It took time to come back to life; Jadesei Syne couldn't say exactly how much. She remembered drifting through the formlessless of a bacta tank; before that was darkness. Gradually the last scene in her office returned to her. The pain of Kaice's betrayal hurt as much as the blaster shot to the stomach.
She remembered the Force had been with her as she'd shot him. Everything else was a blank.
After uncounted time she was removed from the bacta tank and placed in a bed. Hospitals all looked the same, but as she faded in and out of consciousness she marked the shapes of humans and cone-headed Cereans both, and that meant she was on Bavinyar.
What Bavinyar meant now, she had no idea. She only knew, with the most painful ache of all, that she had failed her world.
Syne had a lot of time to ruminate on that during her slow recovery. She was too weak to leave the bed but strong enough to stay awake when the doctor, a human, explained to her that General Kaice was dead and Major Brenner under investigation. New Republic peacekeepers had been deployed across Bavinyar after a short but violent skirmish in orbit. Naturally, the Republic wanted to hear her side of the story, and in time she'd testify to what she knew.
With what little strength she currently had, Syne asked, "Who is in charge of the government?"
The doctor blinked owlishly and said, "You are, Madam Prime Minister."
Syne ruminated on that as she passed in and out of consciousness. Bacta and surgery had done all it could for her; according to the doctor her body needed time to heal.
They must have been keeping her under security, because for a half-dozen sleep-cycles her only visitor was the doctor and some em-dee droids. But one time (morning or evening she couldn't tell; there were no windows in her room) she awoke to find two figures standing at her bed, one on either side. She sat upright and rubbed her eyes to focus. One was a broad-bodied, aubergine-skinned Dornean. The other was a long-headed Cerean with a white beard and gentle eyes.
It took a long time for her to figure out what to say to them.
Eventually she managed, "I want to apologize, but words aren't enough."
Gently, Behn-Kihl-Nahm said, "Major Brenner has indicated you were not part of the conspiracy. You were a victim in this."
"I was a fool," she rasped.
"Perhaps. But you have plenty of company." The Cerean tried a smile; it looked very sad.
"I've been told that… I am still Prime Minister." She looked to A'baht. "Is this true?"
"The New Republic never sought to subborn Bavinyar's government, only keep the peace."
And to prove that, it seemed, they would leave her in power. She swallowed hard and said, "I can resign, if you'd like."
"I have… spoken on this subject with the Chief of State," Behn-Kihl-Nahm said. "We've agreed that continuity of government is Bavinyar's best chance of achieving stability."
So she was condemned to keep trying, after having failed so hard. Deflated, Syne leaned her head against the pillows and stared at the white ceiling. "I don't know where we can go from here."
"The Republic has already had success rounding up the BIL and CPF leadership," A'baht told her. "Disarming and dismantling the extremist groups is the first step. After that… the peoples of Bavinyar will have to decide their own fate."
"Peoples," Syne muttered. "Peoples apart."
"Perhaps," Behn-Kihl-Nahm said regretfully. "But Cereans and humans have to share this planet. There's no going back. Our only hope is to learn from our mistakes."
"Yes," she exhaled. Learn, and try to live up to the legacy she'd inherited.
No, another plural. Legacies. Her mother's legacy was still the more important and always would be, but perhaps her father's might serve her still, in some small way. After all, it had already saved her once. Without it she wouldn't be here now, with a second chance.
"I want you to know," said Behn-Kihl-Nahm, "That I will do everything I can to help rebuild Bavinyar."
"I appreciate that, Senator… but the election?"
"Still a few days away. I'll be leaving for Coruscant shortly to… make an end of it."
Another sad smile. She saw he had no confidence of winning now, and while she felt sorry for him, her found it hard to care about the state of Republic politics when her world was still bleeding.
