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"What'd she say?"
Leia put a hand to the back of her neck as she rolled her shoulders forward. It was a sign of stress, one he'd first identified about a year after Yavin. It usually meant she was about to get into the minutiae of a situation. Han got a very bad feeling about what she was going to say.
"She was elusive. No promises. No deal." Leia took a few steps before dropping her hand. "In your words, we're screwed."
"Kest," he muttered, then swiped a hand over his eyes. "Then we got nothing."
"We got nothing," she echoed. "And no opportunity for an appeal. It's like the worst of the worst case scenarios."
That was depressing. "Your cynicism will kill you someday."
"Not before you do." She turned a corner and shifted closer to him as the traffic in the hallway increased. "Just get it over with. Kill me now."
He smirked, even though she couldn't see it, focused on the crowd as she was. "Nah. So we have a few issues with Supply. And Finance. And safe ports. And – "
"Don't. I'm depressed enough as it is."
"Not depressed. Cynical."
"Cynical, then." She stopped to face him. "Let's be serious for a moment. How the hell are we going to make it to Hapes without the Falcon?"
He hitched his thumbs through his belt loops. "I've got a couple of old friends who owe me some favors." He raised an eyebrow at her expression. "No. I don't know how many will shoot us on sight."
"Great." She turned and resumed her attack on the incoming traffic. "It's bad enough our bounties went up again."
"I heard you're up to ten million." He said it less because it was reassuring and more because he knew it would annoy her. "Higher than Luke, as far as I know."
"Luke hasn't been slumming in the underworld for the past three years. Scan your card. I forgot mine."
They had passed through the security restrictions of one building and then entered the one next to it. She was quiet as he used his clearance to open the doors. The pre-programmed lift began to descend as the doors closed.
"Tell me something, Han." He inwardly groaned, noting her tone. This was Leia's "We are Adults and Now Let's Talk Like It" voice. "Why are we still doing this?" Unsure whether it was rhetorical or not, he opened his mouth to answer as she continued. "The Empire is still a viable threat to the NRI. Why aren't we out there?"
"We're too well-known."
"No. I'm too well-known. Apparently they need to ship me off somewhere where no one will recognize me so I can play the little happy seductress in the black markets of the Corporate Sector. Is that the impression you're getting?"
It was, but he was still annoyed with that tone. He hated that tone. "You may be a little too good at playing the happy seductress."
She threw her hands up into the air. "Great."
"Great, what?"
"Great, I'm going to get the lecture from you again when I know for a fact that you know and understand why things are the way they are."
"Wrong. I'm not going to lecture you." He rolled his eyes. "Not that you even pretend to listen to me anymore. I'm going to give you a real straight-up answer to your question."
She arched an eyebrow.
"We're still doing this because we're too damn good at it. Shut it." He pointed his index finger in her direction. "You want to know why we're still stuck out here? It's because NRI doesn't want to risk anyone else in these psycho detonator dens."
"Since when did we become so hated with the brass?"
He half-grinned at her. "Ah, well. That's an easy one. I'll give you two guesses."
She tilted her head side to side. "Either because we resigned or because we're too rough."
"We resigned." He clarified "Madine's rough and he's still around on staff. Rieekan's rough compared to Ackbar and Drayson. Hell, Dodonna looks rough compared to that crowd."
"Dodonna wouldn't hurt a pitten as long as it didn't side with Palpatine."
"Cynical."
She smiled at him. "So we're stuck out here because neither of us decided to conform to the proper military or political protocol."
"Nah. We're out here because I corrupted you into not conforming to the proper political protocol."
She nodded. "I forgot about the corruption."
"Don't ever forget about the corruption. You forget that and you'll forget why you married me."
"Perhaps." She slid a finger across the scar on his chin. "I don't like playing the happy seductress."
"I know."
"It's sick and awful and terrible and degrading to be used like that."
"I know." He stepped out of the lift as the doors opened, extending a hand to her. "We could reverse it in Hapes, you know. Matriarchal society and all."
"No."
"It'd be fun."
"No."
He chuckled as she grabbed his hand, brushed her lips across his knuckles as they continued into the NRI quarters. He nodded to several lower level desk workers as they passed, lowering her hand to its customarily comforting presence at his side. They moved past the initial security parameters into the main floor as the budget undersecretary made a beeline for them.
"Don't look now, but we've got old Druppers on our tail."
He thought he heard a distinctly filthy phrase in low Alderaani before she turned around and greeted the short human waddling toward them.
"Mr. Drupet. A pleasure."
"The pleasure is all mine, I assure you, Princess." He bowed to the ground, and Han was surprised to see him able to come back up without the use of a crane. "It is always a pleasure, milady."
"Indeed."
"I was wondering if you could be persuaded to hold an audience with me regarding the new tariffs initiated after the Fondor dilemma last month?"
"Certainly. Captain Solo and I would be much – "
"Actually," No way in hell was she going to drag him into this. "I have some paperwork I have to do." He paused for a moment, determined to milk this for all its worth. "Perhaps I'll get a detailed report after?"
She gritted her teeth, and Han felt the left half of his mouth quirk up. "Absolutely, Captain."
