The Princess, the Scoundrel, and the Farm Boy Read online

  When Leia was young, and fairly shameless about eavesdropping on her parents’ conversations, she’d overheard her father speaking about how Vader instilled fear in everyone around him—how he could control not only people but objects. Her father called it the Force. What she knew of this mystic energy and its power she knew from hearing stories of the Jedi, the knights who defended the Old Republic. But, unless she’d misunderstood her father’s tales, the Jedi had been good, kind, dedicated to peace. How could someone as twisted and heartless as Vader have mastered their power?

  Leia was so caught up in her thoughts, she nearly missed the verbal blow he delivered next.

  “The Emperor has disbanded the Senate. You are no longer a senator. What defense will you use now, I wonder?”

  The hollow feeling at the center of Leia’s chest billowed out, shriveling up even the unkind comparison she was about to make between Vader and a protocol droid missing crucial parts of its verbobrain.

  You are no longer a senator.

  Leia hadn’t served long on the Senate, but she’d spent years fighting to be trained for the role. She’d let herself shape her future around that dream, the way it would open up her world beyond the quiet, dull, strangely powerless existence of being a princess. The disappointment of realizing no one in the Senate would ever see her as anything more had soured her feelings toward the idea, but she hadn’t let it go. The Rebellion was her way to see out her goals for a more peaceful, prosperous galaxy, but the Senate was supposed to be there at the end to help rebuild the galaxy once the Emperor was gone.

  Apparently, the Empire was still capable of surprising her with its cruelty, its complete disregard for the law. Never for a moment did she consider that the Senate might cease to exist.

  In an instant her dreams had collapsed in on themselves like a black hole forming. And Leia felt…hollow.

  Vader strode past her, toward the hangar’s entrance. “You will follow me, or I will make you follow me. Your choice.”

  I need time, she thought, the blood pounding in her ears, time to figure out another way. And she knew enough to understand that the best way to find that time and, more important, stay alive was to play the part of the prisoner.

  So Leia decided, wisely, not to tempt him, seeing as he could probably lift her using only his little finger—or, she supposed, the Force. Her nostrils flared in frustration at the thought of being yanked around the way her blaster had been. His black cape swept out behind him, tempting her to slam a foot down on it just to see if he was capable of tripping.

  Darth Vader’s appearance on the dark control deck sent the officers scattering back to their stations. Leia had never seen so many backs go rigid at once, like he’d yanked them all up by the hair.

  She turned toward the viewport, surprised to see the stars streaking by. When had they jumped to hyperspace?

  An older man in a neat gray uniform quickly made his way over to them. Leia recognized him as a captain by the arrangement of colored squares attached to his chest. That and the way his voice shook. She’d heard Vader had a way of “disposing” of the officers who disappointed him, which seemed to be everyone he crossed paths with. Judging by the way the man looked—like he’d blissfully lick Vader’s boots clean if asked—Leia didn’t doubt it.

  “Status, Captain?”

  “We’re right on schedule, Lord Vader. Coming out of hyperspace shortly.”

  Shortly was a few moments later. Leia stood at Vader’s side, hands bound again in a way that was making her feel capable of committing some very Vader-like behavior. The officers on the deck stared at her openly, whispering to one another.

  “Where are you taking me?” she demanded. “I still have diplomatic immunity as a princess of Alderaan.”

  “We’ve already arrived at our destination.”

  Leia spun back toward the viewport. She was still, after everything, expecting to see Coruscant, the capitol planet. But there was only a small gray moon hovering in the sea of stars.

  A moon that wasn’t orbiting a planet? No, it had to be a small planet. It grew larger…larger…larger as they moved toward it, until it filled the viewport completely.

  Leia’s heart sank to her feet.

  That wasn’t…

  It couldn’t be…

  How…?

  The stars weren’t winking around the hulking sphere as she’d first thought. The flickering lights were swarms of TIE fighters moving in formation, screeching as they passed the approaching Devastator. Those weren’t craters marring the sphere’s surface, but plating and towers. The large crater she’d spotted right away was no crater at all—it almost looked like a circular dish.

