Heritage/Chapter 3

“I really don't think he's going to listen to you, Aunt Mara,” Anakin intoned softly, running a hand through his shaggy brown hair. They had been waiting with a false appearance of patience for the past hour, and his nerves were beginning to run thin, along with Jacen's.

Mara's had been shot within the first ten minutes. Why they had decided that she of all people would be the one to present what information they had to Fey'lya, Mara would never know. Luke was infinitely better at this than she was, even if he didn't come anywhere near Leia's skills. The niceties and underhandedness of politics did just not befit Mara Jade. While working for the Emperor she had worn false smiles on occasion, but the actual oeuvre she did consisted of slitting people's throats for real, not metaphorically. Diplomacy was definitely not her strong suit.

But getting things done was.

“Oh, he'll listen,” Mara ground out. “For the good of his own furry little hide, he better listen.”

“I've heard Mom rant about his idiocy and pride for years,” Jacen added. “I think he's too stupid to know what's best for him.”

Mara supposed she should tell them to keep it down, or to stop altogether. If there were vid feeds, which there most certainly were, this probably wasn't softening the Bothan's resolve against them. And then again, Mara had her own way of doing things, and her way didn't involve lies and platitudes. Best to let him know she didn't give a kriff what he thought of her, and was going to get what she wanted the old fashioned way.

“I'm tired of this,” Mara muttered, then stood abruptly, marching past Fey'lya's stunned, protesting secretary and directly into his inner office. To her surprise and deepening ire, the Chief of State was kicked back in his Elegaic Fabrications flowform chair, in the midst of a late afternoon nap.

“Master Skywalker, the Chief of State—” his young secretary squealed, chasing after her.

Mara spun, closing and locking the door to his office with a sweep of her hand. Belatedly, she wished she had waited long enough to bring Jacen and Anakin with her. If anything, it would let them see that other methods besides Luke's maddening passive aggressiveness could be effective. But it was too late for that. Maybe next time.

She walked confidently and soundlessly up to him, then with Jedi quick speeds drew her blaster and slammed the hilt on his wroshyr wood desk hard enough to make a very satisfying thunk. He jumped at the surprisingly loud noise, alien eyes snapping open as his hand clambered under his desk for what was undoubtedly a holdout blaster. He recognized her a few seconds later and relaxed, but she noticed his hand didn't move. “What's the meaning of this? I told Diali that I wasn't taking any more appointments for—”

“I've waited long enough,” she said, crossing her arms and falling into the old role that was still second nature. She had relinquished her part as the Emperor's Hand many years before, but it was still easy to allow herself to remember the authority and sanction that had come with the job. “There's a dangerous storm brewing out there, and you need to be ready for it.”

Borsk's eyes narrowed, their violet hue darkening to a royal purple. His thin hand reached around to smooth the rising hair on his neck. “And you're going to help me do that, Jade?” he sneered.

“Skywalker,” she corrected, immediately regretting she had said anything. He knew very well her name was Skywalker. He was doing it to annoy her, and she had fallen into his trap.

“Yes,” she answered smoothly. Hooking her left foot around a chair leg, she dragged it forward and dropped noiselessly into its soft parameters. “But first I need to know what you know about the Bespin incident.”

He leaned back, retreating behind a smooth, impassive mask that Han often referred to as a sabacc face. “That is restricted information.”

Mara raised her chin. “This morning you publicly offered your condolences to the families of those who lost loved ones in the attack. To all knowledge, Leia Organa Solo is one of those. She is a member of my family. I wonder, what would that new little holojournalist for the Coruscant Times give for a story on how you refused information that would give closure to a member of one of those families?” Mara mused aloud, her voice thick with irony.

He shook his head staunchly. “You wouldn't. I know you Jedi types too well.”

Mara nodded in concession. “You're right. I don't play that way.” One long, white finger reached out, tracing the outside of the dent her initial blow had made on his desk. “This is how I play. Now, I would just hate for something like this to happen to you.”

The betraying mane of hair of the back of his neck rose slightly. “Is that a threat?”

“It's whatever you make it to be.”

“I am truly sorry over the loss of Ambassador Organa Solo. But until her family makes her demise public knowledge, my hands are tied,” he explained, showing her his wrists as if to display the chains.

