Bloodline (Star Wars)

by Claudia Gray

  Leia looked up from her list of communiqués, which was at least three times longer than usual. “Did they give any particular reason?”

  “Why, no, Your Highness. I would imagine it is normal lobbying activity. Well within regulations.” The droid was never happier than when citing rules. “Therefore it is highly appropriate for them to visit, though I suppose the lack of an appointment is irregular. I could ask them to schedule—”

  “Never mind, Threepio.” Leia set her communiqués aside for the moment. “Show them in.”

  “Right away, Your Highness!” Threepio chirped as he shuffled back into her main office. At least the droid’s enjoying this, she thought. Someone ought to.

  Leia made polite small talk with the small craft manufacturers, then with the ore traders of Gad, then with a group of junior senators from Populist worlds on the Outer Rim. None of them could yet come out and say that they were hoping for her favor if she was elected First Senator; they could, however, hint at the kinds of campaign promises they thought would make that election more likely. Unsurprisingly, all these promises benefited her visitors’ pocketbooks.

  She forced herself to think of Tai-Lin, whose intentions in nominating her she knew to be pure. If Leia was obliged to run for First Senator, she intended to win—and if she won, she intended to do the job well. Setting the right precedent would be important. A few years of strong, disinterested, fair leadership might finally show the people how government ought to be run.

  But how many years?

  The term length and limits were still being debated by the committees, but a seven-year term seemed most likely. Seven years—almost twice as long as the main campaigns in the war against the Empire. Those years had been the most terrifying, heartbreaking, meaningful, and exhilarating of Leia’s life. Was she going to spend twice as much time trapped behind a desk?

  Once the final visitors for the day seemed to have left, Leia leaned her chair back so far she was practically reclining. When Korrie came in and saw her, the girl smiled. “Want me to bring in a cushion so you can put your feet up?”

  “If you do that, I’ll fall asleep. And if I fall asleep, that means I’ll go a whole day without leaving this place. No thanks.”

  “It’s been a big day, I guess.”

  “The first of many to come. Are you sure you’re ready?”

  “If you are,” Korrie replied, obviously meaning it as a sign of solidarity. But Leia again had to ask herself if she was ready for this, or if she even could be.

  Yet she knew in her heart that the war only seemed wonderfully thrilling in retrospect. So many of the exploits she now thought of as “adventures” had, at the time, been terrors. The Empire’s discovery of the Hoth base—the ambush on the forest moon of Endor—the attack run on the first Death Star: Leia wouldn’t give up her memory of any of them, but she wasn’t sure she would’ve relived a single second.

  (Well. Maybe the time Han had run through the ice tunnels of Hoth to rescue her.)

  She told herself that what she had been doing then would be very much the same as her role as First Senator were she elected, because she would be doing her duty. If you only did your duty when it suited you, then you weren’t actually putting duty first at all. Leia knew that, believed it and accepted it.

  Didn’t make her duty any more enjoyable.

  “Your Highness?” C-3PO peered through the door. Leia was about to tell him to ask any more visitors to come back tomorrow when he added, “Lady Carise Sindian to see you.”

  “Right. The documents about the governorship on Birren. Send her in.” Leia straightened just in time for Lady Carise to sweep in wearing her latest ornate gown. “Lady Carise. Leaving already?”

  “As you said, Princess Leia, the inauguration takes some time. So, better to begin early.” Lady Carise set out the holos to be verified with Leia’s thumbprint, her self-satisfaction so obvious it made Leia itch.

  Might as well have a bit of fun with this, she decided.

  “It’s probably as good a time as any to be away from the Senate.” Leia spoke idly, almost absentmindedly, as she went through the verifications. “Looks like the Centrists won’t have a candidate to field for quite some time.”

  Lady Carise’s deep-golden skin did not blush easily, but the faintest reddening of her cheeks was enough to tell Leia she’d struck home. “I feel confident our senators will soon reach consensus.”