  Leia realized she was trembling and clenched her hands tightly to hide it.

  “Death Star…” The words came out in a horrified whisper.

  A second too late, Leia realized her grave mistake.

  Vader turned on his heel. “Yes, the Death Star. The secret weapon you claim to know nothing about. The plans you claim you do not possess. Really, Your Highness, you made that far too easy.”

  Blast. She could blame it on exhaustion or fear, but Leia might as well have just dangled the data card in his face. Think, think, think. She fumbled for a reasonable explanation, her pulse pounding in her ears. “No, there were whispers of it in the Senate—”

  Vader talked right over her. “Look closely. Do you see the dish? That is the prime weapon. When it fires, the galaxy will finally understand the Empire’s might.”

  And the Rebellion could be virtually wiped out in a single shot.

  “You’re mad. This is insane!”

  “No, Your Highness,” he said, “this is power.”

  “Then why worry about your missing plans?” she shot back. “If you’re so powerful, if the station is invincible, why does it matter—?”

  He sliced a hand through the air, cutting her off again. “Since you are so curious about our new battle station, you’ll be pleased to know you’ll be our first honored guest. Your quarters are being prepared for your arrival. Should you choose to continue to be uncooperative, you will find your stay immediately shortened. Permanently. Do you understand?”

  Leia gritted her teeth but nodded.

  “Know that there will be no escape this time, Princess,” he warned. “To try would be…foolish.”

  Sometimes, she thought, just sometimes, it was good to be underestimated. Leia turned back to the viewport, taking in the looming battle station with new eyes. Vader and his lackeys would find that out soon enough.

  AS SHE WAS TRANSFERRED to the Death Star by shuttle, Leia kept her eyes open. Wide open.

  She mentally mapped out the path they took from the hangar to a set of elevators, counted each turn and the steps down every hall. She counted the clusters of marching stormtroopers as they made their way down the glossy corridors, noting which direction they marched. Droids zipped around her feet, and, blast it, she was thinking of the other droid again, the little R2 rolling through the desert sand dunes. Leia knew she needed to keep her mind clear and free of every guilty thought—which, unfortunately, became more and more of a challenge with each mistake she made.

  There was no doubt in her mind about what was coming next.

  Vader had assigned eight stormtroopers to her detail. A part of her was proud. But, mostly, she just wanted to roll her eyes, especially when they all tried to cram into the elevator together.

  She was brought up to the detention block without a word of explanation. Stepping through the last door, they were met with the faces of three startled security officers as they looked up from their consoles. Leia took some satisfaction in the fact that their eyes bugged out a little. They recognized her. Good. That meant she’d been doing her job as the official needlebug in the Emperor’s side.

  “This is prisoner two-one-eight-seven,” one of her escorts said.

  The security officer shook his head, confused. “But that’s Senator—”

  “This is prisoner two-on
e-eight-seven,” the stormtrooper repeated.

  Of course. In Vader’s eyes, she was no longer a senator. She wasn’t a princess, either. She was a low enough life form that she no longer deserved a name. She was a criminal. This was going to be…a tricky situation. If she couldn’t convince them that she wasn’t involved with the Rebellion, she’d be marked as a criminal and would likely never be able to return home to Alderaan. Not until the Rebellion had overthrown the Empire, at least. And while Leia was growing more excited at the prospect of joining the Rebel Alliance fully—living, fighting, working with them every day—she couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that it might be years before she saw her parents again.

  The security officer stared at the stormtrooper. The stormtrooper stared at the security officer.

  “After hours of being mistreated and manhandled,” Leia said, doing her best impression of her aunts, “I’ve grown rather bored with the incompetence around me and would like to be shown to my quarters. Unless doing your jobs is asking too much?”

  She knew full well that her quarters were a prison cell, but she’d jump out of an air lock before acknowledging that fact.