Carefully, Behn-Kihl-Nahm said, "I think that, after my business on Coruscant has ended, I will return to Bavinyar. It is my homeworld, even if I've neglected it for so long. If I hadn't been so swept up in bigger drama…"
More regrets. There were always plenty of those to go around. Syne tilted her head down to look him in the eye. "I look forward to working with you, Senator, I really do."
"Please, call me Bennie," he said, and this time his smile was tinged with hope.
-{}-
After the Bavinyar crisis passed its short, fiery climax, Iella Wessiri did her best to move on. She found it difficult, though, to slip back into the easy civilian life she'd been enjoying up until then. Syal and Myri were still Syal and Myri, at turns endearing and frustrating (Syal tended to the former, Myri the latter) while Wedge was also Wedge. He usually found himself drafted into some consulting job or another. Sometimes he'd remark that his retirement was less stressful than his wartime service but not, it often seemed, by much.
Whenever Wedge was away, whenever the kids were at school, she found herself waiting for some message pinned to her landspeeder windshield or even just a buzz on her comlink from the encrypted source she knew to be Asyr Sei'lar. It never came.
A few days before the New Republic Senate was set to vote on its next president, an event Iella and her husband were both anticipating with quiet dread ever since the Bavinyar crisis, she found herself getting dinner ready while Myri sulked in her room and Syal and Wedge sat in the living room; Wedge was scowling at the latest poll numbers that gave Borsk Fey'lya a clear advantage, while Syal watched her father like she was afraid he was going to go off like an unexploded torpedo.
Iella didn't notice the buzzing of her comlink, which she'd left on the counter, until her husband pointed it out. She dropped what she was doing and clasped the thing in both hands, somehow knowing this was what she'd been waiting for. She wondered what excuse she could have for chasing Wedge and Syal away so she could use the comm system in private; then she saw the incoming signal came not from Asyr, but someone else.
It was an audio-only signal, so Iella hurried into her bedroom and closed the door. She turned on the link and said, "This is Iella Wessiri. Who is this?"
After a tiny pause, the voice on the other end said, "My name is Tresk Im'nel."
She knew that name was belonging to one of the Jedi involved in the Bavinyar crisis. The media talking heads, though they argued about nearly everything else, had mostly agreed that the Jedi had performed to the best of their abilities at Bavinyar, and suggested that Luke Skywalker be allowed to reform the Jedi Council that had been mooted during the presidential debates.
"Thank you for calling me. Can I ask how you got my comm frequency?"
Almost apologetically, Im'nel said, "I picked it up from from the call logs on a personal link belonging to Asyr Sei'lar."
Iella sat down on the bed. Somehow, she'd known deep down it would come to this. "Is she dead?"
"I'm very sorry."
"So am I." Strangely, it felt like a pressure was being lifted off her. She'd been waiting for this call, or something like it, for weeks. Now, at last, it was finally done. "Do you know how she died?"
"It is... uncertain. Miss Antilles, how much do you know about the resolution of the Bavinyar crisis?"
"Only what I've heard on the news-nets, and a little from old friends in Intelligence, about the Prime Minister Syne and her top general shooting eachother."
"That happened, and it helped end the fighting. However, all ships in orbit also received a last-minute broadcast from two people identifying themselves as a human BSA police detective and an NRI agent named Asyr Sei'lar."
Iella blinked. "She called herself that? By that name?"
Im'nel gave a dry chuckle. "Indeed. Perhaps, after coming so far, she knew her secret was out."
"Master Im'nel, I..."
"You helped Asyr. I know that. I did as well. She never said outright who was helping her, but when I reviewed her comm logs it became clear."
"You said Asyr helped stop the fighting. Then what happened to her?"
"That is still uncertaiin. When we sent down a team to the site of their transmission, we found four bodies, all shot dead. The speculation Asyr and the detective engaged in a firefight with two BDF guards, and all four were killed."
In initial wave of relief washed away, leaving Iella unsettled by a surge of guilt. "I'm so sorry to hear that. Asyr deserved so much better."
