Chapter Thirty-Five The Starfarer
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The Starfarer
That evening, Dad decided to throw a party.
If it was the last night he’d be the captain of the touring ship the Starfarer, he wanted to celebrate it.
It was decided that the passengers—who were all safe and accounted for—would be taken back to Coruscant on a separate ship, with Lady Sosha’s and General Organa’s help.
Everyone was promised refunds, and I knew we didn’t have the creds for that.
It would wipe out what little funds we had.
Though I suppose it didn’t really matter.
The First Order knew the ship. They knew our faces.
General Organa stressed that the Starfarer needed protection, if nothing else.
It couldn’t operate as a civilian vessel any longer, not without a whole host of paranoia.
But in the Resistance, my dad could continue flying.
He didn’t know anything else. But still, everything that I knew—everything that I’d grown up with—was gone.
Just thinking about it made my stomach churn.
Ironically, no one asked where the Civil War Buffs had gone, but a few lovelorn guests did come around to ask after Valor.
Lady Sosha had sent a rescue party to Alakor to pick him up, but apparently no one was there. No Val.
And no VB-35.
Wherever they were, we couldn’t find them.
That sparked a little hope in my chest. It was an addicting feeling. I could see how entire wars might be won on it.
Dad had ordered Telly to break out all the best casks of wine and wheel out all the food that was about to spoil, and we’d have a party like no party ever before.
(Telly had been locked in the galley until they’d reached Alakor and Maz found her.
She’d gone down for a caf before her night shift, and when she found that the droids were missing, Val sealed her inside and then locked down the rest of the ship.) A large brilliant bonfire crackled in the middle of the meadow, reflected in soft hues of orange and yellow in the Starfarer’s metal skin.
Guests danced and drank and sang while a volunteer spun music that was loud and bright.
Entoo didn’t have the heart tonight, and we couldn’t blame them.
At the beginning of the celebration, Dad had—against everyone’s better judgment—climbed onto a log and cried, “To Veebee-Thirty-Five! A storied life and a storied memory!”
“To Veebee-Thirty-Five!” everyone cheered.
Veebee would’ve hated it.
Beside me, Entoo beeped.
I patted them gently on their dome. “I know, friend. I miss her, too.”
Together, we watched the party, them just beside me while I sat on an overturned log.
I didn’t really feel like dancing, and my body was sore from, well, everything.
I wasn’t sure I could dance anyway, with all the bandages Daaric had stuck on me.
Every little cut needed one, apparently.
But I’d showered and dressed in clean clothes—not my uniform, just normal trousers and a starched shirt and my mom’s worn leather jacket—and grabbed the last installment of the serial to read out by the fire.
I connected the datatape to my datapad to transfer the story over and lounged back on the log, but my brain wouldn’t concentrate on the words. It was ironic that I had the time to read it now but I couldn’t.
There was so much to do, so much on the Starfarer to fix. At least there had been, until I reminded myself that there would be no next tour. No next itinerary. This was it.
And then…anything.
Anything at all.
Would I have to go with Dad into the Resistance?
I wasn’t sure I could. I wanted to help the galaxy, obviously, but I needed to find my own way to do good.
Dad’s life was the Starfarer, and I wasn’t sure I wanted mine to be anymore.
It wasn’t a cage like Val said, but it wasn’t really home, either.
I didn’t think it ever really had been home.
Home wasn’t a place to me.
It was Dad at the helm, and Daaric beside him.
It was Entoo’s favorite tunes and Veebs’s terrible kitchen concoctions and Telly’s once-in-a-decade laugh and Maeve’s fathier winnings and Kotti’s larger-than-life hugs.
It was the taste of freshly brewed caf in the mornings and the smell of recycled air and the thrilling shake of a ship as it breached atmo.
Stars—home was everywhere.
It just took me losing sight of the Starfarer to realize it.
I wanted to do good. I would do good. But like wayfinding, I just needed to find my own lane there, through all this chaos.
After a while, Entoo beeped a goodbye and wandered off to chase the DJ away with their blowtorch and take up their mantle as the real DJ. The music got a lot better after that.
I hid a smile as I watched the party unfurl: Maeve flirting with a burly Houk, Kotti dancing with two very beautiful people, and Telly drinking a mug of wine across the way. She found me looking and lifted her mug.
