Bloodline (Star Wars)

by Claudia Gray

  He turned toward her, dark eyes bemused. “I would’ve thought you understood. I don’t intend to accomplish anything at all.”

  “…I don’t understand.”

  “As I told you a few weeks ago, the very idea of having a First Senator is anathema to me. That power could be corrupted far too easily. I realized that I must claim the position in order to render it irrelevant. By refusing to exercise the tyrannical authority the Centrists would vest in a First Senator, I will be able to maintain the liberty our worlds would otherwise have lost.” Tai-Lin sighed. “Only in this way can I keep us safe.”

  A group of enthusiastic Mon Calamari legislators came up to talk to Tai-Lin, and Leia let him be pulled away into the crowd. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to hide her profound disappointment. When she’d believed she might be First Senator herself, she’d hoped to use her authority to cut down on the endless subcommittees that kept bills trapped for years, to come up with a more reasonable format for their debates, maybe even to move that they design a different floor plan for the Senate chamber, because the one they had was a chaotic mess. While she hadn’t wanted the government to be headed by a figure as powerful as the First Senator promised to be, she had thought that some change—any change—had to be for the good.

  Instead, if the Populists won, the political gridlock and factional fighting would continue. And if the Centrists won, the results might be even darker.

  Again Leia felt the approaching danger, and wondered how she could be the only one who knew it.

  She was so deep in thought that she didn’t even notice that nobody else came up to talk to her for a long time. Amid the whirl of the party, Leia stood alone, a solitary figure in black.

  —

  One day later, on the floor of the Senate, she wore shining white.

  Nobody else present could or would remember that the dress Leia had on today was very nearly a copy of the one she’d worn at the medal ceremony after the Battle of Yavin. She had purchased it because it reminded her of that day, when victory had seemed so close and, for a few hours, the galaxy had made sense. Now she wore it for courage.

  The moderator droid finally spoke: “The floor recognizes Senator Leia Organa.”

  Leia rose to her feet. The holocam droids swarmed around her like bees, their tiny lights like a cluster of stars; her image appeared on every console and screen. She had braced herself for hisses and boos, but the room instead fell completely silent.

  “My fellow Senators,” she began. “As you will recall, I answered the request of Emissary Yendor of Ryloth to investigate the Nikto cartel leader Rinnrivin Di. Although our later calls for in-depth investigations were tabled, I took it upon my own authority to look further into the matter.”

  She did not mention Ransolm Casterfo. If he wanted the credit, he should get up beside her and take the blame, too.

  “Each of you is now receiving an extensive data packet from my chief of staff.” Leia glanced to one of the staff pools, where Greer nodded quickly, her fingers nimbly working on her datapad as consoles throughout the chamber lit up. “Reviewing it fully will take some time. But when you do so, you will see that Rinnrivin did indeed run an expansive criminal empire—but in the service of others who profited far more from his endeavors. Specifically, I believe that the largest part of Rinnrivin’s profits went to a paramilitary organization known as the Amaxines. Even more important, I have acquired evidence that makes it clear the Amaxines were responsible for the bombing of the Senate building.”

  For the first moment, the only response was silence—but then the voices rose almost instantly into a roar. The Centrists and Populists wanted to blame each other so much that they couldn’t stand finding another culprit, Leia thought sadly. But even as some people shouted down her statement and her findings, others were scrolling through the data and seeing the wealth of evidence she’d compiled.

  One voice rang out above the others: “How can we be sure this evidence isn’t sheer invention? Another of your lies?”

  “Not all of this can be proved,” Leia admitted. “Most of the data was taken from the Amaxine warriors’ secret base on Sibensko when their store of incendiary devices exploded. I will submit visual logs from both the ship we’d appropriated for the mission and my husband’s racer confirming that my escape from Sibensko, and the resulting firefight with Amaxine pilots, played a role in the base’s destruction. However, I believe they will also confirm that the primary cause was the storage of an army’s worth of bombs, thermal detonators, and other explosives.”

