"Wait, Leia!" Luke called after the princess, focusing all his energy on catching up with her. A simple task normally, but when your legs have known nothing but moving at a lethargic pace through vines and branches for hours, they forget how to run. Leia felt it, too, but she ignored it. She had her eyes on a speeder.
The princess reached the vehicle just as she lost sight of the stormtrooper, but she kept her eyes ahead and wouldn't accept the mere idea that she couldn't catch up with him. Leia didn't realize Luke was tagging along until she felt his hands around her waist, but with all of the trees clouding her vision she was glad Luke could be the one to pull out a blaster if they needed to.
"Do you know what you're doing?!" Luke asked nervously, holding on tighter as Leia picked up speed.
"Yes, thanks to two boys named Raal and Heeth Panteer," she quickly explained, raising her voice over the sound of the speeder bike engine. She didn't revert her focus from catching up with the stormtroopers. "From the patrician House of Panteer. They taught me everything I know and within a week I was beating them in every one of our midnight races to the local marketplace and back." Leia would have grinned a bit wider at the nostalgic memory, but Alderaan was such a bittersweet subject that she felt guilty doing so.
Luke raised an eyebrow. He always assumed Leia was raised to be a dutiful little princess—not a crazy kid whipping around the neighborhood on a speeder bike with the local boys.
"Midnight speeder bike races, huh?"
Leia grinned slightly, though Luke couldn't see her. "Not all of them…" she added mysteriously.
"Not all of them at midnight?" Luke inquired.
Leia grinned even wider.
"Not all of them were speeder bike races."
Luke let out an exaggerated gasp. "Where exactly did you corrupt these poor boys at midnight?!" he exclaimed playfully.
"Oh, only in the reflecting pools of Aldera," she sang. "Where Raal and I had our first kiss."
"Leia Organa—you little harlot!"
It had been so long since she allowed herself to get even partially distracted from the rebellion—or anything that wasn't somber or serious—this entire year. Laughing as she drove through the trees, Leia gave Luke a teasing kick in the shin.
"Ow!" he winced. "Not bad for a princ—"
"Look!" Leia interrupted him and pointed ahead, where the stormtrooper they were searching for was clearly in sight. "Get your blaster ready."
Luke obeyed as the princess sped up and brought their speeder bike parallel to the stormtrooper's. He did a double-take, then realizing he had been followed he rammed his speeder into theirs.
"Dropped my gun…" Luke muttered with frustration.
As the trooper aimed for another bash into the side of their speeder, the Jedi expertly hopped behind the enemy and flipped the white armored clone off the bike.
Suddenly, a blast shook the speeder bike that Leia was driving. They turned around to see two more troopers on bikes behind them. One of the two sped up to get closer and the other lagged behind for defense.
"You get the closer one—I'll take the one in the back," Luke instructed. He immediately slowed his speeder, creating the illusion of him flying backwards.
As if agreeing to their plan, the stormtrooper closest to Leia sped up until he was right by her side. Unlike his friend, this one chose to use a blaster. Leia ducked just in time to spare her head.
Before she could retreat behind him and try blasting him with the bike, the stormtrooper aimed his blaster at her speeder's thrust flap. With her vehicle rendered useless, Leia was forced to tumble off the side.
The princess crashed through branches into a blanket of vines on the Endor ground. Worried she had just failed at preventing Empire reinforcements from attacking her friends, she only raised her head long enough to see the enemy's speeder fly into some sort of tree remains. After that, Leia's head fell into the dirt as she fell unconscious.
In all of her days on Dantooine that Tess spent looking at the ruins of the old Jedi Temple and imagining herself fighting alongside Jedi and soldiers alike in attempt to destroy the evil Darth Malak, she never fantasized that rebellion would require this much waiting.
It had been at least two standard hours since Luke and Leia took off on speeders, leaving their squad sitting in several clumps of casual conversation. Though he wouldn't admit it, Han was too worried to talk and Tess was far from desperate enough to start a chat with Threepio, so she found herself twisting small vines into bracelets. By now she was wearing one and the fashionable Chewie was sporting three on each wrist.
Just as Tess finished up her seventh vine bracelet, Threepio tottered over the vinces towards Han.
"General Solo, somebody's coming!" said the protocol droid.
Tess replaced the bracelet in her hand with a blaster as the rest of the squad got the same idea. Han motioned for her to take cover behind the tree where he and Chewbacca stood.
"Wait," Tess whispered to Han. "I think its Luke."
Han took a better look in the distance. "I don't see him."
"Neither do I," the fifteen-year-old said with intentional ambiguity. Han gave her a look, seeing as they both knew Tess was Force-grounded. But it wasn't like she could help feeling Luke's presence.
"Now I see him!" Tess breathed with a smile. Her relief was half because he was okay, half because now they could move.
"Luke!" Han called, approaching his friend. Tess followed, looking behind him for Leia. The General asked the question on the teenager's mind. "Where's Leia?"
"What—she didn't come back?" Luke exhaled. His blue eyes widened with worry. Han tensed up.
"I thought she was with you."
"We got separated!" the Jedi told him defensively. "We better go look for her."
Tess' heart started to pound. She couldn't feel Leia nearby. When she reached out for her sister through the Force, all she felt was this horrifying emptiness.
"The forest is so dense here—what if her speeder ran into a tree?" Tess panicked. "She could be really hurt! Or…"
"Your sister knows what she's doing, Tess," Luke assured her. "She said she raced speeder bikes as a kid. I'm sure she just found herself further out than I did and its taking her longer to walk back."
Not letting himself think about where Leia could be or what could have happened to her, Han turned to the soldiers.
"Take the squad ahead," he ordered. "We'll meet at the shield generator at 0-300."
Luke motioned for the droids to follow as he started northwest with Han, Tess, and Chewbacca.
"Come on, Artoo, we'll need your scanners." The smaller droid beeped an excited response as he rolled after the others.
"Don't worry, Master Luke and Mistress Tess—we know what to do!" announced Threepio. He turned to his counterpart. "And you said it was pretty here…"
Tess glared back at the panicky droid. "How does a pile of scrap metal sound to you? Pretty?"
The golden droid stopped in his tracks and if he had an expression, it would be one of pure shock.
"Good heavens, no."