Archive of Our Own

Artoo trilled anxiously from the back of the X-wing as Leia steered towards the thick cloud cover shrouding Dagobah.

“This is it,” Leia said into her com.

Artoo beeped again.

“I’m not going back,” Leia said, before frowning as she tapped through the controls. “I’m not picking up any cities or technology, but something’s alive down there.” Her frown deepened a little. “It’s massive.”

Artoo’s pinging trailed down at the end.

“I’m sure it’s perfectly safe for you.”

It was only another few seconds before the clouds blocked her view through the glass canopy; she brought the speed down, flicking every scanner on the control panel, but all it got her was just as many alarms and Artoo shrieking at her.

“I know! All the scopes are dead, I’m starting the landing cycle.”

The secondary rockets blasted over Artoo’s continuing chatter as they pushed the X-wing lower through the clouds, steady—

Leia was jolted to the side as the X-wing rocked with an ear-splitting snap, cracks ringing out all around them until a final crash.

Leia didn’t move.

Nothing in her felt broken, just a crick in her neck and a sore spot at the back of her head from smacking against the back of the seat when they landed. Artoo whistled at her.

“Yeah, I’m alright,” she said, pulling a switch to pop open the canopy; the air was heavy and damp but breathable, already curling the tufts of hair at her temple loose from the tight plait as she climbed up onto the nose of the X-wing. Artoo whistled again. “Just stay put a minute.”

She still heard the whirring of him popping open his cubby at the back.

They couldn’t see much farther away than when she had crossed into the atmosphere, the fog blocking everything but the vague silhouettes of twisting, curling trees and muffling every sound she tried to make out until a splash behind her.

“Artoo?”

She whipped around, but she could barely make out the ripple through the fog over the dark water.

“Artoo—”

His periscope popped up with a cluster of bubbles before it turned and scooted through the water.

“I told you to stay put.”

The periscope didn’t go very high.

Leia huffed, taking off her boots and socks to hurl to the bank before sliding off of the X-wing to wade past Artoo with her lightsaber high to keep out of the water.

Artoo was still making his way through the muck when Leia rinsed one foot at a time to put her socks and boots back on, the second not quite laced when she looked up at a movement in the corner of her eye.

It was the only warning she got before a dark, winding shape shot into the water, clanging against Artoo as he was pulled under with a buzzing shriek.

“Artoo!”

The air crackled with the blue light shooting from Leia’s hand as she ran back to the bank, holding still to wait for any ripples or bubbles, but the surface didn’t shift; she turned, almost stumbling back at Artoo being thrown out of the water with another shriek to land in a patch of moss next to her.

The water rippled again, away from them, before Leia clicked her lightsaber back into its handle and rushed to Artoo.

“I guess you’re lucky you don’t taste very good,” she said, hauling him upright and brushing him clean of the wet grass and roots stuck in every crevice of his shell. “All together?”

Artoo beeped dejectedly.

“Maybe this was a bad idea…” Leia said, wiping the swamp grime from her hands onto her pants as she looked around. All of the scanners had still been working when they had shown nothing but the huge lifesign.  “This can’t be right.”

Luke and Threepio both leaned over to watch as Han and Chewie rushed through powering the Falcon down, before the lights along the ceiling of the cockpit went dark one by one.

The crater was pitch-black, only the dim glow from the buttons along the dashboard tinging Han’s hands red and blue.

“I’m going to shut everything down but the emergency power systems.”

“Sir, I’m almost afraid to ask,” Threepio said, “but does that include shutting me down, too?”

Chewie barked a nod.

“No, I need you to talk to the Falcon,” Han said as he got up, Luke and Chewie following before Chewie gestured for Threepio to follow him. “Find out what’s wrong with the hyperdrive.”

The ship suddenly lurched, knocking Luke back against the seat and sending a few loose tools clattering to the floor.

“Sir,” Threepio said as he steadied himself, “it’s quite possible that this asteroid is not entirely stable.”

“Not entirely stable?” Han tossed a wrench back into a drawer. “Real glad you’re here to tell us these things. Chewie, take him back and plug him into the hyperdrive.”

“Sometimes I just don’t understand human behavior,” Threepio said, following Chewie out to the hold. “After all, I’m only trying to do my job in the most…”

Han shook his head to himself as the door slid shut behind them, but he hadn’t turned back to the dashboard before another rumbling lurch, barely catching Luke skidding from where he had just loosened his hold on the chair.

It stopped before Han could even try to get his balance.

He didn’t move yet, his arms still tight around Luke as he listened for another, but, “You can let go.”

“Shh.”

It took him a second through the tense waiting to notice Luke’s cheek against his chest.

“Han—”

Han dropped his arms from around Luke and nudged past him to the dashboard, covering, “Don’t get excited.”

“You catching me when I fall isn’t really enough to get me excited,” Luke said on his way to the door, swaying his hands slightly with the emphasis. “We need to see what that was.”

“Sorry,” Han said, surprising Luke just enough for him to glance back at the same time as Han looked over with a small shrug. “We don’t have time for anything else.”

Han bit back a grin when Luke’s nose wrinkled, a little pink, before he turned through the door.

Leia dragged a crate across the shore to where Artoo sat drying as much as he could in the wet-thick air, the fog not much better than when they had first crashed into the swamp; she clicked the crate open for a small furnace and a power cable before leaning over to plug the other end into one of Artoo’s sockets.

“That should help,” she said, settling back on a comparatively dry patch of log to open a box of food and set it to warm on the furnace. “I don’t know how we’re supposed to find this Yoda without any of the sensors working.”

Anxiety tugged at her chest against her best efforts as she looked around, still nothing to see but the trees and the fog. The water hadn’t moved again since Artoo had hurtled out onto the bank, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that; moving would give her a target, at least, and for all she knew, that thing was still lurking by her X-wing. Getting the crate had been nerve-wracking enough without standing around to try to dislodge or repair whatever she could by herself.

“Have you been here before?” she asked Artoo, thinking back to him and Ben. Obi-Wan. He was the reason she was there, anyway. “Something about it feels…”

Familiar, maybe—

“Like what?” a nasally voice croaked behind her.

Leia almost knocked her food off of the furnace as she rushed off of the log, lightsaber already extended when she whipped around with her feet braced and her hands where Obi-Wan had told her.

“Like we’re being watched,” Leia prompted, but with no explanation.

“Away with your weapon!” said the little robed green thing. “I mean you no harm.”

Leia hesitated for a second before clicking the button to retract the lightsaber back into its handle, not entirely sure why she did it; she still kept it in her hand. Artoo scooted a little closer.

“I am wondering,” the green thing said, “why are you here?”

Leia hesitated again, her eyes narrowing slightly. “I’m looking for someone.”

“Looking?” the green thing scoffed. “Found someone, you have, I would say, hm?”

Leia’s nose twitched when he practically cackled. 

“I don’t think so,” she said, looking over his tiny frame and the walking stick taller than he was. “I’m looking for a great warrior.”

“A great warrior,” the green thing repeated, a little tauntingly before he shook his head and passed Leia. “Wars not make one great.”

Leia clipped her lightsaber back to her belt as she turned before rushing after him, already poking through her crate.

“Hey—”

Artoo shuffled closer again, almost eye-level with the little green thing as he picked up her food from the furnace.

“Put that down, I’m eating that!”

The little thing had barely taken a bite before he spat it back out again; Leia bristled.

“How you get so big, eating food of this kind?”

Leia snorted and grabbed the tray back. “To you, maybe.”

The thing snorted back and went back to the crate.

Leia huffed and put her tray back on the log where she had been sitting.

“We didn’t mean to land in that muck,” she said, “and if we could get our ship out, we would, so could you please just—”

“Oh,” the little thing said, clearly taunting that time, “can not get your ship out?”

