The trip felt lonely, which struck Leia as odd. She wasn't alone; she was surrounded by fellow Alliance members the entire time, some of whom she had even met on more than one occasion. She was out of practice with being surrounded by acquaintances without a true friend in sight, though, and while she could outwardly act as natural as ever, she felt the loneliness gnaw at her as she lay in her bunk at night, attempting to get even half the sleep she knew she likely needed.
Very little negotiation was necessary on Belkadan. Leia only needed half a day to hammer out the details of the agreement with their contact, and within a week of their arrival, they headed to Hoth with a cargo hold full of construction supplies. The ease of procurement was a victory in itself, and breaking ground on the glacier that would one day house the Alliance's next base was something the small construction crew seemed excited about. Leia, too, was excited to perhaps finally have a semi-permanent place to call home — even if the very idea of her only real home being a militia base was downright depressing.
With the new base underway, she finally found herself back on Home One. After six weeks away from the cruiser — three of those spent on Hoth — Leia was ready to start on next steps for the project with Carlist, and even more ready to see her friends.
They arrived late in the afternoon, landing in the same hangar that housed the Rogue Squadron's ships, though no one appeared to be milling about. Leia spotted the group of familiar X-wings, but didn't see the Falcon anywhere nearby. Disappointed at having missed Han and Chewie, she headed straight to her living quarters, bag in hand. She palmed open the door and nearly bumped into Kes, who was on his way out. He had dark circles under his eyes, but he grinned when he saw her.
"Shara had the baby," he said in lieu of a greeting, grin widening.
Leia's heart leapt and she nearly dropped her bag. "When?" she demanded. "How are they?"
"Yesterday afternoon." Kes yawned. "They're both doing really well. He's perfect, and Shar's…incredible." The tone of awe in his voice was unmistakable. Leia smiled.
"Are they here?" she asked, keeping her voice low and glancing toward Shara and Kes' cabin.
Kes shook his head. "They're still in med. I just came back to change clothes quick." He tilted his head toward the corridor. "You want to come with? Shara said she wished you were here just an hour ago."
Leia nodded and slipped past Kes. "Let me just stash my bag." She dropped her pack in her cabin, noting with some interest that the other bed had been slept in and left unmade. Her cabinmate must be back from her mission.
"His name is Poe," Kes said before Leia could ask about the baby as they walked toward the med bay. He laughed softly. "He's so little, Organa. I'm afraid I'll break him."
She smiled gently. "I'm sure you'll do just fine. I've heard babies are pretty resilient, and he comes from two of the toughest people in the galaxy. You won't break him."
Kes hadn't stopped smiling, but he managed to widen his grin upon hearing her encouragement. His excitement and happiness was contagious, and Leia felt her own anticipation grow as they made their way to see Shara and baby Poe.
When they arrived at the correct room in the med bay corridor, Kes had Leia wait outside. She heard him speak to Shara quietly before opening the door again. Shara's eye betrayed a bone-deep exhaustion, but she beamed at Leia. A tiny bundle of blanket and baby lay in her arms, a shock of dark hair visible amidst the cloth.
"Come here," Shara whispered excitedly. She waved Leia in with one hand.
Leia approached the bed with light, quiet steps and peered down at the infant. Poe yawned as wide as his little mouth would allow. Kes had been right; the baby was tiny.
"Poe, this is your Auntie Leia," Shara said quietly. "She's the best princess I personally know. I can't vouch for the ones I don't."
Leia rolled her eyes and laughed softly. She looked between Shara and Poe, her eyes again settling on the squishy-faced infant. "Hi, Poe," she said softly.
Shara pressed her lips to Poe's head. "Isn't he the best baby you've ever seen?"
Leia nodded. "I think so. Best baby on this ship by far."
Shara snorted in amusement. She glanced at Kes, who seemed more than ready to take his son. He kissed Shara briefly as she transferred Poe to his waiting arms, and Leia couldn't help but smile at them.
"How are you feeling?" she asked.
Shara grinned. "So tired, but so happy he's finally here. And, the most exciting news of all: I haven't puked or even felt nauseous in twelve hours."
"Oh, that's wonderful to hear, Shara!"
"It's felt miraculous." Shara yawned. "You just missed Han and Chewie by maybe an hour. Solo brought him shoes."
Leia chuckled softly. "For all the walking he's going to be doing?"
"They're too big for him now. Think they're for a toddler," Kes said. "Solo said he just wanted to make sure Poe had shoes once he needs 'em." He shrugged.
"He also said…" Shara trailed off, glancing at Kes, who didn't raise his gaze from Poe, apparently more interested in cuddling his baby than talking about Han. Shara cleared her throat and looked at Leia. "He talked to Poe. Said—" She took on a halfhearted Han-like affect. "'Look, kid, you're gonna hear a lotta funny ideas 'bout who the best pilot in the Alliance is, but all you need to remember is: it's me.'" Shara dropped the affect. "And I said, 'You can't claim to be the best pilot in the Alliance if you're not in the Alliance, Solo.' And he said, 'Maybe I'm thinkin' about it, Bey.'" She raised her eyebrows emphatically.
A smile broke out on Leia's face. "He really said that?" she asked in surprise. She admittedly hadn't asked Han about his thoughts on joining in quite awhile, but he also hadn't said anything. Even when she and Carlist had spoken to him about working with them on the Hoth project once his contract with Seertay was up, the discussion had been about another contract, not about Han joining the Alliance officially.
I wonder if he meant it.
"I wouldn't read too much into it," Kes said. "Solo says a lot of things."
"We know him better than you do, love," Shara said, looking up at her husband. "He doesn't joke about joining. It's a touchy subject."
"I stopped asking if he was thinking of joining a year ago," Leia added. "I think Carlist last asked right before we left Renatasia."
Shara shifted slightly and rested back against the pillow behind her. "Maybe he's finally seeing the light."
"I think he saw it a long time ago," Leia said. "He's just had trouble admitting it." She paused. "Are they still here? I didn't see the Falcon when we landed."
