Han looked at the techs, then at Leia again. The lift-plate sank, lowered
him into the pit. He locked his gaze with Leia's, held it, held it... until
the cloud of freezing vapor boiled up and blocked their view-
Chewie yelled; Leia didn't understand his speech, but she understood his
rage, his grief, his feeling of helplessness.
Han!
Stinking, acrid gas spewed up and rolled over them, an icy fog, a roiling
soul-chilling smoke through which Leia saw Vader watching it all under his
inscrutable mask. She heard Threepio sputter, "What-What's going on? Turn
'round! Chewbacca, I can't see!"
Han!
Oh, Han!
Leia sat up abruptly, her pulse racing. The sheets were sweaty and wadded
around her, her night garment damp. She sighed, swung her legs over the side
of the bed, and sat staring at the wall. The chronometer inset showed her it
was three hours past midnight. The air in the room smelled stale. Outside, she
knew, the Tatooine night would be chilly, and she considered opening a vent to
allow some of that coolness inside. At the moment, it seemed too much effort
to bother.
A bad dream, she thought. That's all it was.
But-no. She couldn't pretend it had been only a nightmare. It had been
more than that. It was a memory. It had happened. The man she loved was
embedded in a block of carbonite, had been hauled away like a crate of cargo
by a bounty hunter. Lost to her, somewhere in the vastness of the galaxy.
She felt the emotions well, felt them threaten to spill out in tears, but
she fought it. She was Leia Organa, Princess of the Royal Family of Alderaan,
elected to the Imperial Senate, a worker in the Alliance to Restore the
Republic. Alderaan was gone, destroyed by Vader and the Death Star; the
Imperial Senate was disbanded; the Alliance was outmanned and outgunned ten
thousand to one, but she was who she was. She would not cry.
She would not cry.
She would get even,
Three hours past midnight, and half the planet slept.
Luke Skywalker stood barefoot on the steelcrete platform sixty meters
above the sand, looking at the taut wire. He wore plain black pants and shirt
and a black leather belt. He no longer had a lightsaber, though he'd started
