Chapter 4: The Throne of Alderaan
Aldera City, 29 BBY
"This will do nicely," Master Windu complimented the innkeeper, as he surveyed the suite he had rented in the diplomatic sector of Aldera City. It had a small sitting room, decorated in shades of green, and two bedrooms, each with its own refresher. The furniture was simple, made from a light wood that blended nicely with the paneled floor. "I believe we will have dinner here, if that's possible."
"Certainly," the innkeeper nodded. "The desk screen will show you today's options. I suggest the stuffed candlewick flower; my cook uses a particularly fine recipe. And do let us know if there is anything else we can get for you during your stay."
"Thank you," Mace responded, "your hospitality is appreciated." He turned to his companion, who was still unusually quiet.
Leia set her small bag tentatively on a stuffed chair and wandered over to the desk. She touched the screen that the innkeeper had referred to and found not only a menu, but a map of the city and a list of recommended sites to see while visiting.
"Are you all right, General?" Mace asked worriedly.
"I don't know." Leia paused and then gave herself a mental shake. There was no time for this. "I apologize, Master Windu. I'm a bit overwhelmed." She turned and walked to the large window that overlooked the street below. "I never thought I would be here again." She smiled, "I'm a bit surprised that I didn't collapse into a sobbing mess the moment I smelled the starflowers outside the spaceport. Luckily, I could hear echoes of my aunts' very thorough training in royal etiquette: no Organa would be so gauche as to faint in public, no matter how emotionally overwrought she feels."
Obiwan is right, Mace thought, she does not sound like a twelve-year old.
"Speaking of royalty," he told her, "I have sent a message to the palace, asking for a private audience with the Viceroy. Senator Organa has worked with the jedi several times, and I believe he may be more receptive to our request than Her Majesty, whom I have never met."
"Perhaps," Leia acknowledged. "You intend to stay here until you receive a response? They may not even be in Aldera City. The Queen sometimes travels to Organa Ranch when the Viceroy is home, where they can relax and reconnect."
"How would you…? Never mind." Mace truly wished the girl would give up this pretense that she was a member of the Organa family. Surely, she knows that it will completely fall apart if we meet the Queen. She doesn't even look like an Organa. "Either way, we should wait for a response and proceed from there. If you have no need of me, I wish to meditate before dinner. Something keeps disturbing my balance."
These boots, Leia thought, as she climbed out of the window, are the first things I'm going to replace when I gain access to my own funds. I will have blisters on top of blisters before this night is over.
Once on the window sill, it was relatively easy to find hand- and footholds on the inn's back wall, and Leia dropped to the ground quietly, not even needing to steady herself with the Force. She considered the speeder parked next to the darkened restaurant next to the inn, but decided against it. Instead, she found an older, manually powered bicycle leaning against the maintenance shed. The palace was only a few miles away, and the old-fashioned bicycle would be quieter and easier to hide if she had to drop it and run. She could soak her feet when this was finished.
Fortunately, she and Master Windu had arrived in Aldera City at the end of summer, and the night was warm and pleasant. A few businesses were still open here in the diplomatic sector, and she passed some nocturnal species taking advantage of the lovely weather to stroll along the darkened walkways. Once she got used to the bike, she increased her speed, pushing her newly young muscles to glide through the streets toward the palace. Sooner or later, she knew, her jedi companion would find her missing and come after her. He had eaten only half of his dinner, and she had not been able to persuade him to try the local wine. She had no idea if he was the kind to awaken during the night, but she did not want to have local security pursuing her until after she'd reached the throne room.
Once Leia reached the outskirts of the palace grounds, she dropped the bike and climbed a curved path towards the closed gate to the gardens. Here, she had to be careful, counting out the time under her breath to avoid showing up on the security cameras. When she had decided to take this approach, she had been worried that she would have forgotten the timing. But, no, it all came back as she wove through the shrubbery. How many times have I done this, she wondered? Fifty maybe? There were years when sneaking out of the palace with her foster sister was her most treasured hobby. Getting back in without being caught was an enormous victory, however, one she'd only managed a handful of times.
I won't be caught by the palace guard this time, she thought. There's no errant princess for them to be watching for. Of course, that was not her only protection. She wouldn't be climbing fences or disabling shields tonight. No, this was an emergency, not teenage hijinks, and she was going to use the only access point that she had never approached: the escape tunnel.
Leia had been very small when her father had shown her the tunnel, five, maybe six years old. It began in an alcove in the palace throne room and wound underground, a long, twisting path, with sudden angled turns, until it emerged in a small group of hydenock trees, just outside the walled gardens. "Leia," her father had told her, "this is not a place to play. No hiding from your nurse or your aunts, no going on adventures. This tunnel is to be used only once, when your life or the lives of our family are at stake. Once you have used it, you can never enter it again, so take care. It is here so that we can escape if terrible things ever come to Alderaan."
Well, Papa, she thought, terrible things came, but the tunnel didn't help.
There was no way to enter from the outside, no latch or release, no secret code. But from the inside, one only had to push gently to open the hidden door in the sloping ground. Leia concentrated; moving objects really wasn't her favorite use of the Force. Nevertheless, she imagined her hands inside the tunnel, finding the right spot and pressing hard. It took several tries, but eventually, the tunnel opened, and Leia nearly tripped dashing inside before it closed again.
As she took a few steps in the dark, the iridescent moss on the ceiling began to glow softly, preventing her from walking into the walls or banging her head when the tunnel occasionally narrowed. Her mind wandered as she hiked. Is this the right choice? I could have waited to see if Papa would agree to meet. But no, that wouldn't have worked. Even if he had agreed to see them, all he would see would be a stranger, not his daughter, not even an Alderaanian. She could not prove her connection to the Organas through genetics, of course, and while she knew many of her family's secrets, it would be easy to dismiss that knowledge as jedi mind tricks.
