Chapter Twenty Nine:
Leia stared at the book in her grasp, trying and failing to get into it. She had read and re-read the same page several times now, and finally the princess admitted defeat. With a weary sigh Leia shut the volume and settled back on the bench she had occupied for a while now. Around her the peaceful garden sat. Its lush greens and vivid colors— and especially the trickling noise of the stream— were usually enough to lull her into a sense of relaxation.
But not today.
Today— and really for the last couple days— Leia had been on edge, unable to truly relax. And she didn't fully understand why. However, the more the feeling persisted, the more attention she felt she should give it, as if the Force were trying to tell her something.
If only she could puzzle it out... she had been trying to and it way always just on the very tip of her awareness.
Leia couldn't stop a niggling sense that she was missing something, and it had stemmed from seeing Luke's ship. Not to mention the way her parents had been acting of late, though mostly it was her father drawing Leia's attention. The Emperor and Empress did not seem like people who were still looking for a wayward child. In fact, they seemed to be on the cusp of something else, something that was creating a newfound tension that had only ever been present whenever her parents discussed Luke and what to do with him.
Leia straightened as realization slapped her like a white-hot iron to the face. How could she have not seen it before?
How thick can you be Leia?! She berated herself as she abruptly stood.
Her father had been out and scouring the galaxy ever since Luke's vanishing act... and he'd not come home at all. So why would Vader now be home— and not worried about his missing son— if Luke weren't already recovered?
Leia sucked in a breath. That left only one place he would be... and her heart clenched with utter fear for her twin brother. She knew of the unspeakable things that her parents allowed happen in those dank, horrid corridors...
Leia thinned her lips and raked her brain, and lifted her head as an idea struck her.
She was on the move so fast she barreled right into Damielle, who was just coming to find her apparently.
"Oh, Milady!" Damielle said in a hurry as she swiftly moved to steady Leia. "I am so sorry! Forgive me; I did not see you coming!"
Leia shook her head to clear it and then waved off the apology. "Don't worry about it. Excuse me."
"Princess, if I may have a moment..."
"Not right now!" Leia called, not stopping.
Damielle tried to follow her, finally catching up just as they exited the gardens. "I wanted to ask if you'd like to have a girl's night... or something..."
Leia frowned. Was her handmaiden really asking for a night to spend with Leia? "Why would you want to spend time with me?"
Damielle's flash of hurt made Leia grimace and she paused to lay a hand on Damielle's. "Forgive me; that was insensitive. What I meant was to ask why you'd want to spend time with me when I am not all that fun to be around."
Damielle smiled shyly. "You're not as bad as people make you out to be."
Leia snorted gently. "If you say so." She considered. "Okay then set it up, but not for anytime soon. I have something to take care of."
Leia turned and continued on her way to her quarters, where she dug out her hidden spider droids, the ones Bail had given her. It was now or never, and she intended to see her brother, no matter what she discovered when she did.
00000
"No." Mara shook her head. "I'm sorry... but no."
Nella had just finished outlining her plan, and Mara was doing her best not to laugh at the absurdity of it all. The droid seemed innocent, which baffled Mara, but she suspected it was newly built, which would fit the droid's current disposition.
Nella surged forward on her repulsors. "Please, Miss Jade! Master Luke needs your help..."
Mara thinned her lips. "Do you have any idea how impossible it is to get anywhere near Coruscant without detection? Never mind sneaking into a supposedly top-secret base that only the Royal Elite even know exist."
"I thought you were the best?" Nella challenged, and Mara could tell the droid was desperate.
Mara glared. "Stroking my ego won't work," she retorted icily. "File that away for next time too."
Nella let out the droid equivalent of a sigh, her head lowering somewhat. "Very well, I shall have to do this alone then. Goodbye Mara Jade."
Mara watched as the droid recovered her cloak and left the alley without so much as a sound, and within moments the droid had vanished. Despite herself, Mara blinked, wondering if the droid just might pull off its crazy scheme after all, especially if it could give Mara the slip.