"Thank you – " he said as he brought a hand up to the back of her head, " – milady." He kissed her forehead, more to piss off Drupet than to anger his wife, although both seemed to react accordingly. He nodded to the undersecretary and took off towards the far end of the main floor where an enormous visual of the Corporate Sector was projected. The red lines intersected at geographic points where people of interest (a NRI euphemism he had yet to understand) were reported to reside during the last intel sweep.
Taking stock of other potentially boring or annoying staff members, he made his way to the projection. Around the projection a crowd of recruits lined up, listening to the slight form of Commander Lai Sha-piua as she lectured on a raised dais.
He meandered close enough to overhear the commander. "It is only within the last four months or so that NRI has begun to seriously investigate this branch of Jabba's former business web. We've apprehended four – "
Han held a splayed hand over his head as he passed the crowd.
" – five enclaves in just under three months' time. Thank you, Captain Solo."
Han felt the interested stares of five rows of predominately male recruits on his back and turned around. "No." He yelled to the group. "She's at a meeting right now." Grinning he turned back towards his destination, hearing the last few sentences of Sha-piua's reprimands behind him.
It didn't bother him that Leia was a little more famous in this crowd than he was.
He continued his meandering course until he came upon a hard-edged desk near the corner of the main floor. It was completely covered in data disks and pieces of flimsy. Never one to take much stock in order and organization, he swept a hand through the calamity and tossed it all off the end of the desk. Then he sat down.
"Captain Solo?"
Han turned toward the voice, silkily annoying and impossibly superior, and found himself looking at the resident pain-in-the-ass Bothan, Elah Sre'fey. The creature stared down at him in carefully shaded hostility, long brown fur rippling as his ears flattened against his head.
"Do you have any idea what chaos you've caused for my department?"
Han propped his feet up onto the now-clear surface of his desk. "Why, nice to see you, too, Councilor Sre'fey."
"I have five forensic aides investigating exactly why we have seventeen verandi fruit merchants clamoring to nail your head to a pillar and sacrifice nerfs to it."
"My impeccable people skills are hard at work for you, Elah."
"Your impeccable people skills will get me out of a job sooner than I'd like, Solo. What about the commercial freighter licensing form I gave you three weeks ago? Have you fit that into your busy social schedule?"
Han leaned back, pushing the chair onto its rear repulsors. "Yes."
"And the tariff promissory note?"
"Yep."
Sre'fey's ears shifted forward. "You're positive?"
Han nodded and reached for the far edge of the desk, where a ration wrapper still clung to the corner. He cleared his throat when he couldn't reach it. "Ah, Elah, would you mind?"
The Bothan huffed, grabbed the wrapper, and threw it at Han's face. Han caught it easily as the wrapper fluttered towards him and Sre'fey stomped away, murmuring under his breath.
Han grinned and turned his attention to his datapad, checking for Senate reports on Intel funding and expenditure, hoping against all rational hope that the stupid, conniving, big-headed, egotistical sons of –
Nope, no agreement as of yet. He sighed and tossed the datapad onto the table, considering bashing it in with his foot. Then he decided it wasn't the most frugal way to dispose of politicians in general and instead picked up his comlink, tempted to get Leia off Drupper's hook.
"You know, with that last stunt, I'm sure I could get Luke to endorse a spousal abuse order on your head."
Han swiveled his chair around to face Leia. "It turns out my head is wanted elsewhere."
Leia eyed the heap of disks and flimsies and then shook her head and sat on the corner of his desk. "And who else wants your head?" She pushed a hand through his hair, amused.
"Seventeen verandi fruit merchants, according to Sre-fey." He nodded his chin towards the hatch where the Bothan had exited. "Something about putting nerfs on me or something. I wasn't paying attention."
"Of course." She rolled her eyes. "Verandi fruit? I don't think I was there for that one."
"Bilbringi."
"Oh. With the – "
"Uh-huh."
"And the – "
"Yep."
She chuckled. "By the way, I still have a holo that I want to send to Carlist from that mission."
Han withdrew his DL-44, turned it side to side as the large overhead lighting panels reflected off the exterior of the blaster. "So long as you still want to have all your limbs attached to you, I'd advise against that."
"Hmm." She crossed her legs, tapped one restlessly. "Somehow I'm not intimidated." She reached into her bag, pulled out a datapad. "This is what Drupet wanted to talk to us about." She handed it to him. "Forecast for safe-porting."
He squinted his eyes as he read. "Pretty optimistic of them."
"That's what I thought. Take a look at the Hapes sector, though."
He shifted the files to get to the appropriate section. "Damn."
"My thoughts exactly. If Gallinore's closed off, there's no way we're going to find Pek Liching there."
"So twice in one day, we've been screwed."
"That's what it looks like. We'll have to wait her out. Either that or pull another Dantooine stunt and I'm not sure we have enough deployable sensors for it." She sighed. "And, really, I just don't care enough."
"Ditto."
"So we wait her out."
"We wait her out. And, meanwhile, we go to lunch."
Her lips parted slightly at the suggestion. "We go to lunch for five, six months?"
"No." He stood up, the chair making a crack as it hit the durasteel divider behind him. "If we stay here for another five or six minutes they're going to whip out the paperwork, and if they whip out the paperwork, I'm not responsible for my actions."
"Ah, yes. The paperwork." She accepted his proffered arm and moved with him to the hatch. "I forgot about the paperwork."
"Don't ever forget about the paperwork." He grinned at her. "You're the one in charge of all that."