"That wasn't so bad," Leia said, pulling off her new shoes and rubbing her tired feet. "I think I made close to two hundred credits after I pay back the advance Buff gave us. Think that's enough to get us off this rock?"

Han pulled off the long black apron he'd been wearing and threw it in a heap towards the autovalet. "Maybe one of us, commercial. But I can't imagine either of us trying to waltz onto a flight looking like the galaxy's most wanted would end well."

"I think technically Luke is still the galaxy's most wanted," Leia corrected him with a sly smile. "You and I rank somewhere after Mon Mothma."

"Okay, just tell that to the spaceport security guards. I'm sure they'll appreciate the distinction."

Leia chuckled, feeling surprisingly lighthearted for someone still trapped deep in enemy territory. After a long argument earlier about who should wait tables and who should tend bar—which Leia ultimately resolved by reminding Han that she had once made him and Luke violently ill after botching the recipe for a Tatooine Sunrise—they had taken an advance on their pay and found a shop selling castoff and irregular clothing. There was enough to get Leia a new shirt, slacks, and shoes and—at her insistence—Han bought himself some pants as well to replace his combat fatigues. With their bruises fading rapidly and their new outfits, the couple almost looked like normal refugees from the upper levels.

That evening as Leia took orders and Han keep the conversations and drinks flowing at the bar, Leia noticed that there seemed to be a growing number of patrons who were in fact refugees from the surface levels. The early crowd was all regulars, some of whom turned tail and left while lobbing angry curses at the bouncer when they saw the newly tidy space. As word of the place's transformation spread, the clientele became quieter and less heavily armed. At one point even a family with a young boy came in, settling in a back booth and telling Leia about their desperate flee from the violence on the surface as she brought them their nerf steaks and pasta.

In the late evening hours, Buff cranked up the music and the crowd at the bar grew three deep. Leia slipped back to help Han, taking drink orders while he mixed up an array of intoxicants at lightning speed. Last call was at 0200, and as the final patrons slipped out, Han and Leia retreated back up to their temporary quarters in the lounge.

"How about you?" Leia asked. "You must have gotten some good tips too."

"Nothin' left," Han told her, more casually than Leia thought was strictly appropriate.

"What do you mean 'nothing left'? How could you have spent your money already?" Hands on hips and lips pursed, she asked, "Were you gambling?"

"Gimme a little credit, princess." Han stretched, flopping down on one of the sofas. "Remember why we came in here initially? So I could find Hipha and see if she could help us out?"

"Right. Your ex."

"I had to bribe a guy for information," Han responded tightly, annoyed that Leia was still obsessing over this long lost woman.

"And?"

"She's dead."

Leia blinked a few times, feeling guilty as Han hoped she would. "I'm sorry. What happened?"

"Got caught up in the mess on the surface. Imps fired into the crowd and she was in the wrong spot at the wrong time, apparently."

"We have to stop this. Too many innocent people are getting caught up in it."

Han put an arm around her shoulder. "Sweetheart, you're not being realistic. What exactly do you think we can do from here?"

"If we could get into the Imperial palace…." Leia began.

"Nope." Han was firm. "Absolutely not. No way."

"Come on, general," Leia said with a smile, "You've gotten in and out of tighter spots. Remember the Death Star?"

"All too well," he grumbled. "Leia, we are not going to go on some crazy quest to take out the Ruling Council. We need to just find a way to get back to the fleet. I'm sure they're already hatching a plan to take Coruscant."

"I don't think so," Leia told him. "I only was in on a few meetings after we got back from Tatooine, but the bulk of High Command was leaning towards proceeding more incrementally. Coruscant isn't even on their radar right now."

"Then there's a good reason for that."

"Han! Since when have you been so supportive of High Command's strategic decisions?" Leia demanded.

"Since their decisions started aligning with my own interest in keeping us the hell out of the Imperial Palace!" Han snapped back. Then, taking a deep breath, he pulled her in close to him and continued more softly, "We got a lucky break getting away from the Imps. I don't want to get right back into a situation where you might get hurt."

Leia rested her head against his chest, listening to the rhythmic thumping of his heart. Part of her agreed with him. After living for so many months wondering whether she'd ever see him alive again, she saw the appeal of a safe life far from the constant threats of death. But she also knew that every sacrifice she'd made in her life would come to nothing if the Empire was simply able to rebuild right away under a new despot. She owed it to her fallen Rebel comrades, her family, her planet, and herself to keep fighting until the end.

But right now wasn't the time for that fight. "We still have to clean," she said with a sigh. "Want to do it in shifts so we can get some sleep?"