"Indeed. Yet she helped stop the fighting over Bavinyar. We must not forget that. In dying, she saved many lives."
"Master Im'nel…. Did she tell you why she wanted to get involved in Bavinyar in the first place?"
"I knew Asyr well. Our goals were the same."
The statement fell like a silent bomb between them. All Iella could mutter was, "Oh."
"We shall see how the election plays out," Im'nel continued, "But it must be admitted that she…. That we failed in our initial goal. Assuming there was even a chance of success; we still never found the missing link in the weapon supply chain, nor did we find who was selling Imperial weapons to the Cerean separatists."
"Still too many unknowns."
"It seems so. The investigation continues, of course."
"Of course," she echoed softly.
Silence buzzed over the comm line. Im'nel said, "You are not responsible for what happened to Asyr. She died because she pursued what she believed in to the very end. Even if she didn't accomplish her primary goal, she still died selflessly."
They were good words, and they were even true, but they didn't stop Iella from feeling tightness in her chest and water in her eyes.
"Thank you, Master Im'nel… If there's nothing else… I'd like to think about this for a while."
"Of course. If I anything else is learned about Asyr's fate, I will let you know."
"Thank you," she repeated, and closed the link.
She let herself fall back on her bed. She stared up at the dim ceiling of the home she and Wedge had made and wondered if Asyr had ever had a ceiling this familiar, had ever had a home at all.
She didn't know how long she'd been laying there, too empty and exhausted and sad to even think, when Wedge knocked and asked through the door, "Are you all right in there?"
"I'm fine," she said, but it came out like a choke and she still didn't have the strength to sit up.
The door slid open. Wedge poked his head through and looked at her. She fumbled up on her elbow and then into a sitting position.
"Iella, what's wrong?" he asked, looking down at her.
"Nothing. I'm fine." She looked away.
"Are you sure? Were you crying?"
"No, I wasn't..." She pawed wetness away from her eyes. "Wedge, it's nothing, I..."
But Asyr wasn't nothing. She looked up at him, saw the deep concern in his eyes. She reached out and took his hand, lowering him onto the bed beside her.
"I want to tell you something." She squeezed his hand. "About a very good friend..."
-{}-
Leonia Tavira had been planning and waiting for the New Republic presidential election for months, and now that it was finally here she should have been overjoyed. Sitting in her cabin aboard Invidious with an open bottle of fine Tralian whiskey and access to every news network imaginable, she should have been basking in victory. After everything she'd done- selling weapons to the BIL and CPF both, helping Pwoe destabilize the election then forcing him to quit, cutting a deal with the Besadii to cover her tracks, and of course registering early bets with virtually every casino and gambling host in the known galaxy, the electoral triumph of Borsk Fey'lya was her triumph all the more. The amount of ways the conniving Bothan could wreck the Republic were too numerous to count.
Yet as she sat there on her sofa sipping her whiskey and watching the results roll in, all she could think about was the man sitting next to her.
Pedric Cuf had commed Invidious less than a standard day earlier, requesting to meet up with Tavira's ship and enjoy the election results with her. By then Tavira had figured out that whoever Pedric was, he wasn't actually a high-ranking BIL member. The very fact that he'd been lying to her and pulling some con for his own agenda made her at once furious and curious, so she decided to let Pedric Cuf aboard, and then find out what his real game was, through any means necessary.
When he arrived, Pedric acted very genial and upbeat for a man whose terrorist organization was being dismembered by a mix of Republic and Bavinyari military and police teams. Aviran Kolin, the BIL's supposed leader who'd done nothing during the entire crisis, had finally been found holding out on a tiny island near the planet's south pole and was being arraigned for legal processing, but when Tavira mentioned that Pedric had just shrugged, as if to say, 'these things happen.'