With a dismissive wave, Mara turned and retreated to her own ship, gladly leaving the sand behind.
However, as she climbed for space, Mara couldn't help but notice that something was urging her to reconsider. Mara thinned her lips in annoyance, wondering what was so special about this Luke character anyway.
Who cared if he was the prince? What happened to him wasn't her concern.
Then why did it feel as if she was letting him down?
Her pride flaring up, Mara pushed away any guilt and proceeded to input the coordinates to her destination. She had a delivery to make.
00000
Leia took a deep breath and knocked on her father's office door, waiting permission to enter. She knew he would sense her and indeed she felt his light touch before the door opened; her signal to enter.
Leia did so with a practiced air of humility. She had to act the part of the concerned sister and yet obedient daughter. All thoughts of her intent to sabotage and spy were locked securely away behind her most private shields. She allowed concerns for her twin to flicker at the surface of her mind to distract Vader from her double-purpose.
"Father," Leia bowed her head to him. "Thank you for seeing me."
"What do you need?" Vader asked as he briefly glanced up from a datapad.
Leia hesitated slightly, not having to fake her nerves this time. Gathering her courage, Leia stepped closer.
"Father, I know Luke is here." She began, watching as his gaze snapped to hers again. The intensity of his stare made her swallow. "No one told me. I figured it out. You've been gone the entire length of Luke's absence, only returning now. You have Luke, and I know where you're keeping him."
Vader sat in stony silence for several long, frightening minutes, during which Leia had no way to read him. He was immovable, his gaze not leaving her, but his expression inscrutable. Leia knew she was treading thin ice, but she was doing it for Luke.
At last Vader settled back into his chair. "Yes, I have Luke. He is no longer a free person, and I will hold him until he obeys me."
Leia hated that she thought she knew what that meant. She stepped forward again, lifting her hands slightly. "Father, please... let me see him."
Vader was already shaking his head. "Absolutely not."
Leia continued, trying to get her full argument out before he dismissed her from the room. "Let me talk to him!"
"His seeing you will do nothing to aid me in gaining his obedience!" Vader growled. "Right now it would be a reward to him. I will not allow it."
"But he's always listened to me!" Leia cried. "Maybe he will again. I can talk to him; try to get him to see reason."
Vader gave her a harsh look. "You try my patience, Daughter."
Leia shook her head. "Father, let me help! Luke will listen to me, I'm sure he will. Please, let me try. Just one time..." Leia allowed a sliver of her desperation to see and help her twin bleed into her tone at the very end.
Vader ground his teeth, but Leia could see her logic was getting through to him, even if he didn't like it.
"Very well. One time. If he does not listen to you as you claim, then truly he is lost." Vader returned to his datapad. "Proceed."
Leia wilted with relief. "Thank you Father."
00000
As the stars became mottled lines, Nella settled into the droid niche built into the small ship she'd managed to get her hands on, something that had been about to be scrapped by its previous owner. He'd been drunk, and so getting him to simply give it up for free had been relatively easy.
And the vessel would work for what she wanted it to do for her: be inconspicuous and look like the hunk of junk it was. It was a tiny thing: large enough for only two people, a pair of bunks and one refresher.
This ship wouldn't draw attention, as people would be too busy dismissing it for its appearance to care much for what was inside. All she hoped was that the bad engine mount held long enough for Nella to complete her mission.
She had already failed at part of it; she would not mess up the rest of it.
00000
He was alone. He was unwanted, and his only value was his immense power in the Force. He had taken several days— he assumed it was that long, because he really had no way to tell time— to mourn his newfound orphanage, and then accept that his parents had disowned and hated him now... and that his sister was most likely dead.
What else was he to believe? His last sense of her had been of Leia in pain, and then she'd disappeared, and he hadn't sensed her since then.
Luke's spirit was trying to tell him she wasn't dead, but then what had happened to her?
Luke's pained gaze travelled his dark prison, his pain a constant companion. His mind wandered without true direction, but in his being something had hardened irreversibly. With the acceptance— something that had been hard to come by because he'd loved his mother and father despite everything— of his being cut off from his family and their turning on him as they had, Luke's heart had grown a layer of diamond-hard armor.
