Disclaimer: The Star Wars and Harry Potter copyrights lie with their respective owners, should any of them have any problem with my story being shared, I will comply with their wishes and remove it from circulation.

Please do not copy this work or any part of it.

Chapter 15: The Smell of Fear

When the, as yet still unnamed, Decimator set down on one of the new landing pads at Sanctuary Base, there was an undercurrent of strain, even fear in the air. Where it was coming from, or even how he got the feeling, Harry had no idea, but it was there, nonetheless. Apparently, their foray into deep space had included not being told about something significant happening at home, a development he found to be exceedingly bothersome; either it was minor, which would not have people on edge like this, or it was the sort of problem Mercer thought would have him too distracted. At least their appearance seemed to ease some of the worries people obviously felt.

"You feel it too?" Leia questioned in a low voice, glancing around furtively. She must have seen his worried countenance, or Arden's tightened shoulders. Even Jane, completely insensitive to the Force, at least by all accounts, seemed somewhat distressed by the mood around their base, their home.

"If by 'it' you mean the fact that everyone here looks like someone served them mouldy rancor cheese, then yes, I feel it," the Dathomirian replied in a growl, her fingers twitching to the wand she had at her side. "And I don't like it…"

Harry snorted. "You don't like anything, or at least it seems like that sometimes."

His attempt at levity fell short however, among the gloomy atmosphere of the landing pads. It was not even anything overt; the patrols were still wandering along the perimeter, the sentinels still standing on the watchtowers, the fence still powered. In the distance, there was even one of the TIEs visible that they had repurposed for light scouting and survey duty. If anything, it seemed like security was tighter than ever.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say there had been an attack," Leia observed, head swivelling from one side to the other, taking everything in. "But there are no signs of that; no bodies, no scorch marks…"

No one commented, and at least for himself, he knew why: Harry simply had no idea what to say to that. In fact, he was very much looking forward to hearing Mercer's explanation for whatever was going on. If there was no good reason for keeping something obviously important from him, the wizard would have to do something he certainly was not looking forward to: reprimand a friend for borderline subordination.

Without another word exchanged in-between the members of their little group, they entered through the large gate of the… re-appropriated garrison base and went to the turbolift bank that went all the way to the command centre. When finally, they reached their destination, the mood seemed to dip even lower.

"Boss, heard you were coming in," Mercer greeted, nodding at each of the members of the returning party in turn. His demeanour, as much as anything else, said something serious was going on; there was nothing of his usual joviality to be found in him right now, only a grim determination Harry had only seen once before, when they had gone after the man who had killed the former lieutenant's Imperial crew in an ambush. "Briefing room, please."

They followed the captain's second-in-command out of the command centre, away from sharp ears and nosy staff. As they crossed the doors into the partitioned-off area, a lot of the tension seemed to leave Mercer's shoulders.

"What's going on here?" Harry questioned without any preamble. There would be time for pleasantries later; for now, the situation seemed to call for direct, efficient exchange of information.

Mercer let himself fall into one of the uncomfortable chairs and started massaging his temples before he replied. "We lost some members of a survey team, then a few soldiers in a cave system a few hundred klicks to the planetary north. None of the sensors picked anything up, the recon droids came up with nothing and the only one who saw anything can't string together more than…"

Before the deserter could finish his tale, the group was alerted to something going on somewhere else in the base by the barely audible sound of a blaster being discharged, followed quickly be the wailing of the Imperial alarm. Only seconds passed before the communicator on Mercer's belt started beeping and blinking wildly. With reflexes honed, though not to the level of some of the others in the room, by military training and veterancy, the man's hand snapped to the small electronic device, raised it to his ear and took the incoming communication. As whoever was on the other side was talking, the officer's face fell, growing more and more dire by the second.

"Understood," he finally indicated his understanding of whatever had been said. "Transfer him to the morgue, we'll prepare a funeral sometime in the next few days."

When he placed the communicator back at his belt, Mercer looked infinitely more tired, and Harry was worried, what exactly he would tell them.

"The only survivor won't be doing much of anything anymore," his second-in-command observed detachedly, coolly analysing the situation the way he always did when an emotional response was deemed counterproductive. "Burned off half his face with his own blaster."

After that bit of disturbing news, Mercer began to regale them with what had been going on on Sanctuary during their absence. For a few minutes after the recollection had ended, none of them were able to truly say anything, simply working to take in what they had just heard; a young man, barely at the beginning of his life, not much older than Harry, Leia, Arden and Jane had killed himself, and for what reason? Was it the feeling of having failed his comrade, the one who had been taken, as Mercer explained? Had whatever had taken that comrade messed him up so much he simply saw no other way out, anymore? Whatever it was, they all seemed to instinctively share one important conclusion amongst themselves: if nothing was done, and quickly at that, there would be trouble.