What he really seemed to enjoy was sitting on the sofa with Tavira, sharing her whiskey and watching the votes tally up. Some networks called for Fey'lya early on. Others waited until it was clear the Bothan would take nearly-two thirds of the total vote, while former front-runner Behn-Kihl-Nahm ended up almost splitting the remains with third-in-line Celch Dravvad.
It was all a show she should have enjoyed but couldn't, and all because Pedric Cuf was there beside her: a question begging to be answered.
She'd wanted Pedric to feel comfortable at first, so she'd left her blaster in one corner of the room and kept only a poison-tipped stiletto knife in a sealed sheath inside her right boot. When she couldn't take the waiting anymore, she curled that leg up on the sofa and rested her right hand on the tip of the boot while leaning in closer to the man.
"Tell me," she said whispered playfully in his ear, "Have you gotten what you wanted in all this, Pedric?"
"Haven't I, my dear Leonia?" He said it with a smile, but something in his tone was faintly mocking.
"Very much so." She slipped two fingers into her boot, squeezing the tip of the stiletto between them. "I was wondering why you would look so happy, considering the fate of the BIL."
"Ah, the BIL." He shrugged. "It is a shame, isn't it?"
"I'm just a gunrunner. I never had any attachment to the BIL. I thought you did. You are from Bavinyar, and a close friend to Kolin, aren't you?"
Pedric blinked. Tavira pulled the blade out from her boot and instantly brought it up against Pedric's neck.
He bore his teeth and hissed angrily, "I was wondering when we'd get to his part."
"You were never BIL and you're not from Bavinyar," she said. "I know that."
"Heard that from your CPF customers, did you?"
She tried to keep the surprise from her face. "That doesn't matter. Why did you come back, Pedric? If you wanted to run as another middle-man and make yourself a little more profit, I could have accommodated. I could have even cut you into the CPF sales."
"That wouldn't have done, I'm afraid. I had a role to fill, just like you."
His voice dripped condescension and made her angry. "What role? I've heard how the BDF and General Kaice killed Pohl-Had-Narr. Did they hire you? Is that what this is about?"
He actually laughed, even with a knife at his neck. "The BDF was just playing a role too. Everyone was."
"If you don't tell me who you are now, I'll kill you." She edged the blade a little closer.
"This may be very hard for you to believe."
"Tell me!" she snapped.
He gave a labored, overdramatic sigh and leaned back a little. "May I show you something?"
"No. Just tell me."
He shook his head like she was a stupid schoolgirl. Then something happened to his right eye. His pupil went so wide his entire socket was consumed with empty darkness.
Tavira jumped back, off the sofa and into the middle of the room, just as some squirt of dark liquid arced past his shoulder. She scrambled to the far wall and grabbed her hold-out pistol. Pedric Cuf was on his feet now, his one eye still empty, grinning at her as he held his hands in the air. The newscaster on the holo-projector droned on about Fey'lya's victory; Tavira reached out with one hand and turned it off, keeping his pistol level on Pedric at all times.
"All right," Tavira said, "Show me."
"It will be my pleasure." Pedric Cuf reached with one hand to the back of his neck. His face crinkled in a wince-
-then his skin itself seemed to strip away. A split appeared, running from scalp to chin, then both sides peeled back and disappeared down the neck of his tunic, revealing an ash-gray face like a human skull, devoid of nostrils or ears. His lips bore teeth that seemed to perpetually grin and dark tattoos swirled around his hairless scalp.
Leonia Tavira had traveled the galaxy far and wide, but had never seen an alien this that.
"What are you?" she gasped and steadied her shaking pistol with another hand.
"My real name is Nom Anor." He spread his arms, still grinning. "And I came back to offer a business proposition that should be most enticing to an entrepreneurial woman like yourself."
"You lie to me, trick me, and now you want to be partners?"
Nom Anor chuckled softly. "Partners is probably not the correct term. But you can serve the same master I do… for appreciable compensation."
"What kind of compensation? What are you?"
"I'll explain all of that if you just lower your weapon."
