Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Our Fab Four escape a space battle, argue about Han being a mercenary and are on the way to Yavin to rendezvous with the Alliance before blowing up Death Star 1.
They pulled into hyperspace and Leia swallowed hard, trying to not throw up. Between the foul stench of the garbage sludge that permeated their clothing and the sudden adrenaline surge of the space fight and spat with the captain, the jump to light speed left her feeling disoriented, dizzy and nauseated. Was something off with the internal gravity sensor? In a ship this old, it was a distinct possibility. But neither Luke nor Captain Solo seemed to notice, so she realized it was just her. Breathe in, breathe out, move on, she told herself, and felt her stomach slowly settle.
Chewbacca muttered something that Leia didn’t quite catch. Han turned around and said, “Well, we’re a few hours out. First things first: Does anyone need medical attention?”
Leia blinked, then realized while he’d asked the group, his eyes focused on her.
“Anyone have any abrasions? Burns? Open wounds?” Han asked, still staring at her, eyebrows raised.
Leia frowned, then said briskly, “I’m fully vaccinated against puncture wounds.”
“Adrenaline can mask pain.”
“I am not in pain,” Leia answered honestly.
Han took a deep breath and said, “Listen. You look okay. You move okay. You sound okay. You sure as hell shoot okay. But sometimes someone can look okay and …. not be okay.”
He paused, so Leia said reassuringly, “I am okay.”
“I know the Empire. I know how they treat prisoners. Their usual protocol is physical torture,” Han continued, and Luke went very still.
“I wasn’t their usual prisoner,” Leia replied, still striving to sound reassuring, but feeling her temper begin to fray. “They seemed to be on a tight schedule, and Vader interrogated me for at least an hour before they decided to speed things up and give me some kind of drug. Or maybe multiple drugs. I’m not sure why I was immune to whatever they gave me but the drugs didn’t seem to work the way they thought.”
“Are you saying you didn’t break under interrogation?” Han frowned.
“No, I didn’t.” She hesitated, then said truthfully, “I feel … nauseous. And a little … twitchy.”
Han regarded her silently for a moment. “‘A little twitchy,’” he repeated.
Leia shrugged.
“Normal course of action is physical torture, then drugs, if the prisoner survives, and if they do, then they kill him. Or her.” Han said.
Outraged, Leia said, “That’s outside of the galactic standard for prisoners of war.”
Han laughed. “Yeah, well, the Empire does a lot of things that are outside the standard. Who knows, maybe they switched up the schedule for you. Since you’re a princess, and all.”
“They wanted to ensure I was lucid enough to watch Alderaan explode and feel pain when they killed me. They wanted me to know what was happening, and to be afraid,” Leia pointed out. “Which I might not have been, had they tortured me first.”
“You need a med scan?” Han asked finally, and Leia realized he was worried about her, which was strange.
“No, thank you,” Leia said.
Han gave up, looking a little relieved and a lot irritated, and asked, “Luke?”
“I’m fine.”
“Okay, then, everyone into the sonic before Chewie passes out from the smell.”
Of course, Leia thought. If their odor turned her stomach, what must it be doing to a Wookie, who had extrasensory smell?
Han herded them all into a room that Leia belatedly realized was quite possibly the largest bathing room she’d seen on a ship — and she’d been in very large space ships, built for hundreds of people. Typically, washing areas were cramped. Everything had an alternative function. But on the Falcon, there was a human-sized toilet, a squat toilet, an enormous shower and two sinks, one regular size and one extra-extra-large.
Han built this for Chewbacca, she realized. A typical bathing area would have been inadequate for a being of Chewbacca’s stature and girth. She had a sudden image of Chewbacca singing in the shower and shampooing his fur and grinned to herself.
Fully clothed, the three of them entered the cleanser area and spread out. Han twisted the dials from “water” to “sonic / clothed,” “multiple beings.” He flipped the ultraviolet switch and set the timer. All three shut their eyes and began slowly rotating to allow the waves and light to reach as much of them as possible.
Leia thought about the upcoming battle — they were surely being tracked, but if they could beat the Empire to the base, there might be a chance — breathe in, breathe out, move on, Leia told herself.
“How long did you say it will it take to reach the base?” Leia asked Han.
“We can make it in three hours, maybe less; ships like what the Empire has will take longer. Maybe five hours.”
Leia nodded and lifted her arms as she turned and felt the odd buzzy sensation of the sonic waves gently cleansing her robe, the skin underneath and her hair. A three-hour head start wasn’t much, especially if the Empire called for more ships, which they were sure to do.
The timer cycled off. Leia fluffed her skirt and stomped her booted feet, watching little gray flakes fall to the floor. They stepped out of the shower and Han turned on the vacuum, which flushed the gray dust from the bottom of the shower through a vent. Still deep in thought, Leia followed the men out of the bathing room and toward the front of the ship, passing Chewbacca as he took his turn cleaning off.
Han went to the cockpit, but Leia sat down by Luke in the galley. He cleared his throat and said, “What do you think will happen once we reach the base?”
“Well, despite what the captain thinks, I’m sure we’re being tracked,” Leia said slowly. “But if we can get there before the Imperial fleet, we could set a trap, then take them down.”
Luke blinked. “Will that actually work?”
She shrugged. “It’s our only option at this point. We’ll need to analyze the plans in R2, and then exploit them. Everything — and everyone — has a weakness, you just have to find it.”
“What’s your weakness?” Luke asked.
Leia sighed. “I have many, unfortunately. I’m impatient. I move too fast and I’m too intense for a lot of people. I’ve got a quick temper and a sharp tongue. I don’t always consider other peoples’ feelings, especially when I’m focused on a goal, which lately, seems like all the time. What about you?”
Luke thought a moment, then said slowly, “Bad timing, I guess. I should have left Tatooine last year. I stayed because my uncle wanted me to. But if I’d had the courage to leave then, he and my aunt would probably still be alive.”
“If you’d left, you wouldn’t have been there to find the droids, or my message,” she pointed out. Leia had been in a lot of very tight situations, but this one … this had been too tight. If Luke and Han and Chewbacca hadn’t shown up … Breathe in, breathe out, move on.
They were both quiet, lost in their own thoughts. Instead of dwelling on her own loss, or thinking about Luke’s, Leia thought about the impending fight with the Empire. It wouldn’t be the last, though it certainly could be the last for her; for the past two years, she’d been courting death every time she left on a “mission of mercy” or a quick visit on behalf of either Alderaan or the Senate. All of those trips had an ulterior motive, and every single time she’d passed or received information or funds that were important to the Rebellion. She’d never regretted her part in the uprising, and she didn’t regret it now, not even with Alderaan gone. And she wasn’t going to back down. Not now, not ever.
As Luke continued to think about the past, Leia was plotting the future. She didn’t look too far ahead; she didn’t like to think past the next battle because there were too many unknowns to effectively strategize that far in advance. Breathe in, breathe out, move on. She took another deep breath, pulled up the plans from R2 and started looking for weaknesses.