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| Flames of Winter (Part 2) |
The Flames of Winter (Part 2)
30 Firstmonth, 8026
The rendezvous we regrouped in after the debacle was none other than Deep Space Alliance Base #1, on which was our highest Command. Command had decided that what was left of Hoth should be integrated into the Center of Operations, not sent elsewhere to set up another Base. I sense a great deal of disarray in the generals’ thinking – key people are gone; some dead, some missing. Among the missing: Princess Organa and Commander Skywalker.
Plans, too, were regrouped, remade, and the political wing kept especially busy. Ex- Senator Mothma, our Leader, conferred with her Advisors and with the Generals around the clock.
I was back at my job. This time, working closely with Sibu, at monitoring the Main Medical Frigate, inside and out. A special contingent of technicians of all kinds has been designated for working on the medical freighters, as there were so many wounded – Too- Onebee and his colleagues worked around the clock, too.
So did I, keeping busy all of my non-sleeping time, no need to ask why. After my shift
I spend all my time in the archives, at the ‘puter. Looking up news releases for the last
twenty-five years. Looking up the history of someone new.
Someone who has entered my consciousness and my present, where I had only vaguely
heard of him, before; an enemy who has appeared suddenly on my horizon, a figure of menace
and horror.
He’s been caught by recorders, entering our collapsed tunnels and hangars, the records
saved for our Intelligence Division by the last people escaping. I was one of the
processors of the recordings, I reconstructed his image. I’ve seen and heard him.
His name is Darth Vader, his title, Lord of the Sith. He’s the Emperor’s hatchetman.
And he’s not human.
No, I don’t mean that he’s from another species of Sentient. That would be all right.
What I mean is that he’s three-quarters machine and one-quarter monster, his original
humanity lost when he became a creature of the Emperor.
He looks monstrous, too. He’s two meters tall, powerful and athletic, with a full body
armor in black that covers all of him; and a life-support monitor on the chest. With a
helmet and a breathing-mask that completely hides his face – if he has one. Yet the effect
of his machinery is not that of a cripple, but of a superbeing – or a droid. His voice is
deep as the ice-crevasses on Hoth, resounding from the mask, over the frightening sound of
his breathing. One cannot sense his presence in an image, yet I feel sure that, could I
have, his inner personality would have come through as horrifyingly as his outer.
I am looking up his history – what the Alliance has in the ‘puter. Nobody knows where he came from; yet the story is that he was once a Jedi Knight, who was seduced into Evil by the Emperor and who then helped him round up and destroy all the other Jedi. An unlikely story... but how did it come about?
Seduced by the Emperor. How could a Jedi Knight be seduced by someone who’s wholly
evil? The gruesome picture is made even worse by the reminder that the Emperor is actually
a sorcerer – a fact that has somehow been glossed over by the Systems he oppresses as by
the enemies who fight him...
As for Darth Vader, nobody knows who he was, though it’s been less than twenty-five
years since the story of his downfall as a Jedi: all records have been destroyed. And the
Empire has clamped down solidly on the teaching of contemporary history. The Alliance’s
archives are exceptional in this respect, that compilation has gone on, during all these
years – the years people are starting to call the Dark Times. (I never learned from school-
programs what I found out after I joined the Rebellion!) Yet even they don’t have his story.
All know who Darth Vader is now: the Emperor’s creature – the scourge of civilized
Systems. The Emperor needs not oppress, or torture, or kill: Darth Vader does it for him.
This was the figure that had entered our Base, that had destroyed it. Not just the
Empire, but the Emperor’s special executioner. I wondered why.
So, I’m sure, did Command. I know that they spent hours viewing the holos, and
analyzing our last battle. And my friend Tsad, who’s in Tactical, says that they’ve come
to the conclusion that Vader was personally looking for something on Hoth.
Something or someone.
Could it have been Princess Leia? He knew her well, from the time she was Senator for
Alderaan on Capitol Central. She’d been in his hands – another gruesome thought – before
she escaped and came to join us on Yavin. But her importance to the Empire was over after
the Death Star was destroyed and Yavin Base abandoned – or so says received wisdom...
I feel strongly, that we have in him a very personal enemy.
3 Secondmonth, 8026
Last night my uneasiness returned, turning first into anguish, then horror. It happened in a dream, I was asleep, my guard was down, the influences I had so feared took control of me.
I saw Darth Vader. No holo this time but a living being. His aura was indescribable: I
haven’t any words for this kind of evil; just that it was terrible. And, strangely, I saw
Luke Skywalker, too, as if in a mirror, aware of Vader but not really able to find him.
Luke was – different. I became cold, cold, at the evidence of this thing I had feared,
happening. A change in him, a metamorphosis. Luke wasn’t worse than before, he was maybe
even a better man – but his youth was gone. Power radiated from him, his latent power
turned into actuality. But only until he met Vader.
They became linked, somehow. Twined by a strange beam of light, roped all around them
both – and I heard Darth Vader’s voice, and he was speaking, and the ground shook. But I
could not understand his words.
