Crash and Burn

Leia breathed deeply and used her small snatches of Jedi training to calm herself. She had to try to focus on what the next task was, not on anything else that was going through her head, and that task was to urge the deadlocked Senate to finally make a decision on what to do about the Stellar Imperium. There were new reports of deadly outbreaks, but Dantooine, the Doldur asteroids, and Chery were completely laid waste. Nothing survived, absolutely nothing, from bacteria to people. A xenobiologist notied that a few other virii - merely respiratory viruses and a few other annoyances - were found on Cherzor, suggesting that virii were not actually alive, though it was possible that they were simply too small to be affected by other virii. That side debate, though, was less relevant than the fact that one particular type of virus, now inactive, was everywhere on the devastated planets. The particles relentlessly attacked cellular mitochondria, targeting midichlorians as well as standard mitochondria until all cellular processes ceased, ultimately killing the afflicted.

The plague appeared to be over, at least for the time being, but tension was thick in the room and everyone was on alert. A few Senators wore breath masks, but many more had chosen full environmental protection suits. Leia had only a breath filter, not wanting to alarm anyone unnecessarily nor stand out for having no special protection.

"This is clearly a weapon," she said, addressing the rest of the Senate. "The plague began on Dantooine, where an active laboratory stood. Its technicians and researchers were employed by Lord Trefitz, of the Stellar Imperium, and of the Sith Order. He is no longer living, but the project went on without him and has his name attached to quite a few reports found within the laboratory. There are still Sith in the Stellar Imperium, and their actions have shown that they cannot be trusted. Eight systems have been taken, ans seven more destroyed. How many more do we need to lose before we see the Stellar Imperium as a credible threat, especially now that they have a weapon with the potential for this much destruction? How many people's homeworlds must be swept clear of life? Yours might be next. The people who elected you to speak for them may die and leav nothing left of their lives but abandoned speeders and empty houses. Empress Shira and her agents must be found and brought to justice, and we must liberate fallen worlds and find new homes for those who have been displaced."

She took her seat again, and there was a smattering of applause, but not enough to make her think that many had really been listening. Everyone was weary of war, and not wanting to engage another enemy. Just when the Imperial Remnant, what was left of the Galactic Empire, quieted down and took up residence in its own part of the galaxy, there was another to rise up and cause trouble for the people who just wanted to live their lives.

Senator Quoll took the floor next. Leia could tell, now that Luke had pointed it out, that she was shielding, and Leia didn't know what to make of it. A cloak around one's own mind to psychologically protect oneself was not a crime and might not even be indicative of known Force sensitivity; hardly anyone under fifty would have been tested for the Force under the Old Order, and she had obtained basic information on Quoll that placed her at merely thirty-nine - born seven years after the Jedi Purge. If her family, which also seemed to be lost from any official records, had connections to the Jedi, it was well-hidden and for understandable reasons.

Quoll was alone, with neither her aide nor her daughter, and Leia first thought that she could sympathize; she wouldn't want Jaina in the Senate Hall either, and was secretly glad she was far away on Yavin 8 where, hopefully, she was better protected against the threat of another outbreak and could at least be easily quarantined there for safety. A pang stuck her, though, as she thought of Anakin, and suddenly she wished that both Jaina and Jacen were with her, if only for proof that they were alive and healthy. At least no trace of Jacen nor Anakin had been found on Dantooine, and it was more and more likely that they never arrived, but that Jacen had managed to escape and was still hiding somewhere.

"Gentlebeings of the New Republic," Quoll said smoothly. "I agree with Senator Organa-Solo that we must act. But it is not the way of democracy to attack a peacful entity. Perhaps we have seen the last of the attacks of the Stellar Imperium, and I believe that the most prudent course of action would be to negotiate a truce. I would like to put this mess behind us and enter an era of peace and trust. Surely violence and force are not the answers." The tall woman looked around at several other Senators, making eye contact with them, and then her eyes met Leia's. Artificial tinting again, Leia thought; there was something unnatural about Quoll's eyes.

Quoll smiled and moved on to another before starting the next part of her short speech. "Should trust among the peaceful people of the galaxy begin with aggresion towards others merely on evidence that one of their officials, who is dead, may have been affiliated with an old religious order? Particularly when this evidence comes to us from the son and daughter of one of the most well-known practitioners of that sect. Come now, daughter of Vader, I have to wonder what your true intentions are. What we can all be sure of is that our responsibility is to the people, not to one or another of rival religions. The internal politicking of the Jedi and the Sith is best left to the Jedi and the Sith themselves, apart from the neutrality of the government."

