Here

Leia lurched out of a fitful sleep as if possessed. Her meager dinner of rations and water rose in her throat and then landed on the deckplates beside the bunk. A shard of ice coursed through her body, her skin rippling into shivers. She heaved and her back bowed in great shudders, breath caught in her throat. All of this before she even knew what was happening, where she was. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't think, she couldn't—

"Leia?" she heard a voice, raspy and tired.

She retched again. Her body seized in tight waves of fear and pain, her stomach now empty. Her brain felt too large for her skull. It came from every corner, every nerve ending, every myelin sheath and every axon. It was a barrage. It was an onslaught.

She felt a sick, consuming emptiness. Destruction. Death.

"The hell—?" the voice said and then a hand on her shoulder, a warm body next to hers. Close enough to feel her tremble, feel how she gasped for breath in the cold air of her quarters.

She tried to clamp her teeth together, tried to hide the insurmountable pain but she already knew she couldn't hide it from him.

She grasped the sheets, hands locking in the itchy, cheap fabric of her blanket. "Oh, no. Oh no, no, no—"

She wrenched herself away from his comfort, from his hands and warmth and reassuring voice. She couldn't stand it, couldn't be comforted. He was close, too close and he was coming. They needed to move. They needed to leave. He was coming.

He was here.

She flew to her bare-bones closet, tossed on a pair of Alliance crew-pants and a man's old shirt, sleep-braid flying behind her as she wrestled with her boots and jacket.

What are you going to do? a ringing voice said in her head. Run to High Command and explain… what?

That she had the instincts of a Jedi but couldn't stand the thought of becoming one? That some dark presence had been haunting her dreams for days?

No. That was reason and she had no space for it. The air around her was charged with malevolence, violent and violating. Something was wrong, utterly wrong, and there was nothing left to do but act. She tried to organize her thoughts but struggled, falling into pure terror and animal instinct.

"Get up," she said. Yelled. Screamed. Her voice too loud but who cared who heard her? This was an emergency, this was life-and-death, couldn't they feel it, too? That he was coming, that he was close? Close enough to be dangerous, close enough to kill them all—

"What are you doing?" the male voice asked. "Leia, come here."

Han. Leia identified the voice as his only after she looked at him, looked at the face of the man still lying in the bunk. And when she did, when the name resurfaced from the mire of her brain, the terror multiplied, pushed another retch into her throat as she fell to her knees and heaved. Nothing came of it, fruitless reactions to flightless, boundless fear for the one person she couldn't lose, she couldn't lose him, she couldn't. He needed to be safe. Where would he be safe? Where was safety? And how did she get him there?

Han. Oh, Han.

She heard him stand, saw his bare feet as he struggled toward her, tripping and falling to his knees next to her shoulders.

"Leia." A hand in her hair, on the bowing arch of her back as she took deep, hacking breaths. "C'mon, Sweetheart, look at me."

Panting, she turned to him. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

His eyes were everywhere, his jaw tight as he brushed his hands anywhere he could reach. "I'm here. You're okay. We're okay."

She closed her eyes, too overwhelmed. They weren't anywhere near okay. She wasn't sure why he wasn't moving, why he was wasting time trying to calm her down when the pain and the fear and the hopeless, helpless dread were everywhere in the room, clogging the air filters, strangling them both. They needed to move, they needed to act.The galaxy was about to crash down on them both, on all of them, unless they moved.

"Get dressed," she bit out. "We need to go."

Han stared at her and Leia stared at him, trying to tell him without words that she needed him to listen to her. Her brain was a mess of signals, a storm of thoughts and feelings and perceptions that didn't belong there. She couldn't think and she was thinking too much and the resulting chaos was going to shatter her. All she knew was that she had to protect him, that she needed him safe, that she couldn't lose him.

"Please," she begged and in another time she would have been shocked at the plea in her voice. But not now, not while her brain was alight, on fire. "Please, Han. We need to go. Please."

Han opened his mouth and she knew, she knew, he was about to use reason against her, that he had a long, itemized list of logical datapoints about why they were safe in her quarters on Home One. That's where they were, right? In her quarters? It was—what was it? 0316?—and no klaxons were blaring, no official announcement of Imperial ships had burst through the sound-system. There was no foundation for her extreme panic.

Except.

