"I need to go to Alpha Halden," Luke said.

Han looked up in surprise from the tabloid news disks he'd been scanning in the corner of Leia's office. Leia appeared similarly taken aback, as did General Rieekan. Luke had come in, a grim expression on his face, during their meeting about Coruscant re-zoning for free commerce. Grimmer than usual, which was saying something. Although he was always welcome and indeed encouraged by his sister to take part in the New Republic restructuring, he rarely made an appearance. Han assumed he was too busy training -- or something. And Han couldn't really grudge him avoiding the whole political minefield anyway, if he was just avoiding it. While Han's relationship with Leia made it too difficult for him to successfully avoid everything involving diplomacy and paperwork, that didn't mean he had to enjoy any of it.

"Why?" Leia finally asked.

"I, uh, Ben suggested it," Luke said, looking unhappy. The weak, bluish afternoon sunlight fell in bars across his face and jacket and gave him a ghostly aura. His golden tan from Tatooine had faded long ago, and his hair had grown several shades darker in the insubstantial light of Coruscant's old and distant sun. He was wearing black again, which offset his paleness.

Leia blinked. "Do you have any idea why he suggested it?"

"He said there was a Force-adept there, and some military activity that might be worth taking a look at."

General Rieekan stirred. "Interesting -- the latest intelligence from that system indicates there is a home-grown Army, led by a local charismatic named Ifor." He shook his head. "We have no indication that it's a threat to anyone or any other system yet. It's not uncommon in times of political upheaval for grassroots organization to take place, even martial organization. It rarely amounts to anything."

Han dropped the disks and strode forward. "What do you know about this Ifor fellow?"

"I don't remember anything specific but I can look up the records." The general moved over to Leia's desk and she stepped aside to let him use her computer. In a moment he looked up again. "There are no details about him except that he used to work in the drug industry there. Which isn't particularly interesting in itself, that system was a major exporter of drugs for the Empire. Unpleasant drugs, Tal Althenol for one; it was invented there."

It took Han a moment, and then his spine stiffened. Tal Althenol was the Empire's drug of choice for interrogations, a particularly nasty truth serum. His gaze leapt to Leia. She looked chalky, nauseous. Remembering. He started to go to her, but she held up her hand.

"I'm fine, Han."

Han saw Luke watching her, concern darkening the pale eyes. She might stop Han from reaching for her, but she couldn't stop her brother's solicitous inspection. Looking at them, he was struck again by the similarity between them. They both found it easy to become inaccessible, to put up their personal defense shields. Leia did it with her sarcasm, or with her royalty act, both of which were rarer these days, thanks to his beneficial warm influence. He could charm Leia with a kiss most of the time, but Luke was an increasingly complex puzzle.

He turned to Luke. "How about we send someone there to scout out the situation, collect more intel, check on this guy first."

"Sure, but I'm going too," Luke said. He set his jaw, an expression Han suddenly remembered well -- from a kid trying to rescue a princess and take on a Death Star. There was his friend again, out from behind the magician's curtain, before it flicked shut again. He knew the aftertaste of nostalgia and foreboding. Arguing would be pointless.

"I'm coming with you," he said. If Luke had changed, so had he. He wasn't the devil-may-care smuggler in Mos Eisley anymore, he'd seen enough and suffered enough and loved enough since then to be able to come right out and say what he meant. More or less. He saw Leia watching him, and the spur of the moment need to go with Luke -- to protect him, or to run away from here? -- seemed selfish and precipitous. He felt his own jaw harden as he returned her gaze, and she smiled faintly.

Han said to Leia that night, "Do you ever wonder if Luke is a little -- well, crazy?" He blurted the last word more loudly than he had intended and felt Leia flinch.

She withdrew minutely, saying, "No! Of course not!" He guessed she was lying. "He's just able to hear and see things we can't see and hear. And he's a little driven, sometimes..."

"Maybe if he made Threepio float more often I could handle this Jedi thing better." He made her laugh, and the tension ebbed for the moment.

Eventually, Leia turned over and her breathing settled into the rhythm of sleep. But Han lay awake thinking about Luke for a good while longer. Months went by with Luke seeming almost normal except for that look in his eyes. And then he'd be calmly talking about Vader or Ben as if they still lived on the next planet over. Luke's face used to be completely transparent -- it was one of his biggest charms -- but after Han had thawed out on Tatooine, he found only reflections and refractions of his old friend on a surface he didn't recognize. Funny that their friendship had begun and apparently ended -- at least one version on it -- on the same planet. Sometimes, when he felt most frustrated, Han wished he had never seen that desert rock.

Although it did have its few good points: the weather, for one. Han pulled the blanket up towards his chin to ward off the chill he perpetually had these days. The Palace was like an enormous refrigerator, almost as bad as their base on Hoth. No matter what he did, he couldn't defeat the cold. Leia joked that he was feeling his age; she certainly seemed less bothered by the temperature.

He'd felt uneasy about his relationship with Leia for a long time, even after finding out that Luke and Leia were brother and sister. He had started making his move for her before he knew that, and despite his superb history of post facto self-absolutions, he felt occasional prickles of guilt. More because he was worried that Luke held it against him than because he held it against himself. Was that why Luke seemed so distant around him?

But he could tell that Luke was different with everyone to some degree, when he had the opportunity to watch. It was like the Emperor had won, after all; he had destroyed Han's friend in some cunning, subtle way before Vader threw him down the reactor shaft. Han thought he detected signs of strain around Luke's eyes or in the tension in his shoulders, as if he were under enormous pressure from some force no one else could see. And Luke certainly wasn't telling him about it. Han sometimes got the impression that Luke was avoiding him, that Luke talked to Leia about business that involved him (the construction project in the South quadrant of the city, for instance), and Leia just passed on relevant messages.

Even if this were just paranoia on his part, Han still had to ask himself the question he secretly asked every time he saw Luke looking stressed or working out late in the night: the Emperor is dead, we have more politics than war to fight now, what use is a Jedi? Why be one, and why be the *only* one?

And just beyond consciousness, where he kept it safe from words, he wondered: what use is a retired smuggler?

He certainly wasn't any good at the paperwork.

Luke watched Han through the arch of the Falcon cockpit, as his fingers sang over the instruments. Maybe this was why he had insisted on coming along after all -- an excuse to fly. Unfortunately, they were only going to be in the Falcon as far as Talmug Port where they would catch a local freighter to Alpha Halden using their fake trade permits. Using the Falcon would have resulted in too much attention on a backwater like AH.

Luke leaned back and shut his eyes. He should take this opportunity to talk to Han, belatedly thank him for joining him, even if, as he suspected, it was because he didn't think Luke could look after himself. He was touched by the concern, and amused by it. He had tried to discourage Han, but it was like reasoning with a force of nature, as usual. His sister was worried about him as well -- she had looked alarmed when he told them about Ben's latest visitation. Everyone had. Luke wasn't sure what the right way to handle these things was. He could lie about them, or selectively edit the truth to keep ghosts out of it, but it was a fact that the universe he inhabited was full of spirits and riddles even he didn't understand yet. To keep from succumbing to a numbing depression, he had to keep telling himself that someday he would understand.

He felt adrift without a tether, alone more completely than he had ever felt before. And he knew it was for foolish, selfish reasons. It wasn't that his teachers, aunt, uncle, and father were dead, it wasn't just that he was the last of a mystical order he knew nothing about, it was the other things that suddenly separated him from his friends: his discovery of his relationship to Leia, requiring reorientation of his feelings for her in mid-fall, and the fact that he had focused his eyes after countless battles and death-defying confrontations to discover the people closest to him were closer to each other. He rarely saw Han anymore, it seemed. Not the way he had before, although he was unable to pin down the difference in the quality of their friendship now. Perhaps he had been concentrating too much on getting to know Leia as a brother, and he was at fault. Their friendship had always been a restless creature, as restless as Han, who wasn't comfortable without distorting commentary: "that's one you owe me, kid," "just couldn't stand to see you get all the credit." But in the past he had always lived up to Luke's belief in him and his friendship, just as he seemed to be living up to Leia's expectations now.

It was marvelous and mysterious that Han was able to commit to Leia in the way he had. Luke had managed one brief conversation with her about the relationship, which had made both of them visibly uneasy. Perhaps it was too soon after the discovery that romance was impossible between them. But Luke knew it wasn't just that uneasiness on his part.

"You and Han seem to be very happy," he had said to her one afternoon during a rare moment alone in her office.

She smiled, wide, irresistible. "We are. I am, anyway. Who can tell with Han?" They laughed.

"I just wish I weren't so busy with all this," she sighed, straightening a stack of data cards on her desk.

"Do you think... it could be permanent?" He inspected her for any indication that he might be prying.

"Maybe. I haven't pressed him, you know what he's like. I think you were braver than I ever was when it came to trying to pin him down."

"No, just more naive, and with less to lose." He thought about past tense, and what truths it represented. "Pinning him down" -- laughably inaccurate anyway; getting Han to stay with the rebellion hadn't been unlike wrestling with a jelly monster. He found himself unconsciously rubbing the artificial hand again, a bad habit he couldn't break. He looked up to see Leia watching, a sad expression on her face.

"He loves you very much, Luke, even if he can't say it. He's shown it over and over."

He looked at her curiously. "I know that, Han's always been a good friend. Did you think I didn't?"

"No, I guess I just wanted to say it in case you needed to hear it."

He frowned, suddenly feeling firm footing become sliding sand. "Do you need to hear it too?"

"No, no. He shows me too." She looked away. "Do you ever wonder what would have happened to him after the war if he and I hadn't started a relationship?"

"Yes," he said, and her eyes flew to his face. He realized she hadn't expected the answer, or at least the speed of it. Absurdly, Luke felt he had given away something without even knowing what it was. "I think he would have stayed around for awhile, making repairs on the Falcon, and then he would have gone off to smuggle something eventually." He shrugged.

"I don't want him to be bored," she said breathlessly. "Has he said--?" She caught herself, and they both looked at each other in speculative silence. Luke knew the same thought was in their minds: it wasn't wise of them to talk about this, for Leia to use Luke as a source of information, the same way she wouldn't want Han asking Luke about her. Luke felt a surprising, hollow sorrow; he didn't know what Han was thinking and feeling. Leia had over-estimated the confidences between them.

He had kissed her on the cheek and held her for a moment without saying anything.

"Luke?"

Luke opened his eyes to see Han pause in mid-step as he entered the common area.

"I'm awake," Luke said. "Sorry, I should have asked you if you needed help with the flight plan. How's she doing?"

Han froze fractionally, finished sitting down opposite and said, "She?"

Luke tried not to laugh. "The Falcon, Han."

Han grinned. "She's great, but her thruster regulators still need some fine-tuning. I asked Chewie to do it before he left so the maintenance droids wouldn't get their useless probes on them, but he didn't have time. It won't matter on this short a trip though."

"I could do it if you tell me what to do. We've got at least a day to kill before we reach Talmug. Seems like the least I could do."

"You mean, to thank me for insisting I come along?" Han raised a pointed eyebrow.

"Yeah." Luke grinned. "It's just like the old days. I'm glad you insisted."

Han reached over to pat Luke awkwardly on the shoulder. "Thanks, kid. I'm glad you're glad. But I'll tell you, it's a heckuva lot quieter than the old days, without those droids of yours, without any Wookies, without--"

"Without any princesses," Luke smiled.

Han laughed. "You said it, not me!" He stood, turned as if to go, but stopped and rubbed his neck, looking at the deck. "It's not like I miss the old days, but I miss some things. I kind of miss your quests." He glanced at Luke.

Luke let his head fall back against the bulkhead padding and considered that confession. He didn't think about history that way, it was funny that Han did. He wondered how Han saw him now, with his weird visions, peculiar physical training in the gym, meditation at odd hours, levitations of the occasional X-wing or droid. Han had seemed frankly unimpressed, at least to his face, as if he believed they were party tricks and 'mumbo jumbo' that Luke might grow out of. But he knew this attitude was a standard defense mechanism for Han. He wondered what Han really saw when he looked at him. "Some of my quests were pretty dangerous," he reminded him. Bespin, he thought with the usual ache. "This one might be."

"Good. Time to get the blood flowing again! I'll show you where the regulators are, so you can get to work," Han said briskly. The captain of his ship. Luke leapt to follow him.

"So what kind of trouble do you think we'll have with Ifor?" Han asked as he kicked his feet up on the tool bench beside Luke in the crawl space. Luke looked up from the regulator circuitry he was still elbow-deep in, rubbed his nose against his shoulder. Han looked very relaxed, while Luke's shoulders were killing him from the angle and detail of the work.

"Not sure, really, but I've got a--"

"--bad feeling about this," Han nodded. "I figured that out. Since I'm going to be there too, I guess I'd like to hear all the gory details, whatever you think you can tell me."

Luke held his eyes and smiled. "You mean about my dream? What Ben said?"

Just as Luke had expected, Han looked embarrassed by the topic. He pursed his lips, nodded. "Yeah."

"Well, I think it was a dream, but it could have been another normal visitation." He hid his grin by pressing his nose into his shoulder again and watched Han closely for the expected jokes, but Han was struggling to behave. "I woke up, or thought I did, and Ben was standing next to the desk. It was dark, but he was glowing of course."

"Of course."

"He said something like, 'small problems are sometimes very serious in their repercussions. There's a small problem on Alpha Halden, a Force-adept with military aspirations and an audience interested in what he has to say.' And then he said something about spirits and bodies that I don't remember, something that didn't make any sense. Then he said I had to understand the relationship -- that a Jedi has a special recognition for the spiritual in the physical and the physical in the spiritual, and that I would need to understand this." Luke paused, frowning blindly into the memory. What Ben said had seemed tremendously important, and Luke had lain there scared: these were the only lessons he got in his Jedi training now, these cryptic asides to more serious messages or warnings, and he never felt capable of taking them in properly. He had been an impatient student while Ben was alive, and he still had too many questions always unanswered in this one-directional educational effort.

Han stirred restlessly above him on the bench, and Luke blinked. "And then all the glass in the room broke, the mirror, the light bulbs, the window, the glass on the desk, and in the pieces on the floor I could see reflections of body parts." He shrugged. "And then I woke up again, and found nothing broken." He reached back down into the access hatch, and started scraping away the corrosion on the resistor unit.

