1.
General Carlist "Bad Luck" Rieekan was known for getting caught in the eye of passing storms. As a young infantry captain in the conflicts leading up to the Clone Wars, he had once been called away from a heated ground battle for a briefing in a non-descript building inside a secure military base, which was promptly felled by a shockwave from a weapons test gone wrong. After he'd clawed his way out of the rubble of debris and bodies, he learned that his troops back on the field had secured their objectives with no casualties. Years later, when he relinquished his official post as Head of Royal Security on Alderaan and formally enlisted in the Rebellion, he set off on a four-day journey to Dantooine, where he arrived two hours before the order to dismantle and evacuate the base. He was then tasked with establishing the new outpost on Yavin, an assignment he executed to perfection, cutting the proverbial ribbon one day before the Death Star discovered them.
Leia and Luke argued that the nickname had it backwards. Where did bad luck end and good luck begin? Yes, the General had been stabbed, shot, and betrayed, but didn't that mean he survived against all odds? The superstitious Rogue squadron shook their heads. They feared him. General Rieekan was a brilliant strategist, with an aptitude for expecting the worst that had saved their lives on numerous occasions, but they didn't think he should have been allowed to choose the Alliance's next base. A dark cloud seemed to hang over him. Privately, Leia admired him greatly, but he had always kept a polite distance between them, even during the years he'd served her family. He abhorred pleasantries, and preferred the company of those who wore their bad qualities on their sleeves. When Han Solo had nonchalantly explained to High Command that he began running spice for Jabba the Hutt because he'd needed a large infusion of cash, fast, and that he hadn't given much thought to the future, Rieekan had nearly swooned.
In fact, Leia had bumped into the lanky Corellian smuggler on more than one occasion as he strolled out of the forbidding general's office, reeking of cigar smoke.
"What do you two even talk about?" She once asked, disguising her envy as idle chatter.
"We don't really talk," Han had shrugged.
She'd nearly screamed.
When Rieekan's name came up in conversation a few months later, during Luke and Leia's now-weekly card game with the Millennium Falcon's captain, she tried again.
"You know," she began, "he might be able to do a lot for you when the war is over. He's very well-regarded all over Coruscant and – "
Han took it poorly.
"Oh, not this again. Drop it. I didn't ask you here for career advice." They were seated around the Falcon's circular holochess table, playing one of the Tatooinian card games of Luke's choosing – a complicated endeavor that required two full decks and forbade bluffing. Han was losing. Chewie had stormed away with a roar after the first hand.
"I'm just saying – "
"I know what you're saying. I don't need your help, or his. If you win the war, maybe I'll find a way to go straight. If not, I won't."
"Yes, but how will you – "
"Will you stop?" Han fumed. "Just drop it. Stop trying to reform me. They tried that already, it didn't work."
"Who did?"
"Nobody."
"She didn't mean it like that, Han. Calm down. " Luke soothed. "Leia, it's your turn."
"Fine, I'll stop trying to help. I like to help the people I care about, so I'll just stop caring. Happy?" Leia laid out the Grand Sand Slam she'd carefully assembled. Luke groaned.
Han opened his mouth indignantly, then closed it, abruptly swallowing his retort. He let her words hang in the air, choosing instead to scowl at his cards for a long moment, shuffling and re-shuffling them as though determined to break an enemy code.
"If you have three faces, you can beat her, unless they're all of the same color," Luke reminded him helpfully.
"Ha!" Han slapped his cards down over Leia's, revealing a Super Sandstorm. This small victory seemed to dispel his irritation. As the game went on, he resumed his new habit of resting his gaze on Leia when he thought she wouldn't notice. Watching her intermittently like she was a holoscreen over the dinner table, a distraction that was rude to stare at in polite company but too absorbing to ignore.
Han had been her pilot on a string of missions over the past year, and they tended to alternate between moments in which Leia felt they understood each other profoundly, and moments in which he reminded her that he was a self-serving criminal with no real conviction in their revolution or the liberation of the galaxy. He could also set her off like no other, and sometimes even seemed to relish it. Meanwhile, she had caught herself seeking him out on more than one occasion, when the walls were closing in and she needed to scream at somebody, only realizing that she had gone out of her way to pick a fight once a door slammed or a voice cracked. She wasn't proud of it. But his behavior of late didn't fit into their established pattern, and Leia found it unsettling.
