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| - Leia watched with a mixture of peculiar amusement and unmatched dread as both of the men she loved gave her the exact same expression of disbelief and incredulity. Luke's permeating presence emanated a shock wave that could have knocked her down, and the thunderstruck expression on Han's face was almost laughable. But Leia was in no mood to laugh. She was too busy trying to sort out an appropriate response to what would no doubt be a barrage of questions and demands. It was Han who recovered his tongue first, sputtering and astounded, “What?” Leia bit softly into her lower lip and mustered all of her political skill and persuasiveness. She was going to need it. “I said that I'm not going back with you. My place is here.” “I don't know who's been feeding you that bantha fodder, but you belong with me, sweetheart,” her husband drawled sarcastically, though the playfulness was missing from his voice and had been replaced with a dangerous edge. She had to tilt her chin upward slightly, but managed to look him straight in the eye. “This is where I'm needed the most. I can introduce change and reform to these people, maybe even prevent this war.” She glanced at her brother, who was strangely quiet. “Luke, how many times have you taken a risk for the good of others, because it's the will of the Force? Why should it be any different with me?” “Because you don't know what you're doing,” he stated flatly, his opinion on the matter clearly stated through his tone. “This is crazy. You can't possibly expect to do all of this by yourself.” She bristled at the slight nod to some incompetence on her part. “I'm going to do whatever I can to make sure the people I love are kept safe. Cale trusts me right now, at least to a certain degree. He wants me here, and as long as he'll keep me I'm going to stay and do everything in my power to hinder a war. I've seen them in battle, twice now. This isn't a fight I believe we can win.” “I don't believe you just said that,” Han snapped, evidently angry with her. She didn't blame him, really. She would be mad at her too. If she didn't have that prompting from the Force, it would be right about that time the three of them blasted their way off the Dintellion and gunned for deep space. Inside she ached to run from the horrible people who had taken and abused her, but she knew that all would benefit from her presence with them. She had spent her whole life sacrificing for others, why should it change now? “It's like you're giving up!” His head raised and he looked around, suddenly realizing that they had been encircled by Baci soldiers, listening and watching. “What the hell is going on here? And who is Cale?” She breathed deep through her nose, reaching for the fleeing tatters of her resolve. The Force gave her little calm in that moment, abandoning her to her own strength and devices. “Cale is the Baci Premier. I have a feeling that if you will just leave like I'm asking you to he'll trust me more. I'll be able to do what needs to be done. Please, just leave me here.” “There is no way I'm just going to walk away and leave you with these barbarians!” Luke hissed softly, his own ire rising to match Han's. “This is simply ridiculous. No. We're not going anywhere without you.” Han folded his arms across his broad chest and smiled victoriously, thinking that with Luke's support she would have to concede. What they didn't know was that Cale had explosives affixed to every ship in the hangar and would detonate them if they took off. And if they made any move to call in someone else—Chewie, who was probably with the Falcon, she guessed—they would be shot on the spot. Luke and Han would, anyway. She would just be stunned and retaken, a fate she had no desire to meet. “I wouldn't say that too loudly if I were you,” she cautioned. “Cale might decide to kill you anyway.” “I'm not too worried about Cale,” Luke said, confident but not arrogant in the assumption. “As far as I can tell everyone here's too afraid of me to try anything anyway.” “Don't be too sure. They're afraid, but there would be no greater glory for them than to bring someone of your caliber down,” she explained. “So what are you, their personal little rep now?” Han scoffed. “No,” she snapped back. “I'm not sure what I am anymore, but if you all would be compliant in this I just might move up a notch.” “Abandoning you to them is not what I consider to be compliant,” Luke told her. “Now stop with this foolishness and come home with us. Your kids are worried sick.” The last phrase struck home with her, a painful spasm tightening around her heart. Jaina and Jacen, her little Anakin. They needed her too. Maybe she should go back with them after all... No. This was her place, her destiny. Luke had saved the galaxy from the Emperor, this time it was her turn, like it or not. She had a job to do, and the both of them were just going to have to deal with it. “They're practically grown now. They'll be fine while I'm gone. Can't you just understand?” she pleaded. “No,” Han told her firmly. She winced, knowing what came next. Feeling so guilty it made her sick at her stomach, she moved wordlessly away from them as the ring of Baci closed in. It had been planned, and she went along only to prove her trustworthiness in Cale. She would gain access to his inner most confidence, she had to. “Leia! What's going on?” She didn't turn back to answer her husband, afraid of his betrayed eyes. She closed her own tightly as shots rang out, cutting down the two people she knew she could rely on most. They weren't deadly—thank the Force she had convinced the Premier to only stun them—but they