Star Wars, page 17
She tried again, releasing a controlled breath and emptying her mind. Or, trying to. Perhaps simply being present in the moment would be good enough. She breathed in the climate simulator’s air, designed to replicate the warm but salty sea breeze of their final destination, Synjax.
But sweet-scented balmy atmosphere did not fill her lungs.
Instead, there was a heaviness to the air. It was cool and thick. A shiver ran down her spine, and her skin felt damp, as if she’d been standing in heavy fog, not on a sunny, tropical beach. Even though the Halcyon was a perfectly stable ship, Leia’s stomach swooped as if she were on an unsteady surface—but there was a rhythm to the feeling, like swinging.
Instinct told Leia that if she opened her eyes, she would see the climate simulator. The cold, damp feeling of heavy fog, the slightly acidic humid air, the swaying in her body—that would all disappear. Her grasp on this environment was so tentative that Leia knew it would be easy to break.
Instead, she focused harder on what this feeling was. She felt displaced, not just in space but also time. She wanted, desperately, to find some meaning in this sensation. Was this a vision that would guide her? Had she triggered it by her own thoughts?
Leia’s jaw tightened. The more she questioned the sensation, the more it slipped away. Already the smells of the blossoming bosha filled her nostrils, and the sounds of the manufactured waterfall behind her were breaking through…through low voices. She could hear words. What language was that? Pak Pak?
As soon as she tried to nail down the specifics, the sensation fled from her mind. Leia’s eyes opened slowly, but even as she focused on the rocks on the island garden in front of her, the traces of her vision were fading to nothing.
She had been thinking of other planets, potential connections, worlds that could join the Republic—she had imagined it all.
“Why can’t this be easy?” Leia asked the rocks. Why must she fight for everything—not just independence within the galaxy but also an understanding of her own self? Meanwhile, her brother could raise his hand—
Leia raised her hand.
—and Luke could just waggle his fingers—
Leia curled her own fingers inward.
—and move things with his mind.
The rocks on the island garden shifted forward several centimeters.
Leia dropped her arm and her mouth simultaneously. Had—had she done that?
She tried again.
The rocks didn’t move.
Leia stared at them a beat longer, but nothing happened. The Halcyon must have shifted in flight, enough to make the small rocks slide forward. She hadn’t noticed the other rocks or the plants shift because she’d been so focused on those rocks. Leia felt silly—at least there was no one here to witness her trying to move rocks with her brain.
And then she heard a footstep.
Leia jumped up, spinning around, but it was just Han. Han with his easy smile and his hands raised as if Leia were a startled bafle that he’d spooked in the forest. “What were you thinking about?” he asked. “You were so focused.”
Leia laughed, hoping that he couldn’t detect the bitterness in her voice. “Believe it or not, I was trying—very hard, actually—not to think about anything.”
Han gave her one of his cocky smiles, the kind that sometimes exasperated her but today seemed endearing. He held his arms wider, motioning for her to step into his embrace, and she did so, gratefully.
With his arms around her, firm and sure, Leia felt every thought that had clouded her mind evaporate. This was the nothing-bliss she had tried so hard to hold on to before.
This was peace.
CHAPTER 25
HAN
LEIA TUCKED HER HEAD UNDER Han’s chin, her arms wrapping around him. The perfect fit. Even something as silly as their heights—he towered above her the same way Chewie towered over him—made it seem as if they weren’t compatible at all, but instead they were perfect.
Han dropped a kiss on her head; then she rose up on her toes, claiming a different sort of kiss from her husband. Leia’s lips parted, a tiny, satisfied gasp escaping before he deepened their embrace. His arms shifted lower down her back, holding her against his body, lifting her a few centimeters from the floor. He supported her weight easily—hell, he was ready to kick down the door and carry her right back up to their cabin.