  “I share your confidence. It’s not as if five or six or even ten Centrists were fighting it out to be the candidate.” Leia knew the number was at least that large and likely to grow. The Centrists were so power-hungry that none of their leaders could pass up the opportunity to wield the greatest power for themselves. “After all, yours is the party that values control. What better proof of that can there be than self-control?”

  This time, Lady Carise couldn’t even reply, either from embarrassment or from exasperation. Surely even she saw the irony, though. The bickering Populists had, instantly and wordlessly, agreed on a candidate, while the Centrists couldn’t find their own center.

  “The more I think about it, the more I think a First Senator might not be a terrible idea,” Leia concluded as she verified the final document, pushed it across to Lady Carise, and smiled. “Otherwise, our fellow senators could run around in useless circles forever. Couldn’t they?”

  “Certainly it’s time for a change.” That was as much as Lady Carise could manage. “Thank you, Your Highness.”

  “My pleasure.” Leia gave her a little wave as she went out the door.

  —

  “Destination, ma’am?” asked the pilot. This was a courtesy, not a necessity; he would have filed his charted course days ago. Lady Carise approved of the formalities.

  “Birren, the capital city spaceport.”

  “Aye, ma’am.”

  Lady Carise would normally have gone directly to her cabin, but today she followed the pilot to the control room. If her presence surprised him, he was too well mannered to reveal it. He flew a top-of-the-line vessel, befitting a royal journey, and as such every area of the ship displayed streamlined elegance. Even in the control room, the piloting controls had been tapered down to thin, shining panels. The transparent bubble around them revealed a full hemisphere of the starry sky beyond. She could imagine stepping into air, into space itself, and floating free.

  If I weren’t royal, and a senator—I might have enjoyed being a pilot.

  But Lady Carise caught herself. What a silly thing to wish for. Anyone who could be royal would be.

  Anyone, that was, except for Princess Leia Organa.

  How could the princess value her position so little? Given that she’d been adopted into the nobility to begin with, should she not be more grateful, more honored, not less? Certainly her behavior had turned common, mocking the perfectly ordinary political process of choosing a candidate. The Centrists weren’t behaving badly; they were behaving normally.

  So how had the Populists managed to behave well?

  By having no other leaders worth the naming, of course. The Populists had realized their benches were filled with the petty and the fractious and promptly seized upon Leia Organa as their only viable option. The Centrists, however, had a wealth of potential candidates. Soon the strongest would assert himself, and the race could begin in earnest.

  Her transport eased deeper into space, freeing itself from the pull of Hosnian Prime’s gravity. As the far moon passed out of view, the pilot said, “Prepare for the leap to hyperspace on my mark. Three, two, one, and—”

  The ship shuddered. The stars elongated. Lady Carise caught her breath as they slipped into hyperspace and left everything else behind. No matter how often she traveled through space, that thrill never left her.

  Cheered, she nodded toward the pilot and headed to her luxurious quarters, where her droid would already be preparing tea. Not even Princess Leia’s attitude would ruin this glorious journey for her, nor her love of the political process. Let the Populist
s have their day to laugh and point. Another day was coming, brighter and better. A day when the galaxy would again be rightly governed, and the strength of the Centrist worlds would be revealed like a sword finally being pulled from its scabbard.

  And Lady Carise would be one of those who brought that day to dawn.

  No espionage in the Senate offices, check.

  So Joph acted mildly surprised when his superior officer told him Senator Organa had requested him for a routine flight on the Mirrorbright, perhaps to train as a backup pilot. More surprising was when he and Greer actually took the ship into orbit—but of course that made sense. Their story had to check out.

  As soon as the Mirrorbright had entered the upper atmosphere, however, the princess said, “Okay, let’s hear it.” Joph had thought they’d go into the main room, but instead Senator Organa took the auxiliary chair and sat with them at the controls. “What did you find?”

  The words gushed from Joph before he could even think about checking them. “Daxam Four is the place for sure. On the Outer Rim. There’s some group there called the Amaxines who are mixed up with all of this somehow, and…” His voice trailed off as he realized that in his enthusiasm he had just stepped all over Greer’s report. She raised one of her angular eyebrows at him, and he thought, You have got to stop trying so hard. “Um, you explain the rest, Greer.”

