Dust and stones whistled through the air like autumn leaves. Luke tried to hold on to the stone parapet overlooking the plain to keep from being swept from the fortress walls. Winds pounded in his ears like the roar of an ocean, howling.
It was as if a storm of pure dark Force raged over the countryside, and suddenly, amid the towering clouds of darkness that thundered toward him, Luke could hear laughing, the sweet sound of women laughing. He looked above into the dark clouds, and saw the women borne through the air along with the rocks and debris, like motes of dust, laughing. A voice seemed to whisper, “the witches of Dathomir.”
Chapter
3
Leia unplugged the comlink from her ear and gazed at the Hapan ambassador in shock. Hapans were hard to deal with—so culturally distant, easily offended. The roar of the hundreds of thousands in the crowd began to swell, and Leia looked up to the windows of the Alderaanian balcony, wondering what to answer. Han had turned away and was speaking excitedly to Mon Mothma.
Above the uproar, Leia said to the ambassador, “Tell Ta’a Chume that her gifts are exquisite, her generosity unbounded. Still, I need time to consider the offer.” She paused, wondering how long she could legitimately take. The Hapans were a decisive people. Ta’a Chume had a reputation for making decisions of monumental importance in the space of hours. Could Leia take a day? She felt dizzy, almost giddy.
“Please, may I speak?” Prince Isolder asked in accented Basic, and Leia halted, surprised that Isolder could speak her language at all. She looked into his gray eyes, remembering the warm thunderheads over the tropical mountains of Hapes.
Isolder smiled apologetically. There was a certain strength to his face, a ranginess. “I know your customs differ from ours. Among the ancients, this is how we arranged our royal marriages. But I want you to feel comfortable with any decision. Please, take time to get to know Hapes, our worlds, our customs—take time to know me.”
Something in the way he spoke made Leia realize that this was an unusual offer. “Thirty days?” she asked. “I would take less time, but I must leave for the Roche system in a couple of days. A diplomatic mission.”
Prince Isolder lowered his eyes in acceptance. “Of course. A queen must forever be at the call of her people.” Then he added apologetically, “If you are leaving on a diplomatic mission, will I have time to meet with you previous to it, under less formal circumstances?”
Leia considered furiously. She had a great deal of studying to do before she left—trade agreements, registered complaints, studies in exobiology. The Verpines, an insect race, had apparently broken dozens of contracts to build warships for the carnivorous Barabels, and it was very unhealthy to break a contract with a Barabel. Meanwhile, the Verpines claimed the ships had been taken by one of their mad hive mothers and felt no obligation to force the hive mother to return the merchandise. The whole affair was complicated by substantiated rumors that the Barabels had begun negotiating to sell Verpine body parts to chefs among the insect-loving Kubazis. Leia simply felt that she had no business letting her personal life interfere with her work, at least not now.
Leia glanced up at the observation deck. Han had left with Chewbacca, and now Mon Mothma stood, holding the comlink to her ear. Mon Mothma did not move, but beside her sat Threkin Horm, president of the Alderaanian Council. Threkin nodded the affirmative, urging Leia on.
“Yes, of course,” Leia said. “If you are free to join me before the mission.”
“My days and nights are yours,” the prince said, smiling gently.
“Then please,” Leia asked, “join me for dinner tonight, in my stateroom aboard the Rebel Dream?”
Isolder lowered his eyes again, used the thumbs and index fingers of both hands to pull the black veil over his face. Leia had marveled at the beauty of the Hapans during her visit, but now felt a twinge of regret that Isolder hid his face, felt guilty for wanting to gaze at him longer.
Leia left the Grand Reception Hall, thousands watching her departure. Leia felt anxious, and only wanted to find Han. She went to her quarters at the embassy, hoping Han would be there, but the apartments were empty. Perplexed, she used her comlink on the military frequency, found he had left Coruscant on his way to the Rebel Dream. That was a bad sign. The Millennium Falcon had been docked aboard the Rebel Dream, awaiting Han’s return. When Han felt worried or frustrated, he liked to work on the Falcon. Working with his hands, solving familiar problems, seemed to ease his mind. So he had run to his ship, to work. This proposal must have disturbed him deeply, probably more deeply than even Han knew. Leia was bone weary, but she could see why Han would be in a bad mood. She summoned her personal shuttle.