“Enough,” she said, waving a tired hand. “If we go on I'm going to end up shooting you, and that's something that will end badly for the both of us. Now, you may be uncooperative out of spite or stubbornness, or some other personality flaw, but I'm none of those things. So, I'm going to tell you what I know, and then you're going to use it. First, Leia isn't dead, but she is in the custody of whoever destroyed Bespin. Second, that same group numbers in the high thousands, and all of them are Force-sensitive.”

For the first time since he had regained consciousness, Borsk seemed surprised. “Rogue Jedi?”

Mara forced herself to keep from wincing at his phrasing. If he started slinging around words like that, things could go very badly for the whole Jedi Order. “No. We've never met any of them.”

“Then what is your problem?” he demanded angrily. “You have no stake in this, besides the fate of Ambassador Solo. And I'm sure that since it is you here, Master Skywalker and Captain Solo are already taking care of that. As for the New Republic, we will negotiate with these people when the opportunity arises. We want none of your Jedi business. Now get out, before I call security.”

Mara considered daring him to just try to evict her, but deep down she knew it would do no one any good. If she wasn't a Jedi, she might have tried it, but it wasn't just her reputation at stake anymore. Things were so much simpler when you were just a smuggler. Then again, if she was just a smuggler, she wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

Not deigning to give him any parting words, Mara walked calmly as possible back out into the waiting room. She stopped, shaking her head as she saw the unconscious body of the secretary slumped in her chair. “I don't want to know,” she told her nephews, motioning them to follow her. “Come on. I still have some friends in Intelligence, and we're going to call in a few favors.”

*                                  *                             *

It wasn't every sixteen year old that got to negotiate with an alien nation to aid their government. Jaina supposed she should be nervous, or excited, or something else appropriate, but it also wasn't every sixteen year old that had parents who saved the galaxy on a daily basis. Surpassing the normal was normal, and so she felt only a vague sense of foreboding as she exited from hyperspace in the Nirauan system.

Failure was a word she had forcibly extracted from her vocabulary. She was a Rogue now, after all. The thought sent a grim smile over her lips. She could do this. It was in her blood. Just like flying.

The planet below her was bland an ugly, monotonous brown matte in color, occasionally broken by a splotch of blue. There was no sign of the Chiss Mara and Luke had spoken of, but she knew there wouldn't be. They had briefed her thoroughly, and she knew when she got close enough they would contact her. Heading for a lower latitude in the northern hemisphere, Jaina angled her X-wing for a sweeping pass. The closer she got, the blander the place became.

And without warning a gorge opened up before her, the gigantic stretch of a ravine like the remnants of an ancient ocean that had been drained. She knew then she was in the right place.

Just as she caught sight of a large black fortress topping over the end of the cliff, the one that had been described for her, a blast from above caught her unaware, singeing her starboard s-foil. Cursing her inattention, Jaina pushed her stick forward and scanned her instruments. Three one man fighters coming in right for her.

“Unidentified fighter, stand down and be escorted into position or be destroyed,” a clipped but surprisingly human sounding voice announced over her comm frequency.

“Happy to oblige,” Jaina responded dryly, allowing the strange fighters to fall in around her. They were vaguely reminiscent of a TIE, their cockpits dark and circular. But instead of solar panels, four prongs curved around the prow in an unnerving design, wicked looking lasers rounding off the points. They looked formidable, and the pilots' flying styles indicated professional and deadly accuracy.

The Chiss would make powerful allies indeed.

As they guided her to a large and open landing platform, Jaina took the liberty of descending towards the smooth rock area. Without warning, a laser blast scored a deep and smoking ridge on the same s-foil. Shocked and angry, Jaina snarled, “What was that for?”

“Remain on your designated course,” the voice came back in its original emotionless tone.

Resisting the urge to string out one of the many colorful phrases she had heard her father utter over the years, Jaina bit her lower lip until she thought it might bleed. Her brand new X-wing. She hadn't even tested it in combat yet. If she didn't need them so badly, these guys would be fighting her target lock right then.

They led her to a different, more remote landing area, settling her down in the center of their triangle formation. Jaina popped the hood to her ship, loosening the straps around her chin but not removing the helmet. She stood, told her astromech to remain put, and jumped the four meters onto the platform. The Chiss pilots were climbing down the ladders that had been brought to them, and Jaina marched straight towards the closest one.

