Alderaan Lives
A Star Wars story by Andrew Joshua Talon
DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit work of fan prose. Star Wars is the property of Lucasfilm Ltd and Disney. I would ask you to support the official release, but cannot in good conscience after The Last Jedi.
Her Alderaanian Majesty's Ship Wrath of Torhu
Two months after the Battle of Yavin
Marcus Quinn pulled hard on the stick as he brought his starfighter around. The HUD cursor struggled to lock onto the fleeing target, as it bobbed and weaved desperately. Quinn kept his cool, maintaining his focus. He just had to wait... For just the right moment...
The cursor locked on. He pulled the trigger, and a barrage of laser blasts left the four tips of his X-Wing. The target was struck... But the lasers were set to low power. Good thing too-They were still rebuilding their X-Wing squadrons, and losing any of the state of the art strike fighters would be bad.
The pilots too. Especially this one.
"Good shot, Viper Leader, you got me!" Luke Skywalker called over the comm.
"Good evasion, Rogue Leader," Quinn replied, a slight smile on his face as he brought his X-Wing into formation with Skywalker's, "that's the first time I've been able to hit you all day."
The rest of their two squadrons were similarly training around the Wrath of Torhu as she orbited Uvena Prime. The Rebel Alliance had evacuated quickly in the time after the destruction of the Death Star, and most of their forces had convened at the recently liberated world. It was a point of pride for Quinn to be back here: Their little fleet had liberated this fortress, that even now they were working to reinforce.
The fact the Shistavanen were treating them like heroes was also very reassuring.
"So, how are you finding the X-Wing compared to the Z-95?" Luke asked as they orbited around the Torhu. Quinn rocked his wings up and down a bit.
"I have to admit, the response times are significantly better, in all axises of motion," Quinn replied, "the laser firing rate could be improved though. While powerful, more shots means less chance of missing."
"Yeah, the cyclers for those are a bit slow," Luke admitted, "any of your engineers find a solution?"
"There are some proposals," Quinn allowed, "but so far nothing firm. Resources are a bit thin right now, even with our hosts' generosity."
"I suppose so," Luke sighed, "reminds me of when I had to use a cryogenic unit from a moisture vaporator to get the laser cannon on my T-16 to cycle properly."
Quinn raised an elegant eyebrow.
"Did it work?"
"I had to weld it back on after every three flights, but yeah," Luke said cheerfully, "Biggs was the one who..." He paused, but pushed on.
"The one who helped me attach it."
Quinn nodded.
"He knew his stuff," Quinn said quietly.
"Anyway," Luke said, "let's get back to it, huh?"
"Works for me, Rogue Leader," Quinn replied. He immediately accelerated to attack speed, and broke formation. Luke smoothly turned to follow him, already working hard to lock on.
"R3, see if you can jam him a little more effectively this time," Quinn ordered. His dutiful astromech's reply appeared on the screen. Quinn nodded.
"Run programs Quinn Jam 3 and 5. Adjust at random intervals!"
The little droid complied, as dutiful as ever.
Quinn did his best to keep him off his six, but Skywalker was the real deal. Even with all his skill, it took little time for the nascent Jedi to lock onto him. Still, Quinn focused on improving.
The better they both were? The harder the time the Empire would have.
That was all that mattered in the end.
"All right," Rik Girard said cheerfully, as he tapped at the control panel for the automat, "we're good to go!"
The cheerful man with dusky skin and black hair was not the most likely pick for a chief engineer. Indeed, as a member of a Great House, he was actually entitled to command one of the War Frigates. But he'd passed that duty onto his younger cousin, Juni, to do what he loved best:
Work with and build better machines. It had been a lifelong obsession for the man. And frankly, Elana and Leia were more than glad for it.
At the moment, one such machine was working furiously behind him, enclosed in transparent plasteel, as droid arms worked at lightning speed to assemble a whole vehicle.
Leia and Elana watched in fascination, as the long central hull of a T-65 X-Wing soon took shape.
"It took some doing, and a lot of work with the Incom Engineers," Rik said, nodding to an older human woman with fading blonde hair, and a Mirailan man with a long bushy beard, "but we're ready to produce X-Wings right on our own ships' Automatic Manufacturing Pods! Right Frum, Tila?"
"It's not as efficient as with dedicated factories, Your Highess, My Lady," the Mirailan man, Frum, apologized, "but it will make spare parts a lot easier to come by."
The blonde woman shook her head, grinning in amazement.
"It's only inefficient because there aren't more of them. It would be better if we could incorporate this technology into our on planet facilities," Tila said with a grin, "we could increase production by ten times!"
Leia and Elana beamed. They looked over at Rik, who rubbed his scraggly beard.
