Watershed
A wizened creature sat on his humble bed: awake, anticipating.
He sensed the emergence of the next big act of the galactic tragedy in which he was a player. The fall of the Jedi, the end of the Republic, the tightening fist of darkness and tyranny… it all led here, to this tumult, to this uncertainty.
Confrontation was on the horizon, in the air. A battle was afoot. Energy whirled and bent and swept wild around the misty haze of Dagobah, and he watched it with horror coloring his senses, much as young Skywalker claimed to see the Force. In color. In vibrant waves of light.
Whenever Vader stepped onto the stage, the Force rebelled in such a way. It always had been so, and it had been the same with Anakin. Power was like gravity, altering the paths of the heavenly bodies as surely as did space and time. It was an elemental truth of the universe. One could not harness such power without impacting the energy of everything else around them.
There had been a reason he had opposed training the Chosen One as a child. Displacement. A disturbance. What could they expect from such a novel entity? And depending on the outcome of this act of the tragedy, he would know whether he had been right in opposition. Anakin's fall might not be the climax of the play. The score might be longer than he had thought, but the Force worked outside of time. Who were they, these individuals, compared to the greatness of all life?
He would wait with baited breath, would hold on just a little longer, though his bones ached and his power dwindled. His part was not yet over. His role continued.
One twin should return to him soon. He had seen it. Mutable the future was, yes, but there was no other option. The Force must be put into balance. Darkness had reigned far too long for these last two shining hopes to be snuffed out so quickly. The tragedy had three acts, and they were but in the second.
He settled, tried to sleep. He would need his energy; he had one last mission and, more than any other, he could not fail.
—0—
A broken man stood vigil, peering into the blinding light.
Through the blast doors and into the whirling snow, Han glowered with an intensity that was probably inappropriate. His comm blared on his belt with transmissions between Salla and the kid—designated Echo Seven and Echo Three respectively for this particular search party—but he ignored them.
They had found something out there, and Han had no doubts what it would be. It wasn't the Force that told him, wasn't the dread in Luke's voice or the heaviness in Salla's. It was simple tactical calculus and a product of assumed pessimism.
An Imperial probe droid, similar to the one that he had found in Zone 266.
Must be a new standard operating procedure for the Imps, he thought. And if that was the case, then it would only be a matter of hours before Vader would show up.
Their time was up on Hoth. It was as plain to him as the nose on his face.
The snow was getting worse, the wind blowing flurries around with no grace of purpose. Just heavy muscle, a blunt expression of power. It was eerie, thinking about Vader while the elements hit the rebels with the same kind of ruthlessness as the black bastard himself.
He blinked, shattering the spell the snow drifts had held over him, and then turned toward the bustling docking bay. Mechanics buzzed about and shouted, conversations were held over long distances, creating a din that threatened to give him a headache. The normal energetic feeling of a busy ship bay like this one had been lost to him for days now: the movement exhausting, the faces all blurring together.
Fuck, he needed to sleep.
Shaking his head, he trudged through the maze of ships, feeling the last puzzle pieces fall into place in the mire of his time with the Alliance. This was as good a chance as any. An evacuation, the barely-controlled chaos of departing ships, especially as they narrowly avoided a skirmish with Vader that everyone knew they would not survive again.
Part of him was very willing to haul jets and conveniently miss the rendezvous in favor of Tatooine. That would be the easiest solution, but it was also the one he found most shameful. He was no coward—despite what Leia had said—and he was no deserter. It was for the good of the Alliance, him leaving. It was the best choice for all of them. For her, too.
What had once been his probable escape route years ago had been muddied by commitments and an actual respect for the Alliance. He couldn't just leave, even if the time was right, even if Salla was an ideal successor for leadership of the Mercs, even if Luke wouldn't particularly miss him. Even if Leia—
Well, that didn't matter. He would be stabbing her in the back no matter when he left. She wouldn't ever understand. There wasn't a single thing he could do to make that any easier.
