Direct Disobedience
The next time she spoke to him, it was without the overwhelming, blistering heat and he could understand her better.
I didn't lie to you, she whispered. You are worth it.
Not understanding and not caring to understand, he didn't find any significance to the comment, but he continued to listen. Her voice was soothing now, calm: a big improvement from the last time she had joined him in this nothingness.
Do you hear the waves?
He did.
Do you smell the sea-salt?
He did.
I don't know if this is a fantasy or a vision of the future, but it is where the Force puts us together. You're safe here.
He didn't ask the pertinent question about what exactly he was safe from, but she continued and there was nothing he wanted more than to listen to her talk.
I don't know if you can hear me, she said, and she sounded heartbroken. But I know you're here. I can feel you. You exist here in a way you don't exist out there.
Her voice was honey-gold and rich, and that was a description he wasn't sure he would have used before that very moment. Usually when she talked, he just took in the words and didn't think about them after the fact. But the descriptor was correct. Her voice moved slowly but insistently, passionate and sweet, and he wanted to answer back but couldn't.
I'm coming for you soon, she said, and was that a flare of hope that burned through his nonexistent chest? Please be ready.
He couldn't answer, but he found that he had the words he wanted to say back to her.
And that … that was a very new thing entirely.
It was Carlist who found their cabal first.
"Princess," he said with a respectful nod as he walked into the Millennium Falcon's main hold without notice.
He stepped around Chewbacca's massive frame and peered between Zend, Kral, Quiee and Skywalker to see Leia sitting across from a drooling, unblinking, somewhat disheveled Calrissian, clearly still in the throes of a recent stun blast.
Startled to see him, most of the group jumped at his entrance. Luke and Leia didn't seem bothered in the slightest, and Skywalker almost seemed to find grim satisfaction in his appearance.
Leia, ever the diplomat, extended a hand. "Carlist. You arrived faster than I thought you might."
"I ran here immediately after I heard that he had 'escaped,'" he said, motioning to Calrissian. "I…. had a feeling you all would be involved."
"Guilty," Zend replied. Chewbacca shrugged, Kral looked terrified.
"I doubt ComSec is far behind me," he continued. "Mind explaining why you felt the need to affirm every damn fear High Command has of you two so quickly?"
Leia nodded, but didn't look away, sheepishness the furthest thing from her expression. "To be fair, she wasn't supposed to stun him."
Salla smirked but didn't speak in her own defense, and so the princess continued.
"We're going to need his help in planning our next steps."
Of course you do, he thought.
"The sooner we can determine the best course of action, the better for us all, the Alliance included."
Carlist shook his head. "Then why not loop in High Command?"
"As you said, General, they don't trust us," Skywalker answered. "Do you really think they would allow us to speak with him if we asked nicely?"
"And this was the better strategy?"
Leia said, "It was one of four options we considered, and the one that led to the least amount of property damage."
He rolled his eyes. "You've been spending too much time with Solo, Princess."
Shrugging, she turned away, but not before he saw the strike of pain in her eyes, and that humbled him fast. He had known that Leia was still attached to the commander, and he had spoken without thinking, teasing when he should have tread more carefully. He regretted his joke immediately. Hadn't she just called Solo the man I love in that disaster of a High Command meeting?
"What was your plan, then?" he asked, to get the attention off Leia's reaction. "Once you got him here?"
Skywalker stepped forward, ostensibly to give the princess a moment to collect herself. Carlist found it odd to see for himself how the twins acted around each other now. It was eerie, how calmly one was able to swoop in to answer a question posed to the other, as if they shared a collective mind. He wondered if it was the Force at work, or if it was something of a coping mechanism after the trauma they had both endured.
"The Mercs have the best chance to find and recover Han safely. They have the contacts to find Boba Fett, and the past association with Jabba the Hutt to know how the transaction will take place," the young Jedi said, looking unbearably optimistic. "We need to know what Lando knows about the bounty hunter before we can launch an op, preferably before they get anywhere near Tatooine."
"Time is of the essence," Zend added. Chewbacca growled in what Carlist thought might be solidarity.
"And I doubt very much High Command was asking the administrator here the right questions," Leia finally said. "Their focus is on a Jedi witch hunt. I will listen to their recommendation on our conduct once I know where Han is, and not a second before."
Carlist inhaled deeply, and looked at each being in turn. When he saw nothing there but total conviction, he blew out his breath and turned his gaze on Calrissian. "Has he said anything helpful?"
"No," Luke said. "It has been mostly drool."
Leia rolled her eyes, and added, "As I said, someone was a bit rash with their actions."
Everyone turned to look at Salla. Leaning against the hull, she examined her nails in the galley lights and seemed completely at ease. "It was either stun him or kill him."