He's just bored, she told herself. He'd been grounded for too long and must be missing his sordid space station trysts. Ever since her election to the Senate and the beginning of her life as a double agent, Leia had taken to scolding herself for the shamefully small-minded thrill she occasionally felt around certain males. Especially such an abjectly unsuitable male, and even more so now that she was a soldier. Whenever she noted these flutters, she filed them away as testaments to her youth – and post-Death Star, her resilience – and resolved to ignore them. She labeled them "For Later". Hormones: functioning normally against expectations. Predictable female reaction to a fine, square jaw. Save for later. Later, when the war was over, she would find a suitable outlet. Like Luke, who had manners. Luke was easy to talk to, never surly, and although he still got moony around her when he'd been drinking with the Rogues, he did not stare. Sometimes, during these off-duty evenings together or during briefings or in the canteen, in full view of everyone else, Leia would look up and catch Han's hazel eyes on her. And sometimes, instead of immediately looking away, he would hold her gaze for a moment longer, until she dropped it first. Whether this was some pre-historic Corellian mating ritual or a meaningless game of his own conceit, it never failed to send a burst of heat coursing through her blood, which infuriated her all over again.
"Are you two even playing?" Luke asked, as he collected all the cards in the pile. He was winning by an absurd margin now, and Han and Leia had no hopes of catching up.
"I thought I was," Han grumbled. Leia cleared her throat. "I'm trying, it's just a little confusing."
"Should we play something else? We don't have to stick with this if you don't like it." Luke spoke mildly, idly running a hand through his blond hair, as though it didn't pain him that his favorite childhood game was so unpopular off-planet.
"No, I want to keep playing, but can you explain –"
"The game is fine, Kid, it's just –"
"The wildcards," they both said at once. Han gave her a soft, slanted smile, like they were sharing a private joke. Leia fixed her eyes on Luke. "Can you go over the rules one more time? I'm lost."
Luke obliged, and they played seven more hands.
"Are you gonna miss me?" Han asked her two days later, when she handed him his transmission codes. They were standing in the doorway to the makeshift Command Center: a container crate, hidden under a grey tarp, to blend in with the rocky landscape of the dwarf planet that served as a rendez-vous point. The morning's fine mist was seeping under her collar and pearling on Han's black vest. Leia glanced up at his warm grin and almost smiled back, catching herself just in time. "I wish you a very pleasant trip," she said instead.
"Want me to bring you anything back? Some snow? An ice pop? What's your favorite flavor?"
He was headed to a frozen planet called Hoth, where the Alliance was finally establishing an official base again. They had been on the run since the evacuation of Yavin over a year ago, operating as a disjointed fleet, floating from rock to rock. Hoth was remote, uninhabited, and located on the cold side of the Outer Rim, all factors which the Rebels hoped would keep them safe from the Empire's prying eyes. The Alliance had requisitioned the Millennium Falcon to transport materials there for the construction efforts, and Han would be gone for nearly four weeks on this initial run. Leia knew this, because she was the one who had sourced the durasteel beams and pylons on far-flung trading stations and scheduled his pick-ups and final drop-off.
"Shuura fruit," she responded tartly. "Good luck."
She shook off the bizarre urge to hug him goodbye and turned back into the Command Center for the morning's briefing session, without a backwards glance.
It would be a relief not to have him hanging around for a few weeks, Leia decided as she arranged her notes on the long slab table. A break from the arguments, the lingering looks, his constant, heavy presence in the corner of her eye. Lately, she'd also begun to notice that both High Command and the lower-ranking officers seemed to turn to her whenever Han's name came up. His missions, his security clearances, his transmissions – they all seemed to end up on her desk for approval, and not just because they thought he was her friend; everybody knew Luke was her friend too, but it was different with Han. More like he was a stray she'd brought home on a whim, so she should be the one to walk him. And Han fueled it, by obstinately seeking her out to take his reports whenever he returned to base, even if it meant walking past five officers stationed in the hangar for that very purpose. But now she had four weeks to put his swaggering figure out of her head, to loosen any imagined connection in the minds of the other Rebels, and to break the feedback loop of wondering if she was imagining those hazel eyes on her, looking up, and being disappointed if they weren't.
