The transport was red, with the black field and painted stars in the shape of the galaxy that identified a CTC craft. The steam swirling from the landing thrusters was hypnotic, and Leia watched it as one entranced.
At least she looked composed, though her fingers folded tucked into her hands covered sweaty palms. And she looked ready, or determined. Which she was.
After leaving Dr. Renzatl's breakfast table- she had forgotten to throw away her kaf cup- she had gone to her quarters and changed. Found her Death Star gown carefully folded inside a drawer. It needed pressing, so she called in a livery droid. It needed freshening, too, she noticed as she slipped it over her head, but the Alliance didn't provide scents. In the 'fresher she applied dabs of soap to random places in the pleats, and wet them slightly to bring out the aroma of soap. It would have to do.
She changed her hair, too. The Death Star gown was a cheat sheet. Things she needed to remember. I am not the villain. But her hairstyle held no meaning, really. It was the hairstyle she received the morning of her departure on the Tantive IV as her maidens had dressed her.
"How do you want your hair today?" the Maiden of the Bath asked.
Leia hadn't cared. She was busy going over the itinerary of her deceptive diplomacy mission, and barely listened.
"How about the side roll?" the Maiden suggested, and started pulling on Leia's hair, dividing it in two sections.
Though one's hair, particularly a woman's, was significant on Alderaan. In fact, before the Recent Experiment was enacted, women had braided secret messages into their hair with the use of ribbon, twists, and a coded number of plaits.
The Goddess of Loss was represented in statuary and paintings in a singular image: a lovely woman, either eternally beautiful or in the bloom of youth, but her long hair was loose, unkempt. It looked anguished.
Leia removed all the hair pins and brushed out all the crimps caused by her long- term wearing of the side rolls. Then she took carefully separated strands and tied them twice in overhand knots up at her crown. That was all she did. She looked at her image in the 'fresher reflector and hoped it would suffice.
Taking this out will be torture. Her eyes widened, surprised at her own poor joke, but then they gleamed. You're no worse than a hairstyle, Vader.
Down on the landing pad she stood beside Mon Mothma and practiced breathing regularly. She noted the members of the press, their section to stand roped off, and the CTC crowd gathered in its own area. Majors Klander and Renzatl observed the proceedings near them. Major Klander caught Leia's eye and gave her a subtle thumbs up. It was a big day for him, too. He'd worked very hard, with Leia's input, on being able to provide healing through environment.
Luke was in the Homestead on patrol. Han might be waiting in orbit too. He could have come, she thought a little wistfully. Taken a shuttle that dropped the press down. Instead he probably gathered with the other pilots. Maybe a raucous sabacc game was taking place, she imagined, and then told herself to concentrate on what was going on in front of her.
There was to be an order to the proceedings once the ramp let down. The CTC, the Alliance, and Alderaan, in that order. Mon had a carefully arranged program put in place. She wanted to explain, to rally, and to console.
Leia much preferred Luke at her side. Or Chewie behind her, so she could lean back and sink herself into his soft fur and remain standing, if she needed.
But she shouldn't need, she reminded herself, and rubbed the Death Star gown to reinforce the thought. It was still true, even when feeling a little raw, wrung out, after talking with Dr. Renzatl.
If Chewie were behind her that meant Han would be here too. Luke was filial; Chewie embracing. Mon challenging, and that's why Leia didn't want her. What would Han be? Would he advise her to be a Princess?
Conspiratorial, she settled on. Yes, he would conspire. No wall to shoot, Princess. How you gonna get out of this one?And he would wait, slight admiration in his eyes because she had shot the wall; she had gotten them out of the detention corridor. And then he would spring into action.
She nodded to herself, wiped her palms on her Death Star gown again. She was the Princess of Alderaan. General Rieekan was in uniform, but his function was different, so he did not stand behind her, as he would in the service of her father, but rather a good distance ahead, ready to greet those disembarking.
Leia recited what she had learned the past few hours: Tarkin wanted to use the Death Star. Her father would beg forgiveness.
A CTC craft held sixty passengers but this one wasn't full. It was an evacuation of a school group from Bavasuuti. An odd, deteriorating situation as a Bavasuutian docent leading the group around was beaten by one of his own. The wielder of the pike stick shouted repeatedly, "No sympathy!"
Another thing Leia learned: there were places where Alderaani, without Alderaan, were not welcome. Lack of charity was tolerable; that was Buteral's purpose. But no welcome? It made her shiver.
My father would beg forgiveness, she chanted.
