Another quake loudly rumbled throughout the rock and carved stone tunnel, flinging Han Solo through the underground corridor that was tiled of elaborately carved local rock. Had the earthquakes not been increasing in intensity within the last ten minutes, the jaded star jockey might have stopped to appreciate the strange craftsmanship of a bygone civilization, but he was on a mission and trying to beat time before the next big quake occurred; meaning that he only had enough time to curse a blue streak as he barely caught his footing and steadied himself against the rock walls. Over the com implanted in Solo's oxygen mask, he heard the concerned howling of his longtime partner in crime, Chewbacca.
"I know! I know!" he barked back in exasperation over the cacophony of the ground rumbling as he tried to hurry through the stone labyrinth. "But I haven't seen any sign of her, and that Alliance of hers will skin us both and send our hides to Jabba if I don't find her!"
Another series of howling came through from Chewbacca, this time urging Han to try to think realistically about the situation.
"Fine, Chewie! You think realistically; I prefer to be more positive!" came his growling sardonic reply as he fought against being tossed from wall to wall. Another rumbling quake forcefully suggested that he take a right turn as the shifting of the earth caused him to stumble into it, showing him another long corridor. He was about to leave it, when he noticed a white shape, much softer in appearance in comparison to the surrounding stone that he recognized at once. "It's all right! I found her!" he called back into the com, rushing over to the unconscious form of Princess Leia. Han quickly pulled a second oxygen mask that had been shoved into his blaster holster and fitted it over the princess's face.
Chewbacca howled a few questions.
"No! Just get the hell out of here! I'll catch up later!" With efficiency, Han hauled the limp female form over his shoulder and took off down the corridor. Luckily there came a slight respite from the rumbling as Solo came out of the underground tunnels and into a large open area lined with a colonnade and decrepit statuary. But close behind him came another quake, dropping columns onto columns, or obliterating many of the statues beneath them. Han kept running through the dust and debris, hoping that his smuggler's luck wouldn't exhaust itself in this race to the Millennium Falcon. For now, it won against the earthquakes as he made it up the entry ramp and was able to get the princess strapped into one of the ship's bunks before he raced to the cockpit while casting off his oxygen mask, throwing it into oblivion.
The quakes weren't the only thing concerning the captain. As he began the ship's take off procedures, hurriedly flicking the proper switches and levers, he looked into the sky, hoping that he actually wasn't seeing the telltale electrical pulses of Atreides Spirals before he and Chewbacca had been successful in repairing the rear deflector shields.
The Millennium Falcon hummed with life and lift off as the ground beneath it gave away and crumbled into itself. The star craft started its ascent into the atmosphere, but the sky was quickly becoming just as unfriendly as the ground had been. Massive electrical charges were spiraling across the atmosphere, and once reaching the extent of the kilometers long trail, emitted a broad stream of light that encompassed the entire storm-darkened sky. If Han hadn't been so concerned about not flying into them, he might have thought the atmospheric phenomenon beautiful, but despite their wonder or beauty, being hit by one would knock out the electrical systems of his ship . . . and unfortunately, . . . that happened.
As the Atreides Spirals occurred in groups at random, Han miscalculated his luck. The Millennium Falcon was struck in the aft as the broad streams closed any window of open sky. The ship's systems completely ceased with the power surge, and the Falcon began to fall. Han cursed loudly as he fumbled in the darkness of the cockpit that was only illuminated by the lights of the storm.
The old and battered light-freight ship descended over the green and hilly landscape, covering hundreds of kilometers each second to eventually skitter across the land, leaving a trail of shredded terrain behind it. It rumbled across several more kilometers before the ship stopped – right before the woofling wet nose of a languidly grazing kwisatz snot-yak. The animal mooed woefully, turned away from the uninvited and impertinent ship, smacked it disdainfully with is tail, and meandered off with something better in mind.
Han dropped backward into the captain's chair and sighed audibly with a mixture of relief and frustration. Although, at a safe distance from the earthquakes, with the Atreides Spiral storm overhead, and a temporarily, electrically dead ship, there was no taking off now. He would have to not only wait for the Hanx-Wargel's rebooting process to finish, but he would also have to wait out the storm. The rebooting process wouldn't take very long, but there was no telling how long the storm would last. Either way, he had time now to check on the princess, which presented another challenge in a dark ship. Fortunately, the cockpit hatch recessed open once the Falcon had been struck by the charge, allowing Solo access to the rest of his vessel, but it was pitch black after he left the windowed cockpit. It was no matter, Han had thought. He knew this ship like the back of his hand, so although it was inconvenient, he didn't fear the darkness. He had however, forgotten about a far-flung oxygen mask, which he tripped on, (causing more loud cursing) and partially fell into a hole, once covered by floor plating that Chewbacca had removed earlier that day for access to repairs before the emergency call for a rescue team came in.
Abruptly, the Falcon hummed back to life, bringing the lights back on to reveal Han, haphazardly half-draped over the opening in the floor, with one leg waving in the air for balance, as he tried to push himself up where his hands had caught the pipes and cables that the plating had been covering. While being in this ostensible position, it was quite the feat, but he somehow managed his way out. He sat on the floor for a minute, picked up the culprit oxygen mask, and disdainfully threw it into oblivion again, arrogantly refusing to learn his lesson. "Damn it, Chewie," he growled.
"Han?" The princess's voice was calling from the crew's quarters.
Han gingerly got up from the floor and limped the rest of the way to where her voice was coming from. The limp mysteriously vanished once he entered the quarters. "Well, Your Worship, you seem okay." He went over to a storage locker and pulled out a medpac.