In the end, a vote was taken, and it was decided that Empress Shira would be called to Coruscant to discuss terms of a possible peace treaty. Leia had to admit, to herself, that it was the proper response, but she couldn't help feeling that even though it was technically the right thing to do, by the rules, it was a situation that demanded breaking the rules. She had few qualms about joining the Rebellion almost thirty years earlier, and now, if drastic measures had to be taken to preserve life, then she was willing to support it. No political career was worth playing the game only to see people die and others be deprived of their livelihoods.

Then there was the issue of where to find Empress Shira, but that would be left to the spies.

After the long conference was over and the meeting adjourned, she went out looking for Senator Quoll again, once more with Luke at her side. Quoll was keeping secrets of a kind, and she knew that if they could just find out what those secrets were, it might lead to a new way to get through to the Imperium - or, if nothing else, it would make Quoll more likely to refrain from making personal attacks while addressing the other Senators.

Quoll had retrieved her daughter from a nanny droid. The little girl had red eyes that she kept rubbing, and she clung to her mother. "Don't go," she said.

"Oh, I won't go again. Were you good for Dede Four?"

"Good Dede," the baby said.

Senator Quoll looked up just as Luke and Leia approached, and her mental shields tightened. "Good evening, Senator Organa-Solo, Master Skywalker. Desa, say hello."

"No," Desa replied, and buried her face on Quoll's shoulder.

"I apologize for her bad manners. She's only two and a half, and she's learning courtesy, but it's still slow," she said, and sounded almost genuinely sorry.

"To be honest, I would rather talk about you," Luke said, getting right to the point. "Where is your aide?"

"My aide? He had other business to attend to, an emergency that I'm afraid is a personal matter."

"I'm sorry to hear that, and will assume that what you say is the truth. I won't take up too much of your time, I promise. Tell me, what do you know of the Jedi and the Sith? It seems that some of your information might be out-of-date."

"All I know is that it is none of my business which side is in control and which one is angry at whom. To be perfectly honest I have not been impressed by some of the Jedi, which does not speak ill of you, Master Skywalker, but instead of many of those who call themselves Jedi but perhaps are not. I am too young to remember what the old Jedi were like, but I cannot help but think that they were eliminated for a reason, and I fear that your Order might be picking up some of the traits that led to the Jedi practices becoming outlawed. The proposed attack on the Stellar Imperium concerns me." Quoll set Desa down just as Desa began to cough.

"Is she ill?" Leia asked, aware that some of the baby's coughing had misted across the bottom of her gown.

"A childhood cold, nothing more. She doesn't carry the Dantooine plague, if that's what you're asking. I need to take her back to the hotel now so she can get some rest. Good day, and I do hope there are no hard feelings. I have the Angwel Collective to think of first, and then the greater galaxy; the personal thoughts of individual Senators are, unfortunately, lower on the list, and we are all adults who know how to do what is best without letting personal hurts get in the way."

---

"Where are you?"

"I got held up at Kalla Tora, but I'm far enough away from them now to make a transmission," Welk explained over a secure and encrypted channel. "I'll be getting to Yavin a little behind schedule but I'm heading that way now."

"We don't need any more problems, Welk. I've done my part, and now we're relying on you to do yours. Why were you at Kalla Tora? That entire system is strongly loyal to the New Republic."

"Because it was on the way to G0-CV. I brought a few pilots with me and we flew over it a few times before they went back to Cyalax and I went on my way to Yavin, except that then the path to Yavin took me too close to Kalla Tora. However, I have information about G0-CV, particularly the second planet, that you'll like."

"As long as Lady Lumiya likes it, you're in the clear. What did you find?"

"Jacen Solo and Anakin Solo are dead."

Darth Inferna was grateful that she'd made a very thorough check of her hotel room for bugging as soon as she arrived. "Really, now. What makes you certain of it?"

"They're not on the planet. What we did find was a trail of dropped supplies leading to the mountain range and about fifteen kilometers into the range. They were on the mountain path about five days before I arrived, and now they're gone. Nobody was around for much more than a five-day journey and we checked over the entire planet for human life signs just in case. Nothing. It's possible that they got away and died somewhere we didn't check, but there are no living humans on GO-CVII. Our scanners looked at the entire surface and down a good 200 meters through the ice, soil, and rock. The closest to humans is a species of hibernating primates near the equatorial line."

"Well done, little one. You've finally finished up the job that was assigned to you many weeks ago. Now go and complete the one you're supposed to be on now, and stay worthy of being the Empress' Apprentice. I expect to be discovered any day now and then I'm counting on you to be finished and ready for the next step."

"Yes, Darth Inferna."

---

Four days later, there was a flurry of activity in the embassy hotel, but Leia was not there to witness it firsthand. She had been spending time with Cilghal, the Jedi healer, whom she had gone to at the first sign of illness. It started in her chest, and spread to her sinuses and eyes, and although she didn't feel horribly sick, she wanted to be sure that nothing was wrong.

