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 20: Taking a Break

"And…" Leia began, not quite sure what to say in this situation. 'Thanks' seemed like the wrong words but there really was no better one, either. How do you thank the person who just told you a loved one is in terrible danger? "Thanks for telling me, Arden. And for getting me to talk about something else."

"Anytime, Your Highly Exalted Most Royal of Highnesses," the witch replied, looking for all intents and purposes like ice would not melt in her mouth. "Who am I to keep the queen of an entire people occupied though? Don't you have subjects to make impossible demands of?"

"I have just one demand that's not even a demand, and it's not even for one of my 'subjects'," the still rather frazzled woman replied. "Take care of him, will you? For me? Make him better?"

Solemnly, Arden nodded. "He saved my life, even before he ever knew me. I'll get him back to you, even if I have to personally sift through every single book and scroll I brough out of that lab."

Perhaps overwhelmed by the situation, or maybe itching to get going, the witch then nodded sharply and was promptly gone from the mirror that would usually show Harry's face. Harry's happy face, his sappy face, sometimes a sad or a worried face, but always his face. Not today though. Today it had been Arden's face on there, telling her something had gone wrong. With the way both of their lives were, the threat of something going even more fundamentally wrong than just an infection with brain-destroying metal sickness was always there of course, but to have that particular fear brought up so close after Alderaan had been brought up again… she had to take a few very, very deep breaths to keep even close to cool, right now.

"Your Highness?" Vana's voice reached her from the bedroom, where she and her husband had retreated to give her privacy during her supposed 'holo-call'. "Are you finished with your call, your Highness?"

"I'm done with the first one," Leia called back, pulling on all her diplomatic and statecraft training to keep her voice steady; it worked, at least somewhat. "I got a signal off-world, but I'll need to make another call to my people on Coruscant, so they can pick me up."

"You're leaving, your Highness?" the old woman questioned, leaving her self-imposed exile in the bedroom to look at her momentary guest, wide-eyed. In a way, she seemed disappointed, and that was hard for Leia to bear.

"I have to, Vana," she replied apologetically. "I have commitments to others, too; a mission to finish, if you will. But I'll be back, and I'll bring along some of the best help out there."

"If you say so, your Highness," Vana replied, deferentially bowing her head, a gesture the princess (she thought the title almost stubbornly) did not appreciate. Embarrassing as it sometimes was to be around people who had known here since her earliest days, who had changed and fed her, especially if they were prone to bouts of sentimentalism along the lines of showing old pictures, being bowed to by them was even more awkward. For crying out loud, she had once spat up semi-digested milk on this woman's clothes. With another bow of the head, the older woman retreated back into the bedroom, back to where her husband was still waiting, and right then and there, Leia vowed to have a talk with her about not doing the entire 'royal protocol' thing when they were in private. She would have extended that to in public as well, but from all her dealings with the former head servant it was obvious she was bound to lose that discussion.

Trying to tidy herself up a bit from the shocking news her talk with Arden had brough, Leia began dialling up the connection to Iabaes; the Mandalorian had, after all, seen her shoot off after Seerdon, might even have seen her fall, was possibly still out searching, drawing undue attention. In short order, she had a standing connection to her compatriot's comms unit.

"Who is this?" the gruff voice sounding through the connection, as well as the sound of wind in the background, told her the warrior was very much still flying around, worried. Maybe even for the princess herself, not just because of the danger her getting captured might pose for the mission.

"It's Leia," she replied, calmly. Then, knowing just about anyone might be able to fake such a call as this and that Iabaes was most definitely paranoid enough to care about stuff like this, she added, "You were worried about command on this mission, so we agreed we did not need a commander, per se. Then Winter just took over."

"You're learning, I see," Iabaes replied in curt amusement, even as the wind in the background first dimmed down, then rose back up. "What happened?"

"Black Sun. Seerdon's working for Black Sun, I followed him to a meeting with them, was spotted, had to flee, was shot down, had to apparate, which fried all my equipment, met a couple of Alderaanian exiles who let me use their comms unit," Leia summed up. The Mandalorian warrior on the other end of the connection, she knew, would appreciate the conciseness.

"Maximilian Seerdon, you naughty little Imperial." The return chuckle was so unexpected, she did not know how to respond for a moment. "Still think our corrupt little officer is boring?"

Now that, Leia could deal with. "Yes. Show me an honest, non-crazy Imperial officer above a captain's rank and then I'll be interested in meeting them," she answered easily, thinking back at her own run-ins with some of the more… eccentric members of the Navy; they were all either ravenously power-hungry, raving mad or simply corrupt. Well, not all of them, but many. And obviously, those just out to do their jobs and not be noticed by the aforementioned examples of sub-par hiring policies simply did not stand out as much. "I'm transmitting coordinates now; can you pick me up?"

