Star Wars - Planet Of Twilight (45 page)

The antigravs on the shuttle were so smooth that there was no need to strap in for liftoff, though once the vessel got moving Luke knew he'd be better to be sitting down. He hurried his steps, to catch up with Liegeus as they made their way to the forward lounge. The philosopher was right, he knew. Trust your instinct, Obi-Wan had said, and curiously enough, once Liegeus had spoken of loving and freedom, he could no longer deny what his instinct had been telling him.

There was a time to embrace, and there was a time to release.

Time was long.

He was at Liegeus's heels when they stepped into the forward lounge, and the woman seated near the mist and glory of the viewport rose from her chair. “Your Excellency,” said the red-haired woman to Leia, who had preceded them in.

But she said no more. She only stood transfixed, color draining from her face and with it draining the harshness of its lines, the terrible stern bitterness that seemed as much a part of her as the skull beneath the skin.

It seemed to Luke that there was another face looking out from those bitter emerald eyes. A girl's face, almost unrecognizable. A fierce dreamer's face, scarred by the ecstatic knives of her dreams.

In a whisper, unbelieving, Daala said, “Liegeus?”

He was staring, as if at a ghost, only no ghost could have brought that leap of amazed joy to any man's face. “Daala?”

They crossed to each other, stopped inches apart, as if, after a lifetime of diverging roads, at the crossroad they feared to touch once more. It was Daala who reached out first and took his hand.

“Have you . . .” His voice hesitated. “Have you had a good road, all these years?”

“A long one,” she said, the girl's voice, the proud dreamer's, audible still beneath the damage of battle and years. And it seemed to Luke that he saw death leave her eyes, and long-forgotten life stir there again.

“Cruel, in places. You?”

“A long one.”

She put up her hand, touched his unshaven face.

“I've missed you, Liegeus,” she said softly. “I've missed This will sound foolish, but I've missed having someone to talk to.”

Liegeus's fingers brushed her cheek, wonderingly exploring the footprints of the years, then gathered up the copper weight of her hair.

She had always been the stronger of the two, Luke thought, watching them together. And knowing this, he had released her into her strength.

Their lips met, tasting first, both afraid, then drinking deep, as if they could never again have enough. Her arms went around him, in congruous in the military severity of her uniform; he crushed her to him, medals, blaster, and all.

Nobody in the lounge existed anymore. It was as if Leia, and Han and Chewie, and the droids, and Luke had all been wiped from existence, and with them the past twenty years.

No one in the lounge was the slightest bit surprised when Daala and Liegeus made their exit, without a word to anyone, handfast, into some other part of the shuttle. “I guess you'll have that conference some other time,” remarked Han, drawing Leia down beside him on the black leather of the couch.

Leia sighed and laid her head against his shoulder, weary beyond words . “I guess we will.” His arms were around her, strong and rock hard under the rough linen of his shirt. He smelled of salt sweat and burned insulation; his chin was sandpaper against her temple and his breath living warmth on her skin. She wanted more than anything simply to remain there, and drift into sleep.

From the viewport, Luke watched the thin yellow track of Umolly Darm's freighter as it lifted from the planet, streaked through the atmosphere and away.

She's all right, he thought. It was like watching a hunt bird when after its years of servitude, its owner frees it to return to the woods. She is well, and strong. She'll find her way one day to the Force, to the light. He felt weightless, at peace, and strangely free.

The blue air thinned to darkness and stars. The shapes of the fleet became visible, silvery pendants in the blackness--the world that he had sought since the age of eighteen, when he had looked into the Tatooine skies.

She had released him, he thought, to travel his road, wherever that road was going, to whatever end that journey would have.

He heard a soft step behind him, knew it was Leia before her hands touched his shoulders. Her voice was worried. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” said Luke softly. “I'm all right.”