Checkmate
by Susan Zahn
Disclaimer: Much as I'd love to be able to retire and live off the proceeds from these stories, I sadly do not own the rights to these brilliant characters. Maybe if you put in a good word for me…?
Author's Note: This story is part of a broader story arc, my "Kismet" series, that I've been developing over the past two decades—long before any of the prequels, EU books, or other materials came out. While I occasionally borrow proper names from these newer sources (for convenience' sake) I feel no compunction to make my stories conform to any "canon" other than the original saga films. I hope you can enjoy them in the same spirit of freedom that I have felt writing them.
"We are ashamed to admit that we are jealous,
but proud that we were and that we can be."
—La Rochefoucauld
The sounds of happy Ewoks, celebrating their new friendship with the Rebel Alliance, followed General Han Solo out into the moonlight. He stepped through the rounded portal of the Ewok lodge and then paused after clearing the low threshold to straighten out his back, wincing as abused vertebrae shifted back into order. As if purgatory in a carbonite block wasn't enough, his strike team was now hooked up with a horde of fur balls half his size. For once he could truly sympathize with Chewbacca's incessant complaints about low ceilings.
The night had developed a noticeable chill. Feeling better, at least physically, he drew in a deep breath of cold air before daring to look around, afraid of what he might find. His eyes naturally followed the suspended lengths of the three bridges that branched out from the platform where he stood. They formed a small section of the web-like network of wooden catwalks, circular balconies, and lodges of the village built two hundred meters above the forest floor. Those bridges stretched out to neighboring trees like graceful upside-down arches, leading to numerous dots of orange flickering torches and the rough-hewn windows of private dwellings.
The sourness in the pit of his stomach that had begun around the time Luke Skywalker had arrived and joined his strike team now threatened serious heartburn when Han found no sign of either Luke or Princess Leia Organa outside. Only minutes ago, after Luke had left the crowded lodge, Han had witnessed Leia cast an almost surreptitious glance in his direction before slipping out the door to follow. As if, even in the midst of negotiations with their new allies, he wouldn't have noticed her abrupt disappearance; as if he wouldn't have noticed the sun had set, or that a ten ton weight had dropped on his chest to crush his heart. The two had departed with such convenient timing that Han couldn't ignore the implications.
The three spoke-like walkways were empty, even of natives, and it was just as well because he needed time alone to regain his equilibrium. Bitter thoughts from that cynical part of his mind now assailed with such force that he took an unsteady step to the low guardrail that ringed the platform. You're a fool, that sinister voice echoed through his stubborn head as his hands gripped the round wood railing until his knuckles whitened. You knew this would happen the second you let her get to you.
Solo leaned against the railing, dangerously so, but didn't care. He waited for the rage of jealousy — the white hot anger, the blinding fury — to take hold so he wouldn't have to feel the pain of rejection and inadequacy that threatened to overwhelm him. He'd wanted to believe that he and Leia had finally reached a happy point, but despite their growing closeness, there was no denying that what Leia and Luke shared was much tighter, and had been from the start. The two were so similar in dedication, determination, and even in temperament, once you got to know them, that their interaction was rarely anything but harmonious. Maybe it was just his overactive imagination, but in the brief moments he'd seen them together since the action on Tatooine, they'd seemed to grow even closer, if that were possible. None of this was lost on Han.
Had he ever been a serious contender for her love, or just an exciting change of pace? Had events during their detour to Bespin been the result of nothing more than his being in the right place at the right time, a warm-up act while she'd waited for greater things like a young, handsome, brooding Jedi Knight, the new hope of the Rebellion? Or had he simply lost her during the six months of being trapped in carbonite while she'd had no one but Luke to turn to for comfort?
"No," Solo whispered to the invisible forest floor below. He could not accept the idea that he'd entered into this situation already knowing he'd never had a chance — it grated against his very nature.
