I turned on my heel and left the galley then, and I suspected he thought he’d run me off, but I went back a few minutes later with an armful of pillows and a thick comforter. “Here. It gets cold down here at night. Tomorrow is Alderaan, and I have an excursion to lead, so I don’t think I’ll be seeing you off. Your lightsaberwill be in the top drawer of my dresser. The door to my room will be unlocked. So—” As I handed him the comforter and pillows, his hands brushed mine. The callouses on his fingertips were hard, his touch light. Gooseflesh prickled across my skin. I glanced up into his star-strewn eyes. They were impossible to look at, beautiful and terrifying, like a night sky cracked open. This would be the last time I’d see him, wouldn’t it?
The realization curdled in my chest, tight and horrid. What was wrong with me? I was good at saying goodbye. I’d done it a thousand times. And besides, I barely knew this boy. He barely knew me. Though, what if he got to know me better? What if we’d danced a little longer?
What if he stayed?
With a start I dropped the linens.
“Safe travels, Sian,” I forced out. Then I retreated out of the galley again, but not before pausing in the doorway. “I…”I’m glad I met you.No, no, too familiar. Too raw. “Good night.”
“Good night, Ardent,” he said. Did he sound like he wanted to say something else, too? But all he said was “Thank you. I owe you my life.”
I kept my cool right until I locked myself in my room, and then I slid down my door to puddle on the ground and press my face against my knees. My cheeks burned.What waswrongwith me? Every time he spoke, he made me feel things I didn’twantto feel, and I didn’t know what to do about any of it.
And right now?
A crush was thelastthing I needed.
ALDERAAN SPACE STATION
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Graveyard
As the ship entered the asteroid field that was once the planet Alderaan, theStarfarerheld a moment of silence.
Outside the viewports, floating chunks of rock drifted, interspersed with bits of glinting metal. When I was little, I thought they were souls that stayed back—fragments of spirits, memories, and what have you.
But as I grew up, I learned the horrible truth:
The glints of metal were remnants of civilization that hadn’t been evaporated in the explosion. Billions of people died in an instant, their bodies vaporized. There was nothing left of them when the planet exploded, leaving only scars of rock in space.
A graveyard.
In the middle of that Alderaanian graveyard sat a space station cobbled together from misplaced pieces of junk from across the galaxy, though some of its bigger pieces had been salvaged from what remained of theDeath Star that exploded over Yavin 4. The station was a monstrosity of welded metal and fire-burnt parts, but it was home to the refugees of a planet that no longer existed. And on it was the Monument, an entire floor of the station lined with the names—millions of them—of everyone accounted for who’d died on the planet. It was always a loud level, with music and dance and celebration. Dad said the space station was hope in a bleak part of the galaxy, proving that goodness and life could exist in the darkest of places.
But if that were true, the space station and its monument would have been part of more stories, and not just the graveyard it floated in. No one liked to remember the bad endings. It wasn’t a part of history that made heroes, only orphans.
Still, it was a part of history that Dad found essential.
Never mind that it was one of the tour stops that garnered the most interest.
This was one of the optional excursions. Plenty of people thought it was in poor taste to build a space station in the graveyard of Alderaan and refused to be any part of it, but they were few and far between on theStarfarer. So we docked with the space station and opened the airlock so most of our guests could leave on the excursion. Luckily, that also meant theStarfarerwould be a ghost town for the next few hours.
The fewer people on the ship, the less possibility of Sian getting caught asheleft the ship, so I was thankful for that at least.
I zipped up my uniform and arranged my hair in an Alderaanian mourning braid to pay homage, then met up with Dad on the main deck, just outside the turbolift.
“Here’s the list of guests on your tour,” he said, handing me a datapad with all the info I needed. “The agricultural center asked us to talk about their harvest, to get people to buy some produce, and remember the gifts at the end.”
I skimmed the list quickly. The Galactic Civil War Buffs, a couple of families, a bachelorette party…it was an easy group. Kotti must have gone ahead with a much larger one. I asked, “Is Val taking one, too?”
“Your brother hasn’t been on a tour in ages. He’d be terrible,” Dad said with a laugh.
“He always hated this part,” I agreed regretfully.
Dad patted me on the shoulder and handed me a basket full of gifts to give to our guests at the end of the tour. “Have fun, love. And—you’re okay? After last night…”
“I was just overwhelmed,” I replied, not quite a lie. “Thank you. I loved it.”