"You were right," she breathed, grabbed for his shoulders as the cold of the deckplates bit into her shins. "You were right about the probe. They're here."

He frowned, the beloved crease in his forehead a fitting rebuttal. Leia summoned the last bit of command she had, the last vestige of a thinking, processing human.

"He's here."

Han's breath left him, the noxious atmosphere taking him over now, too. He became movement itself, tearing through the section of her closet that held his pants, clipping a comm to his belt and holstering the DL-44 against his thigh. A whirlwind of activity, that was Han always, but the clumsiness inherent in his movements now rivalled the way her brain functioned. A whirling, flaring scramble of sensation and electric pain, unendurable, summoning and fluctuating and they had to get out of here.

"Okay," Han said and he was dressed and lifting her from the deckplates helping her with the last button of the shirt she wore—his shirt, the one that always made her feel safe—making sure her boots were latched. "Okay, Sweetheart. Where do we go?"

Leia's eyes met his, her knees shaking, her lips trembling.

"Luke," she breathed.

If she was in danger, if Han or Chewie were in danger, then surely Luke was, too. Her family, her people, the only people she had left and they were all in danger.

Han stared at her, held her face in his hands: eyes wide and gray and worried—so worried—that it almost stopped whatever breath she'd managed to take into her lungs. She licked her lips and grasped his collar in a tight fist, squeezing it and turning it as she watched Han comprehend what she was saying.

"Okay," he said after a moment, nodding. "Okay. Let's go get Luke."

—O—

Han didn't remember the journey to the docking bay. He didn't remember deciding to go there. Logically, he and Leia should have run to Luke's quarters since it was so late into their sleeping cycle.

But that wasn't where they went. Leia had insisted.

He didn't remember the journey, no, but he remembered how it felt to be sick with terror for the woman he loved. His stomach was a mess of knots and worry, holding her close, feeling how she trembled in his arms. Everything inside him turned black, an instinctive nothingness to swallow the fear.

Han pushed against it. He could handle it, could feel sick and worried and make the correct decisions, too. He knew he could, for Leia. And if that wasn't a terrifying feeling all on its own, he didn't know what was.

The starboard docking bay was empty but for a few ambling droids, bored mechanics and pilots looking a little worse for wear after the party the night before. The air was cool to his skin and empty to his overheated body. Their half-run, half-tripping footsteps were loud in the cavernous bay and people noticed, he could tell. He could feel their surprise to see him and Leia there, staggering together into the bay, eyes wide and panic like a cloud around them.

And Han tried—he tried so hard—to lend Leia his calm, to imbue her frantic little body with warmth and control. But this was a total reversal in their relationship. Leia never had to be controlled. She always knew because that's who she was. In his eyes, Leia Organa was omniscient and omnipotent.

He didn't like the shake in his hands and wasn't sure if it was coming from Leia or from him. He didn't like her stilted breathing. He didn't like that she clung to him like a being possessed. That she was softly keening to herself. Pease, please, please, we need to go, we need to go.

It terrified him. It made him sick with worry.

"Luke?" he yelled, despite the scene they were making. "Luke, you here?"

Over here! a familiar Wookiee growled.

Han hauled jets to the ramp of the Falcon, half-carrying Leia as she stumbled, shaking, breath hitching.

"Chewie," he replied as he passed the Rogues, as a few pilots poked their heads out of engine blocks, a whispered what the hell? blowing by his ears.

We need Medical, Chewie growled though Han couldn't yet see him. A few more meters, just past Luke's old, beat-up X-wing and—

"Fuck," Han said, almost dropping Leia as she keened louder. "What the—?"

Luke was splayed out on the ground, eyes closed and breath coming out in uneven rhythms of pain. He was half-dressed, one boot on, one glove, an unzipped flight-suit over the old moisture farmer undershirt that Han knew the kid favored. He looked pale, paler than Leia, and he was sweating.

"Luke," Leia murmured into Han's chest.

Medical! Chewie shouted again when he saw Han and Leia, and Han knew the Wookiee's concern was as strong as his own. Blasted idiots, go get Medical!

The command was for the Rogues; Han spotted Wedge Antilles in the corner of his eye and a few members of the Yellow Squadron crew. They looked hungover, sick themselves, slow to move or communicate or do anything other than stare.

