ABOARD THE ERRANT VENTURE, 40 YEARS ABE:
The hanger bay was growing crowded as the news of Coruscant's fall began to filter out to the rest of the galaxy. While Leia might have liked to think that the people milling around exchanging fears and rumors were doing so from a desire to help, she knew the kind of beings who frequented the Errant Venture well enough to know better. These were people looking to turn the situation to their own profit or, at best, to save their own skins and those of their scattered loved ones. At worst, they were making bets on the pending conflict it was sure to cause.
For the sake of not making a mess on Booster's ship after all his help, Leia pretended not to notice the latter as she weaved her way through the bustling whispers.
Han was easy to spot, at least; he didn't tower over the crowd the way Chewbacca did, but there was something about his particular swagger that drew the eye-or at least, it had always drawn hers. She gently nudged a gesticulating Chagrian out of her way and adjusted her path onto an intercept course with Han's.
He didn't find moving through the gossiping crowd as effortless as Leia. Despite her short stature, she never had trouble with that sort of thing. Even anonymous under the headscarf she had borrowed from Riesel, in a dirty white gown with her intricate buns beginning to unravel, there was a regalness to Leia that inspired other beings to get out of her way-or maybe it was some Jedi trick. Han had never been able to figure it out. He just knew that when Leia wanted to go somewhere, it was best not to stand in her way.
Unfortunately, whether Jedi trick or innate trait of Alderaanian royalty, whatever it was that cleared Leia's path was not something Han possessed. He had to duck under the whirring arm of a loading droid and dodge around three Rodians having a loud argument with an Aqualish. That was probably going to end in blood but since Han wasn't one of the people who would be responsible for cleaning it up, he ignored it. He tossed a distracted Rodese insult over his shoulder as one of the soon to be combatants scolding him for jostling her and stepped forward around a pile of crates to meet Leia.
"Hey, sweetheart," he said.
"The kids are on their way," she replied without preamble. "How are we doing?"
"Lando and Threepio are on the freighter. Chewie's getting the Lady Luck prepped for launch."
They fell into step together, automatically adjusting the disparate lengths of their strides to match each other's steps. Han griped, "He insists that ugly bucket of bolts Booster lent him is good enough to get him to the surface."
"He's probably right," Leia said, which Han figured was just to be contrary until she added, "Talking his way in will be a lot safer than trying to sneak past whatever ships Revan has stationed around the planet, and that'll be easier to do in a half-derelict freighter hauling food than in a fancy yacht like the Lady Luck."
Han sighed, recognizing that he was outnumbered. "Yeah, that's what Lando said too."
Leia heard the petulance in his tone and shot him an amused glance, but did not comment.
"He'll be all right," was all she said. She reached up and gave his arm a reassuring squeeze and Han mustered his trademark lopsided grin for her in response.
Three Bith and a Twi'lek lugging cumbersome musical instrument moved out of Leia's way. She gave them a polite nod out of habit without really seeming to see them; Han had to skip sideways to keep from getting walloped on the ear by a kloo horn. He exchanged glares with the Twi'lek and one of the Bith, then turned back to Leia.
"Of course he will," he agreed, then smirked. "He's got Threepio with him, after all."
This time the amused look on Leia's face broke into a full-fledged if fleeting smile. Like him, Leia preferred taking an active role in the galaxy. Neither of them liked feeling helpless. Now that they had a plan, a destination, and a way to potentially strike back against the Empire that had turned what should have been a celebration of peace into a day of war and terror, they both felt better.
That didn't mean Han was getting complacent. Even after so many years, he still had an old smuggler's instincts. As they'd walked, Han had continued to scan the hangar bay around them, alert for threats or opportunities. The sight of three mercenaries in grubby armor clustered around the ramp of a battered, ancient shuttle ought to have rated as neither-no one had had any bounties of note out on him in three or four years, at least, and bounty hunters were unlikely to be a viable solution to the rise of a new emperor-but Han's attention snapped onto them as though he were a targeting computer plotting a firing solution on a Death Star exhaust vent.
"Don't look like you're looking, but look to our left," Han hissed to his wife.
Leia blinked. "What?"
"Point three-twenty," Han clarified. "See 'em?"
Leia obligingly slanted her gaze in the direction he'd indicated. "The Mandalorians?" she said. "What about them?" She kept her voice low out of deference to Han's frantic whispers, but it was clear from her tone that she did not share the concerns that were driving his need for secrecy.
"Those aren't just regular Mandalorians," Han said. "That's Fett."