Walking faster, he approached the familiar silhouette of the Falcon as she rested on her struts. She was nearly repaired from their escapade to Dagobah; just the aft hull needed some attention, a mess of melted sludge where Fett's blaster bolts had hit, more a cosmetic repair than one of functionality.
At least, they hoped so. The hyperdrive was located suspiciously close to that panel.
That was where he found Chewie, atop the electrical grid for the aft shields and hyperdrive connector, holding goggles to his eyes and a soldering iron spitting blue sparks in his other paw.
"Chewie!" he called.
The Wookiee chose to ignore his captain, continuing to work as Han cocked a hip and tried not to lose his patience. When he wasn't a miserable son of a bitch, Han was aware his choices were affecting Chewie, too, and felt some guilt for it.
Ah, but nothing was more important than his last mission here. Nothing. And if the Wook couldn't deal with that, then he could just fucking learn to live with his disappointment.
"Chewie!"
He continued his work, and Han rolled his eyes. Goddamn, things had been strained of late. Chewie didn't like the idea of leaving the Alliance, and that was putting it mildly. The Wookiee had hollered at him for hours in the past week, vehement and accusatory, and he had since taken to outright ignoring his human companion in favor of silence and sulking.
Now, Han well understood the desire to be angry in silence and ignore reality. That had been a big part of the plan to disentangle himself: ignore reality. There was no better way to pretend that life was pulling him in a direction he didn't want to go, that he didn't have a real choice in front of him.
The difference was that Han had made a decision, and Gruesome was indebted to him. If he had thought it would fly, he would have ordered Chewie to stay and guard Leia—a kind of transference—but the Wookiee code was pretty clear about Life Debts. His copilot would have to accompany him and deal with all his bullshit.
"Chewie," Han called a third time, anger lacing his tone.
I heard you the first two times, he growled. I do not wish to speak with you.
"Tough shit," Han muttered to himself.
But of course Chewie heard him. I am doing the work you will not do to prepare us for a retreat I do not agree with because you are acting like a strivakkk. Therefore, I choose not to answer you.
"Alright, don't lose your temper."
I know where my temper is. I am reasonably angry with you.
"I'll come right back and give you a hand," Han replied, choosing to push the facade a bit for the sake of any evesdroppers. No one needed to know why they weren't speaking anymore.
And so it was time to pull the plug. The Falcon was ready, the Alliance was soon evacuating, and they would part ways as amicably as they could.
He ignored the deep ache that accompanied the thought of leaving them. Her. He ignored it and relied on practice and the lie he had been perpetuating for days: that he was cold. Unkind. Selfish. That this wasn't killing every single bit of honor he had in him. That he wasn't always ten seconds away from dropping to his knees in front of her.
But no. It was done. There was just one last bit of official business to do.
Stepping through the bustling command center had been a mistake, and Han realized it the second he caught big, brown eyes from across the room. He had thought she might be in her office at this time of day—she always was, it was within the scope of her designated office hours—but he hadn't taken into account the sudden appearance of the probe droid.
Nothing in the history of the galaxy could have been less surprising than seeing her on-shift in CommCen, talking with hurried command as she tried to resolve the situation at hand.
She was beautiful there in vengeful glory, hair in her preferred coronet, lips pursed. She seemed as calm and in-control as ever, but that belied the nuances in her body, the way her posture changed and her quick inhale, the kind of thing he would see but no one else would. That was a deeper understanding of the princess than anyone else could hope to have.
None of that bothered him much, but her eyes got him. For all her experience—as a senator, as a spy—she had never quite been able to hide the truer emotions from him, the want and the love and the hurt that made her so endlessly fascinating to him. It didn't help that they hadn't been in the same room since he had planted a thermal detonator in her path a few days ago, when he had spit out his lie so unconvincingly that he couldn't believe she had actually fallen for it.
Maybe it's not worth it.
It shouldn't have been so easy.
One very dull part of his brain rustled in anger that she had believed him, but it was quickly silenced by the reality he had claimed as his. It didn't matter. He had gotten his wish. She hated him. It was right there in her heated eyes, the anger below the surface, boiling.