"They were told to land in a different hangar the last time they came in," Kes said.
"We have heard no end of complaints about how much farther Hangar Five is from the mess for the past week," Shara added, amused. "I'm pretty sure he was actually upset about how far he is from the Rogues, but he'll never admit that."
Leia laughed softly. When Shara and Kes said nothing more about Han, she felt comfortable changing the subject. "Did my cabinmate return? Her bunk looked rumpled."
Shara shot Kes a look. "You didn't tell her?"
He shrugged, a sheepish expression on his face. "Was more focused on you and Poe. Kinda forgot."
Shara bit her lip and reached for Leia's hand. She looked her in the eye so seriously that Leia felt her heart pound in her chest. Something was…not right.
"I didn't clock the last name when they told us who was in the other cabin. We were preoccupied with the aftermath of the evacuation and I just didn't think about it. I remembered she was a doctor and she was on Rusaan, getting the medical team there trained."
Leia nodded slowly. "I know. You told me that already."
Shara hesitated for far too long. "Your cabinmate is Col Tugrina's sister, Tish."
Leia blinked a few times in quick succession and exhaled slowly. "Dr. Tugrina?" she said quietly. Shara nodded and Leia gripped her hand. She hadn't seen the doctor since she had treated her Death Star wounds on Yavin at Han's insistence, but she remembered her. Leia had written her a letter when Col had died to tuck in with his things along with the official Alliance letter.
"She got back a couple of weeks ago," Shara said. "She seems really nice."
"Does she know I'm in the other bed?" Leia asked, mind whirring. She couldn't imagine returning from a long trip that kept being extended only to find out that she'd be rooming with the last living monarch of her destroyed planet. How surreal.
Kes and Shara both nodded. "She seemed mostly fine with it," Shara said. "I imagine it's a little weird, living with your princess, but she hasn't asked to move yet."
Leia shook her head. "I wouldn't have requested the room if I'd known the other occupant was Alderaanian. It's too…I make them uncomfortable."
Shara tilted her head slightly and looked Leia in the eye, her gaze probing. "You sure that's it?"
Leia swallowed and looked away, searching the room for anything to focus on other than Shara and settling on the tuft of Poe's hair that stuck out of the blankets bundled around him. She didn't avoid other Alderaanians. Obviously, she and Carlist worked together daily when she was on Home One, and Tycho had always been nearby. But she had lived on outposts with them; they were used to having her around. They had either forgiven her long ago or hadn't been upset with her to begin with. The others…
The others only served to remind her of how much pain she had caused, and she never knew how they would view her. To some, she knew she was still a beloved princess; to others, she imagined she was just an official who had seemingly abandoned the diaspora for the Alliance; and it had been made clear to her on that trip to Gatalenta so many months prior that some viewed her as the sole cause of the worst pain they had likely ever felt. She simply never knew which she would be faced with, and she, somewhat ashamedly, wasn't sure she wanted to know unless she had the ability to promise that she would make up for her own past shortcomings.
When Leia didn't say anything more, Shara gave her hand a squeeze. "Well, in that case, I'm glad you didn't know. We've liked sharing quarters, and I'm happy we were able to spend some time together before we have to go."
Leia nodded slightly and squeezed Shara's hand in return. She looked at her friend and smiled sadly. "When do you leave?"
Shara turned her head, catching Kes' gaze. "I can't remember how long they said they want us kept prisoner here."
He snorted softly, amused. "At least until tonight," he said.
Shara nodded and focused back on Leia. "Probably early in the morning then." She yawned.
"So soon?" The words escaped Leia's mouth before she had a chance to think them through. Obviously they'd want Poe somewhere safe as quickly as possible. They were on a warship after all.
"'Fraid so," Shara said. She looked at Leia's face and tugged on the hand she still held until Leia was pulled close enough to be wrapped in a hug. It was an awkward embrace, with Shara half-reclined in the medical bed, but Leia did her best to hug her friend back. "We'll be back in a couple of months," Shara said before releasing Leia. "Promise."
Leia gave Shara a final squeeze before letting her go and backing up a step. "You should take more than a couple of months," she said.
Shara looked at Kes and Poe and smiled gently. "We'll see. But I told Rieekan two months."
It didn't seem like enough time together before separating a baby from his parents to Leia, but nineteen years with her own parents hadn't been enough time, either. How much time is enough, really?
Shara reached for Poe, and Kes stepped close to pass the baby over, leaving a hand on Shara's shoulder after the transfer. Leia peered at the little family, heart heavy and conflicted.
"The quicker we're back, the quicker we can get to work, and the quicker this will all be over." Shara kissed the top of Poe's fuzzy head and looked up at Leia, eyes shining with fresh tears. "We have to win this war, Leia."
Leia nodded emphatically, and did something she rarely felt confident enough in the future to do. "We will," she promised, and she meant it.
Hangar Five. They said Hangar Five. Leia made her way from the med bay to the hangar where the Millennium Falcon had allegedly landed last.
She didn't bother to comm Han, figuring she'd be in the hangar soon enough. He and Chewie rarely strayed far from the ship during their downtime, and if they happened to be in a meeting or wandering elsewhere…well, Leia had a code to the ramp and an open invitation to board the Falcon. She could always comm him from the ship if he was missing.
It was strange, she recognized, that she was almost as eager to be on the ship as she was to see its crew, but Leia had spent well over a month on a strange ship, and the gleaming white interior of Home One felt sterile — like staying in a hospital day and night — no matter how long she lived on the cruiser. The Falcon was familiar, comfortable, even comforting. She didn't think she'd ever divulge her fondness for the ship to Han — she'd never hear the end of it — but Leia did look forward to being on board the familiar freighter again, even if just to sit with her friends.
