Leia, Princess of Alderaan

by Claudia Gray

  Portion of the fleet? How many other ships were there, and where were they? But Leia could ask all those questions later. “Do you have a shuttle or hopper Amilyn and I can fly back to Coruscant?” Leia had been considering this during the docking procedure with the Tantive IV. “I don’t want anybody to link the Chalhuddans to us.”

  Her father’s smile was equal parts amused and impressed. “I spoke with their captain. You’ve made your first diplomatic alliance, and negotiated an armed convoy, at that.” Then he paused. “Wait. ‘Amilyn’?”

  “Hi there!” Amilyn was doing some sort of elaborate acrobatic stretching farther down the corridor, maybe to allow father and daughter some privacy, maybe just for fun.

  “Amilyn Holdo from Gatalenta,” Leia explained. “She’s a friend of mine from the Apprentice Legislature, with a knack for being in the right place at the right time.”

  “Those are the best kind of friends to have.” Bail lifted one hand in a wave before turning his attention back to his daughter. “We have a hopper for the two of you. Should look like a civilian craft, and it’s small enough that you can pilot it on your own.”

  Although Leia wasn’t an expert pilot, she could manage. “All right. After I drop Amilyn off on Coruscant, I’d like to come back to Alderaan for a few days. Unless you’ll be on Coruscant too—”

  “You never need permission to return to Alderaan,” her father said gently. “And after this, I think we could use some time at home together as a family.”

  These past many months, Leia had wished and hoped that things between her and her parents would go back to the way they used to be. Finally she understood that would never happen, because neither she nor her parents were the people they’d been before. They had to grow into the family they would become—one united to face the challenges ahead.

  “Home,” she repeated. “I’d like that.”

  “I would’ve thought royal vehicles were more, well, regal.” Amilyn peered around the tiny, gray-mesh interior of the hopper, more curious than disappointed. Her brilliant hair constituted most of the color in the room.

  Leia slipped into the pilot’s seat and acquainted herself with the controls. Data on a screen informed her fifty-nine ships were in the vicinity, ranging in size from that medical frigate to a few tiny single-pilot vessels. With a few taps, she was able to highlight the Chalhuddan ships; she didn’t intend to leave this system until they were all safely away.

  “Laying in our course to—” Returning directly to Coruscant might be risky. “To Baltizaar.”

  “Mirrors bend light,” Amilyn said. Leia nodded, understanding her friend’s acknowledgement of the need to break up their course before she recognized the odd metaphor. She sighed as she thought, I’m learning to speak fluent Holdo.

  On the viewscreen, Leia could easily pick out the Tantive IV leaving orbit with the other vessels; distant as it was, its shape was as familiar to her as any other part of her home. Ships around it began to disappear, with the illusory stretch-and-pop that marked a jump into hyperspace. One by one, the sky around Paucris Major darkened as the brighter ships disappeared. Her father took the Tantive IV out near the very end, as she’d known he would.

  Amilyn leaned over the data screen. “Only forty-two ships remaining—now eighteen—seven—two—” After a long pause, she repeated, “Two. We’re still at two.”

  To Leia’s dismay, one of the remaining ships was a Chalhuddan vessel, still far too close to the repair stations; it wouldn’t be long before the self-destruct sequences activated, blowing themselves—and everything in the immediate vicinity—to shreds. “Are they damaged? Do we need to tow them out? Can we?”

  But then the lights on the Chalhuddans’ engines glowed brighter, and it, too, fled into hyperspace. Relief washed over Leia, leaving her almost limp.

  “Now we have one,” Amilyn said.

  “Right. So we get out of here—”

  “That’s one not counting us.” Amilyn’s hand trembled as she brought the image into holo form: a standard, nondescript cutter, the kind of thing that could be rented at any hangar in the galaxy. It wasn’t flying away from the stations; it was flying toward one.

  Leia’s fingers tightened around her armrests. “That ship wasn’t here when we arrived in this system, was it?” Amilyn shook her head.