Han swallowed audibly. His voice was quiet. "Body parts?"

"Mine, I think." Luke didn't look up and successfully sounded casual and calm. He hadn't been at the time.

"Well, it was just a dream." Han sounded like he was trying to convince himself. He dropped his feet to the floor, and leaned elbows on knees. "Except Ben, maybe, since we already know he talks to you, and what he said matches the military intelligence from AH."

Luke dropped the probe when it caught on a resistant piece of corrosion. "Damn," he muttered and stretched out and down to fish it out from under the port regulator casing. As he did, he felt a peculiar crawling sensation over his skin, especially over his scalp, and realized his hair was standing on end. Which meant he was in trouble. He tried to withdraw his hand carefully, but felt his wrist slide against the casing; at the contact, a crackle of current arced from the casing to his hand. He yelped, twitched away, and rolled free of the bolt of purple that spat towards him from the open hatch.

"Luke!" Han was bending over him, shaking his shoulders, when he was able to focus again. There was a metallic taste in his mouth, and an ache in his arm that localized to a sharp burning at the wrist.

He opened his mouth, but it was a moment before words would come. "I'm -- okay, it's okay, help me up." Han threw his arms under Luke's shoulders, and lifted him bodily. Luke recovered his feet, but allowed Han to guide him to the bench to sit.

"I've never seen it do that, there isn't any current running through those circuits right now, at least nothing of that magnitude," Han said. He was gripping Luke around the torso, patting him, checking for broken bones perhaps.

Luke felt sensation return to his extremities, except for the artificial hand, which was responding sluggishly. He held it up, caught Han's attention. "It had something to do with this hand, some kind of electrical field interaction maybe." Comprehension dawned after a second -- it was easy for people to forget, even easy for Luke to forget occasionally. He hated that fact.

Han almost reached for his hand, but straightened and disengaged with a slightly abashed expression. "Is it all right? Can you still use it?"

Luke flexed the fingers, pleased that it was responding more quickly now. He nodded. "Doesn't seem to be seriously damaged, but I should have the prosthetics medic check the power cell and shielding when we get back. Do you think the regulators are okay?" He risked a glance at Han, who had pulled back.

"I'm sure they're fine," he said roughly. "They weren't on, but I'll check them over. Why don't you go relax or something."

Luke nodded, stood gingerly, and made his way to the tiny passenger cabin without looking back. He knew Han was watching for signs of further weakness. He clenched the artificial hand and hoped the dream only foretold this little accident.

Han poured himself a drink, his third inch of brandy in -- oh, it must be fifteen minutes already. At least the tremor in his hand was long gone, and some of the more phantom fears had dissolved in the solvent. He wasn't even sure what had made him reach for the bottle hidden in the safe in his cabin. He'd been thinking about Luke's trembling under his arm on the tool bench, and the faint scent of scorching in the recycled air. Or maybe it was Luke's expression as he held that hand up. It was absurd for him to blame himself, but he would, until he'd had enough to drink. He didn't know where this guilt and fear originated, but they were certainly persistent recently.

The quiet beep from the nav console intercom told him they were arriving at Talmug Port, where they would get the shuttle. His stomach rolling, Han tapped on the door to Luke's cabin. "Luke? You awake?"

After a moment, a muffled "yes, just a second," and the door slid open. Luke was pulling on his tunic; Han's eyes immediately flew to the red, inflamed patch of skin on the muscular forearm. He wasted time on indecision, wondering how much solicitude Luke would tolerate and he would feel comfortable giving out, and then Luke was dressed and looking at him quizzically.

"We're coming up on Talmug, better get ready for the landing."

Luke was inspecting him, and it made him fidget. Three drinks didn't show, did they?

"I'll help you land," Luke offered, and clapped him on the back as he brushed past him on the way to the cockpit.

Although most port cities weren't accurate reflections of the local tourist attractions, economy, and general ethos of a planet or nation, on Alpha Halden it looked likely that what they saw upon landing was probably representative. The city of Hallsted wasn't easy on the eyes, and there was little indication that it had known better days. Trash littered the streets, half the shops were vacant and many had broken or plexi-covered windows, there were derelict speeders and magno-bikes lying in the alleys, the prostitutes were plentiful, garish, and competitive, and blasters were worn ostentatiously.

"It's worse than Mos Eisley," Luke marvelled. He changed his step into a skip to avoid one of the slimy puddles that punctuated the uneven pavement. They had arrived during the rainy season, and it looked like the sky was lowering and preparing to burst again soon.

"I didn't expect much better from the place that exported Tal Althenol," Han said grimly. "It doesn't look like they get that many visitors here, or even traders from other systems."

Another passerby in dirty overalls had glanced at them curiously, but avoided eye contact. Almost everyone they had seen was humanoid, even in the port itself, with the exception of a few colorful Monmas who seemed to be working the worst jobs in a city full of bad jobs. One of them was cleaning up excrement, jogging behind a hover cart pulled by a leathery animal the size of a baby tauntaun.

"Sign of the sick economy, I guess," Luke speculated. "Look, Han." He pointed at a wet, streaked poster flapping on a cracked wall. "Farder Ifor, inspirational rally, tomorrow night. Hotospil night?" The phrase didn't mean anything to him.

Han looked pleased, as pleased as he could in such a seedy setting, staring at a poster crowned by a picture of someone who could be either a general or a religious icon. "Good, the faster we check this guy out, the faster we can get out of here. Where do you think that is?" He indicated the address on the poster.

Luke stepped off the pavement into an alley and pulled out his datapad. After a moment, he had the address localized on a map and discovered it was only a few blocks away from their current location, in the warehouse district. He checked out 'hotospil' and discovered it was a holiday, some historical event with both political and religious antecedents. The main point seemed to be a parade and a work-free following day. It was hard to imagine the local population producing a parade or celebrating anything. "Let's find a room for the night," he said morosely, eyeing the neighborhood.

They checked themselves into a rundown hotel with a broken sign that simply said 'HOTE (vac cies)'. The staircase was missing both a light and a step, which might have proved fatal for Han if Luke hadn't caught his arm when he stumbled. Their room had two cots, separated by a tiny strip of pitted gray carpet, a rusty wash basin in the corner, and a window directly behind the 'HOTE' sign, missing a pane of glass. There was a distinct odor of pickling, as if Beta Zempos had used the room last, and there was no evidence of a recent cleaning job.

Late that night, while they waited for exhaustion to make sleep possible on the thin mattresses, they planned their next moves. If they could find a public access terminal, they could look up all the available local news on Ifor, his rallies, the local military; and with their Imperial access codes they might be able to find whatever intelligence had been collected locally on the man. There had been a significant Imperial presence here because of the production and export of the truth serums, but like many outposts, the post had been abandoned and the officers had deserted. Han put the odds at ten to one that Ifor had taken over the post.

The next day was only partly successful. They couldn't find any public data terminals, but eventually Luke found a droid access port inside the abandoned Imperial garrison. While Han kept an eye on the street entrance from the second floor windows, Luke plugged his datapad into the port. The access codes only got him into one relevant database, which was little better than a catalog of local news. Ifor had been a chief scientist at one of the chemical production labs in town before the Imperial officers fled the post. There had been no governor in the city ever since a minor disagreement between the governor and the Emperor's representative.

"See if you can find out why we haven't seen any droids," Han called from the window.

"Good question." Luke searched, but found nothing in the Imperial database. Finally, after accessing non-classified city databases, he discovered that there was a pro tem post-Imperial city council, which had responded to the economic crisis by replacing droids with human laborers throughout the city.

"Interesting move," Han said, "but only effective if there is work to be done. I'm glad there's no call for Tal Althenol anymore, I don't mind saying. I suppose it's reasonable to assume that whoever ransacked this place got all the weapons they left behind." He gestured at the open cupboards, data disks lying on the floor, blaster marks on the lock mechanisms beside the open doors. Luke nodded.

They spent the rest of the afternoon scouting around the territory near Ifor's former lab, which was in the middle of the industrial zone of the city. The smell of vile compounds polluting the air grew strong enough to make both of them cough occasionally. Rounding a corner, they found themselves in a cul-de-sac at the base of a mountain of rusted, gutted droid corpses. Han broke off in mid-sentence as they contemplated the carnage.

Cracked shells of hollowed out Artoo units bristled loose wiring and boards, detached arms from anthropomorphic models lay with stiff fingers reaching for nothing, foot treads stripped of rubber grips lay piled over headless, tarnished torsos of data processor B4's and crushed labor units. Lubricating fluid traced a blue sheen on top of the puddles in the cracked stones paving the alley, like blood or memory, persistent despite the rain.

"So now we know what happened to all of them," Han said quietly.

It took Luke a moment to find his voice, stunned at the size of the pile and at his own emotional response to it. "It's crazy," he said, "they're just machines, but it seems like such a waste. They could have tried to sell them, or -- or put them to better use somewhere." He shrugged helplessly, his eyes moving uneasily over a golden foot projecting from the top of the pile.

"They probably sold some and just recycled the rest for spare parts," Han speculated. "Good thing we didn't bring your two along. Goldenrod would be hysterical over this."

"Would you blame him?" Luke muttered.

They splashed their way through the everpresent puddles in the darkened streets, grateful for another break in the rain. The warehouse that held the rally was a short walk from their hotel, very close to Ifor's old laboratory. It wasn't long before they noticed other foot traffic heading the same direction. Only one building in the district was lit from within; the steady stream of people passing through the open doors confirmed that they had found the meeting place.

Luke and Han tried to blend into the back of the crowd in the meeting hall, which wasn't particularly difficult given the composition of the audience gathered for Ifor's rally. They were almost all men, humanoid, and dressed in local work clothes. Most of them seemed to be there with friends or in very sociable moods, if the amount of excited conversation was anything to go by. Eventually, the rumble of talk subsided as the lights dimmed. Everyone turned to face a crudely erected stage. A single white light shone on the wooden structure and reflected fitfully off the currents of a force field that hid most of the stage from view.

The shimmering force curtain vanished and a man stepped forward into the spotlight. The crowd fell completely silent. He was middle-aged, human, tall and solidly built; he had a firm, square jaw, a shock of gray running through otherwise black hair, and deep-set intense eyes. He wore a close fitting suit of black, and against the black background, the eerie effect was of a disembodied head crowned with gray and skeletal hands bobbing and gesturing, choreographed to augment a lunatic's rant.

And it quickly became clear that it was lunacy. Ifor started slowly, offering a polite welcome to all the newcomers and expressing pleasure at recognizing so many in the audience; then he began a somber description of the planet economy, making ominous predictions about the current trend in trade relations. His voice deepened and resonated when he suggested that their Trade Market might be infiltrated by alien spies trying to undermine their economy. Particularly suspect were immigrants from Zephos 4, of which there were a few on the planet; it was well-known that the trade indexes dropped when Zephos 4 was razed by the Emperor. Rather than blame the Emperor, Ifor moved fluidly into an attack on the unstable rebellion faction that had so decimated the Imperial Army through similar infiltration. "Every Army must beware alien contamination, alien bodies and alien minds!" he boomed. It didn't seem to matter that this epigrammatic warning was mysterious at best; the crowd applauded loudly.

Han had been shifting around uncomfortably for most of the speech, looking increasingly disgusted. "That's right, the unstable rebellion faction was pretty ineffective with all those aliens, wasn't it," he said sarcastically under his breath.

Luke didn't smile. He was becoming more and more concerned, not at the man's message, per se, but his hold over the crowd, which contained several dark-skinned, blue-tinted 'aliens'. They were probably immigrants or traders from Alef Prime's moons. Yet they seemed to be just as enthusiastic as the others.

"He's deliberately being vague with his use of the word to avoid concentrating on any meaning that anyone might argue with," Luke said. Han leaned closer to hear, putting a hand on Luke's shoulder as he did so.

"Well, that may be so, but people seem to be finding something they agree with anyway. I wonder what his bottom line is?"

"They're just looking for something to bring them together, except..." Luke paused, to investigate the prickling sensation in the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck. He shut his eyes, breathed deeply, knew Han was watching him as he cast his refined attention out into the cheering crowd and up as far as the podium. He opened his eyes, glanced sideways at the waiting Han. "He's definitely manipulating the Force, creating a hypnotic effect. The question is whether he's even aware he is doing it."

"You mean he might be some kind of natural talent with no idea what he can do?"

"It's possible. Everyone has some degree of connection, people just differ in their ability to tap into it."

Ifor had moved on to what sounded like it might be his 'bottom line'. He was describing plans for a new Army, which would somehow save them all from poverty, spies, taxes, and aliens stealing their jobs. It was difficult to tell how much was hyperbole and how much was already fact. The man -- and the crowd -- felt no great love for the rebellion, the current temporary government of the Republic, or the nonexistent local government. Certainly these facts were no surprise, the sentiments were shared by a hundred planets during the Empire-wide reconstruction following the death of the Emperor. What made this situation different was the man in the front of the room.

Suddenly the rally took a turn for the ugly. In mid-sentence, the speaker broke off and turned to his left, peering into the crowd. "Did I hear a challenge?" he said.

A growl rose from the crowd, but no particular raised voice could be heard. Han and Luke exchanged a glance, verifying that neither had heard anything before the interruption. The speaker flicked his wrist towards the wings, and two men stepped forward, exuding menace. Their faces were shockingly vacant, and they wore no obvious weapons or body armor, yet it was clear that they were bodyguards or members of some security force. They stepped into the crowd, which visibly recoiled from them; they surfaced holding a limp figure by both arms, someone who tottered on unsteady feet between their twin pillars of impassivity.

Luke's back straightened and his breath caught as he registered something impossible happening. Han asked quietly, "What is it, Luke? Do you know him?"

Luke blinked, raised one hand in a futile half-gesture, open and reaching towards the front of the room. "No," he whispered, "but those men, they're not alive!"

"You mean the thugs? What do you mean?" Beside them, a skinny, hook-nosed man in purple shot them a disgusted look for talking during the sudden hush. Han slid behind Luke, where his mouth was closer to Luke's ear.

