Chapter Thirteen The Graveyard
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Graveyard
As the ship entered the asteroid field that was once the planet Alderaan, the Starfarer held a moment of silence.
Outside the viewports, floating chunks of rock drifted, interspersed with bits of glinting metal. When I was little, I thought they were souls that stayed back—fragments of spirits, memories, and what have you.
But as I grew up, I learned the horrible truth:
The glints of metal were remnants of civilization that hadn’t been evaporated in the explosion. Billions of people died in an instant, their bodies vaporized. There was nothing left of them when the planet exploded, leaving only scars of rock in space.
A graveyard.
In the middle of that Alderaanian graveyard sat a space station cobbled together from misplaced pieces of junk from across the galaxy, though some of its bigger pieces had been salvaged from what remained of the Death Star that exploded over Yavin 4.
The station was a monstrosity of welded metal and fire-burnt parts, but it was home to the refugees of a planet that no longer existed.
And on it was the Monument, an entire floor of the station lined with the names—millions of them—of everyone accounted for who’d died on the planet.
It was always a loud level, with music and dance and celebration.
Dad said the space station was hope in a bleak part of the galaxy, proving that goodness and life could exist in the darkest of places.
But if that were true, the space station and its monument would have been part of more stories, and not just the graveyard it floated in. No one liked to remember the bad endings. It wasn’t a part of history that made heroes, only orphans.
Still, it was a part of history that Dad found essential.
Never mind that it was one of the tour stops that garnered the most interest.
This was one of the optional excursions.
Plenty of people thought it was in poor taste to build a space station in the graveyard of Alderaan and refused to be any part of it, but they were few and far between on the Starfarer.
So we docked with the space station and opened the airlock so most of our guests could leave on the excursion.
Luckily, that also meant the Starfarer would be a ghost town for the next few hours.
The fewer people on the ship, the less possibility of Sian getting caught as he left the ship, so I was thankful for that at least.
I zipped up my uniform and arranged my hair in an Alderaanian mourning braid to pay homage, then met up with Dad on the main deck, just outside the turbolift.
“Here’s the list of guests on your tour,” he said, handing me a datapad with all the info I needed. “The agricultural center asked us to talk about their harvest, to get people to buy some produce, and remember the gifts at the end.”
I skimmed the list quickly. The Galactic Civil War Buffs, a couple of families, a bachelorette party…it was an easy group. Kotti must have gone ahead with a much larger one. I asked, “Is Val taking one, too?”
“Your brother hasn’t been on a tour in ages. He’d be terrible,” Dad said with a laugh.
“He always hated this part,” I agreed regretfully.
Dad patted me on the shoulder and handed me a basket full of gifts to give to our guests at the end of the tour. “Have fun, love. And—you’re okay? After last night…”
“I was just overwhelmed,” I replied, not quite a lie. “Thank you. I loved it.”
He smiled. “Have fun!”
I left through the airlock and held up a glow rod as guests came out to greet me. I checked their names off the list and decided to wait a few more minutes for the stragglers. The last two off the ship were the droids, who were certifiably not on the list.
“I didn’t see you two on the excursion list,” I said, pocketing the datapad.
Veebee looked positively appalled—or at least as appalled as a droid without any facial expressions could look. “Excursion? Oh no, we are going grocery shopping.”
I frowned, moving the basket Dad had given me from one arm to the other. “For what?”
“Starblossoms!” VB-35 replied excitedly.
Food was the only thing she really ever got excited about.
“You know I hear the ones on Alderaan were quite sour. They were supposedly all exterminated with the planet—that cannot be helped—but I have it on good authority that this station’s agricultural site might have a variation of the fruit.
Which is exactly what I am looking for—erm, exactly what we are looking for,” she added, correcting herself.
N2-0 added a tired bloop.
The taller droid threw up her hands. “Yes, yes, I am dragging you with me. What else is new? You know it is not safe for rare droids such as myself to go anywhere alone. Think of the ruffians who might kidnap me for my heuristic processor and use all five hundred thousand three hundred and twelve original recipes for ill.”
The astromech droid chirped in suspicion.
VB-35 gave a start. “Languages? Oh, I deleted most of those. Whoever has the space in their databanks for that?”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, yes, who needs languages? Just be back by the time we leave. Wait,” I added, stopping them before they entered the station. “What about the…” The stowaway.
