Stardust and Shadow/narrative

”Dana! Dana!” The call came from the speaker of an intercom on the bedside table.

“I hear you, father,” a young woman answered pressing a button. “What’s up?”

“I just had fifth attack,” a tired voice told. “I cannot hold on much longer. I want to tell you something before – well, before I’ll die.”

“I’ll be right there,” Dana promised and got up from the bed.

She had expected something like this since her father had suddenly fallen ill.

Dana didn’t know what the illness bothering him was but he had not agreed to go to the hospital. Now that she came to think of it; her father had never been ill before, never had had any reason to go to the hospital. Never. Neither of them had ever needed medical aid except if they had been wounded during training sessions; and even then they had always healed very fast compared to the other trainees.

Dana pulled on light trousers and a dressing gown over her nightdress and stepped into the corridor that separated her rooms from those which belonged to her father. There was no light in the corridor but there were so bright marketing spotlights outside the window that any inner light was not necessary.

She opened her father’s bedroom door without knocking.

There was soft light coming from the light paneled ceiling. Dana’s father was sitting on the bed holding a small box next to him. His now almost white hair created a strong contrast with the dark wood of his bed’s headboard. Dana felt a strange sensation in her stomach – her father seemed so old, too old.

“Are you all right?” Dana asked.

“No, my dear, I’m not all right,” he answered with a weak smile. “And I will never be all right again. This illness will kill me, maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow, maybe next year. I don’t know when, but it will.”

Dana seated herself to a chair near her father’s bed. She was watching her father carefully and saw the deep lines on his face.

For a moment they were silent.

“You should allow me to call a doctor,” Dana said finally. “At least they might be able to tell us what is wrong with you. Please, father.”

“No, Dana,” he said shaking his head. “I don’t need any doctors to tell me anything. I know what this so called illness is. And I know there is no cure for it.”

“But –“

“Listen, my dear,” he interrupted. “There is no cure for old age. One day it will kill us all.”

“You are not that old, father,” Dana protested. “You are not even fifty yet.”

“I’m not even forty,” the old man said. “But I have lived to an older age than the most of my kind. But that’s not important. There are some things that you must hear. And I want to give up from the burden I have carried too long.”

“What are you talking about?” Dana asked.

“I’m talking about what I am, what I once was…

I was not born in a way most people consider natural. I was made, created, by an alien race. I am a clone, one from hundreds of thousands. I was not made to be a father; I was never supposed to have any feelings towards any other living being. I was meant to be a soldier, a killer, a tool in the hands of another.

But I was a failure.

When I was taken out from my cloning cylinder, I got a code. I was unit 074.

There is not much to tell about my childhood. I was trained to fight and to obey. And I learned to follow the orders of my superiors. It was blind loyalty. That is what it is to be a clone trooper; discipline and obedience; precision and accuracy; loyalty and trust.

That was my life.

But it was a long time ago; almost thirty years ago, before the beginning of the Clone Wars.

Clone Wars.

The destruction which it created was terrible. The Republic that had lasted over twenty-five thousand years had come to its end. And I played a part in that end, with my brothers.

Yes. We used to call each others brothers. Other clones were the only family we had. Civilians were afraid of us even though we only intended to protect them. They considered us to be only little better than droids. We were not humans – we were war machines – not living organisms. The only ones who cared for us were other clones. We were easily replaced in the eyes of our superiors.

At the beginning of the war I was nothing more than the clone 074, but during the war I got a code name. Others started to call me Shadow, it was closest thing for a name I had. I was named after my special skill of hiding and scouting and espionage.

I met your mother, Dana Stardust, during those missions of infiltration. At least that was the name she told us and the name our superiors used.

She was a Jedi.

She never told me where she was born, I’m not even sure if she knew it herself. Such things are not important for Jedi. What mattered to her was that she was an apprentice of a great Calamarean Master, Griett Avarthan-Da.

She told me Avarthan-Da was a member of the Jedi Council. She was invited to the Council after the battle of Geonosis, where many Jedi died. But she was in the Council only a very short time; she died only two months after her nomination.

Soon after the beginning of the war your mother was given the title of Jedi Knight. She was one of those unfortunate Jedi who became Knights because of the death of their masters. For her the death of her master was worse than that of many others. It almost caused her to be expelled from the Jedi Order. She lost Avarthan-Da because of her own mistake. She had devoted herself to a friend and she risked their mission and their lives to save that friend, and she failed. The friend died, her master died and another Jedi Master who was with them was terribly wounded.

Because of that the Jedi Council was very near to throw her out of the Order. But there was the war and Jedi were dying all around the galaxy. They didn’t have afford to lose anyone of them that way. Your mother was intelligent and a good fighter, and she was deep in the Force. She was simply too good to be thrown aside.

