A smile spreads across Rax's face like a consuming fire. It warms him, this news. It's taken too long to get here. So many puzzle pieces to nudge into place. And my, how those pieces were stubborn. Setting up a convincing mystery and threat is delicate work. One must commit to the theatrics but never overdo them; if any detected his shadowy hands above all of it, directing the stage, they would buck like an ill-saddled beast.

The Contingency continues, he thinks.

"Good," Gallius Rax says. "Continue monitoring. Credits will be forthcoming." Then he ends the transmission.

He wonders if Golas Aram is a piece deserving of a nudge or two. Patience, he chides himself. Let the mechanism work.

Part of that mechanism is Sloane.

She is one who has detected his shadow behind it all. That is a problem. Maybe one he can use to his advantage yet.

It is time to call her in.

Time, too, for one last test.

- The room is white and mostly empty. The walls are padded. The windows are many, and the sunlight streaming in is bold and bright.

The only things in this room are Leia and a potted plant.

The plant is a sapling of the sanctuary trees of Endor, though some call it a serpent's puzzle, named so after the way the dark branches weave together in a kind of organic knotwork.

She grew it from a seed-a small knobby acorn given to her by the little Ewok known as Wicket. She grew the plant in a pot of Chandrilan soil, and to her shock and delight, it took.

It has become a focus of her meditations, as suggested by Luke. She decided, after storming out of the meeting room, that it was best to come here. Best for her to focus on something that wasn't the state of the galaxy, or the nascent New Republic, or that nagging feeling in the deep of her middle that Mon has betrayed her in some small but significant way.

She sits with it in the middle of the room.

She clears her mind.

And then she tries to feel the tree.

She does this at least once a day.

Leia has never felt the tree.

Not for lack of trying! She sits here. She empties herself of breath, and then she tries to free herself of thought. Just like Luke taught her to. That part works fine most of the time. But he said it was possible to feel the lifeforce of things with the Force.

She swore to him that she just doesn't have it. It being that mystical, intangible power that her brother possesses and (this thought comes with a set of chills grappling up her spine) that her father-her birth father-possessed, too.

Luke continues to swear that, with time, she will come to feel the Force just as he does. He explained that it was how she felt his pain back during Cloud City-him hanging there, wearied and beaten and about to fall into the roiling clouds below. He said he'd teach her.

And he did teach her. Some things, at least.

Then? He left.

Just like Han left.

Luke...

She finds her mind wandering to him now. Her thoughts reach for her wayward brother like a living thing, like branches seeking the sun. I need you here. I need your help. Luke sometimes had a farm boy's navete, yes, but right now she feels she could use a little of that.

Her mind is a tangle of thoughts. The complexities of politics, the love of (and anger over) Han, the loss of Luke, and above all else the ever-persistent worry about the life she carries- Her skin tingles. Her mind feels suddenly unmoored from the rest of her. Leia feels dizzy enough to fall over.

Oh.

Oh, my!

There! There it is. Washing over her and through her-an awareness unlike any she's ever felt before. A pulsing glow, flickering and strong.

It's not the plant. It's not Luke. It's not even Han.

It's her child.

This isn't just a mother's recognition of the life inside-that, she already knows. She's already well aware of the bump and tumble of that little person she carries. (And she already knows about the heartburn, and the pre-breakfast nausea, and the post-breakfast nausea, and the post-post-breakfast hunger...) This goes beyond all that. This is something separate from her. It isn't a physical feeling. It is all around her. It suffuses her like the perfume from a jungle of flowers. As such, she is suddenly aware of her child's mind and spirit: She senses pluck and wit and steel blood and a keen mind and by the blood of Alderaan is this one going to be a fighter!

Wait.

He?

It's a boy.

It's a boy.

Her hands fly in front of her mouth as she both laughs and cries at the same time. This, she thinks, is the light side that Luke always goes on about-the promise of light, the promise of a new life...

