Han and Leia sat across from one another in the medical ward, both staring off into space with nothing better to do. Chewie's deafening snores drifted in from the cockpit, where he'd fallen asleep sprawled across both the pilot's and copilot's chairs. Poe sat in the booth by the Dejarik board with his chin on his fist, tracing the black and white sections with his fingertip and a bored expression.
Finally, Han surfaced from his thoughts, speaking them out loud. "I don't like this." He uncrossed his legs, placing both feet on the floor. "We're too vulnerable here. We're like sitting ducks without an engine."
"You got a better idea, flyboy?" Leia snapped. "Luke won't make ten minutes out in that sun!"
"I didn't mean it that way!" Han protested, throwing his hands up defensively. "I just... don't like this, okay? I'm allowed to express my thoughts on the situation, aren't I?"
Leia turned away, remaining grudgingly silent.
Over in the cockpit Chewie gave a particularly loud snore, and a series of quiet taps came from Poe rapping his fingers against the Dejarik board methodically.
Leia dropped her head, muttering to herself. "I just wonder how we got ourselves into this mess." She made a broad gesture, blaster in hand, and brushed wisps of hair away from her face with the back of her wrist. "Running around doing errands for some long-dead Jedi ghosts... I don't even know why they dragged us along, anyway." Shoving her hands into her lap, she glared at the floor. "This is Jedi business— we shouldn't even be here! Just look at Luke!" She stood, jabbing a finger at the medical bed beside them, at her friend's pale face. She grit her teeth. "This wasn't supposed to happen to him."
Leia inhaled slowly. "The rebels on Hoth need us. They need me. It's such a precarious time in the Rebellion right now, they need leadership. How could we have left them?" With a weary sigh, she dropped into her seat again, dropping her hands to stare at them in her lap.
Han massaged his shoulder uncomfortably, unsure of how to answer. All he'd really been worried about was that enormous bounty Jabba the Hutt had placed over his head. He hadn't once thought of the fate of the Rebellion, or the freedom of the galaxy, or anything, really.
It figured, he thought ruefully, that while Leia was concerned about her duty to lead in the emancipation of the galaxy, he'd been more concerned with saving his own neck.
He recalled the conversation with Rey on the Falcon's gangplank only hours ago.
"You're saying I'm a hero? Pfft, not a chance. I just got dragged along into the thing, that's all."
"If you don't care about the Rebellion, then why did you stay?"
"Why have I stayed this long?" he muttered to himself. If he didn't pay off that debt, Jabba would be sending out bounty hunters to bring him back, and it sure as shooting wasn't going to be all in one piece, either. So why hadn't he left? He had more than enough money to compensate the crime lord. He had had multiple opportunities to leave. And he just… hadn't. He'd been planning for weeks, rehearsing exactly what he was going to say to explain it all to Leia. Yet he still hadn't done a thing.
He glanced up at her— at her cheeks flushed with hot anger, her lips tense in a line of agitation. Then he turned to look at Luke, whose own pallid face in contrast was drained of all color completely. He'd met plenty of acquaintances on his intergalactic adventures with Chewie. Yet they'd all been just that— mere acquaintances. Partners one day, headed in opposite directions the next. It had been so easy.
What was about these two that was so different? What made it so difficult for him to simply turn around and walk off without a backwards glance?
His thoughts were interrupted by an earsplitting shriek that shattered the silence around them into a million jagged shards.
Han and Leia leapt to their feet, a significant clatter from the cockpit area indicating that Chewie had done so as well in a more dramatized fashion. Poe's head jerked upright from where he had been lying on the Dejarik board, blinking in bewilderment.
"What was that?" Leia barked, gripping her blaster.
Chewie barely had time to roar something of similar pertinence, before they all were thrown to the ground as the Falcon was rocked with a violent blow. Warning lights flashed and alarms blared as the ship took another, more powerful hit, tossing its occupants into the air like ragdolls.
"There's something out there attacking the ship!" Han exclaimed.
"No, duh!" Leia snapped at him.
The Falcon's stern lifted into the air, sending Leia, Han, and Poe tumbling into the cockpit on top of Chewie. Luke's limp body slipped from the medical bed, sliding down the vertical surface of the floor to land with a painful thump against the jumbled bodies in the cockpit.
His eyes snapped open. "Owww…"
The others turned to him in shock, momentarily distracted from their tangled predicament. "Luke!" Leia struggled to peer over Chewie's furry forearm. "You're awake!"
"And regretting it with every passing second," Luke moaned.
As though in answer, the levitated end of the ship was dropped, sending the hapless passengers on the other end into the ceiling. There was a horrific screech of metal, and the five picked themselves up gingerly— only to turn and find a pair of enormous, slavering jaws working away furiously at the cockpit window.
"AAAAARRRAAAG!" Chewbacca jumped back with a yelp.
"You said it, Chewie!" Han stumbled backwards, catching himself on the Wookie's arm. "What is that thing?!"