So she started to get “under the board” kind of missions. She became an infiltrator and a damn good infiltrator, indeed.

I met her when I was assigned to a mission with her and three other clones.

That’s how a group was created that made a lot of work during the war, but we never got much attention. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bitter about it. It’s not a good thing for infiltrators to stand before holocameras; good infiltrators are those whose faces are known as little as possible. And we were good. We were the best.

Your mother, Dana Stardust, was our commander and mission designer. I was the slicer of our team and the one who went to places where your mother would have drawn too much attention because of the simple reason of being a woman. Blue was our sniper and weapon specialist, he got his nickname because he painted blue marks on his armor for every kill he made – your mother didn’t like the habit. PP was our pilot and responsible for the ships we used during our missions, he was also very good in handling droids. And then there was Blast who usually was the bait or diversion with his bombs and grenades.

We were known as Stardust Squadron.

The old man was silent for a few moments, lost in his memories. His face was calm and dreamy, his eyes stared into emptiness.

Dana hardly dared move. She had known that there was something strange in her father, but she had not known that he was a clone. It explained why he was growing old so early; clones had received something that accelerated their growth, and now that treatment was killing a man under the age of forty.

Silence was broken by a deep breath.

“Would you go and get something to drink?” Shadow asked. “Telling this makes my throat dry.”

Dana stood up and turned towards the door when her father suddenly started to cough.

“Father!” Dana called startled. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Shadow whispered between the coughs with watery eyes. “Just – get – me – something – to drink.”

Dana almost ran to their small kitchen and poured some clear water to a glass. Within a minute she was back in her father’s room with the glass.

Her father was curled on his bed and strong coughs made his whole body shake.

Dana had never felt such helpless terror. She barely dared to look at her father.

That man had always been the center of her life. He had always been there for her when she needed him. And now there was no way she could help him. There was nothing she could do.

After a few moments her father was able to collect enough strength to take the glass and drink some water.

He smiled weakly.

“You are a good girl, Dana,” he said proudly. “I must have done something good to have you. Something good that was greater and more important than the evil I have done. I just don’t know if there is anything that can make up the evil; I have done things that I regret more than I can ever tell.”

“Father, you must rest,” Dana said. “You are tired. You don’t have to tell me everything now. You can tell it tomorrow.”

“I’m not sure, if there will be tomorrow,” he said looking into his daughter’s eyes. “I might die tonight. And I’m not finished yet. The most important things I have to tell you are yet to be told.”

“But…” Dana tried to start.

“There is something terrible in my past,” Shadow went on. “I cannot ask your forgiveness because I can never forgive myself. But you have the right to know…

For a year and some I traveled with the other members of the Stardust Squadron. We became more than just a team. We became friends.

We learned to know your mother quite well. She taught much to us. I think I learned more from her than the others in our team. And it was not only a good thing, because the most important thing she taught me I learned in a most painful way.

Most important thing we learned as a team from our Dana was that we learned to care. First we fought because we were created for fighting but she showed us that there might be other reasons to fight and even alternatives. We clones fought because our superiors told us to fight but your mother fought because she cared for the people she was saving. She loved peace and the Jedi Order but she could not stand aside when there were lives to save. She was ready to run to the heart of a battle with her lightsaber ignited without the smallest fear for her own life. It was the courage of a Jedi.

It was the courage of a person who believed there was something greater in the universe than her. In that greater good she taught us to believe in. And in some deep and quiet part of my heart I’m happy she never saw what came out of the Republic she served so valiantly. She would not have liked it; she would not have liked it at all.

During the war a strange relationship grew between your mother and me. It was greater than we were. It went beyond the experiences of both of us. Only when the war was nearing its end we found a name for what we were feeling. That name was love.

I was in love with the commander of my squadron. And a Jedi had fallen in love with a clone trooper. Our love was forbidden. Neither of us should have felt such feelings towards anybody. It was unacceptable.

The whole Stardust Squadron finally found out about it, naturally. But their loyalty towards your mother had grown too strong. They should have given us away to the higher clone commanders or straight to the Jedi Council but they did nothing like that. They kept it quiet, like did we.

When the war was coming to its end my love with your mother got some – let me say – physical forms. When we rarely had some quiet sleeping cycles we used to spend them together. Fighting in a war is not the best possible place to fall in love.

That what was said to be the climax of the war was a faithful day. Or for us it was rather a night. It was one of those most peaceful nights we had. We were on board of a battle cruiser and it was night cycle on it. The ship was close to the planet Kamino where we clones were first created.

I woke up to an alarm from my commlink. It was a special alarm; I recognized it from its special tone. The noise woke up your mother as well. I answered the call while I was still half asleep.