I saw the face of Luke. It was distorted as if by a scream – I felt his horror. Horror
and hatred, so unlike Luke! But also a sorrow and a yearning so vast and so unbearable
that it spilled over into me, and I writhed on the floor and tried to cry out – but no
sound came.
In the dream Luke took out my uncle’s silvery hilt: a beam sprang up, a beam of light
so blue it merged into the sky. I followed the beam, first with my eyes, then with my soul –
way out and away, falling between orange clouds.
And woke completely wet with sweat, the terrible sorrow sitting on my chest.
I made myself some brew, trying to calm my pounding heart, get rid of the metallic
taste in my mouth. This was the worst nightmare of my life. And the terrible thing was
that I knew that part of it had been real. Something had happened to Luke Skywalker, and I
had tuned in to it – because of my feelings for him. He was different now – if he was still
alive.
Oh, please don’t let this mean that he’s dead!
4 Secondmonth 8026
Sometimes the world comes to an end. Not the external world, and not by dying; it’s just that everything takes a different course, everything is changed – for better or for worse. This time it was for worse... Though they were back.
The Princess and the Wookiee, on the Millennium Falcon. They brought back their droids
and a stranger, a man from Bons, who looked rather dazed. Han Solo was not with them. They
came in on the main hanger of our Frigate, the Falcon settling like a wounded bird – the
gangplank came down, the doors clashed open – they walked down, slowly, guiding the
antigrav stretcher.
Luke Skywalker was on the stretcher, a casualty. He was in a high fever and unconscious.
But there was worse; his right hand was gone. Quite gone, cut off at the wrist. The young
ace, the powerful, beautiful hero – was now a cripple.
Leia was holding on to him, to his left hand. Although he was unconscious, she never
let go.
I was in the party that received them. I had finished my shift an hour before and came
running when I heard, over the intercom, that the Falcon was in. Her Generals were there,
and some of the politicians. And a lot of mechanics, technicians and medical droids. And
me.
They hustled his stretcher into the turbo-lift to the medical and the doors closed,
the crowd dispersed – I was alone. There was nothing I could do. Nothing I should do. I was
not even supposed to care, more than anyone on base. There was only one thing left for me
to do.
I went to the Technician’s lounge and got drunk.
10 Secondmonth 8026
Strange how resilient people are. Last tenday I felt I’d died – died with him. But he’s not dead – he’s much better. At least, according to the medical droids. I haven’t seen him. And I’m not dead either.
It helps that I work right on the Medical Facility where they’ve hospitalized him. I’ve learned that they are fitting him for a mechanical hand. And I’m the one to give clearance to Chewbacca, every time he comes to visit him, and to the other one, the stranger. His name is Lando, Lando Calrissian, and he was the ruler of Cloud City, on the planet Bespin, before the Empire came in.
Princess Leia has been a fixture. She came in with him unconscious, and has not left
the Medical Frigate ever since. It must have been the first time in her career that she’s
taken leave of absence from Command, from service and from any preoccupation with the
general welfare. Oh, Maker, she cares for him, all right...
And yet. Han Solo has been taken, taken into captivity or worse. A bounty hunter has carried him away – encased in carbonite. I didn’t know you could encase a living body in carbonite without causing death. Seems he’s in hibernation. And she can scarcely bear it. I’ve seen her, the Princess. All in medical white, gaunt, with haunted eyes.
After half a tenday, she’s begun to leave him with the droids when asleep, and go down
to the lounge for lunch with the Medical Frigate’s officers. Before, she would just have
her own droid bring her some food to his bedside.
I can’t bear it anymore – I’ve got to find out more about his state – more than the
short bulletins given out by the medical droids I’ve been asking.
12 Secondmonth 8026
Yesterday I slipped into the medical facility while she was eating – to make sure I
had the time.
From the antechamber’s viewer portholes I watched him, lying there. It was out of the
question for me to go in, to talk to him, to try to cheer him up. He would never want me
in there, to see him in his pitiful state – or so I told myself, in my anguish and grief.
Unlike the way I had dreamed him, his misfortunes hadn’t changed him physically. As he
lay there sleeping, his face looked even more beautiful and pure. Pure and clean and –
wasted; pale and hollow. There he lay in all his vulnerability; the other side of his power,
his heroism. My heart broke, in my longing to hold him, and rock him like a child, to warm
his cold soul in my arms, to soothe his hurt.
I could help him so much if he’d only let me! And I’d settle for playing the listener,
if he decided to just talk. Or to go with him, if he wanted someone for sex – for one
night or for six months. (Does this make me his slave?)
But he takes consolation only from Her.
They say that Darth Vader has done this to him. Just as in my dream: Darth Vader and
Luke Skywalker had met and fought, and Luke had lost his hand – almost his life.
That was what everyone talked about. But no one really understood what had happened.
Or why. Even as he slept, I could feel a wound in Luke so great it changed everything in
his life. I had no doubt he’d been hurt in ways I could not even imagine. By hatred, and
horror, and eternal sorrow... I had felt that in my nightmare.
