Chapter
Seven
"Is there
anything else we should discuss?"
As she asked
the
question, Mon Mothma fervently prayed that the answer would be "no".
There couldn't be anything
more to discuss. Surely they'd discussed
every possible topic. If the meeting went on like this, they'd be
reduced to
such crucial issues as whether the cleaning droids were due for a
maintenance
check, and what was on the menu at the canteen tonight, and whether
General
Rieekan's pet birdcat had hatched its kits yet.
The assorted
officers and chiefs of staff assembled around the conference table
glanced
questioningly at each other. Mothma's heart sank. Who was she kidding?
Of
course someone would have
something to say. It was easier to defeat
the Empire than it was to get this lot to stop talking.
At least
Dodonna,
who managed to be the first to speak, began his answer in the negative.
"It seems not," he said. "As long as negotiations with Chandrila
are maintained, the situation seems under control. For the moment. And
if the
security investigations have turned up nothing, we're not going to
change that
by talking about it."
Bless
you, Jan
Dodonna, was Mothma's heartfelt thought. You
are a jewel among men. She glanced
at
the General curiously, and wondered whether he'd picked up on her
passionate
desire to get this meeting over with. Yes, he probably had, but
hopefully he
hadn't figured out why she was so
passionate about that. Time enough for
Dodonna and Rieekan and the others to tease her and Piett about it
later --
presuming there was going to be anything to tease them about. Heavenly
Light,
did she ever hope there would be.
"Nothing for
the moment, General," added the formerly Imperial security chief
Captain
Faren, sounding stung at the statement that they'd turned up nothing.
"We
have our leads, but nothing solid at present."
General Madine,
who
Mothma suddenly wished was suffering the pains of eternal torment,
said,
"I must object again to our continuing contact with Chandrila. Until we
know for sure that the treachery was not on their side, we're risking
-- "
"There is
always risk, General," Mothma said coldly. "If we don't continue
contact, how can we hope to discover if they have betrayed us?"
Madine was
about to
strike back with some further objection, but General Rieekan, probably
wanting
to go check on the pregnant birdcat, sighed loudly and said, "we've
already voted on the issue. We're all tired; we're not going to
accomplish
anything more tonight. Our problems will still be here tomorrow. May I
move
that we adjourn this meeting?"
Mon Mothma
resolved
to buy both Rieekan and Dodonna some very large drinks. Not tonight,
however.
There were a
few
more grumbles of argument, but the majority voice was in favour of
Rieekan's
proposal. At last everyone was starting to stand up from the table, the
meeting
dissolving into smaller conversational clusters. Hoping that she was
doing this
at least somewhat subtly, Mon Mothma let her gaze wander around the
room until
it landed on Admiral Piett. Who, she realised with a sudden nervous
jolt, was
also looking at her. There was a hesitant expression on his face, and
she knew
that she'd better get to him quickly. He was probably wondering whether
she'd
changed her mind, and he might just flee the room rather than stick
around to
find out. Of course, maybe he had changed his
mind. For a second,
she wanted to flee the room. But, no, she told
herself firmly. She could
live with rejection. It was better than spending the rest of her life
wondering
about it.
She walked
around
the table and started toward him. She had to stop to exchange a few
pleasantries with the officers who stood between them, and she noticed
that he
was now talking about something with his fellow ex-Imperial Captain
Needa.
Well, at least Piett hadn't fled yet. She smiled and managed to extract
herself
from an incipient conversation, and at last she succeeded in reaching
Piett's
side.
Captain Needa
was
saying, "well, the Rebellion owes you a lot of drinks for getting us
out
of this one. Or, they ought to buy you
some drinks, but they'll probably
just give you a medal."
"Good evening,
Captain, Admiral," Mothma said, in what somehow managed to be a calm
voice. She nodded a greeting to Needa, who bowed in reply. Mothma went
on,
"Admiral, could I talk with you in my office? You wanted to discuss the
question of troop reassignments." Actually, they'd already discussed
the
question of troop reassignments about a week ago, and probably had very
little
new to say on the topic. But it was the first possible camouflage she
had thought
of.
"Of course,
Ma'am," Piett said, polite as always. The hint of a smile touched his
lips, and she thought she could see a new sparkle in his grey eyes. Well, she thought, maybe
he's not going to run away after all.
"You'll excuse
us, Angus?" the Admiral said to Captain Needa, who was suddenly
grinning.
Mothma wondered if she was imagining the sharp look Piett cast at
Needa, that
seemed to say something like 'don't make any jokes if you value your
life'.
"Of course,"
said the Captain, his grin getting bigger. "Don't let me interfere with
the affairs of state."
Piett made no
comment, but the look on his face as he turned toward Mothma suggested
that he'd
like to punch Captain Needa in the nose.
Damnation,
Mothma thought,
with a last glance at Needa's suspiciously smug smile. He
knows. They
probably all know.
Oh
well. So they
know. It wouldn't do to disappoint them!
Mothma and
Piett
manoeuvred their way through the remaining groups of New Alliance
leaders
between them and the door. As they started along the hallway together,
not
talking nor overtly looking at each other, Mon Mothma realised that
they were
both walking in exactly the same pose, with their hands clasped behind
their
backs. She almost giggled. This was crazy. They shouldn't feel the need
to be
this surreptitious. She felt like a teenager, about to get her first
snog in
the back of a landspeeder. She wondered if Piett felt the same way.
Her office,
fortunately, was not far from the conference chamber. They reached it
before
she succumbed to the urge to shove him against a wall and assault his
virtue
then and there. As the door slid shut behind them, a shuddering sigh
escaped
her. She was scared again. But it wasn't enough to stop her.
She gazed at
him, wondering
how he could possibly look so attractive, and wondering if he knew how
attractive he was.
His little
smile
was back, and was more impish this time. "So, Ma'am," he said softly,
as he slowly held out one hand to her. "Troop reassignments."
She nodded.
"Troop reassignments." She reached out her own hand, and their
fingers laced together. She moved closer to him. "It's a very important
issue," she whispered.
"Yes," he
agreed. "Very important." The last word faded out as it became lost
in their kiss.
They had
started
out standing by her desk. It was very nice over there, she thought, but
it was
even nicer when Piett had reversed her fantasy from the hallway and had
pushed
her against the office wall. He held her arms up against the wall, his
hands --
surprisingly strong hands, she realiised, which was a pleasant
discovery --
restraining both of her wrists. She shivered at the combined sensations
of the
cold metal wall and the warmth of his hands. He sought out her mouth
first,
then, as he was planting little nipping kisses on her face and her
earlobes and
her throat, she whispered breathily, "my hero. The hero of Chandrila
Seven."
He laughed then
and
pulled away from her a little, grinning. "I'm not a hero," he said.
She grinned
back.
"You are if I say you are. I'm Head of State,
remember."
His grasp had loosened on her wrists, and she managed to take him by
surprise,
pull him toward her and then switch their positions, thrusting him
against the
wall in his turn.
"Whatever you
say, Ma'am," he promised.
Conversation
lapsed, until the moment when one or both of them managed to fall back
against
the door control panel, and the door swooped open. Having
simultaneously thrown
themselves at the door closing button -- and not even bothering to
check
whether there were any shocked Alliance members gaping at them from the
hallway
-- they then had to take some time out to collapse on the floor in
hysterical
laughter.
