“More power to the shields,” demanded the captain. “Scotty, I need more power to the shields now or we’re all dead.”
Flippantly desperate, Scotty whined through the intercom: “I’m going as fast as I ca’, Cap’n, but she will na’ budge.”
“Bird of Prey closing to three-point-oh-nine kilometers, Captain,” the helmsman announced in a crisp, theatrically rich voice that belonged not on a bridge but on a stage.
“Mr. Sulu, brings us abo—”
Rail interrupted the other captain’s order: “Holovid off.” The wall-mounted screen extinguished itself and, presumably with it, the crew of the fictional ship. Alone in his cabin, the walls humming with the distinctive vibration of hyperspace travel, the real captain whispered into the sudden darkness, hoping to lighten his somber mood with humor.
“How can people watch this stuff? Space defense and combat using only capital ships—no fighters, no bombers, no tactical support, no rescue teams, no reconnaissance craft? No wonder the guy in the red shirt always bit it. And,” he quipped as he rose from his bed to activate the small lamp on his desk. “All the damn space in that ship! What military organization in its right mind would waste so much space on non-essential bulkheads and creature comforts aboard the flagship of a supposedly massive interstellar fleet?” The real captain’s quarters were spacious compared to other individual compartments on the ship, but such was a necessity of the Y-8 ship’s design. Despite extensive retrofitting throughout the large ship, the compartment he had chosen as his cabin—the smallest with insulation and non-essential equipment in its walls—the ship design prevented him from moving the load-bearing walls or even adding additional walls.
As the armoire door creaked gently open to reveal the crisply pressed black suit, the captain sighed softly, sadness entwining his heart and stomach like a hungry octopus no less cloying, no less profound than it was four years ago. “Next,” he whispered to himself, as he began to don his all too often used funeral suit. “You’ll tell me these people live in a utopia where money, greed, and power lust don’t exist, where genocidal maniacs could never come to power.”
His sarcastic jestings failing to loosen the octopus’s grip, Rail Magnor, captain of the ostensibly mining—but in fact covertly pirate—vessel the Fool’s Gold, finished dressing in silence.
He would not be face-to-face with the other mourners. Only those who shared a ride would see one another, and the Fool’s Gold carried only her living, mourning captain and a crew of droids. The attention he paid to picking off Kima hair whose pale ribbons interrupted the continuous flow of matte black, the effort of thrice tying his neck-tie until it was perfect, the impeccable polished reflection of his shoes; none of this effort would be seen or appreciated by anyone. It was not for others’ appreciation, not to impress anyone, that Rail took such care. Nor did he dress truly for himself. His vanity, like everything else that could not serve the dead, had been left behind in orbit around Coruscant, where the flotilla had gathered to disembark on its short journey. He dressed instead because it was something he could do to acknowledge his respect for the departed.
On the wall by the door the single terminal that served as data terminal, comm unit, and holovid trilled a low-volume, high-pitched sing-song internal ship alert. Someone was about to speak. It would be the navigator, a modified LE model droid who, like the rest of the crew, was built solely to serve aboard the Fool’s Gold, and who thus required no serial number or designation beyond Navigation. “Captain,” Navigation stated in its flat, emotionless way. “The flotilla is preparing for reversion.” The comm unit clicked off. There was no need for Rail’s reply. The droid had announced a fact, and it knew how to act upon that fact; it was not seeking either confirmation of the instruction previously given to it, or conversation from its captain.
Somberly checking himself once more in the mirrored armoire door, and after smoothing a bunching that had appeared in the shoulder of his black jacket, Rail departed his cabin to walk slowly toward the turbolift that would delivery him to the bridge.
* * *
“Thank you all for coming and for braving the”—the speaker’s voice hitched, the emotion clogging his throat crackling the speakers around the Fool’s Gold’s bridge. “Thank you for coming,” the speaker repeated in an agony-strangled whisper, unable to finish his original statement, which would have concluded with “asteroid field.”
Rail tried, failed to bite back the tears as he wished he could reach out across the expanse and grasp the other man’s shoulder comfortingly. He was not ashamed of his tears. Many wet eyes stood on bridge decking like the Fool’s Gold’s or sat in leather cockpit seats at this moment.
He looked out through the massive view ports that ran the length of the bridge. Thousands of ships of every make, model, and planetary origin Rail could identify—and many he could not—floated still amongst the rolling, roiling asteroids of the Alderaan Belt. They formed a rough circle, these two or three thousand ships, and all aligned as closely as possible to a common axis, that assumed by the lone Corellian Corvette in the center of the gathering, the Homeless.
The speaker to whom the assembled all listened, and about whose ship thousands had gathered, was Ord Elanar, former Alderaan diplomatic envoy to the Commerce Guild. Four years earlier, when the Empire turned its massive battle station the Death Star loose upon Alderaan as an example, obliterating the planet and everyone on it, Ord Elanar was dutifully representing his planet in an assembly on Telos. He was spared the fate of his 1.2 billion fellows, although no one would ever charge the man as lucky. He lost his wife, four children, and six grand children that day. Elanar was a native Alderaanian, and had spent thirty years in public service to his people before the day when he no longer had people to serve. Of the tragically few Alderaanians to escape the Alderaan Massacre—called so only in private, where the Empire, who decreed the incident the “Alderaan Accident,” could not hear—there is only one other that has more right to conduct the annual memorial service.
