A Widening Circle

Leia slept for hours in the blue-white room, lying next to Han. Facing him, she kept her distance, unsure exactly where the line was, but she was close enough to hear him breathe and that was more than enough. Everything around her was peaceful: the stillness, the ambiance, the health and presence of the man next to her.

A ritual born of a life together, as if the laugh lines on his face and his salt-and-pepper hair were real, as if they had traveled together not through space but through time.

The rare feeling of true rest blocked out her incessant worry for his physical body, lost somewhere in the span of starfields and gravity wells. Because that was space, and she was living in time. Here these worries didn't exist because they had happened long ago.

For Han to age gracefully, he had to have survived the carbonite.

When she awoke from her double-sleep, she had the edged focus of a surgeon and the ruthless motivation of a corrupt politician.

Soft steps from the captain's quarters to the galley for caf—preparing two mugs, because she knew Chewie would hear her messing around in the galley and would soon come to investigate—and then she brushed into the main hold, wiping a hand across her eyes to prepare them for hours of hard work and research.

And there, sitting stiffly in the dejarik booth, was Salla Zend.

Leia's residual sleepiness dropped like a stone on a high-gravity moon. Their last interaction flashed through her mind, and she was reminded that Salla might not simply hold her responsible for Han's loss but may very well know the sordid family details that were sure to be ripping through the Alliance like wildfire after her spectacular resignation yesterday.

After a year and a half of working with the former smuggler, Leia had learned to treat Salla like an enemy of her enemy instead of as a friend. She was loyal to a fault, but that loyalty spanned to only a very few trusted individuals. Leia would never quite reach that atmospheric high mark, because there was always a bigger tie to Han.

It wasn't jealousy. It was … just the way their relationship worked. And Leia was astute enough to pick up on the fact that Salla's trust was conditional upon her good treatment of the man they both loved, in their way.

Which was fine. Leia had no intention of being anything other than a respectful partner to the man, anyway. But she suspected this conversation in particular was going to be fraught, no matter how she approached it.

"Good morning, Salla," Leia said, once she had recovered from her slight shock and sat in the booth across from the former smuggler.

"Rough couple of days?" Salla asked, and the joke was so ill-timed and inappropriate that it further reminded her of Han.

Leia dropped her chin and laughed quietly. "You could say that."

"I am saying that."

Awkwardness descended, but Leia refused to let it overtake their twin goal. She opened her mouth to break the silence when Salla beat her to it.

"What a fucking shitshow your life is, Princess."

Leia rolled her eyes. "Indeed."

"I've heard the news," Salla continued. "And I can't say it makes a whole lot of sense."

"It doesn't make much sense to us, either."

"And it's all true?"

Leia nodded and sipped her caf as if nothing serious was being discussed. The Force was nudging her toward nonchalance and humor in this conversation, and for the first time in days—after finally sleeping off the residual trauma response—she felt equipped to handle it. Thank you, Luke.

Salla continued, as if interrogating a semi-cooperative suspect. "Does Han know?"

No, he does not.

The Wookiee's growl preceded him by mere moments: just enough time for Leia to smile gratefully at him for the reprieve and extend his giant tankard of a caf toward him.

Nodding appreciatively, the Wookiee continued. Cub was frozen in carbonite before the children were told.

The children. That was a new nickname, and Leia resolved to ask Luke about it later. Wookiee naming followed some very strict traditions, and she wondered what about the news had prompted the necessity of not only a new name, but a shared one between siblings.

Salla didn't seem to notice the change in Chewie's vocabulary.

"So you and your brother are like the actual worst, then."

Despite herself, Leia laughed. She was genuinely grateful to Salla for the woman's sheer audacity. This was why she was a good executive officer for the Mercs, and why Han got along so well with her. They were, for all intents and purposes, cut from the same cloth, Salla and Han, with a cynical humor that criss-crossed their past heartaches like a shield, protecting them from ever feeling their pain again.