  “There’s not much else to explain,” Greer said drily, “except that whoever these Amaxine guys are, they’re bad news. Pilots who have spent their whole careers running spice don’t like to tangle with them. They oversee shipments coming in and out of Daxam Four—couldn’t get confirmation on the likely cargo, but it’s definitely illegal, and operating on a scale that suggests Rinnrivin Di is involved. How many people could be moving that much cargo through a backwater like Daxam Four?”

  “Amaxines,” the princess said thoughtfully. The lights from the control panel illuminated her from beneath in gold and green. “How strange.”

  Caught off guard, Joph said, “Wait. You’ve heard of them?”

  “I’ve heard of the legend of the Amaxines. It’s an old story—one my mother told me, dating back to the dawn of the Old Republic.” Princess Leia’s eyes gazed into an unseen distance. “Supposedly they were a warrior people, their entire culture based on battle. Instead of currency, they traded weapons for goods and services. The tale has it that they refused to make peace with the Old Republic but knew they could never defeat such an enemy. So instead they pointed their ships at the galaxy beyond ours and left forever, searching for yet another war to fight.”

  “Which means they spent eternity wandering around in the void of space,” Joph said. “Who names themselves after those guys?”

  “Not many people, which is why I was able to track this down pretty quickly.”

  Greer punched a few buttons on her main monitor, and the green arc of their orbit above Hosnian Prime disappeared, replaced by a chart that looked like a cobweb—numerous connections all leading toward one central point. He leaned over Greer’s right shoulder as the princess leaned over the left, and Greer began tracing the paths with her finger. “There’s no record of such a group, at least not in any public informational grid. However, I was able to track mentions of the word Amaxine above any typical count.”

  Fascinated as he was by this, Joph couldn’t help asking, “How did you figure out a ‘typical count’ for this one obscure word?”

  Greer sighed. “I asked Threepio.”

  Joph had only worked with the droid once, but he already knew that C-3PO would have searched exhaustively through months’ worth of galactic communication just to answer Greer’s question. “Okay, then, the count’s accurate.”

  “The Amaxines, or Amaxine warriors, only get mentioned in a few specific areas. Certain worlds, mostly clustered in one section of the galaxy, had a much higher-than-average hit rate. And the world with the most hits of all was, you guessed it, Daxam Four.” Greer pointed her finger into the center of her holographic chart—the section of the web where the spider could be found.

  “Do we have any information about these Amaxines?” The senator folded her arms. “Any mention of exactly what business they’re operating that requires so much ‘discretion’?”

  “Not much,” Greer admitted. “Apparently they pay enough to keep people’s mouths shut. But from what I’ve gathered, they’re a kind of local planetary militia.”

  Planetary militias weren’t unusual. However, Joph knew it made no sense for Daxam IV to have one; it wasn’t a criminal target or bordered by known enemies. And the amount of money the Amaxines seemed to be collecting from Rinnrivin Di—that was more than any militia could possibly need to defend a planet from raiders. Senator Organa said, “What kind of world is Daxam Four?”

  Joph could answer this one, but he waited for Greer to nod before he began. “Outer Rim, subarctic desert climate, still primarily self-reliant—they limit offplanet commerce, which is kind of weird, seeing as how it’s a Centrist planet. Usually they’re the ones who want everyone to be able to buy and sell everywhere. We could’ve picked up cargo there—we learned how to get those jobs—but we kinda figured that would take our mission from ‘unauthorized’ to ‘illegal.’ ”

  “You’re learning caution, Seastriker.” Senator Organa smiled at him, just for a moment.

  “Speaking of Centrist worlds,” Greer continued as she gestured at the chart, “what do you want to bet almost every one of these planets has in common?”

  Joph’s eyes widened. “These are all Centrist worlds?”