She rounded the corner into the hangar and spotted the Falcon a few landing pads away. Leia picked up a jog for a few steps before forcing herself back into a brisk walk, not wanting to appear overly eager. The ship's ramp was up. She glanced around the hangar, looking for any signs of Han or Chewie, when the sound of engines warming up and landing gear retracting drew her attention back to the ship. Her heart sank as she watched the Falcon lift off from the hangar floor. She looked through the transparisteel that surrounded half of the cockpit and caught a glimpse of Han and Chewie flipping switches and preparing to head out into space.
Leia forced a smile and waved. Chewie waved and tapped Han on the shoulder. Han shoved his hand away irritably before jerking to attention and finally noticing her. His face lit up, and Leia felt a fuzzy sort of warmth spread through her stomach as Han smiled and gave her a kind of half-salute before returning his attention to the ship controls. The Falcon hung in the air for a few more seconds before it zipped out of the hangar and into the darkness of space.
Leia took in two deep breaths before dropping the forced smile and beginning the trek back to her quarters. How…disappointing, she thought, settling on what felt like an apt description of her overall mood. She had been looking forward to finally taking Han up on the drink they had discussed having so many weeks before, on finally getting to actually catch up outside of the brief comm messages they sent each other to confirm that they were both still alive during the pockets of traveling in which it was safe to do so. Deflated, she walked quickly through the corridors and down a level before finally arriving at her door for the second time that day.
Her cabin wasn't empty. The lights were on, but Leia had become so accustomed to having a space to herself that she still started when she saw Dr. Tish Tugrina lounging on her own bunk, eyes half-closed and focused on a datapad.
Dr. Tugrina looked up at the sound of Leia entering the cabin. She blanched. How surreal this must be for her, Leia thought.
"Your Highness," Dr. Tugrina said, sitting up and setting the datapad aside. She shook her head slightly and glanced away from Leia, her brow furrowed.
Leia smiled and sat on her own bunk. She leaned against the bulkhead casually in an attempt to put Dr. Tugrina at ease. "Please, Dr. Tugrina," Leia said. "Call me Leia."
Dr. Tugrina ducked her head slightly. "Tish, please."
Leia nodded. "Tish." She pressed her lips together. "I apologize for imposing on your space. I couldn't justify taking a private room when we're as crowded as we are, and Kes and Shara said there was an empty bed…" She cleared her throat. "I don't want to make you uncomfortable in your own cabin, so if my relocating would be preferable—
Tish turned to look at Leia hesitantly. "It is not a bother, Y—Leia."
Leia smiled at her conspiratorially and leaned forward slightly, resting her chin on a bent knee. "Would you tell me if it was?"
Tish was tan — her complexion was nearly as dark as Leia's father's — but Leia still saw the faint blush that crept up her cheeks. She bit her lip and shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. But I don't like lying. I wouldn't say it wasn't a bother if it was."
Leia tilted her head slightly. "Fair enough. We can work with that. I'm glad to see you made it back safely. How are the troops on Ruusan?"
"Eager to work with the locals to take over the planet," Tish said.
"Have the Blue and Gold Squadrons settled in?"
Tish nodded. "They seem to be settling in well. General Dodonna had them running drills every chance they got by the time I left."
"Are you back for a while or just stopping over?"
"Back for the foreseeable future. There has been talk of sending my team to the Alderaanian refugee camp soon. They have a medic and a droid, but…" Tish trailed off. "Honestly, I want to go. Have you been?"
Leia shook her slightly. "I helped scout the location, but I've not been since the camp was set up." She closed her eyes for a moment, attempting to bounce her thoughts from the Alderaanians, from the fact that they likely felt abandoned considering how long it had been since she last saw any of them. "I'd like to see it. See them."
Tish nodded, but didn't seem inclined to say much else. After a long, awkward silence, she tilted her head in the direction of her datapad. "I probably need to get back to reviewing patient notes from today," she said.
"Oh," Leia said, feeling sheepish for having interrupted. "Sure, go ahead."
Silence descended on the cabin again, and Leia busied herself with unpacking the bag she had dropped off before going to see Shara and Poe. She placed the clothing she had run through the autovalet on the trip back from Hoth in her drawers and set a few dirty items aside before she came across the bag of tea that Chewie and Han had sent with her. Leia added the bag to the shelf next to her bunk, feeling in her pocket absently for the drawing Han had given her. She had kept the folded flimsi with her during the trip, and it remained in her pocket. Leia left it, not wanting to explain its purpose if Tish caught sight of it.
She's going to find out eventually. The thought came from nowhere, and Leia didn't have a rebuttal. Tish would find out about her nightmares, her insomnia, her mind's occasional tendency to throw her back into the worst moments of her life. I should warn her, she thought. It hadn't been a big deal telling Einara and Naj, but Leia also knew there was a world of difference between hearing her shout through a wall and witnessing her panic in the same room.
Leia felt Tish's eyes on her once she was mostly unpacked, and turned to face her. Tish looked away quickly, clearly embarrassed to have been caught staring. Leia looked at the other woman pointedly. "Everything all right?"
Tish ducked her head, her cheeks coloring pink again. "Sorry. I just can't believe you're my…" She set her datapad aside again and shook her head. "You know, I remember your Name Day. I would've been seven. Col was a baby, just a few months old. It was the first real event my parents took him to, and I remember thinking that maybe you'd be classmates in school and how exciting it would be if my baby brother was friends with the Princess." Tish chuckled. "I didn't fully understand the concept of private tutors back then."
Leia smiled slightly, pressing back the guilt she felt every time Col Tugrina dying so senselessly on Indoumodo entered her mind. "I wonder sometimes, if the galaxy had been at peace, if I would have been sent to school like any other child. My parents were very protective of me, but they also wanted me to grow up as much a part of the people as was safe. I'm not sure how I would have been taught." She paused, allowing a bit of the guilt back in. "I never got to apologize to you for what happened to Col."
Tish furrowed her brow. "You sent a letter with his things."
Leia swallowed nervously. She had. Tish had been on some other outpost at the time, and she had been the only family Col had left alive. High Command had their own process, but Leia had insisted Carlist and Jan let her include a letter just from her in addition to the official one. It had never seemed like enough.