"Admiral
Piett," she said, her fingers tracing a path up his arm, "do you
think that we should retire to some place more comfortable?"
"My name's
Grigori, Ma'am," he told her, catching the hand as it reached his
shoulder
and then pulling it to his lips, kissing each of her fingertips in
turn.
"And yes," he said, when he'd reached the last finger, "I would
definitely support that proposal."
"My name's
Simara," she said, "not Ma'am." She leaned over him, her lips
just barely brushing his. She pulled back again so that she could see
his face
rather than an out-of-focus blur. "So," she continued huskily, smiling
in gentle mockery as she said the classic line, "your place or mine?"
He considered
that,
meanwhile allowing his fingers to play in a swirling pattern over her
left
breast, with a tantalising lightness that made her want to scream. "I
guess mine's tidy enough to receive visitors. What about yours?"
"Mine
too." She thought about it briefly. "Can you hear the rain from
yours?"
"No," he
said.
"Your
place," she decided.
He nodded, then
groaned. "Oh, gods," he said, in laughing despair. "That means
we have to go back into the hallway. I think it'll kill me to keep my
hands off
you."
"Then
don't," she said.
It took quite
some
time for them to emerge from the office. A few more kisses were
necessary, of
course, then they had to linger over making sure that each other's
clothes
looked impeccably respectable, and then they had to have a debate over
whether
the discipline and the morale of the New Alliance could survive the
scandal of
a Head of State and an Admiral walking along the corridor holding
hands. They
finally decided that no, their duty to the Rebellion must come first,
and so
they proceeded along the corridor ostentatiously not touching each
other, and
holding a loud conversation about the weather. Strangely enough, the
weather
seemed to have been unusually humorous lately, since every now and then
the
conversation broke down into swiftly stifled giggles.
She had,
unsurprisingly, never been in Piett's quarters before. When he had
switched on
the light, she looked around in undisguised curiosity. It certainly
was, she
thought, tidy enough to receive visitors. The only things that seemed
even
slightly out of place were two computer disks that had been left lying
on the
desk. But it also looked more lived-in than she would have imagined. A
profusion of tables and shelves were crammed with framed photographs
and
holosnaps, and with a truly astonishing assortment of potted miniature
trees.
They gave off a fresh, tangy fragrance. She walked over to one of them,
its
silver-grey trunk intricately twisted and its delicate leaves glowing a
soft
pink. The tree stood under a small lamp, and cast interlacing shadows
on the
shelf below. "What is it?" she whispered.
"Altarean
maple," said Piett, following her to the tree and starting to gently
stroke Mothma's back. "They only look like that in the spring, the rest
of
the year the leaves are red. I've got to keep the light and temperature
and
soil nutrients adjusted so it knows what season it is. I hope you don't
mind
them," he added. "I can't seem to get along without them. Comes from
growing up on a forest planet, I guess."
"I don't mind
them," she said, turning to him. "They're beautiful." With her
hands on his chest, she cast a smiling glance at the bed. "Maybe we'd
better move over there," she said, "so we don't knock over the
trees."
They both knelt
on
the bed, and Mothma began with lingering slowness to unfasten Piett's
uniform
jacket. When the jacket had been thrown aside, Mothma ran her hands
over the
silkier material of the pale gold uniform shirt. "I've never undressed
an
Admiral before," she murmured.
"I've never
been undressed by a Head of State."
The shirt, she
found, had a large number of very small buttons, but she didn't mind
the time
it took to undo them. When the shirt had gone the way of the jacket,
there
still remained a white sleeveless undershirt. She grabbed him by the
collar of
this and pulled him towards her. "How many more layers have you got?"
she demanded.
"Find
out," he said.
As they started
kissing again, she managed to liberate the undershirt from the
waistband of his
trousers, and snaked her hands up under it to prove that it was,
indeed, the
last layer. "It's fascinating," she whispered, her mouth against his
ear. "I've never seen an Imperial officer's underwear."
He flung her
down
onto the bed, and she fell back against the pillow. He held her there,
glowering down at her in mock offence. "Oh, fine," he said, "I
understand. You're only interested in me for my underwear."
She laughed
again,
until the laughs were smothered by another kiss. He pulled back to give
her a
wicked smile. "I'll just have to prove there are other reasons to be
interested in me."
They had so far
managed to avoid the torment of dining with Emperor Palpatine. Not that
the
dinner the two of them had shared had been particularly cheerful.
Luke had taken
a
turn in the bath, and after agonising about the implications of wearing
clothing provided by Palpatine, finally gave in and dressed in a plain
grey
tunic and matching trousers from one of the wardrobes. He'd wanted to
retain
his own clothes, but regretfully had to admit that they were not at
their
cleanest, after Datang had dragged him around the Chandrilan mining
station in
them. He kept his own belt and boots, which at least made him feel
partially
still himself. Leia, he saw when she emerged from her own room, had
also come
to terms with wearing Palpatine's offerings. She was dressed in a white
blouse
and trousers, both of some thin, satiny fabric, but she was also still
wearing
her tight-fitting, high collared white and gold jacket, complete with
Arin
Pellar's blood on the sleeve. When Luke asked if she was sure she
wanted to
wear that, she just said defiantly, "why not? It gives me something to
remember him by."
While they were
dressing, the droid had been setting the table for dinner. After asking
if they
required anything else, the droid departed, leaving the table laden
with a vast
selection of predictably expensive delicacies. The sight of these made
Leia
scowl and mutter about all the Imperial worlds where people were
starving, and
she slumped down into one of the chairs, to make a half-hearted attempt
at
eating a small helping of Kelesian crayfish salad. Leia's comment of
course
reminded Luke of his Aunt Beru's inevitable response when he didn't
want to eat
everything on his plate, that he should think of the Starving
Mandalorians.
Somehow Beru had never been impressed by Luke's suggestion that they
could just
send the Starving Mandalorians his unfinished fennel stew. Thinking of
Beru and
Owen made Luke just as depressed as Leia was, so they ate in glum
silence,
although Luke found that neither the Starving Mandalorians nor his
murdered
aunt and uncle stopped him from noticing that the ardok steak was
delicious.
The droid
reappeared
as Luke was finishing his steak. Leia had long since given up on
drawing
patterns with her fork in the crayfish salad. Luke wondered if he
should remind
her that, with the babies to think of, she ought to be eating
regularly, but he
figured she was likely to kill him if he did, so he kept the thought to
himself. The droid's arrival was something of a relief, as Luke had not
been
looking forward to an evening alone with his silent and angry sister.
Of course
the alternative was probably not any better, as the droid had returned
to
inform them that His Imperial Majesty Emperor Palpatine requested their
presence.
Leia dragged
her
gaze away from the salad. "What do you think he'd do if we didn't
go?" she asked Luke.
Luke sighed.
"I don't know. Teleport us to him, maybe? Stop by here for a nightcap?
Or
maybe next time we did see him, he'd just spend ages talking about what
naughty, ungrateful children we are."
Leia grimaced.
"Then we'd better go wait on His Imperial Majesty, hadn't we?" she
said bitterly. She stood up, throwing her crumpled linen napkin into
the
remains of her salad.
They followed
the
droid down the corridor once more, but this time were led to one of the
doors
between their quarters and the Emperor's Audience Chamber. The door
opened to
reveal a lounge which was furnished in much the same style as that in
the rooms
they'd been given, except that the drapes were again purple and the
huge sofas
and armchairs were a sickly sort of lavender. The room was dominated by
a large
entertainment centre, complete with computer console and holovision,
which the
sofas and chairs surrounded in a semi-circle.