Memories of their brief truce on Ord Mantell, and then their long weeks of joy on the way to Bespin were still fresh and vivid. Leia had stunned him by saying those three not-so-easy words more than once, without bidding, and then reaffirmed it when she'd freed him from the carbonite after half a standard year of searching for him. He'd nearly choked on emotion upon reviving in her arms, overwhelmed with her presence and her admission. He had not imagined that!
Solo bit his lower lip and turned away from the dark depths beneath the walkway, just as he attempted to tear his attention away from what seemed a bottomless pit of self-pity. Instead he watched with detachment as furry little figures passed by within the lodge entrance, still in celebration.
What would Chewie say?
Han snorted. Chewie would probably say: 'Give her time and she'll find her way back.' The Wookiee was good at spouting off that sort of nonsense; he'd had two hundred years to think up wise-sounding but unrealistic advice. Han would be lucky to live half so long, even if he quit his current lifestyle today. In any case, who had the time for that kind of pain?
Had this been any other situation, any other time and any other group of people, Han would have fired up the Millennium Falcon and left without a second look back. But he couldn't do that now. After all the reinforcements of friendship, everything that they had sacrificed for one another, he honestly didn't want to.
Han walked toward one of the bridges, splayed out like spidery fingers into the dark. He had no idea where he was heading but felt the need to move, to get away, even if it meant little more than to the next platform.
Tomorrow morning they would rejoin the remainder of his strike team, camped out a short hike away from the settlement, and then they would advance on the Imperial bunker that housed the energy shield generator protecting the off-world construction site of the new Death Star. Only then would Han learn if his renowned but lately fickle luck had abandoned him one last time. Or maybe Leia was right in her gloomy comment the day before that this was destiny come around again to finish what was started above Yavin IV three years ago.
The bridge creaked and swayed as Solo moved out above the dark abyss, and he focused on the texture of the wood beneath his smooth spacer's boots; the bark was worn away to leave an equally smooth surface and he had to step with care or risk losing his footing on the sloping walkway. Despite the cool air and his unpalatable thoughts, the glow cast by the countless torches felt convivial and warming. The scent of burning wood, not as pungent once he was outside and away from the hearth fires, mingled with the earthy odors of the forest. Nocturnal sounds — very different from those of the day — drifted up from the lush growth far below to mix with the homey murmurs of a village that did not impose itself on nature so much as exist within it. A village that Han suspected did not realize the deadly serious nature of its involvement in a galactic civil war. There was a very real possibility that their new alliance could lead to Imperial retaliation — Imperial forces that would swoop down to destroy their sleepy hamlet in the trees.
At that thought, Han halted midway on the up-swing of the bridge. So this is what Leia lives with every day. No wonder she slept little and often seemed to be wound tighter than her coils of braided hair; he wasn't enjoying this new aspect of duty any more than she probably did. Still, he'd been serious in his acceptance of his rank and commission because he was serious in his desire to crush the Empire. His motivation was a fusion of revenge, comradeship with his befriended fellow rebels, and an honest acceptance of the need for this monumental struggle. But most of all, he'd wanted to show Leia — and anyone who cared to notice or dared to disbelieve — that he'd finally dedicated himself to both her and her cause.
Only now, with her apparent defection from him and the very real possibility that his first major decision as a rebel general could result in a blood bath, did Han's stomach threaten to do an acrobatic flip. Life had been so simple before! No tough decisions, no responsibilities, no pain.
Human voices broke through Han's contemplation, sounds incongruous with the night. He glanced up and pinpointed the source ahead and to his left. Dark shapes stood close together in the middle of a stouter, shorter bridge adjacent to his, silhouettes easy to recognize.
Solo was ashamed and elated all at once by the spasm of jealousy he experienced; he was mortified by the momentary flare of hatred toward his friend and yet glad because catching them together meant that he wasn't going crazy — that his fears and self-pity were justified.
