"Hello, Princess."
Leia tried to make sense of what had happened. She was somehow on her feet, her arms bound behind her, the barrel of a blaster pressed under her chin. Trying to determine what range of motion she still had, she angled her head a fraction only to see Han being similarly held beside her, just out of arms' reach. Zivek was behind him, wrenching Han's arms even more tightly than her own.
The figure behind her spoke again. "We appreciate you making the trip all the way up here, Princess. It certainly saved us time coming to find you."
Erran. Was Jena with her too? And where was the Alliance team? Leia looked around wildly in the dark.
"Don't worry," the voice said smoothly. "Your other Alliance personnel are unharmed, for now. You're the only one we require."
"For what?" She kept her voice steady.
"For a little trip." Erran's voice was casual. "We have been in contact with some people who would very much like to spend some time with you."
"What could they possibly want with me?" Her training came back to her all too easily. Prolong this conversation as long as possible.
"Oh, I think you know." Erran's voice turned silky, and the blaster nudged Leia's chin up higher. "Our — friends — were most interested when we told them about your visit to our planet. They were excited when this visit finally came together." She paused. "They'll be grateful that we can finally deliver you to them."
"You're used your own delegation as bait? What a cowardly tactic." Careful, don't rile her up too much.
"Unsuspecting bait, perhaps," Erran said, ignoring the jibe. "They were painfully eager to help you out. It was a little embarrassing, to be honest."
"And now you're just going to desert them here? Strand them on an Alliance vessel? Surely that's not how you were taught to treat your fellow soldiers." Focus on something, anything, other than their main objective.
"You know so little about us, Princess. It was the arrogance of your assumption that we couldn't possibly have a role in larger galactic forces, that everyone on our planet was content to remain ignorant and uninvolved, that was your undoing."
"So you have delusions of grandeur, is that it?" Han spoke up, his voice bitter. "After everything the Alliance has done for you?"
The barrel of the blaster bit painfully into Leia's chin. "Are you sure you want to keep talking, Captain?"
Keep bluffing. "I've never assumed anything about you. You're the one with the mistaken assumptions. You won't even make it off this ship. I've contacted the fleet and they're already on their way."
"Well then, we had better hurry, hadn't we?" The ties up and down Leia's arms tightened again, wrenching out a groan against her will. Erran pushed her roughly toward the open hatch. "Move."
Leia endeavored to root herself to the deck, to make her limbs as heavy as possible, but her legs betrayed her and against her will she took a step. The absurdity of the situation hit her with a staggering force: being taken into Imperial custody like this, away from the fleet, with so little expectation or even awareness of the plot right in front of her. How foolish she had been to pretend that this wasn't a possibility every moment of her life. Her traitorous legs took another step and she managed to focus briefly on Han as she passed, only to see in the dimness his eyes darting furiously side to side, his body poised for something, anything, and in the split second left she tried to convey a message, don't do anything stupid, hotshot, until she couldn't see him at all, could only see the yawning, dark expanse of the corridor and the bleak remainder of her own existence.
And then several things happened at once.
The lights came back on, their sudden blinding brightness nearly knocking her off her feet. The hatch doors closed automatically, their electrical currents reigniting in front of her despite the proximity of her foot. And when they opened again, triggered perhaps by her presence or more likely a latent effect from the outage, a rushing behemoth of brown fur, accompanied by an ear-splitting roar, lunged through them.
Despite finding herself directly in the path of the furious Wookie, Leia had the presence of mind to duck down as much as her constricted position allowed. Judging from the heavy thump she heard behind her, Erran was not as fortunate. Hobbling to the side, Leia turned to see Zivek succumb to a similar tumble onto the deck, this time with Han using his shoulder to assist the near-lethal Wookie fists. Her eyes now adjusted to the light, Leia looked around frantically and was relieved to see Avery and the others bound and gagged in the corner but seemingly unharmed. Having freed Han, Chewie was already loping over to them and Leia started to follow when she was lifted off her feet in a hug for the second time in as many hours.