The black-robed
Palpatine was seated on one of the sofas, looking ridiculously small
against
the vast cushioned monstrosity that seemed about to swallow him. Luke
suddenly
thought that the sofa reminded him of a purple version of Jabba the
Hutt, but
in present company it didn't seem a good idea to mention that.
Palpatine beamed
at Luke and Leia as they stepped into the room, and Luke felt his mind
reeling
at the surreality of it all. He thought, does Palpatine want
to spend a nice
cosy evening watching holovids with us? He wondered
what type of
videos Palpatine might like, and then decided that that didn't bear
thinking
about.
"Good evening,
my children," Palpatine greeted them. "I trust you are feeling
refreshed?"
"Thank
you," Leia said coldly. She glanced at Luke, a questioning look in her
eyes. Luke knew what she was thinking. Should they follow up on his
earlier
suggestion, and ask Palpatine about their father? Was there any chance
that he
might tell them something resembling the truth?
Palpatine
solved
their problem for them. "So many questions," he said, smiling.
"All the questions you never got to ask, and now they're about to
overflow. A lifetime of questions that no one has ever answered." He
stood
up and stepped toward them, and it took all of Luke's self control to
stop
himself from backing away.
"Your aunt and
uncle wouldn't tell you, Luke, because they were afraid for you. So
were Bail
and Keeiara Organa. Obi Wan Kenobi was the most afraid of all. Even
your father
is afraid to face his past. But you deserve the truth. I will give it
to
you."
"Aren't
you
afraid
of it?" Leia demanded challengingly.
He gave her a
strange, distant smile. "No," he said. "I have no more
fear." He blinked slowly, his smile remaining fixed, then gestured
toward
the entertainment centre. "Everything you will need is there. I think
you
will want to pursue this alone. But remember, any questions you have, I
will
answer." He walked out of the room between the two of them, and the
door
whispered shut behind him.
Luke shuddered.
He
couldn't believe Palpatine would leave them alone. He would have
thought that
whatever discoveries they might make, Palpatine would want to be there
to gloat
over them.
Of course, he
realised uncomfortably, the Emperor's physical absence didn't mean that
he
wasn't watching them.
Leia,
meanwhile,
had walked to the entertainment console at the centre of the room. She
called
out, "Luke, come over here. He's got the system loaded with ... with
the News
of the Galaxy archives."
"News
of
the Galaxy?" Luke asked, crossing over to her. He'd never
heard of it.
"Must be the
precursor to the Imperial News Service." Her voice
sounded
awe-struck. "I knew that Palpatine had wiped out all the news archives
from before his succession. Luke, do you realise what this could mean?
So much
of what happened during his takeover has never been made public. If we
could
get this information out of here, get it distributed ... "
"He'd never
have let us see it if he thought we could do that."
Leia shrugged.
"He's been wrong before." She was silent a moment, then told him,
"I've called up the index." She gazed at Luke, her face solemn.
"Do we look up Anakin Skywalker?" she asked.
Luke swallowed
nervously. "Yeah. I guess we do."
Leia typed in
the
name.
Both of them
stared
in amazement at the number of entries listed in response. There was a
date
beside the code for each entry, ranging from six years before
Palpatine's
coronation as Emperor to one year before.
Luke felt
nervous
dread from Leia, which was precisely the same emotion he was feeling
himself.
He was suddenly very afraid of what they might find.
"It'll take
forever to go through all of these," Leia murmured.
"I guess
Palpatine doesn't plan on us leaving any time soon." Luke was trying to
sound casual, but he knew Leia must sense that he was as nervous as she
was.
Leia started to
reach for the keyboard, then pulled her hand back again. "Luke," she
said, "have you ever seen what he looked like?"
"No. Have
you?"
"No."
They stared at
the News
of the Galaxy index, and Luke felt a desperate urge to run
away. What were they going
to see? he wondered. Anakin Skywalker the hero, the man that Obi Wan
Kenobi had
described as a good friend? Or Anakin Skywalker the servant of the Dark
Side?
Or both? If they watched all the news reports chronologically, would
they see
the Dark Side growing in him? Could one see the
Dark Side? Would
it be obvious, or would they not even notice the change?
Had Anakin
noticed
it?
"Luke?"
Leia asked. "What do you want to do?"
"I don't
know."
She pursed her
lips
at this less than helpful response, then said, "Okay. I'll pick one at
random and see what we get."
She typed in a
code, then left the console and crossed over to perch on the edge of
one of the
enormous sofas. Luke followed her.
A bright tri-D
image sprang up from the holopad. The image was motionless for the
first few
seconds. Luke and Leia blinked as they realised that the holo appearing
in
front of them had been taken in vivid sunlight. The scene seemed to be
some
sort of military ceremony. At least there were certainly a large number
of
people wearing grey uniforms, and bedecked with medals. Luke guessed
these must
be uniforms of the Republic, but he'd never seen any pictures of them
before.
That was just another of the images that Palpatine had wiped out of
public
memory.
The soldiers
were
outside a monumental pillared building of blue stone, standing on the
building's terrace. Leia said, "I know that building. It's here on
Coruscant. I think the President of the Republic used to live there."
The holo
started
up, with a portly figure in red and orange robes, its back to the
holocam,
walking towards a line of officers standing at attention. A voice-over
began in
the bright, chirpy, artificial-sounding female tones that unmistakably
identified the voice as a newsreader, and Luke thought, I
guess that's one
thing that hasn't changed since Palpatine took over.
"Today,"
the voice-over reported, "nearly four months after the Battle of Doom,
hero of the Republic Anakin Skywalker was decorated by President Gimila
for his
part in that decisive victory. Although seven other soldiers were
decorated
shortly after the battle, the ceremony for Commander Skywalker was
delayed
until he could be released from the military hospital on Alma Serena."
The holocam was
zooming toward the line of officers, and Luke realised with a start
that the
man at the end of the line was standing with a few metres separating
him from
the others. He was supporting himself on crutches, but was still the
tallest
person there; the head of the next tallest officer only reached
slightly past
this man's shoulder.
The red and
orange
robed figure was walking toward him, and as this figure approached, the
other
officers saluted. The man on crutches did not, for obvious reasons;
Luke had a
brief ludicrous vision of the tall man trying to salute without
dropping his
crutches.
The voice-over
burbled on cheerfully, "Commander Skywalker spent three months in
hospital, recovering from massive injuries sustained when his x-wing
was shot
down in the final moments of the battle. He was rescued from the
wreckage just
minutes away from death, by his wife Vice Admiral Talassa, and her
brother,
Ambassador Lucas Talassa."
Luke and Leia
stared at each other. Vice Admiral Talassa!
"Did you know
she was an Admiral?" Luke whispered.
Leia shook her
head.
The holo
switched
to another, closer viewpoint, from the side, as the robed figure
stepped up to
the man on crutches. The robed personage, now visible as a middle-aged
humanoid
male with several double chins, was saying something and reaching up to
attach
a medal to the taller man's chest. But the man in the robes might just
as well
not have been there, for all the attention Luke was paying to him.
Luke didn't
know
what he'd expected. A taller, younger version of Uncle Owen, maybe? If
he were
more honest about it, a taller version of himself?