So there was no Han, no winking fellow to push her forward; no Chewie to show how much he cared; no Luke to offer solidarity. Rieekan might need a handkerchief for his own hands and Mothma was like a statue a mortal carved of the goddess of contest: an immobile judge, but frozen, so had she won or lost?
Names, and candles. That was all Leia had for this small group of students: the dead. She was nervous- Rieekan, too- because she could offer sorrow, but they had that already.
We have a role in this, Carlist had said. So they could both offer responsibility, which to Leia, showed weakness. She wondered if Carlist felt the same.
Tarkin wanted to use the Death Star, Leia repeated to herself. Tarkin wanted to use the Death Star.
Leia had been to Bavasuuti once with a student group. She guessed that these students were sixteen years old, the same as she had been. It was a popular exchange program on Alderaan. Bavasuuti was near, and the university system there started at age fourteen, so the Alderaani were getting some college credits before entry to an Alderaani institution, which required them to be aged seventeen or older. And it had them living among the Bavasuutain, fur-covered humanoids with stumpy tails and yellow eyes.
It was a shame- worse, of course- that they had been singled out, but easy to see how. They were so obviously and thoroughly Alderaani it took Leia's breath away. The hair, the embroidery at the edges of their school uniform tunics, the wide brown eyes... it was almost defiant.
General Rieekan was bowing to the girls and shaking the young men's hands. "Welcome," he said so many times in a voice thick with emotion that it lost all meaning. There were some adults on board too, the chaperones and lead teachers.
Leia watched Carlist struggle, and she remembered he had two sons. She brought a hand up across to her shoulder and grabbed the muscle and held on tightly. How strange, that two opposite things, first the witnessing of her planet blow apart and then watching her people assemble on Buteral, should spark the same reaction.
I am not the villain.
Mon Mothma's schedule of event seemed quiet and somber and appropriate in Rieekan's office, but it wasn't private at all. Holojournalists recorded and narrated into their equipment, members of the CTC and Ministry staff crowded the landing pad, and over the noise of shouted questions General Rieekan was demonstrating the grace of what it meant to be Alderaani. Leia's hand dropped from her shoulder and she told Mon Mothma as she decided to join General Rieekan, "You brought them here. Him too. Let's help him."
Leia felt bare without her maidens, and she wondered if anyone knew who she was now that she was all alone. It was easy to identify the Princess by the crowd of twelve women following in her shadow.
Though Leia was famous on Alderaan. She would be the next queen, so her life was well documented, both publicly and privately. It was that constant anomaly that plagued her. Famous when the place existed; unrecognizable without it. She bowed her head at each, gentle but unsmiling, and the only time she touched them was to pull a fist down from moving over a young man's heart, or to lift a young lady from under her elbow to stop her from curtsying.
There wasn't much age difference, Leia's twenty to the students' teen years, but she felt much older. She always had; a Princess's life had more hours in the day it seemed. When others went home from school she still had a few more hours of study, so by the time she was sixteen she was pursuing a second course of study at university.
Mon Mothma murmured beside her, "I'm glad to meet you," or "I'm so sorry for your loss."
One of the adult men, either teacher or chaperone muttered to Leia, his eyes glistening, "You were spared. Thank the goddesses you were spared."
Leia was taken aback. He was... he wanted her spared?
"No," she answered quietly. "I am the same as you."
They were all off the ship now, friends standing together and a few off by themselves. The adults in the group were spread out, mixed among the students. Thirty-three, Leia counted. A good-sized group to travel to Bavasuuti. And there was a baby. Not a baby, Leia corrected herself, suddenly incoherent and unable to come up with the word to describe an old baby.
Babies were generally held by their parents and that was the case with this little girl, but somehow she wasn't a baby. Leia locked eyes with her, oddly afraid, for those brown eyes didn't understand. The child's mother looked weary; she had probably told her daughter, Father is dead, Gran is dead, our house, our pets, listed on and on, all the lives gone from their world, and the child never cried because she just couldn't comprehend.
She wouldn't remember, Leia knew. Being on the the soil of Alderaan steeped a person into thousands of years of civilization and tradition, and this child was suddenly cut off from it. She wouldn't remember what her father looked like. A double tragedy for the mother, who would spend the rest of her life grieving for what was lost and spend her future raising a daughter who had no idea.
The transport lifted off- it would refuel or rest in orbit before heading off to fill the shuttle again. There would be a constant stream from now on. There was only the sea, rhythmic in the ebb and flow of sound. A droid rolled up a podium and Mon Mothma and the CTC head, a Twi'lek female, stopped talking together and waited behind it. The crowd drew in closer and quieted.