"I was going to suggest cordoning off the area," the former lieutenant began, then only shrugged his shoulders despondently.

"That won't work now," the Dathomirian witch observed, moving her head from here to there, almost as if sniffing the air. "I can feel their fear on the air. If we just ignore the problem, we'll have a mutiny on our hands, no matter how useless that might be right now."

Leave it to Arden to say things about as un-couched as possible. "We can't ignore Zann, either," Leia chimed in, looking from one troubled to the next, finally landing on her boyfriend, on whose left side she was by now sitting, having taken a seat in one of the utilitarian chairs surrounding the briefing table. "He threatened us, now he has to make good on that threat or he'll lose face with his… underlings."

Before answering any of them, Harry allowed himself a brief moment of thinking back to his peaceful little house on Dathomir, to Regina the Kwi and his idle learnings of whatever struck his fancy. There was no way he would have the time to delve into ancient Roman sheep husbandry techniques nowadays.

"Hey, you still with us?" Leia's voice and a hard poke to the ribs pulled the wizard from his ruminations, so he took a deep breath before refocussing his attention on the room at large, as well as the people he considered worthy of having lost that peace and tranquillity for.

"Sorry, I was a bit…"

"Drugged?" Arden suggested snappishly, raising an eyebrow toward him. "We hadn't noticed."

"…lost in thought," Harry completed his sentence, sparing the witch only a short glance. She looked back with an expression that seemed to say, 'I dare you!'

"But you're right, we can't ignore either of these things," he eventually agreed with the others, already feeling a tension headache form the likes of which he could barely remember. "Does everyone agree that whatever is living out in these caves might be of the Force-related variety?"

Nods all around, though no one seemed happy about it. "Then I'll need Arden with me," the wizard continued, looking apologetically at Leia sitting next to him. It was not that long ago that she had demanded he stop getting into dangerous situations without her, and even though they both knew that was an extremely difficult, nigh on impossible thing to ask for, he had initially planned to acquiesce to her demand just for a little while longer. "Sorry, but… she's so much further along in her training, and with our sensors unable to pick up anything…"

"I understand," Leia interrupted him, her voice somewhere between grumpy (though she would vehemently oppose the label, Harry knew) and grudging acceptance. "At least I'll be able to find my way around Coruscant without completely getting lost. That is where the data said our dear Commander Seerdon was, right?"

OOOOOOOO

"I hate the idea of just leaving you behind, again," Leia admitted, her voice quiet, almost impossible to make out over the loud gurgling of the small brook next to their chosen picknick spot; it was still mostly rations, but the company and the scenery, Harry found, more than made up for that. "I mean, we both knew it was bound to happen, that either the Alliance would need me, or you'd have to do something I wasn't suited for, I just…"

"Me neither," the wizard agreed. He understood what she was saying, even without hearing the exact words. Maybe there weren't even exact words to be found, really, yet the idea of not seeing each other for a long time, possibly months even, again appealed to neither of them. That was without even mentioning whatever dangers might need facing along the line, with Leia and Jane planning to somehow infiltrate either the ISB main offices on Coruscant or snatch the unenviable Maximilian Seerdon somewhere along the way between his work and home, while Merlin only knew what lived in those damn caves he and Arden were about to go and explore.

"Maybe it's better we get used to this," Harry finally admitted, simply because it was the truth. "With your work for the Alliance, me being needed in this place… there are going to be times when we can't see each other for longer than just a few weeks. Not to mention what might happen, once the Empire is finally defeated."

Instead of commenting, because really, what was there to say, Leia lay down on her back, scooting away from where she had sat cuddled up to him for quite some time now, and placed her head in the space provided by his crossed legs. With a decisive motion, the Princess then grabbed his left hand with her right one and placed it on her scalp. It was a gesture he had come to know, over these last few weeks, and an undeniable demand, not that he would deny her something like this. So, as he was bade to, the wizard began running his hand gently through his girlfriend's hair in just the way he knew she liked. Not all the time, obviously, not when someone who might judge her on the orderliness of her hairdo was likely to be seeing her anytime soon, but in moments like this one, where it was just the two of them; apparently, it was calming, or so he was told.

"Well, we were together for a few weeks now, right? That's something," Harry offered, looking at her now upside-down face in his lap. This perspective did funny things with her expression, so that the small smile was now the wrong way up, the corners of her mouth down, despite the twinkling in her eyes.

