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Chapter Text

The chambers for the High Council of the Jedi were known for its tranquility. Not only in the mood the councilors tried to foster in themselves and each other, but in the very architecture of the room itself. Its placement, at the highest peak of the temple, was to help keep the dull roar of the thousands of Force presences from interfering as little as possible with the weighty decisions made in it. There were its soothing blue tones, a color chosen for its calming effect on the widest range of possible species. The large windows that gave the room an open feel, with the hustle of bustle of Coruscant, easily visible so that the Jedi were always reminded of the people they served.

Of course, that tranquility and serenity was something Qui-Gon perpetually seemed to delight in upending.

“We have a new problem,” Qui-Gon announced as soon as he and Obi-Wan entered the council chambers for the meeting convened to discuss Leia Solo and Anakin Skywalker. Obi-Wan, Mace noted, looked mortified at his master’s blunt words but covered it up quickly enough.

Mace could sympathize. Not about being mortified. He had known Qui-Gon far too long to be mortified by anything the man did. But there was the beginning of a headache blooming at his temples, an affliction that happened the longer he was exposed to Qui-Gon when he had a goal in his sights.

“And what new complication have you brought now?” he asked dryly. As if young Skywalker wasn’t a problem enough. As if Leia Solo wasn’t enough complications for two lifetimes.

“Queen Amidala is returning to Naboo,” Qui-Gon informed him serenely. Mace blinked, and several of the masters began muttering disapprovingly.

Depa leaned forward. His former padawan had a deep frown on her face. “To what purpose?” she asked. “The Senate is currently investigating her claims against the Trade Federation.”

Qui-Gon’s mouth twitched. “She feels as if they are taking too long.”

Mace couldn’t argue with that. The Senate had a tendency to take so long to make a decision, that five new problems would be added onto the first one they had been trying to solve. Of course, there were the rare times when they rushed into things without weighing the consequences. Either way, the Jedi were sent to solve it and got the blame when things went wrong.

Yoda rubbed his chin, looking disturbed. “Know this, how?”

Qui-Gon didn’t lose that smooth, smug composure of his. “Leia came by our quarters ten minutes ago to inform us.”

Mace arched an eyebrow. He never could quite grasp why Qui-Gon never fully answered a question asked of him in these chambers. “And how did she know?” he asked in an even measured tone, refusing to rise to Qui-Gon’s bait.

Qui-Gon looked far too satisfied with himself. “Queen Amidala has requested her presence when they head back to Naboo.”

Yoda looked alarmed now. “Her presence, the Queen wants?”

Qui-Gon nodded his head. Mace kept his frown to himself. Given the report Qui-Gon had given them earlier, the only one of the Naboo party that had spent any time with Solo was a handmaiden named Padme. She had been the one that had accompanied Qui-Gon onto Tatooine at the Queen’s request. The inclusion of an untrained civilian onto a hostile planet was something that Qui-Gon should have worked harder to avoid. Of course, when it came to that mission, that decision was the least of his transgressions. He had removed a sovereign leader from her world without informing the Jedi or the Senate. He had taken that leader to a planet controlled by the Hutts. Betting on a pod race to win a slave. Arriving back at the temple with a corpse. Latching onto Skywalker as a myth given form. Bringing Solo to the temple.

Mace forced his mind away from that particular strand of thought, to the problem at hand. Padme clearly had the trust of her ruler if she had been sent out on an unfamiliar world. So perhaps she had been so duly impressed with Solo she had recommended her services to the Queen. But that still did not explain why the Queen would want a bounty hunter? Especially this bounty hunter. The Queen was young, that was true. But surely, she was aware that bounty hunters were not soldiers?

Even Piell gave a dismissive grunt. “So much for her worries about the Sith if she is trotting off for the first job that comes her way.”

Qui-Gon’s face shifted to amused. “And the Naboo are going to pay her with what money? They arrived on this planet with only the clothes on their back.”

Even frowned. “Perhaps their Senator put up the money?”

“Possible,” Qui-Gon allowed. “But I doubt it. No, I think Leia is getting involved, because Leia has decided she needs to get involved.”

That would certainly be in line with the arrogant woman who had stood before them, lecturing as if they didn’t know anything.

“You know something,” Depa said.

Qui-Gon shook his head. “Know? No, I don’t. Suspect? Oh, yes.”

“Spit it out, Qui-Gon,” Oppo said, irritation clear in his voice.

Qui-Gon gave him a pitying look. “Except for Valorum, who is constrained by the rules of his office, the Queen has no allies on this planet; otherwise, she would not be so dependent on her Senator for everything. Yet, within hours of her landing here, she suddenly has hard proof exposing the Trade Federation putting a bounty on her.”

Plo Koon looked startled. “You think it came from Solo?”

Qui-Gon shrugged. “She goes off on an errand for the Queen, then suddenly information that would incriminate them appears?”

It would be a rather huge coincidence, Mace had to admit. His gaze fell on the familiar twinkle of lights of the Coruscant skyline as he pondered Qui-Gon’s earlier warnings about how dangerous Leia Solo was. This was sounding less and less like one of Qui-Gon’s ‘slight embellishments’ to make his point and more like an actual fact.

The Jedi had spent the last decade trying to pin criminal activity on the Trade Federation and had gotten nowhere. Leia Solo wasn’t as constrained by legalities and procedure as the Jedi were. Even still, they weren’t known for leaving evidence of their wrongdoing around for anyone to find.

It wouldn’t surprise Mace at this point that Solo was some sort of master slicer. The woman had already shown a dizzying array of skills in multiple disciplines, including her skills bordering on mastery in the Force.

There was a shiver along his skin, and Mace frowned. No, that answer didn’t ring true in the Force. That wasn’t as reassuring a thought as it should have been. If she wasn’t a slicer, that meant that she had the contacts to pull up a slicer who was good enough to break through the Trade Federations' many walls of encryption and protection around their transactions. It meant that she had been operating in whatever mission she had set up for herself for a long time, with no awareness from the Jedi.

Although, if Solo had access to those kinds of resources, why did she need to come to Coruscant to access her funds? She was a slippery woman, but there hadn’t been a hint of her being manipulative when she explained she needed to come to this planet to access her money. Qui-Gon was right about one thing. The woman made no sense with the information they had on her.

Obi-Wan cleared his throat. “Masters, she also requested that the Skywalkers be allowed to stay here while she is away.”

Ah, that explained some of Qui-Gon’s glee about this development. He was hoping for more time to convince the Council to take on Skywalker. In years past, before he was on the council, Mace would wish him luck on that.

Of course, now that he was on the Council, Qui-Gon’s dogged determination to do what he saw as right, meant Mace was the one that would have to deal with soothing the bruised feelings of the Masters Qui-Gon would inevitably trample on.

Yarael’s voice was questioning. “She trusts you two to watch him?”

Qui-Gon’s face lost its smooth complacency for the first time since this conversation began. “I assumed that we would continue with our mission and accompany Queen Amidala to Naboo.”

Oppo’s tail whipped across the floor, the sound soothing in a way his voice was not. “This situation has evolved past our jurisdiction. The Senate has become involved now. And there is still the matter of the investigation we need to open into your actions on Tatooine in order to bring Skywalker here.”

Qui-Gon’s face became mulish, as if this was a minor problem, not the major hindrance to all their lives if the Senate got wind of this before the Jedi could handle it. The Outer Rim was a protectorate of the Republic. As such, the rules that governed the Jedi’s behavior there were different than if they had found Skywalker in one of the Core or Mid-Rim worlds.

Slavery was illegal in the Republic, but it openly flourished in the Outer Rim. And it wasn’t just the Hutts who indulged in such a horrible practice. There was plenty of business and non-corporate entities who preferred their labor force to be as cheap as possible. Where the Jedi ran into problems was that a great majority of those businesses were quietly owned by major corporations in the Republic. And they were the ones who had pressured their Senators to make sure that the Jedi could do nothing to interfere with the cheap manufacture of their products.

There were a great many Senators who did not have ties to those businesses, but they were always eager to use any excuse to tighten their hold on the Jedi. Some out of fear. Others out of greed. But the Jedi had been expressly forbidden from buying slaves and setting them free on Republic Worlds. It didn’t matter that Skywalker was a Force Sensitive, only that he was a slave. They had not approached the correct people to ask permission to remove the boy from his situation. And because they hadn’t, an investigation from the Senate would be heading their way, if they didn’t conduct their own, and punish Qui-Gon appropriately. If they didn’t, the Senate would use this as an excuse to tighten the controls on them, and the Jedi were already constrained enough.

“The Queen is still in danger,” Qui-Gon said stiffly. “And the Senate hasn’t forbidden us not to get involved.”

“Because they didn’t think she was foolish enough to leave Coruscant,” Even shot back. “And you know it.”

Yoda banged his cane on the floor, gathering all of their attention. “Finished Master Jinn’s mission is not,” he announced.

Master Jinn, not Qui-Gon. Well, Yoda seemed to still be a little miffed at Qui-Gon’s attempt to dump Obi-Wan for a new padawan. Thankfully the younger man hadn’t heard his Master make that offer. He had still been in the ante chamber of the Council room with Solo and the Skywalkers. Mace couldn’t even begin to wonder what that would do to his confidence and trust in Qui-Gon if he had heard.

But if Yoda was so displeased, why was he acquiescing to Qui-Gon’s desire to go to Naboo?

The other masters were as worried as he was at this unexpected move from Yoda if the pinched looks on their faces were anything to go by.

Saesee beat Mace to asking Yoda about his thought process. “Master Yoda, are you sure that is wise?”

Around him, the Force tightened. Not to a worrying amount. Not like he was in immediate danger. But it was close enough to the feeling Mace always associated with a trap for him not to dismiss the warning.

“Wise?” Yoda’s face scrunched up. “Know that, I do not. Necessary, it is.” Then Yoda’s eyes slid to Mace’s. “And go with them, Mace should.”

Ahh, Mace could practically hear the snap as he was caught in the vice. But unlike Qui-Gon, he knew there were better ways to escape such a thing, rather than ranting for hours. He leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “I assume you wish for me to spy on Solo,” he commented dryly.

Yoda shook his head. “Harsh that word is. Observe only, I wish. Trust your judgment I do.”

“But not mine?” Qui-Gon huffed. “Master Yoda, she is not a Dark Side user.”

Mace chose to ignore that statement for all that he agreed with Qui-Gon. Solo didn’t feel like a Dark Side user to his senses. But he also agreed with Yoda that Leia Solo was hiding something dangerous.

“Why me?” he asked.

Yoda gave a winsome smile. “On this council, irritate her the least, you do.”

Mace shook his head. Yoda should know better than to try flattery on him. “No, that would be Plo Koon.”

Plo started, then cocked his head. “I find her most intriguing,” he said, voice slightly raspy through his mask. “And I would have no problems going on the mission.”

Ki-Adi shook his head. “No. I have to agree with Master Yoda on this. While Solo was friendlier with Master Koon than Master Windu, may I remind you Naboo is currently a war zone? Master Mace is by far our strongest fighter and has the most combat experience.”

Plo gave a light chuckle. “I am hardly a novice at such things.”

Ki-Adi pressed on. “We have no idea what Solo is capable of.”

“You think we are going to need to fight Leia?” Qui-Gon squawked.

Yaddle let out a laugh. “Like your chances in that fight, I do not,” she told Mace.

Mace felt himself stiffen; he couldn’t seem to help himself. “Really? And what makes you think that she can take me in a fight?”

Yaddle shook her head. “Strike you as one who plays fair, she does?”

“No,” he admitted.

Master Yoda shook his head. “Mace will go. The skills for what is needed, Mace has.” He tilted his head towards Plo. “A disparagement of your abilities, this decision was not.”

Plo’s voice was neutral as he settled back into his chair, his hands steepling in front of his face, “Of course.” His voice and presence in the Force gave nothing away.

Not that Mace thought the man was upset or even insulted. Plo Koon’s equanimity and balance were something he had sorely envied when he was younger. It had taken Mace a long time to realize that his nature was not anything that placid, and as such, needed more work and control on his feelings than most other members of the Jedi.

Qui-Gon opened his mouth, probably to object to all of the Council’s reasonable points when Obi-Wan’s commlink beeped.

The entire council looked at the padawan, who looked horrified.

“My apologies Masters,” he said, fumbling for it, “I thought I turned it off—” his voice trailed off, and he frowned.

“Padawan Kenobi?” Depa asked.

“It’s Leia,” he said.

Yoda waved his hand for Obi-Wan to answer it. He flicked the com on, and a tiny projection of Solo popped up above his wrist. Mace was surprised to note that her elegant dress and hairstyle were gone. She had changed into a tunic, belted at the waist. He couldn’t see what type of pants she was wearing, but her hair was now in a single loop, wrapped around her head.

“Where is Qui-Gon?” she demanded, not even waiting for a greeting from Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan blinked, and Mace saw irritation cross his face.

“Good evening to you too, Leia,” he said, a biting edge to his voice. “That is how civilized people greet each other.”

Mace was astonished when Solo flashed him a cheeky grin. “Oh, yes,” she said. “You are so much more fun when you don’t censor your words.”

Obi-Wan’s ears turned a little red, but before he could retreat into his normal calm demeanor, Qui-Gon stepped into the field of vision of the camera.

“How can I help you, Leia?” he asked.

She made a frustrated noise. “You can get my blaster from this self-pompous bureaucrat. The Naboo are arriving soon, and I need it.”

Qui-Gon only nodded his head at her brusque manner. Whatever else you could say about her, Solo’s ability to browbeat Qui-Gon into somewhat polite obedience was impressive. “Where are you?” he asked.

“At the entrance to the tarmac in the temple.”

“We will be there shortly,” he told her.

Solo’s face didn’t lose its scowl before she barked out. “Good,” then her holo blinked out as she cut the transmission before she even uttered a farewell.

“Well,” Qui-Gon said ruefully. “I was going to argue against needing Mace on the mission, but apparently, I have run out of time.”

Yes, they both had. Mace could have argued further. Chances were good that he would get his way if he protested. But the Force was a whisper of anticipation in his mind, and he kept his silence. He didn’t understand why it was important for him to go on this mission, but he had always kept his faith with the Force, and it wasn’t a habit he was going to break now. No matter how the thought of being on a mission with Solo and Qui-Gon was probably going to test his patience.

The walk to the security center on the tarmac wasn’t by any means a short trip, given that the council chambers were on the top spire, and the tarmac was at ground level. It suited Mace, and he needed more information than what Qui-Gon had given at his council briefings.

Mace waited until they were in the lift before he asked Qui-Gon. “Any advice?”

Qui-Gon, for once, didn’t pretend not to understand his meaning. “Don’t annoy her.”

Mace let out a small, frustrated puff of air. While a flippant answer was better than no answer, it was hardly helpful. He focused on maintaining his calm. “In order to do that, I have to not talk. ”

Qui-Gon didn’t say anything, but his look plainly stated. “Yes, and?”

Mace leaned against the wall, feeling his anger simmer. In the midst of a difficult situation, Qui-Gon was retreating into being willful.

Obi-Wan cleared his throat. “She likes witty people,” he offered. “At least that is the impression I got.”

Mace arched an eyebrow. “Really?”

Obi-Wan squared his shoulders. “Yes. She tends to respond better to it.”

That he could do. “I see.”

Qui-Gon sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “Don’t push her,” he advised. “If she doesn’t want to answer a question, she won’t.”

“I was in the Council room Qui-Gon,” Mace noted dryly. “I realize you don’t think much of my observation skills, but even I couldn’t have missed that.”

“I don’t think you are unobservant,” Qui-Gon protested. “Just limited in what you consider possible.”

“And I think you are too fond of chasing the impossible,” Mace said directly. Skywalker was only the latest example of that willful behavior.

Qui-Gon shook his head. “Even when I deliver the impossible on your doorstep, you still don’t see.”

Mace found himself frowning. Qui-Gon wasn’t wrong. On so many fronts, Leia Solo was a bundle of contradictions. Although, he wouldn’t label her as impossible. Just very unlikely.

Obi-Wan cleared his throat again. One day, Mace hoped, he would have faith in his own judgment, overcome his strict adherence to the rules, and learn to cut into a conversation.

“Just because she won’t answer a question, doesn’t mean she reveals nothing,” he said. “You just have to be sure you are listening to her. “

Qui-Gon looked at Obi-Wan, and the smile of pride on his face was clear. “Obi-Wan is correct,” he said. “She doesn’t reveal much directly, but there is a great deal we can assume from what she won’t say.”

Mace looked back and forth at both men. “You’ve interacted with her longer. Does she lie?”

Qui-Gon shook his head. “She hasn’t,” he said. “At least not in the way you mean. She believes what she is saying is the truth.” He folded his hands back into his robe. “And I think that is why she’s so hard to read.”

“It’s a politician’s trick,” Obi-Wan said, mild disgust in his voice.

Mace almost started at that. Solo? A politician? He thought of the abrasive and arrogant woman in the chambers lecturing the Jedi as if they hadn’t known the first thing about anything.

Then he recalled that wasn’t the only face she had shown. The woman who had come to the Jedi ante chambers, the one that they had all first met, had been all pleasantness and cold smiles when displeased.

Yes, that was a politician’s trick. The question was, where had Solo learned that skill? It was a far cry from the intensely focused woman that had appeared in the council chambers, but it hadn’t rung as a false persona either.

For the first time, it occurred to Mace to wonder why Solo had become so angry? She certainly had more control than that, from what he could see.

He turned to the only person in the room who might know the answer.

“Obi-Wan, what happened in the ante chamber before Leia came in?”

Obi-Wan looked disapproving. “Anakin,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?”

Obi-Wan’s face twisted. “Anakin was upset by what the council said to him. It angered Leia.”

“How upset?” Qui-Gon looked concerned.

Obi-Wan shifted a little on his feet. “Enough.” Then he straightened up. “But that is no excuse for Leia losing her temper the way she did.”

The rebuke was almost said; Mace could see the thought dance behind Obi-Wan’s eyes. That the Jedi Council had no business scaring a youngling that badly. 

Mace pondered that for a moment. There was no denying Solo’s loyalty to the Skywalkers. But he had to wonder what she would do in the name of that loyalty? And what vital information that the Jedi needed was she withholding because of one mistake on their part? She had told them she had always meant to come here. And given the ominous tone she used, it wasn’t something she had intended to wait to deliver to them.

It could be she was allowing her anger to override her common sense, but Mace couldn’t make that fit into what he had seen of her. She was intensely passionate, yes. But she was also highly disciplined. No matter what she thought of it, speaking to others in the Force like that took immense concentration and focus. So why was she refusing to tell them what she thought they needed to know?

Mace lapsed into silence as he puzzled over that for the rest of their trip to the tarmac.

The security office off the Tarmac wasn’t the biggest of its kind in the Temple. Most guests did come through the public front doors. But like every other public entry point into the temple, it did have an inner office and an outer waiting room.

It was into that inner room that the three of them arrived. Mace was surprised to see a Temple guard standing there. Their face was covered, as was the custom, and their arms were crossed over their chest.

Mace contained a small shiver. He understood the necessity of an organization like this, especially given that the Jedi were a community and needed a neutral third party to mediate all disputes, but to cut all emotion from one’s life struck him as radical, and not in keeping with the Jedi way.

Mace immediately chided himself for the thought. He knew better. They all found their service to the Force in their own way. No matter how instinctive his revulsion was to how the Guards went about it.

The guard bowed to them. “Master Windu. Master Qui-Gon.”

They inclined their heads back. Qui-Gon had a frown on his face as he asked, “Why are you here?”

“There was an issue with Master Qui-Gon’s guest.”

“There was not,” a voice behind the guard shot back. “I told you, Guard Helax, I had it under control.”

“You do not know what a threat she is,” the guard said back tonelessly.

A human woman dressed as the non-Force sensitive guards in the temple came from behind him. “She isn’t a threat, ” she stressed. “She was merely expressing her impatience.”

“Yes,” Qui-Gon said drolly, “I imagine she is.”

The guard’s mask swiveled to them. “She is hidden from me.”

The woman scowled, clearly not understanding, but Mace did. So, it was Solo’s shields that had caught his attention, not her power. Mace could understand the guard’s unease. Most others in the Temple wouldn’t have noticed, but the Jedi Temple guards watched everything. And they would know that no one was without a Force signature. Although that did beg the question of why Leia had chosen to wrap it up so tightly again.

Nevertheless, it was something they already knew about. He stepped forward. “Thank you, Guard Helax. We’ll take it from here.”

There was a sharp nod, and the guard left the room.

“Where is she?” Qui-Gon asked, looking around the small room.

The guard waved her hand, indicating the space behind a closed door. “She is in the public waiting room. I thought it was best to have her there until you came down.”

“Probably a wise choice on your part,” Qui-Gon muttered.

The woman looked between them. “I assume you are here for the blaster?”

“Yes, Officer…” Qui-Gon’s voice trailed off.

“Waymridd. Corgan Waymridd.” She turned and went to the wall on the left side of the room. The entire thing was covered in locked safes. Its purpose was so that any and all contraband could be left here while visitors were inside the Temple. She placed her hand on a reader, and once it beeped, entered in the code.

One of the boxes gave a slight hiss, and the door popped open a bit. Waymridd went over to it and withdrew the blaster. She looked down at it, thoughtfully, before walking back over to them.

As she handed it over, she asked, “Don’t suppose she’s told you where she got it from?”

Mace looked at Waymridd, curious as he took it from her. “Why would you want to know that?”

She shrugged. “I’ve never seen it’s like before. It’s a lot more powerful than anything commercially available on the market today.” Her grin grew wicked. “And that is even with the fact that the battery is smaller than almost ninety percent of the ones you can buy legally. And sixty percent of the ones you can buy by less than legal means.” She gave the blaster in Mace’s hands a critical look. “I couldn’t take the battery apart, not like the blaster, that isn’t in my purview, but I do wonder how that was achieved.”

Qui-Gon looked taken aback, “Why did you take the blaster apart?”

“For the same reason I shot with it. To make sure it was a blaster and not a bomb,” Waymridd said casually.

“A bomb?” Mace asked. “You think that someone wants to bomb us?”

Waymridd looked him dead in the eye. “It’s not my job to wonder if people want to. People want to do all manner of stupid things. It’s my job to make sure that it doesn’t happen.”

“I see,” Mace said, a little worried. He was aware that the Jedi weren’t looked on with the friendliest eyes of late, but he hadn’t thought it was so bad that people were trying to destroy their home.

But something in the Force softly hummed along with Waymridd’s words. Not a current threat, but there were several possibilities in her words, of threats to come.

“Maybe it’s a custom job?” Obi-Wan asked.

They all turned to look at him, and he blushed slightly. “The blaster,” he said, waving his hands in its direction.

“Ah,” Waymridd said. “I thought the same thing at first, but then I found this.” She held her hand out, and wordlessly Mace handed the blaster back to her.

She flipped it over, and there, on the stock of the blaster, was a small area that had been deliberately scratched up. Mace peered at it, but Solo, or whoever who had owned it before, had destroyed the logo to hide the manufacturer.

“Leia is a bounty hunter,” Qui-Gon pointed out. “She would have the contacts and resources to pay someone to modify stock parts, and they destroyed the logo so the manufacturer couldn’t come after them.”

Yes, the legal arms makers did get very particular about who did and did not buy their merchandise. Mace thought it was because they wanted to make sure no one party in a conflict ever truly got the upper hand, so that they could continue their small, petty battles. And, therefore, continue the money flowing into the arm makers coffers. Peace wasn’t profitable after all.

That was another arena where the Jedi had been forbidden to intervene unless directed by the Senate. In theory, Judiciary Forces were supposed to handle it, but they were even more overwhelmed by their duties than the Jedi.

Waymridd looked like she was barely refraining from rolling her eyes. “That would mean that the battery was the only part that was custom. And I ruled that out.”

She pushed a button on the blaster, and a small black square fell into her hands. She held it out for them to inspect. Mace didn’t at first see what was so special about it, until he saw the line of small marks across the top.

Obi-Wan was the first to understand what they were looking at. “Someone filed away the serial numbers.”

Waymridd nodded and pushed the box into the blaster. “If this were a custom weapon, that wouldn’t be necessary. The serial numbers are used for the manufactures to track their shipments and where they were manufactured. Someone wanted to make sure that couldn’t happen here.”

If Mace was a betting man, he would lay credits down it was Solo who had done it.

Qui-Gon held a hand out for the blaster, and Waymridd handed it over. “If it wasn’t for the size and battery on this, I would swear it was BlasTech Industries. Everything else is pretty much in line with their designs, if smaller. But they don’t have anything this small currently on the market. Hell, even their larger hand blasters don’t have this much power.”

Qui-Gon peered at it and held it with one hand, like he was weighing it. “You’re right,” he muttered, “It is smaller and lighter.”

Mace looked at the woman. “Why are you so interested in where she got it?”

Waymridd looked at him thoughtfully. “My wife is a healer. Her work takes her to some of the seedier parts of Coruscant. I taught her how to shoot a blaster, and she’s good at it, but she is on the smaller side for a human.” She nodded to the blaster in Qui-Gon’s hands, “I saw Miss Solo. She’s about the same size as my wife. I imagine this blaster is easier for her to handle than the standard model.”

“You wanted to buy your wife one,” Mace breathed, understanding the woman’s intense interest.

“Yes.”

Mace held his hand out, and Qui-Gon turned over the blaster. Mace clipped it to his belt. “Well, I will ask her. But I do warn you,” he felt the need to add, “She hasn’t exactly been the most forthcoming with answers.”

There was quiet appreciation in the woman’s brown eyes. “Thank you, Master Windu.”

Mace gestured to Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. “Shall we?”

“Yes,” Qui-Gon said. “Let us enter into the battle field.”

“You talking about Naboo or Leia?” Obi-Wan muttered as they made their way through the door to the waiting room for the security office.

Qui-Gon let out a chuckle. “Both.”

Solo was there, standing by the door, looking out the window that showed the tarmac. At the sound of their feet, she turned around, “Do you have my blaster?” she asked Qui-Gon.

“I do,” Mace said pleasantly.

She turned her head towards him. “What are you doing here?”

Qui-Gon quickly interjected, “Mace will be joining us on Naboo.”

Solo’s eyes narrowed at him. “Why?”

“As an observer,” Mace told her. He might not irritate her as much as the other members of the Council, but that didn’t mean much. 

She snorted. “That is one way to put it.”

Mace didn’t contradict her, and it would have been pointless anyway. She wasn’t wrong in her observation. Then she put her hand out. “My blaster, please.”

“No,” Mace said calmly.

Solo’s voice was annoyed. “Why not?”

“Because we do not let armed strangers walk about freely in our home,” he said.

“We are going into the tarmac,” she said through gritted teeth. “You don’t live there.”

“Nonetheless, it is part of the temple.”

“I’m not going to shoot anybody,” Leia complained.

Mace arched an eyebrow. “Really now?”

“Well,” she amended. “Yoda isn’t here, so that brings down the chances.”

Mace took note of the fact that Leia Solo was many things, but she was at least forthright in her opinions on people. He fought the smile that wanted to bloom over his face. It was inappropriate and would likely only encourage her.

Qui-Gon was not so controlled. He let out one snort of laughter, that he very badly tried to cover up with a cough.

Solo ignored him and kept her focus on Mace. “What damage do you think I could do between here and the Naboo ship?”

Mace settled on his heels. “In all honesty, Mistress Solo, I don’t think you need a blaster to be dangerous. In fact, I think you could take over entire planets, if it struck your fancy.”

Something like pleasure flashed in her eyes. She was a very odd woman. Most people would be wary of being considered dangerous by a Jedi. Solo took it as a compliment.

Even with that strange quirk of hers, Mace had rarely met someone so paranoid about their safety. Especially in these halls, where the feeling of home and calm being projected by ten thousand Jedi made it so that even the least Force Sensitives inadvertently relaxed and took comfort from the safety offered. Not Solo, though. Was that because she was cut off from it behind those walls of hers? Or was she truly that traumatized that nowhere in the galaxy felt safe?

With anyone else, Mace would have tread carefully with that subject. But he had the feeling that Leia Solo would respond better to blunt honesty, than a careful navigation of her feelings.

“I am very curious to know why you are so adamant about your weapon being returned?”

Solo crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t like being unarmed.”

Mace arched an eyebrow. “You imagine you have many enemies here?”

“Are we including Yoda and Mundi?” she shot back sarcastically.

Mace shrugged. “They don’t like you,” he admitted. “But that doesn’t mean that they will harm you.”

She gave a small noise of derision. “No, just set a spy on me.”

“I am not here to spy on you,” he said blandly. “Just observe.”

She rolled her eyes. “Semantics.”

“Definitions,” he corrected. “Can I be a spy when you know that is why I am here?”

Solo’s mouth twitched, and he could see her fighting off her amusement. Obi-Wan was right. She did seem to respond better to a polite barb than a pleasant platitude.

“Truly Mistress Solo,” Mace said. “There will be no harm done to you in these halls. The Jedi are peaceful.”

Her eyes strayed to his belt. At first, Mace thought she was looking for her blaster, with the intention of using the Force to grab it from him. But her eyes skipped over it and fell onto his left side. Where his lightsaber hung.

“Peace makers who carry weapons,” she said.

Obi-Wan’s back stiffened. “They are a short-range weapon,” he said. “We are peaceful seeking. Much of the galaxy is not. We are not fools.”

Solo turned to look at him, a thoughtful look on her face. “You can be peaceful,” she said. “Or you can keep the peace. You cannot do both.”

“They are the same thing!” Obi-Wan protested.

Qui-Gon’s face was thoughtful. “No,” he said. “They are not.”

Mace very much wanted to roll his eyes. Fortunately, they all had somewhere to be, so he could forestall the lecture Qui-Gon would give about politics and the Jedi. “Now is not the time to get into an argument about political semantics.”

Solo’s gaze went back and forth between him and Qui-Gon. “Really? I find right before flying off into certain danger is the best time.”

Qui-Gon’s grin turned delighted, and Obi-Wan looked like he wanted to put his head in his hands at the thought of having to deal with two of them. Mace was much more interested in what she had just hinted at.

“And you have a lot of experience flying off into certain danger?” he asked.

“Plenty.” It wasn’t a boast. If anything, Solo sounded tired by it all.

“And just what kind of life leads you to companions who discuss politics with you before heading into peril?”

Something flashed across her face, but before Mace could identify the emotion, it was gone. “An eventful one,” she said.

Mace’s eyes narrowed. “An eventful life that left you alone.”

“Not by choice,” she snapped, her hands tightening into fists at her side.

“A life of violence leads to violent ends,” Obi-Wan said primly. “And you chose to become a bounty hunter.”

Solo turned to him, eyebrow arched. “You get further when you don’t accidentally insult people.”

He flushed. “I didn’t mean to imply—”

She cut him off. “Yes, you did.”

Obi-Wan’s face twisted in frustration. “It’s just you have so many skills at your disposal. Why bounty hunting ?”

“And you have no idea why that was the only option available to me. I did what I did to survive.”

“We don’t know because you won’t tell us,” Obi-Wan stressed.

Solo let out a bitter laugh. “You wouldn’t believe me if I did.” And she turned on her heel, heading into the hallway leading to the tarmac, effectively ending the conversation.

Solo, of course, couldn’t actually walk onto the tarmac. The wide bay doors required clearance to open, even from the inside.

She was standing by them, pointedly not looking at Mace as he went up to the lock panel and put in his clearance code. The doors opened up, and the busy hive that was the tarmac was before them.

Things were slower than they would have been if it was still daytime, but the temple was always sending out knights for missions and receiving ones coming back. There were supplies brought in at all hours of the day. That wasn’t counting the in-planet craft of the members of the Senate and their staff, who also frequently came to the temple.

Mace watched the activity for a moment, trying to see if he could spot where they needed to go. A sleek silver ship, on the very edges of the tarmac, caught his eye. It was too beautifully designed to be a mere cargo ship, and it certainly didn’t belong to the Temple. It also was space capable, which meant it didn’t belong to anyone from the Senate. They, or more likely their aides, came over to the Temple in open air craft.

Qui-Gon confirmed his guess by taking the lead and walking towards it, the rest of them in his wake.

As they approached, Mace spotted an elaborately dressed woman, flanked by a hooded figure in red colored robes, a tall human male dressed in a uniform, and what appeared to be a droid of some kind.

The Queen of Naboo certainly looked the part. Her dress was a black feathered thing, her headdress made of the same material and adding at least a foot to her height. The white makeup covered her entire face, except for the lipstick drawn over her mouth to make it stand out. The whole thing had the look of ritual, with the added bonus of minimizing facial expressions.

The droid was what didn’t belong in this. Mace couldn’t even begin to fathom why a protocol droid was even here. If it belonged to the Naboo, its mishmash coverings certainly made it stand out among its elegantly dressed citizens.

They stopped not four feet from the group. Leia surprised him though, by walking up to the droid and addressing him warmly. “Thank you, Threepio. I’ve got it from here.”

“Of course, Mistress Leia,” the droid said. Mace caught the flicker of gratitude in the Force from both Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. He wondered briefly if this was the droid Leia had threatened to teach them all manners.

He dismissed the droid from his mind as it wandered away and took a closer look at the Queen. She was staring back at him openly. And though her face was neutral, he could see the questions in her eyes. Not surprising, since he was the unknown quantity in this.

Mace remained upright as Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan gave her a bow in deference to her rank. “Your Majesty,” Qui-Gon said when he was upright again. “It is our pleasure to continue to serve and protect you.” He made a gesture to Mace. “And this is Jedi Master Mace Windu.”

Mace stepped forward and gave a bow of his own. “Your Majesty,” he said gravely.

The Queen inclined her head. “Master Windu,” she said in a low measured tone.

“If you don’t mind,” Qui-Gon said. “He will be accompanying us to Naboo.”

The only reaction of surprise on the face was an arched eyebrow. “I welcome your help,” she told him. “But do you really think it is necessary?”

Solo let out a snort of derision. “Oh, he’s not here for you,” she said, voice bitter. “He’s here to watch me.”

The Queen turned, and Mace was surprised to see there was genuine concern in her eyes. But whether it was a concern for Solo, or concern that there would be a Jedi on board who had another mission, Mace couldn’t tell.

“Watch you do what, Lady Solo?” she asked in that same heavily policed tone.

Solo turned to glare at him. Mace wasn’t too worried. She couldn’t truly be that irritated, or the Force would be prickling along his skin in her displeasure.

“Be me,” she said flatly.

Mace fought the urge to rub his forehead, to battle the headache that was forming. He had gone over this with her. “You know that is not what I am observing.”

Solo dismissed every valid concern the Jedi had about her very existence and training with a roll of her eyes. “Yes, yes. You need to make sure I’m not some evil mastermind, bent on dominating the galaxy to my will.” That was a bit of an exaggeration. Mace never thought she wanted to take over the galaxy. Only that she had a better chance than most if she wanted to take over a planet.

Solo’s voice was thick with irony as she waved at him dismissively. “As if you would know what that looks like.”

And she had so much experience with such things?

The Queen looked back and forth between them, her concern visible even through her makeup. Probably wondering what her handmaiden had gotten her in the middle of. She settled on Solo, “I thank you for your help as well, Lady Solo.”

Solo’s stance visibly softened as she looked at the Queen. Mace took note of that with interest. He had no idea why Solo had decided to involve herself in the affairs of the Naboo, but fondness wasn’t a reason he would have guessed.

There was none of that scathing tone she used with so many others as she addressed the young Queen. “It’s no problem.” Then her face twisted with distaste. “Please call me Leia,” she said, “Lady Solo makes me sound like a character in a bad holo drama.”

The Queen looked interested. “Did you ever think to change it?”

Solo’s face contorted in sadness for a moment. But, there was nothing in the Force to reflect that. Her shields were as impenetrable as they had been most of the day for Mace.

“No,” she said, grief clear. “It was my husband’s, and it is all I have left of him.”

There was an awkward silence that filled the air at those words. Then Solo broke it herself as she turned to Mace, her hand out. “I want it back now.”

Mace was sympathetic to the worry he could see in her eyes. But rules were rules for a reason. And this was a rule he had no compunction fulling to the letter. The safety of his home was not something to be lax with.

“Not until we are on the ship,” he said. “Technically, that is Naboo space, and while we are standing on the ground, we are still on the Temple grounds.”

Solo let out a noise of frustration.

The head guard, Panaka, according to Qui-Gon’s earlier briefing, spoke up for the first time. “Is there something wrong?”

Mace maintained his stare down with Solo, as Obi-Wan answered. “There are no weapons allowed in the Jedi Temple. Leia was forced to relinquish it when she entered the temple.”

Solo’s eyes fell to Mace’s belt. “Oh, there are plenty of weapons allowed. But only Jedi can carry them.”

Mace nodded his head to her. “As you say.” Feeling like he was getting nowhere with her and aware they were on a schedule; he chose to exit this conversation and board the ship. He figured Solo would follow him eventually, if for no other reason than he had her blaster.

There were two servants, who were dressed identically to the one next to Amidala on the tarmac. The one who is in front gave him a questioning look. Clearly, he wasn’t the Jedi she had been expecting.

But all she said was, “Welcome aboard, Master Jedi. My name is Eirtae.”

Mace wondered about the lack of a last name. From what he understood, Naboo had a large enough population where it would be needed. He nodded his head in return. “I am Mace Windu,” but he went no further in explaining his presence to her. Her own Queen would tell her soon enough.

Her eyes flicked back down the ramp, “If you would please follow Rabe?” She gestured to a woman standing behind her. “She will show you to the throne room. As soon as she is able, the Queen would like to discuss our strategy when we return to Naboo.”

What strategy would that be? Her Highness only has three Jedi, her security chief, some servants, and a couple of pilots.

But that wasn’t why Mace was here. It was still Qui-Gon’s mission, and he would let him deal with the details. Or, in this case, attempt to persuade Her Highness from this action.

“I will be happy to do so as soon as my companions join me.”

For once, Qui-Gon wasn’t inclined to engage in time-wasting banter with someone he found interesting. Not a minute after Mace had entered the ship, he and Obi-Wan came trotting up behind him.

“Eirtae,” he said respectfully, giving the woman a bow.

“Jedi Master Jinn,” she said, a smile on her face. “Padawan Kenobi.”

If you would follow me,” Rabe said, gesturing to a hallway that would lead them further into the ship.

All three of them followed her. Mace wasn’t all that concerned about being led away. The Naboo were hardly going to attack them. More than likely, the Naboo wanted to talk among themselves without the Jedi overhearing anything. He wondered if Solo would be included in that conversation or not.

Mace’s thoughts were interrupted by Qui-Gon’s voice worriedly calling out, “Obi-Wan?”

Mace turned and saw that Obi-Wan had stopped and was facing back the way they came. They were too far in the hallway to see back into the hold, but Mace had the feeling that wasn’t where the young man’s attention was anyway.

“Do you feel that?” he asked.

Mace frowned and let his senses open fully into the Force. There was a web of life around Coruscant, vibrating and fluctuating, but he could feel nothing out of the ordinary.

“No,” Mace answered.