Her thoughts were interrupted when the generals filed in, followed by Mon Mothma. The ethereal Alliance leader took her seat at the head of the table and called the session to order. One by one, the members of High Command stood to give their reports. They tallied numbers and drew diagrams on the scarred prismaboard. Updates from each sector. Updates on health codes. Updates on enlistment. When her turn came, Leia presented her latest counterintelligence into the Empire's attempts to infiltrate their recruitment network, then sat back down.
"Update on Hoth," the Alliance's spindly quartermaster, seated to her left, began next. "Captain Solo departs in one hour for the first delivery of construction parts to our new base. The officers stationed in Hoth's orbit are expecting him in approximately three standard weeks. They have received all instructions, and will report to me when construction begins. We can anticipate placing a second supply order of about the same volume within two months. They are still doing fine with the rations they brought with them."
"Does this say we already paid Solo's fuel for the return trip, Quartermaster Dara?" Mothma asked evenly, raising her clear gaze from the budgets.
"Uh, let me check…" Dara stammered, flipping through his notes. "Yes. Yes, he requested advance payment for fuel and provisions for the full four-week round trip, and we issued it."
"I see," Mothma sighed. "Well, let's hope he returns then. I thought I made it clear that advance payments to our un-enlisted suppliers are to cease. Payment upon completion. Captain Solo has made us no guarantees, and entrusting this vital mission to him was already a risky use of Alliance funds to begin with." She addressed a sidelong glance to Leia as she spoke, arching a thin brow.
Dara nodded meekly and slunk back down into his seat.
Mon Mothma's favor was the shining light all Alliance officers prayed to. The Rebel mastermind never raised her voice or overtly reprimanded her loyal troops, instead commanding their ardor with her relentless drive and unwavering confidence in the Revolution. But Leia knew her well enough to read her displeasure, and since she had been the one to assign Han to the Quartermaster's request for a pilot, she spoke up.
"I approved the assignment because his is the only ship at our disposal with the necessary storage capacity," she explained. "One non-descript freighter also attracts less attention from Imperial scanners than an ad-hoc convoy of smaller ships." It was true, and she hadn't thought twice about dispatching Han for this journey. As far as she was concerned, his years a smuggler were an asset for multi-planet missions like this one, and she had more trust in his ability to operate discreetly than in any of their conventional pilots – even if they had taken the Rebel pledge and Han hadn't.
Across the table, General Dodonna grunted in disapproval. "But if he does get caught, he'll sell us all out at our most crucial hour," the grizzled commander declared, folding his arms over his wrinkled uniform. "Was this really the only choice, Princess?"
Leia was taken aback by his tone of address. There it was again, she realized with dismay, this impression among her peers that she was biased towards the mercenary spacer somehow, now openly implied by one of their most respected generals. As though she was forcing them to bring him into the fold – when, if anything, Han had brought her to them! He'd ferried Luke and Leia to the Rebellion aboard the Millennium Falcon after saving her life. Didn't that count for anything? As for his loyalties, despite his repeated claims that he would be leaving imminently, he was somehow still hanging around and accepting assignments from each of the leaders seated at the briefing table. All of which, despite his stubborn refusal to formally enlist, he had executed faithfully. Everybody in this room could attest to that.
She pushed down the mix of indignation and defiance building up in her throat; if Dodonna was implying something about her connection to the maddeningly uncommitted smuggler, she knew it would do her no favors to sound defensive, with all of High Command and a handful of lower officers watching.
"General – " Leia began, turning to face Dodonna.
But the nascent argument was cut short.
"Captain Solo has proven himself to be an asset to the Rebellion," General Rieekan interrupted mildly, from his place at the far end of the table. Leia's rebuttal died on her lips. Every head turned towards Rieekan, surprised by this unprecedented level of endorsement from the taciturn general. "I have full confidence in his loyalty to our Alliance, whether or not he chooses to enlist," he continued. "The pledge is a formality, and a man is best judged by his actions, not his words."
An awkward silence fell over the room.
"I hope you're right, Carlist," General Dodonna finally grimaced. "Moving on. Update on weapons."