  “Er—very well,” the security officer said.

  Leia was pushed forward again, and she stepped up and around the raised control consoles. She scanned the badly lit stretch of hall in front of her, shivering at the freezing touch of the oxygen hissing up through the vents in the floor. From what she could see, there was only one entrance to the detention block, and that was the one she had come through. Cell door, cell door, cell door, a hatch for a garbage chute—the stormtrooper in front of her stopped so abruptly that Leia crashed into his back.

  They at least removed her binders before shoving her inside. Leia stumbled into the long, flat sheet of metal on the opposite side of the cramped room. Her bed, if she had to guess. Whirling around, she came within a few centimeters of kicking the closed door before stopping herself.

  “You won’t get away with this!” she called. “Do you hear me?”

  Leia was ready to tear the station apart, even if she had to do it with her bare hands.

  But first she had to get herself out of that cell.

  Leia paced in circles, feeling at the seams of the walls for loose panels that could be pried off, if not to reveal a hidden escape route, then to be used as weapons. Everything on the space station was new and pristine. Turning her attention upward, she climbed onto the metal cot and scanned the ceiling—there! The red light pouring through the grates covering the ceiling had masked it at first, but there it was. A vent.

  A vent the size of her head.

  Her excitement flared out. Leia half sat, half collapsed back down onto the cot, blowing out a frustrated sigh. For that particular escape route to work, she’d need to be as small as a Kowakian monkey-lizard to fit through the opening and as tall as a Wookiee to reach it.

  Hungry, tired, cold, and now extremely put out, she swung her legs up and hugged them to her chest. From palace to prison. She could see the holonet headlines now.

  Darth Vader didn’t keep her waiting long. Leia supposed the opportunity to watch her squirm was too much for him to resist. She was, however, surprised that he was willing to do the dirty work himself.

  The door hissed open and his dark shape swept in, followed closely by two security officers. The two men fell into place on either side of the door, their gazes fixed on the ceiling. For a long, terrible second, there was no sound in the small cell beyond the steady wheeze of Vader’s respirator. A cold drip of alarm ran down Leia’s back.

  “I hope you find your quarters adequate, Princess.”

  Leia raised her chin. No fear. No breaking. No screaming. Prove it to yourself, she thought. Prove that you deserve to be one of them.

  This was for her father and the Rebellion he had helped establish, the one she would continue to help build.

  “I demand to be released and given a formal trial,” she said.

  “Spare me your indignation,” Vader said. “I’ve neither the time nor the patience for it.”

  A strange sound—a beeping that sizzled through the air like a bolt of static—made the hair rise on Leia’s neck. Vader stepped aside, allowing a spherical droid to float in behind him. It bobbed slightly as it came toward her, its glossy black exterior shot through with silver and punctuated by a red eye light.

  “What—?” she began, pressing back against the wall of her cell.

  Gleaming silver blades and rods rose out of the droid’s shell, but Leia’s eyes were focused on the syringe that emerged from its side and began filling with some kind of liquid. A wicked-looking needle, long as her hand, was aimed directly at her.

  “No!” she shouted. Leia knew what that was—an interrogation droid. They were illegal, considered too inhumane for use. Stars, she was an idiot. Nothing was too inhumane for the Empire.

  “This is your last chance, Your Highness,” Vader warned. “If you will not tell me where the plans are and where I’ll find the Rebels’ fortress, I will force the answers from you.”

  Leia’s breath came in rapid bursts. Holding out against interrogation had been part of her self-defense training, but this—this was so much worse than anything she could have imagined. Pain and humiliation could be pushed away, boxed up inside, but a truth serum?

  There was nowhere to run. Leia bolted toward the door, but Vader’s arms locked around her, swinging her back into the interrogation droid’s path. The pain that lanced through her arm as the needle punctured her skin and the serum seeped into her system was unbearable.

