A BIG THANK YOU to those of you that have actually been reviewing as well as reading. It really does help - especially this far into a fic. I hope everyone is ready for the next chapter because here is comes...

Chapter 17: Did She Finally Deck Him?

The Falcon's ramp slowly lowered, barely having time to meet the ground before Princess Leia stormed down it as if she were going to throw herself off if she had to wait one more nanosecond for it to touch down. Plowing ahead at full speed, she nearly ran over Luke and Chewie as they walked towards the ramp.

"Oh, Luke! Chewie!"

"Nice to see you back, Princess," Luke greeted warmly, a little sheepish at how she had almost ended up in his arms in her haste.

Chewie patted the Princess on the shoulder and growled his greetings, too.

"Is everything okay?" Momentarily glancing toward the ramp, Luke looked concerned. However since it was obvious she was angry, his concern was mixed with a certain amount amusement. He had a good idea of what she would answer.

Leia tried to find her smile. These two beings standing next to her were usually the ones that balanced out the effect of Solo's aggravating ways. "As okay as it can be traveling with the insufferable Captain Solo."

Just then, Solo sauntered down the ramp, self-assured grin plastered on his face. Evidently, he hadn't given up yet, "Can't stop talking about me, huh, Sweetheart?"

Leia's face turned to stone and her voice was tight. "If you'll excuse me, I need to report to the Command Center," she said as evenly as she could muster, nodding to Luke and Chewie before stalking off.

Chewie took one look at Solo and seeing the gash across the smuggler's face, made a great exaggerated show of examining it more closely. Shaking his head as if to confirm something to himself he wuffed a comment that ended in laughter.

Incredulous, Solo's jaw dropped open as he screwed up his features into a face of indignance, "No! She did not finally haul off and slug me!"

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Leia made a quick stop at her quarters to drop off her gear and clear her mind of that insensitive, infuriating, incorrigible… She grunted out of sheer frustration. Where did he get off saying something like that to her? All she had tried to do was be nice to him and take care of his cut.

Sure, when she usually forced him to accept her help like that, he could be expected to make some stupid remark that some portside women might deem flirtatious. Most of the time, Leia brushed off his little comments as an attempt at covering up his own awkwardness. Not that Solo was ever shy around women, but it was easy to see he wasn't used to anyone besides Chewie sincerely caring about his well-being.

Her gentle attentions would naturally warrant his usual method of defense, defined as: immediately attack no matter what the odds.

The first time she had witnessed this questionable approach was still crystal clear in her mind. She had been instantly awe-inspired by Han's sense of bravery with his foolhardy move in the Death Star where he had decidedly become the chaser instead of the chased. Well, it definitely was brave. She couldn't take that away from him.

However, now that she had spent more than a couple of years around him, she knew the deeper basis behind that bravery. Outwardly, he professed to be focused on taking care of himself. Watching out for number one and maybe the Wookiee, but Chewie had a family and a home. Leia began to see it was because he believed nobody cared about him or would miss him if he was killed. He had to build himself up in social situations because he was afraid he wasn't good enough. Those insecurities led to foolhardy decisions on the spur of the moment. What did he have to lose? Ergo, surprise attack. Don't think. Just get them before they can figure out what they are really up against.

Well, he certainly got her all right. She certainly wasn't prepared for such low-class comment. Their unusual adventure at Uluruan must have lowered her shields for her to allow it bother her to this degree. She had heard worse from him plenty of times before and it never bothered her for this long afterwards. It could it be that it wasn't just Solo's comment, but the fact that she had left herself open to it especially when she had been trying not to do so. Admittedly, she did give him ammunition with that blatant little caress and she had been undeniably mesmerized.

Sometimes, that scar could be so… fascinating…

She huffed once more and resolved to be more careful about expecting Solo to be any different than he ever had been where she was concerned.

Leaving her quarters, Leia started working her way towards the Command Center, realizing she never thought about why she would go through with the little game of coercing Solo to accept help in the first place. She just did what she had to do to make it happen and she certainly had her fair share of practice in that department. That man was forever getting banged up somehow or other. It was inevitable when you lived the way he did by fearlessly going against the odds most of the time. However, this particular scrape wasn't exactly what one would call 'earned.' That thought made her chuckle. Serves him right.

It would be her last chuckle of the day, however. Rieekan did not have good news to welcome her back with. While she was gone, they had been receiving reports of the Imperials sniffing around more than usual just outside of their sector.

"We need to start transitioning to the Hoth system as soon as possible, General."

"It's going to take a least two standard months before that's feasible, Princess. The extreme temperatures are proving much more difficult than we first projected."

"We'll have to figure something out. I don't want us to be forced from here and left to roam around space waiting for Hoth base to become usable."

Out of the corner of her eye, Leia saw the golden glint of Threepio heading straight for them.

"Princess! Princess Leia! Your Highness, I must speak with you," Threepio called out as he came closer.

Leia looked to Rieekan as if to apologize for Threepio being left behind on this past mission. The golden droid had been lending his services in the Command Center in the meantime and it was surely wearing on the crew's nerves. Holding her hands up in front of her in such a way that would indicate surrender, although the actual intention was to calm Threepio down, Leia intoned, "Easy, Threepio. What is it?"

"First, may I say welcome back, Your Highness. It is-"

"Thank you, Threepio," Leia said patiently, cutting him off, nonetheless. She didn't have time to waste on a preamble of niceties right now. "Why don't you just tell me what you need to speak to me about?"

"Yes, of course. An urgent message was just decoded. It's been categorized it as priority one and requiring immediate attention."

Rieekan and Organa gave each other a grim look before quickly going past several banks of computers into a smaller room where the Intelligence Communications crew had setup operations. Over in the corner was a stand-alone terminal where only most top-secret messages were handled.

Pushing a few buttons to input her clearance code, she brought up the message as she sat down at the terminal. As Leia braced herself for trouble, Rieekan peered over her shoulder to read the news.

She confirmed the top secret communication received and marked for her specifically.

"It's Rindew," Leia whispered.

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