  Stang.

  Pulling herself together, Leia began running through the possibilities. The cutter wasn’t an Imperial ship. Whoever piloted it wasn’t an Imperial spy, either, or else they would’ve taken off with the others to report their findings—and even the swift glimpse they could’ve seen of the rebel’s ships was more than enough to report. A bounty hunter, thinking to turn informant? But how would a bounty hunter know about the Paucris system? How would anyone…

  Leia’s stomach dropped. The shuttle seemed to spin on every axis at once. She hit the communications, sending a signal to the cutter and to the person she knew had to be inside—“Kier?”

  Despite what she already knew had to be true, it hurt to recognize Kier’s voice.

  “Leia? Thank the Force I found you.” He sounded so relieved. Even grateful. “It sounded like you were in—”

  “Kier! You have to get away from that station, now. It’s going to blow!”

  “What are y—”

  If he’d hit the controls and accelerated that instant, without hesitation, the cruiser might’ve made it out of range. If he’d flown in closer and faster to start with, he would never have had a chance. When the blast exploded outward—ripping the station into a wave of fire and shattered steel—Kier’s cutter was instead violently thrown outward. Amilyn screamed, but Leia lacked even the breath. She could only stare in horror, not knowing whether she’d just watched him die.

  Their hopper shuddered as smaller pieces of debris thumped the hull. Through the metallic shards blanketing the starfield on their screen, she could make out the shape of Kier’s cutter. The engines didn’t glow; there was no sign of power, no way to tell how much damage had been done.

  An unfamiliar stillness claimed her. When her fear or despair reached its absolute height, her mind turned crystalline—hard, set, focused, straight. Her emotions remained, but encased in a structure that would not yield.

  “The Empire’s on its way.” She spoke to Amilyn as steadily as she’d spoken to her parents on her Day of Demand. It was as if she already knew the words. “They could be here any second. I have to try to help Kier, but if you want to dock with his ship and leave us, do it. Maybe I can get his engines back online.”

  “Maybe?”

  There was no point in responding to that. Leia would accomplish that or she wouldn’t. What mattered was protecting everyone she could. “You don’t have to take this risk. I do.”

  Amilyn trembled from shock, but she shook her head. “Don’t be an ass. I’m not leaving either of you.”

  “Then let’s do this.” Leia’s hands went to the controls. The hopper shot forward. She adjusted their course so that Kier’s cutter (dark, rolling over and over, badly dented) remained at the center of their viewscreen, larger every moment.

  Luckily both hopper and cutter were such basic workhorse models that autodock compatibility was built in. Although Kier’s cutter remained unresponsive, the hopper was able to link them and pump in localized power. Leia’s craft shook as the locks joined, and a warning light began to blink: The cutter’s artificial gravity was inoperable. To keep its entire contents from rushing into the hopper the instant the doors opened, she immediately shut off their own gravity, hooking one leg around the base of her seat to keep her more or less in place. Then they were unmoored, weightless. Amilyn’s hair rose around her head in a multicolored cloud; she stared at Leia as if unable to understand how she could be so quiet and calm. Leia didn’t understand it herself.

  The lock doors slid open, and Leia pushed herself upward, soaring into the cutter—or what remained of it. Every control had gone black; the only illumination filtered in through the hopper. Bit
s of metal spun in midair, and floating beads of water glinted as they caught the light. A droplet hit her cheek—but it was warm.

  Not water. Blood.

  In the center of the dark, she saw the dim outline of Kier’s body, his arms outstretched, floating, loose. Her momentum brought her closer until she had to put one hand onto the ceiling to prevent colliding with him. He was near enough for her to draw him into her embrace. When she felt his heartbeat against her hand, relief flooded through her. “Kier? Can you hear me?”

  The dim shaft of light from below briefly illuminated his face as his eyes fluttered open. “Leia?”

  “I’ve got you. We’ll take you back to Alderaan, find a doctor.” On Alderaan, her parents could ensure he received top care in secret, a guarantee they wouldn’t find on Coruscant.

