"The Alderaanian"
We're evacuating D'Qar. Just when I was getting a firm grasp of the local plants and animals, enough to create some really appetizing dishes for the Resistance fighters, we're moving. You'd think I'd be used to it by now; how many planets have I lived on? Two dozen? Still, Crait doesn't sound like it has a lot going for it, as far as foodstuff goes. The planet's apparently just a big hunk of briny rock. At least we won't run out of salt.
But the First Order knows we're on D'Qar, so we're moving. No matter. Wherever Leia Organa is, that's where I'm going. I've worked for my princess for…what, thirty five years? Maybe more?
PZ-4CO is collecting stories; she's assembling some sort of archive of Resistance members and, assumedly, alumni of the Rebel Alliance as well. Since I've served in both organizations, the Princess asked me to give PZ my recollections. I'll start with my first real job; that's when things got interesting.
I'm just not going into the family business, no matter how hard Mom, Dad and Aunt Zahra push. Teaching might be a noble profession—a calling and all that—but I'm not cut out for it. I'm a restauranteur. I love cooking, love the business of food, of preparing dishes that people will pay for and an ambiance they'll travel across town for. I've never wanted to be a teacher like the rest of them. After one month of running Aldera, I'm quite certain it's better than calmly standing behind a lectern at Archipelago University while hundreds of students stare at you. The pace—especially at dinnertime—is frenetic, chaotic. But it's controlled chaos, and I love it.
I guess the problem with being the black nerf of the family is that I can't complain to anyone at home about my struggles at work. They'll just tell me to head back to university or get a "solid, steady" job. I could teach cooking…if this restaurant fails. But I can't let it fail, if only because I don't want to disappoint my family. After all the bravado and begging it took to get a loan from my parents, I simply must succeed.
Aldera, as the name suggests, is an Alderaanian-themed place on Imperial Center. Yes, I know, it's one of the pricier planets anywhere, but since Duncan and I met and realized our common passion, it's been a dream of ours. He's Coruscanti—can you still say that? I mean, it sounds dumb to say he's 'Imperial Centrist.' Anyway, Duncan inherited an empty building from his uncle just as we graduated, so it seemed serendipitous. (He wanted to call the restaurant Serendipity, but I thought it didn't convey the theme well. Alderaanian food is so popular in the capital, so why not advertise it?)
Things are going pretty well now. After eight months, Aldera is turning a pretty nice profit—finally! We've got some regulars: a lot of Alderaanian expats, of course, but also some locals. Tourists come in, too, especially since we got a four-star review in PlanetHopper. Mom and Dad have come around, grudgingly but honestly. On Dad's last Name Day, they visited me and ate in the restaurant. They "loved" the food and actually apologized for doubting me. It was one of the better moments of my life, making peace with them like that.
Duncan and I work well as a team…well, as a business team. Personally, though, our romance has completely disintegrated. First, we have so little time for each other. This place is a black hole, sucking in all the energy we possess. We barely see each other outside of work, although we've been sharing a little apartment. Only the 55th floor, though it's good enough. I can't expect an Alderaanian level of comfort in the Galactic City. I knew that when I moved here. But Duncan and I are so different, and although our strengths do complement each other in the restaurant, we clash nonstop when we're alone. I'm a neat freak; he's unbelievably sloppy, except in the kitchen. He thinks I'm bossy and controlling, I think he's not paying attention to me. We argue about politics. How he can still support Emperor Palpatine is just beyond me. Maybe our parents' generation got suckered by him, but after almost twenty years of Imperial rule, come on!
Oh, speaking of politics. The Galactic Senate was disbanded yesterday. Disbanded. By the Emperor's executive order. Duncan's not even upset about it. There goes the last vestige of democracy. And I can't even imagine what it'll do to our business. Aldera is in the Federal District, less than a kilometer from the Senate building. I guess those senators and their staff are all unemployed now? Going back to their homeworlds? I know Palpatine doesn't care about the common beings—we're just so far beneath him—but so much of Imperial Center's economy is focused on the government, and I fear we're about to go into a real recession here. A lot of our clients are senators, or their aides; there's a whole service industry in the Federal District based around the Senate. What are we all going to do now?
