Chapter 4

Han Solo arrived with plenty of time to the spaceport thanks to the transport provided by Princess Leia, only to find out that his shuttle's departure had been postponed by two hours.

With nothing to do and not really in the mood to roam the gift shops, eat or take advantage of any of the different forms of entertainment offered to the travelers, his feet brought him to the only other logical destination: a bar.

The place was classy but not pretentious, softly lit and mercifully quiet, no screaming kids or noisy vendors allowed there. He sat at the counter and ordered Alderaanian ale.

The bartender placed the tall glass before him and for a while he just sipped carefully from the rich brew. Alderaanian ale was dark and deceptively soft, as he had soon learned after his first experience with it.

He felt a little anxious about leaving the planet. Not that he did not want to leave, on the contrary. Still, he felt strangely absent. Detached. He had the uncanny sensation as if one big hatch had closed behind him and he was all ready in space waiting to jump into hyperspace. At least he would go away with some of the answers he had come looking for.

He realized he should be angry with Bria, but it was as if he was past that emotion all ready. Or maybe he had not accused full impact yet. In a way, he was angrier with himself for having turned a blind eye for so long. For letting the big and little lies pile one upon the other for years.

It had not been this way in the first times, not at all. He had loved her and she had loved him. Or at least they had thought they did.

After their escape from Ylesia and the near disaster in Corellia they had followed a crazy impulse and exchanged their vows in front of a sleepy Coruscanti magistrate and two anonymous witnesses. It had been an act of faith, faith that their love would change their lives for the better. They had been young and foolish enough to think that a lie was good start to it.

Bria had finally accepted the money her father offered in exchange for her return to Corellia, and that money had paid for his examination fee for the Academy. He had not mentioned in the registration form his marriage, as bonded candidates were automatically rejected. His bride did not say a word to her family either and the same day he landed on Carida, she had entered an exclusive rehab facility to cure herself of her exultation addiction.

They would not see each other for the next ten months.

By then, she had been out of rehab for several weeks and had just decided to go back to University and her interrupted studies. It seemed a sensible thing to do since he would be stuck at the Academy for another three years. Even if they had not seen each other for a long time, they had exchanged messages and holos as frequently as they were able, supporting each other through their trials and tribulations. When Solo was in the mood to be honest with himself, he had to acknowledge that it had been exactly that what had carried him through the grueling, horrible first year of his Navy training. The idea that, for the first time in his life, someone would be waiting for him at the end of the spacelane.

That first leave he had spent with Bria in her little college apartment in Corellia had been paradise. Passion had exploded between them in a way even they had not foreseen in those few days they had been together after Ylesia, when she was still so sick because of the exultation. She would make astounding discoveries that would turn around the the field of paleo-art, he would be the youngest Admiral ever and one day they would have the most amazing family together. Life was beautiful, exciting and full of promise.

Of course it did not last.

Why would it?

This trip to Alderaan had only confirmed what he had suspected about his wife and his marriage for a long time.

"Another one, sir?" The dutiful bartender offered.

Solo nodded. Then, feeling a whisper of silk and perfume sliding on the stool next to him, he added. "Make it two."

"Father, I need to talk to you," Princess Leia whispered to Viceroy Organa after the dinner they had shared with a few guests.

Bail led her to his private studio, probably the safest room in the whole Palace. Only a handful of people had unrestricted access to this place and not many more had seen the inside of it. Texts and data in several forms - even some ancient ones printed on flimsy - from a hundred worlds covered the ordered shelves up to the high ceiling. Most of its contents would have been frowned upon by the Empire's inquisitors and a few would have granted him an immediate death penalty.

Leia had spent many hours in this room, in solitude, after her mother's dead, when Bail's obligations as a Senator kept him in Coruscant. She curled up in his father's armchair and played Breha's favorite music, feeling a little as if they were with her that way.

It still was her favorite room in the entire Galaxy, but lately she had felt a thirst for open air, a need to feel the wind blowing up her hair, for the sun falling unfiltered upon her skin. She did not know why, but she sometimes felt suffocated between the carefully controlled environment of the Palace.

That was in part what had prompted her to buy the swoop. And not any swoop, a state-of-the-art racing swoop. Just climbing on it gave her a thrill very difficult to ignore. Bail had agreed on the acquisition only after some heavy convincing and a lot of promises. Promises she had broken, for the most part, when she had sneaked it out of the Palace with Jorlyn's help the day before.

"What's wrong, Leia?" Bail Organa asked, slightly worried by his daughter's uncharacteristic silence. "How did you fare with Lt. Commander Solo?"

The teenager's shoulders slumped. "Not good."

"His wife warned me that he's not an easy man to read," Bail smiled. "But she also said he has no great love for the Empire, in spite of what's apparent."

I don't think you wanted to say what you just did not say, Princess. The worried expression in Solo's eyes came back to her mind along with his words. "I know."

The Viceroy frowned. Leia was a highly intuitive person, a priceless quality that, sensibly used, had immense potential. He did not really know if that almost infallible ability had something to do with her Jedi heritage, though in his heart he wished without hope that was not the case.

"Why are they important?" She asked suddenly.

"Tharen has been collaborating with us for several years now. She's a brilliant woman, very motivated. Garm speaks very highly of her. Her only liability – or greatest asset, depending on how you consider it – is her husband," the Alderaanian ruler sighed. "There had been several subtle attempts to contact and eventually recruit him, but so far none of them succeeded. On the other hand, if he suspects something about his wife's allegiance he has not acted on it, unless he's been ordered to wait and catch a bigger fish..."

"Aren't you taking a big risk then...?"

"Offering her a job here?" He finished for Leia. "Maybe. But so far, it's just a perfectly legal research grant. Later, we'll see... Meanwhile, it'll give me the opportunity to have a first hand opinion on her."

"And so far?"

"She's eager to move here. She swears Solo would never betray her... or us. That he's a honest man, but very stubborn and that he entered the Academy only because he wanted to fly." He run his fingers through his silver-streaked beard, thinking about what the Corellian scholar had told him about how she met and got to marry Han Solo. "I don't know, the guy's past before the Navy is pretty shady, but anything is possible. And she's obviously in love with him," he finished.

Leia's eyelashes cast long shadows on her slightly colored cheeks. "I think she may be right."

Bail Organa's dark eyes studied his daughter's flushed face with tenderness. She was growing up so fast. He dreaded the day she would find a man daring enough to fall in love, because he knew she would be the kind of woman that would not let anything stand between her and the object of her affections. Unless it was her own pride and stubbornness. "Why?" He asked as if he had not noticed anything.

As succinctly as she could, Leia proceeded to tell him about what had happened the day before at Lake Reeja and earlier in the gardens.