  “You were—you were scared—in trouble—” Kier’s expression remained blank. He’d recognized her, but he didn’t seem to have registered anything she said. “Followed you.”

  Remorse pierced Leia through so sharply she wanted to cry out, but she forced herself back into focus. Made herself crystalline. “I’m all right. It’s all right now. You came for me and I’m safe. Can you hang on to me? Brace yourself against me?”

  Kier coughed, and the only thing worse than the sound of it was the terrible spasm of pain on his face. Hoarsely he said, “—memory rod—”

  Consternation dissolved swiftly into her understanding that the memory rod had to be vitally important. Leia peered through the darkness until she saw it, a specialized scanner/mass-memory storage device, cylindrical and gold. Cradling Kier against her with one hand, she snagged the rod with another. “It’s right here. I’ve got it. You don’t have to worry.”

  “Promise—turn it in.” He coughed again, more weakly. “Protect them if you—but—Alderaan, for Alderaan—”

  He’d heard the planning in the banquet hall. Knew about what had happened on Onoam, about the medical frigate, about the entire alliance of leaders ready to stand against Palpatine. As soon as he arrived in this system and saw the ships massed here for repair, Kier had known exactly what it meant. Once the fleet had begun to flee, he’d brought his cruiser near the stations to collect more data.

  He’d recorded it all so he could turn the rebels in.

  Kier loved Alderaan more than he hated the Empire. If he had to choose between the rest of the galaxy and his home, he chose his home. It was a choice Leia would never make—but she understood it.

  “Leia,” he whispered, struggling for breath. “Promise.”

  She smiled at him tenderly, caressed the side of his face, and lied. “I promise.”

  With a sigh, he relaxed into her embrace. His muscles went slack. Leia kept holding him next to her as his breaths became shallower and his heartbeat slowed. It was so slow, so gradual, that she couldn’t tell the exact moment when he died. For what felt like many minutes afterward, she hung on to him, wanting to stay as long as she could in the last place they had ever been together.

  But the Empire was coming, and Leia had other lives to save.

  She let the memory rod float from her hand, then pushed off with Kier’s body in her arms. Light grew brighter around them until they drifted back into the hopper; a few pieces of debris from the damaged cutter had made their way into the air too, but nothing they’d have to clear. Amilyn had used the belt from her coverall to tie herself to her seat, and she’d flipped the collar up so she could hold it against her eyes. For an instant Leia thought it was just more oddness—but then she realized Amilyn was crying, and trying to absorb her tears with the collar so the droplets wouldn’t float away.

  Hitting the airlock closed the link between the ship; Amilyn turned the gravity back on. Although Leia had been holding Kier as best she could, the sudden return of weight toppled her, and his body crumpled to the floor with a heavy thud.

  That sound was so final—so dead—

  The crystal shattered. All the grief Leia felt, all the fear and anger and everything else she’d kept bottled up or used for fuel—she couldn’t hold on to any of it any longer. She burst into sobs, crumpling on the floor by Kier’s side.

  Leia had spent the past few months trying to prove she was an adult. But she wasn’t this grown-up yet. She wasn’t this hard or this tough. When she broke down, she fell apart, completely, as she hadn’t since she was a child and rarely would again. Bending low, she let her forehead rest against Kier’s chest, trying to remember the sound of his heartbeat, as though that would bring it back.

  Amilyn said nothing, only took the controls, fired the engines, and took them farther from the wreckage to ensure their space was clear. Leia imagined the stations’ wreckage tumbling into the atmosphere of Paucris Major, glowing with heat as it burned on reentry.

  Kier’s ship would be caught in the planet’s gravity too, and the evidence he’d given his life for would disintegrate into atoms, lost forever.

  Leia cried through their entire hyperspace journey, terrible wracking sobs that made it feel as though the tears were being wrung out of her. When the hopper dropped out of hyperspace, she tried to pull herself together, only to fall apart when she heard the familiar chime of Alderaan’s welcome beacons. Amilyn had known that both Leia and Kier needed to come home.

