It didn't take too much running before Luke found himself in the library—at least, he thought it was supposed to be a library. He remembered Rabene calling it a library. It was pretty pathetic, all in all. Some datapads, some cards with different novels you could download, and a handful of flimsi books gathering dust in the corner for the nostalgic five-hundred-year-old fossils who might take this ferry sometime.

He ducked inside and hid behind a shelf, his back to the shelf and to the door. Maybe a vampire would come in and spot him and eat him, since he wasn't looking. It didn't matter. Maybe nothing did.

Artoo?

You too, Artoo?

Who could he trust? What was this? Was everyone on this ship a vampire or in league with them? Even Wedge—Biggs—

No. No, their friends had died too. Luke shouldn't be callous about that.

Besides, he thought bitterly, the vampires probably wanted a little fresh meat to feed on. It was more convincing if some people genuinely were just there to be prey…

But then who else was in league with them? If Artoo had conspired to drive Luke into their clutches, who else? Threepio? He didn't want to believe Threepio was capable of any type of deceit, but he hadn't wanted to believe this of Artoo, either. He'd known those droids since he was born.

And now they had his mother. No matter what Anakin had said about not hurting her, there was no way he hadn't turned her by now. He was a vampire. He wouldn't consider that hurting her. And that meant that she was lost to him as well.

There would be no rescuing her. As much as he wanted to believe otherwise, he knew his father, warped and twisted though he had become. He would never let any of them go.

Was that his whole family with them? Anakin. Padmé. Artoo. Threepio. Leia.

Leia…

He squeezed his eyes shut and leaned back against the shelf. He'd not turned the lights on when he came in, and the darkness was comforting, at least for the moment. It was the closest he could come to convincing himself he was alone.

Leia wasn't in on this. How could she be? He knew that, down to his bones.

But she soon would be. Once Anakin got hold of Luke—and he would; if all the doors were shut, all the exits locked, if Artoo was working against him, Luke would not escape this ship alive—he would summon Leia. She would join them. Once they lured her off Etesun, she wouldn't have a choice.

Luke pulled out his comlink. The line crackled, full of static. His messages were still jammed. That was fine. He didn't particularly want to talk to her—talking to anyone would be a bit much for him, right now—but he needed to warn her. Somehow. She had to know the full truth, so she never came out here.

That wouldn't work, though. She had been ready to do exactly what Luke was planning on doing, in coming out here. She would dive right in.

Still, she had to know. He had to warn her.

A recorded message, then. Once the jamming was released, it would send, even if Luke was dead or undead. Just like the one his father had sent him. It made him shudder. He recorded it anyway.

"Leia," he said hoarsely. Saying her name out loud flooded him with a sudden longing, a sudden misery. He wished she was here. No—no, that was the last thing he wished. But he wished he could be with her. She made him brace. "Leia, I'm hoping I'll still be alive when you get this, but… It's looking doubtful. There's a lot to say. I can't say it all."

He took a deep breath. The words rattled out of him in short, sharp bursts. He said them before he could think about the horrors that were his life now. He said them before his tears could say them for him.

"Dad has been turned into a vampire," he said. "I— I spoke to him, and it's— He wants the same for all of us. That's why he sent that message, to lure us out here. I'm glad you got sick. I'm glad you didn't come." His throat went dry. He stopped to swallow.

"So many people have died, Leia," he whispered. "I don't know why I'm contacting you. Just to say—no matter what—don't come. And I mean this. I think they're going to turn me next. I'm trying to escape, but I don't— I don't know if I can—" He stopped so that he didn't sob. "Just—I love you, Leia. I love you. Did I ever say that enough? Don't come. No matter what other messages you receive—from me, from Dad, from anyone. Don't trust it. Please. Don't come."

She was so going to come. He knew that.

But she needed to know all the facts. "I did find Mother, in the end," he admitted. "But so did he. I think she's lost, now. I think they're both lost, now. Artoo, too. And soon I will be too. I'll try to die instead."

He took one last ragged breath. How was he supposed to end this? What was this supposed to do? Leia was sick and worried about him. She was about to find out she'd dodged being the final girl in a horror story.

How was he supposed to say goodbye?

"I love you," he said again. "That's why I'm begging you to never, ever leave Etesun. If you love me too, don't come out here. I don't want you to see what sort of vampire I'll become."

