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 theStarfarerto fix. At least therehadbeen, 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 theStarfarer, and I wasn’t sure I wanted mine to be anymore. It wasn’t a cage like Val said, but it wasn’t reallyhome, either. I didn’t think it ever reallyhadbeen 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 waseverywhere.
It just took me losing sight of theStarfarerto realize it.
I wanted to do good. Iwoulddo 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: Maeveflirting 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, hownovel.
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.Ihad 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 onthe 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.