"They don't need Medical, pal," Han said, coming to a stop at the Falcon's ramp. "It's not physical."

Of course it is, Chewie growled. Look at them!

Han looked, noting the kid's uncharacteristic pallor, the whiteness of his lips, the stuttering of his breathing. He turned to the woman leaning on him, her unruly hair, the way her eyes never seemed to settle on any one thing.

And then she caught sight of Luke and Han felt the change in her. Her weight fell on him, knees buckling, her mutters getting louder.

"He's here, he's here, he's here," she whimpered and Han felt his heart sink, the pain in those words flooding his chest. "Luke—"

"Yeah, Sweetheart. It's Luke," he bent to kiss the top of her head, terrified of her monotone, her helplessness consuming him whole.

What is going on? Chewie demanded.

Leia loosened the arm around Han's waist, tripping over her own feet to sit by Luke's prone form, running nervous fingers over the kid's chest. Her hand rose and fell with his breathing and she seemed to relax as she sat, her eyes on Luke.

"I don't know, I don't," Han confessed, his hands shaking. "She just woke up like this. I don't know what's going on."

Is it the Force?

"How the fuck would I know?" Han said, a little too loud. "She just kept saying she had to go, that he was here."

The Wookiee's eyes shot to Han's at lightspeed. Who is here?

Han shrugged, shaking his head and lowering his voice so only Chewie could hear. "Vader, I think."

Chewie looked at him, blue eyes wide and mouth gaping. In a moment of complete dissociation, Han noticed how long his copilot's fangs were, nearly twice the size of his normal teeth. Get it together, he urged himself.

What do you want to do? Chewie asked, soft and low. Should we scramble the Mercs?

Han considered it, trying to make his brain focus on anything but his desperate worry for Leia. It was difficult; he felt like her pain and panic were all he could think about. Like she was the star that gave him light and without her, he was only fumbling in the dark.

It was mostly the truth. He knew that. But he was also a goddamned commander. And he knew what was at stake.

His eyes ticked through the docking bay and he saw a small fleet, pilots peering curiously at him, the scattered and scrounged assemblage of the Alliance war machine. He saw the real world, the world he knew and the world he lived in, permanent and visceral. The stuff he could see and touch and experience for himself. And none of this alarmed him, none of it pointed to danger. The only reason he was here and not fast asleep was Leia.

And Leia…

He looked at her, at her shaking form, at the way her eyes seemed to take up half her face. Big, brown and scared out of her mind. Only one thing did that. Han only had one choice here and he knew it.

"Antilles!" he yelled. "Scramble the Rogues. I got the Mercs. You have ninety seconds."

Wedge hesitated and then nodded, taking the rungs of his ladder two at a time and speaking into his comm. Han eyed his fellow Corellian as he drew his own comm to his mouth, set the scramble code for his flight and began to unhook refueling lines around the underbelly of the Falcon.

"Take them inside, Chewie," he yelled, and prayed he was making the same decision Leia would have made if she were able.

—O—

The Rogue and Merc scramble code went out almost simultaneously and since most of the pilots had just managed to turn in after their celebrations the night before, it was a most unwelcome sound. The officer's corridor went from nearly empty to a mess of half-latched boots and unzipped flight-suits in two seconds flat. They had been drilled and drilled and drilled again in the necessity of quick response times when a scramble code went out.

In fact, most of the Mercs thought this particular code—two flights at once, and two flights who might have been last seen imbibing alcohol against regulations—was some kind of Alliance retribution. Their scramble code, a piercing cry from their comms and then three shorter beeps, had gone off three times in succession already, but no klaxons blared.

It wasn't until they'd hit the corridor that they noticed the Rogues had been summoned as well, and that was as suspicious as anything else.

"This a set-up?" Kral muttered to Teso.

Teso shrugged. "Looks like it. Rogues look worried though."

Kral pressed her lips together and tried to find a Rogue close enough to flag down. The corridor was narrow and overflowing and they only had seconds before they reached the docking bay. She tried several Rogues but none turned around, all focused on dressing or running or trying to do both at the same time.

And then, finally, she caught sight of someone she knew, someone who would tell her what he knew. "Janson!" she yelled. "Hey! Janson!"

The human turned around, lips pressed into a thin line. "What?"