He hit send. His own desperate, distraught face shone back at him in the hologram, sweaty and wide-eyed. He watched it buffer, watched it launch into nebulous space, watched it hesitate. Artoo was still jamming him. If Artoo was monitoring transmissions—as he would be; he was a competent droid—he would know exactly where Luke was, now. Soon, they would be on him, and he would have nowhere to go.

His victory against his father in the lounge meant nothing. So much pain, and all it had bought him was enough time to save his sister.

The hologram sent.

Luke stared. He bent over his comlink, frowning. No—the video had definitely gone through. Artoo had let it go through.

Why had Artoo let it go through? Luke had been telling Leia not to come…

After a moment of thought, Luke's stomach convulsed. He leaned over and retched, quietly, in the corner of the library. Whatever he'd eaten last—he no longer remembered—congealed, rank and pungent, on the floor.

Anakin had told Luke not to come, too. That had been why he sent the video. That had been—

He had known that. He had known that what he was saying would only make Leia want to come more intently. But it hadn't crossed his mind that the vampires might be counting on it. Watching him…

It meant there was only one thing left for him to do.

Against his will, his hand moved towards his blaster. Felt the comforting weight of its grip against his palm. It had been a gift from his father, once upon a time. A way for Luke to protect himself, when he travelled into the cities, which were safer from the Empire than much of the galaxy and therefore attracted criminals for that reason. It would not protect him, here. He already knew how little a blaster could do against a vampire. His father had always used his lightsaber to hunt them, and although Luke had been trained in the Force in all other ways, he hadn't ever had his own lightsaber.

The only lightsaber here was his father's.

His breath hitched. But there was no other way to go. If Leia was definitely coming, then he just had to prepare for her arrival.

He had to finish this.

That vampire—Loretta, Luke had called her—stopped chasing Wedge after only a few corridors. It was suspicious. Suspicious enough that Wedge was pretty sure the entire point had just been to separate them in the first place. He slowed his run to a walk and looked around.

The lounge. Luke had said to meet him in the lounge. That was on the entire other side of the deck by now. Identical-looking corridors flashed around him. Where was he supposed to go from here?

His hand twitched on his blaster. He didn't like being alone. The corridors stretched long and lonely, silent as the grave.

No. That wasn't true. There was one sound.

A distant, muffled sound…

He should ignore it. Ignoring things sometimes made them go away. But not always, and Wedge was no coward, nor was he a fool. He needed to know what that sound was.

So he crept down the corridor. His hand wasn't on his blaster anymore; he had drawn it instead and clutched it firmly in his fist. He cocked his head to listen more acutely as the noise got louder. It was coming from what looked like a storage closet, just off the side in a small maintenance corridor. The door was locked from the outside.

For a moment, Wedge hesitated. But there was a banging coming from inside it. Slower than it had been before, and quiet anyway; the door was probably muffling quite a lot of sound. So he hefted his blaster and shot the lock.

There was a short, high scream. Then the person cut themselves off abruptly. The shot had blasted a hole clean in the lock, red and smoking. As Wedge stepped back, blaster still raised, the door nudged and swung open.

No one came out.

Wedge hesitated. It could be a trap. Then he heard another muffled breath—sharp, short, a gasp of shock, really—and edged his foot forwards to open the door wider.

One of the maids was crouched in the back of the closet, making herself small to shift under a shelf. When Wedge shifted into view, she lifted what she had in her hands—the shaft of a broom, without the end—to point it at him, before relaxing minutely when she saw him.

"You…" She squinted. "You came with Senator Mothma, didn't you?" Panic crossed her face momentarily—if he hadn't, the fact that a known traitor was on board was still a dangerous prospect—but vanished when Wedge nodded.

"Yes!"

Wedge stepped forward, then paused and stepped back again, so he wasn't crowding her. Taking the cue, the maid stood, surprisingly sprightly for someone who looked to be in her forties, and shuffled out of the closet, though she didn't drop the broom handle. He waited until she'd straightened up again fully before he continued.

"Have you seen her? The whole reason we came traipsing out into this mess was because she'd vanished, but I haven't seen her anywhere." Admittedly, they had been quite busy, Wedge had to admit. But it was still his job to protect her.

The maid nodded. Wedge was desperately trying to remember her name—she was the maid he'd seen Luke speaking to, right at the start of… all this. Then he realised she was wearing a name badge and, berating himself for his stupidity, squinted at it. Suyan.