She found the Falcon at docking bay ninety. Han and Chewie were in the main cabin at the control panels, worrying over the tangled mass of wires that connected to various projectile and energy shields. Chewie looked up and roared in greeting, but Han sat holding a plasma torch, facing away. He switched off the torch, but did not shift in the captain’s chair to look at her.
“Hi,” Leia said softly. “I was hoping to find you back in my room on Coruscant.”
“Yeah, well, there were some things I needed to check into,” Han said. Leia didn’t answer for a long moment. Chewbacca got up and hugged Leia, pressing the fur of his tawny belly into her face, then went down below, leaving them alone. Han turned to face her. His forehead was sweaty, though she knew he couldn’t have been working long enough to perspire. “So, uh, how did it go down there? What did you tell the Hapans?”
“I asked them to give me a few days to think,” Leia answered. She didn’t feel ready to tell him that Isolder would be visiting aboard the Rebel Dream that night.
“Hmmm.…” Han nodded.
Leia took his grimy hands in hers. She said softly, “I couldn’t just send them away—it would be rude. Even if I don’t want to marry their prince, I can’t destroy our chance to build a relationship with them. The Hapans are very powerful. The whole reason I went to Hapes was to see if they would aid in our fight against the warlords.”
“I know,” Han sighed. “You would do just about anything to win against them.”
“Now what is that supposed to mean?”
“You hated the Empire, but now Zsinj and the warlords are all that is left of it. You’ve risked your life fighting them a dozen times. You would give your life for the New Republic in a moment, wouldn’t you—without thinking, without regrets?”
“Of course,” Leia answered. “But—”
“Then I suspect you’ll give your life now,” Han said, “give it to the Hapans. But instead of dying for them, you’ll live for them.”
“I, I couldn’t do that,” Leia assured him.
Han stared at her, breathing hard, and all the pain and accusation went out of his voice. “Of course not,” Han sighed, setting the torch down on the floorboard. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I just …”
Leia stroked his forehead. After five months away from him, she felt a little clumsy. Normally, she imagined, he would take something like the Hapan proposal as a joke, but he was quiet. Something more was going on. Something was hurting him very deeply. “What’s wrong? You aren’t acting like yourself.”
“I don’t know,” Han whispered. “It’s just—this last mission. Coming back to this. I’m so tired. You saw what the Iron Fist did on Selaggis. It turned the whole colony into rubble. I kept following it for months, and everywhere we went it was the same: star stations obliterated, shipyards ruined. Just one Super Star Destroyer with a murderer at the helm.
“Back when the Emperor died, I thought we’d won. But I keep finding that we’re fighting something so huge, so monstrous. Every time we blink, another Grand Moff announces another lofty unification scheme, or some ragtag sector general rears his or her ugly head. I have dreams at night that I’m fighting this beast in the fog, this huge beast that’s roaring and devouring. I can’t see its body, but its head comes out of the mist, eyes flaming, and I battle it with a
n ax, and I finally strike off the head. Then within moments I hear roaring in the fog as the beast grows a new head. I can’t see where it’s coming from, I can’t see the body. I know it’s out there, but it’s all invisible. We’ve lost so much, and we’re still losing.”
“The war?” Leia said. “It must feel that way, out on the front lines,” she soothed him. “The warlords, like the Empire they served, thrive on fear and greed. But as a diplomat, almost all I see are victories. Every day another world joins the New Republic. Every day we make some small inroads. We may be losing some battles, but we’re winning the war.”
“What if the Empire were perfecting the cloaking devices for their Star Destroyers?” Han asked. “We keep hearing rumors. Or what if Zsinj or some other Grand Moff just builds another ship like the Iron Fist, or a fleet of them?”
Leia swallowed. “Then we’d keep fighting. It takes so much energy to run a Super Star Destroyer of that size, Zsinj could not afford to run more than one or two at a time. The expenses are too high. Eventually, we would wear him down.”