Qui-Gon shook his head. “I don’t feel anything unusual either.”

Obi-Wan didn’t seem to take in their answer. He took a step back towards the hold. “It’s faint, but I…” his voice trailed off as his forehead scrunched in concentration.

“You hear what, Obi-Wan?” Qui-Gon asked, coming up to him and placing a hand on the younger man’s shoulders.

Instantly Obi-Wan stiffened, and Qui-Gon immediately dropped his hand.

Blinking, as if dazed, Obi-Wan said absently. “It’s gone now. But I thought….” Then he seemed to notice that his Master was looking at him with a faint air of pain.

“My apologies Master,” he said, bowing immediately. “When you touched me, the emotion behind the sound became overwhelming.”

Qui-Gon nodded his head in return, and then his hurt slid away to concern. “And what emotion was that?”

Obi-Wan swallowed, and his eyes became troubled. “Fear, Master. The kind that eats away everything in a person.” Then he looked at Mace and Qui-Gon. “You really didn’t hear anything?” 

Mace exchanged a look with Qui-Gon. He looked just as confused as Mace felt. Mace swept out in the Force again, alert for the tiniest fraction of anything  but all he could feel was the life and vibrancy of Coruscant.

“No,” Qui-Gon said.

“Master Jedi?” Rabe asked. “Is everything alright?”

Obi-Wan’s face shut down. “Forget it,” he said. He was a talented young man and learning at a phenomenal rate, but Mace wished he had a bit more confidence in his own abilities.

 “Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon said.

The younger man shook his head. “Whatever it was, it’s gone now. And we have more pressing problems to deal with.”

He wasn’t wrong, but since neither Mace nor Qui-Gon could feel anything, they let it pass and followed the young woman to their destination. 

The throne room wasn’t as ostentatiously decorated as its name implied it would be. It was behind a door, which struck Mace as strange until he realized that it would be easier to keep out unwanted ears that way.

It was a long oval-shaped room with a high round curve to the ceiling. There were faux window panels on the top that let in some sort of artificial light, giving the room a much bigger feel to it.

There was a large silver chair in the back of the room. It was built along sleek lines, but there were no encrusted jewels or ornate scroll work. It was just a swooping design along the back and sides, to give it the feeling of great weight.

The floor was a simple design done in gray, with cream-colored walls. There were red velvet-covered benches that went along half the length of the room on both sides. Elegance was in every aspect of this space, but not a hint of ostentatiousness. Mace approved. Beauty in simplicity had always struck him as a clearer statement than the gaudiest of overdressing to show one’s power. It was surprising design choice, given the elaborate nature of Amidala’s dress on the tarmac, but Mace supposed that the dress could be a quirk of Naboo’s history.

Mace, Qui-Gon, and Obi-Wan waited quietly with the handmaiden when a few minutes later, the Captain of the Queen’s guard came in.

“Masters Qui-Gon and Windu,” he said, nodding his head towards them. “Padawan Kenobi. Her Majesty will be joining us in a few minutes.”

“Captain Panaka,” Qui-Gon said back levelly. “What seems to be the hold-up?”

Panaka didn’t reveal or say anything.

“Amidala is changing her clothes,” Solo’s voice said over Mace’s shoulder. He turned, and she was standing there, an astromech and the young Gungan at her side. He hadn’t heard the door open, so she must have come in behind Panaka.

“Her clothes?” Obi-Wan asked, just a touch of censure in his tone.

Solo’s eyes narrowed. “Do you have any idea how uncomfortable that headdress she was wearing is ?”

“Should I?” Obi-Wan asked back, looking baffled.

“And you do?” Qui-Gon asked pleasantly.

Solo’s eyes flicked to him, and Mace could see her shoulders tighten. “No. I’ve never worn that headdress.”

Not a surprise, given what Mace understood about clothes such as that. More than likely that piece was custom work, meant for Amidala herself, not just whoever happened to be the ruler of Naboo.

But what was interesting, was that Solo knew how heavy, elaborate outfits like that were. Not a thing that someone in her line of work would have cause to know. Qui-Gon was right, again, dammit. You could learn a lot about Solo from around the edges, if you were smart and observant.

Solo didn’t waste any time. She came right up to him as the young Gungan ambled his way to the side wall over to where Qui-Gon stood. She put her hand up imperiously.

Amused, Mace handed her blaster back to her. She took it from him, and he saw relief dance across her face as she re-holstered it back onto her belt.

“May I ask where did you purchase that blaster?”

She froze and looked at him suspiciously.

“Why do you want to know?” she asked. “I thought Jedi avoided using blasters.”

“I don’t,” Mace explained. “The security officer you dealt with at the Temple, Waymridd, does. Apparently, she thinks the small size would make it perfect for her wife.”

She relaxed, and her hands fell to it, caressing it for a moment. “It was a gift,” she said, and there was grief echoing in her voice. “From my husband.” She gave him a small, secretive smile. “For very much the same reason.”

Ah. Well, Waymridd would be disappointed. But it did explain some of Solo’s attachment to the thing. A strange gift to receive from a romantic partner though. Mace didn’t have any firsthand experience with such relationships, but he was fairly certain weapons weren’t the preferred choice for a gift. Of course, given Solo’s habit of confronting those in power, perhaps the man had shown a good understanding of his wife.

It was only a wait of ten more minutes; Mace could concede that in the Queen’s favor. All of them had taken seats on the benches but came to their feet when Amidala entered the room. She was flanked by two of her handmaidens, hoods up, obscuring their faces. The Queen was dressed in a black velvet robe, her hair swept up in and contained by two grey fabric trails bound to her head by a cloth band. The outfit was still made of high-quality fabric and looked elegant on her, but it would allow her much more freedom of movement.

She walked past all of them and took her throne, Rabe joining the other two handmaids as they flanked behind her.

She nodded to Panaka. “Captain,” she said, giving her Captain permission to speak.

“Your Highness, I’m not sure what you are trying to achieve with this,” he said, voice grave. “As soon as we land, the Federation will arrest you and force you to sign the treaty.”

“I agree,” Qui-Gon echoed. “I’m not sure what you wish to accomplish by this.”

The Queen’s eyes flicked to Solo, who was watching the proceedings from the entrance to the room.

“I will take back what is ours,” the young Queen said, conviction in her voice.

Solo gave a nod of her head, a knowing smirk on her face.

Mace didn’t care how impressive Qui-Gon thought Solo was; there was no way that she could defeat an entire army.

Mace didn’t need to state the obvious. Panaka did it for him. “There are too few of us, Your Highness,” he pointed out. “We have no army.”

“And we can only protect you,” Qui-Gon said, gesturing to encompass himself, Obi-Wan, and Mace. “We can’t fight a war for you.”

The solemn mood was broken by a sharp amused laugh. They all turned to look at Solo as she shook her head. “You do like playing your cards close to your chest,” she told the young Queen, both pride and amusement in her voice.

There was the barest twitch of a smile on that painted face. “You disapprove?”

Solo’s eyes glittered with approval. “No, it’s a tactic I’m fond of myself.”

Amidala seemed to sit up just a little straighter at that. Apparently, Solo was capable of making a good impression on someone. Even more striking was that she had done it in so short an amount of time. Amidala and Solo had only interacted on the journey to Coruscant, as far as Mace could figure. But the older woman had clearly made a deep impression, so much so that the young Queen was pleased with the compliment.

Amidala didn’t bask long. Her gaze moved away from Solo. “Jar-Jar Binks,” she called out.

The youngling started. “Mesa, Your Highness?” he asked, his hand coming to his chest to point to himself.

“Yes. I need your help.”

Jar-Jar looked around the room as if he could find the answer to her question with one of them. Finding nothing, he took a hesitant step forward. “Of coursa,” he said in that heavily accented Basic. “But mesa not seeing how.”

“Can you take me to the Gungan army?” the Queen asked, voice level.

Mace found his mouth actually dropping open, as Panaka let out a startled, “What army ??” and all the handmaidens turned to look at their Queen in amazement.

Amidala waited until everyone was quiet again. “Jar-Jar?” she asked.

The youngling rubbed the back of his neck. “I cansa,” he admitted. “But theysa no wansa be seeing me.”

The Queen’s mouth twitched. “I doubt that they will be all that happy to see me either,” she said. “But we need each other,” she gestured to the door, and to the men and woman who were on the ship, but not in this room. “If they want to defeat the droid army, they are going to need ships and pilots to fly them.”

“Your Majesty,” Panaka protested, “There is no way that the Gungans have enough resources—”

“They probably do,” Solo cut in, sounding bored. “If they have enough to deal with the Naboo. Your population is what? A couple of million?”

The Queen nodded.

Solo focused on Jar-Jar. “And the Gungans?”

He looked deeply uncomfortable, looking around the room, and his head drooped. “About the samesa,” he said in an almost mumble.

Solo nodded her head. “They built the army because they were afraid of you,” she said pointedly at Panaka. The man pursed his lips, but he didn’t belabor her point. “Since they have the same population numbers to draw from, it stands to reason they prepared an army that could take them, if need be.”

“How does that help us? Panaka demanded.

“Naboo was picked because we have no standing army,” Amidala said, eyes fixed on Solo. “The Trade Federation sent enough droids to hold a civilian population, not an armed one.”

Mace wondered if it was Solo who had pointed that out to the young Queen. And that made him wonder why Solo even thought of it in the first place. Training in battle tactics wasn’t something most bounty hunters bothered to learn. They tended to use one-on-one fighting in their line of work.

“And why would they do that?” Panaka asked. “Why not send in more?”

“Economics,” Solo said. “They are bureaucrats, not seasoned warriors. They want to do this as cheaply as possible.”

Mace’s eyes met Qui-Gon’s, a chill running down his spine. It was of no comfort that he saw the same realization on Qui-Gon’s face. Solo hadn’t been just trained in battle tactics, which, while unusual, wasn’t a skill completely unknown in professional bounty hunters. It was much worse than that. Solo had just hinted that she understood how to run a war.

“The Gungans have already been destroyed,” Panaka protested, bringing Mace back to the present conversation.

“I don’t think so,” Obi-Wan interjected. “The Jedi are monitoring the system. There have been no reinforcement ships sent. If there was a battle, wouldn’t they have a need?”

Jar-Jar nodded. “Gungan’s are mighty warriors,” he said. “Wesa fight.”

Panaka shook his head. “It’s still too much of a risk—”

Amidala cut him off. “I will not sit here and do nothing while our people are suffering and dying. ”

“And if this plan doesn’t work, Your Highness?” Panaka asked very quietly.

“Then we will form a new plan when we are forced to,” she said. “I understand your concerns Captain, but I will not be diverted from the course I have set.”

Panaka didn’t look happy, but he nodded his head to her.

She rose from her throne. “Now, I suggest we take the next few hours and rest.” She calmly walked out of the room, her handmaidens trailing in her wake.

Mace meant to take her advice. He had asked Panaka where he could sleep and had slipped into the bed, determined to rest. But when he opened his mind, seeking the Force to help him fall asleep faster, it began subtly pushing back. Not hard enough that he couldn’t ignore it if he chose, but enough so that he couldn’t dismiss it as his own worries and concerns distracting him. Sighing, he stood up from the bed, hoping that at some point, he might at least be able to meditate.

Mace found Solo sitting in a room in the bowels of the ship. It was small but lavishly furnished. Probably a rest area for the servants, when the ship was being used for its intended purpose as a luxury transport and not smuggling a band of insurgents to an occupied planet.

Mace paused in the doorway, considering the sight before him. Solo was sitting on the floor, legs crossed over each other. When he went out to search for her, he was hoping to find her before she fell asleep. Finding her meditating wasn’t on the list of expected outcomes.

Then his eyes narrowed as he allowed all of his senses to take in what was going on in the room. He couldn’t feel anything in the Force from her. Was she that used to hiding what she was, that she quieted her presence even when she was submerged in the Force?

Her impatient voice cut through his thoughts. “Come in or get out, Qui-Gon,” she said, eyes not opening.

Well, it seemed she had little use for her most vocal supporter in the Jedi. Mace wondered if she was bad at political maneuvering. Qui-Gon was a useful ally to have. Or, given her intelligence and quick wit, the more likely explanation was she just didn’t care enough to play political games.

“It’s not Qui-Gon,” he announced.

Solo’s eyes flew open, and there was a flicker of surprise on her face. She really wasn’t using the Force in her meditation, he noted clinically. If she had been, there was no way someone of her sensitivity and training could have mistaken him for Qui-Gon.

And Mace found himself momentarily thankful to the unpredictable Knight. Their lifelong friendship, and Mace’s years on the Council dealing with him had given him a lot of practice in presenting a smoothly neutral face to anyone. He had the feeling he was going to need it in this conversation.

Her surprise melted away, replaced by an extreme wariness. “What are you doing here?”

Mace could have left. But there was a curiosity buried under her sharply wary tone. He wouldn’t push though. He had learned that lesson in the Council meeting earlier today. No matter how insistent the feeling under his skin was that he had to talk to her, he would handle this as gently as he knew how.

“I only wanted to speak to you,” he gestured to her sitting form, “but I can see you are busy.” It was his attempt to give her a nice and polite way to send him away. It said something of Solo’s ever changing nature that he had no idea if she would take the out. Or claw at him with her razor tongue just because she could.

Solo’s eyes never left his face as she studied him intently. Mace wondered what she saw. He had no idea what was going on behind those brown eyes. He briefly allowed his mind to wonder where she had learned to be so inscrutable.

After a long pause, she lifted her hand off her knee to gesture in front of her, indicating he could sit. “I don’t mind the company,” she said. “But I don’t like it when people hover over me.”

Mace could feel the weight of her choice as a low pleased thrum in the Force. It was a relief that he didn’t need to walk away from this. He wasn’t sure why it was important that he talk to her now, but it was.

Trusting the Force, even if he didn’t understand it, Mace came into the room. Solo only watched him evenly, saying nothing until he settled himself two feet in front of her, mirroring her pose.

“What did you want to talk about?”

Mace gave an internal start. The wariness wasn’t unexpected, but there was a trace of fear in her tense shoulders. She was uneasy with him here. Qui-Gon annoyed her, but Mace made her afraid. It was not overwhelming her, but it was there. Why?

Aware that was not the best start to their conversation, he went with something else that was bothering him about her. “You are not meditating with the Force?”

Defensiveness flashed across her face. “Meditation isn’t only for the Jedi.”

Mace put his hands up, trying to look as harmless as possible. “It was not a criticism. Only a question.”

Solo looked taken aback for a moment. Then her shoulders relaxed a bit, and there was a hint of sheepishness in her voice, “True.” She rubbed her forehead. “My apologies. It’s been a long day, and I am not at my best.”

Mace put his hand on the floor, starting to get up. “I should leave you to sort yourself out then.

Solo’s voice was even as she said, “My parents.”

Mace froze, mid-motion to pushing himself to his feet. “I beg your pardon?”

“I learned to meditate because of my parents,” Solo elaborated.

Mace frowned both at the answer and her sudden willingness to divulge any information on her past. He allowed himself to sink back to the floor. “How are they involved?”

A sly grin crossed over her face. “It might surprise you to learn I have somewhat of a temper.”

Mace arched an eyebrow. “Far be it for me to be so uncouth, as to bring it up.”

Solo’s eyes crinkled in amusement. Playfulness, that was a new facet to this woman. But despite the feeling he got that she found all of this terribly amusing, her face didn’t lose its solemn look. “It isn’t anything new. When I was a child, it was much worse.” Her solemnity faded, and a fond look crossed her face. “My parents were worried, so when I was about twelve, they had me learn how to meditate.”

Mace blinked. That was in no way the answer he had been expecting. “Did it help?”

Solo shrugged. “In some ways, yes. In others,” her face became fierce. “I honed what was there, but I didn’t learn to master my anger then. That control came…later.”

Under the tutelage of this mysterious Luke Lars, no doubt. Still, he couldn’t fault her parents, whoever they had been, for their logic.

“Your parents sound very wise. I wish more people embraced the practice.”

Solo’s smile turned wry. “I have to agree with you on that point.” Her smile slipped away, and her eyes became deep wells of grief. “It’s funny,” she murmured. “They’ve been dead and gone longer than they were ever in my life, and yet they shaped so much of who I am.”

Mace allowed himself to wonder for a moment about who these people could possibly have been. She had said they had been gone a long time, so not all of her current skill set could be attributed to them. The Force training had clearly come from Lars. But as to the rest? Had they shaped the polite, charming woman he met in the Jedi Council ante chamber, or the rough and ready bounty hunter who survived on Tatooine for at least a year?

And more importantly, what kind of people had both a will to match her own but the wisdom not to crush her spirit?

Aware that she had given this little bit because he hadn’t pushed, he thought it was best not to get greedy and press further. He didn’t need to feel the Force tightening its grip around him to tell him that.

But he was surprised by his desire to know more, so he settled for a vaguer question. “When did they pass?”

There was a long pause to that, and Mace wondered if he had fatally miscalculated. Solo’s face was blank, but that didn’t mean much. According to Obi-Wan, she had walked into the council rooms furious earlier today, and Mace had no idea.

Her eyes were assessing when she finally did answer him. “Almost thirty-five years ago.”

There was a hitch along the Force. There was something significant about that answer. Mace made a mental note to look up if any cataclysmic events happened during that time. He couldn’t immediately recall any disasters, at least not on a human world. He was aware that Solo’s parents could have died from any number of ordinary dangers in the galaxy, but the reaction in the Force told him it was unlikely.

Aware that she was still judging what he would say, Mace retreated into manners and what was in front of him, not speculation. “My condolences on your loss.”

She blinked and then gave a bow of her head. “Thank you. But it was a long time ago.”

“Yet you still miss them,” he observed. “Deeply.”

Solo’s eyes flashed with grief but not anger. She nodded her head.

Mace pondered that for a moment. He had no parents of his own. Not that he hadn’t cared deeply for his creche masters, but none of them had been his. Not like a parent would be to a child.

“I would have thought the pain of it would fade over time.”

Solo shook her head. “Oh, the pain never goes away. It’s always a sharp knife to the heart. What goes away is how often I feel the cut.”

Fascinated, Mace leaned forward. He was getting nothing from her in the Force, those shields of her were still firmly in place, but he didn’t need to. It was her face that was betraying her. It wasn’t obvious, but it was there, and for someone who had as much control as Leia Solo, it spoke of great pain and loss.

But nowhere around her was the feeling of the Dark Side preying on such vivid emotions. Shields or no shields, it didn’t matter. The fact that those emotions existed, contained within her, that was what would draw the Dark Side to her. Either she was masterful at hiding her true leanings in the Force, or she was somehow defying every tenet he understood about the best way to stay in the light. It was an even more remarkable feat when he took into account that Solo would be even more susceptible than most individuals. Given her stronger connection to the Force, she would feel the effects of it reflecting her emotions back to her that much more keenly.

Wanting to understand how she achieved this, he asked, “How do you deal with your grief and not get lost in the Force?”

Solo seemed to draw strength to her as those lines of loss painted on her face melted away. Her face was full of conviction. “By holding to the knowledge that I will see them again one day.”

Mace leaned back, a little surprised at her answer. Leia Solo didn’t strike him as a deeply religious person. She seemed far too questioning and prickly to take anything on blind faith. But there was no missing the conviction in her voice. She truly believed she would see them again.

“I see,” he said, trying to keep his voice pleasantly neutral.

One delicate eyebrow arched up. “Do you?” she asked, the barest hint of mocking in her voice.

Mace chose not to dignify that with an answer.

Solo cocked her head in inquiry, and then a brief flutter of pain crossed her face. She sighed and stretched her neck a bit from side to side.

“I should have put a pillow down to sit on,” she said, mostly to herself. “I’m getting too old to be sitting on cold hard ground.”

“Why not seek sleep?”

She shook her head. “As I’ve gotten older, it’s been harder and harder for me to wake up quickly. The trip to Naboo isn’t long enough. It would only make me feel worse.” Then she gave him another one of her wary looks. “But my sleep and meditation habits aren’t why you came down here.”

“No, they were not.”

She gave a long sigh. “Are you going to get to the point, or are we going to dance around each other?”

“You are rather blunt,” Mace observed.

Solo shrugged. “It saves on time.”

But only when she wanted to be. He had enough sense not to say that out loud. “I had some questions.”

That wary look was back in her eyes. “About what?”

“The Force.”

Mace hadn’t been sure if his answer would intrigue her or anger her. He was usually much better at getting a read on people, especially in a one-on-one setting. But Leia Solo seemed to have a knack for defying definition.

He was pleased when a surprised smile crossed her lips. “I’d hardly call myself an expert on it, but I’m willing to play. What would you like to know?”

So, Qui-Gon hadn’t been wrong about her lack of hostility about the philosophy that governed their lives, if not how they lived them.

“In the council chambers, you said that we were mistaking that the fact that the Dark Side exists, with what the Sith do with it.”

“You are.”

Her conviction was bordering on arrogance. But he was willing to let that go, in order to pursue a greater truth. “Can you explain what that means?”

Her brow furrowed. “I’m not sure I understand your question.”

Solo was by no means stupid. Mace wasn’t sure how she was missing this rather obvious fact. “The Dark Side is dangerous.”

Solo blinked in surprise. “Of course, it is.”

Mace straightened up. That was not the answer he had been expecting from her. “But you said it is part of the Force.”

Her head cocked, and she didn’t look any less confused. “It is.”

Mace felt like they were talking to each other in two different languages. “Then you agree it should be avoided?”

“Yes?” she asked, unsure. “I’m not sure why you got the impression I’m for using it.”

“Because you talk about it like it’s natural. ”

Comprehension dawned in her eyes. “Because it is,” she said, leaning forward. “But just because something is natural doesn’t mean you shouldn’t treat it with respect and be wary of it. A supernova is natural; that doesn’t mean I want to be near one.”

Mace frowned, not liking her analogy but unable to put his finger on why. “The Dark Side is chaos given form, as the Light Side is life. And life reaches toward order.”

“It does,” Solo agreed. “But life also ends. And for most creatures, violently. ”

“It does not—”

Solo’s eyes were hard, but her voice was gentle. “The kyat dragon eats the bantha. The bantha eats the fodder. The fodder destroys whatever other life would have grown in the sand so it can survive. Is that not violence?”

“Yes,” Mace said slowly, seeing where she was going but not able to come up with a point to refute her. It was a horribly bleak way to look at the wonder that was life. “But we aren’t just non-sentients, who walk through life paying attention to nothing but our own survival. In a civilized world—”

She cut him off, a rueful tone to her words. “I don’t think the Force cares all that much about civilization.” She gave him a slightly mocking glare. “But I also concede that I am not an expert on the subject.”

Not a shock, despite the fact she threw out her proclamations as if she had the knowledge of thousands of generations at her fingertips. “Not a scholar?”

She gave a dismissive shrug of her shoulders. “The Living Force. The Unifying Force. All the same.”

Mace ignored that for now. There were many differences between them, but he wanted to stay on this topic. Solo had a tendency to lay false trails for him to follow, to get away from what she didn’t want to talk about. Obi-Wan had been right about that. This was something a politician would do. “And the Dark Side?”

“That too.” There was a challenge in her eyes.

There was along moment of silence as she waited for him to answer. Mace leaned back, surprised to find that during the conversation, he had leaned that close to her.

They stared at each other for one long moment until Solo’s mouth quirked. “Is this interrogation one-sided? Or can I ask you a question?”

Mace decided to address the underlying assumption in that question instead of the question itself. “I thought we were having a conversation.”

Her lips twitched. “Can’t it be both?”

He allowed his irritation to show in his eyes.

She surprised him by letting out a small bark of laughter.

He shook his head, wanting to understand the emotional currents this woman rode but aware that might take years. “Ask,” he said, wondering where that mind was going to go. “But I reserve the right to be as evasive as you are in my answer.”

As much as she resented his observance of her, she was doing the same to him, and Mace wasn’t foolish enough to give her any weapon against the Jedi.

There was a flicker of unease and then a steely determination. “Qui-Gon said that the Chosen One was supposed to bring balance.”

Mace felt oddly disappointed. He wasn’t sure why. If he had thought about it for more than a second, he would have realized her question would be about the boy. “Yes,” he agreed.

“What does that mean to you? Balance in the Force.”

“You understand that this prophecy hasn’t been believed in for hundreds of years and that there were many interpretations of it?” Mace asked.

Irritation flashed in her eyes. “Yes, like everything in the galaxy, it’s more complicated than a basic briefing. But for now, let’s stick to the general consensus, shall we?”

Mace fought back his grin. Her words were biting, but her tone was cool as any politician he had known. He could see why Qui-Gon was so fascinated with Solo and why she irritated him to no end as well. He could say a lot about this woman, but she wasn’t boring.

“The general consensus was that it meant that the Sith are eradicated. Of course,” Mace said thoughtfully, more to see her reaction than anything else, “with the Sith gone, there isn’t much need of that anymore.”

Solo waved that away with a hand. “Pretend for a moment they aren’t.”

“But they are,” Mace said gently, aware of the scars he was poking with this. Whoever this Vader had been, he had certainly managed to convince her that he was a Sith. From what he had observed of her so far, Leia Solo was the definition of stubborn and practical. She didn’t strike Mace as someone to retreat into the comfort of a wild tale, simply because it offered her a means of taking back control.

Mace would get nowhere by questioning the validity of the attack she had endured. Not that he thought she was faking. Her reactions and triggers were too close to what was known about the kind of damage an assault like this caused to be faked.

Whoever this Vader had been, Mace couldn’t argue with the mounting evidence that he had been dangerous. He would not argue with Solo on that point. What he needed to do, was undermine her understanding of who Vader thought he was, not the existence of the attack itself.

Solo glared. “I’m playing a hypothetical here. Play along.”

“Alright,” Mace said. “I will pretend that the Sith still exist.”

A cool finger of unease went down his spine. There was something in those words, something important. He didn’t fight the instinct, just let his focus spiral inward, towards the Force, trying to understand the message it was sending him.

It surrounded him as always, a welcome beacon of home and belonging. But on the horizon, just on the edge of what he could perceive, he caught the sight of a figure, shrouded in darkness. For one moment, he almost swore he could see a face.

Mace reached further, quieting everything in his mind to hear the faintest whisper. So quiet, he was straining to hear it, was the sound of a mad cackling laugh. And it wasn’t just the laugh itself that was disturbing. Because within that sound, knotted into unfamiliar whorls, the Force became bitingly cold. Mace shivered and focused on trying to see where that laugh was coming from. Or more importantly, who —

Like delicately spun glass, the image shattered. Warmth was around him, as well as the heartbeat of the light side of the Force. Mace allowed his frustration to come up, and he embraced it. It was his own fault. Instead of waiting to see what would come, he had reached out, and that very motion to look caused those delicate strands he was following to disappear out from under him.

Solo’s gaze were cool as he opened his eyes. He didn’t remember shutting them, but it wasn’t a surprise that he had. She arched an eyebrow. “Care to share what that was about?”

“No,” Mace said, that laugh still ringing in his ears with its malevolent glee. Then he frowned. “Did you see any of that?”

She shook her head. “No. Just that something was happening.”

“Hmmm,” Mace said. He would need to meditate on what he saw later. And inform Yoda just how sensitive Leia Solo was to changes in the Force. Most Jedi he knew would simply think his mind had wandered. But those were problems for later.

“Are you sure you are alright?”

“I’m fine,” Mace insisted.

“Okay,” Solo drawled out slowly. He could see the curiosity burning in her eyes, but she did him the grace of not pressing further. “But can we get back to my question?”

Mace nodded absently, mind still trying to understand what he saw.

“If the Sith were still around, what would that mean to the Chosen One?”

Mace frowned. “You were told this. That he would destroy the Sith.”

Solo’s eyes narrowed. “That is not what the prophecy says. Or at least not what Qui-Gon says it said.”

Mace gave an irritated sigh, annoyed with her, and how easily she threw him off balance. “I don’t know the exact wording. But no, the Sith are never directly mentioned in it. Only that balance will be restored.”

“Okay. But how does eradicating the Sith restore balance to the Force?”

Mace cocked his head. “You are the one that keeps insisting they are still running around. You think they should be left to their own devices?”

“No. I want them obliterated from existence.” That was rather a vehement statement on her part. “But that still doesn’t explain how you get the interpretation that destroying them brings about balance.”

“They are the manifestation of the Dark Side,” Mace said, an answer so simple that any child in the creche could have told her this.

She frowned. “There are other Dark Side cults in the galaxy,” she pointed out.

“But they never learned how to delve and surrender themselves as much as the Sith did,” Mace said. “At least not do so and survive.”

Her eyebrow arched. “You’re rather dismissive of the damage those groups are capable of,” she remarked mildly, but there were faint lines of pain around her eyes.

“Never,” Mace said, his irritation at her growing into anger. Instead of letting it go fully into the Force, he clung the tiniest bit of it to himself, to remind him to ever be watchful of the restlessness that emotion provoked in him.

But he did allow some of that emotion to show in his voice. “Groups like that will always occur if there is the Dark Side and people who are sensitive to the Force. We watch them, always, to prevent the atrocities you fear.”

By the sudden stiffening of Solo’s shoulders, that had come out much more vehemently than he meant. He allowed himself to bleed off his anger. Using it as a reminder was one thing; allowing it to control him was quite another. In all things, the Jedi believed in compassion. He should keep that in mind, even for those who followed dark and twisted paths.

“They are misguided souls,” he said sadly. “But the thing that those Dark Side cults never do, that the Sith did, was wield their ideology to political purposes.”

“Hmmm,” Solo said thoughtfully, and she tapped her fingers on her knee, eyes lost in thought. “There is that. The Sith are fond of galactic conquest.”

“Yes,” Mace agreed, not missing how she hadn’t referred to them in the past tense.

She frowned. “Then, by that logic, what separates you from the other Light Side sects is that you do involve yourself in politics.”

“We are the guardians of the Republic,” Mace said, a little more intensely than he intended.

“Which is a political institution.”

Mace straightened up. “We are not politicians.”

Solo’s head cocked. “Who said you had to be? You can be involved in a political organization without being a politician.” Then her face scrunched up in distaste. “Although, in the Jedi’s case, it is a foolish oversight.”

“A way that has maintained peace in the galaxy for centuries,” Mace stressed.

Solo’s temper flashed in her eyes. “Tell that to the Outer Rim,” she shot back.

“The Senate—”

She cut him off. “Yes, I know. Forbidden you to act.” She let out a long sigh and rubbed her forehead. “You know what your problem is?” she asked.

Mace could feel his temper pool in his gut at her sheer arrogance, but he kept his voice even as he asked, “Me or the Order?”

“Both in this case.” She dropped her hands and stared at him, somewhat sympathetically. “You have been placed in a siege mentality for so long that you can no longer conceive of a way out of it, because you are spending all your energy on maintaining the status quo. Even though you know, it’s impossible.”

“We serve,” he told her sharply.

“You do,” she said tiredly. “But you do yourselves, and your masters, no good by dividing your attention on two flanks.”

“And what two masters are those?” Mace asked, icy calm in every word.

“The Force and the Senate.”

Mace opened his mouth to refute that. The Jedi served the Senate and the Force, neither was their Master, when her words sank in. He frowned. He had been so caught up in his indignation that this stranger dared judge them, that her phrasing almost slipped him by.

Almost.

“In one of your past lives, were you a soldier?” he found himself asking as soon as the thought occurred to him.

Solo’s expression went from condescending to blank in a heartbeat. “What makes you think that?”

Mace kept his grin to himself. It would be undignified to gloat over her slip up. “That was a lot of military phrases you just used.”

Solo’s expression was blank for one more moment, and then it twisted in disgust. “I’m slipping in my old age,” she said. Her tone was full of rebuke, but it was aimed at herself, not him. “You are the second person who has guessed that in as many days. I used to be able to hide that better.”

Mace’s triumph slipped, just a little. “Who?”

She looked at him with those judging brown eyes. “Padme.”

Mace hadn’t been expecting that answer. It certainly explained why the handmaiden had convinced the Queen to hire Solo.

“What army did you serve with?”

Solo’s bleakness faded away, and her eyes became mischievous. Mace thought this look suited her much more than her anger or indignation. “Ah-ah-ah,” she told him as she wagged her finger in his face, in time with her words. “You only get one straight answer out of me at a time.”

Mace found himself smiling. He shouldn’t be. Solo was spouting proclamations as if she had been born a Queen and had the moral authority to sit in judgment of all the Jedi. Mace was aware that the Jedi weren’t perfect. But they had a duty, and they saw to it. Solo held them to impossible standards and seemed to conveniently forget that the Jedi never turned away a true ally. If she wanted to help, then why had it taken her so long to approach them?

But….it was so rare to find someone who was willing to tease a Jedi. They were held in awe. In fear. As saviors, to those places they were sent to help. But they were very rarely ever treated as people.

Maybe this was the flip side to Solo’s self-assurance and pride. That she wasn’t in awe of them and was willing to see them as the complex beings they were, instead of mysterious figures.

Mace’s voice was amused, “And only if you leave clues to it?”

Delight flashed on her face. “Something like that.”

The Force was humming along his skin, and Mace again wondered why it had brought them this enigma. But when he tried to see glimpses of the future with Solo in it, there was nothing.

Just because the Force was playing coy, it didn’t mean he couldn’t use more common methods. Starting with a question, it suddenly occurred to him might reveal more than Solo intended to with her answer.

“What does it mean to you?” he asked.

“What does what mean?”

“Balance in the Force. What does it mean to you?”

Solo shrugged. “I told you, I’m not a scholar.”

“I know, but you aren’t unintelligent either. Make a guess.”

“You flatter me,” she told him drolly.

Mace gave her a look that had quelled many a rambunctious padawan. She only met his stare, face deliberately set in an innocently questioning look. It was shockingly very believable.

Mace found himself breaking first, a laugh escaping him at the sheer ridiculousness of all of this. When he gathered himself together, he asked her again. “In all seriousness, what do you think it means?”

She made a face. “Well, in all vids and stories I’ve ever heard, prophecies are always vague and cryptically unhelpful. Is that the case here?”

That was how Mace saw it, but he didn’t want to taint her impression. “The Jedi of the past didn’t think so.”

She let out a gust of air. “Of course, they didn’t.” She paused, her fingers drumming along her knee as she thought.

“If I was going to take it at face value, it would mean that the Light Side and Dark Side are in harmony with each other.”

Mace leaned back, horrified. “That they both are equally present in the galaxy?”

Solo looked at him, startled. “Of course not,” she said emphatically. “That isn’t even possible  The more the Dark Side is around, the stronger it grows.” Her face became closed off and remote. “A little goes a long way with the Dark Side.”

The Force was humming in his mind, and suddenly like that  Mace had insight into one of the battles this woman had faced.

“You knew someone who fell to the Dark Side,” he said quietly.

Her eyes widened in surprise, and those shields of her slipped for one moment, her grief and pain vibrating around him. It was cut off before he could even think of how to respond. “You don’t lack in intelligence, do you, Master Windu?”

Not an answer, but not a denial either. “No.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Not sure if he had made things better or caused her to withdraw further into her protective shell, Mace embraced silence.

Solo gave one long shudder. “Yes,” she said, voice hoarse. “I knew someone who fell.”

And you loved them; Mace very deliberately did not say. He went with the kinder, “You were close?”

She bit her lip and nodded.

“I’m sorry,” he said, not knowing what else to say in the face of her pain. The Dark Side ate anyone alive who was foolish enough to follow its path. Not the body, although if the Jedi Council records were to be believed, that had happened in the far distant past with the more extreme Sith Lords.

But the spirit, the person’s heart, that was what was whittled away. Until all you had left was a shell that wasn’t aware it wasn’t living anymore. To watch someone she cared about walk down that path must have gutted this proud and fierce woman.

She looked at him. She didn’t have a youthful face, but the eyes that were staring back at him felt as old as Yoda’s. “It is done,” she said. “And there is nothing I can do to change it.”

There was a dangerous edge of warning here that hadn’t been there when she talked of her parents. He didn’t sense the Dark Side, not really. But there was the whisper of it, a discordant echo that was much louder than he thought was safe. It was drawn to the wound in this woman that had been caused by this long-ago event. Something in her was not fully at peace with what had happened. She wasn’t stewing over it, but neither had she fully healed.

Mace knew he would be ignored, but he still felt the need to caution her. “The past can haunt us.”

Unsurprisingly, Solo’s eyes were distant, caught in a loss only she could see. Then his words caught her attention, and that hint of vulnerability slid away. Her lips twisted in grim amusement. “Oh,” she said darkly. “It’s not my past I am worried about, so much as my current future.”

Mace fought his frown. She was making fun of him. But for the life of him, Mace couldn’t figure out where the joke was. Or even what could possibly be funny about any of this.

“You have a very odd sense of humor,” he told her.

“Either I embrace the hilarious ironies of my life, or I would run mad,” she told him seriously. “I get nowhere dwelling on any of it.”

And that was a door being slammed in his face. Politely slammed, especially coming from a woman he knew could be ever so more abrasive, but slammed.

Taking the hint but not abandoning his hunt, he turned to another subject.

“And are the Sith something you dwell on a lot?

Solo’s face darkened. “Unfortunately.”

“But by your logic, the Dark Side is natural.”

“It is. The Sith are the corruption,” she said firmly.

Mace leaned back, thinking that through. “But using the Dark Side is what corrupts them.”

She sighed. “Yes. And no.”

Mace made a face. “This is not an either-or situation.”

She blew out a breath. “It is. You are thinking about this too linearly. The Dark Side can corrupt you. But using it doesn’t automatically mean it will. You said it yourself; there are other Dark Side users in the galaxy. None of them have gone about inflicting mass destruction on the galaxy because they think it will give them more power.” She gave him a sly look. “Just like there are other Light Side users who don’t involve themselves in politics because they think it will make the Light Side stronger.”

Mace stiffened. “That is not why we involve ourselves.”

She didn’t look convinced. “It is not?”

“No.” How could she even think that? The Light Side of the Force would always be, even if the Jedi weren’t around. “A core tenant to being a Jedi is being committed to compassion. And the deepest form of that is to help.”

Solo looked thoughtful. “Hmmm,” she said at last. “So, being involved in the governing of the Republic is what the Jedi do so that you can achieve that for the greatest number of people?”

“Yes,” Mace said firmly.

“Interesting,” she said, drumming her fingers on her knee again. Then she focused in on him. “I take your point. I don’t think you are going about it very well, but I do see what you are trying to do.”

Mace’s eyes narrowed. “How generous of you.”

Solo didn’t miss his sarcasm. She shrugged it off, though. “If you don’t want my opinions, the door is right there.” She gestured to the lift behind Mace.

It was tempting. It was very tempting, but there were too many dangers lurking around this woman for Mace to storm off in a huff.

“The Jedi don’t believe that the Force is all that interested in politics,” he allowed. “But it is a tool. Like the lightsaber.”

A judgmental look passed over her face. “A tool you aren’t wielding all that well.”

“And I suppose you can?”

“I’m human. We are social creatures. And there are plenty of other species in the galaxy that holds true for too. I’m inherently political because of it.”