And then he was dismissed with a turn of her head as she resumed her conversation with the shield tech in front of her. The bite in his chest was unnervingly mild—he had gone through the possibility of seeing her in his mind dozens of times and had half-expected to panic and just abandon ship—so he moved past and found his intended target.
If called to testify, Carlist Rieekan would probably move against Han faster than anyone apart from Leia herself, and he couldn't blame him for it. He knew what the old general felt for his princess, and to be the man who had nearly killed her on Ord Mantell and then thrown her away like she meant nothing to him… it wasn't worth contemplating, as far as Han was concerned. Nothing good could come of that.
Hunched over a tech in much the same way Leia was, Rieekan flipped dials and ran a hand over beeping consoles. When he spared a glance over his shoulder and caught Han standing near him, his only response was a professional Solo.
Han had had four run-ins with the general since Ord Mantell, and none of them had been comfortable. But Rieekan was a good commander, a fair guy, and he knew how to separate his total frustration with a wayward commander from the task at hand. Namely, surviving the next twenty-four hours.
"Skywalker and Zend identified the unknown object as a probe droid," Han said in greeting. "It's a good bet the Empire knows we're here."
"And with all the meteorite activity in this system, it's going to be difficult to spot approaching ships."
The business of war was predictable stuff. If he continued to debate strategy with Rieekan, he would be pulled into helping with the evac, and that was a step in the wrong direction. He had to pull the ejector cord now, before he lost his nerve.
"General, I gotta leave. I can't stay anymore."
He didn't even try to hide the darkness in his tone. He was leaving, it was over. He didn't miss the startled eyes of the nearest comms specialist, the immediate whispers behind him. But it all turned to dust, like the paths he took in fire fights. It didn't matter how they had gotten to this point.
Rieekan, for his part, did look a little surprised. "I'm sorry to hear that," he said slowly.
And the tone—the paternalism of the statement—drew Han into explanation, something he had promised himself not to do. It wasn't any of their business, anyway. What was Rieekan gonna do? Throw him in the brig?
But that simple tone was more than Han's admittedly fragile composure could handle.
"Well, there's a price on my head. If I don't pay off Jabba the Hutt, I'm a dead man."
Worse than that, actually. If he didn't pay off Jabba the Hutt, Leia would be the target. Surely Rieekan could hear that in the forced casualness in Han's words, the sincere desire to keep her safe.
Shit, maybe he should have tried to get the general alone for this conversation. Maybe then he could have been honest about his motivations. Where the hell was his brain?
"A death mark's not an easy thing to live with," Rieekan muttered with a touch of his dry humor. "But you've got a commission, son. You can't just leave."
"Consider it resigned."
"At least stay long enough to help with the evac," Rieekan urged. "Get your people off this planet and to the rendezvous point, and we'll discuss it there."
"General—"
"Solo." And now the full impact of Carlist Rieekan came to bear: gray hair, kind eyes, proud brow, and the kind of toughness that only war created in a person. Han felt like a rebellious child, determined to have his way while a parent lectured him. "If Vader is coming here, like you and I both know he is, I'm going to need you to get your people out."
Your people. Han shut his mouth, bowled over by the command, the importance in the general's tone. Not just the Mercs, then. He meant Vader's true intended targets.
He meant Luke and Leia.
"You're a good commander, Solo, I hate to lose you. Do this for me, and I'll consider it."
Han knew Rieekan was playing him. If he wanted, he could bust out of here faster than the general could order the ion cannon online. There was nothing stopping him now except for the knowledge that he had just placed Leia's safety at Han's feet. How the fuck was he supposed to argue against that?
I'll get her to her transport when the time comes, he thought. I'll run interference while the transport leaves the system. And then when it hits hyperspace, I'll go to Tatooine.
"Thank you, general," he said, and then turned to leave the command center and hurry along the Falcon's repairs. One more step, one more mission, and then he would be out of here.
—0—
A tired young woman, surrounded by death, felt like she might buckle under the weight of her rage.
