A Single Thread
Part I: A New Hope
Act V
It wasn't the craziest thing she'd ever done.
Then again, that wasn't exactly saying much, as Leia was certain her father would point out the minute he learned about her little foray into the garbage pit, but it had seemed like a good idea at the time.
And, despite the near-death experience and the smell, it had worked.
Somehow, though, she didn't think that logic was going to work on her Sith Lord father.
Whatever Obi-Wan Kenobi had been thinking when he put this rescue together, it was clear that all those years out in the wasteland desert had affected his brain, because Leia had a feeling her own plan, to knock out a stormtrooper and sneak out in his armor, would have been pulled off more smoothly than this.
Where the Force is that crazy flyboy? she wondered irritably. He's probably gotten himself killed by now.
There was no logic to why a nice, earnest boy like Luke was hanging around with a scruffy, condescending nerf-herder like that, but Leia didn't have time to question his taste in friends at the moment.
Tucked into a narrow recess, back pressed against the wall, she held her breath as stormtroopers clopped past.
When the sounds of heavy footsteps had passed, Luke cautiously leaned forward and peered out into the corridor, then turned back to her with a grim expression. "It's clear for the moment," he told her. "Let's go, we've got to find a way to get to the ship."
Nodding her head in agreement, Leia followed him as he started down the hall, blaster in hand.
At least when the flyboy and the Wookiee gallovanted off to chase the guards, Luke had stayed behind with her. The situation was bad enough with a whole battlestation full of troops searching for her, no doubt with orders from Tarkin to shoot her on sight, it would have been even worse to be alone.
And there was something eerily comforting about Luke's presence, she felt safe with him, just as she felt safe with her father, and she couldn't really explain it.
Once they were safely away from the Death Star, though, she was determined to get some answers.
The hair on the back of her neck bristled a moment before Leia heard them approaching.
Oh, shavit, she thought with a groan.
Luke must have heard them, too, because his head jerked slightly, and she wondered if maybe he hadn't felt them coming just as she had.
There would be time to ponder that later, though.
"Run," she said quickly- at the same time that Luke spoke that exact same words.
They blinked at each other, both startled, and for a moment something indefinable seemed to swell in the air between them, but a blaster bolt streaking towards them shattered the moment.
Not bothering to look over her shoulder, Leia broke into a run, with Luke beside her, knowing there was a band of stormtroopers in the corridor behind them.
Luke fired his blaster back at them a few times, but she didn't think he was actually doing any damage, so she grabbed his elbow and pulled him along as she raced down the corridor. Spotting a side hallway, they ducked down it together, and found it was considerably narrower, leading Leia to suspect it was a service hallway.
The stormtroopers followed, the pursuit sounding deafeningly loud in the confining space, but at least it minimized the amount of fire the troops could concentrate on them.
A warning from the Force allowed Leia to dart aside, moving fast and light on the balls of her feet, just before a blaster bolt hit the spot where her head had been only a second before. Dodging a second blaster bolt, she picked up the pace and rounded the corner after Luke.
He led the way down the hall and up the ramp at the end of it, through a thick hatchway, and Leia's senses tingled just in time for her to reach out and grab Luke's arm to steady him as he teetered on the sudden edge of the retracted bridge.
He gave her a grateful look, then glanced around grimly. "I think we took a wrong turn," he muttered.
That was putting it mildly.
A blaster bolt shot above their heads, sending sparks flying from where it ricocheted off the durasteel wall, and Leia ducked against the side of the hatchway as Luke turned to open fire on the stormtroopers at the bottom of the ramp behind them.
Another blaster bolt whizzed past her, and Leia turned to the wall, her hands moving to the control panel and fingers dancing across the panel until they instinctively stilled over the switch she needed.
The door to the hatch slid closed with a low whoosh, muffling the sounds of blasters on the other side.
"There's no lock," Leia cried in frustration.
Grabbing her hand, Luke pulled her around to his other side, careful to keep her as far from the ledge as possible, and Leia clutched his arm for extra balance, glancing down at the long, fathomless drop at the end of the platform. She hedged closer to his side as he aimed his blaster at the control panel, and turned her face into his shoulder to shield her eyes from the blast.