There was a dark hooded figure in the hologram. It said only three words: “Execute Order Sixty-six.”

And I obeyed.

There was immense sadness on the face of the old man. His eyes seemed watery and his lips were trembling.

Dana was staring at him in almost hypnotic way. She had never heard her father speak in such a way. She didn’t know what “Order Sixty-six” was about but from the tone of her father’s voice she understood it had to be something terrible.

Shadow fingered the box that was lying on his bed and went on with his story.

Yes, I obeyed the order. And I can never forgive it to myself.

Order Sixty-six was preprogrammed in all clones. It was one of the first things we were taught; it was in our spine. And half asleep I obeyed the order without a thought.

I wish I had thought before acting.

Order Sixty-six was simple. It meant that we should kill all Jedi close by, and at that moment closest Jedi to me was your mother. And because we were at war we always had some weapons close at hand.

I crabbed a vibro knife and stroke. I stroke her to death. She never saw it coming.

Suddenly I realized what I had done. Your mother was still breathing but only barely. I was holding her body in my arms and I could not find words to apologize. I looked into her eyes and saw pain in them. That pain was caused more by my betrayal than any physical wound I had inflicted.

Suddenly she smiled to me and whispered something. I could not hear it so I put my ear closer her mouth.

“I was pregnant for you,” she whispered. “We would have had a child. A greatest wonder of the universe and it could have been ours.”

Then she reached up and gave me a little kiss on my cheek. Before the kiss was over she was dead.

For a few moments I didn’t know what to do.

Only then it dawned to me what she had just told me. She had been carrying my child. I had not only killed the person who was more important to me than anything else but I had also killed an innocent child, my own unborn child.

Then an idea occurred to me; we were close Kamino where we clones were coming from. If they were able to create living creatures from cells they surely could keep alive an embryo.

I went to the other members of our squadron. The same alarm had come to them; they had also received the Order Sixty-six. I told them what I had done and what she had told me and I told them how I was going to try to save you, Dana. They agreed to help me but they were not happy about it.

Together we crabbed your mother’s body and took her to a escape pod. I went in there with the body and programmed the pod to fly to Kamino. Others made sure that our own ship wouldn’t shoot us down.

I landed on that watery planet only an hour after I had killed your mother.

I told everything what had happened to one of the cloners and begged him to take you out and put you in a cloning tank. To my great surprise he agreed to do it. It was a new experiment for him so he was interested to know if it was possible.

So he cut you out and placed you inside a glass cylinder. He promised to look after you personally. And he promised that you would not receive any growth acceleration.

With those promises I took a starfighter and flew back to my ship.

For one more year I ran around the galaxy fighting. War had ended but there was still work to do for us. And it did some good to me. Only when there were enemies to fight and missions to accomplish I was able to forget what I had done to your mother. But I never forgot you.

After a year I was finally able to return to Kamino. You had been taken out from the cylinder and you were the most beautiful child I had ever imagined there might be.

I took you with me. I became a deserter; a hunted man. And that’s why I brought you here.

Alderaan might be the safest planet in the galaxy. Bail Organa is famous for his Rebellion against the Empire. He agreed to protect us because he knows your mother was a Jedi. I don’t know what he hopes to come out of it; I have told him I have never seen anything that might suggest that you have any Force powers. You are as blind to the Force as I am.

By that time I was already so used to the name of Shadow that I wanted to keep it. Davin on the other hand is so common first name that no one notices it. I was signed to be a citizen of Alderaan with the name of Davin Shadow. I named you Dana in the honor of your mother.

In time the Prince Consort gave me a job as a trainer of his bodyguards. I did my job well until I came too old to do it.

“You know the rest, Dana,” Davin concluded. “You know the life we have lived.”

“Why are you telling me this now?” Dana said feeling tears in her eyes, lips trembling. “Why…?”

“I will die soon,” her father answered. “It is your right to know these things. I have learned to trust my hunches and for some time now I have felt a strange uneasiness. Something is going to happen.”

“Father…” Dana whispered.

“This box,” the man said taking the box from the bed and offering it to Dana. “This box includes everything I have left from your mother. Her lightsaber; a silk scarf Griett Avarthan-Da gave her when she was thirteen; her data pad which you can open with the password ‘Padawan’ and a thin plait of her hair. The box itself belonged to her also.”

With trembling hands Dana opened the box and saw those four things her father had described. There was a blue scarf she recognized to be made of Ottegan silk. There was a thin plait of brown hair with green ribbon. There was a small data pad with worn-out keypad. And there was a simple metal cylinder with blade emitter in the other end and the loading portal in the other.

“Thhh…” Dana tried to speak but noticed that her throat was too dry to make any sound. She swallowed and tried again. “These things belonged to my mother?”