Why? Why Luke? The terrible injustice of it racked me. Why must the best in the Universe be made to pay for all the others’ errors and crimes.
Princess Leia was coming back, I heard her voice, speaking to the droids and froze in place, feeling guilty as if I were doing something wrong. And perhaps I was, since I was eavesdropping. I still can’t describe how I felt, as I watched those two, two people who are everything in the Universe to me – who did not know I was alive
He woke as she approached his mech-bed, touched the controls and the bed sat up.
"How do you feel?" Her fingers went to his forehead, in a maternal gesture.
"I’m all right: look at the indicators." He gestured at the machines; his immense eyes
searched for hers. "How about you?"
"As well as you, actually – we both know that..." There was a slight smile on her pale
face, as she adjusted his bed, sat on the edge. "I can’t stop thinking... why is this
happening to us?"
"You mean that you could hear me, on the vane?"
"I mean all of it," she replied. "You and I are now linked – by telepathy. How? Why?"
"Maybe there’s an answer. If the questions were different. ‘Telepathy’ is wrong."
It was she who searched for something in his eyes, now. "You’re talking of..."
"The Force. I’ve found out some very strange things about myself, Leia."
His feelings were on many levels – complex and roiling. It was impossible for me to decode them. Uppermost at the moment was his concern for her, for her anguish and her loss – echoing in himself, back and forth – for he loved Han Solo too.
And she was on the edge. Something had taken place during those four tendays, something that had changed her relation to Solo completely – probably his capture. She now thought of him with the fire of a lover: her loss of him was the loss of a bonded one.
Every now and then, human men and women bond, for some reason. Something happens, and sexual attraction transmutes into a strange force-field strong emotion neither psychologists nor poets have ever been able to define. Some call it real love, others bonded love. And when it happens to only one side, that is the real hell.
Luke Skywalker could read Leia Organa. He could feel clearly how she was now bonded. To his best friend, the beloved friend to whom he owed his life – the friend who was in the hands of his enemies. Luke loves her. Has loved her since he met her, almost four years ago. In their vicissitudes they’ve become attached to each other, linked. He can feel her, as she him. She loves him dearly, in a way I’ve never felt in anyone before. But she’ll never be his mate.
How can my heart break for Him, when he’s in pain because of Her? How can I suffer only from his suffering, not mine? I love him for myself, don’t I?
Is it possible that I’ve gotten used to accepting a totally hopeless situation as normal – to being a shadow only, living on the side of life... never expecting a response, never waiting for recognition or a word.
How did this happen to me? I’m a woman who thinks of herself as strong in her won right; who makes her own decisions; who’d left her world at age twenty, to join the Rebellion; who’s contributed to the long fight and to the Alliance’s very existence.
What has this man done to me?
13 Eightmonth 8026
This is the Eve of Battle.
This is the time, the decisive time. Our pilots have massed, poised to swoop into
hyperspace. The small stolen Imperial shuttle and the Millennium Falcon are being readied –
maybe being boarded at this very moment. Everyone in the Alliance is thinking of the future;
praying, maybe.
Except for me. I’m thinking of the recent past.
By a fluke in scheduling, a freak coincidence, I’m off-duty. Xama Malloban, the veteran
of seven years of monitoring service in the Alliance, and almost a year of snow-patrols;
always on duty at every critical moment – is off-duty at the time of the greatest offensive
of the War, perhaps the decisive one.
Giving me time to realize that, as a matter of fact, it must be the decisive one.
Otherwise, the Rebellion may be finished. That so much rests on this one offensive; and so
much more still on the mission of the stolen shuttle.
Giving me time to make entries in my diary – the first, after a very long time.
How absurd is life.
Everybody has trooped into the briefing-room, into the enormous space that was the interior of an entire ship.
Real high brass was present and active. All the Generals, but also all the statespeople
and the politicians. The makers and the shakers, the people in the Alliance who yesterday
had been Senators and Councilors in their own Systems, today were Advisors to our elected
leader, Mothma, and tomorrow were expected and expecting to be the Presidents and the Prime
Ministers of Systems liberated in the reborn Republic, if and when.
And we, others. The rank and file. The people for whom the war is being fought.
Technicians, programmers, mechanics, pilots, droids, special agents of all kinds, Humans,
and Mon Calamari, and Wookiees, and Lurrians, and Bothans, and Saxters, and...
Mostly humans, though. We are a stubborn race, we humans. We never give up. All along
we had been, as we were now, the motivators of the Rebellion.All the other races in the Universe are going to profit from a rewon Galaxy, millions
of others are participating, to free their Systems; to make the Alliance a working
proposition.But we humans are the motivators of the Rebellion. I don’t know if this makes me want
to laugh or to cry.
When Mon Mothma intoned: "The Emperor has made a critical error – and the time for our
attack has come," something like a wind of hope went through the massed people. All of the
proceedings were being recorded, of course, and I’m sure her few words of some hours ago
will go echoing down the ages.
But what I shall always remember was the expression on her face, the tone of her voice,
at her last words: "Many Bothans died to bring us this information..."