Han’s lips moved from Leia’s mouth, down her chin, to that soft place in the corner of her neck, that delicious little spot that he’d wanted to kiss from just about the first moment he laid eyes on her. She smelled of clean things—rain and soap and flowers—and it drove him wild. From the way Leia’s back shivered beneath his hands, he knew she wasn’t unaffected by his touch, and that? That made it all the better.
“All right, all right,” Leia said, gasping and swatting at his chest. “We’re in public.”
“No one here but us,” Han said, barely raising his lips from her skin to answer.
Leia wriggled against him, and Han loosened his grip. She didn’t pull away entirely, but she put a little space between them. Disappointing. “Anyone could come inside,” she said by way of excuse.
Han shrugged. “The entire galaxy knows by now that you’re on your honeymoon,” he pointed out. “What do they expect us to do, hold hands and kiss each other on the cheek, all chaste-like?”
“No, but…” Leia floundered.
Han took the opportunity to close the distance between them again. “But what, sweetheart?” he said, his lips curving up.
Except Leia didn’t throw herself into his arms. Instead she took several steps back and threw up her arms, frustrated. “Someone’s always watching. I have to be careful.”
Han frowned. “You’re right. Someone is always watching you. That’s the problem. If you’d just stayed in the cabin like I suggested, I wouldn’t even have been worried about you.”
Leia blinked. “Worried?”
Great. The tooka-cat was out of the bag now. “You’re too—” He waved his hands in her general direction.
Leia cocked her hip and put her hands on her waist, eyes flashing. “Too what?” she snarled.
“Too visible,” Han said. “Everyone on this ship—everyone off this ship, too, everyone in the whole galaxy, seems like—always knows where you are.”
Leia opened her mouth to snap at him, but then her eyes turned calculating. “What aren’t you telling me?” she demanded.
Han sighed. “Last night, there was a card player. Some bum down on his luck. He figured he’d make some credits with sabacc, but when that didn’t pan out, he contemplated kidnapping you for ransom instead. And just now on the lift, people were talking about you.”
“People always talk about me.”
“But talking about you like they knew where you were. Because they did. They knew you’d be here.” Had that pair from the lift followed him to the climate simulator, Han knew Leia wouldn’t have kissed him like she just did. It wasn’t right that other people got to dictate how she acted just because they kept tabs on where she was.
Leia shook her head, refocusing. “A ransom?” she asked. “Do I need to inform Alliance Intelligence?” She spoke quietly, half to herself, then turned her attention to Han. “Was he working with someone specific? The Hutts? The Empire?”
Han shook his head. “No, he’s just an opportunistic idiot who couldn’t have kidnapped you if you showed up in his luggage frozen in carbonite.” Han ran his fingers through his hair. “But don’t worry about him. I took care of it.”
Leia, rather than taking his advice, absolutely did look worried about him. “Took care of it how?” she asked, her brow furrowing.
Han laughed, remembering the way Kelad’s face had twisted in fear on the other side of the viewport in the escape pod. “I wasn’t going to throw him off the ship,” he said.
Leia’s eyes grew wide. “You were going to throw him off the ship?” she repeated.
“No, I said I wasn’t going to, not really.”
“Han.”
“Leia.”
“Han, do you have any idea how bad that would have been? You can’t just toss people off the ship if they disagree with you.”
“We didn’t ‘disagree’! He was going to kidnap you.”
Leia waved her hand as if none of that mattered. “Yes, but you said he wouldn’t really.”
“No, I said he couldn’t. Not wouldn’t. There’s a difference.”
“That doesn’t mean you throw him off the ship!”
“I said I wasn’t really going to!” How was that for a double standard? Han was being yelled at for threatening to do a thing he didn’t do, while Leia was sticking up for Kelad for threatening to do a thing he didn’t do. “Also, he was a stowaway!” he added.
“So?” Leia snapped. “What—exactly—did you do?” She raised both her hands, her fingers curled as if she wanted nothing more than to wrap her hands around Han’s throat and throttle him. “Do I need to remind you that part of the point of this trip is the good publicity it will bring to the newly forming republic, and that murdering dissenters is not good publicity?”