  She collapsed back against the wall, shaking her head. It felt light enough to float away. Her vision blurred at the edges, making her feel as if she were walking through an early morning fog on the palace grounds, the soft sunlight warming her skin—but no, no, that wasn’t right. Leia wasn’t on Alderaan.

  A voice floated to her through the clouds. “Your Highness, you’re safe. You can trust me.”

  Leia shook her head, turning her face against something cold, hard, smooth. Cell. She was in a cell. On the—on the—Why couldn’t she hold on to a thought? Her pulse was pounding in her ears again. She pressed her hands against them. Not safe. Not safe. Not safe.

  Death Star…the words floated up to the front of her mind. That’s where she was. Not on Alderaan. The thought made pain streak through her. Made her dizzy. Why wouldn’t it stop? Where was her father? She wanted her father—

  “I’m with the Rebel Alliance,” the voice continued. “I need to know what you did with the Death Star plans. You must tell me. You must trust me.”

  There was a bad taste in her mouth, a pounding in her skull. Leia was so sure she was going to be sick, she bent at the waist, ignoring the way fire seemed to stream through her blood. Words popped like bubbles in her mind.

  Interrogation.

  Death.

  Star.

  Vader.

  “We need them, Leia! Tell me where to find the plans!”

  “L-leave me alone.” Interrogation. Rebels. Can’t tell the truth. Don’t tell the truth. Antilles. Tantive IV. Alderaan. Senate. Galaxy.

  Slowly, as if stretching after a long sleep, her mind started to sharpen. Leia remembered where she was, even with her head feeling light enough to float away, her lips loose enough to spill every secret she protected. Trained. She’d been trained.

  You’ll be forced to give information, her instructor had said, truthful information. But it doesn’t have to be current information. There’s always a way to give a truth that’s related but not the answer they want. Find a connection.

  “Where are the plans?” The voice exploded in her ears, loud enough to make Leia cringe.

  “I don’t have them!” she shouted. “I don’t have them!”

  “Where are they?”

  “I don’t have them!” she repeated.

  “Where did you send them? Where is the Rebel base?”

  Without warning, the fire in Leia’s body was blo
wn out, replaced by an icy grip. Fear wound its way through her, snaking down into her stomach. The feeling was so different from the light-headed dream of the serum. There was…power behind each of his words. They nudged at her. They prodded as sharply as any knife. So Leia did the only thing she could—she pulled back. Physically, toward the wall. Mentally, to a place the voice couldn’t find her. An unfamiliar warmth wrapped around her, a protective blanket that didn’t let any of the darkness nudge through.

  The freezing pressure on her mind was thrown back. The rumbling voice made a sound of surprise and was quiet for a long moment. “If you do not tell me where to find the Rebels, lives will be lost! All of the Rebel deaths will be on your head!”

  “Leave me alone!” Leia repeated, throwing her arms up over her head.

  “Your father wants you to trust us,” the voice said, softer now. “He wants you to tell us where to find the Rebels. He’s worried about you. He wants you to come home.”

  “Alderaan is my home.” That was true.

  “Are you a member of the Rebel Alliance?”

  Leia swallowed the disgusting taste in the back of her mouth, blinking as the cell began to take shape again around her. Vader was a black blur against the crimson ceiling lights. Not safe.

  “I’m Princess Leia Organa,” she said. “I’m the senator from Alderaan.”

  And that was the truth.

  Vader stepped back, watching her as stilly and silently as any poisonous snake about to strike. He began to turn, signaling something to the security officers. Leia slumped back against the metal cot in relief. They were leaving. It was over.

  “Careful,” Vader warned. “If you continue to resist, soon you will be neither.”

  The cell door hissed shut behind him.

  WITH NO CLOCK ON THE WALL, it was easy to lose track of time.

  Despite her best efforts to stay awake, exhaustion finally wrestled her into a troubled sleep. She felt herself drift in and out of consciousness each time boots echoed down the hallway outside. The truth serum had finally left her system, which meant her stomach had stopped clenching and flipping each time she took a breath.