Star Wars - The Courtship of Princess Leia

by Dave Wolverton

  Luke closed his eyes, stretched with his senses. Sometimes, in his sleep he would dream about Leia. Usually, if she was within the same star system, Luke could feel her presence. She was nowhere nearby. He decided to get his fighter out of storage and head for Coruscant.

  Han was working in the galley aboard the Falcon , trying to put together his fourth candlelight dinner in as many days. The smell of spiced aric tongue wafted up, and Han was busy spooning some pudding into cora shells when the pudding bowl tipped over and dropped on the floor, spattering the walls and Han's pant leg. Chewbacca had been standing at the viewport, and the Wookiee turned and laughed.

  "Go ahead," Han said. "Laugh it up, fur brain. But let me tell you something by the end of this trip, Leia is going to realize she loves me. In case you haven't noticed, it's only been four days, and she's already warming up to me nicely."

  Chewbacca growled disparagingly.

  "You're right," Han said with a tone of dejection, "Hoth will warm up before she will. And I suppose mating rituals are much simpler where you come from. When you love a woman, you probably just bite her on the neck and drag her to your tree. But we handle things differently where I come from. We make our women nice dinners, we compliment them, treat them like ladies."

  Chewie laughed derisively.

  "So we shoot them and drag them into our spaceships," Han admitted. "All right, so maybe I'm not that much more civilized than you, but I'm trying. I'm really trying."

  "Han, oh Han," Leia called from the lounge. "By any chance, do you have that first course ready? I am getting so hungry, and you know how irritable I get when I'm hungry."

  "Coming, Princess," Han called sweetly as he opened the oven. He tried to pull out the pan of spiced aric tongue with the bottom of his apron, burned his fingers. He yelped and stuck his hot fingers in his mouth, got a hot pad and dumped the tongue on a plate. Somehow, the tongue looked bluer than it should, and he wasn't sure if he had overcooked it, if the tongue was just bad, or if maybe he'd put in too much ju powder.

  "Are you about done in there?" Leia called.

  "Coming!" Han shouted, and he brought the tongue to her. He'd set a nice red tablecloth over the hologram board, and the candelabra was all aglow. Leia looked spectacular in a dazzling white dress jumpsuit and pearls, the flames dancing in her dark eyes. He set the plate down, and said, "Dinner is served."

  Leia looked at him questioningly, raising an eyebrow.

  "What?" Han said. "What is it this time?"

  "Aren't you going to slice it for me?" she asked. Han looked at the vibro-blade on the table. He'd seen Leia hack her way through a jungle with a dull machete. He'd seen her slice ropes off her hands with a piece of broken glass. He'd even seen her dispatch some kind of swamp monster with a pointed stick that wasn't anywhere near as sharp as that vibro-blade. "Of course I'll slice it for you," Han said. "It would be my pleasure."

  He took the blade, began slicing the tongue into portions. When he was halfway done he decided he'd better check his progress. "Are these slices all right for you? Would you like them thicker, thinner, sliced lengthwise instead of sideways?"

  "The portions look fine," Leia said, and Han finished slicing the tongue, sat down to the table and picked up a napkin.

  Leia cleared her throat, looked up at him.

  "What now, my pet?" Han asked.

  "Are you going to sit at this table with your dirty apron on?" Leia asked. "I mean, that is a little disgusting."

  Han remembered a moment when they had shared stale rations in a battlefield on Mindar, dead stormtroopers all around. "You're right," Han said. "I'll take it off." He got up, removed the apron, took it and hung it on a peg in the galley. He came back and sat down. Leia cleared her throat.

  "What now?" Han asked.

  "You forgot the wine," Leia said, looking at her glass. Han glanced at her plate, noticed that she'd already begun eating without him.

  "Would you prefer white, red, green, or purple?"

  "Red," Leia answered.

  "Dry or wet?"

  "Dry!"

  "Temperature?"

  "Thirty-nine degrees."

  "You aren't going to let me eat with you again tonight, are you?"

  "No," Leia said firmly.

