Heritage-Chapter 11

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Padmé’s first day back on Coruscant was fast coming to a close. It had been more than eventful, she mused to herself, but somehow she got the feeling that the end would be even more spectacular than the beginning.

The sun was a flickering a maze of mirrored windows as it set beyond the steepled skyline, its rays carrying a brisk wind that caught the tail of her skirts and whipped them around her ankles as she marched to meet the trio of Jedi on the landing pad. Behind her the sky had already turned deep purple and what small bit of stars that could be seen from underneath the smog glittered in the backdrop. Wedge Antilles, his wife, and the Admiral followed in the amethyst milieu at a slower pace.

She finally came to a stop before her oblivious grandsons and daughter-in-law, wincing at the suspicious looks on their faces. She didn’t speak at first, not trusting her voice to carry. The din of revving engines and the whir of servomotors droned all around them, speeders flitting around the spacelanes like gnats in the Gungan swamps.

Mara Jade Skywalker moved at last. She had been leaning nonchalantly against one of the ship’s landing struts, her copper hair twisted in a knot on top of her head to keep the wind from blowing it in her face. Padmé noted the lightsaber at her hip with shock. It had been a very, very long time since she had last seen her poor husband, but she knew that weapon. It had been Anakin’s. “Are you just going to stand there or are you going to tell us who you are?” Mara asked dryly as she sauntered her way to stand between the young Jedi. Her green eyes danced to where Wedge and company stood about twenty meters away, giving them privacy. “And why you’re with them?”

The old woman’s mind snapped back to reality. “My name is Padmé. And I am more than willing to explain the rest, but I really think we would all be better off waiting for Jaina to clarify.”

Mara jerked her chin in the direction of the disembarking terminal on the opposite end of the airstrip. “Good, because here she comes.”

She spun to see the young Jedi step out into the open, leading a trussed Jag behind her. She didn’t stop to speak to Wedge and the others, but gave them a tacit nod of greeting and kept coming. Jaina looked angry enough to pull the ears off a gundark, and Jag’s usually stern and unreadable face was flushed. Padmé shook her head at the pair and hoped fervently that the two of them could somehow form a truce before one of them got killed.

“Hey guys. Sorry it took me so long.” She threw Jag a sidelong glance and said, “I got distracted.”

“Jaina, you better have a really good excuse for all of this,” Mara hissed quietly. “Who are all these people? And what are Wedge and Iella and Ackbar, of all people, doing here?”

“We all need to go talk somewhere,” Jaina whispered. “Somewhere more private.”

“Why?” the colonel questioned with mock-harmlessness. “I think it’s a situation easily enough explained. When you got to Nirauan you accident stumbled across your long lost grandmother. Then, after finding out your bribes weren’t going to work, the two of you decided the best plan of action would be to kidnap a Warrior of the Hand to hold top secret information hostage. Does that about cover it?”

The look Jaina shot him could have melted durasteel. “Who said you were allowed to talk? You lost your pity privileges when I had to chase you over half of Coruscant. Shut up and stay that way.”

“Why don’t you try to make me, Jedi?”

“Jaina!” Padmé exclaimed before she did something rash. “Don’t. He’s trying to goad you into killing him, and then we won’t have anything.”

The girl mulled it over for two heartbeats before settling on a hissing, “One more word out of you and I’m going to cut off something you’re really going to miss.”

“Enough!” Mara cried. “Someone tell me what the kriff this is all about right now.”

Jaina gave a savage tug on Jag’s bound wrists, motioning them to follow. “Let’s talk in the Sabre.” She waved one hand and Wedge, beckoning them to come as well.

• * *

Leia closed her eyes tight, her hands balling into fists of their own accord. “What are you doing here?”

Zeya cross her arms over her ample chest and tilted her head to one side so as to regard Leia more critically. “You’ve yet to let anyone close enough to examine the health of the baby. And those that could try are too afraid of you. After that little stunt you played with Cale no one wants anywhere near you.”

Leia slid closer to the cool metal wall, pulling her knees to her chest. It was true, several medics had been sent to examine her, but one good Force push and they had scattered like leaves in the wind. The story of her almost-successful assassination of Cale had quickly spread. “And you’re not?”

Zeya smirked at her like a mother to a misbehaving child. “Why would I ever be afraid of you? Now come and lay on the floor.”

“No,” Leia resisted the anger building inside her, stuffing it down deep where she hoped it would never get out.

Zeya’s dark eyes hardened. “Listen human, I’m in no mood for games. Cale wants to make sure the baby’s alive. The Channel help you both if you’ve done something to it. I know you’d hate to go through all that again.”

The threat was veiled but clear. Leia wasn’t to touch the embryo or suffer another insemination. “It’s fine. Now leave me alone.” After a moment she added, “I don’t want to have to hurt you, too.” She doubted that she held the strength of mind or body to hurt anyone, but the intimidation had worked thus far.

Zeya shook her head slowly. “I think you have it backwards, Princess. Cale likes to think he’s the most powerful wizard in the fleet but you’ll find me a great bit more…resilient.”

