Star Wars_ The Black Fleet Crisis 03_ Tyrant's Test - Michael P. Kube-McDowell [164]
Leia shook her head. “It’s too soon.”
“Actually,” Mon Mothma said, “I think it isn’t soon enough.”
Leia tugged at her skirt. She had even worn her hair in the long-outdated style, braids wrapped around her ears, in defiance of the new Senate members—as a sign that Chief of State Leia Organa Solo was once Leia Organa, princess, senator, and Rebel leader. Han had kissed her roughly before she left their apartments and had grinned at her. Well, Your Worship, does this mean I get to go back to being a scoundrel?
She had laughingly pushed him away, but his words echoed even as Mon Mothma spoke. Perhaps Leia was the problem. Perhaps she was not willing to move forward.
Perhaps she was the one unwilling to let go of the past.
“All right,” she said, straightening, a leader once more. “Let’s get on with this.”
Mon Mothma did not move toward the door. “One more thing,” she said. “Remember that whatever tone you set at the opening remarks of this Senate will be the focus of the debate for years to come.”
“I know,” Leia said. She reached for the door when a wave of deep cold smashed into her. She froze. Voices screamed—hundreds, no—thousands of voices, so faint she could barely hear them. Then she saw a face form on the golden door, a white face with black, empty eyes. The face was concave, almost skeletal, like the death masks she had seen in a museum on Alderaan in her youth. Only, unlike them, this one moved. It smiled, and the cold grew deeper.
Then the voices ceased, and Leia collapsed against the door.
Mon Mothma hurried to her side, and grabbed Leia, staggering as she attempted to support her weight. “Leia?”
Leia was still cold. Colder than she had ever been on Hoth. Her teeth were chattering. She reached with her limited Force training and found her children in the apartments, just as they should have been.
“Luke,” she whispered. Leia freed herself from Mon Mothma’s hold, and headed toward the old communications control. She contacted Yavin 4, only to be told Luke was in his X-wing.
“Leia, what is it?” Mon Mothma asked.
Leia didn’t answer. She waited to be patched into Luke’s X-wing. Soon his voice filled the room. “Leia?” he asked, as if he had been worried too.
“I’m fine, Luke,” she said, relief filling her.
“I’m coming to you. Wait for me.”
But she couldn’t wait. She had to know. “You felt it too, didn’t you? What was that?”
“Alderaan,” he whispered, and that was all she needed to know.
The image of Alderaan filled her mind, Alderaan as she had last seen it on the Death Star, beautiful and serene, in the seconds before it was smashed to bits.
“No!” she said. “Luke?”
“I’ll be there soon, Leia,” he said, and signed off. She wasn’t ready for him to disappear so soon. She needed him. Something awful had happened, like the destruction of Alderaan.
And she had felt it.
“What happened, Leia?” Mon Mothma put her arms around Leia. Leia’s shivering had stopped.
“Something terrible,” Leia said. She reached out, touched the cool gold door, straightened, and stood. “There’s death in that chamber, Mon Mothma.”
“Leia—”
“Luke is coming here. He felt something too.”
“Then trust him,” Mon Mothma said. “He’d know if you were in immediate danger.”
But he hadn’t known. He had been as, relieved to hear from her as she had been to hear from him. Her mouth was dry. “Send someone for Han, would you?”
Mon Mothma nodded. “I suppose you want to put off the opening session.”
More than anything. But Leia straightened her shoulders, rubbed her cold hands together, and checked her braids a final time. “No,” she said. “You were right. I have to be careful of the message I send. I’m going in. But let’s double the guards this afternoon, and step up security on Coruscant. Also, get Admiral Ackbar to scan for anything unusual in nearby space.”
“What are you afraid of?” Mon Mothma asked.
Alderaan flashed before Leia’s vision at the moment of explosion, a flare of brilliant, horrible