"I appreciated it," Tish continued. "It was very thoughtful. Haven't seen many handwritten condolence letters."
Leia nodded. There weren't many handwritten condolence letters for the sake of security. Many Alliance soldiers' loved ones didn't know they were involved in a rebellion, didn't know where they had gone when they disappeared into the Alliance rank. Many had families who would be far from sympathetic to the cause, and anything as traceable as handwriting might endanger whoever wrote the letter. Any communication that took place — if it took place at all — was shrouded in layer after layer of security measures. But when someone's next-of-kin was in the Alliance as well, handwritten letters weren't uncommon; her father had penned a fair few himself.
"Col's death has never ceased weighing on me," Leia admitted. "He was far too young for any of this."
"We're all far too young for any of this, Leia," Tish said gently.
Leia nodded slightly and murmured, "Yes." She abstained from commenting further, knowing full-well she was in danger of expressing just how ancient she felt. The weight of each new tragedy since Scarif filled her bones if she gave them more than a moment of thought, threatening to leave her paralyzed and useless. And unlike a truly ancient being from the old stories her parents had told her as a child, she had no words of wisdom, nothing that would make the loss of Tish's brother worthwhile. She couldn't even say he had died fighting for the right thing; Col had died in his sleep, one bunk over from a friend who remained haunted by his gruesome death.
Quiet enveloped the cabin again. Tish returned to her datapad, tapping out notes with impressive speed, and Leia found herself reaching in her pocket to reassure herself that Han's drawing was still there. She pursed her lips, steeling herself to share one more piece of information with Tish, one more necessary admission that was uncomfortable to verbalize.
"I have nightmares sometimes."
Tish looked up from her datapad, brows raised. "Don't we all?" she asked wryly.
Leia shook her head. "Not like mine." She bit her lip, gripping the flimsi between her fingers. "If—When it happens, it's best not to touch me. I get—." Tish continued looking at Leia expectantly as she searched for the right words. "I hurt Shara once. Twisted her arm before I was fully awake. I just…thought you should know since we're sharing a cabin."
Tish nodded, the expected expression of pity appearing on her face in response to the confession.
No, that isn't right, Leia realized after a moment. Not pity, exactly. Sympathy, maybe.
"Yeah, I've seen that a lot in the clinic," Tish said. "It's common after being held in captivity. Always seems pretty brutal."
Leia nodded, appreciative of the blunt description. "Yes," she admitted. "It is."
"Does anything help?"
The Falcon, Leia thought, though verbalizing that would be absurd. She picked the next best thing to offer Tish instead, something far more practical. "Knowing where I am," she said. "Being able to see where I am is best, so if you turn on the light…"
Tish nodded. "Got it." She glanced down at her datapad for a second before looking at Leia again. "Anything else?"
Leia shook her head. "No, that about covers it."
Tish nodded again and returned to her datapad.
Leia felt a sort of nervous discomfort, a coiling beneath her ribs and in her limbs that made her want to leave the cabin, but she forced herself to stay, to sit with it. She needed to be able to share the space for the foreseeable future, after all, and letting on how uncomfortable she was with the set-up wouldn't be fair to Tish.
The longer she sat, rubbing her thumb over the flimsi drawing in her pocket, the more the coil loosened, allowing Leia see past her own unease and to marvel at what a non-issue her nightmares had appeared to be to the young doctor. Tish didn't seem to have an opinion at all other than the very appropriate 'Always seems pretty brutal'.
She also doesn't know how bad they can be, Leia reminded herself.
Tish seemed fairly easygoing, though. And she didn't appear to harbor any ill will in Leia's direction. She, Leia was surprised to realize, didn't seem to view Leia as a source of pain at all. Their circumstances were…undoubtedly odd, but they were tenable enough, at least for the time being.
This will be fine, Leia assured herself. It would simply have to be.
Shara and Kes left with baby Poe early the next morning. Leia walked with them to their hangar and hugged each of them tightly before they took off, wishing them luck and silently willing them to return safely. For a second day in a row, she watched forlornly as a ship stole her friends away to another star system.
She didn't bother with breakfast in the mess, opting instead for a ration bar on her way to work. To her surprise, Leia made it to the office before General Rieekan. She settled in at her desk with a mug of caf and reviewed her calendar for the day along with her notes from the trip to Hoth. When Rieekan entered the room, appearing harried and deeply concerned, Leia set her datapad aside.
"Carlist," she said, standing, "is everything all right?"
General Rieekan shook his head slightly before focusing his gaze on Leia. "I've just had a meeting with General Cracken. Intelligence is releasing their report regarding the Renatasia outpost later this morning."
"Okay," Leia said apprehensively.
"Have a seat, Leia," Carlist said, sitting himself. "We need to talk about what happened on Tibrin."
Leia lowered herself slowly into her seat, heart leaping at the mention of the mission to Tibrin. It was no secret what had happened; Seertay had been informed in the pathfinders' debrief that Leia more or less went rogue to save the four Ishi Tib who were being carted off by stormtroopers. She had agreed the situation was complicated and hadn't said much more about it. But no matter how complicated the situation, Leia didn't know how it could possibly relate to the outpost.
Carlist was quiet for several moments, clearly considering his words carefully. His expression disturbed Leia; she could usually read him fairly well, but he seemed so conflicted, it was difficult to get a handle on what he was thinking or feeling. Finally, he said, "Will you tell me what happened?"
Leia let out a breath and nodded. "We were supposed to meet with a couple of leaders of local rebel cells, but they didn't show. I heard something toward the center of town, so myself, Jarys Cleave, and Einara Voln went to check it out while the rest of the pathfinders remained at our meeting spot in case one of the contacts showed up."
She continued her story, detailing the moff addressing the local Ishi Tib, the mass execution, the four surviving insurgents. "They were going to interrogate them again, Carlist. They were probably going to kill them. I couldn't just stand there…"
"Leia," Carlist said gently, "tell me exactly what happened in that alley."