In echo of her words an intangible hand gripped around Leia’s body and drew her forward into the middle of the room. The lights had been temporarily turned back on, and now Leia found them almost blinding after days in the dark. She clawed at the floor, trying to drag herself back to the imaginary safety of the wall, but to no avail. “I’m not going to harm you,” Zeya intoned soothingly. “I just want to check on the baby.”

There was Force persuasion behind her words, and even though she knew it Leia found herself submitting. She laid down on her back slowly, arms stiff at her sides. The flimsy sheet that had served as her clothing had been replaced by a standard navy blue jumpsuit, and Zeya laid the palm of her left hand gingerly over Leia’s abdomen and closed her eyes.

Leia felt sick as the woman’s Force presence invaded the recesses of her body, but quelled her stomach and held still. If she didn’t acquiesce they might suspect she had terminated it and try again. That was something Leia would never endure a second time.

After about five minutes she sensed Zeya withdraw, and the dark alien eyes snapped open. “It seems to be in good health,” she nodded her approval.

“Are you even a healer?” Leia demanded.

“Do I need to be?” she countered as she stood.

Leia sat up and glared at her. She didn’t know why she said it, but somehow the compulsion was too strong. “I’m going to kill your boss before this baby is born,” and she meant every word. It was the most conviction she had ever had about any cause in her life, which was saying quite a lot. Leia was a woman of many causes.

Zeya didn’t seem at all ruffled. “We’ll see. I’ll be back tomorrow with some food.”

Her mouth salivated at the mention of it. She speculated that her confinement had to be somewhere around two days since the ‘incident’—as she thought of it to keep herself sane—and she had been given water once and that was all. She was growing emaciated from her weeks of poor and irregular nutrition, and if she didn’t regain her strength there was very little chance of her ever getting away from the Baci.

She needed to act while she was strong.

Something in her head began to churn in thought, a plan forming slowly from Zeya’s simple statement. The woman would be back tomorrow, most likely by herself. If there was ever a moment to make her move that would be it. “Thank you,” she whispered to cover the workings of her mind.

Zeya nodded and knocked on the hatch to Leia’s cellblock. It opened for her and as she stepped outside the lights turned back off, plunging Leia back into darkness.

• * *

Mara was staring at her with a wary sort of chagrin, her usually smooth brow wrinkled in thought. “I guess you kind of do look like Leia,” she admitted. “Around the eyes…”

Padmé felt Jaina’s comforting arm settle around her shoulders. “It’s true, Aunt Mara. She’s our grandmother. I can feel it.”

“Me too,” Anakin agreed, grinning at her. Padmé smiled back.

Jacen scratched his head doubtfully. “I know it’s possible, maybe even probable, but I never really thought we would ever find out who Anakin Skywalker’s wife had been. It’s hard to believe that she’s actually sitting in front of us.”

“I hate to interrupt the family reunion,” Ackbar’s grating voice drew their minds back to more pressing matters, “but I need to know how you all think Colonel Fel’s presence could affect the plan Wedge and Iella have constructed. If we’re going to go through with this, it needs to be done right.”

“I’ll not be part of this,” Jag ground out, earning him a stout jab in the ribs from Jaina’s elbow. Padmé’s granddaughter had yet to leave the young man’s side. She seemed to always keep one chary eye fixed on him, like he might at any moment make another run for it. It was a serious enough situation but for some reason it struck the former queen as insanely humorous. It was almost enough to make her think all that hostility was meant to cover some very different feelings.

“No one gives a kriff,” she snapped.

“Children, please,” Mara rolled her eyes. “We’re trying to talk seriously here.” She returned her attention to the aging Mon Cal. “Admiral, I know it may seem that Jaina acted rashly and maybe foolishly, but the Force is telling me this could work. All we need is to record a short commentary from you and Wedge, maybe Luke and Han and some of the other heroes of the Rebellion and send it out on the HoloNet. People will be flocking to the cause. Then we send another to the Chiss with Colonel Fel over here and tell them our terms.”

“We either want their help or their weapons,” Iella nodded. “Either way we get what we want, but if we can convince them to help instead we might be able to patch things up later more easily.”

“They’ll never do it,” Jag shook his head.

“Someone get him out of here,” Mara waved her hand dismissively. “He shouldn’t be hearing this anyway.”

Jaina dragged him to his feet and started for the exit but was stopped when two new faces appeared in the hatch. No one said a word, but it was on Padmé that Luke’s eyes settled first. She felt something inside her break, and thought maybe it was her heart. He wasn’t a baby anymore she realized. She had known it all along, of course, but somehow she had always pictured this moment with her scooping her beautiful little boy into her arms and laughing in glee. But in that dream Leia had been there too, and Anakin. Not the Anakin from Mustafar, but the sweet young man who had fearlessly protected her on Geonosis. That vision shattered as the new reality took its place. But somehow it didn’t matter. The joy and awe upon seeing her son for only the second time in both their lives threatened to choke the air from her. At that moment she knew that all the lonely years on Nirauan had been worth it.

After what seemed an eternity of stillness Luke asked, “Mother?”

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Heritage Chapter 10| Chapter 11| Chapter 12| Chapter 13| Chapter 14| Chapter 15| Chapter 16| Chapter 17| Chapter 18| Chapter 19