Extracting himself from under her, Han agreed. "Good call. I'll go first."

"Make sure you come wake me up in four hours," Leia told him. "Don't be a hero."

Han winked at her. "Never."

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Sleep came surprisingly quickly again. Leia curled on the sofa, cozy under a blanket in the pitch dark room. Too exhausted to dream, she sat up in confusion as some small noise in the room startled her from sleep. The chrono in the room was behind her, and she squinted at it. She'd only been asleep for an hour—what had woken her up?

"Leia." An unfamiliar voice called out to her from across the room. She fumbled for her blaster before remembering that she'd given it to Han while she took her sleep shift. Opening her mouth to call out, she frantically looked around the room for the source of the voice.

Before she could scream for Han, a soft blue light resolved itself into the shape of a man dressed in the same old fashioned Jedi robes she had seen on Obi Wan Kenobi so many years before. She kept silent, assuming she must still be dreaming. The apparition smiled gently at her.

"Leia," he repeated. "I'm so glad to see you safe."

"Who are you?" she whispered, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. She had never seen this man before in her life, she was certain of it. She wasn't scared, of course—partly because he seemed kind, and partly because she'd never heard of a person comprised of wavering blue light harming anyone. But he made her slightly uneasy.

"Leia, I'm your father. Your real…" He stopped himself. "Your birth father."

"Are you a Jedi?" she asked, growing more confused by the minute. Surely she was still asleep, and yet…it seemed so real.

"I was a Jedi, yes," the man told her.

"What is your name?"

"My name is Anakin Skywalker."

Her birth parents were dead, and unknown, Bail and Breha Organa had told her when she finally grew old enough to wonder. Born at a hospital in Crevasse City to a woman who died before she could be identified, they were never even able to tell Leia which planet she could claim as her heritage. But no matter—she would be a child of Alderaan, loved and cherished no differently than a biological child. But still, she had wondered.

Now a long remembered dream came back to her like a slap to the face. She was no more than six or seven, and woke one morning babbling to her parents about a sea of sand and a young boy that had chatted with her as they sat on a cliff watching two suns setting. They had smiled indulgently and encouraged her to finish her breakfast, but she was perceptive. She saw the look that passed between them as she tucked into her yogurt and fruit—worry crossed with terror crossed with amazement.

"You're Luke's father," she whispered.

Approaching slowly, almost warily, the apparition settled down next to her, giving Leia a good look at his face. Indeed, he shared Luke's jawline and nose, but where Luke was relatively short this man towered above her.

"Yes," he said. "Luke is your twin brother."

Leia shook her head with a skeptical laugh. "There is no way that's possible. This is just a crazy dream."

"I can assure you it's true," Anakin responded. "You were separated at birth."

"Why?" she asked. "If we're twins, why were we separated? Why did no one tell us?"

"To protect you."

"From what?" Leia watched as the man's head dipped, his face clouded in sadness or guilt—she couldn't tell which. "And where were you? Why come to me now?"

This is ridiculous, she thought. I'm arguing with a ghost in a dream.

"I'm sorry," he choked out, and then, before her eyes, began to fade back into the darkness.

"Wait!" Leia called out, frustrated, but he was gone. Standing up and flicking on the lights, she rubbed her eyes. Suddenly she wasn't sure if she was awake or asleep.

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"I may have to buy this when things settle down," Lando said, stroking the sleek control panel of the small silvery ship that Arthar had loaned them for their trip to Kuat. Technically a freighter, the ship's cockpit and living space had been renovated to more closely resemble a pleasure yacht, complete with a gourmet galley and full sized foam beds in the two cabins.

"Yeah, it's nice," Luke mumbled, trying to focus on reaching out through the Force as they made the short jump to Kuat. So far, he had no sense of Leia near the small planet or its distinctive orbital shipyards.

"So what's the plan, boss?" Lando tore himself away from admiring the sensor array and faced Luke. "You have a plan, right?"

Ignoring Chewbacca's indignant growl, Luke sat up straight and watched the starlines swirling around them. "We're going to land at the Kuat Leisure HQ and pretend to be tourists. We'll use that as a base of operations to locate the Chimaera and then figure out a way to get on board."

"Figure out a way?" Lando was unconvinced. "Luke, this is an Imperial-controlled installation, not Jabba's palace."

"Han and I have had luck using stormtrooper uniforms before," Luke said mildly.

"Okay…." Lando took another approach. "And if Chimaera isn't there?"

"We'll have Artoo hack into the Imperial network and find out where it went and if there were any prisoner transfers," Luke said confidently. Artoo squealed in agreement.

