Leia had reached the end of her joy.
Alliance personnel flooded every spare corner of the Massassi temple, drunken ebullience overwhelming and loud. Cheers and half-remembered victory songs echoed down corridors until even Leia could hear them, standing outside the Alliance procurement office. Someone had begun accompanying the songs with an instrument that sounded like it might be from an Inner-Core world. The resulting cacophony was hideous but the cheers swelled in response.
Leia turned to the procurement agent. The woman laid out a set of Alliance fatigues: drab, gray and lifeless. Atop the pile was a keycard for a standard-issue bunk down in the subterranean depths of the temple. And then a set of boots, unpolished and well-used. So unlike anything Leia had ever worn before.
"You're sure about this?" the woman asked, her eyes kind but her mouth twisted into a concerned grimace. "They offered you a safe-house. You could hide. You should hide."
Leia lifted her chin. Jan Dodonna had said the same thing: take the safe-house. Live to lead your people. Be a symbol of hope. Do the right thing.
Do the right thing.
Leia squared her shoulders and grabbed the fatigues. "I won't hide," she said, grim and cold.
She turned and walked down the empty corridor, past the joyous Alliance personnel: fatigues, keycard and boots in hand.
