III
The commotion began gradually, moving towards the Falcon from the other side of the docks like a wave and building momentum as it grew. First a distant shout, then a clamor of voices. Han walked over to the open hatch to get a better look, a shiver of apprehension forming in the back of his neck. A crowd was clotting the main concourse, everyone jostling and craning their heads to watch something unfold in the horizon – until suddenly, blaster shots rang out in the distance. With a collective shriek, the throngs dissolved like smoke, taking cover under stalls, ships, and speeders.
Amidst the chaos, in the mess of grey air, Han spotted a small figure, clad in white, racing in the direction of his ship, and that was all it took for him to spring to action. He was on the ground outside in seconds, drawing his blaster just in time to spot the stormtroopers chasing after the Rebels on foot. There were only three spies with the Princess, and they soon overtook her, bounding ahead of her on their longer legs. The Imperials were closing in.
The other Rebels, heedless of their leader, tore past him as he rushed towards the Princess. She was fumbling for her blaster as she ran, slowing herself down in her haste. "Leave it!" Han yelled, lunging for her. He gripped her by the arm, popping off shots in the direction of their assailants with his other hand. It did nothing to deter them – the stormtroopers returned fire, an acrid volley of lasers sailing overhead as Han hauled Leia off her feet and half-threw, half-carried her back towards the Falcon's ramp. For once, she didn't resist him. Having finally freed her weapon from its holster, she allowed Han to propel them forward while she covered their backs with a fierce barrage of blasts.
At the top of the ramp, Han slammed into the boy spy from earlier – now awakened into an expert sniper, his sights trained on the enemy through his blaster's scope. The boy picked a stormtrooper off with a cold, precise hit over Leia's shoulder, then pounded the hatch controls as soon as Han and the Princess made it inside.
"Get us out of here!"
Han ran straight past him, feeling Leia wrench herself out of his grasp as he careened towards the cockpit, blaster still smoking in his hand. He heard her frantic voice sound out behind him. "Do we have everyone?"
There was no hesitation in her squad's reply.
"They have their orders!"
The Falcon tore through Korfo's atmosphere with a shriek. Han punched in a series of coordinates from memory – three nonsensical jumps that never failed to lose any unwanted company – before setting course for the Rebels' secret base. He hadn't bothered to strap himself in, and he was out of his seat again before they even cleared the last hurdle.
The Princess and her team were huddled in the main hold, where he had left them, crowded around a crackling commlink labelled for emergency use only. The spy who wielded it – a red-skinned Devaronian from the other ship – sat at the navigator's station while the others curved over her shoulder, hands clutching the back of her chair to steady themselves through the hyperdrive's tremors. Han's entrance went unnoticed.
"What happened out there?"
They ignored him, intent on the static of the encrypted channels. Finally, a signal flickered through the speakers. The spies surged forward.
"Mother, are you there?"
"This is Mother, I have Younger Sister here with me." responded the tinny voice.
"Where's Uncle?" The Princess swiveled her head around. Her gaze searched the cramped hold mechanically, as though their missing comrade might suddenly materialize on her next try.
"Dead, then." Tyr said softly. "I saw him get hit."
They fell silent for a moment, so Han tried again.
"Leia, what happened?"
"This is classified, Captain!" Tyr and the Devaronian snapped in unison, throwing scolding looks at him over their shoulders. "Code names only!" the boy hissed, for good measure. He pointed at the live commlink. Then they turned back to the Princess, encircling her in a vine-like tangle arms that seemed at once protective and custodial. Leia didn't say a word to him, didn't meet his questing eyes. The spies ushered her into the cabin – his cabin – and slammed the hatch shut behind them.
Han was sure had never been this livid in his life, and he was angry often. But everything about this failed excursion infuriated him, from the senseless death to the frustration of flying thirty hours out just to head straight back, the endless disrespect of these snot-nosed kids and their orders, and the insurmountable, gnawing feeling that the Princess was, deep down, just a princess after all: royal and remorselessly remote – and that flicker of doubt made the whole card castle collapse.
He was driving Chewie crazy with his foot-tapping and fidgeting, the Wookie declared, before finally banishing his captain from the cockpit altogether.
It's morning where we started. Go make us breakfast.
"I'm not your – "
Chewie's deafening roar drowned out the rest.
Now the porridge was bubbling on the cooker. Han paced an erratic loop around the main hold – once, twice, three times – then paused in front of his cabin's closed door. He wanted answers.
