Sprung


The plan was simple. Lando and Chewbacca would help facilitate the repairs on the Falcon. Threepio, stuck on the ship, would provide critical diagnostic data.

And Han and Leia were to walk, hand-in-hand, into the trap Vader had set for them.

Led along the stunning white corridors of Cloud City by a suave administrator, it was easy to forget the danger that loomed. Tall, graceful walls painted a luminous cream made every space, every palisade, every hall look enormous. She felt dwarfed by the splendor of the columns, and it reminded her of Alderaan in quick moments, like a mirage that shifted when one came too close.

Where Alderaan had been ancient in its artfulness, Cloud City was new and robust. Humming with activity. Energetic. This was recent elegance, she could tell; what her aunts had once called new culture. Time had yet to dull the hard edges. Alderaan's white walls were graced by eons, by generations of reverential caretakers who had lived and died in service to the High Families. Cloud City thrummed with brutality, utilizing any means or opportunity for self-advancement.

That was not a bad thing, per se. Plenty of planets and outposts and civilizations hinged on just such a forward push. Corellia, for example. Coruscant, too.

Cloud City's people bustled in waves, in currents, ignorant of the darkness hidden all around them. Mining was not such aggressive work, she thought; they were dressed in casual whites and grays, floating capes and the clear lines of disposable capital evident in their jewelry and hairstyles. They looked calm, untroubled.

Lando had made his deals very quietly.

They were given quarters with which to freshen up. Lando had told them they were expected for a dinner in their honor: a cruel reveal that suited Vader's grandiosity hand in glove. She had to laugh at the genteel look Lando gave her as he escorted them to said quarters, a monstrous statesroom with two bedrooms and stunning views of the clouds all around them. The sky had turned a magnificent gold with streaks of pinks and reds, unbelievably beautiful. It broke her heart to see such natural magnificence when she felt utterly trapped.

"You might want to dress appropriately," Lando finished with a gesture to the full-to-bursting closets.

What exactly is appropriate in this context? she wanted to ask.

Neither Han nor Leia spoke, and it was like the air contained daggers pointed directly toward Lando's heart.

Awkward and unaccustomed to feeling that way, Lando Calrissian struck Leia as a man who was fighting with himself every moment to say something he wasn't allowed to say. She wondered if this was a part of his personality outside of the extreme circumstances of the moment. She sensed that she might have liked Lando at any other occasion; he felt …

Scrupulous. Yes.

A shade of gray that Han himself identified in himself. Salla, too. Lando's though was richer, deeper than theirs. It had nuance. What a shame she wouldn't have an opportunity to learn more.

She pursed her lips. "We are quite fine, thank you."

"The amenities are available to you, if you change your minds," Lando said. "I'll return in two hours."

Han, trailing his fingers over surfaces with impossible calmness, spoke before Lando could leave. "This place bugged?"

Turning, Lando's eyes flashed with such desperate anger that Leia almost took a step back. "I'm a lot of things, but I'm not that low."

Han mockingly raised an eyebrow.

"They're not getting any more information out of you than they have to, if I can help it."

"What do you know? The man has standards."

In a rush, Lando was at Han's throat. Shorter than the Corellian, he had no hopes of taking him down and Leia didn't truly feel any intent to do so. All the same, she stepped closer, just in case.

"You come here, trailing the Executor, with a price on your head and Leia Organa onboard, and you have the gall to say shit like that to me? Me?"

Lando was breathing hard, obviously stressed beyond measure, with wide eyes and cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass. His clothing, expensive and tailored to Leia's trained eye, was impeccable, without a single wrinkle. Their surroundings were prodigious, dripping wealth and ease, the clouds outside rolling into each other playfully. The air was clean and the furniture beautifully crafted, smooth waves and simple white in design.

And yet none of this perfection could hide the blemish that scored black across everything else, the thin facade that was their doom. Lando clearly felt terrible about their circumstances, his anger so close to the surface that it was like a fever, but nothing he could do now would save them. Han's impudence was probably misplaced, but she didn't doubt its sincerity.

"Friends don't sell out friends," Han spit out.

She grabbed his elbow in warning.

Clenching his fists, Lando appeared to try to tamp down his emotions. "Friends," he muttered. "Friends don't put their friends in a position to lose everything. You've ruined me."

"I've ruined you. Oh, that's rich."

"Han."

"The Empire has left me alone for almost three years and now you come strolling..."

"They're gonna kill her, Lando."

The shorter man stopped, turned guilty eyes toward her and stepped back.

