that remorse isn't one of your top priorities." She snorted. "Congratulations, again. You're a perfect agent for the Rebel Alliance. In the name of peace, democracy, and freedom, indeed!"

Her face was but a few centimeters away from his, and she strived to move closer, but the taut chains at her wrists clattered and held her back.

By the Maker, at this distance she was…

Kenobi caught himself. Every nerve and fiber of his being was on fire from her glare, and he realized with a twinge of – fear? – that the dangerous mental floodgates the Jedi always kept shut had been thrown fully open, and that it was impossible for him to close them now. Not with her in the same room. Not with the Force reeling through him, filling him with the power of her emotions.

What in the name of the Force was wrong with him? No Jedi master should be in this state. This raw, uncontrolled, untrained state that even a mediocre Padawan would not have entered.

Damnation, even now he was reaching out with a hand – he saw the angry purple bruise running beneath her jaw and chin, the mark of the suicide attempt two nights ago – and now he was tracing his index finger lightly over it, reaching out with the Force and willing some of the tender pain away as the rest of his fingers slid silkily over the warm skin of her neck…

Lena clattered back into her chair. She looked stunned. "Don't…" she began, her voice wavering. "Don't do that."

He lowered his hand, feeling a frown knit his brow. Whatever he had done… even he didn't know what had compelled him to do that. He took a deep breath. "Larmé Sarena Narona, please cooperate with me," he said.

"I'm not telling you anything." Her tone sounded considerably subdued, as though all the animosity had drained out of her through that touch, and now she was left weary and tired and calm. "Go ahead. Ask me all night. I will not give you the location of the Imperial planet."

"You can try to resist now, but they'll pry it from you sooner or later, Lena."

She cocked her head in a small gesture of disbelief. "Excuse me, 'they'? You mean 'we'. I'm not stupid to your Rebellion affiliation, Obi-Wan, and I know your entire bag of tricks. Yesterday your sadist friend Chig Nugla dealt me the 'no-one-gives-Bantha-fodder-about-you' card. Now you're dealing me the 'they-made-me-do-it' card. You might as well give up now, because I'm not going to tell you even if you put a torch to my body and burn me alive."

"Lena," he said, as steadily and seriously as he possibly could, "we're holding much higher stakes than you can see. Believe me on this one."

"What, then? Sleep deprivation? The medi-torture device? The threat of lethal injection? Believe me when I say that I can handle them."

Kenobi kept down the rising discomfort of frustration. "If you continue with your silence, you'll be hurt much more deeply than you can possibly imagine."

"Why, that sounded awfully like a threat, Obi-Wan," Lena said, scornfully, narrowing her eyes at him. Intensity still burned through them like twin flames licking from an incinerator grate.

He thought of her parents – he sensed her attachment to them running in an invisible umbilical cord to the faraway planet of Naboo. He said, "I'm only telling you what I know."

A smidgeon of hesitancy flickered in her otherwise staunch demeanor. "Don't be so cocksure, Jedi." Extra iron suffused her voice. "Tell me the stakes and let me decide for myself."

"If I do that I will be turning against not only my creed but the—"

"Your creed? Your creed?" she snapped before he could finish, furiously gesticulating with a hand. "Where was your precious creed when you conjured up three different consecutive identities in order to trick me into falling for your ruse?" Her chains clattered noisily against the white durasteel table, and Kenobi saw the swollen, reddened marks upon her wrists where the cuff edges had scraped into her skin. Somewhere deep inside of him, something gave a little lurch.

"Lena, for your sake, tell me the name of the Imperial planet. If you don't, you'll just be prolonging your own misery and prolonging the inevitable war. Sooner or later, there will be a war between the Rebellion and the Empire, and eventually, the Empire will fall. I can sense it through the Force."

She smirked at that; he ignored it. "Lena, if there must be a war, then I want it fought now."

"An odd thing to say for someone who lives for peace," she remarked deridingly. "If I tell you Palpatine's location, and your Rebellion wins the war tomorrow, what will the victory get you? Revenge? But you're not allowed to savor it. Power? But you don't want it. Wealth? You don't seem interested in that, either."

"Unity," Kenobi replied, and was surprised to feel that he meant it. "When the war's over, a new Republic will spring up, and that blasted divide between the Rebel Alliance and the Empire will be torn down. But the more we prolong the onset of war, the longer this invisible wall will stand. Why – why, Lena? Why does this have to go on?" He knew he was fumbling out words like an impassioned child, but somehow he couldn't stop. "Right now we have a chance to end it. End the political factions splitting up things that aren't… that aren't meant to be split apart."

She was smiling at him with an undertone that he couldn't quite recognize. "I wonder what you truly mean by what you said," she murmured. "What separated things are you referring to, Obi-Wan Kenobi? Or… who?" She sat back satisfactorily, the question lingering uncomfortably in the air between them.

He was a Jedi. A Jedi. A Jedi knew no emotion…

Kenobi clambered for what little reserve was left in his mind, caught it, held on tight. What he said had merely been sentimental political drivel; Qui-Gon would have slaughtered him for the reckless way he had let his mouth run loose. "You act as though you've forgotten that I'm a Jedi," he said, evenly. "If it comes to it, Lena, I can make you tell me the location of the primary Imperial base by simply willing it."