“Yes,” her father said quietly. “They are yours now.”

Dana could not look into her father’s eyes. Her father who had killed her mother was sitting there on the bed; the old man with guilty conscience. And he would die soon. She put the box down.

“I need time to think,” Dana said finally and stood up.

Her father nodded and lay lower on his bed. “I know,” he said.

Dana felt like she was running away from something terrible when she walked out from her father’s bedroom. She saw that the sun was already rising over the horizon. She wanted to get out. She could not breathe the same air with her father. She wanted to go as far away from him as possible. She was angry, sad and disappointed; she almost hated her father. Person she had admired all her life had taken off his mask and turned out to be a monster. She felt tears running down her cheeks.

When she got to her own room she dressed up properly and washed her face. She wanted to go out; out from the house she had shared with that man for so many years.

She had walked a few hours and the sun was warm in the sky. Suddenly she felt an urge to go and speak with someone. But to whom could she tell what was bothering her? Answer came as a shadow of her father’s voice: ‘Bail Organa agreed to protect us…’

Bail Organa knew. He knew everything. She could speak with him if he would agree to meet her.

Her mind was made up. She went home and got her speeder bike and drove to the Governmental Palace.

She asked for audience with the Prince Consort Bail Organa and to her great surprise it was immediately granted. A bodyguard escorted her to Bail Organa’s office.

“Ah…” said the Prince Consort standing up behind his desk. “Miss Shadow. You requested for a meeting?” The man took a few steps forward and looked at his aides. “I believe that Miss Shadow and I would appreciate some privacy. I call you when you are needed.”

The aides went out without saying a word.

“That includes you too,” Organa added and only then did Dana notice that the guard was still in the room.

“Yes, sir,” the guard answered and left.

“Do sit down, Miss Shadow,” the Prince Consort said pointing at a chair. “I cannot pretend that I am surprised to see you. I have been waiting for this meeting,” he continued making his way back to the desk.

Dana had not expected that kind of an opening to their conversation.

“You know why I’m here, your lordship?” she asked carefully.

“Only too well,” the man sighed. “And I think I know what you are feeling; you feel like a huge weight would have been placed on your shoulders. And you are not sure if you can carry it. Knowledge is two-sided; a gift and a curse. When you don’t know something you ask, and when you hear the answer you wish you would not had asked. I feel like that every day.”

To her great shame Dana felt tears starting to run down again.

“You are not sure if you can forgive you father,” Organa went on with calming voice. “You are not even sure if you should. He knows this. But he doesn’t know even himself what you should do. Nor do I.”

Those words made Dana raise her head. What was that supposed to mean?

“No, my young friend,” Organa smiled sadly. “I have no advice for you. You have to find it yourself. I can only hope that you’ll find peace.”

“I cannot stay here,” Dana said suddenly. “I want to go. Go and do something. I want to find a reason to blame someone else than my father.”

Bail Organa looked at her eyes for a few moments, thinking hard.

“Would you like to take a special message from me to the Rebel Alliance?” the Prince Consort asked. “You could get away from here; I would get a trusted messenger. I could arrange you a ship in two hours if you like.”

“It would be fine,” Dana agreed. “I’ll do it.”

“Good,” the man said. “Go home, pack everything you need and tell Davin that you’re going to do a mission for me. Then come back here and I’ll give you the message and the coordinates of our Rebel base. In two hours you’ll be out in the space and you will have all the time you need to sort out your feelings. Is that agreeable?”

“Yes, your lordship” Dana said feeling slightly better. “It sounds good.”

“Fine,” the Prince Consort said reaching for his commlink. “Go now.”

Dana stood up and went out of the office. She took her speeder and flew home.

When she stepped in she heard her father coughing and stopped for a second. Was she going to leave her father alone now? The answer came in a flash of anger; she was going to do it. She couldn’t stay close to that man, ill or not. But Bail Organa had advised her to tell her father that she was about to go on a mission.

She took a deep breath and knocked on her father’s door.

“Come in, Dana,” said a weak voice.

Dana stepped in. Her father was lying on the bed again with her mother’s box under his hand.

“What is it?” Davin asked. “I thought you would never want to see me again.”

“I spoke with the Prince Consort Bail Organa,” Dana said. “He asked me to take a message and I agreed. I’m leaving in about an hour. He said I should tell you.”

“I see,” her father said quietly. “Then you should take this with you.” He pushed the box into Dana’s hands.

“Why would I need it?” Dana asked. “I have no use for these things.”

“I might die while you are away. Would you like some stranger to find these things? After all, they belonged to your mother.”

Dana bit her lip and nodded. He was right about one thing; she didn’t like the idea of someone touching those few things that were left from her mother.

