Saga Sins of the Fathers--OT AU of Vader prosecuting a different Organa--updated 12/3

Oh....wow...

 

Author's Final Note (for now): I thought this post would take less time, but I regret to say this is the end...until the sequel. This story has taken SO MUCH to work out and to create. I didn't know when I started out that I would have huge gaps of time before I could get my brain back to the mindset for this plot bunny. I didn't know what I'd be researching by the end. I had yet to see many of the cultural influences that shaped the inner narrative as well as the dialogue. (I never quote directly from Frozen 2, but I had "Do the Next Right Thing" on repeat for the whole of one conversation in this post.) So I am SO VERY RELIEVED to have written that last scene. And I will be posting the first section of Hearts of the Children by May 1 for my own sanity. I will be working on the follow-up on weekends. Thank you for coming this far with me and both curses and thanks to @kateydidnt who gave me the challenge and didn't complain very much at all when I would say “I'm trying to figure out what would happen in the case of ______________.” several times in one day.
*
By the time Leia, Queen of Alderaan had returned from the Hall of Justice, the coronation feast had been laid out. While the banquet of the night before had been limited to a specific number, two thousand had been invited to participate in today's celebration and their new monarch was expected to visit each of the five dining rooms throughout the meal. There was one chamber occupied by residents of each of the continents and she began with a toast to the guests from Aldera before enjoying an appetizer made of fruits from the orchards outside of Antibes. The canyon rivers near Selrieen's home in Crevasse City provided the basis for the fish course, while Winter was welcomed to her mother's continent of Thon and was one face in the crowd as Leia sampled roast fowl.

This peripatetic experience was slightly overwhelming to face, but the greater challenge was to be found in maintaining a cheerful demeanor. There was joy to be had in this momentous occasion as they all looked forward to what they hoped would be a bright future. The unification of her people in such dark times was even greater cause for celebration.

But Winter's commlink remained silent. The door wardens were under orders to alert Her Royal Majesty if Leia's aide communicated news of any kind from Imperial Center. She even expected Tion, who had been invited to sit with Thane Selrieen and his daughter, to be the bearer of news if there were any. He was maddeningly relaxed as he discussed the daughter's most recent compositions.

By the time she had made her obligatory visits and witnessed even more artistic performances, she was exhausted by her blindness to the current situation. There were moments when she could put it in the recesses of her mind, but she could not banish it entirely.

The feast lasted until late afternoon and she attended to matters of state before dinner. She assigned her new Councilor of Defense to discuss the arrangements with Lord Tion, as no one had warned the Home Guard that the barracks would be overrun by stormtroopers and fighter pilots. Nature waited for no one and a mild earthquake was reported on the southernmost continent, so Leia dispatched relief workers to evaluate the situation and report on the needs of those in the refugee populations.

The evening's gala was the most restful part of the day. Following a light dinner, she joined her Council for an unfamiliar Igern opera and was able to set aside all else in favor of enjoying the love story. Her only obligation afterwards was to visit with the company and she felt like herself for the first time in hours, even if the performers were more deferential than the last time she had paid them a royal visit.

“Home?” she asked Winter as they returned to the speeder. “Or is there another stop to make?”

“Nothing until tomorrow,” she reassured her. “Would you like me to wake you at the usual time?”

“Unless something comes up,” Leia agreed. She found herself hesitating to speak the next words, since she was not sure of her feelings on everything that had come to light in the last days. In the end, she spoke to Winter with honest gratitude, but reserved affection. “I could not have survived these last weeks without your hard work and worthy service.”

That said nothing of the back channels or conflicting interests that had come to light in the last week. The statement only acknowledged the good that her friend had done long before then and Winter bowed her head with the new formality that was mandated between them.

“It was my pleasure.”

Moved by a need for family, Leia took Winter's hand in hers and they sat in silence for the remainder of the trip to the palace, allowing the peace to abide.

Leia was accustomed to awakening with a jolt in the early hours of the morning, but tonight's interruption was different. Her heartrate was not elevated, nor did she feel physically unwell. No panic gripped her throat and she had not so much as a headache.

Nonetheless, she knew immediately the reason she could not sleep through this moment and she immediately reached for her robe with shaking hands. It took three tries for her to tie the sash and she had to sit and regulate her breath for well over a minute before she was able to move forward.

The guards bowed silently to her, but seemed slightly ill at ease with her pre-dawn wanderings. Without knocking, she entered Winter's room and found the woman curled into a ball as if expecting a physical assault. Leia leaned over and nudged her shoulder gently.

Winter's response to the stimulus was what Leia had expected of herself this morning. In this moment of vulnerability, her mouth stretched wide and her fists clenched as she bolted upright. Possessed of a life-changing intuition, Leia kept her hand on her friend's shoulder.

“Come with me,” she requested.

Winter complied within a minute and this time, the guards seemed to take that as a signal that things were well in hand. They still followed the pair of them to the private balcony and took up station at the threshold.

This was where every vital thing had happened to the family of Bail and Breha Organa. Mother and Father had prepared for months for a royal wedding, but chosen to have the ceremony three days ahead of schedule with only the priest and two guards to witness the event. Father had come here days after the founding of the Empire and made the queen a mother.
It was a place sacred to their family and Leia hated herself for tainting it with ill omens, but it was also the only place where she could be absolutely sure of their privacy. Unfortunately, this was also a signal that they were about to have their lives changed and she saw the glitter of a tear on Winter's cheek in the moonlight. There was no news from Center, but Winter already seemed to know that nothing reassuring could be said in a place as private as this.

As Mother had in the Evesight, Leia took both of Winter's hands in hers and breathed deeply for several seconds before daring to speak. “I think Father is gone.”

The other hands immediately began trembling with a strange mixture of relief and apprehension. Leia was speculating, assuming the radio silence to signal the worst.

“There's been no word from Imperial Center,” Winter protested. “The guards have been under orders...”

Leia shook her head, though she understood too well the need to hope for the best. “There hasn't,” she confirmed, her voice as soft as a breeze. “But I feel it to be true.”

Winter yanked her hands back and palmed the tears away. “If it were true, they would say so,” she insisted, her face still covered by her hands.

Leia could almost hear the thought accusation. Why in the seven hells would you hurt me like this if there were no proof?

There was no evidence, but Leia could not deny it. It was a terrible burden to find such certainty, but she had awoken with a terrible, aching emptiness somewhere in her chest. The only reason she had not screamed at the loss was that she immediately felt that Father was beyond the reach of Vader's malice and it had given her a few moments of comfort. It was her duty to offer the same to her sister.

“Why tell me this?” Winter asked, still attempting to compose herself.

Leia reached up and drew her hands back down so Bail Organa's second adopted child could give free rein to her grief. She could not find tears of her own, not just yet, but her respect for Winter's sorrow was what had brought her to this balcony.

“Because he is your father as much as mine,” she said firmly, “and if it's true, I don't want you to hear this first from Lord Tion.”

It was a reversal of Winter's role. She had been dreading and hoping for the tone of a commlink for hours, hoping that any news would come from a benevolent source. Leia could not give her peace or relief, but she could give her understanding. Winter's answer was a keening that fast became a steady course of sobs, as Leia's compassion seemed to finally have broken through her disbelief.

By the time dawn broke over Appenza Peak, the balcony was empty once more, but neither of its occupants had managed to sleep again.
*
Her Majesty, Queen Leia of Alderaan, looked ill at ease on her throne. Tion had long found her to be attractive both for her aristocratic features and her influential status, He had even seen her as Alderaan's crowning glory. Less reactionary than her father and less deferential than her mother, Leia Organa was fascinating in her choices to challenge Imperial doctrines.

Today, she was a mere shadow of herself, as unremarkable as a static holo of the princess she had been days ago. Today was the first full day that she sat on the monarch's throne, but it seemed to be a place that she had yet to earn. The only sign of the young woman who had captured his attention was a look that communicated both resilience and resentment.

He had arrived uninvited, but was ushered into the throne room without delay. The queen was attended only by her aide and the usual contingent of six palace guards, He knew the location of every member of her Council as a matter of practice, but found it curious that she had not surrounded herself with advisors and supporters on this first day of her reign.

Sweeping his cloak over one shoulder, he bowed politely, but showed her no more honor than what was due a person of equal station. He saw a flicker of annoyance cross her features as he straightened, but it passed before any but himself could register it and when he met her gaze, he found that the resentment had been swept away as well. He felt a moment's pity for the woman before reminding himself that he should save his sympathies for use in the days to come.

He had come here to address a queen and she was resorting to diplomatic distance. His tidings would do nothing to establish him as a welcome visitor.

“Your Majesty,” he began, “thank you for seeing me in such short order.”

“I have a vested interest in anything the garrison commander has to say,” Leia replied coolly.

He waited a handful of seconds for her to continue with the pleasantries or offer him some courtesy, but neither came. The aide at her right hand looked close to fainting, but Leia seemed impatient for him to conclude his business and she would repent of that sentiment in a few moments.

“Your Majesty,” Tion said, “I bring news from Imperial Center. I regret to say that your father's condition deteriorated last night and in spite of the best efforts of the finest doctors in the Empire, they were unable to save his life.”

The change in her eyes was remarkable. At his expression of regret, her eyes had narrowed and seemed to brighten, but by the time he finished his pronouncement, they were dimmed with tears. A muscle in her neck twitched and she swallowed back some emotion, but her first attempt to speak was unsuccessful.

Sources inside the palace said that the young woman had been violently ill at the news of her father's capture, but she was strangely still in this moment. She swallowed again, perhaps forcing down bile, and dropped her gaze to the hands clenched on her lap.

“I offer you my deepest condolences,” he added.

Her head snapped up at that, the first sign of her old defiance, but she spoke in a steady voice in spite of the emotion she had allowed herself to display. “Lord Tion, this news grieves me greatly and I thank you for delivering it personally.”

It had the air of a prepared speech or perhaps she had steeled herself with words that she had considered in advance. A curious response from a recently-orphaned daughter. “As a friend of Alderaan and an ally to House Organa, I could leave this duty to no one else.”

She inhaled more sharply, then exhaled slowly. She looked with streaming eyes towards Winter, the aide who had responded in silent mourning, but apparently decided to consider her adopted sister's well-being when they did not have an off-worlder for an audience. Perhaps that was the reason for her somewhat reserved response as well. Organa took another deep breath, then closed her eyes until the flow of tears had stopped. Then she looked up with a subdued mien.

“What was the cause?” she asked almost inaudibly.

“I am no physician, but I am told that it was complications due to his recent stroke,” he said. “The medical reports will, of course, be made available at the time he is returned to the world he served so faithfully.”

The Empire was under no obligation to make those arrangements, of course. The man, for all his faithful service to Alderaan, had opposed the Empire even before its founding. His arraignment had been the first step in a trial that would have inevitably resulted in a conviction. And his recent stroke had occurred during a failed Rebel rescue operation. The Bureau of Imperial Prisons was well within its rights to treat his body as medical waste and only deliver a death certificate.

But while there was ample reason to treat the traitor Organa with disregard, this was a turning point for his surviving heir and Tion was determined to respond accordingly.

“When can we expect that to occur?” Bail Organa's firstborn asked. “Our customs dictate that burial occur within as short a time as possible.”

“I understand, of course.” He let the last word fall dramatically in pitch. “I only just received the news myself, but I will see to it personally that the preparations be made for transport before tomorrow comes.”