  I’ll have to lie to his parents. Leia shut her eyes tightly, as though she could block out this part of her certain future. We’ll come up with some story that explains his death. At least I can tell them that he died trying to save me. I can give them that much truth.

  Someday that would be a comfort. For now it shattered her all over again.

  The comm sounded, startling Leia into looking up. From her place on the floor, she could see the face of an Imperial captain, mustachioed and stern.

  The intensity of her fear, combined with her grief, was enough to nauseate her. They were waiting for us here the whole time.

  Apparently the captain could only see Amilyn, who sat directly opposite the screen. “Unidentified vessel, please report your—”

  “This is hopper four-zero-two-four-one-one-LN, and you can call me Lyn.” The widest, daffiest grin Leia had ever seen on Amilyn’s face appeared, as though nothing was wrong or ever could be. “Hey-ey.”

  Understandably nonplussed, the captain needed a moment to answer. “Your vessel ionization levels suggest travel to a system under investigation.”

  Amilyn nodded, slow and easy, twirling a lock of her vibrant hair around one finger. “I just got back from the Shili system. Are you guys investigating that planet too? Because I thought it was a-ma-zing.”

  Shili was a planet not so different from Paucris Major. Its star had very nearly the same size, the same properties. The ionization levels would therefore be almost identical. Leia didn’t think she could’ve called such a similar system to mind if she’d been given an hour to think about it. Amilyn had done it instantly.

  The captain exchanged glances with a junior officer standing a step beside and behind him. “You were investigating?”

  “Yeah, because I’m into comparing the different astrological systems around the galaxy.” Amilyn kept her voice even more monotone than usual, and tilted her head at an almost silly angle. “Like, whether the same stars give some of the same characteristics to people on entirely different worlds. Are you from Coruscant?”

  His accent had already revealed that much. “My origin isn’t relevant. Now, young lady—”

  “See, I thought you were from Coruscant. What’s your sign?”

  “I’ve no idea. Such superstitions—”

  “I’d bet anything you’re a Genry on Coruscant, which means on Shili you’d be an Ai. And on both of those worlds, that formation of blue dwarfs nearby? It gives the people born under that sign wisdom, charisma, and”—Amilyn ducked her head flirtatiously—“exceptional virility.”

  A short laugh from the junior office turned into a cough just in time to ward off the worst of the captain’s glare. When the captain turned back to the viewer, he irr
itably waved her off. “You’re cleared to go.”

  “You don’t want to chat?” Amilyn kept the innocent look on her face until the viewscreen went dark.

  Leia’s throat hurt so much from crying she could barely get the words out. “The astrology,” she said hoarsely. “That’s how you knew which star system to pick to cover our tracks. Astrology.”

  “Everything is written in the stars.” Amilyn took Leia’s hand, a simple gesture of comfort—but one that sealed them together as friends for a lifetime. She didn’t let go until she said, “Let’s take you both home.”

  When Leia was very tiny, her parents had sometimes brought her up into their enormous bed, allowing her to snuggle between them as she fell asleep. Upon receiving her own “big girl bed” at age four, she had declared herself too old to sleep with her parents, a rule she’d held to resolutely, except of course when she was sick or that time she watched a scary holo about undead gundarks. Her memories of those evenings with her parents had become misty and indistinct over time, as much something she knew had happened as something she remembered happening—until the night after Kier’s death, when she crawled back into that bed, curled into a fetal position, and felt as if she’d never move again.

  “Do you think you could eat something?” Breha sat beside her, rubbing her daughter’s back. “Or at least drink some water or tea?”

  Leia wanted to shut down, to give into the treacherous misery weighing down her limbs, but she didn’t have the right to do that. She had to keep going. Food felt impossible—nausea still gripped her—but she whispered, “Maybe tea.” From the corner of her eye she glimpsed her mother’s hurried gesture to a servitor droid, which trundled off to the kitchens.