Mace frowned. “Politics is about governing.”

She sighed. “Politics is about governing. Which is something that happens when you gather a large group of people together.” Her smile was pointed. “Which we do because most of people in the galaxy don’t want to be alone. Because we are social. So, it’s always about politics.”

Mace arched an eyebrow. “An interesting philosophical position for a bounty hunter to take.”

Solo’s smile was pitiless. “I wasn’t always a bounty hunter.”

She left the opening; Mace would be a fool not to take it. “And what were you before?”

“Many things.”

Obi-Wan said she responded well to sass. “Was one of those things a smart-ass?” he asked in a deceptively pleasant voice.

Solo’s head fell back as her laughter escaped her. “Yes,” she said, still giggling as she regained control of herself. “That has been true all my life.” Amusement still dancing in her eyes, she regarded him. “You are not quite what I was expecting, Master Windu.”

It seemed odd to hear his title on her lips. “People tend to underestimate me,” he told her.

“Oh, I doubt that,” her voice was still fond, so Mace didn’t take offense. “You scream competent danger. But the humor….” She grinned, “That I would believe people don’t see coming.”

Mace nodded his head, acknowledging both of her points. “Very true, Mistress Solo.”

Her eyes crinkled at the sides, and she smiled. “Please call me Leia.”

“Leia,” he said. “And may I ask that you return the favor.”

“Mace then.” She seemed amused. “Is there anything else you want to ask me?”

“Yes, but you probably won’t answer.”

“Probably not,” she agreed cheerfully.

Mace figured it couldn’t hurt to try anyway. “Why are you helping the Naboo?”

Her smile became wistful. “I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I told you, it was because it was the right thing to do?”

Mace leaned back. “Yes, actually.”

She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“I don’t understand your motivations,” he said. “But you do strike me as someone who will stubbornly, almost to your detriment, do what you see as right.”

She looked amused. “That is probably the nicest way I’ve ever heard that particular trait of mine described.”

“Oh?”

“Yes,” she said. “I do tend to irritate people.”

“Have you ever thought of perhaps toning that part of yourself down?” Mace could only think that perhaps if she hadn’t been so abrasive earlier today, she and the Jedi could see to this threat she was so worried about.

Her eyes flashed. “Yes. But I am who I am, Mace. I will not twist myself into knots to make others more comfortable.”

“You would achieve more if you did,” he remarked.

Then her smile became smug. “Oh, you have no idea what I am capable of.”

Mace nodded his head. “True. Perhaps you would care to share?”

Leia opened her mouth, then snapped it shut. Her eyes narrowed as she studied him. Mace kept his face politely interested.

“Sneaky,” she said, but there was respect in her eyes. “But you should be aware; I don’t have much of an ego. I am much more interested in results, than praise for those results.”

An interesting distinction. “And what result are you hoping to achieve on Naboo?”

“The smallest push, on the correct fault line, can move mountains,” she answered back cryptically.

Mace felt his eyebrows go up. “And what mountain are you hoping to move?”

Leia looked him dead in the eye. “The Senate.”

Mace gaped at her. “To do what ?”

“Save itself.”

Mace blinked. “I wasn’t aware it was in any danger.”

Her smile was sad. “No, I don’t suppose you would.”

Mace frowned. “I fail to see how involving yourself in a trade dispute, of all things, would accomplish that.”

She shrugged. “You aren’t a politician. It’s not the arena you are familiar with, so that is not a surprise.”

“And you are ?” he asked, very pointedly looking at her blaster.

“No,” she said. “I have served under no government in the Republic.”

Mace’s eyes narrowed. That was too specific an answer. “And outside of it?”

She gave him a sly smile. “Not in the Outer Rim, or the Unknown Territories, either.”

“So, being a politician is not one of your varied careers that you refuse to tell me about?”

“As you say,” she replied blandly.

She was lying  She looked far too satisfied with herself not to be. Except the Force was thrumming in his head, telling him she hadn’t uttered one false word. Which she had to know too; she was too good at these word games.

He rubbed his forehead. “So, not a politician,” never mind that was blatantly untrue, “and not a scholar of the Force. Are there any other professions you will rule out?”

Her eyes glittered in amusement. “No.”

Mace dropped his hand. She was secretive about herself, but maybe, he could learn about the people who had once been around her. “Was Luke Lars either of those things?”

She looked taken aback. Mace had to squash the feeling of triumph that he had taken her by surprise. Then her face became thoughtful. “No,” she finally said. “He was most definitely not a politician. Or a scholar, at least not in the way I think you mean. He never published papers or spent his life pondering philosophical questions.” A fond loving smile crossed her face. “That didn’t mean he didn’t love to learn. He always said that in life, you are always a student.”

“A wise philosophy,” Mace admitted. “One you would do well to take.”

That smile twisted into one of indignation. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“That instead of listening, or willing to learn, you walked into the Jedi Council chambers and criticized how we serve the Force.”

To his shock, Leia frowned. “I did not.”

Mace’s eyebrow arched. “Oh?” That had not been the impression he had gotten.

She scowled. “No, I didn’t. I really don’t care one way or another how you live your life or serve the Force. As long as you aren’t making war or enslaving others, your culture is your own business.”

Mace just managed not to roll his eyes. “That was not what you said in the Council chambers.”

Her eyes flashed in irritation. “You aren’t this stupid.”

Mace’s hands flexed on his knees. “Am I not?”

She snorted derisively. “No. I wasn’t criticizing your way of life.”

“You certainly criticized us for not accepting Skywalker as a Jedi.”

Leia’s face went pale, and it didn’t escape Mace’s notice that she shifted so that she could more easily move to attack him. Mace forced himself to remain still. She was defensive enough without him escalating this, which is exactly what would happen if he moved in any way to mirror her stance.

 “No,” she said, voice just this side of a scream. “That is a terrible idea.”

Mace frowned. There were hollow echoes of an old pain in those words. “I thought you said—”

“What I said was that Old Man had control, not that you had to take him on as a Jedi.” Leia’s voice was a whiplash across his ears and in the Force. “Why I was so angry when I walked into the Council room was that they scared a nine-year-old child.”

Mace felt his hackles rise. They had gone over this, in the Council chambers no less. Why wouldn’t she listen ? “That wasn’t what we meant—”

“It is what you did,” she hissed. “And worse, you didn’t even notice.”

“Then what was the remark about failing the Republic?” And the exasperation was there in his voice, despite his best attempts to keep it neutral.

She looked incredulous. “Because you are. You aren’t just an Order, Master Windu. You are one of the political pillars that the Republic is built on. And you are currently failing in your political purpose.”

“The Senate—”

“Is meant to be a check on you,” she finished, and all the anger seemed to drain out of her. Her shoulders slumped. “But you seem to have forgotten that you are meant to be a check on them in return.”

Mace’s voice was firm. “We are.”

“Really?” Leia’s voice was openly mocking now.

Mace flushed. “Within the confines of the rules placed on us,” he said. “We can’t engage directly in politics.”

“Neutrality is a political position. That is basic political science. How do you not know that? What kind of education does your temple offer?”

“What kind did you receive?”

“The best my parents could procure,” she hissed back.

Mace leaned back. “Well, since you won’t tell us who they were, for all I know that wasn't much.”

She rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t believe me even if I did tell you.”

“I might surprise you. In the Force, all things are possible.”

Leia stilled at that comment. For one second, Mace was convinced that somehow, he had said something that would snap that reign she had over her temper. That she would strike out at him with her fists and the Force.

Then she did the exact opposite of what he expected. Her head fell back, and she let out a loud roaring laugh. It was an infectious sound. If you had asked him right after the council meeting, Mace would have said the woman didn’t have this much joy in her. He would have been wrong.

It took her a moment to gather herself. Wheezing, she told him, “You aren’t wrong there, Mace.”

Mace had been dangerously overconfident. He thought his decades of dealing with Qui-Gon, both as his friend and eventual Councilor over him, had inured him to the chaos of a strong-willed person, determined to baffle and confuse in order to get their own way.

Qui-Gon had nothing on this woman.

Troubled, he studied her. How did this woman jump from emotion to emotion without burning herself out in the process? Mace had come to a kind of peace with the anger that lived in him. When he had come back from Illum with a purple Kyber crystal, he had known he could no longer deny that his path would not be the same as most Jedi. But that didn’t mean he needed to be ruled by it. He had taken that anger and used it to hone his lightsaber skills in Vaapad. He had taken something that could lead to his destruction and forged it into something he could use to protect.

But that was only one emotion. Except for that glaring exception; Mace wasn’t given to extremes in emotion. Leia seemed to be driven by all of them.

Mace’s mind stilled. Driven by, yes. But she was not controlled by them. If she had been, she would have walked away from the Jedi temple in a righteous storm of anger, instead of withdrawing to allow her emotions to cool.

That spoke of a will Mace was just beginning to understand.

Thinking out loud, he said, “I have no idea how you haven’t made yourself a threat before this?”

Leia’s eyes flashed. “I am not a Dark Side user.”

“No,” Mace agreed. “I don’t think you are. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t a danger should you choose to be.”

Leia crossed her arms over her chest. “Do I frighten you?”

“Puzzle me,” Mace said. “I cannot make sense of you, Leia Solo.”

Her smile was somewhat smug. “Good.”

Mace blinked. Although at this point, he was more surprised by the fact that he was surprised by her atypical reaction. “And why is that?”

“You are too complacent,” she said. “Maybe I can shake you out of that.”

Mace’s eyes narrowed. “I am not complacent.”

She snorted. “Oh, it’s not just you,” she said. “It’s the entire council.”

“You talked to us for a little under an hour,” Mace countered. “Isn’t that a little quick for a thorough assessment?”

Leia’s eyes lost all amusement. “Given that you are blind to the danger sitting on your front door? No.”

Mace wouldn’t back down. “And what danger is that?”

Leia’s shoulders tightened. “As I said before, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Mace counseled himself to patience. Leia knew something, and he didn’t need the Force to tell him it was important. He was a Master of the Jedi Order. Patience was something he had been practicing since he could walk.

“And what great and all-powerful wisdom led you to see it?”

Leia blinked. “I listen.” And then some of that arrogance slid away. “Although, if I’m going to be completely fair, I knew what to listen for ”

“You mean you cheated.”

Leia opened her mouth, then clicked it shut. “Huh,” she said, and there was amusement in her voice now. “Well, yes, from a certain point of view, that is exactly what I did.”

Mace frowned. There were hints and currents in the Force that were refusing to unravel for him. But one thing was clear. That statement was both true and false.

His gaze fell to his lap, wanting to avoid those eyes that seemed to be amused and frustrated with him at the same time. His gaze fell on his chrono, and he felt a surprised grunt leave his lips.

“I lost track of time,” he said rather absently.

“We haven’t landed yet,” she pointed out.

“I was hoping to meditate in the Force before that,” he said. And he needed to. Outside of this whole conversation, which had been unsettling enough, going into battle with a scattered focus was foolish.

But there was an edge of reluctance in him to leave this conversation. Leia might have a sharp tongue, but she had a quick and quixotic mind. It had been a long time since Mace had felt this challenged in a conversation.

Leia gave her own small sigh. “I suppose I should as well,” she admitted grumpily.

He had never heard any trained Force-sensitive sound so reluctant about retreating into the Force. “You really don’t trust the Force, do you?” he marveled.

Leia scowled, face haunted by things he didn’t understand. “No.”

Mace felt his insides twist. With a start, he realized it was envy. He didn’t know what her midi-chlorian count was, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t aware that it was much higher than his. With that much power, she could catch more of the Force without effort, than he would achieve with the most dedicated of meditation. There were others in the Jedi who were stronger than him, of course. Not many, but some. But none of them were this dismissive of the gifts they had been granted.

“There are many who would give much to be able to hear it as loudly as you do,” he observed.

Leia’s eyes flashed. “They wouldn’t be so eager if they knew the true cost. It has brought me nothing but pain.”

Mace frowned. That couldn’t be true. “And Skywalker,” he pointed out.

Leia paled, and she looked like he had just hit her. “What?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.

Mace looked at her, puzzled. “Skywalker,” he repeated. “You clearly love that boy. And his mother,” he added, thinking of that scared woman he had met earlier, who had leaned on and then provided strength to Leia. Who, even more intriguingly, had the ability to stop Leia.

“Do you honestly think you would have met them if the Force hadn’t wanted you to?” Mace wanted this woman to appreciate the gift she had been given. “The universe is vast, and they are only two people within it.”

Leia blinked rapidly, that mind of hers clearly whirling away. Her color had come back to her face, but there were drawn lines of pain across it.

“No,” she said, words coming out of her reluctantly. “I never would have met Old Man and Grandmother without the interference of the Force.” Those words were followed by the slipping of her shields. Mace could feel the glittering and fierce love surge around him in the Force.

“And that wasn’t enough of a gift for you to trust its will?” Mace pressed.

It had been the exact wrong thing to say. Mace wasn’t sure why, though. There was no doubt that Leia had been alone until she crossed the Skywalker’s path. Her people were gone; she had admitted at least that much to the Council. How and why weren’t questions she would answer, but Mace didn’t doubt that it was true. That pain was too ingrained all around her. Skywalker and his mother should have been a balm to this woman who so clearly loved with a fierceness that Mace considered dangerous.

Leia’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I don’t trust anything that does what it wants, without taking my wishes into account.”

What a strange way to look at it. Especially since she had admitted that she had gained two people that she adored and adored her in return, out of it.

“It isn’t a matter of trust,” Mace told her. “But having faith.”

“I have faith in myself. I have faith in my abilities. I have faith in those I trust. The rest?” She scowled. “No.”

Mace considered her words very carefully. She said nothing about having faith in those she loved, only those she trusted. Mace wouldn’t have thought that someone so passionate for those she cared for would make such a distinction. It revealed a very interesting fault line in her.

But that was a subject she would shut down immediately if he pressed further. So, he went with a more amusing observation. “You really will argue with anyone or anything.”

Her eyebrow cocked. “You have no idea,” she said lazily. “And one day, Master Windu, of the Jedi Order, you might thank me for that sheer stubbornness.”

Mace believed that Leia believed that. He was just drawing a blank on how.

He started to stand but then thought of the time it was going to take to find Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. He meditated better when other people were in the room, and they were the least likely on this ship to disturb him while he did it.

But Mace had spent far longer with Leia than he intended. If he wanted to meditate for as long as possible, it would be best to stay here. But Leia Solo…was Leia Solo. However, all she would do was subject him to a tongue lashing if she thought he was overstepping his boundaries. Not that she bothered to tell anyone where those boundaries were.

“Do you mind if I meditate with you?”

The sense of mischievous faded away from her eyes, replaced with wariness. “Meditate how?”

Mace gestured to the floor. “Staying here.”

She gave him one long slow blink. “This isn’t my ship. You can meditate anywhere you want.”

Mace fought back a tired sigh. Her avoidance of answering questions was becoming tiring at this point. “That isn’t an answer to my question.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

At least she was forthright about her evasiveness.

“Why are you even bothering to ask?”

Mace gave her a solemn look back. “Meditation is a…private thing. If you wanted to be alone, me being here would defeat the purpose.”

Leia cocked her head, and he could see her weighing something. What, he hadn’t the faintest idea. It seemed like a long time to ponder a simple question.

“As long as that is all you want to do.”

Oh.

Mace’s heart constricted painfully in his chest. He took a moment to chastise himself for thinking she was only retreating into stubbornness for the sake of it. If he had taken a moment to think, he would have realized on his own that Leia would be hyper-aware of anyone near her calling on the Force in such a manner.

In his defense, it hadn’t even occurred to him that was something she should fear. He had been in the council room when that wave of power effortlessly crashed into Yoda like he was nothing. Mace was talented, and he could say with no false pride that he was one of the strongest Knights that the Order had produced in the last century. He still had nothing on Yoda in terms of experience or raw power.

But she had a harsh lesson on what a Force user could do to another’s mind. Especially one trained in the Dark Side. Even for this irritating, and seemingly fearless woman, it would instill a sense of caution, no matter how strong she was.

“No, Leia,” he said slowly. “I only ask because I meditate better with others physically in the room, and I don’t want to waste the time to track down Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan.”

Leia arched one eyebrow, looking surprised. “That I didn’t see coming,” she said in a rueful voice. “You strike me as someone with an independent streak.”

Mace gave a long sigh. “People are exhausting only when they talk.”

“On that, Mace, we can agree.”

Mace’s voice was as dry as a desert. “I would never have guessed that, given your open and sunny personality.”

A wide happy smile, even if there was no laugh this time. It seemed Mace wasn’t the only one in this room who preferred intelligent combatants when it came to discussions.

Mace closed his eyes and arranged his body so that he wouldn’t be aching when he was done. It was so easy to lose track of the physical during these sessions, and while he was hardly old, he no longer possessed a body that was as forgiving when he made mistakes with it.

A lifetime’s worth of practice made it so that he sank into the Force between one heartbeat and the next. He was vaguely aware of Leia doing the same thing, a moment after him. It saddened him that she had felt the need to wait to see if he would keep his word about staying away from her mind. Whoever, or whatever, this Vader had been, he had left large scars on this woman.

Not that Mace thought he would be able to glean anything from her even if he did try to break into her mind. She lacked finesse, but she more than made up for it in sheer power. Mace agreed with Qui-Gon’s assessment. Her count wasn’t as high as young Skywalkers. But if he were a betting man, he would lay out good money that Leia’s was still higher than Yoda’s.

Mace let those worries slid away and immersed himself in the cool touch of the Force—

Only to let out a hiss when a wave of worry and alarm came crashing into that cool blanket of power he had wrapped himself in.

His eyes flew open, as he instinctively rose to his feet, handing going to his belt. The emotions were so visceral, so intense; he had thought that it was the Force warning him that they were under attack.

He did a sweep of the room, trying to see where the threat was. He noted that Leia had also sprung to her feet. But unlike him, her face wasn’t filled with confusion. Instead, it was filled with frustration and anger.

It took his mind a few precious seconds to catch up with what his senses were telling him. That had been Leia’s emotions in the Force. Not a warning from the Force itself, but Leia.

Trying to clear his head, he started to ask. “Leia, what’s wr—"

“I’m going to kill him,” she hissed through her teeth and immediately stomped past him.

Mace found himself rooted to the floor, unable to process what just happened. Then in a quick burst of speed in the Force, he caught up to her before she murdered whoever she was talking about.

“Leia, what is going on?”

She ignored him and pushed the button to open the door to the lift. The doors immediately swung open. She walked into the small box, and he hastily followed her in. He had the feeling she wasn’t even aware that he was following her; she was that focused on where she was going. She pushed a button that would take them up one level into the hold of the ship.

“Of all the reckless, stupid, asinine things,” she muttered under her breath as she pushed the button over and over again, like she was trying to encourage the device to move faster. “I’m going to kill him deader than dead.”

Mace thought it was wiser to keep his silence. After all, he had given Leia her blaster back, and blocking shots with his saber would be tricky in close quarters.

When the doors finally opened, Mace took in one deep breath as Leia streamed into the hold. Without hesitation, she went to the far-right side, heading to a pile of large storage boxes lined against the wall. 

Mace followed her cautiously at a distance but didn’t put a hand to his belt for his lightsaber. Despite her words of murder, she hadn’t drawn her blaster. Whoever was here, they weren’t a danger to her, and therefore him.

She reached the box that was furthest out, and clear of other boxes on top of it. It was a large grey thing, and there was nothing on the side to indicate what was in it. Leia flipped the lid open, but from this angle, Mace couldn’t see inside. Leia didn’t bother looking either. All she did was bellow, “Old Man, what in the seven levels of Corellian hell are you doing here?”

A sandy-haired head popped up. “Leia!” Skywalker said, voice lecturing. “ Language !”

Mace felt his mouth drop open. How had the boy even gotten on this ship?

Leia seemed to have other concerns. “Do not talk to me about my language,” she hissed. “Do you have any idea what you have done?”

Skywalkers’ jaw firmed up. “Yes,” he said, his voice had no more give than Leia’s. “I’ve snuck on board to protect you.”

“You are nine!” Leia roared. “ Nine!”

Skywalker flinched, just the tiniest bit, and then he crossed his hands over his chest. “So?” he asked in defiance.

“How did you even manage this?”

Skywalker’s eyes broke away from Leia’s face to slide over to Mace and then back to Leia. “After you told Mom and me where you were going, I snuck down to the tarmac and hid, until the ship landed,” he said, reluctance in every word. “I snuck on board after Amidala came down.” He looked vaguely proud, “Eirtae did almost catch me, but she was talking to Rabe and didn’t notice me hiding behind the boxes. When everyone left, I climbed in here.”

Leia hissed through her teeth. “ Why ?”

A stubborn frown crossed his face. “I told you. I have to protect you.”

Leia’s face was a streak of despair. “A battle is no place for you.”

For the first time since this entire insane conversation had started, Skywalker looked a little afraid. Then that obstinacy rose its head again. “I’ve been in danger before,” he protested. “How is this different?”

Leia let out a frustrated noise, and instead of answering him, chose to walk away. She didn’t go far; she just started pacing back and forth in the room.

Mace cast her one wary glance and then went over to the box.

Skywalker looked up at him. “Are you going to yell at me too?” he asked in a petulant voice.

Mace seriously thought about it for a moment. What Skywalker had done was the height of foolishness. His worry and attachment had led him to a reckless choice. And he wasn’t the one who would ultimately pay the price for it. Leia would insist that they would have to take him back to Coruscant. And who knew how many Naboo would suffer because they were delayed.

But as he opened his mouth to tell the boy just that, he thought of Leia’s scathing words in the council room. That Skywalker believed that they told him he was doomed. Which hadn’t been the point they had been trying to stress. They only sought to warn him that he should be cautious of his feelings.

But that wasn’t how he had taken it. And Leia was correct on one point, they were the adults, and he was the child. It was their responsibility to make sure that he had understood what they had been saying, not the other way around. Skywalker was not a child raised in the temple, and they had foolishly treated him like one.

In fact, Mace couldn’t recall the last time he had been around a child, human or not, in a situation that wasn’t a ritual, a formal meeting, or a life-or-death situation. He had no idea what was and was not considered appropriate behavior for someone Skywalker’s age, who wasn’t raised in the temple. And that wasn’t even taking into account that the boy had been a slave as recently as yesterday. Mace wasn’t so arrogant to think he knew the slightest thing about what kind of trauma that could produce.

A child who participated in pod races. Taken from that angle, no, a battle wouldn’t seem all that more dangerous. Skywalker routinely participated in a sport where people died regularly.

Mace sighed and held out a hand to Skywalker. “No,” he told him. “Having been on the receiving end of one of her lectures, I feel Leia would do a much better job than I.”

Skywalker looked at his hand warily. It hurt Mace’s heart that someone so young should be so suspicious of the common courtesy of a thoughtful gesture.

After that slight pause, Skywalker reached up and took his hand. Mace pulled him up, so he could step out of the box he had been hiding in. Skywalker took a moment to find his feet, and Mace took the opportunity to see that the box was apparently full of clothes. He hoped that the boy’s shoes were clean before he got into there; otherwise, that was a lot of very expensive fabric that was going to have to be cleaned.

He swung his leg over the edge and hopped to the floor. As soon as he was upright, his gaze fell to Leia, who was still pacing on the other side of the room. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m in for it when she finds her words.”

“I think it’s more when she finds age-appropriate ones to use,” Mace remarked. Skywalker looked up at him, and then a brilliant smile crossed his face.

As soon as he spoke, Leia whirled. Growling, she asked, “Did you tell Grandmother your asinine idea?”

Skywalker looked a little guilty. “No. But I did leave a message with Threepio to give to her, so she won’t worry.”

Leia just stared at him blankly. Even Mace was a bit taken aback by those words.

“Old Man,” she said when she found her voice. “You’re her son. She is going to be frantic when she learns where you are.”

Skywalker looked lost for a moment, and then he shook his head in denial. “She’ll understand,” he insisted. “She knows now. She doesn’t think you are crazy anymore.”

Mace frowned. “Knows what?” he asked before Leia could say anything.

There was a hard resolve that did not belong on the face of a child. “That Leia is my Leia.”

Mace felt his confusion only grow. But before he could press further, Leia made a noise that sounded like her heart was breaking.

“Old Man,” she said, and there were so many emotions on her face. Worry, fear, longing, love, and strangest of all, grief. She came over to Skywalker. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this.” She pointed to her chest. “Me, adult.” Her finger moved to point at him. “You child.”

Skywalker shook his head. “I needed to make sure you were alright.”

Leia let out a huff and cupped his face in her hands. “I’m always alright.”

“Leia,” Skywalker, and his voice was chiding, as if she were the child, and he the adult. He put his hands over hers. “You know that is not true.”

“And that is not your fault,” Leia said firmly.

His face became pinched and reserved. “You were afraid,” he said in a small voice.

“I’m walking onto a battlefield,” Leia said, voice firming up. “Of course, I was afraid. I would be stupid if I weren’t.”

Skywalker shook his head, and Leia’s hands fell away from his face. “On the tarmac,” he said. “I felt it. You were so scared you couldn’t feel me on the ship.”

Mace frowned as Leia paled. Which meant that Skywalker was telling the truth. Leia had been afraid of something at the Temple. But he hadn’t felt anything like that when he had been next to Leia or when he had boarded the ship.

But Obi-Wan had. He had felt someone screaming in the Force. Faintly, but he had felt it. While it was nice to know what had caused that disturbance in the Force, it did leave the question as to why Obi-Wan had picked up on it, and Mace and Qui-Gon hadn’t.

Mace was about to ask Leia what she had been so afraid of when the door to the lift opened, and Qui-Gon stepped off it.

“Leia, what’s wrong—” Qui-Gon’s voice trailed off as he took in the sight before him. “Anakin? What are you doing here?”

“Uh,” Skywalker looked up. “Helping?”

Leia put her head in her hands and gave a short scream. They all turned to look at her, as she dropped them. “Old Man,” she said, a thin edge of impatience in her voice. “This is the opposite of helping. Because now we are going to have to turn around—” She cut off and looked down at the floor. “Son of a Hutt’s leavings,” she spat.

Mace felt it too, the slight shift in the engines and the feel of them putting out more power.

“Language,” Skywalker chided, but it was a rote warning. “What just happened?” he asked, eyes wide.

“We just hit the atmosphere,” Leia said, her gaze went up from the floor and fell on Mace. “We can’t go back.”

It wasn’t a question, but Mace nodded his head in agreement. The Trade Federation had a blockade around this planet. Everyone on this ship had gambled that they would be more than willing to let the Queen’s ship land. The Trade Federation’s best hope of navigating the bomb Amidala had thrown in the Senate was to get her to sign a treaty and make this occupation legal. But conversely, that meant that they would fight with everything they had to keep Amidala, and by extension her entourage, on this planet. 

Skywalker looked triumphant, but he was smart enough to wipe the look off his face when Leia turned to glare at him.

“We are going to have a talk about this when we get a moment,” Leia warned him. “And when we have a moment after that. And when we get back to Coruscant. In fact, we will be having talks about this until you are old and grey ”

Skywalker at least had the sense to look a little queasy at that.

Qui-Gon looked back and forth between the two and gave a bow to Leia. “I’ll inform the Queen what has transpired.”

“Thank you,” Leia said, still glaring at Skywalker. “Listen here, Old Man,” she said, voice sharp, as Qui-Gon left the hold to find the Queen. “When we get on the ground, you will do exactly what I tell you to do.”

“But—” Skywalker protested.

“ Everything,” Leia said, tight lines of anger bracketing her face.

Skywalker peered into her face. “You’re afraid again,” he said, looking both pleased and puzzled.

Mace looked between the two of them. After her initial shock, Leia’s shields were wrapped around her tightly. Yet, the boy spoke with such confidence. How was he feeling that? Qui-Gon had said they were close but not related. Yet, that was the only way Mace could conceive of that allowed Skywalker to know what she was feeling through those thick shields of hers.

“You’re damn right I am,” she snapped. “A battle is no place for a child.”

He smiled sweetly and took her hand. “I love you too,” he told her.

“I’m still furious, Old Man,” she said, but she didn’t withdraw from the contact.

“I know,” then his face became worried again. “But I wasn’t there. Before,” he waved at her, indicating all of her. “But I can be now. You are my Leia.”

There was that phrase again. Mace would attribute it to a child’s possessiveness, but there was something there, some hidden meaning that he wasn’t understanding.

He especially didn’t understand the flavor of sorrow underlying Leia’s next words.

“I know,” she whispered, placing a kiss on his cheek.

Knowing he was intruding, Mace chose to quietly withdraw and follow Qui-Gon down the hallway. No matter how many questions were burning in his mind about the two of them.

He followed Qui-Gon to the cockpit. The Queen was there with Panaka and one of the dark-haired handmaidens whose name he hadn’t learned yet. Mace didn’t need the Force to know that Qui-Gon had already informed the Queen about their unexpected passenger. Even through that heavily applied makeup, he could see she was far from happy. She was as aware as the rest of them they had come too far to go back.

Mace had no time to address the situation with her because as soon as he entered the cockpit, she gave him a regal nod of her head, and she and her handmaiden left. Qui-Gon only waited for a beat before telling Mace he was off to find Obi-Wan and let him know about their stowaway.

Mace elected to stay where he was. The pilots had gotten them through the blockade and to the planet, so their level of fear and worry was much easier to take than anyone else on this ship. Well, perhaps save Leia, but he didn’t want to interrupt the conversation going on between her and Skywalker.

Mace said nothing to the pilots, merely watched the landscape fly by underneath them. He was somewhat surprised to see that their landing site was a vast forest. He could see no sign of a city anywhere. That didn’t mean it wasn’t there; there were plenty of cultures that integrated into the local fauna to the point they were invisible unless you knew what to look for. But it wasn’t a welcoming sight either. They landed in a small glen, that had a lake in the middle of it.

Hoping that he had timed it so that he wouldn’t have to interact with anyone, he headed towards the hold and the gangplank off this ship. As he walked out onto the planet, he noted that almost everyone had left the ship, although he saw no sign of the Queen. Jar-Jar was also missing, but Mace was aware that he was being sent ahead of the rest of them to inform the Gungans of their approach.

Leia had pulled Skywalker away from the Naboo, and from what Mace could see of her face, she was still lecturing the boy. Smart of her to acknowledge the boy’s pride. She might be giving him the dressing down of his life, but she had done it so that the others couldn’t hear her.

Leia’s choice was somewhat undercut when one of the handmaidens came off the ship and headed right over to them, her face tensed and worried. From what Mace could see of her body language, she was no happier about Skywalker’s appearance than Leia. Her Queen followed her down the plank, at a much more sedate pace, and headed over to the rest of the Naboo.

Leia wasn’t the only one who was trying to have a private talk. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had pulled away from the others to stand near the lake. But, unlike the lecture Skywalker was undergoing, Mace had no qualms about eavesdropping on that conversation.

He walked silently over to Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. As soon as he was close enough, he caught Obi-Wan’s contrite tone. “I’m sorry for my behavior, Master. It is not my place to disagree with you about the boy.”

Obi-Wan would be far less sanguine about all of this, if he knew that Qui-Gon had volunteered to train the boy, setting Obi-Wan aside. Oh, Qui-Gon said Obi-Wan was ready for his trials, but Mace had to wonder if he was being dazzled by Skywalker’s potential, instead of assessing Obi-Wan’s actual progress. At least the foolish words had been said before Obi-Wan had entered the Council’s chambers. There was no telling what damage those thoughtless words would have on their relationship. And the really aggravating part was that it would take Qui-Gon months to understand how deeply such a comment would have hurt Obi-Wan.

Mace was half tempted to pull Qui-Gon aside for his own private lecture to the man about Skywalker. Even though other problems had come up, Mace knew the man too well. He wasn't going to let the idea of training Skywalker go. And that heedless offer was made before they had all learned that the boy possessed a skill far beyond most knights.

“A child who could talk in the Force,” his mind gibbered uselessly at him.

Mace forced himself to focus on the now. Skywalker was a problem for later.

Qui-Gon shook his head. “You’ve been a good apprentice, Obi-Wan. And you’re a much wiser man than I am.”

On that, Mace could agree. Qui-Gon meant well, and there was no arguing that he was motivated by an intense desire to help. Unfortunately, he tended to become blinded by achieving results and not taking into account the consequences of his actions. It led him to stampede through obstacles with all the grace of an acklay, leaving a mess behind him. Mostly emotional, but sometimes physical too.

Qui-Gon’s voice was fond as he took in his padawan. “I foresee you will become a great Jedi Knight.”

Obi-Wan’s expression became wry. “But Master, the future is always in motion.”

Qui-Gon’s mouth twitched at the gentle teasing, which was as it should be, since he only had himself to blame for Obi-Wan’s well-honed sarcasm.

Mace took a step forward. “That is true,” he allowed, “But you do have the tools to become such a Knight.”

Obi-Wan turned around a slight blush on his cheeks. Mace wasn’t completely sure if it was because of his kind words, or if Obi-Wan hadn’t noticed him coming up on them. “Thank you, Master Windu.”

Mace shrugged. “It is nothing but the truth.”

The blush deepened. So, it had been the kind words. Mace deeply respected Qui-Gon, but there were times when he wanted to smack him across the head for his treatment of Obi-Wan. The two of them accomplished great things together and had taught each other much. But Qui-Gon was too faint in his acknowledgment of Obi-Wan’s accomplishments. It led the younger man to doubt his instincts too much.

But that was not a topic to dwell on today. He peered across the lake, frowning. “We can’t stay here long,” he said. “The Trade Federation knows we are on this planet and will be looking for us. How long of a journey is it to the Gungan’s city?”

“It isn’t that long of a swim,” Qui-Gon remarked.

Mace looked at him sharply. “Swim?” he demanded.

Qui-Gon gestured to the lake. “You didn’t know that Gungans are an aquatic race?”

“No, I didn’t.” Mace took a closer look. Calling it a lake was perhaps a bit generous, more like a very large pond. But the surface was murky. Perhaps it was very deep, and this city was built along its walls. Mace had seen stranger configurations of cities. “How deep does it go?”

Obi-Wan blinked. “It leads directly to the ocean.”

Mace turned a sharp glance at him. The ocean they had passed was thousands of miles from here. “How?” he demanded.

“Naboo isn’t a solid terrestrial planet,” Obi-Wan answered promptly. “It’s composed of large rocks, with no molten core. As a consequence, the interior is full of tunnels and underground caves, most of them flooded.” He gestured to the lake. “So even a body of water this small leads to the main ocean.”

Mace tried to wrap his head around that. “How is that even possible ?”

Obi-Wan shrugged. “A puzzle that geologists have been arguing over for centuries.” He gave Mace a puzzled look. “It’s one of the more famous features of this planet.”

Of course, he knew that. As part of Obi-Wan’s responsibility as a senior padawan, he would have researched this planet thoroughly before he and Qui-Gon set off on their initial mission on behalf of the Chancellor.

Mace sighed at Obi-Wan’s silent rebuke. “I didn’t exactly have time to brief myself on this planet before we left.”

Qui-Gon let out a low laugh. “No,” he said cheerfully. “You didn’t. Yoda gave you no room to maneuver out of this trip.” Then his tone became rueful, “Or me enough time to argue the other councilors out of it.”

His gaze slid over to Leia and Skywalker. “Of course, you could have used the time on the journey here to brief yourself.”

“Mmmm,” Mace said noncommittally. His discussion with Leia was just that. A discussion between him and Leia.

Qui-Gon looked thoughtful. “I do wonder where you were. You never joined us to meditate.” Of course, Qui-Gon would remember that particular quirk of Mace’s.

“I didn’t,” Mace agreed, putting a sharp edge to his voice, warning Qui-Gon to drop it.

“And you were there when Leia discovered Anakin on the ship.”

Qui-Gon had the most remarkable talent for ignoring subtle cues, all the while doing a passable imitation of someone who was blindly blundering around in the conversation. Mace wasn’t fooled. He had known the man too long. Anyone who had apprenticed to Yan Dooku wouldn’t have survived to knighthood if he didn’t learn subtleties.

He let out a long put-upon sigh. Arguing with Qui-Gon just led to stress headaches, and Mace would rather not. But the sigh was to let Qui-Gon know that he wasn’t giving in gracefully.

“I sought out Leia,” he admitted.

“Leia?” Qui-Gon’s voice was full of mischief. “ Not Mistress Solo?”

Mace gave him an unimpressed look.

“And?” Qui-Gon pressed when Mace kept his silence.

“And what?” Mace asked, fighting the urge to fidget. He wasn’t sure what prompted the lightning-fast flash of discomfort. Talking to Leia—no, understanding Leia, was the reason he was here. It was irrelevant that he had found her compelling and a far more thoughtful person than he was expecting.

“Did you learn anything?”

A great deal. Nothing he wanted to share until he thought it over. “She isn’t a boring conversationalist.”

Qui-Gon looked taken aback, but fortunately for Mace, that was when Jar-Jar broke through the surface of the lake.

They weren’t the only ones to notice his return. Leia, Skywalker, and the handmaiden that was with them headed over to the edge of the lake. Mace followed Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, but he noticed that while Panaka had broken away from the rest of the Naboo, the Queen was staying near her people.

Jar-Jar came to the edge of the lake, shaking himself to rid himself of the excess water still clinging to his skin. Once the Gungan spotted them, his face fell. “Desa nobody there,” he told them, worry and sorrow clouding his features as he walked up to the ground to meet them. “The Gungan city is deserted. Some kinda fight, mesa tinks.”

Well, that narrowed their options considerably.

Leia took a step forward and laid a hand on the boy’s arm. “Did you see any bodies?” she asked, her voice very soothing and gentle.

Jar-Jar shook his head.

She gave him a reassuring smile. “Well, then there is hope they are still alive.”

Jar-Jar’s ears perked up. “Yousa tink so?”

Leia nodded firmly. “I do.”

Obi-Wan frowned. “Do you think they have been taken to the camps?”

Panaka looked tired. “More likely, they were wiped out.”

Jar-Jar went back to looking stricken.

Leia shook her head. “No,” she said. “They weren’t taken to the camps.”

Panaka scowled. “Oh, and you know so much more than we do?”

Leia ignored him. “Jar-Jar, if your people realized they couldn’t hold the city, was there somewhere they would retreat to?”

They all stared at her.

“What?” she asked. “They have an army. Clearly, they were expecting trouble from the human residents at some point. It would be logical for them to have a safe place to retreat to.”

That was a rather salient point, Mace was forced to acknowledge. As one, they all turned to look back at Jar-Jar.

“Do you know where they are, Jar-Jar?” Qui-Gon asked.

Jar-Jar looked thoughtful. “When in trouble, Gungans go to sacred place.” He perked up and started gesturing wildly. “Mesa show you,” he started to run and turned around when he realized they weren’t following him. He waved his hands, encouraging them all to follow. “C’mon. Mesa show you!”

Mace and Panaka exchanged doubtful looks, but Leia didn’t hesitate. She immediately started following the Gungan, Skywalker on her heels.

