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PROLOGUE

Leia Organa stood in D'Qar's war room, her head bowed in mournful silence.

The room was completely vacant of all beings, save for the general of the Resistance stewing in her thoughts before the shuffling of feet echoed in the room's unsettling silence.

"Mistress Leia, are you feeling well?"

C-3PO—the loyal protocol droid that'd been in her father's care since the days of her childhood—held a touch of concern in his tinny voice.

"I'm fine, Threepio," she said. "Has the ceremony started already?"

"Not yet, mistress," he said, taking a few tentative steps forward. "The officers are waiting for you to arrive before it begins."

Leia nodded, sending out a silent thank you to Ackbar for agreeing to her request for some time to herself before the ceremony. The old veteran nodded, his bulbous eyes looking at her with eyes of acknowledgment—he too had gone through similar instances like this during his years of service in the Clone Wars and the Civil War that followed—before moving on to set up preparations for the ceremony to mourn the losses they'd suffered in the past couple of weeks.

She slowly shook her head, not looking forward to the event that was to come. So many good men and women had perished in what is now being called the Hosnian Cataclysm, and later the destruction of the First Order's dreaded Starkiller Base.

Her mind drifted off to the mental image of a handsome Corellian man with a mischievous look in his eyes, before it molded into the appearance of a rugged old man with eyes of great sadness and regret that she'll never get to see again.

"It doesn't get any easier, doesn't it, Threepio?" she asked, raising her head but still not facing the droid. She knew that it wasn't a smart question to ask a droid incapable of understanding emotions to know what she was going through, but he was all she had at the moment.

"I, ah . . . I'm uncertain of what you mean," Threepio said, before hastily adding, "Mistress."

"The people we lose," she said, finally turning around to lock eyes with the glowing photoreceptors that the droid possessed. She thought she'd grown used to these feelings since Alderaan; since Ben had vanished and Han had walked out.

Yet, she'd still held onto the hope that they would both come back, and they would be together again. A family.

And now, they're both gone. Forever—my son lost to darkness, and my husband to the cosmic universe.

"I cannot say that my programming allows me to fully feel what organics go through," Threepio said. "But I understand what your plight is. I too miss my original owners—your father, Captain Antilles, and . . ." his voice turned hushed. "Master Luke, of course."

"Yes . . . I miss them too." She felt the corners of her lips twitched upward into a wane smile; she could never forget the passionate fire possessed by her father, the quiet protective nature of Captain Antilles, and the absolute love in Luke's eyes the last time she saw him.

Her mind again drifted back to the last time she saw her twin brother in the flesh so many years ago—when the New Republic was still in its golden years, and her, Han, and Ben were one big happy family.

He's strong in the Force, Leia. Luke had told her, an ominous warning in his voice. I could feel him the moment I emerged from hyperspace.

There was no denying that Leia carried the blood of a Jedi in her—one that she was both proud and disgusted of for a great many reasons—but she was no longer the bright-eyed youngling who imagined herself as the brave warrior princess who would beat the Empire, and would restore peace back to her people.

She had helped defeat the Empire, but had not restore peace back to her people. Her people were now down to little more than a hundred refugees that were blessed to not have been on Alderaan when she saw it be destroyed by the power of the Death Star.

She was a politician now, not a freedom fighter. She had turned in her blaster in exchange for debates in the halls of the New Republic Senate. She had no desire of becoming a Jedi like the ones her adopted father had fought alongside with during the Clone Wars, nor was she interested in studying in the ways of the Force. Her brother—while saddened by her decision—had respected her decision as she had his.

But Ben was another story. Ben had wanted to learn the ways of the Force like his uncle, and his father before him.

That'd sent feelings of dread through both her and Han; the two of them having experienced first-hand the powers that his grandfather—not the heroic Jedi Knight he was known as during the Clone Wars, but the sick monster he became—possessed, and the dangers that a Force-sensitive could bring to the galaxy.

I will train him. I will teach him all that I know as Ben and Yoda did with me. I won't fail you, Leia. I promise.

Luke's promise—having sounded noble and just then—now haunted her to this day. She had allowed her brother to take her son with him to his Jedi Academy, despite the cold feeling that gnawed within her chest, and now their failings had been unleashed onto the galaxy in the form of Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren and the First Order's main enforcer.

So much had changed since that day when Luke took Ben away from them. She was no longer a senator respected by all, following a scandal revealing the truth about Leia's biological father that had ousted her out of the halls of politics, and had decided to form her own paramilitary to act on the rising power of the First Order.

"The sun is setting on the New Republic." Leia had said to those willing to heed her warnings. "It's time for the Resistance to rise."

And rise it did. Slowly, at first. No one had wanted to face the writing on the wall, especially since it'd been decades since war had poisoned the galaxy with its touch. But when the First Order began its aggressive expansion into the Outer Rim, many more followed in her footsteps to take on the mission of protecting the New Republic from the shadows.

And yet, despite their sacrifices and the severing of bonds with families and friends, the New Republic had been destroyed by the First Order in the most shocking act of war and bloodshed not seen since the battle over Jakku. After they struck back and destroyed the Starkiller Base, suddenly the entire galaxy was rooting for them.

Ironic. They called her a warmonger for wanting to defend them, but now called her hero when she began taking offensives against the First Order.

"I'm sorry to bother you again, mistress, but do you suppose we should be going?"

"Yes," she said, suddenly striding to the room's entrance. "I've delayed much as it already is."

"Very good, mistress," C-3PO responded, making Leia give a true, small smile. The droid's formal attitude had always managed to cheer her up in even her darkest of thoughts.