Jerking off her helmet with one hand and wiping the now loose and blowing strands of hair out of her face, she yelled, “Hey, who the hell do you think you are? You just shoot at whoever you want and—” she choked on her words as he turned around and she saw that he was not, in fact, a Chiss, but a human.

An almost indescribably good looking human.

Short cropped black hair covered his head, and a long pale scar ran from his eyebrow back into his hairline where it was highlighted by a single shock of white hair. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a strong jaw and clear green eyes that were both intelligent and cold.

At first he seemed shocked too, as if she wasn't what he had expected either. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“Jaina Solo,” she answered for no reason in particular. Her brain had gone strangely numb. “Who are you?”

He straightened, seeming to remember who and where he was. She only then noticed the blue-skinned aliens that had come to stand on either side of him, both female and both a good head taller than either of them. “I am Colonel Jagged Fel.” The two Chiss stepped forward, clamping her wrists in binders. One took her lightsaber off her belt and the other removed her blaster from its holster. They handed Jagged the lightsaber. “Please do not attempt escape, or we will be forced to take away your current potential to leave here alive.”

*                                      *                                     *

They led her through the stark, bare halls, towards what end she did not know. Not once did they pass another living thing, and no matter what she said they spoke no word to her. Jaina watched the Chiss and their human leader carefully, taking note of their movements. They were stern and carefully controlled, and everything about them led her to believe they considered themselves weapons in the same way the Jedi did. They were confident she could do them no harm, even though Jaina was exactly sure of the opposite. She could close off a blood vessel to their brain, causing an aneurysm in seconds, or she could do a thousand other less deadly things like rendering them unconscious and wiping their memories. But she was here to gain their trust—or blackmail them, whichever came first—and if pretending she was docile and benign would do that then Jaina was fine with playing that part.

And then she was stripped of the Force, feeling sick and impaired. Is this what it felt like to be deaf and blind? she wondered. Stumbling with the spasms of her unsettled stomach, the handsome colonel threw her a knowing smirk over his shoulder, his Chiss companions nudging her back onto her feet. “So it's true,” he mused aloud conversationally. “I doubted the animals would work. But I also doubted we would ever need them.”

Jaina stared blaster bolts at the back of his head, swallowing her bile. “You don't need them. I just want to talk.”

“Then you have no reason to worry,” he told her. “You're going to be talking very soon.”

Things weren't exactly going to plan, Jaina admitted to herself with a grimace. It was up to her to bring the negotiations back on track.

They ended up in front of a large pair of wooden doors that creaked as they opened. The binders were taken loose and she was shoved inside, then the colonel and his companions shut the door behind her. Stretched in front of her was a long table with an aging human in Imperial dress uniform sitting behind it. Standing all around the room were other Chiss, some robed as guards, some looking more like observers.

Raising her chin, Jaina squared her shoulders and swaggered confidently down the strip that had opened in the crowd towards the human male in a manner that was taken straight from the Han Solo handbook. For years he had been subjugated to the rigors of polite society by Jaina's mother, and each time he pasted a smile on his face and acted as if he was as at home there as in his own living room. That's exactly how she was hoping to appear here.

“Welcome to Nirauan, Young Solo” the human said, smiling in a way that made it look genuine.

“General Parck,” Jaina returned, stopping a meter away from where he sat. It didn't take the Force to feel the surprise come off of them all at her words.

“I suppose Mara Jade and your Jedi uncle sent you,” he surmised aloud. “A brazen move, risking your life like this. Especially when we parted on such...unhappy terms.”

“They gave me the information I needed, but no, I am here for other reasons,” Jaina said, crossing her arms across her chest. Surreptitiously she gazed about the congregation, eyeing the strange aliens. As a whole they had different pigmentation and eye color than humans, and were several centimeters taller, but they had a human appearance other than that. The same facial and body structure, making them familiar and alien all at once. The only one who stood out in the small gathering was another human, a huge man with an eye patch and a scowling face. That, she knew, was Baron Fel. Then the thought struck that it was very possible the colonel that had escorted her here was a son of the baron. Interesting.

Parck opened his arms in offering. “And what reasons would that be?”

Jaina cocked her head to the right. “I'm not stupid. I'll tell you, but not with an audience. My endeavor is a private one.”