"I guess," she said, placing a hand to her head. "What happened?"
"Your scouting team got caught in an earthquake. From what I understand, you and your team went unconscious after the rescue alert went out. They were saved by the second team, but I found you and brought you here. We'd have taken off, but the storm's preventing that from happening." He purposely left out the part about getting caught by a Spiral Pulse and crash landing the ship thanks to a defective rear deflector shield. Such details tended to render princesses irate with their pirate captains.
"Oh."
Han came over to her, and while sitting beside her, began to clean and bandage some minor cuts on the princess. "Just what the hell were you doing by yourself away from the team?"
She was as bewildered as he was. "I honestly can't remember, but I must've had a good reason."
"Yeah, well, nearly got yourself killed and buried in the ruins of a Gesserit Temple. Efficient, but not recommended, your Highness."
"Captain," she said, stopping his hand from cleaning a cut on her forehead.
"What?"
"I'm not exactly a potted plant."
"Sorry, Your Worship," he replied with a typical sarcastic note. "Just figured you'd be used to lowly subjects doing this kind of thing for you." He removed himself from her immediate vicinity.
Leia decided to ignore his insinuating tone that asked her to respond with an indignant reply. After all, such a service didn't warrant ingratitude, so she changed the subject. "Where's Chewie?" Wherever Han was, the Wookiee wasn't usually far behind. He obviously wasn't with his Honor Brother now, but she could usually hear him rattling around in the background as Wookiees weren't known for their stealth.
"We got split up in the quake. He got off the planet with Luke and the teams."
She stopped cleaning the minor wound. "So we're alone then."
Han relaxed into a knavish smile, coolly and casually leaning against the sonic shower's hatch. His first attempt to bait her didn't work, but this was the perfect set-up for what always lit her fiery spirit. "That's right, Princess. There won't be a better time for you to show your full appreciation for me saving your life."
"Yes. I agree," she said thoughtfully.
Han paused. The retort he had prepared was stuck in his throat; this was not how these interchanges usually went. ". . . Wait. . . .What?"
"I said, 'I agree'," she re-iterated as she gathered the first aid supplies.
He was still confused and waiting for the verbal blow to drop. "Meaning?"
Princess Leia leisurely got up from her seat and walked over to where Han had pulled out the supplies, and put them away inside the box. "Listen, Captain Solo," she said, turning toward him, "I've poured more time and energy into performing the duties of a Senator, then procuring a Rebel Alliance, creating and running plans of subterfuge, scouting obscure planets to put up a new base, and just basically doing everything I can to support the Alliance and keep it going. Just when I think I can't sacrifice anymore, I find something else to give – I'm exhausted." Her tone became softer with meaning. "For once, I want someone to take care of me, help keep me going." She sighed and cast her sight to the floor as it was hard looking someone in the eye while admitting her vulnerability in her next point. ". . . To experience some affection after all the killing and madness I've seen wouldn't hurt either. . . ."
Han shifted his lackadaisical stance as he was beginning to realize that there was no catch, no sarcastic dig coming, but he couldn't trust it just yet.
Leia regained her regal composure and continued. "Normally, one would anticipate someone in my position to ask for this kind of service from a noble, high-standing rebel hero instead of a reckless and cocky space cowboy, but . . . " her eyes narrowed on Han, who was starting to sweat a little, ". . . there's something about you. Perhaps it's actually your courage masquerading as brashness, or the subtle evidence of a good man hiding within this handsome rogue, but there's definitely something . . . irresistible that I can't quite put my finger on."
He had never seen her look at him this way. Before the princess had decided that he was too much of a scoundrel to warrant her affections, he had seen her smile playfully, or even look upon him with true amazement, but he'd never seen this sensual sparkle dancing in her eyes now, and she certainly was mastering it. He swallowed. ". . . I'm not exactly not a rebel hero. I still got that medal around here somewhere."
She smiled suggestively and slowly came closer with a liquid walk. "May I take that to mean that I should have no compunctions regarding pursuing this with you, . . . Captain?" She breathed the last word.
Han gave her another knavish smile, but garnished it with charm. He took one of her petite hands into his and kissed the back of it. "Please do."
Her smile turned into an invitation, but before Solo could accept it, he heard the notification sound from the cockpit regarding an incoming transmission and realized that, with the power back on, he really should alert the Alliance that the princess was still safe. For obvious reasons, he had forgotten about that. "Don't move, your Highness," he said softly and gently kissed the inside of her wrist. "I'll be right back."
Not wishing to waste much time away from this new development in his relationship with the princess, Han quickly left the crew's quarters, and half-jogged back to the cockpit, effortlessly leaping over the hole he had previously fallen into. He flopped into the captain's chair and answered the transmission.
"Chewie?"
"Han?"
"Luke!"
"Hey," came the familiar, youthful voice. "Where are you guys?"
"Never got off the planet. Got grounded by the storms."
"You're still on Halleck?!"
"Yep. Just a lot of bad timing, kid. Gonna have to wait it out before we can take off again."
"All right, well . . . how's Leia doing?"
Now was not the time for abject honesty, but Han Solo rarely new what time that actually was. He casually swung his head toward the doorway, and wondered if Leia would hear him. Deciding that she couldn't, he swung it back to answer. "She's . . . sleeping."
Luke seemed relieved. "Okay. That's probably the best thing for her right now. The medical droids that are treating the rest of her team have been giving reports that her men are acting funny."
". . . How do you mean?"