Rail scanned the assembled ships. No matter her pain, no matter how desperately she might want to speak on behalf of the departed, she would never endanger the few survivors and other mourners by attending today. No, Rail concluded. Princess Leia Organa most certainly suffers her personal anguish and guilt in private, far, far away from here, undoubtedly listening to the broadcast of these proceedings broadcast on GBC 12. Alderaan was destroyed before the Alderaanian senator’s eyes, under order of Grand Moff Tarkin. It was an interrogation technique. Snuffing out more than a billion lives in an attempt to coerce Senator Organa into betraying the Rebellion. She remains the most sought after sentient in the galaxy. If the Empire even suspected she might attend the Alderaan Day Memorial Service, they would not hesitate to cut through every ship here to find her.
Alongside Rail’s ship floated two TransGal SorroSuub D8500s. The largest passenger starliner service in the galaxy, TransGal had, from the first year following the massacre, offered nearly a third of its fleet and employees as free transportation to and from the annual memorial service. So close was the TransGal starliner to the Fool’s Gold, that, through his lower starboard view port, Rail observed an elderly couple weeping, comforting one another. Feeling guiltily like a voyeur, he averted his eyes, looking forward once again toward the Homeless.
After another moment’s pause, Ord Elanar, continued. “If you would like to say anything, please transmit your name—a name—to the Homeless. There are many of us gathered today, which is good, and we will try to let everyone have a moment for a few words or to share the names of those lost to him.”
Rail closed his eyes, allowing the faces of friends lost to swim up from the darkness of memory. Without turning he called toward the Ops room behind the bridge. “Comm, please transmit a request to speak in my name to the Homeless.” Communications, another droid whose only name was the singular function for which it had been built, confirmed its order and set about the task it had been given.
Elanar continued: “Please, please, everyone, we are here to remember Alderaan, to remember those we have each lost. This is a day for remembrance and for sharing, for comforting. It’s a day to talk about those we lost and our memories of Alderaan herself. It is not a day for aspersions or grievances.” Elanar was trying to prevent a repeat of the previous year’s debacle wherein several of those assembled used their time—and others’—to point fingers of blame, first at the Empire, then at Senator Organa. So heated grew the argument that a fire fight broke out between a small group of Sullustan snub fighters and a Bothan KDY Hawk-38 Frigate. Fortunately—remarkably—no one died, but a Phindanian salvage barge had to rescue several of the Sullustan pilots.
The Alderaan Census was an effort to reconstruct planetary records lost in the massacre. Begun six months after the tragedy, the goal of the Census was to build an accurate record of all who were lost that day, and to properly memorialize every name on a permanent monument to be planted on A-41, the largest, stable-orbit asteroid in the Alderaan belt. A-41 rotates slowly at a point only a few kilometers off from the coordinates of Alderaan’s planetary core, and has been nicknamed the “Heart of Alderaan.” The honorable project was founded and spear-headed by the esteemed former Envoy, who devoted himself completely to reaching the Census’s goal. Some—Rail included—speculated that the Census was the only thing that continued to lend meaning to Ord Elanar’s life. Rail deliberately avoided following that line of thought toward its obvious conclusion, what Elanar was likely to do when the Census project had completed its roll and erected the monument on A-41.
It was to the Census that the man now spoke, rousing Rail from his dark brooding: “—thank everyone who has donated for his or her wonderful generosity. We’re nearly there, and hope to have the Census roll, and the memorial completed, before the next Alderaan Day. We still need help, and if anyone here today has, or knows anyone who has, distributed data processing facilities the Alderaan Census could borrow…? Well, we really can use all the computing power we can get to continue processing Coruscant’s data dump.
“We also need metalsmiths, engineers, holoprojector specialists, and other crafters who can help build the monument. When the time comes, we’ll also need experienced asteroid miners and ships to help transport and erect the segments of what is, regrettably, looking like it will be a massive monument.”
In addition to bearing the name of every person lost on Alderaan as a physical engraving upon its five faces, the monument will carry a beacon that broadcasts the same roll as hypertext. Many of the names—any for whom someone remains to speak—will link to holographs, recorded messages, or other materials to personalize and honor the dead. Above the memorial, the Census hopes to install a giant, 1/100,000th scale hologram of Alderaan itself. Over the last year, Rail has anonymously donated more than three million credits to the Alderaan Census.
“I see many requests to speak coming in. You have all heard my story, so let’s go directly to our first speaker,” Envoy Elanar announced to Rail’s mild surprise. The man had told gut-bustingly humorous and heart-breakingly poignant stories of his late wife, children, and grandchildren at the preceding three Alderaan Day Memorial Services. No one would begrudge him more stories, even if he began to repeat himself.
After a brief pause and crackle as the comm channel switched from within the the Homeless to the relayed comm from another ship, the first of many speakers began.
[OOC: Anyone want to add-on to this story by remembering Alderaan?]