His wrinkled face became even more so, furrowed with thought and displeasure. “You are out our mercy here, Young Solo. I wouldn't be making demands if I were you.”

“Oh, I am very much in a place to be making demands. I'm asking you clear this room for your own good. I can tell them all what I know, but I don't think you'll want that,” she said conversationally, trying to keep the headache from the ysalamiri at bay. Her heart was pounding painfully in her ears, and it wasn't easy to function under the deprivation of her birth-given Force sense.

He paused a few more seconds then motioned with one hand, dismissing them all casually, leaving the two humans and one Chiss guard alone. At least, that's what she thought until Baron Fel rounded the table and took a seat beside the general. “Now, explain yourself,” Parck instructed.

“A system within the New Republic borders has been ransacked,” she began without preamble. “Utterly decimated.”

“Bespin, yes, we know,” he said impatiently.

“My mother was there when it happened,” Jaina told him, feeling her mouth dry as she spoke the words. It wasn't a comfortable thought, so she moved on. “She's missing.”

“If you are suggesting that the Hand of Thrawn—”

Jaina was already shaking her head. “We want your help in getting her back, and destroying these beings who have her.”

“And why would we do that, Solo?” he said, sounding sincerely confused.

“Mainly, because they pose a threat to this entire galaxy. They are an entire race of Force-sensitives, possibly with the means to become a nation of Darth Vaders, and the New Republic is either unwilling to recognize them as what they are or too stubborn to help my family,” Jaina explained passionately.

“We know much of these beings you speak of,” the baron interjected suddenly, his deep voice causing Jaina to jump. “We have fought them off our borders for more years than my life spans. They go from planet to planet, taking what they need and leaving it barren and useless. They destroy anything that hampers them. They call themselves the Baci wizards.”

Jaina felt a lump form in her throat. “So you do understand. Will you help us?”

“No,” Parck answered immediately. “They are too dangerous to get involved with. They respect us and our authority, and by and large leave us alone. I don't want to present this to the Four Families. They would think me a fool.”

Jaina sighed, wishing it hadn't come to this. “I'm not finished.”

“Continue,” Parck gestured.

“When my aunt and uncle were here, they came upon some very useful information. And by useful I mean a complete and charted map of the Unknown Regions and the Chiss provinces. Now if these Baci end up driving us out of Known Space, I think that the New Republic citizens would find that haven you yourself have proclaimed to be untouched to be quite appealing.”

There was silence, and Jaina cursed the stupid ysalamiri and her inability to read their emotions. She certainly wasn't getting anything from their facial expressions. The noise that broke the quiet was unexpected; it was the opening of the door. Jaina turned to look, and saw the pilot from earlier striding towards them, some sort of instrument in hand. He didn't look at her, but spoke to General Parck in a language Jaina didn't understand. He handed the older human the instrument. Peering at it, Jaina thought it might be some sort of communication device, like a flat viewing screen.

Parck scowled at the interruption, but took the call or whatever it was anyway. He spoke to the person on the other end briefly and with a tinge of irritation, but Jaina got the sense that whoever it was had the upper hand. Eventually he cut the call and gave Jaina a hard look. “Those are some very serious threats, Solo.”

Jaina smiled. “I know.”

“I will think on what you have said. Until then, there is someone on Nirauan who has taken a peculiar interest in you and demands you be brought to her.”

Jaina frowned. Who would want to speak to her?

Parck looked to the eldest Fel. “She will need an escort.”

Fel shook his head. “None of the soldiers should be risked out in the wild with her. There is no telling what she could do with that Force wizardry. Tell Palila she can come out of her hermitage and come see the Jedi if it is so important.”

“You know very well I cannot tell her that.” Parck seemed thoughtful. Then he nodded to the colonel. “You take her then.”

Although the youngest Fel didn't seem scared but rather annoyed at the prospect, the Baron looked outraged. “Why would I want to send my own son?”

“Because he is well versed in the terrain, will be less susceptible to her Jedi trickery because he is a human and knows what to expect, and she will be less likely to kill one of her own kind. Colonel Fel, please escort Jedi Solo to Mistress Palila.”

*                           *                            *

“I thought you might enjoy the spectacle,” Cale said colloquially, as if they were old friends reminiscing over a night on the town.

