The Price of Victory
Title: The Price of Victory
Author: immortal_jedi aka jedipati
Fandom: Star Wars
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mentions of the events, and specifically the massive amounts of death that occurred when Alderaan was destroyed, of A New Hope
Prompt: 63) There are glances of hatred that stab, and raise no cry of murder. -- George Eliot (1819-1880), English novelist.
Summary: Leia Organa contemplates the cost of victory.
Author's Notes: This story was written for the femgenficathon on livejournal, a multifandom ficathon to write gen fiction about canon women. It's also something I've wanted to write for a while- a Leia piece about the destruction of Alderaan, but until I got my prompt, nothing was coming to me.
Leia Organa sighed as she leaned back against the huge stone blocks of the Yavin IV temple. The stone retained the day's heat and she could feel the warmth through the back of her dress.
She stared up into the dark sky- dark because the moon was facing away from both the sun and the gas giant it orbited. She watched as a meteorite flared and then faded. It hadn't been some harmless bit of space debris. In the day since the Death Star had been destroyed, the moon had been pelted by small pieces of the once mighty space station.
Within a week, Leia knew that the smaller pieces would be gone, or would have settled into a semi-stable orbit.
Soon, the rebels would have to make sure that the larger pieces didn't land on the moon, either. But for now, they could enjoy the shooting stars that lit up the night.
Leia grinned, though there was nothing happy in the expression. Enjoy? No. She couldn't enjoy the fleeting beauty for itself.
She could only mourn that the station hadn't been destroyed earlier. She rejoiced in the shooting stars, for they were proof that the monstrosity that had destroyed her home was gone, but she didn't see any beauty in them.
She stared up at the heavens. Tarkin was dead. Vader was… not likely dead, from the reports given by the survivors of the assault.
Leia watched as another piece of debris fell. She needed to go inside, get back to the celebration.
Leia sighed. She didn't really feel like going back in to celebrate. Quite apart from everything else, there was so much to do. They had to begin evacuating since Tarkin probably informed the navy where they were, and if he didn't, Vader did.
They had to make sure the debris up in orbit didn't crash on any of the moons or planets with life in this system, which would take ships and people away from the evacuation, but they couldn't just let disaster rain down on the creatures on this moon. It wasn't the animals' faults that the Empire had to be opposed.
They'd already had the ceremony mourning the fallen fighters, and the one honoring the victors.
And the celebration just inside showed no sign of stopping. And why should it? The men and women inside hadn't faced the costs she had to gain this victory. It was a victory. The destruction of the Death Star was their first major victory since the Empire was formed. The Rebels had shown the galaxy that they were to be taken seriously, that the Empire wasn't all-powerful.
But Leia couldn't celebrate with everyone else. The… events earlier, before they'd destroyed the Death Star, wouldn't let her celebrate. She knew that, even when the… events got out, and people started realizing what the Empire really was, and joined them, they would grow. But she still couldn't celebrate.
The… events themselves meant that she could do nothing but mourn, now that the rush of danger and the flush of victory were both faded.
Her entire life, she'd hoped the Rebellion would win a major battle, but now, the cost seemed far too high.
Alderaan was gone. She gasped. It was the first time she's allowed herself to even think the words. Alderaan had been destroyed as a demonstration of power. Ten billion people were dead, an entire world dead, because of one man's lust for power. And in exchange, the Alliance had gained their first major victory and the possibility of many more recruits.
Leia sat down on the edge of the low wall that surrounded the balcony she had found. Was it worth it? They would be hunted all the more, and they'd lost one of the major sources of income.
Leia closed her eyes. Who was she kidding? She'd lost far more then that. She'd lost her home and her family. She had no doubt that her resistance had just been an excuse for Tarkin to demonstrate the power of the space station.
Leia took a deep breath. She could cry later, sometime when there wasn't as much to do. She had work to do.
She'd join the party again, and then in the morning, she'd start planning their next move. Perhaps a call to Mon Mothma was in order- let her know what had happened. The older woman could contact the hackers and slicers sympathetic to the Rebellion, and they could get the word out. The galaxy needed to know about the Death Star, what it could do, what it had done, and that it had been destroyed.
Though perhaps it would be a good idea to make sure that Luke Skywalker's name was kept out of it. As soon as the Empire learned his name, he'd jump to the top of the most wanted list. Leia could keep that from happening.
Leia entered the room, and was immediately surrounded by the noise of the party. No one seemed to have noticed that she had stepped out- until she saw that Luke watching her. He smiled slightly, sadly, and lifted his glass to her.
She smiled slowly and returned the salute as soon as she had a glass in hand. Luke turned his attention back to the story one of his tablemates was telling.
Leia kept the smile on her face. It grew easier to do so with each passing moment. The mood here was infectious.
She smiled and sat back. It was time to celebrate- worrying about the future could wait until later.
The next morning, Leia found herself in the command center, contacting the other leaders of the Rebellion and informing them of what had occurred. Mon Mothma promised her that she'd tell the rest of the leaders, so Leia contacted one of their smuggling partners, the one who had the expert hackers on his payroll, to start getting the word out to the galaxy.
Once she was done with that, she joined the military leaders as they planned the evacuation and cleanup. They needed to leave Yavin IV before the end of the week, which was when they could expect the Imperial Navy to reach the system.
By nightfall, the first of the troop transports were away, and the few remaining snubfighters and the smaller freighters were going through the Death Star's debris field, searching for larger fragments. Luckily, it appeared that the battle station had blown apart into pieces that were mostly smaller then the average snubfighter, small enough to burn up on entry.
Leia smiled at that report, but she was already busy writing the speech that she was going to record.
She was going to tell the galaxy what had happened to Alderaan. The Empire wouldn't be able to stop this message.
The tech nodded to her and she straightened her shoulders. "Begin recording," she ordered.
The tech held his hand up and counted down from five. When he finished, she nodded. "People of the galaxy, I am Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan. I come before you today to inform you of the fate of my home planet."
She continued to talk, knowing that this recording would change the face of the war. "Three days ago, Alderaan was destroyed by Governor Tarkin. He commanded a new battle station, known as the Death Star. We've included some material on this Death Star, so that you can see what it was capable of doing. The Death Star was designed to destroy planets. Governor Tarkin felt that destroying Alderaan would be an effective demonstration of the station's power."
She stopped for a moment and closed her eyes. "He forced me to watch," she finally said.
She took a deep breath. "This monstrosity of a battle station has already been destroyed. It was large, but it had a weakness that a good pilot was able to exploit. But this, gentlebeings of the galaxy, is the reason we fight. I am a member of the Alliance to restore the Republic. We stand against the Emperor and his power. Gentlebeings, I ask you to consider fighting. If you do not, then the Emperor will find other ways to kill millions of people."
She nodded.
"I stand before you now as a refugee, a survivor of the people of Alderaan. I stand here as a fighter, someone who will do her best to insure that no other people, no other world will go through this. I stand before you a survivor. Alderaan will not be forgotten! The fight goes on."
Leia would make sure that Alderaan's sacrifice was not in vain.
I hope you've enjoyed this story. And, as always, I have to thank my beta, arquenniel for the awesome job she does.