We are an Alliance. All for one and one for all. We care. Mon Mothma, the Leader, cares
if Bothans die; Xama Malloban, the Technician, cares. Chewbacca the Wookiee and Set
Willard the General; Mera Biloa, the Politician and Ackbar the admiral. Our casualties
weigh heavily on us all.
Eves of battle are the time for this kind of reflections.
Some of the people who are constantly on my mind were next in the limelight. Han Solo,
who had been made General, was revealed to have volunteered for the most dangerous
mission. Chewbacca immediately did so, too; and Princess Leia – following his lead,
following him.
They were so very obviously a couple; it was all they could do not to hold hands all
the time. My heart sank at the thought that they might not survive Endor.
They’d come back half a tenday before, Leia and Chewbacca, and Lando Calrissian and their droids – victorious. Han Solo had been rescued, after an operation mounted with extreme sophistication and in plenty of time, an operation planned and executed by Luke Skywalker.
Even as he lay helpless in the Medical Frigate; even as he mended, and came back to
health, as he was fitted with a mech-hand and recovered his abilities and his powers, Luke
had already sent Calrissian and Chewbacca to the planet on which the bounty-hunter had
sold Solo, to prepare the way for a perfectly orchestrated operation. The operation for the
rescue of a man who had been dead to the world, maybe dead for real, for five months. But
Luke had not given up on the salvaging of his friend.
Stubborn, we humans.
They came back without Luke. I was not worried this time, I was beginning to understand things about him, things that had happened to him since I met him, and were still happening. I was no longer afraid of his changes, since they were already a fact, and I was powerless to do more than look on. Had always been powerless, where he was concerned.
Luke had, at first, tried to get Command into the act, for a raid-type rescue. But
the Rebellion was already overextended, in men and ships and, though it took a great deal
of soul-searching by people who had known and appreciated Solo (such as General Rieekan),
Command had had to tell Luke and Leia that they must do their work alone. Neither was
there any question of a massive military action against the fortress of the gangster who held
Solo, since that would have brought the Empire down on us, something we could not afford,
after Hoth.
I knew all this from Tsad, who had sat in on some of the very strategy meetings
dealing with the subject. Anyway, it was no secret. I had wanted to volunteer for Luke’s
party, too (as had quite a number of others), but we’d been turned down, politely but
firmly. If there could be no raid, nor any military operation, then six undercover
operatives were plenty. Of course, he was right.
I’ll never forget the Falcon coming in on the Medical Frigate with Calrissian first,
then Leia storming down the gangplank with her droids, Han Solo and Chewbacca in tow,
both barely ambulant. The Wookiee wounded by laser-fire and Solo suffering from the after-
effects of hibernation sickness.
And Luke absent. But I was not worried. I knew.
I knew what Leia felt. About Luke it was confidence, and a slight puzzlement, even she
didn’t understand about his actions, about his power. But she knew he was not, at the
moment, in danger. And that was enough for me.
About the rest of what was in Leia – I was less sure. Something had happened to her
during that rescue action, something to change her completely. It was eerie how her
emotional – and spiritual development was beginning to parallel that of Luke; a change in
personality, a rise in power. An – awareness.
And a burden. Ever since I’d met her, Princess Leia has always been the one to carry
burdens, burdens heavier than those most human beings ever have to bear. But this new thing
was something she’d done herself – and it lay at the bottom of her heart like a stone, and
a cloud shadowed her beautiful eyes, and she worried at it, questioning herself.
But, about Luke, she was easy and confident.
Weirdly, she was wearing a pair of overalls much too large for her – Solo’s probably – instead of her uniform or even civilian clothes, and this again was one of those puzzling details I could never figure out...
That had been the return. Now, half a tenday later, she was back in uniform, Solo was
back into his usual clothes (sometimes I think he never changes them – unless he has about
ten changes of the same kind of clothes!). All of them, including Chewbacca, were back to
health and on their way.
Including Luke Skywalker.
I watched him walk into that briefing-room, so oddly
changed – and yet he was the same.
It was a fact. His evolution was. Just as he’d changed during those years on Hoth,
just as he was never the same after Bespin – so now, he was entering his final phase. And,
while I could see much, I could not see what that was to be.
His clothing was black. Somehow a shocking fact, this black uniform. Something not of
a pilot, not of the Rebellion, even – not of this Reality.
I had viewed images of the Jedi, when looking up the subject, a
year ago. Yes, this was a Jedi’s uniform. A black tunic, black breeches, black boots. He seemed to burn inside the black, his
face and hair incandescent, his eyes like molten bluestone.
People stopped him to talk, clasped his hands, clapped him on the shoulder. People congratulated him, and smiled at him and tried to detain him.
He made his way down the main entry – and his wonderful smile lit up his countenance.
Such a long time since he’d smiled.
He sent his voice out, over the crowd, to the Ones who mattered most to him. And we all
could hear him: "I’m with you, too!"
Of course he was. The shuttle mission, headed by Han Solo, the volunteer mission – of
course, he’d be in that.She ran to him, embraced him in an ecstasy of reunion – then her face changed to
puzzlement as she felt him – as she felt him inside.