All the time
he'd
been growing up, ever since he'd realised that Beru and Owen weren't
his
parents and that Tatooine was the armpit of the galaxy, he'd made up
stories
about his father coming back for him. The father he'd created was
always tall,
blond and heroic, and he had always beat up Uncle Owen before taking
Luke away
with him for a life of adventure among the stars.
Now Luke
realised
that if this man in the holo image had come back for
him, he would
have looked just like the father Luke had wanted. He was tall and
blond, all
right, and it did look like he could successfully beat up Uncle Owen,
as he'd
done in Luke's fantasies. At the moment, his face bore the blank,
distant
expression that one always assumes when standing at attention, but Luke
could
still tell that he was young -- shit, Luke thought, maybe
about
our age -- and had the sort of rough-hewn good looks
that had probably assured
that he was never without a date. And it looked like it would be a
really,
really bad idea to piss him off.
He
looks, Luke thought with
a weird aching wistfulness, the way I might look when I
finally grow up --
except, unfortunately, that I'm grown up already.
Of course, by
the
time Luke was making up his fantasies on Tatooine, the only father who
could
have come back for him was Darth Vader.
The voice-over
had
been chattering about Commander Skywalker's military career, but Luke
hadn't
heard most of it. The scene now changed; the people still seemed to be
on the
blue building's terrace, but the setting was now informal, a drinks
reception
it looked like, with both military and civilians milling about, trying
to get
through the crowd to offer congratulations to Anakin Skywalker. The
voice-over
was informing them about Anakin's next assignment. The holocam managed
to get a
clear shot of Anakin talking with two other young humans, one a tall
woman in
the grey military uniform, and the other a short, slim man in civilian
dress.
The man and the woman were both dark-haired, the woman with her hair
cropped
short, and they looked enough alike that they must certainly be
related. They
seemed enthusiastic and happy, and Luke noticed with surprise that
Anakin did
too. He was grinning at something the short dark man had said, and then
the
woman looked up at Anakin with a teasing smile and reached up to smooth
his
disordered blond hair away from his forehead.
Luke felt Leia
stiffen beside him, then Leia grabbed for the remote and froze the holo
on that
image. "It's her," Leia hissed. "It's our mother. And that must
be her brother. Ambassador Lucas Talassa."
Luke stared at
them. The laughing dark-haired young woman who must be Vice Admiral
Talassa.
Anakin Skywalker, wearing a long-suffering expression as his wife
straightened
his hair. The buoyant, youthful figure of Lucas Talassa, an uncle that
Luke had
never heard of.
"I can't stand
it," Leia said suddenly. She got up and walked away from the holopad,
her
arms clutched tightly around her. She shook her head angrily. "I can't
stand them looking so happy. What in the hell went wrong?"
Everything
went
wrong, Luke thought, still staring at the family
he'd never seen.
Everything went
wrong. The question was, why?
As far as
Admiral
Piett was concerned, life was absolutely, profoundly, unreservedly
wonderful.
They'd both
dozed
off a few minutes ago, after a bout of what was definitely the best
love-making
Piett had been through since -- well, a long time ago, anyway. It must
be
twenty years, he supposed, since he'd experienced anything this good.
Simara
seemed to be still asleep, and he smiled over at her, thinking what an
amazing
change it was to have a beautiful woman asleep in his bed -- especially
this beautiful woman.
If anyone had told him a year ago that he would be sleeping with the
Head of
State of the Rebel Alliance, he would have thought it was a
particularly
tasteless joke. But oh, gods, he was glad that it wasn't.
He wondered if
there was any chance that they could go away together for a few days,
away from
the Alliance and its multitude of traumas. Could one take a
holiday from the
Rebellion? Back in the Imperial Navy he'd had two weeks' leave a year
when he
was a Captain, and three weeks' when he was promoted to Admiral, but
the
Rebellion couldn't generally afford to have its officers traipsing off
on
skiing trips or sunbathing holidays. He realised that it would probably
take a
heroic effort on his part to convince Simara to leave, since she no
doubt
believed that the Alliance would fall apart without her. And it might
well do
so, too. But surely it could survive for a week or so while its Head of
State
went on vacation.
What sort of
vacation
would she like? He wondered if she was the outdoors type, and hoped
that she
was. He'd like to go some place with mountains to hike through, and
lakes to
swim in -- but definitely no rain. Still, he thought, anything she
liked, he
would like too. He did rather hope that she didn't prefer casino resort
holidays, as he was the worst gambler in the galaxy, but what the hell,
he
could always just be her sidekick when she hit the gambling tables, and
make
sure that her glass was always full. He imagined her in a
figure-hugging
evening dress, and gave a happy sigh.
He felt the
gentle
touch of her fingers stroking his hair, and he turned his head on the
pillow to
meet her smiling gaze.
"Hi," she
whispered.
"Hi," he
whispered back.
She snuggled
closer
for a long, slow, lingering kiss. Then, as they were lying side by
side,
Piett's hand lightly stroking along the smooth curve of her hip, she
asked him
softly, "how long has it been for you, since the last time?"
"Why?" he
asked, though he was glad to find that he hadn't immediately panicked
at the
question. "Was I that out of practice?"
"No, you
idiot," she grinned. "It's just that you said 'it's been such a long
time'."
"Oh. Did
I?" He thought about that. "So I did." Now that would be
embarrassing, if he allowed it to be, but really, there was absolutely
no point
in being embarrassed now. He thought back, and smiled ruefully. "Well,
you
see, that's going through the mists of time, before living memory."
"No, go
on," she urged. "Tell me."
"Uh ... four
years ago. And it was a disaster." He looked up at the ceiling, and
began,
in a quiet voice, "I was home for my father's funeral. After the
ceremony
I got into this vile row with my eldest sister -- I was staying at her
house --
and she kicked me out. So I went to the nearest bar and got pickled. At
closing
time I didn't have anywhere to go, and I must have looked pathetic,
because
this waitress had pity on me and took me home with her." He sighed.
"I know we did something, but gods know
what, I only remember snatches
of it. That's probably fortunate, too, it can't have been that good,
considering how I'd been drinking. At least she let me stay till the
next
morning. That was nice of her." He glanced over at Mon Mothma. "I
suppose a gentleman shouldn't ask a lady how long it's been for her?"
She chuckled.
"I don't think ladies are supposed to lead rebellions," she pointed
out. "Um ... three years. Oh dear. That was awful too. Well, not at the
time, but it was horrible the next morning. I was at a conference with
the representatives
of some planetary systems that were thinking of joining us, and there
was this
young delegate -- very young, even
worse cradle-robbing than with you. It
did seem like a good idea at the time, but the rest of the conference
was
dreadful. We couldn't stand to look at each other in all the meetings,
and
every time someone spoke to me I thought they were going to accuse the
Rebellion of immorality because of its Head of State's antics." She
gave
an exaggerated shudder.
Piett said,
smiling, "I hope we'll be able to look at each other in meetings."
"All the
time," she said. "I promise."
She raised
herself
up, with her elbow on one of the pillows and her chin resting on her
hand, and
looked beyond him toward the bedside table. "Who are the pictures of?"
she asked.
"My
family," he said. He turned over and pointed out some of them. "Those
are my nieces and nephews, and that's me and my sisters. That was when
Minna
was still speaking to me," he added.