And then, the black edging of the dark side encircles her bliss like a noose. Because what rides swift on the heels of hope but fear-a fear that stretches out far and wide like a growing shadow. Fear of having a child in an unstable galaxy. Fear of whether or not Han is alive-or Luke, too. Will the child grow up with a father? An uncle? A mentor? What is her legacy and what will her boy's legacy be?

Her breath catches in her chest. She has to force herself to breathe.

Clear your mind. Clear it all. Focus, Leia. Focus.

Are those her thoughts?

Or are they Luke's?

- The Empire cares little for the fripperies of life, preferring instead to put a cold gray veneer on just about everything, but Gallius Rax grew up in a dead place, and so putting in this garden here on the upper echelons of the Ravager gives him a source of solace.

From behind him, Rae Sloane clears her throat.

He does not turn. He suspects she has brought a blaster. Sloane does not trust him, but he suspects she feels trapped by her options. The one option that makes the most sense-the one that would demonstrate strength that few others would deny-would be to burn a hole in his back.

Fleet Admiral Rax hopes now to change that.

"You despise me," he says, staring at the stalk of a red-tongued kubari flower-its petals have many layers, each folded against the next. The prettiest, most crimson petals in fact remain hidden from view.

"No," she says. A lie, certainly. "Of course not. I respect you."

"You can respect me and despise me at the same time. I felt much the same way about our former Emperor. He was mighty and deserving of praise. He was also a monster, and one who made mistakes."

That would've been heresy if Palpatine were still alive.

Still might be, if those words were uttered to the wrong person.

"Be that as it may," she says, suddenly uncomfortable, "if you worry about me, please. Don't."

"And yet I do. I know you've been to see Mas Amedda. I know you've been investigating me in a way that goes well beyond cursory checkups. And I would guess that right now, feeling cornered, you are reaching for that elegant chrome blaster you keep at your hip. But I ask you to wait."

In the reflection of the blast-glass enclosure, he sees her hand hovering near the weapon. So close.

To her credit, she denies nothing. Good. He likes her. He would hate to have that feeling diminished by something so weak as a common lie. Lies must be big, grand, full of purpose.

"Go on," she says.

Now, now he turns. His arms spread wide and welcoming. His mouth pulled tight in a cold rictus grin. "I want to tell you my plan."

Confusion flickers on her face like a short-circuiting holovid. "Why? Why now? You've kept me at arm's length."

"Yes. Because I am distrustful by nature. And because the future of this Empire traipses delicately upon a wire. The chasm beneath it is deep and I don't wish to shoulder it into the abyss by trusting the wrong people."

Sloane narrows her eyes. "You're pulling strings, Admiral. I don't know what they're connected to or why you're pulling them. I don't even know who you are or where you come from. You are little more than a shadow-and yet you lead the Empire."

"Secretly. You're the grand admiral here, I'll remind you."

"In title, yes. And your leadership is not that secret. You're out in the open more than you think. Word will get out."

"And when it does, I will confirm that I remain your most trusted adviser-a war hero who supports your own candidacy for Emperor."

"Who are you, Admiral?"

Rax rolls his eyes. Such a brutal, worthless question. He doesn't care to waste time on it. As if the identity of one man is really all that special? The beauty is in the total mechanism, not the parts pulled out of it.

Instead, he cuts to the quick.

"I plan on attacking Chandrila," he says.

The shock on her face-he won't lie and say it doesn't please him. It means she didn't see that coming. If she didn't, nobody will.

"For so long we've remained still, patient, waiting..." she says.

"And now it's time to return to the galaxy and strike at the heart of the New Republic. Our attack will stagger them."

"The fleets hiding in the nebulae? Will you utilize them?"

He offers another vicious smile, and she mistakes it as confirmation.

"When?" she asks.

"Soon. All the pieces are almost in place."

"What pieces?"

"In time, you'll see."

Sloane bristles at that. "I need to know-"

"And I need you to trust. All will become clear in time. I want you with me through all of it, Grand Admiral Sloane. You are a vital resource." He says that last sentence as something he hopes is true. He will have to test her this one last time. Just as he was tested many times. "Do you trust me?"