"Well, I'm not sure exactly. They're all acting differently from each other. Some are angry and yelling, others are reciting poetry or singing songs, some are crying. . . . The droids said something about the crumbling Harkonnenstone that the temple was made of – that in its concrete state it's harmless, but with the earthquakes breaking it apart into breathable fragments, it becomes Sapho Dust, and that stuff had been all over Leia's team . . . "
Han's good mood was starting to dissipate.
". . . And I guess Sapho Dust affects the part of the brain that controls your inhibitions," Luke continued.
"Right," replied Solo wearily drawing a heavy hand down his face in thought. "Chewie and me have smuggled it before." He wanted to quickly change the subject. "I'll take off as soon as the storms end."
"Okay," rejoined Skywalker. "We're nearly back to the Yavin moon, so we'll see you there."
The transmission ended, leaving Solo with many things to consider.
Luke had just finished his conversation with Han, and was about to leave the console when the prissy voice of See-Threepio demanded the rebel pilot's attention.
"Master Luke! Master Luke, sir!" The droid's legs were barely effectual in carrying the rest of him toward the human fast enough.
"What? What is it, Threepio?" Knowing the automaton's programmed personality as he did, Skywalker couldn't bring himself to be swayed into accompanying him into the state of alarm.
"I'm very worried about Princess Leia! She's completely alone with that Captain Solo! What if inhaling that dreadful Dust, just as her team did, were to cause her to commit an act of . . . impropriety?!"
Luke could barely hide his bemusement. "What are you talking about?"
"I mean, she is a princess after all, and-and he is a pirate after all. It's barely proper as it is for her to be alone with him!"
The young man laughed a little as he pushed past the protocol droid to find something more important to be involved with. "I'm sure she's fine. It's actually Han I'm worried about."
"How can you mean that, sir?"
Luke casually turned around. "Trust me. If Leia has any hidden or intense feelings that she's been repressing towards Han, I'm sure she'd start – I don't know – trying to beat him up. The only thing she has to repress is how angry he makes her. They fight all the time." He shook his head at the droid without condemnation. "Honestly, Threepio, I'm surprised at you for even being concerned about that. . . . Maybe you need a new upgrade." With that, Luke spryly turned around and walked away, leaving the bewildered droid to the company of his programmed anxiety.
"But I just had an upgrade!"
Han Solo hadn't budged from the Falcon's cockpit after his talk with Luke, not being able to figure out if he was more disappointed or philosophical about this situation.
He was disappointed in that this day had been turning out to be one of the best ever. Sure, he'd been banged up and bruised, had to outrun an earthquake, and make a crash landing after being caught in an Atreides Spiral storm, but he had survived, so it wasn't all that bad. And then, for Princess Leia to suddenly seem to appreciate all that he'd done for her and the Alliance and wish to express that gratitude as well as acknowledge him as the best man to personally alleviate her stress and validate her as a woman in the one way a man could, that was the heaped icing on the cake! But he realized now that he should have known better. Half of their fighting came from his suggesting that she relax a little and not place so much responsibility on herself; her responses were always the same denial that she could use the help, the same refusal to let someone else take over lest they not be able to perform the duty as well as she could and create a setback for the Alliance. Her admission at needing someone to take care of her for once was something Solo had been trying to get her to confess for months, and that was a job he had often volunteered to do, . . . which always made her even madder and her denial of her humanness all the more adamant.
And as for the philosophical quandary that was posed before him, he knew that he was reluctant to let the whole situation go from his own human weakness, however, with the Sapho Dust drug making decisions for Princess Leia, hard as it was going to be to resist her, it wasn't really her that he'd be resisting, but the drug. And if it wasn't really Leia welcoming his infiltration of her "personal space", then it wasn't going to be as much fun. Besides, once it was out of her system, if she remembered anything that had occurred between them, she'd probably hate him more than she already truly did as well as have a very difficult time reconciling her own actions to herself.
Although Han knew he couldn't take advantage of the situation, he didn't know how he was going to handle it. With the princess unfairly armed with that seductive look she gave him earlier, and Han, being at the mercy of his attraction to her, didn't think he had the wherewithal to resist her for very long. He needed time to think without her distractions clouding his tragically male brain.
Han looked up at the sky, and noticed that the storms had stopped. This gave him the idea that at least they could take off, and maybe he could get her to the Rebel base before anything happened. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to hide in the cockpit; it was a feeble plan at best. Han turned on the intercom to the rest of the ship. "Strap yourself in, Your Highness. The storm's are over. We're taking off and then making the jump to lightspeed." He turned off the intercom and busied himself with the necessary procedures.
Without the use of the landing gear giving it a more level start, the Millennium Falcon wavered slightly in the air before making the nearly vertical take off. The kwizatz snot-yak bellowed insultingly at the Corellian freighter as it watched the ship quit the land and atmosphere of the planet Halleck, and then wondered pitiably if this strange, grey-shelled being that had so surreptitiously arrived in its life had understood that this particular snot-yak had a habit of always hurting the ones it loved, and that it had in fact, fallen deeply in love with the Falcon over the last ten minutes. But it probably didn't, for no being, whether an artificially intelligent star ship or otherwise, ever considered the internal life of a kwizatz snot-yak as they were known to be insufferably stupid.
After the jump to lightspeed was made, Han Solo began thinking about Princess Leia again, and wondered if it made any difference that he was. With a sigh, he decided that it was best to confront her. Yes, her beckoning gaze was going to be hard to ignore, but chances were good that after he explained the situation to her, that she'd change her mind about the whole arrangement and act more appropriately to her true character . . . . The difficult part to reconcile was that Han didn't want her to change her mind.