Luke shook his head, confused about what he was reading -- or not reading -- sure he was mistaken. Maybe the speaker was shielding those men, preventing him from being able to detect anything of their life force. As they watched, Ifor denounced his victim from the crowd as a spy and explained that there were several historical ways of handling spies; traditionally they were imprisoned and tortured until they broke and confessed, and then they were sent back to their planet of origin. During wartime or under military rule they were shot.

"We are a humane race," he shouted, "and we cannot rely on the torturers of a corrupt government. We represent the new order, the new Army of the Empire, pure of action and thought!" And one of the twin security guards pulled out a small electro-pistol and shot the limp body between them.

The crowd started as one being at the retort from the bolt of charged particles, and a profound silence fell. Everyone watched as the two executioners dragged the body into the wings.

"I guess there's no doubt about what kind of new order he intends to bring about," Han said softly, loathing obvious in his voice. Luke belatedly disciplined his own expression of abhorrence when the fellow next to them glanced at them again.

The speaker began preaching quietly about the need for swift, organized action, about the constituency of the Army 'they' had already raised and their provisioning. His voice rose gradually, masterfully manipulating the crowd feeling away from the shock of the murder to the enthusiasm of co-conspirators and allies.

As the rally dispersed, Han and Luke filed out in silence amid the angry, excited simmer. A mountainous, florid man jostled them as he clapped new-found companions on the back and roared, "Who's with me? Who's joining up?"

Luke excused himself, although the collision had not been his fault, and the man planted a large, beefy hand on his back. "What about you, young man? Are you with me?"

Before Luke could answer, Han said, "My friend and I have some business to clear up before we can consider joining up."

The man's face froze and he looked over at Han. "Well maybe you do, but maybe you should let your friend speak for himself."

Han's eyes narrowed, and his fingers twitched towards the blaster pistol hidden under his jacket; it probably took a supreme effort not to reach for it. Luke put up a placating hand. "My brother's right, we can't join up right now, but we're certainly thinking about it."

The man looked mollified. "Well, son, think hard, you'll make officer faster if you join up sooner!" He clapped them both on the back and hurried to join his friends.

Han and Luke stepped around the puddles that had collected on the uneven flag stone paving of the road. The other men from the rally dispersed down the side streets and alleys, still calling boisterous challenges to one another. It had rained and stopped again, but the air didn't smell cleaner, just damper, and there was a sheen of oil or chemical waste distorting the reflection of the street lighting in the pooled water. Apparently, even the gutters didn't work on Alpha Halden.

When it looked like they were sufficiently far away from anyone else, Luke said, "What was that about, Han?"

"You're asking me? Some people can be pretty touchy, especially after an event like that, I guess," Han muttered.

"No, I meant you jumping in like that. I could have handled him on my own." Luke smiled. Han knew they were probably both thinking of a similar incident in a bar in Mos Eisley, when Luke's apology hadn't been accepted and he couldn't handle it. A lot of time had passed since he was that young.

"I know, I'm sorry." Han's voice was gruff. He risked a sideways glance at Luke; he was relieved to see that his friend wasn't looking particularly annoyed. "It's hard to get out of the habit of wanting to save you from the messes you get into. And that's why I'm here, anyway."

"That one wasn't a mess until you tried to help, I think." Luke stopped in the doorway of their hotel and waited until Han met his eyes. "I'm not a farm boy anymore, Han," he said softly.

Han found himself flushing, for no reason he could understand, and he hoped it wasn't visible in the flickering neon of the hotel sign. "I know that, at least I know it intellectually. But you're still young -- at least you look young, and the rest of the universe doesn't know what you can do. And sometimes I think it would just be better if you didn't have to -- you know, do what you do," he finished lamely. He hated talking about Luke's magical powers at the best of times, and this wasn't a good place to get too specific.

Luke laughed a little, and wrapped a friendly arm around him in a brief embrace before ushering him in the door.

As they washed up for bed, Han finally identified some of his unease at the rally rhetoric: it could almost have been two years ago, listening to Mon Mothma give the rebel troops a pep talk during one of the darker moments. He had never felt comfortable with the necessary coercions of life in an Army, and then there was the fact that bad luck rather than any innate idealism was largely responsible for his association with the Rebel Army. Now they had 'won' at least the most significant military victories, and what remained were petty political skirmishes -- but some of them weren't so petty. It was starting to seem more like an ongoing covert war. The people in this city recognized that there was still a war on and chose to make it explicit as a matter of their own interest (what war wasn't? Even the rebellion was very much a matter of self-interest, he was clear on that). Only now, Han and Luke and the other people he loved were aligned with the disorganized bureaucracy that was the Empire, and here were the rebels. Han was almost glad for the execution: he clung to it as a defining line he and his friends stood behind. (Now, Greedo, that had been simple self-defense.)

Later, when they were both silent on their cots, watching the neon patterns on the torn wallpaper, Han said, "Brother, eh?"

"It worked, didn't it?" And then dryly, "And it's practically true, isn't it?"

Han opened his mouth, reaching for a denial, but didn't follow through. He didn't want to be Luke's protective older brother. It had nothing to do with his feelings for Leia or the possibility of permanence for their union. He wanted to be Luke's friend, the way they were friends before, and the way they had never quite achieved -- he wanted to be trusted and count on him in tight spots without family ties binding what was already strong without them. Family ties meant complications, secondary interpretations for the simplest motives. It was bad enough that he felt guilty about how his romance with Leia started. Han listened to Luke's breathing in the dark for a long time, wanting to say something but not sure what would be comforting to either of them.

Luke had set his chronometer alarm to wake them in the middle of the night so they could investigate the offices behind the warehouse where the rally had taken place. When he woke well before the alarm, adrenaline coursing through his body, he knew something was very wrong. The door crashed open, and he reached for his lightsaber under the mattress. Before he could ignite it, one of the two dark forms that crowded in the doorway over Han's bed said coolly, "If that's a gun, sunny, I'll shoot your friend and save myself a lot of trouble. Collect it, Hal."

Luke froze, and the other man reached over Han and relieved him of his hereditary weapon.

"Get up, both of you, and I can see just fine in the dark. I better see both hands high." The man gestured with the snub nose of a blaster pistol. Luke finished getting up, and waited for Han to precede him out the door.

Han was vibrating with anger. Luke strained his eyes, trying to see if Han had a gun hidden on him. Did he sleep with a blaster at his hip? When he slept in his clothes like tonight? It seemed likely, but not to be counted on.

As Luke passed close by ugly Two -- "Hal" -- in the doorway, he dropped to one knee and lashed out with his other foot, cutting the man down from the ankles. "Han!" he cried. He heard rather than saw Han tackle the other one on the dark stairs. There was a crash and a complex thud that permuted over several seconds; he inferred they had tumbled down the steps. In the brief moment of disorientation he had inflicted on the thug in the doorway, Luke tried to get the gun away from him. Luke chopped at his wrist, saw the muscles slacken, and reached for it. The fellow growled, and swung wildly at his head. The blow caught Luke on the shoulder, glanced off and set his ear ringing. He snatched at the weapon again. They wrestled over it, knocked against the doorframe and sprawled onto the landing outside. He saw victory -- the gun slid away and rattled against the wall.

As he scrambled for it, he heard the whine of a blaster on the landing below; the blue flash lit the stairwell strobe-like as Luke decided the hell with this wrestling, and caught the gun out of mid air as it hurtled upwards on a current of Force. He trained it on the thug, who froze and eyed him warily.

"Han!" he called. "You okay?"

"Your pal is fine, Mister," the wrong voice responded. "But he won't last much longer if he keeps trying to get me to shoot him. Or if you do anything rash. Hal, bring him on down here."

Luke handed Hal the blaster. A standoff with hostages was pointless; and anyway, he wasn't willing to bet Han's life against Thug number one's attachment to Hal. Hal bared his teeth and whipped the barrel of the gun across his face. When Luke's vision cleared, he felt the pain burn down his cheek like a fiery caress and he tasted blood. He had bitten his tongue.

Hal herded him down the steps, and he found a disheveled Han pressed face first into the wall, blaster planted firmly in the small of his back. Thug One sneered at Luke and gestured downstairs. "Get moving."

Luke saw the muscle in Han's jaw tighten when he saw Luke's face. They exchanged regretful looks.

The streets were deserted as they were marched in silence to a building near the warehouse that the rally had been held in. A faded sign saying "Althen Empire Labs," the name of Ifor's laboratory, hung over the door. They were not at all surprised when they were ushered into Ifor's presence.

"Who are you?" asked their host bluntly, after looking them over with little apparent interest. Ifor remained seated at his desk, and his Force-dead associates stood in the corner of the laboratory-cum-office like abandoned dolls: they didn't fidget, blink, or even visibly breathe. Hal and the thug with the voice held their blasters trained on Luke and Han with smug smiles. Neither Han nor Luke answered him.

"The blonde one had this," Thug One said and proffered the lightsaber.

Luke's stomach sank as he watched Ifor turn it over and examine it curiously. "Don't press that button," he said finally. The shaft was directed at the man's hip.

Hal chose that moment to get communicative. "That one, the kid," he said, indicating Luke (who barely repressed a sigh), "he jumped me for my blaster, and he levitated it off the floor!"

"Aw, shut your mouth, Hal," Thug One muttered.

But Ifor's eyes narrowed, and he considered Hal for a breathless moment. Luke felt the flicker of Force limning the edges of his consciousness. Ifor was probing Hal in a crude, untutored way. Luke knew he could block him if he had to, but his spine stiffened despite his certainty. He hadn't been confronted with a hostile Force sensitive since his battle with the Emperor. His mouth felt dry.

Ifor glanced at him, caught his gaze. "Is what he says true?" He wasn't interested in the words he heard in response, of course, it would be the current and measure of truth behind them.

Luke tried to smile. "How could it be? I think he's just upset I got the gun away from him."

Ifor stared for a long, unblinking minute, then frowned. He turned to Han, who looked bemusedly back. "What do you think about this magical flying gun story?"

Han grinned, bounced once on the balls of his feet. "Didn't see it, myself. Too busy with Hal's friend over here."

Ifor's expression settled into decision, and Luke realized they -- he -- had underestimated the man. Han hadn't reacted as he would have if he were utterly surprised at the suggestion that blasters could fly, and Luke hadn't shielded Han's mind from the man's untrained but apparently effective probe.

"What happened next, Hal?" Ifor asked almost casually.

"Tord had his friend, so he gave the gun back to me," Hal said.

Ifor glanced in surmise from Han to Luke and back. Luke wrapped his mind in emotional insulation finally, but he knew it was already a skirmish lost.

Ifor turned to his silent guards and wordless commands filled the waiting spaces in the room; Luke heard them like voices beyond a door, but no words reached his straining ear. Ifor was a Force naive who had created his own primitive, original language to conjure the results he wanted.

One of the dead men returned with a length of woven metal from which dangled two cuffs. Ifor took it, tapped on a small keypad on each end, and handed it to Tord. "Lock them together."

Tord grinned, and snapped one cuff on Luke's left wrist. He reached for Han's nearest arm.

"Hey!" Han glared at him and presented the other arm. At least they ought to face the same direction. The restraint gave them about five inches of slack between their bound hands.

"We don't really have facilities for prisoners here, so I will have to put you two to work for me. You--" Ifor indicated Han, "will make a good demonstration for my next rally, of the sort you objected to during last night's."

"A lot of people objected," Han said tightly. "Why single us out?"

"Some of my men happened to be standing right next to you and thought you had more unusual objections. You--" Ifor gestured at Luke, going on without a pause, "are potentially dangerous. You will be my next humanoid subject for an experimental drug I'm developing." He had moved to a counter covered in beakers and flasks, and he now decanted a blue liquid into a spray injector. "My bodyguards were the first subjects, albeit unintentional. They were the victims of a chemical spill during the work training programs after the mechanized labor force was eliminated. The result was, as you see, two very malleable minds loyal only to me. They are extensions of my will."

Luke digested this; if Ifor believed what he said -- and Luke could detect no obfuscation, although he wasn't probing hard -- then Ifor didn't understand why these bodies responded only to his mental commands. Luke still didn't understand it himself. If they were dead, what kept them mobile, why hadn't they decomposed--? He needed to examine them, concentrate on this puzzle, but now Ifor was explaining in the gracious way of megalomaniacs -- Luke flashed back to the Emperor's crawling voice -- "The spill involved a raw form of a drug we have manufactured here profitably for ten years under contract to the Emperor. Naturally, I'm wondering if we've discovered another compound of even greater potential, but we've had few willing test subjects for the refinement process." Ifor made a note in a desktop micro and brought the injector over to Luke.

"No! You can't do this!" Han said, and Hal and Tord leapt to hold him back.

In a taut moment, infected by Han's fear, Luke looked wildly around for his saber. He could snatch it from the air and sever their restraint, hold the guards and thugs off -- but Ifor had put it away in his desk. And Ifor was smiling at them almost indulgently now. He glanced at the two guards, and they pinned Luke's arms. As the plunger made contact with his arm, Luke met Ifor's eyes and whispered a mental suggestion: "the injector is empty". Ifor's expression clouded. Luke couldn't prevent the first hint of the chemical from invading his body, but he finally won over Ifor's strong intellect and stopped the dosage prematurely. As Ifor put the injector down, he recovered his smug satisfaction with the proceedings. His guards dropped Luke's arms.

"I'll have to monitor your progress, of course, but our observation facilities aren't the best now. I'm confident you can wait for us to fix up an appropriate guest room. Meanwhile you can wait in our break room." He gestured at the guards, and they flanked the prisoners and secured them with a hold on either arm.

As they marched through the rebel army headquarters, Luke fought the sick feeling creeping through his veins. It was a scent that became a sour taste on his tongue, a rumble under his feet foretelling catastrophe. His stomach turned from nausea as he saw ghosts walk with them, pacing either side of the the lifeless puppets of Ifor's. With widespread thought he touched them, and found them as real as he and Han. The ghosts escorted them to their cell. He was ill, taste and sound overtaking him; all his wits were needed to hold off the debilitating reaction. He hoped Han was paying more attention to their surroundings.

