by Claudia Gray
Together they clambered up to a small plateau where they stopped to rest and regroup. Leia had thought Kier would check his field generator first, but instead he turned to her. “Why did you do that?”
“What? Save your life?”
That didn’t faze him. “Yes. And risk your own.”
“I couldn’t let you fall.”
“You could, and you should, rather than endanger yourself.”
His words made no sense. “Even if you weren’t my…my friend, I would try to save you just like any other citizen of Alderaan. No, like any other being, from anywhere.” Except maybe Palpatine. He was welcome to break his head wide open.
“Will you listen to yourself?” Kier’s hand closed around her arm. “It’s like you think your own life doesn’t belong to you.”
She started to protest, but stopped herself, because the first words that came to mind were, It doesn’t.
Kier leaned closer, speaking with an intensity that sent chills through her body. “Of course you want to do the right thing. Of course you want to serve the people of Alderaan. And yeah, of course you hate the Empire. But you don’t always have to be selfless. You don’t always have to be the one making the sacrifice.”
“You were hanging on by your fingernails! Nobody else is around—”
“And if you’d fallen? What then? Think about what it would’ve done to the people of Alderaan. To your parents.”
Leia had never considered that. Even as she inwardly quailed at the idea of her mother and father in that much pain, she didn’t think that changed anything. If they’d seen her there, the only individual able to save someone in peril, they would’ve told her to do everything she could regardless of the risk. They were the ones who’d taught her about duty and selflessness in the first place.
Kier took her hand. His skin was as scraped and raw as her own; the touch had to sting for him like it did for her. She wouldn’t have let go for anything.
“You keep trying to take the whole galaxy onto your shoulders.” His words were almost a whisper, and she bent toward him to hear. “If you’re like that when you’re just a princess, what happens when you’re queen?”
“I serve my people.” The response was automatic.
“You deserve to have your own life. You deserve to have someone who puts you first.”
“Maybe.” They were so close now Leia could feel his breath against her cheek. “Do I have somebody like that already?”
Kier tilted his head, studying her expression. At least, she thought he was. At the moment it was hard to look anywhere but his lips. “Yeah. You do.”
His other hand cupped the side of her face, but Leia was the one who leaned in for a kiss.
It wasn’t like she had tons of experience, but the kiss seemed like a good one to her. Great, even. Possibly even spectacular. Then Kier kissed her again, and she realized it could get even better, more than she’d ever dreamed.
They were the last team to the rendezvous point, which earned them a scolding from Chief Pangie before they told her what had happened. One look at Kier’s damaged field generator changed her attitude so completely that she was soon promising to find them an easier hike next time. This earned them a huge grin from Chassellon as they rode back to their ship, plus a friendly tail rattle from Sssamm. But Leia couldn’t pay much attention to any of them, not even to Amilyn’s knowing glance, as she and Kier sat side by side, shoulders and knees touching, his smile matching her own.
Leia had wanted to learn so much during her challenges, but new lessons kept presenting themselves—unexpected ones, on things she’d never guessed she’d need to know.
For instance, she was now learning that the impatience you felt before kissing someone you liked wasn’t nearly as bad as the impatience you felt afterward.
“Concentrate,” Kier murmured as they stood in the center of the target dome. He sounded very severe, which was ironic given that he was the one who kept brushing his hand along her back.
“I’ll watch my targets, hotshot. You watch yours.” A glittering at the edge of Leia’s peripheral vision made her spin sideways, her fingers tightening on the trigger the very moment she’d taken aim. The holographic target “shattered” into dizzying swirls of light before vanishing. She gave Kier a glance over her shoulder, as if she were being smug.
He obviously understood what she really felt, because he breathed in sharply, his targets forgotten. When she smiled, he leaned closer to her, the way he had back on Felucia…
…which gave her the chance to reach past him and blast one of his targets to bits.
“Stang,” he muttered, which made her laugh. “You’re distracting me on purpose, aren’t you?”