"Fett?" Leia repeated, incredulous. She turned to look again and Han grabbed her shoulder, turning her back front before the Mandalorians noticed her staring at them. She shot him a bemused glance. "What makes you think it's Fett? Isn't he dead?"
"Dead?" It was Han's turn to echo his wife. "Since when?"
Leia shrugged. "He has to be by now, surely. Bounty hunting isn't exactly a career known for longevity, and his started before I was born. He must be dead."
"I wouldn't bet on it," Han muttered. He fixed the Mandalorians with a dark glare. They were conferring with a mechanic in Booster's colors, either arguing over a fee or arranging for a repair. Or rather, two of them were: a burly figure in gray and blue with a protective half-kit and a shorter, slighter figure in sunny yellow. The third and tallest figure, whose green armor was much shinier and newer-looking than the battle-worn sets sported by the others, stood back against the ramp's pilon, gauntleted arms folded. None of them were wearing the jetpacks that seemed to be ubiquitous accessories to Mandalorian armor nor carrying any heavy weaponry-the middle mercenary wasn't even wearing gauntlets, exposing strong brown forearms above grey gloves-doubtless out of deference to Booster's rules of conduct and armament, but Han had enough experience with Mandalorians to guess that each one of them was still carrying enough weaponry to take down a squad of stormtroopers without having to reload.
Leia had even more experience with Mandalorians in general than Han did, and she cast a speculative glance at them now. "You might not want to put a lot of money on that bet," she advised. "Even if Fett was alive, what would he be doing here?"
It was impossible to guess at the gender-or indeed, the species-of the three mercenaries in their sturdy armor, let alone their identities, but Han didn't need to guess. Han knew.
"Chasing bounties," Han replied shortly. His fingers brushed the stock of his trusty DL-44. "What else?"
"Well whoever they are and whatever they're here for, it's not something we need to worry about," Leia said, turning her attention towards the distant gleam of the Lady Luck's smooth hull. "If they were after us, they'd have made their move by now. They're hardly the only mercenaries aboard this floating crime ring, either."
That was true, but that didn't mean anything. Ordinary mercenaries were a decicred a dozen. Even ordinary Mandalorians were nothing to panic about. Boba Fett, however...
Han could no longer keep the mercenaries in view without turning to look over his shoulder, he and Leia having continued to walk as they spoke. Instead he sneaked glances in every reflective surface they passed and darted quick glances in the Mandalorians' direction whenever they walked by a ship or a stack of supplies that offered him a bit of cover to duck behind. "It's Fett," he insisted. "I can feel it."
Leia shook her head and sighed. "What if it is? Even if it was Fett-even if he was still alive-what would he want with you? Or me. There hasn't been a bounty worth claiming on your head in over a decade...unless there's something you've forgotten to tell me?"
Her voice was light, teasing. Ordinarily Han would have grinned and bantered back, made up some outlandish story about an offended crime lord or a vengeful holonews reporter. With his skin crawling under the imagined scrutiny of a T-shaped visor, he did none of that. Just repeated, "It's gotta be Fett. And he's up to something. We need to keep an eye out."
Leia patted Han's arm gently. "Chewie said you got like this the last time you spotted someone in that armor." She grimaced. "I thought he was exaggerating."
"Are you talking about Sullust? That was different," Han protested. "I had every reason to think that was Fett-"
"Did you?" Leia cut him off. Her eyes were soft, her smile softer. Han looked away. "Because if I understood Chewie correctly," she continued, "it turned out to be some Ubese pilgrims-"
"Honest mistake," Han gritted out between his teeth. "Anyone could have made it."
"Mmhmm," Leia said noncommittally. "And the time before that, on Bilbringi?"
Han grumbled something about extenuating circumstances and Verpines with no sense of humor. Leia judiciously pretended not to hear him.
What she said instead was, "I think all this talk about Revan and the Mandalorian Wars has you jumping at shadows." She took his hand and gave it a squeeze. "Believe me, I'd just as soon kill Fett myself if we ever do run into him again, but Han...how many years has it been since we, since anyone, has seen him? He's dead. It's time to let it go, sweetheart."
"I'll let it go when he does," Han retorted belligerently. He pulled his hand away.
Leia sighed and shook her head.
They were almost at the Lady Luck. Chewie poked his head out the ramp and rumbled a question, asking them what was taking so long.
Leia picked up her pace and pulled ahead, mounting the ramp as she jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "Ask Han," she said drily. "He thinks this new emperor isn't the only threat to come back from the dead today."
