The Legion Renewed

Chapter Twenty-Three

She had contacted him, of course, daily, to ask if everything was all right. He had said yeah, but he just couldn't take it anymore. She had said she understood, that campaigning could be "overwhelming" to someone not used to it, said would make the appropriate excuses, and he could have as much time as he wanted.

Still, she hadn't left her hotel room to go back to the Falcon with Han, which really irked him. She said she had to prepare for her big up-coming debate. Han had tried, to no avail, to convince her that what she really needed was to relax. But she had turned down his offer to help her "relax" and stayed in the hotel room, practicing for the debate with her aides.

So Han stayed in the Falcon and watched the campaign feeds from the relative comfort of his cabin, which he had shared with Leia, but which was now his private space once again.

He debated whether or not to watch the debate. He had a ticket to go in person, of course, and spouses seemed to be expected to go, but he really had developed a distaste for all things political.

In the end, he stayed on the Falcon and watched the feeds on the screen in his cabin, primarily because Chewbacca wanted to watch it. It went pretty much as expected, with the moderator asking each candidate a question, with a set time limit for response, and a shorter time limit for rebuttal by the opponent. In Han's uneducated opinion, Lea was doing pretty well-hitting all the strong points of her campaign and emphasizing the weaknesses of Bragma's. Han would have voted for her-if he voted, anyway.

Han motioned to turn it off, but Chewie growled, apparently wanting to see it through to the end. They both knew it was the last two questions that Leia was most concerned about, when each candidate was allowed to ask the other a final question of their own choosing. Han knew that Leia planned to ask Bragma something about how he planned to increase local services while reducing taxes-the answer to which she already knew, but she wanted Bragma to give the answer himself, publicly.

She had drawn the asking of the last question, which was both good and bad-good, because she could turn the topic to whatever she wanted by her question, but bad because Bragma would have the last word.

But first there was Bragma's question for her.

"Tell me, Candidate Organa, is it true that your husband is a smuggler, a cad, a gambler, and a thief, with the manners of a nerf-herder, who probably only married you for your money?"

Chewie growled.

"That's the second time I've been called a 'nerf-herder,'" Han complained. "What is it with nerf-herders?" But he leaned forward to watch Leia. He hadn't expected any part of this dampaign or debate to be about him, and neither, he suspected, had Leia.

The cameras zoomed tightly on Leia, and Han could tell by the way her jaw had tightened that she was really pissed off by the question. After a few more seconds of jaw-working, she leaned forward to be sure that she was being picked up by her mic.

"Let me answer each of those questions individually. First, my husband is not a smuggler. He was a smuggler, under the Empire. But when he joined the Rebellion, he gave all that up. He became a valuable member of the Resistance, and let me tell you, his experience outrunning Imperial blockades came in very handy.

"Second, he is not a cad. He is a scoundrel, which is something completely different. A cad, sir, is someone like you, who will go to any lengths to get what he wants. A scoundrel, on the other hand, is someone who doesn't disguise his own desires as concerns-" here she made a quotation gesture around the word concern, "-for others. A scoundrel doesn't tolerate the niceities of politics that a diplomat must necessarily engage in. A scoundrel calls a spade a spade, and after a day of dealing with 'yes, ma'am's' and the delicacies of dealing with political egos and tip-toeing around some issues because if you don't, you lose all hope of accomplishing anything important-after a day of all that, it's refreshing to come home to that type of candor. And a scoundrel, unlike a cad, is very, very sexy."

Chewbacca laughed. Han punched him on the arm to quiet him. After all, this was about him, and he wanted to hear what Leia had to say.

"Third, yes, he is a gambler. He gambled on me, for which I am eminently grateful. A gambler takes risks to accomplish his goal. A gambler understands those risks, and his own skills, and combines that with his own instincts to make the best decisions he can make. I'd like to see you, Candidate Bragma, pilot a freightor through an asteroid field to escape an Imperial Star Destroyer. On second thought, never mind. You wouldn't have the skill to do it. My husband did. He understood the dangers, both from the asteroids and the Imperials. He knew his own level of skill. He took the gamble, went into the asteroid field, and saved all of us who were onboard his ship."

Han shook his head, remembering. He wouldn't want to do that again.

"Let me add," Leia went on, "that when the odds are against you, and you're in the middle of a battle that you will very likely lose, there is nobody better to have at your side. And as for my husband being a thief, the only thing I've ever known him to steal is my heart. He's one of the most honest people I know-goes along with being a scoundrel, I suppose."

Chewbacca growled a question.

"I never told her about that," Han admitted.

"As for being a nerf-herder, I've actually met a couple of them. They're nice people. I grant you, I don't think much of nerfs-smelly creatures that they are-but the nerf-herders have their own code of behavior that once you understand it, makes sense.

"Finally-what was the last thing-oh, yeah, that Han only married me for my money-that claim is totally ludicrous. He has never asked me for a single credit. Don't get me wrong. He likes money just as much as anyone, but he is not ruled by it. He's ruled by his conscience-which is why when he once had the chance to easily escape the Battle of Yavin with a shipload of money that he earned, by the way-he came back and saved me and most of the Alliance from the Imperial Death Star One. That's why he stayed with the Alliance. And when I first-"

The chime sounded, indicating that her time was up. She hadn't run over her allotted time on any of the other questions, but she did on this one. "-When I first realized there was more to him than money, and when I fell madly in love with the ex-smuggler, scoundrel, gambler, and thief-of-hearts that I was eventually fortunate enough to call my husband."

Han grinned and punched Chewie on the arm. "At least she didn't call me a nerf-herder again."

Leia drew in a deep breath and fixed her fierce dark eyes on her opponent. "Now, Candidate Bragma, it's my turn to ask you something. Why would a candidate such as yourself, whose very first campaign motto was 'Stick to the Issues'-why would such a person feel it necessary to attack another candidate's family? Not her position on the issues at hand, not the candidate herself's character, but her family? What makes a once-respectable politician such as yourself turn into a-"

Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeep! The speech-recognition programming in the network censors cancelled out what Leia said audibly for several seconds, but Han could read lips well enough to figure out what she was saying, and he burst out laughing.

The Bleeeep! finally stopped, and Leia's voice came back on. "-ing cad?" She glanced at the studio audience. "You know what? I don't even care what your answer is. You can use your answer time to say whatever you want." She picked up her prompter pad of facts, statistics, and key phrases she wanted to emphasize during the debate and walked offstage.

The image cut to one of the wide-angle cameras as Leia stormed off, then switched to the backstage cameras as Leia waved off a couple of her aides and left through the nearest exit.

Han loved it.

So did Chewbacca.

It hardly mattered what Bragma was now stammering on camera.

"Grrnnaaaggghweeah?" Chewbacca asked.

"Oh, who cares? That was great!" Han nudged his co-pilot in the ribs-well. "You're just jealous that she didn't talk about you."

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