He wasn't beyond feeling, he was just more seasoned, and he'd built the wall around his heart to protect it from further hurt. They could do whatever they wanted with him... he would not turn to the Dark Side.
And if his parents really did give him the serum— the only thing Luke truly feared anymore— he would still find a way to end things. If he had to die to stay who he was, then he was prepared to do just that. Better to die than become a slave to his Dark parents.
He didn't know where Nella was, if she'd tried to fulfill her mission and failed or of she was still on her way. But he chose to trust in her. She was still a newborn as far as droids went, but she would not let him down, he was certain of it.
Luke would get out, and he would learn the ways of the Force to further his skills in the Light, and then he would fight to remove his tyrannical Emperor and Empress.
He was done being afraid of his parents, and of their cruelty. He would find a way... somehow.
00000
A lead lump had begun forming in Leia's gut once she had left her father's office and proceeded to the turbolift access for sublevel twelve. Now, as the doors closed and sealed her inside the sterile-white lift car, the ball became a rock, settling sickeningly into her stomach.
Leia subtly reached into her hidden pocket and activated the tiny droids she's brought along. All but one. She would need the final droid to record Luke's condition as it was. Another droid would find the video feed of all that had transpired in past days.
At some point in the ride down a shiver ran through Leia and she was suddenly aware of the despair, pain and loneliness that soaked this place. Leia staggered, steadying herself on the wall with one hand.
The doors opened and the darkened hall greeted her, as did one dark-armored stormtrooper. Leia used the position she was in to appear normal, since her hand was still near her pocket.
"Princess," he acknowledged, seemingly understanding her plight. "This way please."
Leia nodded and as soon as his back was turned, she released her minions, able to see them for only three seconds before they vanished into the murky halls to perform their tasks. Leia paused before one open doorway, eyeing what appeared to be fresh blood on the floor, walls and the metal slab that occupied the center of the space.
And she was hit with the sense of the young man who'd been inside day after day...
Sickened, Leia resolutely turned away when the stormtrooper gently touched her elbow to get her attention.
"He's in there, Miss." The man gestured to a door several meters down the hallway, and Leia could only nod, unable to ignore the constant ebb and flow of her brother's agony. But underneath all of that pain was something that had never been there before.
The door grew closer and closer, and Leia grew more on edge until the door at last opened.
"Wait outside," Leia ordered, and the trooper nodded. Leia stepped inside and the door closed at her back.
Since it was darker in here than in the halls, she had to wait several moments for her eyesight to adjust. But she heard the rustling of something moving on the floor, and then the sharp, rattling intake of breath.
"L-Leia?" Luke's weak voice crackled up at her from one corner.
Leia gave up trying to see in the gloom and activated her glowlamp, wondering why she hadn't done so from the start. Luke winced as the too-bright light stabbed at his eyes, and Leia cringed when his new pain reached her.
"Sorry..." she whispered right before her voice failed her. Her light had finally illuminated her brother, and Leia's horror mounted until she could contain it no longer. "Luke!"
Barely managing to hold onto the light, Leia surged forward to collapse to her knees at Luke's side. Tears were already falling and she moved as if to caress his cheek with shaking hands but stopped in alarm when she saw the state of his skin.
It was sallow, bruised, bloody and dry. He was naked, but she ignored this, though she did remove her vest to lay over his groin for his own comfort. Leia wept hot tears as she looked over her broken, bloodied brother, who had clearly been starved along with the torture.
"L-Leia..." Luke rasped. His own face was wet when she focused on it again, and her twin was looking at her as though he'd just seen an angel. His hand weakly lifted, and with frozen fingers Luke felt her face. "You're alive..."
Frowning, Leia grasped his faltering hand in her own. "Of course I am. Why would you think otherwise?"
Luke closed his eyes. "...felt you get... hurt. Then gone... in the Force."
