STAR WARS EPISODE VII: Forces of Retrograde

CHAPTER I

Coruscant, in the Senate District.

The session just ended. The target is sure to lower zir defenses if you apply the right pressure, but I'll stay within signaling distance in case you decide a pincer maneuver would prove more effective. Good hunting. 

L.B.

As Major General Leia Organa deleted the message and powered off her comm, alone and unobserved in the alcove that had become the staging area for the afternoon's ambush, she allowed herself the luxury of an unguarded frown.

The message was from one of her most reliable contacts in the New Republic Senate, and on top of that, a clever delegate who was generally an excellent judge of character. It was possible she was misconstruing friendly encouragement for blind faith in her abilities, but today something about his positive outlook rubbed her the wrong way.

Leia had spent weeks orchestrating this meeting, passing her target's entourage bribes and favors by the handful like they were nothing more than sweets on Life Day. And yet... something beyond her own intuition whispered to her that the effort was futile, and would've been futile even if the galaxy hadn't learned her greatest secret a month before.

She shut her eyes and let the Force flood over her like high tide over a sandy beach, looking for more specific answers than a vague impression of failure. It was unforthcoming, which was no real surprise. Leia huffed. Her brother made searching these waves for the perfect current to carry him look so kriffing easy.

Bit by bit, senators and representatives began to trickle out of their assigned pods, gathering in knots with allies and acquaintances to discuss the day's intrigues or scheme up some new ones. With a quiet sigh, Leia corrected her posture and smoothed a few flyaway hairs back under her braided crown. Even if this was all for nothing, just yet another failure to add to her ailing success rate of rallying senators to her cause, until Lady Tano had news on the artifact, Leia had no other options.

She sensed her quarry before she saw zir. Taking that as her cue, Leia stepped out of the alcove and began snaking her way through the crowd, back ramrod straight but face open and relaxed. She called pleasant hellos to senators she knew by name, and nodded politely to those she didn't but whose faces she recognized. Few acknowledged her and fewer still answered in kind, but Leia didn't let that get to her.

She'd spent her whole life weaving in and out of politics. She knew far better than to fight fire with fire, even when she had slippery fish to fry.

"Senator Kirotha!" she called warmly once the target was in sight.

There was a lull in conversation, so quick only a trained ear would catch it, before the delegates remembered their social graces and feigned obliviousness. Senator Kirgen Kirotha's secretary, a man who had served under Mon Mothma before her retirement, nodded subtly to Leia and withdrew, taking Kirotha's two other minor aids with him.

Senator Kirotha, for zir part, froze mid-step, zir airborne left boot coming back down on the plush red carpet with a muted thump. Leia could just see the wheels turning beneath zir simple white headdress as Kirotha remembered Leia was someone ze was supposed to like – or pretend to. Alderaan and Chandrila, the planet Kirotha represented, had always had a close relationship. Though Alderaan was no more and the colonies its survivors had founded since its destruction had other senators, the fallen planet's onetime princess was not someone Kirotha could simply overlook.

Ze glanced back, searching for zir aides and a decent excuse to back out. But Leia had already taken precautions for that, and unless Kirotha was audacious enough to call after them and risk snubbing her publicly, the trio would continue to appear completely engrossed in a remote piece of legislation on the secretary's datapad.