Leia frowned slightly. She hadn't yet mentioned the alley. "I hid on top of a building and shot the stormtroopers transporting the prisoners as they rounded a corner. I—I killed them. I didn't have time to stun them." She recalled running through quick estimates in her head of how long it would take her to properly aim at the minuscule gaps in their stun-proof armor, and had opted for the option that left the most beings alive.
"And the prisoners?"
She tilted her head slightly, apprehensive concern creeping over her. What does he think I did with them? "I dropped down in the alley, released their binders, told them they needed to go into hiding, and assured them that the Empire would murder them even if they gave them the information they were looking for. Then I got back to the ship as quickly as possible."
"All four were alive when you left the vicinity?" Carlist probed.
The question felt too specific to have resulted from mere curiosity. Leia narrowed her eyes slightly, keeping her voice calm. "Yes. Some of them were injured quite badly, but they were alive and standing when I left. Why are you asking me these questions, Carlist?" Her version of events was in the mission report. Surely if he needed details, he would have asked Seertay for the report first.
Carlist pursed his lips and nodded before tapping on the screen of his datapad to wake it up. "Thank you. I wanted to make sure Seertay's report wasn't missing anything," he said. "We believe your version of events, for what it's worth. Cracken's team is certain this recording was doctored. They've just been trying to figure out which parts."
He turned the datapad around so she could see the recording. A good portion of an alley between coral structures in the village they had visited was visible. The recording was very still and had no sound. Probably a surveillance recording, Leia thought. She watched with nervous interest as the four battered Ishi Tib rounded the corner, a stormtrooper behind each. Quicker than seemed possible, each stormtrooper fell to the ground. It felt like viewing one of her dreams, the ones that took real events and shoved them into different angles, distorting the details into something somehow worse than reality. And then, much like one of her dreams, a detail twisted away from the reality that lived in her memory, and all four Ishi Tib fell to the ground in succession as if they, too, had been shot dead..
A petite human — Leia recognized herself at once — dropped into the alley from the roof of a building. She ran away from the scene and closer to the recording device. The recording caught several clear shots of her face before she disappeared out of frame and the screen went black.
"That's not what happened." She looked at Carlist with wide eyes and shook her head. "That's not— They were alive and standing when I left."
"I know," Carlist assured her. "We know, Leia. As I said, the recording was doctored."
"Where did this come from?"
"It was first broadcasted on Tibrin about a week before we moved. It's Imperial propaganda meant to stir up dissent against the Alliance on a planet that was experiencing unrest by associating you with seemingly senseless violence."
Leia pinched the bridge of her nose, her mind working double time to connect the dots. She was missing some detail or… She just wasn't sure what the recording had to do with the outpost being found out.
Carlist took a deep breath before continuing. "We don't think the Empire knew we had contacts on Tibrin. The timing of the invasion was odd, but we believe it was a coincidence. The Empire seemed fairly content setting up garrisons on the planet and moving on, and since we hadn't yet involved ourselves in the local efforts, we assumed we would remain unconnected to the planet.
"We don't know when or how the surveillance recording was found, but we believe they would have pushed it out to the citizens of Tibrin immediately if they had knowledge of it, so we think it was a recent discovery. When the doctored recording was released, you were seemingly implicated in the deaths of those prisoners, and one of our Ishi Tib contacts turned over intel about the Alliance to the Empire. He had information about the outpost. Not much, but enough to narrow down our general location on the planet. Cracken's group caught the transmission containing the contents of his confession before the Empire was able to figure out our exact coordinates, but they weren't able to prevent it from going through. Imperial probes were sent far too close to the outpost for comfort. That's when we were told to evacuate."
Leia sat back in her seat. An unwelcome haze enveloped her mind, the kind that often ended in her feeling detached from her body. She pressed her thumbnail into the side of her index finger and attempted to focus on her own questions about the situation.
"Are they actually dead? The Ishi Tib prisoners?"
Carlist held out his hands helplessly. "We don't have bodies, but we also have seen no evidence that they are still alive. We don't know, Your Highness."
She nodded numbly. They had died. They had died despite her efforts, and her involvement had connected Alliance activity with the unrest on Tibrin. Her involvement had caused a member of an ally rebel cell to turn on the Alliance.
Her involvement had destroyed an outpost and placed the Alliance in a worse position than before.
Her involvement had almost killed Wedge.
She couldn't give the idea more than a moment of consideration if she wanted to be productive in the least that morning. She was thankful when Carlist continued speaking, distracting from the ache in her chest and frenzied swirling in her mind at the thought that her attempts to make one situation better had made another so much worse.
"Cracken's report is going to be shared with High Command, but we aren't planning on distributing it widely in its entirety."
Leia nodded again. "But, this recording is out there. Do we need to address it with the rank? I don't want…" She trailed off and looked Rieekan in the eye. "I wouldn't shoot unarmed civilians, Carlist. I don't want anyone to even wonder…"
"That will be discussed this morning as well. Seertay and Cracken need to be involved in any communication about this to avoid releasing information that might endanger current operations."
It was out of her hands, then. "Understood," Leia said, forcing an evenness into her tone that she didn't feel in the slightest.
"I didn't want you to be blindsided by the report," Carlist said.
"Of course. I appreciate the heads' up." Leia turned back to her own datapad, hoping the conversation was over. She stared at the notes, her own observations of the construction on Hoth feeling foreign, and attempted to focus on anything other than Tibrin.
"The Tibrin mission report," General Rieekan said after a long moment of quiet. "Seertay noted that you, Voln, and Cleave were encouraged to talk to one of the the therapists about witnessing a mass execution."
Leia highlighted a random phrase in her notes for want of something to keep her hands busy. "I believe we were," she said once the silence became unbearable.
"Did you?"
Leia pressed her lips together, frustrated with the direction the conversation had taken. "It wasn't a requirement to return to the field."