“This war isn’t over,” Han said. “It might not end during our lifetimes.”
She had never seen Han like this, looking so drained. “If we can’t win peace for ourselves, then we’ll fight for our children,” Leia answered. Han leaned back, rested his head against Leia’s breast, and she knew what he was thinking. She had said our children. Han would be thinking about the Hapans.
“I have to admit,” Han said, “the Hapans sure made a tempting offer today. You hear rumors about the riches of the ‘hidden worlds,’ but wow! Did you get to see much of Hapes when you were there?”
“Yes,” Leia answered firmly. “You should see what the queen mothers have built over the centuries: Their cities are beautiful, stately, serene. But it’s not just the homes or factories, it’s their people, their ideals. It feels like … peace.”
Han looked up into her dreamy eyes. “You’re in love.”
“No, I’m not,” Leia said.
But Han twisted around, grabbed her shoulders. “Yes, you are.” He looked into her eyes. “Listen, sweetheart, you may not be in love with Isolder, but you’re in love with his world! When the Emperor destroyed Alderaan, he destroyed everything you loved, everything you were fighting for. You can’t put that behind you. You’re homesick!”
Leia caught her breath, realizing it was true. She had never quit grieving for Alderaan, for friends lost. And there was a certain similarity between the two worlds in the simplicity and grace of the architecture. The people of Alderaan had had such a respect for life that they refused to build their cities in the plains where the inhabitants would trample the grasses. Instead, their majestic cities rose from the tops of sandstone bluffs among the rolling fields or were wedged into crevices under polar ice or stood on gigantic stilts in Alderaan’s shallow seas.
Leia put her hand over her eyes. The tears started to well up. Those had been simpler times.
“Here, here,” Han whispered, and he pulled down her hand and kissed it. “There’s no need to cry.”
“Everything is such a mess—” Leia said, “this mission to the Verpines, the battles with the warlords. I’ve been working so hard, taking on one mission after another. And through it all I keep hoping we’ll find a home world, but nothing seems to work.”
“What about New Alderaan? Support Services found you a nice place.”
“And five months ago some of Zsinj’s agents discovered it. We had to evacuate, at least temporarily.”
“I’m sure something else will turn up.”
“Maybe, but even if we find something, it won’t be like home,” Leia said. “We’ve been holding meetings with the Alderaanian Council every month. We’ve discussed terraforming one of the worlds from our own system, starting a space station, or buying another world, but most of the refugees from Alderaan are poor traders or diplomats who were offplanet when the Empire attacked. We don’t have the kind of money it takes to buy or terraform. It would impoverish us for generations. Meanwhile the scouts are looking for some unmapped world on the fringe of the galaxy, but our traders rightfully don’t want any part of that. They’ve already established trade routes on other worlds, and we can’t ask them to isolate themselves from their sources of income. We’re reaching an impasse, and some of the council members are just giving up.”
“What about the gifts the Hapans gave you today? They would go a long way toward making a big down payment on a planet.”
“You don’t know the Hapans. Their customs are very strict. If I accept their gifts, it’s an all-or-nothing deal. Unless I marry Isolder, I have to give it all back.”
“Then give it back,” Han said. “I don’t think you want to get involved with the Hapans. They’re a bad lot.”
“You don’t even know them,” Leia answered, astonished that he would speak that way about an entire culture that spanned dozens of star systems.
“And I suppose you do?” Han countered. “Does a week getting brainwashed by their propaganda chiefs on Hapes make you an expert on their civilization?”
“You’re talking about an entire cluster here,” Leia said, “billions of people. You’ve never seen a Hapan before today. How could you talk about them that way?”
“The Hapans have kept closed borders for over three thousand years,” Han said. “I’ve seen firsthand what happens when you get too close to them. Believe me, they’re hiding something.”
“Hiding something? They’ve got nothing to hide. All they have is a peaceful way of life that they feel is threatened by outside influences.”
“If this queen mother is so fantastic, why would she feel threatened by us?” Han asked. “Nah, Princess—she’s hiding something. She’s scared.”