Her eyes narrowed again, but she nodded solemnly instead of resorting to more effusions of grief. “We will be grateful for your assistance,” she said. “You are free to go forth in service to the crown.”

There was something peculiar about these responses, but long years of service to the Empire had taught him not to expect mourning to follow a script. Nevertheless, Lord Vader was waiting to hear his thoughts on the moving scene.
*
It was a matter of practice for the Empire to maintain surveillance on beings of unknown loyalty, particularly when they were in danger of changing their loyalty with the right catalyst. Tion was a commander with the Emperor's confidence, but he was also the eyes of the Empire in the royal palace of Alderaan and he had been dispatched to the world with instructions to fulfill that duty thoroughly.

Today, that duty had been aided by a small holocam affixed to Tion's rank insignia. Had he been on Imperial Center, the feed would have arrived within seconds in Vader's chambers, but instead, he received the complete recording within an hour of the moment when Leia Organa had dismissed the Imperial messenger.

“She was quite affected by the news, as was expected,” Tion's report had said. “The news has not yet reached the rest of the world, but it would be advisable to make it publicly known before she is able to handle the matter on her own. Alderaan is in a potentially volatile state and I recommend that we make this as bloodless an event in their history as possible.”

It was unprecedented for Tion to not look forward to having blood on his hands, but while the both of them had been ruthless on Raltiir, it was a feat to have subdued a Core world without a single shot fired. If Alderaan's new queen had more sense than her father, the beginning of this new regime would be bloodless.

More sense than her father.

He had spent years observing the girl in the shadow cast by her royal parents, never thinking that they had no right to call themselves that. A discreet inquiry into the records only yielded the certificate of a live birth with Bail and Breha Organa listed as the child's parents. There were no indications of an adoption or fostering a child until years later, when they had taken an orphaned girl named Winter under the protection of the Royal House.

She is no daughter of yours, Organa.

He had thought as much during the interrupted dream that parodied the young woman's Day of Demand. She had sworn to find his weakness and arm herself against at it, but if Bail Organa had been telling the truth in those last desperate moments, the Rebel traitor had struck more powerfully than the princess could have.

She is no daughter of yours.

Organa had been one to slink around and employ back entrances, work in the shadows and conceal alliances. Leia was at the beginning of her reign, but was more forthright in broadcasting her personal aims. As far as Vader was able to prove, she was unfortunately opposed at heart to the fundamental workings of the Empire, but Leia had yet to decide how to act on those philosophies.

She is no daughter of his, but that can't possibly mean she is mine.

“But use your feelings, Anakin. Something is out of place.”

Obi-Wan would have balked at the mere idea of the continuation of the Skywalker bloodline, but he would have cautioned against accepting the word of a traitor.

But Kenobi had taken Organa at his word. Kenobi had conspired to hide a child from him.

“Where the Sith cannot find...”

The Sith. The man who had tried to murder him, who had turned his wife against him, had stopped even giving him a name. Kenobi had considered the matter with the maddening calm of a man who had long ago learned to shut down his emotional centers.

“The negotiator, General Kenobi.”

Kenobi had been renowned for his ability to leave bias out of his decisions and with Padme dead at the hands of medical droids on some Force-forsaken base...

“It seems, in your anger, you killed her.”

“I? I couldn't have.”

Not just the medical droids. Kenobi had attended a birth and a death on that day and had done nothing to stop it.

“Do you think Obi-Wan might be able to help us?”

“We don't need Obi-Wan.”

“Where the Sith cannot find.”

The Sith. Kenobi had stripped a father of his title and a mother of her child. What other acts of depravity had been his doing?

His fury was normally a cold thing, but today, it seemed to boil through his veins and crackle along his nerves. It had the searing power of a lightsaber, but he had no target. Organa was in the morgue, Kenobi had not been seen in decades, and the child...

“Hidden where the Sith cannot find...”

Hidden in plain sight. If Organa were telling the truth, three traitors had dared to assume that she would never be looked upon with suspicion.

She was no daughter of Bail Organa, but what proof did he have that she was even Padme's?

You think they were, perhaps, referring to another orphan? That you have another's blood on your hands?

“She was alive. I felt it.”

How had he felt her agony and not the joy that must have followed?

Perhaps the pain he had inflicted and its attendant anguish had been so all-consuming that there had been nothing left. It had, after all, killed her.

“He may as well have killed her and her last conviction was that there is still good in him?”

There had been a child. For all his cunning, Bail Organa could not have altered that memory. And by Obi-Wan's vow, that child had been hidden where Anakin Skywalker, the Sith, could not find her.

If the child ripped away from Padme was not the one Bail Organa had raised as his own daughter, then Vader had to know now before eighteen more years had passed.

If the memory was a lie, he had to be sure.

If it was the truth, he had to act.

Either way, he could not leave this to chance.
*
Tion had done Leia the courtesy of announcing her father's passing in private and she shared the news with the rest of Taia's children before he could dictate the manner in which Alderaan learned of their need for a time to mourn.

It would take strength beyond reckoning for her to speak of the facts without mentioning her suspicions. The report from Imperial Center diagnosed the cause of death as a cerebral hemorrhage, but it had occurred under the eye of Lord Vader and that made every detail of the death certificate suspect.

A cerebral hemorrhage could, the palace physician assured her in a soothing voice, have occurred as a result of the recent stroke. That had blocked oxygen flow to Father's brain. It could have resulted from hypertensive damage to blood vessel walls.

Or, she knew, it could have been the result of a head trauma. For all the physician's efforts to soften the blow as they discussed the findings in her private office, she could not cast from her mind the image of Vader hurling her father head-first into a wall to persuade him to discuss Rebel activities. He might have not resorted to such crude methods, using his fabled sorcery to interfere with neurological function. A monster who could move objects with his mind and crush a windpipe without making physical contact would have found compression of a blood vessel a minor challenge. It would have resulted in a severe headache, difficulty with vision, changes in consciousness, even paralysis. Vader could have easily convinced Father that he was on the brink of another medical emergency.

The hemorrhage could have been caused by a number of things, but Leia had known from her father's capture that Vader had gone too far and she had no reason to doubt that this was still the case.

But it would be suicide to say so and she could not guarantee that hers would be the first life put on the line if she dared to question what a medic within the Bureau of Imperial Prisons decreed. Conspiracies had their place in the drive to discover truth, but it was not her place to dispute the allegation that the report contained absolute and irrefutable truth.

With a battle group in orbit and a garrison being established, dissent of any kind could be a death warrant and Alderaan had too much experience with those already.
*
“There is word from Imperial Center.”

The statement that Leia had been waiting anxiously for mere days ago induced a reflexive shudder this morning. She immediately appreciated that Winter had uttered it in the residence, where no one would take note of her apprehension.

“Official or not?” she asked.

“Both.”

Winter took the spare chair, looking stalwart even in her nightclothes, and fearlessly handed over a datapad. Leia recognized the format of a flight plan, but it held little meaning. The vessel was identified as the Melsie's Folly, but declared four passengers and an intended destination of Corellia. She arched an eyebrow at Winter, but remained silent.

“Seth and two of his colleagues,” she said. “The fourth is a pilot who can be trusted.”

It pained Leia that they could not be offered a place on Alderaan, but Seth was a known associate of someone who had just died in custody and had suspected ties to operatives whose fate had yet to be reported. It was a miracle of unknown origin that he had managed to leave the planet.

“I hope they are taken care of by those who share our gratitude for their work,” Leia said delicately.

“That seems to be the intention,” her rebel liaison commented. Then, without permitting a follow-up question, she continued. “The other news is that your father's body will be arriving tonight with an honor guard headed by...”

Leia cut her off with a sharp jerk of the head. There was no need to name the person who would take charge of the so-called honor guard.

“I didn't want you to hear it first from Lord Tion,” Winter murmured,

Or, worse, have no idea until Lord Vader's shuttle arrived in the spaceport.

“Thank you,” she said in kind. “Please arrange for landing control to alert me when they are to arrive. I would prefer to meet them personally.”

It would create a compelling visual: the Sith and his squad of unnecessary troops being met by the Queen who with her loyal guards and had these been less interesting times, she would have found the mental image slightly amusing.

“I would prefer to meet them on my own,” she added. “It would be best if you were the one to receive us in the palace.”

Winter's absence would raise suspicions if she were too far removed from the interaction, but placing her at the end of this informal procession would give her an official role while not allowing her to be put in Vader's sights.

“Yes, Your Majesty. I will also ensure that there are rooms prepared for our Imperial visitors in the garrison barracks should Lord Vader and his men need them.”

Her fists clenched so tightly that bones seemed to be fighting to occupy the same space, but Leia nodded. “as our guards will be attending to the ceremonies, that is appropriate for visiting officers,” she said. “No doubt, they will be in attendance at the...” Her voice cracked on the word 'funeral' and it took a minute for her to find steadiness in her tone again. “as those who bore him home, they will be among those who pay their respects, but they have no official duties here.”

She did not add that one of Winter's duties would be to find ways to exclude the Empire from the Alderaanian practices as much as possible. The command was sufficiently implied.

“It is traditional for the honor guards for the rites to be provided by each continent, is it not?” She remembered the variety of uniforms at Mother's viewing and funeral and had been comforted by the global expression of grief that it implied.

“Those arrangements are being made as we speak,” Winter assured her. “Each of the thanes has taken the matter in hand and presuming that the funeral will be held after one day of public viewing.”

Leia felt her skin chill in spite of the warm air that surrounded her and she stood abruptly, crossing to the closet and extracting a light shawl to draw over her nightgown. Winter watched her with a sympathetic grimace and Leia tucked her hands into her sleeves, bracing her arms against her abdomen. This did not keep her limbs from quivering as if she had been doused in ice water, but it at least allowed her to feel covered enough to breathe normally.

“We only had the Procession days ago,” Leia said when some of the trembling had subsided. “These things should never have occurred within so short a time.”

Winter would know that she was not thinking in terms of advance notice. Leia had complete confidence that had she announced the viewing mere hours in advance, there would be thousands who would find reason to attend. Nor were the surviving relations of Alderaan's last Republic senator thinking of crowd control.

The most apt analogy Leia could think of was the summer of her ninth year, when her world had experienced four major earthquakes, two tornadoes, a wildfire, and coastal flooding on the same day that Mother had been hospitalized for a sudden acute illness. She was prepared to respond to crises as they came, but she did not expect them to swarm. Previous losses had felt something like individual injuries that caused chronic pain, but this was akin to crashing a speeder and being trapped inside the burning wreckage.

She was wounded, but could not see a way to either free herself or heal herself. For that reason, she was not surprised when it became difficult to breathe or the grief caused her physical agony. The recent feeling of being exposed to brutal elements was unsurprising, so she had simply found a way to treat the symptoms.

She looked back to Winter to find the woman still awaiting some sort of cry for help or declaration of intent. “What in blazes do we do from here?”

“Take a single step,” her friend recommended after a long moment of contemplative silence. “Once you have found your footing, take the next.”

“It would be simpler if I were able to see the path,” she admitted, returning to her chair.

Winter hesitated for another moment, then rested her hand on Leia's shoulder. “Of course you see it,” she said. “You have looked forward to this path for your entire life and watched Mother travel it to its end.”