  "I don't get it," Han said. "It's been four days now, and outside of ordering me around, you haven't said one word to me. I know you are mad at me. You've got a right to be. Maybe I've ruined it for you, and you're never going to be able to like me. Or maybe you're getting so used to having servants around, that you just want to turn me into your slave. But I would hope, if nothing else comes out of this, that at the very least you would still like me as a friend."

  "Maybe you're asking too much of me," Leia said.

  "I'm asking too much of you?" Han said. "I'm the one who has been cooking and cleaning and taking care of your clothes and making your bed and flying this ship. Just tell me this. Just answer me this, and answer honestly isn't there anything you like about me anymore? Isn't there just one thing? Something? Anything?"

  Leia didn't answer.

  "Maybe I should just turn the ship around," Han said.

  "Maybe you should," Leia agreed.

  "But I don't get it," Han said. "You agreed to come on this trip," he shrugged, "albeit under duress, I'll grant you that. But you're madder than you should be. If you want to take it out on me, then go ahead. I'm right here. Han Solo, in the flesh." He leaned his face forward. "Go ahead, slap me. Or kiss me. Or talk to me."

  "You're right," Leia said. "You don't get it."

  "Get what?" Han said. "Get what? Give me a clue!"

  "All right!" Leia said. "I'll spell it out for you you, Han Solo the man, I can forgive. But when you brought me on this ship, you betrayed the New Republic that we serve. You're not just Han Solo the man anymore. You were Han Solo the hero of the Rebel Alliance, Han Solo the General of the New Republic. And that Han Solo I can't forgive, I refuse to forgive. Sometimes what you represent is so important that you can't let your standards down. You become respected as an icon, as much for what you are as who you are."

  "That's not my fault," Han said. "I refuse to be bound by anyone's preconceived images of me."

  "Fine," Leia said. "Maybe you don't think the universe should work that way. Maybe you want to be free to run off to be a pirate again or play around like a little boy, but that's not how the universe works! You're going to have to face up to that."

  "Fine," Han said throwing his napkin on the table, "so I'll face up to it. After dinner. You tell me what you want me to do, how you want me to act. I'll changeforever. I promise. Okay?"

  Leia stared up at him, and something in her features softened. "Okay."

  Four days later the Millennium Falcon dropped out of hyperspace above Dathomir and the proximity indicators screamed in warning. Leia came running, leaned over Han's pilot seat to look out Star Destroyers littered the sky while shuttles and barges plodded up from a small red moon in a solid line toward a huge mass of metal piping and strutsten kilometers of gleaming scaffolding that floated in space at an L5 point. It looked like some giant insect, but docked around it were thousands of craftone Super Star Destroyer, dozens of old Victory-class models and escort frigates, thousands of box-like barges. For one moment, Han stared at them in awe and then breathed angrily, "Trespassers!"

  Leia drew a deep breath. "Well, Han, you've certainly struck the jackpot this time. Why, this planet must have more enemy fighters than a Hutt has ticks."

  Han glanced over at Chewie. The Wookiee was trying to pull up the nav charts for the Ottega star system. On the head-up holo display, two red fighters began vectoring up from a Star Destroyer. "Can the sarcasm, Princess, and get yourself up to the gun well, we've got company."

  Han nodded out the viewscreen to the TIE interceptors screaming toward them. Leia knew enough not to ask if Han could outrun them. He couldn't. "Seriously, Leia, you better get up there," Han said. "Once they get close enough to see that we're not an Incom
Y-four, they won't wait to shoot." Leia ran up the corridor to the stairwell.

  Over the Falcon 's radio, a controller began querying, "Incom Y-four Raptor, please identify yourself and your destination. Incom Raptor, please identify."

  "Captain Brovar," Han answered, "carrying an inspection team for the planetary defense systems?" Han wiped the sweat from his forehead. This was the part he always hated, waiting to see if they'd swallow his story.

  After a delay of four seconds, Han knew the flight controller was querying his supervisor. Always a bad sign. "Uh," the controller said after a moment, "this planet doesn't have a defense system."

  Chewbacca glared at Han, and Han keyed the mike. "I know. We're here to inspect the sites to install the planetary defense system." The controller remained quiet too long, so Han added lamely, "We have an extra one, or parts of an extra one. I mean, you've got to store these defense systems somewhere, right?"