Mon Mothma
grinned
suddenly, and reached over him to pick up one of the framed holosnaps.
It
showed a very young but recognisable Piett, in an Academy cadet's
uniform,
standing with his arms crossed over his chest and looking heroic and
dignified,
while a slender young woman in a revealing red dress knelt on the floor
beside
him, embracing his leg.
He yelled,
"no! Not that one!" and he launched himself at Mon Mothma, trying to
grab the holo back. The ensuing struggle was very entertaining, but it
ended in
defeat for Piett, as Mothma managed to escape from the bed, still
clutching the
holo. Piett groaned and fell back, slamming the pillow down over his
head.
Too late he
realised that this made him a very vulnerable and inviting target. He
yelped
and swiftly re-emerged from under the pillow when Mothma started to
tickle him.
That of course led to another battle, and Piett quickly found out that
she was
even more ticklish than he was.
Mothma finally
gasped out, "stop! Stop! I surrender. You can have it back." She
picked the holo up from the other bedside table, on her side of the
bed, and
handed it to him, giggling as she looked at it.
Piett groaned
again. "Oh, gods. If I'd known you were coming over I would have hidden
it."
She wriggled up
to
him, planting some coaxing kisses on his face and ear, and urging,
"tell me?
What is it?"
Piett replaced
the
holo in its spot on the table, then propped up the pillow so he could
sit back
against it. He looked blandly down at the woman whose hand was now
creeping
along his thigh. "I'm surprised you have to ask. That is an official
portrait of Grand Admiral Piett, Saviour of the Universe, and one of
his
adoring love slaves."
"Oh,"
said Mon Mothma, "only one of them?"
He grinned down
at
her. "All right. It was my first holiday back from the Academy. That's
my
sister Rilla. She kept saying how heroic I looked in my uniform, so we,
er,
decided to take that holo to prove it. Our sister Vara -- she's the
youngest --
she did the camerawork. She said she'd blackmail us with it later; I
guess it
would have worked!"
"What's the
red dress?" Mothma asked.
"Oh, that?
It's an old negligee of our mother's, it was part of the dress-up box.
I guess
there's probably a whole new generation playing Space Princess in it
these
days."
He smiled
distantly,
then reached over for yet another picture, which he handed to Mon
Mothma.
"That's Rilla when she's not doing her love slave impression."
Mothma took it
from
him, studying the brown-haired woman in the photo. Her thin face bore a
strong
resemblance to Piett's, but she seemed to have all the self-confidence
that he
so often lacked. She was wearing a plaid shirt and denim trousers, and
was
grinning at the camera. She stood leaning back against the trunk of a
massive
tree.
"She's in the
forestry service," Piett told Mon Mothma. "She's Chief Inspector in
our harvesting district."
Mothma looked
up at
him. "You miss her a lot, don't you?"
He glanced
away.
"Yes. I -- I haven't been in touch with her much since the New Alliance
was formed. Not with any of them. I -- I keep thinking they'll get hurt
...
that Palpatine will start a purge of all traitors' families ... "
Mon Mothma put
aside the photograph, and sat up so that she could turn his face back
toward
her. "It will be all right," she whispered, though she knew she
couldn't make any such promise. "It will be all right."
Their mouths
came
together again, and he was just reaching for her to pull her to him
when an
insistent beeping sounded from the door to his quarters.
He groaned. "I
don't believe this."
Mothma sighed
and
lay back on the bed, and the vista that this presented made him very,
very
reluctant to leave. "Don't go anywhere," he ordered. "I'll be
right back."
In a very bad
temper he stormed across the room toward the closet, in order to find
his
bathrobe. Sensible people, he thought, keep
their robes next to their beds,
so they don't have to parade naked across the bedroom under the gaze of
their
new lovers. He hated doing this;
being naked in bed was all right, but
somehow the moment he got out of bed he felt obscene and ridiculous.
The
doorbell sounded again, and he yelled, "all right! Damn it! Do you know
what bloody time it is?"
He found the
dark
blue robe, tied it around him, and stomped back to the door, where he
opened
the intercom. "Yes?" he snapped.
A woman's voice
answered uneasily, "Admiral Piett, sir, this is Security. Will you open
the door, sir?"
"What's
happened?" he asked.
"Please, sir,
we need to see you. We have our orders. Open the door, sir, now."
We
have our
orders? What the hell is that supposed to mean?
"It's the
middle of the night," he began. "Unless there's some emergency --
"
The woman's
voice
nearly cracked with stress. "Please, sir! Open the door now, or we will
have to force it open."
He opened the
door.
And found himself faced with a nervous-looking security team, headed by
a short
blond woman whom he knew he should recognise -- Commander Narita, that
was it.
"Well?" Piett demanded, standing so that his body blocked the door.
"Sir,"
Narita said miserably, "we have orders to arrest you."
Piett stared at
her. "What?"
"I'm sorry,
sir. Please, if you'll just come with us -- "
"No, I will
not! What the hell is this about?"
"Sir, don't
try to resist us -- "
"I'm not
trying to resist! I just want to know what's bloody going on! If you're
going
to arrest me, I'd like to know why!"
"Sir, we can't
discuss that --"
Narita's words
faded into stunned silence as someone else joined Piett in the doorway.
Putting
one hand on Piett's arm, Mon Mothma stood beside him, wearing only a
bed sheet
wrapped somewhat precariously around her.
A crimson blush
flooded across Commander Narita's face, and the security team all
stared in
slack-jawed shock, as the Head of State of the New Alliance said
coldly,
"tell the Admiral why he is being arrested."
"Um ... "
for an instant, Narita seemed to have forgotten. With immense effort
she pulled
herself together. "Ma'am, Admiral Piett is under arrest on suspicion of
treason. There are indications that -- that the Admiral is involved in
the
security leak concerning the Chandrila Conference."
Mothma's
fingers
dug into Piett's arm. The Admiral stared blankly at the security
officer.
"You're joking," he said.
"No sir,"
said the unhappy Narita, "no sir, I'm afraid I'm not. Please, if you'll
just come with us -- "
Piett blinked
several times, then ran one hand through his hair. "All right," he
said. "At least let me get some clothes on." Narita hesitated, and
Piett added bitterly, "I won't try to escape."
Narita finally
nodded. Piett walked back into his room. He looked around at the
various
portions of the uniform he had worn that day which were now scattered
about the
room, decided that he ought to put on a clean uniform, and then
wondered if he
could really be bothered. No one expected a suspected traitor to be
neatly
groomed.
It was only
when
she put her hand on his shoulder that he realised Mon Mothma had
followed him.
He turned to her suddenly, clutching her arm and saying with desperate
urgency,
"don't believe this of me. Don't believe this."
She gazed at
him
with troubled eyes. "I won't," she promised finally. "I
won't."
But he had seen
the
doubt in her face. And if she doubted him, everything he cared about
was gone.
The interviewer
asked, "Field Marshal Skywalker, is it true that creating the New
Forces
was your idea?"
From the look
on
his holo image's face, Anakin Skywalker had not been a man who enjoyed
being
interviewed. He was trying his best to be polite, but there was still a
tense,
faintly irritated air about him which suggested that he would rather be
doing
almost anything else.
At the
interviewer's question, Anakin's brows drew together in a very brief
frown,
then he managed to banish that expression and regain the bland face of
a proper
interviewee. He said, "no, I can't claim that. It's been a group effort
from the beginning."
