Have you ever thought about space? Truly sat down and tried to conceive of it? Plenty of wise creatures have tried to wrap their minds around the immensity of the vastness of that void, the frightening concept of so much nothing… and plenty of them have gone a little bit mad from it.

There's only one simple truth: the void is a lie. Even the blackest patch of sky has an invisible luminosity, if you know what you're looking for. Frenetic vibrations of energy, seemingly random, but there are those who are able to make out the patterns.

And then there are the whispers. Had they always been there? Sometimes soft, so soft that you can scarcely imagine it. Sometimes violent tides that threaten to tear apart the fragile threads they travel along. They wax and wane, but they never cease, and the void has no choice but to flex and stretch to accommodate them.

Leia couldn't hear the whispers. That part didn't belong to her. But the Force flowed through her all the same. She felt the vibrations moving through the endless expanse of space, even here, underground in her bunker.

She ended her meditation and returned her attention to the long list of numbers in front of her. This was a different sort of code, and one that she was far less equipped to decrypt. Her fingers began to dial out a number on her holopad before she had even registered her intent to make the call.

He answered her immediately, as he always did. The miniature hologram looked up at her deferentially. She was surprised to see him dressed casually, in light of the circumstances.

"General Organa."

She was too exhausted for the niceties. "I don't understand the message here, Poe. You're going to have to give it to me straight."

"What I've sent you is all of the intel we have about the situation on Coruscant. To put it lightly: it's not good. The planet is too big; the city has too many eyes. Back in your day that might have made it a good target — your guys were always able to hide in plain sight. But things are different now. Riskier."

"Great risk often breeds great reward. The wretchedness of the capital is exactly why having one of our people there is important. We could increase our rate of gathering intel exponentially."

He hesitated, just for a moment. "I think it would be safest if we were to rein in our ambitions, General. For now, at least. We don't want to get cocky."

Leia found herself feeling equal parts pride and sadness. Poe had proven himself the great leader she had always known him capable of being, but she missed the wisecracking flyboy who had never been afraid. Leia knew that her role as a teenage rebel had caused her to grow up faster than she would have liked, but she took that in stride in hope that others wouldn't have to do the same. And yet here she was forty years later, fighting that same fight, and dragging others with her.

She made herself smile at him. "I agree. I leave the details to you, Admiral."

"Thank you, Leia. Say hi to Chewie."

Leia stood and stretched, wincing when she heard her back crack. Six years confined to this bunker had left her feeling the weight of her age. She spent far too much time hunched over her desk, but if she didn't do it someone else would have to.

She was the hub of what remained of the Resistance. All of their communications and all of their intel flowed through this bunker. After Crait the dregs of the Resistance were deposited in groups of three onto the most remote planets they could find. Leia's was the most remote of all. This planet didn't even have a name; at least not one she knew. Her mother Breha had built this bunker back before the rise of the Empire, when she had become concerned about her husband's increasing involvement in the Clone Wars. Anyone who knew of its existence had been on Alderaan when — no, she told herself, not now. The Resistance. You were thinking about the Resistance numbers. Leia was the only one who knew the locations of every base. It was only fair that she be the one put at greatest risk.

She walked through the bunker towards the kitchen, one hand massaging her stiff shoulder. Chewbacca was cooking — or, rather, he was attempting to. A porg sat on his shoulder, chewing mindlessly on a lock of the Wookiee's thick fur. Another was sitting on the ladle being used to stir their dinner, constantly threatening to overbalance and tumble down into the pot. The Wookiee looked exasperated, but utterly resigned to his fate.

R2-D2 was there too, the most sensible of the bunch. One of its many drill accessories had been repurposed as a vegetable cutter. Leia wondered what the droid thought, after having seen so much battle and excitement over its long life, to be now relegated to simple domestic tasks such as this.

The cosy scene began to fall apart when Chewbacca decided he had done enough stirring and balanced his ladle against the side of the pot. That was enough to finally cause the porg to lose his balance, and he came dangerously close to contaminating their dinner. Artoo reached out a mechanical pincer to catch him just in time, but it was enough to cause both porgs to begin squawking and flapping ridiculously. Chewie roared in consternation, reaching out for them, but they were in such a state that they eluded his grasp. Leia simply watched them, her expression unchanging.

Leia was no stranger to heartache, but she had hope. She had lost it once, momentarily, but the Force itself had reached out and brought her brother to her to restore it. How could she not believe? It was this certainty that helped her to look past all the many, many things that she had lost to appreciate the precious things that she had kept. She watched the scene in the kitchen rapidly escalate to complete chaos and thought of how she would gladly give her life a hundred times over for these dear friends of hers. Even for the droid. Maybe especially for the droid.

"Chewie," she interrupted. "CHEWIE."

The scene froze as he turned to look at her. She chuckled.

"I'm going to head up — no, no, don't worry, I'm not going out. I just want to look for a while."

He warbled his assent.

She climbed the ladder with more difficulty than she would ever admit to herself. One hundred and fifty-seven rungs. As she heaved herself up the very last one she found the small landing platform, and above that a tiny slit of a window, less than the size of her two palms together. This was her only portal to the rest of the galaxy, and she wouldn't let herself think about how measly it was.

Faint starlight touched down on her cheeks as she looked up into that vast expanse and opened herself once again to the steady flux of the Force. She spiralled up out of herself to join it, enjoying the fleeting freedom beyond the confines of her bunker. Higher and higher she soared, and she was no longer Princess General Leia Organa-Solo; she simply was.