Arcadia, chapter 8

[wombat1138]

Chapter 8: "Through the green fuse"

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Princess Danah dismissed her guards at the entrance to the Alderaani suite. Still wearing a gentle smile, she continued onward to Castra's personal quarters, propelling the younger woman around the few droids or servants still active this late at night. When the second threshold closed behind them, Danah dropped the smile with her grip on Castra's arm.

Castra backed away from her as far as she could, finally huddling under her bed's canopy. Her tawny hair trembled around her shoulders, echoing the arabesques embroidered on her torn gown, and her throat was ornamented only by her own quick pulse.

"Well?" Danah tapped her fingers on a table. Her silver braids twined in a jewel-hung coronet, gleaming in sharp contrast to her daughter-in-law's dishevelment. "How and why did you go to Palpatine's private chambers? You've gone there before, haven't you? And where is the necklace my son gave you?"

"I-- I can't--"

"Answer me, girl. I may have promised your parents to marry you to Bail, but I never said for how long. If you won't divorce him, there are other ways to end the marriage. All I need to do is wait for his heir to be born."

"It's not Bail's child," Castra whispered.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I said it's not Bail's child! Palpatine was the one who gave me that necklace. Bail wouldn't touch me, and he sent me to that man!" She collapsed, sobbing.

Danah grimaced. Deftly, she lifted the cabachon of one ring and poured its contents into a cup, swirling in cold tisane from a carafe. She pressed the cup into her daughter-in-law's hands; Castra drank it down, tear-blinded eyes unseeing. After some minutes, her sobs diminished into soft whimpers, and finally silence. Danah recalled the guards to keep a watch on Castra's door. They took up their places with unquestioning obedience.

The Princess-Dowager went to her own rooms. According to the universal chronometer, Bail would still be in the midst of court on Alderaan. Danah poured fresh tisane for herself and sat back to wait.

* * *

Two pots of tisane later, Threepio brought in a plate of biscuits. Diffidently, he said, "Your Royal Highness, General Kenobi requests to speak with you. He says it's to do with Mistress Arcadia."

"Does he?" Danah set her cup down. "I would have expected the Nechti campaign to be a more urgent matter. Still, show him in."

A minute later, Kenobi took a chair and a deep breath, foregoing the proffered biscuit. "Your droid tells me that Princess Castra is not missing after all. But all the same, I've placed Arcadia is in protective custody aboard the _Tantive_, and I'll leave her to your care." He drew a small packet from his pocket and emptied it onto an empty plate: a tattered web of gold, a hollow amber shell.

Danah took the plate from him. Shadowy reflections flickered up from the fragments of Castra's necklace, flashing and fading like a meteor storm. She idly tilted the plate back and forth, eyeing it contents as if reading fate from tisane dregs. "So Arcadia took this from her? Did she try to strangle the wretch with it?"

"No. It was full of a slow-release contact poison that had been affecting Castra for some time. Arcadia was probing the central jewel when the poison reservoir shattered and went straight into her own hand. The acute dose sent Arcadia into shock and miscarriage. Nisca stabilized her after we found her. He said she'll make a full recovery in time, but Castra must be examined as soon as possible." With an expression of grave concern, Danah set the plate down and folded her hands in her lap. "Is this something that could be lethal if left untreated?"

Uneasily, Kenobi rose and bowed. "I wouldn't know, Your Highness; you'll have to consult one of the healers or medics about that. In the meantime, I'll proceed to Niamh directly. I've ordered Commander Skywalker to remain on Belconnen, so you may restore him to Arcadia's company at your pleasure."

* * *

As the Aldean contingent prepped their ships for departure from Belconnen, Kenobi stood on his new flagship's bridge, trying to ignore the two young women behind him. "General Kenobi, sir. This is the last chance we'll have," said Marit Rouvel, formerly of Skywalker's fabled Crescent Squadron. "I know what you said about the Jedi taking care of themselves, but you can't leave the rest of the Republic to their mercy."

Kenobi checked off his list of ships and communication codes.

Lise Toire added her Nechti-accented voice. "Sir, you have no reason to trust me at all, but I beg you to send me to Admiral Jordan. I'll go alone, if necessary. She might not listen to me, but a small chance is better than none at all."

Kenobi finished reviewing his battle plans and promptly started over again.

"You know they're right," a third voice chimed in. "I'll fly them to Millat myself if I have to. If there's any way to avert this battle--"

Kenobi put one hand to his head. "Not you too, Denis," he said, and turned to face Arcadia's brother, who had joined Rouvel and Toire. All three of them looked terribly young, idealistic, and vulnerable. "First of all, I have no authority to negotiate with the Nechti admiral on the behalf of the Republic or Alderaan. Even if I did, I could not delegate that authority to any of you. And if for the sake of argument I could and did, I can't spare you a ship with sufficient firepower to defend itself from the Nechtian planet-smelter." To Toire, who looked even more dejected than usual, he added, "As one of its former techs, you're the only one among us who knows anything about that weapon. We need you on hand to tell us about its weaknesses."

"I've already told you everything I know. Truly, I'm of no further use to you. Let me try one more time to convince Admiral Jordan to turn back and go home, instead of pursuing this useless destruction."

Kenobi folded his arms. "I spoke to your Captain Brabanconne a great deal while we were still on Galliae. She tried to convince Jordan of that for years. Why would Jordan listen to you now?"

"Because in all those years, we never had enough crystals to rebuild the experimental drive lenses of all our ships and send us home. The admiral was furious for fear that Captain Brabanconne might've used that crystal cache to patch together a single drive lens for herself, leaving the rest of us stranded here in your Republic. But--" Toire lifted her pale eyes, streaked with tears. "But there are few enough of us now to all fit aboard Jordan's Rahab. If we only had a single drive lens, I'm sure we'd gladly go in peace."

