BANNERMAN

To say Uncle Jamos and Aunt Shara don't take the news well is to say Northern winters are just chilly. When Marlon and Dalla break the news to them, Jamos rises up and shouts so loud he shakes the Hold's stone walls, and Dalla and Thias have to team up to block Aunt Shara from racing out of the great hall to Marlon's office, where she planned to place a call of barely repeatable things to the royal palace.

"Jamos, take a breath!" Marlon orders, struggling against his younger brother.

"How can you say that?" Uncle Jamos roars. "If it was Thias in the palace, the navy would be halfway there."

Portia, Shara and Jamos' norcog, woofs in distress. With Dalla and Thias blocking the door, Shara's resorted to pacing around the room with her hands clutching her forehead and the giant cognine pads over to check on her.

Shara ignores Portia. "He stowed away with the general?" she asks and then turns to her second-born. "Emoth, why didn't you tell me you'd contacted him?"

"I didn't know he was coming back to the Hold," Emoth cries through his tears. "I just wanted to warn him in case someone found their ship."

Cade wraps his arms around his cousin. "You couldn't know."

Dalla has a feeling her aunt would have said the same thing if she wasn't so stressed. Any mother whose child is being held hostage would be terrified. For Aunt Shara, who knows exactly what Sanjay Rash is capable of, it must be a thousand times worse.

"What did he want?" Jamos asks. "I'll give it to him. He can't harm my son!"

"You know what he wants," Marlon snaps. "And from what General Tandin told Dalla, he doesn't want to harm Kason."

"You'd believe the man Rash sent north to kidnap Dalla?"

"He's an honorable man," Shara weakly protests.

"Even honorable men try to outwit their enemies," Jamos insists. "How do we know this general isn't stringing us along?"

They don't. All they have is Tandin's word, but Dalla's willing to take it. She's heard enough fish stories to develop a reasonably good lie detector, and Tandin never made her suspicious.

"This can be sorted out without giving in to Rash's demands and forsaking our honor," Marlon insists. "If we call upon our southern bannermen -."

"House Bonteri died with Dane and Mina, and where are the Kiras? Sulking in the jungle for seventeen years?"

"Jamos!" Shara raps in defense of House Kira.

Marlon's unfazed. "Dane and Mina's son is with the rebels. If we contact them, we can ask them to rescue Kason and the king at the same time."

"Lux Bonteri is a boy," Jamos shakes with anger. "Why would the rebels help us? They don't care about the matters of the north."

Dalla decides not to mention her father practically declared for the rebels in that holo-call with Rash. Instead she goes for the obvious answer. "If Rash marries me and gets his dowry, then he'll use the navy to crush them. They'll help just to preserve themselves."

"And how would we contact them?" Jamos demands.

Thias shuffles his feet and the attention in the room goes to him.

"Thias?" Dalla prompts. "Do you know something?"

"Remember when Lord and Senator Bonteri came to the Hold after Mom died?"

She was thirteen and concussed, but she remembers. Senator Bonteri told Dalla to call her Mina and held her while Dane Bonteri set her nose. They were kind and gave hugs and read stories to her brothers and helped Aunt Shara tend to all of them. Dalla had never been so glad the Bonteris were their bannermen. "What about it?"

"When Mina left, she gave me a present," he admits. "And she put the family's contact information in the package."

With luck like this they should all buy Galactic lottery tickets. "And you were planning on telling us when?"

"Hey! I didn't know it was this bad," Thias protested. "I thought we were just going to punch Rash in the face and be done with it. I didn't know Kason was in the south."

"Where is it?" Dalla demands.

"I have it."

"Never mind that. How would we know it still works? Dane's and Mina's comlinks would be deactivated after their deaths." Marlon points out. "I can't imagine they would have put Lux's contact information down if he was thirteen at the time."

"Thias?"

"Don't remember," Thias shrugs. "Think there were three numbers, though."

The third one has to be either Lux or a family line he'd have ahold of. "Why don't we contact then now?"

"We will," Marlon looks first at Uncle Jamos, then at Aunt Shara, directing his words mostly to them. "But first we need to come up with a concrete strategy for what we're going to give them in return. Carrying out Kason's rescue will be extremely dangerous and they'll need a sizable incentive. Not as large as the dowry Rash wants, but still large."

