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‘A hundred credits says you can’t do it.’
Luke had never been a gambling man, but this one was far too easy. ‘You’re on,’ he said immediately, reaching across the table to shake Wedge Antilles’ hand.
***
The thing was, Wedge had presented it like it was a challenge, but Luke knew Han and Leia; he’d been on plenty of missions with them before, both individually and together, and yes, the two of them bickered and flirted and it could be dreadfully annoying, but he already knew he could handle that.
‘At sub-light speed?’ Wedge had said, not taking Luke’s proffered hand. ‘For at least four days without a break? No other company except that Imp and cooped up on Solo’s bucket of bolts? You’re sure?’
‘Look, if you want to back out—’
‘No, no,’ Wedge had said, shaking his head. ‘Just wanted to make sure you know what you’re getting into.’
‘I’m sure I’ll be just fine,’ Luke had said.
The mission was pretty simple. A skirmish on Cortella had led to the capture of an Imperial officer who, in exchange for the Alliance not killing him, had offered them the location of an Imperial weapons factory. If the Imperial was to be believed, it was an easy target that, though it wouldn’t do anything so dramatic as cripple the Empire, would certainly put its nose out of joint. All things considered, high command had decided it was worth checking out, and had not bothered to mention to the Imp that killing prisoners wasn’t really their style, anyway.
But as with any informant, they weren’t about to just trust the guy. They were taking all possible precautions. Despite his pivotal role at Yavin, Han’s involvement with the Alliance didn’t appear to be common knowledge, hence the use of the Falcon again. Flying at sub-light speed would save them from dropping out of hyperspace straight into the middle of an ambush, and bringing the Imperial officer along would make him think twice about leading them into such a trap. As the one who’d brought the man in in the first place, Leia had been the first to put herself forward for the mission, and they’d needed a third crew member so that they could rotate the pilots and have someone else to man the guns if they ran into trouble.
Luke had readily volunteered, not stopping to think about why it was that Chewie had very much not volunteered, and Wedge had made his wager.
I bet you can’t go the full trip without yelling at them.
It was the easiest hundred credits Luke had ever earned.
Except that they were one hour into the journey, and Han and Leia had spent half of that time sniping at each other about the Falcon’s crash webbing and how up to date it was, and Luke was starting to see how four days of this might get tiring.
‘It’s state of the art!’ Han insisted.
Leia frowned at him. ‘When was it state of the art?’
‘Hey, Your Worship, I’m sorry if it’s not all fancy like you’re used to—’
‘I don’t need it to be fancy, I just need it to not be lethal!’ Leia snapped.
‘I’m still alive, aren’t I?’
‘By sheer fluke, I’m sure—’
‘Hey,’ Luke said loudly. ‘I’m going to get something to eat. You guys want something?’
‘No, thanks,’ Han replied.
‘No, thank you,’ Leia said, and then turned back to Han. ‘It’s not difficult to get an upgrade, you know—I’d have thought with all these ridiculous modifications you make you’d relish the chance to—’
‘Ridiculous?’ Han repeated, affronted. ‘Let me tell you something, sweetheart—’
Luke left him ranting about why every alteration he’d made to the ship was extremely important and wandered off to the galley.
***
He supposed he was lucky they’d gotten an entire two days into the trip before Han and Leia started arguing about directions.
It would have been easy if they’d been able to just plot a straight course, but as they didn’t know what exactly they were flying into, and didn’t want to give the captured Imperial much idea of where they were in case he had some means of communication with the Empire that they’d somehow missed, they were coming at their destination in a very roundabout way.
Han was supposed to be getting some sleep, but he was the most terrible backseat pilot and insisted on hanging around behind Luke and Leia and making suggestions, some genuinely helpful, some because he was a control freak when it came to his beloved ship, and some, Luke suspected, just to wind Leia up.
‘What you’re suggesting is needlessly risky,’ she told him now. ‘And I don’t mean high risk, high reward. I mean it’s just pointlessly risky and serves nothing more than your inexplicable need for an adrenaline rush.’
‘It’s quicker,’ Han insisted. ‘And I don’t need an adrenaline rush.’
‘You’re bored,’ Leia said. ‘I can tell.’
Luke refrained from commenting that she was apparently less in tune with his boredom, and instead turned to look at Han. ‘Do you want to switch with me for a while?’ he asked.
Han shot to his feet like he’d been waiting for Luke to ask.
They’d have to cooperate if they were going to fly together, Luke figured, and if they didn’t, well, perhaps they’d crash the ship somewhere and put him out of his misery.
***
Luke hoped that by bringing the Imperial officer into the cockpit Han and Leia might rein themselves in a little—surely they wouldn’t squabble in front of a perfect stranger, and certainly not an enemy. He made some excuse about wanting to keep an eye on him, cuffed the guy to his seat, and looked out at the stars, ready for the next few hours to pass in peace.
‘You couldn’t handle Corellian whiskey, Princess,’ Han announced, apropos, it seemed, of absolutely nothing.
‘I most certainly could,’ Leia retorted—clearly this was something they’d gotten into earlier. ‘I have, in fact.’
‘Yeah? What did you think of it?’
‘It’s nothing special,’ she said, shrugging.
‘Nothing special?’ Han asked, rattled. ‘It’s the best there is!’
Leia sounded smug when she said, ‘I prefer Tevraki.’
‘That stuff’s crap,’ Han insisted, twisting in his chair. ‘Kid? Back me up here.’
‘I would drink any kind of whiskey right now,’ Luke said.