“Right,” she said in an unnatural voice. “I guess I must go and pack now.”

She left the room and went to her own.

She pulled out her traveling package from under her bed and started to pile her things in it. And on the bottom she placed the box where her mother’s lightsaber was.

It took her half an hour to finish the packing. Then she fastened the package on her speeder and took off without another word to her father.

Soon she arrived in the Governmental Palace and saw the Prince Consort Organa already waiting for her.

“Am I late?” she asked when she stopped her bike on the courtyard.

“No,” Organa assured her. “I was just a little faster than I thought. Everything is ready and set. You can leave your bike in my keeping.”

“Good,” Dana said to herself. “I cannot wait to get off this planet.”

To her surprise Dana saw a pained look on the face of Bail Organa; it was as if her disappointment in her father was some kind of a personal matter to the man. She was sure that the Prince Consort had heard what she said and it was hurting him. But why would Organa feel any pain for such things? The Prince Consort hardly had any dark secrets he was forced to keep from his beloved daughter. Princess Leia would never be forced to accept the idea that her father was a cold blooded murderer; a monstrous creature who had killed her mother.

“I’m sorry if I said something bad, your lordship” Dana said. “I meant no offence.”

“None taken,” Organa said and calmness returned on his face. “We should get you on your way.”

Dana was still sure there was a strange undertone in his voice. Finally she came to the conclusion that it was none of her business if something was bothering Organa; he would tell her if he considered it necessary.

Without further conversation they walked to the landing pad. She loaded her package into a shuttle and went back to the Prince Consort.

“There you are,” he said giving Dana two data cards. “These are the coordinates you’ll need to find the main Rebel base and a encrypted message for General Jan Dodonna. You must not give it to anybody else but him. Any questions?”

“No, sir,” Dana answered and felt almost like a soldier. “You can trust me, your lordship.”

“I’m happy to hear that,” Organa assured. “One more thing; when you come out of the hyperspace you must transmit proper identification codes or our own ships might attack you. Codes are in the same card with the coordinates.”

“Understood, sir,” Dana said and climbed aboard the shuttle.

Dana had spent hours in different stimulators training to fly different vehicles. The shuttle given to her was old fashioned but seemed to work well.

“Shuttle Alpha, this is flight control,” came a call from the commlink. “You have the permission to leave when you are ready. Beacon is sending your vector.”

“Thank you, flight control,” Dana answered and started the repulsor lifts of her shuttle.

The ship shot upwards and the beacon started to feed pre-calculated flying data to her computer. She slid the other card in the correct slot and her targeting coordinates appeared on the display; fourth moon of the planet Yavin. So the mysterious base was on that jungle moon.

Her ship had reached the correct hyperspace vector and she was just about to start hyperdrive when pseudo motion caught her attention.

A round something had dropped out from hyperspace. A huge something! Dana had not a slightest idea what it was all about.

For a few moments it just hovered there, another side of the planet. Then a large green ray came out from its side and shot towards Alderaan. For a heartbeat Dana didn’t understand what she saw.

And then terror caught her by surprise; Alderaan exploded in millions of pieces right infront of her eyes.

For a few moments she could do nothing but stare. She looked up at that something that had blasted away her home and saw tiny spots coming towards her; fighters!

She returned to her console and started to check how much the explosion had turned her away from her intended course. When she had done the checking the bright little spots had come closer and she started to feel certain uneasiness. She needed to get away.

Finally she got her shuttle back in course and shot off.

When the safety of hyperspace surrounded her and she got time to think she realized that everything she loved in the universe had been down on that planet. And now that planet and all on it were shattered around the space. Her father was gone, so were all her friends and…

She had not told her father she loved him. She had not even said goodbye.

She burst into the tears again and cried until the alarm from the console started ringing.

She had not noticed how long time had passed and to her amazement the ship was already arriving in the system of Yavin. She dried her face and readied herself to cut the light speed. When the tone of the alarm changed she pulled down the hyperdrive levers.

Mottled hyperspace turned to star lines which collapsed to the stars and right before her face she saw the red and orange ball of the planet Yavin.

“This is shuttle Alpha,” she said turning her commlink to hailing. “Do you read me?”

No answer.

“This is shuttle Alpha. Do you read me?” she repeated flying carefully closer to the planet.

“This is Base One,” said a strict male voice from the speaker. “Identify yourself.”

“Identification codes coming now,” Dana said pushing the button that activated her signaler.

There was a short, quiet moment in the other end; they were probably checking her codes.

“You are the messenger from Bail Organa of Alderaan?” the voice asked with a little more respect.

“Yes, I am,” Dana said swallowing a huge lump in her throat. What would they say about the news she was carrying? Would they even believe her?