struck her heart as deeply as any vicious blaster wound. It was an unforgivable act on her part, and she never would have done it if she hadn't loved them so much. Her relationship with them was worth sacrificing for their safety. Staunchly she quelled the trembling of her hands, frail and white to her own eyes. It occurred to her that there were more devious ways of breaking a prisoner than the methods Darth Vader had inflicted on her so many years before. He had been a master of evil and pain, but it was Cale Wilos who had managed to kill her spirit. Her eyes raised to the observation deck where she knew he stood, the knowledge settling like rotted food in her stomach. She had despised Vader then, but until that moment she had never truly hated. Perhaps that was the greatest grievance of all. * * * Luke remembered the shock as his sister turned her back on him, such an astounding feeling that in the split second his attention had been averted the enemy struck. He might have remained unscathed anyway, had he been in possession of his lightsaber. But with the focusing crystal stored in the glove with his mechanical hand and the hilt stashed on the Millennium Falcon he was left at a serious disadvantage. As he returned to consciousness, though, he knew immediately from the lack of alien presences that he was no longer on the Baci ship where he should be. At least he was alive, he supposed. Things could be worse. Although, it would be nice if that throbbing headache would subside a bit. Using the Force to do just that, he squeezed open one eye. Metallic gray stared him in the face. A bulkhead of some sort. He closed the eye, then opened both of them in a moment of braveness. Yep, it was a ship all right. And judging from the hum of the engines, it was a ship in hyperspace. He had been had. By his own sister, no less. Why? Why would Leia do such a thing to him, to herself? Someone groaned. He rolled over, still disoriented, and fell a half meter onto the floor from the bunk he had been placed on. Scratching his head and blinking away the spots in his eyes, he plundered the space with his gaze, looking for his beleaguered companion. “Han?” he called. “Over here, kid,” a low voice grunted from the space behind him. Luke rolled over onto his hands and knees, realizing with a start that he hadn't been bound. In fact, he sensed no impending threat or even an unfamiliar presence, simply himself and Han. His brother-in-law was, at the moment, in the same position he had been a few seconds before, curled on his side on a standard military cot. It was propped against the wall of a small room, sparse but with an open hatch on one wall that lead to a side corridor. “You all right?” he questioned, crawling slowly towards the bunk his friend lay on. “Did Leia...was that on purpose?” he said, sounding completely distraught. Luke had never heard him sound that hopeless before. His mouth dry and aching, Luke swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing painfully up and down in his throat. “I think it was.” He reached the cot, hauling himself up and sitting on the edge, breathing hard. Those stun blasts were different from any he had been hit with before. They left him not only in aching and fatigued, but disoriented and partially blind. The black had receded to the edges of his vision, but it was still there, cutting out almost all of the peripheral. “How could she do this to me?” Han whispered, sounding husky and disparaging. Luke rubbed furiously at his eyes, wiping away the heaviness there. “I don't think she's herself, Han. She's confused, maybe even a little brainwashed. I wish we had had time to bring her out of it. We'll never get that close again.” An agonized sigh escaped him, and Han rolled suddenly onto his back and sat up. Just as quickly he leaned back against the wall, dizzy from the abrupt change in position. “She's abandoned me, us, our kids, our whole family. Everything we've worked all these years to build... gone. What am I going to do without her, Luke?” “Don't give up yet,” Luke cautioned, trying to be supportive even though he felt the same sense of desertion. “She's going to come back to you. She'll realize, and everything will go back to normal. In the mean time, we have to find out where we are and how we're going to get rid of these Baci.” “Right,” he replied sullenly. “You go ahead. I need a minute.” Luke set his jaw grimly and nodded his assent. Han would need time to work through this, whatever it was that had happened. He stood and left the small room, snooping his way throughout the ridiculously small ship until he found the cockpit. It had only one pilot's couch, and simple controls of the standard make. After scanning the navicomputer, he saw that a plot had been set for the Coruscant system. They would be home again in a matter of days. He could see Mara again, let her know how much he had missed and needed her. A less happy homecoming awaited Han. He had the dysphoric task of telling his three worried children that their mother wasn't coming home to them, that she had chosen a group of vicious aliens over her family. Luke did not envy him in the least. * * * Cale stared down from his view behind the darkened transparisteel, watching with keen interest the proceedings below him in the Dintellion 's hangar bay. Leia was playing her part well, better than he had even hoped she would. It was the final sign he needed, the concession of her former life for the one he had placed before her. She had chosen him and the Baci, and the greatest irony was that she probably didn't even know it. His curiosity piqued as he saw her slim, white-clad figure move away from the Jedi