"We've got to get out of here," Han said, moving to the door. He stopped short when he felt the tug on Luke's arm. He caught at Luke's wrist with his adjacent hand, felt the tense muscle and bone under his firm grip. A fine tremor of response -- or something more alarming -- ran through Luke's body. "How are you doing, kid?" he asked in trepidation.

Luke was standing still, with a shattered expression. He shook his head slowly, focused on Han's face. "I'm starting to feel it. I'm not sure how long I can hold off the effects."

"What does it feel like?"

"I'm getting weaker, and tired. You're right, we've got to get out of here," he said. He visibly shook himself and went to inspect the door's security panel. He ran his left hand over it, drawing Han's arm up with his, and squinted in concentration. Han couldn't remember seeing him so obviously intent on manipulating the Force before, it was usually invisible these days. He finally dropped his arm, with an explosive sigh of frustration. As Han's hand bounced against the door, Luke caught it briefly and held it still in a warm grip. "Sorry," he said.

"So what did you do?" Han asked awkwardly. His hand curled close around tactile memory, body responding almost unconsciously.

"Nothing! I don't know what the code is. Any ideas?" Luke's face was pale, the mark from Hal's blow florid and raw across the cheek bone. It promised a startling bruise. Luke ran his eyes over their cell. Han had already checked it out: it had been some sort of recreational lounge, with chairs, a small kitchen unit, the sanitation cubicle with its door ajar. No windows. No weapons or tools lying conveniently about, that Han had seen.

Han examined the lock panel. It was keycoded, not pass coded like the restraint on their arms. Keycoded locks were generally easier to break open, because they were simple binary circuits, and the complexity lay in the key. All the lock knew was whether it had the correct key or not. He tried to remember the guard locking it, what sort of key did he have? Han had the vague recollection that it was a card key, but nothing more helpful than that. "Well, simulating the code is hopeless, it's a key we need. I used to carry around a universal card in the old days but..." He couldn't remember ever needing one, until now. He'd kept one on him then because he was always prepared for the worst from his business associates. Respectability would be the death of him, he thought, not for the first time.

"Key?" Luke's eyes were thoughtful. "How do those universal cards work?"

"To be honest, I'm not real sure, but I remember a slicer telling me they relied on quirks in the design of these lock circuits, and they didn't work for all of them. They overload the circuit in a controlled data stream, and the fail safe in the lock trips it open because it looks like a plausible key having a flux density problem or something."

"So we would need a realistic data stream, not just a circuit overload," Luke said, deflating visibly. He was clenching and unclenching his right hand.

Han realized what was on his mind, remembered the arc of current in the dim access way of the Falcon and the raw burn on his wrist. "Yeah," he said hoarsely, and resisted the urge to grab Luke and shake him. Luke seemed in a hurry to think of his body parts as expendable, whether they were flesh or not.

"Is there anyway you can -- you know, get at the key from in here?" Han wasn't very sanguine.

Luke stared at him, but before he could apologize for the silly question, Luke said, "Yes, yes, I should have thought -- but it's absurd that it works on them at all, they're braindead, there's nothing there to influence--" He rubbed an invisible strand of hair out of his face, as Han watched with growing alarm.

"Give it a try, Luke," he said quietly. Some corner of his brain marveled at his discovery of faith in this dire situation.

Luke nodded and leaned heavily against the door, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He shut his eyes. Han held his breath and tried not to move, not to transmit his nerves through the restraint binding them. Luke looked up and stiffened; his eyes focused on nothing in the room. "Bring the key," he murmured into space.

For a long minute, Luke concentrated until Han could virtually feel the energy pouring off him as heat. And then the door opened, and Han caught at Luke as he fell backwards. His hands recognized that the heat was actually a substantial fever, and then he saw one of Ifor's silent muscle men standing outside, holding the card key. Luke cried, "Come on, Han!" and tugged him down the hallway.

"Wait!" Han said, jerking back on the arm pulling at him. He plucked the card from the guard's hand, closed the door and re-locked it. He pocketed the card and nodded at Luke.

They escaped the chemical plant without incident, hiding once from two workers hauling cases down a hall. Luke stumbled several times, and Han withstood the intensifying desire to hold onto him, even when the cuff bit cruelly into his wrist. Han's smugglers' luck revisited and they found a side door that the stolen card key opened immediately. They tumbled out into a pounding, dark, bitter rain.

At the back of Han's mind was the worry that the open door would be detected by some security system. He finally grasped Luke by the arm and hauled him down dark alleys, around sharp turns, past abandoned warehouse fronts, around the edges of rain-streaked lamp halos, until they had no idea where they were, how far they had come, and whether anyone had ever pursued them into the miserable night storm. Luke sank to one knee in a puddle, breathing harshly. Han wiped the rivulets of cold water out of his eyes and looked around. They might be somewhere near the port, there were yet more warehouses and now storage containers lined up in towering ranks. Some of the storage containers were breached. "Here, let's get out of the rain," he said and lifted Luke under the shoulders and into the nearest open container.

More smugglers' luck: blind in the dark interior, they tripped over burst styro crates, and landed in a pile on top of abandoned cloth, from which a pungent mildew smell escaped. Han sneezed explosively. Weak light filtered in from the storage yard lamp. Han squinted at Luke's outline. "How are you doing?" he asked.

Luke lay with his eyes closed, tracks of water reflecting off his cheeks like tears. His chest was still heaving, and Han could feel tremors transmitted through the shackle on their arms. "Tired, hot," he rasped. "Not good. I didn't even get the full shot, but I guess it was enough."

"What can we do?" Han asked. "Maybe we should look for a medic. Maybe if we try to get off planet, maybe steal a shuttle--"

"Han," Luke murmured, and reached out a groping hand until it contacted Han's shoulder, flexed weakly, slid down his arm to land on the damp cloth. "We can't do anything practical at night, not with me in this condition, with you -- stuck like this, with me." The shackle rattled faintly.

"Don't be silly," Han said quietly, "I wouldn't leave you anyway." He heard harsh breath catch in what might have been a protest or a truncated laugh. "Let's take a look at this," he said anyway. It was a job more for fingers than eyes, given the weak lighting. He verified his worst suspicion, that electronic locks secured both ends of the restraint, a pass code job that would require a good slicer or at best a computer or droid. None of which they had handy. Cutting through the metal fibers would be virtually impossible, it was obviously the best of Imperial prison manufacturing.

How far were they likely to get tied together? It made it difficult to sneak around or move swiftly, and it prevented them from splitting up, watching each other's backs, attacking from opposite directions. Not to mention the attention they would get, going anywhere in public like this; just being strangers had been noteworthy enough. Now they looked like escaped prisoners -- which they were.

Han wondered what efforts Ifor would go to, to retrieve them. Aside from his admittedly justified paranoia about them, he had no reason to know anything about them yet, no reason to believe they were a particular threat, nothing to tie them to the Republic. The papers they had filed with the port immigration officers should cover them sufficiently. Unless -- just how famous was Luke? The lightsaber might tip him off if Ifor figured out what it was. That, combined with the flying blaster. Except this backwater planet and this backwater new rebellion didn't seem interested in anything but their own mundane, ego-inflated problems, and Ifor didn't seem to know anything about the Force, if Luke's assessment was right.

Han looked down at Luke. His hair and lashes looked gray in the insubstantial light, and his skin looked like white paper, the bruise drawn on it like a smudge of ash. More suitable for fingers than eyes, Han thought. He touched the wounded cheek gently, with the back of his hand, to see if the fever was worse. But he had no good way of comparing: Luke still felt hot. He reached down to straighten his legs, move the wet boots onto a padding of cloth. He wondered if he should take the wet shirt off, but it would require disturbing Luke, and it was logistically tough with the shackle on one arm. The rain was still hammering the top of the container, and a regular drip in the murky corner hypnotized him into a fatalistic calm. He settled down beside Luke, uncomfortably crowded against the piled remains of the crates, trying not to feed the fever with too much body contact.

Faint beside Han, Luke felt himself dying. His body succumbed to the lethargic hot promise of the drug whispering through his veins, offering transcendence. He was both sinking into the ground, surrounded by mouldy cloth and dampness, and rising, floating, soaring into a weird space orthogonal to the wet air inside the container.

Slippery as surmise, he yielded at right angles to reality and contemplated nothingness. He regarded the tableau of their bodies lying side-by-side. Which was which? Both exhausted, both soaked, both bound. Water fell on them through the roof, and he saw through the metal ceiling to prisms of ephemeral rain water hanging motionless in the hydrogen lighting of the storage yard. Eternal, evanescent downpour and the fetid smell of wet, dying, living things.

He was in Yoda's house, crowded with crawling slimy creatures, the eternally dying living. The storm outside greeted the roof with a million small knuckles tapping. Elaborate fragile curtains of moss, of loss, decorated the tiny room. Yoda was gone, and corruption claimed the furniture: giant fleshy lichens were rending the bed and table into pulp. The rusting stew pot lay upended beside a hearth crowded with huge mushrooms and pale curling fern fronds. Luke had no body for the physical memory of the fire's warmth and steam rising off skin and clothing, the spicy tuber aroma of Yoda's cooking which had taken too long to grow on him and would never be tasted again. Without a body for memory, he couldn't mourn anymore. He contemplated nothingness. Dripping, seeping, slipping, glanced at diagonals from here and now, memory peered back at him with animal boredom.

He looked back at the unconscious regard of the countless eyes in Dagobah's rainy night; careless of him, careless of the other wraiths that had wandered here before. Were the other wraiths as insensible as he was? He had been moved to come here, but was untouched by the decay in the house. Impossible to know what moved or touched the spirit remains of his teachers. Were they as numb as he was, passionless, inert? What compelled them to gather in the semblance of physical life again and offer riddles to him?

He became even more diffuse, centerless and insubstantial. He was the rain inside the drops, not the surface under the scattering impact. Beside the blind maws of worms that never surfaced, he and the roots reached their fingers and toes infinitely through the saturated mud. With arms of vine he embraced the twisted trees. He wheeled in caves with gamboling, black-winged monsters. He grew large as the lake, full of alien slow-moving secrets.

The almost-heard tapping overhead was also a sand storm, relentless static on the dark stone walls of Ben's house. Small dunes covered every surface inside, the grains insinuating themselves through microscopic cracks around the window frame, flowing down the chimney during storms like this one, scrambling like living entities under the door and snaking down the stairs to lie in runic script curls along the tile floor. A small lizard behind the door blinked and looked right through him, or registered him and dismissed him as landscape. He was a natural feature, free of will and need, arbitrary in his movements.

The desert was alive too, and sometimes also slow and secret about it. The dark places inside the cliffs hid watching eyes by day and released their own incomprehensible monsters to populate the night, to scavenge and compete in the shocking cold air. Wraiths howled through the canyons, berating the pounding sand, and he watched and listened amid pinnacles of whistling stone.

He contemplated nothingness. The house he had lived in as a child had vanished in tides of the sea of sand. Thieves argued in the echoing caverns of Jabba's broken, fallen palace. Jawas lumbered across the horizon in their crawler, moving just for the sake of movement. Unlike Dagobah's living and dying, there was sentience spotted on the desert, lanterns shuttered against the disinterested elements, but still bright in the enormous dark. The lanterns were tiny, rare.

And passionate. Luke considered sentient life, fragile, the living dying just as surely as insensible life. What did a spirit amount to in the vast universe of uncaring existences without conscious thought, aspiration, obsession, dream, desire, anger... what kept the wraiths that animated flesh from dissolving into less than memory? Did the spirits imagine each other into persistence: did Ben conjure Yoda and Yoda invoke his father? Or was human memory a necessary ingredient? Somewhere in this other space that Luke wandered were the dispersed ghosts of Ifor's guards, unrecoverable. As if contemplating the history of fire in embers, Luke saw the bodies of the guards radiate the insensible life of the trees, the moss, the microbe. But he couldn't see their ghosts now. Perhaps he didn't have enough imagination or enough faith in them.

*Let go of your passion, feel the Force.* Sometimes, winning was a lot like dying. He couldn't see a way out of that conundrum, like he couldn't see the ghosts that walked beside him without drugs. His teachers had failed. He had learned nothing.

Stubbornly, he didn't want to give up. Suddenly his body trapped him again, cold, heavy, unforgiving. He was in darkness, unable to open his eyes, because the weight of the flesh was hopeless. Somewhere water dripped. His skin felt scaly with moisture under clammy clothing. Breathing was a torture of effort. He tried to move his toes, fingers, lips. Against the lassitude, he won a triumph of will over his right hand, which twitched, closed on itself, squeezed tight on a simulacrum of sensation. His only feeling and control were in the mechanical hand. He relaxed the hand, and gently twisted the wrist to touch his chest. The sensation was distant, as if it were someone else's body and he were brushing against their mind instead of his own flesh. He clenched his fingers, felt them digging into skin, and pain registered long after the act. The perception energized him, and his hand crawled up his chest, stabbing into muscle with artificial nails, tracing feeling again.

Radiant heat beside him started, jostled against him, and he heard Han catch his breath: "Luke? Are you all right?" After a second, hot hands surrounded his clenching fist. "Are you in pain? Where does it hurt?"

After enormous effort, he felt his mouth open, and he concentrated on breath and voice. A shattered gasp was all he could produce. He strained against the hands on him, reaching for his own throat. Han's hands became desperate, squeezing hard and restraining him. The struggle was empowering, and he breathed, "Han..."

"I'm right here, Luke," Han whispered, and embraced him with one warm arm. The arm traveled across his chest, and the hand touched his face, cheeks, neck, before it began chafing heat into his icy skin.

"I can't feel anything," he sighed, when it wasn't true anymore. His right hand relaxed in Han's grasp. He realized his eyes had opened; it wasn't dark anymore, the gray promise of morning filled the storage container. The rain pounded on the roof, prosaic instead of mind-expanding now.

"You were hurting yourself," Han said, and his voice broke. "Did you feel that?"

"Yes," Luke said. His face felt synthetic and stiff.

Han leaned down over him, and in the shadow of his face were the glints of bright eyes. "You had a fever, but now you're cold." He reached over him to pull ineffectually at the cloth they lay on. "I should have taken these wet clothes off you last night." He stilled, chest pressed against Luke's chest, one leg somehow thrown over Luke's nearest leg, almost a full body embrace. "Can you feel this?" He asked hoarsely, and after a long breathless moment, hand suspended high like a reconning hoverremote over alien territories, his fingers fluttered to land in Luke's hair, touched gently, caressed his ear and throat.