I lifted my datapad in reply.
Once, there had been soirees and holochess tournaments and dances and birthday parties under the motto my Dad had carved in the main chamber, and this was what was left.
I was sad to see it go, but…
The possibility of the future made my heart ache, like a serial leaving off on a cliffhanger. No heading. No map.
No idea what came next.
How thrilling, how new, how novel.
I didn’t have to know what came next to trust myself that whatever did, I could figure it out. I had surprised myself so often over the past few days, I was sure I could do anything.
The party spun on, the din of guests sweet with laughter, returning the galaxy to some off-kilter semblance of normal.
I was glad for the soundtrack. It broke up the tension that had settled between my shoulder blades.
Over at a table, Dad was leaning against Daaric, and they were laughing and smiling at each other, thinking no one was paying attention.
Things were changing. Things had already changed and would continue to change. I had changed. I felt it deep in my bones.
“So, is that him?” asked Lady Sosha, startling me out of my thoughts. She sat beside me on the log and pointed her chin toward Sian, who was sitting on a tree stump over by the lake, inspecting the pitiful remains of the lightsaber. He looked hopelessly lost staring at it.
“I didn’t—he’s not—we’re not—how do you know?” I sputtered, turning red.
She laughed. “Relax. Your father told me about him. The stowaway and his lightsaber.”
My shoulders slumped. “All of this over a lightsaber,” I murmured. “It’s so silly.”
“You think so?” she asked, tilting her head. “I don’t think it was about the lightsaber at all, but what the lightsaber meant. A man felled an empire with a lightsaber. You know how stories go. They become bigger than the people in them. They become symbols.”
“But it was the wrong lightsaber. It was all for nothing.”
“Imagine if it hadn’t been. Or imagine if the First Order had a little more imagination.
” She snorted. “Too bad they never will. Fear is the death of creativity.” Then she took a deep breath.
“I hope the First Order stays on the fringes. I hope they die in the darkness they came from. I don’t think I can live through another war. One is enough for a lifetime.”
Then she patted me on the shoulder and excused herself to save General Organa from a rather intoxicated man who looked to be coming onto her a little too strong, which she was about to make everyone’s problem.
I stowed my datapad in my leather jacket and pushed myself to my feet with a slow groan. My entire body hurt, and the meds hadn’t even touched some of the soreness. Dad said I’d probably be hobbling for a few days. How did people live like this?
When I reached Sian, Noola was sitting on his shoulder, snacking on a fresh grape and purring.
The creature chirped, and I scratched her under the chin as I sat down.
He gave a start. “Oh,” he said, realizing, “it’s just you.”
“Just me? I’m offended,” I remarked, and knocked my shoulder against his. We settled into a comfortable silence. After a while I asked, “How do you do it?”
Confusion flickered across his face, but soon it melted into understanding.
I had meant how did he exist knowing there were monsters like—like that Kylo Ren.
That anyone could turn to the dark side, even people he loved—people I loved, like Valor.
That evil wasn’t defeated—that it was still here.
Still festering. Still thriving like an infection under an already-stitched wound while we slept off the fever, hoping it would go away.
He brushed the curls out of my face and kissed my forehead. “By meeting people like you who tell me good is worth the fight, and that’s how we survive.”
My throat felt tight. “It was all luck, Sian.”
“What do you think hope is, if not a little luck and hard work and sacrifice? And that doesn’t mean that what you did wasn’t extraordinary.
Never apologize for hoping, Starlight. We need that in this galaxy—people like you.
People who teach pessimistic nerf herders like me that if we didn’t have at least a little of that, we’d be lost.” He threaded his fingers through mine and kissed the back of my hand. “I’d be lost.”
I leaned toward him and pressed my lips to his. They were dry and cracked, and he no longer tasted like dust and mystery and spices but blood and salt and sweat. “Thank you for coming back,” I whispered against his mouth, because he could have left—he could have taken the lander and fled.
But he hadn’t.
He’d come back.
He held my hands for a long time, tracing my knuckles with his thumbs. “Enough people have died for this saber, Starlight. I didn’t want you to be another.”
I leaned my head against his shoulder and studied his fingers laced through mine. “Still,” I whispered, “it was brave.”
Just like Mom had said—even when you let them go, the things that were meant to return did.