Leia took a seat beside him, letting her eyes rove over the endless lines of people still taking their seat in the coliseum. Stadium seats fell all down the sides of a huge theater, until plateauing at the bottom in an elliptical shaped plane. The hair on her arms prickled with a sense of dread, emanating from so many different sources she couldn't possibly pinpoint any of them. The Force sang with life and energy, the whole place filled to the brim with a combined power and strength the likes of which Leia had never known could exist. Every mind she could sense recognized her touch, was aware of the Force and could manipulate it to their will. The overall effect was breathtaking, even if awe was the last emotion she wanted to feel.

The appearance of the arena was vaguely similar to the Senate Hall back on Coruscant. Personal cubicles separated the masses, thousands of different groups taking their seat in clusters of friends or family. Cale, as Premier of the Baci Nation, had one of the most private, spacious, and desirable seats in the amphitheater. It was at the very top, privy to all the action that occurred on the flat area below them. In front of each seat—which numbered near thirty, she guessed, but was currently occupied only by herself and the Premier—was a personal viewing pad, allowing them to zoom in and out on different areas of the stadium.

“I don't see anything,” Leia told him, squinting down towards the area she supposed was to provide some sort of entertainment.

“Because it hasn't started yet,” he continued to smile.

Leia repressed a scowl and buried her feelings deeper inside. Except for their first meeting and the little matter of her jail cell, Cale had treated her as any civilized, diplomatic host should. He had brought her to dine with him several times, but in each instance the conversation consisted solely of interrogatory questions disguised in a polite wrapping. Through it all, though, she managed to glean several truths.

One, he wasn't evil. Not like Palpatine had been, anyway. Two, the Baci were a self-serving people. That didn't mean some of them couldn't be kind or generous, but as a nation they were concerned only with themselves, and they used the Force to serve that end. And three, they held no fear when it came to battle. Leia even wondered occasionally if they had ever been bested.

“What's supposed to be happening here?” she pressed, the dread continuing to swell.

“Our most traditional form of entertainment. There's a story behind it, an interesting one at that. Would you like to hear it?” he said, waggling his blond eyebrows. It struck Leia that he was perhaps too young to be the leader of such a perilous group of people, even though she estimated his age to be around thirty-five.

Leia shrugged nonchalantly, hoping inwardly he would divulge the information anyway.

“A very long time ago,” he began, “we were nothing more than a ruined specter of what we are now. It's true,” he grinned at her, gesturing at the clusters of people, “this wasn't always what we were. At the beginning we were just like everyone else. Except, there was an unusual ability that followed a certain strain throughout our numbers. Those people could do odd, but miraculous things. Lift objects with their minds. Heal the sick and wounded. Predict things before they happened. They were revered.” He looked over at her again, blue eyes twinkling with a wicked gleam. “And reviled.”

Leia heaved a labored breath. The words struck home, reminding her of the mistrustful adoration that often surrounded the Jedi. There were those who saw the Order as heroes. Others, as a danger to their power.

He turned back to the ever-filling arena. “Eventually, they were feared. So much so that there was a persecution, a civil war.”

Who won? she wanted to yell, but knew it was a silly question. The Force users won, or else the Baci wouldn't be there now.

“Those with special abilities came out as the victors. But even then there were those on both sides that wanted reconciliation. But the winners wouldn't hear of it. Those who were married to average people were forced to leave their spouses, abandon their children. It was a law from then on, a law of preservation. We reproduced within ourselves, keeping the power and maintaining the upper hand. In time, we grew to such a size and strength that our planet wouldn't hold us anymore. So we left. We travel. And we conquer.”

“A fascinating story, to be sure, but what does it have to do with this?” she asked, waving at the thousands upon thousands gathered with obvious anticipation.

“At the moment, we have nine dozen clans. But when we started out, there were none. So, the men who wanted to head a house fought to the death in a pit of quicksand. The victor claimed a house as his own and people joined his clan. If someone, later down the line, decided they would want to head a house, they challenged the clanleader to the same sort of duel.” At Leia's aghast look he grinned fully. “Now don't give me that look. Of course we don't do that sort of thing anymore. Our clans are set in stone, we have no room for barbaric practices like that. What we do here is a legal way to settle feuds, to keep the clans from fighting with each other.”