"The Automat tech isn't too hard to reproduce, in theory," he said, "but the trouble is, it requires Alderaanian droid brains with the right software to operate. We could get those from Delaya, but..." He winced. Leia nodded.
"The Imperial blockade," she sighed, "we'll have to talk to Han. See if he knows any smugglers who can get past it. This kind of technology is too vital not to use."
"Agreed, Your Highness," Elana said, "but in the meantime, we might want to sell the specs of the tech to the other members of the Alliance through Incom. If they could develop their own automats, even if they're not as good as ours, it would improve all our industries tremendously."
"Sell?" Leia asked, raising an eyebrow. Elana shrugged.
"Well, Incom still has to make money to keep producing for us," she said, "we're not asking you to work for free."
She nodded to Frum and Tila. Frum smiled and nodded gratefully.
"Thank you, My Lady, Your Highness," he said, "there are companies that are profiting off this war, but... Well, we're part of the Alliance for the long haul. To victory, or death. Making money would just make it a lot easier in our case."
"We're barely scraping by as it is, with friends sending us credits through various underworld means," Tila sighed, rubbing her cheek. A prominent scar was emblazoned across it. "I mean, with enough funding we could do a lot more than just the standard X-Wings! We've got plans for new sensor arrays, better laser cannons, integrated helmet heads up displays-The works!"
Leia nodded slowly.
"All right," she said, "we will speak with Alliance Command about how to implement the sales at our next meeting. For the time being? If you need any extra resources, Rik will provide them. If he doesn't have enough? Just talk to me. I'll find them, somehow."
"Thank you, your Highness," Tila and Frum said, almost in unison, as they bowed. Rik grinned happily, and stood up to bow deeply.
"Thank you, Your Highness," he added, "I have a list of things that might make the process go more smoothly! Power converters, Alluvial dampeners, servo motors, heat sinks, cryo-"
Elana smiled at Rik gently, and squeezed his shoulder.
"Unfortunately, Princess Leia and I have another appointment today," she said, "so please forward your list to us later?"
Rik started, and nodded quickly.
"Oh! Oh, yes, of course My Lady, Your Highness," he nodded. He turned away, back to the Incom engineers with a broad smile.
"So! What do you think of shunting some of the excess ions in the drive system into a reverse thruster mode?"
"Capturing them would require an alluvial ring," Tila hummed, already on her datapad, "such designs are tricky."
"Not if you make use of the engine turbines to power the cooling system," Rik challenged.
"We're already siphoning off a lot of power as it is," Frum grumbled, "I mean, the fighter was built to be overpowered, so do we need to add more mass like that already?"
"Of course we do! We should take advantage of it but still keep producing as much power as possible!" Rik went on.
The three continued their discussion, as Leia and Elana left the manufacturing bay. Elana chuckled at Leia's wry look.
"I've known Rik since we were children," she said, "he really hasn't changed much in all that time. I still remember when we took apart his uncle's airspeeder. That was fun."
"For both of you?" Leia asked, struggling not to smirk.
"Definitely," Elana said with a grin. She walked along the corridor of the engineering section, letting her hand run along the bulkhead.
"I find myself thinking about that a lot, these days," she admitted.
"I... Try not to," Leia admitted. Elana looked over at her princess, with a neutral expression. Leia shook her head.
"It'll distract me too much to dwell on it," she said.
"I suppose," Elana said carefully, "still... I mean, the Killik Festival is this month and-"
"And you can attend to it for me," Leia stated, much colder now. Elana frowned.
"Your Highness-"
"I've got too much work to do for a celebration," Leia stated firmly, "not when you can handle that for me."
"You're our sovereign, Leia," Elana insisted, "you need to be there-"
"You can handle it," Leia stated. She looked up ahead, and then nodded to Elana.
"Give me a moment."
She headed off, and Elana narrowed her eyes at the blonde woman in an orange flight suit who Leia was meeting with. Lieutenant Evaan Verlaine.
Now, there wasn't really any reason to dislike her. She'd been one of only two surviving Y-Wing pilots at the Battle of Yavin. She had flown backseat, and kept herself and her pilot alive. That had taken a lot of skill. She was Alderaanian, too. She'd been taught by Queen Breha, as part of an outreach program the Queen had done to help promote talented children of non-noble Alderaanians. Verlaine had been exceptional, graduating the Alderaanian Flight Academy with honors and now, joining the Rebel Alliance.
Yet something about her had rubbed Elana the wrong way from the moment she'd laid eyes on the pilot. And she honestly didn't know why.
It didn't make sense, and yet...?
Leia led Verlaine back. The cold eyed woman looked Elana up and down, her face stony.
