Soon she would be dead.

Leia Organa wondered how she was supposed to feel about that. She wished she could tap on her cell door and ask a guard. Excuse me, but in your experience could you please tell me how the other prisoners behave before their execution?

She doubted many felt nothing. She didn't even have the energy to care.

She lay back on the hard ledge, exhausted but not sleepy. She didn't want to wait. Didn't want to fight. Just wanted to lie there and stare, mutely, without thoughts, at the wall.

She was practicing, getting ready. Death was silent and thoughtless.

One thing: she would like to know how the story played out. The rest of it. What happened to the little R2 unit? In her mind it was alive. She knelt in front of it, and it beeped. Then she sent it on her mission. Had it found General Kenobi? Had they made it to Alderaan to deliver the plans as she instructed? Were they blown to bits?

She was on her back, like a dead person. She felt the ledge under her shoulder blades and she felt the arch in her back begin to lower. Her feet slacked and fell to the side.

The plans and what happened existed in some disconnect in her mind. It was like a cause and effect gone wrong. If the plans are stolen, she could hear a rhetoric teacher in her head, it then follows the Death Star is destroyed.

But that's not what happened. Leia, transported by her memory to university, corrected her instructor. No, sir. It is true the cause was the theft of the plans, but it followed that Alderaan was destroyed.

No! her mind screamed. No.

Then she calmed back into numbness. Yes, she told- something, someone, in her mind. Yes I will die. Maybe it was her father. He had worried. He had looked for an alternative to deliver the plans, because he didn't want her to be the one.

So the Rebellion was over. She felt a great sorrow, for those who would continue to live under the shadow of tyranny long after she was gone. She worried for her father, what his last moments had been like, who had dedicated so much of his life to this cause. Had he learned of her failure? Did he mourn her while he mourned himself? Who knew, his aide would brief him in the afterlife, at a conference table, very much like the one at home, because memories were vivid and all she had, Who knew, Viceroy Organa, that it would be your daughter-

Fuck you, she told the sniveling voice. What did you know? What did you do- nothing. Nothing!

Her back was seized by a powerful cramp, and she rolled over, settling on a hip to relieve the pressure. It wouldn't be long, but for now she still had feeling. She stared at the wall and noticed how her lungs surrounded by the seizing muscles ached.

She remembered him. Lord Cardanna, Ven to you, Your Highness. Her father's aide, a young man from a good family. There had been discussion about joining the two families. Tall, with wavy dark hair that he combed meticulously several times a day- she'd seen him pull the comb from his inner jacket pocket. That's how he met death, she was certain of it. The laser streaked from space toward Alderaan, and he stood on the balcony next to her father, who was sagged with resignation, and he pulled out his comb, arranged his hair, and put the comb back in the pocket.

Maybe she should have married him. Her death would be by execution squad. His was, what?- stoic, noble? Vain? Shocked? He hadn't done anything but nag. She had failed. A far worse thing, wasn't it?

She relapsed into mere instinct, listening to the involuntary functions of her body. She breathed, her heart beat. There was no need to sleep, except to pass the time, and that seemed like cheating. Her eyes blinked, on their own. Suddenly, she thought what about her bladder? Should she empty it, before-

Who was vain now, she thought. She wanted a clean dress, a clean body. Her hands roved over her hair, tidied the two rolled buns.

How to leave a lasting impression? Beyond the involuntary soiling of herself, which was something by which she did not wish to be remembered. She was Princess Leia of Alderaan. She was a prisoner aboard a death star. They had tried to break her will, her spirit, but she'd held on. They had taken Alderaan; she would give them nothing else.

Would Grand Moff Tarkin attend? Lord Vader? The executioner was no doubt an Imperial flunkey. There was a certain ritual, wasn't there? Her smooth brow furrowed slightly, thinking. One's crimes were read aloud, one was given the chance to beg for mercy…

The famous poet Hitatchka was known more his execution than for his poems. "The art of protest is stronger than any army," he spoke just before they beheaded him, and his words had become true, because he said them.

Last words! Yes, that was the key. Leia willed herself to think beyond mere being and memory. She forced herself to think of the future, how she would comport herself, knowing others were watching, how she could live for eons in the tales of an imprisoned society, all because she had said…

The souls of Alderaan will haunt you.

No, it had to be personal, yet embracing.

Hitatchka used his art, his career. What was Leia? Like Hitatchka, she used words for a living. She was a senator.

Maybe not in my lifetime, but your rule will end.

No, that was vapid, or vague-

The door opened, and she got angry, because she wasn't ready yet. It was just one storm trooper to bring her to her death. Apparently they expected all the fight to be gone from their victims that the usual armed pair was thought needless.

The trooper cocked his head to the side, and Leia raised herself on her elbow.

She was a Princess. No one should forget how the Empire executed a princess.

I would make a better Emperor than you.

She pressed two fingers together, committing the phrase to memory.

Her time was up, and she was sorry, for she was young, and she believed in opportunity. Maybe, just maybe, her R2 unit was still where the escape pod had landed it. Maybe the plans had not been obliterated. There was still a chance. As long as she was alive, so was the Rebellion. Her words had to reach, not just to the outer edges of the galaxy, but into the hearts of her citizens. They had to see not just the Princess who scorned an Emperor as he ordered her execution, but themselves. Each and every being had the potential to lead.

Then she looked down on death's escort, remembering to be scornful and haughty to the last. "Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?" she said.

It was no matter. There was purpose in death.