7

Dawn finally arrived on Rampa II and it signalled the end to one the longest nights of Han Solo's life.

It took all of his strength to heft the fifteen-kilogram blade through the air, but his target was wide and soft and the human body didn't provide much resistance. The blade sank with sickening ease. The man's body bucked violently against his restraints, but just once, and then his spine sagged. Blood gushed freely, soaking the man's pale service-tech coveralls and beginning to pool on the duracrete floors. After a moment, Han fell onto his heels, dragged the blade backward and wiped it on his trousers. Han considered removing the gag from the man's mouth, but he didn't because it wouldn't make a difference what was said. Anyway, his eyes were looking beyond him, empty like they didn't care.

"It was me," a female voice whispered raggedly. "It was me. I told them about the raid. They said they were going to kill him."

Han had almost forgotten about the woman and then he realised her gag must have come loose. He inclined his head partway, just to make sure she was still securely tied, and gestured to the still body. "Why did he confess?"

"He was trying to save me."

For the first time in hours, his head cleared enough that he noticed the unit the couple had been renting was cramped and dirty. Built from faux-stone prefab walls that had simply been slotted together, the accommodations were damp and moist, and home to a thousands species of mould. From the looks of it, they'd been on the run for a while, renting crap-holes where the proprietors didn't ask questions and the leases were short-term. There were few belongings strewn about, just a cargo bag or two and a few disposable dishes. Life on Rampa II wasn't easy. Mining had ruined the eco-system; the air was polluted, the water wasn't potable, and the planet had stopped producing edible foodstuffs decades ago. The people who lived here now were either too poor to leave, or desperate to hide.

In another state of mind, it might have made a difference to him. He might have even felt sorry for them.

As it stood, he was only as sorry as he could afford to be polite under the circumstances.

"Too bad." Han stood up wearily, his blaster in his hand, shifting it slightly and pointing it toward her tousled blond head. "You should have kept your mouth shut."

Han Solo opened his eyes. He lay in his over-sized bed carved from the darkest heartwood of an Alderaanian Kriin tree, with the only set of sheets his ex-wife hadn't wanted, in his loft in the Hirkenglade Prefecture, which was likewise semi-furnished with an assortment of cast-offs from his marriage.

("You know," his attorney had advised him. "You need to show up at the divorce mediations if you honestly expect to win anything."

"Fuck it," he had said. "Give her what she wants. I don't care.")

Even a lesser man would have admitted that the end of the marriage had been his fault. Bryn with honey-coloured, genetically modified hair, the legs that went all the way from Coruscant to the Outer Rim, and the girlish laugh that tended to dissolve into silent, gasping sputters - she'd been incredibly easy to pretend to love and so eager to love him back. In what hindsight revealed was nothing more than a burst of unrealistic, passion-induced idealism, Han had thought the marriage might change him.

It hadn't.

Han had been apathetic about too much for too long a time. It wasn't in his nature to become attached to anything.

That was precisely why Han found his ongoing liaison with Leia Organa so interesting. The woman was a puzzle, an enigma who answered fewer questions than she asked. Unlike other women, she offered few intimacies beyond her body, and didn't ask for any in return. The Corellian couldn't decide if she was a victim or a seductress, if he was taking advantage of her or she was playing him and he didn't entirely trust her, but he couldn't put his finger on why, even though he'd always had a knack for judging the trustworthiness of others. She was also as addictive as glitteryll or an Ylesian exultation, and if he believed her paranoid-sounding assurances, very, very bad for his life-expectancy rate. Their intense flying lessons typically ended with equally intense sessions of a horizontal sort in the quarters at the rear of the Spirit and they were always worth anticipating.

Of late, she hadn't made the slightest effort to conceal her adoration for the Rrakktorr's Revenge, inquiring repeatedly after their near miss at the South Pole about the damage to her hull. The last time, Han had expressly said that no one flew her but him. She was not above using feminine charms to persuade him to let her fly it.

Leia had absorbed that with a frown, and then just as quickly, twitched her mouth into a subtle smile while she slid along the wall, her body language full of sexual promise. "If you let me fly her…" She'd smiled coyly, leaned up and trilled her tongue against his throat, then caught his left hand, peeled his glove off, put two fingers in her mouth and drawn them out very slowly. Her tongue felt like butter and wet velvet. "Anything you want."

Han remembered feeling as if his insides were falling into an abyss without the rest of his body. "You're terrible," he'd said. "Cut it out."