"Pretty close, I think," Leia replied.

"And Han is in carbonite somewhere. You're sure he's alive?"

Leia nodded but didn't explain any further. What could she possibly say to Salla Zend about blue-white rooms that would make any sense? She couldn't. It sounded insane, a delusionary self-consoling behavior that might make the de facto commander of the Mercs less likely to aid in Han's rescue.

And at this point, Leia would take any help she could get, now that she had resigned from High Command.

"What does Calrissian have to do with all of this?"

Salla's question wasn't unexpected, but Leia was slow to respond, caught as she was in thoughts of resources she could beg, borrow and steal for an undercover mission to Tatooine.

Distracted, she said, "He's an old friend of Han's, I guess… "

She trailed off, suddenly putting two and two together.

"When I knew Lando," Salla offered, a slight smirk on her face, "he was a card shark and a liar."

Chewie growled next to Leia, Now he is an administrator and a liar.

"Administrator?"

"He ran the mining colony where we were captured," she answered. "And I don't think he wanted to lie to us, Chewie."

He was present at Cub's torture, the Wookiee replied. Until he helps us rescue him, I will not trust him. He did not fight the Dark Lord as much as he should have.

"I don't trust him, either, Chewie, but I think he might be valuable."

He made a deal with the monster.

Leia nodded. "Yes, he did. And he potentially saved hundreds of lives because of that deal. We can't dismiss him out of hand quite yet. I'm anxious to read his debrief."

If I still have the security clearance to do so, that is, she thought.

With the light of a new day upon her, the thought of her resignation brought with it less pain. Was it a terrible insult to her character to assume that she was now unfit to lead because of a familial connection she herself had not known until she disclosed it to them, free of will?

Yes.

But … well. Hadn't she just been thinking of how she could steal Alliance resources to aid in what would clearly be an unsanctioned rescue mission? That was not the mindset of an unencumbered military leader. Certainly she had ulterior motives now.

She was not the same woman she had been.

When she had Han back, she would investigate how to best serve the cause her mother and father had died for. In the meantime, she would handle the disrespect and continue her plans in earnest.

"Torture?"

The voice was low and brittle. Leia and Chewie both turned to look at Salla, who suddenly seemed very small in her seat: eyes wide, jaw clenched. She glanced from one face to another, taking in their expressions and coming to her own conclusion.

"Motherfucker," she muttered, and Leia wasn't sure if she was talking about Vader or Lando.

For a moment, no one spoke or moved, a vigil for the pain Han had suffered. And like any other vigil, the mourners were inundated with the useless nature of cruelty in the galaxy, how it could strike without mercy or consequence, and how sometimes it felt useless to resist.

Looking away, Lieutenant Zend seemed to absorb the entirety of the insane situation they presented to her. Leia's wavering emotional state, Han's prominent absence, and the twins' parental revelations. One-by-one, she sorted through their available evidence and critically analyzed all the pieces. When she looked up again, it was to Leia that she peered, orange eyes discerning.

"You still want my help?"

Shocked, Leia gaped at the former smuggler. "That's it? That's all you have to say?"

Salla shrugged, a little too unbothered. "I can try to shoot you, if you'd rather?"

You will not be doing that, Chewie growled, dry humor lining his voice.

Salla sat back in the booth, nibbling on her bottom lip in thought before she sighed and opened her hands wide. "Look, I have a different perspective on things because of Prisht. And she believes in you, princess. Add that to how Slick trails after you like a baby nerf most of the time, and I figure I have to give you and your stupid brother a little credit."

Leia felt a flicker of hope.

Salla continued. "I came here to plan Han's rescue, not to destroy you for your genetics. Considering a lot of us don't know where we came from, either, it feels a little hypocritical to crucify you for it."

And that was it. Salla used the same reasoning Chewie had, that genetics don't equate to prophecy. Her flicker of hope grew into a flame. Maybe Han would feel the same way as his people did? Childish, to assume otherwise, but anxiety had a way of telling the most damaging lies.

