Mom’s right, though. Palpatine won’t surrender power unless he’s forced out. If the Imperial Senate hasn’t been able to hold the Empire in check by now, they never will.
That last thought shocked her; it was a truth she hadn’t realized she knew. Her father and his allies in the Senate worked tirelessly to ameliorate the greatest evils of Imperial rule. He and his closest political ally, Mon Mothma of Chandrila, had managed to moderate punishments levied on individuals or even entire star systems. With the help of the other Chandrilan senator, Winmey Lenz, and Senator Pamlo of Taris, they had turned down motions to punish Imperial crimes through slavery. Leia herself had helped him draft legislation that had outlawed conscription of stormtroopers, in response to rumors that some of the admirals were campaigning for such a move.
They had done so much, but it wasn’t enough.
She told herself, You can’t be afraid to get your hands dirty.
But this wasn’t dirt. This was blood.
The sunlight streaming through her window the next morning told her breakfast would be served on the south terrace. Simple a pleasure as that was, she needed a reason to be cheerful, at least for an hour.
Their south terrace looked out over the River Wuitho, and the smaller villages on the outskirts of Aldera. More candlewick flower vines had wrapped themselves around the terrace’s carved rails, although by morning they’d closed up into tight little buds. A flock of thranta swooped through the sky, their gray wings flapping distantly overhead. Leia brightened when she saw the table spread out with cheeses, rolls, and sweet green juice—and when she saw that her father had lingered with his breakfast. Usually he and her mother were working by the time she rose, but maybe he’d waited just to talk to her.
“Good morning.” She smiled brightly at him, but stiffened as he looked up at her, stone-faced. “I, ah, I guess you don’t have a busy day today?”
“All my days are busy, now.” His tone was solemn, not angry, but somehow that made her more uneasy. “You and I should talk about your future humanitarian missions.”
“I should probably discuss them with both you and Mom in advance.”
Bail raised an eyebrow. “You’re only now coming to this conclusion?”
Putting her hands on her hips, Leia retorted, “It’s not like you two are easy to catch up with. You never have time for me anymore.”
She’d expected him to be shamed by this, sure he would feel guilty when confronted, but instead her father said, “No, we usually don’t. Now that you understand the true reasons why, I’d expect you to be more forgiving of that.”
“I am! It’s just—I’ve become used to doing more things on my own.”
His tone gentled somewhat. “That’s only natural. But the potential cost of another mistake is too high. We have to eliminate even the slightest chance that you’ll be in harm’s way. I’ve put together a list of approved worlds from which you can choose your future missions. All of them have pressing needs that make them worthy recipients of whatever aid you can give.”
Leia told herself it should make no difference whether or not she chose her own missions of mercy, as long as the world in question needed help. Yet she felt crushed. Her Challenge of the Heart was meant to be a step toward adulthood. Instead, it was being laid out for her like she was still a child. “What if I choose my own missions, but I absolutely make sure to run it by you and Mom in advance, every time?”
Bail’s expression again became forbidding as he set a datacube in front of her, tapping the screen to display the planets he’d selected, her newly limited cosmology. To her he seemed so distant he might as well have been on one of those faraway worlds. “The list is final, Leia. We won’t discuss this again.”
With that he set down his cup and walked off the terrace, leaving her to begin her day alone.
Her mood remained dark even days later, as the Tantive IV swooped into the soupy green atmosphere of Chal Hudda for her to begin her first paternally sanctioned mission of mercy. This planet might need her help as much as any other, but it would be easier for her to act charitably than to feel that way.
Chal Hudda was an Outer Rim world of interest to virtually no one. Its marshy surface made landings difficult for all but the lightest spacecraft, and its natural resources held use for almost no life-forms except the ones who had evolved there. It was a stubbornly independent, self-sustaining society—or it had been until recently, when a fearful disease had begun to affect the Chalhuddans’ young. The sickness incapacitated adults for a short time, but the children often died. Reports indicated that the disease had reached epidemic proportions, and Chal Hudda’s relative poverty meant they could import very little medical treatment.
The vaccines Leia had brought would inoculate nearly half a million Chalhuddan young, and yet fit into a set of cases that wouldn’t even have filled her bedroom at home. She’d had to bring the Tantive IV instead of the yacht, however, because only a ship that large could carry the landing craft.
She walked into the launching bay in her pale blue all-clime suit, fastening the high neck as she headed toward Captain Antilles. It took her a moment to recognize him in his own all-clime, formfitting and slightly shiny, instead of his usual uniform. “Are we ready, Captain?”
“Ready to launch on your word, Your Highness. If you’ll join me?” He gestured to one of the bubble-shaped landing craft, and she hopped in. They took with them only two other crewmembers and a protocol droid. As Captain Antilles took his seat next to her, the transparent plasma door shimmered back into being. Ress Batten’s voice came over the speakers: “Ready to launch on five, four, three—”
The landing bay doors slid open, allowing milky green fog to swirl inside.
“Two, one.”
Antilles hit the controls, sending the bubble forward through the doors—and then plummeting downward. Leia sucked in an involuntary breath as she saw the water beneath rushing toward them, until they plunged below the surface. As the last sunlight from above faded into the gloom, the captain hit the searchlights and sent them forward.
“How does anyone live in this?” she muttered. An ocean world was one thing—but this muck was too opaque to even be called a swamp.
“Different worlds for different lives,” Antilles said cheerfully. It was an old aphorism, one she’d rarely found so difficult to believe.