Leia didn’t make it back to the crate in time before he carelessly pulled out out a small lamp.

“You’re going to break something,” Leia said as she yanked that back, too, but the little thing didn’t stop poking around. “Would you stop—?”

The little thing snatched the lamp back from her.

“Mine!” he said, quickly backing up from Leia. “Or I will help you not.”

“I don’t need your help! You call this help?”

She didn’t notice, and he didn’t, either, as a grabber slowly extended from Artoo’s shell towards the lamp.

“What I need is for you to stop messing with my things so I can get out of this mud hole—”

“Mud hole?” the green thing squawked. “My home, this—”

Artoo clamped on the lamp to pull it back, beeping noisily while the little thing argued and tried to keep his grip.

“Mine!”

“Artoo,” Leia sighed, “just give it to him, we don’t have time for this.”

Artoo beeped angrily when the little thing yanked the lamp back.

“We have a lot of work to do,” Leia said, “if you don’t mind.”

“No, no, stay and help you, I will,” said the little thing, fidgeting with the knobs on the lamp. “Find your friend, hm?”

“I’m not looking for a friend, I’m looking for a Jedi Master, if you could just—”

“Oh, Jedi Master,” the little thing said. “Yoda. You seek Yoda.”

Leia’s shoulders straightened. “You know him?”

“Mm. Take you to him, I will, yes, yes.” He turned and squished through the mud with his walking stick. “But we must eat. Good food. Come.”

Leia frowned, Artoo whistling uncertainly and rudely behind her.

“Stay here and watch after the ship,” Leia said. “I’ll try to keep this quick.”

“Oh,” Threepio muttered anxiously between beeping back and forth with the Falcon’s computers, “where is Artoo when I need him?”

Han stepped around the cable connecting Threepio to the wall to crouch by the control panel between him and Chewie.

“How’re we looking?”

“Sir, I don’t know where your ship learned to communicate, but it has the most peculiar dialect,” Threepio said. “I believe it says that the power coupling on the negative ion axis has been polarized. I believe you’ll have to replace it.”

Han huffed through his nose. “Of course I’ll have to replace it…” He handed up a wire coil to Chewie, his head through a hatch in the ceiling, gesturing for him to lean down. “We’d better replace the negative power coupling.”

Chewie rolled his eyes with a low growl as he stuck his head back through.

Han stood up and looked over in the other direction when he heard the welding torch switch off from Luke reattaching a valve in another maintenance hatch; Luke yanked on the lever, and then again with both hands, but it didn’t budge when Han came over to help, either.

Luke nudged his hand away. “I’ve got it.”

“Just trying to help, your Highness.”

“Stop calling me that.”

Han bit the inside of his cheek to stifle a smile and leaned against the wall while Luke tried again.

“Sure, Prince Luke.”

Luke’s eyes narrowed to daggers that didn’t quite make their mark before wiping his hands on his pants to get a better grip on the lever.

“What?”

“Pain in my ass…” Luke mumbled.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s like you’re trying to be a pain in my ass,” Luke repeated with a little more emphasis, no attempt to cover for himself; Chewie snorted from inside the ceiling hatch.

“You don’t really make it that hard,” Han said, and when Luke’s only reply was pulling again on the lever with a wince, quietly leaning in, “I thought you said you had a change of heart.”

Luke went stiff for just a second, a faint pink tinge to his cheeks. They might have been busy, to put it lightly and nicely, since they had kissed in the alcove on the base on Hoth, since Han had come back with a nearly frozen Leia, but not busy enough to forget that.

“I said you were a good pilot,” Luke said as he glanced over. He kept his eyes firmly on the lever then. “Maybe when you’re not acting like a scoundrel, it might stay changed.”

Han’s grin broke through his attempt to keep it down, but it slipped a second later when Luke pulled his hand back with a hiss and another wince.

“Are—?”

“It’s fine,” Luke said when Han took his hand, but he didn’t take it back yet; Han had meant to check for a scrape, the lever a little rusty, but he didn’t let go yet even without one. He hadn’t really had a chance to notice before how soft Luke’s palms were. “Stop, Han.”

Han looked up, his thumb going still at the center of Luke’s palm.

“There’s grease all over my hands.”

“Yeah, mine too,” Han said quietly. He loosened his hold until the only thing keeping Luke’s hand in his was Luke deciding for it to stay there; Luke’s fingertips brushed against the side of his palm before Han gently pulled his hand a little closer to himself. “What?”

“What?”

Han bit the inside of his cheek, his pinky pressing just slightly over Luke’s pulse at his wrist. “Something’s going pretty quick.”

Han’s heartbeat was, too.

“That might be from trying to move a lever that may as well be welded to the wall.”

Han had to bite back a laugh, bubbly in his chest.

“I mean…”

Han tugged his hand slightly, but Luke tugged back, firm, pulling Han the last step closer to him until their chests were almost touching. Han’s heartbeat picked up a little more.

“That’s all?”

“I don’t like you so much it would give me heart palpitations,” Luke said. “You’re just flattering yourself again.”

Han’s eyebrows twitched slightly, almost unnoticeable; they had been just as close the first time Luke had said it, when Han had been meaning to leave, not long between him saying it and that kiss, and Han didn’t miss the implication in his tone.

“Liked me plenty back there,” he said, and Luke’s swallow made it clear that he caught Han’s implication, too. “Think maybe you do like scoundrels.”

Luke’s eyebrow raised, his mouth pressed tight but with just a little quirk up at the corner. “I like nice men.”

He still hadn’t pulled his hand back from Han’s.

Han glanced down at his mouth.

It had been so soft.

He wondered what it felt like when they weren’t somewhere so frigid.

“I can be nice.”

Luke glanced past him before tilting his chin up, pointed, running his fingers over Han’s knuckles. “Oh?”

Han’s heartbeat pounded.

He didn’t really mean to nod; he felt the shift of Luke leaning up on the balls of his feet as he leaned in, only moving his hand from Han’s to wind his arm around Han’s shoulders. His lips felt even softer that time, warm enough to melt in, his fingers in Han’s hair sending a shiver straight down his spine—

“Sir!”

Han winced when his head smacked against the wall as he abruptly pulled back, Luke a little pink again as he looked anywhere but Han and straightened his shirt. It left a little grease smear on the hem.

“Sir,” Threepio said again, entirely clueless, “I’ve isolated the reverse power flux coupling!”

“Thank you,” Han muttered; his cheeks felt warm when he glanced over at Luke, making himself look busy with the lever. “Thank you very much.”

“Oh, you’re perfectly welcome, sir.”

Artoo didn’t wait by the X-wing.

Leia caught him through one of the windows dug out from the wall of the short hut; it might have been warm and cozy if her neck hadn’t started to cramp just from the door to the table where the little green thing had left her.

Every clank from the kitchen made her tense, glancing between him and the light fading outside before he dropped a steaming plate in front of her.

Her food had been just fine if he would have left it alone.

“I appreciate the gesture,” she said stiffly, “but I really need to find Yoda.”

“Patience!” the little thing snapped as he sat down. “For the Jedi it is time to eat as well. Hot. Good food, hm?”

Leia had to stop herself from rolling her eyes as she picked up a wooden spoon to take a placating bite.

“How far away is he?” she asked. “It’s getting dark and I’d really prefer to—”

“Not far. Yoda is not far. Patience. Soon you will be with him.” Leia winced at the loud slurp from his bowl. “Rootleaf, I cook. Why you want to become Jedi, hm?”

Leia’s fingers stiffened on her spoon. “That’s not really your business.”

“Not my—”

“I don’t even know you! I was perfectly fine finding him myself before you started messing with everything—”

“I can not teach her,” the little green thing said exasperatedly, and not to her. “The girl has no patience.”