He held her for just a breath, spoke to her for just a sigh. Turned to Solo,
Calrissian, the Wookiee.
Sitting there, about twenty meters across from him, I was overwhelmed. Such complex
emotions – so sublime, a pain, so excruciating a happiness... Reuniting with them was his
comfort, his shelter.
And yet. An enormous shadow lay on him. A shadow so much greater than that carried by
the Princess... Fear and hate – but also love so strong it turned everything else pale and
transparent by comparison. And not just one love, either.
Very different were his loves. There was this link with Han Solo, brotherly and warm,
strong like a force-field... a link of happiness. There was his love for Her, clear, and
shining, and tender and everlasting, even though it broke his heart. A love belonging that
was impossible to envy or to be jealous of – even for me... Yes, I have changed, too.
And then – the other love.
I have suffered so much because of him, yet I hope I’ll never in my life go through
anything like what I felt him going through then. For this was a final storm of
annihilation, but not in his power to break. Destiny itself, something in his bones, in
his very genes... I was crushed as I touched his mind to feel this thing I never wanted to
know about him, but that was, to an empath, so painfully uppermost in his emotional life.
Princess Leia had felt this, too. Had felt his trouble, his turmoil, his love, his
pain. The Other’s presence. Had felt the cold at the very core of his being.
And yet, they could do something unique.
What they could do, was to leave all this, lying at the bottom of their minds, and
take up their mission for the destruction of the Death Star.
For a moment I envied them, envied them their powers, their mastery of their emotions,
of their pains. As much as they suffer, so also can they dominate their feelings, to
return ease to their mind, and get on with the job.
I watched them do it... she and he, each in his and her own way. I envied them, because at that moment I understood something; that perhaps they were going to die, perhaps I was going to lose them forever – but they could walk on paths where I can never follow. I envied them – before common sense made its way to the forefront of my consciousness.
For now I understand that my fate is not an unjust fate. That not everyone is slated
for Destiny. Not everyone stands on the axis of history.
I don’t. MY life is a regular life. My unrequited love is a normal love, my resulting
pain, a common pain. A human pain, shared by everyone who loves without being loved in
return;and that what I have sensed in those people I have tuned in to because of my feelings
for them – is not.
All right, I was bitter, because it happened to me. But it is also comforting, somehow, to know that I shall never have to suffer through anything like that. So, let’s not protest too much about injustice. I could never have come close to Luke Skywalker, even if he had not met Princess Leia first. For his interior life is like nothing I’ve ever felt in any other human. Just as his personality has become like none I’ve ever felt in anyone else.
This is what a Jedi Knight is like. Poor, ignorant, Uncle Vaclos.
25 Eightmonth 8026
Yes, I have changed.
How, I cannot judge. Someone else would have to do it for me. All
I know is that it’s easier for me to carry my burden now – to endure. Not because
my love is less hard or my need is less painful. But because I can look at its object and
accept him for what he is.
I could say, simply, that he’s so far out of my league now, that ithurts less to know
I’ll never have him; but that would be untrue, too. For I, too, have grown, in my feelings
and in my capacities. It isn’t all liability to feel others’ emotions. It isn’t only
suffering, to know what is inside another person’s mind. I believe I’m a better woman
because of my talent.
2 Ninemonth, 8026
We of the Alliance now know how the Emperor died. We know what Luke Skywalker did, on
Endor.We now know that he let himself be captured and brought to the Emperor, that once in
his presence, at the point of death he subverted Another – who killed the Emperor for his
sake.
Of course, it was not quite that simple.
For the Other was his father, who came back to save him. Came back from a place more
unlikely than the grave; right inside the Enemy, the Scourge of the Galaxy. This part is
still most unbelievable, but I believe.
I believe that, faced with Luke, Good would emerge from Evil. I believe that.
Especially after looking on Luke’s face, that night on Endor, after it was all over.
A face of light. Never had Luke been so radiant; but also so calm and so happy. The
torture he’d been through before was finished. His father was dead, but as a Jedi, a
redeemer – and redeemed himself. And we all knew now who Darth Vader had been, before.
Anakin Skywalker was the name of the legendary Jedi, the pupil of the no less
legendary General Obi-Wan Kenobi. The same Kenobi Luke had met on his birthplanet as a
Jedi, twenty years later, when he had grown up.
The whole story, the bare bones of it, is now in the history ‘puters. Luke Skywalker
has put it there, has made public his debriefing, so that the memory of his father could
be rehabilitated.
For what he did, at the end, was nothing less than to save the Galaxy. And Luke wants
everyone to know.
Now we’ve all learned something about the Jedi. What they were, who was in that
Company of Guardians, before. What the Force is. It’s changed reality, this knowledge, for
quite a lot of us.
I believe it’s changing reality for me, too. For I keep thinking of my talent, of my
empathic talent and asking myself about the Force.
It is as if, before, I had been looking at just one small corner of the Universe. As
if I’d lived on an isolated planet, and believed that there was nothing else in the
Universe but that planet.