His voice was
startling. It was the same voice as Darth Vader's. Less spectral,
without the
enhancement provided by Vader's breathing apparatus, but just as
powerful and
deep.
Luke felt a
fresh
surge of wonder and fear. That voice forced him to acknowledge, as
nothing else
had, that Anakin and Vader were truly the same man. Not two different
entities
whose lives had somehow overlapped, but one man.
This was the
first
of the news stories they'd watched in which Anakin spoke. The first few
random
choices they'd made after watching the award ceremony had turned out to
be not
really about Anakin; at most he'd been mentioned among long lists of
other
people. But now they'd happened upon a News of the Galaxy interview,
from
almost two years after Anakin had been decorated for his part in the
Battle of
Doom. Luke still had no idea what this Battle of Doom was; he was
really going
to have to watch all of these stories some time. But not now.
The interview,
they'd been informed at the beginning of the story, was taking place in
Anakin's flat. Not much of the flat was visible. There was just Anakin,
in a
simple black uniform, sitting on a modest green sofa which made an
amusing
contrast to the huge purple monster couches which were Palpatine's
chosen
decor. When the holocam zoomed out, the shot also showed a glass and
metal side
table, on which sat a black coffee mug. Luke wondered whether Anakin
had been a
coffee person or a tea person, and then was annoyed at himself for the
irrelevance of the question.
He glanced up
at
Leia, who had crossed to stand behind the sofa, her hands clutching one
of the
overstuffed purple cushions.
On the
holovision,
the interviewer was continuing, "but you were involved in it from the
planning stages?"
"Yes."
"Could you
tell us something about the ideas behind it? What made you believe that
the New
Forces were necessary?"
Anakin leaned
forward and said earnestly, "it's been obvious for years that the armed
forces needed major re-organisation. Or, it should have been obvious.
After the
travesties of the Recent War, the failings of the current command
structure
couldn't be ignored any longer. Hopefully, the New Forces will be just
the
first step in a complete overhaul of the military."
"What would
you say some of those failings are?" the interviewer prompted.
Anakin frowned
again, and this time he didn't bother to reconstruct his polite,
characterless
expression. His voice was calm, but it held an unmistakable note of
anger.
He said,
"there's no way we can go on with two separate chains of command. The
disasters during the Battle of Tavia made that clear enough. The entire
armed
forces need to be much better integrated. We need more co-operation
between
army and navy, and between any elite forces and the regular squadrons.
That's
why the New Forces are necessary. They are an elite
squadron, but their
members are drawn from the ranks of the regular forces. They may be the
best
pilots, but we can't have them thinking they're better people than the rest.
They've got to work together with the other squadrons, and all the
squadrons
have got to know they can trust each other. We don't have room any more
for
elite troops that think they're the saviours of the galaxy, and the
rest of the
military is just laser-fodder."
"You're
talking about the Jedi now?" the interviewer suggested.
Anakin's mouth
twisted in an ironic smile. "That ought to be obvious," he said.
"It's being
suggested that the New Forces were conceived as an attack on the
Jedi..."
"Not an
attack," Anakin said firmly. "The Jedi have every right to practice
their faith. But their role in the military is a lot more worrying. The
entire
Republic is going to have to think very seriously about what the role
of the
religious orders should be. Personally, I'm not sure they belong in the
armed
forces. There's too much risk of conflicts of interest. As we saw at
Tavia."
"But, Field
Marshal Skywalker, isn't it true that you yourself are a member of the
Jedi
Order?"
Something
dangerous
sparked in Anakin's eyes. "No," he said, his voice still calm.
"I studied for three years at General Kenobi's school, but I no longer
have any connection with the school or the Order."
"Why is
that?"
His ironic
smile
was back. He said, "as a soldier, I have to accept being told what to
do.
I don't have to accept being told what to think."
"So you
believe that Jedi should not be allowed into the military at all ... ?"
Anakin shook
his
head. "I've got no objection to individual Jedi joining the forces. I
just
don't believe the Jedi squadrons are doing us any good. They may be a
worse
threat to the Republic than the Recent War."
"Speaking of
threats to the Republic," said the interviewer, her humorous tone
presenting the comment as a joke, "it's been suggested in some of the
tabloids that a certain Senator has been a bit too closely involved in
the
creation of the New Forces. Do you have any insights on that?"
Anakin's
eyebrows
rose. "A certain Senator?" he inquired.
"Senator
Palpatine, to be precise. It's being said in some quarters that the New
Forces
are Palpatine's personal army."
Anakin grinned,
looking genuinely amused. "I wouldn't say that's very realistic. It
takes
a lot more than involvement on a few committees to make someone
all-powerful.
Conspiracy theories are fine for dinner party conversations, but I've
never
heard one I could believe in."
"So,"
said the interviewer, continuing the playful mood, "we can assure our
viewers that the New Forces are not part of an evil master-plan?"
"Yes, I think
you can safely assure them of that."
"Well, that's
a relief. And now, I'm afraid we're out of time. Field Marshal
Skywalker, thank
you again for meeting with us ... "
The holocam
angle
changed, cutting for the first time from the shot of the
black-uniformed Anakin
on his green sofa, to one also showing the interviewer, a slender
Twi'lek woman
in a pale pink suit. The interviewer had apparently been sitting in a
metal
basket chair, but now both she and Anakin stood up to shake hands, the
woman
looking predictably dwarfed. The image froze as the news story came to
an end.
Leia said,
"Luke?"
Her brother
didn't
reply. She stepped around the sofa and sat down beside him, tentatively
touching his shoulder. He still didn't look at her. He was leaning
forward,
with his face in his hands, but his eyes weren't covered. He was
looking
instead at the frozen picture of Anakin and the News of the
Galaxy reporter. Leia
felt him shudder.
She took her
hand
away, sighing impatiently. It didn't look like she would be getting any
sensible
response from him for a while. She knew she ought to be more patient;
after
all, she'd been regularly going into emotional melt-downs recently, so
she
should be understanding when he did the same. It couldn't have been
easy for
him to hear all that about the Jedi. She thought, with bitter
ruefulness, how
different this interview must have been from anything he'd been
expecting. She
suspected that Luke had a very romanticised impression of the Jedi
Order and
their fall. All high adventure, drama, good against evil. Not a
matter-of-fact,
un-glamorous question of politics, and certainly not a situation in
which the
Jedi might have been as much at fault as anyone else.
Well, it was
all
very important, and they would have to learn all they could about it
sometime,
but right now Leia couldn't have cared less. The Jedi could bloody well
look
after themselves, they weren't her problem. She needed to know
what had
happened to her father. The images from her dream, and the vision she
had seen
in Datang's cargo hold, were still searing in her mind. At times they
seemed to
fade, moving into the background, but then the pain and fear would
swamp all of
her thoughts again.
She had to be
able
to fit the images and feelings into some coherent structure. She had to
know.
Leia got up
from
the sofa and crossed to the entertainment console. Enough of this
pissing about
with random news stories. There was, she thought, at least one way of
ensuring
that she found out something. She scrolled down to the last of the
index listings,
and punched in the code for the final story on Anakin Skywalker.
Leia stepped
back
slightly and watched as a new image sprang up from the holopad. Then
she gasped
in shock.