Leia dropped the spoon to the table and her face to her hands for a second. “I don’t have time for this…”

She shook her head to herself and looked up, her eyes narrowing on the empty space where the little green thing was looking so clearly.

He wasn’t talking to himself.

“You—”

She will learn patience.

“Hm,” Yoda snorted, glancing back towards her. “Much anger in her, like her father.”

“You knew—?”

Was I any different when you taught me?

“Ha! She is not ready.”

“Not ready? I—” Leia winced when she tried to stand up forgetting how close the ceiling was, before to the empty space, “Tell him! You wouldn’t have told me to come here if I wasn’t—”

“Ready, are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi, my own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained! A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind,” Yoda said, and then to the empty space, “This one a long time I have watched. All her life has she looked away, to the future, to the horizon. Never her mind on where she was, hm? What she was doing? Hm. Adventure, excitement, a Jedi craves not those things.”

Leia bristled again before he turned back to her.

“You are reckless.”

So was I, if you’ll remember.

Yoda paused.

“She is too old,” he said, but even as Leia’s jaw tightened, his tone didn’t seem to have the same firmness as before. “Yes, too old to begin training.”

“If you’ve been watching so long,” Leia said, “maybe you can see why I was looking away from that hunk of sand, and you want commitment? What could I commit myself to there if not getting out so I could get here? To you?”

Yoda’s beady, piercing eyes turned back to Leia, and she could practically feel the I have watched. He saw.

He turned back to the blank space.

“Will she finish what she begins?”

Leia held her chin a little higher. “I didn’t come here for nothing.”

“Oh, so sure, she is,” Yoda said. “So sure.”

Luke swiveled in the copilot seat, the darkness of the asteroid cave leaving just his reflection in the glass with the automatic lights on the control panels. One of the buttons had a smudge that he could see even in the glass.

He leaned his elbow on the armrest and his chin on his hand with a tight frown at the smudge, his chest twisting slightly. He wasn’t sure what it was with Han, or what he wanted to be, or if it was really right to be wanting anything from it at all. They didn’t have the time for any of that, but that was part of it; there had been no break from the planning and the fighting and the death, no clear end to it in sight, until it started to feel like they had nothing to fight for but what they had already lost. He still had Han.

The smudge kept bothering him. He got up with a huff, pulling his sleeve down over his hand to wipe it clean before something moved at the edge of his vision.

Luke looked back, but there was no one behind him, no reflections to move; he frowned and pulled his sleeve back up as he leaned forward over the dashboard, cupping his hands above his eyes to try to block the reflection, but he didn’t have time to get a look before something smacked against the glass right in front of his face.

“Oh!”

Luke’s leg hit the seat and almost sent him toppling back into it as he rushed backwards.

The something screeched, loud thumping before a flash in front of the glass too fast for Luke to see what it was; he didn’t wait to try to see it again before rushing out of the cockpit.

“Han—”

The lights dimmed as Han pulled at a wire in the wall before going bright again.

“Sir,” Threepio said, “if I may venture an opinion—”

“I’m not really interested in your opinion, Threepio.”

“Han!”

Han looked up as he set the panel back in to close the maintenance hatch. “What—?”

“There’s something outside,” Luke said, and when Han’s eyebrows furrowed together, “In the cave, it came right up to—”

He cut off when he felt a shift, just before a sharp clang against thee hull.

“That!”

“Oh, listen…” Threepio said anxiously.

“I’m going out there.”

Luke and Chewie’s heads both snapped towards Han with a startled growl and, “What?”

“I just got her back together,” Han said, gesturing for Chewie to follow before taking a breathing mask from a rack on the wall. “I’m not letting whatever that is tear it apart again.”

Luke bit back a huff as he took the spare mask and ran after Han and Chewie.

“I think it might be better if I stay here and guard the ship,” Threepio said after them, and at another clank, “Oh, no…”

Han looked at Luke, his mouth opening behind the mask, but Luke just kept walking to the loading ramp before Han could say anything about it.

The lights along the ramp didn’t go any farther than that, only just reaching the floor of the cave; Luke stopped and stomped.

“This doesn’t feel like rock.”

Han grunted and crouched down to get a better look, poking at the floor with a shudder.

“This is moist.”

“You could pick any word and you went with that.”

Han’s eyes crinkled with a grin blocked by the mask. “What, moist?”

“It’s—” Luke shook his head and waved him off. “I don’t know. I have a bad feeling about this.”

Han’s expression straightened as he stood up again. “Yeah, you’re not the only one.”

Chewie suddenly barked at a movement by the outside of the cockpit; Han raised his arm first, the blast lighting up the long, leathery creature as it let out a shriek and dropped limply in front of Luke.

Han didn’t lower his blaster until he carefully nudged the creature with the toe of his boot.

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking…” he said, tucking his blaster back into its holster. “Mynock. Chewie, check the rest of the ship, there might be more stuck on there. They must be chewing on the power cables.”

Luke’s nose wrinkled behind his breathing mask as he looked up to Han. “Mynock?”

“You should go inside,” Han said; Luke flicked the strap off of his holster anyway. “We’ll clear them off if there are any—”

Whatever he had left to say was covered by the whoosh of more of them flew over the Falcon, whipping his blaster back out as Chewie did the same to shoot down the Mynocks nearest the loading ramp. Luke took out one slithering a little too close as he ran up the ramp, shots landing and Mynocks smacking against the window of the cockpit as Threepio anxiously shouted at them from inside.

“Han! Come on!”

Han and Chewie both held their blasters ready as they walked to the Falcon, still facing the rest of the cave, but Han stopped only part way up the ramp.

“Hold on…”

He raised his blaster again, high, and fired to the far side of the cave.

It shook, rattling the entire ship and sending Luke tumbling against the doorway to the ramp; the remaining Mynocks shrieked and billowed away as the shaking didn’t stop, rumbling, and Han didn’t think before grabbing Luke’s hand as they ran back to the cockpit.

Chewie sped past them even after closing the ramp, straight to the copilot seat as Han followed to check the scopes, swaying slightly as the cave continued to rock them.

“Alright,” Han said, “let’s get out of here.”

“That whole fleet is still—!”

“We don’t have time,” Han said as his hands flew over the controls, “to discuss this in committee.”

“I’m not a committee! This is just stupid!”

Han and Chewie didn’t stop. The ship lifted, creaking slightly as it turned back around.

“You can’t make a jump to hyperspeed in an asteroid field—”

“Don’t really have a choice,” Han said. “Chewie—”

“Oh!” Threepio shouted, Chewie growling at the same time. “Look!”

Han’s hand went stiff on the steering; the sharp rock jutting out from the top and bottom of the opening to the cave inched closer together, shrinking it down past the already tight squeeze.

Han shoved on the throttle.

“We’re doomed!”

“The cave is collapsing?” Luke blurting out. “You shot it and now it’s—?”

“Not really a cave…”

“What?”

As soon as he said it, the Falcon rocketed close enough to the sharp rocks to see that they weren’t really rocks; the wide, jagged teeth closed closer together, no more room—

Luke yelped and grabbed the armrest when the ship swung sideways, barely missing the teeth as they shot out just as the cavernous mouth slammed shut behind them with a flurry of asteroids hitting the hull.

Sweat stuck to her shirt in the thick, saturated air as Leia ran through vines and over roots twisting up from the soggy ground, slipping but catching herself without pause as her boot skidded over a patch of moss. The weight on her back and the pointy ear poking the side of her head didn’t help her any.

“A Jedi’s strength flows through the Force, but beware of the dark side,” Yoda said over her shoulder. “Anger, fear, aggression, the dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever it will dominate your destiny, con some you it will, as it did Obi-Wan’s apprentice.”

“Vader.”

“Mm.”