Is it possible that my empathy is not just a talent that runs in the family, but one
expression of an enormous Force that pervades everything, is inside everything, part of
everything?
Is it possible that I can feel others not as a "talent" but because my senses have
been opened to this aspect of the Force?
The Force... if I believed – would I be afraid?
What is this Universe we inhabit really like?
10 Ninemonth 8026
We are living a dream.
Right at this moment, when everything’s changed, everything’s changing. A whole world
is changing, a Universe. The Galaxy has entered a new era. An era of rebirth.
Of course, the fight’s not over. The Galaxy is so vast, and there are so many – from
flotilla commanders to Intelligence agents – who have not heard, or who refuse to give up.
So many others who defy the Alliance, make a stand off in some star system and pretend the
Empire is still alive.
But the difference is in the countless others, who don’t.
A cascade effect has been taking place. One Stardestroyer surrenders, then ten, then a
fleet. One Regional Governor hands over his Quadrant, then another, then another.
It helps that nobody is being punished. Nobody who has not committed atrocities, been
responsible for war crimes, is to be punished. The others are being handed over for
judgement to the people wronged. For the Alliance leaders are just.
It started on the very day after the Emperor died, while we were still on Endor,
celebrating. With Han Solo making a spectacular move; he went on the hyper-channel to
speak to the Corellian commanders of Imperial Stardestroyers in orbit around Endor, around
what had been the Death Star. After he spoke, they started coming over to the site
designated, and the shuttles with the high officers landed on our Frigate Number One, to
hand over their official surrender to the assembled Command of the Alliance – the officers
and the civilians, headed by Mon Mothma.
After the Corellians, came the others. Ninety-three Star Destroyers surrendered that
day, the Fifteenth of Eightmonth, Eight Thousand Twenty-Six, Galactic.
The first day of the New Era.
We saw it all, on the holo. Our grandchildren and all following generations will, too.
17 Ninemonth 8026
On the 18th of Eightmonth 8026, Galactic, we went in, to the Core.
Capitol central was in the process of surrendering. The Emperor’s Counselors had
disappeared overnight, leaving behind a vast, aimless, bureaucracy.
Such is the nature of dictatorship; cut the head off, and it disintegrates. The large
machine for ruling a galaxy was going through the motions until the Alliance could take
over.
The whole fleet, the whole Base, Alliance Deep Space Base #1, the warships, the
frigates, the transports, what was left of the fighters, after we lost so many around the
Death Star, took orbit around Asta Agra, Capitol Central, the System that was the hub of
the Galaxy.
Then, they started coming in. The garrisons of Bases #2 and #4, almost two thousand
people. Then, the delegates from every System in the Alliance, thousands of ships, swarming
in space, coming to rest in a wondrous ring around the world.
It was a moment of tremendous elation. The end of the war! Victory! We went around
smiling at each other, all the strangers, brothers and sisters in our happiness.
The assumption by Mon Mothma and her Advisors of the reins of Government, the
appointment of a provisional Senate until elections could be held, the dissolution of the
Imperial Army, Navy and Special Corps, took only a few days.
And, at night, there were the parties.
Not just the powerful and the central celebrated; we were all there. On the Capitol’s
rolling avenues and floating bridges; in the eating- and show-places, under the fireworks
and the million colored, wafting, antigrav-lightglobes; walking in step to the music;
tasting the food and the precious wines of the world that was hub to a universe.and strolling through the sites which, for almost twenty-five years, had been the seats of power, out of limits to the populace. The palaces that had been the Emperor’s (and
so many years before that, the Senate, People’s Convention and Halls of Government) filled
up from top to bottom with each and every one of us of the Alliance (and about two million
locals), wandering through those erstwhile halls of power, hand in hand with our friends,
and in civilian clothing.
And not just any civilian clothing, but party clothes. The Alliance’s people had
descended in a mass on the costly shops and marts of the Capitol World, to buy up the silky
and the glittery, the jeweled and the elegant.
Shopkeepers who understood the situation gave away the merchandise, half or wholly for
free; some in genuine thanksgiving for the liberation from dictatorship, others in shrewd
calculation.
For a new era was beginning.
I walked through the immense halls, hand in hand with Sibu, Tsad, and Hink. My own gown was dark blue silk-cloth studded with small ultraviolet stars. Suren stones. I had had difficulty in recognizing the tawny, smoldering woman looking out from the mirror, when I dressed. It had been some time since I had remembered that I was a woman – and still young. This curly-headed stranger, in the swirly long dress, was like nothing I looked to myself, inside my mind.
Sibu, in green sequins and a silver cloud of diamond filaments in her black hair, came
to stand beside me in the mirror. "One brunette, one redhead. Ready to go on the town!"
"Do you realize we’ve never done this? Too much work, too much war... being in the
wrong place – such as Hoth.
"Aren’t you glad we’re on a civilized planet, now?" Sibu asked. "A world with about
eleven million human males on it?"
"Are you going to ditch Tsad?"
"I was talking about you! Tsad’s my mainstay. But I’m going to take time out for fun.