I was discussing goat chops when I heard the news. A new recipe for goat chops in a Toniray reduction sauce. I was listening to my sous-chefs give ideas about side dishes and possible wine pairings, when Fiona burst in. "Alderaan is gone," she said. She repeated it three times, three different ways, before anyone understood what she meant.
My mind went blank.
Gone. My home is gone. My parents, my aunts and uncles and friends and Appenza Peak and the glacier lakes and the city of Aldera. My parents….
The day after The Cataclysm, I went to work. I didn't know what else to do. We opened at 11:00 for lunch, but of course I arrived hours before that. And at a quarter to eleven, I came out of the kitchen to take a peek at the dining room. My mind couldn't process quite what I was seeing. There was a line of people, waiting wordlessly to enter Aldera. A line. We'd never had a line before.
For several days, we had a full house for lunch, dinner, and even in between those meals. Hundreds of ex-pats who lived in Coruscant's Level 3204 came by. People who'd visited Alderaan once for their honeymoons, people who'd traveled to our capital on business or enjoyed a little ecotourism or traded in our spaceports or hiked in our mountains or had always wanted to visit our planet but never got around to it…so many stories. All these beings came to our restaurant and poured out their memories to me, the maître d' and—suddenly—their psychologist as well. I finished each workday exhausted, like a dish cloth wrung out until it was fraying. But I didn't want to close, even on our usual day off. These poor broken-hearted souls needed some sort of outlet.
After about a week of this relentless dining-with-therapy, an Imperial moff with flat eyes came into Aldera. It was around two o'clock, well after the lunch rush. He made a beeline for me and came right to the point. "You need to stop talking about Alderaan. And stop encouraging your patrons to talk about it."
I flinched. How was I supposed to tell my diners what to talk about? His point seemed to be that my restaurant was creating an atmosphere of resentment against our government, one which might lead to traitorous thoughts of mischief or even rebellion. I argued with him—gently, respectfully, he was a moff and I was beyond nervous—and finally agreed to "tone it down," whatever that was supposed to mean.
Duncan flipped out when I told him about the moff's visit. Terrified that we might actually get arrested or something, he suggested we should close the restaurant down for a week or two, until "things calmed down." What, like until Alderaan's atoms reconnected and the people came back to life? I called him a coward. He rolled his eyes and said something about Alderaanian women and their famously short tempers. The conversation went downhill from there. He ended up taking off for a week at his parents' home. I didn't know it then, but it was the last time I'd ever see Duncan.
Aldera was becoming a hotbed of anger, a meeting place for rogues and seditionists. I stubbornly refused to shut the restaurant down and, if anything, became even more direct with the grieving patrons, blaming the Cataclysm completely on the Emperor. Maybe I was too open, too loud. I was mourning like the rest of them, and didn't really care who heard me.
"You should guard your tongue," a dinner guest chastised me. "Your Empire has done so much for you, provided you with so much. Be grateful." I recognized her; she had frequently dined with Viceroy Organa. I wonder if he'd survived, or had been at home when It happened. This woman, though, looked like she'd aged ten years in a month. She wasn't Alderaanian, but she and the Viceroy had certainly been close colleagues if not friends. I respected her for that, even if she now sounded like a typical Imperial bureaucrat. I noticed other diners eyeing her with smoldering resentment.
"I'm sorry, Senator Mothma," I told the red-haired woman in a more subdued tone of voice. "I just can't seem to stop speaking my mind these days." I pursed my lips. "I'm missing my family, and I guess I just lash out indiscriminately. I don't mean anything by it. Enjoy your meal." I scurried back to the kitchen, sweat running down my back. If she reported me….
The very next day, a man came in to Aldera. We'd just closed for the night. The waitstaff had left and I was sweeping up. "Greet the night," the man said politely. An Alderaanian greeting. I sighed. Another one who needed to be consoled.
"Though it be as black as my soul these days," I answered wearily. I apologized, told him we couldn't offer him anything.
"I'm not hungry, thanks. I'm here to talk to you, Hestia. In private."