“I would’ve thought royal vehicles were more, well, regal.” Amilyn peered around the tiny, gray-mesh interior of the hopper, more curious than disappointed. Her brilliant hair constituted most of the color in the room.
Leia slipped into the pilot’s seat and acquainted herself with the controls. Data on a screen informed her fifty-nine ships were in the vicinity, ranging in size from that medical frigate to a few tiny single-pilot vessels. With a few taps, she was able to highlight the Chalhuddan ships; she didn’t intend to leave this system until they were all safely away.
“Laying in our course to—” Returning directly to Coruscant might be risky. “To Baltizaar.”
“Mirrors bend light,” Amilyn said. Leia nodded, understanding her friend’s acknowledgement of the need to break up their course before she recognized the odd metaphor. She sighed as she thought, I’m learning to speak fluent Holdo.
On the viewscreen, Leia could easily pick out the Tantive IV leaving orbit with the other vessels; distant as it was, its shape was as familiar to her as any other part of her home. Ships around it began to disappear, with the illusory stretch-and-pop that marked a jump into hyperspace. One by one, the sky around Paucris Major darkened as the brighter ships disappeared. Her father took the Tantive IV out near the very end, as she’d known he would.
Amilyn leaned over the data screen. “Only forty-two ships remaining—now eighteen—seven—two—” After a long pause, she repeated, “Two. We’re still at two.”
To Leia’s dismay, one of the remaining ships was a Chalhuddan vessel, still far too close to the repair stations; it wouldn’t be long before the self-destruct sequences activated, blowing themselves—and everything in the immediate vicinity—to shreds. “Are they damaged? Do we need to tow them out? Can we?”
But then the lights on the Chalhuddans’ engines glowed brighter, and it, too, fled into hyperspace. Relief washed over Leia, leaving her almost limp.
“Now we have one,” Amilyn said.
“Right. So we get out of here—”
“That’s one not counting us.” Amilyn’s hand trembled as she brought the image into holo form: a standard, nondescript cutter, the kind of thing that could be rented at any hangar in the galaxy. It wasn’t flying away from the stations; it was flying toward one.
Leia’s fingers tightened around her armrests. “That ship wasn’t here when we arrived in this system, was it?” Amilyn shook her head.
Stang.
Pulling herself together, Leia began running through the possibilities. The cutter wasn’t an Imperial ship. Whoever piloted it wasn’t an Imperial spy, either, or else they would’ve taken off with the others to report their findings—and even the swift glimpse they could’ve seen of the rebel’s ships was more than enough to report. A bounty hunter, thinking to turn informant? But how would a bounty hunter know about the Paucris system? How would anyone…
Leia’s stomach dropped. The shuttle seemed to spin on every axis at once. She hit the communications, sending a signal to the cutter and to the person she knew had to be inside—“Kier?”
Despite what she already knew had to be true, it hurt to recognize Kier’s voice.
“Leia? Thank the Force I found you.” He sounded so relieved. Even grateful. “It sounded like you were in—”
“Kier! You have to get away from that station, now. It’s going to blow!”
“What are y—”
If he’d hit the controls and accelerated that instant, without hesitation, the cruiser might’ve made it out of range. If he’d flown in closer and faster to start with, he would never have had a chance. When the blast exploded outward—ripping the station into a wave of fire and shattered steel—Kier’s cutter was instead violently thrown outward. Amilyn screamed, but Leia lacked even the breath. She could only stare in horror, not knowing whether she’d just watched him die.
Their hopper shuddered as smaller pieces of debris thumped the hull. Through the metallic shards blanketing the starfield on their screen, she could make out the shape of Kier’s cutter. The engines didn’t glow; there was no sign of power, no way to tell how much damage had been done.
An unfamiliar stillness claimed her. When her fear or despair reached its absolute height, her mind turned crystalline—hard, set, focused, straight. Her emotions remained, but encased in a structure that would not yield.
“The Empire’s on its way.” She spoke to Amilyn as steadily as she’d spoken to her parents on her Day of Demand. It was as if she already knew the words. “They could be here any second. I have to try to help Kier, but if you want to dock with his ship and leave us, do it. Maybe I can get his engines back online.”
“Maybe?”
There was no point in responding to that. Leia would accomplish that or she wouldn’t. What mattered was protecting everyone she could. “You don’t have to take this risk. I do.”
Amilyn trembled from shock, but she shook her head. “Don’t be an ass. I’m not leaving either of you.”
“Then let’s do this.” Leia’s hands went to the controls. The hopper shot forward. She adjusted their course so that Kier’s cutter (dark, rolling over and over, badly dented) remained at the center of their viewscreen, larger every moment.
Luckily both hopper and cutter were such basic workhorse models that autodock compatibility was built in. Although Kier’s cutter remained unresponsive, the hopper was able to link them and pump in localized power. Leia’s craft shook as the locks joined, and a warning light began to blink: The cutter’s artificial gravity was inoperable. To keep its entire contents from rushing into the hopper the instant the doors opened, she immediately shut off their own gravity, hooking one leg around the base of her seat to keep her more or less in place. Then they were unmoored, weightless. Amilyn’s hair rose around her head in a multicolored cloud; she stared at Leia as if unable to understand how she could be so quiet and calm. Leia didn’t understand it herself.
The lock doors slid open, and Leia pushed herself upward, soaring into the cutter—or what remained of it. Every control had gone black; the only illumination filtered in through the hopper. Bits of metal spun in midair, and floating beads of water glinted as they caught the light. A droplet hit her cheek—but it was warm.
Not water. Blood.
In the center of the dark, she saw the dim outline of Kier’s body, his arms outstretched, floating, loose. Her momentum brought her closer until she had to put one hand onto the ceiling to prevent colliding with him. He was near enough for her to draw him into her embrace. When she felt his heartbeat against her hand, relief flooded through her. “Kier? Can you hear me?”
The dim shaft of light from below briefly illuminated his face as his eyes fluttered open. “Leia?”
“I’ve got you. We’ll take you back to Alderaan, find a doctor.” On Alderaan, her parents could ensure he received top care in secret, a guarantee they wouldn’t find on Coruscant.