Quiee chuckled and Carlist realized he was in danger of fully agreeing to this hairbrained endeavor. It was … very Green Squadron-like to act without a superior's direct order and the very reason Solo had been a fitting commander for the group. It wasn't surprising that their loyalty extended more to him than it extended to Alliance High Command, who had a history of disregarding their talent, despite their recent accomplishments at Hoth.
Still … "ComSec will be here momentarily. If I heard the report, so did they."
Probably barrelling down the corridors at this very moment, blasters at the ready and primed to take the two Jedi—and their four accomplices—into custody.
They had been free for… What? Thirty-six hours?
Force help them all.
Leia tilted her head. "Would you mind taking care of that, then, Carlist? He's starting to blink."
Turning to look at the poor stunned man sitting stiffly in the booth, the general realized she was right. Calrissian's eyes were moving around and his lips were twitching, sure signs the effects of a stun blast were receding.
"You want me to use my authority to retroactively order a squadron under my command to release a prisoner?" he asked sarcastically. "And that I should not listen to whatever plans might be made now with said prisoner?"
A beat, then: "Precisely."
Oh, Bail, this is all your fault, Carlist thought as he about-faced and went to intercept the ComSec guards he could already see in the entrance to the loading dock. Curiously, they seemed to be held up by Wedge Antilles, Wes Janson and Hobbie Klivian, who attempted to engage them in some kind of smashball tournament they were planning.
Suspiciously good timing, that, Carlist thought.
And it was in that moment he realized that if it came down to a choice between the two Jedi and High Command, he suspected some of the Alliance's two most elite squadrons might follow Skywalker and the princess anywhere.
The first word Lando managed around an inarticulate tongue and lips was water, and Luke was quick to comply. In a rush, the former administrator gulped down the entire mug Luke offered and pushed it back toward the Jedi in a silent request for more. Once his thirst seemed satisfied, he turned to look at the princess, sitting primly before him, hands clasped on the dejarik table between them like it was a senatorial committee table on Coruscant.
"Hello again, Lando," she said, and even Lando's barely-functioning brain could recognize the command in that voice.
If he hadn't already been terrified of Leia Organa, he certainly would have been now. The woman was a barely-sheathed vibroblade worn in plain sight.
"Princess," he managed. "Thanks for the rescue."
"It's not a rescue. I have questions. They weren't being taken seriously."
Of course she did. He couldn't blame her; too much had happened in the past week that even he was finding it difficult to understand how he had come to be here, in these circumstances with these people.
But first … "You look a lot better than the last time I saw you," he said to the man he knew to be Luke Skywalker.
He smiled. "I'm sure I do. Thanks for keeping me together during that jump."
Lando nodded. "Never seen a lightsaber wound. You must have given him hell."
The hold grew quiet, awkward, and he sensed he had just crossed some invisible line, though he wasn't sure where it was. All he knew was that Salla's eyes were as narrow as blaster bolts and that the princess's spine stiffened.
Luke, however, was unassailable. "We did."
No thanks to you, Chewbacca grumbled.
"Coward," Salla added.
Sighing heavily, Lando nodded and brought his eyes back to the real leader of the assembly. The princess looked slightly better than she had the last time he had seen her on this very ship, too—sweat-soaked hair tumbling from her braid, vacant, horrified eyes—but it was a superficial improvement. She had clearly taken a fresher, maybe had some sleep and food, but the drawn quality to her face remained and she seemed frozen in a shroud of icy indifference.
"I didn't want any of it to happen," he said, or was it a croak? "I had no choice."
Predictably, Salla was in his face before anyone else. "No choice but to sell out a friend to Vader?"
"I couldn't stop it—"
Yes, you could have, Chewbacca growled, and he, too, stood too close, like he was ready to wrest Lando's arms from their sockets at the barest hint of provocation. There is always a choice. And you chose the path of the szichnact.
Lando didn't know what that was, but he could hardly be as rancid as the Wookiee's tone implied. "No! You don't understand!"
He raised his voice to try to be heard over the din, but Salla, the Wookiee, and the two goons who had hauled him out of his cell were now loudly speaking over each other, attacking everything from his actions to his mother. And Lando could do nothing but stew in his obvious inability to defend himself from very real criticisms. There was no doubt that he was held liable for the wrongs done to Han, Luke and Leia on Bespin, and nothing he said—or tried to say, anyway—amounted to any kind of defense in front of these litigators, to these wronged people so devoted to a guy Lando would barely describe as slightly better than space trash.
He looked at them each in turn, Salla to Chewie to the nameless goons and back again, over and over, until he realized Luke and Leia hadn't spoken at all. Turning a look on the princess that he hoped portrayed his regret and sorrow, he made his last plea.
"My people," he murmured. "He said he would destroy them all if I didn't cooperate. I … I couldn't let that happen."
