by Claudia Gray
Murmurs welled around the room. Tai-Lin had half risen from his seat, scowling, and Varish’s fur stood on end. Leia could hardly believe this was really happening. What could Ransolm possibly be talking about? What could have angered him so much just since this morning, and why in the worlds would he be declaring it to the entire Senate?
Ransolm continued, “Princess Leia’s lies have protected her long enough. Her deception cannot be permitted to endanger the entire galaxy. If people are considering electing her as First Senator, they have the right to know exactly who they’re voting for.”
Leia’s confusion crystallized in an instant around one of her most terrible fears: He knows.
No. Impossible. Nobody had ever known this besides her, Luke, and Han; she wasn’t even sure whether Han had told Chewie. They hadn’t even told Ben yet. So Ransolm couldn’t have learned the most horrible truth of her life. There was no way. He had to be talking about something else.
But what? There was nothing Leia could think of, nothing besides…
Ransolm pointed at her and declared to the entire Galactic Senate, “Senator Leia Organa is none other than the daughter of Darth Vader himself !”
Uproar swirled around Leia, surrounded her. She could hardly hear the shouts, stamps, whistles, and pounded desks from the senators over the rushing of blood in her own ears. Her breaths came shallow in her chest, as if Ransolm Casterfo’s revelation had wound itself so tightly around her that she would soon suffocate.
“This is a lie!” Varish howled over the din. “A filthy, outrageous lie, and one Senator Organa will rise to deny!”
Will I? Leia’s thoughts filtered through a daze. Her limbs had gone so watery and weak from shock that she wasn’t sure she could get to her feet.
“I do not come without proof,” Ransolm said. “I will now present my evidence for everyone to hear, so that they can all know how close we came to allowing Lord Vader’s daughter to rule over us all.”
Proof? What possible proof could there be? Leia stared at Ransolm, aware that she should feel angry or betrayed, but unable to summon any emotions besides horror and confusion.
Then Ransolm held up a box—not just any box, a keepsake chest. Every child on Alderaan had one. Parents and grandparents carved the designs, but only the child decided what would be put inside. Placing one of your possessions inside the keepsake chest meant that you had outgrown it but recognized its importance to you. In adulthood you could open the chest, look back, and see how you had chosen to tell your own story.
Leia thought that keepsake chest looked like hers. But she hadn’t seen it in at least thirty years, and surely it had been destroyed with Alderaan.
Nobody was ever supposed to open a keepsake chest without permission, but Ransolm opened this one now. From within he pulled out a music box, one Leia recognized so instantly that the memory pierced her heart like an arrow. She had no time to wonder how it had survived or come into Ransolm Casterfo’s possession; Ransolm had already opened it, and the tune began to play. Mirrorbright shines the moon—
—and then Bail Organa began to speak.
Just the sound of his voice brought tears to her eyes, but every word revealed her deepest secret. In despair Leia thought, They are using both my fathers against me.
Bail Organa, who had so often spoken out in the Old Republic and Imperial senates, who had possessed the courage to stand against Palpatine when nearly every other planetary leader had bowed to the Emperor’s power, uttered his last words to the public from the music box, played on every speaker, to be reproduced by every news source around the galaxy within moments. “Your father has become Darth Vader.”
The shouting rose again, even louder than before. Leia bit the inside of her cheek, struggling to keep some small measure of her composure. Her father—her real father—had had the foresight to store this somewhere offplanet. He had given Leia the truth in the only way he could. And the Senate had repaid his service and his love by using it to humiliate his daughter. She felt a moment of dull gratitude that at least Bail had never known this; he’d never had to face just how terribly his message had been used against her.
Tai-Lin Garr had somehow managed to claim the floor. His imposing height and scarlet cloak, plus the powerful gravitas he projected, brought the room nearly to silence. “We have no proof that this object is authentic. No evidence at all. Given that Bail Organa was a well-known public figure, any number of recording devices or droids could have captured and synthesized his voice to say anything the programmer wished. Surely a mere music box cannot be allowed to slander one of the most illustrious members of the Galactic Senate.”
“I have every reason to believe it is genuine,” Ransolm replied. “But if it is not, let Senator Organa pronounce it false.”
And for all the anger in his voice, all the desperation in his eyes, Leia could tell that—deep down—Ransolm still hoped this would all turn out to be untrue.
She could lie. She could get to her feet, angrily denounce the music box as a forgery, and walk out of the Senate with her head high. No biological samples marked either ANAKIN SKYWALKER or LORD VADER had ever turned up in the Imperial registries; no doubt Palpatine had made sure none could ever be collected, lest his dangerous apprentice be cloned. So nobody would ever be able to prove beyond any doubt that Leia was Vader’s daughter.
But the doubt would linger. The whispers would follow her for the rest of her days. No denial could be strong enough to outweigh an accusation so sensational and so damning—particularly when it was correct. She could fall now, as if at the stroke of an ax, or endure being diminished cut by cut, rumor by rumor, year by year.
Leia got to her feet. Although she feared her knees would buckle under her, she managed to face them straight and strong. The amplifier droids swarmed around her like moths, ready to project her next words to the world.