"How many ships?" Jamos asks.

"I'll have to negotiate with the Bonteri boy."

"How long is that going to take?" Shara cries. "Marlon, the Separatists don't have your honor. And Rash - you know what his mother was. She's poisoned him into doing her bidding from beyond the grave. They wouldn't hesitate to do dishonorable things if it meant House Rash's advancement."

"If Rash didn't harm Kason after striking him in front of Count Dooku, then I think we're safe."

That was before Marlon shot Rash's demands down. There's no use contacting General Tandin to tell him what happened; he has to know already. After this one of two things can happen: Rash can convince Dooku to help him lay siege to the Hold, or he can hurt Kason. Both options are awful, and she can't let either one of them come to fruition.

If Rash is foolish enough to personally come north, she'll kill him. But if he hurts Kason…

Dalla snags the back of Thias' shirt and backs out of the Great Hall while their father, aunt, and uncle are too busy arguing to notice.

"Should I go get Cade and Emoth?" he asks.

She shakes her head. "You said you have the Bonteris' comm frequencies. Give them to me."

He raises an eyebrow. "What are you going to do with them? Contact Lux Bonteri without Father's permission?"

Dalla doesn't answer.

"Holy kriff, that is what you want to do!" Thias backpedals. "Are you insane? Father will feed you to Chirns!"

"Father doesn't need to know," she replies meanwhile resigning herself to a future as Chirn bait. "Just like Father doesn't need to know about you and Grandmother Flint's good china."

Thias goes pale remembering Grandmother Flint's good china.

She leans in. "Give me the flimsi, Thias."

Thias' hands goes to his pocket. "You want to call the Bonteris. Then what? You're only in command of one ship."

"That's one more than they have," she points out. "And better weapons is the best deal they're going to get anywhere."

"That's your lying face," Thias presses harder on the pocket.

"I have a lying face?" she sputters.

"Yeah, a really obvious one. How do you plan to get Maiden's Heel to them and explain to Father why she's gone?" She decides not to answer that one, and Thias' eyes grow even bigger. "By the salt gods, you're going to sail her down?"

"How else am I supposed to get a ship down south? Magic?"

Thias backs away. "Did your crew agree to this?"

How was she supposed to assemble her crew when she and Father had gone straight from his office to the Great Hall? She thinks quickly. "My crew would sail to the edge of the world if I asked them. The only person I still need to get is my first mate."

"And?"

"I'm asking him."

"Oh, nuh-uh," Thias shakes his head wildly. "I'm Father's first mate, not yours."

"There isn't a rule saying you can't be mine if my regular first mate isn't here. And you only have two months left before you go from Father's first mate to mine. Think of it as a promotion. Anyway, it's not like you don't want to go south and save Kason."

No one could ever say Dalla didn't know her brother. Thias twitches at the accusation.

"Comm number," she orders and holds out her hand.

But Lady Luck isn't on her side today. "I'll give it to you when we're on the way south," Thias says and spins off the wall, setting his shoulders even with Dalla's. "When are we going?"

"Not for a while. General Tandin's right; we're safest in the north, but when the north isn't safe anymore we're going to have to leave fast. I don't want to risk not having the comm numbers when we go." She grabs his shoulder. "Which means I need them at a moment's notice."

"And that means I'll keep them with me all the time," Thias says, walking off. "That way you don't get any ideas about leaving without me."

While she watches him go off, Dalla considers that maybe she and Thias know each other just a little too well.

…

There's only one thing to do if Thias won't give up the flimsi: try to find alternate comm numbers. The HoloNet directory yields one number listed under Bonteri, and when Dalla calls it pretending to be a holomarketer she finds it's Mina Bonteri's old work line at the Parliament.

Fat lot of good a Parliament line is going to do her. Dalla begins an insipid spiel about the nearest brand-name product she sees ("Hi ma'am! I'm here to offer you an incredibly opportunity with ThermaSox, a product which will change your life!") and like she hoped the secretary hangs up on her.