"You know what's going down?"

"No but it's something weird. Scramble code came from the XO, not Skywalker," he said with a quick look.

"Antilles sent your code?" Kral asked.

Janson didn't answer, just turned around and hurried to the open hatch of the corridor that led to the starboard docking bay.

Teso groaned under his breath and preceded Kral into the hatch that headed to the port docking bay. "Bad news," he murmured. "We're in deep shit."

—O—

Han leaned over the medbunk, quickly buckling Luke in with the old, disintegrating safety straps and whispering a low take it easy, kid. Then he launched himself through the ring corridor, past the galley, the holochess table, the captain's quarters and into the cockpit.

It was loud as he moved through the hatch, the thrusters humming in the last few moments of the warm-up cycle. Chewie was busy in the copilot's chair, double- and triple-checking the nav panel while it screeched in alarm. Han barely had a moment to note Chewie had strapped Leia into the seat behind the copilot's chair and then he was at the helm.

Taking a deep breath, he went through his own process of calming his nerves and settling the anxious flutters in his stomach. Hi, baby, he thought to the mercurial ship. Let's go see what's happening.

"Green Leader to Green Flight," Han barked into the comm array. "Do you copy?"

"Green Two copies," Salla's voice came through the speaker, low and calm. "We're all here. Mind sharing what the hell you're doing scrambling us in the middle of our sleep cycle?"

"No," he muttered, then spoke up for the benefit of the others on the scramble code. "Green Leader to Rogue Squadron, do you copy?"

Wedge Antilles' voice was so jittery Han immediately sussed out that the other Corellian had given himself a stim shot to bring himself out of his hangovered state. "Rogue Two copies. I second Green Two's question. What's going on?"

"Rogue Leader is out of commission," Han bit out, throwing a glance toward Chewie. "I'm taking command."

"Rogue Four to Green Leader," Janson's voice crackled over the speaker. "Hell of a way to get a promotion."

Han grit his teeth. "Not a promotion."

But Janson wasn't so easily swayed. "Then you should explain how this isn't mutiny, Solo. We don't know where Rogue Leader is. You can't use our scramble code."

Chewie growled in anger but Han waved him off. He could understand where Wes might get an idea like that but he didn't like the accusation. For one, he wasn't a murderer. And two, there was no way he would harm a hair on that kid's head. He'd spent way too much energy keeping him alive.

"Green Fourteen to Rogue Four, shut yer mouthhole and follow orders."

"Make him, Greenie," Hobbie Klivian said.

"All of you shut up," Han ordered, flipping switches to engage the inertial compensators. "Green Two, Rogue Two, on me."

"Copy," Salla said, immediate and strong. "Which heading?"

"No heading. You two on my six, everyone else get ready for launch. You come out when I say so."

"Rogue Two to Green Leader, why are we scrambling?" Wedge asked. "I trust you, man, but you gotta give us something more to go on."

Han opened his mouth to respond but was stopped by a shivering body stepping between the pilot and copilot's seats. Leia's hand shot from his peripheral vision, small and white, and stabbed the comm control.

"Rogue Two this is Leia Organa," she said and if he hadn't been awoken by her terror, Han never would have guessed that she'd spent the better part of the past ten minutes a blank-eyed shadow. "Green Leader has command. Follow his orders."

"Yes, sir," Wedge responded.

Han turned wide eyes to Leia as she staggered back into her chair and lifted a hand to ward off his worry. "Go," she murmured.

Han settled into the nerfhide leather of his chair, old and creaky, and squared off his shoulders. "Alright," he said. "Green Two, Rogue Two, on me."

—O—

The cosmic stillness of the Alliance's hiding place looked unchanging. No moons, no planets, no visible movement anywhere in the viewport of the Millennium Falcon, the Starlight Intruder or Antilles' X-wing. All they could see was a wide expanse of darkness: the fleet at their backs, the darkness surrounding them. Everything looked okay on the scopes, too, but the scopes had always looked clear. The gravity wells were an infernal source of safety and blindness: hiding the Alliance as much as they hid the danger around them.

They found nothing. Nothing aberrant, nothing unusual. No sign of invaders or Imperial ships.

"Leia?" Han asked.