“Our fighters will escort you down to the moon,” the male said. “Stand by.”

The commlink went silent. After a few moments two X-wing fighters appeared around the planet.

“This is Red Three,” her commlink said. “I was ordered to escort you down to the Base with Red Two.”

“Greetings,” Dana said. “I’m Dana; messenger from Bail Organa Prince Consort of Alderaan.”

“Nice to meet you, Dana,” said another voice. “How it was on Alderaan when you left?”

Dana could not force herself to answer.

“Hey! Are you there?” asked Red Three. “What’s wrong?”

“I’ll tell you when we get down,” Dana said. “I think it is something General Dodonna should hear first.”

“Right,” said Red Two with light tone. “The sooner we get down the sooner we can hear the news.”

“Don’t joke about it, Wedge,” Red Three said. “I think it’s something serious.”

Dana heard the commlink click angrily and silence fell between the three ships heading towards the moon.

Soon Dana saw deep green forests below her ship and Yavin was bright on the sky like an over-sized sun. Red Three was flying infront of her and Red Two was keeping the rear. They landed on a clearing before a large stone building. There seemed to be quite a lot of people waiting for them.

Agile fighters landed on the ground before she got the shuttle down. When the shuttle was safely on the landing area she picked up the card which the Prince Consort had given her and opened her safe belt. Releasing the hatch she saw two young men coming towards her wearing red flying overalls.

“Hello there,” said the one with the moustache. “I’m Red Three, Biggs Darklighter.”

“Dana… Shadow.” For a moment Dana had considered to use her mother’s last name.

“Red Two,” said the other man taking off his gloves. “Wedge Antilles.”

They shook hands.

“General Dodonna is waiting for you,” Biggs said. “And we wait for the news you promised.”

Dana forced herself to smile.

The pilots escorted her to a room that looked like a command center. It was full of different kinds of equipment. There was an old man with white hair and beard. He seemed grim.

“General,” Wedge said. “Here is the messenger Bail Organa sent to us.”

“Welcome on Yavin,” General said. “I’m Jan Dodonna, supreme commander of Yavin Base.”

“Dana Shadow,” Dana identified herself. “Prince Consort Bail Organa told me to give this to you.” She handed the data card over to the General. “And I have something more to report.”

“Speak.”

“General,” Dana had to swallow her tears. “Something awful happened when I was leaving Alderaan system. It…”

Dana noticed that everyone in the command center heeded her words. And she had to blink to stop the tears from falling. It was worse than she had thought.

“Something large attacked Alderaan a few moments before I jumped to light speed,” Dana went on. “And the whole planet exploded. I don’t know what it was but it can create terrible destruction.”

There was some murmuring around the room.

“Exploded?” Dodonna repeated.

“Yes,” Dana said weakly. “I believe everyone on the planet died. There is no way to escape such destruction. There is no way to escape what ever it was that attacked.”

Dodonna seemed to shrink. Dana stood there unable to continue; nothing seemed to matter. The general clearly did some serious thinking. Suddenly he raised his head.

“Tell everybody to arrive in the Throne Room in fifteen minutes,” he said to Wedge. “This is something all of us should know. We might well be the next target.”

Dana felt the words wash over her like a flow of icy water. Did General mean what she thought he did?

“Everyone?” Wedge asked.

“Every one who are not on duty. Now, Antilles.”

Wedge saluted and left the room.

“Biggs, find an apartment for our guest,” General ordered. “And see that all ships are cleared from open landing pads. And I want you both to be in the Throne Room in fifteen minutes, too.”

“Yes, sir,” the young man said. “Come with me, Miss Shadow.”

Dana was sure she heard a slight trembling in his voice. He was more terrified than he admitted.

They walked quietly to a large hangar. There Biggs called a technician to him.

“Bring in the shuttle,” he ordered. “And bring the fighters too and refuel them. The General smells a fight.” The technician nodded and left. “And so do I,” Biggs muttered quietly.

Dana went and fetched her package from the shuttle.

Biggs guided her to another side of the building from the command center carrying her package. He opened a door to a small room with a bed, a table, a chair, a wardrobe and a shower bath.

“There you go,” he said putting the package on the bed. “Not luxurious but comfortable enough, I think. If you want to change your clothes I’ll wait outside. Just don’t take too long.”

Dana was left alone. She took off her clothes and wetted a towel to clean herself. After that she took out some clean clothes and dressed up. The time General had ordered for the meeting was only two minutes away.

“That’s better,” Biggs said when she came out. “But now we have to hurry.”

Biggs guided her to a turbo lift station at the side of the hangar.

“The hangar and the command center are the heart of this building,” he told Dana. “Throne Room where we are going is the most beautiful room but rarely used.”

