Star Wars: Lost Stars

Prologue: Part 2

"Ciena! Your eyes on the path or you'll fall."

Ciena Ree couldn't stop staring into the gray sky. She could've sworn she'd heard a Lambda-class shuttle, and she wanted more than anything to see one, too. "But Mumma -  I know I heard a ship."

"It's always ships and flying, with you." Her mother, Verine, chuckled softly and picked up her daughter, then placed her on the wide furry back of the muunyak they were leading uphill toward Valentia. "There. Save your strength for the big parade."

Ciena buried her hands in the muunyak's shaggy hair. It smelled agreeably of musk and hay. Of home.

As she peered upward, she saw a thin line in the clouds - already disappearing but evidence that the shuttle had been there. She shivered with excitement, then remembered to take hold of the braided leather bracelet around her wrist. Pressing the leather between her fingers, Ciena whispered, "Look through my eyes."

Now her sister, Wynnet, could see it, too. Ciena lived her life for them both and never forgot that.

Her father must have heard her, because he wore the same sad smile that meant he was thinking of Wynnet, too. But he only patted his daughter's head and tucked one wayward black curl behind her ear.

Finally, after two hours' trek upward, they reached Valentia. Ciena had never seen a real city before, except in holos; her parents rarely left their home valley and certainly had never taken her with them when they did, until today. Her eyes widened as she took in the buildings carved into the pale white stone of the cliffs - some of them ten or fifteen stories high. They stretched along the side of the mountain as far as Ciena could see. All around the carved dwelling stood tents and awnings, dyed in a dozen brilliant colors and draped with fringe or beads. Imperial flags fluttered from poles newly jabbed into the ground or mounted in stone.

Thronging the streets were more people than she'd ever seen together in her eight years. Some were hawking food or souvenirs for the great occasion - Imperial banners or small holos of the Emperor smiling benevolently, translucently, above a small iridescent disc. Most, however, walked along the same crowded roads as she and her family, all headed toward the ceremony. Even a few droids rolled, hovered, or shuffled through the crowd, each of them shinier and obviously more modern than the one battered cutter droid in her village.

Those people and droids would have been more fascinating if they hadn't all been in her way."

"Are we going to be late?" Ciena said. "I don't want to miss the ships.

"We won't be late." Her mother sighed. She'd said so many times that day, and Ciena knew she needed to be quiet. But then Verine Ree put her hands on her young daughter's shoulders; as soft as the gesture was, the muunyak knew to stop walking forward. Mumma's faded black cloak blew around her too-thin body as she said, "I know you're excited, my heart. This is the biggest day of your life so far. Why shouldn't you be thrilled? But have faith. The Empire will be waiting for us when we finish traveling up the mountain, whenever that may be. All right?"

Mumma's smile could make Ciena feel like she she'd stepped into a patch of sunshine. "All right."

It didn't matter when they finished climbing. The Empire would always, always be waiting for her.

As Mumma had promised, they reached the paddock in plenty of time. But as her parents were paying for a day's corralling and feed, Ciena heard the laughter.

"They rode that filthy muunyak to the Imperial ceremony!" yelled a teenage second-wave boy. The livid red of his cloak reminded Ciena of an open sore. "They're going to stink up the entire place."

Ciena felt her cheeks flush warm, but she refused to look at the kids taunting her any longer. Instead she patted the muunyak's side; it blinked at her, patient as ever. "We'll come back for you later," she promised. "Don't be lonely." No taunts from some stupid big kids could make her ashamed of the beast. She loved it and its smell. Stupid second-wavers didn't understand what it meant to be close to your animals, or to the land.

Yet now that she saw hundreds of second-wave folk in their long silken cloaks and richly quilted clothing, Ciena looked down at her light-brown dress and felt shabby. Always, before, she had liked this dress, because the fabric was only slightly paler than her skin, and she liked that they matched. now she noticed the ragged hem and the loose threads at the sleeves.

"Don't let them affect you." Her father's face had become tensed, pinched. "Their day is over, and they know it."

"Paron," whispered Ciena's mother as she clutched her husband's arm. "Keep your voice down."

He continued with more discretion but even greater pride. "The Empire respects hard work. Absolute loyalty. Their values are like ours. Those second-wave folk - they don't think about anything but lining their own pockets."

That meant making money. Ciena knew this because her father said it often, always about the second-wavers who lived in the highest mountains. She didn't see what was so bad about making money, really. But other things were important . . . especially honor.

Ciena and every other member of the Jelucan valleys were descended from loyalists cast out of their homeworld after the overthrow of their king. One and all, their people had chosen exile rather than betray their allegiance to their leader. Hard as life on Jelucan was, unceasing as their labor and poverty had been ever since, the people of the valleys still took pride in their ancestors' choice. Like every other child in her village, Ciena had been raised knowing that her word was her bond and her honor the only possession that could ever truly matter.

Let the second-wavers strut around in their new coats and shiny jewelry. Ciena's plain cloak had been woven by her mother, the wool spun from their muunyak's fur; her leather bracelet was rebraided and expanded as she grew so it would remain on her wrist her entire life. She owned little, but everything she had - everything she did - contained meaning and value. People from the mountains couldn't understand that.

As if he could read his daughter's thoughts, Paron Ree continued, "We'll have different opportunities now. Better ones. We've already seen that, haven't we?"

Ciena's mother smiled as she wrapped her pale gray scarf more tightly around her hair. Just three days before, she'd been offered a supervisory position at the nearby mine - the kind of authority the second-wavers tended to save for their own. But the Empire was in charge now. Everything would change.

"You'll have more choices, Ciena. You have the chance to do more. To be more." Paron Ree smiled down at his daughter with stern but unmistakable pride. "The Force is guiding this."

So far as Ciena could tell from the few holos she'd ever been able to watch, most people in the galaxy no longer believed in the Force, the energy that allowed people to become one with the universe. Even she sometimes wondered whether there could have been such a thing as a Jedi Knight. The amazing tales the elders told of valiant heroes with lightsabers, who could bend minds, levitate objects - surely those were only stories.

 But the Force had to be real, because it had brought the Empire to Jelucan to change all their futures, forever.