Chapter Eight

Leia's image loomed large before the assembled governing party of the New Republic, projected before the 
esteemed group by Artoo Detoo's holographic programming.  Luke stood at the back of the Assembly Hall, 
watching his sister address the members from whose ranks she had chosen to withdraw.  Ethereal in her 
dark beauty, enhanced by the simplicity of her white robes of office, Leia addressed her people for perhaps 
the final time.  Her slender fingers laced together and resting lightly upon her stomach, the Chief of State 
spoke with characteristic sincerity. 

"Honorable leaders of the New Republic, fellow ministers and counselors...my dear brother, Luke.  By the 
time you view this hologram, I will be light years away.  I realize that my actions may come as a shock and 
I will, therefore, do my best to help you to understand the decision I have reached.

"As many of you know, I am expecting a child.  As many of you also know, my children have inherited 
abilities unique to the Jedi, natural talents, which necessitate their being sequestered during the first two 
years of life.  I have, in the past, acquiesced to sending them away for this period of isolation, though I 
found the situation nearly intolerable.  Faced again with this unhappy eventuality, I have thought long and 
hard about the dilemma Fate has presented me and mine, and have made a decision that I should have made 
a long time ago.  It is my hope that at least the parents among you will understand."

Leia's image unclasped the hands before her and spread them wide, appealing for understanding.  "I have 
devoted the majority of my life to serving the old Imperial Senate, the Rebel Alliance, and finally, 
thankfully, the New Republic which we fought so hard to establish.  I have served as your Chief of State, 
and have done so happily, for eight long years.  But, I have done my duty.

"The New Republic is strong," she continued.  "Our leaders are strong, supremely capable of maintaining 
our government.  I, however, do not feel that I can adequately uphold my office while yet another of my 
children is taken away for such a long period of time.  It is for this reason that, effective immediately, I 
hereby resign as your Chief of State and respectfully beseech you to appoint another in my stead."

A wave of exclamations swept through the assemblage and Luke glanced at Mon Mothma, originally Chief 
of State, seated at the central dais, her hands folded serenely before her, showing no outward sign of 
emotion.  Despite the calm mask she wore, Luke could detect an immediate tautness in the woman's Sense 
as she digested Leia's words. 

Leia's image continued.  "It is my hope that each of you can find it within you to forgive me and perhaps, 
with the passage of time, you may come to understand the choice that I have made.  In taking this two-year 
period as my own personal exile from government, I have left Coruscant with my husband and children on 
a voyage of discovery, our destination to remain undisclosed.  Perhaps, at the end of our baby's isolation 
period, we may wish to return to Coruscant.  Perhaps not.  I cannot guarantee that I would - or could - 
return to that way of life.  I also understand that in my absence, events will continue to move forward, and 
that at the end of our sojourn, there may no longer be a place for me among your councils."

Leia's eyes took on a dreamy expression and Luke's throat clutched tightly as he watched her image say 
goodbye.  It had been so long since he had seen his sister without the tell-tale signs of stress in her eyes and 
in her Sense.  Who was he to say that the Force had not moved  her to make this decision?

"Dear friends, I am going away with my family," she said serenely, her features softening, her face alit with 
a wondrous glow.  "For the first time since I left Alderaan so many years ago, I am going home.  Please be 
happy for me.  My thoughts and prayers will be with you always.  May the Force be with you as well."

Her image faded, and Luke heard the massive exhalation of the people around him, realizing that they, too, 
had been holding their breath.  Although he had known basically what to expect from his sister's message, 
he had not viewed the hologram until the hastily assembled meeting of the Council.  Seeing his twin again, 
looking so real, so lovely in her robes of purest white, made his heart ache.

She had been gone less than a day and already he felt as if it had been years.  Luke had a pretty good idea 
where Han had taken them, but he had no desire to pursue them; not after recent events, though he was 
somewhat heartened by the knowledge that their final parting had not been a bitter one.

The heart-felt embrace shared with his sister on the landing platform acted as balm to the open wound of 
their earlier harsh words.  But bittersweet memory did nothing to ease the emptiness he felt at the loss of 
his family.  Again, Luke felt that he had been orphaned.