With that particular track covered, she leans back in her seat and casts her eyes to the ceiling. There has got to be some way to get her hands on the flimsi. Thias is awful about remembering to empty his pockets before putting dirty clothes in the laundry; the sheer amount of credits she's reaped from doing that particular chore speaks to it. If she can get ahold of Thias' laundry, the fact that it's Cade's week to do it notwithstanding, then she might find the numbers.

Still, that's if Thias leaves them in his pocket and if she manages to get ahold of the laundry before Cade, who also knows about their brother's propensity to leave credits in his pockets. Those are too many contingencies for her taste. That leaves one option: stealing them.

Maybe she can break into Thias' room and swipe them while he's sleeping. But because Thias can apparently read her like a book, he'll probably lock his door with a chair or even sleep with the numbers in a pajama pocket. However flawed, it's looking more and more like her only option until her father returns to his office.

Marlon sighs. "You realize this isn't your office yet."

And she hopes it won't be for a good long time. "I do."

"You seem pretty intent on taking it over," he jerks his head and Dalla climbs out of his chair. Marlon takes her place.

"How are Uncle Jamos and Aunt Shara?"

"As well as you'd expect," he says. "Emoth is spending the night in Cade's room and your aunt and uncle went back to theirs for a while. I asked Thias to watch their ships in case Jamos gets any ideas."

"And what about the rest of us? What are we doing to do about it?"

Marlon turns on his holoprojector. "How many houses have you contacted?"

"Harkon and Flint so far, but only Harkon replied when I last checked."

"Help me with the others. If we have to take down Sanjay Rash, we'll need the entire North's might to do it."

"Yes, Father." She pulls up the directory of comm numbers and divides it in half, taking one list for herself and leaving one for her father. "Do you want me to take the Bralykburns?"

"The situation's too tenuous. Leave them for me." The holoprojector beeps to signal an incoming transmission. "Dalla, who is it?"

"House Harkon."

"Put them through," Marlon orders and Dalla does. The tall, sturdy figure of the House's head pops up. "Glover, it's Marlon. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Marlon," Lord Glover Harkon exudes terror. "I know you have issues of your own, but House Harkon has an emergency on its hands."

"What is it?" Marlon sits on the edge of his seat. The Harkons are the Blackwells' oldest and most loyal bannermen, and Glover Harkon is one of his closest friends.

"Miranda put into harbor at Blackhold last night," Glover explains. "She and her crew went down the gangplank for their night off and this morning no one could find her."

Marlon turns his attention to Dalla. "Have you seen Miranda?"

Dalla shakes her head. "I didn't even know she was at the Hold." If that isn't abnormal she doesn't know what is. She and Miranda Harkon are best friends. They've known each other since they were babies and religiously meet up whenever they're in the same place.

If holograms showed color, Glover's face would be pale as slush. "The first mate says the ship is still in harbor and the rest of her crew is accounted for. The crew's retraced their steps half a hundred times. She's just vanished!"

"You did right contacting us. We'll search the Hold and the surrounding waters. Is it possible someone on your end knows where she might be?"

Lord Harkon shakes his head. "I thought Dalla might, but she clearly doesn't." He wrings his hands. "Marlon, my wife is frantic. The twins are frantic. I'm frantic. I'm coming over to search as soon as possible but it will take time and even if it's summer, if she's in the water…"

"I'll send the search parties immediately," Marlon promises and shuts off the hologram. "Dalla, change of plans. Send out a missing person's alert for Miranda to every vessel in the harbor. Then go with your brother and take Maiden's Heel to search south. Stay in a ten-klik radius of the Hold at all times."

Dalla already has half of the alert composed and finds a still of Miranda to attach to it. "Right away, Father."

Marlon races from his office and Dalla sends a quick message to Thias on her comlink while she sends out the alert.

HARBOR NOW. MIRANDA SOS. That'll get him to sit up and pay attention.

...

Thias and her crew beat her to the harbor. By the time she sends the alert and runs up the gangplank Thias is already yanking up the anchor and ordering all hands on deck. Dalla shoots him a look to reassert just who's the captain, though she's grateful for the all hands. It's one less thing she has to shout.