"Her and Luke, her brother. This isn't about me or you or the damned Empire, friend," Han finished. "It's about them."

"Then why is Boba Fett here?"

Leia's heart stopped as if sliced open. That name. He had already told them a bounty hunter was here, but...

"Son of a bitch," Han muttered, calloused hand wiping over his jaw.

Lando nodded. "I'm sorry, Princess," he said. "I'm sorry, Han. I've done all that I can. I'm sorry I couldn't do better, but I have my own problems."

"Yeah, you're a real hero."

Han's words, said with such fury and without any of the incalcitrant humor that was an intrinsic part of who he was, made her blood run cold. It sounded like something she would have said to him before he had joined the Alliance. And that thought made it all so much worse, because here he was, in a losing situation, worried about her when he should be terrified for himself.

You certainly have a way with people, she thought at him.

With a wisp of silken cape, Lando left and the air settled into a stillness that was somehow worse. Neither Han nor Leia moved, staring at the flush white tile of their surroundings like it held an answer to their pleas.

"Boba Fett," she finally whispered.

She broke the spell. Han exhaled in a rush and collapsed into a nearby couch. "I'm gonna kill him," he said without an ounce of humor.

"It won't help."

"I'll try it and let you know."

Smiling ruefully, she sat beside him on the couch, close enough that their knees touched. He was heartbreakingly handsome in the setting sun of Bespin's skies: dark blue jacket contrasting with the reddish tinge in his hair when he turned to look at her.

"Suppose it's a good thing Vader hasn't shown his face yet. Gives Chewie more time."

She nodded and said, "The longer he has, the better."

"What do you think he's going to do?" Han asked. She knew he didn't mean Chewie. "Fett's here for me, but how does he play this game?"

She sat quietly for a moment, spanning starfields of strategy and possibility. Too hard to fathom, the mind of a sociopath, but she tried one horrible option after another. Murder. Torture, then murder. Hurting innocents in front of them. Some horrible abonimination of the Force she had yet to witness, the unnatural twisting of the Dark Side Yoda had spoken of.

"He wants Luke and me together," she said. "So I imagine he will separate us immediately, you to Fett and me to the Executor. It wouldn't make sense to risk keeping us together."

Grimly, he looked at her for a quiet moment, then leaned over and kissed her sweetly, softly.

"He'll try," he whispered against her lips. "And we'll give him hell for it."


"I simply cannot accomplish this as quickly as you want me to, Chewbacca!"

Droid was wasting time, and it was precious time they did not have. Lando Calrissian's service mechanic had slipped them a hyperdrive motivator, and until it was correctly installed, there was no sure escape from Bespin. Chewbacca had to work, had to finish this, before he was summoned.

And he would be summoned. The Dark Lord knew he was there. Chewbacca had shown himself on the landing bay only to prevent Imperials from boarding the ship before the necessary repairs were made. They would not approach until the trap was about to be sprung.

And his time was running out, he feared.

Work faster, Droid, he growled. We must work faster.


They treated their spacious quarters as the prison they were, not even leaving the main room where Lando had deposited them. Leia suggested meditating, Han suggested training, but they wound up doing neither in favor of simply sitting on the floor, leaning against the couch, and reminiscing.

How sad and sweet, this moment was.

"Three years," she marveled, thinking back to the fresh-faced boy who had freed her from her jail cell and the loudmouthed smuggler who had insulted her in the depths of an Imperial war machine.

Not that she hadn't deserved it, of course. She had been rather insulting, too.

"Doesn't seem that long, does it?" He tossed a small object in the air, something he had found in the quarters, and caught it before it hit him in the nose. "Too much time and not enough for everything that happened."

"Yes."

Battles and missions and one emergency after another, back to back to back. Various bases, various relationships between them. Too much time and not enough. Exactly like he had said.

"The real surprise is that it took you a year and a half to kiss me."

Chuckling, she looked down into her lap, at her folded hands. "It would have been a lot easier if you hadn't insisted on being a complete idiot the entire time."

"Idiot?"

"Confusing," she amended. "Challenging. Acting like a scoundrel one minute, and then a hero in the next…"

"Not that confusing. You knew exactly what I wanted."

She imagined the looks he had given her. The times he had stepped between her body and certain danger. The insults and the quiet moments of companionship.

"What you wanted, yes," she answered. "Not who you really were, though. That part you kept rather quiet."

"Could have made it easier on me, if you'd wanted to."

"I could say the same."