Luke stared into his dark face, sure he saw an aura glowing in outline. Passion? "I can," he whispered. He lifted his hand to Han's shoulder, touched him tentatively. Han bent his head and slid soft lips over Luke's cheek, nose tip, chin, throat. Luke felt nerve endings become beginnings again. He opened his mouth and pulled at Han's shoulder. Their lips found each other, scared but graceful: they fit sweetly. They both drew back after the brief contact and searched each other's faces. Luke wondered how to make himself shine like Han did; there was no way for his face to communicate with an ordinary human expression the spectacular leap of possibility he felt now. He had risen from the dead. Whatever expression he settled on must have been encouraging because Han started to smile. And Luke joined him, producing a shaky grin.

"Kiss me again," he whispered, and pulled at Han's shoulder. Han obediently leaned down, and hovered for a second over his mouth as if savoring the moment of commitment. Luke felt warm breath heating his face like sunlit breezes. Then they both opened their lips and reached for each other.

The tender graze gradually became confident embrace, as their lips learned to fit together at different angles and then at plunging depths. They learned each other's geometry, trembling and eager. Like a revelation, the warmth spread from Han's lips to Luke's lips, filled his mouth even ahead of the staggering hot taste of Han's tongue seeking his own. The heat spread through his face, destroying the last chill of midnight, rain, and the memory of dissolution. From there it traced and raised every hair on his head, arced down his neck like current to electrify his arms and wrap them hard around Han's body. He felt his heart pounding, a generator, an engine, a wild automaton with independent enthusiasm for life again. He felt its energetic beating in his lips and tongue as they ate at Han's mouth.

It was another surrender, to come to life like this. His brain was a puppet with his body controlling it, teaching it how to feel.

Han shuddered against him, and drew back from the consuming kiss. Luke moaned a wordless protest, and kept him prisoner. Han murmured something deep in his throat, but yielded, and raised himself on his elbows and adjusted his body to cover Luke's, heavy and warm. Luke's legs sprawled to fit him closer, and he felt the electric thrill settle at his center, buried deep behind his groin. He swelled and felt a hard heat reflected off Han as well. Han groaned into his mouth, and his teeth vibrated as if sympathetic to the intensity of need.

Han finally successfully detached himself and slid wet lips down Luke's cheek and neck. He rested his face, mouth still working, at the nape of his neck. Luke felt his hands groping over his chest. The shackle rattled faintly, and Luke suspected a chuckle vibrating against his skin. His left arm helplessly followed Han's reaching right. Han was probing for the fastenings on his shirt. Luke seized control of the twin arms and released the shirt at the collar and shoulder. Han bit his revealed shoulder, hard. "Take it off," he ordered gruffly.

"Yes, sir," Luke whispered. Except when he tried to pull it off, it got tangled in their restraint and bound their arms even more awkwardly, until Han sighed and gave up trying to help. Luke fell back helpless with escaping laughter. Han eyed him darkly, but his expressive lips stretched into that familiar wide grin. They looked at each other in the dim morning light, disheveled, still tangled in each other's arms and legs. Luke caught wonder out of the laugh, and froze, thinking: but what if now we don't--? Han blinked at him, and Luke thought he saw the same fear of reflection.

He shifted his hips under Han's weight, and lifted one leg and wrapped it over Han's leg. The hesitation in Han's eyes disappeared and he smiled again. "You want something, kid?" he taunted softly.

"I don't know, what's available?" Luke said. Han snaked a hand -- the unfettered one -- down Luke's torso to his groin, and gripped the hard flesh through his trousers. Luke started at the sudden teasing directness. "If that's your answer, then I do want something," he said, scared and desperate suddenly. He couldn't consider what this meant, he just needed Han to touch him some more, to warm him up completely again.

Multiple expressions too swift to read passed over Han's face, and his hand tightened like a promise. He bent down to brush lips across Luke's mouth, and Luke devoured what he was allowed to touch. He ran his own free hand over Han's chest, loving its solidity and breadth. It arched over him making him feel oddly protected, down to the join of their bodies at the hip where Han's hand was unfastening Luke's trousers. He smiled at the clumsiness of the operation and reached for Han's waist as well. They were too impatient and nervous to do more than open the flys for access. Luke stopped breathing for a full minute when he felt Han's probing fingers connect with his aching length, and then battle it out of his clothing into the damp cool air where it stood stiff, exposed, unmistakable. Luke fought to find Han in his trousers, and he felt ridiculous triumph at the leap in Han's cock when his hand slid down the hot, sweating organ and pulled him free.

With a groan, Han lowered his body carefully onto Luke's again, bringing their cocks together in an ecstatic connection. He rubbed up and down Luke, breathing hard in Luke's ear: "This feels so good, I'm not gonna last a minute."

Luke was lifting off the ground, trying to drive his rock hard shaft through Han in frantic thrusts. Han reached under him to press their groins together harder, to fuel the momentum. Their legs collided and fought for dominance as Han tried to roll them onto their sides. Han gave up on squeezing Luke hard from behind and reached between them, capturing them together in one merciless grip. They both cried out, and Luke jerked hard against the dual pleasure of the cock and hand crushing him, killing him. He died another death. His groin exploded with sweetness, his cock plunged for a freedom denied it, jerking against Han's restraint in powerful rhythms. Heartbeat, clockwork, reverberation. As the lassitude of recovery sneaked up on him, he felt Han's pumping hand freeze on him, and Han expelled a lungful of breath and erupted with his own orgasm. Luke held him close, one hand in the damp hair at his neck, stroking him, as his body shivered in release.

Han collapsed beside him, rolled over to bury his face in Luke's shoulder and ran his free hand along Luke's arm and down his side. They lay there breathing heavily, touching each other. It was still raining, tapping pensively on the ceiling and in the corner and in the puddles that drowned the desolate city outside.

Han started awake, to feel pins and needles along his right arm. He shifted to free it, and with it lifted Luke's bound arm, on which he had been lying as well. Luke grimaced, and flexed his fingers. Han caught the hand in his and rubbed it for him, then caught his gaze: Luke smiled, but bashfully. The morning after was always difficult, even if you weren't handcuffed, on the run, with your wet clothes covered in another man's come. Not to mention all the other reasons this was awkward, which Han couldn't think about at the moment. He hoped Luke couldn't either. Just let them get away from this damned armpit of a planet first...

Han cleared his throat. "We need a plan."

Luke's face closed off noticeably. Han took a deep breath, leaned over to kiss him gently on the forehead. Luke nodded. "You're right, we do. Suggestions?"

"How do you feel? Are you okay now?" Han inspected Luke in the gray lighting, but it was impossible to tell through the aftereffects of rain and sex whether he was well again. He had certainly performed as if he were well.

"I think so, thanks to you," Luke smiled.

Han laughed briefly, and groaned as he sat up and felt circulation revive extremities he had forgotten about. He straightened his gaping shirt, fastened his trousers, Luke's hand trailing after helplessly. He cleared his throat again. "Uh, I've got to -- relieve myself."

Luke sat up, blinked as if he had moved too quickly. "All right, I guess I'm with you in this. And everything else right now," he added with a small grin. He quickly did up his own clothing and scrambled to his feet to follow Han to the door. They peeked outside, saw nothing but water, and the lineup of storage containers stretching along the side of the deserted warehouse. The rain was letting up a little, it no longer sounded angry and the sky showed signs of lightening further shades towards white.

Han opened his fly again and went about the business of relief, while Luke discreetly kept his attached arm out of the way. Luke turned his body away and performed the same actions into another rain puddle.

When they looked at each other again, amusement battled with embarrassment and won. Han shook his head ruefully, clapped Luke on the shoulder. "Okay, let's try to get off this rock, huh?" Suddenly inspired, he bent down to root among the cloth they'd been lying on. It looked like laboratory coveralls, made of a resilient micro-weave that wouldn't tear or stain easily. It hadn't escaped the mildew problem, however. He sneezed as he withdrew the least wet coverall and folded it lengthwise. He arranged it over the restraint between them.

Luke was biting his lip as he watched. "Good idea, but if we stand a reasonable distance apart, it's obvious there's something holding that coverall up between us. And if we stay closer together, with that thing over our hands, it looks like--"

Han nodded morosely. "Yeah. Like we're holding hands. I guess we're just going to have to look romantic, kid."

Luke laughed. "Something tells me the local culture isn't going to approve."

"Like so many. But at least we'll have half a chance of avoiding connection with Ifor or other local law authorities if we don't look like escaped convicts. I say we head for the port right away."

Luke had sobered and was shaking his head. Han knew he should have seen this coming. "We can't leave yet, we don't know enough about Ifor's operation. And I'd like another chance to talk to him." He set his jaw and straightened his shoulders, even as Han rounded on him.

"Look, we had a chance and it wasn't exactly productive. You want to give him another go at giving you another shot?" Han tried to keep his temper.

"I thought we learned something, I did, anyway. We know he is experimenting with drugs and with the Force in a completely naive manner. There aren't that many people around with that ability, Han, which makes him worth sticking our necks out a little further. Not to mention the fact that he is trying to gather an Army here." Luke shrugged. "I need to try to talk to him."

Han had that sinking feeling again. "You think he's just going to capitulate and come with us quietly when you explain about the Force?" Luke didn't answer, and Han knew that was exactly what he was hoping. In some ways Luke was still endearingly innocent and optimistic, and although Han was strangely touched to see new evidence of these old character traits, he wished they wouldn't surface when their lives were at risk. "All right," he surrendered. "But I'm not prepared to just knock on his door. We need some more intel. If only we had your datapad..."

"Hal and his friend didn't seem very organized, maybe our stuff is still at the hotel," Luke said dubiously.

Han nodded. He was willing to set off on the slimmest leads as long as they pointed in the opposite direction from Ifor at the moment.

The rain had turned into a drizzle, but they were still soaked and chilled after only a few minutes of walking through the deserted streets. Mercifully, they didn't run into anyone for quite some time, either because it was early still or because this section of town was abandoned. They weren't sure exactly where they were in relation to the hotel, but Han insisted his innate sense of direction would get them back to familiar territory swiftly. Luke didn't argue, probably because he didn't remember much of their flight last night in any case.

Eventually, after Luke voiced his suspicion for the second time that they were going in circles, they rounded a corner and saw a promising looking thoroughfare up ahead. Blinking street lights, the occasional hum of a speed bike, and pedestrians crossed the entrance of the side street they were in. "Let's just be casual," Han said nervously, and adjusted the coverall. He tried to make it look as if he were holding onto it, as if it were raingear he chose not to wear, and he and Luke were just very friendly with each other's body space. They stepped off the curb and looked up and down the street.

"Isn't that the Tavern we stopped at for lunch?" Luke said, nodding at a bright orange sign in the shape of a diamond a good ways down the street.

"Sure looks like it," Han said brightly. "What'd I tell you? That puts our hotel just that direction," he said, his gesture curtailed by the drag of Luke's hand on his. "Tell you what," he said under his breath, "next time, we let them tie up your right hand and my left hand."

"Next time," Luke agreed. "Let's take the back roads." Han nodded, following Luke's gaze to a food vendor, who was frankly eyeing them with a frown over his cart.

They picked up the pace and jogged with the coverall swinging between them. The puddles erupted under their feet with satisfying splashes. "It's a holiday, remember?" Luke said. "That's why there are so few people around."

"Maybe our luck is changing," Han said and immediately realized he shouldn't have verbalized it. Because when they got to their hotel and tried to sidle in past the reception desk, the shriveled old woman screeched in a broken Galactic pidgin that their room was not available anymore. When Han asked about their things, she insisted the room had been cleaned and everything thrown away.

They looked in the trash receptacles behind the hotel, but they found no evidence of their things, just soggy paper and the remains of a broken chair.

"Either the trash has been disposed of, or Ifor's men collected our stuff," Luke said. "Or she's lying, and she sold it all to the local pawn shop."

"Either way, we don't have time to track it down. The timeout security switch on the datapad will wipe it in another half day in any case, and there isn't anything too easy to crack into on it."

They stood there looking at each other. Luke's hair was curling and glittered with captured raindrops. Han knew Luke wanted to stick around, but without that datapad their options were more limited. They wouldn't be able to get any intel for the general, for one thing.

Han reached a personal decision, and started patting down his pockets. "Have you got any money on you? Before we go anywhere else, I want weapons."

Luke raised his eyebrows, smiled, and nodded. "Good idea. I've got a bit, have you?" Between them they had enough for two small pistols in a reputable shop in Mos Eisley, which meant good things if they got lucky here, and otherwise might cover one gun.

Looking for guns, or a shop to buy them in, meant venturing out into public scrutiny again. When they were back on the Main Street, they found a small crowd growing, featuring a good number of older people and children. They clustered around food carts, munching on sweet and spicy-smelling snacks. Han's stomach growled as they threaded their ungainly, two-body way through the growing congestion, but they didn't really have enough money to spare for food. It was obvious they weren't just good friends sharing body space as they wove around staring children with their arms joined. And finally the tugging on his wrist had gotten painful enough that Han just clasped Luke's hand in his under the coverall that hid the restraint. Han detected relief in the way Luke's hand folded around his so readily.

It was sheer dumb luck that they ran into a market set up in a side street under a network of cracked plexi rain shields adorned with flood lamps. Han was relieved to slip out of range of the curious looks and giggles on the Main Street. The market was crowded with busy hagglers of all ages, and they didn't attract much attention as they wandered among the stalls looking for the appropriate salesman. As they stepped over a spilled pile of soft green fruits, Luke pressed Han's hand and nodded towards the cart beside the produce cart: it was piled high with electronic components, most of which looked scavenged from droids or old computers. Stacked on a precarious shelf were blaster pistols of various sizes. Not having the patience for the indirect approach, Han reached for them immediately -- left-handed, after Luke held tight against his initial right-handed attempt. Most were missing power cells or damaged beyond usability, but he found two that might work or at least looked convincing from the muzzle end. Luke shrugged and nodded at them. Han looked up at the leathery face of the cart owner who had been watching his inspection through narrowed eyes.

