Author's Note: Whew! This chapter took a long time to write. Obviously. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year's to everyone. :)
Jedi X-man Serena Kenobi: Thank you. :) I'm so glad, I try my hardest at that relationship.
P.P.M: Yeah, actually, he did. You find out about it this chapter.
SkywalkerChild: xDD Lol, I think that's inevitable for all daughters. Yup, Luke should be coming... soon.
Skychaser: Yeah, he does care. :)Haha, thnk you. You dunno how much thought I put into that last line. :D Oh, she'll meet the... 'boy' in time. Thanks again for reviewing!
doreenthatshot: Thanks! Here's an update.
DaimondoftheMoon: Yeah, I've read a few Luke/Vader stories. :) Thanks!
CHAPTER NINE: RED ALERT
Rhythmically, the fork stabbed into the sprigs of greens as the Imperial Princess's thoughts brooded elsewhere.
She had emerged from a one-on-one meeting with the Emperor himself. Gods, His Excellency was scary when he wanted to be. In fact, he was scary even when he didn't want to be. In no kind terms had he told Leia that he wanted the negotiations done quickly this time (which was, in fact, in a week). She had been expecting him to say 'or else', but he thankfully maintained a degree of respect around his apprentice's daughter.
Her thoughts weren't being brooded upon the meeting.
She felt unnaturally restless, which also had nothing to do with the meeting, as if she were forgetting something but she couldn't remember what she was forgetting, but if she thought of certain things she'd get a flash of remembrance then all would go to hell again. In this case, it was a tube of metal and the color blue.
Leia abruptly stuffed some bits of lettuce into her mouth. Damn.
The door to her suite opened, and she glanced up to find her father striding in and stopping in front of the table in front of her. Jerkily, he pulled out a chair and slowly and cautiously sat.
The young woman smiled, and swallowed. "Good morning."
He moved his head in an acknowledging nod. "Are you feeling well today?" It wasn't a formality, which was one think Leia liked about him.
"Yes, actually. Now that I got some sleep." Almost automatically, she started to slowly stab at her salad once again. A strange choice of breakfast, but she hadn't had greens in a while and she was hungry from her recent adrenaline rush.
"Did you get any source of news while you weren't here?" the man asked.
Shrugging, she shook her head.
"The Emperor dissolved the Imperial Senate yesterday."
Leia, who had been putting a bite into her mouth, choked. The Emperor hadn't mentioned that. "What? Are – why…," she struggled. Swallowing, she tried to formulate her thoughts.
Why in all hells would the Emperor dissolve the Senate? He wouldn't be able to maintain control of the systems once this filtered through the galaxy! There would be a massive uprising – people liked to think that they were represented, since they didn't know that the Senate had the most minimal amount of power; they would only think the Emperor was stealing power he unknowingly already had. And rebellion would break out.
After a few seconds of staring, she managed to untie her tongue. "Why has the Senate been dissolved?"
"The Emperor suspects… disloyalty within the bureaucracy."
"What?"
"Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan - " The hate in his voice was nearly palpable. " - has been found to be a Rebel spy. As of now, he is detained within this station."
She simply stared, the salad in front of her quite forgotten. Senator Bail Organa was the last person she would have guessed to have been a spy. A dark and quiet man, he always had a thoughtful and melancholic aura around him. He walked with a limp, and the left side of his face seemed numb and showed very little emotion – head injury, Leia suspected. He wasn't the spy type of guy; he was strange, frankly and admittedly, but he always seemed a very benevolent and go-with-the-flow man.
That's probably what made him so good, Leia thought bitterly, feeling newfound contempt for the man.
Nonetheless, he was a prominent and one of the more powerful and popular members of the late Senate; if he was a spy, there was no doubt that there were more.
"What awaits him?"
"Interrogation and death," Darth Vader said, with a hint of pure satisfaction.
Ah, interrogation torture. While brutal, it was nonetheless extremely effective. Only an individual with a very strong mind can endure the hours of harsh spices and mental agony.
But the traitors and rebels more than deserved it.
Nodding her head slowly, Leia approved – but there was still one flaw with the new organization of the Empore. "And the systems? How will we stop them from joining the Rebellion?"
"The moffs now have control over their respective systems," the Dark Lord intoned.
Leia frowned at this new piece of information. The governors were ruthless; not even she approved over everything they had done thus far. She hadn't forgotten the massacres on Montellian Serat, even though she had been a small child when it happened. Because dissent had been suspected, hundreds upon hundreds of innocents had been killed. While she greatly approved of interrogation and slaughter of the war criminals and rebels, that had gone too far.
"This disturbs you," her father mused slowly. Leia's eyes snapped up at him, and she felt her mind involuntarily void itself of emotions.