You won't ever know if you don't get him back, she thought, and cleared her throat.

"There is nothing I would like more than to plan Han's rescue," Leia replied. "So. What do you know about Jabba the Hutt?"

Kral Vazl was a smart being and she didn't deal well with bullshit.

The past twenty-four hours had been a perfect storm of military inactivity and an abundance of gossip. The result was an entire ship that spoke in whispers that everyone could hear. It reeked of humanity, honestly, and as an Un'afry, she had little patience for the trivialities of such a useless waste of time.

Walking down the corridors of Home One, she passed three clusters of people who all stopped speaking while she strolled by and then resumed their low murmurs after they thought she was out of earshot. Infuriating, the way humans gaggled around, talking about each other as if it mattered at all.

Why wasn't anyone talking about why the Fleet was slowly assembling? That seemed far more important to her mind.

She had heard the rumors, of course. Skywalker and Organa were the progeny of Darth Vader, whatever the hell that meant. And while it was suspicious that they had arrived back to the Fleet nearly a month after the evacuation and without Skywalker's X-Wing, the bigger concern to Kral—and frankly to most of the Mercs—was the location of their commander.

If Organa had anything to answer for, it wasn't her genetics. It was how in the utter hell she had managed to drag herself back to base on the Falcon but without her captain.

Hoth had been weird. So weird. Those last few weeks, the tension had been thick enough between Solo and Organa to cut with a dull knife. It didn't take an insider to figure out that the fairytale romance of the two loudest people on-base had failed. That had been obvious.

And it also was pretty obvious, to Kral at least, that it had been Organa's fault.

Solo had been a mess. Period. There was no other way to put it. Salla had done her best to try to hold the Mercs together, and had done a damn good job of commanding them while Solo had been off gallivanting with the Jedi. But it didn't change the fact that most of them believed, truly, that Organa had emotionally beaten the shit out of their commander, and that was inexcusable.

A crime against the code. No one could hurt Solo badly enough for him to show it. No one.

And yet she had.

It didn't matter that everyone genuinely worshiped at the princess's feet. It didn't matter that most of the females on-base saw her as an icon of powerful femininity. It didn't matter that she was the greatest symbol of Imperial cruelty yet, that she was a living martyr for the cause. It didn't matter that more looked to her as their ultimate leader, not Mon Mothma.

It didn't matter because she had looked just fine after her breakup with Solo. She had resumed duties as normal. She had Rieekan wrapped around her finger and she had a twin brother on her side, too. No one had seen Solo hanging around anyone other than Chewie, and even then, Organa had somehow wrangled the Wookiee's sympathy, too. More than once, she had caught commander and copilot arguing in the loading bay.

What a heartless bitch.

One of the younger members of the Mercs—a Mythyes named Jaco—had called it a divorce between mom and dad, and while that was absurd and juvenile, it was also … kind of … how it had felt? A little? Because Solo was fully capable of taking care of himself, but he was the injured party here, and it was up to his flight to defend him, even if it was against the woman they all not-so-secretly admired.

So the rumor mill spun its weird tales of connections between Vader and the Alliance's darlings, but it didn't matter. Not to Kral at least. What mattered more was that Leia Organa was a monster, and now she had shown up to base Solo-less.

Immediate jail. Off with her head.

Fuck this. She was supposed to meet Salla at the Intruder for a quick discussion. Kral had no idea what that meant, but if it had anything to do with finding out the truth about Solo, she was all ears.

She sped up her walk, and braced herself for some high-quality information.

Not gossip. No. Because she was too smart for gossip. Leave that to the humans.

Oh, Kral thought an hour later, after Salla had shared the full story of what had happened, both in the last month and also just before the evacuation of Hoth.

"Oh," she said, because she didn't have much else to say.