Solo inhaled sharply as if to usher in all the determination he was going to need, and then quickly exited the cockpit. His usual swagger adopted a much quicker pace since it was generally better to rip off a bandage in one efficient stroke than to slowly tug at it, yanking tender skin and pulling each delicate hair.
"Sorry, Princess," he started to call loudly before he got to the crew's quarters, "but there's been a change in –" he abruptly stopped as he came to the open hole again, and decided it best not to leave it a third time. "Hold on a minute!" Solo bent over and began to pull the plating back over the exposed hole. He had just dropped it back into its proper place when he felt two small hands fiercely clutch the meat of his "rear thruster".
"GAAGH!" Han nearly leapt a foot in the air and whirled around to find Leia. Her chestnut tresses, which were normally restricted to braids fastened tightly to her head, had been completely undone and were now flowing in long soft, sleek waves down to her waist. Her white jumpsuit was slightly unzipped from her throat, displaying soft, porcelain skin underneath. In Jabba's Palace, Han had definitely seen the costumes that the dancing slave girls wore leave much less to the imagination, but for Princess Leia, this was scandalous and done by her choice, which made her seem much more erotic than those dancing slave girls. And then there were those deep brown eyes, focused with allurement, bewitching him.
"I'm surprised at you," she said coming closer, as Solo started to back away. "Taking off and making the jump so soon. I'd have thought you'd want to give us more time."
"I need to get you back to base," he replied lamely as his typical, flippant responses weren't crafted for a situation such as this.
"That's not what I want to hear, Captain."
Han hit the wall behind him, and couldn't get away before Leia had slithered her hands onto his chest. "And I sure as hell don't want to tell you this, Your Highness, but . . . uh . . . ," it was becoming much more difficult to think as her hands were making their way around to his back, bringing her body into contact with his, "but I need to tell you before we go any further that you and your team ran into some brain-altering dust down there that may be causing you to act unlike yourself. . . ."
She bit him.
"Okay-okay! You're definitely not acting like yourself! And the princess I know wouldn't even consider coming onto a guy like me."
"Then that's a good reason to get to know each other better," she purred with a smile, tenderly nestling her face into his chest.
"And under normal circumstances, at any other time, I'd agree with you –" Han replied, words faltering, as she was caressing him tightly with her hands, slowly pulling out his once-tucked shirt from his pants. He tried to catch his breath without wondering why he was, starting to feel the moist fog of lasciviousness encroaching on his brain. " . . . Actually," he breathed, finding it increasingly harder to ignore the advances of this beautiful and spirited woman, "I'm starting to agree with you . . ."
As Leia continued her advance, the weak defenses that Solo had tried to erect between them in the last few minutes freely came crashing down (mostly because he didn't want them there anyway), and before he had time to build new ones, he found that he had pulled the rebel princess into himself to bring an ardent kiss to her soft lips. She eagerly welcomed him, pulling him closer as well. And in the midst of it, a part of Han was rapidly trying to regain itself, cursing internally at his weakness, but knowing that Princess Leia was something unlike any woman the pirate captain had ever encountered before, which was going to require extreme measures in the attempt to refuse her, and it quickly employed a tactic. It desperately tried to make Han think of the wretched stench Chewbacca had left in the refresher three days ago in order to clear the current passion, but the scent of Leia was too gratifying to inspire anything else but thoughts of her. It tried to make Han think of the raucous sounds that created the stench that Chewbacca left in the refresher as he bellowed every heinous oath in Wookieese, aimed at the farmer on Giedi VII who sold him the bad thufir eggs that had propelled him into such intestinal distress three days ago, but the soft sounds of Leia's breath as she tried to catch it between moments of their lips meeting again was too powerfully enticing to allow anything other than sensations of her through. Finally, that part of Han realized that nothing it could produce to urge him to stop other than Princess Leia herself would work; it promptly reminded him of how angry she would be with him if she remembered this encounter, and if not angry, then deeply embarrassed with herself, and either emotion could easily cause her to make every effort possible to completely avoid Solo forever more.
Han quickly but gently pushed her away. "I'm sorry, Your Worship."
"What's wrong?"
He went about tucking his shirt back in and reassembling his appearance as if such actions would erase what had just transpired between them under the falsehood that it would be more difficult to fall back into such agreeable activity again as long as he looked more presentable. "You're still under the influence of that substance."
"All right, then. Since you're so concerned about it, tell me more." She grabbed him by the holster so he couldn't easily escape.
Han made the conscious decision to stand to his full height so she couldn't access his face again so readily. He coolly leaned over her with his hand against the adjacent wall padding to try to seem more intimidating. "Luke said that the medical droids treating your team found Sapho Dust all over them, and your whole team had gone crazy on the stuff."
"Sapho Dust," she stated.
"Yes, Your Highness," he replied flatly.
"Hm. Well, that's interesting. Sapho Dust affects the inhibition centers of the brain . . ."
"Yes, Your Highness."
"But it can't make you do something that you hadn't already been repressing or refusing to express. You have to already have the thoughts or feelings inside you in order for the Dust to pull them out of you."
He tried to ignore the meaning behind her last words for thinking about it would lead him into dire trouble at a moment like this. ". . . Yes, Your Highness."
"Is that all you can say, Captain?" Her already honeyed tone grew sweeter.
"I'm afraid to say anything else."
She smiled with heavy invitation and pulled herself very close. "Then we should stop talking."