"Would you?" Kenobi caught the quick glance Denis flicked toward Toire, as well as Rouvel's shimmer of jealousy.

"I think it's the only way," Toire whispered.

* * *

"Good morning, Bail."

Bail smiled tightly at Princess Danah's holocomm. Still equally resplendent in his court robes, he massaged the indentation which the coronet had left on his brow. "And good evening to you. Have you sent my wife back to me yet?"

"Your wife?" Danah made a show of yawning at him.

"You can't be that sleepy, mother. You know, the one you married me to last year. The pretty green-eyed blonde less than half my age. Lady Castra Gatou. Carrying the next Prince or Princess of Alderaan. You haven't forgotten that, have you?"

Abruptly alert, she countered, "Have you forgotten that marriage contracts are invalid without consummation? If you haven't bedded Castra, you have no wife. And if she's carrying another man's child, we should execute her for high treason."

"We?" Bail drew himself up in his seat. "Castra is Princess-Consort, not you. Your word is outweighed by hers now. And by mine. I am the only authority on Alderaan who can judge her."

"She has accused herself. And you. Who will judge the judges?"

"What did you do to the poor girl to make her say something like that?"

"I found her in Palpatine's quarters. And then General Kenobi brought me this." She rattled the broken necklace on its plate.

"Ah." Bail sighed. "And have you sent her back to Alderaan yet? You have already announced that she's carrying my heir, after all."

"Do you want her back in a box or an urn?"

"Stop that. Her child has at least as good a right to rule as any of mine would be. And Castra will never bear my child."

"What?"

"You must have heard the full story by now if you've frightened her into confessing. I told her on our wedding night that our marriage would never be consummated. I offered her a selection of politically expedient lovers. She chose Palpatine."

"You fool children. If you didn't like Castra, why didn't you say so before the wedding?"

"Mother, you and I both know that I had to marry Castra for the same reason that I refuse to lie with her. Father told me before he died, though you never said a word. She's his daughter by Devora Gatou, isn't she? She's my half-sister."

"Castra is the co-heiress for the Antilles faction, as Devora was before her," Danah coldly said. "To satisfy them, you had to marry either her or Arcadia. I promised Davit at Castra's birth that I would wed her to you to keep the Organa bloodline strong and avoid rival claimants. And as for Arcadia, she is the daughter and granddaughter of murderesses and traitors. That tainted blood will never take my throne."

"Then you should be happy Castra chose Palpatine instead of Denis." Bail looked wistful. "I would have liked to have Denis' children succeed me. Of all my kin, I love him best."

Danah's initial flash of scorn receded. After one moment of perfect silence, she chose her words as if choosing armour. "Do you intend to say--"

Bail sliced through her. "I do."

"Not just Castra, but any woman? But artificial recombination, even if you--"

"Artificial recombination was what led to the dispute between you and your sister Helice. There was no way to establish seniority, and neither of you would share the throne or step aside. I will not renew the vendettas.

"And as you said, thanks to you and Helice, my consort had to be either Castra or Arcadia. I like both of them well enough. But love? No. The children of either one will suit me as heirs. I'm afraid that will have to do. So bring her back to Alderaan, now. If she does not step off the Tantive alive, then neither will you."

Danah breathed slowly: in, out, and in again. "Which one do you mean, Castra or Arcadia? Or both? Arcadia nearly died tonight to save your wife and her bastard heir. I wonder sometimes about the sanity of every other member of my family."

"Have you ever considered the possibility that you're the one driving the rest of us insane? Bring them both, of course."

"That will leave no one to represent Alderaan in the Senate. Who do you expect to stand against the new president in our stead? That waif from Chandrila? The shipyard magnate from Corellis?"

"I'm sure they'll do what they can. In any case, Palpatine will be too preoccupied with the battle at Galliae to do us any harm in the Senate for now," Bail stated firmly, and wrongly.

* * *

"What do you mean, it's not here?"

The Nechti tech winced as she repeated the navigational readings. "All the coordinates match up. There's the primary star. The asteroid and protocomet clouds are out that way. But no Millat."

Before Admiral Circe Jordan could lash out again, her flagship lurched sideways beneath their feet. As her crew frantically recalibrated the Rahab's position, she pointed to the flashing screen, past the Perceptor as that captured ship mirrored the flagship's movements through its slave drive. "If Millat isn't here, then what is that?"

"There is something in that direction," the navigator conceded. "But our probe signals are being swallowed up. It looks like a micro-singularity with planetary mass. Maybe they had an industrial accident? If a few misaligned crystals took out the Belle, an entire stockpile could blow the planet. "

Jordan shook her head. "Take us closer. There's no debris halo. And if that's a black hole, we should see more of a gravity lens." The Rahab turned toward the hidden planet's position. Before it could approach more closely, a single Republic snubfighter shot out of hyperspace nearby, broadcasting a wild audiovisual spectrum of comm frequencies.

"Rahab, can you read me? This is Commander Lise Toire. Rahab, are you there?"

Jordan's lips curled into a vicious, voluptuous smile as she keyed up a familiar face on the viewscreen. "Your identifier disc isn't registering. Wherever have you been? I've been waiting for you and Vesperis all this time. Did you find Brabanconne and the Belle at Galliae?"

"The Republic forces took us prisoner and removed our discs," Toire said. "As for the Belle, it was destroyed before we got there. All of our crew who were on it are dead, except for Captain Brabanconne and Doctor Meda. I think they and Vespa are still prisoners on Galliae. Or Niamh, they call it now."

Still smiling, Circe Jordan shook out her bright hair. "So the Belle lost its crew as well as the drive crystals it found. I should have killed Brabanconne when I had the chance."

"Admiral, please listen to me. The Republic sealed off this ship and pre-programmed the hyperdrive with a timer, so it's going to whip back within a few minutes. If I can convince the Republic to give us the drive crystals we need, can I give them your promise that we'll turn around and go home?"