He shook himself out of his reverie.  I am a Jedi Master, he thought sternly.  I am strong in the Force...and I 
have a job to do.  He turned to make his way from the Assembly Hall, down the busy corridors to the Old 
Senate Library where he had a date with a computer screen, a massive databank, and a dark mystery that 
begged to be solved.  The sooner he could uncover the shadowy threat to his family, the sooner he would 
be reunited with them. 

******************

Lando Calrissian burst into the quiet study chamber where Luke had sequestered himself for the last several 
weeks, deep within the inner sanctum of the Old Senate Library.  The tired Jedi had been punching the 
computer console since early that morning, and as he looked up from the screen toward the door where he 
sensed Lando's approach, he was surprised to notice the fading light outside the massive windows in this 
wing of the library.

"Lights up," Lando snapped as he came through the door, approaching the lone figure at the table on the far 
side of the room.  Luke looked up at his friend, rubbing his tired eyes as the illumination in the room 
increased.  He watched as Lando pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down with a flourish, sweeping 
his ever-present billowing cape over the back of the chair.

"Okay, Luke, let's have it," he said quietly, folding his arms and fixing the younger man with a serious 
look.  "Where have they gone?"

Luke returned his attention to his screen, anxiously awaiting the results of his most recent query, 
impatience growing within him at a discouraging pace.  "I didn't ask them," he told Lando in a flat, 
expressionless voice.  A Jedi feels no passion, he reminded himself, and continued quietly, "I'm just glad 
they're gone." 

"Why?"  Lando was incredulous.  "Why would they just up and leave, without any kind of warning?  What 
in the stars were they thinking about, for Leia to resign from office, for them to leave everything behind, 
and just take off like that?"  He rested his forearms on the table before him, leaning toward Luke.  "What's 
happening here, buddy?"

Luke considered his question for a moment before finally deciding to level with his friend, perhaps the only 
old friend he had left to confide in, besides Wedge, who was off planet on assignment.  "They've taken off 
so that they don't have to turn the new baby over for sequestering.  They seem to think they can shelter her 
from Dark Side influences by themselves."  He shrugged and checked the display terminal again, still on 
stand-by.

"I hope for all our sakes that they're right." 

"But I didn't think the baby was due for another couple of months," Lando protested.  "Why did they take 
off all of a sudden like that?"

Luke's thoughts returned unwillingly to the stormy evening he had spent at the Solos, their last night on 
Coruscant, and the consequences of the angry words that had been exchanged.  "We...had a little 
disagreement, about a number of things.  I guess they felt the time was right for them to take off."  The 
terminal beeped its readiness and he focused again on his console, his shoulders sagging in frustration at 
the disappointing results.

Another dead-end.  He had been searching the old Imperial records for weeks, looking for that random 
elusive clue that could open the door to the mystery of the darkness he was certain resided here, buried 
somewhere in the bowels of the old Imperial Palace.  As yet he had found nothing to aid him in his search. 

Lando was quiet for a moment, deep in thought.  "Is it my imagination, or does there seem to be a lot of 
that sort of thing going on around here lately?"  From the moment he had touched down on Coruscant a few 
hours earlier, he had noticed an escalation in tension among the inhabitants, something in the air, in the way 
people looked at each other, how they moved, spoke.  He had noticed it everywhere, in the pit crews at the 
central spaceport, the service people in the modest apartment he had procured for his stay, and especially in 
his closest friends.

Rarely had he seen Han and Leia bicker as he had seen them do over the past few months.  For two people 
of such strong spirits it would have been unrealistic to not expect them to quarrel from time to time, but 
during his last visit Lando had noticed a tension in his old smuggling partner never before seen, an edginess 
to his personality.  Han had been like a caged animal waiting to spring at the first opportunity.  And, though 
Lando had no doubts about Han's love for Leia, he had detected an unmistakable air of restlessness in his 
friend, a restlessness that he now felt might have been building for months, maybe years.