"I'll give you forty for these two," Han said, and the man howled with laughter. Haggling began in earnest. After about ten minutes, Han was feeling irritable because the price the man wanted was more than they had and he wasn't budging. The fact that they were obviously homosexual foreigners probably didn't help them any. The man kept eyeing their joined hands, like everyone else they had encountered this morning.

A tug on his arm made him glance at Luke and follow his gaze towards the Main Street. Strolling past the market, head swiveling right and left as he scanned the crowd, was their old friend Tord. Han was downright pleased to see him. He dropped the guns on the cart. "Thanks, but no thanks. We've got business elsewhere," he said, drawing Luke away briskly. He kept carts and people between them and Tord as they moved closer to the street crowd.

"Han, what are you doing?" Luke hissed.

"That guy owes us, and I want to collect," Han said.

He waited until Tord had passed the market entrance and pulled Luke up against the wall at the corner. He peered around and established that Tord was moving away through the crowd. "Come on," he said and pulled Luke after him into the concealing crowd. They shadowed Tord for several blocks, managing to keep out of sight when he looked their direction. Finally, when he stopped at a food cart, Han dragged Luke past him and into the mouth of a narrow corridor between two buildings. He pressed Luke back against the wall. Luke consented to the manipulation with a mutter under his breath.

As Tord passed the opening, Han whistled. When he turned to look, Han swung at his face. Luke cried out at the powerful yank on his arm, and Tord staggered backwards from the blow. Han grabbed him by the jacket and dragged him into the alleyway out of sight of the pavement.

"Sorry, Luke," Han panted, and followed up with blows to the gut and face again, until Tord lay stunned at their feet. While Luke shook his arm out and rubbed his shoulder joint, Han knelt and patted Tord's pockets and waistband thoroughly with his left hand. He collected a reasonable looking blaster, a wad of currency, and another card key. When he rose, he grinned happily at Luke. "I really enjoyed that."

Luke shook his head, but a smile lurked at the corner of his mouth. "I could tell. Let's hide him a little better." They dragged the body down the corridor and propped him in a recessed doorway. He was stirring already. His lips compressed in a determined line, Luke slipped the blaster out from Han's belt and pushed it in Tord's battered face.

"Where is Ifor?" Luke asked.

Tord cringed, and his eyes crossed when he tried to focus on the muzzle of his own gun. "Getting the troops ready for the parade," he muttered finally.

"Where?"

"They're starting from the depot at the old refinery, where the meeting was the other night." Han figured he was lying until he saw Luke's expression melt away from that internal refocusing he associated with use of the Force, followed by Tord's own ugly face going blank. He looked less ugly without that sneer.

"Where does the parade end?" Luke asked softly.

"The Governor's house in town."

Han remembered seeing the Governor's house opposite the Imperial offices, not too far from the port authority. It was an ugly gray building with bird heads jutting out from window sills, giving it a strangely spiny look and an unpleasant aura of watchfulness. There was a large square in front of it, composed of yet more pitted pavement, as if the city planners had at the last minute decided not to expend any effort on differentiating or beautifying the area after all.

"Sleep," Luke suggested, and Tord's head bobbed and fell back against the door. His mouth dropped open. Han was fascinated to see that he only had eight teeth.

Luke straightened and handed the gun back to Han. Han said, "It's gonna be rough with so many people around him. Our best bet is probably after it's over."

Luke nodded morosely. "Let's try to get a look at them now and see if any opportunities present themselves. The longer we hang around, the more likely someone will make trouble for us." Before they moved, he rattled the chain between them and pointed to the gun at Han's waist. "I don't suppose that would--?"

"Nope, not this prison issue material."

Ifor's troops, numerous enough to count as a small Army after all, were gathering in loose ranks in the open roads around the warehouses behind the refinery. Luke and Han hung back for fear of being spotted, until Han found an open door on one of the neighboring buildings and they clambered onto scaffolding by a high window, overlooking the crowded streets. After a few minutes watching the organization efforts below, Luke spotted Ifor standing to the side, arms crossed, flanked by his two guards. Men who were presumably his first officers were shouting instructions at the troops, who were laughing, slapping each other on the back, and listening when they felt like it. Some of them wore recycled Imperial uniforms, wrinkled and badly fitting, while the rest were dressed in drab work clothes. All were armed ostentatiously with Imperial issue blasters.

"They're even worse than we were, except for the guns," Han said quietly. "I wonder why Ifor isn't cracking the whip a little harder?"

Luke squinted at Ifor. The man didn't look pleased, but was clearly making no attempt to intervene. "He's smart, he knows he can't be too hard on them while he's still gathering support."

"He's still weak then," Han commented. Luke saw the tactical wheels turning in his head; although a reluctant general in the rebel Army, Han had lived up to his rank over and over almost despite himself.

Eventually, the men started moving out, horseplay over, their backs straighter, rank and file almost even. They marched as one uniformed man called time from beside the column. Ifor remained where he was, watching, and Luke's curiosity sharpened into eagerness as he realized: "He's going to bring up the rear!" He pointed through the dirty panes of plexi at the hover car suddenly visible through the moving ranks beside the warehouse. "This is our chance, Han!"

"What, you think no one will notice if he's not there in the parade?"

"No, they'll think he's there in the car. Let's go, we haven't got much time," Luke said, dragging at Han as he scrambled for the edge of the scaffold.

"Okay, hang on," Han snapped, "let me get a grip before you pull me off. I still don't know what you're planning."

"I'm going to have his escort bring him here to us," Luke said as they jumped to the ground.

Luke conjured the memory of Ifor standing by the warehouse flanked by his puppets in his mind and reached out. He found Ifor getting into the hover car, behind the driver. Luke homed in on the driver's spark of consciousness, clouded it with obliviousness, and then seized the two guards. One of them he allowed to climb into the car, and the other he made restrain Ifor at gunpoint. The car departed without them. Ifor was heaving with the effort to regain control; Luke heard him shouting wordlessly in the spaces between the physical bodies and the energy that animated them. Before Ifor was even conscious of having lost the fight, the bodyguard was pushing him through the warehouse door at the end of the gun. Han hastily drew his own weapon and trained it on the disheveled Ifor, Luke's hand bobbing in response to the movement.

Luke looked at Ifor with an emotion strangely tangled out of pity and admiration.

The man stiffened, restored his tattered composure. "Ah, my two escaped conscientious objectors. I shouldn't be surprised."

"I wanted to talk to you about this ability you have," Luke said, wondering what the right speech for this situation should be. "As you've guessed, I have the same power."

Ifor didn't respond, but he was listening closely.

"It's a power that has certain responsibilities attached to it. If you use it unwisely, for personal gain for instance, it can destroy you. But if you use it wisely, you can become an instrument of good and virtue." Luke wasn't any good at explaining this, he didn't understand it himself at any level he could verbalize. Although he had won one degree of battle against the Dark Side when he refused to fight his father, he knew better than anyone -- better than his teachers -- how much cowardice, how much fear, how much uncertainty had motivated him to give up that fight.

Ifor laughed at him. Luke expected it. What did he have to offer that would convince him? Vague philosophical platitudes. Ben had decades of study behind him before the first lessons he gave Luke, and Luke was a fresh student without ingrained bad habits of power use.

"You seem to be using it very similarly," Ifor said, looking behind him at his guard under Luke's control. "How are we different? I'm trying to make my world a better place. And your friend intends to shoot me."

Luke was temporarily speechless. Obviously Ifor was just trying to disorient him, but the comment about Han was well-aimed.

Han growled, "Making the world better by experimenting with drugs on prisoners? By executing innocent men during your inspirational rallies?"

"Innocent is such an over-used, meaningless word," Ifor sneered. "These are difficult times, more difficult than when we had the Emperor's troops in the city barracks. I've brought Alpha Halden a focus again and will bring it prosperity."

"Why an army? What are you planning to do with it?" Luke asked.

"You're terribly concerned, for a trader. Would you like to enlighten me as to your true identities and interest in us?"

Han traded a glance with Luke. Neither of them said anything. Luke considered offering the truth, which Ifor might already have guessed or at least suspected, from the way he asked the question. But if he didn't know for sure, they shouldn't fuel his crusade against the New Republic. Once again, Luke hoped their cover IDs had held up. He was sure Ifor had checked them, at least superficially. But his computational resources were hopefully limited without the Imperial codes.

"So we're at an impasse. I don't understand what you want from me. But it's clear that I can learn from you, and if you join me," -- Ifor was pointedly looking at Luke -- "I can promise you a significant role in our army as one of my primary officers. It would give you an opportunity to teach me, influence our direction of growth and strategy."

Han snickered audibly. Luke smiled. "I'd like the opportunity to teach you what I know, but not as a member of your army. You already know I don't believe in your cause. Or your methods."

Ifor's face became chilly and challenging again. "You haven't told me what you want of me, although you've illustrated your power admirably."

When Luke hesitated, Han said, "For a start, you can get this off us," and rattled the restraint on his gun hand.

Ifor shrugged. He stepped forward and reached for the lock pad at Luke's end. Luke raised his arm and watched as Ifor fiddled with the lock code. He suddenly felt tired, heavy with uncertainty and his own slow-wittedness. The sensation of failure was bitter, insidious, yet almost welcome because it suggested he could give up trying to convince Ifor he was wrong. He heard it whispering in his head like the rain, soft and irresistible. As he sank in its sibilant embrace, he ignored the disgust he felt for his weakness. *Not important,* the murmur in his head told him. The murmur became a monotonous drone. He cringed as it grew louder. It metamorphosed into a shrill scream that flayed his brain raw before he could react --

Luke felt a sharp yank on the arm, and from a wounded interior place he registered blaster fire. He shook himself alert. Ifor was reeling away, an ugly burn on his neck and shoulder, the stench of burnt flesh unmistakable in the air. Ifor fell to the floor and lay there twitching. Han's hand relaxed on his gun and he shifted the muzzle towards the motionless guard again.

"You okay, Luke?" he asked grimly.

"I think so, but what happened? Why did you shoot him?" Nothing was making sense; he shook his head as if that might dislodge the dullness.

Han looked at him curiously. "Ifor went for a gun or something. You looked like you were going to pass out -- I guess he managed to get past your guard and work some magic."

Luke knelt to inspect Ifor; he was dead. Luke couldn't find evidence of a gun on him, but under his coat was a belt pack with an injector stowed carefully. Luke unbuckled it and slid it into his pocket. He felt supremely depressed. He had underestimated the man again, with fatal results. And now there was the bodyguard to deal with. He eyed him in a long pensive moment. Although it might be useful to have a guard as they traversed the city again, this particular one would probably attract unwanted attention -- even more than they already had.

The barely animated corpse stared unflinchingly ahead at nothing. Luke wished he knew any of the old Jedi rites for death, as he had on too many occasions already. He reached with his fingers of thought, brushed the remnants of spirit, and gently, softly, dispelled it like waving at a strand of smoke in the air. The body crumpled in on itself.

"What happened to him?" Han said in surprise.

"I took care of him," Luke said flatly. "Like you took care of Ifor."

"Good. Now we can finish the job," Han said grimly. "Let's destroy the headquarters. And Ifor's laboratory with it."

Luke grasped him hard on the arm and said through bloodless lips, "That's your answer to everything difficult, isn't it, Han -- blow it up."

Han looked at him for a long moment, some dark emotion rising up behind his narrowed eyes and rigid mouth. "Or shoot it, yeah. Philosophical differences aside, I figured we could use a good distraction at this end of town as we head towards the port. In case you've forgotten, the population of the entire town is waiting for us down there, which is where the parade is heading."

Luke struggled with sudden anger at the sarcasm, which was so typical of Han and after all this time shouldn't irritate him the way it did. "And you don't think the parade is enough distraction?" He felt Han's arm tense, and he let it go. The wrist restraint prevented him from stepping back theatrically to complete the show of disengagement. He didn't want to argue with Han right now.

"It's not sufficient if we have to steal a shuttle, which we probably have to do. There are only two shuttles a day leaving this miserable, dead-end excuse for a planet, and there's probably a stop on our departure papers after our little encounter with Ifor yesterday." Han enunciated this speech with exaggerated care.

Luke felt inevitability overpower his objections, which weren't entirely rational and accessible for argument. He shrugged. "All right, let's do it."

Han nodded shortly and went to collect the gun from the collapsed guard. He looked around the warehouse, failed to see anything useful, and after a cautious glance around the deserted street, led the way outside. He tried the stolen access card on the depot lock and it didn't work. "Must have changed the locks," he muttered. "Ifor didn't have one on him, did he?"

Luke shook his head.

Han scanned the face of the building. Large plexisheet-covered windows were set high above the street surface, irregularly lit from within. "We've only got one spare gun, so we'll have to make the damage count. Where do you think the laboratory was?"

They walked around the side, each tracing in their memory the steps they'd taken with Tord and Hal last night. After some discussion, they agreed on a likely set of windows. Luke balanced on Han's shoulders and stretched as far as he could towards the pane of plexi with the better gun primed on its maximum power setting. Han kept his eyes open for unwelcome company as Luke cut a small hole in the window, using the gun's beam like a surgical laser. Luke passed the weapon down to Han and took the other one from him.

"You hotwired it?"

"Yeah, it should go up pretty nicely if you try to fire on maximum, after a short delay."

Luke hesitated. "How short?"

He felt Han try to shrug under his weight. "I'll do it if you want."

Luke didn't bother to answer. After a calming breath, he wrapped a net of Force around the gun and lifted it, first with his hand and then with his thoughts, towards the hole in the window. It floated purposefully through the window. Luke shut his eyes and tracked it as it arced into the room. Before it hit the floor, he pressed the trigger with his focused will. He scrambled down from Han's shoulders and yelled, "Let's go!"

Luke almost pulled Han off his feet as he felt rather than heard the first concussion of explosion behind them. As they ran, multiple explosions echoed the first, and an orange glow reflected off the wet street stones under their pounding feet. Somewhere towards the Main Street, shouting began.