Leia had heard none of Rieekan's discussion with Han except the last thank you, general, and couldn't decide who she wanted to kill first, Han for actually trying to leave or Carlist for letting it happen. Furious, she chased Han out of the command center and caught him in the South Passage, ready to obliterate all pretense that this wasn't a monumental betrayal on both accounts. She would deal with Carlist later.
"Han!"
He stopped and turned, addressing her for the first time since he had ripped her heart out of her chest. "Yes, Your Highnessness?"
The old nickname was as cruel a play as he could have made, and it only served to make her angrier. "I thought you had decided to stay. Your squadron—"
"—Will be just fine without me."
She changed tacks. "You committed to the Alliance. You made a choice, and you can't just walk away."
"The bounty hunter we ran into on Ord Mantell changed my mind."
As if she could forget. As if that hadn't been the scene of multiple crimes. As if that day hadn't turned everything else on its head.
"We need you."
She meant the Mercs. She did. There was no resuscitating their relationship now, not when he was so determined to sabotage it from within, but at the least he would be nearby. She could keep him alive, could ensure he didn't throw his life away on some stupid suicide pact he had made with a Mandalorian bounty hunter on her account. She still loved him, desperately so. She still wanted him alive, with her, even if he wasn't with her.
The thought of him dying alone and anonymous on some wasteland of a planet was more than she could bear.
"You need," he laughed, bitter and low, and the depth of his voice made her catch her breath. "You."
"The Alliance, yes."
"Sure. And what about what I need?"
She would have slapped him if she had been the sort. What the hell was he doing, throwing around what he needed when he had burned everything to the ground in service to exactly that?
What about this situation isn't about what you think you need, Han?
She held her head high, determined not to let him get under her skin. "I think you made that quite clear already. I have no desire to rehash that conversation with you."
"You and me, both."
He started walking away, but Leia was not done. Hurrying after his longer stride, she passed several pilots, who all immediately stopped what they were doing and gawked at the scene she knew they were making. A rare sighting, indeed: the princess and the commander together since their relationship had fallen apart, something only the inevitable Imperial planetfall could have induced.
"And what precisely do you need?"
"Come on," he said without stopping. "You just want me to stay because of the way you feel about me."
"Yes."
That was an easy answer. Never in this entire turn of events had she ever claimed to have felt any differently. This wasn't about love. It was about fear, plain and simple.
She continued. "But you're also a great help to us. A natural leader."
"Right," he absently muttered, and that was the last straw.
Reaching out a hand, she grabbed his elbow, stopping him in his tracks and turning him toward her. The halt in forward momentum felt paramount, and her heart skidded to a stop when he focused on her entirely.
It had been days since they had physically been this close to each other, and she knew it was affecting him just as much as it was affecting her. The emotional gulf between them was large, of course, but even now, it was hard not to feel the pull that had always existed there.
"You're running away," she said, and she barely realized her hand was still on his arm as he looked down on her as if she was the barrier to freedom he was looking for. "Abandoning us when we need you the most."
"Rieekan ordered me to get you to the rendezvous point," he said. "But that's it."
Oh, Carlist.
She pushed, sensing a breaking point in the way his eyes wouldn't leave hers. "Until when?"
"Until Jabba stops letting the bounty hunters loose on my tail, Leia, it's not a hard concept to—"
"Vader is on his way here," she interrupted.
And there. That was what she had been waiting for. A breech, as surely as the probe droid's. His eyes narrowed and he swallowed. She squeezed his arm.
"And you'll get me out of here, I'm sure, but what about the next time?"
She hated this, hated plucking the chords of his fear. She was doing precisely the same thing he had done to her, marching out the terrors of his heart in service to her purposes. But he hadn't given her any other option, had he? This was a war of attrition, and she had very little left to give.
"You'll leave me defenseless? Against him?"
He bristled. "You're sure as fuck not helpless."