Panaka gave a disgruntled look at the handmaiden at his side. She gave him a nod of her head. He called out to the rest of the Naboo, “We are on the move.” All of them, including the Queen, who had not been consulted about this Mace was interested to note, immediately started heading their way.

“It will be alright, Captain,” the handmaiden said and took off after their Gungan guide.

Panaka gave Mace a doubtful look and then said under his breath so only Mace could hear him, “Might as well chase this fool’s errand all the way to the end.”

Jar-Jar led them further into the forest, excitedly muttering to himself the entire way. Mace started losing confidence the further they went. Several times Jar-Jar stopped, looked around, and then veered off onto a radically different course.

Then twenty minutes into their journey, they ran into a patrol of Gungans. They were all riding large beasts that Mace assumed were native to this planet and armed with long sticks. They were a weapon of some sort, although he couldn’t make out the exact type.

“Heydey-ho Captain Tarpal,” Jar-Jar said meekly, his hands rising in the air when one of the Gungan’s beasts came forward.

“Binks!” the man shouted, voice clear with disdain. “Notta gain!”

Jar-Jar’s large ears twitched. “We coma ta see da Boss,” he said, voice calmer than his body language.

Tarpal’s gaze swung around, taking in their group. “Yousa bing oters here ?”

Jar-Jar swayed on his feet. “Yessa?” his voice cracked on the word.

Tarpal shook his head, “Ouch time, Jar-Jar. Ouch time for alla’s you.”

He prodded Jar-Jar with the stick, and there was an electronic noise coming from it. Ah, it wasn’t just a spear. Jar-Jar let out a yelp and started moving.

Tarpal gave them all a wary eye, but when they moved to follow Jar-Jar without protest, he turned his steed and gave out a sharp whistle. The rest of the Gungans stayed on their animals and encircled the Naboo. Mace shot a glance to Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, but neither were going for their lightsabers. Just as well. Once they had drawn their blades, they would be committed to violence, and there would be no taking that back. Better to see how this would all play out.

It was a walk of only ten more minutes. As they went further and further into the forest, the tree branches overhead became thicker and thicker until the sky itself became hidden. Mace figured they were approaching their destination when scattered broken statues started appearing on both sides of the path they were on.

The Gungans’ sacred place had once been a large building, if the walls that were crumbling around them were anything to go by. Whatever had happened to this place had happened long ago. The swamp was reclaiming this land. Vines were creeping up the walls, and the large broken statues littered around the place, had various plants starting to grow through them.

Including the one that their guards led them to. It was a large stone head, at least twenty feet in height. Mace wasn’t sure how large the statue stood upright because it was laying on its side, a tree cutting right through it. And at the top of that permanently frozen face was a group of Gungans.

On the surface, none of this was particularly impressive. From the bits Mace could see around him, this place wouldn't have been outstandingly impressive to look at even when it had been whole and not a decaying ruin. But Mace could feel the peace of centuries in the Force all around him, and that wasn’t a feeling that all holy sites in the galaxy had. This place had been a refuge for a long time, and Mace couldn’t help but somewhat relax with that feeling humming contentedly all around him.

Their guards pushed them to just a few meters from the bottom of the statue. Making it so that the people on the top could see them and that they could, in turn, see who held their fates in their hands.

Jar-Jar was still in front, with Queen Amidala standing just slightly behind him. Mace was rather surprised the woman hadn’t made a fuss at that. Royalty, no matter the species or planet, tended to get protective of what they perceived as their natural rights. It spoke well of her and her understanding of the position she was in, that she had offered no protest to Jar-Jar leading.

Mace, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Panaka were just behind the Queen. The rest of the Naboo, handmaidens, and pilots had chosen to stand at least ten feet behind their Queen. Leia and Skywalker were firmly between the two groups, standing next to each other. Mace watched the people up top, and he could see that the messages being played out in the human’s placement weren’t lost on any of those Gungans.

“Your Honor,” Tarpal proclaimed. “Queen Amidala of the Naboo.”

One of the Gungans stirred and came forward. He was big. Much bigger than any of the Gungans’ on the ground, both in height and weight. Most of the people Mace had seen of his kind was lean with whip corded muscles. The leader of the Gungans was neither.

Jar-Jar gave an embarrassed-looking wave. “Uh, heydey-ho, Big Boss Nass, Your Honor.”

“Jar Jar Binks,” he said, his deep voice carrying to them easily. There was nothing welcoming in his tone. “Who’s da uss-en others?”

“I am Queen Amidala of the Naboo,” Her Highness said as she took a step forward. “I come before you in peace.”

“Ah,” and Mace couldn’t miss the contempt in Boss Nass’s voice. “Naboo biggen. Yousa bringen da Mackineeks. Yousa all bombad.”

Hardly an auspicious start.

Queen Amidala didn’t rise to the bait. “We have searched you out because we wish to form an alliance—"

“Your Honor,” someone said from behind him. Mace found himself turning to see one of the handmaidens coming forward. He almost requested that she step back. All was riding on this moment, and he didn’t need the Force to tell him how delicate this was.

But, he noted, neither Qui-Gon, Leia, or Skywalker looked all that surprised that the woman was coming forward. And Captain Panaka looked like he was going to grind his teeth to dust; his jaw was clenched so hard. Mace felt a warning prickle crawl up his spine. What had Qui-Gon oh so conveniently forgotten to tell him now?

Boss Nass made a clicking sound. “Whosa dis?” he demanded.

The handmaiden waited until she was side by side with her leader before she answered. “I am Queen Amidala.”

Jar-Jar started and openly gaped at the young woman. “Huh?” he asked.

It was only decades of control that didn’t have Mace echoing that statement. Then his gaze caught on Qui-Gon. The man didn’t look all that surprised. Neither did Leia or Skywalker. Mace’s eyes narrowed. Qui-Gon at least gave him a half apologetic shrug, but Leia’s eyes held nothing but amused pride.

Queen Amidala, the one not wearing the excessive face paint, turned back to the one who was. “This is my decoy,” she explained, and Mace noted the apologetic tone of her voice. “My protection, my loyal bodyguard. I’m sorry for my deception, but it was necessary to protect myself.”

Two days ago, Mace would have called such an action paranoia. Such tactics were common on the Outer Rim, but that was the Outer Rim. Naboo was on the furthest edges of the Mid-Rim, but it was still in the Mid-Rim. Peace and stability had been the norm for centuries.

But the last few months had seen events happen in the Senate and on this planet that also hadn’t occurred in centuries to a full member world of the Republic. Mace looked thoughtfully at the young woman standing in front of him, pleading for her people. Not paranoia, but steely-eyed foresight. Or at least the ability to plan for the worst, while hoping for the best.

Boss Nass’s head turned back and forth as he studied the two women. It was clear from his body language he was not happy about the deception. But neither did he call for all their executions. He had to be as aware as the rest of them; Amidala didn’t have to reveal herself to him. He could have continued talking to the decoy Queen and been none the wiser.

Amidala took a step past her bodyguard, tone respectful. “Although we do not always agree, Your Honor, our two great societies have always lived in peace.”

“Ah,” Boss Nass said, folding his hands in front of him. He didn’t sound like the word peace was what he called the relationship between their races. Exactly how often had there been altercations between the human and the Gungans? This whole situation would be so much easier if the relations between the two races were closer.

Of course, if relations had been peaceful, there would not be now an army to use to turn back the Trade Federation.

Amidala didn’t let him break her flow. “The Trade Federation has destroyed all that we have worked so hard to build,” she pointed out. Some of the tension bled out of Boss Nass’s shoulders. “If we do not act quickly, all will be lost.”

A good point. Mace doubted that no matter how tense the situation between the two races of the Naboo, the Gungans had never once had to flee their home before the Trade Federation arrived.

Amidala paused as if weighing how her words were being taken. “I ask you to help us,” she said. Then without fanfare or protest, she fell to her knees. But her even and thoughtful tone did not change. “No, I beg you to help us. We are your humble servants.”

All of her people, seeing her on her knees, did the same. Feeling it was better in the moment not to upset these men, Mace went to one knee as well, along with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. Anakin gave a confused glance around, but Leia’s hand came to his shoulder. She chose to bow, and Anakin quickly did that as well.

A large sigh came from the man. Mace felt his shoulders stiffen, the Force gently humming along his skin, warning of a moment of great importance. Had this mad gamble been all for nothing?

Then that pregnant silence was broken by a triumphant “Ha!”. That short sharp word was followed by laughter. “Yousa no tinken yousa greater den da Gungans? Meesa lika dis! Maybe wesa bein friends.”

All the Gungans burst out into cheers.

Well, that was one problem solved.

Mace didn’t know much about Boss Nass, but one thing he learned was that when the man made up his mind, he didn’t dither. He clapped his hands, and the Gungans fell silent.

“Wesa canno staysa here,” he said.

Amidala got up from her kneeling position. “I rely on your advice on where we should move to. I have not been on the planet for several days.”

Apparently, Nass thought they should head to the border between the forest and the hills that surrounded the human capital city of Theed. Mace couldn’t fault his logic. It was a good place to hide while they sent scouts into the city to see what the situation on the ground was.

Panaka was the one who had been ultimately dispatched because he knew where he was going, as opposed to the Jedi. And a Gungan would be instantly spotted as an outsider.

Amidala, the real Amidala, not the painted one, pulled Boss Nass aside. Leia had followed her soon after. The three of them had been talking over the last hour. Mace stood near them for a bit, to get a sense of what was going on. None of them objected to him being so close, so he took it as tacit permission.

There was nothing secretive about what they were talking about anyway. Padme was asking what happened to Boss Nass and how his people ended up in the forest. According to him, the attack on his capitol city had occurred shortly after Padme had broken through the blockade. He had been gathering all the forces he could to launch a counterattack. Now reassured that the Naboo weren’t looking down on him, or his people, he was putting considerable effort in coordinating with Padme.

Mace stayed where he was, keeping an eye on where the rest of their party scattered too. The rest of the Naboo had drifted away, but there were a few Gungans with them. They were too far away to be eavesdropped on, but everything looked friendly.

Mace waited until Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan drifted away from everyone else before he moved to talk to them. He didn’t want to have this conversation where they could be overheard. And perhaps the reason he didn’t immediately pull Qui-Gon aside when they first got here, was that he needed to make sure his own temper was firmly in hand. When dealing with him, an even mind was needed.

“You knew,” Mace said to Qui-Gon quietly, eyes flicking to the non-painted Amidala so there was no way Qui-Gon could misinterpret his meaning.

He nodded. “I did.”

“And you didn’t think to mention it?”

Qui-Gon’s face was amused. “It was an internal matter to the Naboo. And nothing they wanted anyone to know.”

“Including the Jedi Council?”

Qui-Gon shrugged. “We are not spies, Mace. Is it not our policy to keep the secrets of those we protect, unless it involves a crime?”

Mace rubbed his forehead. Yaddle was right. Qui-Gon always had a reasonable answer. He opted to change the subject. “And which of the handmaidens is the actual Queen?”

Qui-Gon’s gaze fell to Obi-Wan. His padawan frowned, looking unhappy. “It’s Padme,” he said.

Well, that explained a great deal about why Leia was requested to come on this trip.

Obi-Wan looked at his master. “And why didn’t you tell me?”

“All the clues you needed to figure it out were there.”

Obi-Wan looked even more upset.

It wasn’t Mace’s place to soothe him, no matter how poorly he thought Qui-Gon was handling this. But there was a matter that was in his prerogative to know.

“What I don’t understand is that if this was so important to keep a secret, why did you feel the need to tell Leia?” Unwillingly his gaze fell back on her. She was talking very animatedly to Boss Nass. He didn’t look happy with what she was saying, but he wasn’t storming away either.

Qui-Gon’s voice was amused. “I didn’t tell her anything. She knew the minute she laid eyes on Padme, who she was.”

Mace’s head whipped back to Qui-Gon. “The bounty the Trade Federation put out was of Amidala in her ceremonial outfit.”

Qui-Gon’s amusement was still there, but there was a worried thread running through it now. “I know.”

“Then how did she know ?” Mace sputtered.

Qui-Gon shook his head. He looked both baffled and frustrated. “I don’t know. All I know is that Leia didn’t need more than a second to recognize her.”

That ability spoke of someone who paid great attention to the details of a person, not the masks they used to disguise themselves. And someone who was constantly paying attention to her surroundings. Mace was well aware of how easy it was to slip unnoticed around others, simply because as long as you did nothing out of the ordinary, most people wouldn’t pay attention to you. But Leia had noticed those details. And she had gotten them from a holo, no less.

This certainly helped explain why Amidala—no. Why Padme, had wanted Leia on this trip. Keen instincts and the ability to survive on Tatooine was not someone to dismiss lightly. And that wasn’t even taking into account her intense loyalty, if her defense of Skywalker in the Jedi Council chambers was anything to go by.

Qui-Gon was right, damn him. Leia Solo would be a powerful ally to have. He allowed himself one moment to think of the points that she made during their conversation in the hold. She was passionate and clear in her convictions. She had a sharp mind and the will to stand up to anyone. Mace wondered what it would take to get Leia to trust the Jedi? And more importantly, have some of that incredible drive and loyalty on their side?

Mace’s gaze was once again drawn to the woman in question. She was no longer talking to Boss Nass, just listening as the Gungan waved his hands around. Queen Amidala was watching both of them, sharp interest on her face. Whatever was going on over there, the Queen was paying very close attention to what was being said.

His musings were interrupted by Skywalker running towards all of them. “They’re here!” he cried out excitedly, waving behind him.

Mace looked into the rolling hills as three speeders came into view. He blinked in surprise. Panaka had left with only the one speeder. Who had he found?

“Good,” Padme said as she stepped up beside Mace. Boss Nass and Leia were on her heels. “They made it.”

Captain Panaka waited until the speeder came to a full stop before getting out of it. All three of the speeders were packed to capacity, and a dozen people spilled out of them.

“Captain,” Amidala called out. Panaka came up to them.

“Your Highness,” he said with a little bow.

“What is the situation?” Padme asked.

Panaka’s face was grim. “Almost everyone’s in the camps. A few hundred police and guards have formed an underground resistance movement. I brought back as many of the leaders as I could.”

Mace was surprised even that had been formed. He was given to understand that the Naboo had been a peaceful world for centuries before the Trade Federation invaded.

Panaka’s face grew worried. “The Federation’s army is also much larger than we thought and much stronger.” His voice was solemn as he proclaimed. “Your Highness, this is a battle I do not think we can win.”

Leia made a dismissive noise. “Not with that attitude.”

Panaka stiffened. “And how many battles have you fought?”

Leia crossed her arms over her chest, eyes flat. “Ones with harsher odds than this.”

“Did you win?” Qui-Gon asked, looking intrigued.

Leia's face did something complicated. “Yes, in the short term.”

“What does that mean?” Panaka demanded.

“Strike one enemy down; another comes to take its place,” Leia said. “It’s why I prefer to alter the situation, so you don’t have to fight in the first place ”

That was not a philosophy Mace was expecting a bounty hunter to have. But it did seem to be in line with what he understood about Leia.

Panaka waved his hands around. “You are a little late for that,” he said.

Padme shot Leia a harsh look. “Stop teasing him,” she said.

Leia shrugged. “When he stops saying foolish things, I will.”

Panaka made a noise. “I’m being foolish? You are the one giving her false hope about the odds we are facing.”

Leia rolled her eyes. “You are being unnecessarily cynical. This battle can be won."

Panaka’s eyes narrowed. “What have you convinced her to do?” he demanded.

Leia shook her head. “Nothing. She wanted advice on her course of action. But it was her idea.”

“What idea?” Mace asked, a trickle of worry building in his stomach.

“The battle is a diversion,” Padme stated. Mace started. He wasn’t the only one. Both Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan looked taken aback. But Boss Nass had a satisfied smile on his face. “The Gungans must draw the droid army away from the cities.” She looked at the blue astromech. “R2.”

He gave an affirmative noise and projected a holo of the palace. “We can enter the city using the secret passages on the waterfall side,” Padme explained as a red line lit up, following a path beneath the representation of the city to the palace. Mace leaned forward to peer at it more closely.

“Once we get to the main entrance, Captain Panaka will create a diversion. Then we can enter the palace and capture the Viceroy.”

Padme turned to Panaka. It was interesting she felt that he was the one she needed to convince, given that he was the Captain of her guard and the only one in this meeting that she could order to do what she said. But given the doubtful looks Panaka was shooting Leia’s way, he seemed to be convinced it was her words coming out of his Queen’s mouth. Mace couldn’t blame him. If it hadn’t been for the Force telling Mace that Leia had spoken the truth about this not being her plan, he would have thought it came from her too.

“Without the Viceroy, they will be lost and confused.”

Panaka studied the holo, looking interested, but there was a hesitation in his features. He was thinking about it, but he wasn’t convinced yet.

Padme turned to Qui-Gon. “What do you think, Master Jedi?”

This Queen seemed to live to surprise Mace, and his estimation of this young woman went up several notches. She wasn’t going to directly order Panaka into an action he disagreed with. Especially a military one. So, she was using Qui-Gon’s open approval, no…a Jedi Master’s approval, to sway Panaka. This young Queen moved subtly among her people and made huge waves. Mace’s eyes flicked to Leia and wondered who Padme had learned such manipulation from. In this one instance, Leia was out of the question for that. The woman was about as subtle as a lightsaber in a dark cave.

Qui-Gon’s eyes flicked back and forth between Panaka and Padme, and he didn’t miss any more than Mace did what Padme was trying to do. But in true Qui-Gon fashion, he declined to make it easy for her. “The Viceroy will be well-guarded,” he warned.

“The difficulty is getting into the throne room,” Padme argued, not backing down from her point. “Once we’re inside, we shouldn’t have a problem.”

Qui-Gon nodded his head, conceding her point. He turned to Boss Nass. “There is a possibility, with this diversion, many Gungans will be killed,” he warned.

“Wesa ready to do our-san part,” Nass proclaimed, thumping his chest for emphasis.

It didn’t surprise Mace when Leia spoke up. Staying out of situations where she should not interfere wasn’t her strongest suit.

“There is no doubt of that,” she said. “But I was wondering if you have reconsidered taking my advice.”

Qui-Gon made a discrete cough, and Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. Mace could sympathize. He had known her for less than a day, and even he knew, when Leia thought she was offering advice, it often sounded like orders.

Nass did one of those huge head shakes. “Yousa tink we so stupid, we can-nossa plan?” The disappointment and contempt were clear in his voice. He took a threatening step to Leia. “Yousa tink wesa run when things go bombad?”

Leia didn’t back down, even though the Gungan had to be a good foot and a half taller than her. “I have no doubt of your people’s bravery or abilities.” Then her face became fierce and determined. “However, I want as many of you to survive as possible. The droids will outnumber you.”

Nass made a disgusted noise. “Wessa defends oursa home,” he insisted.

Leia shook her head. “Dead heroes do no one any good. And while I have no doubt you know what to do in a classic battle situation, I have had a lot of experience with guerilla warfare.”

Obi-Wan shot her a startled look, which Mace badly wanted to do too. Guerrilla warfare? Where ? And against who?

Skywalker meanwhile tugged on Leia’s hand. “Manners,” he hissed.

She looked down at him, frowning. “People will die—” she started to say, but Skywalker cut her off.

“Leia. Being nice doesn’t hurt. And this is important.”

She made a face and then turned back to Boss Nass, whose hostility had faded, and he was looking between the two of them in bemusement. Leia took in a deep sigh and then bowed low and deep. “I apologize for my tone,” she said, voice respectful and deferential. “I truly mean no offense.”

Nass looked skeptical. Leia tilted her head, and a wry smile crossed her lips. “It is only my concern for your people that I continue to bring up this point.”

Nass looked at Padme, “Wassa she saying is truesa? Aboutsa Gungans?”

Padme’s lips twitched. “She is here on Naboo simply because I asked for her help.”

Nass looked back at Leia, “She knowsa howsa fight?” he asked Padme. Leia, to her credit, didn’t lose the respectful expression.

“I haven’t ever known Leia to lie. If she says she has experience in this kind of fight, she does. She already has shown a surprising amount of knowledge about things I wouldn’t have expected.”

Qui-Gon’s interest was caught. “Such as?” he asked, trying to sound politely curious.

Mace wanted to yell at him to be quiet. The situation with Leia and Skywalker was hardly the first time he had let his obsession with finding the truth blind him. But there was a time and place. Neither of which was here. For starters, Padme was unlikely to divulge any information about Leia right in front of her. Second, it was only bound to anger Leia, and that was the last thing they needed before they all walked into a battle.

By the frown on his face, Obi-Wan’s thoughts were trending in the same direction as Mace’s.

But Leia surprised him by letting out a loud, boisterous laugh. “You really are a stubborn blurrg,” she said. “At least you’re honest about who you are,” she said wryly. Then she slid a glance at Padme, who gave a small nod of her head. “Advice on politics,” she said.

“I beg your pardon?” Qui-Gon looked confused.

“That was what I advised Padme on. Politics.”

Mace blinked. “And you are currently up to date on the goings-on in the Senate?”

Leia shook her head. “No. Vague ideas, yes, but specifics no. But it doesn’t matter if it’s Jabba’s palace or the Senate, people are people, and power is power.”

The line about power was very much in line with a bounty hunter’s mindset. If they bothered to think about it. Most of the ones Mace had ever met, didn’t. It was another odd facet to Leia’s personality that she did.

“I will tink on it,” Nass proclaimed. “Nossa promises.”

Leia bowed. “Thank you for the privilege,” she told him formally.

He nodded his head back in return.

Padme’s voice was firm and clearly trying to move everyone off the subject. She was remarkably composed for a human of her age. It was almost Jedi-like in its discipline. “We have a plan which should immobilize the droid army. We will send what pilots we have to knock out the droid control ship orbiting the planet.”

Qui-Gon tilted his head. “A well-conceived plan. However, there is great risk. The weapons on your fighters may not penetrate the shields.”

Obi-Wan interjected, but his gaze was locked on Leia as he spoke, “There is an even bigger danger. If the Viceroy escapes, Your Highness, he will return with another droid army.”

Padme’s shoulders settled. “Well, that is why we must not fail to get the Viceroy.”

Leia returned Obi-Wan’s gaze squarely. “It isn’t as dire as that,” she pointed out. “Even now, the Senate is looking into the Trade Federations money. I sincerely doubt they can afford to send another army here with the Senate looking so closely at what they are doing.”

“And how do you know that?” Obi-Wan huffed. “You aren’t in contact with Coruscant any more than we are.”

“The Trade Federation has made many enemies,” Leia said simply. “This is the first time in a long time they have shown a weakness that can be exploited.” Then her smile grew predatory. “And what will cause even more interest among those that aren’t their direct enemies are the consequences of this debacle.” She turned and looked at Padme. “If they are found guilty of even half of the crimes that have committed here, the treaties that allow them to maintain their monopoly on half the trade routes in the galaxy will become void.” Then a hungry smile crossed her face. “And they could lose their Senate seat.”

Padme looked startled. Mace was far more interested in the question of why Leia knew that. She wasn’t wrong. It was half the reason that the Jedi had dedicated resources to proving anything about the Trade Federation. It would remove the stranglehold they had on so many in the Senate. It had been centuries since a planet had lost its seat in the Senate. But the laws governing the member world's behavior had never been amended to remove that provision.

But why would a bounty hunter, who by her own confession didn’t know much about the Senate, know that rather obscure fact? 

Qui-Gon flicked a glance at him. By the startled look on his face, he was thinking very much along the same lines Mace was.

“That is a rather brutal take on politics,” Mace observed. “That everyone will turn on the Trade Federation merely because they look weak.”

Leia turned her gaze back to him. “Self-interest,” she said simply. “People are people. And no one gets into the Senate without some ambition.”

“You don’t believe in the nobility of your fellow citizen?” Mace prodded.

“I am not a citizen of the Republic,” Leia said back blankly. “And even if I was, I wouldn’t doubt the existence of such nobility, only that it is very scarce.” Her gaze seemed to inadvertently fall on Padme. And there was the faintest trace of wistfulness on her face, along with a thread of hope. It was the oddest thing for someone so cynical to hold faith in someone she met only two days ago.

Mace wasn’t the only one to notice Leia’s gaze. Panaka’s voice was dry as he remarked, “You keep saying you don’t want my job, but you are making it hard for me to believe that.”

Leia rolled her eyes. “I only pay attention to what is around me,” she said. “And I really do have no interest in being the head of anyone’s security.”

Panaka gave her a mock salute in reply.

Mace didn’t doubt her when she said Panaka’s job wasn’t what she wanted. He didn’t know what she wanted, but it wouldn’t be such a small thing. “There is paying attention, and then there is paranoia,” he observed.

Leia’s lips twitched. “I would say I am prepared. Not paranoid.”

“So much so, you feel the need to be armed in the Jedi Temple? A place that has been a sanctuary and refuge for thousands of years.”

Her amusement was wiped away, and Mace was startled to feel a ripple of anger and grief dance in the Force. She shut it all down quickly, he would give her that, but it had been there.

“The past isn’t always the future,” she said quietly.

Mace frowned, not understanding what she meant by that.

Qui-Gon cleared his throat. “Well, if Captain Panaka’s job isn’t what you are after, what do you want?”

She shrugged, irritation falling away. “The same thing most people do. Safety. For myself and those I love.”

Mace stiffened. It rang true to him, but it didn’t fit into the earlier answer she had given him in the hold. He leaned forward, hoping with clarification, he could make better sense of her answer.

“And how does this,” Mace waved his hands around them, “fit into protecting those you love?”

Leia cocked her head, so many emotions and thoughts passing over her face Mace couldn’t parse them. He wasn’t shocked when a teasing mockery entered her tone. Disappointed but not surprised. “One of my other weaknesses is that that I am incapable of standing by and doing nothing when I can help.”

The truth, but not the answer that she had given him earlier. Mace wasn’t sure he could spin this situation into a lens that would fit both of her answers. She wanted to use this to save the Senate, and she wanted to help a random stranger? One spoke of a brilliant tactician, which would fit the warrior Mace had seen. But that boundless compassion required for selfless help? That wasn’t Leia. She was endlessly patient with the two people she loved, but that wasn’t extended to the galaxy at large. But both answers rang true in the Force to Mace. He couldn’t make any sense of it.

Padme came over and slid an arm around Leia’s shoulder. “And I, for one, am grateful for that.”

Leia relaxed just a fraction and let her head rest against Padme’s. Then she straightened and stepped away from the girl. She addressed Boss Nass. “May I ask a question of you?”

Nass immediately stiffened.

Leia noted it, Mace was sure of it, but her even tone didn’t change. “I was wondering where the civilians of your population are?”

Nass’s voice took a deeper tone. “Whysa?”

Leia’s hand fell on Skywalker’s head. “Because I was hoping to send Anakin there.”

“Leia!!” the boy protested, and she shot him a deep look of disapproval.

Nass’s figure relaxed as he looked down at Skywalker and understood the intent behind Leia’s question. “Theysa in a safe place,” he said. “I woussa tells you, but...” his voice trailed off. “Issa a day away.”

Leia sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Great,” she muttered.

Obi-Wan frowned. “Why not send him there? Surely the boy has survived far more perilous situation then this?”

Leia’s head snapped up, but her voice was filled with disappointment, not anger. “Because the planet he grew up on is completely different from this one. He has no idea what is, and is not, dangerous here. You’ve been trained to adapt to multiple biospheres. He has not.” 

Mace winced. That was a foolish statement from Obi-Wan. Understandable, given that a Jedi youngling Skywalker’s age would have such training, but foolish.

Padme looked at Leia. “I could send one of the handmaidens with him,” she offered.

“I coulda sendsa him wit a Gun-Gan,” Nass also offered.

Leia shook her head. “No. Thank you, but no. We are going to need every person we have.”

Obi-Wan looked puzzled. “How can you know that?”

Leia stiffened. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“One person cannot make that much of a difference.”

Leia looked at him thoughtfully until Obi-Wan squirmed under her gaze. “What?” he asked defensively, arms folding in front of his chest.

“I’m just trying to remember if I was that short-sighted when I was your age.” She sighed. “It’s sad to think I probably was.”

She straightened up to her full height. “I’ve lived through enough chaos to know that one person can make all the difference.” She gestured to the direction Theed was in. “Unfortunately, for the coming battle, I have no idea which person that would be.”

Well, she had said she wasn’t that talented at seeing the future, so it would be a blind spot for her. However, Mace agreed with Obi-Wan. One person generally didn’t make much of a difference, and he certainly had seen far more battles than Leia to prove it.

Padme cleared her throat. “You could take him to the Gungan’s safe spot.”

Mace was interested to note that both Skywalker and Leia looked aghast at that offer.

“No,” Leia said firmly.

Padme looked confused. “I understand, Leia. I know how much you love him. He’s your family, blood relation or not. You just met me. You don’t owe me anything.” She stepped forward and placed her hands on Leia’s shoulders. “I release you from your promise to help.”

Leia looked at Padme, and there was a helpless fury on her face that Mace didn’t understand at all.

Seeing she was getting nowhere trying to stare Leia down, Padme’s face fell down to Skywalker, and a fond look crossed over her face. “Ani’s safety is important to me too.”

Skywalker’s face was full of awed worship as he returned her gaze.

Leia’s mouth tightened in a white line. “Thank you for the offer Padme, truly.” She stepped away from Padme, and the girl’s hands fell from her shoulders. “But I…” Leia sighed and rubbed her forehead. “It’s important to me that I be there at your side.”

Padme frowned. “Why?”

Mace would dearly like to know that too. Given her protectiveness of Skywalker, he would have thought Leia would have bolted with him at the first chance to do so honorably.

For once, Qui-Gon’s bluntness served him well. He was willing to ask the question others would not. “What have you seen, Leia?” he demanded.

Leia shook her head, but Skywalker said quietly, “You aren’t listening.”

“I listen,” Leia objected.

Skywalker gave her a pointed look.

“I do,” she protested. “But I retain the right to disagree."

He shook his head.

Mace sincerely hoped they weren’t talking about what he thought they were talking about. Because even Leia wouldn’t be as willful and stubborn to argue with the Force, could she?

Leia ruffled his hair. “And we’ve talked about this. Are you sure you don’t hear what you want to hear?”

Skywalker’s mouth opened, then he shut it closed. He frowned and closed his eyes, a look of intense concentration on his face. Around him, Mace could feel a deep thrumming pounding in the Force.

Before he could get a good feel of what was going on, the noise fell away as if it had never been. Skywalker opened his eyes, and his chin rose. “Yes,” he said, and there was no wavering in his voice. “I’m sure. I need to be here.” Then he scowled, looking very unhappy. “You do too.”

Leia took issue with the first part of his statement. “You are nine years old. You are not fighting battle droids.”

Skywalker’s eyes became guileless, “You’re right, I’m not.”

Leia’s eyes narrowed. “Old Man,” she growled.

He looked at her. “Promise,” he said.

She didn’t look reassured, but she let it go.

Panaka cleared his throat, “I’m not sure of any of this,” he said, gaze flickering around the circle of them. “But I have a suggestion for how to get to the Throne Room, when we enter the palace.”

Padme inclined her head. “I always value your input, Captain Panaka.”

His plan was surprisingly bold, from someone who seemed to favor conversative measures, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a good idea. When they had all agreed to his modification on storming the palace, Padme looked around at all of them.

“Any more suggestions?”

They all shook their heads.

She took a deep breath in. “Then let us be on our way.”

The trip to the edge of Theed to enter the tunnels was quick, if a bit crowded, with all of them packed onto three land speeders. The entrance to the tunnels was discreetly hidden away. Not for security purposes, Panaka explained to Mace, but because the Naboo hadn’t wanted to ruin the view of the park it entered out into.

The trip through the tunnels was not as fast. Although they didn’t run into any droids, the power wasn’t on. They were reduced to using limited light to make their way through, and they went slowly. They couldn’t afford for any of the pilots to trip and hurt themselves badly enough that they couldn’t make it to the hanger.

They passed quite a few ladders on their way to the palace, but it was at a random one where R2 let out a loud whistle. Panaka nodded at Mace and kept going. He was leading the handmaidens, the guards, and the resistance fighters to the next ladder. R2 had reassured them that these two ladders would lead to exits on either side of the courtyard that was in front of the hanger. Getting the pilots up in the air as fast as they could was the first priority. Without the droid control ship, this battle would be over that much faster.

Mace waited until Padme, Leia, Skywalker, and the pilots made it up the ladder. R2 gave an inquisitive whistle, and Mace motioned for him to go. The droid deployed his rocket booster and was out of the tunnel in a heartbeat.

“Easy or hard?” Qui-Gon asked, looking up the ladder.

“Blind exit,” Mace reminded him. “All we need is for you to jump up and come landing down on someone.”

“You used to be a lot more fun when you were younger,” Qui-Gon complained as he started up the ladder.

“You used to have a sense of self-preservation,” Mace shot back.

Qui-Gon only chuckled and continued his way up. Obi-Wan followed, and Mace wasn’t far behind him.

He came up into a small alcove. This was the part of the plan that had worried him the most. Because of the ladder, they could only ascend to the surface in a single line. That meant that whoever was on the surface needed to hide until they could all get up.

His worries proved correct as he glanced around when he exited. There was a battalion of B1 droids standing guard at the head of the courtyard, with a tank to back them up. The only advantage Mace could see that they had was that the droids were facing away from where they all were.

They all huddled there until a flashing red light on the other side of the courtyard caught Mace’s attention. It was Panaka, indicating that he and the others had gotten into position. Padme flashed her own back at them to signal the same.

Leia looked at Skywalker. “When this starts, you stay behind me. Understand?” she asked the boy.

He nodded. Leia’s face grew firm. “And when we get inside, the first thing you do is find somewhere to hide.”

“But—” he started to protest.

“No buts,” Leia said. “ Hide.”

Skywalker’s face hardened.

“Promise me, Old Man,” she said firmly.

“I promise,” he said, sounding extremely reluctant.

Leia seemed satisfied with that. If he was her, Mace wouldn't have been.

To the left of Panaka’s position, a land speeder with a canon attached came out from the archway leading to the street. Mace wasn’t sure where they had stolen it from, but it did increase the odds that they could destroy the tank in the square.

Without warning, it fired on the droid tank. The vehicle exploded in a great boom of noise. There were the sounds of several of the droids screaming and then one mechanical voice calling out, “Open fire!”

Panaka and his group stepped forward, drawing the droid’s attention exactly as planned, as the speeder they were using continued to fire at the droids.

Padme waited for a few beats, and then headed toward the doors to their left. The rest of them quickly surrounded her, Mace, Obi-Wan, and Qui-Gon taking the lead.

They stopped in front of the doors, lightsaber blades ignited. As soon as Padme had punched in the access code, it swung open. Mace heard Obi-Wan snort. Leia had called the Viceroy a bureaucrat, not a warrior, and she wasn’t wrong. They hadn’t even bothered to change the security code against an invading force that lived in the building they were occupying.

That didn’t mean the hanger had been left vulnerable. The droids that were on the other side of the door didn’t bother to ask questions of them. They just opened fire.

It was the work of moments to redirect the bolts back to them. There weren’t enough of the B1 droids here to truly overwhelm them. But Mace was aware that the longer they stayed here, the more likely it was that the droids which had been left in the palace would all converge on this position. He had no idea if that was enough to overwhelm them, and he had no desire to find out.

Running into the room, Padme cried out over her shoulder, “Get to your ships.”

The pilots darted out, trying to take advantage of the momentary lull in fire. Of course, the second they started heading toward the ships, a new group of droids appeared. 

Mace worried momentarily that they wouldn’t be able to cover them all, but Panaka appeared at his side, blaster firing. Mace wasn’t sure if the droids had followed him and his group or that it was a coincidence, but it hardly mattered now.

Mace concentrated on deflecting the bolts heading his way and presenting himself as the biggest target he could. The droids were focused on him, Obi-Wan, and Qui-Gon. Mace wanted to keep it that way. When they had reached the halfway point, Mace could hear the engines start to rev up at the other side of the hanger. 

Once the last of the droids had been destroyed, Mace had a second to take a look around the hanger. There were only four ships left, and no pilots. This part of the fight had been successful. 

Padme came up to Panaka. “My guess is the Viceroy is in the throne room,” she told him.

He nodded. “Red group! Blue group! Everybody this way!”

Mace turned to head toward the doors when a voice called out, “What about me?”

Leia turned around, and Mace turned to follow her gaze. Skywalker was standing in the cockpit of one of the ships left in the hanger. Sometime during the chaos, he must have run into it as a place to hide.

Leia pointed a finger at him. “You stay there!”

“But I—”

“Battle,” she said. “Nine years old. Stay there."

Skywalker gave a huff and sat back down.

Leia gave one more warning glare at the boy, then turned around and joined Mace. They hurried to catch up with everyone. The group was heading towards a set of large doors on the opposite side of the hanger from where they had entered. 

Mace lengthened his stride, hurrying to catch up with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. Since there were no security cams to tell what was on the other side of the door, it would be a blind entrance.

Mace opened up all his senses, with his ears and the Force to see if there was anything on the other side of the door. The Force tightened around him. Mace noted it, but since there was no hum of danger, he continued on his way.

Within a blink of his eyes Leia was standing in the doorway.

Mace came to a stop. There was stubbornly going it alone, and then there was being foolish. She was endangering herself by moving so far ahead of the group. She was unprotected, and there was no way that anyone could give her cover. They would all expose themselves in an effort to try to protect her.

There was also the part of him that wanted to demand that she tell him where she learned to move that fast. If she was going to continually do things she had no business knowing how to do, at the very least, she could look wiped by it. Was this another one of her easy tricks, perhaps?

He paused, his instincts telling him something wasn’t right. Mace took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly, allowing his thoughts to calm.

Mace focused on her face and felt his balance lurch.

He hadn’t noticed. It was an entirely ridiculous notion to contemplate. He castigated himself for it, because he was staring at a Leia whose face appeared decades younger than the woman who only moments ago had been behind him. 

This younger Leia was wearing a white one-piece tailored outfit that hemmed to her body very closely, with a cape to accent her shoulders. A second ago, when he had seen her telling Skywalker to hide, Leia had been wearing a dark, loose-fitting tunic with pants to match. 

Mace took in a sharp breath and beat back all the voices screaming in his head that this wasn’t possible. He would examine that later. Now, he would concentrate on this vision. The Force was showing him this for a reason, even though that reason was something he could barely grasp, much less understand.

That younger Leia shivered, her gaze looking through Mace. Her face was deathly pale as she said to someone else, “I feel….,” her voice took on an ominous warning  “cold.”

Mace blinked, trying to come up with what could possibly unsettle Leia, even a younger Leia when she faded away. Mace reached out, hoping that the Force would tell him more, but there was nothing.

“Master Windu?”

Mace ignored the voice and concentrated. Reality hadn’t been returned to him because the outline of a figure was coalescing where Leia had stood. He took in a sharp breath of air when the features resolved themselves into a Zabrakian male.