  “Listen to her! Justifying murder, just like her father!” That shriek from the back benches felt like an icicle being stabbed into Leia’s chest—but it was one of only many shouts. Most senators seemed determined to remain focused on the loss of their pet theories about the Napkin Bombing.

  Before the debate could spin completely off track, Leia spoke again. “If you choose to believe that what I’ve shown you is no more than an elaborate invention, go ahead. But before you ignore the evidence, consider this. The Amaxine warriors were powerful enough to strike at this Senate. They were arming themselves for full-scale military assault. In other words, the New Republic was on the verge of being attacked by its own citizens. There are those who want the New Republic to fail, and who are willing to bring it down, by force if necessary.” Silence had fallen again, as much encouragement as Leia could expect. “We discovered the Amaxine warriors only because an independent world asked us to investigate another organization altogether. Are you willing to bet the survival of our government on the chance that they were the only paramilitary group out there? This group we stumbled across almost accidentally? I’m not. This galaxy’s hard-won peace is at risk. We may only get this one warning, this one chance to take action. I implore you to study my findings carefully, and with an open mind. What we’ve discovered should transcend petty political bickering, or your personal opinion of me. Unless we want another war—and surely, after the bloodshed that ended more than twenty years ago, nobody can want such a thing—we must be on guard. We must come together. We have to act.”

  —

  Lady Carise Sindian stared down at her screen in growing alarm. She’d known Princess Leia’s investigation had cut too close, but she had underestimated just how much information had been dug up. Had there been no security on the Sibensko computer core at all? There were names, dates, amounts, accounts—at least a few layers removed from Lady Carise and her allies, but far too near to the truth for anyone’s comfort.

  It doesn’t matter, she told herself. Nobody wants to believe Darth Vader’s daughter, especially not when they’d rather blame their political enemies. She’s presented far too much evidence to be quickly analyzed. Who’s going to bother reading through all of this?

  She took a few deep breaths. This would blow over before long. Princess Leia had nothing else to say, and soon the Senate would move on. Lady Carise knew how to start a whispering campaign, how to seed Hosnian Prime with alternative theories for the bombing, how to make sure the Amaxine warriors were framed as a lunatic fringe that should never have been taken seriously. In the end, the Napkin Bombing would go down as an outrage, but a mystery.

  Then the moderator droid said, “The floor recognizes Senator Ransolm Casterfo.”

  Lady Carise looked up to see that Casterfo was indeed on his feet, hands clasped behind his back. She wanted to think he would now decry Princess Leia’s evidence, take back the support he had given before, and help set this right.

  But she also knew it was Casterfo who had cast the deciding vote to let Princess Leia speak.

  “My fellow senators,” Casterfo began. “You will remember that I accompanied Senator Organa on her first mission to investigate Rinnrivin Di. I continued working with her for some time after this, exploring the ties between his cartel and the paramilitary group known as the Amaxine warriors. Given what I know, I am bound by honor to say that—despite what I have stated in this chamber about her honesty—
on this subject she is telling the truth.”

  He was siding with Princess Leia. Lady Carise couldn’t fathom why Ransolm Casterfo was so hell-bent on committing political suicide, but here she was, watching him do exactly that.

  “In addition to the evidence already provided, I can offer visual logs from the ship I personally took to Daxam Four, the site of an Amaxine warrior base. There you will see their training facilities and some small measure of their military might. And I can personally attest that their leaders spoke openly of war, and even of their admiration for Palpatine’s Empire.”

  Again, the senators began to whisper among one another, but this time they actually sounded concerned. They might not have listened to Princess Leia alone, but the weight of Casterfo’s testimony gave her back some of the credibility she’d lost.

  Aghast, Lady Carise checked her monitors to see that Princess Leia was looking directly at Casterfo, not with gratitude—but with what looked like respect. For his part, Casterfo did something he’d never done for Lady Carise herself, despite her own royal title: He bowed his head.