She said, “Senator Casterfo’s accusation is true. My father was Darth Vader.”
—
“How did you find it?” said Senator Giller, only one of the throng of Centrist politicians swarming around Ransolm Casterfo as he walked from the fast-emptying Senate chamber back to his office. The pandemonium around him had scarcely stilled since Leia’s confession. “This was a masterstroke, I tell you, a masterstroke!”
“She won’t even win reelection to the Senate, assuming she isn’t forced to resign immediately,” said Senator Madmund, who grinned up at Ransolm as if they were both in on a good joke. “Haughty Princess Leia, defanged at last.”
“And just in time!” a staffer hastily added. “Can you imagine if she’d been elected? How long would it have been before we were all bowing down before another Vader?”
Senator Giller clapped his broad hand on Ransolm’s shoulder. “You’ve saved us all, Casterfo. No one will ever forget that.”
No, they wouldn’t. Undoubtedly Ransolm had just taken a huge step forward in his career. Within a day, he would be one of the most famous members of the Senate, if not the most famous next to the disgraced Leia Organa. He would be invited to every party with the movers and shakers, asked to join all the most important committees. It wasn’t even impossible that he might be called upon to serve as the Centrist candidate for First Senator now.
Yet he felt no pride. Instead, his stomach churned, his replies were short and meaningless, and he wanted nothing more than to get away from the people praising him. Since he’d first heard the information in the music box, Ransolm had not had a single moment alone; Lady Carise had remained with him almost until the moment they entered the Senate chamber. Not one moment to deal with the fact that his friend had in fact been his enemy. He had to escape all this and think.
Finally, when Ransolm reached his Senate office suite, he was able to rid himself of the others. His staffers and droids, glowing with newfound importance, shooed them off. “Senator Casterfo has important business—you can imagine—yes, yes, we’ll be setting up meetings with everyone immediately—”
Ranso
lm went into his private office alone. As soon as the door slid shut behind him, he sealed it. Then he fell to his knees, clutched his rubbish bin, and was violently, noisily sick.
Darth Vader’s daughter. He had fallen under the sway of Darth Vader’s daughter. She had heard his secrets. Touched his arm. Drawn him into intimate late-night conversations via holo. Ransolm had made himself vulnerable to the child of the person he hated more than any other in the world—
He vomited again, his body rebelling against the ghastly knowledge of what Leia really was, wringing him out until he had nothing left inside.
Wiping his mouth on his velvet sleeve, Ransolm sat heavily on the floor, resting his back against the wall. The Imperial artifacts mounted all around seemed to mock him with their empty black eyes. Just imagine, he thought with the darkest possible humor, the ultimate remnant of the Empire stood right here in this office, and you didn’t even know it.
Ransolm knew he would never get over the revulsion he felt at having unwittingly trusted Darth Vader’s child. How might she have used his secrets against him? She might still try, though now surely she lacked the political power to accomplish much. He kept trying to figure out why she had targeted him, why she had pretended to be his friend.
Yet in the eye of the storm of anger and betrayal Ransolm felt, one image refused to fade—the sight of Leia’s face as he had denounced her.
He’d looked her in the eyes as he said it. Never had Ransolm been given the chance to truly look Vader in the eyes, so he’d taken this opportunity to prove his courage. The entire time the Populists had been proclaiming Leia’s heroism, he had been envisioning that moment. In his imaginings, Leia’s smile had turned contemptuous as she lifted her chin high. He had expected her to sneer at his ignorance, at all of them who had so foolishly believed in her, secure in the power of darkness she no doubt commanded.
Instead Leia had only looked pale and small. It was easy to forget what a tiny woman she was, given the force of her personality. But Ransolm had seen her standing there, white and stricken, so little that it had seemed the cacophony of the Senate could blow her away as easily as the wind moved a leaf.
Ransolm’s gut rebelled again, but his stomach was empty. Once the racking heaves had ended, he closed his eyes and tried not to think. Not to feel. He tried to pretend he was in a galaxy where neither Leia nor Vader had existed at all.
—
Leia made it to her office without being torn apart by a mob. Under the circumstances, that had to count as a win.
“Refuse all calls,” she said to Greer, pretending not to notice how Greer failed to meet her eyes. “Don’t let anyone in unless it’s someone I know extremely well. I trust your judgment. Threepio?”
“Yes, Your Highness?” He shuffled forward, eager to serve. Leia felt as though she had never been so grateful for his golden, unchanging face, which could never show contempt or disgust.
She said, “Get the holocam ready. I’ll be sending priority messages very shortly, and I want to start the recordings as soon as possible.”
“Right away, Your Highness.” C-3PO hurried off to work.
Korrie emerged from the back storage room, tearstains evident on her cheeks. Gently, Leia said, “You don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to.”
“That’s right. I don’t.” Korrie grabbed her satchel and began dumping in everything from her desk, all of it in a jumble. “Because I quit.”
The sting made Leia suck in her breath. Once she’d walked into her own offices, she’d felt—not safe, because at the moment she doubted she’d ever feel entirely safe again—but as if she would at least be surrounded by friends instead of enemies. Instead, she had to watch even more people she cared about turning their backs on her.