"Good morning. My name is Oolanda Masawawi and I am executive officer of the Core Treaty Consortium," she began. "Eighty years ago," the Twi'lek spoke in the sing-song of her species, "the CTC was formed to assist systems stricken by misfortune. Though much of our work is in response to natural disaster, it is out of recognition that beings, for some reason, cannot stop waging war, resulting often in the destruction of a surroundings. Our philosophy developed that war is a form of disaster. Disasters cannot be prevented.
"The Core Worlds, the whole galaxy in fact, mourns what has happened to you, what has happened to Alderaan.
"It is always very difficult to arrive at a place with our medical teams and excavation equipment, and see the despair and sadness in the eyes of survivors. I never thought to see a scope of disaster where our equipment is not needed, our food, our doctors. I am... heartened that we are able to bring you here.
"You are the first to arrive at Buteral but you won't be the last. In partnership with the Alliance for the New Republic," the Twi'lek glanced at Mon Mothma, "Buteral has been established as a crisis base for those whose homeworlds can no longer provide social structure and security. It is our hope to not only provide sustenance and tools, but to offer care and love. Humanity can be very dark at times, but within the darkness there is always a spark of light.
"I know you don't want to stand here and listen to me," quiet, polite smiles showed in the crowd, and the Twi-lek also smiled, "I'm sure you feel your lives are on hold and you are anxious to return to them. May the Force speed your recovery. As we say on my world, a'aat'ka ne po'oota. 'Spirit lives where dust gathers.'"
Masawawi stepped back and she and Mon Mothma clutched elbows, and their faces showed compassion and respect for each other. A perfect holo shot, Leia thought, and hoped Palpatine would see it.
"Citizens of Alderaan," Mon Mothma began in her slow and quiet voice, and paused while her eyes lit on thirty-three faces. "The Empire destroyed your homeworld. I want to make that clear in case the details were presented to you differently. That is why you are here. Whatever you may have heard, or hoped: that the news is false, that it was a result of a battle between the Alliance and the Empire, that there has to be something of Alderaan left. Whatever you have heard, I came to deliver the honest truth.
"The Empire destroyed your homeworld. They built a battle station they called the Death Star, and Alderaan was only a test."
Leia lowered her chin a bit, struck by the thought. A test... it hadn't occurred to her really, though Tarkin may have said something similar, but it was true. He was reckless to the point of incompetence, Leia realized slowly. She saw him in a new light. If by chance events went otherwise and she and the Rebels were destroyed on Yavin, the Emperor would no doubt have Tarkin's head because of his actions. An idea latched to her. Even with no time for consideration it had great appeal.
The Minister was letting her words soak in. "A test," she repeated. "I don't need to tell you what was lost. I am sorry for the sequence of events that has led you here. The galaxy feels your loss as keenly. As Minister, my sorrow is not enough. Helping you find your way out of this situation is not enough.
"For years, the Empire has enacted laws and policy which have changed the way we, citizens and world systems, are supposed to view each other, interact with one another. Our quality of life has suffered as a result and now our physical lives are threatened. All of us." Mon Mothma stared out at the crowd. "I don't wish to politicize your presence here. Emperor Palpatine has done that. The Alliance for the New Republic is not fighting a war of political differences. We are fighting for the future. We are fighting to ensure there is a future.
"May the Force be with you. May It be with us all."
Scattered applause sounded. Leia looked about and saw that Mon Mothma's two aides in attendance were applauding, as were Majors Klander and Renzatl. Leia brought her palms together but her clapping was soundless.
Mon was waiting for her to take her spot behind the podium, but Leia's feet didn't move. The group of students and their chaperones and teachers merely stood. Perhaps they guarded their feelings tightly in such a public scene, for they looked only skeptical or dull. The sea was too high, looming and black, and the receding waves hissed.
Leia spoke to General Rieekan. "I'd like to assemble in the courtyard."
Mon Mothma's carefully arranged event was changed, and she jerked her head about, as if wondering where to move the podium. "As Alderaani," Leia added for Mon's benefit. "Privately. Only us."
General Rieekan nodded to Leia and stood in front of the podium to address the group. "We'll give you a moment to stretch your legs. We'll be walking to up there," he pointed, and heads swung about to view the residential platform. "After an orientation, you'll be shown your quarters and then where to eat. If you'll follow me, please."
It must seem so odd, Leia thought as she took off swiftly to reach the courtyard first and avoid a private word with Mon Mothma. The students probably received a similar talk when they arrived on Bavasuuti, only without mention of war.
She sat on the stone bench at the rear of the courtyard and touched her hair, making sure the knots were strong. Her scalp felt taut.