She took a jagged cluster of rocks to think for a second. “Is the dark side stronger?”

“No, no…quicker, easier, more seductive.”

That was no help.

“How am I supposed to tell?” Leia asked, stopping for a second to get her bearings before turning slightly to the right. “What does that one feel like?”

“You will know. When you are calm, at peace, passive.”

Leia frowned.

Passive.

Watching the whole time like he had said, what she had been watching, too, and doing nothing. He had been passive.

“A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense,” Yoda continued. “Never for attack.”

“Some defending…”

“Hm?”

“Why can’t I—?”

“No, no, there is no why. Nothing more will I teach you today. Clear your mind of questions, mm.”

There was always a why, Leia thought, but it was interrupted by Artoo beeping at them from a little ways off.

Leia knelt down for Yoda to hop off of her back, flicking her shirt away from her skin to try to make a breeze that still didn’t do any good in the wet air. Artoo had at least stayed put that time, her towel and water bottle not far from where he curiously scooted closer to Yoda.

Leia had to stop herself from finishing the water bottle in one go, wiping her face and the back of her neck with the towel before tossing it back over a branch.

Her eyes narrowed on something dark behind it.

She hadn’t recognized the other tree for a tree at first with the dark, almost black bark towering higher than all the rest, swampy dark water faintly rippling around the base of it where roots wound up from the ground, some taller than her. It felt dark.

The air felt heavier, too, the thick canopy like it was slowly closing in on her.

“Something doesn’t feel right, here.”

There was a glint to Yoda’s eyes that Leia didn’t particularly like when he looked up at her.

“That place…” he said slowly, “is strong with the dark side of the Force. A domain of evil it is.”

Leia took a step back.

“In you must go.”

Leia snapped around to face him straight on. “Why?”

Yoda raised his eyebrows and went back to poking something with a stick.

She had asked what it felt like; she supposed going would be some sort of answer.

“What’s in there?”

“Only what you take with you.”

Leia just managed not to roll her eyes before taking her belt from where she had left it over a branch.

“Your weapons,” Yoda said, “you will not need them.”

She frowned as she put the belt back; she took her lightsaber anyway.

She kept it sheathed in her hand as she came closer to the dark tree, pushing aside a thick curtain of vines covering one of the roots twisting high enough for her to crouch under it.

It was only a few more vines bumping her face before she was able to stand fully. The roots had grown over the entrance to a dim, dripping cave, coiling in deep enough to house a couple lizards and snakes that darted into their holes as she stepped through the shallow water puddling along the ground. The hair on her arms prickled with a shiver even with the air feeling impossibly heavier than outside, musty and thick when she took a deep breath and extended her lightsaber so she could see around a turn.

It felt wider after that, but the blue light only reached so far ahead of her, no walls in sight; the little animals stayed by the tree, none of the skittering to top off the slick sound of running water or the occasional drip.

It had felt less imposing with them.

She was alone then.

She didn’t hear anything else before a buzzing hiss whipped her around. She almost slipped over the wet ground as she stumbled back from the towering, dark figure looming ahead of her, ducking to the side just before the red lightsaber swung down at her. 

He didn’t get to lift it again before she tore forward with hers and slashed.

There was no resistance to it as her lightsaber cut through the black armor at the neck, sending the helmet clanging to the floor before it rolled to a smoldering stop at Leia’s feet.

She didn’t lower her lightsaber yet; she took a hesitant step back, about to glance over to the body before a sharp crack from the floor brought her back to it.

The helmet snapped open at the front with a spray of sparks dully lighting up her own face inside it.

Leia’s throat twinged too tightly to breathe; her face stared up at her, unblinking, before it faded into the dark with the rest of the suit disappearing with it.

Her hand tightened on her lightsaber as she looked back around the turn, towards the roots at the entrance to the cave.

She had felt something else with her inside.

It hadn’t been a person.

Seductive, Yoda had called the dark side, easy, but there had been nothing appealing about that, nothing drawing her to a quicker end to any goal.

She had seen for herself, Obi-Wan simply telling the Stormtroopers that Artoo and Threepio weren’t who they were looking for, and then he had said that Yoda had trained him.

Yoda must be able to do more than that.

Her nose wrinkled and her jaw tensed before she forced her expression smooth and her mind blank and calm, and kept her lightsaber extended as she walked back to the tree.

Not yet past the edge of the asteroid field, the Falcon sped ahead of the Star Destroyer tailing them, battered by chunks of rock and debris as Han swerved between the larger asteroids and blasts firing from behind them. The cockpit lurched as Han yanked back on the steering, skidding just over the side of another asteroid nearly the same size as the ship, before it bounced and crumbled apart like a clump of sand against the Star Destroyer.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Threepio said from one of the tracking scopes off to the side, “we’re almost coming out of the asteroid field.”

Luke’s hands were still tight on the armrests; almost couldn’t come soon enough.

Another couple chunks of debris clinked over the glass in front of them, and they were clear.

They barely got any farther before the whole ship lurched again with a blast from behind them.

“Shit, they got—ready for lightspeed?”

Chewie barked.

Han counted down, hand ready on the lever—and then nothing happened.

“That’s not fair!”

Luke was just far enough from panicking to shoot Han a look.

Chewie growled, roughly waving across the dashboard as Han hopelessly tried again.

“The transfer circuits are working, it’s not my fault.”

Chewie dropped his head to his hands.

“So.” Luke cleared his throat. “No lightspeed.”

“Not my fault,” Han repeated.

“Sir, we’ve just lost the main rear deflector shield,” Threepio said. “One more direct hit on the back quarter and we’re done for.”

Han thought for just a fraction of a second before yanking back on another lever. “Turn her around.”

Chewie barked again.

“I said turn her around! I’m putting all power on the front shield—”

“You’re going to attack them?” Luke said. “That?”

“Sir,” Threepio said, “the odds of surviving a direct assault on an Imperial Star Destroyer—”

“We don’t need to hear it,” Luke shouted, at the same time as Han snapped, “Shut up!”

They swerved back around, speeding back towards the massive ship left perfectly unscathed from the asteroid that would have crushed them. The buzz of the shields going up ahead of them, not far, thrummed even in the cockpit of the Falcon as the lights of the weapons loading on made them squint—

Han threw the steering sideways.

Leia squeezed her eyes shut for a second against the blood rushing to her head, her arms straining with the weight of holding herself up with Yoda perched on her boots.

“Use the Force, yes…”

Leia corrected her posture just in time not to fall over when Yoda bumped her leg.

“Now, the stone,” he said. “Feel it.”

Leia’s eyes narrowed again on the rocks Yoda had left stacked in front of her.

She had to try to ignore Artoo beeping behind her to drag the top rock up into the air, unsteady and as shaky as her arms were starting to feel, before she didn’t mean to glance towards Artoo—

Yoda hopped off to the side as Leia’s elbow smacked the soft ground before the rest of her did.

“Concentrate!”

“I’m—” Leia glared at Artoo, still beeping and rocking frantically on his rollers as she got up. “What is it?”

Her shoulders went stiff when she looked up from him to the X-wing, the very end of the nose barely poking out above the swampy water.

Leia squeezed her face in her hands. “How are we supposed to get that now? It’s completely…”

“So certain are you!” Yoda snapped. “Always with you it can not be done. Hear you nothing that I say?”

“I’m certain because I can’t even try to get a tether around it without probably drowning now,” Leia said, waving back towards the rocks that had toppled over. “It’s not like lifting a rock, that’s different, and I barely got that anyway.”

“No! No different, only different in your mind,” Yoda said. “You must unlearn what you have learned.”

With a twist of irritation, Leia turned back to her X-wing before placating, “I guess I can try.”

“No! Try not,” Yoda said. “Do, or do not. There is no try.”

Leia frowned.