"Promise?" Jordan repeated. "A promise to forgive all the blood of ours they spilled? To forget their treachery at Erenat, where they murdered Admiral Blackthorn, stole her Empresa, and made us destroy her crew with the ship when they used it against us? And all because Brabanconne refused to leave her precious Despoena at the start and bundle her cadets aboard the Empresa and Rahab to bring all of them home?"

Toire's voice was hollow. "My timer is counting down. What is it that you want from the Republic? Do you want to bring us and the Rahab back home? Or do you just want to cause as many deaths as you can before they kill us all?"

Jordan rose and crossed the bridge to the weapons console. She fired on Toire's ship, which condensed into a droplet of flame. The Rahab's personnel shifted uneasily on the bridge; she swept them with a long, contemptuous look, riding the silence. "I'll fight this war on my terms, not theirs," she finally said. "Now let's go to Niamh and smash Brabanconne into quarks."

* * *

"What did you expect?" Kenobi asked Denis. Both their faces were grim, still lit by the bright static from Toire's transmission display.

"I expected them to want peace." Denis sighed, shaken by disillusion, and shifted uncomfortably inside his flightsuit. He called over one shoulder, "Rouvel, don't wait up. I'll join the rest of you in the launching bay," and then turned his attention back to the flickering screen. "Lise, did we catch all of that?"

Lise Toire nodded slowly as she removed the hypercomm helmet that had linked her to the empty drone. Beneath her, the holo transmission tile powered back down. "I'm afraid so. Our last chance now is for me to ask Vespa to help me with a deflector shield against the Rahab's smelter. Do you know where she is?"

All of them were on the bridge of the Alderaani destroyer Moirene, suspended with the rest of the Aldean sector fleet at the gravitational fulcrum between the Niamh system's inhabitable planet and its moon. Kenobi pointed through the viewport at the latter. "The coalition representative said the prisoners were transferred from the planetary base to the lunar post, where they're being held incommunicado. We can't get any of the others out, and if we send you down there, you're not coming back. Are you staying or going?"

"I'm staying."

Denis swung his helmet by its straps. "And I must be going. Force willing, we'll have time to talk about this later."

As much to himself as to Denis, Kenobi responded, "May the Force be with us all." Against his will, his thoughts crept back to Arcadia: even if all else would be lost here at Niamh, let her remain safe on Belconnen, he prayed to the half-forgotten sand spirits of his childhood. Anakin would protect her, if no one else could.

* * *

Arcadia woke from her exhausted sleep to the simulated gravity of spaceflight. Cautiously, she sat up, gathering her patient's smock about her, and saw Princess Danah sitting in her customary regal posture across the cell aboard the Tantive.

"You're a very dull sleeper to watch," Danah remarked. "Castra tosses and turns and talks to herself. No wonder Bail couldn't stand the thought of sleeping with her. Oh yes, I know about that now. That's why I'm bringing both of you back to Alderaan. Perhaps it's time to revise a marriage contract or two."

Still too dazed to respond, Arcadia cast about for her own clothing and spotted a bundle at the foot of her bed. When she leaned forward and pulled at its edge, it simply unrolled open, spilling the contents out across the coverlet: her lightsaber and the Antilles signet she had given to Anakin. The cloth wrapper was Anakin's Aldean uniform, deeply stained with blood. Some of it was her own, she immediately sensed, but some of it was not. A snake's coil of anger hissed up through her, dispelling the haze. She barely recognized her own small, cold voice that demanded, "What have you done to him?"

"Nothing. They were left in a corner of your room, back on Belconnen." Danah rose, her arm automatically moving to fan out a formal train, even in its absence from her simple travelling gown. "The rest of your belongings are in the cupboard. You may join me in the consular quarters for tisane. Castra's entire wardrobe has been packed up and brought back with us, so you may choose more suitable garments from those. And then, as your fellow healer Nisca must have gone to the battlefront, you may tend her in his stead."

* * *

The Senate coalition's fleet lay in Niamh's planetary shadow. A late arrival at the formation's edge, Anakin stood at his own bridge's viewport, facing out into space. The tech pit was a dull, unheeded murmur at his back. He took a deep breath as if the starry void could contribute a bouquet of oxygen and green leaves. Instead, he caught a faint whiff of fur; the only coalition uniform in his size which could be found on short notice had been a spare one loaned from a Wookiee. But the endlessly recycled air of the Sphinx felt good to him all the same. It smelled like freedom.

After Nisca had shown him the damning geneprints from Arcadia's miscarriage, Anakin had left the Sphinx only long enough to strip himself of any remaining links to his former allegiances: to Aldea sector, to General Kenobi, and especially to Arcadia. Palpatine had given him command of the former Leucothean flagship, and this last remnant of his birthworld gave him a lingering sense of home.

He had been glad to escape the stifling protocol of Belconnen, he told himself, and gladder still to escape the treachery of the royal women of Alderaan. Based on those geneprints, Arcadia must have seduced him on Ikatya either just before or just after she had lain with Kenobi. But why had she decided to wed him instead of the general?

Anakin clenched his injured right hand inside its protective glove and hissed an oath as a lingering crumb of glass bit home. Mistaking this for a comment, his head tech craned her head up from the pit and repeated the latest tactical communique. "Sorry, sir, but there's no doubt about it. Imperator Palpatine has sent us direct orders to withdraw from the formation and go into sentry orbit around the moon. There's also something about unloading our research lab onto the outpost first-- do you know anything about this? I didn't know the Sphinx had been a research frigate."

"Let me see that." Anakin followed her to her station and slipped on the decrypt visor. "A lab? Well, the location's mapped out, and he sent the access codes." He shrugged, handing her visor back. "Duplicate orders already went to Admiral Dallstar? Fine, give the map and codes to some of your subtechs, and we'll be on our way."