"The Princess is sleeping," the Devaronian informed him, from where she slouched in the galley, watching the pot doubtfully. "Don't go in there."
"Don't tell me where to go on my ship," Han growled. Whatever other secrets Leia was keeping from him, he knew her Worship well enough to know there was no way she was sleeping right now. Not after this. But when he reached out to palm the entrance panel, this brat actually had the gall to pull a blaster on him. A snub-nosed little concealment piece that she whisked out from her sleeve and aimed at his chest.
"She's not to be disturbed."
Han's last shred of self-control went up in flames. "Disturbed?" The word came out in a howl that put an end to the notion of anyone onboard sleeping at all, and gave way to a torrent of indignation. "First off, you're disturbing me. This is my ship, not your base. And second, she sleeps with me in there all the time, so – " caught off-guard by the curdled expression that seized the young spy's face, Han faltered, but pressed on. "No, I don't mean with me, I mean sleeping. With me, or Luke… Look, never mind. The point is – "
"Captain," Tyr cut in smoothly, gliding over to her colleague's side. She placed a bronze hand on the barrel of the Devaronian's blaster, lowering it amiably. "The Princess needs some space to process today's events. It has been a very difficult day for all of us, and for her especially. There is no need to shout."
Her spy eyes were flat, expectant. Han decided to switch tactics. Earlier, she had offered him something, right here, in this galley, and now she did have something he wanted. He turned to her and lowered his voice. Casually, conversationally, breathing normally, he asked, "What happened out there?"
No dice.
"That's classified. Please stop asking questions."
The first thing he did when it was all over, when they'd docked at the Rebel base and everyone was finally gone, was abandon ship and burn off countless hours' worth of pent-up energy, traipsing as far out into the rocky nothing of this star-forsaken planet as his nerves would carry him. It was impossible to measure distance in the flat, dim expanse. From where he stood, the Rebel encampment looked tiny. A smattering of flickering lights, a nomad settlement. It was hard to believe that this was the outfit that had dealt that stinging blow to the Empire, the first defeat in twenty years, and that these were the lights the Imperial army just couldn't seem to put out.
Under one of those glow torches, Han knew, the Princess was probably giving her report to High Command. He'd barely caught sight of her for the rest of the flight back. Her team moved around her like a little herd, their heads bent together as they whispered furiously, surgically peeling back every mistake, every possible misstep that had led them to failure. She'd disembarked in silence, her dark eyes fixed on some unseen target straight ahead.
Chewie was waiting for him when he returned, seated at the holochess table with a steaming mug of dark, herbal brew and a towering plate of rehydrated bantha liver. Cans of this stuff, chopped or ground, were marketed for carnivorous pets, and although Han bought them for Chewie by the pallet, he knew better than to ever tease him about it. His Wookie co-pilot looked him up and down meaningfully.
Well? He finally asked, folding his Wroshyr-branch arms across his tree trunk body. Are we leaving?
This took Han by surprise. Leave, right now? In the middle of… whatever was going on? The thought made him lightheaded. He'd been so doggedly trying to figure it out that he'd forgotten his earlier declaration, his cleansing vision of burning sand. Forgotten that they could take off right now and stop thinking about any of this – the twists and turns of this particular insurrectionist movement, its leaders and followers... Luke, Leia, all of them. Leave them for history to sort out.
He felt that pull, it was undeniable. It was the smart decision. The galaxy was full of movements, of resistance fighters. Every planet from this rock to Coruscant was crawling with beings who thought they knew best – spanning every sentient species, latching onto a dizzying array of causes and stubbornly dying for them. Islands liberating themselves from continents, moons liberating themselves from planets. Counter-revolutionaries killing the revolutionaries for their presumption, then turning on each other. Han had seen it all. This cause was merely the grandest, the most insane yet, and he didn't have to stick around. He could fly back to Tatooine, sort his mess out with Jabba, and find himself back on a barstool in a dark cantina by the end of the week. Watching history from a safe distance.
One day, he would find out from the holoscreen, like everybody else, that Luke and Leia had died, and the facts of his life wouldn't change at all.
"I, uh…"
Han took a breath.
"I should, uh… Go talk to them. Say goodbye."
He found Leia in that same spot outside of the hangar, slumped against the metal siding with her knees drawn up. The day's grey light was fading fast, casting her edges in shadow, but he could see the back of her hair was mussed, her braids coming undone where her head rested against the corrugated durasteel.
