Chapter 2
Pacing the chamber, she caught a glimpse of herself in a length of polished metal. She knew she looked tired. Sometimes she wished she had been born a commoner, an ordinary citizen, instead of planetary royalty. Such thoughts led her inevitably to memories of Alder-aan. Her home world, now many years gone, reduced to ashes.
And her own father had been a party to it. It was a legacy she could not escape. She could not let something like that happen again, to any other world, to any other people. It was her responsibility, and the weight of it was heavy. Too heavy?
Easier if she had help. The kind of help only her brother was capable of providing. If he wasn't dead.
No. Surely not. Wherever he was, if he had passed on, she would have sensed his demise. Of that she was certain. Of that much she had to be certain.
There had come a hint, a clue. Not much, but better than any report that had found its way to her in some time. She would have followed up on it herself, for who better to search for clues to the location of a missing brother than his own sister? When she had proposed the idea, the shock of objection on the part of her fellow Resistance leaders could have been heard halfway across the galaxy.
Reluctantly, she had conceded to reason. Someone would go in her stead.
The name of a particular pilot had been put forth. His record was no less than remarkable, and she could hardly argue that a pilot scouting solo would draw less attention than a perambulating princess. So she agreed.