The creature pulled back, so that the sunlight glinted off of a horned serpentine head atop a slender, flexible neck. "A… a krayt dragon?" Luke winced as Leia helped him unsteadily to his feet. "W… we're on Tatooine?"
"You've got a lot to catch up on, kid," Han shot him a glance with a wry curl of his lip.
The dragon dove in for another attack, and they were once again thrown into a jumbled pile. Leia shoved Poe's foot out of her face as she struggled to sit up again. "I don't know about all you space jockeys, but I'm not waiting for that thing to rip the ship to pieces around us!"
Han disentangled himself from Chewie's limbs. "If I can get it in range, I bet I can blast it with the Falcon's superior gun bay!" Struggling to his feet, he added in a mutter, "That is, unless that crazy Jedi kid didn't damage it beyond repair as well…"
"Rhooargg!" Chewie barked.
Han fumbled with the controls at the gun bay. "Chewie's right, the quad cannon won't be able to reach the dragon at the angle it's standing right now. We'll have to lure it somewhere we have clear range!"
"Leave that to me." Leia sprinted out of the ship. Luke, catching on to her intentions, stumbled after her.
"Wait, Leia!"
She spun on him fiercely. "Go back, Luke! You're still recovering from the poison, you're in no condition to be out here!"
Luke swayed a bit on his feet, gritting his teeth. "Come on Leia, we haven't got time to argue about this, and you know it. I'm not letting you go out there alone."
Leia bristled— yet she knew Luke was right. They didn't have time for this. The Falcon gave another lurch with a snarl from the krayt dragon, and Leia slipped out of the ship without another word. Luke followed.
The two climbed up the side of the ship, pulling themselves up so that they were standing on top of the Falcon's hull. "I'll take this end, you take the other," Luke told Leia, and the rebel princess simply nodded curtly.
Stumbling a bit as she ran across to the opposite side of the bucking hull, she stopped, planting her feet firmly against the scarred metal. Raising her blaster, she aimed carefully for just below the dragon's eye. Catching sight of her, the creature glanced up— and she squeezed the trigger.
A sharp report echoed throughout the desert, followed by a wail of surprise and pain. The krayt dragon pawed at its eye furiously, before scrambling up the ship's hull after her with a gutteral snarl.
"Now would be a good time to send it your end, Luke!" Leia ducked as enormous claws raked the air above her head.
"I'm trying!" Luke struggled to steady his wobbling hand; squeezing his blaster handle harder only made the tremors worse. "It's hard to know where to aim when there's two of everything!"
"Shoot for the middle one!" The dragon pounced and Leia tumbled out of the way, strings of saliva from the creature's slavering mouth slinging past her ear.
Luke focused his scopes the best he could, whispered a prayer, and fired a couple wild shots in the dragon's general direction. They missed the creature by quite a bit, but it still managed to do the trick. The krayt dragon turned in surprise, stopping in its tracks. It hesitated for a moment, unsure of which of the irritating little humans to go after first.
Meanwhile down inside the Falcon's gun bay, Han gripped the controls with white knuckles. "Could've waited until I was ready to fire first…" he muttered. "Chewie! Prime the auxiliary lock systems!"
"Rooooaaaaggghh!"
"What do you mean, 'it's damaged'?!"
Chewbacca displayed a mass of blackened and smoking wires with a mournful howl.
"Not those Porgs again!" Han leapt out of the gunbay, swearing loudly. "What are you waiting for, repair them already!"
"Nooorroogh!"
"Let me see that," Han shoved his copilot out of the way, taking hold of the damaged cables. "You watch the kids! Make sure they don't get themselves killed!" Chewie nodded, stepping over to peer out the gunbay window at the proceedings above anxiously.
"Stupid dragon, over here!" Luke taunted, waving his free arm wildly. His legs trembled violently, and he felt like he was about to be sick, the world spinning around him in a nauseous blur of colors. But it was too late to back down now: Leia needed him. He fired again, this time hitting the beast in the shoulder. The dragon spun with a furious scream, slicing gouges into the metal hull with its deadly claws as it turned for Luke.
Han winced at the frightful shriek of metal above. "What's going on up there? Chewie! How are they doing?" He yelped and cursed again as a spark from the smoking wires shot him in the finger.
"Arararaghhh…"
Han stuffed his burnt finger in his mouth. "But they're still alive, right? Right?"
Above them, Luke ignited his lightsaber, reveling in the sudden warmth and strength it sent surging through his body. For a moment, he focused intently on the humming blue blade in front of him, and his dizziness lessened. "That's right…" He waved the saber slowly from side to side as the dragon crouched, watching him intently. "Over here…"
"Luke, you hardly even know how to use that thing!" Leia snapped, breaking him out of his reverie. "Use your blaster instead!"
"I know what I'm doing!" he yelled back, annoyed.
"No, you don't!"
"Yes, I do!"
"No, you— oh, why hasn't Han fired already?!" Leia burst out.
Han yanked his finger out of his mouth, yelling up at her through the ceiling. "Working on it, sweetheart!"