Han's distraction was effective. The few people passing them in the streets were running the other direction, and the parade was still capturing the rest of the city's attention. When they reached the port offices, they found them sparsely and unenthusiastically staffed. Han ushered the guard at the gate into a storeroom at gunpoint. Luke pretended to be hurt and Han braced him close against his chest to hide the restraint between them; then Han hollered for help to the maintenance crew climbing on the shuttle. When they approached, he shot one and Luke jumped the other. It took three minutes to set their takeoff and course calculations and blast off.

"Well, security sure has loosened up on some planets since the Empire fell," Han commented as he sat back in the pilot's seat.

Luke nodded, rubbed his wrist tiredly.

"I need to visit the bathroom," he said.

Han started to smile and stopped; Luke was not looking at him, and wore an unreadable expression that might have been drawn from any of exhaustion, anger, or depression. "Sure," he said guardedly. "We're on automatic now anyway."

Han waited outside the small cubicle, studying the scuff marks on the flooring and ignoring the gentle pulls on his wrist. Luke finally came out, wiping water off his face and looking only marginally less tense. Han took his place inside, held himself with his left hand as he relieved his bladder. Okay, so the stress was getting to them, and this enforced togetherness wasn't helping. But he didn't know what was bothering Luke specifically -- he couldn't be that upset about the way things had gone with Ifor, could he? After all, they were virtually home free now. He considered the resolution of the situation on Alpha Halden to be more successful than not, although technically they had just intended to collect more local intel. It was true that they had departed with a bit of a definitive bang, as far as Ifor's little operation went...

When he came out, he found Luke leaning against the bulkhead, frowning into midair.

"What's on your mind, kid?" he ventured. The epithet earned him a split-second glare, which he answered with a broad grin. "Let's see if there is anything to eat on this tin can, eh?" He pulled Luke away from the wall with a gentle hand at the elbow.

The PT23 shuttle -- or "Petey" as it was known among the spacer class -- was tiny to the point of uncomfortable, with no private accommodations and very cramped common areas. Han had flown one of them for several months between Balradan and Anteneb IV as part of an elaborate scheme Lando had come up with which had never paid off. Another entry on the scorecard against Lando, which he had entirely forgotten until seeing this tiny crate again. The galley was little better than a storage space off the passenger 'rec room' lined with refrigeration and heating drawers full of packages of stale, tasteless food that wouldn't actually poison a wide variety of humanoid races but gave most of them indigestion. The drawers' contents were not enticing, even to their empty stomachs, but Han remembered how to find the crew's stores: there was a latch inside the fourth drawer from the bottom, and then the bottom four drawers swung out as one to reveal a deep cupboard. Han retrieved some containers of pickled, unrecognizable fruits followed by their only good find, a bottle of brandy almost half full. Luke grinned reluctantly when Han flourished it.

"Make yourself comfortable," Han said, settling down on the only bench large enough for two. Luke slid in beside him and surprised him by reaching for the bottle immediately. Han watched him take a big swallow, overlong hair falling back from his face, neck long and strong. He suddenly felt a strange tenderness again and wanted to touch him. But moving his hand over that five inches seemed an enormous risk, even with the short length of metal connecting them.

"I'm sorry about Ifor," he offered. "I don't understand how you feel but I know you didn't want him dead." He wondered if Luke had believed Ifor about Han planning to shoot him -- should he say something? He didn't know himself what the truth was; it hadn't been a conscious plan, but he had felt a telling prick of guilt when Ifor vocalized what probably *was* an unacknowledged desire. He wouldn't have done it if Ifor hadn't reached for the injector and had Luke so obviously at his mercy. And he didn't want to imagine Luke believing him capable of simple execution.

Luke shook his head. He slid the bottle down the stained tabletop to Han and said, "I didn't really know what to do with him. But finding out about him made me feel less alone, somehow."

"He was nothing like you," Han snapped before he had thought at all. You're not alone, he wanted to say.

"He was -- maybe he was me if I had never met Ben and never learned about the consequences of use of the Force. Of misuse, I mean." Luke sounded strangely bitter. "I sometimes wonder what the point is being the only Jedi. If I'm the only one, there's no Jedi order, is there? And I don't really know anything about it, so I don't see how I can teach anyone, if I find someone else like Ifor somewhere out there."

"You'd be a terrific teacher, Luke," Han said softly. "And it sounds like you still get advice from Ben." He took a deep swallow himself.

Luke laughed shortly. "You must think I'm insane, don't you. I don't blame you."

"Of course not!" Han said, and felt dislocated, uncomfortable, betraying his friend with a memory even if he wasn't sure what he thought today about Luke's visions and mysticism. Could Luke read his mind, was he doing it now? The fear had gripped him occasionally in the past, but it was too monstrous an idea to entertain for long. He wanted Luke to know that he wouldn't plan an underhanded execution the way he wanted to trust that Luke wouldn't read his mind if he were capable of it. He didn't want to talk about either fear. "Here, have another drink," he murmured.

"I don't know what Ben wanted me to do, or what I was supposed to learn," Luke said. He took another long swallow. "We probably did everything wrong. I wonder what Rieekan will say."

"He'll probably be downright pleased," Han said dryly. "I can't guess what Leia will say though." He could almost guess; he used Leia as his conscience sometimes. Her ideals and plans for the Republic had been annexed as his, but still kept safely detached.

"Leia will say we need to be more careful how we handle these situations -- more diplomacy, less demolition." Luke laughed, but not for long. "Sometimes I'm afraid..." he hesitated, traced a crack in the tabletop with a fingernail, and frowned at the finger. His left hand, beside Han's on the table, flattened to embrace the surface. "I'm afraid that even though I don't approve of the way you sometimes shoot first and ask questions later, I'm glad you do it because it simplifies things that I can't figure out how to deal with." He looked up at Han, blue eyes calm and dark as the sky on Endor just after sunset. "I don't like myself very much for this."

Han flushed under his gaze. He wasn't sure whether to be angry, or hurt, or what. He settled for thirsty and took another drink. "You need to stop being so hard on yourself, Luke." I wasn't planning to shoot him, he thought, burning with more than just the liquor as it excised his heart and guts with its scalpel's sting.

"I'm sorry, I wanted to tell you because it's part of why I get angry. I feel like I'm fighting myself, and I take it out on you, too."

"I'm not a complete berserker, you know," Han said tartly. "I have some respect for diplomacy, or I wouldn't be still hanging around with Leia." He didn't look at Luke, he suddenly felt terrified at the direction his renegade tongue had taken him. He could almost feel Luke sitting up straighter beside him, as if to brace himself for the danger they were engaging.

"I don't think you are, and I know you do. You've changed in the past year, since--" Luke broke off.

"Since being with your sister?" Han asked it like a challenge. He watched Luke's hand, as it lifted from the tabletop and curled into itself.

"Since Jabba," Luke said quietly. "But maybe it is Leia's influence. Either way. I'm glad you're still hanging around with Leia."

Han looked at him, wondering what was going on under those quiet words. There were complexities casting shadows, distortions of some internal emotion or reasoning he couldn't make out on Luke's face, which was in profile as Luke inspected the label on the bottle. "I'm glad you're glad, but I hope you're not thanking me for it. I'm not doing anyone any favors."

"No, of course not!" Luke said hastily and looked up at him in dismay -- almost the look of the innocent young man he'd been so many battles ago. Han was acutely reminded again of how much Luke had changed as well. "I didn't mean it like that. I'm just glad you're still around, that's all," he finished, looking flustered, a little out of control.

Han felt himself grinning, a physical reaction almost faster than his alcohol-handicapped mental processing ability. He reached for Luke's shoulder, but the drag of the restraint reminded him that the gesture wasn't simple in their current configuration, and instead he put his hand down on Luke's hand on the tabletop. Suddenly the straightforward slap-on-the-back sentiment became surprisingly intimate. He wasn't sure why; they had been holding hands only an hour ago. The flippant response he had been about to make was forgotten. "I'm glad, too," he said, "and not just because of Leia. There are a lot of people I would miss if I left now, and it seems like every day it gets harder to think about going anywhere."

Luke sneaked a look at him from the corner of his eye. His hand, rigid until now, relaxed, and Luke reached across to pat Han's hand twice, awkwardly, with his right hand.

After a moment of silence, Han gave a final squeeze and then let go, to reach for the bottle again. He felt mildly depressed, maybe because of the drink. Which meant he should have some more. He and Leia had their problems, which he resolutely didn't think about, on the principle that what he didn't waste time worrying about wasn't worth worrying about. But it occurred to him, and not for the first time, that Luke would hate him if he hurt her. He didn't like the complexity of the three-way relationship. He missed the simpler old days. What had possessed him on Hoth to start making those jokes to Leia? Boredom, the challenge she presented, mixed with a genuine admiration that had grown gradually, grudgingly since she had landed them in the garbage compactor. He hadn't really expected her to respond as she had, he had miscalculated her psychology -- or maybe he had calculated exactly right, and didn't recognize what he really wanted. He'd always used sex appeal as another weapon in his repertoire of interpersonal tactics, but he'd never been faced with long-term consequences from wielding it. Leia was so strong, so guarded, so disdainful; and underneath that, so needy in ways she would never admit to.

He passed the bottle back to Luke's open hand. Luke had been her exact opposite in the early days, open, fragile -- he still flinched when he remembered Luke's cry of anguish when the old man died -- generous with his affection. Han had found himself battling against his own defensive shields with the kid, constantly putting them up and knocking them down again in a schizophrenic dance that made himself dizzy. Maybe he was drawn to Leia because she seemed safer, she was more like him, and he was just one thing to her, a scoundrel, and they both knew where they stood with that. Or maybe -- and this was another thing that sometimes occurred to him in the middle of the night, especially after watching Luke dodging a dozen exercise remotes with inhuman agility and that damned transcendent calm on his face -- maybe in those old days on Hoth he had been wondering if flirting with Leia would mix it up with Luke a little, earn some of his attention and a little recreational argument about territory and their relative charms. The kind of thing he and Lando used to do. He didn't know what to do with Luke, never had understood how to be his friend. Funny thing was, he thought he and Leia would make great friends now, but he still didn't know what to do with Luke.

He thought about how Luke's lips had felt under his, the nape of his neck, his hard cock hot in his hand. He felt himself jolt in his trousers at the memory of pleasure, and he shifted in his seat, hoping it wouldn't be noticeable. Whatever that had been had felt good, but it certainly complicated the question of their troubled friendship. He wondered what Luke had thought about that; it had become so impossible to read him.

"You know, for awhile after we got you away from Jabba, you were so different I thought you were suffering from some kind of post-traumatic emotional response," Luke said, smiling ruefully. His face looked relaxed, opened by the brandy and unusually frank conversation. "I kept wondering when you would recover. But--"

"I never did?" Han laughed. He didn't want to confess that he had thought the same thing, and probably Leia had wondered as well if he had been changed irrevocably in subtle but profound ways by the terrible freezing process. Since from some perspective the changes added up to improvements in an otherwise shifty, disreputable, unredeemable character, it was probably for the best. Han didn't know which he preferred to believe: that being an ice cube had damaged his brain, or that he had finally learned what mortality was all about, that he had gotten old.

"I think you did, but so gradually I couldn't tell. And since you were with Leia, and the war ended..." Luke shrugged. "Things were just different anyway."

"Since we're being honest, I thought you had changed too, after I woke up. Of course you had," Han said. There didn't seem to be any way around that.

"You sound sad." Luke looked at him curiously, with a bravery only alcohol could account for.

"I guess I miss you." Han surprised himself by saying it, but he hadn't had enough to drink by half and dropped Luke's gaze. His throat felt thick, as if it had grown its own insulating Wookie fur.

After a long minute, he heard "hey," and felt fingers lifting his chin, turning his face. Luke leaned close, eyes huge and tender. Han felt his breath like a gentle touch, fragrant with brandy. As if hypnotized, he moved in towards the welcoming lips.

An insistent electronic beeping drew him up short, before they connected. "We're coming up on Talmug Port," Han said hoarsely. "We've got to sit in the cockpit now."

He could feel Luke's eyes burning on him as he led the way down the tiny access corner, only big enough for one man abreast. When they took their seats in the pilot's and co-pilot's chairs, Han could feel the heat of Luke's body beside him like a sun burning promises of life across a bleak vaccuum.

Fast talk from Han and some nervous waiting around were required before the port authorities would allow them to dock. Unscheduled arrivals were a common occurrence at Talmug, which was a meeting place for smugglers, free traders, and merchant ships of all types, but like every authority, the officials scheduling docking ports wanted you to believe they were doing you a big favor when they finally gave out the coordinates to an unregistered arrival. The arrival tax was higher by an astronomical amount for ships not on the registry; Han had to put the Falcon up as collateral.

All of which left a bad taste in their mouths. Rather than waste a potentially infinite amount of time on Talmug looking for a slicer skilled enough to remove the restraint, they decided to just leave it be until Coruscant. Luke half expected Han to kiss the deck when they boarded the Falcon again, he had that look of coming home he only got when reunited with his ship after unpleasant journeys on other craft.

Luke watched him finger the controls lovingly, and remembered the feel of those hands fingering him. It was entirely possible that he touched the switches and dials in the cockpit with more rapture than he had touched Luke with, but Luke didn't begrudge him this. As he watched him, Luke stored up in memory the way his hair curled over his ear, the strength in his wrist as he activated the nav computer, the small frown straightening his brows as he calculated the jump, the definitive tap of his boot on the deck as he finished the course. He had a premonition he didn't want to investigate that he might not be alone on the Falcon with Han again for a long time.

When the starscape had spiralled into the usual jump pattern, Han leaned back with a sigh. "We've got a good half day ahead of us. There ought to be some reasonable rations on board, if you're hungry." His quizzical expression seemed to be asking another question entirely.

"Sure." Luke shrugged and got up at the same time Han did. Han trod on his feet, and Luke turned the wrong way and became tangled in the length of metal and Han's arm. "Sorry," Luke laughed and tried to sort out their limbs.

Han's arm tightened around him. Luke couldn't see him, but knew with supernatural certainty that Han was bending his face close, and when the warm lips touched his neck it felt like it was pre-destined. He felt his heart begin beating again, as if it hadn't stirred since the last time Han kissed him. "Come to bed with me again, Han," he heard himself say.

