Star Wars_ Rebel Force 2_ Hostage - Alex Wheeler [22]
Only then did Ferus realize how much he'd been hoping Obi-Wan would tell him what to do. Much as he hated taking orders, this was one decision he'd prefer leaving to someone else.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Hundreds of survivors crowded into the large chamber, their bodies packed together.
There was no space large enough for the thousands of Alderaan survivors who would have wanted to attend a memorial. So these six hundred had been drawn by lot. Everyone else would—if they chose—watch a Live Holonet broadcast.
Var Lyonn introduced Leia, then stepped off the podium, joining Han behind the stage. "She's rather magnificent, isn't she?" Lyonn murmured. Han, who didn't trust the man, answered with a terse nod.
But he agreed.
Leia stood before the crowd for several long moments without speaking. Han didn't know how she could stand it, staring out at their miserable faces. He looked away from them, up at the arched ceiling, its ribbons of colored transparisteel showering the room with dancing greens and blues.
"We will never replace what we have lost," Leia said slowly. She spoke softly, but the circling ampdroids carried her voice throughout the chamber. "We can only remember it."
She pressed a button on the podium, and a large viewscreen behind her flickered to life. There, in vibrant, living color, were the Alderaan grass seas. The skies alive with swooping thrantas. The polar sea shimmering with ice.
There were gasps from the audience. A few muffled sobs. And then a solemn silence.
The images were unrelenting: The towering Oro Woods, threaded with glittering rainbow-colored lichen. The imposing Castle Lands, casting their solemn shadow over the surrounding plains. As a lost world flickered behind her, Leia spoke of the beauty of Alderaan and those who lived there. She spoke of the lives lost, never once mentioning the losses she'd personally suffered. That was something she never spoke of, Han had noticed.
Publicly, at least, she mourned the destruction of Alderaan as its sovereign—never as a fellow citizen who had lost her family and her home.
"Upon this stage is an empty capsule," Leia told the crowd. "And now I ask you, each of you, to fill it. With your memories and your keepsakes, with gifts for the ones you lost, with symbols and reminders of what you miss the most. There is a home here for each of your memories. And when this capsule is sealed, it will be jettisoned into space. Into the debris field that exists where there should be a planet. I'm told that some call it the Graveyard, but I choose to believe that Alderaan lives on there, not in space, but in spirit.
This capsule will do what all of us long to do, and never can. It will return home."
There was a pause, so silent and still that it seemed the room had stopped breathing.
And then a young woman in the front row climbed onto the stage. She paused before the empty capsule, her lips moving soundlessly. Then she dropped a small, polished stone inside. Soon she was surrounded by survivors, eager to put something of their own in the capsule. They had come prepared. One by one, perfectly orderly, with frowns and sorry smiles and tears streaming, they filed past. Crowding the stage, the capsule, and when it was over, Leia. Their princess.
Han couldn't stand it. All this raw emotion—it wasn't his thing. "Keep an eye on her, will ya?" he asked Chewbacca, who barked a yes. Han slipped outside, threading through the crowds of those who couldn't fit into the building but still wanted to be near.
Suddenly, Han spotted a familiar-looking mop of greasy hair. He shot out an arm and clamped his hand down on the kid's shoulder. "You!"
It was the punk from the day before, the one who'd tried to scam them out of their credits. His eyes went wide with panic, and he tried to wriggle out of Han's grip, but Han held tight.
The other two boys approached, one obviously terrified, the other doing his best to look fierce. "Let