Reigning Terror {Star Wars}

The Fate of Many

Thalassa awoke with such sudden movement that she fell from the garish thing you might call a bed. Her heart pounded against her chest as she fell to the floor. Still lost in the world of her dreams, her breaths came out short and quiet exhalations of terror followed. She snapped her head back and forth and scrambled back towards her bed. When she finally realized that she was locked in a cell and not on Scarif running across an endless beach towards her brother, she calmed down slightly.
The pain in her elbows from landing on the ground were suddenly apparent as she crawled back onto her bed. Curling herself into a fetal position looking at the wall, Thalassa felt tears filled her eyes. She shook her head and blinked them away. She didn't know how long she lay there, thinking about her brother, but it was long enough for her entire system to go numb. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw her brother's face. Every time she breathed, his name passed her lips. Every thought, every beat of her heart, every movement of her lungs, it all reminded her or her brother. Yet, somehow, she still didn't believe he was dead. Her brain couldn't process the fact that she would never see Cassian again. She hardly noticed that she was a prisoner on a space ship.
No one ever came in to give her food. No one ever showed up to torture her. No one gave her any news. She had no idea how long she had been in that cell for. Sleep left her. It was impossible to keep her eyes closed for long. When her mind finally went numb from thinking about her brother for too long, she transferred her thoughts to the princess. The princess who she was supposed to befriend. The princess she was supposed to keep out of danger. The princess she was supposed to protect. It seemed she couldn't do anything right these days.
After her thoughts tired of her failures in protecting the princess, she started to think of Kael and Penelope. She wondered if they were worried about her. Did someone tell them that she and the Princess had been kidnapped? Penelope would kill her for getting herself kidnapped. Did they know that everyone on Scariff was dead? She imagined what their lives would be like if she never came back. They would get over her eventually. They would move on with their lives.
Just as she managed to close her eyes without seeing the beach on Scariff or her brother's face, the door to her cell opened. She rolled over on her side and standing there was the Princess.
Her eyes were filled with tears, but she was holding them back. Her body was stiff. Her lower lip quivered, but she tried to hide it from the man standing behind her. The officer shoved her forward into the cell and shut the door. Thalassa leaped from the bed and caught Leia before she fell.
As soon as she was in Thalassa's arms, Leia started to cry.
"Princess, what's happened?" She asked, holding her friend tight as she cried.
"They're monsters," she sobbed, clinging to Thalassa. Scowling, she pulled away from the Princess, cupping her tear stained face in her hands.
"What's happened?"
"Do you remember the space station that destroyed Scariff?" Leia asked. Images of a sandy beach exploding with a giant metal moon looming overhead flashed through Thalassa's mind. She nodded. "That's where we are now. We're on that station now. They've just used it again, but this time, it blew up the entire planet in second."
For a brief moment, Thalassa feared they had used it on Yavin 4, and that Kael and Penelope had been killed. She dropped her hands to her sides.
"Which planet was destroyed?" She asked. Leia lowered her head, sniffling. Her shoulders shook.
"Alderaan." Thalassa just barely heard what Leia had said. Guilt immediately struck Thalassa's heart. She had been too busy thinking about herself and didn't realize what might have made Leia so upset. Thalassa hugged her again, letting her cry.
"Leia, I'm so sorry," she whispered. She remembered what it was like to lose her parents, but this was different, she knew. Leia hadn't just lost her parents, she lost her home, her people. Anything that could help her move on was gone.
"I failed them," Leia muttered after pulling away from Thalassa. Thalassa offered her a small smile.
"No, you didn't. You did everything you could, yes?" Leia nodded. "They couldn't expect you to fight everyone in this station and win. You can carry on their legacy, Leia. We'll get out of here and we'll take down the Empire, together. We'll make them feel the same hurt we've felt. We will take everything they love from them, just like they took everything we love."
Her throat tightened, her thoughts once again on her brother. Leia took her hand and smiled.
"We will avenge the dead, Thalassa. Your parents, my parents, my people."
"Cassian."
"Everyone who died to get us the information we needed. Everyone who sacrificed their lives to taking down the Empire. We will avenge them like you said, together."
A fire burned in the young girls' hearts at that moment. Nothing would get in their way. They would be freed from this terrible place and they would watch the Empire burn.
But for now, they would sit and devise a plan of escape.
In their years together as children, they had developed a way of communication with each other that was silent. When they were kids in meetings who weren't supposed to disturb the adults, they found a way to talk to each other without words. In a series of taps against the other's hand, they could talk to each other secretly, hands under tables as they sat still and listened to other conversations. And now, sitting silently beside each other in their own personal prison, they scraped up what they could remember and began to tap out their plans of grandeur. 
Neither truly believed any of their plans would succeed, but hope still sparked inside their bones. Hope was all they needed. 
And soon, their hope would be worth it.