She hesitates. "I don't know."

"An honest answer. Good. Tell no one of this little talk. I'll let you know when it's time. Be ready."

And with that, he walks past her, because the conversation is over.

It is a difficult thing being a creature without purpose.

The purpose of the man, Malakili, was once to give purpose to such creatures. He was always good with beasts. As a child in a Nar Shaddaa slum, he taught vicious gugverms to stop stealing from the food stores-and over time they became his pets, his friends, his protectors. Later, he would help tame and prepare a variety of beasts for the Hutt circuses: sand dragons and kill-wings and little womp rats in their little outfits. And then later, his precious joy, the rancors. Those, the monsters none could tame but he.

And now his last rancor, Pateesa, is dead.

Crushed by a lucky fool in black.

Worse, his employer is also gone-eradicated by that same lucky fool and his cruel friends. Malakili and the others were left in the palace after Jabba's sail barge erupted in belching fire, all of them unsure as to what exactly to do now. A new Hutt would come to occupy the dais, they said. And so many stayed as the food dwindled and the water ran out. Soon those left began drifting away, too, off into the sands and away across the dunes. No Hutt was coming. The galaxy was changing. Could it be that the Hutts were fighting? Some underworld war pitting slug against slug?

Malakili was one of the last in the palace.

And then one day, he left, too.

He thought maybe to tame the glorious monstrosity at the bottom of the Great Pit of Carkoon (and, failing that, to throw himself into its maw), but the mighty Sarlacc was injured. Burning wreckage from the sail barge had rained upon it. Already its body-considerably more massive than the mouth exposed from the sliding sands-had been partially unburied, its stoma-tubes slit open, its digesting innards pillaged by industrious Jawas. They pulled out weapons and armor, droids and tools. And skeletons, of course.

The creature of Carkoon had a pure purpose, to wait and to eat, and now it was left to thrash and wail in the grip of pillagers. Malakili wept at another life without purpose.

He wandered, as many do. He felt like a scrap of cloth or a wad of trash blown across the desert, pushed this way and pulled that way. Rolling without destination. Without meaning.

And now, he thinks, I am going to die.

The Red Key thugs found him wandering toward Mos Pelgo. They gave chase, but he is older and slower than he used to be. One hit him from behind and now?

Now his face is pressed into the hot sand. A boot pushes on his neck, and the bones in his back grind. One of the Red Key Raiders-men who claim to work for the new mining conglomerate, a conglomerate even nave Malakili knows to be just a front for a criminal syndicate-rips off his leather hood and presses a blaster into the back of his skull. They rip his satchel from his shoulder and empty it onto the sand. His waterskin finds its way into one of the thug's hands, who parts the leather from in front of his face and drinks what little is left. The rest of Malakili's belongings decorate the dirt: a lucky braid of bantha fur and teeth; a small water shiv made of dewback bone; a few droid gears and shiny chits to give to the Jawas or to pay off the grunting Tuskens.

A man who introduces himself as Bivvam Gorge rasps in Malakili's ear: "What else you got, wanderer? These sands are Red Key sands and Lorgan Movellan is taking his cut. Wouldn't want his cut to be your ears, or your tongue, would you?" The second thug chuckles through a respirator.

As if to demonstrate, the first thug stabs a gleaming hunting knife down into the ground. It hits the sand with a hiss.

Above them, the shriek of a blaster bolt- And then, the thug hits the sand, too. He topples like a vaporator knocked flat by a stomping bantha. His head turns toward Malakili as smoke rises from a patch of burned hair and skin on the far side of his skull. The thug's mouth works soundlessly. Then his eyes go dim.

Suddenly, the air erupts with blaster fire. The second thug gargles rage through his respirator, but even this is short lived. He staggers backward, arms flailing, the rifle dropping out of his hand.

That thug joins his friend. The suns will claim him.