He made no move, unsure of whether to continue forward and confront the couple or to write them off and go back to the main lodge and carry on with his duty, his mission, and his life. The third option, to simply leave, no longer seemed to be a serious choice; he'd given his word to help and he'd finally found a place to belong within the Alliance, regardless of whether that life still included a princess or a Jedi Knight.
Something made him move up the incline to the circular deck that connected his catwalk to theirs. Luke and Leia disappeared momentarily as he reached the level floor where the huge tree trunk blocked his view. His steps slowed once more, but he forced his legs to keep moving until he emerged from around the dark bulk of the tree at the foot of the bridge. Then he came to an abrupt halt as he watched Skywalker take Leia by her hands and draw her close to kiss her forehead before turning away from them to stride away into the night, his black Jedi tunic an effective camouflage. Han's gaze locked on Leia as her head bowed and she turned to grasp the walkway railing. He was near enough now to see her face, despite the shadows, but her unbound hair fell to curtain her expression from sight. She was alone.
Solo waited a moment longer, then cursed his indecision and launched himself down the slope of the bridge, determined to learn the truth. As he drew close, he could hear that something was wrong but anger made him speak before he could temper his thoughts. "Hey, what's goin' on?"
Leia looked up with a start, betraying her surprise. "Nothing." She turned away quickly, but not before Han caught sight of the shiny flash of tears on her cheeks.
"'Nothing'!" he echoed, unable to help the sound of exasperation and accusation in his voice. He reached out to touch her arm and pull her around to face him, but the devastation he saw upon her face made his knees wobble and he reached behind with his other hand to find the catwalk railing and prop himself up against it. Her crying never bode well, and lately he'd seen more tears than the rest of the time he'd known her put together. "Come on. What's going on?"
Almost in defiance, Leia looked up at him then, meeting his gaze with an intensity that almost caused him to topple backwards off the guardrail. He'd believed that he'd seen the height of pain in her eyes back in Cloud City, but he was wrong. The fear and desperation he found now stunned him.
"Han, I..." For an instant her mouth moved but nothing came out, the consummate politician rendered speechless. Then she blurted out in defeat, "I can't tell you."
Shocked and suddenly furious at her for once again refusing to open up to him, Han jabbed a finger in the direction that Skywalker had disappeared. "But you could tell Luke! Is that who you could tell?" His angry voice echoed in the heavy night air but he didn't care. He hadn't expected this! Embarrassment, yes, but not exclusion. How the hell was he supposed to act if she wouldn't even talk with him? Why was she always so determined to keep him in the dark?
Leia spun away with a sob, leaving Han to stare in disbelief at her back. She'd cut him out of the picture that simply — her picture, whatever that had become. Solo abruptly rose to his feet, waved his hand in a violent gesture of dismissal, and uttered a final grunt of disgust; he'd finally had his fill of her endless games, of his entire involvement with her. She could take a flying leap over the railing for all he cared.
For the length of three long strides Han believed he meant it, until a wrenching sob from behind pulled him up short. Leia just wasn't the sort of woman who broke down in tears when things didn't go her way; with her it took horrendous things like battles and Death Stars and nightmares of Darth Vader to cause a meltdown, things only a fool would ignore.
How important is your pride? Is it worth this?
He turned around, jammed his thumbs under his belt as he swallowed back his frustration, and then returned to within reach at her side, an agonizing distance. She was worth one more try. "I'm sorry."
By this point Han didn't expect any sort of reaction anymore, so he was caught off guard when Leia spun around and all but flung herself into his startled embrace. "Hold me." Her voice was flat and the words sounded more like a question more than any sort of demand, as if she feared he no longer cared to touch her. Her grip grew so tight that he began to worry about his ribs cracking, but he wasn't about to stop her. Instead, he carefully wrapped his arms around her in return as she buried her face against his chest and wept.
Truth be told, he no longer had the slightest idea what was going — between Skywalker and Leia, or how he fit in. All he knew was that she was clinging to him like he was the last bit of reality she had left. Like she was afraid he might disappear next and then she would wink out of existence as well.