“The path she trod was never this encumbered,” Leia asserted.

“No?” Winter tightened her grip for just a moment. “She saw the Republic fall and ruled Alderaan when the tyranny of the Empire was a rumor. She faced Darth Vader's threats and chose peace instead of oppression. I would think that your path is remarkably similar to hers already.”

There was a ring of truth to that, but Mother had stood against a Sith Lord who acted on circumstantial evidence. She chose peace because the Empire had never established a stronghold on this planet. Leia wished that things were as simple as they had been in the last days of the Republic.

“I worry about your place here,” Leia said at last, reaching over with a hand to clasp Winter's opposite shoulder. “Even in my anger, I have never wished to send you away, but it is already dangerous for someone of your sympathies to be under Imperial scrutiny and might be lethal if they are able to establish a less tenuous connection to the formal insurgency.”

Winter closed her eyes against that thought and while her breath remained steady, Leia knew she was steeling herself. “Father would not allow me to get personally involved. Expressing sympathies and relaying messages were to be the limits of my involvement until you and I were both of age, for both our sake. I have never set foot on one of their bases, nor met with their leaders in your absence. We never decided what my role would be once you took the throne because we could not look that far ahead, but if you wish me to never take further action for your father's cause...”

Her breath grew ragged and her brow furrowed. She seemed to be in the midst of a bad dream rather than some sort of pledge.

“I have my reasons for believing in Father's cause,” Winter said, “but I leave it to you to decide what role I can play in serving yours.”

Winter had spoken of steps to be taken and a path to follow, so Leia thought next of a mandatory step. “We have to convene the Council.” The meeting should have taken place today, but in the wake of Lord Tion's visit, Verlaine had recommended that they wait until the funeral had passed. “My cause is to stand between the Empire and the people who call Alderaan home. That will mean revising the protocols for refugee oversight. Lord Tion will want to personally involve himself in law enforcement and I have no intention of replacing the constabulary with stormtroopers. I do not want this world to be under siege, but Rebel activity could be as dangerous as Imperial invasion.”

Winter withdrew her hand at that, looking sickened. “My allies would not go that far,” she stated curtly.

“I know that the Corellian Treaty was not universally popular,” Leia retorted, keeping her hand where it was. “Your allies would not, but there are extremists and splinter groups and it is not just Imperial rumor that Father's compatriots could not keep them in line.”

She did not know how closely Winter was associated with the squad that had attempted the jailbreak, but a failed extraction was far from the most costly mistake she had heard of since she became aware of Father's loyalties.

“I know your intentions are good and your involvement has been what you might think of as cautious, but we are currently in greater danger than we can imagine. I do not know how long that will be the case.”

At last, she stood and replaced the shawl with a royal blue gown that recalled the Senatorial robes of the Republic.

“I believe you are sincere when you wish to join my cause,” Leia said. “I will be able to articulate it soon, but if you hope to be my faithful ally, you can ask your compatriots to ensure that my father's alleged crime was the last one that could be traced to the citizens of this world.”
*
The day seemed a century long. Leia had not requested that any meetings or audiences be postponed or canceled, but her visitors abbreviated their planned discussions out of deference to these troubled times. There were a hundred trifling decisions to be made in the days ahead, but she could not think of meeting with a designer to personalize her private office or giving her official approval to the head gardener while her father's body was in the hands of her greatest enemy.

Her last act before retiring for the day was to hold a private meeting with Thane Selrieen's daughter. Leia had heard her latest symphony on the night that Lord Tion had first offered his assistance, but Father's favorite of her works was a solo piece in memory of a sister whose disappearance in the first days of the Empire had never been solved. It spoke of a grief that could never be given closure and a hope that could never be suppressed and Valeria left after agreeing to perform it at the memorial.

Dinner was difficult, as she understood the need to keep up her strength, but had found it a struggle to swallow throughout the day. The chefs prepared a light soup and she left most of it in the bowl.

At 1921, she was on her fourth draft of the eulogy when Winter knocked on the door. “Lord Vader's ship has entered the system and his shuttle has landing clearance to arrive on the hour.”

Leia was at the spaceport at 1953, still in the blue gown, but wearing a heavy green cloak over her shoulders. Eight Palace Guards were likewise garbed for an official visit as they waited beyond the shields for the shuttle to finish its descent and power-down.

The shuttle itself was ordinary, not what she expected from the Emperor's lieutenant, but it was also larger than a standard lambda-class shuttle. Troop carrier, she guessed. She tried not to think of it as a hearse. It was Vader's vessel for when he wanted to bring reinforcements.

The hiss of hydraulics that preceded the lowering of the ramp broke her out of her reverie and she kept her eyes fixed on a point approximately two meters above the ground, using the focal point to reorient herself. By the time it had lowered fully, her breath was steady and her posture was erect.

The stormtroopers came first, six ghastly pallbearers that flanked the repulsorgurney. In spite of Leia's efforts to calm herself, her breath caught uncomfortably between her lungs and her nose and it felt as though she were being smothered by an invisible pillow. The sensation did not change when, three paces behind the stormtroopers, Darth Vader set foot on Alderaan once more. She let her mouth open slightly so that she could let out a rush of air, then inhaled slowly and deliberately as he approached.

His half-bow was unexpected—he was well known for showing true deference only to the Emperor—but he was meeting her as a monarch for the first time and it was possible that he was bearing that in mind. It was certainly not his intention to come here in peace or with regrets.

“Your Majesty.”

“Lord Vader.”

Another man might have offered empty words of official comfort or sympathy, but he was silent for an unnaturally long time. She never lowered her eyes from his mask, challenging him to offer some explanation or excuse.

Instead, after nearly two minutes of this silent standoff, he turned his head slightly towards the cloth-draped gurney. “I commend Senator Organa's remains to your care. If it is your wish, my men can escort it to the Palace proper.”

Senator Organa's remains. As if he were an interesting archaeological find being transferred from a field team to a university. Or as though Father were simply cargo.

“There is no need for that, Lord Vader.” The answer was straightforward and carried no hint of gratitude. “We have made the preparations to receive him.”

On cue, four of her guards moved forward and, to her surprise, the stormtroopers fanned out to allow them access. She glanced to the one with a commander's insignia to nod in appreciation before looking back to Vader.

“As you have had a long journey, I will not delay your travel to the Home Guard barracks,” she said. “I trust our men to see to whatever you may need during your visit. Good night, Lord Vader.”

It was an act of both hospitality and audacity to close the conversation so soon after he had begun it, but while she had a great many things she wished to say to him, it would not do to incite an argument in full view of whoever might be at the spaceport at the time. The man who had just returned home had taught her that lesson many times.

She waited until the Imperials had boarded the enclosed speeder that had been provided before turning her back on them and returning to her own vehicle.

No agreement had been made, but she did not give in to the temptation to draw back the sheet. She longed to reach beneath it and clasp his hands, but knew that the unfamiliar feel of his skin would be more than she could endure. She had not promised Winter that she would wait to see his face until he was at home, but she had decided that moment was to be observed by the family.

None of the guards broke the silence. Their destination was set and there was no need for clarification. Each of them had, at some point, expressed their grief, and she did not need a clutter of words to accompany this terrible occasion.

Winter waited in the antechamber to the medical wing, her long white hair bound up in the double braid that was traditional for a mourning daughter. With her pale grey dress shimmering in the moonlight, she might have been another restless spirit haunting these halls, but color flooded her face as she saw that Leia had managed to return without an Imperial watchdog. She clutched a bundle of cloth to her abdomen and Leia heard her sigh of relief when she was still several paces away.

She tapped her commlink and a few moments later, the same physician who had walked Leia through the cause of death emerged from the private suite of rooms that rarely treated injuries more severe than broken bones or accidental flesh wounds these days.

“Your Majesty,” Dr. Olemer said with a deep bow, “I will have the honor to attend to your father.”

“Thank you,” Leia replied. “I would like to speak to you in private.”

The medical wing was deserted so there would be no one to report their conversation or speculate on the topics of conversation. Father was brought to an exam room as though they were about to discuss the best course of treatment to pursue, but Olemer offered the chairs that line the walls and waited for them to sit before resuming the conversation.

“I have received the medical records from Imperial Center,” he said. “In reviewing them, the scans are consistent with the stated cause of death. Would you like me to investigate further?”

In other words, would she like him to physically probe for a skull fracture while Leia and Winter endured the anticipation? Run another scan to look for signs of a ruptured vessel that could point fingers at an assailant?

“No,” she said. “I trust your evaluation.”

I know who is to blame. The man who delivered him as dispassionately as a smuggler offloading an undesirable cargo.

“I'd like to look at him,” Leia stated plainly.

“Of course.”

In the same conversation in which they had discussed the postmortem findings, Olemer had warned her of the discolorations that commonly appeared after death. He had given her numbers and terms so that she could be prepared for what sort of decomposition could take place by the time he was returned to her. She had not been able to trust that the Imperial doctors would take care of her father, so she was prepared for anything from bloating to blood-flecked foam in his nostrils.

When he pulled back the drape, she did not take account of these things. She did not scrutinize the skin with morbid fascination in order to look for bruises or deformities that would indicate broken bones. She was here as a daughter, not a student of forensics and she only noted that Olemer's supposition that he would be kept in a refrigerated unit to delay deterioration had been correct.

Vader was a master of brutality, but someone on Imperial Center had remembered that this man had a family waiting to bury him. There were professionals who take care of embalming and other preparations, but she was abstractly grateful for the people who had not treated her Father's body as Senator Organa's remains.

Her stomach clenched at the memory of Vader's casual description, so Leia turned her attention to Winter instead. Her tears seemed to have been spent during that first awful day, but the skin around Winter's eyes was pinched as if she were trying to resist the urge to close her eyes and hope the image would leave her perfect memory. Leia took her hand without invitation.

“Thank you,” Leia echoed herself. “Will there be time to prepare him for the viewing on the day after tomorrow?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Winter freed her hand from Leia's grasp and unfolded the clothing she had brought from Father's wardrobe. It was a dark grey suit with a high blue collar, neither ambassadorial nor military. It was the sort of clothing that would merely suit his nobility. His favorite boots were folded into the center of the bundle.

“I will contact you tomorrow to make the arrangements for the viewing,” Winter said. “Please let us know if there is any other way in which we can be of assistance.”

The preparations for Vader's arrival had been publicly hasty. Rather than attempt to replicate his sterile quarters on the Devastator, the Home Guard seemed to have converted an isolation room in the wing devoted to their men's well-being. The stormtroopers were assigned to the bunk rooms already in use by those who had recently arrived with Lord Tion's contingent.

Ostensibly, Vader's accommodations were in deference to his physical limitations. The life support systems did not require nightly maintenance and he did not need supplemental medical treatment at this time, but attending to personal hygiene and nutritional matters was a complicated process.

Vader had chosen to accept these efforts rather than spend part of each day in transit to and from his ship. He would not have to respond to any concerns within the garrison remotely or find a secure channel on which to converse with Lord Tion.

Most importantly, he had an urgent matter to resolve that required specialized equipment. The first step needed only a syringe and needle, antiseptic, and a tourniquet. He had performed a blood draw for a variety of reasons and knew that because of the prostheses, he would need to draw a sample from the basilic vein in his left arm. He worked patiently to avoid hitting a nerve or hitting the brachial artery and was only impatient in applying pressure to his arm immediately afterwards.