Mace had a moment to wonder if this was the same person that Leia had shot on Tatooine. Then all idle speculation died in his mind as the Zabrakian gave Mace a bloody smile. His arm swung out, and he brought out a long hilt, held in front of him. Both ends ignited into blood-red blades. Mace suppressed a shudder. The malice, pain, and fear coming off those blades was wrong.

“Corrupted Kyber crystals, the Sith did,” Yoda’s voice rang in his head.

“Mace!!!”

Mace blinked, and the weaving of the Force fell away. It took him a minute to make sense of the sight in front of him. He focused his eyes, and the blur resolved itself into Qui-Gon. Who was standing directly in his face, hands gripping Mace’s shoulders, Obi-Wan hovering worriedly at his side.

Seeing that he had gotten Mace’s attention, Qui-Gon dropped his hands from him. He didn’t step back, as he asked in a low voice, “Are you alright?”

Mace’s eyes flicked past him and landed on the doorway again. Nothing happened; it was just a doorway. But his mind couldn’t seem to let those visceral images go.

“Something was supposed to happen here,” he said, the words tumbling out of him as the Force gave him one last measure of insight.

Apparently, he said it loud enough for everyone to hear because Leia’s voice asked, “What was supposed to happen here?”

Mace turned his face to follow the sound of her voice, and she was now closer to him than he remembered her being before that vision had opened up in front of him.

“I don’t know,” he said. His eyes flickered to the door, unable to stop himself. A feeling of dread permeated the Force all around him at the mere memory of that horribly wrong lightsaber. “But it wasn’t anything good.”

Mace quickly rolled over his thoughts, trying to comprehend what was going on. He had, on occasion, felt the path someone could take in the future. But those warnings had consisted of feelings. Very rarely, like with Skywalker, he could get a sense of the many versions that a person could be. But that was what it had always been. Feelings. Not a vision. There was also the small matter that he had never been blessed with the ability to feel whath ad occurred to someone. Never mind seeing an actual event.

He turned his gaze back to Leia, trying to find some sense in all this. “You’ve been to Naboo before.”

Leia’s concern turned into wariness. “Yes. But that is not a secret.”

Panaka stepped forward, “We don’t have time for this,” he said firmly.

Mace knew he was right, and tabled his questions for Leia for later. Just in time, because he caught the hint of danger in the Force. Without thinking, he whirled, bringing up his lightsaber.

A shot deflected off his blade.

While Mace had been distracted by the Force, three destroyers had quietly rolled into the back of the hanger. The only good thing about this was that there were no B1 battle droids backing them up, but it was only a matter of time

Aware of the Gungans who were even now, dying in a field far away from here, Mace called out to Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, “We don’t have time for this.”

Padme was bolting for the archway, shooting behind her as she called out, “Let’s go!” The rest of the guards and handmaidens followed her, with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan bringing up the rear.

One of the destroyers was hit by a bolt of something that did not come from a hand blaster.

Mace turned his head and saw that one of the Naboo ships was moving forward. The Destroyers turned, focusing on the enemy that could kill them. Two more shots came out of the ship.

The ship that Skywalker had been ordered to stay in.

Well, he had provided them cover, and technically, he was obeying Leia’s order to stay in the cockpit. Mace sighed. As much as he loathed leaving a child in control of a deadly weapon, he was also disinclined to order him out of the ship and leave him defenseless. Skywalker looked like he had everything in hand in any case. Mace needed to catch up with the rest of his group to provide cover. Mace shot one more look at the ship, then turned, using the Force to run to the exit.

As Mace exited the hanger, he took a moment to assess what they would all be fighting in. The hallway, almost two stories in height, was wide and spacious. There were two rows of red pillars that ran the entire length of the hallway. Behind the pillars, windows that reached from floor to ceiling, let in the light from outside.

It was stunning, beautiful, and the last place Mace wanted to travel while trying to dodge battle droids. There was nowhere to hide. No shadows to keep too. And those pillars were too round to be able to see around safely. Which would have been fine, if it were to their benefit, instead of working against them. 

Battle droids didn’t need sight to sense them coming. They were attuned to vibrations so that they could hide behind pillars like this and jump out without once showing their heads. Mace couldn't say the same for himself. Droids were notoriously difficult to get a feel of in the Force. But this was the way to the throne room, there was nothing to be done but go forward, and keep alert.

Mace caught up with the rest of the group. They were standing by the first window in the hallway. Panaka looked grim as he stared out onto the city of Theed.

“I don’t like this,” he said darkly.

“It’s your plan,” Leia said.

“It’s the best of bad options.”

Sabe came up to Padme, fear on her face even through the make-up. “Don’t worry about us,” she said. “Just capture the Viceroy.”

Padme nodded. Panaka’s earlier ‘suggestion’ had been that with three Jedi to protect her, Padme didn’t need all of her entourage to get to the Viceroy. They could use the fact that Sabe was dressed in the Amidala makeup to their advantage. Sabe would take everyone, save the Jedi, Panaka and Leia, and lead the droids throughout the palace. It should pull even more droids away from protecting the throne room.

With that distraction going on, the rest of them would ascend to the throne room. Of course, they would be getting there via the outside of the building, instead of the interior.

Sabe turned to Leia. “Watch Padme’s back,” she told her firmly.

Leia met her gaze without flinching. “Like my life depends on it,” she said, an air of solemnity around her.

Sabe nodded, and without another word, she started jogging down the hallway, the rest of them following her.

Obi-Wan shed his robe, as Padme, Panaka, and Leia brought out their ascension guns. Mace had been surprised when Leia requested one. Using the Force to assist you in jumping was a rather basic skill. Certainly, far easier then speaking mind to mind. It revealed some of the interesting gaps in Leia’s education in the Force.

Qui-Gon flicked his fingers. The Force shattered the window, but with Qui-Gon controlling the shards, they all flew out into the open air.

Blaster fire erupted from the other end of the hallway. Mace allowed himself a quick look, to see the rest of the Naboo opening fire onto half a dozen B1 droids.

Padme took in a sharp breath, but before Mace could remind her to keep her focus, she squared her shoulders and stepped out onto the ledge, with the rest of them.

Panaka, Padme, and Leia shot their guns into the arch of the windows on the floor above them. All three arrows hit, and within moments all of them were being pulled up. Mace, Obi-Wan, and Qui-Gon waited until they were all on the ledge, and settled themselves on the farthest edge of the ledge, leaving a space for the Jedi to land. Then the three of them jumped up.

Qui-Gon again broke the window, making sure all the shards funneled into a controlled area.

They jumped into the hallway. Mace wasn’t all that surprised to find this one looked very much like the one they had just left. To their right was the top of the staircase Mace had spotted below. He could still hear blaster fire, but it sounded much fainter then it should be. Sabe was probably on the move, trying to get the droids to follow her.

Padme, looking around to make sure they were all here, nodded her head in the direction of the other end of the hallway. At the end of it, there were a set of doors made of a soft muted grey metal. They were intricate without being gaudy. This was the entrance to the throne room, Mace presumed.

The group began running down the hallway. This time, it was Mace in front with Leia bringing up the rear.

Mace felt a sharp tug in warning, and he had his blade up before he even consciously knew where the threat came from. A blaster blot ricocheted off his blade to bounce off a destroyer’s shields. Three of them, along with half a dozen of the B1 battle droids, had appeared in the front of the door.

Mace reached deeply into the Force, with it guiding his actions, he would be able to react faster than his normal reflexes would allow.

He wasn’t sure how long he was within that light trance when a wave of horror and soul-splitting grief rang across the Force, breaking Mace’s hold on it.

“PADME!!!” Leia screamed, creating a dual-echo in his head as he heard it with his ears and in the Force.

Mace ignored the pain and forced himself to turn. He had caught the feeling Leia had picked up on, the lines around the young Queen’s life tightening into a dead stop. Padme stood a good twenty feet from him, blaster firing, the sound covering Leia’s scream of warning, as one of the Destroyers standing in her blind spot, angled so it could take the clear shot at her.

Mace’s eyes flickered around him. He wouldn’t be able to block the blaster bolts heading her way. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon were on their feet, but they both looked dazed. They had been caught in Leia’s cry as well. They were too far away to intervene anyway. Leia was out because her voice had come from behind him. She was even further from Padme than the rest of them.

And then every line and hint of the future was swept out with a great whoosh. It felt like the sea retreating before the tsunami came in to wipe everything in its path away. Mace barely had time to brace himself before the Force screamed past him. Even braced as he was, he staggered and nearly fell to his knees.

Dimly, he was aware of a shout of alarm and a cry of pain from behind him, but they were very far away. Mace focused, trying to regain his balance, both physically and mentally. The Force was all around him, vibrating with an intensity and will that Mace could feel in every atom of his being. It was overwhelming and yet, at the same time, the clearest he had had ever heard the Force.

It took his eyes a moment to clear and focus on the physical world, so overbearing was the tide against his mind. When his vision did finally clear, his brain stuttered for a few seconds, insisting what he was seeing had to be a vision. But every other sense was adamant that this was real.

A dozen blaster bolts were hanging in the air, frozen in place as if they were caught in some invisible web.

Mace blinked, but the sight before him did not disappear. In his peripheral vision, he caught Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan staggering, still trying to recover from that push of power in the Force. Panaka wasn’t affected by that blinding wave, but he was certainly distracted enough with the physical manifestation of all that power. He was looking around them, and his mouth dropped open.

“What is going on?” one of the droids demanded in a tinny voice, his companions motionless, their gaze fixed on this improbability in front of them.

Mace would really like to know too.

He forced himself to look away from this impossible sight and turned his head to find Padme. She was right where he last saw her, only instead of firing her blaster, it hung limply at her side. Her face was drained of all color, which Mace found to be the most logical reaction to a red blaster bolt hanging not two inches from her face.

Obi-Wan’s voice cut through the fog in Mace’s mind. “What the sithing hell?”

While Mace couldn’t approve of the language, he definitely echoed the sentiment. 

“I can’t hold this forever,” a strained voice called out over the Force.

Mace whirled around to look behind him. Leia was right where he remembered her being before reality had crashed into this slightly surreal scene. She was no longer standing, though. Her hands were held out in front of her, and her face was a mask of pain. He wondered if she had been injured when that wave of power hit them all when his awareness of the Force hummed along his skin. No, Leia hadn’t been injured by anything because she was the one holding all these blaster bolts, all of this energy, in place.

“Are you going to be useful?” her voice held frustration and a fatigue that was spiraling to bone-deep exhaustion. “Or are you going to gape?”

Mace’s mind couldn’t even begin to process any of this when a voice shouted across the hallway, catching his attention.

“Down!” Qui-Gon shouted.

Mace heard the sound of bodies dropping, and then his mind caught up with what was going on. Hastily he dropped to the floor, and not even a second later, the pressure around him in the Force disappeared. He heard the sound of blaster fire shooting over his head as what was holding them back released.

He heard the sound of mechanical whirling and knew the three destroyers were about to roll into balls to come into the middle of them all. He sprang to his feet and turned to yell at Leia to see if she could do something about them.

She was laid prone out on the floor, and he couldn’t feel anything from her in the Force.

Mace felt like the breath had been knocked out of him. He started forward to check on her when Qui-Gon called out, “MACE!!”

Mace started, completely shocked at how distracted he allowed himself to become. He was hardly a first year padawan to let his emotions dictate his responses like this. He brought his blade up. Qui-Gon had already disabled one of the destroyers and was whirling to help Obi-Wan handle the other one.

Mace came forward and ruthlessly began cutting down the B1 droids. The last droid gave out a complaining, “This isn’t fair!” as Mace removed its head from its shoulders. He did a quick glance to confirm that Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had handled the last destroyer.

Confident those two had everything in hand, Mace powered down his saber, and between one heartbeat and the next, he covered the distance between himself and Leia.

“Leia!” Padme cried out just as Mace put a shaking hand on Leia’s neck, searching for a pulse.

The pounding of his own heart was loud in his ears as Padme’s footsteps came closer to him. He took in one deep breath to steady himself in the Force and concentrated everything he had on the sensation at the end of his fingertips.

There was one long pause when he felt nothing, and then his shoulders sagged with relief as he felt a slight pulse beneath his fingers. He extended his sense of her, disturbed he could feel nothing in the Force from her.

It wasn’t until he took in a deep breath to calm his racing heart, that he caught the flicker of her presence beside him. He let out a sigh of relief. It wasn’t exactly the same, but it was close enough to a sensation he knew. Like a youngling in the temple, Leia had exhausted her physical body channeling the Force beyond what was safe. It had left her exhausted, both in the Force and physically, but alive.

“She’s alive,” he told Padme, as the young Queen sank next to him, her worried gaze locked on Leia.

Relief flooded her face, and she reached out a finger to push a stray hair off Leia’s forehead. “Oh, thank god,” she breathed in a rush.

“Not that I am not grateful,” Panaka said, his voice full of awe and fear. “But what was that?”

Mace’s eyes moved up from Leia’s prone form to meet Qui-Gon’s eyes. His old friend looked as shocked as Mace felt.

“The Force,” Padme said, conviction firm in her voice.

“Yes,” Panaka agreed. “But Jedi can’t….” his voice trailed off as he looked at Mace. “Can you ?” and there was such fear in him.

Mace didn’t know what to say. Admitting they couldn’t, would almost be as worse as leaving Panaka with the impression they could.

Some of his confusion and indecision must have shown on his face because Panaka’s face resolved into an expression Mace couldn’t read. His gaze fell to Leia.

“She wasn’t shot, was she?” he asked. He held up a hand to stop Mace before he could even think of what to say. Panaka’s gaze fell to Qui-Gon, who had come up with Obi-Wan to be closer to all of them.

“Who is she?” Panaka demand of Qui-Gon.

Mace’s mouth opened and closed several times, trying to think of what to say. Qui-Gon decided to go his usual way and make everything infinitely harder.

“We don’t know,” he admitted to the man.

Mace closed his eyes and fought the urge to bang his head against something. He wasn’t sure what could have made this situation better, but it hadn’t been admitting that the Jedi had no idea where Leia had come from, or how she could do what she could in the Force.

“I know who she is,” Padme said firmly.

Mace’s eyes flew open, and everyone was looking at her now.

“Who?” Panaka asked.

“Our ally.” Padme’s voice was firm. There was a clear warning on her face and voice. “One who has lived a hard life, full of pain and loss. One who has risked much to help us. The least we can do is leave her past where she clearly wants it to stay.” Then she transferred her glare to Mace. “In the past.”

Which would be the easier path to take, Mace admitted to himself. But one that his oath to the Jedi wouldn’t let him pursue.

Panaka had his own objections as well, “But—”

“No,” and Padme’s voice was as firm as durasteel. “She saved my life, Panaka. She is helping us save Naboo. The smallest repayment of that is to honor her wish not to pester her about it.”

Panaka bowed his head. “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

He might obey that order, but by the speculative gleam in Qui-Gon’s eyes, Mace knew there was no way he would leave Leia alone about this unexpected skill.

Obi-Wan’s glance flicked down the corridor. “We can’t stay here,” he said. “We can question her later.”

“We can’t leave her,” Padme protested.

Mace didn’t even bother saying anything to anyone. He merely clipped his lightsaber to his belt and reached down with both arms, scooping Leia up.

The first thought that struck him was that she should have been harder to pick up. Normally Mace wouldn’t be one to let his eyes deceive him to what a person was. But Leia’s strength and vibrancy in the Force, not to mention the force of her personality, made it hard for him to remember that in a physical sense, she was actually quite small for a human.

Padme gave him a grateful smile, but Mace could have done without Qui-Gon’s knowing smirk. He was aware he looked like every cliche of every Jedi in the holo-vids. A virtuous hero with the fair maiden in his arms. But it was the fastest way to get out of this corridor, and Qui-Gon knew that. The man just enjoyed giving everyone a hard time.

They reached the solid grey doors without encountering more droids. Mace slipped to the side, so he wouldn’t be in the line of fire. Panaka went to the control panel and put in a code.

And the Trade Federation still hadn’t changed it because the doors opened with a barely audible click.

Mace stayed where he was, partially hidden behind a pillar as Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan stepped into the room. Padme, who at Panaka’s hand wave, had also stayed in the hallway. There might have been no droids in the hallway, but Mace heard far more blaster fire than Panaka could account for, coming from in the room. He was fairly certain that they weren’t destroyers in that room because the sound died away after a few short moments.

“Clear, Your Majesty,” Panaka called out.

Padme nodded her head at him, indicating he should follow her. They both stepped in, but Mace made his way to Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, Leia still and quiet in his arms.

Padme strode forward to Nate Gunray, and his aide. “Viceroy,” she announced clearly. “Your occupation here has ended.”

He drew himself up to his full height, which had the effect of making it look like he was looming over Padme. “This is but a small skirmish,” he said, disdain dripping from his voice as he gestured to one of the windows. “We still have our droid army.”

Panaka kept his gun steady on the two men as he went to the control panel on this side of the door. Within moments, there was a loud clang as blast shields came down over the door and all the windows.

“But they aren’t here, are they?” Padme said coolly. Gunray seemed to shrink in front of her. “Panaka, are their communications jammed?”

Panaka checked something on the panel. “They are, Your Majesty.”

Cutting off all communications to this room was both an advantage and disadvantage to them. But Padme wanted to make sure there was no way Nate Gunray could get an order out to the droids or the droid control ship. She wasn’t so much worried about him calling reinforcements to this room, but that he would start ordering the droids in the camps to start slaughtering her people, in order to get her to release him.

It did mean though, Padme had no way of knowing now, what was going on beyond these walls, until Sabe came here and gave the all clear.

None of those thoughts were on her face as she gave Gunray a cold look. “Now, let’s discuss a new treaty.”

It wasn’t a very long conversation, Padme had the Viceroy in a corner, and he knew it. He was also probably hoping that his army would be victorious and be able to retake the city. Until they had word about the droid control ship, this particular battle was over.

Mace let that worry go. That was up to the Naboo pilots and the Gungans.

But that wasn’t the only troubling situation. Leia still hadn’t woken up. In an ideal world, he would take her to the infirmary and have her scanned to make sure that she hadn’t irreparably harmed herself. He found it frustrating for all their preparations, the Naboo hadn’t put a med kit in this room. He might not been able to help Leia with what was in it, but at the very least he reassure himself this wasn’t the worst case scenario.

The other solution wasn’t even a choice in this case. For anyone else, Mace would simply transfer some energy into Leia to help build back up her reserves and shield her mind as best as he could. But given her aversion to the Force touch of another, and the power she could use to batter him away, Mace knew that wasn’t an option.

The one thing he could do was take Leia to the other side of the room, putting as much physical distance between her and others as he could. Given her exhaustion, he imagined her mental shields must be shot, and keeping her as physically far from intense emotion as he could, was about the only thing he could do to help her.

He had laid her out on the floor and removed his robe to cushion her head. He didn’t like that she was laying out on the cold hard marble of the floor, but there was no furniture he could lay her out on. And while she might not react as strongly to waking up in someone’s arms as to a Force touch, it wasn’t something Mace was willing to chance. All he could do was sit down next to her and wait.

As Padme and Gunray talked, Qui-Gon joined him. Mace said nothing as the man sat down next to him and Leia. Obi-Wan shot his master a look, but he stayed by Panaka, keeping an eye on the two Neimoidians.

Qui-Gon looked down at Leia. “What are you thinking, Mace?” he asked.

“That maybe if I ask very nicely, Leia might teach me that,” Mace answered back honestly.

Qui-Gon let out a startled huff, but his amusement faded away. “She’s been out for a lot longer than the younglings when they do something like this,” he said quietly.

“She also did something that required a lot more power,” Mace said back, battling his own worry that was echoing Qui-Gon’s.

It said something about the pull Leia had on people, even when she was unconscious, that neither he nor Mace noticed Padme coming over.

Both men flinched when she sank to her knees beside them. “Is she going to be okay?” It was the worried tone of Padme asking, not the polished tones of a Queen.

“We don’t know,” Mace admitted. “But the sooner we can get her to the med bay to scan for problems, the better.”

Padme bit her lip, and she looked at the blaster shield over the door, as if she glared at it hard enough, someone would knock on the other side to let them know everything was over.

Mace looked over at Panaka, who was still standing guard over Gunray. The man didn’t look happy about not being able to overhear what was going on, but he wasn’t protesting loudly either.

“Did she do permanent damage in helping me?” Padme asked in a quiet voice.

“Possibly,” Qui-Gon admitted.

Padme’s shoulders hunched. “What’s wrong with her?”

Qui-Gon’s voice was mild, but Mace could see the worry in his eyes. “She overextended herself in channeling too much power in the Force.”

Padme’s eyes widened. “That can happen?” she asked.

“Yes,” Obi-Wan had made it over to join the conversation. “Especially if you forget your limits.” A note of censure entered his voice. “This is a mistake that a youngling makes, not an adult.”

“You should cut me some slack,” a slurred voice said from the floor. “It was my first attempt at that.”

“Leia!” Padme cried out and leaned over so she could drag the woman into a hug.

“Shhh,” the woman said, eyes not opening, but she patted Padme on the back. “Loud.”

“Sorry,” Padme said in a quieter voice, and pulled away from the woman, so she was once more kneeling. “Are you alright?”

“I’ve been better,” Leia said, eyes still closed and not moving from her prone position to sit up. “But I’ve also been worse.”

Padme’s face grew relaxed, but Mace’s attention was caught on the first half of Leia’s statement.

“First time?” he demanded. “What do you mean it was your first time catching blaster bolts? How did you even know you could ?”

Leia’s eyes opened finally, and her head moved so she could meet Mace’s gaze. “Catching blaster bolts? No, I’ve done that before.” Mace noted through the blood rushing through his ears that both Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon looked as shaken as he did. “Catching multiple ones? That is new.”

Oh, of course.

She tried to sit up and let out a grimace.

“Leia, stay down,” Padme ordered, pressing a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Nate Gunray is our prisoner; the fight is over.”

Leia’s eyes flickered around. Mace couldn’t imagine she could see very much from the angle she was at. “Droids down yet?”

“No,” Padme said.

Leia tried and failed to push Padme’s hand off her shoulder. “Then we are still in danger.”

Mace reached out a hand and aided Padme in keeping Leia lying on the floor. “Yes, you are in fine shape to take them all on.”

Leia growled under her breath.

“We are at a stalemate, Leia,” he reminded her gently. “Rest while you can.”

She didn’t look happy about it, but Mace felt her relax under his hands. He and Padme both removed their hands from her shoulders, as her eyes fluttered close.

Mace decided to take his own advice and settled himself into a more comfortable position. There was nothing to be done now but try to sink into a meditative state. It kept eluding him, though, his mind whirling with what he had seen over the last hour.

Leia gave out a sigh. “Ask,” she said.

Mace opened his eyes. “I beg your pardon?”

Leia’s eyes fluttered open, and Mace could see the lines of exhaustion clearly on her face. Her eyes flicked to him and then to Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, who were both still hovering nearby. “I can feel all three of you dying to ask questions. I’m not getting any rest until you do. So, spit it out.”

Her shields would still be thin to non-existent in this state, but he certainly had more control than to broadcast his curiosity all over the place. “We should let you rest—” he started to say, but Qui-Gon’s voice cut him off.

“Did your tutor teach you how to catch blaster bolts?”

Mace glared at him, but Qui-Gon ignored him to focus completely on Leia.

Leia shook her head. “No. It would involve immersing myself more in the Force than I was comfortable with.”

Qui-Gon’s voice cut through the fog that rose up in Mace’s brain at her answer. “Then how ?”

In any other situation, Mace would be delighted to hear Qui-Gon Jinn sounding so lost. The man had a surety to him that was completely unwarranted in many situations.

But not this one.

Leia’s mouth tightened. “After Luke was…gone, and I found myself alone on Tatooine, I took all his lessons and figured out what I could from the basics he gave me. In this case, what he taught me about moving objects, and sensing things moving and combined the lesson in my head.”

“How did you know you could?” Obi-Wan asked.

Leia looked at him, puzzled. “Because I saw Luke do it.”

Her tutor was no longer an odd aberrant who had no idea what kind of pupil he had on his hands. He was now certifiably insane. Without Leia’s incredible power in the Force, catching that many bolts on the first attempt was stupid. Hell, even trying to catch one was a folly of the highest order. What had even possessed him to try ?

Qui-Gon’s mouth opened and closed several times. “Is this something Ben Kenobi taught him?”

“I don’t think so,” she said slowly, her gaze flicking back and forth between Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. “But I never asked.”

“If it knocks you out like this, I can’t see how it could be used as anything but a desperate move on this Luke’s part,” Padme observed.

Leia’s grin was rueful. “Luke would have done a better job. He wouldn’t have thrown quite so much power into it.” She moved slightly and grimaced. “I overtaxed myself, but I figured too much power was better than not enough.”

Obi-Wan’s voice was very subdued. “But he could have put as much power into the move as you did?”

Leia frowned. “Of course.”

Mace felt his heartbeat kick widely in his chest. Leia and Skywalker were bad enough. But had the council really overlooked a third person this wildly powerful in the Force?

Qui-Gon’s face twisted into something approaching awe. He leaned forward so that Leia could see him. “Please tell me that this is something you consider hard.”

 “Yes,” she said.

Oh good. Wasn’t that delightful to know the woman had limits? Limits in the range of impossible, but limits.

Leia’s voice kept going on, her tone thoughtful. “Of course, Luke might not have stopped the bolts outright. He felt that was too flashy, for all the fact that the sight of it does tend to stop everyone in their tracks.”

A fact Mace could attest to. It had just been fortunate for all of them that it had been such an impossibility that even battle droids paused what they were doing to gawk at it.

“The last couple of skirmishes we were in together, he had taken to moving the bolts slightly so that they wouldn’t hit anyone.”

Most Jedi could do that, Mace told himself, in a vain effort to remain calm. Of course, not as many of them could pull it off in the heat of battle. And certainly, he had never met anyone who had the level of control to do it for himself and others. All of this was possible, just like speaking mind to mind was possible. This Luke hadn’t done anything but redefine the limits of what was achievable.

That small bit of fiction died in Mace’s head when he saw the look in Qui-Gon’s eyes. He was looking at Leia like she held the answer to every question he had had about the limits of what could be done in the Force. Mace found himself frowning. Leia was an extraordinary resource; of course, she was. But she was also an intelligent, fair-minded woman who deserved more respect than to be pumped endlessly for answers.

“Do you know how to do that?” Obi-Wan whispered, awed.

Leia shook her head. “Not a clue.”

Shame, Mace would like to try to learn that. But maybe, just maybe, he could convince Leia to teach him the basics of catching one bolt before she disappeared into the galaxy to wreck whatever havoc she was planning.

Qui-Gon cleared his throat. “You’ve only been on Tatooine for a year. You learned all of this in a year?”

Mace was very glad he was sitting on the ground. He might have fallen over if he hadn’t been. That Leia learned how to do this, that quickly, had never even occurred to him.

Leia’s mouth became a grim line. “Yes.”

“Why?” Mace asked. He knew Leia was, at best, ambivalent about her connection to the Force. What could possibly cause her to embrace the gifts she had ignored for so long?

“I had no choice.”

Padme looked unhappy. “There is always a choice, Leia.”

Leia shook her head. “Not in this.” Her eyes became glittering angry brown spheres. “I lost everything once because I refused to learn to wield every weapon and tool in my arsenal. I would not let that happen again.”

“The Force is not a weapon,” Mace said, somewhat aghast.

Leia blinked, and those ghosts in her eyes faded away. “No, it’s not,” she said thoughtfully. “Any more than I am.”

Padme reached out and brushed a stray hair off Leia’s forehead. “You most certainly are not,” she agreed.

Leia turned her head to look at the girl, and Mace didn’t understand the sheer need and relief in the woman’s eyes. Why was this young Queen so important to Leia? Nothing that Qui-Gon gave in his report of their interactions on Tatooine explained why this older cynical woman was so bound and determined to both protect and impress a young, naive politician that she met by chance.

Leia had been to Naboo before, Mace reminded himself. Maybe she knew Padme’s parents, or grandparents? Mace’s mind drifted back to the vision he had in the hanger. Or perhaps something else. Leia had been in the private, and secured, hanger of this palace at some point in her past.

“You’ve been to the palace’s hanger before,” he remarked, trying to figure out this woman’s relationship with this planet. If she had been a trusted friend or advisor of the ruler from decades ago, perhaps there would be a record here of where she was from.

Leia’s face was filled with confusion. “No,” she said. “I hadn’t.”

Padme laid a hand on Leia’s arm, and she scowled at Mace. “Leia needs her rest,” she said. “And now is not the time to be badgering her about previous visits she has made to my planet.”

Mace knew what he saw. “She’s been there.”

Leia scowled, “The only time I’ve been to a hanger on Naboo was when I—” her voice trailed off, as some memory struck her. Mortification filled her face. “Oh, kriffing hell,” she whispered, rubbing her forehead.

“Leia?” Padme’s voice didn’t have a hint of reproach in it.

 Color came back with a flush on her cheeks. “I had forgotten,” she said, mostly to herself.

Obi-Wan looked suspicious. “Really?”

Leia looked defensive. “It was decades ago.”

Obi-Wan’s voice was just this side of sarcastic. “And what were you doing in the restricted areas of the Naboo Royal Palace, even if it was decades ago?”

“The same thing I’m doing now,” Leia said. “Helping in a fight.”

Mace frowned. “What fight?”

Padme gave him an imperiously cool look. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, and there was no missing the protectiveness in her voice. “I have no reason to doubt Leia’s word about why she was here.”

There was a rhythmic knock on the blast door that broke into Mace’s thoughts before he could ask another question.

Panaka looked up and went over to the door. He gave a five-beat rhythm back and was rewarded with a light two-beat tempo.

“Sabe,” Padme breathed in relief. Quite clever of the Naboo to have such a simple code to identify each other.

Panaka opened the door, and the rest of the handmaidens and guards spilled into the room. Sabe’s eyes immediately went to her charge, and she came over to them.

“What is wrong with Leia?” she demanded.

“Nothing,” Leia said quickly.

“She needs to be looked over by a healer,” Padme said almost at the same time.

Leia opened her mouth to protest, but Padme silenced her with a look. “You saved my life, Leia. The least I can do is see that you are taken care of.”

Sabe’s eyes took on a worshipful look, but her tone remained brisk and professional as she told Padme, “The droids all dropped down a few minutes ago. It’s safe to assume that the control ship was destroyed. The path should be clear to the infirmary.”

“I just need to rest,” Leia said, sending him a pleading look. “I’ll be fine in a day or so.”

Mace shook his head. “It’s better that you have someone look you over. It’s entirely possible you could have clots throughout your system from that stunt. The last thing we need is one of them to drift into your lungs or your brain. And the Force only knows what your vitals are like. At the very least, you are going to need intravenous fluids to make up for the calorie burn.”

Leia scowled, but she didn’t argue. Sabe looked like she wanted to ask what Leia had done, but she turned and spoke into her com. Not even a minute later, one of the guards that had been part of their invading party came into the room, pushing a hover-stretcher.

Leia scowled at it like it had insulted her. Mace leaned forward, intending to pick her up again, and that scowl transferred to him.

“I can get on it myself,” she said.

“Of course you can,” Mace said smoothly. He hadn’t missed Padme hovering worriedly by both of them. And even given Leia’s exhaustion, he doubted she had missed it either. “However, for Her Highnesses’ peace of mind, perhaps we will do this the easy way?”

Leia’s gaze flicked to Padme and back to him. She wasn’t happy, but Mace had no compunction in using her protective feelings about the girl to maneuver her into taking care of herself.

“Fine,” Leia muttered.

Mace set himself on his heels, then pulled Leia from the floor into his arms. It would have been far easier to do this with the Force, but he didn’t want to put her body under any more strain than it already had been. He doubted she would lash out at him for doing it, but the experience would be unnecessarily stressful. Not when he could pick her up.

He laid her out on the stretcher. Sabe gave him a warm, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said pointedly, not breaking his stare from Leia. By all rights, that ought to be the words out of her mouth.

She rolled her eyes. Ungrateful woman.

But if she was, why was Mace having the hardest time mustering anything but amusement at her belligerence? His ability to tolerate people beyond short bursts was minimal at best. He didn’t hate people, or even really dislike them. He just found them exhausting. And enjoying someone’s company? That was reserved for a select few.

Padme coughed very loudly. “Sabe,” she said. “Are you going to stand there staring at Leia, or are you going to take her to the infirmary?”

To Mace’s fascination, the girl turned bright red. She seemed to settle herself, and she pushed the stretcher out of the room.

Padme rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Her crush is getting out of control.”

Qui-Gon let out a small chuckle. “You have to admit, Leia saving your life is only going to make that worse.”

Mace felt like there was a whole conversation that he had missed. But he didn’t have time to puzzle out the intricacies of one teenage girl’s infatuation.

“Your Majesty,” he said. “Is there a secure com line we can use to contact the Council?”

“Of course,” Padme said. She gestured to one of the handmaidens. “Eirtae will show you to the nearest com center.”

The woman nodded her head at them, but before they could leave, Padme called out, “Can you go get Anakin from the hanger? He will want to know where Leia is.”

They ended up not needing to. Skywalker found them.

They ran into him on the first floor of the palace, heading towards the stairs. He was moving fast, not running, but not walking either. Mace reinforced his shields the second he sensed him. Skywalker was leaking a great amount of worry and panic in the Force. Mace noticed the Queen’s astromech, R2, at his side and figured he was the reason the boy wasn’t peeling through these halls as fast as he could. 

Mace was startled to notice that quite a few of the pilots were behind him. But instead of being jubilant over their victory, they were a somber and fearful lot. Mace didn’t miss the shuttered glances they were shooting at the boy who was at the head of this odd parade. He felt a hum of discontent in the Force. What had this impossible boy done now?

The minute Skywalker spotted their group, he broke out into a run, coming up directly to Qui-Gon. “Where is Leia?” he demanded, not even a little out of breath. “I can’t feel her.”

Clearly, the boy had felt her catch all of those blaster bolts, possibly even her collapse. It explained his panicky mood, but not the somber moods of the pilots behind him.

Qui-Gon kneeled and put his arms on the boy’s shoulders. “She is alright, Anakin,” he said reassuringly. “She just overextended herself.”

Skywalker’s face was a mixture of relief and annoyance. “Doing what?” 

Qui-Gon’s eyes flicked up to the pilots and, for once, he showed some discretion. “Saving Padme’s life.”

Skywalker bit his lip. “Is Padme okay?”

“She’s fine, Anakin,” Eirtae said, kneeling down, so she was eye level with the boy. “Not a scratch on her.”

Skywalker nodded his head, then he looked at Qui-Gon. “Can you take me to her?” he asked, and he sounded so lost.

Qui-Gon’s hands fell off the boy’s shoulders. “Padme had Sabe take Leia to the infirmary.”

Skywalker looked skeptical. “Leia doesn’t like admitting she’s hurt.”

“That is putting it mildly,” Mace observed.

Skywalker looked up at him, and there was a look of wry amusement on his face. Mace could sympathize. Corralling Leia was probably a full-time job even for someone as energetic as Skywalker.

Eirtae rose to stand and held her hand out to the boy. “Come with us,” she said. “As soon as I show the Jedi to the communications room, I will take you to Leia.”

He gave a deep sigh, but he didn’t take her hand as he said, “Thank you.”

Mace allowed his gaze to fall on the pilots, who were still quiet. Eirtae’s gaze followed his, and her posture stiffened just the slightest as she took them and their scared faces in. “Report, Captain Maome.”

The pilot at the head of the group gave a nervous laugh. “Lady, the droid ship was destroyed,” she said, gloves twisting in her hands.

Eirtae looked puzzled. “We are aware, Captain,” she said. “The droids all dropping to the floor was a clue.”

Maome ran a hand through her short, cropped hair. “That wasn’t all that—” She cleared her throat and tried again. “That is to say—” her words died away.

“He did it,” the man next to her said into the silence, pointing at Skywalker.

The handmaid’s eyes widened. “ Excuse me ?”

“He destroyed the control ship,” the man repeated. “By flying into the ship and taking out the reactor.”

All of them looked at Skywalker, who looked back, puzzled. “What is the big deal?” he asked. “I’ve flown with people shooting at me before. And Tusken Raiders are much better shots.”

Mace desperately wanted to rub the bridge of his forehead to ease the tension there, but he had the feeling that would be the last straw for these people. A Jedi Master reacting negatively to such a spectacular event, would spook this crowd from frightened and uneasy into a full-blown frenzied mob.

Qui-Gon, in that way he so rarely deigned to use, broke the crowd’s knife-edged tension. “Anakin,” he huffed. “Leia told you to stay in the hanger.”

The sharp edge of a mob out of control eased away from the paths that this situation could take. The pilots reacted to an authority figure voicing disapproval. Lecturing someone about disobeying orders fit into reality as they understood it.

Skywalker shook his head. “No, she said to stay in the ship,” he insisted. “Which I did.”

Mace wondered what Leia would have to say to him when she learned that he had left the hanger, knowing Skywalker was in a fully powered ship. And that he had failed to mention it to her at all.

“And you thought you should throw yourself into a battle?” Obi-Wan practically shrieked.

Skywalker shook his head. “No,” he said. “But the autopilot was engaged. I couldn’t fly anywhere else.”

R2 gave out a sharp negative whistle. Mace couldn’t understand binary, but there was no misunderstanding that was a loud disagreement.

Skywalker sighed. “Okay, R2 did get us off that.” He turned earnest eyes to all of them. “But, by the time that happened, we were in the middle of the battle.”

Eirtae shook her head, and her face was pale. “Why didn’t you leave?”

Skywalker looked up at Maome. His face was a study in sorrow and resignation. He had done this before, Mace realized. Oh, not the blowing up a droid control ship. Mace was certain that wasn’t something he had ever done before. But this wasn’t the first time in his short life that this boy had stood in front of someone who was afraid of him. Simply because he could see and do things no child should be able to do.

“They needed help,” he explained to Eirtae, eyes never leaving Maome’s face. “None of their weapons were getting through the shields. I knew what to do.”

Maome looked down at him, fear still there, but there was curiosity starting to bloom on her face. “How?”

Skywalker gave her a beatific smile. “I listen.”

Mace blinked very quickly. Surely, he hadn’t just implied…

“Listen to what, Anakin?” Qui-Gon said very softly.

“The Force,” his eyes met Mace’s. “I told you all; I needed to be here.”

Mace was having a very hard time arguing with that. And there was a very quiet voice in the back of his mind, wondering if Qui-Gon had been correct on Anakin Skywalker being a prophecy given form.

It was rather unusual to be on this side of one of the infamous Jinn and Kenobi mission reports, Mace thought wryly as every member of the Jedi Council gaped at them.

“I’m sorry, she did what?” Ki-Adi-Mundi demanded when he finally caught his breath.

“Caught and held about two dozen blaster bolts with the Force,” Qui-Gon said smoothly. By the tone of his voice, no one would know that he had been as awed and frightened as the council was in this moment when he had first seen Leia hold all that energy back.

All the holos, as one, turned to look at Mace. He fought the urge to take a step back. It had been a long time since the focus of the entire council was narrowed in on him, and it was a bit disconcerting. The last time it had happened, Mace had been a padawan himself and could hide behind Master Myr.