The only way to prove her identity was the throne. And she did not dare to ask to touch it, for fear she would be refused. So a dramatic arrival was her only option.
Opening the tunnel's other end proved more difficult than she had expected. Was there something on top of the opening? Eventually, she got frustrated and sent a bolt of Force energy straight at the wall in front of her, bursting the small door open and toppling a sculpture of Queen Mazicia. Well, Leia thought, so much for the stealthy approach. She shook her hand to make it stop tingling. I hate doing that; I'd much rather punch something.
No one came running, which confirmed her suspicions that the royal family was not in residence, and most of the royal guard had gone with them to the Ranch. It wouldn't matter. What she would do now would bring them back.
Leia brushed off her clothing, noting the stains on her leggings with distaste. Then she climbed the marble steps to her mother's throne, walking around the seat once before boosting herself into it. Organas, she complained to herself, are tall. Luke and I got a huge dose of Force ability from our dna; we couldn't have gotten a bit of height? I'll just bet Anakin is already tall. Vader was; I practically needed a stepladder to yell at him. She settled herself, quieting her mind. It was important to do this right.
Very firmly, she tapped a code onto the left armrest. She paused and tapped a second code on the right. Then she tapped both codes together, right hand and left, and waited, very still, as the ancient device awoke, wrapping her and the throne in a red force field. It began to grow warm.
"I am Alderaan," Leia began to recite in Old Alderaanian, "servant of my people. I belong to Alderaan, to its oceans, to its mountains, to its skies. My body, my mind, and my heart are of Alderaan."
The heat raced along her skin as her mind saw, over and over, a green light bombard her beloved home.
"My eyes belong to Alderaan, and I have seen visions. Darkness comes, destruction comes. The world will end in fire and pain."
She felt the shock of her mother's mind, her father's, her aunts' and cousins' as her vision spread out among those who had touched the throne and been recognized by the device within it.
"I call upon House Organa, Stewards of Alderaan. I call upon House Antilles, Preservers of Alderaan. I call the Queen of Alderaan: come! Come to the Place of Vision, or Alderaan will fall!"
The light dimmed as the force field released her, and, exhausted, the last princess of Alderaan crouched upon the throne and wept.
Something is wrong, Mace Windu thought, as he went from asleep to awake in an instant. He leapt from his bed and reached for his lightsaber. Pulling on a robe, he stalked into the sitting room expecting an attack. Nothing. Annoyed, he knocked at the door to Leia's room, but there was no answer. Reaching out with the Force, he felt nothing, so he was unsurprised to find her bed empty. What has she done now? He asked himself. Would she sneak out in the middle of the night and march over to the palace expecting them to just let her in?
Of course, she would.
I'm getting too old for this nonsense, Mace grumbled to himself, as he quickly dressed. He checked the time; three hours past dawn. Had she been gone all night? I should have put a tracker on her, he chided himself. I knew she couldn't be trusted.
An hour later, he found himself impatiently cooling his heels in one of the palace's many sitting rooms. When he had apologized and told palace security that he had come following a young Force talented girl who, he suspected, had tried to break into the royal home, he had been expected to be turned away. Instead, he was escorted inside, offered tea, and asked to wait. That had been at least an hour ago. Patience, he knew, was among the most important jedi practices, so he remained calm and sipped his tea, imagining Master Yoda chortling at him for his predicament.
Unfortunately, as soon as he had entered the palace, his head had begun to ache, and the tea had not seemed to help. Something is wrong. The phrase kept coming back to him, niggling at him and making him want to fix something, though he had no idea what.
"Master Windu?" a young woman asked as she entered the room. He nodded, and she smiled gently. "I am Duchess Celly Organa. Welcome to the Royal Palace of Alderaan. I am sorry to have kept you waiting, but as you did not have an appointment…"
"Yes, I apologize," Mace responded with a quick bow. "I would not have ignored protocol this way if it weren't an emergency. My…companion…is a young girl, and she has some… unusual…notions about the Organa family. I do not think she would harm any of you, but she can be a bit unpredictable."
"Indeed," the Duchess answered, "we've noticed."
"Then she is here. I feel I must apologize again. She is in my charge, and letting her get away and approach you like this is inexcusable. If you bring me to her, I will take her back to Coruscant at once."
"That won't be necessary," Celly told him, "at least not yet. We have a great deal to talk about first. Come. My sister, would like to meet you."
Chastened, Mace followed the elegant young duchess out of the sitting room and down several corridors. "These are the family's private rooms," she told him, as they entered a section with fewer marble sculptures and more colorfully woven tapestries. "The Princess assured us that a formal presentation would be irritating after all the trouble she's given you, and since we are all a bit…disheveled…due to our quick flights this morning, I hope you don't mind if you find us a bit less than polished."
"Flights?" Mace asked, as they entered what seemed to be a comfortably informal dining room. A dozen or so adults and several children crowded around a buffet, filling plates and collecting mugs of tea or kaf. He saw several servants guiding the children to places to sit and making sure they had napkins and utensils. Everyone seemed subdued, almost grim, even the little ones. And in the middle of it all was Leia, sitting crosslegged on a high stool next to a dark-haired woman, who rose and approached him as soon as she saw him enter the room.
"Jedi Master Mace Windu," she announced, as she gave him her hand, "I am Breha Organa, Queen of Alderaan, and I owe you a very great debt."
"A debt, Your Majesty?"
"Of course, Master Jedi. You have brought my daughter home, and in so doing, you may have helped save our world from destruction. House Organa will remember you for your assistance."
By the Force, Mace thought. They believe her. They actually believe that this girl is a time-traveling princess!
His headache grew significantly worse.