Bloodline

by Claudia Gray

Ransolm Casterfo. Certainly Casterfo cut a dashing figure. He was tall, handsome, charismatic, and only thirty-two years old—an age that had once sounded mature to Leia, and now seemed impossibly young. Too young to have fought in the war, or to have any substance whatsoever, but apparently the Centrists chose their new figureheads by asking themselves who would look best in their propaganda.

(When she thought of her father, she thought only of Bail Organa. He had been her father in spirit, and surely that was more important than anything else.)

He had been her father in spirit, and surely that was more important

On the walls of Casterfo’s office hung artifacts from the Empire. A stormtrooper’s helmet. The black control box of a TIE pilot’s atmospheric suit. Flags and banners of the Empire, the individual stormtrooper legions, and one—faded, slightly torn, but still searing to Leia’s eyes—dedicated to Palpatine himself.

“So the senator believes in peaceful negotiations, huh?” Greer’s full lips quirked in a smile. “Let’s just say she believes in being prepared. Her husband and I installed these guns a few years ago, when I first started working for him.”

More flashy than valuable, but in a place like Bastatha, where style was forced to stand in for substance, a little theater went a long way.

When people like us, they’re more likely to cooperate and tell us the things we need to know. Working with people to get them to cooperate is what we call politics.”

Although she strongly agreed with most aspects of Populist philosophy, she couldn’t deny that her party’s approach had its own flaws. One of them was that planets similar to Bastatha, without much independent power or a strong economy, tended to get left behind. We alone manage our own affairs, Populist worlds said; the corollary to this was We manage only our own affairs. When each planet was focused only on its own best interests, problems on other worlds were ignored.

Greer knew only that, for the first time, she had lied to Leia Organa. Some regrets could never be spoken aloud.

When a wave of dizziness washed over her, too, she ignored it and kept going. Probably just the Port in a Storm.

Yet she knew in her heart that the war only seemed wonderfully thrilling in retrospect. So many of the exploits she now thought of as “adventures” had, at the time, been terrors.

“Vader visited Riosa often. Each time, he tightened his fist even more.” Casterfo’s gaze had turned distant. “The quotas rose higher. The hours grew longer. What had been paid employment became mandatory service, then slavery in all but name. Workers with manufacturing experience were herded into labor camps with pitiful living conditions. Not enough food, only the bare minimum of shelter—and always, always more work. You could keep going until your fingers bled and still, it wasn’t enough.”

“I mean he tortured me, for hours. While a couple of his Imperial stormtroopers watched.” Sometimes that got to her when nothing else did. The troopers had been soldiers of the line. Some of them had honestly believed they were doing the right thing, or so she told herself. But how could you believe that after you watched a nineteen-year-old girl writhing on the floor and screaming for mercy that never came? How could you stand there and watch that girl convulse in helpless agony without doing something, anything to help? Apparently some people could.

“We both know what a monster Lord Vader was, and we have no desire to see his like gain power in the galaxy ever again. But you think he will emerge from order, while I think he will emerge from chaos.”

The idea of firing upon civilians and soldiers alike, from a distance, without taking the slightest personal risk in return—every true warrior of Pamarthe knew that to be the foulest kind of cowardice. Many deserted immediately, and within the year hundreds had joined the Rebel Alliance, including Greer’s parents. She had grown up listening to their stories of battle against the Empire.

Ransolm felt an unpleasant, seasick stirring within him. He preferred to think of the officers of the line, the common soldiers whose valor could not be questioned even if their cause was unjust. When he thought of the Emperor and Vader at all, he thought of them not as the Empire’s backbone, but its pollution. Its downfall.

The ties to Centrist worlds could be coincidental, but perhaps not. If anyone in my own faction is abetting this kind of violence, we must be the ones to expose them.” Leia took care with her next words. “So I try to steer the official investigation into the bombing in the right direction, while you make sure no Centrist senator is involved.” She could not show any suspicion of the Centrists herself, not without solid proof. If she did so, Ransolm’s defensiveness might take over. He put integrity over party loyalty—she knew that about him now—but she also knew how easily his pride could be bruised.