"I should shoot you right here, you thing."
He laughed that condescending laugh. "No, you won't. You do have a temper, lovely Leonia, but you're too smart, and too practical, to waste what I'm offering just because our previous relationship was less than honest."
"Less than honest?"
"That's right. I don't see why you're so angry. Our relationship- call it what you will- has been fruitful ever since I sold you Intimidator's location two years ago."
"But that was-"
"I was wearing a different face then," he said casually. "The point, you got everything you wanted and now you'll get more than you could have ever imagined. I should think you'd be overjoyed."
She lowered the pistol just a bit, so it was aimed at his chest rather than his head. "What did you want from all this? To destabilize the Republic?"
"Exactly. My masters decided, quite wisely, that having Borsk Fey'lya governing the galaxy instead of Behn-Kihl-Nahm would give us quite the advantage when our time came."
"Your time? Who are you people?" A thought jarred her. "Intimidator… What happened to it? Who wrecked it?"
"I think you've already figured that one out."
"It was a super star destroyer! It would take a whole fleet to destroy that ship."
"I know. It did."
Tavira's shock gave way to awe, and then to fear. She realized the weapon in her hand meant nothing at all against the power this creature stood for, and she let it fall to her side.
Nom Anor lowered his arms and smiled. "You told me peace is bad for business once. With that in mind, I think we should have a seat and begin a new discussion. Because I assure you, business is going to be very good for you very soon."
-{}-
The gathering in the Solo family apartment watched in grim silence as the final votes were tallied. Leia had resigned herself to seeing Fey'lya win the election, but the sheer scale of his victory, with almost twice as many votes as Bennie and Dravvad combined, left her oscillating between despair and anger. Even senators whose judgment she'd always trusted were casting votes for him, leaving ones like Avan Beruss, Cal Omas, and Elegos A'kla looking like stubborn hold-outs.
"You know, it might not be so bad," Han said from the sofa beside her. "If there's good people on the Advisory Council, they might rein the furball in."
Han had always been the one to voice aloud the complaints Leia kept diplomatically quiet about, and she knew he was just trying to salvage her mood. A valiant effort, but nothing would do that right now.
"Do you know what Behn-Kihl-Nahm is going to do now?" asked her brother. Luke was seated in the chair next to them, leaning forward so his dark Jedi robe shrouded his shoulders.
"I talked to him. He'd already planned to resign his office and go back to Bavinyar to help rebuild."
"I figure Syne'll need all the help she can get," Han said.
Leia's heart shuddered at the mention of the woman who'd reminded her so much of herself, only to end up as a pawn in someone else's political game.
In sad truth, that, too, reminded her of herself right now.
"I don't know what Bennie wants right now," Leia sighed. "I don't think he does either. He seems to blame himself for all this. He thinks he abandoned Bavinyar by spending too much time on Coruscant. He tried to work for both worlds and ended up working for none."
"So now we're stuck with Fey'lya," Jacen spoke up for the first time in a while. Her son had been sitting cross-legged on the floor in the corner of the room, watching the results come in with a look of consternation.
"I'm starting to think I should have never quit politics," Leia admitted.
"Hey, there's still good people in the senate," Han interjected, fake-cheerful again. "We can trust guys like Triebakk or Elegos."
"I know, Han, I know. It's just that when we made peace with the Imperial Remnant it felt like the future was secure. Now… Everything feels so uncertain."
He put an arm around her and squeezed her shoulder. "Well, no matter what, it can't be any worse than the Empire. I mean, Fey'lya's a slimy little furball, but he's no Palpatine, right?"
"No," Leia admitted, "He's definitely no Palpatine."
"Then cheer up." He kissed her forehead. "Whatever happens we'll get through this together."
She knew he was right, but she couldn't kill the unease growing inside her. She rested her head on Han's shoulder, closed her eyes, and listened to the news-casters drone on and on, predicting the shape of things to come.