"Yes, . . . Your Highness," he replied softly in total compliance as yet again, Han Solo found her terminally persuasive as her eyes and voice summoned that heavy fog again, coaxing him deeper inside. He slowly brought himself closer to make his lips more accessible, this time tenderly bringing his hand to touch her face as he did so. Just as their lips welcomed each other back into another passionate caress, Solo repossessed himself, recalling the high stakes. He pulled away from her again. "Now wait a minute, Princess," he said as he began removing her arms from around himself that had snaked their way around him once more. "Let's just stop trying to morally confuse and upset Captain Solo, and get a hold of ourselves." He grabbed her by the shoulders and held her at arm's length.
"This is unnecessary," she said with an intriguing mix of regality and gentle coquetry.
Han realized that this was what was partially to blame for making her so hard to refuse; the fact that, although her advances on him were aggressive, other parts of her personality were still quite intact, making all of this seem to be coming from a genuine place. But he couldn't allow himself to internalize that fact further. "Believe me this very necessary."
"I suppose this is a little unusual for me, but like I said, if my inhibitions are the only thing being affected, then it's not like I'm being coerced into doing this; it means that I actually feel this way – I want to do this."
"Trust me, Princess, as much as I've never wanted to follow orders more my whole life, that place inside where you feel this way is too deep in there to justify any of this."
She found that his physical restraint on her had relaxed a little, and she used it to her advantage by moving closer to him again to sensually whisper, "Then bring it out of me."
It was too much, and Han had no more defenses save one. Before the wholly male parts of him could register her suggestion and pull multiple, irresistible applications from it, Solo pulled away from the princess, and ran down the corridor: "No means no!"
Surprised, but mostly irritated with the pirate captain's unprecedented prudish behavior, Leia gave chase. "Since when did pirates adopt a code of chivalry?!" she called after him.
"About the same time princesses began to chase them for sexual favors, Your Worship!" Solo called back, frantically trying to think of a better plan, knowing that although he could surely outrun her by being so much taller than she was, that the main corridor of his ship was circular, and with a little timing on her part, she could waylay him by simply cutting him off from the opposite direction. Any of the off-shoots from the main corridor only lead disastrously to dead-ends or back into the main corridor, and there would be no time to jump into a hidden smuggling compartment before she'd find him. Han had to forcefully refuse to imagine what amazing things would happen if she did.
"That sounds perfectly ridiculous!" said Leia as she seemed to materialize around the bend right before him.
"Keeps the galaxy in balance, Princess!" replied Solo, performing a strange sliding side bend around her, just barely evading her grasp as he passed by. "Isn't that what Luke's always talking about?!" he called back to distract her, outdistancing her with much longer strides as she pursued. "Why don't you save your affections for him? I'm sure he could use the experience!" Solo winced at his own suggestion.
"Luke?!" he heard her call back from somewhere on the other side of the ship. "Do you really think I'm that fickle? That I find lovers that interchangeable?"
Solo stopped as lightly and silently as he could, listening for her footsteps, and hearing none. He knew that she was waiting for him to come around the bend again, and he realized that if he waited too long, she'd begin to chase again, but he'd at least be able to hear her footsteps coming in enough time to give him a head start. The Falcon was an adequately sized ship so there should have been somewhere he could tuck himself that Princess Leia wouldn't know about. He thought about answering her last question to keep her diverted but that would only reveal his location and possibly cause her to react before he found that hiding spot, and he needed as much control over the situation that he could keep while he had it.
Han looked around, realizing that he had ended up toward the front of his ship in the number two hold, near the freight loading room and the mandibles – mandibles which had crawlspaces for repair access. Whereas Leia could effortlessly make her way into the hold, she most likely didn't know of the entrances to the crawlspaces. Solo silently approached the wall, quickly turned the door valve to release the small hatch and climbed inside, closing the opening behind him. He fumbled around in the pitch darkness on his hands and knees, looking for the small lamp in the wall, not needing to worry about being quiet as the internal humming and whirring sounds of the Falcon would mask any noises he made. In being so close to some of the Corellian freighter's internal systems, Solo felt like he had entered the veins of a metal beast. He found the lamp switch, which barely illuminated the immediate section of the tiny corridor, leaving the rest of it in darkness stretching out before him. He tried to listen for the princess, heard what he thought could be the sound of confused footsteps, but couldn't be certain while sequestered in this cramped, dim tunnel of circuitry and metallic mayhem. Han pushed a small box of tools out of his way and lay down. He sighed deeply and once more tried not to think about all the things he was missing the opportunity to engage in with Her Highness if only he had just the honor of a Hutt crime lord. In trying not to imagine these things and tempt himself to leave the crawlspace, he thought about her last reply to him. So, she didn't think lovers were interchangeable, and here she was trying to chase him down in the interest of amorous pursuits. Yet, while not under the influence of Sapho Dust, the princess was almost always personable and warm with Skywalker, but rarely so with him. She had warmed up to him for a bit after the destruction of the Death Star, but that episode seemed short-lived in hindsight, and what was maddening to Han was the fact that it also seemed that she was consciously keeping tabs on her behavior toward him. Han Solo never attested to understanding women, so whenever their behavior became nonsensical to his male brain, he would refuse to get hung up on it and would just walk away, but Leia didn't allow it to be that easy. Something about her had gotten wedged inside him like he was crammed in this crawlspace, and just like how he was now, it was uncomfortable how deeply it had gotten stuck there.
. . . Do you think a princess and a guy like me –
No!
Han tried to focus on the memory of Luke's "no". He tried to convince himself, that although he didn't understand all the implications of what "being one with the Force" meant, that Luke Skywalker, through the calling of his DNA, had some magical super-powers that allowed him to foresee the future, and if he was so adamant in his negation, then perhaps it was because it truly was impossible for a princess and a guy like him to . . . do whatever it was he was trying so hard not to consciously think about.