We’re on Asta Agra, Xama, the Capital of the Galaxy, the sophisticated center of things,
and the War’s over! I’m going to sing, to dance, to drink..." She spun around on the toes
of her sandals, her dress belling out.
"Will we even know how to enjoy ourselves?" I asked.
"Forget him, Xama. He’ll never be anything more than a phantom, to you. A new life’s
beginning and the Universe’s open. You can have anything you want, now. You can have love,
real love, a flesh and blood man, not an impossible dream!"
I looked at the red-haired woman in the mirror. The suren stones winked softly. Real love... a flesh and blood man. Oh, Luke, Luke, why couldn’t it have been you? And now we sauntered through the vast and crowded halls, Tsad in scarlet, hovering over Sibu, and Hink in brown velvet making eyes at me. Poor Hink - a good friend, but not a chance of anything more. If I went for sex, it would have to be with a stranger, someone new and exciting, and unknown, to leave afterwards with no regrets, his or mine.
When we came to the tremendous, bare, Throne Room, we stood in awe in the entrance, with about fifty others, and could not go in. It was cordoned off, with a warning blinking in mid-air. Hidden defense-rays had been detected, a system which once had protected an omnipotent ruler and was still operative, invisible – and dangerous.
I went cold, cold like ice, much colder than on Hoth. For the Presence was still
there, sorcerous and evil. Vast and cold, that Presence - a malignancy so huge it could not
be extinguished with the physical body’s death of the One who had imprinted it into His
walls.
"Let’s go - please. Let’s just go!" I fled, and my friends followed, not quite
understanding though they, too, had felt uneasiness.
But nothing like my perceptions. My heart was racing, my face was wet with sweat. It
took quite a while, sitting in a secluded corner of the large eating-place off the main
entrance, and several cups of brew until I could become myself again.
So this was what Luke Skywalker had faced! And not just the frozen shadow, but the real thing. The living malignancy of the strongest sorcerer in the Universe...
The Force. This was the Dark Side of the Force. In spite of everything I had viewed
and heard about the Jedi Knights, in spite even of my own thoughts and perceptions, it
still had been hard to quite accept the Force, before.
But now I knew. About the Dark Side and about the other side.
Luke’s side.
So much resolve, so much willpower needed – to oppose this. To face it and stand up to
it, and never give in. Even at death’s door.
No wonder they spoke of giving Luke Skywalker a medal that had never existed before,
a medal especially created for him.
Still, no medal can repay a hero for his lifeblood’s tears. A hero is not the romantic icon of fiction, but the one who stands between a world’s oblivion and the rest of us. The one whose actions redeem us all.
I once had asked: why Luke? Why had he been selected to suffer? And the answer was
simple. Because he was the one who could do the job. Because he was the only one capable
of doing it. Of standing up against the Evil. Because there was no other.
To save the world. Now I knew what that meant.
20 Ninemonth 8026 G.Y.
Today was a very good day. The Army discharged me. I was paid off, then joined my
comrades in the hall that had been rigged out for a ceremony. We stood in a circle and
General Rieekan and Captain Gallan went around and gave each of us a platinum comlink, with
the Alliance’s emblem, and our dates of service.
Anyone who felt like it made a speech (Cai’s speech was the best, Pol’s the worst) and
then we ate party pastries and drank wine and foamer, and since this is Capitol Central,
they were the finest I have ever tasted.
We talked of our plans, those of us who had them. Some wanted, first of all, to go home, to their own planets and look up their families. Others like me, who didn’t have any close relatives (and a home planet that was a real backwater!) were looking into employment as technicians with corporations, private entrepreneurs (like ship owners), and even the Army which each System was going to keep, probably in the form of militias.
Not me, though. Being in the Army is good for wartime; you count for something and
are cared for at the same time. But peacetime is the time of unlimited possibilities, as
Sibu says – or should be. For myself, I don’t know what I want, yet. Since what I really
want – I can’t have.
I wonder, though, whether there may be a place for me, for my developing "talent",
after all. Once, I might have – what? Studied for a Jedi? Foolish idea...
30 Ninemonth 8026 G.Y.
Somehow it seems fitting that I should have met her on the Mon Calamari Frigate Ocean Gift.
I had gone into orbit to say goodbye to Pol, my colleague of seven years, who has
reenlisted for six months, until things shake down, as he thinks. His ship was leaving for
Sullust in the morning.
Waiting for his shift to end, I sat in the Technicians’ Lounge, with a mug of brew,
when someone stood over my table.
"Hello, Xama. I’ve been wondering what had become of you."
My heart stood still on seeing her, as I rose to greet my superior,
my Princess.She was just passing by, in the course of one of her many activities, either a
policy meeting, a rescheduling, or the preparations for her wedding. That she was with her
protocol droid, C-3P0, seemed to point to rescheduling.
"Highness, this is s a wonderful surprise! Will you sit with me, for a moment?"
She slipped into a seat. "I can spare a while. You go ahead, Threepio." Her star eyes
looked me over. "You look different."