“I wasn’t going to throw him out a hatch,” Han said, rolling his eyes as he over-enunciated each word. “I just tricked him into going into an escape pod.”
Leia made a noise somewhere between a growl and a scream.
“He threatened you!” Han protested.
“I can take care of myself!” Leia shouted.
“Then why am I here?” Han roared back.
The silence that followed was deafening. Leia glared, working her jaw.
“Why are we here?” Han said, his voice low, like the calm after the storm. “You’re going off on bridge tours and greeting guests like you’re the host at a fancy party.”
“And you’re roughing up strangers in escape pods.”
Han cracked a smile. “When you put it like that.”
Despite herself, Leia laughed.
“You know,” Han said, “some people would call what I did brave.”
“Others would call it foolish.” Leia’s eyes slid away from him, but he caught the corners of her lips twisting up before she bit back the smile. “I have to go to the brig, see how bad this is.”
“I told you, it’s handled.”
“By you?”
“By ship security.”
Leia shot him a look that told him clearly how much doubt she cast on his role in the situation, then strode past him, out of the climate simulator. Han stood there a second longer. The little room was designed to be a miniature version of Synjax, a paradise planet. It was warm and balmy, with sweet-scented flowers and a fresh waterfall.
What was going on that all they could do was bicker when surrounded by all this?
Shaking himself, Han headed after Leia. She stopped in front of the turbolift. “I don’t even know where the brig is,” she said in a low voice.
“This way.” Han pulled her away from the lift toward the stairs, heading down one flight. He led her to the engineering corridor, veering to the brig.
Captain Dicto was already there, as well as the chief engineer. It was clear they were uncomfortable with the situation—since the brig was visible to any guest who came this way, anyone aboard the Halcyon would see they had a prisoner.
“Ah, Princess Leia,” Captain Dicto said. “I was just being informed of the situation. I apologize for…” He trailed off, seemingly at a loss for how specific his regrets should be.
“It’s not your fault,” Leia said. “And indeed, I commend everyone on the Halcyon for their quick action.”
Han felt his face sink into a sardonic look, although his wife didn’t notice. The Halcyon crew acted quickly? All they’d done was interrupt.
While Leia spoke with the captain, Han’s gaze shifted to Kelad. The man looked positively sick, and he couldn’t take his eyes off Leia. Not in a threatening way—he gazed at her with a mixture of awe and horror, as if he couldn’t believe the actions he’d contemplated.
Without even noticing the way Han watched him, Kelad threw himself at the brig’s door. “Your Highness!” he shouted. “Princess, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have—I didn’t mean anything by my words!”
Han watched as Leia turned from the captain to Kelad. “You don’t seem like a violent man,” she said, her face serene. Han was almost jealous—she didn’t look at him that way. But he could tell that this was a mask. That reminded him of Qi’ra, his old flame. She’d been most dangerous when she was smiling, too. And from that glint in Leia’s eyes? She wanted to gut Kelad like a scalefish. Han almost laughed. Kelad was bending over backward to ingratiate himself because he thought Leia fit his idea of a prim, perfect princess when the reality was she was the perfect fighter, too.
Kelad shook his head violently. “Let me explain,” he pleaded. Then he stopped, as if expecting an argument rather than everyone—including Han, the captain, and the chief engineer—waiting for him to continue. “It’s just,” he said, flustered by the eyes on him. “I have skills. I headed the gravity manipulation department at Mitikin Industries.” He looked around eagerly, clearly expecting them all to have heard of it.
“On Coruscant,” Leia whispered to Han. Kelad heard and nodded, grinning, clearly pleased that someone recognized his workplace.
Captain Dicto frowned. “They had contracts with the Empire.”
“It was a paycheck only!” Kelad protested. “I’m not political!” Then he turned back to Leia. “But I could be. I can help with the new government. My tractor beam technology revolutionized the process!”