"And what a few weeks those were," she agreed with a purr, pulling up one of her hands to gently caress the one he was using to stroke through her hair. "You'll be careful, right? Those were well-trained soldiers that got lost in the caves, and nobody has any clue what's out there."

"You know I'm always careful," the wizard assured his girlfriend, though both their reactions belied this rather bold assertion. Then, more seriously, looking into her eyes, he added, "I will be as careful as I can be, just as I'm happy to assume you will be as careful as you can, too."

A slight squeeze of his hand, tender yet strong, was her only reaction; still it was all he needed to know she agreed. Neither of them could be completely careful, just as neither could be completely safe in their respective 'lines of work'.

"I like this place," Leia mumbled eventually, after another few minutes of silence and head-stroking. "You should do something with it, so people can enjoy it…"

Tilting his head, Harry looked at the Princess questioningly. "You sure? It wouldn't just be 'our place' anymore, then."

"I didn't know we even had a place," she countered, opening one of her eyes to look up at him. "I imagine we could find another place just for us, if we wanted to. Maybe a bit further away from the base. We can always use one of the speeders, not everyone else can. This here's just a nice walk away."

It was in that moment, moved by the entire situation, maybe the prospect of them being once again separated for a while, that Harry simply said what had been on the edges of his mind for a while now.

"I love you."

For a few seconds, all through the young woman's silence, the world seemed to stand still; it was, the wizard found, perhaps one of the longest moments he had ever experienced. First, her head twitched, perhaps in surprise, then the second eye flew open. Finally, a wide, smile began gracing her lips and she raised her right hand to his cheek.

"Love you too, Harry."

OOOOOOOO

It was a somewhat awkward situation, all things considered. The small crew of the YT-2000 light freighter was assembled at the entrance to the cockpit, all of them looking at the pilot and co-pilot's seats, the latter raised above the former for its occupant to be able to peer over whoever sat in front. It was not the rather unusual cockpit configuration, though, that had them somewhat unprepared; it was more a question of who would be taking a seat in which place.

Obviously, there was Leia, who was used to either being ferried around or taking command altogether. She had little desire to fly the ship, was instead planning to read up on as much information as they had been able to gather on this Maximilian Seerdon person Zann wanted so much, and then maybe some magic exercises. Still, not holding the reins in any given situation was not something she was entirely comfortable with, and they would obviously have to establish some chain of command not just for flying, but for the entirety of the time they would be 'on the road', as Harry had called it.

Harry, her boyfriend, who loved…

"Are you still with us?" Iabaes' uncompromising voice cut through the nebula that had momentarily encroached the Princess' mind with memories of kisses and… more. "Do you want to fly?"

"Ummm…" she had to reboot her entire cortex it seemed. "No, no… I think I'm going to go do some reading back in the lounge."

The Mandalorian nodded sharply, the curt gesture somehow giving Leia the feeling they would have a problem with each other even before they reached Coruscant. For the moment, tired from a night of amatory exertions with Harry and the early start they had agreed to, she would let it rest. But there was obviously the possibility of trouble there, so she would have to keep it in mind. Nothing to be done about it when she was feeling cranky, though.

"Can I fly?" Jane broke the tense silence between the two human women, almost seeming to bounce in place for sheer excitement. Right, the Twi'lek loved flying and took every opportunity to sit behind a stick that she could. She was still a bit too green for Leia's tastes to be flying alone.

Looking at Iabaes, who all of a sudden seemed to be back to agreeing with her, she asked, "Can you take the co-pilot's chair? Jane's gotten rather good, but there should be someone else at hand if…"

"…anything happened," the Mandalorian warrior finished, nodding back at her. "I'll just sharpen my knives."

"You know, you would probably get along rather well with Arden, if the two of you spent more time together," Leia considered. "She has a certain obsession with her weapons, too."

Pulling out one of her blades from some crevice in her armour, she began twirling around the small weapon. "Good, keeps you alive; Harry has her with him, you have me, so you two lovebirds might actually get to see each other again unharmed."

Leia had nothing to say to that; she was thankful for Arden to have remained with her boyfriend, and really, her borderline obsession with aggressive readiness was a boon, given the situation. Sometimes, yes it was worrisome, but every time she got a glimpse into the woman's past and the situation on her homeworld, it only became more understandable. And had she herself not spent a lot of her life similarly preparing, just more for the cutthroat battlefield that was politics? Merlin, these days, she was doing her best to learn whatever of actual battle tactics and skills she could beyond the rather extensive schooling in self-defence she had gotten on Alderaan.

"Wait, Merlin?" The thought came unbidden, surprising; apparently, despite the limited time they had had with each other, Harry had indeed started influencing her in more ways than with what he was teaching.