“You saw this?” Saesee demanded as if Qui-Gon’s words weren’t enough to convince him.

Mace nodded. “And felt it.”

“How?” Ki-Adi sputtered. “How did she do it?”

“Apparently not well,” Qui-Gon said. “She did say her tutor could have done it much more smoothly.”

“ This is what she considers basic training?” Ki-Adi’s voice was getting quite high-pitched. Mace couldn’t blame him. There was a reason he was saying as little as possible, it was so he didn’t break out into hysterics. He had little room to judge Ki-Adi.

“Oh no, Masters,” Qui-Gon’s voice was grave. “I was informed that this is actually quite hard.”

The council fell silent again. In this, there was no arguing with Leia. It wasn’t just the power required to do such a thing, although that alone was impressive enough. It was about the ability to sink that far into the Force to see enough of the future to know where to throw your focus to catch energy moving that fast, but also retain enough control to bend the Force to your will. It was a fine line between control and wild abandon.

“What are we going to do?” Adi’s voice was quiet into that shocked silence.

Qui-Gon’s eyebrow quirked. “Do?” he asked pleasantly.

Yoda’s eyes narrowed, and Adi’s tone became sharp. “We can’t just let this woman run around the galaxy, doing whatever she feels like, Qui-Gon.”

Qui-Gon shrugged and folded his arms into his robe. “I don’t see how we can stop her,” he said. “She has broken no laws. It isn’t illegal to know how to catch blaster bolts with the Force.”

“Because we thought it was impossible,” Yarael squawked, his bulbous head swinging back and forth in agitation.

Obi-Wan frowned. “That isn’t true,” he said slowly. “According to the remaining records we have, the Jedi of the Old Republic could do it.”

No one blinked at Obi-Wan’s pronouncement. Qui-Gon’s fascination with prophecies had led him to send Obi-Wan to research them as a form of punishment when he was younger. This was something Obi-Wan could have found digging through those ancient texts.

“Exaggeration,” Yarael said, waving his hand in dismissal.

“Apparently not,” Mace said, squaring his shoulders. Yarael’s words were of reflex, not thought. The time to argue what the Jedi could do now and what they could be capable of, had passed. They had just gotten a very definite answer on this one point. It was time to deal with what was in front of them, not quibble about what was real. “Adi is correct. The question is, what do we do about Leia now?”

The council all fell silent and turned their eyes to Yoda, who was rubbing his chin thoughtfully, the holo of him cycling twice before he sighed.

“Her abilities, impressive they are,” he conceded. “But knew that, we did before.”

There were several disbelieving noises coming from the other councilors, but Mace didn’t break his gaze from Yoda.

“A Dark Side user, is she?” Yoda asked, ears flicking back.

“No, Yoda, she is not.” There wasn’t much Mace knew about the woman, but that had been made abundantly clear to him when he felt the full force of her power wrap around him in that hallway. He would have felt even the barest hint of the Dark Side with that much power swirling around him. Even if he hadn’t been witness to that, Leia put the needs of Skywalker and the Queen above her own, in the middle of a battle no less. Those actions would have laid that question to rest in his mind.

“And possibility of her falling, is there?”

Mace opened his mouth to say no, and then slowly closed it shut. Yoda’s ears pricked up in interest. Both Ki-Adi and Even sat straighter in their seats. Mace could hardly fault them; the thought of Leia on the Dark Side was terrifying. Hell, she was terrifying using the Light Side.

Only brutal honesty would be appropriate here, no matter how much he liked Leia. “It isn’t likely,” he admitted.

“Leia isn’t going to fall,” Qui-Gon hissed. “You felt her power, and there wasn’t a hint of the Dark Side anywhere.”

“No, there was not,” Mace agreed, thinking of the woman meditating by herself in the hold of a cargo ship. “But that wasn’t what I was basing my opinion on.”

Qui-Gon looked frustrated. “Then what?”

Mace gave Qui-Gon an irritated glance. “I didn’t say she would. Or even that I think it’s likely. In fact, I would say she has the same chance as I do.”

The council grew quiet at that. How Mace had shaped his temperament was still, even after all these years, considered controversial among them. The fact that Yoda trusted that he wouldn’t fall eased many of their concerns, but they were lingering doubts.

“Why do you say that?” Even asked, his one good eye locked on Mace’s face.

Mace shook his head, thinking of Leia’s grim amusement as she told him she would fight anyone if she thought it was right. “There is a very large part of her that is angry.”

Qui-Gon opened his mouth to interrupt him, but Mace cut him off. “I’m not going to deny the obvious, and neither should you. Ignoring what is in front of all of us does your argument no good.”

Qui-Gon took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly, but he nodded to Mace, indicating he should go on.

“As I said, she is angry. But you already knew that. That anger isn’t the only thing about her. She has proven to be loyal and committed to what she perceives as the right thing to do. Somewhat to her determent, I fear.” Mace was shocked when he felt a smile tug on his lips. “She also has a rather hearty and infectious laugh.”

“You point, Mace?” Oppo asked, his tongue slithering around the ‘c’ in Mace’s name.

“Her anger is only a part of a bigger picture. She is passionate about everything. And as far as I can tell, she has firm control of all of her emotions.”

Yoda made a dismissive noise.

“She is, Yoda,” Mace argued, not letting that disagreement, no matter how slight, stand. “Not to the standards of a Jedi, but as she said herself, she is not a Jedi. We cannot hold her to that bar.”

“She might not be a Jedi,” Even conceded. “But she was trained by one. And no matter what she says, her knowledge is far more than mere ‘control.’”

Mace sighed. “I’m not speaking of what to do with her now. I was merely noting that I believe her chances of falling are about the same as mine.”

Qui-Gon looked thoughtful, “If it isn’t her emotional control, what gives you pause?”

Mace thought carefully about how to word this. “She has had a hard life. There are very old wounds that she has not come to full terms with.”

“In control, that is not.”

He gave Yoda a stern glare. “That is not what I said. I said she isn’t fully at peace with these past experiences, not that she wasn’t aware of them, or the problems they can cause.” He shook his head, saddened by Yoda’s refusal to bend on his opinion of Leia. “It is just a sense of a possibility. And not even a large one.”

Yaddle looked troubled. “Then what, call it do you?”

“A scar that occasionally aches.”

Yaddle hummed thoughtfully. “Told you, did she, of what caused this?”

Mace sighed. Leia hadn’t said that what she had told him was to be kept in confidence, but he still felt like divulging too many details would be exactly that. “Leia has many scars,” he cautioned all of them. “And I only heard about the vaguest of outlines of one of them.”

Yoda’s eyes narrowed, but it was Plo who asked. “What happened to her, Mace?

Aware that only the truth would settle this, Mace said reluctantly, “Someone she loved, and loved dearly, fell to the Dark Side.”

The council fell silent, pondering what watching someone they care for descend into that madness would do to them.

“That isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” Qui-Gon said, but the defensiveness was gone from his voice. “Leia isn’t stupid. She has had a very good look at what the Dark Side can do to a person.”

Ki-Adi turned incredulous eyes to Qui-Gon. “She said it was a natural part of the Force.”

Mace quickly intervened. He needed to clear this misconception of Leia’s words, now. “She did,” he agreed. “And when I asked her for clarification about that, she said supernovas are natural too. That didn’t mean she wanted to be near one.”

Piell’s small frame didn’t relax, but several others did, including Ki-Adi at the explanation. It wasn’t strictly speaking true; the Dark Side was made of the twisted and rotten parts of the universe. But her analogy was a good one for understanding Leia’s take on it. It also made very clear that for her, no matter how natural she thought the Dark Side was, it should be avoided at all costs. 

Qui-Gon gave him an incredulous look, “Just what did you two talk about?”

Mace met his gaze, “As I told you earlier, many things.”

Qui-Gon smirked. “You like her!” he exclaimed.

Mace folded his arms over his chest, feeling oddly defensive of that fact. “It’s hardly relevant to the conversation at hand. I can still be objective about her.”

“Not relevant ?” Qui-Gon burst into laughter. “Of course, it’s relevant. Mace, you don’t like people.”

“That’s not true,” Mace objected.

Depa’s teasing voice joined the conversation. “Oh, my Master, you don’t want bad things to happen to people. That is hardly the same as liking them.”

Mace wasn’t sure how this conversation had pivoted to him, but it was clearly all Qui-Gon’s fault. He glared at the man.

“I only speak the truth, old friend,” he said, still teasing. Then his emotions became more serious. “But in all honesty, Mace, the fact that you think this highly of her says a lot about her character.”

“That only means she will be opinionated, headstrong, and utterly convinced of the rightness of her actions,” Depa said, leaning back in her chair and folding her hands in her lap. “My Master seems to like a very particular type of person.”

Qui-Gon arched an eyebrow in her direction. “What does that say about me? I am one of Mace’s oldest friends.”

Depa smiled. “I stand by what I said.”

Plo cleared his throat. “I agree with Qui-Gon,” he said. “About Mace’s judgment of her character. He has seen a much closer view of her than the rest of us. If he says she isn’t going to cause trouble, then I believe that as well.”

Plo was a wise and thoughtful man. But he did tend to try to take the most positive outcome of whatever was said to him. “No, I didn’t say that either,” Mace corrected. “I imagine she is going to cause us unending headaches.”

Yaddle looked amused. “Trouble she will cause?”

“Oh, yes,” Mace admitted. “And I’m not sure why she has waited so long to make her moves, but now that she has started, I don’t think that she is going to back off.”

“What is she trying to do?” Oppo asked.

“I’m not sure,” Mace admitted. “She gives too many conflicting answers, and they all ring true to me.” He took a deep breath in. “But I do know that the Senate is involved.”

“How?” Qui-Gon asked.

“She said she wanted to move it to save itself.”

Yoda frowned. “Functioning well, the Senate is not. True for years, that has been. But in danger of destroying itself?” He shook his head. “See that, I do not.”

Mace shrugged. “I can only tell you that Leia believes that is the case.”

Saesee scratched a finger behind the horn on the left side of his head. A nervous tick of his that Mace hadn’t seen him do in years. “How are we going to contain this woman?” he asked.

Even shook his head. “As much as it pains me to admit it, Qui-Gon is right. We have no legal right to hold her.”

Saesee looked appalled. “She is talking about doing something to the Senate.”

“No, Master Tiin,” Qui-Gon said quickly. “She’s talking about saving it. And frankly, they could use the clear warning that she will provide.”

“You have a lot of faith in this woman,” Eeth said slowly.

“She is disciplined, smart, and experienced,” Qui-Gon said. “Even outside of what she has learned how to do in the Force. The better question I have is why you are so dismissive of her?”

"I am keeping an open mind."

“So open, that you won’t render an opinion on her?”

Yoda banged his cane down on the floor. “Enough,” he said. “Pointless this bickering is. Our options with Leia, limited they are.”

“There is always Anakin,” Qui-Gon said. “If we invite him to join the Order, she will stay close to him.”

Yarael sighed. “Qui-Gon, now is not the time—”

“Yes, it is,” Mace said firmly. Then he glared at Qui-Gon. “And not merely as a leash for Leia.”

Again, the entire council’s irate attention was on him, but Mace refused to move from his point.

“Why?” Depa asked, and he could see the concern in her eyes. She, of all of them, knew him best. If Mace was advocating that they reconsider Skywalker, there was a very good reason.

“Because he flew one of the Naboo’s starfighters into the Trade Federation’s control ship and destroyed it,” Mace said, fighting to keep his voice calm.

Several of the council members reared back in their seats. Yoda’s ears flattened to the back of his head, and Oppo’s tail began swishing back and forth in front of his chair.

Qui-Gon’s voice only contained the smallest hint of smugness as he added, “He claims the Force showed him what to do.”

“And you believe him?” Even demanded.

“Do you know many nine-year-olds that know the weaknesses of Droid Control ships? And the flying skills to get where they need to be?” Qui-Gon asked blandly.

“He does participate in pod races,” Yarael stated weakly.

Even Yoda gave him an incredulous look at that. Being able to sense the future a second before it happened was one of the first abilities that manifested for a Force Sensitive. That was the only advantage Skywalker had, though. His ability to pilot was earned through his own efforts. And even as good as he was, there was a vast difference between that and flying in space in the middle of a battle.

Yarael waved his hand, silently acknowledging their rebuke.

“So, request training for him, you do?” Yoda asked Mace.

Mace shook his head. “No.”

Qui-Gon scowled. “Then why bring it up?”

Mace thought of the boy who was willing to do so much, for people he barely knew, simply because it was the right thing to do. “Because he deserves our full consideration and thought.” He met Qui-Gon’s eyes. “I don’t think the Jedi is what is best for him, but since I’ve been proven wrong about a great many things today, it is a position I’m willing to rethink.”

Yoda banged his cane on the ground. “Discuss this now, we will not.”

“Master Yoda—” Mace started to say, but Yoda cut him off.

“Time, I do not have,” he said. “Before the meeting, my presence on Naboo, the Chancellor has requested.”

Qui-Gon frowned. “You are coming here?”

Yoda nodded. “Yes. Along with Plo and Yaddle.”

“Why?” Mace wanted to know.

Yoda looked uneasy. “Requested us specifically, he did. Wishes to talk with us, he does.”

Qui-Gon leaned forward. “About what?”

“That I know not,” Yoda leaned back in his seat.

Obi-Wan cleared his throat. “Masters?”

“Yes, Padawan?” Plo asked.

“Might I make a suggestion that you bring Mistress Skywalker when you come here?”

Depa cocked her head. “The woman is frantic about her son,” she admitted. “But I sense there is another motive.”

Obi-Wan’s lips twitched. “As far as any of us can tell, she is the only person we know of that Leia will listen to.”

That wasn’t quite correct. Leia was also willing to take the feelings of Queen Amidala into account. Why, and how far, Mace wasn’t sure. But she was.

“Bring her, we will,” Yoda said, nodding his head.

Plo addressed Mace. “We will be arriving in the morning, Naboo local time.”

“We will be ready,” Mace said. Wondering what they were going to do with Skywalker. With Leia. And what the Chancellor of the Republic could possibly want with the Jedi.

Chancellor Valorum looked buoyant as he stepped off his ship. Mace wasn’t close to the man, but he had noted over the last few months how haggard and worn down he had looked when he appeared in public. He had been caught in the edges of a corruption scandal that had consumed vast quantities of the media’s attention over the last few months. It was one of the reasons the situation on Naboo had grown as desperate as it had. The reporters were far more interested in reporting on a scandal than bureaucratic maneuvering. Even if that maneuvering was slowly starting to strangle a Republic world.

Mace had scanned the holo-news this morning to prepare for the political issues that had sprung up in his absence. The fact that the Chancellor had been caught in this scandal and the Naboo had an embargo placed on them at the same time, wasn’t a coincidence. One of the many abuses that had come to light from the Senate going through the Trade Federation’s banking transactions was that they were the ones that had been funneling money into the corrupt Senators who had already been caught. And they had paid many desperate souls to implicate the Chancellor so that the media’s attention would be away from what they were doing on Naboo.

Mace found it tiring to watch those same reporters who had so gleefully stirred up the scandal in the first place, get sanctimonious about what the Trade Federation had done. All the while never admitting their own complicity in it.

All this meant that Mace wasn’t surprised to hear real gratitude in the man’s voice as he came up to Queen Amidala. “Your Majesty,” he said, taking both of her hands into his. “I cannot tell you how relieved I was to hear of your victory over the Trade Federation.”

“Chancellor,” Padme responded in her grave queen voice. She was the one who was greeting Valorum, Mace had checked. She was wearing a black velvet gown, with silver embellishments woven into the sleeves. Her hair was braided into a single line, with a silver cap at the end. The braid that was pulled over her head, so the cap lay on her forehead.

Her handmaidens were dressed in much simpler robes that were a pale yellow color. Every one of them had their hoods up. Panaka was at her side, dressed in a more formal version of the uniform he had worn yesterday.

“I believe I have you to thank for my Jedi protectors.” She nodded her head towards himself, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. Then she very carefully inclined her head to the other side, including Yoda, Plo, and Yaddle, who were standing in the back of the crowd to greet her even though they hadn’t been on either mission to free her world.

“Without them, I would never have left this planet in the first place.”

Valorum dropped her hands and turned to Qui-Gon. His polite smile turned into a genuine one. “One does not order the Jedi to do anything. Even if one is the Chancellor of the Republic.” That wasn’t strictly true, but it was an indistinct line they all walked. “But one can ask an old friend for help.”

Qui-Gon bowed to him. “I was glad to be of service.”

Mace had strongly suspected that the man had conspired with the Chancellor to get himself inserted into this mess, but it was another thing to hear it being confirmed. He gave a reproachful look to Qui-Gon. The man only shrugged his shoulders in return. That was another infuriating point to the man. No matter what punishment the Jedi Council doled out to him, he always took it without complaint.

Senator Palpatine had come up beside Valorum. “I, for one, am thankful for the Jedi’s unorthodox help.” He turned to Amidala, and the look on his face was relief as he took her hands in his. “And that you are in one piece, Your Majesty. Although, I wish you had allowed me to come with you.”

“Senator,” she said calmly. “You were Naboo’s weapon where you were.”

“Indeed,” he said, voice grave. “With the help of Senator Antilles, many of the abuses that were inflicted upon our world will see justice.”

Mace listened with half an ear as the three of them started going into detail about the relief that was heading towards Naboo and the coordination needed. This was beyond the Jedi’s purview, although Mace had no doubt at least one mediator would be dispatched from the Temple. Perhaps a healer if one could be spared.

He was much more interested in Yoda’s expression and the grim lines around his face. Clearly, whatever the Chancellor had wanted to talk about, wasn’t something that Yoda had wanted to hear.

Mace brought his attention back to the conversation when Amidala greeted the three Masters in the retinue.

Plo Koon was the one who asked, “Do you require any assistance in holding the Neimoidians?”

Panaka shook his head. “We have enough guards for that,” he nodded towards the three guards standing to the side. Behind them, in cuffs, were the remaining survivors of the Trade Federation. “We are simply waiting for the area to be cleared. We will hold them in the Chancellor’s ship until the prisoner transport ship from the Justice Corps arrives to take them back to Coruscant.”

Where the Senate would have a good deal of questions for them. And after that lengthy investigation was over, they were going to be presented to the courts to stand trial.

Padme cleared her throat. “With that unpleasant business taken care of, shall we go inside?”

They all agreed, and she and the Chancellor walked away, arm in arm, as Senator Palpatine followed them. Mace was about to join them when Shmi broke away from the back of the crowd and came up to Qui-Gon.

“Where are Leia and Anakin?” she asked.

Qui-Gon reached out a hand and laid it on her shoulder. “They aren’t in any immediate danger, I promise.”

Shmi Skywalker might be a quiet woman, but she was no fool. Her eyes narrowed at Qui-Gon. “I prefer a hard truth to a soft lie.”

“Leia is in the infirmary,” Qui-Gon said. “Anakin is with her, but he is not injured.”

 Shmi’s shoulders tensed. “Leia would have told him to hide. What was he doing where it was possible he could have been injured?”

Qui-Gon looked taken aback, so Mace stepped in. “Leia overextended herself,” he said. “She is mainly dealing with exhaustion. As to your son…” his voice trailed off under the harsh scrutiny of those brown eyes. Why had it not occurred to him that anyone that Leia Solo listened to would also have a will of durasteel?

Mace decided discretion was the better part of valor here. Skywalker had saved Naboo with his recklessness, and Mace didn’t want to inadvertently get him into further trouble with his mother over that selfless act. “I think I better leave it to him to explain.”

“Where is the infirmary?” Shmi asked.

R2 came up to Shmi and gently bumped her. She looked down at the droid, and her face softened as she listened to his clicks and beeps.

“What did he say?” Obi-Wan asked.

“That Padme doesn’t have the time to take me to Leia or Anakin, but that she sent him to come to fetch me.”

Shmi followed the droid into the palace. Mace watched her go and turned to Yoda.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

The old master shook his head, “Later, we will talk. Before dawn, on Coruscant it is. Need the full council, we do.”

“For what?”

The lines on Yoda’s face deepened, and he ran a hand over his head. “A decision we must make.”

“About what?”

Yoda’s eyes were troubled. “The future.”

Mace had a few hours before the meeting would start. He went to the room that had been provided for him in the palace to meditate. He didn’t know what was going on, but he was sure that he would need a clear mind for it. After an hour, he gave up. Every time he opened himself to the Force, he could feel the future wildly writhing in front of him. He had rarely felt the sense of what was to come, be so chaotic. Great change was coming, no matter what the Jedi decided to do.

There was no calming his mind in the face of that. So, he gave up and decided he would check up on the other problem that had appeared in the Jedi’s path. He went searching for Leia.

During the night, several of the larger rooms in the palace had been converted into makeshift infirmaries to deal with the injured Naboo. Some had been injured during the takeover of the planet, but most of the injuries had come from people in the prison camps that the Trade Federation had set up.

Mace headed to the largest of them. It was in the great state room, located in the middle of the palace. Mace was hoping Leia was in this room, or he was going to be wandering this entire palace, poking his head into sick room after sick room. He had already tried reaching out in the Force to narrow down the possibilities but felt nothing. Either she was still exhausted from yesterday’s events, or she had gone back to hiding her presence in the Force so that no one could find her.

When he entered the room, it only took a glance to realize that the relief ships had come. There were plenty of medical personnel bustling around. But Mace also spotted quite a few people dressed in the royal blue uniform of the Justice Corps. He hadn’t heard any mention of this many of them coming, but it made sense. Someone needed to interview the Naboo about their experiences under the Trade Federation’s occupation and gather evidence.

Mace felt a wave of helpless anger overwhelm him. These people had just been living their lives. They hadn’t deserved any of this. All this pain and suffering dealt out because the Trade Federation hadn’t been satisfied with what they had and had gotten greedy. Thanks to the Gungans, and the daring of their Queen, they were now free, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be a scar left by all of this.

He was so lost in his thoughts; he didn’t hear someone calling out his name.

“Master Windu?”

Bringing his attention back to the present moment, he turned his head to see Padme, sans her Queenly makeup, standing behind him. She was flanked by two of her handmaidens, but they had their hoods up, covering their faces, so Mace wasn’t sure which ones they were.

“My apologies, Your Majesty,” he said, without bowing. Given the lack of her royal clothing, he imagined that the last thing she wanted was attention drawn to her. “My attention was wandering.”

She gave him a small smile, “Perfectly understandable.” Her gaze slipped into the room with its many beds. “It’s been a difficult few days. And many more to come.”

“If there is anything that you need—,” he started to offer, but she cut him off.

“No,” she said. “I’ve conferred with the Chancellor and Senator Palpatine, and we have the situation well in hand. I’m just here to see if there is anything that my people need from me.” She looked at him quizzically. “Why are you here?”

“I was looking for Leia,” he explained.

She stiffened slightly. “Why?”

“I wanted to make sure she is recovering from stop—,” he cut himself off, mindful of the presence of two people who hadn’t seen what Leia had done. The fewer people who knew about this, the better. At least until the Council had the opportunity to look into it themselves. “Recovering from the events of yesterday,” he finished with instead.

“Is that all you want to do?”

Mace didn’t know what to make of the slight hostility in her voice. “Yes.”

Her face remained polite, but her tone was frosty. “Leia is resting and is not to be disturbed. Her healer was very clear on that.”

Mace felt himself backing up several steps mentally. Her protective instincts were not one to be dismissed lightly. “I’m not going to interrogate her,” he said softly.

Padme’s chin went up, and Mace could see so clearly why this young child had been elected to lead her people. There weren’t many people who would challenge a Jedi. “Oh?”

“No,” he said softly. “I’m worried about her too.”

Padme’s gaze was searching as she looked into his eyes. Mace merely waited. She would tell him or not. It would make things easier if she told him where Leia was, but it wouldn’t be impossible to find her.

“R2,” she called out. Her astromech whistled cheerfully and came up to her. “Please show Master Windu to Leia’s private room.”

The droid gave an affirmative beep.

Mace arched an eyebrow. “She rates her own room?”

Padme shrugged. “It’s the room designated for the ruler of Naboo if they are sick or injured,” she said. “I, and my people, owe Leia a great debt. It seemed a small enough thing to give her privacy to recover.”

Mace’s attention was caught by the odd phrasing of that. “If you are the ruler of Naboo, doesn’t that mean the rooms are yours?”

She gave him a tight smile. “My position is an elected one, Master Jedi. I am only the ruler of Naboo now. All this,” she gestured to the elaborate room they all stood in. Even with its temporary duty as a sick room, there was no hiding the beauty and grandeur of it. “Is merely in my custody. They are mine to look after, not to own.”

“I see,” Mace said, impressed despite himself.

Padme nodded her head. “And one of the small things I can do as said ruler, is give Leia some compensation for all the work she has done to free my people.”

Mace frowned. “She isn’t getting paid?”

Padme’s face twisted in frustration. “I offered. She refused. Then we argued about it.” Her look became sheepish.

“I take it this was an argument that you lost?”

Padme sighed. “Yes. She said that the money would be put to better use helping my people.” She rubbed her forehead. “I don’t disagree. We are going to have to rebuild so much. The Trade Federation wasn’t exactly gentle in its invasion. But I would feel better if I could give Leia something for her help. Both here, in the Senate, and on Tatooine.”

Mace clasped his hands behind his back. “She said she only gave you advice,” he said, recalling Leia’s words.

“Yes,” Padme said. “Advice that if I hadn’t heeded, would have ended the career of Chancellor Valorum.”

Mace almost reared back in shock. “What do you mean? He was your greatest champion in the Senate.”

She gave him a flat look. “My planet had been invaded,” she said. “And he was about to let the investigation into the situation in the Senate be derailed. I think the circumstances called for it.”

Mace fought his first instinctive recoil at that thought. Extreme circumstances where one called for extreme solutions usually didn’t end well for anyone. But Padme was a conscientious leader. She would see it as her duty to do everything she possibly could for her people. Even betray an ally.

“That didn’t happen,” Mace observed, keeping his voice open and inviting. “So, what did?”

“While traveling to Naboo, Leia told me what she thought would happen when I testified on the Senate floor. That the Trade Federation would throw up every objection and roadblock to throw doubt on my testimony.” Her smile was rueful. “She was right, of course. But because I was warned, I was better prepared for when it happened.”

“I would have thought that your Senator would have warned you,” Mace said absently, his mind processing the fact that was twice Leia had correctly predicted what would happen in the Senate.

“He did,” Padme said. “Or he tried. But he is very protective of me, and that led him to gloss over how dire our situation was. Leia was much blunter about it.”

Mace tipped his head towards her in acknowledgment. “Blunt is a very accurate word to use for Leia.”

Padme laughed, then sobered. “Palpatine’s solution to the problem of the invasion was to call for a vote of no confidence in Valorum.”

Mace hummed. “Yes, I can see how that would end his career.” Without the revelation that the Trade Federation had deliberately smeared his name, Valorum had been in a much weaker position two days ago than he was now. He almost certainly would have lost his seat.

“Leia cautioned me against that action. She pointed out, that without having a good idea of who would replace Valorum, I could be making the situation worse. Especially if a Senator who was more sympathetic to the Trade Federation got the position.”

“You mean in their pocket,” Mace said, no faint bitterness in his voice.

Padme nodded her head. “Yes.” Her voice grew thoughtful. “I wonder what capacity she served in?”

Mace frowned. “Excuse me?”

“What government Leia served in, and what she did for it,” Padme elaborated.

Mace blinked. He thought Padme had been talking about what military Leia served in. “Why do you think that?”

“She is far too used to using legislative rules in her favor to be a novice at this,” Padme said. “And she was the one who pointed out that the information I received to needed to prov—” she abruptly cut off.

Another thing Qui-Gon had been right about. Leia had gotten that evidence for Padme. But Mace hadn’t known Leia was the one who had thought of it. And she had come up with a way to make sure Padme couldn’t be implicated in the crime of obtaining those files.

“I’m not Judicial,” he said quietly. “In fact, the Jedi have strict rules to follow when it comes to policing the Senate and its members. Unless we are asked, we are told very firmly not to.”

Padme’s lips twitched. “And you haven’t been asked?”

“Most certainly not,” Mace answered back. “In fact, the last thing the Trade Federation and its allies would want is our involvement. Who knows what other secrets we would turn up in such an investigation?”

“If even half of what Senator Palpatine told me was discovered in their banking records, I imagine quite a bit.”

“Yes.”

Padme nodded. “I have already had the opportunity to thank Master Jinn and Padawan Kenobi earlier today. But I also wanted to extend those thanks to you, Master Windu, for your help yesterday in freeing my planet.”

“I am a Jedi,” he said. “We serve.”

Her lips twitched. “And we are both aware that you were on this mission for other reasons.”

He said nothing.

“You didn’t have to fight so hard. You could have just followed Leia and not gotten involved.” 

Mace’s gaze fell to the beds filled with the wounded. “No, that was never an option for me.” His gaze fell back on Padme, and he bowed. “Your Majesty, it was an honor to serve you and your people in your time of need.”

“If you, or the Jedi, ever have need of us, Master Windu, the Naboo will be honored to return the favor.”

When Padme said the room was a private one, Mace hadn’t realized she meant hidden. It was located off one of the hallways that fed into the bigger ones that were the main thoroughfares through the palace. In keeping with the aesthetics of the Naboo, it was beautifully decorated. Because it was an interior hallway, there were no windows, but there was a detailed mural painted on the walls to provide color and life.

Mace also overestimated his chances of finding Leia without help. He walked right past the door, located in the middle of the hallway. It wasn’t until R2 gave out a loud beep, calling him back, and pointing his utility arm at the wall, did he realize that their destination wasn’t at the end of the hall. He came over to inspect the space R2 was next to and saw faint lines in the wall. He blinked in surprise. He hadn’t even been aware there were even doors in this hallway.

He knocked his fist on the face of some ancient Naboo, and Leia called out, “Enter.”

It took him a moment to find the entrance swipe, but once he pressed his fingers on a decorative ball in the mural, the door swung inwards, revealing Leia sitting on top of the covers of the bed. She was dressed in a fuzzy blue shirt, with matching bottoms, that was unlike anything she had worn so far. It took Mace a minute to realize that he had stopped walking to stare at her.

R2 gave a short whistle, and he realized he was standing in the middle of the doorway. He took a few steps in and closed the door behind him.

When he turned around, Leia was smiling at him in amusement. “Did you think I slept in armor?” she teased.

“It would have been less of a surprise,” he admitted. He looked around the room. It was a wide-open space, with a bank of windows in the back, looking out on the rolling hills surrounding the city of Theed. The entire room was painted in a lovely light shade of grey with a delicate stenciling swirling pattern painted in a soft blue. The bed Leia was sitting at the head of had the usual monitors and rails that all medical beds had. But there was also an ornate nightstand next to her bed that Mace could tell even from this distance was exquisitely carved. There was a very comfy-looking couch at the edge of the window and several chairs scattered within the room. Mace saw more medical equipment peeking from behind several screens standing around.

All in all, a much more relaxing and restful room than the organized chaos Mace had just left.

He stopped looking at the surroundings and peered at Leia. Her color was much better than it had been yesterday. At some point, she had someone help her in re-braiding her hair. She had gone from the loop around her head to a single strand that fell down her back

“You are looking better,” Mace commented.

 “I told you it wouldn’t take long for me to bounce back.”

Mace nodded his head. “You did,” he agreed, coming into the room. Leia indicated her head to a chair that was nearest to her bed. He sat on it, relieved that he wouldn’t be looming over her. “You also told me that was the first time you had done something like that, so I thought it would be best to be cautious.”

Leia scowled. “I already have two people in my life who hover protectively over me. I don’t need a third.”

Mace frowned. “I hardly think throwing a blood clot that could cause a heart attack or a stroke is something to brush off, even by your standards.”

Leia’s scowl faded away. “What? Really?”

Mace forced himself not to reveal anything on his face. How did she not know this? She claimed Luke had been as strong as her. Had he really been running around, using the Force as she did, all the while risking doing harm to himself? How could his teacher, this Ben Kenobi, not have stressed this point?

“Yes. Really. I told you this yesterday.”

Leia’s face scrunched up. “I thought you were exaggerating.”

Now it was Mace’s turn to frown. “Why would I do that?”

She looked a little sheepish. “Because you knew I wouldn’t listen to you but probably would listen to Padme.”

And wasn’t it an interesting question why that was true. But Mace chose not to press Leia about why she seemed so willing to take orders from a fourteen-year-old, Queen or not.

“You give me far too much credit for being manipulative,” he said dryly. “I tend to confront problems head-on.”

Leia nodded her head. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You should be more careful in the future. The Force doesn’t magically make you invulnerable.”

“I know that,” she said, waving a hand in the air dismissively. 

Mace leaned forward on his chair, making sure she was paying attention to what he was saying. “No, Leia, this isn’t something you can brush off. You can channel a lot of power.”

She opened her mouth, but he cut her off before she could interrupt. “Don’t deny that. I’m not a fool.”

She shut her mouth with an audible click.

Satisfied he had her full attention, he went on. “The more power you can channel through yourself, the more damage you can do to it.”

“I know you think I’m reckless,” Leia said. “But I was paying attention to my body.”

“Really? Then why did you keep going?”

Her gaze was steady. “Because if I hadn’t, that bolt would have hit Padme. That was worth the price I paid.”

Mace forced a breath out through his nose. “In this instance, I concede your point. But in the future, you do need to pay more attention. The human body has limits. You can move a great deal more of the Force through yourself than most. The more you channel the Force, the louder it becomes, and the harder it is to stay in tune with your physical body.”

Leia looked at him thoughtfully. “I will keep that in mind,” she said.

“Really? Because this isn’t hysterical raving on my part Leia. There are records of people who have permanently injured themselves because they didn’t realize the damage they were doing to their bodies. And the records say they had counts lower than yours.”

“But nobody you know,” Leia pointed out.

“Because not overextending yourself is one of the first things the younglings in the Order learn how to do.”

Leia cocked her head. “So, it’s an anecdote at this point. You’ve never seen it yourself.”

Mace hissed through his teeth. Why did she make everything so difficult? “Well, until yesterday, I would have said catching blaster bolts was only something that happened in legend. But you did that.”

“It’s not impossible—” she started to say.

Mace made a short chopping motion with his hand. “Yes, I know. You can do it. Your tutor could do it. Probably all of his students could do it.”

“Not all of them,” Leia admitted. “This is something limited to those who are strong in the Force.”

Mace rubbed his forehead. “Please, take this seriously. You are talking about accomplishing feats that are unheard of in this age. And I, for one, am wondering what it does to you.”

“Stop fights?”

“Leia,” he growled. “I’m afraid that you can access enough power to completely disintegrate your body and disappear into the Force.”

Leia looked completely taken aback by that. “Excuse me? How is that unusual?”

“What do you mean, unusual ?”

“I thought that was what happened when Jedi died. Your body just,” she made a gesture with her hand, mimicking an explosion, “goes poof.”

Mace stared at her. “I have heard many outlandish rumors about what the Jedi are supposedly capable of, but that is a new one.”

“No poof?”

Mace shook his head. “No, we most certainly do not, ‘poof’. We leave bodies behind, just like everyone else.” He couldn’t keep the note of disappointment out of his voice. “I would have thought you, of all people, wouldn’t believe the fantastical fantasies people claim the Jedi are capable of.”

She nodded, her voice solemn. “I promise that I won’t believe any tales of what the Jedi are capable of, unless I see it myself.”

The words were right. The Force said she was being sincere. Yet Mace couldn’t shake the feeling that she was laughing at him.

Then her position changed ever so slightly, and her voice held nothing but a solemn sincerity. “Thank you, Mace, for the concern about my wellbeing. I, more than anybody, knows how incomplete my knowledge of the Force is. I shouldn’t have been so dismissive of your legitimate worries about my health.”

Mace leaned back in his chair, glad that, at least with this, she was willing to listen. Then his nose caught the smell of something delicious. He sniffed the air and noticed for the first time there was a bowl on the nightstand next to her bed. “What is that?” he asked. 

Leia grinned, and it wasn’t a smirk or her annoyingly superior one. It was the smile of someone genuinely happy, and it transformed her whole face. Mace blinked, suddenly struck by how much lighter she looked. He thought idly to himself that she ought to smile more. She was the kind of person whose smile was infectious and would quickly spread around a room.

Leia reached out and grabbed the bowl. “Zatib soup,” she explained and took a sip, eyes closing. She gave out a hum of satisfaction. “Family recipe.”

“Oh?” Mace asked, temporarily distracted from his stomach and idle thoughts about how pleasing Leia looked.

“Yes,” Leia said, voice light and breezy. But by the twinkle in her eyes, she was well aware of what he was really asking.

“If it’s a local recipe to your planet, I’m surprised you have the ingredients to make it.”

“Mom packed the ingredients to bring with us when we left Tatooine,” a chipper young voice said from the door. Mace turned his head, surprised that he hadn’t noticed Skywalker coming towards the room. Not the door opening, he knew from his own entrance, it was nearly silent, but the fact that he hadn’t felt him coming up. The boy’s ability to hide his signature in the Force was really quite impressive. “When she heard Leia was hurt, she brought it with her when she came here. Leia really loves Mom’s soup.”

“Ah,” Mace said, looking at Leia, strangely disappointed that she had chosen to play games instead of giving him something real.

“I didn’t say whose family recipe it was,” she said mildly.

Mace shook his head, wondering why she felt the need to tease out hints of her past like this.

“Hey, Old Man,” Leia said enthusiastically. She patted the bed. “Come sit.”

Skywalker came up to the bed, and Mace noted he had his own bowl in his hands. He carefully handled it as he got onto the bed. Then he settled himself on the foot of it and sat crossed-legged, facing Leia.

“How are you doing?” Leia asked.

Skywalker shrugged. “All right.”

Mace opened his mouth to ask Skywalker some questions about yesterday when another voice said, “Leia, you said if I made you soup, you would eat all of it.”

Shmi Skywalker came into the room, gave Leia a very stern glare before she closed the door behind her.

What surprised Mace the most was the guilty look on Leia’s face. “Sorry, Grandmother,” she muttered and took a deep sip.

Shmi sighed and shook her head. She softened the disapproving gesture by leaning down and giving Leia a kiss on the cheek. Then she turned to her son. “Make sure she finishes it.”

“Yep,” the boy said, then he took a sip from his own bowl.

Shmi gave an approving nod of her head as they both ate. “When you are both done, I want you to leave Leia to rest.”

Twin protests broke out.

“But I’m not tired—”

“But I want—”

Shmi didn’t even have to say anything. She just adjusted her stance ever so slightly, and both of them cut off whatever they were going to say. Mace would dearly love to know how to do that.

“I mean it,” she said firmly. She shot a glare at Anakin. “And no, ‘I need to watch over Leia’, isn’t a valid excuse. There are plenty of people here to do that.”

Anakin’s face became grumpy. “Okay,” he said with a put-upon sigh.

