PART 2: WOULD-BE SENATOR

CHAPTER 4: The Campaigner

"It's been my experience that senators are only focused on pleasing those who fund their campaigns...and they are more than willing to forget the niceties of democracy to get those funds." —Obi-Wan Kenobi, Attack of the Clones

****

Arelis Antilles smiled down at her adopted son, as proud of him as she would've been had he been her real son.

The eighteen-year old was sitting in front of a vanity, the bright lights bringing out the highlights in his dark blonde hair and making them shine. He was nervous and kept straightening the collar of his white dress uniform, as if that action alone—if properly done—was all that was necessary to make his appearance perfect. He seemed to briefly change his mind about the act he needed to be performing, however, pulling out a faded purple handkerchief from his pocket, clenching it briefly in his hand, and then depositing it back to where it came from. Then he was back to anxiously straightening his collar.

Not that he had any reason to be nervous. The public would love him. Arelis was sure of it.

Arelis Antilles was a dignified woman—an older woman, yes. She was not too proud to admit it. She was proud of every gray hair she possessed and wasn't dismayed to find that more kept appearing. She'd earned them, and she wasn't so vain as to try to hide them with hair dyes like some of the other older Alderaanians she knew.

A member of the House of Antilles, and the older sister of the prominent Bail Antilles, Arelis nonetheless strayed from many of the ideologies of the House of Antilles. For instance, she was still a bit bitter over the resolution of the Alderaan Ascendancy Contention, whereby there was a marriage between the Houses of Organa and Antilles and the House of Organa ended up with more power. Perhaps that was part—but just one small, small part—of the reason she was encouraging her son to run against Bail Organa's daughter for the position of Senator. However, Luke himself was certainly more than willing, if a little hesitant at the thought of competing with someone who had once been his great friend.

Smoothing back some of her son's errant hair, she hugged his shoulders. "You will do me proud, Luke."

He smiled at her in the mirror, the movement brightening his anxious face. "I hope so, Mother."

Arelis shook her head, grinning proudly at him. "Even all these years later, I'm still thanking my lucky stars for that day I found you on Haodis."

"So am I," he said.

She still remembered their meeting as if it were yesterday.

****

She was making the trek back to her ship, wanting to put the tourist planet behind her. She'd decided to go to Haodis on a whim and hadn't even ended up liking it. Its natural beauty paled in comparison to Alderaan's, and the musical tastes of the region in no way matched her own. The trip was a bust, she'd decided, and she couldn't wait to blast off-planet.

She was passing by a stall in the market when she saw him.

Before her, there was a small boy in oversized clothing wandering around with wide eyes, a fearful expression, and a handful of brightly colored fabric. He looked—well, not quite lost, but not at home either.

She hesitated only a second before speaking to him—she was a softie at heart, despite the front she often put on. "Where are your parents?" she asked him as she moved closer to him.

The boy froze and looked up at her. Though he didn't seem to find her threatening, he spoke to her very shyly. "They're dead."

"I'm sorry," Arelis said sincerely. "Do you have any guardians?"

He shook his head. "I just have Opakwa." It was then that she noticed the grime-covered protocol droid that had apparently been quietly tailing the boy. It looked as if it had just come from the absolute pit of the galaxy after a century's stay, and she found herself wincing at the sight of it. "We came to Haodis on a band's ship to—to escape a bad place."

Well, that was it for her. The little boy had officially stolen her heart. She smiled down at him kindly. "Why don't you and your droid come with me to live a wonderful life on Alderaan?"

The boy seemed hesitant, so she pressed further. "You can't just live your life wandering around on this wretched planet. At least come stay with me for a while, and if you don't like it, well, I'll bring you right back here. I promise."

Still uncertain, he looked to his machine companion for reassurance and got a nod in return. "Master Luke," the droid said, "you should listen to her. She seems sincere."

"Okay," the boy agreed.

****

The band members had been a little sad to see him go, but they were aliens who were ill-equipped to care for a human child, so they had bade him farewell and good luck. Arelis had thanked them for their kindness and given them a rather large monetary sum which they had tried to refuse but which she had insisted they take.

And now, years later, here they were. How proud she was of him.

"I don't regret leaving Haodis," Luke said, reassuring her once again. "I love Alderaan, and I love you, Mother."

She embraced him again. "I love you, too, Luke. So much more than you'll ever know."

She was a widower, so she'd had to raise him up alone, but she really did love him as if he were her own, and he'd never wanted for anything. Still, even with as kind as she had been to him, he retained a rather low sense of self-worth; certainly, he did not have the overflowing sense of self-worth that she herself possessed (she thought she'd earned the right to be a bit pompous, quite frankly). But he had such a kind heart that she knew the people of Alderaan would love him, and he would be able to feed off their attention. Even attempting to become Alderaan's senator would be good for him—she was sure of it.