But surely things didn’t have to end on such a terrible note. “For what it’s worth, Korrie, I’m sorry you found out like this.”
“No, you’re not. You’re sorry we found out, period.” She buckled her satchel shut, slung it over one shoulder, and added, “And just for the record, I haven’t gone by Korrie since I was a kid. My name is Korr. You should have used it.” With that, Korr Sella stormed through the door, disappearing into the angry crowd that still shouted and cursed.
“Goodness me,” C-3PO said. “If she had specified a preferred form of address, I could of course have ensured it was used in our offices.”
Leia put one hand to her throbbing temple, forcing herself to hold it together. She had messages to send, one of them among the most important messages she would ever send, and she couldn’t afford to fall apart until that task was done.
And after that—what? Leia couldn’t imagine. She wouldn’t imagine. She simply had to keep putting one foot before the other, never looking any farther ahead.
As soon as C-3PO had readied the holocam, Leia went into her office and shut the door. What she was about to say was deeply private, even though it was about news that at this moment was no doubt racing to the very edges of known space. She needed to explain to Ben that they’d kept from telling him because they’d wanted to find the right moment. She realized now that she’d been fooling herself. Luke, too. There could be no good time to learn news this devastating—
The door chimed, and Greer’s voice came through the speaker. “Senator, it’s Tai-Lin Garr to see you.”
Tai-Lin was virtually the only person Leia thought she could bear talking with at the moment. His serene bearing would comfort her tremendously—unless, of course, he’d come to permanently break ties. Either way, Leia had to know, even with the weight of that unsent message hanging over her. “Send him in.”
As the door swished open, Tai-Lin walked in, neither as unruffled as Leia had hoped nor as indignant as she’d feared. “Leia. How are you?”
“Rotten. But thanks for asking. You might be the last person in the galaxy who cares.” Leia turned her chair away from the holocam, toward the small couch where he’d taken a seat. “Or maybe I’ve underestimated the Senate. Is anybody out there standing up for me?”
“Varish Vicly read out the entire constitutional passage declaring that no person should have to answer for the crimes of a parent. I’ve put forth a motion to the entire party that, regardless of your standing in the Senate, we owe you our respect and loyalty for your individual accomplishments.” Tai-Lin paused. “No one else has had time to summon a response.”
Meaning that out of the thousands of senators, exactly two had defended her. That was two more than Leia would have expected. Under the circumstances, both Varish’s speech and Tai-Lin’s visit were acts of great courage. “Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate that more than I can say.”
Tai-Lin shook his head sorrowfully. “You should have told some of us the truth, Leia. Me or Varish, if no one else.”
Leia gestured toward the far wall of her office suite, through which the angry rumble of the crowd could still be heard. “I’d think it was obvious why I didn’t want to share this news with the whole galaxy.”
“I didn’t speak of the entire galaxy. I spoke of your closest friends and allies in the Senate.” Tai-Lin rarely took people to task, which made the subtle sharpness in his tone hard to bear. “Even if you felt the need to keep that secret, you should never have allowed us to put you forward as the Populist nominee. By doing so, you’ve robbed us of our credibility. I’m not certain any Populist candidate could win now.”
She nodded miserably. “You’re right. I know you’re right. But it had remained secret for so long. I guess I hoped it could stay secret forever.”
“For your sake, and the galaxy’s, I wish it had.” Tai-Lin rose to leave, but he briefly rested one broad hand on her shoulder. “You still have friends, Leia. Remember that.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. Nothing else Tai-Lin could have said could possibly have comforted her more. And yet the terrible wound within her was too vast to be healed even by friendship.
Strangely, Leia felt as if she ought to tell Ransolm about this; her bra
in knew what he had done to her, but her shock-numbed heart continued to call him friend. The person who had betrayed her on the Senate floor seemed like another person entirely from the dashing young man who had come to rescue her on Bastatha. The bridges they’d built between them had collapsed, but she still felt the urge to step out onto the thin air where they had been.
But now Leia had no one else to talk to. Her message to Ben would be about comforting him, not finding any consolation of her own. She couldn’t even bring herself to record a message for Han. He would still be in the heart of the sublight relay round of the Five Sabers, meaning he was cut off from any possible contact. Han might wind up being the last person in the galaxy to know her secret had been exposed; nor was there any chance he would learn about it from her. And at the moment, she couldn’t even bear to speak about it any longer. But she knew that he, too, would suffer blowback from being married to a child of Vader.
The door swished open again, and this time Greer stood there, awkwardly holding the wooden keepsake chest in her hands. “I put in a requisition order, because all of this is legally yours. They handed it over quicker than I’d expected.”
Leia hadn’t even thought of getting her keepsake chest back again. “Thank you, Greer. That helps.”
Greer set the chest on Leia’s desk, then hesitated. “Can I ask you a question? Just one?”
Would Greer now storm out just like Korr Sella had? Leia braced herself. “Of course.”
“Does Captain Solo know? When did he find out?”
“Han’s always known. I told him the day after I learned the truth from Luke.”
Greer nodded—still wary, but not on the brink of bolting any longer.