Han whispered something, lips muffled against his skin. He released Luke, but caught hold of his hand. Untangling required the coordination of a dance. They performed as if they had practiced moving together, connected by the hand, for years.

The bed in the pilot's cabin was barely big enough for two. After the floor of the storage container, it looked majestic. This time they each removed as many clothes as the restraint would allow, watching each other as they bared their skin in the low-level lighting. Han's chest was broad, only lightly seasoned with hair, muscular with the tone of the naturally active man rather than the development of someone who worked out regularly. Luke traced the faded scars of old battles with his eyes, until Han looked down self-consciously and admitted, "I don't even remember where I got some of those."

"You're beautiful, Han."

"*I'm* beautiful?" Han growled. He reached for Luke, gathered him close in a tight hug. To stop the inspection, Luke thought with amusement. Muscle sliding against muscle, the heat of the embrace ignited passion out of affection. Han ran his hands up and down Luke's back and sides, lingering where the curve of the lower back rose to become round and firm. Luke was aching with hunger when Han finally planted his hands on his ass and ground their groins together. He felt Han's hard organ jump against his abdomen in joy from the tight pressure of their bodies against one another.

They fell onto the bed. Han held him down, and outlined mysterious routes on the map of his body with his mouth, biting gently here and licking there, kissing only the hard peaked nipples.

"Maybe we should have eaten after all," Luke said breathlessly, as he caressed Han's back, all he could reach from inside the prison of Han's grip on his shoulders.

"No, this will do just fine," Han said. Then he engulfed Luke's cock in his mouth, wet, hot, and mobile. Luke gasped out an inarticulate prayer of yearning. Han answered it.

When Luke had enthusiastically reduced Han to cursing with similar incitement, before finally rendering him fully incapable of speech, they lay together and waited for their hearts to slow down. Luke idly traced patterns on Han's chest with his free hand, becoming sad in the aftermath of pleasure. He didn't expect they would ever come together like this again, despite the apparently mutual discovery of physical desire between them. Like another ghost, Leia appeared beside Han in bed, comfortable, possessive, appropriate. He closed his eyes against stabbing guilt. But the warmth of Han's body beside his was like an anchor in the moment, refocusing him on what was good about now.

"You keep reminding me I'm alive," he said softly. He opened his eyes to find Han looking at him with an unusually serious expression. "And you make me believe there are no consequences for my actions." He sighed.

"Something else you don't like?" Han asked. He looked vulnerable, as if the answer would be a binding judgment.

"No, something I want to thank you for, but I know it's silly."

Han seemed to be about to say something, paused, and finally said, "Well, you make me warm." He gathered Luke against him and buried his face in his hair. Luke listened to him breathing, and pressed his lips gently against Han's collarbone. The skin tasted salty and sweet. "You're a constant reminder that I'm alive," Han said somewhere over his ear. Luke knew Han didn't want to look at him from his tone of voice and the grip of his fingers on his back. "If you hadn't come for me, Jabba would have killed me eventually, not to mention Leia and Chewie. I don't remember if I ever thanked you for that."

"You did, I think." Luke pulled himself away and lay flat to look up at the ceiling. He still had nightmares about that little adventure. It had been his first public appearance as a Jedi and might easily have been his last. He'd learned something about his foresight then: the details that didn't appear in the visions were often just as important as the broad resolution of events they portrayed. Although he had seen Jabba's destruction, he hadn't seen the fates of his friends, and they had all come close to death.

"I could have killed us all," he said. "I was too proud of myself, I thought I was invincible, knowing the future, with my bag of Jedi mind tricks."

"Hey, you don't know that. Everything turned out just fine," Han protested.

"I can't foresee everything. Every vision seems to have traps in it and it's impossible to figure them out in advance."

"There's no point in worrying about what you can't fix."

"I have to worry about this, Han. I have to understand how to act correctly, just like I have to understand how to use and not misuse the Force. There are repercussions for everything." Luke couldn't keep the note of strain out of his voice. "Did you ever wonder why the last known Jedi masters lived in such desolate places?"

"I just assumed they were in hiding from the Emperor. And Ben was hanging around you, wasn't he?"

"That might be part of it, but I think there's another reason. I think it's just easier to live without complications if you are cut off from other people." Luke ran a hand over his eyes, to blank out his peripheral vision of Han frowning at him.

"Complications?" Han's voice was rough. He pulled Luke's hand away and leaned over him, filling his eyes, and then kissed him hard.

Luke suffered the attack on his mouth without fighting it and without responding. When Han released him, he said, "Complications. You know what I mean."

Han looked hurt. "I thought I had changed."

"Yes, you don't cut yourself off the way you used to. But I think we--" he touched Han on the cheek "--are a complication."

"Do you regret this?" Han sounded strained, and perhaps ambivalent himself.

Luke didn't know how to answer. Obviously no, on one level, but... While he was thinking about it, Han lay back down and said, "You and Leia are so much alike. You both don't really want to be loved."

"Loved?" The word wiped all the equivocation out of Luke, but also devastated his ability for speech. While he struggled for a lexicon again, Han made a sudden gesture towards getting up. Luke was galvanized, grabbed him by the arm, said, "Han, I would fall into that trap on Bespin for you all over again." He fell back again, appalled at himself but able to face the truth of it.

Han looked down at the hand holding him, swallowed. A spasmodic expression -- guilt? -- disappeared from his face before Luke could interpret it. He rolled over onto Luke and held him tight.

Han endured the smothered grins of the landing crew when they saw the tether between him and Luke, but See-Threepio's appalled, "Oh my! How very uncomfortable for you!" made him snap.

"That's enough, Goldie, any more out of you -- or anyone else--" a baleful glare around the landing bay, "and you'll be wearing this when we're done with it. I want a slicer here now!" He directed this order to the bay at large with bravado backed up, he hoped, by his rank and military record, not to mention famous short temper. He stoically avoided looking at Luke, who he knew was amused at him.

It took the combined efforts of their best slicer and Artoo-Deetoo, enlisted by the visibly sulking Threepio, to break the code. Han insisted on doing it there in the bay, to avoid the inevitable snickering and snide jokes from their friends in the fleet quartered in the base. The gossip was going to be bad enough.

The base commander poked his head in to tell them, "General Rieekan would like to see you as soon as possible, General Solo and Commander Skywalker."

"Not even time to clean up and catch a bite to eat," Han groused. He was in a glowering mood for no obvious reason. Luke wisely offered no comment.

The commander assigned a young lieutenant ("Fanton," Luke whispered when Han failed to produce the right name) to drive them to the Palace. Han climbed into the back with Luke, too tired to sit up front and make polite conversation. His hand brushed against Luke's as he settled back in the enveloping seat; Luke moved his away after a polite few seconds. Han felt the darkness outside creep into the shuttle and wrap him up, leaving him alone. He watched the tiny lights of the city speeding by as they climbed up to the office levels of the mammoth building.

In Rieekan's office Han had to force himself away from Luke's side to take a chair across the room, as if Luke were a habit he had to kick. The debriefing went smoothly. Rieekan was indeed pleased, although circumspect, and Leia, when she arrived and got the gist of the story, only sighed and shook her head. She seemed more concerned with Luke's health and their near escape than their diplomatic failure however. Luke produced the injector he had salvaged from Ifor, which Rieekan promised to have analyzed tomorrow.

"My guess is it's some sort of nerve poison," Luke said. "Ifor didn't seem to understand that his particular abilities with the Force were independent of the drug that his men ingested -- they were in comas, all but dead, and he was able to control them with his powers of suggestion. Synthesizing new drugs wasn't going to make it easier, or make anyone else able to control anyone like that."

Han had a sudden, horrible thought. "Say, what happened to the other guy, the one who drove off in the parade?"

"He's dead too," Luke said flatly.

An awkward silence answered him, during which Han felt stupid for bringing it up, and wondered whether Leia and Rieekan understood the implication of Luke's comment. It had to be unpleasant for Luke, confessing that he could kill with a thought, even if those men were almost dead already. Han's thoughts skittered away from the memory of Vader killing like that.

"Just to be safe, we should probably send a team to make sure the laboratory was destroyed," Rieekan said.

"How about also doing something to help the local economy," Han said. "We may have taken out Ifor, but the situation that created him is still there." Luke looked at him gratefully, and he felt a flush of warmth course through his body. Maybe that was what hope felt like when it reached across the room to touch you.

"I'd like to look at all the reports on Alpha Halden, General," Leia said thoughtfully. "I might be able to make some suggestions. Given their xenophobia, it's going to be a little difficult importing or exporting labor and building up new markets, at least initially."

"I think the xenophobia isn't that severe, it was largely a rhetorical tool of Ifor's. He was just manipulating his audience," Luke said.

"Good, that will make it easier," Leia said. "Luke, you should get yourself checked out by a medical droid before you do anything else."

Han cackled. "And I'm heading for a three course meal while you do that, kid."

Luke sighed and nodded. "Don't eat everything in the Palace, will you."

Hours after Leia had fallen asleep beside him, Han lay staring up at the shadows on the ceiling. Once they were alone, she had been warm and concerned, non-judgmental, and genuinely curious about what they had seen of Alpha Halden. She hadn't even tried to suppress her laugh about the restraint tying him to Luke. "So you got what you wanted then?" she asked disingenuously. When he looked mystified, she said, "Quality time together." He looked at her in mild outrage and didn't answer. "I'm glad," she said quietly.

He lay awake thinking about how her embrace had felt affectionate but reserved, and how ordinarily he would turn somersaults to break through that remoteness. It usually didn't take much more than some teasing, a kiss, a personal question or two. He had felt distant himself, which she probably recognized and put down to exhaustion from the trip.

The man-sized spiky plants Leia had put on the balcony outside cast shadows like fingers stretching across the room. It was easy to believe in Luke's ghosts in the middle of the night, when he was cold and couldn't sleep. He was conscious of the size of the Palace around them, barely occupied by the New Republic officers and newly created bureaucrats who had once been rebel soldiers. The acoustics of the building were strange: he never heard any noise from the corridor outside their room, but he sometimes heard echoes from distant wings or other floors, snatches of conversation, closing doors, metal droid feet clicking on marble floors. He listened now, hoping to hear evidence that he wasn't the only one awake, but couldn't make out any distinct sounds. He stopped trying, struck with the superstitious dread that the echoes in the middle of the night might be the building talking to itself rather than current events. What would this fortress dream about? He could too easily imagine he heard the rhythmic wheeze of Vader's respirator or the sinister whisper of the Emperor's cloak on the polished floors.

He sat up on the edge of the bed and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. When the impulse came, he acted immediately, without thought; he threw a shirt over his head, drew on his trousers, and slipped out to visit Luke.

Luke's room was several poorly lit floors below, and Han's bare feet were icy by the time he reached the door. He shifted from foot to foot, beset only now by second thoughts -- what if Luke were already asleep? Eventually, his cold feet convinced him to push the buzzer. Even if Luke didn't want to talk to him, he would probably lend him boots for the walk back.

The door slid open immediately. Luke blinked at him from behind a work table covered with electronic parts.

"What are you working on?" Han asked curiously as he entered. He pulled up a chair.

"A new saber," Luke said and looked back at the components he was working with. He didn't seem at all surprised to see Han, or especially enthusiastic.

Han felt another pang of regret about how things had turned out with Ifor. He had completely forgotten about the lightsaber. "I'm sorry about that, Luke. Do you need any help?"

Luke shook his head, squinting at some fine connection in the new hilt. "I'm getting to be an expert at this. Except I don't have all the parts here. I need a new focus crystal."

"What kind of crystal? What did you do last time?"

"I tried a couple of natural minerals last time, and none of them worked, so I ended up asking the materials lab to synthesize some until I found one that worked."

"How did you figure all this out?" Han asked, waving at the table full of gadgets.

"You don't believe my natural ingenuity was enough?" Luke's eyes almost twinkled. "Actually, I found some notes in Ben's place on Tatooine. It still took plenty of ingenuity, believe me."

Han grinned. "I do. You know, there's probably a real market for lightsabers somewhere. It's a classy weapon, kind of old-fashioned but elegant in a way. You could make a fortune, I bet. I'd be willing to help you feel out some potential sources of--" Luke was laughing at him. "Hey, I'm serious!"

"I know you are!" Luke just shook his head, his chuckle irrepressible. He leaned back in his chair, folded his hands behind his neck and stretched; joints popped audibly. "I should call it a night, I can't do much more anyway."

Han looked him up and down. He looked tired, the bruise on his cheek was only beginning to fade, his wrist was raw from the chafing of the restraint, and a suggestion of red markings peaked out from under the collar of his shirt. Han wondered if they were his fault, remnants of their energetic lovemaking that he didn't remember inflicting, or if they were self-inflicted when Luke woke up in the storage container.

"Did the medic check you out?" he asked.

Luke smiled faintly. "Yes, I'm fine. You're not wearing any socks," he added, apparently having checked Han over as well.

Han tucked his feet under the chair. "Very observant. I had noticed that myself."

Luke stood up, and Han rose as well. They looked at each other in awkward silence. "Thanks for dropping by," Luke finally said.

"Well, I was in the area," Han said, eliciting a grin from Luke. "I don't suppose I could stay--?" He held his breath.

Luke's eyes dropped, and Han thought he detected a touch of color on his unmarked cheek. "No, I don't think it's a good idea. But I am glad you came to talk. I've missed you too."

Han reached for his hand, laced his fingers through Luke's. "Listen, I'm going to tell Leia what happened. I don't want to pretend it didn't happen, if that's what you thought we would do."

"But you and Leia--" Luke ended with a wordless gesture that pulled his hand free.

"Leia will be fine." Han hoped he sounded more confident than he was. He so wanted to be right. He felt good about the decision; he felt as if he had been sleepwalking for the past few months, and waking up in Luke's room felt surprisingly good. Or had he woken up in his arms on Alpha Halden?

Luke was gathering his thoughts for a lecture on why this was a bad idea, he could see. Han stepped forward and kissed him gently on the lips, silencing him for now. It felt strange, almost illicit, doing it here, but he needed to do it. Like a benediction, the warmth traveled all the way from his lips to his toes. He wouldn't be needing those boots after all.