“That doesn’t count,” he said, in her opinion unfairly. “How did you get here?”
“Commandeered the Polestar—”
“With what crewmembers?” Her father’s voice sharpened, and his gaze intensified. This was the stage that came immediately before You’re In Serious Trouble, Young Lady.
“Just one,” she said quickly. “Lieutenant Ress Batten. She stayed with the Polestar.”
Relief gentled Bail’s expression. “I know Batten. She can be trusted. I’ll still need to talk to her in person when we’re back on Alderaan.”
“When will that be? How long do we stay here? What is there to do?” Questions bubbled up inside Leia, dozens and dozens of them, but mostly she wanted to be put to work. Constructing shelters? Cleaning up? Any task, no matter how mundane, seemed like an exciting chance to help her father stand against the Empire.
“You? You can go home,” Bail said. “You don’t mention this to anyone, ever, do you understand?”
“But—Mom—”
“Yes, obviously we’ll talk about this with your mother. But that’s it. After that conversation, you pretend your trip here never happened. Do you understand?”
“No! That doesn’t make any sense!” Leia stamped one foot on the floor. “Not the part where I don’t tell anyone—obviously I’m not going to tell—but how am I supposed to pretend I don’t know what’s happening?”
Bail held out his hands in a gesture of helplessness, or exasperation, maybe both. “If you want to be a part of a rebellion, you have to learn how to lie.”
Brightening, she said. “So when I know how to lie, I can be a part of this.”
“I didn’t mean—that was only a general—” Breathing out in frustration, he paused before he continued, “Do you realize the risk you took, coming here? If we hadn’t identified your ship as civilian in time, we might’ve shot you out of the sky. Batten’s a good pilot, but we have even better gunners. I would have been the one to give the order. I could’ve killed you, Leia.” His voice shook. That idea scared him even more than it did her. “What if you’d been followed by an Imperial scout? Every single person on Crait could’ve been killed. Everyone. That includes my soldiers, your crewmembers, me and you. All those lives could’ve been lost, only because you couldn’t leave well enough alone.”
The memory of Wobani made her waver, but she couldn’t back down, not now. Instead she crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I wouldn’t have to investigate things on my own if you’d just tell me the truth!”
“That’s it,” Bail said. “I’m taking you home.”
Leia flew home on the Polestar, with her father’s ship, the Tantive III, off their wing and flying as close as any military convoy sent out for an arrest. Ress Batten did her job without so much as a sideways glance; obviously she understood the value of discretion.
Still, as they finally reentered the Alderaan system, Batten ventured, “Are we in trouble or aren’t we?”
“You’re not in trouble,” Leia replied. Me, on the other hand…
“So we never went to Crait, never even heard of any such planet as Crait, and so definitely didn’t find your father there, because how would we find the viceroy on a planet he never visited and we’re not even sure exists?” Batten shrugged and raised her eyebrows. “It’s a mystery.”
“We went on a…survey run,” Leia tried. “Turned up absolutely nothing.”
Batten nodded firmly. “‘Nothing’ would include planets that probably don’t exist. Got it!”
If only all Leia’s questions could be resolved so easily. It felt as if nothing made sense anymore, and maybe it never would, unless her mother could explain.
After landing in the middle of Aldera’s night, she hurried from the spaceport without waiting for her father’s ship to land. Bail Organa would no doubt have sent word ahead to the palace, so Leia harbored no illusions about getting to tell her mother her version of events first. She only wanted a few moments to speak freely, one on one.
As she’d anticipated, as soon as she walked into the inner chambers of the palace, she saw Breha standing in the great hall, waiting. No doubt she’d been awakened by the message, because her hair hung long and free down her back, and she wore a simple velvet robe instead of the usual royal finery. Faint golden light glowed at the neckline of the robe, hinting at the pulmonodes underneath. None of that mattered as much as the haunting, unfamiliar expression on Breha’s face. It took Leia a moment to recognize what she saw there as uncertainty—an emotion she’d never believed her mother felt.
“Leia.” Breha held out a hand to her. “My child, you should never have had to know this.”
“I wanted to know,” Leia insisted. Her mother’s hand was strangely cold, as though she were ill or in shock. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because the knowledge is dangerous—to you, to me, to your father, and to every single being who has allied with us in this fight.” Shaking her head sadly, Breha added, “You have to go on as though you had never learned of this.”
“How am I supposed to do that? Mom, you’ve raised me to know how evil the Empire is, to want to do something about it—”
“This is different,” Breha said. “Don’t ask me how, thinking you can score a point. You know how.”
Leia did.
The wide doors to the hall swung open again, this time admitting her father. Bail Organa had changed from his gray-and-white Crait gear into the long coat of the viceroy, although he didn’t need that to look intimidating. “You couldn’t wait at the spaceport?” he said to Leia.
“I wanted to talk to Mom,” Leia insisted. She caught herself pushing out her lower lip and stopped it; she was too old to pout. If she wanted to make a point, she’d have to argue it. “Who started this? Where did it begin?”
Her parents turned to each other, silently weighing between them what could and couldn’t be said. They had a way of speaking to each other without words, such a perfect understanding that sometimes Leia thought they didn’t need to talk at all. It had taken her a long time to realize not all spouses were like this, that not everyone found the kind of love that was like sharing souls.
At last Breha answered, “No one person started it. Many of us around the galaxy have seen the need for greater action, and began taking the first steps on our own. We found each other. We’re still learning to trust each other. The work ahead requires extraordinary trust.”
“The work ahead,” Leia whispered. “What does that mean?”
“We don’t know yet.” Bail took his wife’s other hand and held it to his chest. “We have to be ready for anything.”
They were determined. They were steadfast. And they were afraid. Seeing their fear made Leia believe more firmly in their courage than anything else could’ve done. If they could be this brave, she could as well. “I can be ready too. Let me help.”