Author's note: For those folks waiting for me to finish Their Story in Her Eyes and to write the sequel to The Longest Night I will finish it and/or write it. But this story just asked to be written, and it's done except for the editing. Really. Thanks again to jublke for her keen eye and wonderful suggestions. And no, sadly, I don't own Star Wars.

The Graveyard

A StarWars Fan Fiction

Two Years ABY

"You know, your Worship, this probably isn't one of the smarter trips you've suggested." Han Solo's hands held the steering yoke in a tight grip as he piloted the Millennium Falcon around the first of the asteroids. His eyes darted back and forth, seeming to look in all directions at once.

"Can't you just leave her alone, Han?" Luke asked, genuine irritation in his voice. That was unusual; most of the time Luke was happy to let Han and Leia snipe at one another, but today he seemed to sense how important this trip was to the princess.

"Listen, kid," Han countered, "we're flying into a debris—" Han stopped mid-speech, as the truth of what he was about to say sank in.

"It's okay, Luke," Leia said, her voice tight. "He's probably right."

"He is?"

"I am?"

Han's head swiveled back toward the princess, but Leia missed the quick look of concern. She was staring fixedly through the cockpit canopy. When Leia had first approached him about the trip, Han had been dead set against it. It was a stupid idea; it was a dangerous idea, her Highness must be out of her royal mind! There was no way he was going to risk his ship, or his own precious self, on a fool's errand. The Princess countered with the argument that Han obviously cared about nothing but himself; she didn't care what he thought, she was going to go. She just needed to find somebody who wasn't so self-centered—or so cowardly. Neither of them actually spoke the truth. Han was worried that this would be too painful an experience for her; Leia wouldn't admit that she needed Han to be the one to take her.

A quick warning bark from Chewbacca brought Han's face forward again. He flipped the ship hard to port, just in time to avoid hitting a chunk of ionized rock the size of an x-wing—a piece of slag that used to be an integral part of the planet Alderaan.

"Does that mean you changed your mind and want to go back?" Han asked her, his worry for her carefully hidden.

"No."

"Didn't think so," he mumbled.

The next few minutes passed in a silence which was only broken by an occasional ping as a piece of debris hit the ship's armored hull and Leia's increasingly ragged breathing.

"Wouldn't it be safer to fly near the bigger pieces?" Luke asked. "There seems to be a little more open space around them."

"That'd be great, kid, if that wasn't where the Imps are likely to be hiding," was the terse reply.

In the years since Alderaan's destruction, the survivors of the blast—those who'd been off planet at the time—had begun a pilgrimage of sorts, returning to the site of their former homeworld and leaving tokens of remembrance in the still expanding debris field. Unfortunately, the Imperials had taken to visiting the rubble as well, and were known to leave mines in the debris, and even to hide a TIE fighter or two among the largest fragments. The official belief was that any being who visited the so-called Graveyard of Alderaan must be a rebel sympathizer and therefore a legitimate target. Leia had never wanted to make the journey before; not since she'd witnessed the actual event.

"Chewie," Han continued, "are you keeping a lookout for any of our Imp friends?"

The Wookiee growled an irritated affirmative.

"Okay, keep your fur on! I was just asking."

The ship jolted downward, hard, as a large chunk of debris broke through the deflector shields and rammed into the ship's starboard mandible. Sparks flew up from Chewie's side of the control board and Han invoked a particularly pungent Corellian curse.

Chewie moaned in frustration as he summarized the damage.

"Terrific," Han said. "Well, we needed to work on that driver anyway."

"Han?" Leia's voice was small as she watched the two pilots struggle to bypass the damaged system. "I'm sorry. I never should have asked you to do this."

"Well, I wouldn't have trusted anyone else with, uh, I mean," Han stumbled, as he swerved the ship around another piece of slag. "I wasn't going to let anyone else take you, uh,…" He set his face in a self-confident smirk. "Well, of course when you make a dangerous trip, you're gonna want the best pilot around to get you there!" he finished pompously.

Leia smiled at the Corellian's slip—and quick recovery. Every once in a while Han Solo actually showed that he cared about something other than himself.

"How much deeper do you want to go in?" Han asked her.

"Just a little farther," she said.

"What was…?" Han stopped, unsure if he should ask the question.

"There?" Leia finished for him. "It's the official coordinates of the Palace of Alderaan."

Han and Luke remained silent; there didn't seem to be anything they could say. Chewie bleated out a soft whoof and reached around to squeeze Leia's arm.

"Thanks, Chewie," Leia said. She didn't understand the words but she knew what the Wookiee meant, all the same.

After a few more twists and turns, Han slowed the Falcon down to almost a stop. A piece of debris, as large as a transport ship, filled the cockpit viewports. He cut the engines and activated the repulsors. With a master pilot's skill—and an understanding of basic physics—Han was able to hold the ship stationary relative to the asteroid's movement.