"She's safe," Suyan said. Every muscle in Wedge's body relaxed. "In fact—I can take you to her. She asked me to find her soldiers, the men she came with, before any of them died in this… mess… as you called it."

Grief struck Wedge's heart like a thrown stone. "Several already have."

"Is that why you're alone?"

Other than Biggs, who was off doing who knew what. Where was Biggs, anyway? Had he even got out of that trash compactor? What was he doing? Why hadn't he come back to rescue them? "Yes."

Suyan put a cool hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry to hear that," she said. "And that I couldn't find you earlier. I came out, but the first person I ran into was that ghastly woman with the blonde hair—"

"Loretta," Wedge filled in.

Suyan put her free hand on her throat. "She was one of them," she whispered. "I hid. Not very noble, but— anyway. I can take you to the senator."

"Thank you, Suyan," he said. "That would be…" He trailed off. There was nothing to say, really. Niceties in this situation seemed hollow and useless. Help was the only currency they could trade in.

Suyan laughed. It was a nice laugh, genuine and suddenly more relaxed. She must have been more relaxed, he reflected later. She had to be, to say:

"Suyan was my birth name, and it's still on employment records, but no one actually calls me that. It's been strange, working here," she confessed.

"Have you not worked here long?"

"No. I follow my queen. I've worked a lot of jobs—but this one is the more demeaning one for a while. The most important, though."

"You work for a queen? Why are you here?"

Suyan studied him, then she smiled slightly. Wedge blinked. He hadn't noticed how white her teeth were, until now. "She owns the ship."

That made sense, he supposed—even if he only supposed it warily. If it was a newly acquired asset, he would want someone he trusted on board, keeping an eye on things.

Suyan tilted her head, and they started walking. After a few steps, Wedge remembered the one question he'd forgotten to ask, in response to her original comment, queen or not.

"If not Suyan," he said, nodding to her name badge, "what would you prefer I call you?"

She looked sideways at him. Her white smile widened. "Call me Yané."

They didn't have to walk for long. Wedge had a tight hand on his blaster and Yané on her broom shaft, but thankfully nothing came after them while they travelled. Wedge cast his mind to Luke, who'd told him to meet him in the lounge. He gritted his teeth. Luke was alright. He was the person best equipped to deal with all of this, even if he'd seemed a bit unstable after they'd lost Padmé.

There had definitely been something else there too, beyond losing the mother he'd only just met, but he hadn't wanted to push. Hadn't wanted to watch Luke shatter like a rusty sword, when he was the best weapon they had at that moment.

But Luke was alright. He would be alright. Despite what Wedge had first thought about him, he was smart, quick, and competent. And he had Artoo with him. Nothing could go wrong, for him.

That was what he told himself, even as he quietly dreaded that all the vampires had converged on Luke, now isolated. They'd certainly had an interest in him they hadn't had in others.

It didn't matter. Wedge was here to serve Senator Mothma. He needed to find her above all else. Commander Narra had left big boots to fill when it came to being the commander of Red Squadron, and even if Wedge had got half his men killed already on his mission, he could at least protect the senator. For the Alliance. For their cause.

He wondered, actually, if that was why Biggs hadn't come to help them, yet. It might be that the only authorities on the other levels were those stormtroopers, and they'd realised he was a Rebel. Wedge might, in fact, be the only survivor from this mission.

Mothma. Senator Mothma. She was all that mattered.

Strangely, Yané led him to the swimming pool, where he'd lost the Senator in the first place. The doors to the changing rooms and refreshers off to the side were closed, which hadn't been the case when they'd last come through here. When Wedge had seen Luke staring apprehensively at a red trickle of blood, before he'd ever considered taking fairy tales and horror stories seriously. The whole room, which had previously been cheery despite that ominous highlight, was dark and foreboding, now. The lights were dimmed to night cycle levels—not enough that people weren't visible, but enough that the people that were visible were shocks against the dark. Yané's skin almost seemed to glow in the minimal light. Every step of theirs echoed horribly, like a phantom army marched behind them. Like they were being chased.

Wedge looked around. "Here?" he asked with disgust.

Yané shrugged. "If you were hiding, doesn't it make sense? You can hear anyone who's coming."

He supposed he couldn't argue with that. But he didn't like how open it was. There were two entrances to the swimming pool—two large ones. And a door in the back of the changing rooms, he was pretty sure.

And it was where he'd last seen Senator Mothma.