"I’m out of uniform - I’m a civilian, now." I was wearing a dress and my hair was
down – a curly mass.
She looked different. Older, calmer, even taller - an optical illusion; her pale beauty matured, her face lit from within with – spirituality? She wore a suit the color of leaves and the flowing lines of water, with no ornament but one jewel at the belt, a suit that was clearly one of a kind; the work of those fashion artists unique to this world. She wore it in the casual way she’d worn her uniform or the laced-together skins on Endor, but her hair was down, too; and when Princess Leia walks around with her veil of silk floating behind, it doesn’t matter what she’s wearing, fashion made for royalty, or Ewok’s leathers; she‘s the only woman in the universe.
"When are you getting married?" I asked. This is the end of Ninemonth, and her
marriage is pending. It is to be an enormous affair, more national holiday than personal
pledge.
"As soon as Mon Mothma can fit it into her schedule." She smiled her radiant smile. "I
told Han that we already are married, but he insists. He wants an official wedding, with
all the trimmings, which means right here on Capitol Central, in front of the entire
Alliance, and officiated over by our Elected Ruler! I was afraid Mon Mothma would have
better things to do... Men! Who can understand them?"
"I can. He wants the whole Galaxy to know that you belong to him."
"You talk like Luke," she said, and my heart skipped a beat. "What about you, did you
make any plans?"
I shook my head, mutely.
"Han and I have. From now on, we’re going to live on a real planet. One with sunsets
and sunrises – seasons and weather... and the sea, I’ve missed the sea for half my lifetime."
"And – Commander Skywalker?" I asked.
"Luke’s coming with us. Han and I’ve been offered a Governorship and, when we come
back from our honeymoon, are going to choose a System. And there Luke will open his school –
his Jedi school. I’m going to be his first pupil!"
It was the first time. The first time we talked with such intimacy and familiarity. The first time we were close. And I found my tongue and the words, and said it, after all those years.
"Why are you still holding on to him? What good does it do to you – now? Or to him?"
The question hung in the air, like that blinking warning of danger at the Throne Room
entrance.
But she answered quietly, with the same familiarity.
"Because I love him so much. Because I need him and he needs me. Because he’s as much
a part of me as I’m a part of him."
"But you’re marrying Han Solo! How could you choose him for bonding?" Choose Han Solo
over Luke...
She was mute, for one long moment. Looking into herself. Looking at her loves. Then
she did answer, to tell me this thing it had not been my right to ask.
"Somehow it seems right that you should be the first to know." She sighed, smiled.
"He’s my brother, we only found out recently that we’re twins..."
It happened only yesterday, but I can’t remember the next two minutes. All I know is that I felt utter confusion and the wonder of something so big it actually made my head reel. I had to hold on to the table waiting for the room to stop spinning.
As I raised my eyes to hers, she looked at me – into me. And, for the first time ever,
saw.
"You care! For him! I never knew!"
"No one did." Suddenly I couldn’t see, blinded by tears. "At least I’ve been spared
the humiliation."
"You never told him, either, did you?"
"That would have been really useless." I let bitterness enter my
voice – even as an enormous gladness was trying to emerge.
And she felt it. She wasn’t jealous of my love for him, her feelings for me were very
warm. I took her hand; she put her arm around my shoulder. So we sat. Leia and I, silent
now. Really close.
Twins. Brother and sister. Which explains so much... Is that why I love them both? Their tremendous attraction is quite independent of sex – it doesn’t matter that I’m female and Han Solo male. He loves Luke as much as I love Leia. An extraordinary situation, if one had wanted to analyze it. But, then, those are two extraordinary people.
Finally, she spoke. Quietly, still holding me, she said it.
"Perhaps it wouldn’t be useless, now. Now that things are different. Perhaps you
should try telling him, now."
"I couldn’t!" Shaking my head, shaking myself all over, as if to shake off four
years of frustration, of despair. "He’s like a fortress, closed into himself."
"Maybe all he needs now is an offer." She took both my hands, looked into my eyes.
"You’re beautiful, Xama, so warm."
Beautiful. I didn’t feel beautiful. "Why are you saying these things?" I tried to find an answer in her eyes and found just her love.
"I want him to be happy, now I’m so happy myself. And I’ve known you for a long time,
Xama. Maybe you can give him what he’s never had - the kind of love he needs."
"What makes you think his feelings for you are any different, now?" There, it was out,
all of it.
She accepted my knowledge as quietly as the rest. "Perhaps they aren’t – but they
should be, and he knows it. I think that what comes next depends on you. On your having the
strength to take a risk."
I just sat there, confused. My heart beating crazily. Was it possible that, for the
first time, I had a chance? With Luke Skywalker? After getting used to loving in vain.
She’s right though. His feelings for her must change now – and he knows it... But me,
after all this time, do I have the strength to go to him – the nerve?
"In another month to four tendays, Han and I’ll be married, and on our honeymoon. Luke’s taking a leave. When we all come back – that’ll be the time. Think about it."
4 Elevenmonth, 8026
I’m thinking.
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