With the equipment disposed of, he crossed to the refrigerated unit where medications and were stored and located the sample marked 23113877. In the preparation for the coronation, Leia Organa had been given a battery of blood tests and it had taken little persuasion for one of the Palace medics to locate a sample. He could not have known the reason for Vader's interest, but was not about to raise the issue.

The medic had left the necessary chemicals for extracting the genetic material, diluting it and preparing it for scanning into the computer. The comparison of samples would take some time, but there was one other test that he could perform much more swiftly.

A midichlorian count was so simple that he had seen it performed in less than a minute and in much less sterile conditions.

The count was nowhere near his own. Kenobi had put Anakin Skywalker's readings as over 20,000 and Master Jinn had considered his power unprecedented. Leia Organa was just under 14,000, lower than Master Yoda's, but higher than many of the Jedi Vader had hunted down personally.

The first lie that Bail Organa had told about the High Princess of Alderaan was that she carried the bloodline of the House Organa. The greatest lie he had told was that she had no Jedi potential.

It was a predictable omission. One fateful night fell on Coruscant and the next day dawned on the Jedi Purges. Within hours, it became a crime to know the whereabouts of a Jedi and a fatal mistake to show sympathy for them. The Agricorps that provided an alternative for younglings who were never apprenticed was wiped out in a matter of weeks, while parents who had chosen to have their Force-sensitive children attend education centers that would prepare them for a life outside the Order found ways to vanish without a trace. One of those schools had even been established here on Alderaan by a former senator.

It was possible that Organa had never had the girl tested, knowing the danger of the results reaching Imperial ears. On the other hand, he was just the sort of fool who would know her potential and hope that, by the time he was able to weaponize her loyalty to Republic ideals, there would be a place for a Jedi potential again. Of course he would have found out if her Skywalker bloodline could be of use to him.

With the fact of the girl's power established, he completed the preparations for the test and left the rest to a machine. He could not remember falling asleep, but his mind explored what might have been. A reality in which she had been taught to wield a lightsaber and power her actions with strength of her intentions instead of bowing to the will of the Force. He thought of a life in which she followed a similar path to that of a young Senator Palpatine and pulled strings to turn all enemies against each other. At some point, he even imagined what it would have been like had Padme lived and secreted her away. He couldn't imagine what a former monarch and retired senator could do on a backwater world—she would have made an excellent schoolteacher—but the Skywalker part of him that demanded to be heard could still hear his wife's hope that their child would find a home near the gardens.

None of these vain imaginings held the certainty that so many of his visions had. The Force had demanded his action by foretelling his mother's death and foreseeing his wife's death throes. Tonight's scenarios presented themselves as though he were being asked to plot the next chapter in an epic tale. Not finding any one of them acceptable, he could not turn his attentions or intentions to bringing them to pass.

Just before dawn, he compared the test results and, in light of the fact that Organa had not been telling the lie, everything became unbearably complicated.
*
The viewing drew crowds in such numbers that it was impossible to imagine that they had just held a similar event just days ago. The Procession of Fealty had been limited to those who had direct reasons for paying tribute to the future Queen Leia and had mostly excluded children. The noble and notorious were outnumbered by citizens of all economic classes and backgrounds. There were fewer visitors from the most distant of the continents, which led her to order that the funeral itself be broadcast freely.

That order was the only one she troubled herself to issue. Her place for the day was at her father's side and that largely involved receiving well-meaning words of comfort from those who were not at a loss for words. She spoke only when addressed directly and drank when offered water, but could not find enough appetite to break for meals.

That changed, of course, when she returned home. The viewing had taken place in the grand rotunda that separated the royal residence from the administrative wings of the Palace, as she could not face the interminable acknowledgment of their loss in the throne room where she would be serving for the rest of her life or in somewhere associated with joy, such as the ballroom or gardens.

Winter had not left her side throughout the day, but took her leave as soon as Leia retreated to change out of the dark green mourning gown that she had worn since early that morning. She had just pulled the pins from her hair when Winter's knock came at the door.

With the pleasant weather, it would have been a pleasure to accept Winter's offering of food on the balcony, but neither of them had had the heart to return there since the night on which Leia had expressed an instinct about Father's condition. They ate out of necessity, but did so in silence. Leia had no energy for matters of state and could not think of more trivial matters to discuss and Winter expressed no need to fill the silence.

It was not until they had returned the tray to the servants and sequestered themselves in the royal chambers that either of them spoke for the first time since the end of the viewing.

“Thank you,” Leia said. She seemed to be uttering the phrase more often than usual as of late, but she had been on the receiving end of many small kindnesses and the words were rarely inappropriate. “Might I ask a favor?”

“Yes, Your--”

Leia cut her off with a shake of the head. “I'm not asking this as Her Royal Majesty, Winter,” she stated. “We are still friends and sisters and I am asking as Leia.”

Winter often smiled just after a blink of surprise, but she could not muster the expression tonight. “You do not have many opportunities to do so,” she observed. “I'll remember that in the years to come.”

“The question still stands.”

There was a hint of amusement in Winter's eyes and Leia suspected that, had this been a less harrowing time of their lives, her friend would have clapped her jovially on the back. “Sure, Leia, what do you need?”

I need someone to remember that I am in mourning while on the throne. I need someone to be vulnerable without regard for the disparity in our ranks or the formality of court. I need someone to be closer than arm's length tomorrow and not worry that they are being inappropriately intimate.

If I can forget that you wish to be a Rebel, I hope you can forget that there are diplomatic protocols with how you should treat me beyond these doors.

“You have been of indescribable aid to me,” Leia said. “I know that much of it is because when you serve me, you serve all of Alderaan and that is as much a tribute to Father as any ceremonies we are holding. The remainder is that you are as much a sister as though we shared blood.

“Tomorrow, I will lay my father to rest and the world will mourn with me,” she continued before Winter could respond to the observation. “I have millions to be concerned with my well-being and I appreciate that, but I am aware that there are too few people concerned with how all of this is affecting all of the family.”

The smile that finally came to Winter's face arrived slowly, but it was genuine. “I need only one,” she said. “You have been attending to the needs of every v'Taiaketh by standing valiantly against Father's enemies and on behalf of his people, but you thought to bring me bad news in private and delay the moment in which I would have to see Lord Vader again. At a time when you had many people to blame, you found ways to extend mercy to me. I do not think that you did any of those things merely because you had a duty to Bail and Breha Organa's adopted daughter. What is the favor that you would ask of me?”

Leia drew in a deep breath before offering a smile that was even more difficult to manage. “Tomorrow, the world will mourn with me because of the throne I inherited, but in turn, I wish for my family to help me mourn with them. Whatever service I may do for you, ask it of me.”

Leia had asked for such a favor in various forms over the years in an effort to be treated as Winter's equal or to give herself some semblance of a normal friendship. She had never been the preferred child, only the one for whom life would inevitably be a thousand times more complicated than her sibling. Tonight, she only wished for them to be equal in bereavement.

Winter responded with an embrace that expressed a gratitude of her own. “As you wish.”

Perhaps, with that gap bridged, they would be able to face the darker days ahead with a new hope.
*
Vader had seen Leia Organa's resemblance to both of her parents on many occasions. She had learned her obstinance from Bail and her regal bearing from Breha. Her unscripted remarks of the past echoed the style of her mother and she even seemed to hearken back to the idioms of her maternal grandfather, who had once been defeated by Senator Palpatine for the office of Supreme Chancellor.

On Alderaan's formal day of mourning, Anakin Skywalker could not stop seeing her true mother in every movement of the daughter he had never recognized. From amid the arrangements of lorna blossoms and in the midst of throngs of her people, she regarded him with an expression he remembered seeing on the face of a senator refusing Count Dooku's offer of an alliance. There was a closed-off sorrow in her dark eyes that reminded him of a handmaiden who had distracted herself from reports of her people's catastrophic death toll by caring for a newly-freed champion podracer. Most remarkably, her greatest moment of vulnerability was at the lectern, when her eulogy spoke words of grief, but her Force sense roiled with the desire to take action.

“Leia. It's the name her mother gave her.”

Because she had been taught well by her false father, she spoke against the unrighteous tendency to turn to anger in these times, but the words contrasted defiantly with a sentiment he could only describe with the half-forgotten words of a Jedi.

“Something's wrong. I'm not the Jedi I should be.”

It seemed to be the curse of the Skywalkers to be at war with what they knew to be their right. Leia should have been educated in the uses of all emotions, not just the ones that claimed to serve peace. Had Organa truly believed in the greater good, he would have not taught her that anger was unrighteous.

Padme had not given her consent for Leia to be an Organa and no matter the intentions of Alderaan's last delegate to the Republic Senate, he had not raised her to honor the legacy of a woman who had gone to war against the Trade Federation.

“She will be loved with us.”

It would have been dangerous for her to resemble her father; the man who had been indoctrinated by Obi-Wan and chastised by Yoda could understand the fear of a man who had watched the Republic burn.

His fury was contained within the armor as a matter of practice and purpose. No one here could know the connection he had to the young Queen of Alderaan. Not even the Emperor could be permitted to know the claims made in a prison cell, nor the truths he had found in a barracks medical wing. That change of perspective had been done in perfect silence.

No one could know, not even Leia herself. He could make use of the fury they shared and the determination that was her mother's legacy. But not today. And not until she emerged from the abyss of this loss.

She was, in this moment, Alderaan's Queen and Organa's heir, but once she was required to stand beyond his shadow, she would find her ability to burn with the power of the stars themselves. Perhaps at that time, she would realize that her throne demanded an adamant figure in place of a passive peacemaker.

Perhaps then, she would be ready to learn of the other legacies that were her birthright.
*
The suns were rising as the news came through.

His communications device was relatively rudimentary. He could receive long-range comms, but it would take a journey and a negotiation for him to respond.

It was wise to remain on the receiving end of news these days. His survival depended entirely on his ability to be aware of turning tides and winds to shake the stars.

The news from Alderaan was just such a wind of change and most would call it a catalyst. He called it a tremor in the Force.

The trip that it set in motion would need preparation. It would take several days, during which water would be inaccessible and sources of food would be unreliable.

Nevertheless, the journey was one for which he had prepared for eighteen years and no scarcity would keep him from traveling this path.

The end result was far from certain, but the consequences could not be denied. He rid the house of everything that might perish in his absence and every item that could pose a danger to those who came to this place. He had come here with nothing but a few emblems of his legacy and he left with nothing more. He sealed the house against the elements he knew very well.

Having set his current affairs in order, Obi-Wan Kenobi turned his face to the suns and set out for the Lars homestead.

 

Wonderful final chapter. I love how Leia handled the exchange of the body with Vader. And the paternity test is a nice touch.

That final scene, though... here comes Luke!

I assume Hearts of the Children is the sequel? If so, please tag me when you post it!

 

Yes, it is the sequel and picks up when Obi-Wan finishes his trip...

 

Magnificent characterizations of Leia, Winter, and Vader! Superb conclusion and congratulations on finishing. Please tag me in when the sequel begins.

 

Wow, that was such an emotional ride. Leia is so regal, so frail and so strong at the same time. You manage to show us all the complex aspects of her personality at the same time.

And I have noticed that you speak of Anakin Skywaker instead of Darth Vader, when a certain man in black watches Leia mourn Bail Organa. Interesting choice!