Chewbacca barked a confused interrogative and Leia shook her head. "Fett," she said, as though that one word explained everything. She jerked her head in the general direction of the mercenaries and trudged past Chewie up into the ship.
The Wookiee turned to peer where she had indicated, saw the Mandalorians, and flung his long arms up in the air. The diatribe he unleashed on Han could have blistered the paint right off the Lady Luck's hull had it been directed at the ship instead of its substitue pilot.
"Yeah?" Han shot back. "Well just wait until it's your hide hanging off his shoulders, we'll see who's paranoid then, huh?"
Chewbacca snidely pointed-out that the Mandalorian about whom Han was speaking had no Wookiee braids hanging from his shoulder pauldrons, unlike the two Boba Fett had usually sported, and maybe Han should get his eyes checked before he tried running any Imperial blockades.
"You get your eyes checked," Han retorted. Chewie snorted, ruffled Han's hair, and ambled up the ramp.
Han paused with one foot on the slope and the other still on the deck of the Errant Venture and looked back. Annoyingly, he realized that the Mandalorian in green really didn't have any scalps on his shoulders. Of course, they could have been concealed by the faded blast-cape that hung draped half over one folded arm. A lot of weapons could have been concealed there, too. Han hoped Booster had charged the three of them an outlandishly steep security deposit before letting them dock.
Then the green helmeted head turned and somehow, across the hundreds of meters and dozens of ships and sentients standing between them, the unseen gaze within locked onto Han's face.
Han's fingers strayed slowly towards the worn grip of the DL-44 belted to his thigh. The Mandalorian in green didn't move; didn't look away. Han stared back until Leia's muffled shout of, "Han! Today?" jolted him from his reverie.
With one last scowl at the distant mercenaries, he turned and finally boarded the ship.
ABOARD THE CRYSTILIUM, 40 YEARS ABE:
The stolen Imperial shuttle sped away from the Errant Venture on glowing blue sublights. Behind them, two other vessels-the Lady Luck and a dingy, yellow-plated freighter-emerged from a different hangerbay in the vibrant red Star Destroyer and curved away on their own disparate, desperate missions.
Finn did not watch them go.
Being back in this shuttle, being back in the insulated black undersuit that was standard-issue wear beneath stormtrooper armor, was comforting in its familiarity and simultaneously distressing for the same reason. Finn could feel himself settling back into old patterns, old training, old thought-processes. He was tempted to let it happen. Riding in cramped confines with a Jedi (a Jedi!) was distressing enough to have his heart pounding in his throat, and he kept shooting nervous glances at Bail when he thought no one was watching him. Letting himself sink into the reassurance of habit was tempting-but at the same time, repugnant. He had left. He had defected. He wasn't a stormtrooper any longer and, if he didn't yet know exactly what that made him now, he knew what he wasn't.
So he fought the urge to fall back into the mindset of an obedient, unquestioning trooper by saying, "So what's the plan, then? How are we getting onto the Super Star Destroyer?" as though he always discussed battle strategy with such notable personages as the daughter of a legendary Rebel general and the son of the fearsome Organa-Solo. (As though he was used to speaking to a Jedi, and the very thought of that thing hanging from Bail's belt didn't make his skin crawl.) Instead of following regulation and strapping himself into the crash-restraints, he perched half-off his seat and leaned forward to look at Stella sitting in the pilot's chair in front of him.
He tried not to let his eyes drift sideways to where Bail sat in the co-pilot's seat, studying the ship's diagnostic read-outs as they coasted away from the Errant Venture and prepared to make the jump to hyperspace.
Stella began to say, "We're heading to Yaga Minor-"
"Because the core shipyard of the Imperial Remnant will be so much easier to break into," Bail interrupted in a mutter without looking up from his datascreens.
Stella shot Bail an amused smirk that he didn't see before turning back to Finn and explaining, "Because I know somebody there who will do me a favor, no questions asked."
Finn raised his eyebrows. "Including sneaking us onto the Emperor's personal Super Star Destroyer?" he said dubiously. "They better be somebody really highly ranked…"
"She's not in the Imperial military," Stella said. Her smile turned predatory and her dark eyes glittered. "But she does help build and design their best ships."
"Oh," said Finn, realization dawning across his broad, handsome features. He nodded. "Yeah...that'll work."
Stella grinned and reached forward to pull the lever that would send their small shuttle into the swirling transit of hyperspace, and a moment later they were gone.