Long minutes passed as they stood like that before she shifted in his arms and switched the cheek she'd pressed against the smooth plane of his shirt. "I'm sorry, Han. I'm so sorry. I…"
"It's okay," Han whispered back, although he was beginning to suspect that nothing would ever be okay.
She still trembled but at least the tears had stopped. "I don't know what to tell you and Luke—"
Han's heart, which had begun to revive at her promising touch, chilled with a swiftness that made Bespin's carbon freezing process seem gentle. "What about Luke?"
Leia must have sensed his reaction because her grip tightened around him and she released a long sigh. "Please, don't ask me right now."
What the hell kind of secret was she talking about? He tried to reign in the anger he felt stirring once again. "Leia, you need to start telling me what's—"
"Luke's gone," Leia blurted out.
"What do you mean, 'Luke's gone'?" This time Han had no doubt that the bridge beneath his feet was unstable. When she didn't answer immediately, he released her and then gripped her upper arms, holding her away from him so he could see her entire face.
"I mean, he's gone. Vader —" She nearly choked on the name before rushing through the rest. "Vader's here on the moon right now and Luke's left to go face him. He thinks he can turn Vader somehow, but Vader's just going to take him to the Emperor. I tried to stop him, but Luke wouldn't listen…!"
The anguish and conviction in her voice coupled, with the news of Vader's already being here on the moon, made Han's flesh prickle. The leadership qualities he possessed — those same qualities both she and Rieekan had pointed out for years despite his denials — forced him to instantly evaluate this unanticipated development. Foremost in his mind was that they were about to lose the element of surprise, the one factor in their favor in this entire offensive.
"Who the hell does he think he is?" A sudden urge to strike out at something, anything, threatened to overwhelm him; he released Leia completely and stepped away, needing to clear his head. "He's left. I'm not even in command for one whole day and one of my own team — my own damned friend! — goes AWOL so he can walk into the enemy camp and hand himself. Aw, fuck!"
She remained silent, but her expression told him that she'd already worked through all the ramifications of this as well.
Han groaned and scrubbed his face with his hands, desperately wishing he could just start over. "Damned Jedi," he muttered in defeat. Between his knowledge of Old Republic history and his personal experience with that old crackpot Kenobi, Han had suspected that permitting Luke, a newly minted Jedi Knight, to join his strike team might introduce an unknown element of risk; he should have listened to his instincts and said no. "He's jeopardizing this entire offensive. There's no way the fleet can take out that Death Star if that shield is still up, and this whole game's over when Luke shows up and knocks on their door because that black-masked bastard will know something's up and—"
Slowly shaking her head, the princess looked on the verge of more tears. "Han, Vader already knows. He can…he can sense us."
Solo could do little more than stare as this latest twist sank in. Vader already knows. He was vaguely aware of the haggard sigh that escaped as he battled the terror her words inspired — a nasty remnant from their holiday of hell on Bespin. He feared few things, but the Dark Lord had earned the dubious privilege of being number one on the list.
Snapping his mouth shut, Han attempted to regain his composure, but his mind kept racing ahead at a sickening pace. Vader knew an Alliance strike team was already here and any advantage of surprise was lost. The Imperial bunker would be heavily guarded, all of their ground troops and fleet ships on the alert. His small but skilled team would fail, wiped out by sheer force. When the rebel fleet emerged from hyperspace, it would smash into the still-functioning energy screen protecting the Death Star. General Lando Calrissian, now piloting the Millennium Falcon and leading the naval assault, would be the first to hit. And Luke Skywalker would probably have a front row seat.
Han had always taken some pride in his can-do approach to any problem, but how, in all the hells of Kessel, was he supposed to remain optimistic now?