He turned to look at her, small in his navigator's chair, finding that her eyes had settled, no longer running laps around her field of vision, and she'd finally caught her breath. But her paleness, the shake in her hands… those persisted. Han had to work very hard not to let his fear for her take over.

Chewie growled, wordless, untranslatable: a worried kind of nudge.

"I don't know," she murmured. "I just… I need to do something. It's like, it's like… I need to be out here."

Han shared a nervous look with Chewie before refocusing on Leia. "Like the marketplace?"

"No." She shook her head, vigor in the movement. "Not like that."

"Then like what?"

Staring out the viewport, she bit her lip. Han was flummoxed; he felt trapped, like he couldn't go forward or backward or sideways because here he was, dealing with what he assumed was the Force, and he barely believed in that, much less in early warnings and ghost stories of scary villians in the emptiness of space. There was nothing here. His eyes, the Falcon's scopes… all of it said they were safe.

But he believed in them, Luke and Leia. He believed that they believed something was out here. He believed that danger lurked nearby, close enough to touch, close enough to take away the life he was happily building on that big, ugly Mon Cal cruiser behind them.

"Green Two to Green Leader," Salla said. "Do you have orders for us or are we just out here for the view?"

"Rogue Two to Green Two, there is no view."

Wedge's voice, annoyed and jittery. Han shook his head, ready with a quick eyes sharp, Antilles, but he was beat to the punch.

"Rogue Two, Green Squadron kindly requests you shut up and let the boss think," Salla said.

"Green Two, Rogue Squadron kindly requests you take your lips off Solo's ass."

"You want to make this a problem, tough guy?" Salla asked.

"I just want to go hurl in my cabin in peace, Zend, you're the one going all Commander Knows Best on us."

A short intake of breath, then Salla said, "Commander does know best. Or at least mine does."

"Hey, now—"

"Where's your commander, Rogue Two? Skywalker was at the party last night and look who's up here doing the hard work. Not Skywalker."

Han's irritation with them both skyrocketed. He knew he should keep a cool head, knew he had a job to do here even if he wasn't sure he knew exactly what it was. Leia wouldn't have steered him out here for nothing. But these kids and their fucking whining for attention and favor were enough to make him want to strangle them both. He tried to keep quiet, tried to stifle the angry words that were bubbling in his throat but he couldn't just let them spiral into petty arguments—

"Listen up, motherfuckers," he bit out. "I have exactly one fuck to give and neither of you are getting it right now. So shut up and look."

A beat, then Antilles: "Look for what, Green Leader? There's nothing out here."

Han felt a trickle of doubt, tentacles of an ugly feeling in his chest. Leia wasn't talking anymore and Luke hadn't said anything at all; maybe he hadn't gotten it right? Maybe the Force was like a Chandrilian Fire-Box: the more you looked at it, the simpler it got and then when you walked into it, it swallowed you whole. Maybe this was a gimmick, or a false alarm, or the Force was confusing what was happening now and what would happen later? Did the Force get confused?

No. Leia wouldn't react like she had if something wasn't horribly wrong. And Luke, too—

"Just keep looking," he growled. "There's gotta be something out here."

He stopped as Chewie turned into a whirlwind of activity. With a grunt of surprise he stood and reached for switches above Leia's head, skewing all the diagnostics to a string of coordinates that held absolutely no meaning to Han. His copilot imputed a coordinate that made no sense, a zone to starboard that held nothing on the scopes, that looked as dull and black as every other zone around them. Han stared at him, dumbfounded.

"The hell?" Han said, forgetting to turn off the mic, only switching it off when he heard his own voice echo through the comm array. "What's wrong?"

Chewie warbled a low note and even Han had to think a moment to discern what he'd said.

"Which sector?" he asked. "Did you see something?"

No, Chewie said clearer, more absolute. Did you not hear Little Jedi?

Han turned to Leia but her eyes still seemed far away. He refocused on the Wookiee. "I can't hear the kid, pal," he explained. "He's way back in the medbunk."

I can hear him fine, Chewie growled.

"Good for you," Han said, sarcasm heavy in his tone. "What. Did. He. Say?"

He is muttering about Zone 266.

"Zone 266?"

It appears my ears are good for more than listening to you and Little Princess—

Han lunged for the comm array on instinct, though Wedge wouldn't understand Chewie anyway. "Zone 266?" he asked again. "You're sure?"