It felt like the hold turned still but for a steady buzzing energy that passed from one person to another. Lando felt strung out, like he didn't have energy to do anything but surrender to whatever revenge was deemed appropriate for his crimes. But … damn it, he had done the right thing. He had tried to be a good leader by the example set by the woman in front of him.
His eyes found the princess's. Big and brown, they seemed to bore into his skull like a laser drill, and he couldn't look away. He had the sense that nothing would happen here without her express permission, that she was the head of this vigilante group of rebels.
The rebellion within. The vengeful brigade.
"Wouldn't you have done everything you could?" he whispered.
The buzzing stopped. Everything was silent, because if there was one thing every sentient being knew about Leia Organa it was that she had been the direct reason for Alderaan's destruction. Most civilized beings wouldn't find fault in her actions, but … well. It was hard to be delicate about it. If it hadn't been her on the Death Star, if it had been someone else, then another world would be rubble now and Alderaan would still exist.
And it was disrespectful to compare his choice with hers, he knew. He knew. He had been the administrator of a mining colony, for fuck's sake, not the ruling heir to a Core World. And his choice had been to sacrifice his friend for the good of the people in his care, not to sacrifice her entire planet for the good of the galaxy.
There were worlds upon worlds of layers to that sacrifice, and he didn't envy her that.
But in his way, he had made the same choice as she had. At the end of the day, this was his Alderaan.
Looking at her now, Lando was struck by how young she actually was. The holonews always showed her senatorial portraits, which although dated by years now, still had the polish and spin of professional politics to it. Sometimes a holo would be published of her on the battlefields somewhere, usually in the company of Han, and there she seemed older, too, shouting orders with a blaster spitting fire from her hand.
Here now, though, she was… what? Less than twenty-five years old—twenty-two? How old was she, anyway?—with the galaxy on her shoulders?
And Lando felt real shame for comparing his loss to hers.
She broke eye contact with him to look at Luke for an unbearably long time. Uncomfortable, Lando turned away, wondering how many men the princess held sway over the way she clearly did with her lover and her brother, and glanced at Salla's furious expression.
"To answer your last question," she spat unprompted, "Solo is just my CO. She's the girlfriend."
Tilting her head, the princess didn't verbally acknowledge the comment, but it was clear by her expression that she had heard Salla's quip.
"Figured that one out myself, thank you very much."
"And," she continued, as if Lando hadn't spoken, "the twins over there are trying to rescue the man you let Vader torture, you spineless motherfucker, so I would be real careful about who you insult around here."
"Rescue?"
Lando wasn't sure why he had echoed the word out loud, but there it was, dangling in the air where everyone could hear it. But it was ludicrous, wasn't it, to think about rescuing Han? He was as good as dead by now, in Fett's custody and en route to Tatooine.
He had had only one interaction with a Hutt, and it had been brutal enough to never want to engage with one ever again.
"Rescue," the princess confirmed without the same hesitation. "Do you know when Fett will deliver him?"
Staring blankly, he struggled to answer, feeling like the trajectory of his life had just become even more complicated than it had already been. "No. He didn't exactly let me plot his next course. You say rescue, but you mean recover, right?"
"No, I don't. We believe Fett won't deliver Han to Jabba until the price is at its highest. That gives us some time," the princess said.
Salla piped in. "I'll reach out to Prisht; she's got eyes on the ground on that wasteland."
Skywalker made some noise that sounded like hey now, but it was lost in a sudden cacophony of ideas and resources from the erstwhile smuggler and her two goons. It grew louder and louder, until there was nothing to do but break the sudden planning frenzy with his one point of contention, the thing that was driving him insane.
"How do you know he is still alive?" he asked.
The hold grew quiet, and Lando got the sense that he had just given voice to a forbidden topic, one nobody wanted to acknowledge but everyone knew was important. And he felt terrible, looking at Chewbacca. And he felt like maybe he was only digging his grave deeper with Salla, though honestly he didn't think he would ever be able to reconcile himself with that woman, no matter what he did.
But he felt for the princess the most. He had seen that little exchange on the carbon-freezing platform. He knew what real love looked like. Aside from Han himself, no one else truly understood the horror of the torture that occurred on Bespin, but if anyone could empathize, it was Leia herself—
"She knows," a quiet voice said.
Lando's eyes flew to Luke, wide and terrified. "You read minds, too?"
"Close enough."
Pursing his lips, he looked at the young princess again, wondering which part of the story she knew: that Han was alive or the extent to which Han had been tortured.
And as if she had also heard him, she said, "I am well aware of what you allowed to happen to Han on Bespin. Vader made sure of that."
Well, fuck.
"And as for how I know he's alive…."
They all leaned in as she trailed off, and the moment was so tense, it felt like a rope was pulled taut and fraying right before their eyes. And the princess turned inward, her gaze shifting like she was seeing something none of the rest of them could see, and it sent a shiver down Lando's spine.