As his mind returned to the stark present, he grew aware again of the chilly night air and the small woman standing before him. Then he realized, with a touch of embarrassment, that she'd been watching him throughout his mental calculations. She was far too young to be wearing the look of desolation she displayed now as she stood with that perfect posture of hers, arms wrapped around her chest in a tight hug; it was obvious that she'd reached all the same conclusions. Her long hair, still kinked from recent braiding and appearing ginger-brown in the torchlight, fell over her shoulders like a cape. Her beauty made him ache to hold her again, to have a future with her, to hear her say that she still loved him, especially now.
Not knowing what else to say, Solo shook his head. "Think it's too late to resign?"
The corner of Leia's mouth turned up and the flicker of joyous recognition — a scoundrel in spite of everything! — brightened her eyes. "Do you really wish to?" she asked quietly.
"Nah, I guess not." He'd accepted this mission knowing full well there was no exit strategy — they either succeeded or they didn't — but for some reason that hadn't seemed to matter at the time. He'd been the most qualified and available for the job, and that was that. The eerie premonition he'd experienced earlier regarding his beloved Millennium Falcon had shaken him to his core, and now combined with this latest revelation, he realized that his chances of coming out alive were almost nil. Still, there was no point in voicing this fatalistic thought; neither of them needed to hear it. "It figures. I just bought the uniform and it's too damned ugly to sell back."
Leia produced a sound somewhere between a sob and outright laughter. "You have the uniform?" Her weak smile was half-teasing, half-incredulous. "Why aren't you wearing it?"
"Like I said, it's too damned ugly."
Leia's eyes rolled in exasperation, an habitual and well-loved reaction. Then she closed the distance between them and brought a hand up to touch the side of his face. Her gentle fingers tracing back along the line of his cheekbone before stopping, palm pressed against his cheek in a clear gesture of endearment. Her thumb brushed his full lips, a wispy touch as her eyes followed the progress of her hand, as though she were recommitting every detail to memory, and then her gaze shifted ever-so-slightly to meet his own.
Han found himself in an epic struggle to restrain himself. The heat of her touch, the simple nearness of her familiar body, and the intimate knowledge of who he was reflected in her eyes, began to cause his recently overworked heart to skip into double-time and suddenly he didn't want to care about her deep dark secret, or Luke, or the Empire's being less than a day's march away. But he had to resist — this was the other danger inherent in having friends and lovers along on hazardous missions. It was too late for that; they were in enemy-occupied territory in the middle of a mission already falling to pieces, and if any of them were going to survive, he needed to stay focused.
Instead, although it was quite possibly the hardest thing he'd ever had to do, Han reached up to take her hand from his face and brought it down to press her palm over his heart. "Promise me you won't do anything crazy tomorrow. No more heroics."
Leia looked like she couldn't decide whether to agree to his terms or tell him to go take a flying leap off the walkway.
"Well, at least stay close. That's an order."
Leia opened her mouth, still looking on the verge of arguing, but then she seemed to relent and settled for a simple, "Yes, sir."
That drew an unexpected smirk from Han. "Never thought I'd see the day when Her Worship took an order from me."
Leia's smile grew too sweet. "Don't get used to it."
Unable to help himself, Han laughed out loud; he broke away from her before he could succumb to the temptation to kiss her. "Insubordination will get you everywhere, Sweetheart."
"I'll keep that in mind."
"You do that. Just look where it got me."
"Yes." Leia's smile visibly faded, her eyes darkening once again with too much knowledge. "I'm sorry, Han. You deserve better than this."
"Hey," he said softly, resting his hands on her tiny shoulders. "I knew what I was getting into. Stop apologizing." He gave her a little shake, then tugged her around, steering her back the way he'd come. "Come on, I'll walk you back. They're giving us the Elders Lodge to stay in. It's not the Grand Empress, but it'll do."
As they headed back toward the lodge, Leia slowed enough to slip an arm around his waist. Han dropped his glaze to look at her, then wrapped his own arm around her shoulders and hugged her closer as they crossed the wooden bridge together.