by Claudia Gray
“That’s all right. Military procedure is one thing, but sometimes royal protocol just gets in the way.” That was what her father always said to keep people from feeling awkward about having broken the rules for conversing with the royals.
Those people usually smiled in relief and remained silent afterward. Batten, however, took it as permission to keep going. “The Emperor’s plan didn’t work, accidentally causing suffering. So how does he go about fixing it? He doesn’t! He deliberately causes more suffering.” She scowled. “People are getting tired of this. Worse than tired. They’re getting angry.”
“I don’t blame them.” Leia’s gaze remained on the distant camps as she tried to guess how many people were trapped there.
“Roughly one thousand families per camp,” said the Imperial official in charge, a Major Tedam. His heavy-lidded eyes drooped as if he’d been interrupted mid-nap. “Give or take. One thousand shelters, at any rate.”
“That must be a very great burden for you.” Given that the Empire wasn’t doing anything much for these people except holding blasters on them, Leia wasn’t sure how much of a burden it could be. Still, this needed to sound like she wasn’t asking for a favor, only trying to solve his problem. “I’m sure you’d rather have fewer mouths to feed. My ship stands ready to transport Wobani citizens off-planet, back to Alderaan—”
“Transport?” Briefly Tedam seemed alert, but the moment passed. “That’s not allowed.”
Leia nodded. “Not under my current clearance, no. We’d have to renegotiate terms, which could be done very quickly.”
Tedam shook his head and repeated, “That’s not allowed. Here, we stick to the rules.” He blinked slowly, almost as if he expected her to be gone before he opened his eyes again.
Keep your temper, she reminded herself. “If you don’t have the authority to renegotiate terms, can you let me know who does?”
“Nobody on this planet. Nobody in this sector.”
“Then—then you must have some authority, if you’re this isolated.” Would the Empire really drop so many troops and officials on one planet and leave them there without orders, so that they might starve and brutalize the citizens at will?
Yes. They would.
“I have authority to enforce the diplomatic permit as issued,” Tedam said. “No more and no less. Your ship will leave this planet with no one on board except yourself and your crewmembers, as planned. I recommend you leave soon.”
With that he went back to reviewing data. He didn’t even glance up as Leia walked out.
The trapezoidal corridor of the local Imperial headquarters was, like most Imperial structures, dark, cold, and depressing. Metal beams seemed to be closing around her like the jaws of an old-fashioned trap, and the reddish hue of the floor reminded her of blood. She trembled, from anger and fear for others, and from sheer helplessness.
On Alderaan, they had no true poverty. All citizens were at least modestly provided for, and public facilities and services were both numerous and available to everyone. On Coruscant, Leia knew, people could be in difficult straits, but they were hard to pick out in the endless throngs of crowds that inhabited every lane and layer of that world. It was different to witness this kind of suffering with her own eyes. To end this day by flying away, having accomplished exactly no lasting good—
She couldn’t stand it.
She wouldn’t.
Batten gave her royal charge several sidelong looks on the way back to the Tantive IV. Leia noticed, but she was too deep in thought to worry about it. What could she do to set this right? Refuse to leave until the agreement was renegotiated? Tell them she’d be back every week—maybe every day!—until they let her take some settlers with her? There had to be a way, but she couldn’t think of one.
On their arrival at the ship, Batten powered down the speeder to allow it to be reloaded by the hauler droids. As Leia stood outside, waiting for that to be done, she saw an elderly woman sitting in one corner of the small, roped-off area around a shelter. With shaking hands, she was mending some knitted garment—doing it herself, sewing with a needle like someone out of an old-fashioned storybook. Leia wondered whether the tremor in the woman’s hands was from age or from cold. But she was using the one skill she had to protect herself and her family—
It was the word skill that did it.
Leia lit up and called out, “Captain Antilles! Lieutenant Batten! Come help me, will you?” As they headed toward her, confused expressions on their faces, she turned back to the old woman. “You seem to be handy with a needle and thread.”
The woman seemed surprised to be spoken to, but she answered calmly, “Why, yes, Your Highness.”
“You see, that’s very interesting,” Leia said. Antilles and Batten had reached her by then, and to them she said, “The Imperial officials say I can’t take any passengers with me. Only crew.”
“They don’t budge on things like that.” The captain managed to say it in a way that didn’t mean I told you so, which Leia appreciated. But she wouldn’t have cared what he said or how he said it, not now that the best idea she’d ever had was burning bright inside her.
She turned back to the old woman. “The thing is, sometimes our soldiers’ uniforms rip or tear. We could use someone to help keep them in repair. So I’m hiring a new crewmember, an official ship’s seamstress. If you take the job, you’ll fly out of here with us immediately.”
The woman’s astonishment and delight would’ve warmed Leia in a snowstorm. “But—but my husband—” She pointed toward an elderly man napping on a nearby cot.
“What does he do?” Leia asked. Next to her, Antilles and Batten were exchanging incredulous glances.
“He’s a mechanic, or he was back when we had a shop.” The old woman smiled wider, anticipating the answer.
Triumphantly, Leia said, “So we’re also hiring an official ship’s mechanic. Done. That’s two. Captain, how many extra people can we fit aboard for a short trip?”