"Turning around as we speak," Iabaes announced, the wind already picking back up in volume as she accelerated the airspeeder. Either that or Coruscant suddenly had weather-patterns again, including stormy breezes. "There's a turbolift… 200 metres from your position. Can you take that up a few levels? I don't want to meander my way all the way down there."

OOOOOOOO

Eventually, Leia ended up being escorted to the entrance of the turbolift by Weltic and the old, Clone Wars era blaster pistol he had scrounged up from somewhere while living in the Coruscant underground. Pacifism was all well and good on a civilised, wealthy planet like Alderaan, but in the lower levels of Coruscant, especially around these parts, as she was assured, you were armed, or you were in big bantha poodoo. And while the small, old handgun was far from intimidating, most people who preyed on the weak down here were cowards, as they tended to be everywhere else. Beyond that, the old cook working in one of the grubby diners down here simply was not all that appealing a target, and now, clad in a hooded cloak that concealed her features, neither was the woman walking alongside him. Most probably assumed it was that nagging wife of his, as some unkindly referred to her. Or as the man himself called her, though always with laughter in his eyes, a mirth shared with that very same 'nagging wife'.

"I'll be in touch with a plan as soon as possible," she told her escort as they stopped at the bank of turbolifts connecting to the upper levels. "Until then, keep your head down, everyone. Don't tell anyone you don't trust implicitly, not only to not betray you, but also to not run their mouths when they've had one too many glasses of Corellian whiskey."

"Don't worry, Missy," Weltic assured her with a fond shake of his head. "I work at a diner; I know, who can hold their liquor. Meanwhile, you don't let that queen business get to your head, you hear me?"

Leia snorted. "You know if I could convince your nagging wife otherwise, this would not even be happening," she answered, even though she was well aware of being the daughter of the last queen and viceroy of Alderaan would definitely help in galvanizing support for the gathering Alderaanian exiles. "If it were up to me, they would follow me and… well, you'll meet him, because they know we're good leaders who want what's best for the people, not because of what household we're raised in."

"Ah, were humans only ever so wise," the old cook stated, half-jokingly, milking his old man impersonation from when she was little to its absolute fullest. Now that he was bald and had a full, if neatly trimmed white beard, it made quite the impact. "But in the end, even the most argumentative people rally behind leaders they consider as having legitimate claims, wherever these claims might come from. Perhaps, with time, you and the royal paramour can proof beyond any reasonable doubt your legitimation comes not just from a circumstance of birth or adoption."

"How did you…"

"I've known you all your life, Missy," Weltic interrupted her heated question with a smug little grin. "Of course, I knew. Whatever that call earlier was about, it can't have been good, so take care of yourself, Lelilah."

By now, the turbolift cart had arrived and the door opened, only waiting to take Leia back to her original mission and the team, with which she had come to Coruscant in the first place. The old cook was already leaving, before he turned around one last time and told her, "My wife said to remind you to keep your back straight, chin up and shoulders back; slouching is unbecoming."

"Tell her I'll miss her too," she replied, suddenly feeling exactly that deep in her bones. However much she liked Sanctuary, having the past brought up so vividly now once more reminded her of how much she missed Alderaan. "Bye, you grumpy old man."

"She knows. And bye, Missy."

Any further chit-chat was cut off by the turbolift cart's door closing on them. A raspy electronic voice inquired as to her destination, then asked for a small amount of credits to be paid by via credit chit. Despite her protestations, Vana had given her one containing what Leia could only assume was most of what the two of them had saved up, but eventually, there had been little choice; her spontaneous bout of apparition had fried even the three credit chits she had been carrying around with her for redundancy. At least she had been able to convince them to take what hard currency she had; not enough to cover what was on the chit, but enough that she did not feel like a monster for leaving them without the means to take care of themselves. And soon enough, the princ… possible queen had promised herself, she would lead her people off of Coruscant, anyway.

Her musings were interrupted when, far quicker than it had any right to, given the important thoughts going on inside, the cart opened once again, revealing the still somehow wrong picture of Iabaes without her armour. There was always just something off about seeing the warrior without her beskar'gam, even though it was how she spent most of her time.

"Remember what I said about the usefulness of jetpacks on the way to Coruscant?" Iabaes questioned without preamble as she waved her new passenger out of the lift and toward a small parking zone where she had set down her airspeeder bike. "I'd like to remind you of that talk, if I may."