“A girl’s gotta win somehow.”
“You usually win by just outshooting me.”
Leia shrugged. “If I don’t change it up, how can I keep you on your toes?”
Abandoning all pretense of paying attention to the game, Kier slung one arm around her and pulled her close for a quick, tantalizing kiss. Too quick, in Leia’s opinion. She drew him back to her, and for a few long minutes the shimmering holographic targets spun and swirled around them in the darkness, safe from harm.
So this was what it felt like to live only in the moment—to forget responsibilities and rules—to find a secret part of yourself within another person, where somehow it had been hidden all along. The ominous future no longer loomed constantly over her; it had been banished to the distant place where it belonged. (It was only a possibility, not even a real thing yet, a prediction that might not come to pass.) She could hardly sleep for thinking about Kier at night, but woke up smiling every morning. After months of loneliness, she was again cherished. Even that wasn’t as sweet as the feeling of cherishing someone back—caring about someone else so much that it felt as if she had two lives to lead, two perspectives on the galaxy, instead of just one. How had she ever managed with just one?
The end chime sounded, startling them from their embrace. Leia laughed when she saw their abysmal scores projected into the arena, and Kier groaned. “Okay,” he said, “next time we have to concentrate, or else our skill levels are going to reset back to beginner.”
“Think about it.” Leia ran her hand along his wiry black hair, idly wishing he’d grow it long enough for her to weave her fingers through. “If our levels reset to beginner, we’ll have to work our way back up again. That means hours and hours of practicing together, all alone in here, just you and me.”
Exaggerating his thoughtful expression, he nodded. “You know, we could use lots more practice like today.”
“So much more.”
“Infinite amounts.”
Before Leia could respond again, a red light shone down from the ceiling of the arena—a familiar signal in the senatorial complex, one that indicated a special announcement. Lettering appeared on the highest screen as a droid voice intoned, “There will be a formal address in the main chamber at sixteen hundred hours. All senators currently on Coruscant are required to attend.”
Such mandatory addresses were rare, and they never meant anything good. A queasy uncertainty punctured Leia’s giddiness; one look at Kier’s face made it clear he felt the same way. He said only, “I don’t think the requirement applies to apprentice legislators—but I think we ought to attend.”
“No, it doesn’t apply to us, and yes, we absolutely have to go.”
Instantly Leia hurried toward the changing rooms. At least being so distracted with each other meant that she and Kier hadn’t worked up a sweat in the arena. If they only changed, with no need to shower, they could make the session easily. She hadn’t realized she could snap back into official mode with such speed. Probably that was a good thing.
However, there was a moment when Kier came out of his changing room still tying his wraparound jacket shut, revealing a glimpse of his bare chest—
“Let’s go,” she said to him, adding inside her head, Snap out of it.
Leia had been a
llowed to sit in her father’s senatorial pod a few times as a little girl, and she’d accompanied him to most of his sessions while she’d been working as his intern. To her it felt very familiar, or it should have.
Yet as she took her place in the pod that afternoon, she became sharply aware that the mood in the Imperial Senate had shifted in the past few months. Normally senators spoke to each other via comms almost constantly in the minutes before an address began, mostly bureaucratic chitchat, the verbal equivalent of the majority of the work they did. While the Imperial Senate was too heavily yoked by Palpatine’s rule, they maintained a sense of busyness and endeavor—an eagerness to accomplish whatever they could.
Today the chamber was very nearly silent. Senators filed in, took their seats, and said almost nothing, not even to the staffers sitting with them in their pods. Most of the sounds Leia heard were the thumps of footsteps and the rustles of robes, along with a few odd coughs and chirps. The stillness unnerved her.
Come to think of it, the Senate sessions had been quieting for a while. The boisterous beginnings she remembered as a tiny child had become more subdued later on, the stillness falling so gradually that Leia had missed it until now. Had the senators forgotten that they still held some authority? That they were one of the few forces standing between Palpatine and absolute power? They couldn’t afford to become passive in the face of resistance; that was when they needed to bear down and work harder….