Now that he thought about it, he realized that he had actually expected this sort of thing to happen, despite 
Han's remarkable show of patience over the last ten years or so.  His very nature would prevent the 
Corellian from indefinitely abiding by the forced rigidity of the lifestyle he had assumed when he married 
Leia.  His endurance had been bound to reach an end at some point or another.  It was Leia's resignation as 
Chief of State that had thrown Lando for a loop, along with everyone else on Coruscant, with the possible 
exception of the man seated at the terminal before him.

"No, I don't think it's your imagination," Luke muttered, punching yet another query into the network.  

Leia had told him of the lingering, howling spirit of Palpatine that she had encountered in the space around 
Endor where he had died.  Luke thought perhaps a similar phenomena might have taken place within the 
walls of the Imperial Palace. There had to be something buried somewhere that would give him a clue.  
Surely there was some mention of tragedy, disaster, a scintilla of information, of monumental darkness 
strong enough to leave a lasting impression in the corporeal plane of existence.

Find it he would, of that Luke was certain.  The question of when he would find it, however, weighed 
heavily on his mind.  Somehow he felt an urgency to uncover the answer before the birth of the new little 
Jedi.  But it was beginning to look as if he was going to need every standard day of the next few months to 
be able to do so.

"Well, maybe it's a good thing they did leave," Lando offered.  "Maybe it's better in the long run for them 
to get the kids away from here, get Leia to some neutral world before the baby comes.  If they're not going 
to go along with isolating the little one anyway, why not let them all be exiled together?"

Lando scratched his chin; actually, come to think of it, it sounded exactly like something Han would have 
done ten or fifteen years ago, before he got so bound up with the niceties of governmental goings-on.  
Maybe his friend knew what he was doing after all.

"That's what I think," Luke replied.  "And you're right.  I saw them just before they took off, up on the 
landing platform, and we sort of made amends."  He remembered the look in Han's eyes as they clasped 
hands, his gift of the ancient Force blessing, and knew deep within him that he and his brother-in-law 
would eventually return to their normal state of camaraderie.
  
Leia, however, worried him.  Luke was concerned that her fear of losing Arcadia to isolation was clouding 
her judgment.  He wished he could touch her mind to a degree where they could come to some mutually 
satisfying resolution to their dilemma.  But, given recent events, he was still hesitant to reach for her.  It 
was much too soon for that.

He prompted the computer again as Lando extracted a promise for updates on the search and stood to leave, 
sweeping across the library and disappearing through the huge arched doorway.

Luke felt a tickling in the back of his mind.  There had been something about Lando's reference to the 
continual state of emotional turmoil among the inhabitants of Coruscant.  Something was disturbing every 
being and every thing, on a level so deeply hidden that they were hardly aware of it.  What was whipping 
up the populace like this?

He was glad that Han and Leia had taken their children away from this place.  The console beeped the 
completion of its search, and he examined the screen, groaning as yet another negative response appeared.  
Luke switched off the system with a swipe of the Force and stood up, rubbing his weary eyes.

Even Jedi need to sleep sometimes, he remembered having once said to Han not so very long ago, in their 
happier days, before this hateful presence had invaded their lives.

Luke Skywalker pulled his Jedi robe around his shoulders and began the long walk home.  

* * * * * * * * * * * 

Han and Chewbacca had been working on their treehouse since the day after they set down on Endor.  Born 
and raised on the arboreal world of Kashyyyk, where every home was a living part of the massive wroshyr 
trees that covered the planet, the Wookiee had extensive experience in constructing habitable dwellings 
hundreds of meters above the ground.  Between the two of them, Han and Chewbacca had years of 
combined expertise with repulsorlift technology, and Leia had faith in their ability to construct the fairytale 
house with appropriate safety features.
  
As the weeks wore on, she and the children took great pleasure in watching the two engineers piece 
together the massive structure that would be their new abode.

She craned her neck, watching her husband as he hung far above her, suspended by a thick orange safety 
tether to the heavy branch of their host tree.  Wielding a plasma torch in one hand, he reached across his 
body with his other for fastenings stashed in the utility belt at his waist.  He had stripped off his shirt and 
Leia's pulse quickened at the sight of the faint sheen of sweat glinting off of the smooth skin of his back.