Leia wanted to throw up. 'No room for barbarity' she scoffed inwardly. It was all too clear. He was allowing people to fight openly, with an audience, to settle their differences. Slowly she rubbed her temples. “Couldn't you just settle all this diplomatically? Like have a mediator, or something a little less...bloody?”

She actually thought she detected a wisp of remorse in his tone and perceived emotions. “Like your Jedi?” he smirked. “You see, since we all have a share in the Channel, who is to say who is right? And how am I to go about finding an impartial party? Or someone who is qualified for such a position? Even if I was to take a child at birth, never reveal to it its origins and train it the best I could, who is to say it would not be loyal to [i]my[/i] clan, to its second family? Or that another person I chose to help it on its path would not sway its impressionable mind? And even if I trusted that person implicitly, the other clans would not. It is a vicious cycle. With this system, no one can be favored over the other.”

Leia chewed on her lower lip, hoping for some argument to appear out of the air. But what could she say against that logic? Still, it was hard to believe that people with access to the Force could not use its guidance to help themselves. Did they never follow its will at all?

“It's starting,” he said, pointing.

Leia tapped her viewscreen, zooming in on the tiny, indistinct figures. One was a large man, easily a head taller than Han, with a thin muscularity and a calm demeanor. The other was his opposite in every way. He was short and thickly athletic, a dark brow ridge that shadowed his eyes. They both wore athletic training pants and no shirt. Neither of them were armed.

Swallowing hard, “One of them is going to die?”

“Oh, yes,” Cale told her, and she didn't miss the slight purr of pleasure. “This case here makes me glad I don't have to decide their fate. The man on the left, there,” he pointed to the shorter of the two, “is married to a woman named Karil. He came home one day to find her bedding the other man, there on the right. Since then, her lover has shielded her under his clan's protection and Karil refuses to return to her husband. All the while he demands her return.”

Leia shook her head, staring at her hands. The process was wrong in so many ways, that was undeniable. But there had been more than one time in her term as Chief of State that she wished she could have thrown a few senators into an arena and told them to go at it. But sitting there, watching the two men, she felt herself aching more for the woman that was tearing them apart. Somewhere in this place she sat in nail-biting anticipation, her heart torn and fate tossed into the air. Now she was waiting to see where it landed.

“I can't watch this,” she cringed.

“Of course you can,” he replied flippantly. “Look, it's begun.”

The husband struck first, but not in the way Leia had expected. It was a Force shove that send his wife's paramour rolling across the ground. He came to his feet quickly, planted himself, and extended a hand. Across the arena a metal sheet ripped from its housing and spun with all the force and speed of a laser blast towards the husband. He sensed it, leaping over it as it flew towards him. Then the other man stopped it, slowly twirling it back in the direction it had come.

But it stopped long before then, caught between their mental grips, unsure of its direction. It bent against the two influences, crumpling like a piece of flimsiplast. The mood of the crowd shifted with it, the emotions of the two clans involved sitting on a precipice, waiting for the moment when everything would be decided.

With a final, terrible wrenching, the metal leaped towards the lover. At the very last second, with the speed of any Jedi Knight, he ducked.

And out of nowhere a single pebble—which Leia never would have been able to see without the screen—sped towards the husband and embedded itself in his left eye. She couldn't see it, but Leia knew it went all the way through to his brain.

Cheers of victory sounded, as well as the hush of defeat. She closed her eyes, feeling sick. Things shouldn't end like that. Somewhere, a mother had just lost her son, a sister her brother. It wasn't right. It just wasn't right.

“I want to go back to my cell,” she said, fully cognizant of the irony of the phrase. She stood slowly, shakily. Leia was well accustomed to death, she had watched her home planet be obliterated, but this...the condoned killing, celebrated murder, that was something she could never get used to. She had killed in defense, in the face of extinction and for justice, but never over a petty squabble that could have been settled with a little diplomacy and civility. So needless. Such a waste.

Cale frowned in her direction. “You don't want to stay for the rest?”

A shaky hand covered her forehead. She was at the mercy of these people. The whole galaxy was. “No,” she replied, voice hoarse.

He snapped his fingers, already disinterested in her. Two guards stepped from the shadows to stand on either side of her. “Take Lady Solo back to her cell.”