"Last time he came, Luke was lying in the med bunk and I could barely walk. You had to drag me to the Falcon—"
"You're stronger now," he argued. "Yoda taught you more. You'd be able—"
She shook her head. "He murdered the entire Order. Do you really think we will be much of a fight against him with a few days of levitating rocks?"
He should have known better than to break her heart. She was fully capable of doing the same to him. And she saw it there plainly, as he opened his mouth to say something back to her but lost his nerve. Sorrow and terror in the space between his lips. Pain in the dark circles under his eyes. Want in the way he hadn't yet stepped away from her hand.
"He's going to kill me," she whispered. "He's found us twice now. There will be a third."
She was torturing him, and she was manipulating him, and she had no hope of ever having a relationship with him again because there was no forgiving how they treated each other now, but she just wanted him safe.
"You want to stay because of the way you feel about me," she murmured. repeating his words back to him, soft and encouraging. "Stay, Han."
For a moment, it looked like she might have reached him. For a breath, two, his eyes changed and it was like he had been given whatever sign he had needed to agree. Her heart ached, knowing this capituation had nothing to do with anything more than his fear for her safety, but that was okay. She could live with that. She could not live knowing he was throwing himself away for bullish, stupid reasons.
She had given everything else to the Alliance, why not give him to them, too?
Orange jumpsuits out of the corner of her eye, slipping closer. And then she had to step away, had to pull her hand from him, and suddenly the spell was broken. When the pilots had passed, his eyes were settled again, still and confident, and she despaired.
"You're manipulating me."
She shook her head, but he had his shields back online, all fierce mercenary and hard-lived smuggler, glaring and imposing and almost frightening. He shook his head with a twist to his lips.
"No—"
"No," he said, putting his index finger in her face. "Don't pull that bullshit with me. Not me."
Her anger sparked, lighting an oiled fuse, ready to burn. But wasn't it always, with him?
"It's not bullshit if it works," she spat, pushing his finger away. "You're weak."
"And you're a liar."
That stung, and it only provided more tinder. A liar. Another punch that only he could deliver.
"Me? Who's the one lying to themselves?"
"Answer your comm when I call you to go," he said, angry and vicious. "Or I'm leaving you here."
Turning, he stalked away and all she could do was half-laugh in outrage, a rampaging proton missile wedged deep into her chest, ready to explode. "Fine. Run away. You always do," she yelled after him but she didn't know if he heard her. He was far enough away, and rebel bodies stood between them, that he might not have.
—0—
A young man, always in a hurry to do the right thing, scanned a desperate landing bay.
Luke dismounted from his tauntaun and shook off the ice that lined his thermal coat. Hurying, he sped toward the command center, passing several Rogue pilots, all of whom wanted to regale him with some tale of the fight between Han and Leia. But he didn't have time. None of them had time.
For anyone else on Echo Base, the discovery of an Imperial probe droid was distressing but fairly expected. No base was impenetrable, and they were hardly invisible, even on the Rim. It was probably only a matter of time before the Empire found them.
But Luke keenly remembered the last time this sequence of events had happened. He remembered the nightmarish visions, the utter disconnection from reality, the sense of foreboding and fear that had overwhelmed him. He remembered the horrifying feeling of not being able to communicate with the outside world, nor being able to warn anyone of what was to come.
He wouldn't let that happen again. This time, they would be ready.
The command center was barely functioning, full to the brim with people shouting orders and droids clicking in code. He heard about the shield generators, he heard about the ion cannon, he heard about the ridge, he heard about a landing party, speculation on AT-ATs. A million pieces of information flooded him, but he kept his senses and looked for his sister.
Leia turned as he came through the hatch, waved him over. "You're sure?"
"It's the same design," he replied, running a hand through his hair. "It's them."
"How long has it been there?"
He shrugged. "No idea. It was pretty buried."
Muttering a curse, she turned to the tech next to her. "All troop carriers will assemble at the north entrance. The heavy transport ships will leave as soon as they're loaded. Only two fighter escorts per ship…"
Luke tuned her out and fell inward while she wrapped up her duties. They knew exactly what they had to do here, the same way they had known in Zone 266. The difference this time was that, so far, he had felt nothing of the creeping darkness of before. He wasn't sure if this was a product of their time on Dagobah or because Vader wasn't reaching out to them, was hiding his presence.