She felt a little bad about calling Organa a bitch, both internally and also to others.

Loudly.

Often.

But how could she have known any differently? All signs had pointed toward the princess as the guilty party. Apparently, her commander had a touch of dumbass in him, too.

Men, she thought, followed immediately by: I might owe her an apology.

"Now that we have that straight," her XO said, and Kral refocused on the moment at hand, saving her self-recriminations for later. "I need to ask you for a favor."

"Anything," Kral answered.

Salla narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Anything," she repeated. "That's a little too eager, friend."

Shrugging, Kral didn't even bother justifying it. If Solo or Salla told her to do something, she would do it. Plain and simple.

"Alright, then," Salla said, and outlined a plan that didn't just border on mutiny, it screamed it out loud at the top of its lungs.

But, hey. Wasn't that the entire fucking point of Green Squadron in the first place?

Lando Calrissian was having the mother of all bad days.

He had been interrogated by half of Alliance High Command by now, and it looked like the other half was on their way. A few hours ago, they had stopped bringing him into the interview room down the corridor. Now they just barged into his brig cell at will, indiscriminately barking their questions at him, and then turned and left without offering him any food or water.

Honestly, the whole thing reeked of incivility.

This is the war, he thought to himself. It's uncivil by nature.

Han had told him stories of what front line warfare had looked like back when he'd been an Imperial cadet, and Lando had never been one to see glamor in it at all. By the time they had met, Han had been jaded, a former Imp who had made a stupid decision based on his damned conscience, and Lando had doubted his sometimes-friend's accounts. Could it truly be as bad, as viscous, as the smuggler had proclaimed? Surely not.

Ah, but then they'd destroyed Alderaan, and Lando stopped doubting the Empire's cruelty.

Still. No food or water for twenty-four hours bordered on war-crime territory and these were supposed to be the good guys.

The enviro-shield that kept him prisoner dissolved and in walked a nearly six-foot tall pain in the ass. Salla stood victorious, one hip cocked and smug pout ready for him the very second she walked through the shield. And if he had thought that High Command would be determined to kill him, it was nothing compared to the straight-up murder present in her eyes.

"You let him be tortured."

Fuck his life.

"Nice to see you again, Sal," he said, shooting for amicable but landing somewhere between defensive and terrified. He scowled at himself and blamed the poor treatment.

Motionless, she stared at him down, glaring eyes almost glowing in fury. He knew he was in very dangerous waters. It looked bad for him. While Chewie had seemed to hold onto his desire for Lando's blood by simple fact that the princess had ordered him not to maul him on the flight here, Salla's eyes were burning with unfettered anger.

"You piece of shit," she returned. "I should have known it would have been you that fucked us all over."

"Hey, now. I fucked over Solo, not you. I understand everyone else being pissed, but you're not even in the damned picture, are you now, Salla—?"

"He's my commanding officer, asshole."

"That all he is?" he bit back. "Because you're awfully worked up about a guy you fucked around with ten years ago—"

She moved so fast that he didn't see her blaster until it was too late. When he fell to the deck in a heap of clothing but still alive, he belatedly realized she had only stunned him. Still, the indignity rattled him, even as she moved to disengage the enviro-shield and two bulky pilots stepped through the suddenly-open hatch to his cell.

He was unsurprised to see them wearing flightsuits with the same insignia as Salla wore. Solo has a whole fucking flight of people out for my blood, Lando thought as they bent down, picked him up as easy as a rag doll, and ushered him into the bright corridor beyond.

Author's Note: Right about now, I imagine you might be thinking to yourself one question. Why are you spending so much time on this no-Han bullshit, KR? And I know. I totally understand. I am very deliberately making you wait so that I can resolve some tension in the Alliance left over from Specter. Rest assured Han will be back soon. I'm finishing chapter twelve right now, and he's out and being his usual brilliant, confounding self and … ahem … enjoying his princess. Trust me. I got you. -KR