  “Not all, but most. The others are mostly neutral planets known to be major vectors in the spice trade.” Greer leaned back, obviously satisfied with her conclusions. “I think some Centrist senators might just be taking kickbacks in return for hiding what looks like the biggest drug cartel of the past twenty years.”

  But the princess shook her head no. “That’s not what I sense.”

  Joph frowned. Sense? What did that have to do with anything? He knew better than to ask out loud.

  Greer, however, seemed to understand. “Really? You don’t think this is a Centrist plot? That’s the most obvious interpretation.”

  “Which is why we can’t afford to jump to conclusions now,” Senator Organa continued, and she sounded logical again. “We only have a small piece of the puzzle, so we can’t assume we already see the solution. Besides, I don’t trust a lot of the Centrists, but most of their leaders are too stodgy to ever think about skimming money off the spice trade—if that’s even what’s happening here.”

  “You’d be surprised what people will do for money,” Greer said darkly. She looked up from her chart to gaze through the transparency. The view beyond was the black of space above, pale atmosphere blue below. It was as if they were suspended between ground and sky.

  “Not much surprises me.” The princess frowned as she studied the chart again. “This may be less a matter of shared political beliefs, more a matter of the Amaxine warriors being active only in this area of space.”

  “So do we investigate there?” Joph couldn’t wait for another mission. Maybe she’d say they could start today.

  “Perhaps, but I want to get someone else’s advice on this first,” Senator Organa said.

  Greer gave her a look. “Do you mean Casterfo?”

  Joph wondered how that guy had moved so quickly from obstacle to ally, but apparently he had, because Princess Leia nodded and said, “He’s the only Centrist I trust at all. Besides, he’s an up-and-comer in their faction. That means he has connections and influence on those worlds I don’t, and he can ask questions without attracting as much attention as I would. Also, if he had anything to do with this, he wouldn’t have jumped into that situation on Bastatha and nearly gotten us both killed.”

  “Just weird to hear you approving of a Centrist,” Greer said, but by now she was smiling. “Never thought I’d see the day.”

  Senator Organa sighed. “Honestly, neither did I.”

>   —

  When Ransolm Casterfo received Princess Leia’s message, he quickly agreed to another meeting—and to her request that they meet offsite from the Senate. If he went to her office, that would mean signaling his lower rank; such behavior was appropriate but not conducive to the kind of partnership he hoped to build with Leia Organa.

  And obviously we’ll never meet here again, he thought as he looked around his office, smiling slightly at his newest acquisition, a TIE pilot’s helmet in such good condition it still gleamed. My collection agitates her past the point of reason.

  Instead they arranged to meet at the hanging gardens, one of the genuine delights Hosnian Prime had to offer. An enormous building of sandstone had been constructed in the shape of a staggered pyramid, each floor hollow in the center. It stood at the edges of the vast capital megalopolis, so visitors could enjoy the glittering skyline or the distant horizon, depending on where they sat. Beautiful plants of all varieties sprouted from boxes both inside and out, and on the inside, tall, willowy trees grew, often blossoming into pale-blue flowers. They received the light they needed from the ample spaces between each floor, which let the sun’s rays slant through. The serenity within the hanging gardens contrasted with the activity outside, a constant swirl of low-flying air traffic.

  “And that area, down there?” He pointed as he settled into the chair next to Princess Leia. His gesture took in a few dozen craft that hovered near the ground, positioned to get a good view of both the gardens and the sunset. “I imagine that’s where young lovers go when they claim to be somewhere else.”

  Princess Leia smiled down at them—but sadly, Ransolm thought. She said, “They’re taking time to be young. Good for them.”

  At first he wasn’t sure what to make of her melancholic mood, but when she showed him the datapad with Greer Sonnel’s findings, Ransolm thought he understood. “You suspect a Centrist conspiracy?”

  “No. In fact, I’m almost sure that’s not it.” Princess Leia shook her head. “But I think that these Amaxine warriors, whoever they are, seem to be hiding out in Centrist territory. They’re handling almost all the cargo going in or out of that planet. And the only person we know doing business there on a grand scale is Rinnrivin Di.”