There were various qualifications necessary to become a senator on Alderaan, and Luke—who had just turned eighteen—now met all of those requirements. The situation was a bit tricky, however. While Arelis was on the High Council of Alderaan and had a lot of political clout, tradition was a threat to Luke's campaign. Traditionally on Alderaan, whenever a member of the High Court (which was now simply composed of the House of Organa) ran for a seat in the Imperial Senate, that member always ran unopposed, for it was custom for all members of the High Court to take at least one term as Senator. And it seemed only logical for the politically savvy Leia to take her father's place—she had been groomed for politics, after all.

Arelis and Luke certainly had nothing against Leia—they'd been good friends for a long time until Luke had ventured deeper into Leia's domain: politics. The young woman was now likely quite hurt by Luke's bid for the position of senator; after all, her eye on the position had been no secret, even while they'd been growing up. By moving toward the position, Luke had basically driven a wedge between them.

The problem was that Arelis hated Force users, which meant that she hated those in power. To bring down those in power, however, one must accumulate power oneself. Luke knew that as well.

For his protection, Arelis had made sure that Luke was trained with the best of martial arts and weapons experts, despite the Alderaanian weapons ban, and she suspected Bail had done the same for Leia. She had even made sure he was taught how to pilot ships, which he had turned out to have something of a passion for. When he was a teenager, he asked to learn a bit about slicing and stealth, and she had used her many funds to procure him some good teachers. She proudly suspected he could take on some of the Empire's best covert agents, and he had even proven the great extent of his skills a few times...But perhaps most important were the ysalamiri.

Her eyes flicked toward the door. Outside it, she knew, two attendants were standing with a pair of the creatures. She and Luke made sure never to travel without a pair, and they even had several of the quiet creatures scattered all over their home.

Shortly after she had taken Luke in, she had told him about the evil of Force users. He had taken the lesson to heart and had even revealed the existence of a creature called an ysalamir which could protect one from the Force. After months of research, Arelis learned that the creature lived on Myrkr, a planet which the Jedi had seemed to avoid. She had gone to the planet with a few others, and they had learned more about the creatures and taken several with them back to Alderaan in nutrient cages that were fashioned with the help of some people living on Myrkr. She and Luke found their constant presence absolutely necessary, as the creatures would put them on equal footing with any nearby Force users.

After taking in a deep breath, Luke stood up, and she embraced him tightly against herself one more time. "Come on," she said warmly. "Let's go awe the crowd."

****

"My fellow Alderaanians," Luke began, speaking to the people spread out before him in a quiet yet commanding voice that somehow managed to carry throughout the crowd, "I stand here before you not to bring the Alderaanian Ascendancy Convention back to the forefront nor to restart the dispute between the great Houses of Organa and Antilles. I am not running for senator because the noble Leia Organa desires the position. No." He paused, shaking his head slowly. "Instead, I wish to become our planet's senator because I wish to reverse a terrible part of our galaxy's history. Yes, I admit to you right now that I run not for Alderaan but for the sake of the galaxy...For there is a group of people that has caused the galaxy much pain. We know of these people...as Force users."

There was a subtle shift in the crowd, as the Force was rarely spoken of in public, and the young man clenched his fists at his side, though the action was just barely noticeable to Arelis. "As a wise person once told me, the Force users called Jedi taught their members not to love and not to fear, while the Force users called Sith taught their members that they should hate everyone." He lifted his head up, spearing the crowd with his gaze. "Both were wrong," he stated firmly.

"As living beings, we should feel those emotions that were given us, not repress them. Should we always act on them? No, of course not. And should we hate our brothers and sisters? No," Luke bit out, slamming his hands down on the podium in front of him. "But we must realize that the teachings of these Force users were wrong, and both the Jedi and the Sith tried to wrongly take control of the galaxy. The Sith are controlling the galaxy even now with an iron fist. But the galaxy should not be left in the hands of people with supernatural powers; it should be controlled by normal beings such as ourselves—beings who rely on the strength from within, not a power from without."

The crowd was quiet, and he swept his crystalline blue eyes across its members. "I speak what you have felt but not said due to fear. What good have Force users done for us? They have only tried to control us. They were the causers of this wretched war—the war they call the Clone Wars in history books, the war that they claim is over," he began to speak in an almost-shout, "the war that led our despairing countrymen to place all of our planets' weapons onto the warship Another Chance until the day the High Council might finally call the ship back."

The volume of his voice went back to normal, though his tone was now filled with contempt. "These fashioners of history may have called this war the Clone Wars, but I call it the Force Wars. It was but a ruse for the Sith and the Jedi to fight one another. You have felt this with your hearts, though you may not have spoken it with your mouths. Unlike Leia Organa, I am not afraid to speak my true opinion of our galaxy's rulers. I am not afraid to call for the creation of a new Republic, a Republic which is not run by Force users of any kind, a Republic in which the galaxy is run by the people and for the people—a Republic in which all sentient beings are treated as equals."

He had been building up, speaking words as they fell from his mouth, no longer looking at the viewscreen prompter nestled into the podium. And now, he paused, closing his eyes and breathing in the crisp Alderaanian air. "That, my friends—my brothers, my sisters—is why I wish to run for the position of senator."