  Anger rushed through her as she thought, I gave you the opportunity of a lifetime, and in return you betrayed me.

  She pushed those feelings aside as best she could. The long game they were playing couldn’t be sacrificed to personal pride. Her allies had hoped to groom Ransolm Casterfo as an ally, perhaps even as a convert, but he’d proved unreliable. Whatever loyalty he still had to Princess Leia was apparently indestructible, which meant that he could, in time, turn out to be a threat.

  They couldn’t have a well-known Centrist out there sowing dissension. If he couldn’t help them, he would have to be pushed aside.

  Fortunately, Lady Carise was good at tying up loose ends.

  Joph thought of himself as a resourceful kind of guy, but he’d never dealt with a situation quite like this before. “So what are we supposed to do with these?”

  He and Greer stood in the junker ship they’d bought for the Sibensko mission, currently parked in a low-rent, out-of-the-way hangar well off military property, staring into a cargo hold densely packed with hundreds of thermal detonators.

  “This is not the kind of thing we want to get caught with,” Joph added.

  Greer leaned closer to the pallets, squinting in dismay. “It’s not like we couldn’t explain,” she said warily. “The mission to Sibensko is public now. Still, we have a ton of explosives from a destroyed paramilitary terrorist organization…and nowhere to put them.”

  Initially Joph had figured they’d turn in the detonators to some commander or admiral in the New Republic fleet. But since they hadn’t actually been on a military mission, they weren’t under military jurisdiction. Their mission had been senatorial—more or less—but the Galactic Senate had no procedure or protocol for turning in destructive devices. Joph had wondered whether they should give them to Princess Leia herself, but what if people got the wrong idea? She was already feared and hated because she’d turned out to be Darth Vader’s kid; if the public at large learned she had a massive private stash of weaponry, the reaction could be extreme.

  “I don’t guess we can sell them,” he ventured.

  Greer turned back toward him then, eyebrow quirked. “Yeah, let’s definitely start working on our criminal record as illegal arms merchants.”

  “Well, what else are we supposed to do?” Joph flopped down on one of the cargo hold’s jump seats. “Hang them up as decorations?”

  “I’d thought about taking them back to Sibensko and just dumping them in the water.” Folding her arms, Greer leaned back against the metal wall. “But that’s only going to set up more potential destruction, either for the wildlife there or for undersea trawlers sent to investigate.”

  “The Senate’s actually sending someone out?” That was swifter and more decisive action than Joph was used to seeing from the government.

  But Greer sighed. “No such luck. But you can bet some of the criminal organizations that had interests there will check. The Niktos, the Hutts, maybe even some of the Amaxines’ sympathizers? They’re going to go after everything they can scavenge and every piece of information they can find.”

  So what if those guys blow themselves up? Joph thought but didn’t say, because immediately he realized it wouldn’t be the mobsters themselves who went down to the wreckage in submersibles. It would be indentured servants, or workers too poor to refuse jobs that endangered their lives. They didn’t deserve to get killed just because he and Greer couldn’t think of anywhere else to stash the detonators.

  When Greer put her hand to her temple and winced, Joph felt a jolt of alarm. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I just have a headache.” Then she glared and pointed a finger toward him. “And don’t ever overreact about my health again. All right?”

  Joph forced himself to relax. “All right.”

  Slowly, Greer turned her gaze back to the thermal detonators. “We need to rent a storage space. Someplace secure and secret.”

  “And what? Just leave the detonators in there forever?”

  “And wait for Princess Leia to give us the word.”

  Joph wanted to ask what exactly “the word” would be, but he already knew. They’d only managed to take down Rinnrivin’s cartel and the Amaxine warriors by stretching the limits of Princess Leia’s senatorial authority, and by doing things on their own initiative. If the princess was right, other paramilitary groups were out there, preparing to take the galaxy to the brink of war. The Senate showed no sign of being willing or able to take action against those groups itself.