"So, that's a no. Leia?" Carlist leaned over and tapped her wrist lightly with his finger until she turned her attention back to him. "I'm not asking this in any official capacity; I'm asking as a friend: Why didn't you?"
She set her jaw, tamping down her irritation so it wouldn't show, and shrugged. "I have survived far worse."
An expression of grief Leia had rarely seen outside of memorial services and briefings about lives lost crossed Carlist's face. He parted his lips as if he meant to say something before clamping his mouth shut and looking at her for a moment. Leia met his gaze with steely resolve, unwilling to go too far down the path of why she was resistant to continuously talking about her experiences.
The older man's countenance softened further and he nodded. "I suppose that is unfortunately true," he finally said, and Leia couldn't ignore the quiet emotion in his voice.
She shook her head slightly, still meeting Rieekan's gaze. "Please don't look at me like that, Carlist," she pleaded softly.
He drew his eyebrows together in concern. "Like what, Your Highness?"
"Like I am a disaster you failed to mitigate."
General Rieekan continued to look at her face. "That isn't…" He shook his head. "I am concerned by the burdens you have been made to bear these past couple of years."
"It is nothing I wasn't raised for," Leia said flatly. "You know that."
"Bail and Breha didn't want—"
"They didn't," she agreed before he could finish. "But I was raised for it nonetheless."
Carlist tapped his thumb on the surface of his desk, the movement slow, almost thoughtful, and lacking the frantic compulsion of a nervous tic. "Did you have confidants before Scarif? People you talked to about important things?"
An invisible vice tightened around Leia's heart and lungs. She glanced at her datapad before meeting Rieekan's gaze again. "My parents and Amilyn mainly."
"No one else your age? Only Holdo?"
Leia shook her head. "I didn't have many…" She trailed off, pressing her lips together briefly before shrugging. "You can't really befriend the people you're meant to lead."
Another look of concern was shot her way. Leia wanted to leave the room more than anything, but she felt strongly that Carlist would pick the conversation right back up the next time he saw her until he was satisfied.
He sighed softly. "Who do you confide in now?"
Leia opened her mouth to answer, but she had no idea what to say. She talked with Luke and Shara, but she wouldn't say she confided in them, at least not about the types of stark horrors Carlist was concerned with, anyway. She felt the need to maintain some semblance of dignity among the rank given her place in the Alliance, and that didn't mesh well with revealing the particulars of her trauma. Han and Chewie came to mind, but Chewie didn't fully understand everything she had been through. Han was the only—
Han was the only one who knew even half of it. And most of what he knew had less to do with Leia confiding in him and more to do with his ability to piece together what she'd been through based on quasi-shared experience.
Admitting that out loud felt…sad, if Leia was honest. She shot Carlist a helpless look, hoping he would end the conversation altogether if she appeared pathetic enough.
The general was determined, apparently. "I have been in this position for a long time, Leia. I've seen leaders and members of the rank come and go. And if there is one thing that I know separates those who burn out and leave the Alliance versus those who thrive, it's having someone to talk to."
"Who do you confide in?" Leia asked, both curious and hoping to escape his scrutiny for a few minutes.
"Mon. And, despite our differences at times, Jan and I are good friends, believe it or not."
She considered his answer. "Even about Alderaan?" she asked. Leia couldn't imagine Mon and Jan truly understanding—They would try, of course, but to really understand what it was like to lose an entire planet—
"Even about Alderaan," Carlist confirmed.
Leia shook her head. "They couldn't possibly understand…"
"They probably don't," he conceded. "But they don't need to have first-hand experience with everything I do; they just need to listen when I explain."
She nodded. What he said seemed so obvious, almost embarrassingly so, but… "But you have to explain," she said quietly.
He tilted his head slightly and studied her face for a moment before speaking again. "Yes, I'm afraid that is part of it."
Nodding again, Leia turned back to her datapad and stared blankly at the screen. Thoughts of Alderaan filled her mind and she wondered if he was haunted by the same questions she was. She swallowed hard before speaking in a faint voice. "Do you think they felt it coming, Carlist?"
She had not dared to ask anyone the question; she was afraid of the answer. Leia had felt a near-physical rending of her heart and heard the roar of agonized screams in her head when the Death Star fired, and though the logical conclusion was that the drugs that had been leaving her system had likely played a part in warping her senses, she wanted someone to confirm that it had been all in her head.
General Rieekan let out a breath. "I hope not."
Leia nodded, blinking back tears. "Me too."
Leia's morning was eaten up with the Command meeting and subsequent discussions about the recording from Tibrin. A memo addressing the recording had been crafted, Leia and the rest of Command had signed off on it, and it had been distributed amongst the rank. She didn't expect to hear much about it; the Empire had doctored footage to work in their favor before, and continuing to make Leia a scapegoat while casting suspicion on both the Alliance and anyone associated with Alderaan seemed to be a favorite theme of theirs since Scarif.
She didn't didn't have time to consider what the rank's reaction to the memo might be, but she hadn't expected complete silence about the topic on the part of those who knew her. Defying logic, Luke, Hobbie, and Tycho had all commed her separately within an hour of its release, not mentioning the memo at all, but instead asking questions about what Leia could only describe as utter nonsense:
Is there a way to reserve the blaster range for a private get-together?
Someone heard from the Hoth team that you managed to get sweaters for the tauntauns. Is that actually a thing?
I heard there's sweetmallow cake for dessert at dinner tonight. How do we find out if that's true?
If nothing else, their inquiries kept her mind off of the lingering discomfort she felt after her conversation with Carlist, though Leia would have preferred to focus her energy solely on base planning.
The Rogues dragged her to lunch in the mess as a group, spoiling her plan to eat a ration bar at her desk, but providing a break she hadn't realized she needed. They'd even let her have first guess when they tried to determine the source of the protein of the day. The others dispersed after they finished eating, but Luke and Wedge flanked her on the walk back to her office, bringing to Leia's mind the hovering presence of the Royal Guard during her younger years.
"We're going to run through blaster drills after dinner," Luke said as they reached her office. "You should come."
