The excited speech of the controllers, generals, and admirals hammered her ears like a scratched record. The brightened displays burned her eyes. The stench of desperation and sweat clogged her smell.
But it was suddenly so numb. So numb.
She sat down upon the crates, suddenly at a loss of balance, almost not knowing where she was.
"Thank you." From far away, her son's voice as if echoing down along, hollow tunnel. She almost did not recognize it, that of an older man, mature, confident, powerful. But tinged with a brutal, breathless tone. The whisper stretched across from the Starkiller Base to where she was on the Resistance Base.
Then silence. The brief connection ended.
He was gone. He felt the ripples of his shock, disbelief, and at the last moment, sincere tenderness. Then an unbearable silence. She stretched, to find him, anything, any possible hope he was there-
Silence. He was gone. And this time, he wasn't coming back.
She could feel the eyes of everyone in the room on her. The pressure was there; she, General of the Resistance, looking weak in front of her comrades in their most desperate hour. She longed to give in, to shed a single tear.
Or to entirely break. He was gone. Not like before, when he had ascended into the stars and left her. But gone. To where he would be with the Force, always.
But where he would no longer be with her-
No. She had cried then, we had left her before. But she could not cry now. She was General Leia Organa, Leader of the Resistance, Senator of the New Republic. People from around the galaxy looked up to her as an icon, as a hero. And now, more than ever.
She would be strong. Not only for them, but for herself as well. She was strong, and she vowed to always be for the newer generation until they in turn were strong enough to carry on.
Be with the Force, my love. She sent the thought out into the Force as she stood up, gathering herself. "I want Poe's Squadron to give him cover, he may be able to spot a weak point in the command structure-"
"There's explosions coming from the inside!" a controller snapped. "Internal sabotage; from my viewpoint it looks big enough for a fighter to fit in-"
Her chest tightened. Until the end, you wanted to help. So I, too, will help until the end.
Maybe this would be it. Maybe the Starkiller Base would fire and destroy them all, as the Death Star had nearly done at Yavin.
The Force was with her. Whatever happened, happened. She heard Poe's voice as he signaled he was going to enter the entry point Han had created. Hope was there, strong, in all of them.
She closed her eyes and she could almost feel his old, lopsided smile crawling across her own face. There is hope. There is always hope.
RIP Carrie Fisher. A wonderful, iconic woman lost to us. I hope where she is now, she is truly at peace.