Shmi’s eyes fell on Leia, and Mace was shocked to see the woman crumple in on herself. “Leia, I also don’t want to hear ‘I lost track of time, and only meant to be awake for five more minutes.’”

Leia’s eyes flickered down and away as she hastily took another sip of her soup.

“Leia,” Shmi demanded.

“Yes, Grandmother,” Leia responded meekly. “I won’t.”

“And you will listen to the healers.”

“I’m fine,” Leia protested.

“I would be more reassured by that if you hadn’t said the same thing to me while you were bleeding from a vibro-blade wound.”

Leia’s face lost its defiance and morphed into sheepishness. Mace was startled when a short burst of laughter fell out of his mouth. He just couldn’t seem to help it. Seeing this woman, who had trembled in front of the Jedi council, take Leia to task, struck him as hilarious.

Leia glared at him over her soup bowl.

“Leia,” Shmi admonished. “Language!”

Leia blinked, and her face became deadly serious. “I didn’t say anything,” she said quietly.

“Didn’t you?” Shmi’s voice no longer sounded commanding but lost.

Mace glanced at the woman, she had gone pale. Skywalker was looking at her with wide eyes and Leia…Mace wasn’t sure what to make of the expression on her face.

“Grandmother,” she said in a tight voice.

Shmi straightened up, and her face became composed once more. She waved a hand in the air, cutting Leia off. “You warned me,” she said. “I went into this with my eyes open.”

Mace looked back and forth between the two women. He very carefully kept his face from betraying his thoughts. He had his suspicions about Shmi ever since Leia had given her a transfer of energy in the Force in front of the entire Council. But this little tidbit revealed someone who was far more powerful in the Force than Mace would have expected.

Shmi cleared her throat and turned to face Mace. He didn’t like the apprehension on her face or the slight tremble in her voice as she said, “Master Jedi, it was an honor to see you again.”

“Mistress Shmi,” he said back, with a tilt of his head. “The honor was all mine.”

She gave him a tight smile and then looked at her son. “Are you done with your soup?”

He shook his head.

She sighed. “Five minutes then. And even if you aren’t done, you come to our quarters. Leia needs her rest.” There was a warning glare shot at Mace, and he nodded his head to acknowledge her unspoken order. He couldn’t stay that much longer anyway.

There was a long moment of silence at the woman’s exit. Mace could feel Leia bracing herself in the Force about a barrage of questions about Shmi. He had them, but he felt it was better to focus on the more mundane aspects of what he just watched.

“Why do you allow her to chide you like that?” Mace wondered aloud. 

Leia looked taken aback as if that was the last question she expected from him. Then her expression turned rueful. “Shmi feels my language has taken a turn for the worst since I started living on Tatooine.”

Mace blinked. Not the answer he had expected. “You didn’t always drop curse words at every available opportunity?”

Leia laughed, and there was a gleeful quality about it. “No, I didn’t.”

Then the laughter faded, and Mace wished for it back. He rather thought that suited her more than her anger.

Leia gave him a small, sad smile. “Losing everything is not an experience I would recommend for anyone, Mace. But it was freeing in the respect that I no longer had a past. No one who had a vision of who I should be. I started cursing, and often, because it occurred to me that I could.”

“Strange thing to do,” Mace observed.

“Small comforts and pleasures,” she said. Her eyes were haunted. Mace wondered what tragedies had occurred to her, that she felt so disconnected from her former life. “That's what I hold on to. Or I would run mad.”

Skywalker gave her an impudent grin. “Most people already think you are mad.”

“They won’t be the first or the last to think that.”

Somehow Mace wasn’t shocked by that revelation.

Anakin slurped from his bowl, and Leia cleared her throat.

“Sorry,” he said, words barely legible. “Hungry.”

She shook her head. “You are always hungry,” she said. “That is no excuse to be rude.”

“Yeah,” he said. He started to wipe his sleeve across his mouth but stopped at Leia’s pointed look. He retrieved a cloth from his pocket and wiped his mouth.

“Thank you for indulging me, Old Man,” she said as she took a sip from her own bowl.

“You’re welcome,” he said. “But I still don’t see the point.”

“Manners are important.”

He looked like he was going to argue, but a large yawn broke out over his face. “Why am I so tired?” he asked. “I’ve barely done anything today.”

“Battles are hard things Young Skywalker,” Mace said softly. “It takes more than one night’s rest to recover from such a thing. If you’re tired, you should rest.”

Skywalker shot a glance at Leia. “I’ve still got a few minutes before I have to go,” he said. “Besides, Leia isn’t done yet.”

She shook her head and brought the bowl to her lips. She took several deep gulps, then lowered the bowl. “And now I’m done.”

Skywalker scowled. “That’s cheating,” he accused Leia.

Mace let out another laugh. “Skywalker, I think you will find that Leia is very good at obeying what is said. To the letter.”

Skywalker transferred his scowl to Mace. “Why do you call me Skywalker?”

“Because in my culture, it is considered polite. Addressing you by your first name without your consent implies I don’t think much of you.”

“Huh,” he looked thoughtful. “And you call Leia by her name because she said you could?”

Mace nodded.

A speculative gleam entered his eyes, but he didn’t say anything more about that. “Then Master Windu, please call me Ani.”

Mace didn’t like the dissonant cord in the Force around the word Master coming from this boy’s lips. He nodded his head. “I will,” he said. “If you never call me Master again.”

“I can do that,” Ani said. He turned to Leia and leaned forward. “I love you,” he said, brushing a kiss across her cheek. “And I forgive you for playing a trick on me.”

“No trick, Old Man,” she said, returning the kiss on his cheek. “I’m tired. You’re tired. We can rest right now.”

He scowled. “Well, why didn’t you just say that.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Would you have listened?”

He looked at her stubbornly. “If you said you wanted to sleep? Yes."

She looked sad all of a sudden. She brushed a stray hair off his forehead. “You’re right,” she said. “I know that you like taking care of me. I’ll be more direct next time.”

“Okay,” Ani said, nodding his head firmly. He crawled off the bed with his bowl.

He was at the door when Leia called out, “Old Man?”

“Yeah?” he said.

“I love you too.”

He gave her a blinding smile. “I know.”

Mace watched him leave and gathered himself to do the same.

“That was very kind of you,” Leia said softly.

“Excuse me?” Mace asked, pausing in his attempt to get out of his seat.

She looked away from the door and met Mace’s gaze. “Saying that he didn’t need to call you Master.”

“It was nothing,” Mace said.

“No,” she said thoughtfully. “I don’t think so. That title represents years of work on your part.”

“That is not what it represents to him,” Mace said back. “And as you so eloquently pointed out earlier, he is the child. It is up to me to help him feel more comfortable, not the other way around.”

“I still appreciate the thought,” Leia said.

“You are very protective of him,” Mace observed.

Leia shrugged. “Someone needs to be.”

“Because of his abilities?”

She looked thoughtful. “No, because he has a soft heart.”

Mace frowned. “There are a lot of people who have soft hearts.”

She smiled. “Yes. But there aren’t a lot of them that also have the will and the strength to correct what they see as an injustice. He does.”

“You seem very certain,” Mace observed. “A case of like recognizing like?”

She looked lost for a second. “Yes,” she whispered softly. “We are very similar in that regard.” Then her face took on a determined look. “Which also means I know what happens if he gets his heart broken too many times, and there is no one there to pick up the pieces.”

“And who has broken your heart, Leia?”

“My life,” she said simply.

It saddened him to hear such despair in her voice, but Mace couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t be trite or patronizing, besides, “I’m sorry.”

She gave him a wan smile. “It’s done.” Then her look shifted into curiosity. “Why are you here, Mace?”

“I wanted to see if you were alright,” he said. “And now that I have, I think I should leave you to your—"

“So, I understand we owe you a great debt, Mistress Solo,” a silky voice came from the door.

Mace turned, wondering who would have the audacity to just walk into someone’s private healing quarters. Somehow, he wasn’t shocked that it was Senator Palpatine. Politicians always had a sense of entitlement that Mace never could wrap his mind around.

His gaze flicked to Leia, expecting to see outrage, but instead, she was as pale as she had been yesterday.

“Senator,” she said, and her voice was strained and full of things Mace didn’t understand. He opened himself up in the Force, but Leia wasn’t there. Not hidden, but a blank spot, nothing was getting in or out around her.

He blinked. It seemed an extreme reaction to being approached by someone when you were vulnerable, even for Leia.

“You’ll forgive me for not standing,” she said, voice still tight.

Mace realized with a start he was still sitting and hurriedly came to his feet. Even if he didn’t understand half of what was going on here, that was no excuse for rudeness. He bowed to the man. “Senator,” he said courteously.

“Master Windu,” he acknowledged back with a nod of his head. But his eyes fell back on Leia. “No need to apologize for your circumstances, young lady.”

Leia’s lips thinned. “Thank you.”

“However, I do think an apology is in order for the lie you told me.”

Mace kept his face blank, but internally he was a rolling ball of surprise. Leia had no need to lie. The woman was good enough to use her words to deflect from the truth.

“It wasn’t a lie,” Leia corrected, face blank of all emotion. “I do have experience with insurgency groups.”

“I see,” Palpatine came further into the room. “And what groups are those?”

Mace looked at Leia, but her face was still that remote stillness. He felt unease cause the hairs on his arms to rise. Leia was a lot of things. Passionless was not one of them.

“No one you have heard of.”

Palpatine gave a patronizing chuckle. “I might surprise you.”

Leia’s shoulder straightened, and Mace realized with a start that she had started to hunch them the moment Palpatine stepped foot in this room. It was only slightly, and only because Mace was on full alert, that he had noticed. But she had done it. The question was, why?

“I can assure you, Senator,” Leia’s voice was full of steady conviction. “You haven’t heard of these groups.”

The Senator gave another chuckle. “Well, you would know better than I.”

Even with his self-effacing tone, Leia wasn’t relaxing.

“May I inquire why you felt the need to ‘obfuscate’ who you really were?”

“Speed was of the essence. I played the part that would reduce your interference and annoy you enough to go away.”

“I see,” Palpatine’s voice never lost its cool composure, but Mace could see a hint of tension in his shoulders. “In the future, please keep in mind, I prefer honesty.”

A muscle in Leia’s jaw twitched. “I doubt you and I are ever going to cross paths again.”

“Nonsense,” Palpatine tutted. “I owe you a great debt, my dear.” He smiled serenely. “And I always pay my debts.”

Leia looked even more put off by that. None of this made sense. Mace would have thought the first thing Leia would do upon meeting this man was try to ingratiate herself with him. Granted, he was only a Senator from a small Mid-Rim world, but he was a Senator. A body she claimed she wanted to save. His favor and influence could open a lot of doors for her. She had no problems relating to a fourteen-year-old adolescent Queen. A moderately pleasant politician shouldn’t pose much of a challenge, but Leia was reacting as if something foul and dangerous had walked into this room.

“You owe me nothing,” she insisted. “It was the Gungans who had the army. You should be thanking Boss Nass.”

“Oh, but I do,” he argued. “Not only for the service you have done for my world, but for protecting and guiding Padme through all of this.” His voice became fond. “She is quite dear to me.”

Leia blinked as if surprised by that statement and the truth behind it. Mace wasn’t sure why. Teachers were often quite fond of their pupils. Where that wasn’t the case, it often led to disaster for both sides of that relationship.

Leia shook her head. “No, Senator. I had a job. I did it. There is no debt. Not with you. Not with Padme. Not with the Naboo.”

Mace watched Leia closely. She didn’t like this man, and she sure as hell didn’t trust him. What was more intriguing to Mace was her inability to hide it.

He was about to ask if they had a prior history when another voice came through the door.

“Leia, Mom said I need to get your bow—” Ani came bursting into the room at full speed and came to an abrupt halt when he realized someone he didn’t know was in the room. “Oh, whoops. I didn’t know you had company.”

“Ahh,” Palpatine turned smoothly to greet the boy. “You must be Anakin Skywalker.”

Palpatine was no longer facing Leia, so he didn’t see her expression. But Mace did, and he was starting to be glad there wasn’t a weapon in the room.

Mace felt his own alarm rise. What was Leia sensing that he wasn’t?

Ani looked up at Senator Palpatine warily. This was not in any way reassuring to Mace. Ani tended to be friendly with everyone.

“Yes, Sir.” He frowned. “How do you know my name?”

Mace relaxed fractionally. This was somewhat of an explanation of Ani’s wariness. He was only two days past slavery. Strange men knowing his name would be alarming to him.

Palpatine gave a self-deprecating shake of his head. “Forgive me. I haven’t introduced myself. I am Senator Sheev Palpatine. I represent the Naboo in the Senate. As I owe you, and Mistress Solo, a great debt, I came down here to thank you both in person.”

“Oh,” Ani looked him up and down. “Do you know Padme?”

“I do indeed,” he said. “I consider her my brightest pupil.”

“She is very smart,” Ani agreed, his posture started relaxing. Mace was too. He could pick up nothing from the Senator that indicated his interest was anything beyond natural curiosity. And given Ani’s role in freeing his planet, it was to be expected.

Palpatine let out a chuckle. “That she is. She often takes me by surprise.” He looked at the boy. “I understand you were the one who fired the shot that destroyed the droid ship. How did you do that?”

Ani opened his mouth to answer, but the sound of something shattering derailed whatever he was going to say.

Ani didn’t hesitate; he just rushed over to the bed. “Leia?” he demanded. “Are you alright?”

Leia’s gaze was on the floor as if she wasn’t quite sure how pieces of her bowl had gotten there. Mace had a pretty good idea. The last he had seen it, the bowl had been on the nightstand. But she hadn’t been moving when the bowl fell. She had been perfectly still and watching Ani and Palpatine interacting.

Whatever was going on in this room, whatever Leia was sensing, she had lost control of the Force badly enough that she had shattered the object.

She gave a small shudder, and just like that, her body relaxed. She looked up to Ani and gave him a patently false smile. “I’m fine,” she said. “Just more tired than I thought.”

Mace could tell that Ani didn’t believe that any more than he did, but his eyes flicked to the Senator, and he asked no questions.

Palpatine made an apologetic noise. “My apologies Mistress Solo. In my eagerness to thank you for your heroic deeds, I completely forgot you are recovering from an injury.” He gave her a bow. “I will leave you to your rest. But I warn you, you and I are nowhere being done. Especially in discussing how the Naboo can properly thank you.”

Leia gave a slow nod of her head. “No,” she said quietly, “I rather think we aren’t.”

Palpatine turned to Ani and gave him a paternal smile. “And you Anakin, I shall watch your career with great interest.”

Ani gave him a distracted nod, but he seemed much more distant than he had been. He waited until Palpatine left the room and turned to Leia.

“You don’t like him,” he stated plainly.

Leia’s mouth tightened. “No, I don’t.”

“Why?”

Leia’s eyes still had a panicked look about them. Mace was unnerved by the fact that she hadn’t managed to regain control of her face.

“I don’t like politicians.” 

Mace gave a disbelieving snort. That wasn’t dislike she had shown. That was murderous rage. “You just threw yourself into a planet-wide battle for one,” Mace countered back.

Leia started and brought her gaze to meet his eyes. She blinked several times, and Mace realized she had completely forgotten he was in the room. “Padme isn’t a politician,” she said, voice distant. “She’s a leader.”

“There is a difference?”

“Yes.”

She had spent, at most, two days with Queen Amidala and less than ten minutes with the Senator. Her habit of snap judgments was going to land her into a situation she wouldn’t be able to maneuver her way out of.

Ani gave a sigh. “Fine, don’t tell me.” Those words had the feeling of an old argument between them. Mace frowned. Granted, the boy was nine. Leia was certainly correct in not telling him everything, but there was a weight to the feelings in Ani that said she was keeping a great number of things from him. Mace had thought that, for the most part, Leia told most of her secrets to the Skywalkers.

Ani looked at the shards on the floor and frowned. “I’ll go get a broom,” he said and was out the door before Mace could stop him.

He looked at Leia. “A broom?”

She sighed. “Maintenance droids for cleaning is not a concept he is familiar with.”

“And sweeping is?”

“That is what a slave is for.”

Mace wanted to rage at her for being so cavalier, but he noticed the dark circles under her eyes. She had looked much more energetic when he entered the room. Shmi was right. She was pushing herself too far. He should leave her to her rest. But there was a question he wanted to ask first.

"What's the real reason you don't like the Senator?”

She looked at him, gaze searching. “I have a bad feeling about him,” she finally said.

“A bad feeling?” Mace snorted in derision and gestured to the pieces on the floor. “You did not lose control like this over a bad feeling.”

Leia bit her lip. “He reminds me of someone,” she admitted. “Someone who caused a great deal of pain in my life.” She looked at the floor troubled. “I haven’t done something like that in years,” she whispered, mostly to herself.

Mace relaxed, just a bit. “You should be more careful in the future,” he advised her. “But between the fatigue from yesterday and the unexpected emotional blow, I can understand how you lost control like this.”

She looked up at him. “Is there a technique the Jedi know that can keep me from doing something like this again?”

“Yes,” Mace said pleasantly. “Don’t channel so much of the Force it exhausts you to this level. It makes it harder to control your emotions when you are that tired.”

She grimaced. “I deserved that.” She looked troubled as she asked hesitantly. “What does he feel like to you in the Force?”

Mace frowned. “Senator Palpatine?”

She nodded.

What an odd question. “A non-entity. He will have some effect on the future, all members of the Senate do, and I can sense that. But no more or less.”

Leia’s face twisted into something Mace didn’t understand. “I see.”

Knowing he had angered her, but not sure how, he gave her a bow. “I will leave you to your rest, Leia.”

She nodded her head, and Mace left the room, the taste of her disappointment clinging over the Force.

He wasn’t late to the meeting despite his visit with Leia taking longer than expected. It was held in the same communications room that he and Qui-Gon had used yesterday to give their report to the council. Mace was surprised that Yoda wasn’t there yet, although both Plo Koon and Yaddle were standing within the holo camera’s sight line. He tried to guess what this was all about from their faces, but Plo was as hard to read as ever. Yaddle’s face was showing amusement, but that was her emotional state most of the time, so it told Mace nothing.

One by one, the holos lit up, to reveal the council members in their chairs in the temple. They looked around the room, but before they could comment on Yoda’s absence, the master came in through the door, Qui-Gon on his heels.

“What is Master Jinn doing here?” Ki-Adi demanded as soon as the duo entered.

“His fault this is,” Yoda grumbled as he took his position.

“It was not my idea,” Qui-Gon countered smoothly, standing beside Yaddle. “Finnis came up with this on his own.”

Yoda stamped his cane down on the floor. “Our place, this is not.”

Adi looked puzzled. “Master Yoda, what is this all about?”

Plo folded his hands in front of his face. “Chancellor Valorum wants to give the Jedi a seat in the Senate.”

There was a long moment of silence following that pronouncement. Then several voices cried out together, “He wants to do what ?”

“He wants us to appoint a representative to the Senate to represent our interests,” Plo repeated.

As one, they all turned to look at Qui-Gon.

He looked as calm and serene as ever. “As I said, this was not my idea.”

Even scowled. “But the Jedi getting more involved in politics is something you have advocated for.”

Qui-Gon shrugged. “Not to this extent. But beggars can’t be choosers. If it gets us a voice in how the Republic is governed, I am all for it.”

Yoda shot him a look. “On this council, you are not,” he reminded Qui-Gon.

“But you’re the one who invited me to this meeting,” Qui-Gon said back serenely.

Yaddle let out a laugh.

Mace shook his head, trying to understand why the Chancellor would throw out a thousand years of tradition, seemingly on a whim. “Why? There isn’t even a seat available, and the effort to create one—”

Plo’s voice was serene as he announced, “The Trade Federation were stripped of their seat about an hour before we arrived on Naboo.” That certainly hadn’t been in any of the news reports Mace had scanned this morning.

Yarael’s eyes went wide, and his neck swayed back and forth. “Valorum needs someone in that seat. It is constitutionally required that there be an uneven number of Senators.”

“To keep a tie from happening, yes,” Depa said drolly. “We all attended the same political class as younglings, Master Poof.”

“That doesn’t explain why the Jedi are getting this seat,” Ki-Adi said. “I’m sure there are plenty of planets who have requested permission to join the Republic.”

Plo shook his head. “None that can be finalized in this session. Possibly not for another standard year.”

Mace acknowledged the point. The process to become a Republic world had become quite stringent over the last few decades. Especially once the Trade Federation bullied its way into a seat, even though technically they didn’t represent a world. Since they had joined, the planets that became members were almost invariably ones that owed them a great deal of money, and therefore were more complacent in their agenda.

Saesee looked around at all of them. “So, we are to be a stop-gap measure until one can be approved?” He hummed thoughtfully. “Not an ideal situation, but I can see why that is the case. The Senate is barely functioning as a legislative body now. I can’t imagine the ability to have a tie will improve matters.”

Yaddle shook her head. “Wish to be a permanent seat, the Chancellor does.”

“We do not involve ourselves in politics,” Mace sputtered.

“Know this, I do,” Yoda said.

“Then why haven’t you refused ?” Mace demanded.

Yoda looked uncomfortable. “Complicated it is. Many good points, the Chancellor brought up.” He glared at Qui-Gon. “Coaching he has had, on this.”

Qui-Gon shook his head. “I had no idea he was going to offer this. But yes, we have had many conversations over the years about the Senate and the Jedi. We’re friends. That is what friends do.”

“What point could he have possibly said to make you pause, Yoda?” Ki-Adi asked.

It was Plo who answered, not Yoda. “The stringent controls the Senate has placed on us will be gone.”

Mace stared at him. “Excuse me?”

Plo’s voice became eager. “The laws and regulations that we are currently operating under will no longer be valid because we will be a member of the Senate.”

Adi breathed out, “We will have discretion over our own funds?”

Plo nodded.

Mace’s mind raced as he thought of what the Jedi could do without having to go to the Senate for every major outlay. They could negotiate with contractors they chose, instead of ones the Senate ordered them to use. The contractors that half of the time, were from businesses that the Senators on the Committee that oversaw them had financial ties to. They could finally spend their budget wisely.

They could finally free up funds to be able to set up permanent help structures on the planets they were sent to. Not just walk in, solve the immediate problem, and leave. The ability to upgrade their outfield medkits and supplies. To give raises and lure a more competitive civilian labor force for the temple.

“It can’t be that simple,” Oppo objected. “They will still set how much money we receive, given that we have no independent tax base from the Republic.”

Yaddle nodded. “True that is. But true that is now, as well. Change nothing in that regard, will this seat.”

Eeth snorted. “It will change everything. They will no longer be able to withdraw funding from us because we are interfering in some Senator’s project or business transaction.”

“Why would Valorum offer us this?” Depa asked. As always, she was trying to find all the angles to look at this situation. “It seems such a huge thing in return for so little.”

“Allies he has,” Yoda said. “But Chancellor, he will not be forever. Looking to the future, he is. Hoping a permanent voice, we will be, for the weaker worlds.”

Adi looked interested. “He wants us to help shift the power in the Senate from the Core Worlds.”

Plo shook his head. “Yes and no. His primary worry is the lingering presence of the Trade Federation.” He gestured to the window outside. “You can see the effect their influence has had. Even as they have lost their seat, they still have many powerful friends. This is a setback for them, but not a defeat. Valorum knows that we will stand for the rights of the Mid-Rim worlds, so something like this never happens again.”

“We will only be one vote,” Ki-Adi protested. “That’s hardly enough to override the entire will of the Senate.”

“But it isn’t just about the votes,” Plo pointed out. “It’s about being there, building alliances, and mediating differences so that more people will vote on our side. We are a trusted voice of neutrality. And being on the outside of the Senate meant we were helpless to stop the Senate from declaring this embargo legal. The Trade Federation panicked and invaded before they could get justification for it. But do any of us doubt, that if they had waited, they would have eventually received it?”

No one in the council could refute that.

“Think on it. Millions of Republic citizens would have had their rights stripped away from them, and we would have been able to do nothing, Do we not have a duty to protect them?”

“The compromises you have to make when engaging in politics are rarely so clear cut,” Even pointed out. “We will risk losing the very neutrality we have spent a thousand years maintaining.”

“That neutrality is failing us,” Qui-Gon said mildly. “Worse, it is leading us to fail the very people we promised to look out for.”

“There aren’t enough of us,” Oppo hissed. “And that has nothing to do with whether or not we have a Senate seat.”

“No, there are not,” Qui-Gon agreed. “But we are being handed the tools to fix that.”

Oppo’s tail swished across the floor in several short quick lashes. “Being a member of the Senate won’t magically make more Jedi appear from nowhere."

“No, it won’t.” Qui-Gon crossed his arms over his chest. “But it will allow us to involve ourselves more in galactic affairs. With more visibility, people will see what we can offer the Republic. And perhaps they won’t be as afraid to relinquish their children to us if they know we aren’t a cult."

Oppo waved his hand, dismissing that. “We have been a part of the Republic for every version of the Republic. Perhaps a few uneducated people who live on the fringes of society believe that about us, but it’s hardly a large-scale problem.”

Qui-Gon’s voice was sardonic. “Oh, and been on many worlds outside of the Core lately, have you?”

Saesee rubbed his forehead. “Our numbers are worrying, but I hardly think involving ourselves in politics is the way to solve it.”

Qui-Gon smirked, and Mace knew that he was about to throw out the worst possible idea he had in decades, out there. “So, let’s start training adults. I think Leia is a very good example of the control one can learn when one is older.”

Yoda banged his cane on the ground. “Off the topic, we have gone,” he said. “One drastic change at a time, we will discuss.”

Qui-Gon fell silent, but Mace knew that this wasn’t the last time they were going to hear about that idea.

“There is nothing to discuss,” Even said. “It is a horrible idea, and I can’t believe you are even thinking about taking him up on the offer.”

Yoda’s ears flicked, and a feeling of dread opened up in Mace’s stomach.

“Has this already been approved by the Senate?” he asked softly.

Yoda met his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “Made the offer Valorum would have not, if that was not the case.”

“So?” Evan demanded. “We can still say no.”

“No,” Mace said softly. “We can’t."

Ki-Adi frowned. “Why ever not?”

Plo steepled his hands in front of his face. “Because it will undercut any objections we have in the future to whatever new restriction or demand the Senate wishes to place on us.”

Even frowned. “What do you mean?”

Depa looked at Mace, her eyes going wide as she grasped the implications. “Because we will be told that we were given the opportunity to change how things were done, and we refused. Therefore, we must agree that the way things are being done is working.”

“That is the furthest thing from the truth!” Oppo protested.

“I know that,” Mace growled. “But it is what will be said.”

“Masters, perhaps—” Depa said, but she was cut off by a loud banging noise coming from beyond the holo camera’s reach. “What the?” she asked.

There was a brief pause, and then a holo image of senior padawan appeared. Mace didn’t recognize him, but he was panting slightly like he had run to the Jedi Council room at full speed, and his eyes were wide and spooked.

“Knight Vos is on the com,” he said. “He said he needed to speak to the Council immediately.”

“We are in a closed session,” Yarael sounded scandalized.

The padawan nodded, but he didn’t back down. “I told him that, Master. He said he didn’t care if you were talking to the Chancellor himself about the survival of the Jedi Order, he needs to talk to you, now."

Yoda looked interested. “On Tatooine, he is,” he informed them.

Depa didn’t look surprised, but everyone else did.

Qui-Gon looked at Yoda suspiciously, “How long has he been there?”

Yoda shrugged. “Sure, I am not. Before your arrival, there he was.”

“I don’t suppose it occurred to you that I needed to know that?”

Yoda gave him a sly look. “Tell you why, would I? Knew not, to Tatooine you went. On Naboo, you were supposed to be.”

“Then why didn’t he seek me out?” Qui-Gon huffed.

“Probably because he was terrified you would blow his cover,” Even muttered.

 Qui-Gon shot him a glare but said nothing more.

Depa cleared her throat. “I talked to him after he called us to report Mistress Solo crying out in the Force. I ordered him to ask the locals about her and to see if he could find anything out about the man who attacked Qui-Gon in the desert.” She turned to the padawan and nodded her head towards him. “Patch him through. Whatever he has to say must be important, or he wouldn’t be so insistent.”

The padawan bowed and walked out of the camera range. Within a minute, Quinlan’s holo sprang up in the middle of the room.

Depa gave out a low cry of alarm. The Keefer was covered from head to toe in sand. He had several scratches on his face and on his bare arms. One eye was swollen shut, and his braided hair was a mess around his head.

“Quinlan,” Depa gasped, “What happen—"

Quinlan didn’t allow her to finish the question. “What the fuck have you landed me in?” he growled.

Mace started. Despite his reputation as a maverick, Quinlan was never outright disrespectful.

“Knight Vos—” Ki-Adi’s began to reprimand.

“No,” Quinlan interrupted. “No, I do not need to hear you all lecture me about my tone right now.” 

Yoda’s eyes flicked with interest. “Found out something about Leia, did you?”

“Solo?” Quinlan’s mouth twisted in disgust. “Who gives a fuck about her? I’m talking about the fact I’m pretty sure you knowingly sent me to investigate a ship that is owned by a Sith!”

The entire council went still. “Why say that, do you?” Yoda asked.

Quinlan snarled. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it was all the dead Jawas scattered around it because there are death traps upon death traps on the hull. Or maybe the fact that it is so steeped in the Dark Side that even being near it makes me cold on a desert planet. Or how every surface I touched was full of pain and the memories of the torture of sentients. Or perhaps, just perhaps, it’s the kriffing Sith holocron I found on board!”

Oppo hissed through his teeth. “Are you sure?”

Quinlan gave him a disbelieving look. “It’s a holocron. It’s powered by the Dark Side. What else could it be?”

Mace looked around at his fellow councilors. They were, to a one, silent. It was one thing to hear a stranger, no matter how convinced she thought she was right, to proclaim the Sith were back. It was another to hear it from someone who they all knew and trusted. And given Quinlan’s gift of retrocognition, the ability to touch any object and see the memories of anyone who had handled Quinlan gave them all a hard stare. “I know Master Billaba is the one who ordered me to look into this, but I sincerely doubt that the rest of you were unaware of what I would find.”

Yoda nodded his head.

“You could have warned me,” Quinlan hissed.

“I didn’t want to influence your first impression,” Depa said softly.

Quinlan gave an undignified snort. “No, more you were hoping it wasn’t true.” He shuddered. “And there is no way to misinterpret that holocron.”

“Quinlan,” she asked. “What do you need?”

He ran his hands over his face. “The last three hours of my life wiped from my memory,” he said bitterly. He straightened and took a deep breath. “Barring that, a shower, and a lot of back up. We need to investigate this ship more thoroughly, and frankly, Masters, I am way out of my depth here.”

“Help we will send,” Yaddle said firmly. “Near Tatooine, Plo and I are. Be there soon we will.”

“And we will send people from the temple too, along with a transport to move that ship,” Ki-Adi said. “We need to get it somewhere safe, but given your reaction, I don’t think we should ask anyone to pilot it.”

“That is probably booby-trapped too,” Quinlan admitted. “I didn’t get a chance to check.”

Yarael frowned. “Why not?”

Quinlan gave him a hard stare. “I was too busy puking my guts out. For the second time. I thought it was best to leave the ship after that.”

Eeth looked concerned. “Can you stay close enough to it to make sure that someone doesn’t try to steal it?”

Quinlan nodded. “I already have one of my local contacts watching over it, but as soon as I am done with this call, I will go back.” His shoulders tightened even further. “What I saw on that ship,” his voice trailed off, and his face paled. Mace worried for a second, he might throw up again. “Please tell me that whoever owned it is dead.”

“He is,” Qui-Gon said softly.

Quinlan closed his eyes. “Thank the Force,” he said fervently. Then his eyes opened back up. “How?”

Plo gave a small huff. “He was the body Mistress Solo brought back to the temple.”

For the first time since this whole conversation had started, Quinlan gave a smile. “The bounty hunter Depa was in such a lather about? She killed him?”

“Yes,” Mace said.

“Oh, now I really want to meet her,” Quinlan said feelingly.

Qui-Gon’s eyebrows went up. “Oh?” he asked.

“Anyone that Jabba is that impressed by, and also wary of, is someone I would be interested in getting to know. If she killed a Sith as well?” Quinlan gave out a low whistle. “She must be impressive as hell."

Yarael leaned forward in his chair. “What did you learn about her?”

Quinlan rubbed his chin. “Why are you so interested in a bounty hunter from the Outer Rim?”

“As you said, Quinlan, she is very impressive,” Mace said drolly.

Quinlan’s eyes sharpened. The man wasn’t sent out on so many undercover missions just because of his retrocognition. “She was the one I heard screaming in the Force, isn’t she?”

Mace nodded his head. There was no point in denying the obvious.

“Hmmm,” Quinlan looked thoughtful for a moment. “I haven’t talked to many people yet. Even so, she’s well known around Mos Espa. It’s actually a surprise I haven’t run into her yet. This isn’t the largest of communities.”

“Do you think she was avoiding you?” Saesee asked.

Quinlan frowned. “Why would she?”

“She seems to have complicated feelings about the Jedi,” Adi remarked.

Quinlan cocked his head to the side, thinking. “I’m undercover,” he said. “She would have no way of knowing I am a Jedi.”

“Sure of that, you should not be,” Yaddle said. “Surprising Solo is.”

Quinlan looked puzzled, then dismissed the thought. “Far as I can tell, she arrived on Tatooine about a year ago.”

“And the Skywalkers?” Qui-Gon asked. “When did she meet them?”

Quinlan shrugged. “Been with them from the beginning. Rumor is they are related, it’s the only explanation anyone can come up with to explain why she’s living with them. But no one knows how. Then again, on this planet, family can be a lot more than blood ties.”

“Does anyone know where she was before she arrived on Tatooine?” Depa asked.

Quinlan shook his head. “No.”

“What did a record search reveal?” Yarael inquired.

“Haven’t had time to bribe the appropriate people yet.” He gave out a bitter laugh. “Not that I expect to find anything. There aren’t that many records here. And the ones that do exist aren’t terribly accurate. Chances are good she arrived on a smuggling vessel.”

“So, you found out nothing,” Even sounded disapproving.

Quinlan scowled. “I didn’t say that.  She’s good at what she does. As I said, Jabba has nothing but high praise for her.”

Mace was so shocked by that, the question fell out of him. “She works for Jabba?”

Quinlan shook his head. “No. Much to his disappointment.”

“Then how would he know anything about what she is capable of?” Saesee asked.

“This is Tatooine,” Quinlan said through gritted teeth. “It would be suicide for her to refuse all work from him.” Then his frustration melted away, and a gleeful mischievousness replaced it. “But here is where it gets interesting. She has managed to refuse to do certain jobs for him and not be outright executed for it.”

“Like?” Koth asked.

“The first time Jabba managed to corner her into coming to his palace, he offered her a job to track down a runaway slave.”

Mace grimaced. Given her loathing of that institution, he couldn’t imagine that had gone over well.

“And did she?” Oppo asked.

Quinlan shook his head. “Nope. Jabba, by all accounts, was furious. He ordered one of his guards to stab her in the back. She killed him instead. Apparently didn’t even break a sweat doing it.”

“And that got her his admiration?” Yarael spluttered.

“If the guard was any good, yes,” Plo said softly, mostly to himself. “It proved she was more vicious than him and therefore more valuable.”

“Apparently, he was very good at his job. Jabba was so impressed with how she dispatched his best operative; he offered her a permanent place in his court. She pulled out a thermal detonator and said she would rather blow herself up and the whole palace than track down a slave.”

Eeth looked stunned. “I take it he backed down?”

Quinlan nodded. “When he did, she offered him a compromise. She would do certain types of jobs and only those types of jobs, and she would be paid fairly. If he agreed to that, she would let him live.”

Even‘s voice was shaky. “I’m surprised he didn’t have her throat slit the next night while she laid in her bed.”

Quinlan shrugged. “He admired her cunning and bravery. It’s not exactly easy to get that kind of armament through his guards. I think he might have thought about it, but then she finished the job he asked of her and did it in record time. So, he figured she was too useful to kill.”

Plo’s voice was full of curiosity. “What kind of job did she take?”

Quinlan scowled. “A bounty hunter that double-crossed Jabba. She brought him back to the palace, in a carbonite slab, of all things. Rumor is Jabba had him hanging on his wall.”

She didn’t kill him, Mace reminded himself. It might not be considered more merciful, but she hadn’t killed him. If he had learned one of Leia’s many jobs was an assassin for hire, he wasn’t sure how he would have felt about that and his judgment of her.

“What I don’t understand,” Adi said, “if she isn’t working for him full time, who is she working for?”

Quinlan’s grin split across his face. “She mainly takes jobs from the settlers.”

There were many looks of disbelief. Mace couldn’t blame his fellow councilors. None of them knew the intricate details of Tatooine’s economy, but the words settlers and Outer Rim, meant poor.

“Doing what?” Depa asked.

“Retrieval of lost property. A few missing persons she tracked down. Stuff like that.”

“And what does she charge them?” Mace asked.

“What they can afford,” Quinlan said. “I was assured by most of the people I talked to that if I really needed help, Solo might even do it for free.” He grimaced. “Her ability to do what others considered impossible is why Jabba wanted to meet her.

The council exchanged looks. “She’s charging far less than her market value,” Plo remarked. Mace had to agree with him.

“Maybe,” Quinlan agreed.

“Having seen her in a battle Quinlan, there is no maybe about it,” Qui-Gon remarked. He cocked his head. “But I sense there is something else you are holding back.”

Quinlan shook his head. “I’d rather not say.”

Ki-Adi frowned. “We need to know everything about her, Knight Vos.”

Quinlan rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s just a suspicion,” he warned them. “I don’t have any proof, either way.”

“Sense what, did you?” Yaddle probed.

“I think she is involved with the resistance groups against the Hutts,” Quinlan said.

Mace allowed that thought to settle in his head. It sounded like something Leia would get herself involved with while taking jobs from Jabba.

Depa leaned forward. “Why do you think that?”

“How some of the locals talked about her. What they were not saying was almost as important as what they would say.” He scowled. “The feelings around that hovel she was living in with the Skywalkers.”

“What feeling?” Adi asked.

Quinlan shivered. “And that is another thing you should have warned me about. The only reason I didn’t pass out the minute I walked into that house was because it was empty.”

Yaddle frowned, “Empty, you say? Why?”

“No idea.”

“I do,” Qui-Gon said. “The Skywalkers took most of their personal possessions with them when they left. And I imagined the man who owned it, Watto, sold what was left. He was in a great deal of debt from his gambling when I left the planet.”

“Good thing too,” Quinlan grumbled. “Even touching the walls in that place was enough to knock me down for ten minutes. I don’t know what would have happened if I handled something more personal to them.”

“Quinlan,” Depa said, voice firm. “What are you talking about?”

“You know the more a person handles an object, the more of an impression it leaves for me to follow?” They all nodded.

“Well, take that and double it, if that person happens to be Force Sensitive,” Quinlan grimaced. “In fact, the stronger they are, the more intense the impressions left are.”

“Why haven’t you mentioned this before?” Oppo demanded.