"I'll leave you to it, then" Iabaes both continued and ended their earlier conversation, jarring the princess back to awareness. "Get some sleep, girl; I know what it was like to be young and in love, makes you do stupid things… like stay up half the night before you set out on a mission. We can review the briefings together, later, once we're in hyperspace and R3 can take over the ship."

Suddenly aware of how tired she actually was, not that she should not have known that before, Leia nodded somewhat abashedly before retreating back to the crew quarters. She was twenty years old, she should not be that easy to fluster. Then again, maybe it was not really Iabaes who had flustered her… maybe it was the memory of Harry, that did it. Possibly, she was just off her game, only having gotten maybe four hours of sleep. A small, spiteful part of her could only hope Arden and Mercer would be giving her boyfriend some hell, too, as soon as they saw the rings under his eyes. When finally, she had stripped out of the outer layer of her clothes and laid down on the small bed, the bedding cold and smelling sterile, she found that she could not get to sleep; there were simply too many things inside her head, whisking around from one place to the other. Thoughts of the Alliance and how devoted she had been to its cause since before she had been able to really name, what that cause really was; of Sanctuary, a project that was growing ever more dear to her heart with every single moment that she spent on it; and of course, the founder of Sanctuary, though he was really in a distant third place this time. She could only hope there would never come a time, where she was faced with a choice of which commanded more of her loyalty.

"What would you tell me, dad? Mom?"

The silence all around her room refused, unsurprisingly, to answer. Not that it mattered, considering she could easily envision what each of her parents would have said; both of them had been exceedingly devoted to their duties, yes, but even during the years of her upbringing, when most of her father's time had been spent off-world either on Alliance-business or keeping up his cover in the Imperial Senate, whenever the two of them had been together, they were each other's entire world. Then again, they had been lucky. When, in their youth, strife had broken out between the Organa and Antilles families over who would ascend to the title of Viceroy, the Jedi negotiators had suggested an alliance by marriage. Conveniently, Bail Antilles and Breha Organa had already been sweethearts at that point, a love that otherwise their families might have forced them to eschew.

Tired with her thoughts leading nowhere productive, Leia pulled the datapad from where she had placed it on the small stool next to her bed. Just to have something else, something different to do, she opened the file they had stolen from the Imperial data node on Bimmisaari concerning Maximilian Seerdon. Just from his photo, his appearance was as far from that of his father as it was at all possible, if one assumed Moff Kohl Seerdon was indeed the father; he was not a particularly important figure in the Imperial hierarchy, so she did not know much about either him or his wife, so she could not make a guess as to whether something like that was likely. Still, where the Moff was dark-haired, bulky and corpulent, the ISB commander was tall, lean and almost spindly in stature; where the older man had greying blonde hair, the younger one's was a dark brown, almost black.

As far as the princess could tell, Maximilian Seerdon was one of those classic stories of nepotism that ran so incredibly rampant all over the Empire; accepted, without a real reason given as to why he should be, into the Service Academy of the Imperial Security Bureau on Prakith, barely coasting by on his father's connections. Obviously, his file did not spell it out that way, but it was certainly how it read. Then, fresh out of the Academy, he had been granted a lieutenant's commission in the ISB's main office on Coruscant, without ever serving in any of the regional offices like most new hires would have to. Had he been a particularly gifted analyst, that might have made sense, but from everything she had read, Leia would characterise the man as a glorified clerk, who had gotten his promotion to Commander simply due to service time, without any particular qualifications or deeds.

She was already dreading having him on board to keep him from being summarily executed for whatever his sleight against Zann might have been; given that his current assignment was collating intelligence on potentially dangerous criminal elements, though, she had a good idea why the crime lord wanted this man's head.

Just to be thorough, the princess kept reading, first the entire file on Maximilian Seerdon, then what they had been able to dig up on the ISB main offices on Coruscant; unfortunately, it was not all that much, especially without the ability to fall back on Alliance Intelligence, now that they had to be worried whatever they were doing could be leaked back to Zann. Sure, they were doing exactly what the man wanted, or at least would appear to be, but you could never be careful enough when spies were involved. At this point, she wasn't even sure, whether she hoped it would be someone in the Rebellion that was the leak, or whether it being someone on Sanctuary would hurt less. After all, not that many people knew how to contact the base. All these things aside, though, not having access to Alliance resources meant, that their mission briefing was disturbingly short, just the bits and pieces that were publicly known.

Scrolling through grainy holovids and -pics, Leia finally noticed her eyes getting heavy and, with the last image on her datapad being a panorama of the government district on Coruscant, or Imperial Centre, as it was called these days, she fell asleep.

OOOOOOOO