Together, the two of them made their way out of the base and out into the humid air of D'Qar where hundreds of officers and soldiers and volunteers were huddled together in rows, shifting in place and waiting for the ceremony to start. She frowned, not wanting to go through a throng of people and tapped Threepio on his shoulder, who turned to face her with a jerk. She gestured to her left with her head and motioned for him to follow, which he dutifully did.

It took all but a few minutes for Leia to reach the stage where the other high-ranking Resistance officers were waiting; Admirals Ackbar & Statura, Commanders D'Acy, Wexley, and Dameron—the last of the three looking at her in concern but she waved off his worries with a smile—and others who'd come out in support following the Hosnian system's annihilation.

Hera Syndulla, former general of the old Rebellion and now senator of Ryloth following the Civil War's end; Sabine Wren, a member of Syndulla's original rebel cell and now Mandalore the Free; Lux Bonteri, leader of the now reestablished Antarian Rangers paramilitary; Talon Karrde, information broker of the underworld and leader of the Outer Rim Alliance for the past ten years.

War veterans, like herself.

She'd fought alongside General Syndulla multiple times during the Civil War, having witnessed the Twi'lek's tactical abilities first-hand, particularly at the battles of Scarif and Endor. The woman—being a close friend during those days—had also showed her support in raising Ben, knowing full-well how troublesome it was to raise a child gifted with the Force in an environment of dissension and personal ambition.

Sabine Wren had spent most of the war defending the planet Lothal, Leia knew of the Mandalorian's warrior nature and how it saved her allies from the hundreds of retaliation attacks by the Empire up until Endor. After rebuilding Lothal from the ground-up, and disappearing for a short while, she returned to the galaxy by assisting Bo-Katan in uniting the rest of Mandalorian Space in a civil war that lasted for years, having recently ended months before she had dispatched Poe to Jakku.

Lux Bonteri had been one of her mentors in helping her survive the dangerous game of politics in the Imperial Senate, before he'd defected to lead the late Saw Gerrera's fractured Partisans reforming them into the Dreamers. After the war's end, he returned to the role of senator until retiring from that role and focused on rebuilding the Antarian Rangers to assist the Resistance in the coming war against the First Order.

Talon Karrde was different. He was, in the criminal entrepreneur's own words, "allies of a mutual interest". The man had assisted the New Republic in its early years by lending his network of smugglers to act as the backbone of its shipping until the New Republic finally got its act together and quietly cut ties with Karrde due to his shady criminal past. That still didn't hamper the man's influence, which practically thrived in the Outer Rim worlds where he managed to gather a collective of dozens—bordering on a hundred—solar systems to profit off of.

These figures of galactic interest pledging their support to the Resistance would only be the first of many allies that would light the fire that would burn the First Order to the ground.

Ackbar, noticing her arrival, smiled at her which she returned.

"I was wondering when you would show up," he said.

"I didn't think I took that long."

"Not at all. We've only just finished setting up the audio systems, and are only waiting for the broadcast to begin. I hope that you have a rousing speech prepared, because everyone—not just those here, but across all corners of the galaxy—needs to hear a leader to guide us, and who better than the last Princess of Alderaan?"

"Afraid to show your face in front of the cameras, Gial?" she jested.

"I left the life of politics back home, sir," he answered back with a dry chuckle.

"I wish I could say the same," she said, stepping up to the podium and looking out to the crowd of people, murmuring and vaguely gesturing toward the general. "We've come this far, Admiral, and we haven't lost everything yet. If we give up now, we're basically bending the knee for another Palpatine to take control of what's left."

Ackbar nodded, but said nothing else. After a few minutes, the crowd's voices began dying down until there was nothing left by the natural noises of the jungles of D'Qar all around them. Leia stood at a podium, hands clasped behind her back and a look of grim resolve on her face.

Taking one last moment to make sure there'd be no interruptions, she opened her mouth and started to speak.

"One standard week ago, We, the common beings of the galaxy, witnessed a tragedy unfold. A tragedy which was carried out by the armies of the First Order.

"The New Republic – a government that I, and your forebearers, fought and bled for in the name of peace and democracy – was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the First Order in an act of war and bloodshed not seen since the days of the old Empire.

"Hosnian Prime – and its sister planets – was annihilated by the power of the Starkiller Base, utilizing a weapon that has been outlawed after the displays of the Death Stars commissioned by Emperor Palpatine; a planet-killer.

"This terrible machine that they built, that they stood upon when it fired, saw to the end of the Senate, and the New Republic Starfleet. They had hoped to use fear and intimidation to make use bow to their will.

"But they hadn't accounted for one thing; our resolve. We swore to never again bow to the will of a madman, to never again submit to the tyranny and oppression of a dictatorship.

"And that was their undoing.

"Approximately one day after the Starkiller Base revealed a demonstration of its power, a small air squadron of brave men and women undertook the task of destroying the weapon.

"They succeeded, but the price was too high.

"Innocents dead, our galaxy in chaos, and the culprits behind this? In hiding after the destruction of their planet-killer, hoping to regain their strength. But we will not give let them. In every corner of the galaxy, you know our symbol and put your hope in it. And we will not fail you. We are the spark that will light the fire that will restore the Republic. That is our mission.

"That is how we will gain the inevitable triumph. By fighting to defend, and save what we love.

"The sun will rise again, and civilization along with it. May the Force be with Us."

A/N: I was inspired by the "Day of Infamy" speech by President Roosevelt in 1941, along with bits of the Declaration of Rebellion and one or two quotes that I liked in "The Last Jedi" to write Leia's speech. As you can tell, I'm mixing elements of the old Legends continuity with Canon but it won't be shoved in your faces or take away from the main story. Just keep an eye out for references and cameos later on.