"That ought to hold them," Luke declared as the panel smoked and melted.
"Quick," Leia told him, nodding to the open hatchway on the other side of shaft. "We've got to get across. Find the controls to extend the bridge."
"I think I just blasted them," Luke groaned.
Muffled pounding, accompanied by a low hissing, filtered through the heavy door behind them, and Leia sensed that it would only be a matter of time until the stormtroopers got the door open.
"They're coming through," she warned anxiously.
Leia was sorely tempted to reach out to her father for help, but she didn't dare. She knew that he was confronting his former Master, and though he was confident he would be the victor of their rematch, Leia could not forget him telling her that he was not as strong as he had once been.
It would distract him to feel her calling to him, and the tiniest distraction could be fatal in such a situation.
Besides, he had instructed her to only use the Force in her escape if there was no other option, because Obi-Wan would feel it if she did, and even with Kenobi busy at the moment, Leia had no way of knowing whether or not Luke would recognize a manipulation of the Force or not.
She couldn't take the chance.
Glancing over at the blond-haired boy beside her, Leia bit her lip as she studied his profile while Luke looked around the shaft worriedly, hoping to find some way out of this mess.
He had a slight cleft in his chin, just like her father.
Suddenly Luke stiffened, and his hand quickly went to his utility belt, just as blaster fire hit the wall beside them, from somewhere overhead. Leia tried to stretch her neck to see where it had come from, but Luke pushed her behind him and against the wall of the hatchway, returning fire at a platform across the shaft and up a level, where more stormtroopers were gathering with the one that had shot at them.
Great, she thought, wincing as another blaster bolt came too close for comfort. What I wouldn't give for Father's lightsaber right about now.
At least then she could have been deflecting the blaster bolts, instead of doing nothing.
Ducking as more blaster fire rained down upon them, Luke pressed in close alongside her in the hatchway, poking out again a moment later to shoot down the stormtrooper who had shot at them to begin with.
As the white-armored figure fell down the shaft, the other stormtroopers inched back, out of Luke's aim.
"Here," Luke said, handing Leia the blaster. "Hold this."
The stormtroopers overhead fired again, and Leia moved past Luke to shoot back, while he was fiddling with some kind of cord from his utility belt. He had a plan, she could sense that much, so she didn't question him, even as the door behind them groaned, lifting an inch.
"Here they come," she warned him sharply, and her next blaster shot took down a stormtrooper above them.
Luke stepped to the edge of the platform, and Leia covered him as he swung the grappling hook out across the open shaft. With smooth precision that should have been impossible, he latched it around an outcropping of pipes above, and gave the cord an experimental tug, testing its strength.
Once he was certain it would hold them, Luke looked over at her, and she moved to his side at once, letting him pull her close and wrapping her own arms around him for extra support.
Just as they were about to swing, she felt a sudden inspiration, and she kissed him on the cheek.
"For luck," she murmured when he gave her a bewildered look. We're going to need it, she added to herself, and closed her eyes as Luke pushed off of the platform, sending them out arching across the open emptiness of the deep shaft.
By the Force's grace, Luke's aim had been perfect and his timing flawless, and they landed on the other side a moment later, just as blaster fire opened up behind them.
Leia grabbed Luke by the arm, pulling him away from the ledge, as the stormtroopers finally made it through the door on the other side of the shaft. Neither of them glanced back, though, as they ran down the ramp in front of them and started down the corridor as fast as they could.
"We're almost at the hangar," Luke told her breathlessly, leading the way around a corner. "It's just ahead."
And so was her father, Leia could sense him nearby.
They were almost out of this nightmarish battlestation, although she had her doubts about the raggedy ship that Luke had come here on, and soon they would be free of the stormtroopers and Tarkin.
One small move on the dejarik board, but it was a critical one.
By the end of the game, they would be free of the Emperor, as well.
Everything was going according to plan, everything was unfolding exactly the way her father had foreseen that it would.
Glancing at her blue-eyed companion as they hurried down the corridor, Leia bit her lip.
Almost everything, anyway.