Beneath the Stars

Aria

After telling Floyes my 'plan,' I lead him back to the hold. A guard is once again standing outside, I roughly shove Alec at him, "New prisoner." The guard nods. I turn around and head through the semi-familiar halls, to the captain's quarters.

I take short-cuts that I had discovered while running through the halls as a child and send a message to Malaya through one of the guards.

Ever since her daughter's death, Captain Trae had changed. She kept her kind, loving side to herself and the people close to her. She had always been a hard, deadly enemy, but now, she was even more so.

She now owned a large destroyer. Her ship was painted black, making it almost impossible to see in the darkness of space. No one knew who she was, and her name was not known in the Alliance.

 She liked to play games with her enemies, to make them feel safe, secure, and confident about what they were doing, while actually tracking their every move. But I am not her enemy.

I finally reach Captain Trae's office. Taking a deep breath, I lift my hand to enter, but before my hand reaches the door, it opens. I told you she was watching my every move. "Aria," Captain Alicia Trae growls, "come in."

I slowly walk through the double doors into her office, marking every entrance. The layout of the room has changed since I was last here. A single door stands at the opposite end of the room. A wooden desk stands in the corner, designs are intricately carved into the wood. Where she had enough money to buy anything made from wood, I do not know, especially something so beautiful. A table surrounded by twelve chairs stands in the middle of the room. A sitting area consisting of a couch and two chairs is located off to the left side of the room. It is a large room, comfortably holding all of the furniture.

I haven't seen Alicia in almost two years, since her daughter's death, and we have grown extremely distant since then. She used to take the place of my mother, now I barely remember what she looks like.

"Why did you take me? Am I needed, you could have just sent me a message, instead of freaking kidnapping me!"

"Calm down, I had some newbies capture a Star Force cadet, but it seems they got my instructions wrong when I told them that you were the only person they were not to get. But, that did lead Alec Floyes, to us." She adds spitting out his name. "What were you doing with him?"

Her voice is hard and accusing, "I didn't know he was following me and... Wait, who did I shoot?"

She smirks, "It just barely skimmed Ryan's arm."

"And Ryan is..."

"One of the new recruits, he was in the Armada before the Alliance shut them down, he lived on Arkian and barely escaped when the Alliance attacked."

I sink into one of the chairs surrounding the table, "So what now?"

She sits in a seat beside me, but doesn't answer. I take a closer look at her appearance and realize that her hair, once dyed in beautiful shades of blue- to symbolize the oceans- is now faded and her brown roots are showing. Her brown eyes are no longer soft, as they once were, but hardened with time and experience. Her shoulders are drooping and bags under her eyes show that she is exhausted. Her expression is guarded and hard, yet behind that barrier, there is a longing that only those you really know her are able to detect.

Although she looks exhausted, I can tell that she is keeping her guard up. Her head is straight and proud and it pains me that she will not relax in my presence. Removing my gaze from her, it wanders to the wooden desk.

I walk to it and run my hands over the wood. As I examine the carvings, I realize that they have a purpose and meaning. My fingers trace over names of those that are no longer with us. When my hand lands on one name, I freeze.

Guilt floods through my body, as I continue to stare at it. I think back to that day, those final moments. It was my fault... my fault my closest friend was killed. No matter who tells me it wasn't my fault, I do not– can not– believe them. I had pushed her to come with us, I had pushed her to join us. She had died because of me. Blinking away tears before looking back at Captain Trae to find her staring right at my hand and the name it lingers on.

Alicia and I were once close; when I was younger, her daughter and I had been the best of friends, but I had known Alicia my entire life before her daughter was born. She had been the mother I always wanted and is one of the few who know who I truly am. I want her to come back, to be the person I remember her to be.

I find myself opening my mouth, "It's hard Alicia, I don't know how much longer I can do this, how much longer any of us can do this." I put my head in my hands, and push back the tears that are threatening to flow down my face. "We've lost so many people, yet we don't seem to be making any progress. It seems as if their deaths were for nothing." I find myself confiding in her.

I don't know why I am suddenly telling her this, she has a reputation for being hard and distant, even with those she had known before. But I had not seen her since her daughter's funeral, a year and a half ago. I had never met the hard, distant person she was known to be. 

Perhaps I opened my mouth because I have not been able to really talk to anyone for a long time, maybe it is because I am hoping that she will once again be the figure I knew as a child, the mother figure I need. Or maybe it is because of the longing in her eyes that I witnessed only moments before, the longing that is mirrored in my eyes and in the eyes of so many others.

I hear her moving around and she sighs heavily, before coming to stand beside me. I look up at her, the menace and hatred have left her expression. She is not looking at me, but out the window, towards the Great Expanse where the remains of everyone who has passed will float for eternity. She is deep in thought and, while we are in the same room, and are having this conversation together, it is clear that, when she speaks, I am not really who she is directing her thoughts to.

"Ari, I ask myself every day what happened on that destroyer, why my daughter was the one that didn't make it out. Why couldn't it have been someone else? But then I feel guilty for thinking that, how could I be so cruel as to want to inflict my pain on someone else? On Gale, on Amber." She looks at me sadly and I realize maybe I was wrong, maybe Alicia needs someone to talk to just as much as I do, maybe she isn't that shell of a person she once was, she is just waiting to find the right person who understands what she is going through.

"I have those thoughts too Ali, every day." I hesitantly reach over and slide my hand into hers, when she doesn't pull away I turn to her and look her in the eye. "I'm sorry Alicia, I-I tried to save her, but she... but I failed. I messed up when I asked her to join us, Ali, and I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked her." 

I can no longer keep my tears at bay, and they flood down my face in small rivulets. Soon they turn into gushing rivers, and for the second time that day, I begin to sob. I feel Alicia's arms tentatively surround me, and I hug her back. For the first time in years, I allow myself to let go. We hold onto each other while we cry for all the people that have never had the chance to go back home. At that moment I know that we will grow back together, that we will once again become as close as we were before Leia's death.