"This is a search mission," she announces. "We're looking for Miranda Harkon, sixteen years old, with curly brown hair and blue eyes." Miranda's a classic Northern beauty, the pride of House Harkon. She's been pretty ever since she was a baby.

When they hear Miranda's name a murmur goes up among the crew and they glance to Thias. Another glare from Dalla stops the whispering cold. Yes, she knows about Thias' and Miranda's friendship, and that her brother asked their father to approach the Harkons about permission to see Miranda sometimes, but this isn't the time for bawdy jokes about how Harkon pink and Blackwell blue could only bode a fruitful marriage.

"Miranda Harkon has been missing since this morning. Let's find her before night falls," she shouts and takes her position at the wheel. The crew rushes to theirs and once she's done talking to the navigator she turns to Thias.

"You got here fast."

"Miranda's been gone since this morning?" He asks.

"Crew couldn't find her after their night off. Glover's worried she took a skiff or something and wrecked." She certainly hopes she's wrong. If Miranda's been in the water since last night, her odds aren't looking good. "Were there any places you two went together that she liked? Or somewhere she wanted to go?"

Thias turns scarlet. "No!"

"Look, forget propriety," she whispers. "If there's a place, I need to know. I won't tell Father; I'll just say we got lucky."

"There isn't!"

Dalla raises her hands in surrender. "Just had to be sure."

Their prow slices through the waves as they leave the harbor, and each crewman who would normally prepare nets and bait stands along the rail, eyes cast on the sea below. Dalla scans the waves from the wheel until her eyes go glassy while the Brylks churn the water.

Harkon pink will stand out against the water, she reminds herself. Miranda loves wearing her house colors.

Minutes, hours later her comlink buzzes and she answers. "Hello?"

"Dalla, return to the Hold immediately," her father orders.

She can't help herself. "Did you find Miranda?"

Marlon sighs. "Your aunt's Brylks picked up a scent trail and we followed them. They were circling her when we arrived."

That doesn't sound good, but she still asks the question to cling to her last shred of hope. "Circling her?"

"We found her body."

Dalla checks over her shoulder to make sure Thias couldn't have heard that. "M-may the salt gods have mercy," she stammers. This isn't happening. There's no way this is happening; Miranda's got to be back on the docks at Blackhold embarrassed about all the fuss over her, she can't be dead.

But Marlon doesn't return the benediction. "You need to return to the harbor, then take Thias, return home, and lock the doors. Do not stop anywhere. Do not speak to anyone. Go straight home and lock yourselves in my office."

That doesn't sound like Marlon at all. "Father?" She asks, worry creasing her brow. "What's wrong?"

"Miranda didn't die in the water," Marlon says. "She was shot and thrown in."

"Someone killed her?!" Dear salt gods, why would someone want to kill Miranda? "Who? Everyone loves Miranda!"

"Our navigator says if she's been in the water as long as we think she has, she was on a craft heading south."

Dalla feels sick to her stomach. There's no way it's a coincidence this happened right after Tandin returned without her.

"Dalla, listen to me. Is there anyone in your crew you don't recognize?"

She looks around her with blood thundering in her ears. "No."

"Look again. Anyone - a deck hand, a rower, anyone you don't know?"

"I'm positive. There's no one."

Marlon breathes a sigh of relief. "Thank gods. I was worried they might have found you already."

Although every bit of her screams to ask who "they," are, she bites her tongue. "Nobody's here, Father. We're turning around now," she says and shuts off the comlink. "The search is over. Return to harbor!"

Thias perks up. "Did they find her?"

Dalla swallows her own grief in a hard lump. She quickly signals the first mate to take over command. "Thias, I need to talk to you in my cabin."

"Why? If they found her, then -."

"It's complicated," she says even though it isn't. "Now we're going to my cabin. Come on."

Thias stops cold. "She's alive, right?"

It looks like they're not getting their privacy after all. "Thias, I'm sorry."

His Adam's apple bobs with a hard swallow. "D-did she drown?" he coughs. "What happened to her?"

Murder. The word is thick and heavy on her tongue, and there's no way in the nine Corellian hells she's going to say it in front of her crew.

"I'll tell you once we get back to the Hold," she says. "Until then, stay with me. As soon as we dock, we're going home."