"I love you. Are you okay?" Han's voice was low and warm in her ear, his breath on her cheek exhaling heat on the blow she had sustained minutes earlier. His arms clutched her tightly and then as if remembering her bindings, he ducked behind her to loosen them. Once they were off, he turned her to face him, her limbs pliant for once, his hands sliding up and down her arms as he massaged them lightly.
She felt dazed, the neurons in her brain firing haphazardly. "Yes, I'm —." She swallowed. "I'm okay. You —?"
He nodded and gave a sheepish half-shrug at her unspoken question. Her mouth was open, and for once she wasn't sure what to say, when she found herself swept up in another hug, this time by Chewbacca.
"Thank you, Chewie," she whispered when he put her down. Thatat least was something she could summon forth.
The Wookie roared happily, kicking off a narrative stream in which he explained that the cry for help they had heard in the corridor had been Jena acting as a decoy in case Leia had decided not to go in the conference room. After leading him on something of a blind chase, Jena had eventually been disarmed and subdued, allowing Chewie to rejoin the others.
As a final triumphant growl echoed throughout the room, the Alliance team, which Leia now realized included the other Caldirans, came up to embrace Chewie in fervent displays of gratitude. Erran and Zivek, still unconscious on the deck, were unfit to witness the celebration.
"That's right, pal." Han's voice was determinedly casual as he clapped a furry shoulder. "Nobody ever expects a Wookie."
With the arrival of Alliance personnel — security officers in addition to engineers, Leia's lack of follow-up communication having generated concern back on Echo Base — the Prevail was busier than it had been in months. Its beleaguered captain followed her and Han to the rudimentary medcenter apologizing over and over, clearly embarrassed by the multiple points of failure under his command. Leia did her best to reassure him that no serious harm was done until Han finally took him aside and dispatched him on a contrived errand to get him out of their hair.
After they had found the stores of bacta gel and confirmed that neither had any significant injuries, Han headed back to the Falcon while Leia went to her quarters for a check-in with Rieekan. While she waited for the connection to establish, she studied her face in the mirror; already the swelling was starting to reduce and the blue-black bruise on her temple looked duller than it had initially.
"Princess," Rieekan greeted her through her datapad. Despite his smile he looked more tired than usual, his face pallid and drawn. "It's good to see you."
"You too, General. I assume you heard about the incident?"
Rieekan nodded. "Our security forces updated me on the basic events. I trust the assailants are in custody under their watch?"
"Yes." Leia filled him in on some of the details. "They used their own decryption algorithms to hack into the ship's power grid and disable the lights and comm network. Fortunately the Prevail's crew was able to bring them back online just in time."
Rieekan rubbed his head wearily. "Does this mean that all the intelligence help we got from them is useless?"
Leia shook her head. "It doesn't seem that way. Avery told me that you can't fake this level of technical detail. Their team genuinely did teach us several important techniques." She smiled wryly. "Apparently it was just going to come at a significant price."
"Yes," Rieekan sighed. "What about that Kyrol general you met with on Caldira? Do you think he was in on the plot?"
She had already asked herself that. "I'm not sure. We witnessed him speaking with the two Imperial agents, although that doesn't necessarily prove anything. Either way, I expect he'll be sidelined politically from now on." She paused. "The real question is what happens with the peace treaty between the Kyrols and Veroni."
"Let's leave that to our planetary relations division," Rieekan said firmly. "I think we can consider your part in this wrapped up now that we've obtained the cryptographic assistance we needed."
She nodded. "We'll certainly keep in contact with their intelligence team. They've proven fair-minded and sincerely interested in helping us." Except for their leader, went unspoken.
"And yet none of it would have been worth it if you had been —." Rieekan stopped and averted his eyes.
She refused to dwell on the trade-offs presented in this scenario. "I'm fine, Carlist."