But, Han knew he was just making things up.
Something in the machinery around him changed abruptly as the surrounding sounds shifted from melodious chaos to softer whirs as though stress had been alleviated from the spacecraft. Han knew what this meant; they had come out of lightspeed and should be just outside the gravitational pull Yavin IV. With all of the illicitly strange goings-on with the princess, he wasn't surprised that he had nearly forgotten about . . . everything else. Either way, time was up, and he was going to have to land the ship. Leia in her present condition wasn't going to do it, even if she felt she had the insanity to attempt to wield the Falcon's highly modified systems, and Han knew that he couldn't wait for her to come out of this as there was no telling how long that would take, and the Alliance would be getting anxious for her return. Besides, the longer he waited the worse it would look should something sensually unprecedented happen on his way back to the cockpit. Even with the believable explanation of Princess Leia being drugged, it would be unbelievable to many in the Alliance that she would be withholding hidden desires of romance with Jabba the Hutt's finest smuggler. No, no, no. Waiting it out was not an option, and it was probably best to get her to the base's medical wing as soon as possible.
Han sat up and maneuvered toward the crawlspace's hatch. He gathered himself once more, not bothering to rally himself with conscious maxims of self-conduct because he knew there weren't any that could bolster him against an actively seducing Princess Leia. Solo turned the valve and opened the hatch, poking his head out, and waited for signs. Except for the ship's systems, everything was eerily calm. With the skill of silence that only another smuggler could truly appreciate, Solo exited the crawlspace and closed the hatch. Deftly he headed toward the cockpit corridor, pausing momentarily to listen for human sounds, and hearing none, moving onward. He pushed himself up against wall, looking around the corner and continuing to listen – nothing. Quickly tip-toeing down the corridor, he swept into the cockpit, pushed the button to close the hatch and locked it. He breathed. Home free.
"I knew you'd show up here sooner than later." The captain's chair swiveled around, revealing Leia with legs crossed and eyes sparkling with tempting encouragement.
"Damn it," he flatly cursed. While the drug was laying waste to the princess's inhibitions, it hadn't dulled her resourcefulness.
But Han's oath seemed to upset her. "You sincerely don't seem happy to see me."
"Happiness is irrelevant in this context, Your Highness. I need to land the ship and get you back to base." He moved over to the co-pilot's seat, situating himself by dusting off Wookiee fur from the panel, and flicking nearby switches to bring control of the ship to the co-pilot's side. He hoped that as long as he didn't make eye contact with her and remained as emotionally cold and removed as possible, he could make this work.
"All right, this is your last chance," said Leia with finality, "I've never liked forcing people to go against their will, so I'll ask you upfront, and then I won't ask ever again; do you want me?"
Solo halted his actions for a split second: "No." Then tried to busy himself with bringing the Falcon into the planet's atmosphere so he wouldn't think.
"I don't believe you," she said.
"As well you shouldn't," he replied. He raised the Yavin Moon Base with a transmission signal.
"Hey! You guys finally made it!" came Luke's voice over the crackling feed with emphatic Wookiee howls sounding in the background.
"Hey kid. We should be landing by thirteen hundred."
"We'll be waitin' for ya!"
Han was relieved that the former farm boy didn't ask any probing questions. He placed his focus entirely on the moon's landscape that was quickly becoming more defined and overwhelming in its expansion, and then leveling his ship, watching his speed. The base may have been in an old temple, but even with the help of the topographic sensors, the dense foliage of the moon could make it easy to miss if one wasn't watching for it, or was flying at the wrong altitude.
Minutes passed in silence.
Han took a chance and looked at the princess from the corner of his eye, but she wasn't watching the passing trees and greenery underneath them. Her brown eyes, which had been catching the pirate in their wanton bewitchment minutes and hours ago, were now downcast on the control panel in front of her, but staring through it. Her face seemed to express such abandonment that a tear would not have been out of place on such a soft but depressed countenance.
Down below and still many miles away, Luke Skywalker was outside of the temple, watching the Millennium Falcon's descent through macrobinoculars.
"There they are, Chewie!" He passed the eyepieces up to the Wookiee standing beside him, who rumbled a short burst of relieved barks.
Although the ship was still just a sparkle in the horizon to the naked eye, it was rapidly approaching, steady and level, demonstrating Han's expert piloting skills.
It was dangerous, but he had to ask. Judging by her expression, Han wondered if it was possible that she was coming out of the drug-inducement, and realizing the things she had done. He had to ask then, because if this was so, then smoothing out the impending awkwardness and then swearing an oath of secrecy to what transpired this day was a must. And additionally, it was hard seeing her indomitable spirit seem so broken.
"Something wrong, Your Worship?"
Leia released a quiet sigh from the depths of her soul that touched Han's with poignancy, but her following words were more devastating. "I was just thinking . . . . You're going to land this ship, and the medical droids are going to take me away, do whatever they need to get this out of my system, then I'll go back to my normal self, haughty and reserved. I'll go back to having to act like everything you do irritates me. We'll go back to fighting nearly every time we speak to each other, then one day you'll leave the Rebellion, and I'll act like I never had feelings for you, convincing myself that I never did, and hoping that I'll never remember what it was like to be touched by you."
Han swallowed so that he didn't choke on the painful truth that she had just spoken, and also so that he didn't choke on any regrets he knew he shouldn't feel for the good of the Alliance's opinion of their royalty. "Look," he responded somberly, "I don't know if it could ever really work out between us, but if it did, I'd want you to choose me with all of your pride, all your reservations, as the Princess Leia I know, so that I would know it was all of you making the choice – that it was real."