"I think this is as close as we're going to get, Princess," he said.

When she didn't answer, Han twisted around in his seat. Leia stood immobile; her eyes were glued to the rocky surface that filled the transparasteel screen, yet they were oddly unfocussed.

"Leia?" he asked carefully, "are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said. "This will work fine."

Leia was just reaching for a chain around her neck when she was thrown forward by a sudden lurch. She would have banged her head into the hyperdrive levers if Luke hadn't caught her arm and hauled her back upright.

"What the—?" Luke began.

"Light 'em up, Chewie!" Han yelled, yanking the control yoke hard to port and pushing the repulors as hard as he could. "It's a kriffing TIE fighter!"

Chewbacca bellowed in dismay as he brought the sublight engines back online. It was just good luck that they hadn't been down for long.

The ship bucked as the sublights took over from the repulsors. Han executed a series of swooping dives and corkscrew turns as green laser shots from the TIE traced by the Falcon. Inside the ship, alarms blared and lights flashed as the gravitational compensators struggled for equilibrium.

"Chewie!" Han barked out. "Get in back and find out how bad our shields were hit." He swerved he ship around a piece of debris while simultaneously muttering a suggestion of what had to be a physical impossibility concerning the TIE pilot and his mother.

A Wookiee roar from the engineering pit provided a status report on the shielding.

"Yes!" Han called back, "transfer the power from the hyperdrive to the shields. We'll switch it back when we vape this guy. I hope," he added quietly. "Luke, go back and charge up the quads!"

"On it!" the younger man called as he ran for the back of the ship.

The ship jolted as another laser blast pounded into the shields.

"What do you need me to do?" Leia asked, dropping awkwardly into the co-pilots seat as the Falcon lurched downward.

Han tore his eyes away from the viewport long enough to give the princess an appraising look. All traces of her former turmoil were gone; both her hands and eyes were calm and steady. A slow smile of admiration lifted his lips—this woman never ceased to amaze him.

"There." Han pointed to a set of switches far to the starboard side. "See if you can shunt some more power to the rear shields through there."

Leia deftly worked the appropriate switches; lights on the control board switched from amber to green. A few tense minutes later, the front viewscreen turned opaque, protecting their vision as the TIE fighter exploded into an expanding cloud of white sparks. Luke had hit his mark.

Taking a deep breath, Han shut his eyes and leaned his head back against his seat. "That was close," he commented. His grip on the steering yoke loosened to normal.

"Han," Leia began, "I should never have suggested this."

"And you never would have made it if you didn't have the best pilot in the known universe to get you here."

Leia rolled her eyes at his cocky grin, but wasn't ready to let her thanks go unspoken.

"I really appreciate what you've done—"

"So, how far off are we from your coordinates?" he asked her.

"What!?"

"How far do we have to go to get back to your coordinates?" Han repeated.

"You're going to go back there?" Leia couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You didn't want to come in the first place."

"I changed my mind. If you think an Imp fighter is going to keep Han Solo from getting to where he wants to go, you've got another guess coming." Han's grin faded. He reached out his hand and laid it gently on hers. "I know how much this means to you," he said simply.

Leia looked at his hand on top of hers for a long moment; the man never ceased to amaze her. "I'll go figure it out." She slowly pulled her hand away before she stood and went back to the navicomputer.

Han, Luke, and Chewbacca stood by as Leia pulled the chain from around her neck. A small, old-fashioned, gold key glinted in the lights of the Falcon's aft cargo bay. Once again the ship seemed to be suspended in space, hovering at the coordinates of the former Alderaan Royal Palace. Leia looked at the key, shut her eyes in what might have been a prayer, then placed it inside one half of a small, metal sphere. There was a loud click as Leia snapped the other half of the emergency message capsule in place.

"What is it?" Luke asked.

Leia's eyes dropped, she looked embarrassed. Then she looked her three friends straight in their eyes, as if daring them to laugh. "It's the key to the box where I kept all my journal datachips, and other keepsakes. Just girl things." Her chin lifted. "That girl is gone," she continued, "the same way her girlhood home is gone." Her voice quivered. "So I'm sending the key back to the palace."

"Princess," Han said, his tone oddly formal. "I'm sorry there isn't a better way to launch this." The only safe way to eject the capsule into space from the Millennium Falcon was via the trash ejector. It seemed to Han that this was a too ignominious an exit.

"It doesn't matter," Leia assured him, "as long as it gets where it's going." Without another word, she placed the sphere in the ejector tube and pushed the switch. The ejector made a grinding noise and the capsule shot out into space.

"Do you want to see where it ends up?" Han asked her.

Leia shook her head. "No, let's go back to the base. We have a war to win."