"Don't start," Leia said hoarsely when she saw him, and Han was so unsettled by the sight, and her tone, that he didn't reply Don't start what? He swallowed it and froze. The air between them was ashen, and suddenly he didn't know what to say at all. I'm leaving? The words disintegrated on his tongue. Leia let him stand there, closing her eyes for a long, silent moment.
"I'm hiding from Mon Mothma. I don't want to give my report."
She seemed different, huddled at his feet, than her usual regal self. He'd seen her give orders in a trash compactor, give speeches at funerals, keep her calm under enemy fire, but he'd never seen her look defeated. Even this admission was unheard of. It wasn't like Leia to hide.
"Why not? It wasn't your fault. They cleared everything before we left."
"It was a disaster," she said solemnly, staring at the ground. "And it was my fault. I probably… I wanted to trust him. And they trusted me."
Han shifted uncomfortably.
"What happened?"
She spoke slowly. "It was a set-up. Cyran – the one I was engaged to, I think I told you about him – that was our contact. All this time, I thought he was dead. He told me, just before the stormtroopers rushed us – he told me they had his father. The Duke. We didn't know they were flying together, when Alderaan… You know. Imperial scouts picked them up immediately."
This confirmed what he'd pieced together, but it didn't feel good to be right. Betrayal always hurt, but on this scale… Leia often waxed poetic about the solidarity of Alderaan's few survivors. Not to mention who that boy was to her. Princess Impersonal had let her guard down, and paid for it. He felt a pinch in his chest, looking at her like this.
"He was the sweetest man on the planet, that Duke, really. He was." Leia sniffed loudly. "You would have hated him, of course – "
"Wh–"
"For owning those mines. Born at the top. Never worked a day in his life. But he was the most kind, charitable – oh, he really was – just gentle. He cried at flute concerts because he said the music was – and they – you know their methods, how could anyone – "
Then her face crumpled, and suddenly she was crying in earnest. A silent reactor meltdown. Leia drew her lip tight between her teeth to keep the noise in, until her shoulders were shaking from the pressure. Han watched in horror as the tears started streaming down her cheeks, before she covered her face with her hands.
"Oh no," Han said.
He was seized by a desperate, finger-twitching desire to fix it, to screw the situation back together for her. But what could he do? Reeling, he looked over his shoulder for help. They were alone. It had been so long since Han had been in this position that he felt disoriented, caught in a bad flash-back from years long buried while he searched for some instincts.
At a loss, he sat down on the ground beside her and placed a very tentative hand on her arm.
But she only tensed and cried harder. Some hasty part of him wanted to wrap her up in his vest and hold her there as long as necessary, until the storm passed, but he didn't know how she'd react. Han moved his hand to her back instead, flattened his palm there and felt her spine curve under the padding of her jumpsuit. "I'm sorry, Leia."
"Maybe I would have done the same thing," Leia choked out. She sounded like she was drowning. He took gentle hold of one of her wrists and tried tugging her hands away from her face.
"No you wouldn't. Hey, look at me. You didn't even break on the Death Star."
Her collar was soaked, and there was a wet film over half her face, where her hands had been. He rolled his sleeve down and wiped her cheeks, her chin.
"Only because I thought I could bluff. And they all died anyway."
"Nobody could have predicted that. Nobody. "
Alderaan's last Princess stared at him hopelessly, bloodshot eyes and swollen lips, and belatedly flinched away from his efforts to clean her up. She swiped at her nose with her own sleeve, and Han thought of what she must have looked like as a little girl, being trained for this very Revolution.
"Look, that kid, your little – you know, most people would do what he did. Put their own families first. I guess. I wouldn't know. But that's why the galaxy's in this mess, that's why it took so long for anything to happen. Until you. People like you." He stopped himself, unsure of where these words were coming from, or where they were headed. All he knew is that he didn't want her to give up, for her of all people to accept defeat and stay this way. She didn't respond, so he reached back in to dab at her dripping cheeks again, for something to do. He tucked a wet wisp of hair behind her ear – that made her look up, finally. His hand hovered between them.
Then she took it in hers, squeezed it briefly. Her small fingers were hot around his knuckles. When she met his eyes, he felt an altitude shift, like he was falling. Her lashes were wet and spiky, a dark fringe around dark eyes that swallowed the breathing room around them.
"It has to all be worth it," she said into the silence.
"It is. It will be."
Xx