  "Incom Y-four Raptor," a gravelly voice called over the same frequency. "Do you have some kind of strange modifications to your ship?"

  The interceptors were coming into visual range and Han couldn't rely on stealth anymore. He reached up to switch on the signal jammers, and Chewie winced. "It's all right," Han promised. "We won't fry our own circuitry this time. I tested it before we left."

  Han flipped the switch and prayed. Chewbacca roared in fright and Han glanced overthe nav computer had gone down. As Han watched, the run lights for the hyperdrive motivator died, along with the rear targeting computer. Han realized belatedly that he hadn't tested the jammers with the nav computer working. They wouldn't be jumping to hyperspace anytime soon.

  Chewie growled in terror, and Han dipped toward the glittering shipyard, diving toward a Kuat escort Frigate. All that metal would have to play hell with the sensors, and even though the TIE interceptors were technically faster and more maneuverable than the Falcon, Han would match his flying skills against these academy jocks any day.

  Bolts of blue blaster fire ripped across the Falcon's prow, bounced off the hull, and Leia snouted over her radio, "They're in range!" Threepio stood behind the pilot's seat watching the blaster fire, shouting, "Oooh, aah!" and ducking with every near miss.

  Han heard the welcome blam, blam, blam of the quad cannons as Leia returned fire. The Falcon screamed toward the scaffolding and the Frigate beyond. Huge beams of plasteel flashed past, and Han flipped the Falcon sideways to slip through the scaffolding. Han locked his forward targeting computer onto the Frigate's primary sensor array. Without active shielding on, the huge Frigate was just another hunk of space debris, and Han's first blast enveloped the sensor array in blue lightning. He fired his proton torpedoes in rapid succession, and they flashed in a brilliant ball that would have fried Han's eyes if he hadn't looked away.

  Among the brightening mushroom clouds, Han reversed thrusters, fired two concussion missiles into the thin stem of the Frigate, the walkways that joined the Frigate's monstrous engines with its forward arsenal. As the slowing Falcon dove for the breach in the Frigate's hull, chunks of shrapnel burst against the forward concussion shielding.

  Chewie roared and shielded his face with his hands. The Falcon slammed into the yawning hold of the Frigate, and warning sirens screamed. The control panels darkened as the concussion shielding overloaded, brightened again as it died. Smoke was rising from Chewie's panel, and he growled.

  "Shhh . . ." Han hissed, putting his hand over Chewie's mouth. Both of the TIE interceptors screamed into the Frigate and exploded. The corridor that the Falcon had crashed into filled with light and fire.

  That's the problem with those transparisteel windows on the TIE fighters, Han thought. The worthless things darken when they detect a blast, and then you can't see anything for the next two seconds. He'd counted on it.

  Han flipped off his radio jamming, began shutting down the Falcon . Leia came running down the corridor. "What in the hell do you think you're doing? You almost got us killed!"

  "Listen!" Han said, raising a hand for quiet. Between the concussion of the torpedoes and the fighters, and a few well-placed ion blasts, the Frigate's orbit was already destabilizing. The ship was peeling away from the docks as Dathomir's gravity well sucked it down.

  "Oh, great!" Leia said. "I'm supposed to be happy that we're going to crash into the planet instead of blow up in space?"

  "No," Han said. "Our concussion shielding should have kept us from damaging the Falcon too badly, and now that our sensor jamming is off, Chewie should be able to get the nav computer back on line. Meanwhile, Zsinj's navy thinks we all crashed, and as the Frigate drops toward the planet, we'll quietly move out of their interception range for ten minutes or soplenty of time for us to plot a course. Then we just casually ease our way out of here and head for home. Trust me, I've done this before!"

  Han took a deep breath and prayed. "Go ahead, Chewie, turn the nav computer back on. Show her."

  Chewie growled, shot Han a nasty look and flipped the switch. The monitor stayed dim. Chewie frantically began testing other switches. The hyperdrive motivator stayed off, as did the rear deflector shields. Threepio had been watching behind the pilot's seat and he began gesticulating wildly but refrained from speaking. When he saw that the motivators wouldn't go on, he shouted, "We're doomed!"