"You got this all figured out, don't you," Lando muttered in response as he took his place back at the controls. A few minutes later, a pleasant chiming sound echoed through the ship. "Looks like we're here."

Kuat loomed large and green in the viewport, its moons hovering on the far side of the planet well beyond the ring of ships and orbital stations that comprised the planet's eponymous ship building and repair facility. From their vantage point, the group could see the ominous silhouettes of at least two enormous Star Destroyers floating among the permanent installations. They all breathed a little easier as Lando shifted their trajectory towards the opposite side of the planet, where a light but steady stream of small personal craft made their way to and from the pleasant facility dedicated to the manufacture, sale, and repair of ships belonging to the upper crust of the Empire's civilian population.

"Please transmit your identification and destination," a tinny voice said over the comm. Lando pressed a button to send their ship's ID codes to the port authority and then sat back and waited for approval to land.

"This part always makes me nervous," Luke confessed as they watched other small yachts heading for the spaceport.

"What part is that?" Lando asked.

"Waiting to see if the codes work," Luke told him. Chewbacca nodded his head in agreement.

"I don't think Arthar gave us fake codes," Lando said reassuringly. "That's why we switched ships, right? So we could get in without having to disguise the ID?"

"I guess," Luke said, watching as three ships launched from a nearby platform. Flashing red lights accented the hull above the cockpit, and they were speeding towards them at an alarming velocity. "Lando, did he tell you where he got this ship?"

"No. Why?"

Luke's eyes widened as the three ships began hailing them. "I have a bad feeling about this."

"Freighter Juanita!" A harsh sounding voice echoed over the comm. "Stand down and prepare for boarding immediately."

Lando rushed to the control panel. "This is Freighter Juanita. Can I ask what the problem is?"

"This ship has been reported stolen. Stand down and prepare for immediate boarding."

"Oh dear!" Threepio cried out. "I told you that man was a ship thief. We're doomed!"

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Han was finishing wiping down the mirrors in the men's bathroom when Leia stuck her head in.

"Hey," he said when he noticed her watching him. "It's not your shift yet. What are you doing up?"

"I had a really weird dream and couldn't sleep," she explained, suddenly feeling silly for having fled out of the room to find him. She smiled as Han gave the glass a final ostentatious swipe and then guided her out to the main dining room. Pouring her a glass of water, he settled next to her on one of the soft benches in a rear booth.

"Nightmare?" he asked, giving her a kiss on the forehead. Leia took a long drink of water and shook her head.

"Amazingly, no. It just seemed so real."

"Want to talk about it?" He was used to her refusing, not wanting to relive the horror of past events that haunted her sleep.

"You're going to think I'm nuts," she warned him. "I dreamt that a ghost appeared to me and told me that he was my biological father."

"That doesn't sound so crazy."

"It gets better," she said sarcastically. "He told me he was a Jedi. Not just any Jedi—Anakin Skywalker."

"Luke's father?"

"Yeah. Then he said we were twins separated at birth, and when I asked him why he disappeared."

"That is a little weird, even for you," Han admitted. "I wonder if you were just subconsciously trying to find an excuse for why Luke would be okay with us."

Rolling her eyes, Leia punched him lightly in the shoulder. "You would think that this was all about you."

"I'm serious!" Han protested. "Maybe you're feeling guilty about breaking his heart."

"I did not break his heart," she responded indignantly. "Where do you get off saying something like that?"

"Well…" Han puffed up proudly. "You did choose me."

"First of all," Leia sputtered, "You are impossible. Secondly, I was never going to end up with Luke."

"That's not what about half the people around the Fleet thought," Han teased her.

"What do you mean?" Then the truth dawned on her. "People were betting?"

Han grinned. "Don't be too upset. It was good clean fun. But plenty of people thought you and Luke were going to get together."

She sighed, wondering again if Luke had even made it safely out of the forest. She felt a sting of guilt about the fact that she hadn't been worrying about him lately. She'd had a mysterious but distinct feeling that he was fine, much as she'd had a mysterious and distinct feeling that he'd needed rescue under Bespin, but that was hardly proof positive. In fact, she concluded, her odd connection with Luke was probably what stimulated the troubling dream in the first place.

"I love Luke, don't get me wrong," she said, "But he's just so…Luke."

Laughing, Han kissed her. "I know what you mean, sweetheart. Now go back and get some rest. I'll wake you up in a couple of hours."

Leia stood up to head back to the lounge, noticing that Han was leaving her very little to clean. She resolved to get more of the details of his previous janitorial experience out of him later as she ascended the steps. Laying her head down on the couch, she closed her eyes, but couldn't shake the intense feeling that someone was watching her.