He stopped, frowning. That was odd. He'd originally lost her because she wanted to use the refresher and insisted that he not wait. Why? Why had she insisted on sending away her bodyguard? And why was she still here?

"Still," he said, deciding to argue after all. Yané had stopped beside him, waiting. "It's a swimming pool. Why—"

"You'll have to ask her yourself," Yané dodged neatly. He shot her a side glance, but she nodded towards the refreshers. "She's in there."

She was still there? Why was she still there?

There was only one way to find out.

Casting Yané one last wary look—her teeth really were very white, but he'd run as soon as he confirmed that Senator Mothma wasn't there, and that this was a trap; he still had his duty to do—he moved toward the door to the changing rooms. Slowly, because the tiles were still wet, as the tiles around swimming pools often were. The doors were ones with actual hinges rather than electronic doors, which made electrical sense considering all the water around, so he pushed them open and stepped into the corridor. The lights were automatic: they flickered on at full brightness when they detected his movement, night cycle or not.

"Senator Mothma?" he called out. No response. He grimaced, and looked around for doors.

There were several. The refreshers were actually gender segregated, which was a feature he hadn't seen in a while. The two at the front were for those who identified as male or female, and he hesitated before the female refreshers, before pushing the door open. If Senator Mothma would be anywhere, it would be there.

She was.

Relief ballooned in his chest. The refresher was a nice one, as far as swimming pool ones went: the sinks and stalls were all clean, bright, and polished. Mirrors ran along the left side of the wall next to the sinks. At the far end were a handful of plastic chairs, presumably for anyone waiting in a queue. Seated on one of them with a regalness that managed to make her surroundings dignified was Senator Mothma, studying a datapad in her lap with a frown on her face. Her left hand was curled around a blaster of her own—at the sound of the door shutting behind Wedge, both her head and her hand snapped up to train it on him.

She lowered it as soon as she saw him. "Commander Antilles," she said. Her tone was as neutral as ever, but he thought she was pleased to see him. Or maybe that was his own relief still blurring his perception like steam on a mirror.

"Senator," he said, holstering his own blaster. "I'm so glad to see you. Are you hurt?"

"No, no, I made my way back here when I heard of the danger." She stood. Her white dress was spotless, which supported her claims, but something looked off. Wedge studied it for a moment before he noticed the tiniest difference in the shape of the neckline, the way the fabric gathered at the sleeves…

"After changing your dress," he observed.

Mothma arched one eyebrow at him. Fair enough. It was a strange observation from a commander to his leader. "Yes. I came back here from my cabin. I thought they would be less likely to look for me here."

That was ridiculous. It had to be ridiculous. Not just because Mothma had willingly returned to a refresher, but because her cabin had been one of the first places Wedge had checked when looking for her. While Luke and his mother had gone back to their own cabins for that brief reprieve after the first attack, Wedge had made a beeline for it. There'd been no answer, and the cabin had been empty.

"Why did you send me away in the first place?" he asked. "I could have waited for you, so we didn't get separated."

Something in his tone must have revealed that he wouldn't be put off from this. She sighed, but it seemed overblown. Theatrical.

"I'm sure you've guessed that I was not actually using the refresher," she admitted. "I was meeting our contact here."

Wedge frowned. "Our contact was Senator Amidala." This was a bizarre meeting place for her to choose. A bizarre battleground.

"Yes."

Wedge pressed: "We met her in the lounge."

"We did, yes. But it was too public a place to finish our negotiations and the deal we made. We knew that few people would be using the swimming pool so early in the trip, so we arranged to do the more private part here, in the ladies' refresher, away from prying eyes."

He supposed that made sense, but—"I'm your bodyguard."

"It would have looked suspicious if you had followed me in here, would it not? Into this refresher?" Again, she arched an eyebrow, and Wedge fought the urge to flush.

But he still wasn't satisfied. This had all been strange from the start. What was it? Why did he feel sick to his stomach? "I'm your bodyguard," he repeated, turning on his heel. He turned to his left, to look at himself in the mirror, to look at Mothma in the mirror out of the corner of his eye. "I'm supposed to protect you."

Which was why she'd left him behind.

It came to him suddenly, in a rush of understanding. He was here to protect her. That was exactly why her contact—Amidala—had asked Mothma to leave him behind. That was why Amidala had chosen such a strange location for the private exchange. And because Amidala was an old friend, Mothma had easily acquiesced.