* * *

"Papa!" Vesperis squealed with delight, leaping up from her bunk. Leaving her datapad behind for once, she dashed out of her shared quarters on the lunar outpost and into the larger storage area that adjoined it. The impact of her embrace sent Bevan Meda staggering back against the crate behind him. Around them, Republic subtechs continued bringing loose boxes of equipment and haphazardly setting them down.

Behind her, Siona Brabanconne stood within the cell doorway, looking out through the wavering pane of the restraining field. The steel circlets around her wrists hummed ominously from their proximity to the field; if she leaned much closer, they would spark and smolder. Vesperis' wrists were bare, allowing the girl free passage.

Brabanconne surveyed the crates and the grey-robed man who had remained behind with them. He had paused to confer with the base personnel and now withdrew toward the near wall, herding a long, low crate on repulsors. She recognized him from the Ikatya prisoners, and spoke to him as he approached. "Your name is Nisca, isn't it? You were the other Jedi Healer we captured."

Nisca nodded curtly, not replying until the Sphinx's subtechs had finished comparing their inventory with his and headed back to their ship. "We'll need extra cots in there so Doctor Meda and I can stay close to our experiments once we've re-established them. Do you know the name of the outpost commander? Where's his office?"

Once told, Nisca strode off from the doorway, allowing Vesperis to bring Bevan to her bunk. He collapsed onto it at once. She cast a worried glance at the older woman, despite their continuing unfriendship. "He looks sick. Papa, are you all right?"

Bevan looked from one face to another, smiling vaguely. "Siona, it worked. I told you they could never separate us, even when Admiral Blackthorn requisitioned me away from you."

"Papa, it's me," Vesperis insisted, leaning closer. She cast a jealous glance at Brabanconne, then reluctantly admitted her to their confidences. "Lise left her tech kit behind when she defected to the Republic. So I couldn't use it to track her through my datapad, but I had her tools to use instead. I'm tapped into the local network now, but how do I contact Admiral Jordan?"

When Brabanconne furrowed her brow, Vesperis added impatiently, "I patched into one of the mouse droids first. When it plugged in for task assignment, it carried my data vector into the entire system. I've added a few more hard patches so I can insert commands as well as read information. The coalition fleet has been around long enough for me to tap into all of them, but since the Aldeans just arrived, I haven't had time to get them under control. There was a message a half-hour ago that an Alderaani scout ship had just flushed the Rahab out from Millat, but I need to tell her what to expect when she arrives."

"Circe Jordan may be insane, but she isn't stupid," Brabanconne said absently, studying Bevan as she had not done for fifteen years, when they had loved one another. Vesperis was right: he didn't look well at all. "She must know the Republic's scan radius by now. In her place, I'd get rough readings from a wormhole flythrough and then resurface just out of scan range on the far side."

Vesperis' face lit up. "Then there's a window of opportunity. I'll set up a coded beacon with all the crucial information, and once they've got that, I can coordinate battle plans with Rahab."

"Make sure it's scrambled across the entire resonance range. They'll select a setting for hailback to establish contact, and then you can home in on that frequency."

"I know that," the girl snapped, breaking off the moment of cameraderie.

Nisca threaded his way back around the crates, looking vexed. "There aren't any extra cots. We'll either have to double up or sleep in shifts."

Quickly, Vesperis said, "Papa's ill. Can I help you while he rests?"

Nisca regarded her for a moment. "You're his daughter Vespa? He's told me a few things about you. Come on, then, you can help me unpack, and we'll see about the more technical details."

"I'll be out in a minute, as soon as I finish setting up this game on my datapad." After some final keystrokes, Vesperis set the pad beneath the bunk and murmured a few instructions to the captain. She was soon too busy with Nisca's equipment to worry about Bevan Meda, or Siona Brabanconne sitting beside him and stroking his brow.

* * *

Far below the system's ecliptic plane, the Rahab whirled back into existence with the Perceptor still in tow. "Visual scan only," Jordan said. "The starbase outpost must be on that one planet in habitable range, which just happens to have a cluster of Republic capital ships hanging around it."

Jordan studied the macroviewer. Niamh's moon was approaching quadrature, swinging away from its sun toward a perpendicular position relative to the planet. The hulls of the Aldean fleet shone bright between the planet and its moon, and the Senate coalition ships' ion engines glowed like captive stars in Niamh's shadow. Anakin's Sphinx was a single faint spark in the lunar umbra, echoing the glimmer of lights from the sentry base on the moon's dark surface.

Her communications officer jumped. "Admiral, there's a coded beacon across our frequencies. Response?"

"Who and where is it from? What does it say?"

"It's coming from the lunar base up there. No message except for Vesperis Meda's data signature."

"Patch me into the decoding transmitter." Jordan took the proffered data jack and plugged it straight into the identifer disc in the hollow of her throat. As her lips moved, her subvocal vibrations fed into the transmitter; she tilted her head, listening to the responses resonating up through her neuroskeletal cables. "So it's you," she murmured. "Excellent. We can send someone to fetch you-- no? Do you really think this accelerated cloning process is worth the delay? Well, perhaps a tame Jedi...."

This eerie conversation continued for some minutes, until suddenly, her eyes snapped back into focus with her feral grin. She pulled the jack out.

"Evacuate all crew from the Perceptor onto Rahab," she said. "And then let's get moving."

* * *

The sensor arrays burst into a storm of lights. "There they are!" someone shouted over the comm. "At the edge of our scan range, ecliptic south! Radius 0.2 parsecs, theta 0.81--"

Before the positional readout finished, the arrays went dark. "They're gone," another coalition officer's voice muttered in bewilderment. "Spooked off by the size of our fleet?"