and her husband, and just as predicted they were instantly attacked by a barrage of stun gun fire from his troops. He smiled victoriously, a small smile of private pleasure in knowing that he had bested the strength of the Jedi. It would be a good morale booster for his soldiers, they had been more than a little rattled by his unexpected arrival into their midst. Knowing he could be so easily put aside was certainly a good thing. His wide-set eyes were drawn back to Leia, and somewhat surprisingly she was staring straight at him, her anger singing through the Channel. She hated him now, that much was clear. All the better. She would serve him more readily now that her hate was all she had. The problem was figuring out exactly why it was that he wanted her so badly. He didn't need any more advantages to defeat these pitiful little bands of ships they liked to call defenses. She wasn't even a soldier, or trained in their Jedi ways. What benefit was this woman to him? He didn't know, but the Channel told him it was something important. “It looks like they're loading the bodies onto the shuttle, just as you said.” Cale faced the speaker, calculating what the slight prosody in her voice was supposed to indicate. Her name was Zeya Wilos, a clanmate of his and his self-appointed second in command. She had only just arrived with the fleet group, and he admitted, if only to himself, that it was good to have her back. The month she had been gone—exploring the best targets for them to settle in—had been some of the most disorganized and confused of his reign. He hadn't realized until then how much he depended on her help. He trusted her more than just about anyone, although that wasn't saying much. “Good. Leia's done well, I'll have to tell her so,” he said calmly, fishing for the apparent source of her irritation. She looked up from her seat at the head of the long black table, dark eyes knowing. “Cale, what is it that you want from this human? She doesn't really help our cause in any way.” He took a seat beside her, pressing the ends of his fingertips together in thought. “I'm not entirely sure. But I know that she is powerful, vulnerable, and overly optimistic about her own import. That is a dangerous combination, and one that I can exploit easily. Why shouldn't I do so?” Zeya spun a few degrees in her chair, her brows nettling. “She could be as much of an inconvenience to you as a help. I don't like her. I think you should kill her.” Cale had considered that option, of course, but tossed it aside for the more tantalizing choice. This way he would be able to examine the power her brother held without any of the dangers. A solid plan, in his opinion. “Perhaps. I will give you leave to do so, when her usefulness runs out.” Zeya grunted, running her index finger over the ridge of her nose. “Then in the mean time we need to decide how best to do this exploitation. What fascinates you most about her?” “I'm not 'fascinated',” Cale scoffed. Then softly, “Merely intrigued.” She grinned thinly. “Intrigued, then.” “Her potential strength in the Channel, without a doubt. If we had been able to train someone like her from birth they would be utterly invincible. What I wouldn't give to harness that sort of power,” he mused quietly. Zeya leaned forward, a gently uplift in the corners of her full lips. “Maybe there's a way that you can.” She never jested with him, so immediately he was hungry for whatever solution she was about to present. “How?” “You said that if you had trained her from birth that she could be unstoppable. Well, train her from birth,” Zeya explained matter-of-factly. He scowled, not at all amused. “Very funny.” “I am serious, Cale!” she exclaimed. “Not her per say, but someone better. Her offspring.” He frowned, disappointed in her lack of analytical skills. “All of her children are much too old and set in their ways.” She shook her head, raven hair flying in wispy tendrils around her pale face. “No, Cale, think a moment. A new child of hers. With you as the father.” Cale had certainly considered the prospect of bedding the former princess before then. Despite her age she was simply ravishing, and it would not be difficult to force her into the act. Still, he had never enjoyed mixing violence and pleasure. It wouldn't have been worth the effort, because he wouldn't have savored the experience as he should have. “I don't know, Zeya. She has a mate, I doubt she would receive me easily.” Zeya shrugged nonchalantly, fingering a strand of hair. “Romance her, then, use the Channel. There is something you can do to make her desire you.” His lip twitched at the notion. A child of his own blood mixed with such potency...it was enticing, to be sure. He could raise it and teach it and train it, and there would be a loyalty between them sorely lacking in any lesser relationship. If Leia bore him a son or daughter, he would be forever tied to the ruling family in this part of the galaxy. They would be less likely to want to kill him, if only for the sake of his child. And to have an heir of such power, one who could easily defend him or herself from any would-be usurpers, that would be a great comfort once he abdicated. “She hates me,” he stated flatly. “There is no love there.” Zeya only grinned. “There is a fine line between such strong emotions. One can easily be confused with the other.” Cale was starting to become familiar with the idea, and the longer he toyed with it the better it became. “I like the possibilities. What means could we use to achieve that end?” She stood, the grace in her movement apparent by the silence in it. “I have a few ideas...”
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