“Gone. Left with the first group for the tour,” Veebee replied.
Disappointment sank like a stone in my gut, but I quickly shoved the feeling away. I didn’t care that he’d left without saying goodbye. I guessed he would, and last night I hadn’t really given him another option. “Ah.”
“Come along, Entoo. We are getting rusty just standing here,” Veebee added, jostling the metal basket on her arm, and stalked into the space station to find that fruit, her poor astromech partner trailing behind like a dejected companion droid.
After the last of the guests checked in with me, I took a deep breath, slapped my cheeks to wake myself up, and raised my free hand to get everyone’s attention.
And my life returned to normal.
I started the tour the same way I had for years. We began on one side of the Monument and slowly made our way through the corridors.
“Alderaan was beautiful,” I began, walking backward toward the main hub of the space station.
The din of life rebounded through the metal halls, bright music and ringing laughter, the hum of holovids projecting photos of Alderaan throughout the ages.
Cities and sunsets, smiling people now dust and star stuff.
“Imagine the sunset: evening skies that turned as purple as the crusts of galaxies, inset with stars so bright they shined like jewels, fading into night. Imagine a planet full of lush green trees and alabaster skyscrapers. Imagine Aldera, its capital, built beside a beautiful lake with a backdrop of mountains, a jewel of the Republic—at least, some thought it to be.”
I waxed poetic about the art, the culture, the food—the little bits of forgotten memories, of history left to float aimlessly in space—all the things that made a place a home. I knew a little bit about that.
About what made someplace safe and welcoming.
About what made you want to return, again and again.
The Empire hated that. Hated comfort, hated warmth, hated a place that felt so viscerally like home—
One of the Civil War Buffs interjected: “The Empire struck Alderaan because it had been without conflict for generations—easy pickings. It had a weak monarch.” I’d stopped the tour group by a museum with a few relics of the monarch in question. “It got worse when they adopted the kid.”
“Leia Organa proved herself to be a great leader,” I said, gripping the basket tightly out of nerves alone, but was interrupted by his glasses-wearing friend.
“If I were her, I’d have stopped Grand Moff Tarkin then and there. This was her home, and she just watched.”
Thank the stars no one was around and the lively music covered up most of the Buffs’ awful comments. I reined in my annoyance as best I could. “Hindsight makes it easier—”
“Could’ve been avoided if she was stronger,” another guy interrupted me, shaking his head. “Sad, really.”
I tried to take control of the conversation. “Leia Organa went on to help defeat the Empire and save the galaxy—”
“Yeah, and Alderaan paid the price. A good ruler would’ve—”
“People do the best they can with the information and resources they have,” I said in a tone that I hoped would brook no argument.
It was louder and harsher than my usual voice, but it got the point across.
“It’s easy for us to say we could’ve done better, but isn’t that a little disrespectful to the very real lives that were lost?
This isn’t a thought exercise. This happened.
There is ash mixed into the rock floating out there in space—people.
Billions of people. You are more than welcome to suppose what Princess Organa should have done, but don’t do it here. Don’t disrespect them here.”
The Buffs quieted, looking bashful, like scolded toddlers. I was probably going to get an earful from Dad about this when they complained on their surveys at the end of the tour, but for the first time in a very long time, I found that I didn’t care.
What was Dad going to do? Fire me?
So I put on a smile and motioned ahead of us, where the station split into four different corridors. The light reflected off of the names on the ground, and they glittered like inlaid crystals. “Anyway, how about we visit the agricultural center?”
As everyone followed me down the corridor, I massaged the back of my neck to ease the tension. Some guests were just like this, but they had become more and more frequent as First Order propaganda started circulating more widely in the Core Worlds. I hoped it wasn’t a sign of bigger issues.
After the market, we met up with Kotti’s group and wrapped up the tour, handing everyone gift bags containing a glittering Piece of Alderaan.
Well, almost everyone. One of the Buffs said, “Hey, I didn’t get one.”
Had I miscounted? Or maybe I lost one somewhere on the station? Just as I began to panic, one of his buddies said, “You can have mine.”
“Thanks, man,” he replied, miming an explosion. “You rock.”