She waited patiently. It took them a long time. Maybe the General stopped them to point out features, maybe the adults got to talking with Mon Mothma, demanding more information. Maybe the baby toddled along- toddler, that was the word- and could fit between the railings-
Leia jumped up and paced a bit, chiding her racing heart. Why would she think such a thing? That a baby, after losing so much, should find its end here? And Leia didn't trust the mother to watch for the safety of her own daughter?
Leia took a big breath. They are not the villain.
She smoothed her hair and looked out over the durocrete wall at the sea. The lights reflected on its surface. From up here, high on the thin mountain, the sea appeared gentler. It moved rather than crashed.
The group started to drift in and Leia turned around. The students were drawn to her, and immediately took a seat on the floor, just looking at her. Leia saw they were of mixed age; some looked younger than sixteen. A girl said, "Are you the Princess?" but Leia only moved her eyes from her and after that no one said anything.
The toddler came in, walking unsteadily and holding on to the two hands of a boy who must be her older brother, and then the mother scooped her up and kissed her cheek.
Was compassion need? Is that what Leia had done to herself?
She'd never faltered at being a Princess before. She had trained for so long and so hard.
Her mother had once advised her, when Leia was tired and very young, "you have to breathe royalty, Leilei." And she blew her warm breath on Leia's chubby cheek. "You see?" she said. "Try it."
Little Leilei filled her belly with air. She blew out, cheeks puffed, and her mother laughed.
"Slower; softer," her mother said. "Try again." Together, they inhaled as much as they could, and Leia watched her mother, copying the pace of the exhale.
"Did that help?" Queen Breha asked her daughter.
Little Princess Leia nodded, but told her mother the Queen, "Mati, you need a mint."
Now Leia surveyed the crowd. The adults stood at the rear. The mother and baby sat on a bench across the courtyard from Leia's. The baby squirmed and wanted down. She wanted to explore.
Han wouldn't appreciate what Leia did just now. She broke the royalty wall- shot it, she amused herself with the thought- the one that kept her distant and impersonal.
"What do you want to ask me?" Leia said.
The same girl piped up immediately. "Are you Princess Leia?"
"Yes."
"Is it true?" another one asked after a moment.
Leia could have asked her to clarify, but felt she didn't need to. "Yes," she said. "It is true. Alderaan was completely destroyed by the Death Star. There is nothing to go home to. It is now called the Graveyard. Alderaan has become a meteorite shower."
Her blunt words caused some gulping sobs. Leia bit a cheek. It took strength of character to remember. Tarkin, she reminded herself.
"Are we the only ones?"
"We aren't," Leia answered. "There are a good number of natives on many systems. Others will be joining us. It has been a month. A long time." She took a big breath and did not exactly lie. "I have been waiting for you."
A man was crying. A boy asked, "Where were you?"
"Weavers," a man used the term only one Alderaani referred to another, and held his hand up in commanding authority. "You're in the audience of the House of Organa. You will address Her Highness properly."
"Please," Leia held her hand up. "That's not as important as your voices." She nodded at the boy. She had asked General Rieekan the same. "Serving in the Senate," she told him. "I was on a diplomatic tour. I... was on a ship when it happened."
"Was... was the Viceroy with you?" He forgot to use her title but no one reprimanded him this time.
"No," Leia had to clear her throat. "No, I am afraid he was... he was home."
"Oh," the boy said, his lips continuing to form a circle long after the word was gone. Several people bowed their heads.
"Your Highness," another man had his hand up. "Forgive me, I know the children have a lot of questions but adults have different concerns. What are we going to do? I want to be able to provide for myself materially. Being alone is hard enough, but I find the prospect of being not just without Home, but my house, my bank, my job, terribly disconcerting. It's not that I don't appreciate the efforts by the CTC but that's only looking ahead for the immediate future. Where am I going to go when your funding runs out? Where am I going to live?"
Leia swallowed. She had dreaded the arrival of her people, but now she saw that's just what they were, people. They were numb and scared and angry, but they were worried for themselves. "These are valid concerns. Without question we all need a place to live. I commend your determination to not wish to rely upon the charity of the CTC and the Alliance. We," she took a breath, "have to face relocation."
"Will we be separated?" someone interrupted.
"We already are," Leia answered honestly, and it was a sad statement. "However, on worlds where Alderaani families and communities live, it is our hope they open their homes, especially to children. At a later time I would certainly like to visit the idea of living on the same soil together again. To answer your question, good sir, about re-establishing your independence, financial and otherwise, it is my hope to achieve remuneration for you. I have begun the claims process with the IDIT for account holders with the Bank of Alderaan."