‘You?’ Han asked the Imperial.
‘Uh,’ said the Imperial, with an anxious glance at Luke.
Luke shrugged.
‘I don’t know,’ the Imperial said, playing it safe.
Han grunted in annoyance and turned back to Leia. ‘One day, sweetheart, you and me are gonna go shot for shot.’
‘And won’t it be embarrassing for you when I drink you under the table?’ Leia asked sweetly.
Luke turned to the Imperial. ‘Do you play Dejarik?’
***
‘Are they always like that?’ the Imperial asked. His first name was Todd, and he liked gardening, and he played Dejarik passably well.
‘Yeah. They’re in love,’ Luke said grumpily. It wasn’t that he begrudged them it, but the way their being in love with each other manifested was infuriating. ‘It’s your move.’
‘They seem very indignant about it,’ Todd remarked.
‘They haven’t realized yet,’ Luke explained. ‘It’s all very silly. I think some people have a pool going.’ He nodded at the board. ‘Are you sure you want to do that?’
He’d learned that moves that looked easy weren’t always so easy after all.
‘It’s a good move, I think,’ Todd said, and then added somewhat irritably, ‘Anyway, you’ve cuffed me to the table, so I can’t reach the other pieces as well.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Luke said, meaning it. ‘It’s a necessary precaution. You understand. You want me to move one of them for you?’
‘Maybe you should cuff one of those two to a table,’ Todd suggested.
‘Believe me,’ Luke muttered, ‘I’m thinking about it.’
***
‘Listen,’ Todd said, some time late on the third day of the trip. ‘I’ve been thinking. If I gave you even more information, do you think we could speed this thing up?’
He and Luke had become quite close in their quest to avoid Han and Leia’s arguments. But poor Todd had recently been exposed to the flipside of their interactions: blatant, shameless flirting.
Luke felt for him, he really did.
‘Assuming the information you’ve given us so far is good, you’ve been really helpful to us,’ he said, ‘so I wouldn’t want to lie to you. I don’t think we can speed things up.’
Todd looked crestfallen.
‘But,’ Luke continued hastily, ‘you can tune it out. It’s easy enough, really. That’s what I learned to do.’
Todd chewed his bottom lip, like he wasn’t sure he should say what he was about to say.
‘No,’ Luke said, making an educated guess at what the other man was thinking. ‘No one knows why they don’t just get it together.’
‘Maybe because of the arguing,’ Todd suggested.
‘The arguing is just because they’re frustrated, though.’
‘I’ll say,’ Todd muttered. ‘You could cut the tension with a spoon.’
‘Not that kind of frustration,’ Luke said automatically, and then thought about it. ‘No, it’s exactly that kind of frustration. I think they’ll mostly be done with the arguing if they both stop being so stubborn, except where the arguing is flirting, which happens more than you’d think.’
‘How long will that take?’ Todd asked.
‘Well, they’ve been doing this for about six months,’ Luke replied. ‘So I guess they have to be done with it soon.’
***
Luke cracked on the fourth day.
He was so close. The mission was done with: Todd’s information had been accurate, and Luke, along with Han and Leia, who worked spectacularly well together when they needed to, had decided there was no need to call in reinforcements—the Falcon’s own missiles were all that was needed to take out the power generators.
Why they couldn’t spend their trip back through hyperspace celebrating the victory instead of bickering about who’d been more instrumental in achieving it, Luke had no idea.
‘Okay, that’s enough!’ he yelled.
Han and Leia stopped talking, looking at him in astonishment.
‘I’ve had it with both of you!’ Luke continued. ‘You’ve barely stopped sniping at each other the whole mission!’
‘Yes, we have!’ Leia objected.
‘Yeah,’ Luke said darkly, ‘which is worse.’
‘The hell are you talking about?’ Han demanded.
‘You know exactly what I’m talking about,’ Luke snapped, though he wouldn’t have put it past them to honestly have no idea how wrapped up in each other they could get. ‘It’s rude, and it excludes people, and it’s making Todd feel uncomfortable.’
‘No, it’s not!’ Han shot back. ‘Who’s Todd?’
Luke made a noise of disgust and declined to fill him in. ‘To settle this argument, let’s say I was the most valuable player on this one.’
‘Listen,’ Han said, ‘you were good, but Her Worship over there fired the shot that took out the main generator.’
‘And the only reason either of us could line up any of those shots at all was because of Han’s piloting skill,’ Leia added.
Luke’s eyes practically rolled into another dimension. ‘Look—whatever. You should just think a bit more about the people around you, all right, or no one’s going to want to go on missions with you anymore.’ Then, because he was an upstanding, honest person, he added, ‘And could one of you please tell Wedge I owe him a hundred credits.’
***
‘I think I’m going to defect, actually,’ Todd said on the way back, in the same casual way he might have mentioned that he was going to have soup for lunch. ‘Am I allowed to do that?’
‘Uh,’ Luke said, not pointing out that they were hardly going to let him go waltzing off back into Imperial service. ‘Yeah, I think so. I mean, not right away. They’ll need to check you’re not going to betray us first.’
Todd nodded. ‘That makes sense.’
Defections from the Empire weren’t uncommon, and Luke had been privy to the security checks that involved several times. The checks mostly consisted of finding diplomatic ways to ask, “But did you ever do anything really evil?”
Todd would probably be fine.
They continued playing Dejarik in companionable silence for a few minutes before Todd spoke up again.
‘But I do want in on that betting pool as soon as possible.’