As if it could matter to them anyway. What was she to them? She was just trash, something from the street good only to be stepped in and sworn at like something that had been left behind by a stray bantha. It was better for the galaxy that she die.
But the will to live, the desperate instinct to survive is in all of us. And she kept running. Around corners, through dance halls. Her clothes made others stop and stare, her condition caused some to pity her and her hygiene drew more attention than she ever wanted to draw but she kept going.
The crowds in the dance halls parted for her, more of a hindrance than a help, providing her pursuers with the perfect route to her whereabouts but she didn't care. She ran harder than she'd ever run before, knowing that if she allowed the cramp and the fatigue to win she was as good as dead.
It had been this way for as long as she could remember. A stick thin urchin eating what she found when she could, sleeping in doorways or under stalls and running for her life whenever the need was so. Except when he was around.
She couldn't remember her parents. The Empire had killed them when she was young. She hated the empire for it, but what could she do? She could have been beautiful, she sometimes mused when she caught her reflection in a window on sunny days, he had told her she was and she liked to think he had been right.
But then she realised what she was: Urchin, Orphan, and no use to anybody. And certainly she could never be beautiful.
"There!" shouted a voice from closer behind her than she'd anticipated, and she pushed through the people, tearing down side streets, long, dirty, greasy hair streaming out behind her.
"I see her!" said another.
Oh gods, she wasn't going to get away.
"Run all you want, vrelt, you won't get away!" said the first.
Tears welled up in her eyes. Fear knotted her stomach and closed her throat.
There had to be somewhere to run. There was always somewhere to run, especially here. Here everybody ran for some reason be it from Stormtroopers or Traders or Loansharks or Landlords, there was always somewhere to run. There just had to be.
"Come on, love!" shouted another voice off to her left. "All we want's a bit of fun!"
She didn't grace that with an answer knowing exactly what it was they wanted. She caught her clothes (or what remained of them after all the years) on something sharp and it tore at her shoulder, soaking the material there with hot red blood. It stung badly but slowing down was not an option.
She ran out across a wider area, risking being seen more clearly for the sake of perhaps finding a better escape route. A landspeeder narrowly missed her and she was almost trampled by a Bantha, but she was across. Gods, she wished she had a place to run to. She wished she had him to run to.
"Hello, darlin', " said a voice suddenly and a hand closed around her arm, fingers like steel, biting into her skin.
She pulled, struggled, kicked, punched, bit, scratched, slapped, but none of it made any difference. He did not let go. She was done for.
"I got her!" the man shouted as his other three companions slowed next to him.
"Right. Pretty little thing, ain't she? What should we do with you then, sweetheart."
Maybe she could block them out. Maybe if she closed her eyes and thought of someone, of him, it would be painless and the Galaxy would be a cleaner place.
"Not 'ere, though. Someone'll see. And we wouldn't want that, would we? No, love. Want a bit of privacy, see?"
She struggled still but, despite her writhing, she was slowly dragged toward the closest back alley. By her hair.
"NO!" she screamed but a hard hand slapped her across the face and she fell to the ground.
"Right. Who's first?"
"I'll do it," said one, "you hold her down."
He smiled at her showing rotten teeth.
"Now 'old still, love an' this won't hurt a bit."
He began to unbuckle his belt as the three men held her down. He walked towards her and knelt down in front of her, that maniacal grin across his face.
And that was when it happened. A black leather boot shot out of the darkness and caught him right in the face. The man twisted and smacked into the wall to his side, then fell back into the dust and lay completely still, blood streaming from his nose, now broken. The first of his companions launched himself at the shadows only to connect with a hard fist. He staggered from the blow but did not fall.
The man, her saviour, threw another punch and took one himself but hardly seemed to notice as blood from a torn lip splashed down onto his white shirt and black waistcoat.
One more punch levelled the man.
She flinched as the second ran full tilt toward her saviour while he had his back turned and leapt up onto his back. Her saviour grunted as the man's arm wrapped around his throat but he drove one elbow back into the man's stomach. The man crumpled instantly and fell to the ground unmoving.
The final man let go of her and drew a long narrow vibroblade, preparing to throw it, but, with a movement that was almost too fast to see, one of her savior's hands blurred to the hoster strapped to his black-and-gold-bloodstripe-clad thigh and fired. The last man crumpled.
She looked up and her eyes widened.
"Solo?"
He stepped forward, pleased she remembered.
"I always promised I'd get you outta here, didn't I? Ever since I ran away from Shrike."
"You just saved me! They'd have…They'd have…"
"Raped you? Killed you? I know. That's why I'm here. You can always count on me, Nezmine, you know that, don't you."
"I...I don't know how to thank you…"
Han shook his head, his face serious once more as he re-holstered his blaster and drew a hand across his lip.
"Don't thank me. I was almost too late. Come on. I finally have enough money to get you outta here, Nezmine."
He held out a hand.
"I got this all figured out. I know some guys on the Liberator, that base in the Gulio system. They'll fix you up and then I've left them enough to get you clothed and fed and I even found you a job. You just gotta get on board the land shuttle at the east port in two hours. Then you catch the off-worlder to Gulionasta. I got a swoop, I can take you there myself. An I found some clothes you can wear until you get there."
Two hours later, clothed in something that was a little too big for her, but warm nonetheless, Nezmine watched the spaceport grow distant long after the little figure of Solo had disappeared and, as she settled into her seat and dried tears of gratitude and of sorrow, she remembered what he said to her with that lopsided grin of his as he hugged her goodbye.
'You'll see me again, Nezmine. I promise.'