General Kenobi glanced at Toire, who shook her head. "That's not Admiral Jordan's way. Besides, the scan traces looked like teleporter activity between the ships just before they reopened a wormhole, so she must be planning something."

"Did you catch a wormhole trajectory?"

"They came directly from Millat, past us to that position. It looks as if they're heading away from us now to the other side of the sun, but-- is that a solar flare?"

The Force shot through Kenobi's blood. He whirled at the tech pit and shouted, "Shields up, full strength! Get our shields up now!"

Moving too fast to follow, faster than any natural form of light, a boiling conflagration leapt from the primary star. The Rahab swept into their midst, inertially accelerated by its loop around the sun. Its slave drive had dragged the empty Perceptor through the corona, hurling a deadly plume of solar plasma at transluminal speed straight into Kenobi's fleet.

Some of his ships had not immediately obeyed his order. They were charred into molten crypts, the flare's vector banking their original orbits toward the unprepared ships of the Republic coalition in a storm of fire, steel, and blood. The surviving Aldeans, sent tumbling away within their brittle shells of energy, scrambled to reorient themselves. And as the comms shrieked and swore, the Rahab looped back around, dropped daintily into nevesynchronous orbit, and shot its main weapon straight down toward the planet.

* * *

As Niamh's surface smoldered, Crescent Squadron launched from the unsteady Moirene toward the Nechti flagship. While Marit Rouvel barked orders at their lead, their Headhunters skimmed low across the Rahab to fire and banked sharply away, then back. The other Aldean Headhunters quickly joined them. "Where in bleeding hell are the coalition's snubs?" Denis demanded from his cockpit.

"They're trapped." General Kenobi stared at the main fleet, shining like jars of luminoptera within the planet's shadow. Their first few Starchasers to launch had smashed straight into the inner surfaces of their carrier ships' shields, and now their other snubs wove uncertainly within those boundaries, their ion engines tracing their paths. A coalition destroyer fired at the Rahab, but like the snubs, its particle beam deflected within the confines of its own shield, shredding its hull. Meanwhile, the Moirene was sliding toward the lunar plains, too large to weave through the tumbling pyres of its sister ships.

Through the chaos, an unexpected voice cut through all comm frequencies. It was Vesperis Meda. "Admiral Jordan?" the girlish tones asked. "Can you hear me? I've locked down their shields."

"Vespa? Good girl. Did you get all of them?" Jordan asked.

"I missed a few," Vesperis admitted. One of the Moirene's techs leaped at Toire with murder in his eyes. As she cowered away, Kenobi blocked him.

"We don't have time for that," Kenobi said. "Pull up to escape velocity."

"Can't do it, sir," another tech yelled. "We lost two main thrusters, and the debris field's too thick out there."

"Then coast around to the other side of the moon and establish stationary orbit. Jettison the dead thrusters so the Nechti see an impact on the surface. And get the lunar base on the comm!"

* * *

Unnoticed in the tumult, the Sphinx shot away from the far side of Niamh's moon and the Aldean ships falling toward it. Anakin ordered a sharp centripetal arc high above the ecliptic plane. He held tight to the bridge railing as a junior tech fell sideways out of the pit and struck the ceiling. The inertial dampers whined and thumped, and he muttered to himself, "All right, so a destroyer can't handle like a Headhunter." However, his attention remained fixed on the tactical screens as the Nechti transmissions came through.

The head tech hovered at his elbow, lurching through free-fall. "Sir. What should we do?"

"Quiet. Let me think," Anakin growled. The Rahab was still in nevesynchronous orbit. From what he recalled of Toire's briefings, the Nechti flagship would remain stationary for some minutes as the beam bored down through the planet's mantle. Without a defensive convoy, it had used the solar shockwave to both clear its own way and create an extended shield of its own enemies' debris.

He knew what his squadron would be doing, and from what he could see of the Crescents, they were doing it properly. But the Sphinx had no snubs, and relatively poor weapons. A glance at the captains' holos showed a broken chessboard, with many of them reduced to static and others crumpled into their command chairs by injuries or despair. General Kenobi looked especially grim, barking orders without hope as the Aldean ships tried to navigate or fire around the coalition derelicts. Meanwhile, Vespa squealed with delight as she discovered the locked shields could be compressed around ship hulls, crushing their own trapped snubs against them before imploding. One by one, the invisible bubbles contracted into perfect spheres of blood-streaked metal.

The junior tech slid back off the ceiling as the Sphinx's arc slowed, approaching its full height above the plane. "Stop here, sir?" the head tech yelled hopefully.

Anakin glanced down at the battlefield again, reorienting himself. The debris field was still spreading away from the sun like a comet's tail. And then his eyes ignited, as bright and deadly as twin lightsabers. "That's the Perceptor herself tumbling away at the front of the shock wave, isn't it?"

"What's left of her. Rahab must've released the slave drive."

"Is the slave port still there? Good. I want to recapture Perceptor. Chase her down. And then set a return course for asymptotic return to the ecliptic plane right there," he pointed. "From the sunward side, where there's no debris. Full speed at contact, colinear angle with the smelter beam. Got it?"

"It'll take a half-hour for Rahab to line up between Niamh and the sun. That should give us enough time to catch Perceptor and rekey the master signal. But what about the Aldean squadrons?"

"What about them? Think the Nechti bitch will cover her ears if we tell the snubs to get out of the way?"

* * *

As the Moirene rounded the far side of the moon, General Kenobi surveyed the remains of the Republic's fleet. Most of the debris had either tumbled out of range or been neatly compressed by Vespa. He and his fellow Aldeans could finally engage the Rahab, which was picking off their snubfighters with secondary weapons.