She sat outside the Falcon in one of the self-conforming chairs that Han had thoughtfully brought along.  
Off in the distance, her enhanced Jedi senses picked up the sounds of the lively twins leading poor See-
Threepio on a merry chase through the underbrush, and she smiled to think of the litany of complaints that 
the droid was sure to subject the family to as a result of their most recent foray into the woods.

Within her she felt the stirrings of baby Arcadia getting in her morning exercise, a usual occurrence each 
time Leia found a moment to sit quietly.  The child's pattern of activity was like clockwork, she thought, 
rubbing her stomach gently.

Every morning began with vigorous kicking, sometimes waking both parents with the movement and 
providing a pleasant start to the day as she and Han lounged in their bunk.  Although he had in the past 
proclaimed that anyone who talked to their own stomach was slightly nuts, Leia had noticed that he had 
conveniently excluded himself from this judgment.  He had taken to resting his face against her burgeoning 
belly, talking to the baby while she got in her licks, delighted with the sweeping movements visible through 
his wife's nightgown.

A thunderous crashing in the bushes to her left signaled the arrival of the twins.  With a boisterous greeting 
they burst through the greenery, laughing and calling for the poor protocol droid to hurry up.  Leia turned to 
look at them fondly, thinking of how full of life and energy they were, how happy they appeared to be with 
their new home.

Not since their early days on Munto Codru had they had such occasion to run and jump and play with the 
abandon that they now exhibited on Endor.  Their fresh young faces glowed with health, their dark eyes 
dancing with excitement as they ran to her and promptly dropped to their knees on either side of her.  She 
smoothed their rich, dark hair
affectionately and caressed their Senses with pride, extending her loving projections to a napping Anakin, 
raising her eyes to her husband and transmitting the cherishing wave to him.

Without warning, the wind shifted and blew a tangle of massive limbs into the tether to which Han was 
bound.  Off balance, he whirled helplessly, the force of the breeze blowing him in a circular arc and 
perilously close to the open flame of the plasma torch.  As if in slow motion, Leia watched in horror as the 
flame cut through both the greenery and the bright orange tether, and for one terrible moment her heart 
ceased beating as her husband plummeted toward the ground.

As if from a great distance she heard Chewbacca's horrified Wookiee roar, and Leia sprang from the chair, 
reflexively reaching out with her limited Jedi abilities.  Desperately, she strained to catch Han's weight in a 
Force-grip, despairing as she realized that she was not strong enough to hold him alone.  Then, to her 
amazement, she felt the combined strength of the twins join her and the three of them caught Han in a firm 
hold, gently lowering him to the ground.

Jacen and Jaina dashed to their father's sprawled form.

"Are you okay, Daddy?" Jaina trilled, throwing herself down beside him, patting him anxiously.  Jacen 
dropped to his knees at Han's other side, enthusiastic at their accomplishment.  "Dad, Dad, did you see what 
we did?"

Han sat up slowly, shaking his head from side to side, rejecting the fall-induced dizziness.  He looked up at 
his children, in awe of what had just taken place, and grabbed them, hugging them to him, grateful for once 
that he was the father of Jedi.  When the frantic thumping of his heart finally quieted, he looked up at Leia 
and saw that her eyes were fixed and staring, her breathing rapid and shallow.

"It's okay, kids," he told the twins, brushing himself off and getting to his feet.  "You guys are pretty handy 
to have around, you know that?"  They nodded enthusiastically and, assured of his well-being, darted off in 
search of further adventures.  Han looked again at Leia and went to her, alarmed at her pallor, the shock 
visible in her dark eyes.

He walked up to her and took her trembling hands in his.  "You okay, Princess?" he asked quietly.

She looked at him blankly.  "Am I okay?" she asked, unbelievingly.  "Am I okay?" she repeated and 
suddenly the reality of the near fatal accident swept over her and she burst into tears. "Oh, Han..." she 
whispered, reaching for him and he took her in his arms, rubbing her back as she wept against him.