She looked up at him.
From down below, Luke was waving at the Falcon with an eager Chewbacca by his side, recently joined by See-Threepio and Artoo-Detoo. In only a few minutes more, the ship would be landed, and the friends rejoined.
"Oh, hell!" exclaimed Princess Leia. Her uncharacteristic exclamation, startled the rogue pilot, and before he could react, she had unzipped her jumpsuit and leapt over the center console onto the pirate's lap.
The steady descent of the Millennium Falcon suddenly changed. Before the disbelieving eyes of its comrades on the ground, it dipped and swerved, tipped and wavered, cutting off the tops of trees before descending further, and then cracking them in half outright with a cringing, splintering raucous. The ship skittered over the ground with deafening clangor, like a gigantic, cumbersome, wayward skipping stone, tearing up terrain and leaving muddy chasms in the earth in its terrible wake of destruction.
Luke and Chewbacca stared wide-eyed. See-Threepio looked back at them, then back to the ship, then back to Luke and Chewbacca, as his latest upgrade hadn't included the protocols of a situation like this. Artoo beeped.
One of the Falcon's heat vents erupted into flames.
Luke dropped his macrobinoculars.
"Leia!" Han jerked upright, and opened his eyes, only have them pierced with white light. He winced and covered his eyes. His head swam and spun. He'd had hangovers that were more merciful. He felt a large paw slam into his chest, forcing him back upon the soft pillows. Han groaned. He heard familiar but infuriated Wookiee howling, but it was ensconced in a strange echo before the sounds began to come together and make sense. He tried to peer through the light, but his eyes were still sensitive, and he covered them with his arm. "Chewie, stop! Where am I?"
The furry compatriot ceased his wrathful complaining to quickly answer the question, then went back to his stream of incensed barking.
"The medical wing?"
"Please try to relax, sir," came the ever-placid mechanical voice of a med-droid. "May I give you some ice?"
"Yes," growled Solo who rarely remembered his manners in front of people and never did in front of droids.
The droid came closer to the bed, but before he could place the large ice pack on Han's head, the Wookiee violently ripped it from his hand-clamps, and threw it on Solo's face at a close range.
"GAH! What the hell, Chewie!" he hollered, recoiling in pain.
"Regarding Captain Solo's condition," began the droid, calmly addressing Chewbacca, "I don't think it's a good idea to –"
The room's door opened and Luke had just stepped inside to see his friend's recovery. But Chewbacca cut the droid off with an unearthly roar that intimated that if the droid didn't make himself scarce, he'd have no reservations in doing some arm ripping-offing. The medical droid spun around and left the room as quickly as his servo-motors could muster, running into Skywalker and pushing the young man out the room with him. Perhaps not so curiously, Skywalker did not attempt to come back inside.
"You're gonna regret treating me like this when I'm dead!" Han ruthlessly pointed out as he pulled the ice pack onto the top his pounding skull.
But it was an unfair thing to say even in a moment like this as it was a sore spot for the Wookiee, knowing that even should the two of them make their fortunes someday, living out the rest of their natural lives like the swinging-est, happening bachelors this side of the Rautha Strip, Han's life would run out long before Chewbacca's. His eyes turned glassy and red. He inhaled deeply in the attempt to stop the emotion from overcoming him, and a small whimper escaped.
Han heard the distress, and a disconsolate Wookiee could be just as concerning as an enraged one. "Okay, okay! I'm sorry! But what hell's your problem?"
Chewbacca began his tirade again, chastising his Honor Brother for creating so much damage to their ship, which was going to cost them credits that they already needed for other repairs and clearing the bounty that was on both of their heads, reminding him that Solo was often reprimanding him about the same thing whenever he attempted to repair something that didn't take precedence over some of the ship's other ailments. When he had exhausted himself on that topic, without taking a breath, he demanding to know, by all the holy entities of Kashyyyk, what did Han Solo think he was doing with the Rebellion's princess, although the Princess was in a compromised state from the Sapho Dust, didn't Solo have more self-control than that?
"You didn't see what she – wait! Where is she? What happened?"
Chewbacca rolled his eyes and took a deep breath, starting to recall the events that happened after the unconventional landing. It went something like this: seconds after witnessing the calamity, his protective instincts overcame his stupor, coercing him to pick up the closest, heaviest object, which in this instance, happened to be Artoo-Detoo. The Wookiee ran, carrying the astromech droid to the Falcon, climbing up its surface to reach the cockpit, then using Artoo to smash apart a pane of the windshield before hurling the droid away with all the disregard as if he were garbage, with the droid tootling curses, but then relenting to something the sentiment of "ah well, I've been through worse". Chewbacca entered the cockpit through the windshield and found Han Solo and Princess Leia thrown to the floor in a tight embrace with the Captain in what the Wookiee expressed as the "dominant position". As he pulled them apart, he noticed the princess's hair undone and her jumpsuit partially unzipped. Knowing that medical droids and concerned humans would be all over the place in mere minutes, he had to act quickly. Zipping up the jumpsuit had been no challenge, but although Wookiees are enshrouded with fur, they weren't known for knowing what to do with it, and Chewbacca tried without much success to tie Princess Leia's hair into some kind of knot on top of her head. Because it wasn't holding, he furiously began licking his paws, plying them with copious saliva, and then running them through her hair to be able to tie it up into some kind of sopping bird's nest. No, it wasn't pretty, but he couldn't have his Honor Brother get into more trouble than he was already inclined. A gloriously wet and entangled quaff was unprincessly, but at least it would confuse the humans instead of implicate Han Solo.