  Apparently the princess thought a day would come when they might have to take a stand against these groups on their own. When that day arrived, they’d need to be armed.

  “Storage unit,” Joph said. “Check.”

  —

  Even though Ransolm Casterfo had steeled himself for this visit most of the night and all morning, he still made the walk through the Senate offices with dread in his heart. When he reached his destination, he paused a moment in the hallway to straighten his dark-green jacket and crisp white shirt, took a few deep breaths, then walked forward so that the doors would slide open to admit him.

  Greer wasn’t in her usual place in the front office. In fact, nobody seemed to be there apart from C-3PO, who looked as astonished as a droid could. “Senator Casterfo?”

  “To speak to Senator Organa,” Ransolm said in his most formal, correct manner. Then, more quietly, he added, “If she’ll see me.”

  “I shall inquire directly, sir.” C-3PO shuffled toward Leia’s door, but sideways, as if he didn’t think it wise to let Ransolm out of his sight for a moment. Ransolm readied himself for a long wait or a swift rejection, which was why it was so startling when, only moments later, C-3PO reappeared. “It seems Her Highness is indeed willing to see you. Though frankly I can’t imagine why.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Ransolm walked into her office, relieved that the droid made no move to follow. Leia sat at her desk, wearing the clothes she usually reserved for travel, a tunic and trousers in pale gray. Her hair was tucked back into a messy knot at the nape of her neck. All efforts at senatorial formality and grandeur had been abandoned; this was a woman who no longer gave a damn what anyone thought.

  She did not rise to greet him. Her words were even but clipped: “I can’t believe you had the courage to face me.”

  “I can hardly believe it myself.” Though Ransolm thought of what he had lacked earlier not as courage, but as understanding. For weeks after learning of her parentage, he had found it hard to even look at her directly, much less try to see her as anything other than Vader’s offspring. Yet now when he looked at her, he saw the same person he had come to know and like. Although his actions had ended their friendship forever, he could at least give her the respect she deserved. “You did good work on the Sibensko mission. Once I reviewed the full report, I was all the more impressed. In your place, I doubt I would have made it out a
live.”

  She folded her arms in front of her chest. “I’m so glad to have finally won your approval.”

  Her sarcasm hurt, but no more than Ransolm knew he deserved. He had not come here to be forgiven, only to belatedly give Leia her due. “Well. I’m glad to know you’ve been successful and that everyone is all right. Please know that I intend to support further investigations in any manner possible.”

  He gave her a farewell nod and headed for the door, but then she said, “Ransolm. Wait.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m not going to thank you for backing up my testimony in the Senate yesterday. Nobody should be thanked for simply telling the truth. But I can tell you that you surprised me—in a good way, this time.” A wry smile flickered on her face for an instant, then was gone. “You put the greater good ahead of your own political faction and ambitions. You stood up for what you thought was right, and you told the truth even when those around you wanted you to lie. That makes you the kind of politician the galaxy needs.”

  “No senator worthy of the office should do any less. As you say, I don’t deserve any gratitude for that.”

  “And you’re not getting my gratitude. You’re getting responsibility.” Leia sighed. “I have no real power in the Senate any longer. I never will again. That means you’re going to have to find other allies, both Populist and Centrist, who can honestly work together to get us out of this mess—and maybe even prevent a war.”

  “Surely it won’t come to that.”

  “I hope not. I still believe we can find a way back to peace. But you, and people like you, will have to be the ones who lead us there. It’s going to take a long time to build the kind of movement the Senate needs. You’ll have to declare independence, and stop letting yourself be used to do other politicians’ dirty work. So you’ll also have to get a lot better at learning who to trust. For a long time, you’ll have to stand alone.” Leia’s gaze seemed to look through him, and Ransolm could not guess what she saw. But then she added, “I believe you’re strong enough to do it.”