He had lost two more cruisers since the initial plasma wave. As his ships skimmed the moon's surface, they had kept trying to hail the lunar base. The only response they received was an unexpected barrage from the artillery embankments. He knew Vesperis Meda was on that base, and suspected the worst. She had probably dispatched the Republic base personnel already-- light was raying out from the open airlocks-- leaving only her and her fellow Nechti alive. There was no reason not to bomb the base. He had no regrets, but nearly as little effect. The base and the turbocannons had been entrenched far too well.

Kenobi could not tell whether Vespa had bad aim or was simply toying with the Aldean ships, but he was still relieved when the turbocannons stopped. "Well, General Kenobi?" Vespa asked. "Are you going to give us the drive crystals we need, or aren't you? The Jedi you left with us can't make them, but we know you have more of them stashed away."

Kenobi shooed Toire away from the transmission tile while keying in command codes to his other ships. He wondered who Vesperis meant, but did not ask. Instead, he challenged, "And if you get your crystals, then what? Rahab will take you back where you came from? What's to stop you from returning with a larger fleet to extend your raiding range?"

"You'll just have to take that chance, won't you? And thank you for the suggestion." She fired again, precisely vaporizing a Headhunter. She did not have bad aim after all.

Kenobi felt deeply relieved that the 'Hunter was not from Crescent Squadron, then ashamed of his relief. "Without those crystals, you're stranded here. We've already reduced your crews by a third. We can wear down the rest of you as well."

Jordan's voice lazily interjected. "Very nice, but I've had enough of this Republic. Once we've finished smelting Niamh, all of you will help us harvest crystals from the mantle slag, and then we'll fit the last few facets into the experimental drive dome and go back to Confederation territory. And then I'll really tell off the engineering team who sent us out here." She added over Vespa's objections, "Oh, hush. You can interrogate them all you want on the way back. General Kenobi-- that's you, is it?-- made the drive crystals for the Belle, after all. He can certainly make more. Now if you'll wait just a minute, I'll be finished with Niamh and I can come pick all of you up."

Vesperis did not reply. Kenobi felt a surge of hope that perhaps his bombs had finally breached her bunker in the lunar base after all, and fixed his plans on Admiral Jordan's ship.

* * *

"Vespa, would you mind taking a break from your game again?" Nisca called over his shoulder, vexed. Sariene was nearly restored, but he still needed help for the physical manipulations. Enveloped in long gloves, his arms were plunged elbow-deep into the tank he had nursed so carefully. Within it lay his daughter's body submerged in bacta, a priceless crystalline coffin keeping her alive. He had been aware for some time of the explosions rocking the underground chamber, but he had been expecting battle engagement anyway. His only concern was that the vibrations would affect his work.

A glance showed the girl merrily tapping at her datapad on the empty cot across from the other two Nechti. Nisca sighed, carefully shook his gloves dry, and crossed to the cell door. "Vespa," he repeated. "We'd barely re-established the biostasis when your datapad beeped at you. I believe you said you'd only check on your game for a minute. Do you wish to help me or not?"

Guiltily, Vesperis grimaced, pulled off her headset, and set it down with her datapad. She touched her father's shoulder as he lay in Brabanconne's lap, and left the cell when he did not respond. She peered down into the tank. "Oh, the sediment all settled back down; I couldn't see her face clearly before. She looks familiar, actually. I must have seen her before."

Nisca did not want to know the circumstances of their previous encounter. "All right, I'm going to need a low plasma current through the entire field while I try to heal her. Don't aerosolize any of the bacta, because we don't want to breathe it. That's why all her mucous membranes are masked off; bacta treats them as open wounds and tries to seal them shut."

"Really? I mean, oh dear," Vesperis murmured, crouched on the floor beside the controls. If Nisca had had the attention to spare, he would have observed a very strange smile on her face at the suggestion of novel weaponry.

Instead, he reached down through the charged bacta and into the ragged gaps in his daughter's body. "The twiddly bits," Bevan Meda had called them: the delicate interplay between each layer of tissue in the vital organs, the balance of functions to keep steady, all those things which Nechti technology could not create alone, just as an unaided Jedi healer would have lacked the strength to fully restore her with slow care.

A heavy wave rippled through the bacta as another explosion struck the base outside. With a final burst of exertion, Nisca closed the last wound. "Now start her stimshots and increase the plasma by ten. Twenty. Perfuse more gases into the mixture. Now stop."

Vesperis looked up into the sudden silence. "Did it work?"

"She's opened her eyes," Nisca said. Gently, he reached back down again to lift Sariene to the surface and remove her face mask. "Sariene," he whispered. "Can you hear me?"

Sariene's hand groped up against his chest. "I can't see anything. Papa, is that you? Where--?"

"Hush now, it's all right." He pulled her out, letting the stimshot feeds fall free from her limbs, then swathed her in a bacta-reclamation mantle and left his gloves beside the tank. Unsurprisingly, Vesperis vanished back into the cell. He had no attention to waste on the other girl now, though. "They took your corneas, too-- I didn't even notice with all the rest. Don't worry, I'll regenerate them for you."

"But... what happened? I was on the Dovecote, coming to meet you on Ikatya. We were attacked. Captain Sherrin--"

"Try not to think about that," Nisca soothed. "Can you see yet?"

"Just shapes and shadows." Sariene reached up to her own throat, touching the deeply indented scar still there. "We were standing on the bridge being data-tagged like livestock. And then it was my turn, and--"

"Sariene, don't. Close your eyes for a moment and just be still." He pressed his hands against her lids and then lifted them away. "Can you see me now?"

Her voice was tremulous. "Yes. Oh, Papa, it is you." She burrowed deep into his embrace, but tucked her chin above his arm to speak. "When it was my turn, it felt awful, almost like drowning in my own blood, but that can't be right, can it?"

"No, of course it can't." He released her at last, hoping she would never remember the rest.