She shook her head to herself before bracing her feet wide and sturdy, a deep breath before her neck tensed as she focused on dragging the ship up from the water.

It quivered, unsteady like the rock had been, but it moved; more of the nose crept up above the muck, almost to the glass before Leia’s concentration slipped just the tiniest bit and sent it splashing back under.

Leia’s shoulders sagged, a few seconds before her breathing steadied. She felt like she had just stopped running with Yoda weighing her down again.

“It’s too big.”

“Size matters not,” Yoda said. “Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hm?”

Leia looked down at him and shook her head.

“And well you should not, for my ally in the Force. And a powerful ally it is,” Yoda said. “Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we.”

Leia winced and jerked back when Yoda pinched her arm.

“Not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you.” He gestured widely from her to across the swamp. “Here, between you, me…the tree, the rock, everywhere, even between this land and that ship.”

Yoda just looked expectantly at Leia when she looked back from the X-wing to him.

“I can’t do it.”

Yoda’s eyes narrowed slightly before he turned to the X-wing. He raised his arm, his hand pointing loosely to her ship, and it rose easily out from the water as Artoo beeped frantically and skidded away from where Yoda gently lowered it to the bank.

Leia stared, from the X-wing to where it had sat in the water and back.

“How did you do that?” she asked. “That was impossible.”

“Disbelief,” Yoda muttered, shaking his head to himself. “This is why you fail.”

Leia frowned back over the water.

“Captain Solo,” Threepio said, more firmly than anything else Luke could remember hearing from him, gesturing out through the glass to the hull of the Star Destroyer where Han had landed, “this time you have gone too far.”

Chewie growled.

“No, I will not be quiet, Chewbacca! Why doesn’t anyone listen to me?”

“The fleet’s starting to break up,” Han said, checking over the radars. “Go back and stand by the manual release for the landing claw.”

Chewie grumbled again, shaking his head as he got up from his seat.

“I really don’t see how this is going to help,” Threepio said. “Surrender is a perfectly acceptable alternative in extreme circumstances. The Empire may be gracious enough…”

He trailed off and drooped slightly when Luke quietly leaned over to switch him off.

Han huffed through his nose. “Thanks.”

“How is this supposed to help?”

“If they follow standard procedure,” Han said, waving vaguely towards the glass, “they’ll dump their garbage before they go to lightspeed, and we just float away.”

“Hm.”

Han looked up.

“And then?”

“Then we’ve gotta find a safe port somewhere around here,” Han said. “Any ideas?”

“Where are we?”

“Anoat system.”

Luke sagged against the backrest. “There’s nothing out here.”

“No…” Han picked at a patch of stubble he had missed under his chin before he abruptly straightened up. “There’s Lando.”

He pulled up a mapscreen as Luke got up to take the copilot seat for a better look, pointing to a blinking light on the chart.

“I haven’t heard of that system before.”

“Not a system, Lando’s a person,” Han said. “He’s a…card player, gambler, scoundrel, you’d like him.”

Luke rolled his eyes.

“Bespin,” Han read off the screen. “It’s pretty far, but I think we can make it.”

“The mining colony?”

“Yeah, Tibanna gas mine,” Han said. “Lando conned somebody out of it. We, uh, go a long way back.”

Luke’s eyebrow quirked up; Han firmly kept looking at the screen. 

“And you trust him?”

“No, but he’s got no love for the Empire, I can tell you that.”

The intercom crackled with Chewie barking from the other end; Han switched the screens, leaning over to look out the glass as Luke went back to the seat behind him.

“Yeah, stand by…” he said, and after another couple seconds, “Okay, detach!”

The ship rumbled slightly with the garbage and debris bumping harmlessly against the hull as they floated off from the Star Destroyer.

Han’s hands hovered over the controls for a second before he relaxed back in his seat, his eyes crinkling at the corners when he glanced back at Luke sitting behind him before back to the controls.

Luke leaned forward and tapped his arm.

“Mm—?”

He didn’t have to lean in much more to cut Han off, his breath hitching slightly against Luke’s lips; Han twisted the chair a little to face him more fully without breaking away, moving his hand up to cup Luke’s jaw, his fingers just brushing Luke’s cheek before Luke pulled back to sit down again.

Han bit his lip.

“That was smart.”

The scopes didn’t pick up on anything else through the garbage as the Star Destroyer rocketed away.

Leia’s arms didn’t shake anymore as she held herself up on her hands, staring intently at the crate she had first brought from the X-wing left next to Artoo and the lamp. The crate and lamp trembled for a second before lifting up, another couple before Artoo did, too, beeping and blinking angrily at her.

“Concentrate, feel the Force flow…calm, yes, good,” Yoda said. “Through the Force, things you will see. Other places. The future, the past, old friends long gone.”

“Han.”

Something sharp twisted in Leia’s chest, a flash of panic and searching—

“Luke!”

The crate and lamp and Artoo dropped to the ground just before Leia did.

Yoda shook his head with a tight frown. “You must learn control.”

Leia pushed herself up, something fuzzy and bright behind her vision even after she rubbed at her eyes.

“There’s something…” She looked up at the thick sky through the trees, not the same. Her heart hadn’t been beating so fast before. “There was a city. Clouds.”

“Friends, you have there.”

“I think they’re in danger—”

“In the future you see.”

“What’s going to happen?” Leia said as she stood up, no thought to the mud soaking in at her knees as she turned towards the X-wing. “I have to warn—”

“Difficult to see,” Yoda said. “Always in motion is the future.”

“Then I can still help—”

“Decide you must, how to serve them best. If you leave now, help them, you could,” Yoda said, “but you would destroy all for which they have fought and suffered.”

Leia stopped in her tracks.

He wasn’t wrong.

Luke and Han and Chewie were capable, and it had been the future; there was still time, if there needed to be.

She had to use it.

The soft, almost pillowy light of the system as they approached gave way to even more pillowy clouds of pink gas as the Falcon steered closer to Bespin; even Han looked a little taken aback by it, his eyebrows twitching up as he leaned forward to look up at the clouds billowing too high to see past.

They didn’t have much time to keep looking before the ship shuddered with two light blasts from behind them.

“Oh, for…” Han’s hair stuck up a little when he hurriedly put on a headset. “No, I don’t have a landing permit, I—I’m trying to reach Lando Calrissian.”

Another shot; Chewie growled,

“Whoa! Okay! Hold on a minute, let me explain—”

“You will not deviate from your present course.”

“Rather touchy,” Threepio said, “aren’t they?”

“I thought you knew him,” Luke said.

Chewie huffed in agreement.

“That was a long time ago,” Han told Chewie. “I’m sure he’s forgotten all about it.”

Chewie’s eyes narrowed, but, “Permission granted to land on platform three-two-seven.”

“Thank you,” Han said, snapping the headset off with a frustrated huff. “Told you there’s nothing to worry about. We go way back.”

Luke’s mouth pressed into a tight line; Han lifted his shoulders in a stiff shrug and started to land.

The thick clouds suddenly parted as they lowered closer to the floating city, pristine and gleaming, down to the empty landing platform; the cloud cars that had fired at them stayed where they were and ready.

Han and Chewie and Luke all took their blasters from their holsters on their way from the cockpit to the loading ramp, hesitating at the top with Threepio behind them.

“Oh,” he said. “No one to meet us.”

Luke frowned and switched off his safety. “I don’t feel good about this.”

“They did let us land,” Threepio pointed out.

“Everything’s gonna be fine,” Han said. “Trust me.”

Luke’s hand tensed on his blaster when a door opened at the end of the long platform. Han’s shoulders lifted slightly on a deep breath before he forced his posture more composed, glancing back from the man at the front of the group he was leading out.

“See? That’s the guy,” he said, and then to Chewie, almost too low for Luke to here, “Keep your eyes open, okay?”

