Precipice by shadowsong26
Part 6: Reunion
Reunion: Chapter 1
It had been ten years since they had all gone their separate ways from Polis Massa.
Ten years of building careful alliances; of sabotage; of near-silence punctuated by whispered voices in the dark. Ten years of making slow and not always constant progress, but becoming something-something greater than five people who had made a pact, had agreed that they wouldn't give up. That they would keep fighting, for as long as they still could.
Ten years had made them a movement.
They were still several years off from actually accomplishing their goals. Bail knew that. Still, looking back on everything they had accomplished in that time, it was hard not to be optimistic about the future.
Especially since, this week, after ten long years, Bail got to arrange for Padmẻ to see her husband and daughter again at last.
Looking at the picture of his own family, sitting on the desk in his cabin on the Tantive, Bail was honestly more pleased about that than anything else, at least in the moment. Despite the logistical nightmare involved. It had taken nearly eight months of planning to make this work, including providing Obi-Wan, General Skywalker, and Leia with false papers that were high enough quality to get them through spaceport security. And, of course, he and Breha had needed to come up with a reasonable story for Padmẻ and Luke's visit. Ordinarily, this wouldn't be a problem, given their long history of cooperation, but they'd needed to find something that required minimal public appearances from Padmẻ , because Bail and Breha had determined that they could only keep the Jedi safe and undiscovered for three days. The fewer interruptions their friends had, the better.
Still, three days, after ten years apart-brief as it was, it was a precious gift, and one he was very glad he was able to give.
Bail would arrive a little bit ahead of the others, of course, so he could oversee a few last-minute details and make sure that the route from the spaceport to where Obi-Wan and the others would rendezvous with Palace security was clear. Padmẻ had actually left Coruscant shortly before him, but was stopping briefly on Naboo for some last-minute duty regarding the recent royal election. He expected her no more than half a day after he landed.
The Jedi-would arrive when they arrived. He had a vague estimate of one or two days after Padmẻ at the latest, but Obi-Wan hadn't given him a lot of detail, for security reasons.
Well, all of that would have to wait until he actually landed and saw first-hand what still needed to be done. But Bail had plenty to do to keep him occupied on the trip there; between official Senate business and reworking a few letters he and Mon had drafted to send to certain sympathetic planetary authorities they had been cautiously courting for the past year.
But then, about an hour out from Aldera City, Bail was interrupted by a knock on the door.
"Come in," he called, closing and sealing the confidential and dangerous files he'd been reviewing.
Not entirely necessary, as it turned out, when the door slid open to admit Captain Antilles. Very little of what Bail did was unknown to his security chief, and nothing he'd been immediately working on.
"Sir," the Captain said.
"What is it?" Bail asked, catching the look on his face and setting the datapad aside.
"We may have a problem," he said. "May I?"
He nodded. "Please."
Captain Antilles bowed slightly and activated the large viewscreen on one wall, dimming the viewports and ceiling lights at the same time. He pulled up an official news broadcast, revealing a scene of smoke and sirens on Corsucant.
Bail flinched a little, if only internally; for a moment flung back to the day the Temple burned.
He closed his eyes, took a breath, and shook it off as quickly as he could. He opened them again and leaned forward, trying to get a feel for where the footage had been shot and what the hell was going on before he asked any questions.
The first was easy enough. The explosion was in the very heart of the Senate district; on the far right of the frame, he recognized the distinctive stonework of the building where Senator Bel Iblis and a few of his other colleagues had apartments.
As for the second, though, no such luck.
He gave up, and glanced over at Captain Antilles. "When did…?"
"Far as we can tell, not long after we jumped to lightspeed," he said. "An hour later, maybe two."
Bail nodded, and turned back to the screen, pushing up the volume just a little to try and capture more detail.
The newscaster-a Human woman, blonde and dark-eyed; Bail vaguely remembered meeting her once or twice, but couldn't recall her name-appeared, partially blocking the view of the explosion.
"We can now confirm that the Emperor was not in the vehicle at the time of the explosion," she said. "No information regarding Princess Lavinia's status or whereabouts has yet been released. We do know that-I am being told now that Grand Moff Tarkin has taken control of the scene, and that all those present in connection with the attack have been arrested or killed by Imperial security forces. A search for co-conspirators who were not on site is ongoing. We will announce the names and affiliations of these terrorists as soon as they become av-"
Bail switched off the display. Silence rang in the cabin for a long moment.
"Do we know more than the news is saying?" he finally asked.
"Our network as a whole? Probably," Captain Antilles said. "But I would advise against trying to touch base to find out until we land and get to a secure line."
Of course-a flurry of messages back and forth was probably the last thing they needed, especially with everything they had planned for this week. If the Captain had thought he could make inquiries safely, he already would have. And Bail trusted his judgment.
Unfortunately, that meant he didn't have much to go on, and he had some very quick, very important decisions to make.
First and foremost among them, whether to try to call off the reunion.
The Jedi and Leia would have gone quiet while in transit, assuming they had already left Tatooine, which was likely. It was safer that way, for the same reasons Captain Antilles didn't want to ask too many questions at the moment. Bail did have a way to reach Obi-Wan, if it came to that. It would have been tempting fate to leave that out of their plans-even with all their careful preparations, there was a great deal of risk involved in this meeting. They needed a failsafe.