"Oh." Her expression had been both innocently mischievous and confident all at the same time. "But you don't want me to, do you?"

The truth was he really hadn't and he didn't. Although he knew everything that could come between men and women, the way Leia looked at him, he suddenly felt like he knew less than a mynock, and that she had secret methods to set his body afire. Whether he admitted it or not, there were days when he dreaded the possibility of not seeing her again. There were also others where he wished she would bolt, and the sooner the better, because frankly, this relationship was like a deep, jagged splinter in the ball of his foot and eventually he was going to have to rip the splinter out.

Han got up and splashed his face with cold water. They were flying again in three days. Maybe he would cave and allow her to fly the Rrakktorr. Maybe he wouldn't.

Just then, the holo-unit squawked from the common area. He grabbed the flat sheet off the bed, winding it about his waist like a sarong, and double-checked the incoming codes to make sure he wasn't accepting a comm from the Premier of Hesperidium. "What?" he asked irritably.

"What?" Lando Calrissian loomed larger than life on the holo-screen, looking decidedly miffed. "I get what now. No 'good morning buddy.' No 'hey, a pleasure to see you!' Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed?"

"I'm not awake yet." Han willed his facial muscles to relax. "What is it?"

"Can you stop by Galactic CapitalBank on your way in this morning? There's a discrepancy with the payment from Cosmohaul Shipping."

"I thought we had the follow up with Curovao ImpEx."

"No." Lando put his fists together and pretended to strangle an invisible object. "Our damned prototype misfired yesterday and we've bumped the presentation back. I couldn't reach you last night. Again."

"Oh." The prototype had been a chronic headache for the past month. They'd commissioned a company to add their small-scale, detachable weapons to their series of bodyguard droids, but the first batch had needed its programming tweaked; apparently, so did the second batch. Han rubbed the freshly grown stubble on his chin. He knew Lando was privately irritated with his attention span of late, and too good-natured to lambaste him for it. "Sure. No problem. I'll take care of it. Buddy."

Twenty minutes later, he was freshly shaved and sanisteamed when the holo-unit squawked again.

This time it was Leia. Her voice was shaky. "Can we meet?"

"What's wrong?"

"I don't have any time left. Meet me this afternoon. At the skyhook."

They left marks all over each other's bodies as if to prove that they'd owned each other, if only for a short time.

This is it, Han thought. This is all there is.

Touch for touch, motion for motion, his mind captured sounds, smells, and sensations so that he would remember. Flushed, Leia hovered above him, her body so still that it was almost frozen even though her biceps and locked elbows trembled. One of his hands cupped a firm, young breast, and the other caressed her haunches, fingers sliding over her perineum and in and out so that he could feel himself hard inside her. This last action had pushed her close to the edge; he could feel every inner muscle seizing up, and her breathing had become fragmented and broken.

"You too," she pleaded quietly, falling over him passively, with her arms outstretched.

Han hadn't hovered close to climax for this long since accidentally drinking a local aphrodisiac on N'van over a decade ago, and that time it hadn't been on purpose. He slid his hand from her breast to her hip, dug his fingers into her flesh and bucked frantically. In the mess of breathing against his throat, he heard gods don't stop don't stop don't stop, and he didn't, couldn't, because the breaking tension in his groin had cast away all vestiges of self-control along with any coherent thought.

Orgasm was raw and beautiful.

Leia shuddered spastically, and there came a gush of warmth on his inner thigh that was not him.

Han gathered her tight against his body, shifting her, folding his legs and arms around her as if he could keep from leaving by physical force. She submitted at first, but eventually he became acutely conscious of the tension and restlessness in her frame. His eyes drifted around the cabin until he located her face, resting on his chest, reflected in the glassy surface of the wall beside the hatchway. Her eyes were wide and dark and her lips pressed flat together.

Leia caught him watching her and instantaneously her face relaxed. She braced an elbow on his sternum and leaned up, peering down at him as though she could read his thoughts. "Don't make this harder than it is, Han. It's too late."

Han started to say something and hesitated. Another offer of assistance would be summarily rejected. From what he personally knew of the Emperor and from the rumours that frequently filtered through the upper echelons of Coruscanti society, personal interest was reason enough to flee to the other side of the galaxy and dig a hole big enough to hide a moon. Lastly, there was the brother. He couldn't think about him without a bolt of murderous rage shooting through him like an energy beam, couldn't fault her for escaping. "Your ship," he began. On the walk to the Spirit, she'd told him that she'd bought a ship this morning, but this morning implied that she hadn't had nearly enough time to take care of any details. "It needs to be safetied and inspected and-"

"Done." She wiped damp, wispy strands of hair away from her forehead. "It was certified by one of the best on Coruscant."

