Part VI
"Commander," Croyel shook the hand of the returning conqueror warmly. "We've been eagerly awaiting your arrival." He looked around. "Where are Xela and the girl?"
"Waiting in an empty conference room, sir," Commander Uliwa said shortly. "Xela felt it would be best if I debriefed you properly first."
He nodded. "But of course. Losses?"
"Seven."
Croyel winced. That was more than half of the strike force. "Any loose ends?"
"Negative, sir. All were properly disposed of prior to our departure. And unfortunately, we were unable to obtain the mother. She proved… a challenging opponent."
"One woman took down half of your team?" Croyel asked, surprised.
"She is Jedi," Uliwa said, perhaps a bit snidely.
Croyel reflected on that a moment before shrugging. "It was a mission well-done, commander. I'd like to see the girl."
Uliwa led him to the room where Xela sat at a large table opposite a small, dark-haired girl. Croyel studied her as she met his gaze with large, brown eyes. Surprisingly calm for a seven-year-old away from her parents, he wondered if Xela was doing something to soothe her using the Force- not that Croyel really understood how such things worked.
"Leyla," Croyel smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. "How are you?" She stared back stonily and Croyel directed a bemused look towards Xela who shrugged. "My name is Qadrik, and I'm most pleased to make your acquaintance." Nothing. "You're probably tired after that long flight."
"No."
He looked at her in surprise. "Beg pardon?"
"I've been sitting, bored on a ship, for a week. I'm not tired."
"Ah… of course…" he looked again at Xela who seemed exasperated, and wondered if this wasn't how things had been going from the start. "Well, then I suppose we can get started right away. Commander," he turned to Uliwa, "leave us."
The armor-clad man did so, and Xela stood, walking around the table to hover behind Leyla.
"Leyla," the woman spoke in a deceptively soft voice, "we've brought you to a very special, hidden place where the people trying to kidnap you can't get to you. How would you like to go and meet your new teacher?"
The girl seemed unsure of herself. "I…" she frowned. "I still don't think I want to learn to be a Jedi just yet."
Croyel blinked. He expected her to demand to see her parents, or to know where she was. "Well we don't have to start your training right away," Xela soothed, long-nailed fingers coming to rest on the back of Leyla's chair beside her shoulders. "But we should get you into the safe house, okay?"
The girl shrugged. Xela pursed her lips and pulled back the chair, and Croyel led them into the secret passageway that ended in a turbolift, and they plummeted together into the cool bunker deep beneath the earth.
Xela swept ahead, long blonde hair raining down her back, contrasting sharply with her dark cloak. At the end of another hallway, she pushed open the door and strode forth into a large antechamber. "Lord Wrynn," she called by way of greeting.
"Ah, Xela!" the man in question strode forth, breaking away from a group of similarly clad apprentices. "Wonderful to see you again." His sharp eyes looked once at Croyel and then settled to rest on the diminutive figure standing nervously, large eyes darting around as four apprentices gathered around to watch. "And you must be Leyla," he smiled warmly.
"Y- yes," she whispered, much to Croyel's chagrin after she'd blankly ignored his attempts to be friendly.
Wrynn surprised all present by kneeling down on the ground to be at eye-level with the child. "Leyla, my name is Wrynn. I am going to teach you everything you need to know about the ways of the Force."
Leyla frowned in consternation. "My great-uncle Luke is going to do that," she muttered, "but thank you for offering."
"Leyla," Xela said a bit sharply, "I told you, it's too dangerous for you right now to be with your family. It's much safer for you here, and with the Force, you can protect yourself-" Wrynn cut her off with a hand.
"Leyla," he said lowly, "I understand that you're probably afraid, and worried about your family. But I promise you that everything will be alright. Leyla, did you know that you're a very special little girl?" She shook her head suspiciously. "It's true; you're brave and smart and powerful, and one day, you are going to help me take care of the galaxy. I'm going to be the new emperor and, when you're old enough, you'll rule with me as empress."
He finally got a reaction from her; unfortunately, it was not the reaction that the rest of the chamber expected. Suddenly, without warning, the girl started to cry. "What's wrong?" Wrynn asked. "Don't you want to be the empress one day?"
She shook her head and sniffed. "My great-granddaddy served an emperor," she whispered. "And he was a bad, bad man."
"Did he now?" Wrynn looked bemused. "Well a lot of people had no choice and were forced to serve him, but I'm not like him. I won't make you. Was your great-granddaddy an officer, or a pilot perhaps?"
Croyel held up a warning hand and shook his head.
"My great-granddaddy was a Jedi," she said softly, "but then the emperor made him do bad things and changed his name, and he became a bad man too until my great-uncle Luke turned him back to the good side."
Wrynn stared stonily at Croyel for a moment before smiling lightly down at Leyla. "Why don't you accompany Xela now, she'll show you where you're going to stay while you're here with us. Go on," he encouraged her. "You and I will have plenty of time to get to know one another later." He watched the two depart before turning his dark eyes on the Moff.
"You brought me the great-grandchild of Darth Vader, and didn't see fit to mention it?"
Croyel was legitimately confused. "I'm sorry, Lord Wrynn… I thought you knew. Leia Organa Solo and Luke Skywalker are the twin children of Anakin Skywalker, later Darth Vader."
"And how," Wrynn said dangerously, "would I know that? I've been living down here for four decades, since I was just a boy barely older than that child. I rely on you for any news of import."
"I thought my predecessor would have told you," Croyel said carefully. "There were several attempts to turn Luke Skywalker, and later to capture the girl's mother and her two siblings, in the hopes of restoring the line of Vader to the glory of the Empire. Those attempts were mostly abandoned by the time I disposed of Morgny."