Luke and Threepio followed after them, waiting a little behind Han when he stopped a few feet back from the man at the front.

His grin slipped slightly, difficult to read, his eyes narrowing as Han’s did in a tense few seconds of silence.

“Why, you slimy,” he started, tone curling at the end, “double-crossing, no-good swindler.”

Han’s shoulders went stiff.

“You’ve got a lot of guts coming here after what you pulled.”

Han’s eyebrows shot up before he gestured to himself. “Me?”

He jerked back but not quick enough when Lando abruptly moved closer and grabbed Han’s upper arms; the grin spread back over his face before he tugged Han in, still stiff for a couple seconds before he awkwardly raised his arms to match the hug.

“How are you doing, you old pirate?” he said, letting go but not fully, hands still on Han’s arms. “I never thought I’d catch up with you again, where have you been?”

Luke frowned and holstered his blaster again as the tension left Han’s back, nodding along and laughing with Lando with Chewie a few feet off.

“He seems very friendly,” Threepio said cheerfully.

Luke fought back the frown trying to deepen. “Mm.”

Lando and Han finally took a step back from each other. “What are you doing here?”

“The, uh, repairs…” Han cleared his throat and gestured back to the Falcon. “Thought you might be able to help.”

Lando’s eyebrows crept up, eyes wide in mock panic as he gestured back, too. “What have you done to my ship?”

“Your ship? You lost her to me fair and square—”

Chewie grumbled with a stiff nod; Lando nodded back, only then really looking at Luke with a bright smile.

“What have we here?” he said warmly, stepping past Han to stop in front of Luke with his hand held out. “I’m Lando Calrissian, I’m the administrator of this facility. And who might you be?”

Luke took his hand and decided not to mention his last name. 

“Luke,” Lando repeated, dipping his head and moving Luke’s hand up to kiss the backs of his fingers instead of just letting go after the shake. “Welcome.”

Luke swallowed, his cheeks a little hot before Han nudged past Lando to take Luke’s hand back.

“Yeah, alright, you old smoothie.”

Luke had to bite back a smile and try to will down the heat still over his cheeks.

“Hello, sir,” Threepio said, “I am C-3PO, human-cyborg relations, my facilities are at your…”

He didn’t finish before Lando had already turned to follow Han and Luke back across the platform.

“Well, really…!”

“So,” Lando said as he caught up, “what’s wrong with the Falcon?”

“Hyperdrive,” Han said. “The transfer circuits are working, I don’t know what it is.”

“I’ll get my people to look at it.”

“Thanks.”

“You know,” Lando said, turning to Luke, “that ship saved my life quite a few times. Fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Han huffed a laugh and shook his head.

The door slid open again at the end of the platform to a bright, airy hall, branching off into corridors and wide rooms as they passed through each open doorway. Threepio was still a little behind.

“How’s the gas mine?” Han asked, his fingers still loosely linked with Luke’s. “Paying off for you?”

“Not as well as I’d like, we’re a small outpost and not very self-sufficient,” Lando said. “And I’ve had supply problems of every kind you can think of, I’ve had labor difficulties…”

Luke didn’t notice Han grinning until Lando trailed off and glanced back.

“What’s so funny?”

“You, listen to you, you sound like a businessman,” Han said. “A responsible leader. Who’d have thought?”

The corner of Lando’s mouth twitched up, but not really a smile, eyes not quite focused before, “Seeing you here sure brings back a few things.”

Han swallowed. “Yeah.”

“Yeah, I’m responsible these days,” Lando said, smoothly covering the pause. “It’s the price you pay for being successful.”

“Ouch.”

Behind them, a grumbling Threepio stopped and turned back at a doorway opening behind him, before straightening up at the silver splitting image of himself.

“Oh! Nice to see a familiar face around here.”

The droid muttered and waved him off.

“How rude—” He cut himself off, turning towards the beeping not unlike Artoo from through the door. “Oh, that sounds like an…I wonder if…hello?”

“Who are you?!”

He didn’t see where the voice had come from with the mess of mechanical parts and machinery filling the room, but, “I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude—oh, no, don’t get up—”

A bolt hit square at his chestplate and sent him flying limb from limb before the door slid shut behind him.

Chewie stopped behind Lando and Han and Luke and sniffed; he glanced back, and then he shrugged, and followed after them with no more thought to it.

The lights from the X-wing glowed over Leia as she hauled the last of her crates into the storage underneath, Artoo gladly settling into his cubby at the top despite Yoda’s shouts.

“Leia! You must complete your training.”

“That feeling won’t go,” she said, sliding down to check that she had gotten everything. “They’re still in danger, that part of the future hasn’t moved, I can’t just sit here.”

“You must not go.”

Leia almost slipped as she started climbing back up when she snapped around to look at him, just as sure as she was that the sun set twice, “They’re going to die if I don’t.”

You don’t know that.

Leia froze up for a second.

She didn’t expect to see him standing not far from Yoda.

“Even he can not see their fate,” Obi-Wan said.

“I’ve seen enough,” Leia said. “This whole time, you’ve been teaching me how to feel through the Force, and I’ve never felt anything as clearly as—”

“But you can not control it,” Obi-Wan said. “This is a dangerous time for you, when you will be tempted by the dark side of the Force.”

“Yes, yes, to Obi-Wan you must listen,” Yoda said. “The cave, remember your failure at the cave!”

“Because defeating Darth Vader in a couple minutes is such a failure—”

“It is you and your abilities the Emperor wants,” Obi-Wan said. “That is why your friends are made to suffer.”

It sent a stab through Leia’s chest. “Then I can’t just let that happen because of me.”

“I don’t want to lose you to the Emperor the way I lost Vader.”

Leia stopped at the top of the ladder, barely restraining herself from throwing her last bag into the X-wing. “I’m not Vader.”

Obi-Wan’s eyebrow twitched up; Yoda’s face wrinkled into a deep frown.

“Stopped they must be. On this all depends,” Yoda said. “Only a fully trained Jedi Knight with the Force as their ally will conquer Vader and his Emperor. If you choose to end your training now, if you choose the quick and easy path, as Vader did, you will become an agent of evil.”

“Patience.”

“If I was to sit here and do nothing and let my friends die when I could help them,” Leia said, “I don’t see what isn’t evil in that.”

“If you honor what they fight for—”

“They’re not fighting for this, this isn’t a fight,” she said, and to Obi-Wan, “You said this was because of me. Not the Rebellion. That’s what they’re fighting for, and they won’t be able to do that if they’re dead. That’s not honoring anything.”

“If you choose to face Vader, you will do it alone,” he said. “I can not interfere.”

Leia’s jaw tensed. “I understand. Artoo, start the converters.”

Artoo whistled gleefully.

“Leia.”

She looked back.

“Don’t give in to hate,” Obi-Wan said. “That leads to the dark side.”

Leia nodded as she climbed into the X-wing.

“Strong, is Vader,” Yoda said. “Mind what you have learned. Save you it can.”

“I will.”

The cockpit shut above her; the engines rumbled, kicking up dust and loose leaves before it shot up through the trees.

Yoda grumbled a sigh.

“Told you, I did. Reckless is she, now matters are worse.”

“She is our last hope,” Obi-Wan said, but he had it for her.

“No.” Yoda looked up through the broken branches, the X-wing’s trail already fading. “There is another.”

Luke had to stop himself from fidgeting with the hem of the shirt Lando had given him to change into, soft and rich and a relief from all the layers he hadn’t had the chance to take off, even with the anxiety twisting uncomfortably in his chest.

He turned back from the wide window overlooking the sharp drop into the clouds just as the door slid open to Han.

“The ship’s almost finished,” he said. “Couple more things and we should be good.”