A careful moment, a breath or maybe two, and she blinked, returning to them. "He's alive. I have no doubt about that. The real question is how long we have until Fett takes him to Tatooine."
Because he's dead the minute he reaches Jabba, Lando silently finished her thought, and he could tell the rest of them did, too. A brief lull in the conversation fell upon them, and the real importance of the moment seemed to beckon him. He probably had a choice now, too. Realistically speaking, no one was going to kill him if he booked it out of the Falcon's hatch, stole a freighter and made off to parts unknown. Clearly the Alliance wasn't above a little discomfort, but straight up murder didn't seem like it was in the cards for this group, despite Salla Zend and the cloud of rage that followed her like a cape.
Another choice.
On one hand, he didn't want to join this war. Billions of beings across the galaxy were living their lives, staying out of it, hoping for the Alliance to somehow win but without actually sacrificing anything for the cause. That was what he himself had been doing until the Empire had come down hard on him and made it his problem.
He could probably find a hole to hide in, if he wanted to. He had some contacts. He was a smart guy. He always found his feet, even in the worst circumstances.
But.
He looked at the heartbroken and deeply unfathomable former princess. He saw strength there that surpassed anything he had ever experienced. Her story was legendary. She was designed to be a martyr; the Alliance and fate had insured it. Her pain made sense to him. Of course she was here, sacrificing it all for Solo. It didn't matter that he recognized a real shift in his former friend when he had interacted with him on Cloud City. Beings fell for Solo, that was nothing new.
Look at Zend over there. Case in point.
As much as he admired Leia and ached for her pain, she made sense to him.
His eyes shifted to her brother, the man he really didn't know at all. The missing piece at Bespin, the one Vader had been waiting for. Bright blue eyes, energetic and clear despite the very recent loss of his hand. He was already a galaxy-renowned hero since the destruction of the Death Star. His cause was the Alliance. And, sure, he seemed friendly, seemed genuinely optimistic about rescuing Solo, but why?
Why?
The princess was in love with Solo. Salla seemed devoted to him out of military loyalty and a shared past. Chewbacca was ensnared by a life debt, and Wookiees were famous for their Honor Code.
But this young Jedi had none of those connections. Why did he care so much?
Like he had heard him, the bright blue eyes met Lando's, and he was struck with the resolve in them, the certainty. Was it the Force or was it naivete that made this young man—nothing but a kid, really—ready to disobey command and run off to free Han fucking Solo, of all people?
"It's the right thing to do," Luke said. "And you know it."
Sitting with that simple answer, Lando Calrissian found in it a truth that was greater than any he had come up with. My life is about to change, he thought out of nowhere, but this was like resisting gravity. It was a losing battle. These two people, these twins, were irresistible forces of nature, a dichotomy of power and persuasion. How could one person stand against the definition of good?
Why would you want to?
He broke eye contact, licked his still-dry lips, and then spoke loud enough for everyone in the hold to hear. "I downloaded the feed from Slave I's nav computer. You might be able to find his real transponder code, along with a list of his fake ones, in the data."
The chorus of reactions—from insults about waiting so long to tell them to expressions of admiration for his foresight—filtered by him, and Lando realized that, for all intents and purposes, he was a member of the Alliance now, whether he liked it or not.
A small group of pilots congregated near the boarding ramp of the Millennium Falcon, unsure and slightly angry.
"I don't trust them," Olex Mephi said.
Another leaned forward to peer at the ruckus currently taking place in the entryway to the docking bay between the Rogues and three useless ComSec officers who couldn't figure out that they were being distracted from their mission, and said, "Who, exactly?"
Mephi grimaced. "Organa and Skywalker. I already had a weird feeling about them, and now…"
"Boss trusts them," the second one said, turning to regard his compatriot again. "So does Zend."
"Maybe he didn't know," he argued.
"Maybe you're an idiot."
But Mephi was already speaking over her. "Solo and Organa were clearly on the outs the last time we saw them. Maybe he found out about who her father was, and he didn't want anything to do with it. I certainly wouldn't. Think about it."
"That's none of our business. Get a grip."
"And now they've got the Rogues covering for them when they break whatshisface from the brig and we're guarding a goddamned ramp so that they can have a secret chat?"
His companion rolled his eyes, but didn't offer an explanation. The only one to give amounted to the Rogue's blind loyalty to Skywalker, and that explained their willingness to cover the ramp, too.
"Rieekan's in on it," Mephi continued. "Fucking Jedi."
"Does it matter?" the second voice said. "Does it matter what it takes, as long as we get Solo back?"
Those words seemed to settle the slight disagreement, and they quieted down, guarding the ramp, hoping against hope that this horrible feeling of disunity within their own unit might be cleared sooner than expected. Because, damn, the Alliance seemed posed to rip apart at the seams if they didn't rescue Solo soon.
Fucking Jedi, indeed.