  Han jumped out of his seat. "It's okay, it's okay, nobody panic. We just have a little fried circuitry here. I'll fix it." He shoved his way past Threepio and ran down the corridor to the engineering station and pulled off a face plate to get to the motivator circuitry. The nav computer he could sort of live withoutfor ten minutes. Just make a quick jump to get out of the solar system, then take a few days to try to fix it nice and leisurely in the cold of space. But the motivators, he needed those now.

  He pulled off his vest, wrapped it around his fist, jerked back the face plate. Fire erupted from the charred slag in the circuit box, and Leia appeared behind him with a fire extinguisher. She began spraying the circuitry and Han stepped back, saw that it was useless.

  "It's okay, it's okay," he muttered and ran back to the cockpit, fired all his circuits and let the diagnostics computer begin a readout. The forward sensor arrays had been smashed during the crash. "That's okay, I don't need sensors as long as I can see where I'm going," he groaned.

  Concussion shielding gone. Top radio dishes clipped off. Most of the rest of it looked pretty good. As long as the diagnostics were correct, they could fly out of hereas long as they could break free of the wreck and no one shot at them and no one caught them and they didn't try to make it offplanet.

  Han's head began to whirl, and he realized that the Frigate must be spinning as it sank toward Dathomir. "Hang on, folks, it's going to be a rough ride down!" he muttered. He glanced back at Leia, saw that she wasn't mad, wasn't berating him. Instead, her pale face was set in fear, and her eyes seemed dilated. The hair on her scalp had raised. Han had never seen her so scared.

  "What? What?" he asked, glancing frantically at the diagnostics display.

  "I feel something down there," Leia said, "on the planet. Something . . ."

  "What?" Han asked.

  Leia closed her eyes. She didn't have Luke's sensitivity yet. But Han knew she had the potential. "I see . . . drops of blood on a white tablecloth. Nomore like sunspots, black against the brilliance. Only the black spots are filthier than thatloathsome . . ." Leia frowned in concentration, inhaled, sucking deep breaths, her lower lip trembling.

  Leia's eyes blinked open, and her face was pale again, stark with terror. "Oh, Han, we can't go down there!"

  Chapter 9

  At Han's apartment on Coruscant, Luke felt the walls. It was an odd apartment, one without decorations, without warmth, the kind of place that a person sometimes inhabits but does not live in. The building had been ransacked. Han's military uniforms lay scattered on the floor with a ripped mattress, torn pillows. The floors were littered. Dozens of people had already searched the place, but not the way Luke planned to search it.

&
nbsp; Luke touched the pillow, closed his eyes. He could feel Han's desperation on the pillow, and something older and odda trace of manic glee, of hope.

  Luke stood. Such strong emotions carry a unique scent, and he ran his fingers along the wall, tasting it, followed the scent down Coruscant's long avenues. Sometimes the scent would elude him at a corner, and Luke would stop for a moment, concentrating.

  After hours of following the taste of that manic hope, he found himself in the upper layers of the underworld, in an ancient gambling hall. He stood, looking at a sabacc table where a trio of rodents played while a mechanical dealer dropped cards into their hands.

  He went to the manager, a batlike Ri'dar who watched over his domain with half-open eyes while gripping an overhead cable with his toes. Luke asked, "Do your dealer droids keep a visual record of games, to make sure there is no cheating?"

  "Why?" the Ri'dar asked. "I run an honessst placcce. Are you trying to imply that my dealersss cheat?"

  Luke was tempted to roll his eyes at the Ri'dar. Their paranoia was a species trait and could lead to problems if Luke didn't placate the creature quickly. "Of course not," Luke said, "the thought never crossed my mind. But I have reason to believe that a friend was here recently, and that he played cards at the corner table. If the films are available, I'd like to see the video. I could pay you."

  The Ri'dar's dark eyes flashed, and he looked around furtively. He reached up with one winged hand, grasped the cable, and dropped to the floor. "Thisss way."

  Luke followed him to a back room, and the Ri'dar glanced at him suspiciously. "Money firssst."