Then she remembered Arreyel, and sagged in her seat.
“Are you all right?” Kier murmured next to her. Despite his concern, he didn’t seem to recognize the depth of her disquiet—but of course he wouldn’t. He didn’t know her reasons.
Instead of answering his question, she said, “This is your first time in the Senate chamber, isn’t it?”
“Except for one introductory tour.” His grin pierced her through. He was excited about this, thrilled to see it, because he had no better days to compare it to. He still believes. I have to believe too. We can accomplish something in this chamber, even if it’s harder than it used to be.
The entry to the pod slid open, and Bail Organa walked through. His expression seemed as distant as usual, until he saw Leia and Kier sitting side by side, closer than she’d realized they were until now. He raised one eyebrow in what ought to have been a gentle joke. Instead it sparked Leia’s temper. How could he shut her out for so long and yell at her when she was only trying to help, then act like nothing was wrong?
At least she was grown-up enough not to say any of that out loud. She simply half-turned her head, refusing to meet her father’s eyes.
Kier, however, was already getting to his feet. “Good afternoon, Viceroy. I hope it’s not inappropriate for us to attend.”
“Of course not, Mr. Domadi. It’s good you’re both here.” Bail took his seat, drawing his long coat closer around him. The Senate chamber was kept relatively cool—a concession to the many senators whose planets’ elaborate court dress could be suffocating. But Leia knew her father well enough to recognize that gesture and know it had nothing to do with cold. It was a sign he was worried.
Bail Organa was a calm, even-tempered man. He didn’t worry without reason.
The hushed room fell completely silent as the speaker’s pod rose to the center of the room, all lights swiveling to refocus on that spot. Grand Moff Tarkin stood there in his olive-green uniform, a figure as narrow and sharp as the blade of the Rhindon Sword. His image on the pod’s console screen revealed a thin smile on his face—the most ominous sign of all.
“Esteemed senators.” His thin voice rang throughout the chamber, and Leia didn’t think that was just the amplification droids at work. This man knew how to project his authority without seeming even to move. “You will remember the terrible incident but a few weeks ago, when insurgents attempted to compromise an Imperial medical frigate. As paltry an effort as it was, it nonetheless represents an egregious disrespect for the law of the Empire, and for Emperor Palpatine himself.”
Paltry? Taking a whole medical frigate? Leia tried to call to mind the sheer size of the enormous Imperial Starfleet; its ships were so numerous, so titanic, so populated with millions upon millions of officers that it was hard for a human mind to truly comprehend it. Maybe losing one frigate didn’t matter so much.
No. It mattered. Otherwise Tarkin wouldn’t be so determinedly pretending it didn’t.
Tarkin had a prim smile, one that looked as though it knew it didn’t belong on his face. “A thorough investigation revealed that the instigators of this action came from within the government of the planet Christophsis, which has received untold riches from this Empire in order to rebuild from its devastation in the Clone Wars. These leaders chose to reward our generosity with rank ingratitude.”
Bail Organa’s hands closed into fists in his lap. Following her father’s gaze, Leia saw that the Christophsis senatorial pod remained empty.
“Therefore, we have made an example of these leaders—I should say, former leaders. While the ex-senators and territorial supervisors have been jailed for terms of four years or more, the prime minister has been tried, convicted, and executed for treason. Furthermore, his home city of Tophen—found to be the center of this activity—has already been pacified.” That meant hundreds of thousands dead, if not millions. The shock numbed Leia to her fingertips. Tarkin raised an eyebrow, as if he could hear the cries of protest silent within every person in that assembly. “It is hoped that this action, drastic though it is, has served to quell the radical elements at work on Christophsis, to restore the planet to order, and to deliver a message to all those who would threaten the peace our Emperor has given us: we stand here now, always, and forevermore. No matter what else may come, the Empire will endure.”