It took a few moments for Captain Antilles to answer. “About one hundred.”
One hundred individuals out of one thousand families? It wasn’t enough, but it was a place to begin. “Then I’m about to hire ninety-eight more crewmembers. Help me register them in the ship’s official log, will you?”
“You’ve got it, Your Highness,” said Batten, who had a wide grin on her face. The captain still looked wary, but he nodded as Batten and Leia got to work.
Leia decided to find those who were youngest and oldest, sickest or pregnant, the ones who needed help most urgently. Two little children, neither of them even five years old: they could crawl into small spaces to retrieve lost things. A man with a racking cough: he knew how to fly a spaceship, so he could serve as an emergency backup pilot. A woman whose belly stretched large with a baby almost in this world: she’d owned a plant nursery, and it just so happened that the Tantive IV needed a ship’s botanist. As Leia named every new hire, Batten instantly recorded it in the log, making their status as official as anyone else’s on board.
Word spread through the camp quickly. People crowded around, all hoping to be chosen—yet they silently pushed forward those in greater need. Stormtroopers came close too; while they didn’t dare interfere with a humanitarian mission, she could hear the buzz of comms in their helmets as they tried to get new orders that fit the unprecedented situation at hand. But the ones she was happiest to see were the hired, who grabbed their few possessions and headed up the ramp into the Tantive IV, into escape and freedom.
After a former percussionist was hired as ship’s drummer, Batten quietly said, “That’s one hundred.”
“Already?” Leia felt simultaneously as though she’d been standing out here in the cold mud for hours—probably she had been—and as though she couldn’t possibly be finished. Faces fell all around her as brief hopes flickered out. More loudly, she said, “You haven’t been forgotten. We’ll tell the galaxy what we’ve seen here today. Soon, I hope, other ships will follow ours, and
then we can make a real difference.”
They nodded. They believed her. None of that made it easier to walk away.
The mood on the Tantive IV on the return trip couldn’t have been more different from the way there. Their “new crewmembers” crowded every room and passageway, and while they were tremendously grateful and relieved, they were also hungry, exhausted, and often unwell. She could hear laughter, and tears too; so many of them had left people behind. The 2-1B began doing what it could for them as Leia returned to the bridge, just moments before they would go into hyperspace.
As she walked through the doors, she heard Captain Antilles saying, “—in accordance with our instructions.”
“These were not your instructions,” insisted Tedam, from the viewscreen at the captain’s station. He looked awake now. “The limits of the landing permit are entirely clear that no extra persons can leave this planet with your ship!”
Leia interjected, “Look at the permit again, Major. I think you’ll find the rule is crystal clear. We can only leave with crewmembers? We are only leaving with crewmembers.”
“You have Wobani citizens aboard—”
“Who have been hired as crew,” she replied smoothly. “The permit doesn’t forbid my hiring anyone. Like you said, let’s stick to the rules. And the rules say we get to leave here whenever we choose.” As in now.
Tedam looked like he’d rather swallow his own socks than accede to any of this, but like most Imperial officers, he knew when regulations worked against him. With a quick, irritable gesture, he shut off communications and the screen went black.
“Not bad, Your Highness,” said Batten from near the door.
Captain Antilles remained sterner in every sense. “You realize we haven’t made any provisions for these people on landing, Your Highness.”
“Yes, of course.” Their arrival at Aldera’s main spaceport would be an enormous mess. But Leia had never minded making messes. “We’ll get them settled quickly enough, I’m sure.”
The captain nodded. “As you wish, Your Highness, but—if you don’t mind—”
“Yes?”
“I’ve seen deadly combat before. Mass warfare. I’m not afraid to face it.” A small smile appeared on Captain Antilles’s face. “But you have to be the one who tells the queen about this.”
She laughed loudly. “Deal.”
Imperial restrictions around Wobani had made it impossible for them to jump to lightspeed and go directly to Alderaan; the Tantive IV would first have to stop at Calderos Station, a deep-space waypoint that served both bureaucratic and repair functions for Imperial ships around the sector and their rare invited guests. As one of those guests, Leia would send a simple signal requesting permission to leave for their home planet, which would receive approval within moments. So she watched the electric blue swirl of hyperspace with no foreboding, only impatience to get these people home—and to show her parents what she’d done—
The ship dropped out of lightspeed, and she gasped. Captain Antilles rose from his chair, and Batten said something considered indecent on most worlds, then, “Are you seeing this?”
“Yes, Lieutenant,” Antilles said. “We see it.”
Calderos Station—a large Imperial facility, important to this sector—had been damaged. No, attacked. Leia recognized laser-cannon fire all along the station’s outer surface, and various search-and-track lights along the nearest side were out. With one side more or less whole and the other quiet, burned and black, it was easy to imagine the station having been torn in two.
A swarm of TIE fighters zoomed toward them as a message came through: “Identify yourselves!”
“Tantive IV, diplomatic vessel on a humanitarian mission from Alderaan,” Captain Antilles said. “We’ve been on Wobani for the last many hours. Imperial records there will verify our whereabouts.”