…

Nobody bothers them on their way home, but that might be because Thias looks like he's about to start sobbing while Dalla projects the not-to-be-trifled-with Northern woman air that hardened sailors run from in fear. Once they arrive home and lock themselves in, she takes a few seconds to grab Cade and their cousins before going to Marlon's office and locking the door.

Marlon and Jamos come in a while later looking like they just went through a cyclone.

"What are we doing in here?" Thias demands. "What does this have to do with Miranda?"

Jamos quickly counts Emoth, Cornel, Arkon, and little Lana. "Kids, come with me. Your mother and I need to tell you something."

"Thias, sit down." Marlon gestures to one of the office chairs.

"Why? Why would I need to -?"

Jamos shuts the door behind him and Marlon takes a seat, hoping Thias will follow his example. "We found your friend Miranda's body twenty-five miles southeast of the Hold. She had been shot in the head execution style and thrown into the water."

Dalla kicks a chair under Thias just in time for him to sit down hard.

"Shot?" Thias repeats. "Someone shot her? I-I don't understand, nobody would want to kill Miranda. She was nice to everyone."

"We believe the people who killed her were targeting someone else. When they realized Miranda wasn't the target, they killed her to cover their tracks."

Marlon's gaze settles on Dalla.

Thias doesn't miss it. "They couldn't!"

"General Tandin claims Rash didn't give him any images of Dalla, only a rough physical description. Under those conditions, we can infer this was a case of mistaken identity gone hovertram-wreck wrong."

Dalla seriously considers grabbing a waste receptacle in case she or Thias needs to get sick.

"Who did it?" Thias shouts. "Tell me who did it and I'll kill them. I'll kill them! She didn't deserve to die like that!"

"The best thing you can do for Miranda right now is keep a level head," Marlon declares. "We cannot afford a reckless revenge quest during the middle of a civil war. Take Cade, go back to your quarters and cool down. I need to speak with your sister in private."

With a huff, Thias rushes out of the room with Cade on his heels.

"He's still planning revenge," she remarks.

"Dalla, you need to leave."

If that didn't come out of the clear blue sky, she doesn't know what else could. "What?"

"After we found Miranda's body, I contacted General Tandin," he explains. "He doesn't know who this was, but he agreed the execution method suggests they're royal agents. Since they don't have you, they're probably still in the Hold."

"Wouldn't they be in the docking registration?"

"We checked it. The Harkons are here and so is House Kretash, the clan Sanjay Rash's mother originally hailed from. And before you ask, they didn't arrive in the harbor until after Miranda went missing and they were among the first to join the search teams. Considering current events, I'd say they want to prove their loyalty. But the point is that right now, the killers are in the wind."

"If they're out there, then isn't it best for me to stay here?"

"I've seen this before. They're planning to pinch us," Marlon says. "The safest place for you and for the north at large is for you to be away while the rest of us pretend you're still here and thus string them along. You need to leave tonight. Take someone else's boat; fly a different banner. And I don't want to know where you're going."

"I need to -."

"Tonight," he orders in the voice he uses on the decks of the Queen Lana. "Do whatever you need to do as long as it won't tip anyone off, but leave tonight."

Dalla takes a deep breath.

"I just have to get something from Thias and then I'll be gone. Two hours, maximum."

"Don't tell me any more," Marlon warns. "All I want to know is that when I wake up tomorrow, you'll be gone. If anyone asks I'll tell them you're sick in bed."

It's going to eat him alive not knowing where she is. The only thing that could be worse is if he accidentally did something to set Rash on her trail.

"Aye, Father," she says and swallows the lump in her throat. "Are you sure everything will be okay up here?"

Marlon crushes her in a hug, and from the way his chest shakes Dalla realizes that for the first time in four years, her father's in danger of crying.

"Father?"

"I'll manage," he forces out and squeezes her hard. "I've been Lord of the north for a long time. I'm sure I can handle a few weeks without my daughter."

…

Thank you to Starwarshobbitfics for reviewing the last chapter, and I'd also like to extend a big (overdue) thank you to DuchessKenobi for allowing me to throw Shara and her children into this mess. Their presence in the Blackwell clan is invaluable, and I'm grateful you let me bring them here.