But the end, wow! Now Obi-Wan comes into action and is about to knock at the door of the Lars homestead.

All, in all, please notify me, when you will post the sequel of this great epic!!!

 

Damn, that was really good. Great insight into Vader's twisted and warped views. Ah, Tion. I hope you get what's coming to you.

Great iMax-level projections there, Ani.

If I may paraphrase a certain Yondu from Guardians of the Galaxy II, "He may have been your father, Leia, but he wasn't your daddy."

 

Holy cow this was a fantastic chapter! I think your Vader POV scenes in this are some of the best writing in this entire story. the perspective he has is so warped but so believable to his character. LOVE IT.

 

Thanks to you all for your kindness, enthusiasm, and long suffering. I'll post a link here and tag people when the sequel starts this week. (I've already told Kateydidnt that I might be evil in the style of Tolkien, which you can interpret in a number of different ways.

For now, a couple of notes a la the "Trivia" page from imdb:

There's a reference to Thane Selrieen's daughter whose disappearance is never solved. The daughter is the protagonist in Wife of Deceit and the answer to that riddle is actually a lot more complicated than that. But I need to finish that series. Jas Dewon, the prosecutor, is a minor character in the same series, but is a high school student at the time, not a lawyer. He's named for Joss Whedon, who is a huge Star Wars fan.

Winter is a relic of the Legends era, but I've always been fond of her and I drew on her propensity for showing up with tea or crackers from the Thrawn trilogy.

Speaking of Kateydidnt, I asked her if this was what she had in mind for the ending and she had to be reminded that her instructions only went as far as Vader finding out that Leia's his daughter and that she later came up with Obi-Wan setting out to find Luke.

Until a certain point, this was meant to be just one fic, but then I realised I had to talk about the Rebellion and what would happen if the people involved were different at certain points.

In terms of the Force dreams, I have long believed that the Force can give people nudges in the right direction, while Force-strong people can use the Force for specific clairvoyant purposes. This is why Bail can have them as well as Leia.

Sorcer Debas was named for a friend whose screenname was TheMagicalDba. In Lest Ye Be Judged, Leia says that he's the only prison warden to ever think of her as the one who got away.

If you're wondering about the anakin references vs. Vader references, these are used to express Vader's inner conflicts and are also a callback to LYBJ.

No, we don't know who and how many survived the failed rescue mission. That won't be resolved until a few chapters into the next installment.

I have spent a LOT of time in research of different kinds for parts of this fic. My favorite was working out how to fake a medical emergency for Senator Organa. It was inspired by last year. I got a concussion and when I got treated, the doctor was concerned that I had high blood pressure during the consultation (this happens to me when I'm in severe pain) and that I would have a hypertensive crisis, which might lead to the complications discussed herein. Luckily, my BP came down with medication and I've suffered nothing like what Bail did.

Since starting this fic, I have had one book published and five short stories in anthologies. I'm learning how to manage my time better now and promise to not have as many 10,000-word posts in the next one.

 

No! 10,000-word posts are awesome! (Seriously!)

 

Yes, but they make me sit for three hours at a time for two consecutive nights while I have a headache, but my eyes on the prize. (In this case, I bought sushi for the whole apartment when I finished.)

 

'Relics' sounds... odd, to be used for Winter. Well, anything from the pre-Disney EU. And who's not fond of Winter, other than imperial idiots?

 

On my way to being a bad archeologist (again)... oh! THAT story you were talking about! I remember now! (That's embarrassing. Honestly.)

 

Well done, Indy. Hope you follow up when you’ve read.

 

**walks into thread wearing Flowered Jedi Robe, straightens glasses**

As the Order of the Greenhand would and so often does say... let's do this. **grin**

Can I just say thank you to Kateydidnt for giving you the challenge? Because... wow. Also: so, so glad you did NOT leave this at chapter one. Yay long stories!

My first observation: your typed font is not consistent. It gets slightly bigger and slightly smaller. I mention this because that made it difficult for me to read and is part of why I did not initially do any kind of a review. The other part had to do with suddenly going hyper... earlybird saw that, you did not.

Six days and four hours after her eighteenth birthday, however, she heard another set of words that reminded her of how easily her heart had broken at her mother's passing: “We've lost theTantive IV.”

**wince** Also: LOVE this set up for Leia here at the top.

Lord Vader had never been one to hesitate. Anakin Skywalker, in his past life, had always stopped to wonder if an action was the right thing to do or, more often, if Obi-Wan would disapprove if he were caught. Within minutes of his swearing allegiance to the Sith, his new Master had exhorted him to do what must be done. He had left his weak tendency to shy away from the gray areas of right and wrong in the former Senator Palpatine's ransacked office.

This describes him so, so well. It makes total sense that the part of his personality that deliberated would have gotten subverted when he turned to the dark side.

So... they have an Executor and an Exsanguinator in their fleet... the first could be excused as "we execute orders", but the second?

It was strangely flattering to think that Vader took such pains to insult him. If Bail were to complain about his conditions, someone would undoubtedly point out that Alderaan was known for its nostalgic use of pre-repulsor technology and classical styles.

Now that's interesting, that they'd place him in such a prison without modern niceties.

"Within the prison, yes," Garm confirmed. "We have friends in the guard force."

That makes sense that they would.

"This is an opening offer,' he said once she had pulled away. "I am not here to give you the reassurances that you could get from a secure transmission. I am here to offer the full support of the Alliance."

That's the wrong quote mark, I think... (Oh. And here I thought I would be doing no grammar/punctuation.) And also, Yay for the full support of the Alliance!!!!!

"Once you have made those calls, I would Winter to join Leia for breakfast," she informed her oldest friend. "The High Princess will not object to that."

That looks like a missing word, right there.

"He is here,' Leia said in a slightly choked voice, "to offer the services of the Alliance."

"I'm sure your father has felt the same way at times,' Winter commented.

She held up a hand to forestall any further commentary. "If Vader has enough evidence to take my father into custody, he will be watching my moves like a hawkbat. If one soldier in the rescue mission happens to have a third great-grandmother who once vacationed in Aldera, he will see it as collusion between the High Court of Alderaan and the Rebel Alliance."

That's a good point. It would indeed be taken that way.

The mask was back in place, but this time, it felt as though Bel Iblis could not decide on an emotion. "You are your father's daughter," he murmured.

Actually, he's very lucky that she isn't, but neither of THEM know that. Also, I love that Bel Iblis wants to argue with her on the logic, but can't fault her on it.

The Emperor's orders were clear and unequivocal: Organa was not to be a martyr.

So why the heck did he let Vader have this job, exactly? (Don't mind me. I can't watch ESB with other people without commenting. A lot.)

Charges would have to be pressed soon. As soon as the Department of Imperial Rehabilitation and Penitentiary Services had registered the presence of Senator Bail Organa in one of its prisons, the chrono had begun to countdown to the moment when the man had to be released or indicted. Vader had personally seen to the gathering of evidence and had no intention of letting the time run out.

Uh-huh. Lord Vader the evidence hound AND having the presence of mind to think about legalities. I kinda love that. (Where was THIS guy for ROTS?)

Name origin and the entire scene with Bail and Breha... all the love on that. Love your portrayal of them, and thank you for the explanation (for I didn't realize she had so many miscarriages).

Author note: Sorry I've been away from the keyboard for a while! I've been busy with work and personal stuff and was camping last weekend when I should have been updating. Unfortunately, because my head is killing me, this will be a shorter post, but here's another Easter Egg for anyone who read Lest Ye Be Judged. I also feature one of my longest-running characters, who first appeared in 1995.

Having also been the bad archeologist for that, duly noted. And... okay, which one of those charas is from LYBJ? (Memory fuzzy, but I loved this discussion.)

"No court has been convened on this matter and no indictment has been handed down, so the burden of proof is not with the prosecution, but with the law enforcement of the Empire. Once they have presented their evidence, I will know enough to issue an arrest warrant or dismiss the charges on insufficient grounds.”

...who have dragged their feet so much that they could also risk the case being thrown out due to some kind of obstruction of justice. Hee.

That was a danger. As a daughter, she believed in the rightness of her father’s actions, but as the High Princess of Alderaan, she could only stand in support of the law. When the sympathies of an individual became the position of a people, oppression was a very possible by-product.

That, right there, is the difference between ruling as herself, and ruling for her people. Interesting.

On Vader's last foray into the man's mind, he had found him dreaming nonsensically of the Emperor giving a dance recital with broken shoes.

I don't feel so bad now for giving Palpatine a mental facefull of cats and children...

And can I just say that this entire sequence of Vader doing a mindprobe is down-right creepy?

He withdrew from that memory before Bail could catch sight of Padme's face, but the voice still lingered as though a white-hot brand had been jabbed into the mind of the former Anakin Skywalker.

Serves him right. She trusted you to do the right thing, you moron! It SHOULD feel that way, especially given what he did on Palpy's orders.

Blind to the Force he might be, but his mind had been trained to go on alert at more-than-casual interest in his daughter. That went beyond the normal caution towards a threat to family.

Ah. So THAT is when he started suspecting something more off than usual. Proof that Anakin is not dumb as a brick. (He's an idiot, sure, but not stupid.)

Striker: So, Vader is on the case, now. And mind-probing. How long before he realizes/figures out anything concerning Leia?

Oh... right about NOW.

The true power of Alter Mind was a corruption of what Obi-Wan would have intended, but everything that Darth Vader stood for fell naturally into that category. On the occasion that he used it, he sometimes felt a savage pleasure in being so persuasive because his traitorous Master would have admired the outcome while abhorring the means.

...and I'm about to have to **wince** a lot. Got it.

After all, his own corruption had begun when a furious young man had taken arms against those who had murdered his mother and he knew that the balance between righteous anger and insidious power-hunger was a precarious one.

At least he knows this. Interesting aspect of Vader's character, that.

And also interesting that Vader got exactly what he wanted from Bail's reactions to the dream that isn't.

Sorry for the freaking long delay.
I see this and I'm like "No, a long freaking delay is three years..." (Which... seriously: DESK LAMP. Yay!)


There will be more to this. I'm on Thread Page Three.

 

...and now for more of the FEEDBACK review Ish didn't know she'd be getting when she said "hey, come back here." (I was on page four of my word document when I stopped.)

"I was wondering how long it would be before you sought my wisdom," he commented dryly.

"Not long enough," Leia responded. "If it were up to me, I would spend my entire life waiting for a situation in which I needed your expertise."

**grin** (This interaction isn't intended for humor, but it's the spirit of it and I love well-written dialogue.)

She could not imagine circumstances more troubled than ones in which the regent of a planet was arrested for treason and espionage. Then again, she had been born just after the first Empire Day and that meant the horrors of the Clone Wars were mere hearsay. She did not think, however, that her current plight was any less desperate than what the Republic loyalists had faced in the early days of the Empire.

So this... this underscores that she might not understand the complexity of the situation with the Clone Wars, because she didn't experience it, but that doesn't matter, because she DOES understand complex political problems. Love this illustration of Leia right here.

This entire discussion where Leia is seeking council and the by-play between them? Wonderfully done.

Leia immediately wished that she had a drink herself, but she steadied her nerves by breathing deeply and clenching her hands into fists.