A few senators from Coruscant and Glee Anselm began to applaud wholeheartedly. Others joined in almost immediately, Bail Organa among them. Although Kier stared at his viceroy clapping for an eternal Empire, Leia understood and put her hands together too.
The recorders would be focusing on every pod, every person. Anyone who failed to show the appropriate enthusiasm for Palpatine’s latest outrage would become a likely target in the future.
Tyranny turns us into liars, she thought, hating herself even as she applauded. Leia looked sideways to see her father smiling sadly at her. He felt exactly the same, she knew, and she couldn’t be angry with him any longer. Although he continued clapping, Bail turned back to Tarkin with his chin held high, his gaze unblinking, in a silent show of defiance.
Her attention shifted over to Kier, who wasn’t clapping. No doubt he didn’t yet understand the full political ramifications of this moment. Maybe he saw her and her father as hypocrites.
Worrying about what he’d make of her didn’t trouble Leia as much as the way he stared at her father. Kier didn’t appear admiring, intimidated, or confused.
He appeared…angry.
When he’d first learned of the plans against the Empire, he’d said her parents were endangering their world through their involvement. This news proved his point. What happened on Christophsis could happen on Alderaan, any day, any moment.
“We should return to Alderaan for a few days,” Bail Organa said after the session, as all around them other senators walked back to their offices in various states of ill-concealed anger and shock. “I have business to conduct there, and besides—I’ve missed your mother very much.” Translation: I have to talk to your mother about what happened on Christophsis.
Leia wanted to be home as well, safe within the palace walls, hopefully discussing this openly with her parents. She was also aware of an urge to burrow deep into her own bed, beneath the covers, which was embarrassingly childish but would feel so good. “When will we leave?”
“As soon as the Polestar can be readied.” Bail turned to Kier, who was walking silently slightly to the side of father and daughter. “You’re very welcome to return with us, Mr. Domadi. There’s more than enough room aboard.”
&
nbsp; “It’s an honor to be invited, sir. I accept.”
Leia’s heart leapt at the thought of spending still more time with Kier, at least until she realized that they’d have her father as a chaperone. Even worse, her dad’s presence would keep her from discussing Christophsis openly with Kier—and Kier’s presence would keep her from discussing it openly with her dad. Bail’s generous offer to his daughter’s friend had bought all three of them several hours of strained conversation about absolutely any subject other than the one they all had foremost on their minds.
She sighed. Conspiracies were harder than they looked.
The Organa family didn’t speak of Christophsis until dinnertime, when they dined alone on the terrace. As soon as the last human attendant left, leaving behind only a few servitor droids, Breha uttered a swear word Leia had never heard from her mother’s lips before, then added, “How could they do it?”
“You know how.” Bail shut his eyes briefly, and his fingers closed around the handle of his dinner knife as if he might soon have to use it as a weapon. “Palpatine’s maintained his stranglehold on this galaxy for nearly two decades. An entire generation has grown up with no memory of the Republic and no idea of what true freedom would look like. Perhaps he thinks he doesn’t need to respect even the last vestiges of self-rule our worlds have.”
Leia would’ve protested that she knew what true freedom would look like, as did Kier and probably most of her other friends. That was something you could recognize even when you’d never seen it before. But she wanted her parents to get used to talking about this with her in their presence before she jumped in.
Rising from her chair, Breha paced the length of the terrace. The dark red caftan she wore was cut just low enough in front to reveal the soft glow of her pulmonodes, which had replaced her heart and lungs after the long-ago accident that had so nearly killed her. Most people who’d received pulmonodes kept them visible only temporarily, until they went through the bacta sessions necessary to encase them in new flesh and skin. However, Leia’s mother wore hers proudly. It reminds me that I lived, she’d told Leia once. That I cannot be so easily stopped.