The man quieted, his question temporarily answered.
"I also," Leia spoke slowly, knowing it was too soon to release her idea. She should have discussed the feasibility of it with Mon first, but holding Palpatine responsible was a calculation only an Alderaani could appreciate, "based on information I recently received, plan on bringing a civil wrongful death suit against Emperor Palpatine for the destruction of Alderaan."
"How- what do you mean, Your Highness?"
Leia thought a moment. "It alludes to what Mon Mothma indicated. That the firing upon Alderaan was a test." Her eyes sought Carlist's. "General Rieekan-"
He was nodding into his databoard as he wrote, grinning. "We have law staff. It'll anger him. But it's exactly what he did when he was Senator. He snowballed every motion with some countermeasure. Just desserts." He looked up at Leia. "Or maybe you'll win his admiration."
Leia shrugged, unconcerned. "He's had my contempt."
"What else are we going to do, Your Highness?" a girl asked. She looked miserable and seemed anxious. Several threads of her gold embroidery at the wrist were plucked out and frayed. Even now, she worked them, twisting and tugging. "I mean, can we try and contact? I know you said it's gone, but is there a way?" Her eyes filled with tears. "I've been calling my mom's comm and there's... They would go in the speeder," she sniffed. "That was our family emergency plan. They could be flying around-"
"There's no more atmosphere either," her teacher said resignedly. Leia had the feeling he'd had to quash her hopes, or denial, a few times. "A speeder's no help."
Leia couldn't take the pressure. It hurt physically in her chest. "I know this is hard," she spoke to the miserable girl. Others kept a distance from her. She had no friends, Leia saw. She got the impression even her teacher didn't like her.
Leia got up and carefully sat next to the girl, mindful of her dress and hair. She put her arm around the young girl. "So much is gone you can't believe it to be true. You can't think of anything else."
She swung her head to either side, taking in the other's reactions. They were watching her intently and she saw some heads nod. "You want to be glad to be here but it means you must be glad others are dead. You're alive but you can't find joy."
She nodded some more, finding truth finally in all of their faces. She gave her following words slow emphasis. "We are all we have. That's it."
A familiar feeling returned. She was breathing royalty again.
"This is what we will do," she told them. "We shall observe the Month of Flame. That is how we will start. And we will remember with loud voices. Relay to Emperor Palpatine your outrage and distress. Tell others what you have told him. Accuse him. Help crumble his Empire just a little bit."
The group seemed to want to hear more. No one asked a question and no hands went up. Only the baby wriggled, held in place by her mother.
Leia continued, "We will build a memorial. Together. Would you like to see that?" she asked the children. "Alderaan is more than the revised star charts and chapters in history manuals it will soon become. We must remind the galaxy of the life our world contained. I should like the memorial to include the name of every Alderaani not here with us. In the rec center, Major Klander has placed a stack of data pads. Take one, and list the names of those you knew. Everyone. Not just family and friends, but teachers, neighbors, colleagues. The speeder driver who brought you to school."
"Mr. Manndist," someone murmured.
"Mr. Manndist," Leia repeated.
"Can we fight?" a boy asked. He was already shaving, and his voice was passed the intermission between boy and man. "Your Highness."
Leia got up from the floor and returned to the bench to face the group. She pressed her lips together. "No," she said. "The biggest reason is you're not of age."
"Some of us are."
"Then the decision to join the Alliance is theirs," Leia said smoothly. "Blaster bolts and trooper squads aren't the only way to win a war. The Emperor is obsessed with solidification of his power, and though he maintains his position he has lost. His empire is broken apart."
"If he wins-"
"He has lost his Empire even if he wins. He'll own... a collection. A collection of worlds whose citizens detest him, and a cycle of war will continue until one is successful and the Empire is truly dissolved." Leia thought about her words, her head cocked to the side.
"Alderaan was a world of peace," she continued. "We had no weapons we could use against another. I am certain, that had it been another world destroyed, the Viceroy would have seceded from the Empire and joined the Alliance for the New Republic. The question is, how would we have helped the cause?"
"Princess Leia," the first girl spoke up. "We would have given credits."
"Yes, I think we would have," Leia agreed. "But now, we don't have that either. So what kind of weapon can we forge?"
"We can do behind the scenes stuff," a girl suggested shyly. "Support the armies? Like help feed them?"
Leia smiled. "That is certainly an important role to fill."
"We're Alderaani," the teacher said. "We're special. We don't want to be but we are."
"Yes," Leia agreed. "And that is a role no one else can fill. There is our weapon."