“Sooner the better,” Luke mumbled. “Something’s not right here. No one’s seen Threepio and I know he wouldn’t get this lost.”

Han frowned, only moving his hand a few inches closer before Luke took it. “I’ll talk to Lando, he’s on top of everything here.”

“I’m not sure I trust him.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not so sure either, but he’s my friend,” Han said, rubbing his thumb over Luke’s knuckles, “and we’ll be outta here in no time.”

“And then where will you be?”

Han’s eyebrows twitched together, his hand a little tighter in Luke’s.

“I’ll talk to Chewie first.”

He didn’t need to; that smell hadn’t stopped bothering Chewie, prickling in his nose even after he had gone too far to still really be smelling it. Threepio had been awfully not distracting for an awfully long time.

Chewie retraced their steps from before almost all the way to the door to the landing platform, stopping in the hallway around where he remembered last hearing Threepio chattering on behind them, the smell. It was back. He waited until it looked like no one would notice before slowly passing each door until he stopped again.

Four Ugnaughts around piles of junk and mechanical parts tore pieces apart from each other, tossing some to the side and some onto a conveyor belt on its way to a molten pit; a few of the pieces looked a little too much like limbs, and a little too golden.

Chewie barked at the Ugnaught picking at Threepio’s head, startling it but not enough to grab before it threw the head to another across the conveyor belt; Chewie swatted, another back and forth before Threepio’s head clanged to the floor just in reach for Chewie to snatch up.

He shoved another Ugnaught to the side to collect the rest of Threepio from the conveyor belt.

Han was still tapping at his com to try to get ahold of Chewie when opened the door, dropping the case he had piled Threepio into on the floor.

“What—?”

Chewie growled.

Han straightened up. “A junk pile?”

“Oh, this is…” Luke trailed off as he bent down by the case. “Chewie, do you think you would be able to put him back together?”

Chewie frowned, shifting his weight from one foot to the other before he shrugged.

“Lando’s got—”

“Are you serious?” Luke said. “You think he had nothing to—?”

He snapped his mouth shut at the buzz just before the door slid open again.

“I’m sorry,” Lando said, “am I interrupting something?”

“No,” Luke said a little quicker than he had meant to.

Lando didn’t seem to take note of it; his eyes crinkled a little on another bright smile as he came closer to Luke.

“You look just about ethereal,” he said, looking over Luke’s clean clothes. “You truly belong here with us among the clouds.”

“Thank you,” Luke tried not to say too stiffly.

“Will you join me for a little refreshment?”

Han’s eyes narrowed slightly behind Luke, but Chewie barked with an enthusiastic nod.

“Everyone’s invited, of course.”

Luke waited until he heard Han take a step forward before he did, too, following Lando and Chewie out of the room before Lando looked back and stopped with a tight frown.

“Having trouble with your droid?”

“No,” Han said unconvincingly. “No problem, why?”

Luke barely managed to stop himself from rolling his eyes before they started walking again, the backs of Han’s fingers brushing up against his.

Wide windows and squeaky-clean pillars lined the wide halls Lando led them down, even brighter and sleeker than when they had first come in from the landing platform.

“Since we’re a small operation, we don’t fall into the…” Lando started, hesitating a second before, “the jurisdiction of the Empire.”

“You’re part of the mining guild, then?” Luke asked.

“No, not actually,” Lando said. “Our operation is small enough not to be noticed, which is advantageous for everybody since our customers are anxious to avoid attracting attention to themselves.”

Lando waved them down a turn to a hallway with a door nearly reaching the ceiling at the end.

“Aren’t you worried the Empire’s going to find out about this operation of yours and shut you down?”

“That’s always been a danger,” Lando told Han, “but things have developed that will ensure security. I’ve made a deal that will keep the Empire out of here forever.”

Luke frowned; what danger if there could just be a deal, and what deal could truly avoid—?

The tall door slid open.

Han whipped out his blaster, but the shots veered to the side with just a flick of Darth Vader’s wrist, closing his fingers around the blaster pulled from Han’s hand to his.

He smoothly placed it at the end of the table between him and Boba Fett and the rest of them.

“We would be honored,” he said, “if you would join us.”

Lando took a deep breath and didn’t manage more than a couple seconds of looking at Han’s expression.

“They arrived right before you did,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” Han spat out, “me too.”

Artoo beeped uncertainly from his cubby behind Leia.

“Just hang on,” she said into her com, the whole ship rumbling as she pushed it faster than it really wanted to go. It wasn’t fast enough. She hadn’t had time. “We’re almost there.”

Chewie winced at the high-pitched buzzing coming from the glaring lights of the stark holding cell, alternating unsuccessfully between covering his ears and trying to reassemble Threepio.

He threw an arm down with a sharp growl before slamming his fists against the wall.

The lights on the ceiling dimmed and the buzzing stopped; Chewie took a deep breath, rubbing his temples before he sat down again to get back to his repairs.

Not knowing where Han had been taken wasn’t any help focusing.

The arm he had roughly dropped attached easily enough, a little more fidgeting before Threepio’s head clicked into place and the lightbulbs in his eyes blinked on.

“Mm, oh my, uh—I don’t mean to intrude—don’t get up—”

Chewie’s eyebrows shot up at the garbled babbling, something with the speakers; he tilted Threepio’s head to the side and tweaked a couple connectors.

“Oh—!”

Chewie shushed him, quietly grumbling through an explanation.

“Stormtroopers? Here? We’re in danger, I must tell the others—” Threepio cut off. “I’ve been shot!”

Two Stormtroopers at each side checked over the rack Han had been strapped to as the door to another holding cell slid open for Darth Vader; one of the Stormtroopers nodded at him before they both stepped back, leaving the controls open for him to test.

A flurry of sparks shot out from a rod above the rack, not yet close enough to do its job, but enough that a couple reached Han’s face.

Darth Vader turned without a word to the Stormtroopers and left the room again.

“Lord Vader—”

“You may take Captain Solo to Jabba the Hutt after I have Skywalker,” Darth Vader said to Fett, little thought to Lando.

Lando’s stomach twisted at the shriek from the other side barely muffled by the door.

“He’s no good to me dead.”

“He will not be permanently damaged,” Vader said.

“Lord Vader,” Lando said again, forcing his tone as steady as he could get it, “What about Luke and the Wookiee?”

“They must never again leave this city.”

“That was never a condition of our agreement,” Lando said, his neck feeling hot, restraint slipping, “nor was giving Han to this bounty hunter—”

Lando went stiff as Darth Vader’s helmet turned coolly towards him.

“Perhaps you think you’re being treated unfairly.”

Lando shook his head. “No.”

“Good,” Darth Vader said, turning down the hallway followed by Boba Fett. “It would be unfortunate if I had to leave a garrison here.”

Lando managed until Darth Vader’s back was turned before his nose wrinkled, eyes narrowing on the receding specter before he turned down the other direction.

“This deal is getting worse all the time…”

Threepio’s legs still needed attaching when Chewie realized he had made a mistake.

“Oh, yes, that’s much better, thank you…” Threepio said, trailing off before, “Wait. Wait! Oh, my, what have you done? I’m backwards, you stupid furball, only an overgrown mophead like you…”

He trailed off again when Chewie deactivated one of his circuits.

Chewie was about to start over on Threepio’s head when he straightened up, his nose twitching before he rushed upright just as the door slid open to two Stormtroopers hauling a worn, ragged Han into the room.

Chewie caught him into a smothering hug when the Stormtroopers carelessly shoved him inside and closed the door again, Han sagging against his chest.

“I feel terrible.”

Chewie grumbled as reassuringly as he could as he led Han to a platform at the other end of the room, barely holding his weight before Chewie carefully helped him sag backwards onto it.

He didn’t have time to say anything else before he looked up again; Luke was haggard and unsteady but on his own feet when the Stormtroopers pushed him inside, his eyes wide before he ran straight to Han.