This. So, so much this, especially in this impossible situation. She doesn't get to be herself here, and I'd be wanting a drink, too. I don't drink, and I'd want one.

She could only hope that her treasury advisor would have tidings that made her feel less alarmed.

May we all wish for good news (instead of bad) from the Treasury.

Today, however, she wore a gown worthy of her late mother’s formality. It was still white--Alderaan self-righteously presented their leaders as symbols of purity--but the shimmersilk was embroidered in elaborate patterns of silver so that she seemed to radiate an added power. Over this, she had fastened a royal-purple mantle with a clasp of chalcedony to signify that she spoke officially on behalf of the High Court.

That'd make them all sit up and take notice. Yep.

In ordinary councils, this might have sounded like a compliment or a half-hearted expression of admiration. When the words were spoken by the Emperor, they were as benign as the sharpening of a blade or the crafting of a noose. People had been quietly disposed of for lesser crimes than appearing to be brave.

It's Palpatine, the king and emperor of the political theater. I'd expect nothing less.

That was untrue, of course. Vader knew that they were reticent to engage in the example-setting show trials that were so effective in the rest of the Empire. Some found it quaint. Vader found it an impractical method that would have to be eradicated. Alderaans practiced law as though halting sibling rivalry and the result was a society sociologically unprepared to prosecute anything more serious than a traffic violation.

Is that supposed to be Alderaanians? Also... he who has a propensity for being a bull in a china shop finds political subtlety annoying. Not surprised. Not at all.

“I will neither seek her approval nor attempt to buy her loyalty,” the leader of the entrapped Galaxy sneered as though someone had suggested a brunch with the Hutts. “If she is wiser than her traitorous father, she will prove her fidelity to the Empire in due course. If her loyalties lie elsewhere, it is only a matter of time before she will be punished for such foolhardiness.”
There was an underlying command in those words of the same variety that demanded that Anakin Skywalker do what must be done at the Jedi Temple.

Is it bad that I want to see Palpatine actually having that Brunch? Probably. And here is where the Master/Sith Apprentice thing comes floating up, to remind everyone that Palpatine can and will order the death of few to keep everyone else in check, even if that actually leads to more people quietly joining the Rebel Alliance. Anakin did not have to fall, no, but by that point he already had. (I'm rambling. I know.)

Mon Mothma wondered for a fleeting moment which mother Rieekan was referring to, but it mattered not. Senator Amidala had given her life in an attempt to stop the Empire’s establishment. Queen Breha had never formally taken part in her husband’s revolution, but she had stood firmly against Vader’s all-or-nothing tactics and the strain had killed her just as surely as her poor health had. Leia Organa should have been too young for such a burden, but she was the offspring of a queen who had reclaimed her world from the Trade Federation at fourteen and a man who had once been the nine-year-old savior of an entire world. She came by her precocious valor honestly.

Yep. So much Yep.

“We let the trial run its course, but ensure that anything that would be truly helpful to the Imperial prosecutors was made unavailable.”

...and you know what's truly amazing? They're missing something in all this. Vader HAS the only thing he needs available. He has Bail.

I just realized: if Alderaan does NOT get blown up in 0BBY, then the Deyer Colony does not protest said destruction and get themselves punished. Kyp and Zeth Durron never end up at Kessell or Carida.

On the first day of nanowrimo, I was standing at a crosswalk when something went wrong with my back (doctor says herniated disc, but until an MRI, I don't know more details) and I've spent a lot of the last month not wanting to sit at my computer.

I think I remember part of this, with you finally adjusting an easy chair to bring the computer to you, instead of you sitting at it.

Kateydidnt: Does Vader technically count as law enforcement? I wonder if they're going to claim civil or even criminal procedures don't apply as it is a "military matter".

That's an interesting point. His Jedi Status would have afforded him to fall under law enforcement, somehow. But as Vader? No idea.

"They are providing you with due process," the defense attorney pointed out.

The appearance of due process, really. Not actual due process, or Vader wouldn't be tripping through Bail's mind at night. (Bad Vader! Bad!)

Given the time gap between when his ship had been captured and when the Empire had been forced to admit that they were pressing charges, Seth could not see this as hyperbole. The lack of action in this case suggested that Viceroy Organa had been meant to disappear quietly either without a record of probable cause or before anyone suspected that Darth Vader had been involved.

The LAYERS of this convo...

Besides, they would plead innocent, but Seth harbored a secret hope that the rumors of the Organa involvement in the Rebellion were well-founded.

...and my respect for the Alderaani lawyer went up a few notches.

“I acknowledge that you are of age,’ he said dismissively. “You are no queen.”

The italics sequence of the Day of Demand... is that a dream/nightmare? Whose?\

They were brave words for a child who had never fired a blaster in anger and who would struggle to swing that absurd ornamental sword. She could strike as many times as she chose at her adversary, but she had not the strength to find him vulnerable.

Oh. Okay. NOW I get it. (He calls it absurd, but she wasn't having any trouble with the sword.)

(Also... do find it amusing that I was going to read this, or begin to, in 2018, but instead ended up very distracted and immersed in The Sims 4 and DRL hit me... Ish! Finish posting LYBJ to FFN? Please?)

It also helps that the shrine was ten feet away from the Vader suit on display.

It would, yes. Hee!!!!


In motion review will continue... Thread Page Four.

 

...and I'm back again. Because.

I will finish reposting. And I'm on vacation this week and may do another post. Particularly since kateydidnt and I worked out something very particular that made rk_striker_jk_5 say "Damn." And being the brilliant author that I am, I discovered last night that I set up a major plot point in a comment two posts ago, but I just decided on that plot point last night. I'm just that good.

So... I keep seeing Darth_Drachonus's reply at the top of thread page six AND Striker had this reaction AND you... Hi, I just did theory on the run at YOU, re: larger story arc involving an atom bomb, and I'd decided it six or so years ago. (I get this. Totally. Also, I had to hide the fact that it WAS an atom bomb.)

You’ll find a lot of gobbledygook in the middle of this.

That's okay. I once brought a kid who never lived to life with gobbledygook. (Also a sugar high, but that's beside the point.)

A few remarked that Chancellor Palpatine had gone to a production of the same ballet in the last days of the Republic, though most agreed that comparing the stalwart Republicist Organa with the totalitarian Palpatine was absurd.

Not really, but in context... yes, it would seem that way. Palpatine seemed to love art. He has a Grand Admiral who STUDIES art as a battle tactic.

She immediately understood his pinched expression as Tion rarely called to exchange pleasantries. He was “If he would like me to take his call, I will be honored to speak to Lord Tion. I believe that it will be too late for me to comm after the performance, but I will await his call any time after 0800 tomorrow.”

Missing sentence?

Under normal circumstances, Commodore Tion felt comfortable kissing her hand or caressing her shoulder as though she were nothing more than a lovely specimen at his disposal.

Ah. So he's usually far too forward with women. Got it.

“And you are, of course, welcome to enjoy the beauties of our world and the peaceable intentions of our people.”

“Fine words in this time of turmoil.”

Love, love the verbal judo.

It was neither the time nor the place to debate how well the Empire addressed the same interests.

Which... darn it!

That part about Hobbie's home planet... is that the reason that he ends up a Rebel?

“They are performing a new work dedicated v’l’Amnios,” he remarked while his nails scratched the top layer of skin and his grip compressed her metacarpal bones slightly. “To the forgotten thousands who died in the bloody aftermath of the Clone Wars. May House Organa exercise the wisdom to ensure that those are the last of the mass casualties to be associated with this world.”

Without further comment, he released her hand and left the box as though she had been at his disposal.

Which... technically, from his perspective, she kinda was. Even if she wasn't.

You saw me go "huh? Why are we talking about Jedi and charges?" in the middle of this. Precedent. Got it.

“I looked up a few trials that pre-dated Geonosis and attorneys were occasionally granted the right to pursue a line of questioning because hearsay and speculation was not as clear-cut when a witness had the power to read the mind of a criminal.”

That's an interesting aspect of the law concerning Jedi, right there.

“So you’d like to talk the judge into treating anything Vader learned while rummaging around in Bail Organa’s brain as inadmissible hearsay?” Seth clarified. “You’re assuming the judge will get his marching orders from someone not directly associated with Palpatine.”

How WOULD that go? "Your honor, the Dark Lord of the Sith can read minds, please disregard anything he's picked up in the time my client was in his care."

At least Leia got to talk to Bail eventually here. Love the nuance that she's TRYING to get across to him what she can't actually say...

He plunged on before she could finish that thought. “You were invested with the heir’s crown years ago,” he said. “You proved yourself worthy of your royal heritage time and again.”

...and the nuance of what he actually IS saying. There's the man who would and does trust her with his life.

“I must ask you,” he countered. “Not simply because Alderaan needs someone to look to in faith and with hope. Not merely because it has been your right since your investiture.”

...and also because it might be his only chance to say it. Well played, Bail. Well played.

Striker: As for that Lord Tion... I don't think I've heard of him before now. But damn he's a slimy son of a bantha.

I wasn't going to put it like that, but... yep! All the yep!

“Calls can be intercepted or overheard. Not all of the thanes are likely to have an Imperial loyalist on their staff, but most of them put their trust in people who enjoy a good rumor.”

...and loose lips sink ships, as it were.

It was patterned after a gown favored by a chancellor’s wife in the days when such people existed, and Leia had always felt it made her look more somber than she had any right to be.

Is that shades of Mrs. Palpatine, right there?

The document containgin the “wisdom and will” would be transcribed for official records, but Father had recorded a holo for this declaration.

Did he have some reason to think that her legitimate claim to the throne might be challenged or was this a mere reminder of how completely she would have to give herself to the people of Alderaan?

Yes. And it's not the reason that she might think it is...

Father would be shown these proceedings. Seth would see to that. She had no idea what he meant by echoing her Naming, but with an added word of her own, she let him know that she had not been deaf to the message.

I see what he did there. He knows. Vader will know. There is nothing better than an active demonstration that does not look like one to drive the point home: she's MY kid.

“Even if the message is, ‘Look happy. You may be dying, but you’re dying for people with style?’” Tonc scoffed.

Yep. Even then.

“I was joking about getting Vader drunk,” Sefla protested.

Suddenly, I kind of want someone NOT to be joking about such a thing. Vader... tipsy!

K-2 turned optics in his direction and tilted his chin towards his chestplate. “Your accent is acceptable and it is unlikely that the Empire will casually come across the infractions committed under your various aliases, but I was referring to how absurd you look without facial hair.”

...when the droid played by Alan Tudyk is loved by us all... hee!!!!

“I am able to sleep,” Bail said quietly at last. “Restlessly, but I am not being kept from resting by any of the prison staff.”

No, just by the idiot Sith Lord who won't stop haunting his dreams. Would Seth believe that? Maybe.

He opened his mouth to speak, but found himself rushing to the in-cell toilet to be violently ill.

**nodds** So soon after waking from that dream that isn't one... yep.

“Then, while I still consider myself your student, let us talk of what cannot be learned by mere experience.”

I'm not highlighting more of their convo, because I couldn't pick just one moment or two and loved the whole exchange. But this... so, so much this.

“His Majesty the Emperor would be pleased to receive you within the hour,” he reported.

...and now Leia gets to play verbal judo with the master.


Will again be back. Still on Thread Page Four, midway thru verbal judo with Palpatine.

 

...where was I in this? **squints at last post...** Oh. Right.