****

Afterward, Arelis found her son slouched in a chair with his eyes closed. The speech had drained him, and he was exhaling and inhaling slowly and deeply, trying to regain his equilibrium.

"You did beautifully," she told him, smiling.

"Thank you, Mother," he replied, not opening his eyes.

She knew he didn't believe her, but it was the truth—she had seen several faces in the crowd, and she knew that many people had been moved by her son's words. Perhaps soon, he would see that she was right. Just as she always was.

****

It was at a party hosted by a prominent Alderaanian that Luke Antilles was finally willing to admit to himself that he had built up quite a following. The process had been slow at first, and he had been wondering if he'd even made an impact, but now he was able to truly witness the momentum he'd been gaining. Though Alderaanians hated turmoil, they loved democracy, and Luke Antilles' points were not without their validity. Now, an unusual vein of discontent was running through the pacifist planet—he was learning that more and more as well-dressed people kept approaching him with looks of significance.

The attention made him a little bit uncomfortable, but his mother was eating it up. When he forgot someone's name, she would whisper it to him, and he would reach out to shake or kiss the hand proffered him with a smile and a greeting. He'd said hello to what he thought was his fiftieth person that night when he noticed Leia Organa approaching the drink table.

"Excuse me," he pardoned himself quietly, and his mother and the two people she was cheerfully talking to all nodded in acknowledgement.

After dodging a waiter, he found himself by the drink table, and he came up behind Leia as she was picking up a glass of R'alla mineral water. Quickly grabbing his own glass and smiling whimsically as it caught the light from the beautiful chandelier above him, he greeted, "Hey, Leia."

The young woman saw him and paled. She was dressed all in white with her hair intricately put up on her head. She was beautiful, she was poised...and she was walking away from him.

"Leia," he called softly, trying to pursue her without looking too obvious or desperate.

But he could practically sense the anger rolling off her, and there had even been a hint of it on her face before she'd begun hurrying away.

He finally slowed and watched her disappear into the crowd. After giving a sad sigh, he returned, defeated, to his mother. He wondered if his childhood friend would ever be able to forgive him. He'd often felt a strange connection to her—almost like love, but not of the romantic kind.

Perhaps, when all this was over, she would forgive him.

****

A few days later, Arelis was sitting and sipping her afternoon tea when Opakwa came to her and said, "Bail Organa wants to see you, Mistress Arelis."

Having not heard the quiet protocol droid's approach, Arelis nearly dumped her tea all over herself in surprise, but she recovered rather nicely and told Opakwa smoothly, "Do show him in."

As she watched him walk away, she smiled at how he shined. When Luke had first introduced him to her on Haodis, she'd been shocked at his appearance, though she'd tried not to show it. On her return to Alderaan, she had made sure to have the droid immediately refitted with new plates and polished until she could see her face in the silver coverings. She had made certain that his appearance never got even half so terrible ever again, and the droid seemed thankful for it. He did enjoy his oil baths.

"Ah, Bail," Arelis greeted, gracefully standing. She set her tea aside on a nearby table next to her plate of half-eaten cookies and a small vase holding a single Alderaanian lily. "What a pleasure to see you." Her brown eyes glittered cheerfully as she offered her hand to her guest.

But Bail Organa did not shake or kiss her hand, instead looking grim. "You know this is not a pleasure visit, Arelis."

Picking her tea back up and taking a sip, she said innocently, "I don't know what you're talking about, Bail."

The man clenched his fists in barely restrained anger. "You know damn well that—" He stopped and took in a deep breath. "Arelis. You're a smart woman. We both know that. By encouraging that boy to follow this path, you've put him in danger. You've put Alderaan in danger."

Arelis tilted her head, pursing her lips. "My son knows very well what he's getting into," she told him firmly as she placed her cup back on the table. "And I'm afraid you're getting ahead of yourself as far as Alderaan is concerned. Even if the whole planet supported Luke, how could Alderaan be in danger? If we were ejected from the Empire, we would simply become self-governing. And Alderaan has powerful allies that would stop the Empire from sending Star Destroyers to bombard Alderaan's surface. You're just jumping at shadows, Bail. And you know that's not a very wise pastime."

Bail bit his lip, a muscle in his cheek twitching. "There's more, Arelis. I can't tell you what—but just know this: if Luke continues down this path, Alderaan will have a lot more to worry about than just which senator got elected."

"You may show yourself out, Bail," the woman told him cheerfully, picking up a cookie and nibbling on it before adding, "I am sure you remember the way."

"Arelis, please—"

"Must I really show it to you?" she queried, sounding put out and putting the cookie back down on the plate.

Sighing, Bail Organa gave a slight stiff bow. "I hope you know what you're doing. Continue as you are, and if you weren't in the Emperor's sights already, then you soon will be."

"Goodbye, Bail," Arelis said resolutely, returning her attention to her tea.

Bail shook his head—as if he wanted to say one more thing but for some reason couldn't—before finally turning and leaving.

The dowager smiled into her cup.