He turned back to her on the screen. "I'm glad to hear that. I admit I'm relieved that Captain Solo and Chewbacca were with you." His gaze sharpened and not for the first time Leia wondered how much he suspected. "We'll be sure to recognize them formally when you return to the base."
"It was mostly Chewie," Leia reminded him. "And Han wouldn't want that kind of recognition anyway."
Rieekan's level expression returned. "If you say so, Princess. You know best."
Leia felt a blush start to creep up her face. "I'll let you get back to work, Carlist. See you tomorrow."
"Safe travels, Leia."
Leia packed up her remaining items in her quarters and carried her bag down to the hangar. There was a hum of activity even at this late hour with many of the Alliance personnel running security checks on the Prevail's systems. Those unoccupied with that effort were huddled around Chewie, nodding along with his reenactment of the daring rescue, allowing Leia to make her way through the space without attracting attention.
In the hold, she put her bag down and looked around for Han. He had wanted to leave that night, mostly, she felt, to put the entire incident behind them, while she had insisted on staying until the morning in order to properly see off the Caldiran delegation. They had compromised by agreeing to sleep on the Falcon.
"Hey." He came out of the cockpit and picked up her bag, starting for his cabin. She followed him silently, his words from earlier echoing with every step.
"Is Chewie out there taking another victory lap?"
"It would appear so," she replied. "But he deserves it. After all, he saved our skins."
Han grunted and sat heavily on the bunk. "Not just our skins. I was about to start body-slamming those two when the lights came back on."
The bruise under his eye had a greenish tint in the low light. "I know."
He leaned forward on his elbows and studied her carefully. "You okay?"
"Yes, of course." She cleared her throat. "I mean, it was a pretty poorly conceived plan when you stop to think about it. They clearly weren't expecting you and Chewie to be with me. If the lights had stayed off, I could have used the advantage of darkness to delay getting to their ship." All the possibilities she had packed tightly away flooded out of her. "Besides, the personnel from Echo Base were on their way and would have questioned why a ship was leaving, even if we could leave right away what with restarting the power and the docking doors, and …" She paused to draw in a lungful of air. "So I wouldn't have been in any real danger."
Han's eyes were locked on hers, their gentleness threatening to upend her equilibrium. "I know you have to keep telling yourself that," he said softly.
Something like confusion washed over her. "Well. Yes. I guess," she stammered. "I mean, I —." She closed her mouth and opened it again. "Yes, I guess I do, if only to —."
Her throat clenched, trapping the rest of the words welling up in her chest. Han was now a wavering figure and she was trying to shake her vision clear when there was a blur of motion, and then his hand was grabbing hers fiercely and pulling her to him and it was dark once more, her eyes squeezed shut, her face flush against his damp shirt, his arms around her so tightly that no light breached their embrace.
"I love you," she whispered desperately against him. Han couldn't have heard her, she couldn't even hear herself, mouthing it against his chest as she was, but somehow he recognized what she was saying and pulled her head back to kiss her all over, her forehead, her nose, her wet cheeks and chin, and all the while her lips kept forming the words, I love you, I love you, I love you.
Their mouths met and the tender kisses he dropped, caresses against her lips and in the corner of her mouth, gradually deepened as they maneuvered to his bunk. Driven by a need for closeness and comfort instead of the frenzied desire that often characterized their couplings, they moved together languidly, Han dipping under her half-buttoned shirt, his mouth trailing down her sternum, his eyelashes fluttering against her stomach.
By the time he reached the juncture of her thighs, every thought had deserted her, leaving her in a blissful non-state, conscious only of the sparks generated from the slow, almost lazy, patterns traced by his tongue. And later when he held her against him, their legs entwined, his thrusts unhurried and unrelenting as he urged her toward a second peak, she felt a fire spread out from her center, lighting her body aglow, obliterating any darkness that she carried within, ignited by his promise burned on her flesh: I love you.