Jon Antilles finds out about his parents’ death cycles after it happens.
A careful inquiry from a co-worker, asking if he knew anyone on Alderaan.
It’s not a strange assumption, given his name.
He says yes, because he does.
His parents went home as his father’s knees began to ache and his mother’s hands began to lose their hard-won skill.
They were grateful, relieved to hear that his uncle had left them his little apartment in his will. It was small, they told him, but it was home and they hadn’t quite thought they would ever be able to afford to go back.
Jon Antilles is an Alderaanian name, perhaps even the most Alderaanian name. For all that many he shares it with have no actual connection to his parents’ homeworld.
He knows his parents named him with pride.
There has never been any mistaking where his name comes from.
He’s never been there.
He’d needed some space, they’d been willing to wait.
She gets a look in her eye, like she pities him, like she wishes she hadn’t asked.
Has he heard?
Of course he hasn’t.
His expression would have gone cold long before she got to this part of the conversation if he’d heard.
No, there was an emergency at the docks and a double shift before that.
Jon tries not to pay attention to the news.
Jon can’t remember a time he hasn't been angry.
His teachers always said he was a lovely child, kind and considerate if perhaps a bit enthusiastic.
His friends have never spoken of cruelty or of fits of rage.
His co-workers find him quiet but not mean.
No, Jon has a different sort of fury in his heart.
“You love too much, Jon.” His mother had said, once, in that way of hers that managed chiding and gentleness at once.
He hadn’t understood why his friend’s father wasn’t around anymore, why he’d been taken away.
He’d been so kind, always pleased to invite them in for a snack and never told them off for their chatter.
It wasn’t right.
Nothing is right.
Alderaan is gone.
His coworker stumbles through the explanation, attempting for a gentleness no one can truly grasp in the face of such horror.
He stops listening long before he walks away.
“Life isn’t fair.” His father had grunted, once, annoyed that he’d even asked.
He hadn’t understood how the troopers could enforce their curfews and laugh as they dragged people away.
The store clerk was only doing his job.
“So are they.” His father had said.
Jon hadn’t had anything to say to that.
There was a difference, he could feel it.
It wasn’t the same, somehow.
He’d been too young to understand.
It made him angry all the same.
His father is never going to grunt in annoyance when he complains about the cruelty of the world again.
“Why doesn’t anyone do anything?” He’d asked once.
His mother had sighed and shifted her braids out of the way.
She didn’t ask about what.
Jon had made clear that something needed to be done about nearly everything in the galaxy.
“I should have named you for justice.” She’d smiled, his name was a blessing.
Her braids are gone, not even ash remains.
They’d fought.
His mother wasn’t one for fighting, a soothing presence first and foremost.
His father wasn’t one for it either, a man who expected to be obeyed by his son without protest.
Jon was furious.
At the galaxy.
At the crime syndicates.
At the Empire.
At the stoic disinterest of his father, content that keeping out of trouble and minding his business would keep them safe.
At the tired acceptance of his mother, aware of the injustices and long since bent under their weight.
At everything and everyone, some days.
He finds an easy project far from the bustle of activity and starts to yank at piping and loose fittings.
His hands shake.
Jon doubts his father could scoff at his anger now.
If there had been a place he had loved it was Alderaan.
Jon’s most precious memories remain the few and far between moments when his father had allowed himself to be coaxed into describing the mountains.
The feeling of crisp air, the shades of color looking over the landscape, the quiet of undisturbed nature.
Life isn’t fair.
Stars.
Jon knows that.
He’s lived it.
Every month it’s a struggle to make rent.
Jon barely managed to finish school, mediocre quality even then.
They couldn’t afford better.
His parents got lucky, to be able to retire at all.
Or maybe not.
Life isn’t fair.
His father always meant it as an admonishment.
There’s no point in fighting destiny.
People will always struggle.
People will always suffer.
There will always be monsters.
It’s a waste of time to work towards anything better.
His mother always meant it as an inevitability.
Almost gentle, in its balance.
Life is never fair, never kind, but there are moments of joy and love in the midst of it.
Life isn’t fair, never will be, but it’s worth living anyway.
Alderaan is gone.
His parents with it.
His hands are shaking so hard they can’t even grasp the wrench anymore.
He sets it down.
Presses his head against the cool metal of the wall.
Some part of him, for all they argued, for all he snapped, believed it.
What point is there in fighting when injustice is the way of things?
What point is there in standing still when planets die with their people?
His father called him naive.
His mother called him too much.
Some part of him believed them when they told him there wasn’t any use fighting.
He loved them.
They loved him.
He knows that.
There’s a reason he’s stayed a lowly mechanic paid barely enough to live on.
There’s a reason he’s never slipped away and done anything about the fury in his heart.
Jon stands, doesn’t tell his manager where he goes.
They likely know.
They likely pity him.
His parents.
His planet, the home he’s never even seen.
It’s too late.
Jon goes home.
To the only place he’s ever called his own.
What is the point in peace?
What is the point in keeping his head down and accepting that this is all he’ll ever have?
His parents are not going to call him on Primeday, after he’s finished eating late meal alone, joints stiff with the hours of work.
They aren’t going to tell him about their week.
Jon is never going to hike the trails with his father like he secretly dreamed of doing as a child.
He is never going to ask his mother about her culture and hear her speak with a smile that isn’t hiding grief.
They’re gone.
There’s a part of him that still doesn’t believe it.
There’s a part of him that itches to talk to them.
Surely they aren’t dead.
They can’t be dead.
They are.
His mother never quite got around to explaining the braids.
When Jon was small, curious and innocent, he’d asked.
She had smiled, picked him up and showed him how long her braids were when she uncoiled them from where she pinned them up.
He’d gasped and asked if he could have braids too.
Her face had done something his child self wasn’t able to identify at that.
Jon had thought it might have been something sad.
He hadn’t asked again.
Jon doesn’t know.
Perhaps he never will.
Perhaps he’s the only one left.
He can’t be.
Does he even count as one of them?
Does he even have the right to preserve what little he has?
Jon doesn’t know.
His hair is short.
Something about this makes him angry too.
His mother was so proud of her braids, whatever they meant to her.
Jon can’t lay to rest what doesn’t exist anymore.
His hands still shake as he goes through the motions.
His hair is cropped short, useful in his line of work.
There’s enough that he gets a tiny little braid to stay.
It’s pitiful.
Uneven and frayed at the end.
She never taught him how.
She never will.
He ties it with a bit of string and only fails to tie the knot twice.
His father always said life isn’t fair.
His mother always said she should have named him for justice.
Jon Antilles was named a blessing.
He’s going to die a curse.
Not to Alderaan.
Not to his parents, who loved him so, even when they weren’t sure how to show it.
Jon Antilles has always been angry.
There’s rage in his soul, it beats in his heart just as the blood that keeps him living does.
Perhaps, if things were different, he would know how to breathe through the agony.
Things aren’t different.
Alderaan is gone.
It isn’t the beginning.
It isn’t the end.
It is something.
It has to be.
Jon Antilles sabotages a troop carrier and a prison transport before anyone catches on.
A damaged wire sparks and turns a second transport sitting empty and idle into a blazing inferno that spreads to two more before it's contained a week after he's caught.
He doesn’t merit much more than a footnote in the sector’s monthly crime report.
He isn’t the first.
He won’t be the last.
Alderaan is gone.
Its children aren’t.
Not all of them at least.