Twenty-seven days. Twenty-seven days in the belly of an old cruiser, packed into rows like cargo, sleeping on makeshift bunks hung between support beams. She wasn't Leia Organa here. Not a princess. Not a senator. Just Allennia Joldo, with her hair cut to her chin and lightened. Just another refugee fleeing to the outer rim with her son.
Ben still didn't understand. Not really. She'd explained to him that they would be using different names and pretending to be from Kuat, but there was only so much she could expect from a six-year old. "We have a special, secret mission," she told him. "We have to find Uncle Luke."
"Is Uncle Luke on Mandalore?"
"I don't know for sure," she answered, because wherever her brother was he was almost certainly not hiding out on Mandalore. It was just easier than telling her son her truth.
Eighty-nine days since Han's death. Ninety-two since the invasion of Nakadia. Two-hundred and sixty-four since the fall of Hosnian Prime. A little over three hundred since the Scourge was unleashed on the galaxy.
It all fell apart so quickly in the end. All of their work. All of their sacrifices. Just when the New Republic was starting to feel established, just when a sense of normalcy was settling in. There were still problems, of course, like the clandestine insurgency of the First Order, but she was finally getting support to take military action against them.
Leia wondered sometimes, if she'd played some part in this. If her actions made them desperate.
She would have gladly stayed and fought until the end, if not for Ben. If not for the red eyes that followed her everywhere in her dreams. "His name is Snoke," Luke told her, as grim as she had ever seen him. "He is strong with the dark side of the force."
Every time she closed her eyes she could see him. Hear him. Red eyes. A sneering mouth. The boy. He will be mine.
So, instead of staying to fight, Leia ran to the Outer Rim. She joined millions of other beings seeking asylum in far-flung systems and remote worlds. There were almost twenty thousand refugees aboard The Star Gazer, slowly orbiting the Mandalore system. New people joined them every few days from all corners of the galaxy, and they brought news.
"Fifteen or so came directly from Coruscant," said Byna, the woman occupying the bunk across from Leia. "They're overrun. The core is almost completely vanquished."
She was traveling with her elderly father and a baby less than a year old.
The only system of order for asylum claims was a series of plasticine chips on a string. Every breathing body was allotted two blue chips. Because of the vulnerable people in her care, Byna also had six yellow chips. Leia had three. Yellow was good, but green was better. Green was sponsorship. A relative on Mandalore. Someone to vouch for you.
Families with green chips were usually taken planetside in a matter of days. Before Leia's arrival, Byna had been aboard the Star Gazer for almost forty days. It took another twenty-seven days before the Admiral received authorization to send ten people to the surface. Byna's family was one of the chosen, and the only unit without a green chip.
"At least there's hope," Leia told her when they said goodbye.
"You don't have to pretend to be happy for me," Byna told her with bleak humor. "If you were the one leaving I wouldn't be happy for you."
"I am happy for you," Leia insisted. "But I also hate you. Just a little."
They hugged tightly, Byna's infant daughter squirming between them. "You'll make it," she told Leia. "I know you will."
Leia watched her walk down the row of bunks one last time, holding her father's arm to steady him.
Ben had developed a nasty cough and his eyes were glazed as he stared at the now-empty bunk across from them. "I want to go home," he mumbled.
"I know." Leia told him. "I'm working on it." She sat down beside her son and spread their one thin blanket over them. Though she could take Byna's empty bunk, she'd grown accustomed to sleeping upright, Ben's head on her lap.
She leaned her head against the support beam beside the bunk and closed her eyes. The main lights on the row powered down for the night, leaving only the strip lights illuminating the walkway. Twenty-eight days.
Some time later she was awakened by the sound of boots, and then a heavy thunk as someone claimed Byna's bunk. Leia opened her eyes, blinking into the gloom. The floor lights glinted off the dome of a helmet as its owner leaned forward to remove it.
A Mandalorian? Someone trying to get home?
The man exhaled, stretching his legs out into the walkway, and Leia saw short, seamed boots with retractable blades at the toes. They were unusual footwear, but she'd seen a pair just like them once, stalking silently across the sandy floor of Jabba's throne room.
Ho, ho, ho.
It couldn't be. For one thing, Boba Fett was dead.
Ben coughed, and the sound seemed to echo in the quiet. The bunk creaked as the man leaned forward again. "Fek me. What are you doing here?"
Her mind raced, trying to locate a weapon or an advantage, something, anything. He knew her. Even if he wasn't Fett, he knew who she was. "I think you have me confused with someone else," she forced herself to reply.
"Where's your bounty hunter disguise? Couldn't pull it off with a kid?" His tone was mocking and her heart sank with every word. He knew who she was. And if he wasn't Boba Fett, then he had a suspicious amount of knowledge about the last time she'd seen him.
This bounty hunter is my kind of scum. Fearless and inventive.
On the other hand, if he was here to kill her and take Ben, why remove his helmet and start talking to her? "What are you doing here?" She hissed.
"I asked you first."
"What does it look like? I'm trying to get asylum."
"So am I."
"You might be in for a long wait." Units with single people were the lowest priority. Leia had never seen one of them taken down.
He shrugged. Ben went into another long coughing fit, and Leia rubbed his back until it ended.
She wasn't sure what to make of his story. It seemed to her that a bounty hunter might be willing to try one of the more illegal points of entry. She had considered a number of them herself, including bribing someone to smuggle her and Ben into the system. But it was too risky. She couldn't afford to get caught without papers on Mandalore.
Ben started coughing again and her own throat ached in sympathy. Across the walkway, her new neighbor stirred. "Water might help."
"Water is rationed," Leia returned shortly. "We won't get any until oh-six when they turn the lights back on." Energy was also rationed. They only had ten hours at full lights, during which they got two meals and two servings of water. Sometimes she could tuck some of their rations away to eat after the lights went out, just to make the nights seem shorter, but water was impossible to save unless you had a bottle or a canteen, which Leia didn't.
It was such a little thing, being able to give her child water to soothe his throat. She was learning quickly to give up on the little things, like having a full stomach or clean hair. All she could do was focus on the big things. They were alive. They were hidden. The red eyes and twisted sneer of Supreme Leader Snoke remained, for now, a spectre of her nightmares.
The boy. He will be mine.
Over her dead body.