I didn't really go into it before, but I thought you got just the right tone for Cassian's squad.

That thought had taken too much time and the two men were still regarding her, but Leia had promised herself that she would not set her mouth to auto-pilot when within striking distance of the man responsible for the Purges.

Always a good thing to remember, right there.

This time, the expression was sneering rather than benevolent. The man clearly enjooyed telegraphing opinions in a way that would leave no room for speculation in matters of great concern. She should have been prudent enough to feel fear, but the last months had taught her to wait for more input before committing to an emotion.

“And should peace in the wake of your father's reign be a long time in coming, rest assured that your Emperor stands ready to assist,” he continued. “All eyes are on Alderaan in these troubled times, but if Lord Vader must step in, he has my command to do so.”

Uh-huh... he who has no patience for subtlety needs but a finger out of place to interfere, and... ack. All the acks.

“I thank you for your attention and your concern,” she said, despising the slight rasp in her voice. After another moment, she spoke with more confidence. “What is it that I might do for you, Your Majesty?”

“Rule Alderaan as I might.”

If it were anyone else, I'd be asking if they were joking. It being Palpatine... eep.

“I will follow your career with great interest, young Organa,” he murmured. “May you have safe travels back to Alderaan.”

When well-wishing is also a threat in disguise.

...did I finally get off of Thread Page Four? Yep! Yay!!!!!!

This response both makes me really happy and makes me think aaaaaaagh, you’re all going to hate me when we get to the sequel.

No, we're not. Set up good, execution even better!

In the meantime, hope you enjoy this flashback that made me watch thirty-two seconds of Revenge of the Sith six times...

**raises hand** Captain America Civil War... about that many times, Bucharest Apartment Building Sequence. Gosh, that's a tall soviet era apartment building...

This entire flashback at Polis Massa: LOVE THIS. I couldn't pick one single moment out of it, and it speaks to how much they've all been thru to that point that each are in their own way reeling.

If there are errors in medical stuff, I blame that I became a writer instead of a doctor and I did the best I could. I even have a medical section in here inspired by me nearly having an ER visit after getting a concussion. But I'm serious when I say I'll update soon because Sith is about to get real.

And with that in mind, let's read, shall we?

“She is clear-minded as a rule, but single-minded in a crisis. It is a virtue learned from her mother.”

Such a Dad thing to say.

Any idiot could handle that, but it took careful consultation with a medic outside of the prison to find the right cocktail to alleviate some of Bail Organa's symptoms and eventually induce a more alarming set of circumstances.

Cassian's team coming up with a million plans and the actual stumbling block is Vader. Huh...

Okay. You know, I actually read one entire section of this part before I read the beginning, so NOW the Devastator's arrival makes a bit more sense. As does the part about Winter being in collusion with Bel Iblis.

Bail Organa was released to the Imperial Bureau of Prisons, not after recovery, but on the orders of Imperial officials who no longer saw him as in need of favors. He was alive and out of immediate danger and the only change in his circumstances was that he was moved to solitary confinement in a facility so high-security that the roster of prisoners was a mere rumor.

That's a lot of over to that kill. My goodness.

This whole sequence with dream-Breha? Love it, especially Leia getting the chance to voice her doubts and the therapy taking place, even if it's in a dream-like state.

“My request is that you turn your attention to Father,” she whispered.

“I would consent to that petition if I had ever turned my attention away,” Mother responded in kind.

**nods** Good, good response.

He remembered little of where he was being kept, but the muscle spasms and paralysis were there every time he clawed his way to consciousness and he always felt immersed in an ice bath.

That's an interesting detail, about the ice bath.

And that Breha gave him some small relief before he had to face Vader... love that. Loved their chat.

It was impossible to be subtle from the bridge of a Star Destroyer, but daevotion to the Dark Side required the mastery of subtle arts.

Yes. Yes it does. (Also, I had to look that one up to see if I was reading it right...)

Then Organa retaliated with a memory of the woman who had been Anakin Skywalker's first love and Darth Vader's most personal enemy.

“So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause.”

Jarred, Vader forced the image out with one of Breha tending to the young princess that had appeared in the holonews.

That startled me, this about how Padme is his most personal enemy, only she's not and this is so, so messy. Do battle with Lord Vader's denial, sir. Do battle.

Organa's efforts to calm his mind had been set back in the wake of the fit. He had not returned to his previous state of control and Vader had little time to strike before that changed.''

“Good?” Bail echoed, voice tight with a combination of fury and impotent grief. “He may as well have killed her and her last conviction was that there is still good in him? How could she believe that?”

...because she's right? (But Bail would have been absolutely correct in wondering. Totally.)

The scene began to fade and he scrambled to regain control of the connection, but the scene merely shifted. In the late afternoon light, Bail Organa delivered the same baby girl into the arms of his queen. The image faded, but whispers of words remained as Organa's focus waned.

I wasn't sure of it before, but... is Bail actively hiding the fact that it was Twins? Repeatedly in this sequence, they only mention Leia.

Vader staggered back, feeling winded in spite of the respirator and on the verge of collapse in spite of the prosthetics that ensured his knees would never buckle.

Yep. So much yep.

Anakin Skywalker, at last a father, was once more a murderer.

And now I shall echo Darth_Drachonus with my own Oh... wow...

“Because he is your father as much as mine,” she said firmly, “and if it's true, I don't want you to hear this first from Lord Tion.”

Yeah. No one needs to hear anything first from that guy.

“I offer you my deepest condolences,” he added.

...is it wrong to want to punch this guy I know you're using for a specific reason?

“What was the cause?”

The actual cause? "Leia, you have a donor father who is beside himself, literally, and no Luke yet to pull him back from the brink." (No, that would not go over well... and in this situation, I can't call Vader her Father-Father, because he isn't.)

“I didn't want you to hear it first from Lord Tion,” Winter murmured,

Again loving the relationship between these two.

Perhaps at that time, she would realize that her throne demanded an adamant figure in place of a passive peacemaker.

Vader's head: always an interesting place to see things from.

If you're wondering about the anakin references vs. Vader references, these are used to express Vader's inner conflicts and are also a callback to LYBJ.

That makes sense.


...and here I leave you with this very long feedback review.

 

So. I'm finally here for a review, and while it won't be quite as long and detailed as this story deserves, I'm still going to try and touch upon the main points that stood out to me, because this is truly stellar writing.

The first aspect, of course, is the way you examined the implications of Bail's arrest at the planetary level and use that plot element as an entry point to your worldbuilding around Alderaan, not only on the cultural, philosophical and religious level but also in terms of expanding upon the political institutions and the ceremony that accompanies them. Yet even as you show us readers how Alderaan functions as a planet committed to peace and freedom, there's Lord Tion's presence looming in the background, ever more ominous, and the result is a rather claustrophobic atmosphere where we end up experiencing the same pressure as Leia as she finds herself in this impossible situation.

The second aspect is the connection to the Rebellion, and of course it would have contacts everywhere and fingers in every possible pie given the social and political status of its leaders! I absolutely loved all the legal wrangling, especially the role of a judge who is not really a Rebel but is deeply committed to the rule of law. At the same time, Leia didn't expect that there would be a Rebel agent in her own entourage in the form of her best friend/sister, and neither did I. I loved your characterisation of Bel Iblis with his roguish temperament, and the mission to free Bail gone wrong was one of the most suspenseful scenes I've read in quite a while.

The third aspect, and the one that really stole this fic for me, was Vader in the role of the investigator and his incursions into Bail's mind. I am simply in awe at how you had these evolve from him standing there as a spectator trying to witness information, to beginning to inject visions of the prime!verse into Bail's mind in order to "soften him up", and it eventually turns into a dialogue between Leia's two fathers. Having Bail reveal her true parentage in order to protect her was a masterful move, both on his behalf as a politician and on your behalf as a writer, and I'm very excited to see you pick up this thread in the sequel.

Oh, and nice little coda there with Obi-Wan at the end I've already read what you posted so far of HotC, but it was nice to see this Alderaanian affair connected to developments with galaxy-wide implications within the confines of this story.

 