But Bail had to assume that his friends were already en route at this point, which complicated things. Especially since he didn't know all the details of the arrangements they'd made, so he wasn't entirely certain how much room they'd have to maneuver if he activated that failsafe. He was pretty sure, though, that the three of them were flying in on some sort of charter, probably as part of a much larger group where they would hopefully not draw as much attention.
Which, unfortunately, made any attempt to divert once they were in motion significantly harder. Bail would be very surprised if Obi-Wan didn't have some kind of contingency plan, but it wouldn't be clean or quick, and it might put the three of them in danger anyway. So he didn't want to take such a drastic step unless he was absolutely sure it was necessary.
And, with the scant detail available, that certainty was elusive.
What he did know-whatever had just happened, whether it was something Palpatine had staged for cover or a genuine attempt by an unaffiliated resistance cell, Imperial security would be tightened everywhere. And, yes, a great deal of work had been put in to ensure that the identities that the others were travelling under were absolutely airtight, but all it took was for one overzealous customs official to get suspicious and check something they couldn't fake. The likelihood of that had now significantly increased; probably not as much on Alderaan as it would have on Coruscant, but still enough to give him pause. Come to think of it, he was glad that Padmẻ had had that other errand to run and left when she did, before the planet was sealed, or she might have been caught behind the shields and they'd have missed their chance at this anyway.
On the other hand...on the other hand, everything was already in motion. And getting word to Obi-Wan, while possible, still risked exposing the Jedi. Getting word to Padmẻ , in a way, was actually harder; since that would run the same risks of contacting any of their allies for more details about the explosion.
Not yet, he finally decided. The risk of going on is either still about the same or less than the risk of making contact. Until it's greater, it's probably better to leave things as they are. Especially since we know, more or less, what pitfalls we have to avoid right now, even with the-with the attack this afternoon. And what we might accidentally stir up by a sudden shift is a hell of a lot harder to predict.
"We proceed as planned," he said quietly. "Unless you have a good reason otherwise?"
Antilles shook his head. "Nothing you don't already know, sir," he said. "I'll update you as I hear things, especially if that changes."
"Please do," Bail said. He had more or less expected that answer; if the Captain had had specific advice for him, he would have said so straight out.
Antilles saluted briefly, then turned to go.
"A moment, please," Bail said, and he stopped.
He hesitated; glanced up at the dark screen for a moment, then at the holo of Winter and Breha, placed comfortably on the corner of his desk.
"I'm...asking for conjecture now," he said. "Who do you think the target was?" Which may not have been as important as who was behind the attack in the grand scheme of things, but at the moment, to him, it mattered a great deal.
"The princess," Antilles said, immediately. "The broadcast didn't show much of the scene, but what I could see looked more like the setup for an abduction than an assassination."
And kidnapping the Emperor made no sense. Kidnapping his seven-year-old child, on the other hand…
Which just confirmed what he'd already suspected-if the attack was genuine, it was an unaffiliated cell. An assassination attempt might not have been, but no one in their network who was volatile or desperate enough to attack a child had the access to pull this off.
"Of course," he said. "Thank you, Captain. Keep me posted."
"Sir," he said, then bowed slightly and left the cabin, leaving Bail alone with his thoughts.
Which were now lightyears away from what he'd been working on when interrupted, of course, but...well, the letters could wait. He considered for a moment, then put the broadcast back on. Watching it wouldn't change anything, of course, but at least if he was paying attention, it felt like he was doing something. Besides, it was a better use of his time than worrying over whether he'd made the right call, in letting the reunion go forward.
Marginally.
The newscaster was onscreen again, saying precisely nothing useful-summarizing why Tarkin was on planet, and other bits of propaganda to fill airtime until she had actual authorized news to report.
He gave up after a few minutes, muting the screen but leaving it playing just in case there were any actual developments, and started working on a message for Mon, to send once they had landed safely. She would, of course, be in position to try and help the innocent bystanders who had gotten caught in Tarkin's net after the explosion, but he wanted to coordinate and stay on top of things, so he could jump right into helping when he got back to the capital.
And one for Padmẻ -as soon as she saw the broadcast, she would probably start asking herself some of the same questions he had already worked through. If she reached out and asked, he wanted to have the wording ironed out to confirm that things were still moving forward without exposing their plans.
Those tasks kept him occupied until the pilot announced they were coming in for a landing. Bail glanced up at the viewscreen one last time-Tarkin was making some kind of statement now; but there would be a recording he could review later-before switching it off and finally managing to bring his attention back to the actual task in front of him. He raised the cabin lights and the screens on the viewports at the same time, and the sight of Alderaan nestled there amongst the stars relaxed him, as it always did.
Tomorrow will bring whatever tomorrow brings, he told himself. Today, though-today, I get to do something uncomplicated and good, because it will brighten the lives of people I care about.
Focusing on that-and being so close to home, where he could see and hold his own wife and daughter again-was, if not quite enough to bring him back to the level of optimism he'd had when he left Coruscant, at least setting him back in the right direction.