Master Relda,

Fine, I didn't write the proof. You win. But I feel I have the right to explain myself, so no, this isn't an apology because I didn't really do anything wrong. I did the work.

How long have you known me, Master Relda? You've been my mathematics tutor since I was seven. You know I could have written that proof, and I did. It was just the third matrices, that one part after the lemma – it wouldn't work. No matter what, I couldn't figure it out. And I was all set to give up on it… I did give up on it. For about three weeks the datapad just sat under my bed because I may or may not have thrown it there. I was so angry – I'd been working on it for over a year and after all that it just wasn't going to happen.

So there I am looking through one of those ancient datapads Father likes to salvage – and I'm not joking, Master Relda, this might be the oldest datapad I've ever had my hands on, at least thirty years old – and you won't guess what happened. Actually you probably will, since I'm mentioning it. It was all right there. I couldn't believe it. I actually couldn't believe it. It had already been proven.

The only identification I can find are the initials AS. That's the most credit I can give. I have my suspicions Father saved this particular datapad from one of the old universities. It must have been completed shortly before the universities were closed down by the Empire because otherwise there's no way to justify why mathematicians in the galaxy don't know about the proof. I had to dig pretty deep to find it so I'm searching the rest of the datapad to see if I can find any other works of genius. So far, no luck. Just some official notices from the wars and a bunch of little messages to someone called P (personally I think they were having an affair – whoever 'AS' is, they try so hard to be discreet, but it's a little obvious). I think there's more, though, just locked away. I'll have it cracked soon.

But that's not the point. I need you to know that I did do the work, Master Relda. AS might have done it thirty years ago, but he never published it. It's all mine except the matrices. And isn't that what mathematics is all about, anyway? Building on top of each others' work? I'll show you all of my notes when I return to Aldera with Father, but in the end, it shouldn't even matter. This is paradigm-shifting work. I'll be more than happy to have it published under 'AS and Leia Organa' if you insist.

Imperial Center is dreadful as always, I'm afraid to report. We'll be glad to return home in the morning. I include Father in that 'we.' He had an audience with Lord Vader this morning, which ended about as well as it ever does. I don't know what it is about that man (?) that gets Father so riled up. He can never find what he's looking for and then ends up staring out the window for ages, out to where the ruins of the Jedi Temple are. It must be so horrible to have to remember things like that. Of course, then I caught him staring at me for a while so I came back to 500 Empirica and lo and behold here was your glaringly accusatory message.

I'm sure I'll forgive you eventually.

Leia Organa