Sariene drew the mantle more tightly around herself and started to stand up, but froze half-upright as she looked past her father to see Bevan Meda finally on his feet again, leaning against the cell doorway and clinging tightly to the stimshot Vesperis had sunk into his arm. His speech was slurred, but still on the edge of comprehension. "Funny, that's what I remember happening," Bevan said. "Your disc's slice angle was just right to send most of your arterial pressure into your lungs. Almost no external bleeding, at least not until you dropped and the backflow jetted out of your mouth."

Nisca snarled, feeling the Dark Side pour through him like Jamys mead, heady and sweet. Its strength drove him straight toward Bevan Meda. Vesperis dodged out of his way, forgotten until Sariene screamed behind him.

Vesperis had seized Sariene by the hair to shove her bare face down toward the bacta surface. As Nisca whirled to see this, Bevan pulled the empty stimshot from his arm, leaned forward, and set the needle against the base of Nisca's throat. "We killed her before," Bevan said cheerfully. "We can kill her again. At least this time you can keep her company."

He motioned Vesperis to drag Sariene back into the cell, even as he did the same for Nisca. Siona Brabanconne took the two barrier-restraint cuffs Vesperis had unlocked from her, snapped one onto each of their captives, and stepped out into the main lab with the other Nechti. "Well," Siona said calmly. "What shall we do now?"

* * *

Routed around the war zone, and using the low-speed backup hyperdrive to minimize detection, the Tantive would take days, not hours, to reach Alderaan. Huddled in her bed aboard the royal craft, Princess Castra looked like a frightened child. She had eased a little after Arcadia had persuaded Princess Danah to leave, but this merely meant that Castra had stopped sobbing enough to lie still.

Arcadia finished her examination and sat up to record her findings. A cold weight struck her side, where she had hung the lightsaber at her belt. She had not gone without it for very long, only the few months since she had given it to Anakin, but now it felt strange against her body, ominous and chill. Numbly, she wondered why he had left her after she had miscarried their son. Did he blame her for it? Where was he now?

"Am I going to die?" Castra asked tremulously.

"I'm sorry. I was thinking of something else." Arcadia unclipped the saber hilt and set it beside her, clearing her mind to review the records on the datapad. "The osmotic filters have cleared all the residues from your body. Your pregnancy seems unaffected." Her voice quavered only a little. "The poison in your necklace wasn't designed to pass the placental barrier; over time, the full dose would have slowly corroded your neural pathways and sent you mad with pain. What happened to me was a fluke, because it was an acute dose instead of a chronic one, and because I am a Jedi Healer, after all."

Reassured, Castra smiled a little, then furrowed her brow. "But everyone knows that Healers can't heal themselves."

"No. We can't. But--" Arcadia forced herself to say it. "We can analyze the way poisons work. And technically, my son was not myself. I overrode his placental barrier and bled out the poison as a miscarriage. I-- he wasn't even remotely human yet, with nothing resembling a mind or a soul. But I felt him die all the same. Nisca must have seen what I did, and told Anakin."

"Anakin? Oh, your Leucothean. Was he angry?"

"He's gone."

"Oh." Castra reached out to her. "I am sorry. It wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for my necklace--" Her green eyes widened. "I don't know why he wanted to kill me, but Danah's bound to do it for him now."

"Prince Bail? It was supposed to be a gift in honor of your pregnancy, wasn't it? Did he disapprove of your choice?"

Already shaking her head, Castra suddenly stopped. "No, I mean, yes. Or no. Bail didn't give me the necklace, and he did know he wasn't the father. But how did you-- oh, that's right. Denis Colton's your younger brother. Maybe I shouldn't have turned him down after all. It would have made Bail happier, but I was so angry at him for rejecting me. No, I ended up going to Palpatine." She started crying again, hopelessly.

"I've been such a fool," she said through her tears. "After we-- I thought I was in love with him, and that the necklace was just a beautiful gift. Of course he must have meant it as more of a bribe, but if it was built to kill me all along-- and then Danah wanted to marry you to him, and I was so jealous, and that must have been when he activated the poison by pressing the release chamber open. At least I didn't tell him he'd sired the next Princess of Alderaan. Though he must have known anyway after Danah announced I was pregnant, because when I came to him, I was still-- I mean, I'd never-- "

Quietly, Arcadia let her dissolve back into her tears, resting a hand against her shoulder to reassure Castra that she was still there. Denis had not told her very much about Prince Bail, but he had told her enough. Though raised on Alderaan by House Colton, Denis had been kept out of sight. When he reached legal age, he enrolled as a royal cadet, as was usual for young nobles. And then he had met Prince Bail. His Highness had never encroached on her brother in any unwelcome way, and had always given him as much courtesy in public as any sovereign prince might show a minor kinsman. What they did in private was another matter, but clearly Denis had no complaints. Perhaps Bail had learned this astonishing prudence from his father.

She was still a little stunned by what Danah had told her before bringing her into Castra's room. So Lady Devora Gatou had been Prince Davit's concubine? They had been remarkably circumspect, raising their daughter under the cover of Alton Gatou's second marriage. No suspicion of Castra's lineage had ever reached the public, or even Liane Antilles' spies. Lord Alton, Devora's brother and Arcadia's own grandfather....

No wonder Prince Davit had prevailed on Alderaan, Arcadia thought. Not only had he wed Danah, but also suborned her twin Helice's own consort with the lure of making House Gatou a shadow dynasty. And he had reconciled Danah to the arrangement, even after Helice had caused the deaths of Danah's daughters.

But now what? Surely Danah knew of House Gatou's placement and ambitions; would she be willing to bequeath them Alderaan? These fifty years and more, they must have been equal in power to the royal house in all but name, and now the name would be all that would be left of the Organas, if given to Castra's daughter. But surely Danah could not risk losing their support by having Castra killed, lest they rise up in vendetta to avenge her and openly seize the throne.