After a few moments, he held her away from him again and smiled down into her teary eyes.  "Thanks for 
catching me, sweetheart," he murmured and kissed her, brushing the tears from her cheeks.  "Now enough 
of that nonsense," he admonished.  "I'm fine, you're fine, we're all fine."  He kissed her forehead and eased 
her back to rest again in the chair, dropping to a sitting position at her side.  He exhaled in a rush, reaction 
setting in. 

Han sat on the ground at Leia's feet, leaning his head against the warmth of her legs.  She smoothed the hair 
from his sweaty forehead, and he focused on the tenderness of her touch and closed his eyes, opening 
himself to her calming influence. 

The near catastrophe had given him a whole new respect for the Jedi.  Suddenly, it didn't matter so much 
that his family had the talent and he did not.  Han Solo was just grateful to be alive.

***************** 

Leia was strangely quiet the remainder of the day, going through the motions of preparing the evening 
meal, making the children's beds ready to receive them.  Han noticed that she ate very little at dinner, 
pushing her food around on her plate, finally giving up and excusing herself from the table.  After a 
moment, he stood up, left the children in the care of Threepio and Chewbacca, and followed his wife 
outside.

He found her leaning against the tree that had nearly been the death of him, and it was immediately 
apparent to Han that she was still very upset about the morning's near disaster. 

He came up behind her and turned her so that he could see her face, streaked with tears.  Silently he pressed 
her head against his chest, and patted her shoulders.  "It's okay, sweetheart," he said quietly.  "Go ahead and 
do it.  You'll feel better for it."

As if she had been waiting for permission to let down her guard, Leia gave up the fight and clung to him, 
shaking with great sobs that threatened to tear her apart.

Han held her until her tears were spent and longer, until she finally quieted, and hung limply in his arms.  
He stroked her hair, kissed her head with great tenderness, and gently moved away from her a bit, lifting 
her chin to assess her emotional state.  She looked up at him with her great dark eyes, and in them he read a 
fear that he had never seen her show.  His heart turned over.  He had always thought her fearless.

"What's the matter, sweetheart?" he asked gently.  "What are you afraid of?"

She buried her head in his chest again.  "Losing you," she said faintly, her tears reducing his shirt to a 
clinging dampness.  "It all happened so fast.  I saw you fall and I tried to catch you but I wasn't strong 
enough to hold you by myself.  The Force only knows what would have happened if the twins hadn't been 
here to help."

"But they were here," Han reminded her.  "And you did catch me and we're all fine."  He patted her back 
again.  "So stop worrying about it.  It's over."

She turned self-consciously and moved away from him, gazing out over the forest, obviously still very 
disturbed.  "But, Han, I should have been able to catch you," she tried to explain, "all by myself, without 
any help from the twins.  I am a Jedi, the Force flows through my veins just as it does through Luke's.  Yet 
I don't have anywhere near his control."

She turned and looked back at him.  "That last evening, after you left...Luke and I had words.  I gave this 
wonderful passionate speech about the fact that I am a Jedi, just as he is, and made much of the fact that we 
share the same parentage.  I scolded him for having no faith in me, no confidence in my abilities as a Jedi 
mother, to protect my own children."

She looked down at her stomach, rubbing it lightly and her voice dropped to a whisper.  "Now I see why he 
couldn't have that faith in me.  I'm not strong in the Force, no matter how I try to convince myself 
otherwise."  She looked back up at him, shook her head sadly.  "I simply don't have enough control over it, 
to channel it into use when I need it!"

Han studied her face, reading in it deep-seated fears, long repressed.  Leia had been a woman of action for 
so many years, before settling into the relatively sedate role of diplomat and politician.  He remembered 
their fighting side by side against Imperial stormtroopers on any number of backwater worlds, and had seen 
her face down monsters that defied imagination, throwing herself into the thick of battle without a thought 
for her own safety.  Now, once again, she had come face to face with her greatest fear: that of losing 
someone she loved, and being helpless to prevent it.