Luke’s knees knocked against the wall as he rushed down next to him, pushing Han’s hair from his forehead and cupping the back of his head between the unforgiving platform.

“Why is this happening?”

Han leaned into Luke’s hand at his head, gentle and soft, his thumb rubbing Han’s temple when he mumbled, “They didn’t even ask me any questions.”

Luke’s jaw clenched.

He scooted closer to Han without thinking to when the door slid open again.

“Lando—”

Han mustered up just enough energy to lean his head up. “Get the hell out of here—!”

“Shut up and listen,” Lando said, his voice hushed. “Vader has agreed to turn Luke and Chewie over to me.”

Luke kept his hands ready to catch him as Han pushed himself up on his elbows. “Over to you.”

“They’ll have to stay here, but they’ll be safe.”

“What about Han?”

The corner of Lando’s mouth twitched; he felt Han tense.

“Vader’s giving him to the bounty hunter.”

“Is that the deal you made?” Luke said. “And you trust that? He wants us all dead—”

“He doesn’t want you at all,” Lando said. “He wants somebody called Skywalker.”

Luke’s face felt cold, and Han’s voice sounded it. “Leia?”

“He said it’s a trap.”

“And we’re the bait,” Luke finished.

“Apparently,” Lando said stiffly, “she’s on her way—”

“Perfect!” Han snapped. “You set us up good, huh, some friend—”

Luke wasn’t able to stop him before Han launched off of the platform straight into a punch. Lando’s immediately after caught his lip before one of the guards at Lando’s side jutted the butt of their rifle against Han’s chest, roughly knocking him back to the platform; Chewie snarled, but he hadn’t gotten one step forward before both sights aimed at him.

“Stop!” Lando shouted; they lowered their arms. “I’ve done all I can. I’m sorry I couldn’t do better, but I have my own problems in this.”

“Yeah,” Han sneered, wiping a small drip of blood from his chin, “you’re a real hero.”

Lando took a deep breath, his expression tight before he turned with the guards and left again.

Luke and Chewie rushed to help Han up, Chewie’s broad paws hovering over Han’s chest where the rifle had hit before Han shook his head and nudged his paws away.

“It’s fine.”

“You can’t just go doing that,” Luke said gently, pulling his sleeve down with a smear of spit to clean Han’s chin a little better. “You’re going to get yourself hurt like that.”

Han raised an eyebrow with a slow blink.

“Worse.”

Lando’s heart thumped looking over the deep chamber, coiling with pipes and chemical tanks and tinging everything an unwelcoming red.

“The facility is crude,” Darth Vader said next to him, “but it should be adequate to freeze Skywalker for his journey to the Emperor.”

Lando couldn’t remember knowing anyone who had been frozen like that.

“Lord Vader,” one of the guards said, “ship approaching, X-wing class.”

“Good. Monitor Skywalker and allow her to land.”

The soldier bowed his head and left.

“Lord Vader,” Lando couldn’t help saying, “we only use this facility for carbon freezing. If you put her in there, it could kill her.”

“I do not want the Emperor’s prize damaged,” he said, as casually as it seemed like his voice could get. “We will test it on Captain Solo.”

Lando tensed; his heart thumped harder.

That had not been part of the deal.

Almost none of it had.

Leia barely took her eyes off of the display panel, between radars and scopes, with nothing coming towards her and no communications.

Artoo trilled behind her.

“They said it’s a trick.” The bright dot of the city blinked closer and closer on the radar. “I don’t think now is what we have to worry about.”

Boba Fett and six Stormtroopers led Han and Luke into a bleak, busy room, Threepio still only partially assembled with the rest of his limbs packed up at Chewie’s back; the same Ugnaughts clambered around a wide chamber with Darth Vader standing by the head of it.

They almost didn’t see Lando at first, the reddish light washing out the rich yellow and blues.

“Lando,” Han said quietly, “what’s going on?”

He took a deep breath before, “You’re being put into the carbon freeze.”

The Stormtroopers stayed while Boba Fett went to Darth Vader.

“What if he doesn’t survive? He’s worth a lot to me.”

“The Empire will compensate you if he dies,” Darth Vader said, and to the guards, “Put him in.”

Chewie howled and lunged for the Stormtroopers around Han; the rest immediately swarmed, shoving him back as Threepio shouted from his backpack.

“Oh, no! Chewbacca! Stop this! No!”

“Chewie!” Han shouted, a rifle raised too high— “Stop!”

“Yes, please, I’m not ready to die!”

Han pushed his way through, the Stormtroopers receding at a nod from Vader.

“Chewie,” Han snapped, dragging him back, “this isn’t gonna help anything right now. I need you to be here for Luke.”

Han quirked his eyebrows up with a gentle nudge to Chewie’s arm; Chewie wailed, no thought to the shackles being slung over his wrists by the Stormtroopers as the others came back to haul Han away.

“Hey—”

Luke was just close enough. He rushed to meet Han halfway, his arms tight around Han’s shoulders and Han’s lips tight against his before Han was dragged away again up to the chamber.

“Han,” Luke shouted, Han’s eyes wide on him as his wrists were shackled and he was pushed to a platform to lower into the chamber. “I love you.”

His expression was soft, one small thing to hold onto through the sounds of the chamber being prepared and the jeering Ugnaughts, sad and determined.

The platform started to sink.

“I know.”

Chewie howling again muffled the creaks of the platform lowering, Han’s eyes still on Luke before squeezing shut with a wince as a hiss of steam and liquid poured into the chamber and billowed up to cover the last look they could have gotten at Han.

Chewie pulled Luke against him and away from the steaming vat, damp seeping into his fur as Threepio finally was able to see from Chewie’s back.

“What…what’s going on? Oh, they’ve encased him in carbonite,” Threepio said. “He should be quite well protected, if he survives, that is—”

Chewie barked at him to shut up.

A wide crane clamped and lifted the frozen block out of the chamber, Han’s expression the same as they had last seen as the Ugnaughts clambered around the block to attach a metal box.

It took a second before Lando could get his legs to move. 

“Well, Calrissian,” Vader said, “did he survive?”

He numbly walked back to the platform, one hand hesitating over Han before he leaned down to check the box the Ugnaughts had snapped on.

“He’s alive,” Lando said. “Perfect condition.”

Vader seemed to stand impossibly straighter at his response.

“He’s all yours,” he said to Boba Fett. “Reset the chamber for Skywalker.”

One of the guards rushed up to stop in front of him. “She has just landed, my lord.”

“See to it that she finds her way here. Calrissian, take the prince and the Wookiee to my ship.”

“You said they would be left under my supervision.”

“I am altering the deal,” Vader said, and before Lando could even think to protest, “Pray I do not alter it any further.”

Lando swallowed against the phantom lump in his throat as he looked back to Chewie and Luke.

Artoo followed Leia down the empty landing platform, the empty hallway, no one in sight as she held her blaster ready and listened around every corner until Artoo whistled behind her.

He stopped with a tiny beep when she shot him a look, but then she stopped, too.

She didn’t have a chance to try to duck away before four Stormtroopers and another masked suit came around the corner at the end of the hallway, pushing something between them.

Two shots narrowly missed her before hers hit two of the Stormtroopers; the other two rushed away with their cargo as the last suit raised a modified blaster, barely time for her to lunge out of the way before it fired straight through the wall next to her.

The smoke cleared. Leia bolted, past the fallen Stormtroopers, but the others were already gone when she looked down the corner.

Footsteps again, the other side—

More Stormtroopers herded Luke and Chewie and a man she didn’t recognize down another passage, Luke’s eyes going wide as they were pushed through.

Just before the door clanged shut behind them, no time, “Leia, it’s a trap!”