"Elana," Leia said, "you've met Lieutenant Verlaine, correct?"
"Not properly," Elana said, smiling politely and nodding her head, "Lieutenant. I again must thank you for your courage. It can't have been easy, fighting like that."
"Thank you My Lady," Verlaine replied with a nod.
"We wanted to request something of you directly," Leia said.
"Yes, your Highness?"
"I would like to take a squadron of our ships out to Naboo," Leia said, "there are reports of Alderaanian refugees being held there by the Empire. I think we can liberate them."
Elana frowned.
"Your Highness, we did request that of the Alliance Command last week," she reminded Leia, "and they declined-"
"Except this is our fleet, and our people, not theirs," Evaan sniffed, "my Lady."
She'd added that almost too late. But Elana didn't take offense to the slight... At least, nothing she would express out loud.
"I understand that," Elana said slowly, "and I would love to go myself. Liberate them. But the Imperial Blockade around Naboo is very strong right now. Quinn suggested we could try some diversionary strikes to draw them off first, coordinate with the local resistance to get them ships-"
"That will take too long," Verlaine interrupted, "our people are suffering now, my Lady! Don't you care?!"
Elana had to bite back a vicious retort at that. She grit her teeth, let them go, breathed slow and deep...
"I know that, but getting us all killed won't help them," Elana stated, again slow and deliberate.
Verlaine sucked in a breath through her nostrils. Elana turned to Leia.
"Your Highness, we can't just charge in! We only just got the automats working on our ships!" Elana insisted, "without that technology, the Alliance loses the capability to create our own starfighters and spare parts easily!"
Leia bit her lower lip before she responded.
"They're our people though," Leia insisted, "we need to do more for them."
Elana again had to fight back her own tongue. Keep the retorts back... It won't help...
"I agree," she said, "Quinn put together a plan for us to send Mu shuttles out with some fighters to escort refugee fleets to us. Alliance Intel has a lead on a few ships gathering around system J296-A white dwarf star in the Mid-Rim. It's a good start-"
"That's, what, twenty ships?" Evaan scoffed. "With a few hundred lives? There are over a thousand Alderaanians at Naboo, My Lady!"
"Alderaanians are Alderaanians," Elana said firmly, "I'm going to rescue as many as I can, but losing more lives to save lives won't let us win this war!"
Evaan sneered.
"You seem to be taking a lot of advice from Quinn, My Lady," she hissed, "are you certain you can actually trust him?"
"Well, he doesn't question my orders or accuse me of being uncaring, so yes, I think I can, Lieutenant," Elana responded, glaring daggers at the blonde woman. The lieutenant held her ground.
"Perhaps because you're acting like the Empire wants us to, My Lady."
"So the Empire doesn't want us all dead?" Elana asked dryly. "How curious. I didn't know you were a mindreader-"
"Enough! Both of you!" Leia growled. Elana held back. Verlaine sneered.
"I just think her reliance on an Imperial is risky, Your Highness," she stated.
"I said enough, Verlaine," Leia stated firmly, and Verlaine finally bit her tongue. She looked at Elana and sighed.
"I see your point of view, Elana," she said, "but... You said it yourself. I am our sovereign now. I have to look after our people."
"It's my job too, Your Highness," Elana pointed out, barely biting back her anger, "to look after all our people. You included!"
Leia nodded slowly.
"Yes, it is," she said quietly. "I'm going to attend to some things. You go on ahead without me."
"As you wish, Your Highness," Elana said, shooting a suspicious look at Verlaine. She gave nothing away beneath that icy scowl.
"Thank you, Elana," Leia said kindly, genuinely. She squeezed Elana's hand. She then headed off, Verlaine following close behind.
That bad feeling got even more pronounced now. She sucked in a deep breath.
"River?"
No response. Elana frowned and looked around.
"River? Are you there?"
A stealth field deactivated behind her, and Elana sighed in irritation as she spun back to look at her Rist Shadow.
"Not funny."
"A little funny, My Lady," River said impishly, "your orders?"
"Keep an eye on them," Elana stated, eyes narrowing.
"Isn't that Winter's job?" River asked, tilting her head.
"Winter's on another assignment right now," Elana said.
River frowned.
"I wasn't told... How did you know?"
Elana shook her head.
"Because I heard Leia give her the order," she said softly.
River's frown deepened, as she tilted her head.
"Are you... Spying on our own monarch?" She whispered urgently.
"I'm not proud of it," Elana admitted, "but it had to be done. Please. Watch over them."
River nodded slowly.
"Understood," River said, vanishing once again. Elana shook her head, and headed off to the bridge.
Maybe she was just being paranoid... But on the other hand, being paranoid had worked so far...
More is coming soon. Hope you enjoyed this.