The new holo
image
was of a man, an unremarkable looking man in a brown suit, sitting
behind a
large, polished dark wood desk. There was really nothing about the
image that
ought to be disturbing -- except that she recognised the man. She would
have
liked to tell herself that she was imagining the resemblance, but any
such
hopes were squelched by the caption near the bottom of the holo image,
which
read "President Palpatine's Speech".
The story
started
up. President Palpatine, his hands folded together on the desk in front
of him,
was saying seriously, "one year ago today, the Republic lost a hero,
and I
lost a dear friend. Today, I hope that the entire Republic will join me
in
reflecting on the life of Anakin Skywalker, and in re-affirming our
commitment
to live up to his legacy. Now more than ever, we must continue to make
his
vision for the Republic a reality."
Palpatine
continued, his voice firm but rich with emotion, "Anakin was a brave
man.
He was not afraid to speak out against the corruption he had
encountered, even
though he knew that speaking out could lead to his death. He was
willing to
tackle a mighty institution, an institution backed up by wealth, and by
years
of power, and by a web of bribery, intimidation and blackmail the
extent of
which we are only now beginning to discover.
"Anakin
Skywalker -- my friend -- is dead. We owe it to him to continue his
work. The
day when a so-called religious order could do as they pleased, secure
in the
knowledge that no questions would be asked, is over.
"Nothing can
bring Anakin back, but I vow to his spirit that I will not rest until
all the
corruptions of the Jedi Order have been exposed -- and stopped forever.
The
Jedi cannot be allowed to destroy another life, as they destroyed his."
That must have
been
the end of the speech, for the image froze again. Leia realised that
she'd
wrapped her arms about herself again and that her fingernails were
digging into
her arms, so sharply that they might be drawing blood. She forced
herself to
relax, but she was still staring at President Palpatine.
He looked so
ordinary! She wasn't even sure how she had recognised him. The
structure of his
face was the same, she supposed, but everything else ... there were no
deep
furrows in his face, no fixed maniacal smile. His eyes, though still
yellow of
course, were perfectly calm. He even had most of his straight, light
brown
hair, although it was starting to thin a bit at the temples. Slowly,
she shook
her head in wonder.
She heard
Luke's
voice, strained and unfamiliar. "No," said Luke, "that's wrong.
He's not dead."
Leia said
distantly, "they must have thought he was." Feeling numb, she stepped
again to the screen displaying the index.
Palpatine had
said,
"one year ago today". She skimmed up to the date a year before
Palpatine's speech. Sure enough, there was a large number of news
stories
clustered around that date. She studied the entry for the first story
in that
group, which was also the longest. She thought, this must be
it.
She keyed in
the
code.
The report
began,
focused on a carefully made-up and coiffured human newsreader, the
woman's face
bearing the subdued but urgent expression that usually only accompanies
the
most important, and serious, stories. The newsreader said, "and now, News
of the Galaxy brings you a special report, the result of our
investigations into the
terrible accident that still threatens the life of Field Marshal Anakin
Skywalker."
What? wondered Leia.
So
when did this damned accident happen?
But she had no
more
time to think about it. The newsreader was continuing, "some of the
images
in this report are of a disturbing nature. Parents should be aware of
this and
consider seriously whether to allow children to continue watching.
Anyone who
is easily shaken should switch off now."
Always, Leia thought
snidely, the best way to get people to continue watching.
"The pictures
you are about to see are from the rescue services' own security
recording,
released in full for the first time. As you will see, serious questions
are
raised about the rescue procedures, and about the causes of Field
Marshal
Skywalker's accident..."
The image
switched
to the twisted metal wreckage of a crashed ship, surrounded by the
rubble of
what must once have been walls and a ceiling. One remaining bit of
wall, with a
window still in place, stood out starkly against the general chaos. The
sky
beyond was dark, interspersed with the glint of city lights. The scene
of the
crash was illuminated by white emergency floodlighting, and by a last
few
smouldering glimmers of flame. Rescue workers were clambering all over
the hull
of the ship, and the camera zoomed in.
The newsreader,
in
voice-over now, went on, "It took the rescue services only a few
minutes
to reach the scene of destruction. The impact of the crash had
destroyed the
upper two storeys of an apartment building. Fortunately the flats were
unoccupied at the time. The fire from the exploding engine spread
rapidly
throughout the building. The rescue team was able to bring the fire
under
control, and entered the building to find the wreckage of a city-wing."
Suddenly Leia
was
very sorry that she had decided to find this. I can't watch
this! she thought. But
she knew that she couldn't stop watching, either.
The voice-over
was
replaced by the sound from the original recording. Somewhere, water
hissed on
fire, and someone was swearing.
One wing of the
ship on the side that they could see had been completely ripped off.
The other
was bent back far enough to touch the flank of the ship. The ship's
nose was
buried in a heap of rubble. The central power core had exploded on
impact, and
the hull over it was blown away. Large rents in the metal spread out
from the
centre of the explosion. One rescue worker was balancing precariously
on the
twisted wing, dousing the ship with some kind of foam.
Another of the
rescuers was reporting to the man who seemed to be in charge, but
although Leia
heard the words, she no longer fully understood them. She backed away,
felt for
the sofa and sank down onto it. The holocam was once more zooming in on
the
wreckage of the cockpit, and Leia saw what was inside. Her visions of
the
accident rushed back to her, and she knew what it felt
like to be
trapped there, in a body that everyone thought was dead.
But before, she
hadn't seen what it looked like. Now she saw.
She heard Luke
whisper, "oh, my Gods."
The body in the
cockpit
was completely unrecognisable. At first, Anakin's head and face seemed
to have
sustained the greatest damage. The pilot's seat had protected his body
from the
worst of the blast, but his hair, the clothing around his neck and
shoulders,
even his ears, had all been burnt off. The back seats had been shoved
into the
front one, pushing it forward, and Anakin was trapped between his seat
and the
controls. As the picture zoomed in even closer, Leia saw to her horror
that the
soot-blackened face was also criss-crossed by a myriad of cuts, from
the
fragments of the cockpit's forward window that must have showered in on
him.
His left eye had been sliced open and was now oozing slowly down his
face.
One of the
rescuers
made the obvious comment, "holy shit. Not even his -- or her -- mother
would recognise him now."
Another said,
"I wonder whether we'll find out who that was."
They kept
talking,
but Leia had tuned them out again. On closer inspection, his body
hadn't fared
any better than his face. It might have been protected from most of the
explosion, but still the destruction had been massive. His right hand
was
missing entirely. The scorched and bloodsoaked fabric of what seemed to
once
have been a black shirt was perforated in several places by curved
white
objects that Leia at first couldn't identify -- until she realised that
they
must be his ribs. His left arm was obviously broken. This was made
clear when
one of the rescue workers picked up the bent and dangling limb and
shook it
gently about like the arm of a broken puppet. Through the filth of
blood and
soot, the white end of another bone was visible at Anakin's shoulder.
It moved
a little as the rescue worker swung his broken arm.
The worker
commented as he stared at the blackened arm, "I hope you like your meat
well done."
Another worker
reached out hesitantly and touched one of the jutting bits of broken
rib. His
hand moved along it to Anakin's chest. Then suddenly he jerked his hand
away.
"Fuck!"
the man gasped. "Oh, great redeemer. Lord Almighty. Damnation."
"What?"
the other worker demanded.
His companion,
still swearing, took a step backward and nearly fell over.
"What, for
fuck's sake?"
"Sweet Lord.