Chewie made a soft groan in the affirmative.

Han nodded and engaged the sublight drives, toggling the shields to full power and cutting fuel to the engines. "Green Two, Rogue Two: on me," he said.

They acknowledged the order and the Falcon slid through the emptiness, her escorts close on her tail. Han opened up all power to the sensor suites and kept his eyes peeled. The damn gravity wells made the whole area a fucking nest. And if Luke and Leia were right, if Vader was out here somewhere, he wasn't just going to announce his presence.

Silence in the cockpit as they slowly entered Zone 266. Han's eyes scanned the viewport, trying to discern black-on-black, the lack of light, the lack of anything. He'd done this just yesterday afternoon, of course, but now, without the distraction of training his flight, he found himself on edge, second-guessing every wrinkle and fold of the gravity well readings.

"Where are you, you wheezing bastard?" he murmured to himself.

"Green Two to Green Leader, who are you—?"

A slim hand shot out from his right, grabbed the control yoke. Han jerked back, surprised, as Leia yanked the yoke to starboard, flipping the Falcon into an uncontrolled spin as two laser blasts skimmed the cockpit canopy. He blinked, tried to reconcile that the blasts didn't look like the Empire's typical laser blasts, shone more like console-frying beta-blasts than the red of shoot-to-kill hardware.

Han dismissed it, swore and wrenched the yoke away, stabilizing the Falcon out of her spiral and flipping all shields to maximum.

"Enemy fire!" he yelled into the comm and stabbed the scopes to full power. "Evasive maneuvers!"

"Green Leader, we have TIEs," Wedge said, keeping close to Han's flank.

Chewie growled a curse in Shyriiwook and opened the comm for the emergency signal, calling for reinforcements over the scramble code. Han wiped a hand over his eyes and tried to track the TIE who'd shot at him far off to port. The bastard zipped into a gravity well, disappeared from the scope, and then reappeared seconds later a few klicks away.

"Blasted Imps," Han said through gritted teeth. "Where's your Destroyer?"

Han caught a sudden dip from Wedge's X-wing and then more blasts shot from the empty black of Zone 266.

"Where the hell are they coming from?" Wedge shouted, echoing Han's thoughts.

The Starlight Intruder made a wide curve to cover Wedge's flank and Salla's voice came through, scrambled and tinny. "They're using the gravity wells as cover."

Han had come to the same conclusion, thinking the Destroyer that housed these TIEs must be sitting somewhere in that sector behind or inside a gravity well that obscured its location. He turned to Leia, eyed her faraway look, her soundless lips. She seemed lost in thought, only able to communicate through action.

He grabbed her hand, squeezing hard. "Leia."

She turned to him, gripped his hand just as hard.

"Is it him?" he asked. "Is it Vader?"

Han could hear a deep inhale over the comm—from Salla, he thought—but he disregarded it. Chewie growled, a warning to take the helm again before they were all blown to spacedust, but Han ignored him. Leia didn't do anything, didn't say anything, but her eyes and her lips and the pale, ghostly look of her skin answered for her.

He gave one quick nod and turned to the viewport, to the empty black in front of him. "Rogue Two, Green Two, the Executor is in Zone 266."

"Shit," Salla muttered as Wedge whispered the equivalent in low Corellian.

"Yeah," Han answered. "Chewie already scrambled the rest of the fleet."

Wedge cleared his throat. "Are you ordering an evac?"

Han paused; he hadn't gotten that far. Obviously that's exactly what Home One needed to do but the logistics of deploying the fleet to cover the retreat were massive. They were on an unsanctioned mission out here, defenseless because he'd scrambled his and Luke's squadron on the basis of Leia's odd reaction, a reaction he would never have seen if he hadn't been sleeping with her.

"Tell Carlist," Leia said, and it sounded like it took every ounce of energy she had. "He knows. He'll order it."

Han nodded, opened the comm channel to General Carlist Rieekan and prayed the Mercs and Rogues were ready for a bloodbath.

—O—

Author's Note: Chapter 6 will be posted Sunday, March 1st. Have a lovely February, Valentine's Day, Galentine's Day, Single's Awareness Day, whatever you celebrate! Thanks again, AmongstEmeraldClouds, for your support and critical eye. And thank you, readers! -KR