Han watched as Leia processed this information, no doubt coming to the same conclusion that he had—this man had been behind a desk, but he made Imperial ships better at killing rebel ones. Still…it was a paycheck. Han didn’t want to think too closely about how many people—himself included—had done things or would have done things for the Empire for a paycheck. Not everyone had the luxury of even knowing the Rebellion was an option. Hell, he himself had it thrust in his lap when he was also just looking for a paycheck in the form of Luke and the old man. He hadn’t cared then where the credits had come from; it was just by the luck of the stars that it happened to be at the hands of the good guys.
Han bunched his hands in his pockets. He had done a lot of things he wasn’t proud of. He’d worn the wrong uniform before he found the right one. He couldn’t say he’d exactly been an asset to the Empire during his brief stint as a soldier, but had he the brains to work on some engineering facility on Coruscant, he probably would have done some of the things Kelad had. For a paycheck.
Han looked away from the prisoner, toward his wife. That was a line he knew he wouldn’t have crossed, though. Kidnapping an innocent—a war hero—for ransom? No. He may run every scam in the galaxy, but at least he was honest about it.
Captain Dicto turned Leia aside. “Our problem is that while this man didn’t see through his plan, it would have been catastrophic had he done so…”
Leia nodded. “It would have been a shadow over the Halcyon’s first launch after Imperial control…”
“Not the point,” Han muttered.
“And the feeds would have blown this up—that someone would kidnap the Rebellion’s heroine within days of the Empire’s defeat. The longer we keep him in the brig, the more chance this has of getting out, turning into a story we cannot control.”
“Also not the point.” No one noticed Han grumbling. Could these people only think about how bad the media would be if Leia had been kidnapped? What about his wife being kidnapped?
“But he didn’t do anything,” Leia said, considering.
“He’s a stowaway,” Zalma, the chief engineer, interjected.
“There is that,” Captain Dicto said. “Typically, though, that’s a crime that could be made up for with labor, not time in the brig.” That made sense at least—keeping Kelad in the brig would give him the thing he really wanted, free passage to the final destination. Working off the debt paid for the ticket he didn’t have.
“He is rather adept at engineering,” Zalma offered. “I’ve spoken with him, and the man knows the trade.”
“All I want is work!” Kelad offered, hope in his eyes. “I lost my contracts—”
“Because they were with the Empire,” Han said.
Kelad’s feeble resolve faltered, but he rallied. “I do the job, and I do it well. And while, yes, I came here mostly to get to Synjax and meet an investor, I also really wanted to see the Halcyon’s engines myself. They’re famous—I did my thesis on the Drabor Configuration!”
The captain and the chief engineer exchanged looks. Han groaned. He could see exactly where this was going.
“Good thing this would-be kidnapper who was a threat to the highest-ranked guest on the ship has skills,” Han said, loudly enough this time to draw the others’ attention. “Guess we should just let him play with your ship’s engines and give him exactly what he wants as punishment.”
Captain Dicto opened his mouth to speak, but Leia cut him off. “What if, as a compromise, Kelad spends his nights in the brig. He doesn’t have a proper berth after all, and it seems fitting. But during the day, he works with the engineers, using his skills to make up for his crimes.”
“That seems fair!” Kelad said quickly.
“Of course it does,” Han growled, “to you.”
Zalma turned to Han. “I’ll keep a close eye on him,” he said. His Nautolan eyes were huge and unblinking, which was both unnerving and somewhat reassuring. As Captain Dicto moved to release the prisoner, Zalma said in a low voice only Han could hear, “If he tries anything, I’ll put him in an escape pod myself.”
CHAPTER 26
LEIA
CAPTAIN DICTO ESCORTED LEIA AND Han from the brig, profusely thanking Leia for her assistance in such a tricky situation. Leia glanced at Han. Technically, they should all be thanking him for rooting out the problem in the first place, but since his solution would have been an even bigger nightmare—honestly, how could he expect to get away with something like that, on a ship as well monitored as this one?—she supposed there was nothing really left to say.