They stepped into the lift with half a dozen other people, including Wedge Antilles.

The lift reached its highest point and the doors slid open; there was a passage and large double doors before them. Doors opened when they got closer and the small passageway bathed in the blazing light. The Throne Room was huge; it was as large as the hangar but higher and much brighter.

There were hundreds of people in the room and soft buzzing of worried conversations was filling the air. Dana saw General Dodonna standing at the end of the room on dais. He looked at the door when they entered. Their arrival seemed to be a sign to start the meeting.

“Listen!” Dodonna called raising his hands. “Listen everybody!”

The room went completely silent.

“Thank you,” Dodonna said with a lower voice. “We have received most terrifying news from Alderaan. It is as we feared; the Empire has indeed completed their new super weapon. It has already given a terrible blow to our morale. It attacked against Alderaan and destroyed it killing everyone. This information was brought here by a messenger from Bail Organa who saw the destruction with her own eyes.”

The silence was broken by terrified murmuring.

“Silence!” Dodonna demanded. “I know your curiosity and your wish to hear more about these events; I feel it also. Still I must tell you not to ask any questions from the messenger who brought the news. How ever curious you might be, that tragedy is also a personal matter to her; and so it is for many others here. We had family members living on Alderaan; we believed Alderaan to be safe. She thought so too. Leave her alone until she feels herself ready to tell us more.”

There was some more muttering around the room.

“Now we must prepare ourselves for battle,” Dodonna went on. “There is a chance that the Empire was able to trace her shuttle here. They might arrive any moment. We –“

At that exact moment the alarms went on.

“Battle stations!” Dodonna barked. “We are under attack!”

When they rushed out from the room and towards the turbo lift the alarm went silent.

“False alarm!” a voice came from the speakers. “It’s an ally.”

Rushing turned to slow walk and eager talk.

“But you should come here, General,” the voice went on. “I think this is important.”

General walked trough the catering and stepped into the lift alone.

Slowly the group around the lifts thinned and Dana, Biggs and Wedge were left there with only three other rebels. Dana could not look at those people into eyes. She was sure some of them had had family on Alderaan and that they were thinking that she had no right to be alive while their families had died. When the lift arrived and they stepped in she realized something; it was not what they thought, the problem was what she thought; and she believed she should not have survived when her father died.

Dana looked up in order to say something when she noticed that everyone in the lift were looking to their feet and avoiding each others eyes. She didn’t speak a word.

Mercifully fast the lift reached the bottom of the building, doors opened and the chatting around them gave them something else to think.

“You’ll take care of our guest,” Wedge said to Biggs when the three of them stepped out. “I’ll go and see if I might find out, what’s going on. Okay?”

“Sure,” Biggs said.

Dana and her companion watched as Wedge disappeared in the crowd.

“Would you like to eat something?” Biggs asked carefully. “The food is not good around here but it’s better than in small ships like your shuttle.”

“I don’t know,” Dana said. “I guess it would be all right.”

Together they went to a dining room and Biggs ordered some food from an automat.

For a few moments they ate in silence.

“I’m sorry,” Biggs said suddenly. “I mean… The destruction of Alderaan must have been terrible to watch and to know –“

“You don’t know what you are talking about,” Dana said at the edge of tears. “You cannot understand –“

At that precise moment Wedge came running to them.

“Biggs, we are needed,” he breathed. “The Death Star is coming here. General Dodonna and other bigheads have formed a plan to fight against it. And we are the ones who must go and do it.”

“That thing has a name?” Dana asked shocked. “That thing which blew up Alderaan is called the ‘Death Star’?”

“Yeah,” Wedge said. “Princess Leia Organa was able to steal its technical read-outs and now we are supposed to get rid of it.”

“Princess Organa is alive?” Dana said. “How? I thought she was on Alderaan when it was blown up.”

“Yes, she’s alive,” Wedge answered. “But don’t ask me how. But rumor has it that she was aboard the Death Star when it attacked. Of course you could try and speak with her yourself; you are the only survivor from Alderaan’s destruction and the messenger from her father.”

“I might do that.”

“All pilots to briefing,” came an announcement from the speakers in the roof. “All pilots to briefing.”

“We gotta go,” Biggs said standing up. “You’re all right here?”

“You go on,” Dana assured. “I’ll take care of myself.”

Before going out Biggs put his hand on Dana’s shoulder and gave a friendly and reassuring squeeze.

When Dana watched the two men walk out an unwelcome thought came to her mind; it had no matter where she was she would die anyway. There was no way to fight against that awful Death Star. What ever General Dodonna and the others planned to do, she knew it to be a useless attempt. All of them were about to die and she had nothing against it.