Wrynn looked supremely chagrined. "Well, Morgny was an incompetent fool, but no matter. If anything, this only convinces me further that we were meant to seize the girl and train her for her inherited duty of restoring order and justice to this galaxy."
Croyel was preparing to take his leave when he remembered another crucial piece of information. "Oh, my lord- our contact who infiltrated the systems at the Imperial Embassy on Coruscant was discovered. She has been neutralized."
"Good, good," Wrynn said distractedly. "What of her contact among the Jedi?"
"Ah- the Jedi has long-standing instructions to remove him or herself from the situation to avoid detection, in the event that her contact was uncovered. Their identity has been kept under the tightest secrecy, even I have no clue who it is… but if they follow proper protocol, they will meet a contact of ours in two weeks in a backwater location where the other Jedi will be unlikely to pursue."
Wrynn smiled. "Good. And how go the plans for the dear Admiral?"
"The strike team is ready; they await my signal."
Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene.
Han and Leia slumped dejectedly in front of the holoscreen, watching the evening news with little interest. "How is it," Leia asked softly, "that in two weeks, we've turned up almost nothing."
"Because these people keep killing each other when they're afraid they might talk," Han retorted snarkily, but tempered his tone with a soft touch to Leia's knee. "I'm worried, honey."
"Me too. There's something huge at work here and no one seems to have the slightest clue who is behind it or where to even start." She sighed heavily. "I just can't stand the look on Jaina's face every evening when she finally agrees to get some rest; like she's failed Leyla because she hasn't found her yet."
Han put an arm around her shoulders. "Hey, were we any different all those years ago?"
"I guess not," she conceded. "But the attempts on Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin were the ill-conceived attempts of Imperial renegades mostly who didn't really know what they were doing. This… this is something well organized and efficient." She paused. "If only one of their commandos had been taken alive."
Translation: I hope Kyp got something worthwhile from the one that was.
"Yeah," Han said gruffly, "that would've made everything a whole lot easier, huh?"
Translation: I sure hope Kyp knows what he's doing.
"Maybe," Leia said hesitantly, "maybe we're going about this the wrong way. Maybe we need to go back to basics."
Han glanced sidelong at her. "Basics?"
"Maybe there's nothing to find on Coruscant."
"All of our leads are here, and without knowing where that shuttle was headed…"
She interrupted. "We have no more leads, Han, face it. But what happened to the days when we were always in the fray, constantly in the thick of the action? Maybe we need to really jump in and actively start looking for her, and not people who can lead us to her."
"We don't know where to start."
"No," Leia admitted, "but we have an entire order of Jedi more than willing to lend their assistance. Many of them know Leyla personally. Surely the Force would guide at least one of them in the right direction. It would be easier if Leyla were older, was better trained in her own skills, but Jaina is positive that their link is still strong, if a little… fuzzy around the edges."
He looked contemplative. "You think Leyla can guide us to her?"
"It could be worth a shot."
They both started when the comm center beeped with an incoming message. Standing quickly, the rushed to it and accepted the transmission, surprised to see Luke standing there, looking more perplexed than worried.
"Han, Leia," he smiled. "I'm glad I caught you."
"Sure thing, kid," Han leaned in. "Just sitting around, pondering our own uselessness."
"Yeah…" Luke trailed off and looked away.
Leia frowned. "What is it, Luke?"
He pursed his lips and took a deep breath. "Someone attacked Mara."
"What?"
"She's fine," Luke put in hastily. "But… I found her unconscious in our quarters yesterday and she's a little… confused. Like she's just lost a part of her memory and can't remember where she was for a period of time."
"Is Ben okay?"
"Yeah," Luke looked bewildered, "everything else is normal around here. It's really strange. I just wanted you to know though, in case there's any sort of connection… though what that might be, I really can't say."
Han and Leia exchanged worried looks. "Any unexpected visitors to Ossus?" Han asked.
"If there were any, they slipped by me- and the flight logs."
"Alright," Leia frowned. "We'll keep an eye out. Take care of everyone there, okay Luke?"
"Will do. We all send our love; hug Jaina for me."
Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene. Scene.
Kyp Durron arrived in-system in the dead of night of Imperial City. A false transponder signal gained him access to the planet- just as it had let him off-world a week prior. Really, he thought disgustedly, it was far too easy to forge one's way on and off Coruscant. But for now, that worked in his benefit.
He landed his XJ X-wing in a public hangar, listed under a fake name and stolen access code. From there, he rented a closed-hatch speeder and wove his way in and out of traffic lanes, invigorated by sudden action after three days mostly spent in hibernation trances, a few-hour foray on Ossus, and before that, another few days spent in the cramped cockpit of the starfighter.
The area around the Government Archives was mostly silent this late, as the archives themselves were closed overnight. Still, there was a usual smattering of security personnel- nothing a Jedi Master couldn't slip past.
He spent two hours hunched over a console, running aliases that Mara had provided him. Three turned up dead ends, either complete enigmas, or traced back to individuals who had definitely died sometime in the past several decades. One name ran completely in circles, with Kyp unsure of what the real name among the slew of pseudonyms could possibly be- if there was one at all.
The last name was interesting, however- it was clearly traceable, after a few steps and cross-checks, back to an old Jedi woman who had died before the start of the Yuuzhan Vong war; she wasn't anyone the Jedi order had ever encountered. Rather, she had come from the Wild Regions, the trainee of a Master who had fled the Purges- at least, that was according to her apprentice who came to Luke Skywalker upon her master's death to continue her own training.
Her apprentice who was now a full Jedi Knight.
Her apprentice who was one of the few Jedi permanently assigned at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.
End Part VI