“I can’t believe this,” Leia said. “How could you even think that? If things were so terrible in the Hapes cluster, don’t you think we’d see defectors, refugees? Nobody ever leaves.”
“Maybe it’s because they can’t get out,” Han said. “Maybe those Hapan patrols don’t just keep out the troublemakers.”
“That’s absurd,” Leia said. “You’re paranoid.”
“Paranoid, huh? What about you, Princess? Have a few baubles and trinkets so blinded you that you can’t see straight?”
“Oh, you sound so sure of yourself. Do you really feel so threatened by Isolder?”
“Threatened? By that big lout? Me?” Han pointed at himself. “Of course not!”
She knew he was lying. “Then you won’t mind that I’m having a private dinner with him tonight?”
“Dinner?” Han asked. “Why should I mind that he’s dining with the woman I love, the woman who claims to be in love with me?”
“You’re so cute,” Leia said sarcastically. “I came here to invite you to dinner, too, but now I think that maybe, just maybe, I should just let you sit up here and gnaw on your own petty jealous fantasies.”
Leia stormed from the control room of the Millennium Falcon, and Han shouted at her back, “Well, fine—I’ll see you at dinner!” He banged a wall with his fist.
After Leia left, Han threw his heart into working on the Falcon so that his mind numbed and the sweat poured from his face. He used a few tricks he’d learned to boost the rear energy deflector shields 14 percent over their peak efficiency rating, then went under the ship to work on the swivel guns while Chewie stayed inside, pulling out the main focusing lenses for the ventral blasters. Two hours of hard work later, an entourage entered the docking bay with fat old Threkin Horm in the lead. The president of the Alderaanian Council floated in his repulsor chair as he led Prince Isolder, the prince’s bodyguards, and half a dozen curious minor officials around the hangar bay.
“This, as you can see, is one of our repair docks,” Threkin Horm said in his nasal voice, planting a thumb firmly between his third and fourth chins. “And this is our esteemed General Han Solo, a hero of the New Republic, working on his private—er, uh—ship, the Millennium Falcon.”
Prince Isolder scrutinized the Falcon, gazing at the rusting metal exterior, the odd panoply of components. Somehow, in all his years running the Falcon, Han had never felt quite so embarrassed by the thing. It truly did look like a hunk of junk, sitting there on the gleaming black floors of a Star Destroyer. Isolder stood taller than Han, and his thick chest and arms seemed somehow intimidating, but not as intimidating as his regal manners or the calm strength of his face, the sea-gray eyes, the straight nose, and the thick hair hanging around his shoulders. He wore a different outfit now, another silk half-cape, over a white top that did not conceal the sculpted muscles of his belly or the prince’s dark tan. Isolder looked like some barbaric god come to life.
“Han here is an old friend to Her Highness Princess Leia Organa,” Threkin Horm added. “He has, in fact, saved her life a number of times, if I am not mistaken.”
Isolder shifted his attention to Han and smiled warmly. “So, you are not only Leia’s friend but her savior?” Isolder asked, and in his eyes Han thought he saw true gratitude. “Our people owe you a great debt.” Isolder’s strong, soft voice had an odd accent. The long vowels were deeply inflected, as if the prince were afraid he would cut them short.
“Oh, I guess you could say I’m more than her savior,” Han answered. “We’re lovers, to be precise.”
“General Solo!” Threkin sputtered, but Prince Isolder raised a hand.
“That is all right,” Isolder said. “She is a lovely woman. I can understand why you would be attracted to her. I hope my appearance here hasn’t been too … unsettling.”
“Annoying is the word,” Han answered. “I mean, it’s not as if I wished you were dead or anything. Neutered perhaps—not dead.”
“I apologize, Prince Isolder!” Threkin stuttered, then shot a venomous glance at Han. “I rather expected more civility from a general in the New Republic. I thought he would at least know how to behave himself.” Threkin’s frown suggested that Han was seriously in jeopardy of losing his rank, if Threkin had any control over it.
Star Wars: The Courtship of Princess Leia Page 3