She finished her food calmly and walked out from the dining room. At the door a young girl almost ran down on her.

“You’re Miss Shadow?” the girl asked.

“I am. Why?”

“General Dodonna sent me to find you,” the girl said breathing heavily. “He wishes that you arrive in the command center. Now.”

Dana didn’t care where she would die. The command center was as good place to be blown up as any. She walked slowly through the corridors with the girl. Most of the passages were empty now but when they were getting closer to the command center they heard many voices speaking.

Dana stepped to the center and saw three figures around a large display table; General Dodonna, Princess Leia Organa and a golden protocol droid. She took a few steps closer.

“You requested my presence, General,” Dana said.

“Miss Shadow,” General said nodding his head. “I believe you already know Princess Leia Organa. Leia, this is Dana Shadow, the last survivor from the destruction of Alderaan.”

The Princess’s eyes narrowed when she looked at Dana.

“Was your father called Davin Shadow?” Leia asked.

“Yes,” Dana said in a weak voice. “Did you know him, your highness?”

“He used to give us battle training,” Leia said shrugging. “I’m sorry for his death, he was a good man.”

Dana didn’t know what to say. How the princess was able to act so calmly? And how could she tell the her what her father had done once; how could she tell to anybody?

A call from the tactical display saved her from the trouble of answering; the Death Star was getting closer and they had only a few minutes left to live.

Dana pulled herself back and found support from the cold wall of the room. Eyes closed she listened to the voices speaking through the commlinks. She heard how Rebel pilots were killed one by one; she heard how the Death Star was closing its target. And then –

“The Death Star has cleared the planet,” the call came. “The Death Star has cleared the planet.”

Dana smiled. Any second now she would be dead. Her father had believed in the Force; he had always said those who died became one with the Force. Very soon she would find out if it was true.

“Yahoo!” called an unfamiliar and a rather arrogant voice from the radio. “You’re all clear, kid! Now let’s blow this thing and go home!”

Dana raised her head and looked at the displays. The Death Star exploded right before her eyes. It was almost as seeing Alderaan’s destruction again. It was very similar.

“Great shot, kid!” the voice continued. “That was one in a million!”

With those words everyone in the command center exploded into cheering. They were saved! A mass of people rushed out towards the door. Everyone wanted to be in the hangar to welcome the heroes of the day; their saviors. Dana followed more slowly.

When she reached the hangar the fighters had already landed and the pilots were climbing out of their cockpits. Everyone was cheering and applauding.

Dana stood near the door and remained silent. She saw how Princess Leia walked past her between two men followed by a large wookiee. The crowd in the hangar thinned slowly.

Suddenly Dana felt herself incredibly tired. All she wanted was to get to bed and to be left alone. Excited talking she heard all around her felt oppressing. With teary eyes Dana walked across the hangar and locked herself into her room. Everything had happened too fast; Dana could not understand that it had been only this morning when she had been sitting next to her father’s bed, listening his story. In only a matter of hours her whole world had collapsed.

Dana threw herself on bed fully clothed and burst into tears.

When she woke up Dana couldn’t remember when she had fallen asleep. She had no idea how long she had slept. Feeling her head dizzy she stood up slowly and took a shower.

Coming out from her room at last she still heard happy voices chatting all around the building. She walked around the corridors without any purpose until she found herself out on the landing pad. It felt quieter outside even with the noise of the jungle coming through leafy canopy.

Dana placed her back to the stony wall, closed her eyes and turned her face towards the red and orange Yavin. Noise of the jungle felt reassuring.

“Are you all right, Dana?” asked a familiar voice.

Dana looked at Wedge who was standing close.

“I guess so,” Dana said. “I – just –“

Wedge nodded.

“You don’t feel as cheery as others in here,” he said dropping his own mask of happiness. “Me neither. You know, Biggs and Jek were my best pals in here and –“

“You’re happy we won the battle,” Dana continued. “But you’re sad that your friends died during the fighting.”

“Yeah,” Wedge admitted. “And probably you would have welcomed death after what you saw happen to Alderaan.”

Dana nodded.

“What right I have to live when –“ she couldn’t go on.

“Others died?” Wedge said with a sad shrug. “All soldiers wonder that same thing after every battle. So do I. It is natural, I guess. We just have to learn to live with it.”

“Yeah.”

“General has arranged some kind of a ceremony,” Wedge said. “I think we should go and see what it’s all about.”

They walked to the turbo lifts. Wedge put his arm around Dana’s shoulders. It felt strangely comforting; it told Dana that she still had friends in the universe.

Side by side they watched when Princess Leia gave medals to a strange young man named Luke Skywalker and a smuggler called Han Solo for their bravery in the battle. This time Dana was able to cheer with the others.

She had got some new hope.