"I still say you let me take a look at her."

"Then you'll be there when I leave." She regarded him intently. "I have a feeling neither of us is good at goodbyes. Right?"

"Right." Han stretched and tucked one arm behind his head. Despite the forced air of calm, he could feel tension-knots across her back and shoulders beneath his palm and her stomach muscles tightening against his. "You went to one of the outfitters I recommended, right?"

"Yes."

"What's the make?"

"It's an old YT model."

Han shook his head, chuckling. "Registration and pilot's licence?"

"Taken care of."

"All in a morning?" Han asked dubiously.

"I know someone at the Bureau of Ships and Services."

"Did you sleep with them?" he guffawed.

Leia smiled tightly, pried her body apart from his and headed into the fresher. "You're joking. Or, I hope you're joking because otherwise I have to slap you."

"I'm a natural kidder." Han stretched his legs, trying not to think about the danger she was facing, all of the unknowns and uncertainties. It was difficult to collect his thoughts.

"Don't get pressured into docking too quickly in the major spaceports," he called loudly. "Take your time and turn off the comm-set if you need to. Docking authorities usually make a commission on business referred to the onsite repair stations and when business is slow, they tend to create their own - they can smell a green pilot halfway across system. If you have trouble finding entertainment gigs and want to work transport, remember to never accept a job if they don't pay you at least half up front. Avoid the Abregado-rae Spaceport and places run by the Klatooinian Trade Guild – they have too many ties to the Empire. Never keep your cargo holds empty if you're hiding something."

Leia sauntered back to the bunk with her face scrubbed pink and her lips moist, her face oddly bereft of any emotion under the circumstances. He reached up and stroked her cheek. "Don't forget to wear your gloves and quadruple check your jump coordinates. Don't take stupid risks and… ahhh." He shook his head. When had he started sounding like someone's mother? "You're a good pilot. Remember that. Flirt to your advantage but be careful. Only play your looks if you have no other choice."

"I know," she said softly. "I'm so sorry."

Han, in a last-ditch effort to lighten the grim mood, said mock-ostentatiously, "For what? That you're leaving a handsome catch like me behind?"

"No. Because I am who I am."

"Have I complained?"

"No," she whispered. "Not once."

Han accepted the subtle invitation to yank her down so that he could kiss her again. She tasted sweet and held him down against the pillow with a surprising amount of strength. The kiss went on for so long that when she finally drew away, he felt vaguely light-headed. He blinked rapidly, trying to focus on Leia's face but there were two of her suddenly, and she was fuzzy around the edges.

"What's wrong with me? What did you do? What did you…?"

"It's renatyl." She set two fingers on wrist to check his pulse. "It will wear off in a few hours."

"Renatyl," Han repeated groggily. Where the hell did she get that? Renatyl was a bounty hunter's drug of choice. Her lips, he thought. Her lips had tasted sweet. Clumsily, he tried to swing his left arm upward and grab for her throat, but his body suddenly weighed as much as a bantha, and he could barely lift it an inch before it fell uselessly back against the deck-plates. The note in her voice that he hadn't been able to place… it had been guilt. "You… you," he muttered. The words came out slurred.

And then there was nothing.

Immediately, Leia rushed back to the refresher to rinse out her mouth and wash her face. The antidote she'd taken would last for a few hours, the life of the drug when exposed to air, but she couldn't afford to take any chances. Quickly she redressed, pausing to brushed the hair away from his forehead and kiss him one last time. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

Checking both ways for skyhook security (if the galaxy had an evil sense of humour, they would have sent them by at this very moment), Leia exited the Spirit, sealed the hatch, and crossed to the adjoining docking bay where the Rrakktorr was parked. She entered the security code and exhaled a long sigh of relief when the hatchway obligingly opened for her.

"All right girl," she declared, climbing aboard. "It's you and me now."

Leia wasn't actually expecting the ship to answer her, but all the same, she secretly wished she could.

Trembling a little, clenching and unclenching her fists, she padded down the corridor to the cockpit and sat down in the pilot's chair. She was exhilarated, excited, terrified, and incapable of thinking about what she had just done to Han Solo.

At least, not until she was on the other side of the galaxy and had time to grieve.

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