“Even the uniforms suggest power,” she murmured, standing very close to Ransolm as she traced her fingers over a TIE pilot’s black mask. “They command respect. Awe. Submission.” She wants to either bring back the Empire or take me to bed, Ransolm thought. Possibly both.

The Empire had the greatest engineers in the galaxy, and the Death Star was their finest achievement. There’s no way it could’ve been vulnerable to that kind of attack. The Emperor had to have been betrayed by someone on the inside.”

Other Imperial emblems showed up as well: a holo of a benevolently smiling Palpatine, taken from some old propaganda message, and decals in the shape of the Imperial insignia.

“Our plans?” Hadrassian’s husky voice sharpened. “For years I have raised my army in the desert—for years I have worked and struggled and dreamed—and you call them ‘our plans’?”

she listened to this version of her life story. In this one, she always made the right choice the first time. She never felt fear or despair. She rushed on courageously toward victory. Nothing in the speech was inaccurate, but nothing hinted at the long, cold nights on Hoth, the hours she’d wept for Alderaan, or the many times she’d argued with a general or admiral who’d turned out to have the better idea after all. The human side of fighting a war—the human cost—none of that was acknowledged, as if it had never been.

Varish kept going, describing acts of valor and heroism that Leia remembered as moments of pure terror.

When she’d told him the whole story, she’d been terrified that Han would immediately abandon her. Their romance had been so new then. Only the day before, he had offered to step aside if she wanted Luke instead. Would he be even quicker to leave once he knew she was a part of Darth Vader himself?

But Solo’s trust in his wife didn’t reassure Joph as much as it did Greer. Anybody who’d watched Han Solo fly a race knew the man loved taking risks. Big risks. Crazy risks. The kind of chances that got other people killed.

“This is my true identity! The person I’ve been all this time—the battles I’ve fought, the work I’ve done—that’s who I am. My birth father has nothing to do with any of that.”

Crying openly was considered a virtue on Gatalenta—proof of a caring heart.

The only groups who build on this scale, she thought, are governments. Or would-be governments.

One of the hard lessons Leia had learned during the Rebellion was this: Any single life was expendable, including her own.

Leia let go of all the frustration she felt at Han’s long absences, all the bickering they’d never grown out of. In the end, she knew, he would always come through.

“We destroyed all the evidence except what’s in Threepio’s data banks, and even that can’t be backed up any longer. But we also destroyed a paramilitary force preparing to attack the New Republic.” The Amaxine warriors had been defeated; the enemy was no more.

But he hates Darth Vader, and that’s reason enough for him to hate me.”

One of the best things about Han was that he boiled everything down to the essentials and disregarded the rest. Sometimes he simplified things too much, but mostly he helped her center on what really mattered.

riches earned through the smuggling and gambling interests of Rinnrivin’s cartel were helping to refit and rearm the former Imperial fleet, bringing them back to their full power and glory so that they would be once again ready to conquer.

The Senate showed no sign of being willing or able to take action against those groups itself.

You wouldn’t have fought for the Empire. You would have been with us.” “With you,” Ransolm repeated. Once again he gave her that wounded smile. “I hope that’s true.”

She realized, then, something she had never fully understood before. She’d always wondered what had led her father to turn to the dark side, to become Darth Vader. She’d imagined it came from ambition, greed, or some other venal weakness. Never had she considered that the turn might begin in a better place, out of the desire to save someone or to avenge a great wrong. Even if it led to evil, that first impulse might be born of loyalty, a sense of justice, or even love.

Populists on every side, they were also eliminating the members of their own faction who didn’t share their zeal for power. They had no use for moderates, no use for peace. The Centrists actively sought war—had perhaps been planning this for a very long time—and they’d begun removing every obstacle in their way. Despite her long disillusionment with the political process, Leia only now realized the Senate was doomed no matter what she did. War had become inevitable.

The title of supreme governor of Birren will go to the next person in the line of succession, and you are no longer a member of the Elder Houses.”

“The sun is setting on the New Republic,” Leia said. “It’s time for the Resistance to rise.”