"Of course not," she said, a little quickly. "I'm just being cautious. It's a big step for the Emperor, although I'm sure he's completely and thoroughly thought out this new system of galactical organization." There. Utter a bunch of political bantha fodder and a few big words, that'll throw one of the most powerful men in the galaxy off.
She bit her lip a little anxiously, but her father didn't press the matter. He had undying loyalty to the Emperor, but Leia knew that he would let her little uncertainties with the Imperial system slip. As long as they were little.
"So Tarkin has the Alderaan system? Is he on the station right now?"
"Yes. He has a plan for Organa, should he prove to be more difficult to cede to torture than we imagined."
I have a bad feeling about this, she thought.
Uneasily, she watched her father's mask drift toward the chrono on the wall. She quickly checked her own (she had put a new one on her wrist that morning).
"You have a meeting with the Kesselians in three hours' time."
It would be a long day.
One week later, Leia watched as Bail Organa was marched past her. Brown eyes met brown eyes, and the Princess almost stopped in stride at the look of sadnes, nostalgia, and pity in his eyes.
Pity? She felt a surge of anger, and glared back at him – but he had already disappeared into a door on their right. The girl swallowed, lifted her chin a few inches, and lengthened her step until she got to her own destination, not too far off from where the ex-Senator had entered.
The meetings with the Kesselians had been arranged to have been done on the Death Star – that was the space station's name – instead. Kessel, Darth Vader and the Emperor deemed, was too dangerous for Leia to be on. (However, she would still be going to Nar Shadaa in two weeks' time. Which meant the Kessel Negotiations had to be finished by then.)
The people she had been meeting with was a new bunch, and from the conference the week before they seemed respectable. Then again, so did the first group of leaders. And she hoped to the gods or the Force or whatever life-controlling entity out there that these ones were nothing like the last assem –
A loud barrage of angry, anguished, agonized yells cut through her thoughts – Leia was on her feet so fast she didn't think about it.
The yells weren't loud where she was, they were muffled by walls and walls of durasteel – but she was sure that where they were occurring, they were loud as hell.
Running out of the room, she peered down the hall quickly to find everyone slowing in their steps to look at the door – the same door that Bail Organa had been forced through, minutes before.
She stared.
Then, out of nowhere –
BOOM.
She screamed, and wasn't the only one. The floor beneath her vibrated, the walls shook and metal groaned. A resounding force had hit the Death Star – something huge had exploded.
Desperately clutching her head, Leia fell to the floor. She felt as if her head were about to explode, she had a sudden vicious, virulent, terrible headache. She gritted her teeth against the pain. Because her eyes were clouding, she shut them – she barely noticed the hands that flew to he back and arm, asking whether she was all right.
As quickly as the headache had came, it left – she ventured to peer away from her knees, past the officers' legs and to the door. It stood there, silent.
Gripping a random shoulder, she pulled herself up and blindly pushed through the crowd, ignoring the sounds around her. She got to the door; it popened.
A man was being more-or-less dragged out. A man Leia recognized as Bail Oragana, one side of his face contorted in agony while the other remained relaxed and numb. He was moaning, in more torment than Leia could ever imagine.
"No… no… stop, no… … oh, Alderaan, beautiful Alderaan, my jewel…"
She stared, her mouth slightly open, stared and stared as he was led around the corner and the moans subsided.
Darth Vader staggered out, stiffly. Leia took his arm and held it, as if to steady him – although her size compared to his didn't quite permit it.
"Father! Father, what happened?" Leia asked quietly, after they walked to a 'secluded' part of the hall. She felt herself shaking, her teeth grinding against one another, feeling a despair that she couldn't recognize nor could she place the cause. Except that something had happened to Alderaan, but her mind couldn't begin to fathom whatever had caused the explosion.
"Alderaan…" His voice was weak. "Has been destroyed."
The arms that Leia had around her father dropped; she started to slowly fall backwards against the wall, sliding down it in disbelief. Destroyed. Blown up. Exploded.
Destroyed.
This was much worse than the massacres… this was a whole planet, a whole ecosystem, a whole government.
A whole population. Slaughtered in cold blood.
Alderaan. Destroyed.
By the space station.
Her hands were now shaking uncontrollably.
In a daze, she pulled herself off the floor her eyes taking in light waves but not seeing, her ears absorbing the sound frequencies but not hearing.
A planet.
Without hearing or seeing or feeling or thinking, she walked down the hall.
Gone.
Somehow, she found her way to her room. For minutes or days or hours, Leia just sat there, contemplating and brooding.
It was a measure she would have never believed that the Empire would take.
The meeting was forgotten; that could be rescheduled. To hell with Kessel and Nar Shadaa. A planet had just been obliterated.
But, once again, the Imperial Princess was jolted out of her thoughts.
"Red alert, armed intruders, near docking bay twenty-seven in quadrant two," said a monotoned woman's voice over the intercom. "Repeat: red alert. Armed intruders."
Guess who?