"Just get on the speeder," Leia ordered curtly, though she received only a raised eyebrow in return for a few moments. Then, with a shrug of her shoulders, the older woman made her way to the waiting vehicle with a few large, agile steps and started the engine. Shortly, the soft humming of strong repulsorlifts was filling the air. Without another word, the Alderaanian got on behind her, carefully gripping around the driver's waist to keep herself from falling off. Twice in one day was inacceptable, and somehow, she was not quite sure she would be able to find another sewage pit to land in. "You smell like… I don't even want to know."

"A sewage pit saved me from becoming a stain on some skyscraper's foundation," she explained, only now once again registering the small effort at personal hygiene she had undertaken at Weltic and Vana's place had been far from comprehensive enough. "For that, I'm thankful. Anything else… I'd rather not think about."

A soft 'hmm' that was as much audible as it was palpable through the strong hold on her belly was Iabaes' only response for quite another while. She herself had been trained in things like this, in allowing the silence to stand, but right now, Leia lacked the stamina to keep up the usually tight rein she had on her own more overactive personality.

"Harry's hurt, in trouble," she relayed the barest minimum of her talk with Arden. "They went down into those caves and found… well, it looks like an infection that takes away people's minds, making them brainless metal things."

"And Harry's infected," Iabaes analysed her distress astutely. "What are they doing?"

So, while they shot through the dense air traffic of Galactic City, Leia recounted what she had been told, reminding herself with each word that she was exactly where she was supposed to be and would be of no particular help on Sanctuary; somehow, a part of her refused to believe it, though.

OOOOOOOO

A new airspeeder bike had been the fourth thing on Leia's agenda as soon as she got back to the safehouse and the Dromedary that had been set down in its hidden hangar bay. First had been an extensive shower in the fresher unit, the blessedly hot water cascading over hair and skin. Right in that moment, the fact that Harry's transport business was mostly intended to cater to a more well-funded clientele had never been a better thing. For where a simple, unmodified light freighter might have had sonic showers only, this one had been fitted with some of the better water recycling equipment, allowing it to actually use the precious liquid for such mundane things as cleaning.

The second thing on her agenda had been an extended discussion with first just Winter, though getting her sister's input on emotional matters was not always the most fruitful endeavour, then with the other two thrown in. They had visibly held themselves back from questioning her about her run-in with the other two Alderaanians to instead focus on the salient points: Harry, Seerdon, Black Sun and the Consortium.

"I wouldn't be surprised if Black Sun was the reason Zann wants Seerdon dead," Iabaes commented after everything had been laid out. "I'd been working in some of the shadier parts of society for years before I ever came in contact with the Alliance, and I know quite a few Black Sun people high enough with the exact character to pull something like this. Bribe, intimidate, frighten an ISB officer into writing some kind of report that would make the Empire target a competitor… ruthless but efficient, might even have worked if the Imperial military wasn't preoccupied with populations rebelling all over the galaxy."

"So, the Black Sun intimidate an officer into diverting attention from them onto their rival," Winter thought out loud, and to Leia, it was obvious her sister was now cataloguing everything she had heard for later perusal. "I can see why that would be advantageous… could be used to our advantage, though."

The one who had told them all about Black Sun in the first place was getting ready to give her own interpretation of the entire situation when, unbidden, the exhaustion reared its ugly head again, and instead of delivering some insightful comment, she merely added a large yawn to the discussion.

"We'll talk more, tomorrow," Iabaes decided then, and even had she wanted to, Leia would have been unable to protest, given the looks the other two women were giving her.

"We should lay low for a while, anyway," the rebel control officer agreed, once again reminding her sister she must have done stuff like this before. "Let things settle for a while, wait for Seerdon to calm down again. Might not be the most comfortable thing to do, right now, but it's definitely the correct thing."

After that, freshly washed and only moderately freaking out about her boyfriend, kept under a stasis spell thousands of light years ago, Leia went to bed. It was the third item on her agenda, after all.

OOOOOOOO

The muscles in Arden's back, neck and legs were aching, her entire insides in turmoil. Four days she'd been on the records she recovered from the underground lab, and not once had she gotten a clue as to how to cure an infection with the 'nanogene spore' that would right now be burrowing closer and closer to Harry's brain in an effort to turn him into one of these… things, were it not for the stasis charm she was keeping him under. This charm, however, was only a stopgap, as much was clear, as with every recasting, it took shorter and shorter periods of time for the magic to fade, leaving him once again vulnerable. And while the spread of the disconcerting metallic colour of the skin had initially been confined to just around the wounds, meaning at the middle of the forearm, halfway between elbow and wrist, it had now advanced as much as half of the rest of the way to the nearest joint in both directions. By now, most of the lower arm was silvery metal and decaying flesh.

