“At least not tonight.” Leia had heard tales of the storms on Pamarthe.
Once the pathfinding class had caught on to the real moral of the class, Chief Pangie had lessened the difficulty levels considerably. It turned out that learning to find your way around wasn’t that hard when you weren’t fighting desperately to stay alive. She’d pulled Amilyn as a teammate for this round; after she’d gotten over her disappointment at again not being matched with Kier, she’d realized this was for the best. Amilyn Holdo might be bizarre, but she was also interested in the astrology of various systems, which made her uncannily skilled at navigating by starlight.
“Let me see.” Amilyn stopped and held her hands up to the sky, touching her fingers together in an odd pattern that made her squint her eyes, consider, and nod. The tiny glowing pins in her multicolored hair blended in with the night sky above. “All right. Two more islands to the left, and I think we’re nearly there.”
“More rope bridges.” Leia sighed, and they kept going.
Their current bridge swayed and bounced beneath their feet as they went. Far beneath, she could hear the roar of the ocean, waves breaking against the rocks that jutted up from the wide oceanic spaces between islands.
Maybe it would be worth getting wet, to feel the strength of one of those storms, Leia thought. She imagined dark clouds rolling in across churning gray water. Maybe someday she could come back here with a friend—Kier, even—
She caught herself. The future had become a tenuous thing for her. Never before had she understood how often she reveled in the simplest expectations for the rest of her life—serving in the Senate, spending more time with the people she cared about, eventually becoming queen, even maybe having a child at some point many years away. None of that could be guaranteed any longer.
Best not to plan ahead.
The next Pamarthens island they reached was one of the larger ones, which meant it served as a busy spaceport. Pamarthe had a reputation for producing fine pilots, and its trade thrived as a result. People would detour systems out of their way to pick up crew or a hauler there. It was almost bizarre to suddenly walk into a bustle of people and activity on a pathfinding trip, to hear them shouting out passengers and destinations, but it was the fastest way to reach the next wilderness.
“The chief said at least eighty bridges anchor on this island.” Try as she might, Leia couldn’t remember the precise layout; she was getting better at memorizing visual information quickly, but not that good. “If we take the wrong one, we’re going to wind up on the wrong island, which might or might not connect to our goal point, so—hey. Still with me?”
Amilyn stared off to the side in what Leia first assumed was one of her usual trips into mental hyperspace. When she followed Amilyn’s gaze, though, she realized what had drawn her friend’s attention: a group of Gamorreans, grunting and shoving, herding shivering humans onto a transport, with the humans packed together so tightly it was difficult to see the binders on their wrists.
Slavers. The thought alone could turn Leia’s stomach. Watching it happen was harder. But what did her discomfort matter compared to what the poor slaves were enduring, and had yet to endure?
She forced herself to watch the entire time. Bear witness, she thought. That’s all you can do for them now, so do it. Mon Mothma’s words about the histories to come sustained her, but barely. A lump had formed in her throat long before the boarding ramp was pulled up and the ship lumbered into the air. Only when it had vanished from sight did she turn back to her companion. Amilyn’s cheeks shone with tears.
“Like they’re in a duraplast bubble,” she said, which made no sense to Leia until Amilyn continued. “We can see through like there’s nothing between us. We can even push against the surface until it bends in. But we can never push through. We never touch them.”
Leia nodded. “Yeah. Just like that.”
“We never had slavery on Gatalenta.” Amilyn began walking in the vague direction of their goal, and Leia fell in beside her, but they were both in a kind of nauseated daze. The pathfinding games didn’t matter much any longer. “Not ever, and our Council of Mothers doesn’t allow slaves to be brought to our planet at all. If they are brought there, and their master is caught, the slave is declared free.”
“That’s a good rule.” Although Alderaan also banned slavery, Leia didn’t know whether they had a law that would free slaves brought to their world. How could she not know that? She’d bring it up with her parents as soon as she got back. If she could do nothing else for the suffering people she’d just seen, she could at least free others in their name.
They trudged on in uneasy silence for a few paces, hearing the shouts and cries around them—“Ores from Mahranee to Riosa! Need a hauler!” “Passengers for Pantora!”—without ever taking them in. Then one of the announcements caught her attention: “Senatorial charter to Chandrila!”
Amilyn perked up too. “Do you think that’s Harp?”
“Why would she charter a flight to Chandrila in the middle of a pathfinding trip?”
“She could’ve been injured. Or maybe there was a family emergency.”
“I guess so.” It seemed more likely that either Chief Pangie or the local medics would handle any injury. However, a family emergency was plausible—more so than finding either Winmey Lenz or Mon Mothma on this random island on a random planet. “We should check on her, just in case.”
Together they moved toward the voice they’d heard announcing the charter, weaving their way through the passengers, pilots, and cargo droids that crowded the spaceport. Although they were surrounded on all sides by ships and tarmac, Leia could still hear the rush and roar of the ocean nearby, reminding her how small this little sliver of civilization was.
They reached the clearing, and she saw the passengers for the charter ship. Instantly she stopped walking and put her hand out to grab Amilyn’s arm and tug her around the side of a cargo container large enough to conceal both of them.
“Isn’t that Winmey Lenz?” Amilyn tilted her head that way and this, like a marsh crane spotting food. “That’s Harp’s sponsor. Would he have come to pick her up?”
Leia shook her head. It wasn’t Lenz’s presence that unnerved her. As unlikely as his presence here might be, any number of reasons could explain it. But Winmey Lenz was talking with an Imperial official—one in a white uniform jacket.