Han's heart went out to his wife and he searched for something to say that would make her feel better...and 
found there was nothing he could say.  This was something intensely personal to Leia.  Han knew, and 
knew that she knew, that he would do all in his power to keep them all safe and happy and healthy, but 
there was no way he could ever completely banish her fears for her loved ones.  Life was too unpredictable 
to be able to offer that assurance, especially, it seemed, in their end of the galaxy.  Leia was going to have 
to work this out within herself.

"What do you want me to say, sweetheart?" he finally asked gently.

She sighed and shrugged her shoulders helplessly.  Deep within, she missed the calming influence of her 
brother, and yearned to call him to her.  She wanted to ask him to continue the training of the twins and 
Anakin and, above all, to teach her how to control this tremendous gift she had been born with, and had 
passed on to her children.

But it was too soon, she worried.  She was afraid that Han might still be harboring feelings of resentment 
toward Luke, and the last thing she wanted was to bring an unwanted tension back into their lives.

Besides which, there was always the fear that Luke would try to take Arcadia away from them, carting her 
off for sequestration, a thought Leia found intolerable.  No, there didn't seem to be a solution to the present 
dilemma.  "I don't know," she finally said quietly, her shoulders sagging tiredly.

Han came to her and took her in his arms again, holding her tightly against him.  "You let me know if you 
think of anything," he murmured against her hair.  "I'll do anything you want, Princess.  You know that."

She knew that.  Leia relaxed against her husband, wondering just how far he would carry that promise, and 
in spite of herself, her thoughts reached out to her brother.

//Oh, Luke,// she sighed inwardly.  //What am I going to do?//

* * * * * * * * * * * 

Luke started awake, sitting up in bed in his suite in the Imperial Palace, reaching out with his Jedi senses.

//Leia?//

He distinctly remembered feeling the touch of her mind against his; faint though it was, his sister's Sense 
was unmistakable, and in it he had felt a note of desperation.  She needed him but was afraid to call him to 
her.  He reached again.

//Leia?  Hear me.  I can feel your touch.  I'm here.//  His stomach tightened in frustration.  Nothing.

He got out of bed, reached for his robe and belted it around him, attaching his ever-present lightsaber to the 
sash.  He looked at it thoughtfully, a stray memory running through his mind of his early attempts to train 
Leia in the fine art of wielding the ancient weapon.

He remembered the frustration he had sensed in her at the time, and in his later efforts to teach her other 
Force-driven skills.  Certain aspects of her training had come easily, such as the Jedi calming techniques, 
sensory enhancement and pain-control methods she had put to good use during the births of her children.

The more physical aspects of the Force, however, levitation for example, had been a problem for Leia from 
the very beginning of her tutelage, as had the complexities of reading meaning into the Jedi visions that 
would come to them both from time to time.  Luke now wondered if something had happened to cause her 
past frustrations to resurface.

Sighing, Luke strolled across the room to the door servicing the roof and stepped out into the brisk night 
air.  He gazed up at the multitude of brilliant stars that filled the sky, knowing that, somewhere out there, 
his sister was preparing for the birth of her child.  A quick mental calculation left him discouraged at the 
short number of weeks left for him to solve the dark mystery of the Palace.  He would have to step up his 
investigation, he concluded, and wondered what he could do differently that he hadn't already done.

He forced himself to relax, taking in great deep breaths of the crisp night air, his thoughts reaching for his 
twin, wherever she might be.  

//Leia?// 

Silence.  Dead silence.

After a moment he finally admitted the futility of awaiting a response.  Even if she could hear him, Luke 
doubted that she would answer.  Her fear of losing the new baby was omnipresent, deeply ingrained in her 
psyche.

//I'm here if you need me,// he projected into the cosmos, praying that she would somehow pick up on his 
mental broadcast.  //I love you, Leia.  I love you all.  Please don't shut me out.//

With that final heartfelt plea, Luke Skywalker turned to go, making his lonely way back to the darkness of 
his rooms, back to the darkness that haunted his every waking moment...a darkness that must be overcome.

 [End Chapter]