He tossed the object again and Leia diverted it into her hand with a quick tilt of her head. Han's eyes followed it until they came to rest on hers, wide and a little proud.

"You figured it out," he breathed.

"Not entirely."

She had still tilted her head, still needed a kinetic connection to the object she wished to move, but it was progress. Slow and meticulous. What a shame she would likely never see the extent of her power.

"Better, though," he said. "What made the difference?"

Licking her lips, she glanced at the object in her hand. A tiny clip to hang up clothing, by the looks of it, fitting easily into her palm. She handed it over to him.

"I feel too much right now," she explained the hollow truth she had only come to realize the night before. "I tend to … magnify my feelings when you are directly involved."

"Magnify."

"I sound insane, I know."

He shook his head. "No, you don't."

She tried to put it into words he could understand, but she struggled. It was like defining a feeling in a second language that didn't have the exact word she needed. He had a faith in her that was larger than his skepticism in the metaphysical, and she could only hope to use that.

"The times I've felt most powerful were times when I was single-mindedly focused on you. Your safety, or happiness, or … or whatever it might be. The marketplace on Nar Shaddaa. The training after you broke me."

He ducked his head.

"The night we reconciled, too," she added softly.

And how that moment was so acutely painful now, the joy and the pain in brought her. How powerful she had felt, how stable and serene. How quickly it was all about to be ripped away.

"Losing control over my emotions makes such things easy for me," she finished. "The Force. Seeing colors. Calling things into my hand. And I am about ten minutes away from losing it all. Everything."

Swallowing, he nodded, tossed the clip again.

She sighed, hugged her knees to her chest and watched the clip rise and fall over and over again, a steady drumbeat to Han's anxiety.


Lando returned just a few moments later, and it was a long, quiet march through the beautiful cascades of Cloud City's magnificent interior. Civilians went about their business, only casting the smallest of glances to Lando and his two companions.

"The repairs are nearly finished," he said to them low enough that none of the passersby could hear him. "But I don't know how you intend to escape."

They didn't dignify that with a response, and instead continued the trek.

Finally at a pair of ornate doors, Lando paused. "I've just made a deal that with keep the Empire out of here forever," he said loudly, in an effort to spring the trap.

Quick as lightning, Han's hand grabbed hers, squeezed, and she tucked the last kind neediness away somewhere safe.

The doors opened. A narrow room, a long table, and twin nightmares at the end of it: one for Han and one for Leia.

It was like someone had cracked a whip. Han's hand was on his blaster before she could blink, faster than she had ever seen him draw, and the blaster bolts were four-fold and aimed directly for the outstretched, lazy palm of the demon at the end of the table. And then Leia jumped in front of him, guarding him with her body, even as she drew up all the anger she felt, all the despair and decayed hope, and wrenched the lightsaber from Vader's belt as quickly as Han and drawn his blaster.

It sailed through the air and hit her hand with an audible thump, like a magnet. She flipped her wrist once and ignited the blade, spewing red light in front of her.

A moment of victory: she breathed it in. The surprise. The vindication. The power.

And Han continued to fire, eight times, nine. And Boba Fett raised his massive rifle and she wasn't sure how exactly she would defend against that. Was that the same weapon as on Ord Mantell, the one that had ripped holes through her abdomen? Never mind. Vader was recovering from his shock, and she felt it, the darkness crouching low around them, this prism of pain to which they'd been led.

The momentary victory had been only that.

Han's blaster flew in a rush toward Vader's awaiting hand, and then there was a choking sound from behind her. She turned, knowing as she did what she would see, horrified. Beloved green eyes bulged, capable hands clawing at his throat, and Leia couldn't do it, she couldn't handle it, so quick a surrender was her only option because she absolutely would not let him suffer like that.

No no no no.

She depressed the lightsaber's control and tossed it onto the center of the table, uttering one very low stop, please. Han sagged in relief, the vice-grip around his throat suddenly gone, and she barely had a moment to touch his chest in question before a loud booming voice commanded from the far side of the room.

"We would be honored if you would join us."

It was over in less than ten seconds.


Author's Note: Special thanks to my beloved HoldoutTrout for her eyes. Any mistakes you see are mine alone. She tried to warn me.

This shit is so hard to write, my friends, but we must carry on. There is one last heartbreak and one last reveal to go before this thing wraps up. Hang tight.

The next chapter of Specter will be posted on Friday, July 1st. Thank you, my friends. I'll try and get some lighter content out there soon to balance the … uh … yeah. Love, KR