"You should take a break," a voice interrupted her from behind, and only the fact that she had heard him coming prevented Mercer from a high kick to the throat; as it stood, she was keyed up enough to react with deadly force to any unfortunate cleaning droid that surprised her out in the corridors.

"I can't," the witch declared stubbornly, simply leaning down into the handwritten notes even further. The language had been the first problem, obviously, though it did have enough overlap with an old language, favoured mostly by the Nightsisters these days, that she had been taught by their tribe's shaman. Little surprise, she had judged, that one evil Force cult would use the same language as another evil Force… whatever that lab had been. How exactly that language had been shared between the groups was hard to say, though the shaman had once told her about ancient ruins on Dathomir, reeking of the shadow spells. That seemed like as good a guess as any other.

"You can, and you will," the deserter replied forcefully, putting his strong hands on her shoulders and turning her around in the swivel chair she had been sitting on. Of course, it would have been easy to break his hand, but even Arden had to admit he was right. Not out loud, obviously, just in the privacy of her own overworked head. "The medi droids said his heartbeat is becoming noticeable again. Then, after you've reapplied that stasis charm, you'll take some time off, maybe go for a fight with one of the soldiers and get some sleep."

"No, I can't," Arden complained, back to being stubborn. She could sanction reapplying the charm, even eating could be excused, but fighting and sleeping were non-negotiable wastes of time. "The charm keeps working for shorter and shorter lengths of time… it's down to 20 hours now, Mercer. 20! We started out at 27. If this keeps going on the way it is, we've maybe a week until I have to stand beside the bed and keep up the magic constantly. I have to find…"

"…something before then," Mercer completed her sentence. "You've told me before. But you're not thinking straight anymore, Arden. You're jumpy, you scare easily. How many pages have you gone through in the last… say an hour?"

She mumbled something they both knew he would not be satisfied with. Prompted by the increased pressure of his hands on her shoulders, the witch admitted, "Two."

With a great big sigh, she prepared herself for the smugness. "You're right."

That expected smugness never came, and now she felt bad for expecting it; whatever their own relation, caught between playfully contentious and even more playfully contentious, Harry was both their friend. "Alright, let's get to the infirmary, then you can take a lady out to dinner."

"Don't see a lady," Mercer quipped back immediately, though it lacked something of the usual zest. He was sporting a smile, though, and that was enough to consider the mission accomplished, as far as the Dathomirian was concerned. "But I suppose I'll make do with you."

Perhaps it was an indication of her own tiredness that Arden did not manage to come up with a witty reply. Instead, she simply got out of her chair and took the lead on a trip to the sickbay. It was a place she hated, a feeling that was furthered with every single visit she had to make there and see her friend laid up like this. Consequently, she always just cast the charm as quickly as she could and left once again, safe in the knowledge that she had done as much as possible and that Harry was not lacking for company, given that he had no idea of what was going on around him. Her newest visit was handled the same way, and she had to endure the overly clean air for barely a minute until Mercer once again followed her outside, this time toward the mess hall.

This deep into the night, there was no food being served, anymore, at least not 'freshly cooked'. Or as freshly cooked as the newly bought food synthesizer and the overwhelming stock of Imperial rations ever could be. Now feeling the hole where her stomach should be, though, Arden was quite sure even leaves and nuts would have tasted like one of those gourmet meals with dozens of courses she had heard about that were supposedly served on worlds like Coruscant. Only to those with the most impressive means, obviously. Therefore, a heated ration pack (including some mystery meat she was not sure she wanted to know the source of) was more than simply welcome. It was like a work of art to her deprived body.

"Slow down," Mercer reminded her, halfway through the impressive portion. "You haven't eaten the entire day; it would be a shame if your first meal in 24 hours came back up because you gobbled it down too quickly."

Not gracing his observations with a comment, Arden nevertheless slowed down the speed with which she inhaled the food to a somewhat more reasonable pace guaranteed not to make her lose her breakfast, lunch and dinner. With some cognitive resources now once again available, the witch pulled up a small book she had been able to smuggle past the deserter's watchful gaze and began reading what turned out to be a journal of sorts, written by the one who had been running the underground facility she had oh so satisfyingly torched. Unsurprisingly, the writings were those of a complete madwoman, seemingly intent on securing her own immortal life by experimenting on other sentients with the pathogen her own master, a woman by the name of Belia Darzu, had created. Somehow, this woman had gotten it into her head that by controlling the transformation she would be able to retain her sense of self, while profiting from the positive aspects of the nanogene spores. If she had to guess, the last one of the technobeasts, for that was what this Sith sorceress called them in her writings, had been that very sorceress, destroyed by her own creation. A fitting end if there ever was one.

OOOOOOOO