Amidala hadn't been on the tour. She'd been with Luke in the lounge, but she hadn't accompanied him on the tour.

Wedge had been meant to protect Senator Mothma. He'd sworn to protect her. He'd sworn to obey her every order, as Narra had. By doing the latter, he'd failed at the former. And he knew with certainty that he had failed, as all the pieces came together in his head.

Because it wasn't the strange setting of this meeting that was making Wedge so queasy with dread. It wasn't Mothma's new dress, white and spotless despite the enormous violence that had occurred. And it wasn't his own, all-consuming fear that he wasn't good enough for the position he'd been thrust into.

It was the fact that this refresher was full of mirrors. An entire wall was lined with them; the doors were white and shiny; the tiles were clean and polished. Artificial light bounced all around it, blinding as the truth. Wedge could see himself reflected a hundred times, pale, sweaty, and shaking. He was very, very small amidst this ocean of gleaming white.

But Senator Mothma didn't show up in the mirrors at all.

"What was the deal, Senator?" he asked. His chest heaved, but he could hardly breathe. He turned back to her, but he didn't look her in the eye. He couldn't.

"Commander?"

"What did you negotiate with Senator Amidala?"

Mothma looked at him long and hard. But Wedge still refused to meet her gaze. "Queen Amidala," she said, and Wedge's heart seized like it had already stopped beating, "is going to overthrow the Empire. It seemed only natural to combine our forces."

"You sold out the Alliance," he said.

"This is what the Alliance does. We find allies."

"But you've allied with—" He was going to be sick. He looked down at the sinks, his hand trembling on his blaster. When it had returned there, he didn't know. Whenever he'd realised that the woman he'd sworn to serve was now a monster. "You've sold out the Alliance."

Mothma was shaking her head. "Padmé has given us a new strategy. We are going to win the war against the Empire. This is what we do."

She stepped forward. "And we need every soldier we can get."

Wedge took another step back. Then another. Then another. "No. Senator—"

"You chose this, commander," Mothma said. He kept backing away, but she didn't move any farther towards him. "When you joined the Alliance, you swore to obey. You swore to do whatever it takes to destroy the Imperial machine."

"I didn't choose this."

"You chose," she enunciated clearly, raising her hands, "to obey."

Wedge turned and ran.

Mothma was so fast behind him he hardly heard her footsteps. Wedge slammed the door shut as soon as he was through, and he heard her hiss as it crushed her knuckles, just curling around the door frame. He sprinted down the corridor and towards the swimming pool area, hearing the shriek of hinges as she tore the door off entirely in her pursuit. One, two, three steps—then he'd rounded the corner.

The room seemed cavernous. Yané had been right: his footsteps cackled cacophonously as he ran, arching over his head, screamed through the ship. But she hadn't been wholly right, because she was gone from the room, and he hadn't heard her go. The dimness pressed in around him, down his throat—or maybe those were just his sobs. Running aimlessly, he had to skid to a stop before he slipped into the pool itself.

For a moment he stood, paralysed with panic. He didn't know where to go. He didn't know what to do. He'd failed.

His lungs rattled in a breath. It would be their last.

He'd failed.

A hand, strong and frigid, seized his wrist. Spun him around. Mothma was right behind him, cold and silent as the depths of space. Her lips were peeled back from her lips in a snarl, and he shrieked against his will at the sight of the teeth that burst from her gums before his eyes. Long… sharp… pointy… basic command of language fled him, along with his courage. He stumbled back—and his foot went out from under him.

Mothma had been a kind, dignified senator. If anyone had ever asked Wedge to imagine her swimming, he'd have laughed. It was so at odds with his image of her. But the monster she'd become didn't even let go of his wrist. She dived into the pool after him, fastening her other hand around his shoulder, and sank her teeth into his neck.

The water hit him like a storm. But he didn't think that was why cold crept through his body, chilling him to the core.

Her grip on him was still tight. He could feel his blood abandoning him, draining into her, out of him. But his veins weren't empty. Something… else… fed into him like an IV drip. It spread from his neck along his torso and arms, up into his head. It encircled his heart and lungs like a snare. He could feel it moving through him like a cold burn, like frostbite to his internal organs, and it hurt so, so much.

When he opened his mouth to scream, air rushed out, and water rushed in. But by then, it didn't matter. By then, he didn't need to breathe at all.