Leia suddenly felt much more wretched for putting her brother through that. Of course he'd have felt her accident... he was her twin. But he should have felt her again when she recovered... so why would he think the worst? Unless... "Father didn't tell you I was fine?"
Luke started to shake his head before he stopped with a grimace of pain and opted for a look that both angered and alarmed her.
"He didn't." Leia was growing angry herself. "Why not?"
Then she recalled her conversation with Vader when she'd asked for permission to see her brother. She hadn't paid much attention to his words then, so anxious had she been to simply win the argument.
Leia wiped at her face and sniffled, eyeing her brother for a moment. Finally she simply lay down next to him, keeping a respectful distance with his mostly-nude state, but close enough to offer comfort.
"I'm so sorry they've done this to you, Luke," Leia murmured, watching as he simply gazed at her. His tears had stopped, she noted, and he didn't seem sad anymore that he was a prisoner of his own family.
"I cannot... change what's... happened," Luke replied without emotion, and Leia's concern grew. His indifference reminding her of the other mission at hand, Leia released the final spider-droid to do its job.
Luke saw this and lifted his brows. "What are... those for?"
Leia glanced around and then used the Force to verify there were no other recording devices before she spoke. "You are not the only one who's had enough. I've joined the Rebel Alliance."
Luke's eyes widened and concern for her flickered in his blue eyes. "What? When?"
"While you were gone, things happened..." Leia looked away.
"Bail..." Luke whispered knowingly, and she felt his hand to her cheek in a brotherly caress again. "I'm so sorry."
Leia accepted his offered comfort. "He wasn't the only reason, just the final straw. I'm done. But I'm not swapping sides as openly as you," she added wryly, to which Luke actually smirked. "I'm playing a double agent. I'll be feeding information to both sides, though I'll be helping the Alliance in person whenever I can. I'll slot time in when I go on missions. I'll figure the details out as I go, but for now let's just leave it at that."
Luke eyed her, and she half expected to see him preparing to reproach her for being reckless. But he surprised her yet again: all she saw there was pride and support. Of course he was worried for her safety as she was for his, but he knew she could handle herself.
But she could also see that Luke's strength was fast waning, because he was now fighting to remain awake. "Please be careful... Leia. I love... you," Luke breathed, shaking his head awkwardly as his eyes slid closed against his will.
He managed to open them again and he gestured her closer. Leia frowned and scooted nearer. "Help N-Nella..."
Leia frowned, confused, and spoke in the same quiet tone. "Who's Nella?"
But he was already unconscious, and as she watched his body going limp, Leia could only weep more for her brother. And ponder on the new sense about him. He was different. More... mature, seasoned.
More hardened.
Sure he still had soft spots, but he was no longer one to be walked all over. How she knew this for certain she could only guess at, but she knew it to her core. Luke would be a formidable man if— when Leia, not if— he ever got away from their oppressive parents.
Leia thinned her lips and decided to do her brother a kindness while she was here. Knocking on the door, she ordered a bowl of warm water, soap, a rag and towel. The guard was hesitant, but Leia out-ranked him so he obeyed.
Soon after the door was locked again and Leia proceeded to tenderly bathe her brother, though she was mindful of his overall privacy as much as she could be in the process.
While she worked, Leia pondered on the Nella character Luke had asked her to assist. Was it a friend he'd met in his sojourns? Or a girlfriend perhaps?
Leia paused at that, uncertain how she felt about her brother having a girlfriend and her not having a boyfriend. But she brushed it off as an immature way to think. Besides, she had no proof he had a girl friend, and he didn't act like he had any romantic ties to anyone.
Right, Leia, you know that from the fifteen minutes you've had with him... she chided herself sardonically.
Pushing romance from her mind, Leia finished the bath and started to carefully towel dry her twin.
When she put her hands to Luke's hair, a flash of a vision came to Leia, and she gasped, startled. It wasn't much more than a face and a feeling, but it was enough to cause Leia to drop the towel.
She put a hand to her head as the image of a flame-haired, green-eyed young woman faded, though the vivid quality of the image stuck with her and Leia was left to puzzle out the strange occurrence.