"After dinner? None of you are on night shift right now," Leia said as she slipped into the empty office and turned on the light.
"They're off-the-clock, recreational blaster drills," Luke said, using his trying-to-sound-casual-and-failing tone.
Leia cocked an eyebrow in suspicion. Luke shrugged without saying another word, so she turned to Wedge. He wasn't generally easier to crack than Luke, but he was more straightforward when they were keeping something from her; he was more likely to just tell her she'd find out later than he was to give her vague and unsatisfactory half-truths.
Wedge shrugged. "They're off-the-clock, recreational blaster drills," he confirmed.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Leia demanded, taking a seat at her desk.
"The description is self-explanatory," Wedge said.
She scowled at him. "If you're trying to get me to come by acting like something boring is mysterious, it won't work."
"There's nothing mysterious about it," Wedge said, tone hardly matching the content of his words. He took a few steps backward toward the door. "Like I said, the description is self-explanatory."
Leia rolled her eyes. "The description sounds like you have something incomprehensibly stupid planned and you don't want me to stop it before it starts."
"Why would we invite you to do something incomprehensibly stupid?" Wedge asked, feigning innocence. He winked at her before stepping out of the office and leaving Leia alone with Luke.
She focused her attention back on her friend. "What's going on, Luke?"
He touched her arm gently. "Just come with us after dinner, okay? There's something I want to show you."
"I'll consider it," Leia said.
Once Luke left, she assumed that would be the last she saw of the Rogues until dinner — or possibly after if she ate at her desk. Her assumptions were proven incorrect rather quickly when Hobbie and Wes showed up just an hour and a half after Luke and Wedge had disappeared
"General Rieekan is in meetings all day," Leia said, barely looking up from her datapad.
"Oh, good," Wes said, sitting in Carlist's empty chair as if he had interpreted Leia's statement as an invitation to settle in. Hobbie leaned awkwardly in the office doorway.
Leia looked from Wes to Hobbie and back to Wes. "Can I help you?"
Wes leaned back in the general's chair and rested his boots on the corner of the desk in a move so obnoxiously devoid of social mores, Leia had to assume Wes had been studying holo recordings of Han for inspiration. "Yeah, Organa, this place is depressing."
"Have you been taking your daily supplements?" Leia asked mildly, glancing over the estimates for livestock handling equipment she had just received. She tapped out a note to a few of the naturalists on staff to find out if they thought halters intended for Naboolian falumpasets would fit tauntauns as well as the halters intended for domesticating ikopis since they appeared to be two-thirds the price.
Wes waved her off. "It's not a deficiency. This whole ship feels like being on a med frigate. Depressing white walls, depressing white floors, depressing white everything. It's downright…" He trailed off, and Leia imagined he was searching for a word other than depressing.
"Bleak," Hobbie supplied.
"Yeah. Bleak."
"I don't see what control I have over design choices that were made by the ship's manufacturer," Leia said, glancing back down at her datapad.
"You don't, but you can help us rectify that wrong by giving us permission to liven the place up. Add some color to the bulkhead. Something."
Leia arched an eyebrow. "You have vastly overestimated the amount of power I have on this ship, Janson."
"But you're in good with Ackbar," Hobbie said. "He doesn't love us too much."
"Oh? That's news to me. Why do you say that?"
Wes dropped his boots to the deckplate beneath his chair and leaned forward seriously. "Ol' Addy Acks — he hates that nickname, by the way. I don't suggest you call him that his face—"
"Can't imagine why," Leia said sarcastically.
"Right. Like I said, not to his face. Well, ol' Ackbar, he witnessed…" Wes trailed off again.
"An incident," Hobbie said.
"Yeah, an incident. It doesn't really matter what. Anyway, he's got it out for us Rogues. Seems to want to make our lives miserable."
"Hmm," Leia hummed thoughtfully. Gial had truthfully not expressed any particular annoyance with Wes and Hobbie in her presence, though they had been conspicuously left out of some positive comments he had made to Carlist about the squadron that morning. "He spoke very highly of Luke, Wedge, and Tycho earlier today. Dak, too, if I remember correctly."
"Well, of course he loves all of them," Wes said without explanation.
She sighed softly. "Wes, what is it you want me to do?"
"Just ask if we can introduce a splash of color in the halls.
Leia looked between Hobbie and Wes for a moment, incredulous. "No," she said finally.
Wes sighed so loudly as he stood that it seemed almost theatric and Hobbie shrugged. "Well, we tried," the latter said.
"Indeed we did, Hobs." Wes looked at Leia and nodded once. "Organa."
Leia stared after them as they left, baffled by how easily Janson had given up. He must not have cared that much about whatever half-baked project he and Hobbie had come up with or he'd have insisted on walking Leia through why it was a good idea.
She turned back to her datapad, left alone with her seemingly endless to-do list and a dozen new messages regarding suppliers for a couple more hours. There was more debate over the issue of the appropriate halters than Leia had expected, and by the time late afternoon rolled around on the ship rolled around, she knew a far larger number of facts about the cranial widths and chin girths of falumpasets, ikopis, and tauntauns that she had ever expected — or wanted — to know.
When Tycho and Dak knocked on the doorframe, she was in the middle of a short break, pinching the skin between her thumb and forefinger and hoping for relief from a headache.
Tycho raised a to-go cup somewhat sheepishly. "Skywalker said you'd probably be wanting caf by now," he said, setting the cup in front of Leia.
She smiled gratefully and took a sip of the drink, allowing the warmth to spread through her body. There was no milk, powdered or otherwise, added to the bitter caf and she had to suppress a grimace at the taste. "Thank you," she said, looking from Tycho to Dak suspiciously. They appeared to be lingering, and Leia had the feeling they weren't just there for a caf delivery. "Do you two need something?"
Tycho scratched the side of his neck and glanced around the office awkwardly. "The cake?" he finally said.
"What cake?" Leia asked, mind still swimming in figures for non-sentient husbandry equipment. What cake?