Quinlan looked puzzled. “Why would I? None of you possess retrocognition. And it’s not like I hunt Force Sensitives all that often.”

Oppo didn’t look happy, but they didn’t need to be distracted by this. “What is your conclusion on the people who lived there?” Mace asked.

“Given how long I was told the Skywalker’s and Solo had been living there and the strength of the impressions, I have to assume all of them are quite powerful.”

“Them?” Depa pressed.

Quinlan nodded. “There are three very distinct Force presences in that home, Masters. It makes it hard to tell which impression belongs to which person.”

Wary looks were passed by several of the council members. None of them had missed that Shmi was Force-sensitive. That had been made very clear when Leia had shored her up in the council room. But how strong she was? That was now very much a question, thanks to Quinlan.

“Found what else, in her home did you?” Yoda asked.

Quinlan’s smile became soft. “Love and a great deal of it.” The smile slipped away. “And secrets.”

“If Leia is any part of the resistance against the Hutts,” Eeth noted, “that isn’t a surprise.”

Quinlan shook his head. “No, it’s not just about Jabba. There are a lot of secrets in that home.”

“That Leia is keeping, or are being kept from her?” Mace asked.

“Both? Neither? I’m not sure.” Quinlan bit his lip. “But one of those secrets, it has a form.”

Adi’s tendrils quivered, revealing her tension. “What do you mean?”

“It’s a humanoid shape, that much I’m sure of,” Quinlan said, eyes going distant as he recalled what he had seen. “Tall.” He frowned. “Although that height kept changing. Face always covered and wrapped in black.”

Mace exchanged glances with his fellow councilors. “Anything else?” he asked.

Quinlan shook his head. “I can’t narrow it down more than that. The image was really vague.” He looked troubled, and rubbed his hands over his arms, as if he was warding off a chill. He hissed as his hands came in contact with the scratches on his arm. “All three of them have nightmares.”

“Of what?” Qui-Gon asked.

“Pain. Loss. Grief.”

“The Skywalkers were slaves, and we know Leia has had experience in battles,” Even said sharply. “That doesn’t exactly narrow anything down.”

Quinlan’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve only had a day,” he said. “When you get here, I can go back and see if I find anything else. But for now, this is all I know.”

“Which is more than we had before,” Plo said, shooting Even a meaningful look.

Depa frowned, her eyes tracking the blood from the wounds Quinlan reopened on his arms. “You need to see to your wounds, Quinlan,” she said. “Masters Koon and Yaddle will be there within a day.”

Ki-Adi cleared his throat, “It will take me a bit longer to get there, but I will also bring reinforcements.”

Quinlan looked relieved and bowed. “Until you arrive, Masters.” His transmission cut out.

Adi looked around the room. “What are we going to do?” she whispered. She had maintained her calm exterior during the conversation with Quinlan, but Mace could see the fear in her eyes.

“There is no question of what we are going to do,” Ki-Adi spat. “We are all going to Tatooine and we pull that ship apart until we find out where the Sith are hiding.”

“We can’t all go to Tatooine,” Yarael protested.

“The Sith have returned,” Ki-Adi said. “This is not something we need to ponder. We need to act. Now.”

“He’s right,” Eeth said, eyes closed.

Ki-Adi spluttered.

Eeth’s eyes opened, and he pinned Ki-Adi with his glare. “What are we going to tell the Senate when they want to know why the entire Jedi Council has gone to an Outer Rim world?” he asked, his voice calm and composed. Mace wasn’t fooled. His hands, laying lightly on the sides of his chair, were shaking. So much so, Mace could see it through the fuzzy rendition of the holo.

Ki-Adi’s voice was unsure. “We tell them that there is an emergency on that planet,” he finally came up with.

“What emergency would require all of us?” Eeth asked. “And what do you think the Senate will do when they learn what the emergency is? How are we going to explain this? I don’t think they will accept our apologies for failing to notice that the Sith haven’t been eradicated. And far worse, from their point of view, this is a mistake that has gone on for a thousand years. I’m sure they’ll believe us when we tell them we promise we’ll take care of it this time.”

“Or we could ask Solo,” Even’s voice was low and angry.

They all turned to him. “She was the one who first brought up that they were back,” he said. “She clearly knows more. We just need to get her to tell us.”

“And how do you propose we do that?” Plo asked. “Since we discounted her word the first time?”

Even scowled. “She claims she wants them destroyed. We are the best means for that to happen.”

“Does she have any reason to believe that?” Qui-Gon asked.

Even looked disgusted. “She can’t think she can do it herself.”

Mace wouldn’t bet on that. But there was a very conspicuous silence from the one person who should have had more to say in this conversation.

He cleared his throat. “Master Yoda,” he said. “You have been awfully quiet. What do you think?”

Yoda turned his eyes to Mace. “Troubling, this all is,” he said. “But believe, we must.” He scowled. “Go to Tatooine, Ki-Adi, Plo, and Yaddle will.”

Ki-Adi protested, “We need to find the Sith. And we need to use every resource we have.”

Yoda sagged, and he looked every one of his eight hundred years. “Agree with you, I do,” he said.

“Then why—”

“Interfere with what we are doing, the Senate must not,” Yoda said firmly. He nodded his head at Eeth. “Correct he is, suspicious it will be.”

“Then what are you suggesting we do?” Ki-Adi asked.

Yoda allowed his gaze to meet each of theirs for a moment, his gaze circling the entire room. He ended at Mace, his voice sorrowful, as he announced. “Take the Senate seat, we should.”

There was a moment of silence, broken by Even’s, “Why?”

“In the shadows, the Sith always moved,” Yoda said. He looked out the window. “And used others, to achieve what they wanted.” He looked back at them. “A powerful safeguard the Senate is supposed to be. Weakened it has been, over the last century. A coincidence, you think this is?”

They were all silent at that. “You think that one of the Senators is a Sith Lord?” Yarael asked, voice disbelieving.

Yoda shook his head. “No. Sensed that, we would. But using a Senator? Or many Senators? Yes."

“And you want us to be able to counteract any moves that the Sith make,” Even said gravely.

Yoda nodded his head.

He wasn’t wrong, but it grated on everything Mace understood the Jedi to be that they were being forced into this. “That leaves us with one more question then,” he said tiredly.

“Oh, only one?” Even snarked.

Mace ignored him. “Who do we appoint to the seat?”

“Know not,” Yoda looked tired and old. “But, one of us, I think not. Not trained for this, we are. And too important, to find the Sith’s allies, to leave to a learner.”

Qui-Gon cleared his throat. “I have an idea,” he said. “But you are going to hate it.”

He wasn’t wrong there. The hell of it all was, Mace agreed with him.

It was an argument that lasted hours. But eventually, they had the majority of the council tentatively agreeing with Mace and Qui-Gon. Oppo, Eeth and Yarael wanted to question her one more time, just to verify that they were making the right choice. That being settled, they called for Leia.

She strolled in, dressed once again in her dark tunic and pants, her blaster clipped to her side.

She looked around the room, eyebrows arched. “And once again, you all have questions for me.”

Mace nodded his head. “But first, are you up for this?”

Leia waved his concern away. “If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have come.”

Mace didn’t quite believe her, but he also wasn’t willing to openly contradict her words in front of the rest of the Council. Not when he had just spent the last several hours arguing he trusted her word.

“Shall I cut to the chase?” Leia asked. “You want to know how I caught those blaster bolts. I’d be happy to teach you what I can before I leave this planet.”

Mace started. Had that happened only yesterday? There had been so many revelations and shocks since then, it felt like a lifetime.

“I can’t speak for the rest of the council,” Qui-Gon said. “But I would be delighted to learn.”

He looked positively gleeful, but they didn’t have time for this. Plo, Yaddle, and Ki-Adi had already been delayed from leaving for Tatooine for too long.

“That isn’t why we asked you here,” Mace said.

Leia looked taken aback. “Oh?”

Yoda peered at her. About an hour ago, he had the droids bring his hoverchair to ease the strain on his back from looking up at everyone. He used it to hover at the same height as Leia’s eyes, his claws tapping on his cane laid across his lap.

“Want what, do you?”

She tilted her head, seemingly thinking hard about that question. “I have terrible nightmares,” she said casually.

Yoda’s ears twitched, but he showed no other signs of surprise. The other councilors weren’t as disciplined, looking at each other warily. This wasn’t the answer any of them had been expecting.

“About what?” Depa asked.

“My past,” Leia said, her eyes going distant. “My home being destroyed while I watched. Old friends, long dead. Battles that I lost. Battles that I won, but the cost was so high I wondered if it was worth it. How every loved one I ever had fell away until I was alone.” She took in a deep breath. “Vader, and what he did to me.”

At that name, all of them straightened, but she didn’t say any more about him.

Yaddle hummed in the back of her throat. “Painful this all must be for you, to dream of.”

“Yes,” Leia agreed, her gaze becoming clear, focusing back in on all of them. “I would like them to stop. And the only way I can see that happening, is to make sure that the circumstances that caused so much grief in my life, never happen again.”

Yoda made a disgusted noise. “Seek to control the future, you do.”

Leia shook her head. “No.”

“Lie to me, you cannot. Seen the future, you have.”

Leia’s mouth twitched. “What is to come wasn’t knowledge I sought, Master Yoda.”

Mace could sense no lie in that.

She gave a careless shrug. “If the Force chooses my path, who am I to say no?”

Yoda rapped his claws on his cane to emphasize his point. “Choosing to control the future, the Dark Side that is.”

Leia arched an eyebrow. “To use the knowledge I didn’t ask for to avert a possible catastrophe?”

“Gods we are not,” Yoda insisted.

Leia looked amused. “Oh, I’m arrogant. But I’m not that arrogant.”

“Listening to me, you are not. Changed the future can be,” Yoda said. “Set in stone, it is not.”

Leia let out a bitter laugh. “Master Yoda, I am counting on that.”

Yoda looked confused at her response, then his resolve reformed. “See all the possibilities you cannot.”

“No, I can’t,” Leia said easily.

Yoda looked taken aback. “Yet proceed you will?”

“Yes,” Leia said simply.

Yarael and Even exchanged puzzled looks. “Why?” Yarael asked.

“For you, trying to control the future leads to the Dark Side. For me?” Leia pointed to herself. “Seeing what might be, and doing nothing to stop it, that is the path to the Dark Side. Can I make it perfect?” Leia’s mouth twisted into a wry grimace. “No. But it can hardly be worse.”

“Arrogant you are,” Yoda muttered.

“Which I have already freely admitted,” Leia said, her hand dropping back to her side. “But I also have compassion. I didn’t ask for this Master Yoda. Believe what you want about my motives. I can’t change your mind about that. But what I know? Where I ended up? It was the last place in the galaxy I wanted to be.”

“Yet forge ahead you will,” Yoda pointed out.

Leia rolled her eyes. “First it’s listen to the Force, now it’s ignore what it’s telling you.”

“What you believe it is telling you,” Eeth said softly.

Leia’s mouth twitched in bitter amusement. “I fought the Force my whole life. And when it finally made very clear what it wanted, I paid a very high price for ignoring it.” Compassion and grief crossed her face. “I hope that you are never placed in the same situation.”

“Listen, I do!” Yoda insisted.

Leia’s face went to a blank neutrality. “As you say.”

Yoda let out a disparaging noise. “Too influenced by your past you are.”

Leia’s smile was openly mocking now. “Those who do not remember the mistakes of the past, find themselves repeating them.”

“A Jedi must ever be in the present."

“Ahh, but I am not a Jedi.”

Yoda’s ears twitched. “No, you are not,” he allowed. Mace had to wonder if this was both of them playing with semantics. Leia was not of this Jedi. But Jedi had many meanings over the centuries that they had existed. “But much of your method is Jedi. You must let go of your past to see what is in front of you clearly.”

“Yoda, my past is currently my present. The only difference I find is the names of the players.”

Yoda leaned back in his seat, clearly unhappy. Mace grimaced; this was not going as well as he would have hoped.

Plo folded his hands in his lap. “Is violence always your solution to a problem?”

Leia frowned. “No, of course not. Why would you think that of me?”

Even snorted. “Because you have been in so many battles, you don’t remember all of them.”

Leia shook her head. “I do,” she protested. “But that wasn’t my issue with the hanger yesterday.”

Adi’s face became thoughtful. “Then why didn’t you remember it?”

Leia’s gaze became troubled. “It doesn’t feel the same at all.”

Mace recalled his words and that strange vision of the Zabrakian and the younger Leia. “Something happened,” he said slowly. “Or something would have happened. Something to do with that Zabrakian you killed.”

Leia looked at him, and then her eyes fell to Qui-Gon. “Huh,” she said thoughtfully.

“Understand what, you do now?” Yoda demanded.

Her gaze focused back on him. “It’s just a guess on my part. I don’t actually know anything.”

Qui-Gon stepped forward. “And what did the Force show you?”

Leia gave him a long hard look. “If I hadn’t killed him, that man would have killed you. Probably in that hanger.”

There was a weight to her words in the Force, and for a second, Mace had a vision of Qui-Gon’s body on a funeral pyre, burning away. He let the grief and loss come up and then let it wash away. This hadn’t happened, thank the Force.

Yoda’s face softened. “Grateful, we are,” he said. “A great loss, Qui-Gon would be.”

Leia snorted. “Yes,” she agreed. “For all that he is a huge pain in the ass.”

Mace’s mouth twitched, and Qui-Gon gave Leia a wide smile. “Ah, but you like me anyways.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny,” she said.

Qui-Gon’s mouth twisted in appreciation of her wit, but he didn’t continue to banter with her. “Masters,” he asked. “Are you satisfied?”

“I am,” Oppo said.

“As am I,” Eeth agreed.

Yarael looked back and forth between Mace and Yoda. He sighed. “I am as well.”

“I am not,” Even growled.

Yoda’s ears dropped. “Matter, it does not,” he said tiredly, rubbing his head. “Outvoted we are.”

Leia looked suspiciously at all of them. “Why am I really here?”

“A path has been placed before us,” Plo said gravely. “While Mace, Yaddle, Depa, Adi, and I were certain you were the right choice, Eeth, Oppo and Yarael wished to talk to you further.”

“Right choice for what?” Leia asked.

Qui-Gon stepped forward. “How would you like an opportunity to be able to change this future you’ve seen?”

Leia looked at him, frowning. “What do you think I’m doing right now?”

“Frankly, I have no idea,” Qui-Gon admitted cheerfully. “I have no doubt you have a plan, but from the outside looking in, I can’t make sense of it.”

“And to return that frankness,” Leia said sharply. “All I need from the Jedi is for you to stay out of my way.”

“That will not happen,” Mace said smoothly. “And you know it.”

She transferred her glare to him. “I have no desire to hurt you or yours. But I can’t let you interfere with what needs to be done.”

Yoda looked alarmed, as did Saesee and Even. But that mattered little to Mace. They hadn’t been supportive of the choice of Leia for this. As long as the members who did support her didn’t waver, Mace could care less about their concerns. He was now focused on Leia and trying to get her to say yes to this.

He stepped forward towards her, palms out. “I have no doubt of that,” he told her. “But, instead of a clashing of wills that will serve neither side, perhaps we can suggest a compromise?”

Her gaze became suspicious. “Such as?”

Plo cleared his throat. “It hasn’t been announced on the holos yet, but the Trade Federation seat is going to the Jedi.”

For the first time since he met her, Leia looked genuinely shocked. “What?” she asked. “Really?”

Plo nodded.

Leia blinked a few times, and then her gaze became thoughtful. She took a long look at Yoda. “Did you take the seat because you wanted it, or because Valorum backed you into a corner?”

“Direct authority over us, the Chancellor has not,” Yoda said blandly.

Leia smirked. “He maneuvered you into it then.”

Yaddle looked interested. “Mean what by that, do you?”

Leia shrugged. “The few times the subject has come up with any of you, I got the clear impression that you had no interest in politics, never mind a Senate seat. Valorum is smarter than I gave him credit for.” A frown flickered across her face. “Or more desperate.”

“He got approval from the Senate and then offered it to you as a done deal. Oh, he didn’t directly order you to take it,” she said, inclining her head in Yoda’s direction. “It was probably offered to you as a choice. But one of you realized that by refusing it, you would make your lives infinitely harder in the coming years when dealing with the Senate. They could increase their stranglehold on you by pointing out that you had the chance to change the rules. Clearly, you believe that they could, and more importantly, should, have the ultimate authority over you.”

Mace shot a pointed look at Saesee. He was the one who had voiced the most doubts about Leia’s political acumen. He didn’t look happy, but there was no denying that Leia’s assessment of the situation was correct. And she had come to that conclusion in seconds.

Leia arched an eyebrow at all of them when they said nothing. “Am I wrong?” she asked sweetly.

Saesee shook his head. “You are not,” he said gravely.

She looked satisfied. “It’s not all bad. You can certainly do a better job influencing the Senate on policy while sitting in it.”

“Or be corrupted by it,” Even muttered.

She nodded her head. “It’s a danger,” she admitted. “But sitting on the sidelines removing yourself from the situation has also done you no good. Perhaps it is time you made new mistakes.”

Even looked dissatisfied with that answer, but Mace noticed he didn’t deny that the situation up to this point was less than ideal.

Leia gave a wicked grin. “Just don’t appoint Qui-Gon, and you’ll be fine.”

Qui-Gon arched his eyebrow. “I’ll have you know I am quite charming when I want to be.”

She wagged a finger at him. “When you want to be. The first time you get bored, you’re going to start an argument just to relieve the tedium.”

“I am an adult. I can control myself,” he told her archly.

She flashed him a wicked grin. “I don’t know. Political meetings can go on for days.”

Qui-Gon bowed to her. “I defer to your superior knowledge on politics,” he said.

Leia didn’t deny that, Mace noted. It wasn’t an affirmation that she had political experience, but it wasn’t a denial either.

Leia looked at him and asked, “Who are you going to appoint?”

Mace gave her a pointed look. Her blind spots could be incredibly large sometimes.

She blinked, then let out a bark of laughter. “Mace, you really are funnier than your demeanor suggests,” she told him, amusement dancing in her eyes. That laughter faded as no one joined in. She looked around the room, taking in their serious faces. “Wait, are you being serious?”

“We are,” Plo intoned.

Her mouth dropped open. “Are you all insane?” she demanded.

Yoda grumped. “Said the same thing I did. Overruled I was.”

She turned accusing eyes at Mace. “You want me to be your representative to the Senate?”

Mace nodded.

“Why?”

So many reasons. For most of the positive votes, it had been that giving her this seat was the best way to bind her to the Jedi. Leia was far too dangerous to allow to roam about the galaxy. It was fortunate that the method of that binding involved something that both sides needed. 

Oppo’s surprising positive vote had been based on the reasoning that there wasn’t much they knew about her, but that she was no friend of the Sith was very clear. With them appearing in the galaxy now, Leia was a good ally to have against them.

Qui-Gon, although not on the Council, had voiced that letting Leia get to know them, getting to trust them, meant she might in the future divulge more information about the Sith. And that she knew techniques in the Force that they all wanted to learn. It hadn’t been the swaying reason, but it had factored into Depa and Adi’s yes votes.

But for Mace, his reasoning was simple. The Force had clearly put this woman, with the knowledge and the skills they needed so desperately right now, in their path. Mace was not one to ignore the Force when it was this clear.

Leia wouldn’t appreciate any of those reasons. He offered, “Because, as you so eloquently stated earlier to me, we are not politicians.”

Leia’s eyes narrowed. “And you think I am?”

An evasion, not a denial. “Queen Amidala does,” Mace said blandly.

Leia’s eyes narrowed. “Does she?”

“She has good reason to,” Mace said mildly. “You cannot deny that you are the reason that Valorum even still has his seat. She was ready to call a vote of no confidence until you explained the possible consequences.”

Leia shifted uneasily on her feet. “If anyone had thought about it for more than five minutes, they would have understood it was a risk to replace a sympathetic Chancellor with one you weren’t sure of the loyalty of.”

“No,” Saesee said softly, “I don’t think they would.” He exchanged glances with Ki-Adi. “In fact, I think Her Majesty is correct. At some point, you served in some sort of political capacity.”

Leia hissed through her teeth, but she didn’t insult their intelligence by denying the obvious. She tried another tack. “I am not a Jedi. I can’t even begin to accurately represent you or your interests.”

“That would be anyone we appoint to the position, which we would be doing no matter what. Not one of us feels confident to take on the responsibility or know of someone in the Order who is suited for this,” Plo pointed out gently.

A small omission. Yan Dooku would certainly love to be placed in this seat, but even Yoda had worries about his temperament in the job. And although he was very eager to engage in politics, he had no practical experience doing it. Leia did, and they needed someone who knew what they were doing.

“And while no, you are not a Jedi, you do hear the Force. Rather well, I would point out.”

Leia glared at him, “I’m still not telling you my midi-chlorian count.”

“You don’t need to,” he said. “Given the report from Mace on what you did to save Queen Amidala, we can make a good guess.”

Leia looked doubtful, then thoughtful. “What is his count?” Leia asked Plo.

The brows above his forehead wrinkled in confusion. “I’m sorry?”

“Anakin,” she clarified. “What is his midi-chlorian count?”

Mace could see the ripple of confusion in his fellow council member’s faces. Qui-Gon looked thoughtfully at her. “It’s over twenty thousand,” he said.

Leia didn’t even blink an eye at that impossible number. “And is that unusual?”

Qui-Gon stared. “Yes,” he said. “It’s the strongest we have ever seen in the entire history of the Jedi Order.”

A look of dread filled Leia’s face. “By how much?” she whispered.

“A count of eighteen thousand, I have,” Yoda said, voice curiously cold. “Before young Skywalker, the strongest the Jedi ever recorded.”

“And before Master Yoda joined the Order, the record was sixteen thousand,” Eeth put in. “It’s even possible Skywalker’s is higher than that because that is the limit we can test for.”

“But—" Leia looked around all of them. “That can’t be right,” she said.

Qui-Gon frowned. “Why?”

“Because that would mean—” she cut herself off. Mace could see that mind whirling, going through a million scenarios and possibilities. She looked at her hands and then gave a short hysterical laugh. “Oh,” she said, “Oh, no wonder.”

“No wonder what?” Mace asked.

She shook her head and looked up at him. “I seemed to have miscalculated.”

“Miscalculated what?”

Leia let out another half-hysterical laugh. “My whole life.”

“Leia—” Mace was cut off when she held up a hand.

“I need to think,” she said. “About everything. I am honored that you chose me, but I,” there was panic around her eyes. “I need to think,” she repeated and fled out of the room.

“That was a first,” Qui-Gon said thoughtfully.

“All of this is a first, Qui-Gon,” Even pointed out.

“Yes,” he agreed. “But Leia running from something has to be the most unlikely part of this day.”

Mace had known her for less than two days, but he found himself once again agreeing with Qui-Gon.

The meeting broke up after that. Yaddle, Plo, and Ki-Adi were heading toward Tatooine. It had been delayed because they felt it was best that they all be there to evaluate Leia, and if the votes went that way, offer her the seat. They wanted to fill the seat as soon as possible. Yoda might not agree with who the Council had chosen, but he knew that the sooner they got someone in the middle of the Senate, the sooner they could start undoing the darkness the Sith Lord had wrapped around it.

Their delay to Tatooine had been for nothing. Leia had balked. No, not just balked. She had actually run from the room. Mace had tried sitting in his room for an hour, meditating on why she had refused, but all he felt was his frustration mounting.

He gave up. He needed more than just sitting down to soothe his mind. He allowed his feet to take him back to the communication room. It wasn’t the ideal place to do this, but it was quiet and empty of furniture. And since it was the middle of the night on Naboo, chances were low someone would interrupt him.

He took his lightsaber off his belt and ignited it. Swinging it around, he moved until he was in the first kata of Vaapad. Concentrating on his form, all his other worries melted away.

He had left his sense of the Force open wide to warn him if anyone approached the room. So, he was completely taken aback when a voice said, “I’ve never seen that form before.”

Mace whirled, bringing his lightsaber up instinctively. Unfortunately, he had been in the middle of a move where his fingers were loose around his hilt, so he could twirl it. It flew from his hand, heading towards the speaker. It shut off automatically when it left his hand, but the hilt was heavy, and could do a lot of damage.

A hand snaked up and caught it before it could plow into her face. Mace wasn’t surprised that it was Leia standing in the room.

She looked at him, a rueful expression on her face. “Sorry,” she said, lowering the hilt to her side. “I thought you would have heard me enter the room.”

He shook his head. “I was too immersed in the Force for that,” he explained, coming up to her.

Now she looked sheepish. “And since I hide my Force presence, I took you by surprise.”

He nodded and held out his hand. Leia gave him the hilt back, and his fingers wrapped around it.

The com room disappeared, and there was darkness all around him. Mace waited with bated breath to see what the Force would show him.

That darkness continued for a few seconds more, then a small patch of light appeared. Mace blinked at the sudden brightness and made out a hand coming down over him. He struggled for a moment, and then his perspective changed suddenly. He was now standing in a room of some kind. He looked around, but the details of it were fuzzy. The only thing in his vision that was clear was Leia, the younger version of her, sprawled out on the floor, his hilt in her hands.

One of the fuzzy objects in the room moved towards her, and a voice came from it. It sounded male and young. “You okay?”

Mace didn’t hear if Leia answered, but there was a distant voice screaming “THIEVES!” before everything faded away.

“Mace?” Leia asked, and she was standing in front of him. The older one, with the lines on her face, grey in her hair, and worried eyes.

“Had you held this lightsaber before?” he asked, voice harsher than he intended.

Leia took a step back, wariness on her face. “No,” she said.

There was something off around that answer. “Are you sure?”

She looked offended. “Of course, I’m sure. Until you told me yesterday, I didn’t even know blades could be purple.”

“But you’ve held other ones?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Whose?”

“Luke’s. One of his students.” She grimaced. “The Sith’s in the desert.”

Mace looked at the hilt in his hand, the crystals in them humming. “I think if you had gone to Illum, these might have been yours,” he said softly.

“Excuse me?”

Mace shook his head. “Never mind,” he said. The relationship between the Kyber crystals and the Jedi was a private one. But something about Leia appealed to the ones in his hilt. It was interesting that he wasn’t the only one that seemed to be drawn to her.

He looked back up at her as he clipped the hilt to his belt. “What are you doing here, Leia?” he asked. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

“Can’t,” she said. “I tried, but it seems to be eluding me tonight.” She gave him a probing look. “When I meditated, I could feel you, practically pacing the walls. So, I came looking for you.”

“Why?”

She took a deep breath in and then let it out. “Why did you really ask me to take that seat?”

Mace debated on what to say to her. He badly wanted her to say yes. Perhaps honesty would get him what diplomacy had not.

“The main reason was that we all agree that we need to keep an eye on you.”

Her eyes flashed. “Because you’re afraid of me?” she challenged.

Mace shook his head. “Because of the Sith,” he said softly.

She looked insulted. “For the last time, I am not a Dark Side user.”

Mace rolled his eyes. “I know that,” he said back. Some of Leia’s indignation melted away at the obvious dismissal of that idea in his voice. “But you are planning to wage war against them. Forgive me if I’m worried about the consequences of that war spilling out into the galaxy.”

She relaxed a little, but her words were still cutting. “Oh, so now you believe me? What changed?”

“We had a knight on Tatooine,” Mace explained. “He was tasked with looking into the identity of the man you killed. He found his ship.” Mace hesitated, wondering how many details to divulge. “There were a great many things that were disturbing about it.”

“I bet,” she snorted. Then she frowned. “And if there was a knight on Tatooine, why didn’t Qui-Gon go to him for help?”

Instead of relying on her and her family, she didn’t say. But Leia was very good at conveying her meaning without words.

“Qui-Gon didn’t know he was there,” Mace said. Leia arched an eyebrow. “This isn’t an insult to Qui-Gon. Not many people knew Quinlan was there.”

“Really?” She sounded disbelieving.

“I would be one of the people who didn’t know, Leia.”

She sighed. “What was he doing, if I may ask?”

Mace arched an eyebrow. “On Tatooine? Taking in the sights.”

She glared at him, and then her expression became rueful. “I earned that one.”

Mace nodded. “You did.” He considered her question for a moment and went for honesty. “Quinlan was on an undercover mission.”

Leia looked surprised at the candid admission.

Mace shrugged. “It’s not a secret anymore. His cover is well and truly blown now.”

“Why?”

“When he helps three Jedi Masters take a ship off the planet, I think it will become obvious.”

Leia nodded. “You’re probably right.” She looked thoughtful. “If he is undercover, how did you get a hold of him so fast?”

“He contacted us.”

Leia snorted. “Not much of an agent then.”

“Well,” Mace said mildly. “He was somewhat taken aback when out of nowhere, he heard someone screaming in the Force. He thought we should know.”

Comprehension dawned on Leia’s face. “Me and Anakin.”

“Yes.”

Leia was quiet for a few moments, clearly thinking. She finally cocked her head and asked, “Are you trying to bring down the Hutts, Mace?”

Mace’s hands slipped behind his back. “The Jedi don’t have the authority or the manpower to do so.”

Leia’s eyes narrowed. “Have you been expressly forbidden to do so?”

“We are tasked with doing our best to keep the hyperspace lanes clean of marauders and pirates,” Mace said promptly.

“That isn’t your main function,” Leia pointed out.

“No, but it is an assigned task.”

Leia flashed him a bright smile. “Clever.”

“Not enough for a permanent solution. We are just throwing patches on the problem.” Mace was well aware of the limits of what the Jedi could achieve with their current numbers. “And now that our ancient enemy has returned, we are going to have to stop doing even that little bit.”

Leia’s smile faded. “They never went away,” she said quietly. “They only went into hiding.”

All the evidence backed her words, as much as it galled Mace to admit it.

“And you are very familiar with them.”

Leia looked wary. “More than I want to be, yes.”

Mace blew out a long breath and settled his hands on his hips. It couldn’t hurt to try. “The man you killed in the desert. Was he the Master or the Apprentice?”

Leia looked at him sideways. “You’re making an awfully big assumption. There could be hundreds of them,” she pointed out.

Mace stared at her. The gaps in her knowledge were both reassuring and puzzling. “You know about the lightsabers, but you don’t know this?”

Leia frowned. “Know what?”

“With the Sith, there are only two. A Master and an Apprentice. Any more, and they start killing each other.”

Her frown deepened. “Then how did they win so many of the Sith Wars?”

“That was before they instituted this rule. They kept losing those empires because of the infighting.”

Leia hummed to herself. “Yes,” she said slowly. “That makes sense.”

Mace repeated his question. “Do you know which one is still alive?”

Leia looked at him, and her face was pale. “I don’t know the name of the man I killed, Mace. But his master….” Her voice faded away.

She had known a Sith. She had been tortured by a Sith. Mace needed to tread very gently here. “He was Vader’s master, wasn’t he?”

“Yes,” she breathed. She rolled her shoulders, and then she straightened to her full height. “His name is Darth Sidious.”

Mace cocked his head. Along his senses, the Force was writhing at that name. He had no doubt that Leia was telling the truth. But it was also very likely the man had many aliases. He pondered Leia for a moment, wondering what else she knew about the man. He decided not to press. They needed to find him, yes. But Leia did not respond well to pressure, and that was outside the fact that she was clearly terrified of this man.

She had given this information freely. Mace would have to wait to see if over time, she might trust him with more. But there were other questions he could ask that she might answer.

“He’s the reason you have appeared now, isn’t it?”

Leia looked at him with wide eyes and nodded.

Mace felt a chill down his spine. “He’s the one you said was the most coldly calculating man you ever met?”

Her face twisted. “It’s worse than that. He draws people that are like him to him and gives them so much power.” Her eyes were wide in her face, and Mace was startled to find tears there. “And he takes good people and finds the smallest crack in them to exploit. And when he is done with them, they are a shadow of the loving person they once were.”

“I see,” Mace said. Her recitation was only making it clearer that they needed Leia in the Senate, and now. She would know what to look for in the people that Sidious could manipulate. “But I think we should concentrate on finding him. He is the one with access to the Dark Side.”

“You don’t need to be a Dark Side user to be dangerous,” Leia said emphatically. “I’ve met plenty of people who would slaughter entire planets to get their way, and they only had enough sensitivity to the Force to prove they were organic.” 

Mace stilled. There was a ripple along those words, something tugging at him to pay attention. He had to force the question out, part of his mind refusing to believe what words the Force was resonating with. “You’ve witnessed the slaughter of a planet?”

Leia’s face drained completely of color.

“Leia,” he whispered, horrified that this was one of the wounds this woman carried. Then his stomach dropped as her earlier words rang in his head. She had said her people were gone and that she had watched it happen. “Was it your world you saw this done to?”

She didn’t answer him. She didn’t need to. The grief that was bleeding off of her was an old pain, but that didn’t lessen its intensity.

Mace leaned back, aghast. If this was one of the events she had witnessed in her life, an event that was done at the behest of this Sith Lord, no wonder she was so driven to destroy them.

He rubbed his hands over his eyes, trying to wipe away the images his mind was trying to show him of the slaughter of innocents. “We need your help,” he said as he dropped them from his face. “We need you to take that seat.”

Leia shook her head. “No, you don’t. At least not this kind of help.”

“What are you talking about?”

Her gaze seemed unable to meet his. Her eyes kept sliding all around his face as if she was looking for an escape. “I tried to stop something like this from happening before, Mace. I played by the rules, and I used the laws and the government to try to stop the problem brewing on the horizon. And you know what it got me?”

Mace shook his head.

“Nothing,” she hissed. “No, worse than nothing. I was stripped of what little I had left of my parents. My people.” She gave a helpless little laugh. “And my political rivals used me to convince too many that I was exaggerating the problem.”

“What did you do then?” Mace asked. There was no way that this woman would lay down and do nothing when presented with an obstacle.

She looked defiant. “I went back to what I was good at. Fighting.”

Mace smiled. “Did you win?” he asked.

Grief filled her eyes. “No,” she said. “In fact, you could say I let the same thing happen again, if not from the same source.” She sagged. “I understand you’re afraid. And I don’t blame you. The Sith are nothing to take lightly. But I can’t help you like this.”

Mace frowned. “So, you made some mistakes in your past, and just like that, you are never going to try that way again?”

Leia reared back like he had hit her. “You have no idea what you are talking about.”

“If you gave me more information, I might,” Mace said, taking a step closer to her. “All I’m hearing from you is excuses.”

“Excuses?” she hissed, stepping up to him in turn.

“You are the one who says we are failing at our role in the Republic,” he pointed out. “Are you really so scared to take this opportunity to help us?” He allowed his voice to grow dismissive. “Or is it easier for you to stand on the sidelines and criticize?”

Leia’s nostrils flared. “I help,” she insisted.

“How?” he demanded. He took a shot in the dark. “By plotting to overthrow the Hutts?”

Surprise flickered across her face, then she sneered. “So, this Quinlan is a better operative than I gave him credit for.”

Mace didn’t deny her accusation. “It’s a noble goal,” he allowed. “But this will hardly stop the Sith.”

“You would be wrong,” she said flatly.

“How?” Mace demanded. “How am I wrong about this?”

“Because all trouble to the Republic has come from that sector of space,” she hissed. “If it was a stable democracy, instead of being exploited by the Hutts and the Republic, it wouldn’t pose a threat anymore.”

Mace threw his hands up in the air. “And now you are a historian?” he demanded. “Most of the records from those worlds of the Sith Wars have been lost. And the records the Republic has, make no mention of that sector being a consistent problem. You are making a guess.”

“No, I’m not,” Leia hissed. “I’m basing it on—” and she abruptly cut herself off.

“Basing it on what?” Mace demanded when she didn’t complete the sentence.

She just shook her head. “I am where I need to be,” she said, voice again back under control.

“Really? The Outer Rim? And what about the Jedi?”

Leia frowned. “What about you?”

“Where have you been?” he shot back. “Given your familiarity with the Republic, you had to know that at the very least, your abilities in the Force would get you a meeting with us. And you have known about Sidious for years."

“And when I did warn you about the Sith, you said I was crazy,” she spat back. “Even when I had proof.”

“We doubted, yes,” Mace allowed. “Wouldn’t you, in our position? But this is too important for you to give up at the first inconvenience.”

"Give up?” Leia was indignant. “You have no idea what I have been doing.”

“Because you refuse to tell us.”

She scoffed. “Oh, you have been so trusting of what I’ve told you so far.”

Mace could feel her slipping away. She wasn’t listening to him, caught in her temper and the fears of her mistakes in her past. But he wasn’t going to let her walk away without some accountability.

“Leia, why did it take you so long to come to the Republic to warn us about the Sith?” he asked.

Leia looked frustrated, and her hands were fisted at her sides. “Because I hadn’t—” Something on his face must have scared her off her answer because she snapped her mouth shut. “It’s complicated,” she finally told him.

Mace scoffed. “Excuses again. Do you know what I think? That you were too afraid to try.”

Leia’s chin came up. “Afraid?” she demanded.

“Yes,” he said, coming right up to her, and leaning down so he could stare directly into her eyes.

Her face twisted. “You have no idea the things that I have lost. The dangers I have faced.”

“No, I don’t,” Mace agreed. “Although I would be delighted if you would tell me.”

“Oh, so you can go running back to the council and tell them you have figured out my agenda?”

Mace was taken aback by the vitriol in her voice. “No,” he said. “Because I find you interesting, and I wish I understood you better.”

Leia looked at him, disbelieving. “People don’t like me,” she said.

“The Skywalkers certainly do,” he countered. “As does Her Majesty.”

“Well, of course, they do, they are—” Leia cut herself off, shaking her head. “Doesn’t matter,” she said. “I know what I am like, Mace. People find me useful. People find me inspiring. They rarely like who I am.”

“And that is?”

She stared straight at him. “Difficult.”

He gave her a mocking smile. “Another excuse. I’m difficult too, and you don’t see me hiding behind that as a reason not to help.”

She looked taken aback by that.

Mace shook his head, disappointed in her. “Help us. Don’t help us. It’s up to you. But don’t walk away simply because it’s hard.”

“I am not afraid because things are hard. ”

Mace looked at her, and his words came out before he could think better of it. “Prove it.”

Leia looked like she wanted to hit him. And Mace knew he was on the verge of actions he could not take back. Without another word, he stalked out of the room, his anger nipping on his heels.

He spent the rest of the night trying to shed his anger. At first, it was all directed at Leia. At her refusal to be straightforward. At his disappointment that she was allowing her fear of repeating her mistakes to keep her from taking a step that could help so many.

As the night went on, his anger switched targets to himself. He knew better. He knew that people when they were tired and afraid, lashed out at anything perceived as a threat. And Leia was afraid, and given the events of yesterday, probably still tired. If Mace had a better grip on his temper, he might have been able to address her fears in a rational manner instead of exploding in her face.

By the time the sun rose, all Mace was left with was the slim hope that Leia might do the impossible and listen for once. Not to him. He doubted he had that much impact on her actions. But she claimed she had learned to hear the Force. He was just hoping that she would do so before this storm that was brewing on the horizon broke over them all.