Arcadia grimaced. And then there was her own role, if any. If Anakin had truly left her, then she was free again to be used as a marriage pawn. Or to be eliminated from the board, unless Denis could intervene for her with Prince Bail.

Castra seemed to have regained her calm at last. She looked up at Arcadia and said, in a tolerably steady voice, "Thank you for helping me. I'm sorry I've been so difficult. You can go now. I'm very tired."

"You're certain? If there's anything you need--"

Castra shook her head and closed her eyes, curling up again until she heard the door slide open and shut again. Beneath her ribcage, where she knew Palpatine's daughter lay within her, she pressed the lightsaber hilt she had surreptitiously taken while Arcadia was lost in thought. She felt for the activation stud, and pressed it.

* * *

At that precise moment, the Aldean snubfighters scattered away from the Rahab, out of the firing trajectory of the Moirene's sister ships emerging past the far side of the moon. Their turbolasers converged precisely on the Rahab's position-- and missed.

Like a dracoflit swooping past a lily, the Sphinx skirted the opening petals of the Headhunters' formation. At its side, the recaptured Perceptor plunged straight down the lily's throat, bare hull against Rahab's shield edge. The Perceptor shattered completely. But the Rahab jolted toward Niamh's surface, now stripped of its shields.

"Recalibrate target and fire concussion missiles!" Kenobi shouted. The fresh barrage drove the Rahab even farther toward the glowing well it had created with its smelter. Helpfully, the Sphinx reoriented itself and fired down into the heart of the well, the very thinnest part of the mantle. And a fiery plume of magma leapt up from the planet's core, licking the Rahab with its very tip and dragging it into its molten kiss.

* * *

The air was running out. Half-conscious, bruised, and numb, Arcadia struggled to sit up and look around her. She remembered leaving Princess Castra's quarters on the Tantive and the door hissing shut behind her, just in time to muffle the telltale snarl of a lightsaber on the other side. The thread of sound had been far less clear to her physical senses than the agony that overflowed to her through the Force. She had whirled to slap the door controls in blind panic, stepping through the reopening gap to see the glow of her own weapon's blade through Castra's back, turning again as the guards who'd been posted nearby ran toward her with weapons drawn-- and then a bright flash of nothingness.

The stun beam was starting to wear off with a painful tingle in her nerves, overshadowing the duller pain on her side where she must have fallen with her full weight. And then they had placed her... where?

She felt around her in the darkness. She was in a small cramped space, roughly spherical and lined with padding and straps. One of the Tantive's escape pods, she supposed. She knew from standard layouts where the viewport should be, but no engine flare or starlight shone through it, and there was still a field of artificial gravity anchoring her down. So she had not been jettisoned yet.

Princess Danah had every right now to think her guilty of murdering Castra, an act that would constitute not only multiple layers of treason by Alderaani law, but the ultimate violation of the Healer's Code that Arcadia had sworn. Therefore, the Jedi order would be unlikely to stretch its protection to her and demand that she be tried by their own courts, not Alderaan's. No one in the Republic would blame Danah if she had ordered Arcadia's execution on the spot.

And yet, Danah hadn't. Arcadia did not want to imagine what the Princess-Dowager anticipated as a more satisfactory outcome.

The pod surface trembled and tilted beneath her, signalling the Tantive's atmospheric descent. They had reached Alderaan at last. Weakly, Arcadia clung to one of the wall straps, thinking that even if she could never be reunited with Anakin now, at least she would see her home one last time before she died.

* * *

Princess Danah's victory gala had been much better than this one, as far as Anakin was concerned. But then again, he had missed most of Danah's, thanks to Arcadia. He wrenched his attention away from the details of memory and back to the present festivities.

The long line of battleships was still cascading past the orbital review station over Belconnen, as shown on the enormous holo screen above Palpatine in the Senate chamber. Half of those ships hadn't even been in the battle, Anakin thought disgustedly. Many had been sent by their systems as placeholders for the one destroyed over Niamh, and most of the rest had been immobilized inside their own shields the whole time. He hated to admit it, but beside himself, the only active combatants had been Kenobi's Aldeans, and they weren't even here. The other survivors were too ashamed of the debacle to protest.

Oh, he supposed Palpatine's reasoning made sense to anyone else. The entire Senate-- again, except for anyone from Alderaan-- were all sitting agape like baby Nebbits, swallowing every bit of the speech the President was giving. The records clearly indicated collusion between Alderaan and the Nechti, Palpatine explained. General Kenobi had supplied them with their precious crystals in the past and was negotiating with Admiral Jordan to sell them more, even as the battle raged around them. Meanwhile, the Nechti had treacherously sabotaged the coalition fleet's shields, completely sparing their Aldean allies. And yet the coalition had heroically fought back despite their handicap, ultimately defeating the Nechti. It all looked completely damning to anyone who knew better. But almost no one did.

Once the battle's conclusion was clear (Palpatine continued), Kenobi and his underlings had run away to Alderaan, where the royal family had already fled from exposure in the Senate and was now shielding them from the Senate's charge of treason. Furthermore, the Jedi order was refusing to censure him, having miraculously escaped attack by the Nechtian ships that had loitered near their core system for so long-- ships that were powered by lightsaber crystals!-- nor had the order attempted to attack the Nechti in turn. Where did their loyalties lie? Why should the rest of the Republic believe that the Jedi had any interest in protecting them, any more than they should believe Alderaan cared for anyone but itself?

Anakin shifted in his seat, thoroughly bored. At least if his Leucothean upbringing had given him little else, it had instilled an automatic expression of rapt, solemn attention in cases like this, but it didn't stop his knees from getting cramped. Idly, he wondered once more about the research project that had been unloaded from the Sphinx just before the battle, and why afterward, Palpatine had sent a mining fleet to carve out the half-destroyed sentry base from Niamh's moon and land it on the planet's surface.