"I never got a response from you about how we know if there's cake? After dinner?"
Leia blinked rapidly and checked her comm, certain she had responded to the messages from the Rogues hours prior. "I answered before lunch," she said, reading the timestamp on her own message before looking at Tycho again. "I don't know._"
"Did you really take down one of those snow creatures on Hoth?" Dak blurted out.
"The wampa?" Leia asked, confused by the sudden change in topic. The entire day had felt like one long and involuntary improv exercise with the Rogues, but this interaction in particular was causing mental whiplash.
He shrugged. "Dunno what they're called. Dameron said it was huge, though. Twenty meters tall and you had to leap at it to shoot it dead."
Leia refrained from rolling her eyes; it wasn't Dak's fault that Kes' made the wampa bigger with every retelling of the story. Still, she couldn't help but tease the newest Rogue a bit. "Do I look like someone who leaps, Ensign Ralter?" she asked primly.
Dak tilted his head slightly, a confounded expression on his face. "I…don't know how to answer that, ma'am," he said after a long pause.
Laughing softly, Leia shook her head. "Kes exaggerates that story a little more every time he tells it, I think. But I did stop a wampa that was about three meters tall from attacking a couple of members of our scouting party, yes."
Dak appeared impressed, but he and Tycho apparently had not planned their interaction with her beyond asking one entirely random question each. They excused themselves abruptly and walked quickly out of her office.
More messages about the tauntaun halters came in. Apparently whisker sensitivity needed to be considered before a decision could be made about the correct style of noseband, which would dictate which choice was most appropriate for attempting to tame the creatures. Leia skimmed through the messages, answering what questions she could and leaving others for the naturalists, in particular Kell Tolkani, who she knew had taken a vested interest in the animals since the scouting trip.
She had just received the go-ahead to purchase the less-expensive halters when another knock on her doorframe startled her. Leia looked up from her datapad only to see Wedge leaning in the doorway. He tossed two ration bars on her desk.
"Dinner line closed ten minutes ago. You missed cake."
Leia looked at her chrono in disbelief and shook her head. "Got caught up in a debate about tauntaun halters," she said, tapping out a final message before opening one of the ration bars. "I missed cake?" she asked in disappointment, her mind catching up with what Wedge had said.
"Think Skywalker grabbed some for you."
She smiled, thankful to Luke for thinking of her in the first place, but wondering why he hadn't come by with Wedge. "Where is he?"
"I'm not supposed to answer any questions; I am merely here to escort you to watch something incomprehensibly stupid," Wedge said.
Leia groaned and pressed her fingers to her temple. "Wedge, what's going on? I feel as if I haven't had a moment's peace from you Rogues all day."
He glanced back dramatically as if he were actually concerned about the consequences of answering questions and didn't want anyone to hear his response. He took a step into her office before responding. "We were a little worried about you. That memo about that recording went around this morning, and usually Bey or Solo would make sure you're all right, but they're out, so…" He shrugged. "Skywalker and I figured you were okay after lunch, but the others… Well, I think they just wanted to check on you themselves without you getting suspicious about it is all."
Leia snorted. "Mission failed, then. None of them should be sent on undercover assignments." She sighed and shot Wedge an affectionate smile. "You know I helped write the memo, right? It didn't blindside me." She hadn't had the time, energy, or desire to really process how she felt about it, and she had had to actively shut down thought spirals about nearly causing Wedge's death by busying herself with something unrelated more than once throughout the day, but she certainly wasn't as devastated as they apparently feared she would be.
Wedge grimaced. "We didn't know that, no. But it's offensive that anyone even thought there was a need for it. We all know you wouldn't harm civilians."
Leia smiled at him again. "I appreciate the solidarity." She stood and grabbed the second ration bar, ready to follow Wedge. "Am I going to feel a great deal of internal conflict about whether or not I need to report whatever the stupidity is?"
"Maybe." He shrugged. "Skywalker's been trying to practice his lightsaber skills, and the training droid he used to use is on the Falcon with Solo. He said having us fire stun shots at him is basically as good as the droid, so when we've got nothing better to do…" Another shrug.
Leia blinked. "He's having you fire stun shots at him?" she asked in disbelief, walking quickly past Wedge and out into the corridor, mind set on putting a stop to the madness Luke was apparently participating in. Stun shots were only supposed to incapacitate, and they did their job well enough the majority of the time, but the technology wasn't perfect; seizures resulting from being stunned occurred in some targets. Besides, Leia knew from personal experience that recovering from being stunned was unpleasant at best — experiencing nausea, body aches, and chills was far more common than snapping out of a stunned state with no side effects.
Wedge hurried to catch up with her. "He doesn't really get hit if that's what you're worried about. He's gotten good at deflecting shots."
Leia stared at him as if he'd lost his mind. "That hardly matters—"
"Will it make you feel better to know that Rieekan technically saw this exercise back on Renatasia and told us we could keep it up as long as no one ended up in med?"
Leia scowled, but slowed her walk all the same. "Not really." She paused in thought. "Has anyone ended up in med?"
Wedge shook his head. "Not so far, and we've done it a number of times. Luke bounces back all right. But he hasn't been stunned since we left Renatasia, anyway."
"Someone else could get hit, though. Blaster bolts ricochet off of lightsaber blades. I've seen it." She couldn't recall if she had seen Luke deflect blaster bolts with his lightsaber, but the action featured prominently in her decade-old memories of Obi-Wan Kenobi; she was positive he had redirected bolts with his blade.
"Blaster bolts might. Stun shots sort of…" Wedge lifted a closed fist in demonstration, flexing his fingers open to mimic an explosion. "…dissipate. Like fireworks, kinda."
The scowl didn't leave Leia's face despite the somewhat good news that no one other than Luke was in danger of being stunned during the exercise. "Incomprehensibly stupid," she muttered, continuing in the direction of the range.
A/N: The next chapter should be posted on Friday, February 23, 2024. Would love to know your thoughts on this chapter! Thanks as always for reading!