A few injections calmed the worst of the symptoms, but Cilghal was unable to do anything about the fact that Leia was slowly weakening in the Force. She kept checking the Senator's cells, looking for the first sign of mitochondrial death, but those organelles were safe. The virus coursing through Leia's blood only attacked midichlorians.

She tried to keep cheery, but alone in her infirmary, wondering what was going on outside of the hospital and inside of her, it was hard. Han stayed nearby, but neither of them felt it would be wise to call Jaina in from Yavin 8, so they stayed together and waited for some good news to come from Cilghal.

News came, but it wasn't good, and it wasn't from Cilghal. When Luke entered Leia's pale blue room, she didn't notice right away that his face was a mask of pain. She had to see it to feel the sorrow coming from him.

"It's a virus," he said flatly, "and it was a calculated attack. An attack on Force-sensitives, and highly contagious."

Leia's eyes grew round. "I'll tell Cilghal to leave me, then, so that she-"

"It's too late. She's been exposed and her midichlorian count is dropping. You can't tell from where you are, but mine has also been going down. It can be spread by anyone but only affects those with midichlorian counts above an equilibrium amount. So far, no deaths, and I doubt there will be any. This is what the original virus was meant to do. It strips the Force without killing."

Leia leaned back on her pillows and watched Han turn toward the window, leaning against the sill with his hands on it. His head was down and he shook it slowly from side to side. "Perhaps we were wrong to think that the Sith are involved, then," she said. Stripped of the Force? She had grown to rely on her abilities, and felt like she was looking at the world through frosted transparisteel without it. "Luke, I'm sorry. I can't even imagine how you must be feeling right now - and in any other circumstance, I would know."

"I'm not as worried about myself, Leia. There's more." Luke sat down at one side of her bed. He waited until Han turned around, then waved him over to the other side. "Senator Quoll has been arrested and is in custody of the Embassy security force right now. I hope that they'll be able to hold her."

"Arrested?" Han looked over at Luke and frowned. "For what?"

"For a bioattack in the Senate Hall. There are other wrongs but that's the only thing she can be clearly charged with. We've done some more research on Prille Quoll and it turns out that her real name is Prille Baclaw. Her father and older sister were both officers in the Imperial Navy. However, she was addressed, in an encoded transmission that was partially cracked, as Darth Inferna."

"So then she ought to be falling ill too, right?" Han asked.

"If she hasn't been vaccinated. And she might, given that she assumed the Sith would still have their powers, and intentionally unleashed the virus. Desa was the initial vector." Luke waited for that to sink in; that the woman had been willing to infect her own daughter, not even three years old, just to ensure that the virus reached the Jedi. "So far, she hasn't resisted arrest, but I suggested tripling security around her just in case. There are more than two Sith - at least three in total. Her, the aide, and the Empress herself. Empress Shira," Luke said. "Lady Lumiya. Shira a common name, and I suspected that she might have taken the name for Lumiya, but not that they were the same. The Empress seemed too young, but that was a mistake."

"You seem very calm about this," Leia said. She felt tired, a little bit frightened, and nearly overwhelmed by the information coming to her. "It doesn't make sense that she would risk exposure. If feel like we're somehow playing into the hands of the Stellar Imperium. Don't you think there's something else at work here?"

"Yes, there is, and the reason I'm calm is because I'm still on the easy part." Luke tried to smile, but it melted into a grimace. "I think they're trying to get rid of all the Jedi, one way or another - Leia, Han, I didn't want to be the one to have to tell you this, but someone has to tell you and I feel responsible, and I'm family. I'll understand if you're angry, especially since it was me who made the mission assignments upon the evacuation of Yavin 4 in the first place. Part of the transmission -"

"Anakin," Leia breathed, and she covered her mouth. "They found Anakin-"

"The apprentice told Inferna that Anakin is gone, yes." Luke took Leia's hand, and didn't try to stop Han from jumping to his feet and turning away from them. "We don't know what happened, but he confirmed that Anakin died, on a planet called G0-CVII. It's not in any records I was able to find, but might be near Kalla Tora."

Leia cried, and Han swore, and Luke stood stoically by while the target of Han's verbal rage shifted from the Sith to the New Republic to Luke and through the cycles more than once. Only after a few minutes did Leia grab Luke's arm, and she asked: "What about Jacen?"

"Jacen... is at his brother's side," Luke said. "If I know my nephews, they went down fighting, and bravely so."

Luke was not entirely surprised when Han threw him out of the infirmary, and he accepted it. Han and Leia would need time to grieve, time to go through the steps, of denial and of rage. He, also, was glad to be away from them, if only for a short time, so that no one would see him when he broke down. Both of his nephews were dead, and no matter how much he tried to place blame on the Sith, he couldn't help but take some of it onto his own shoulders.