Oh, shit. He is still alive. I felt him
breathe."
The other man
said,
"I think I have to throw up."
While the
worker
was being sick, a third man ran up to them. "It can't be," the
newcomer insisted. "That man can't be alive." He scrambled up to the
cockpit, putting his hand to Anakin's throat, and still protesting, "I
felt for his pulse earlier, just after we put out the fire enough to
reach the
ship."
Leia knew what
the
man would find, but she still couldn't help holding her breath as a
weird
silence settled over the scene. As all of them watched, bright red
blood welled
up around the rescue worker's soot-covered fingers.
The man
breathed,
"oh, my God." Then he yelled, "somebody call a medic, for fuck's
sake!" Without checking to see if anyone had obeyed him, he squeezed
himself into the cockpit, closer to Anakin, and put a hand over
Anakin's heart.
In an awestruck tone, he muttered, "man, how many ribs can you break at
once?"
And, just
barely
audible, a voice whispered, "twenty-four."
The rescue
worker
screamed.
Twenty-four. Leia
remembered
now that in her dream, Anakin had indeed said that. She clapped a hand
to her
mouth. And now the camera, zoomed right in on Anakin's face, showed a
small
trickle of blood running out of his nose. From the frame of the
cockpit,
globules of fire-suppressant foam dropped onto his head and down his
burned
scalp. His lips opened slightly, and Leia and Luke, and the rescue
workers,
heard him breathe.
The holocam
zoomed
out again, the scene now filled with running workers. Everyone was
shouting
again. Leia stopped watching. She turned abruptly away from the holopad
and
buried her face in one of the huge purple cushions. She put her hands
up to her
ears, trying to block out the sound. But she could still hear
everything,
though she wasn't sure how much she actually heard and how much was
coming back
to her from her dream.
A medic had
arrived. She was talking to Anakin in calming tones, though the calm
voice was
periodically interspersed with her yelling at the rest of the rescue
team. They
were trying to get Anakin out of the cockpit now; Leia felt her -- or
his, she
supposed -- body jolt slightly as they started to cut into the ship's
hull.
"Be
careful," ordered the medic. "He cannot afford any more
injuries." And then she said, speaking to Anakin again, "this is
going to hurt. This is going to hurt a lot." She drove into Anakin's
chest
with a syringe, and Leia screamed.
Suddenly the
sound
stopped. Leia felt hands on her shoulders, trying to pull her up from
the sofa
cushion, and slowly she realised that they were indeed on her shoulders, not
on
Anakin's. Luke was saying urgently, "Leia. Leia."
She sat up and
blinked at the holovision. The images were still continuing, but
silently now.
Luke must have put the holopad on mute. The medic was cleaning the muck
off of
Anakin's face, and Leia stared blankly as she removed the mess that had
been
Anakin's left eye.
Luke said,
"we've got to stop this." He stood up and started toward the console.
"No."
He looked back
at
her in surprise.
"We've got
this far," Leia said. "We can't leave him now."
Luke gazed at
her doubtfully,
then returned to the sofa and sat beside her again. He reached out and
held her
hand. Leia whispered, "put the sound back on."
Luke obeyed. As
the
sound returned, Leia heard another bit of conversation that she
remembered,
this time from her vision in the cargo hold. One rescuer reporting to
another
that the pilot had been identified, and that he was Anakin Skywalker.
The response to
that was, "holy shit."
Leia winced as
the
medic took an infusion bag out of the case that she had slung over her
shoulder,
and hooked Anakin up to it, sticking in the infusion's needle just
above his
collarbone. Then the medic began to work on his right arm, and the
stump of his
missing hand. "There's something very odd about this," she muttered.
"Whatever did you do to this hand?"
A moment later
the
medic yelped and straightened up, banging her head against the ship.
"Ah,
damn!" She stared at Anakin. "Never, never do that again. It's not
nice to meddle with people's heads. Anyway, I'm sorry, you don't make
much sense
in your condition. But, okay, now I know." She shook her head.
"Jedi!"
"What did he
think at her?" Luke whispered.
Leia couldn't
answer. If he'd thought it in her dream, she didn't remember.
Anakin's
breathing
was growing louder. The medic said, "Anakin? Anakin, would you please
look
at me? You're hyperventilating, god knows how, but you are. If you keep
on like
this you're going to lose consciousness, and I don't think your body
will keep
working." There was a long pause, then she added quietly, "whatever
your wife has done, there's nothing you can do about it now."
Someone else
asked,
"his wife? Admiral Talassa?"
"Yes. I don't
know what happened, but something his wife has done caused this."
Leia glanced
instinctively at Luke, and knew that his shocked expression must be
just the
same as hers.
Leia and Luke
watched as the workers managed to finally manoeuvre Anakin out of his
ship. An
ambulance ship landed beside the wreck. Leia reflected that Anakin was
definitely making the medics work for their paycheques today. Just as
they got
him onto a stretcher and down to the ground, his breathing stopped.
Leia gave
up on watching the medics' frantic attempts to start him breathing
again; after
all, she knew that they'd succeed. She gazed instead at the thick
velvet drapes
on the walls. When she looked back, they were just moving Anakin into
the
ambulance.
The first medic
was
watching this. One of the rescue workers walked up to her. He asked,
"what
was all that about his wife?"
The woman
frowned.
"I don't know. I got these pictures from him, when I asked about his
hand.
Not very clear of course, but somehow, an ... Obi Wan, or somesuch, cut
off his
hand with a lightsaber. Because of his -- that is, Anakin's -- wife."
The shock of
those
words slammed into Leia. She felt Luke's hand slip away from hers.
He stood up
abruptly. Leia jumped up as well, but her brother was already racing
for the
door. She yelled after him, "Luke!"
He didn't stop.
The
door slid open as he approached, and he rushed out into the hallway.
Without
bothering to turn off the holovision, Leia ran after him.
She didn't know
why
she was chasing him; she certainly had no idea what she'd say if she
caught up
with him. "Hey, Luke, I'm sorry that the man you respect most in the
universe cut off our father's hand"? No, that didn't sound very
impressive. Cut off our father's hand because of our mother.
Cut off our
father's hand and caused his accident, she supposed;
flying c-wings
with one hand wasn't generally a good idea.
She saw Luke,
ahead
of her, stop at the door to their quarters and slam his hand against
the
control panel. He strode inside. By the time she too had reached the
guest
quarters, he had gone into the bedroom he was using, shutting the door
behind
him.
Leia stood in
the
main doorway, staring at the closed bedroom door and wondering if there
was any
point in trying to talk with him. She had a brief inkling of what it
might have
been like to grow up with her twin brother. There would probably, she
thought,
have been a lot of occasions marked by Luke disappearing into his
bedroom to
sulk. Not, of course, that it was really fair to accuse him of sulking
now.
Damn it. She
supposed she would have to leave him alone. She leaned against the
doorframe,
feeling suddenly exhausted. She hoped that bloody Palpatine wouldn't
want to
see them again tonight. She could really use some sleep.
As she looked
up
and started to step into the room, she caught a glimpse of someone in
the
corridor behind her.
Emperor
Palpatine was
standing in the distance, watching her. It was too far for her to see,
but she
was sure that he was smiling.
Leia met his
gaze
for a moment, then she stepped inside. The door shut behind her.
Go to
Chapter 8
Return to The
Adventures of Darth Vader
Return
to Front Page