Han inhaled sharply, not sure what to think of the story, then deciding not to. "Good work, Chewie."
The medical droid's voice came through on the room's intercom. "Pardon me, but Princess Leia would like to speak with Captain Solo."
"Let her in," said Han through the com, pulling off the ice pack. He turned back to Chewbacca. "Could you leave us alone –"
But the Wookiee folded his arms defiantly and growled low.
"Nevermind," the other grumbled.
Shortly, Leia entered, wearing fresh clothing, and her hair was properly styled but damp as though she'd recently taken a shower. Han didn't wonder why. Her usual regal composure was fighting the anxious mien that followed her in. She began to speak, but then thought better of her words, remembering her manners. "How are you feeling?"
"Like the inside of Jabba's refresher pipes."
"That's . . . " she stopped her programmed response, "descriptive."
"You asked."
She inhaled deeply with preparation and turned to Chewbacca. "Chewie, do you think you could leave us alone for a few minutes?"
The other glowered at Han, but said nothing and lumbered out of the room. Leia was too preoccupied with her thoughts to call attention to the furry titan's sore attitude, although she noticed it, but what she came here to find out was too pressing to wonder about him; if necessary, she'd check later. Leia turned away from Han and walked to the side of the room.
"Han . . . I need to ask you something."
He couldn't help but recognize that when the princess was under the influence of the Dust, she referred to him as "Captain", which she also seemed to do when whenever she was angry with him. Now, he was "Han". He wondered what the mental delineation was; when and why was he just Han, and when was he "Captain."
"I'm . . . grateful for you helping me out of the Gesserit Temple and getting me back to the Alliance, but . . . I've been informed of the events that happened with my team and some kind of dust that was . . . affecting them."
". . . Yeah? What about it?"
". . . I guess I'm wondering . . . what I mean is, I was told that this dust was a drug that acted on the inhibitions of those who breathed it, causing them to do things that they wouldn't normally do, but maybe . . . had wanted to do."
He crossed his arms over his chest, waiting and observing her. Was she going to attempt to deny the things she did, or did she really not remember? She was holding her hands, turned away, sometimes looking down at them. He realized that this was the only way that she could keep her regal self-possession, by not looking directly at him. "What are you afraid of?" he asked pointedly.
She quickly shot him an agitated glare, but turned away again. "Afraid? I'm not afraid of anything. I'm just wondering what I did while I had that in my system."
She was afraid, and Han knew it. While under its influence, the Sapho Dust had pulled out her most secret feelings, revealing an attraction to the space pirate and not the farm boy-turned-rebel-hero as she'd have her compatriots in the Rebel Alliance more readily believe. And what was worse was that she had unabashedly admitted it directly to Solo in word and action in no uncertain terms, numerous times. Han understood that she had a right to be fearful. But the fact that the fear existed at all was provoking. He wondered if she had any existing memory in the slightest of what she did, or if it had been the explanation the medical droids gave of what happened to her team that might make her suspect what she did.
"You tried to rough me up a little," he finally said, nonchalantly.
"I did?" Her tone seemed a little incredulous.
"Okay, a lot. I've seen Gank killers with more benevolence."
"I did?" She began to laugh, but quickly covered her smile with her hands. It was not enough to stop once she started though.
Unsurprisingly, Han noticed that she could now look at him entirely for longer than a split second in an agitated glance. "You've got a mean swing, Your Worship."
"Well, maybe that ought to teach you to be more respectful." She laughed again with less resistance this time.
He couldn't help but wonder how much of it was truly funny to her, and how much was just relief. "You think it's that funny?"
"I am sorry, Han, but you had it coming to you."
"I did, eh?"
"You always have it coming to you," came her offhand reply. "And not in the way you seem to expect."
"Hm." He put a thoughtful hand to his chin, pondering how this would have played out had he told the truth, but even if he tried now, she would deny it, clinging to the convenient lie even if the truth made more sense. Hell, had he told her the truth at the beginning, he was sure that she'd try to deny it by flipping it with some kind of respectable angle.
"Well, anyway, I hope you get better soon," she said flippantly, starting for the exit. "And try not to anger me so much in the future." With that, she quit his presence with the door sliding behind her, ending the conversation entirely.
Han laid back onto the pillows, but didn't relax. There were times when he actually enjoyed their battle of wills, but at other times, it was tiresome, and he found it especially so now that he knew the truth lurking in the recesses of her little royal heart. In fact, he could attribute all kinds of negative emotions akin to frustration and weariness in light of recent developments. How long was he going to have to wait for her to stop her own resistance? What tactic could he employ that would break down her barriers? He remembered what she said in the Falcon moments before she complicated the landing procedures, and found its sting again . . . knowing that it was absolutely possible that she owned an iron will that rivaled his own, and mirrored the same devotion to pride as he did that could keep her honest feelings from ever surfacing again. Han found himself feeling depressed, and tried not to acknowledge how any other woman he'd known had never brought him to this depth of self-doubt and emotional instability. There was definitely something about this Leia Organa . . . something he couldn't conceive of letting go even in the face of the ever-ominous price on his head, even in the face of their non-compatible backgrounds, or even in the face of what he understood life to mean that their mutual feelings for each other refused to reconcile.
Consciously, Han Solo told himself that it would be for the sake of the Rebel Alliance that he and Chewbacca would stay for a while longer; that it was Rebels' incompetence in how the underground worked and the value of his and the Wookiee's knowledge of it and their survival techniques that was so necessary for this little rebellion to thrive, and that hiding from the bounty hunters within it might not be such a bad plan after all, . . . however, it would be their princess that presented the inarguable case to stay in his subconscious mind.