Either way, he had to be ready. They had to be ready.
"How long?" he asked, when she finished speaking and came closer to him.
"Evac will begin in ten minutes."
"Do you feel him?"
When he didn't hear anything, he crept closer. She was drawn, weary. Frightened.
"No," she answered. "But if it's the same probe—"
"It is."
"—then he'll be here. No other base has seen probes like these."
He didn't need to hear her say it to know it was the truth. If Vader hadn't broadcast his presence in the system, they would not have survived the attack on Home One. Like them, he had learned from that skirmish, and the Jedi Killer was here to take them down on-planet.
"Where do we fight?" he asked the most important question he could think of.
They needed room. They needed clear space. They needed few onlookers. And they needed a potential escape route, if the opportunity arose for one. Which only left one option.
"The bay," they said together.
He caught a strange look from the tech next to Leia but dismissed it as he turned toward the hatch, realizing only as they fled through it that they needed to survive long enough to get everyone into a transport.
Bait. That's what they were.
Bait for Darth Vader.
At least this time they would try to fight back.
—0—
An overly confident Lieutenant surveyed the battlefield in front of him.
The snowy trench was cold as hell in this storm, but Brackett wasn't all that worried about it. The heavy DX-12-22 repeating blaster in his hands didn't shake. He was ready.
Block the Imps, give the first transports time to get out of atmo. That was what his commander had told him to do, and that's what he fully intended to do. No need to worry, the day's effort would be simple.
He had survived the attack on Home One. He would survive this one, too. No problem.
—0—
But Ensign Horto wasn't so sure. Stationed near the shield generator in all its fickle glory, she watched with uncertain eyes. Command had just announced that the Executor had arrived in-system. And the big block of durasteel behind her was only operating at seventeen percent capacity at the moment.
I'm going to die today, she thought as the first transport flew overhead.
—0—
The comms specialist uttered just one word: landfall. And then a second voice, that of General Rieekan over personal comms, announcing that AT-ATs had been spotted on-planet.
Salla Zend and Wedge Antilles stared at each other over the top of Skywalker's prepped X-wing, and a feeling of mutual wildness passed from one to the other. She broke contact first and slid down the side of the Intruder's hull with a whistle towards the Rogue's XO.
"I'll take down two for every one you get," she shouted.
"I want a case of Whyren's when you're wrong," he answered, and then the hatch was closed and Salla sat in the pilot's chair, taking one last lingering look at the Millennium Falcon, docked to starboard and silent.
"Keep them safe, Slick," she whispered, and then powered up, trying to ignore the two small figures standing side-by-side by the mouth of the bay.
—0—
Han watched the Mercs and the Rogues speed out of the bay and then glanced at Chewie's efforts on the aft hull.
"No, no, no! This one goes there, that one goes here. Right?"
Get them out, get them out, get them out—
—0—
And then the twins, watching the melee, frighteningly aware that their part in the evacuation was very, very different from anyone else's.
Luke looked to his right, reached out a hand and squeezed hers, and then settled into his preferred fencing stance but with the added weight of his father's lightsaber. Picking up a piece of durasteel from the ground, Leia closed her eyes as it rose from her palm, hovering.
"We're ready," he said.
The durasteel shook in the air and Leia watched it fall. Then she unholstered her blaster and shook her head.
"No, we're not," she said.
Author's Note: Happy June! I hope you are seeing the fruits of your carefulness this past year, that your life is beginning to look a little more normal, and that you've thanked your local hospital for all their heroic efforts. The dawn is coming in the form of vaccines, and it is going to be a beautiful summer.
Thank you for your enormous support, for your reviews and your recs and for your personal emails. They are so needed and appreciated. And please join me at the Battle of Hoth, Thursday, July 1st, when the next chapter of Specter drops. Thank you, again! -KR