"Don't patronize me. If you want to do your mind control, then do it now."

"I have my morals," he responded tightly. "At this point, Lena, I'm trying to give you options. Don't you realize that if you give out this information, you'll be rid of all this mess? Continue fighting for the Emperor if you want. Deflect to the Alliance. Go cut off your insignia and fly to the Outer Rims—"

"I get your point."

He swallowed. "Be reasonable, Lena."

"Hm… reason." Not leaving his gaze, Lena ran a moist tongue over her mouth and bit her lower lip. "You know… I'll tell you several things that have escaped your line of reasoning, Obi-Wan." She lifted herself to a standing position, her chair grating against the duracrete floor before falling with a clatter into a corner. Then she reached out as far as the chains would allow, grabbed the front of his tunic, and pulled him around the table until Kenobi could feel her hot breath wafting rhythmically onto the hollow of his throat.

He stepped backward – no, she was pushing him with the heated pressure of her body – until his shoulder-blades met resistance with the icy wall. Both of their heartbeats drummed like frantic birds' wings beating against either side of his ribs.

She had done this type of coercion before, Kenobi realized, hazily. Pressed into him until nothing separated them but the fabric of their clothes and nothing filled his being except the overwhelming sense of her proximity. Only she didn't remember, and he did. All too well, for it had come to him in his nightmares and sweat-drenched visions, and other dreams that were frightening for an altogether different reason…

An alarm blared in the distance, matching the alarms blaring through his mind; Kenobi's eyes darted to the ceiling where the tiny red light of a surveillance camera blinked ominously.

"You have less than twenty seconds to tell me," he whispered, closing his eyes. The overlapping footsteps of guards were already echoing down the hall.

"Well… Jedi." The whisper-light touch of her lips upon the corner of his mouth… or was that a brush of her fingertips? "Your Ithorian friend has had the pleasure of informing me yesterday that you were the last of your kind." The wisp of a kiss at the base of his ear so soft it could have been but a breath. "Am I correct?"

"Yes."

"You're hiding from the Empire; Palpatine won't rest until every single Jedi is dead and turned into interstellar debris. And I'm an Imperial, Obi-Wan. And I know what you are…"

Oh, Maker.

He understood.

His eyes snapped open just as three guards rammed down the door with an earsplitting crash of durasteel against durasteel.

Lena pedaled away from him, cold air swirling into the void where she had stood. She was staring at him with brimming, glistening eyes that were threatening to spill over. "Get it, Obi-Wan?" She laughed without humor. The guards were wrenching her unresisting arms behind her, binding them together with emergency cable. "By telling me what you are, that clever Chig Nugla just issued me the death sentence."

A guard had come to his side and urgently voiced some concern; Kenobi answered accordingly without hearing or caring. There was no one else in the room but Lena, nothing he heard but the simple truth that she had spelled out for him, repeating over and over like a malfunctioning holo-record.

"It doesn't matter if I give you the Imperial planet's location or not, Obi-Wan," she yelled to him as the guards detached the chains from her wrists. The pulled her toward the direction of the door; she resisted. "As long as your secret needs to be kept from the galaxy, they'll keep me rotting here at the mercy of this base. Obi-Wan, this thing has gone beyond the damn war. It's—" She stumbled forward through the door, unable to hold her slender ground against the three heavy-set guards. She called as she was dragged from view, "Tomorrow, Obi-Wan, you can tell me all your romantic stories about how you'll set me free the moment I give you the planet's location. And they'll be just that – stories."

And she was gone.

A suspended minute dragged past, or it could have been two, or ten. The spell was broken when from the open doorway ducked the massive, tan figure of Secretary Chig Nugla. He moved with surprising grace for an Ithorian of his size, striding softly to the small desk and leaning his hip lightly against it.

Smugness practically reeked from his every pore, Kenobi sensed with a startlingly intense stab of distaste. He kept it down; offered Nugla a civil nod. "Secretary."

"I was watching it all from the surveillance camera," the Ithorian replied by way of greeting.

What a surprise. Kenobi willed the serene expression upon his face to remain that way. "And your thoughts?"

"It was, unfortunately, a truncated session, and I hope you're all right from that attack. But I must commend you, General Kenobi, on your… how should I put it… unique style of interrogation. She talked, all right."

If Kenobi had any more knowledge of Ithorian physiognomy, he would have sworn that the double-mouths were each perked into a satisfied smile. He decided to give the secretary what he wanted to hear. "I have to admit, it didn't quite work out as I had planned. She talked, but we didn't gain any ground. Your tougher tactic may prove to be the more effective in the long run. I'm puzzled as to why Senator Organa didn't continue appointing you—"

Nugla clucked his tongues. "No, no, no. No need to be modest. The job is for you. You're very convincing at it, you know."

"Oh? How so?"

"You're gaining her trust." He moved from the desk, tucked his large, hoof-like hands into the vast pockets of his robe. "Who knows? A week later, and some might actually start believing that you are her friend. Or lover." Then he left without a backward glance.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

To be continued… I'll be traveling the next two months, so updates might come slowly. We'll see. Thanks to all you readers and reviewers. Keep 'em rolling in.