“Hold for confirmation.”
Leia stared at the station, taking in the damage in full. Although it looked as though there would’ve been little to no loss of life, this attack had crippled Calderos Station—and as a result, made it easier for people to travel clandestinely to and from Wobani or any other restricted world in this area. That would be true for days, maybe many weeks.
It took serious firepower to damage an Imperial station like this. No one ship could do it except a Star Destroyer, and obviously that wasn’t the case, so—
“Confirmed,” said the voice on the speakers as the TIE fighters swerved away. “You are to leave this sector and return to your home planet at once.”
As Captain Antilles moved to comply, Leia put the last pieces of the puzzle together.
Somebody—several somebodies—had put together the numbers and firepower necessary to attack and disable an Imperial station. That had taken money, planning, and time. People weren’t just complaining about the Empire anymore.
They had begun fighting back.
Alderaan was known to people throughout the galaxy for its beautiful scenery, its aesthetically pleasing architecture, and its commitment to preserving harmony and tranquility. Those people would have been very surprised by the scene at the Aldera spaceport, when the Tantive IV unexpectedly unloaded a hundred refugees from Wobani.
Some of the refugees had become hysterical with delight or disbelief; others slumped onto crates or helper droids, in obvious need of medical care or at least a place to rest. All of them were muddy, as was the entire crew and Leia herself.
“I let Central know we were coming!” Batten protested as they tried to assemble everyone into some kind of order. “I mean, I let them know when we hit the atmosphere, which wasn’t that long ago, but that’s as soon as we could’ve—”
“It’s all right, Lieutenant.” Captain Antilles seemed strangely distracted, Leia thought. “I should contact the viceroy immediately.”
Why is he going to talk to my father? Leia watched, confused, as the captain strode away without looking back. The viceroy takes charge of Alderaan’s dealings with the galaxy at large. The governing of the planet itself is done by—
“Her Majesty Breha Organa!” announced a droid from the far end of the bay, and Leia turned with all the others to see her mother walk in, a huge entourage behind her. As usual, she wore a long gown, this one of russet silk and blue velvet, and she had ribbons of each fabric braided into her elaborate hairstyle. No jewels, no crown: Breha didn’t need them to command attention, to draw attention, or to appear every bit a queen.
Silence fell without being asked for. Leia watched her mother step up on a platform and begin to address them all, her rich voice carrying through the entire bay: “Good people of Wobani, you’re very welcome to Alderaan. Forgive us for not being better prepared to receive you, but from this moment on, my team will see to your every need.” She gestured to the entourage—medical personnel, social workers, and the like, who were already beginning to weave their way into the crowd. “No doubt you’ll want a chance to rest, recover, and reflect on what you would like to do next. I pledge here and now that every single person arriving today will receive a stipend that will allow you either to travel to another world where you may have family or friends, or to begin a new life here on Alderaan. It is my welcome gift to all of you.”
Someone yelled, “All hail Queen Breha!” which wasn’t the way people cheered royalty on Alderaan. Leia was more accustomed to gentle applause. But the Wobani took up the chant with such enthusiasm that the crew joined in, and even Leia had to shout it once at the end.
As the queen stepped down from the platform and the refugees began getting the help they needed, Batten said, “Wow, your mom pulls her act together pretty quick.”
“Her act is always together.” Leia simultaneously admired this about her mother and envied it. “She was born with it together. I wish she’d teach me the trick.”
“Well, if you ever learn, let me know, would you?” Batten gave a wink in Leia’s direction before heading back into the Tantive IV to finish postflight systems checks.
&n
bsp; Leia saw her mother coming through the crowd toward her; those nearby parted before her, clearing a path without Queen Breha having to hold out a hand or say a word. At last, Leia would be able to talk with her mother about what she’d accomplished, about the splendid rescue she’d just completed on a world most people were afraid to even mention, much less visit. Breha Organa would have to talk to her daughter as an equal.
The queen came to Leia and folded her in her arms. Their embrace was warm and true—but when Breha pulled back, her lips were pressed together in a thin line.
Leia knew what that look meant. “What? What did I do?”
“The palace,” said Breha. “Now.”
“You should have run this by us first—”
“When would I ever have had the chance? You and Dad are always—”
“Your father and I have important business to conduct, and we should be able to trust you to understand—”
“‘Important business’? Like what? Planning another dinner party?”
“Leia!” Queen Breha rarely raised her voice, which gave it more impact when she did. Leia finally quieted herself and sat down on the long, low couch that curved around the east wall of the royal library.
The library, like everything else in the palace, had been the work of generations. Datacrons from countless worlds and eras shimmered in their cases, and one set of shelves bore precious, ancient paper books. Constellation globes of various systems stood in small nooks or hung from the high ceiling. A real fire burned in the center of the vast room in a spherical hearth made of copper and stone; that and the setting sun through the long, narrow windows provided most of the light.
There was, of course, another “Royal Library of Alderaan,” one open to all its citizens and with a collection even richer than this. But in this room, the royal family kept their own treasures and memories. It was more than a library. It was the place where they relaxed, where they laughed, where they spoke most openly as a family.