@DaenaBenjen42 You’re not THAT bad an archaeologist. I’m the one who took two years to respond to your commentary. Nice Flowered Jedi Robe. Yes, Kateydidnt is a rock star for coming up with this premise. And this is not exactly a long story, but the sequel is already at nearly 50,000 words and hasn’t hit the main plots that need to be covered (ANH and ESB events). The typed font is not something that my computer lets me change. I don’t know what the coding does to it. Give feedback to the coders, please. I also won’t comment on typo commentary. Thanks for catching it and I’ll get them edited in when I’m not so tired. Glad you enjoyed the setup. With Vader, I try to think of the fact that he’s redeemed by the end because there is this part of him that suppresses his instincts for penitence. It’s a lot of what I put into LYBJ and the exploration of his repentance there. I’ve done my fair share of repenting as someone who has been religious her entire life and as a missionary, I talked a lot about what is a good path for repentance. I won’t teach a Sunday School lesson here. The Executor and Exsanguinator are both real Star Destroyers from the Empire. Vader and company didn’t give fluffy names to their weapons of war. Exsanguinator is someone who makes blood run freely. My design of the Imperial prisons was based on reading about police headquarters under Stalin and some of the tortures and assassinations that took place at a headquarters across the street from a famous toy store. This is the place that Michael Stackpoe drew the name Lusankya from as it’s Lubyanka and I asked him about it when researching the NKVD years ago. It was a place of great deprivations in a well-developed city for its time. I feel like the Alliance would work hard for Bail’s benefit because he is such a founding and foundational signatory of the Corellian Treaty (and the Petition of the Two Thousand). The point about the evidence of collusion is sadly taken both from Stalinism and Nazism. There was a Marshal assassinated on forged evidence that he had been in a funeral procession with an enemy of the state and was obviously a traitor. Let me see if I can look up that name. Ah, Tukhachevsky. Also, I was reminded in writing the line of people labeled as Jews by blood association in the Third Reich. Yeah, Leia is extremely fortunate to be someone else’s daughter, biologically and philosophically at times in this series. Glad you enjoy Bel Iblis. He’s been my favorite book-only character since the moment in Dark Force Rising when Leia’s on the verge of having to arrest Han for treason and Bel Iblis shows up with ships and makes small talk with his old Senate friend Leia. Oh, yeah. I’m just like you with the commentary. You would not like me during ROTS where I stop to yell at the characters for being profoundly stupid at times. The “Where was THIS guy for ROTS?” is an example of that. And I figure Vader is in this fight with “There will be no one to stop us this time.” That includes the rebels, the courts, etc. Thanks for loving the portrayal of Bail and Breha. I had fun writing them in five different fics this summer for the Olympics pentathlon challenge. The details of her attempts to have kids are kind of mind-blowing. The Easter Egg for LYBJ is Ils Chimre, who was a reporter and jury member for that fic. I think that Vader and the Emperor have this balance point here where a mistrial or Bail Organa slipping through their fingers philosophically wouldn’t bother them. Kill the guy anyway. But have him best the Empire and that sends a crappy message to anyone else daring to oppose the Emperor. Good catch on ruling as herself and ruling for her people. LOL, I want people to be jerks to Palpatine in comical ways. Reminds me of a conversation from LYBJ. Something along the lines of “You’re not going to invite Zsinj over for crumpets?” “Of course not. Zsinj hates crumpets. Maybe some sandwiches!” Oh, good for the mindprobe. I took a horror writing class in high school and enjoyed putting some of my lessons into practice with this invasion. Anakin deserves so much suffering for his sins at times. Anakin isn’t dumb as a brick, but he is fricking manipulatable and drives me crazy for half of the prequel trilogy. Remember how I said I yell at the screen during ROTS? The entire plot of the Jedi downfall relies on people being really, really nonsensical. The Jedi Council deserve the blindsiding they get for being so dang hyperfocused and prejudicial and not noticing things that are jumping up and down in front of them in a pink frilly dress, while I can sum up many of the other characters’ ignorance in my dad’s reaction to Palpatine being the Emperor: OH MY GOD, IT’S THAT GUY?! Okay, I’m getting off-topic. Have a painkiller for all your winces. I figure that Vader hasn’t had a lot of friends to chat with, so he has introspection from hell over all those years. Mmm, yes, Bail was regrettably unguarded in his dream-that-isn’t. Thanks for liking the humor Leia has about needing someone’s expertise. She is sardonically funny at times. And that you really got Leia’s perspective on the complex political problems. I’m glad the by-play counseling session worked for you. Leia’s steadying technique is literally what I do when I get a panic attack in public and can’t break down. I walk three steps to the left, three to the right, clench and unclench my fists with each turn and breathe for as many repetitions as I need. I’d like good tidings from the Treasury. I LOOOOOVE designing character wardrobes for public effect. I have many historical inspirations for Palpatine’s depictions. The king and emperor of political theater is one I enjoy exploring. Political subtlety annoying is something I got inspired for by “Not another lecture, Master” in AOTC. Also the Clone Wars series. Write Palpatine’s Brunch. Interesting on Anakin already falling while he didn’t have to fall. The “Vader HAS the only thing he needs available” is delicious irony for me. Oh, yes, Alderaan not being destroyed at this point sets off a LOT of “Well, this no longer works” in the EU and that’s half the fun of the sequel. Yes, I delivered a lecture at Snow College as a guest author with a projector remote and an armchair because of my herniated disc. Vader is almost like an agent of a citizen’s arrest effort where no one would question his authority as a citizen. He is given the enforcement role by Imperial fiat. And now you give me the mental image of someone smacking Vader on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. *evil grin* at the LAYERS of this convo. I do love Seth and wish I hadn’t had to give him a good hiding place. The italics of the Day of Demand is meant to be Leia’s nightmare. But Vader has a role in it later. Ah, you and the Sims 4 phase. *sigh* I will finish posting LYBJ to FFN, but not while you are writing narcoleptic pilots. LOL, having to hide the nature of an upcoming horror is so much fun at times. I’m very curious about the kid who never lived… Palpatine’s office also has quite a lot of cultural influences. Again, did Anakin never walk by that Sith battle frieze in his visits to the Chancellor’s office? I had a coworker who was very fond of taking physical liberties with me until I got his wife to be pissed off at him for doing so. No one else would take my side. Thanks for enjoying the verbal judo. Now looking at Hobbie’s non-Legends backstory and wow, that’s a switch. In Rebels, its “He’s a cadet with Wedge Antilles at an elite academy.” In Legends, he was part of the group with Biggs who took over the Rand Ecliptic. He had anti-oppression views at the Prefsbelt training facilities. But I got the information about Raltiir from the radio dramatizations of ANH in which Leia hears that there’s a Death Star from a wounded rebel. Yes, Leia’s interactions with Tion are never as simple as one side or the other. I like inventing the legal system around characters’ crimes, personally. You may have noticed. Re: the hearsay, I’m reminded of the FRIENDS episode in which Rachel has a spicy dream about Chandler, Ross objects, and Chandler says, “I’m sorry. I was very drunk and it was someone else’s subconscious.” I recently had to keep a secret very carefully for months and when the friend could finally be told, I told her, “YOu have no idea how many times I was told to shut up about house-hunting!” Leia trying to use this much nuance is really almost painful. Yes, Bail is that man who said that to Mon Mothma and it breaks my heart every time I watch Rogue One. The poor Organas who have to be very hasty with life-changing requests in a lot of different stories. Don’t be so mean to banthas. Yes, shades of Mrs. Palpatine. I loved writing Leia’s “Okay, but why?” trains that sometimes came along. And frankly, while Owen sees too much of Anakin in Luke, Bail is refusing to think of Leia as “ooh, is she a little too Vader here?” at times. She’s an Organa and she belongs as an Organa. You write Vader tipsy, please. There’s that line from Alan Tudyk in Firefly about “once, I was laconic” is applicable to K2-SO who gets straight to the point with no kindness. I did a lot of research on psychological treatment and diagnostic criteria for things while writing my first book and would Seth see bizarre delusions in Bail’s claims? “Yes, Vader is a psychopath, but he’s just not that into you. Or maybe he is. I don’t know. I’m not his confidante.” Poor Bail having to deal with “You’re part of and cause of my worst nightmares. Why are you making it worse?” Thank you for the kindness about the “This… so, so much this.” This feels like when someone laughs at a joke I was hoping someone would really get and I feel validated. Cassian’s squad stuff was so hard to write. It’s like Rieekan, where I have three scenes to base my obsessive depiction of one character on, but I take a shot at it anyways. I enjoy your “ack. All the acks.” We see Palpatine representing worlds and ruling a galaxy, but Palpatine being a planetary leader has all sorts of horrifying implications given his philosophies on… Well, let’s just say it. The man wasn’t ever qualified for just leadership. You’re not going to hate the sequel? Then read it, please! Yes, Captain America. Polis Massa was another such intense balance point in this fic. I feel like an entire fic could be written just on the time two Jedi and a good man spent trying not to give in to the darkness. Yes, very dad stuff to say. Of course Vader is the stumbling block. It’s part of their failure that this is a blind spot, in my opinion. Aha, yes, that does make sense with the Devastator. I’m going to have to borrow “That’s a lot of over to that kill.” The dream-Breha thing is my absolute favorite feature of the Alderaanian monarchy that I fleshed out in this fic because it’s so essential to the rest of the series as well. Leia really does need a therapist as well as a divine intervention. The details from Bail’s POV re: medical effects are so made possible by the openness of people who are experiencing these things on a regular basis. Their commentaries and videos are seriously so emotionally honest at times. I need to stop just grinning fondly at things you enjoyed. Oh, Vader’s denial is another bizarre delusion as well as hypercatastrophization and hyperpersonalization. Can you tell that I’ve got a therapist aunt who taught me about cognitive distortions as part of helping me cope with clinical depression? Padme IS right, but at that moment, she’s not accurate. She is expressing hope. Vader is too one or the other at this point and the part of him that is redeemable is subsumed. Bail isn’t actively hiding the twins thing, but he is at that moment incapable of thinking of anyone but Leia. And I knew while working out all of this that Vader would see concealment and go further into the probe and go too far and it’s never clear if he caused the fatal neurological damage or was just blind to it because of his digging. Not to say that my ex John was Lord Tion, but I remember him coming up to me after choir practice and enthusiastically announcing that one of my favorite spiritual leaders was dead. I thought he was joking because he practically bounced. He wasn’t joking. He was proud of being the first one to tell me because it would mean so much to me. Please, punch away. Though I have a very specific and vindictive fate for him later. I have so many problems considering Vader as Leia’s father in every fic, which is why I come back to it again and again. I’ve always liked Winter as the role she fills. I like writing Vader pre-redemption, but post-ROTS-blind-nonsense. Thank you for the very long feedback review, to which I have now written…2310 words at that point. Some chapters were shorter than this review.


@Chyntuck First of all, I had to send this review to Kateydidnt, who came up with the premise and was my sounding board for many things. Not only is it one of the nicest things that I’ve had said about my stuff, but it helped me so much that I literally lay in a fetal position during a recent panic attack and reread your review to make me feel okay again. Bet you didn’t see that coming. Thanks so much for the “truly stellar writing.” In The West Wing, there is a scene where the president tries to scare the daylights out of his daughter who takes her security too lightly and he describes the worst-case scenario. Three seasons later, that scenario happens and it changes the family greatly. The planetary level of this was inspired by that a lot of the time. I’ve loved writing Alderaanian culture for so long, but I really worked hard to flesh out the things you specifically mentioned because so much of the story and the stories to come hinge on things so set in stone as well as unable to be anticipated. I hate Lord Tion so much and was happy when he got shot by Leia in the ANH radio dramas. Making him practically invincible at certain points is really the meat of this horror at times. I appreciate that you experience the same pressure.

I’m really inspired by Claudia Gray’s development of the Rebellion in Leia, Princess of Alderaan and all the ways that we the readers catch on to what is happening and Leia has too much emotional investment in her parents’ perceived wrongdoings to see some of the intricacies of what they have to do to start an anti-Empire movement openly in secret. Glad you didn’t expect Winter. I totally planned that from the beginning, but kept it as under wraps as possible so it would be a moment of stunningly perilous betrayal. Thanks for the commentary on Bel Iblis. I hope you enjoy him in Hearts of the Children because boy, does he get a much larger role in there. Thanks so much for the commentary on the mission to free Bail. This is kind of like the movie, Apollo 13, for me. My friends and I have watched this movie many times since it came out during our teenage years. It’s based on historical fact. We know the ending–the astronauts made it home and the movie is based on the memoir of one of them. We still have this horrible sense of suspense at the ending because of the characters not knowing that this story is being told by the survivors. We cry when we see the landing craft and its parachute come onto the screen because we felt like it wouldn’t happen this time that we watched it. For me, up until the moment that Bail had to be taken to the hospital instead of chancing escape, it was going to be a narrow escape, but there WOULD be an escape because it wasn’t too far gone. So I took people to the brink of “This is GOING to be the kind of Star Wars miracle that Han Solo would call one in a million and Threepio would quote the odds on.” And then I made it fail and changed the entire course of where the war would go from here because Princess Leia never joins the Rebellion because she has to be the reason the Empire doesn’t take hold of Alderaan. It was kind of a jerk move of me.

And here’s the paragraph why I sent this review to the friend who gave me the plot bunny. The dialogue between the two fathers that we absolutely never get to see and is such a contrast to making nice talk about killing General Grievous in the last days of the previous war. I want so much of Bail vs. Vader in other fics and I could not stop taking that opportunity, so it means a lot that it “really stole this fic.”

Obi-Wan’s entry into this story is reminiscent of a series I love. In Book 2, a survivor mourns the woman he lost very suddenly in the last book. It’s a major character development for him. He needs psychiatric help for it, since he starts hallucinating about her to cope with her being dead. And then in the epilogue, we find out she’s alive and it changes everything about the stakes of the next book. So I had to have all of this life-changing stuff and THEN GENERAL KENOBI GETS INVOLVED when he hasn’t in 19 years. Thanks so much.

 

This is a fascinating story.

Question: Is the above canon or fanon?

 

Canon is that Alderaan disarmed. My fanon, as written in “A Time of Confessions and Concessions,” is the above scenario with it being done under duress.

 

Seems like there are some words missing there.

Gripping installment!

 

I think you mean, surrender THIS at the end of the visit?

Masterful, Ish. One can TOTALLY see this happening.

Feel so sorry for Bail's attorney. He's going to feel AWFUL at the end of this.

If he's still alive ...