Captain Solo’s Mandelyr
By Elektra
(elektrasfic
(at) yahoo.co.uk)
Author’s Note: This was a challenge for the Organa-zation list. Can you spot…
1. An inappropriate dance
2. An antique map of the galaxy
3. A clothing forbidden planet
4. An old flame of Han’s
5. A main character playing an instrument?
"It's what?" Leia Organa could not believe her ears.
"Sealed shut. Something must have triggered the pressure alarms, it only does this with a hull breach."
"Which is, of course, a common occurrence on the hangar deck!" From the sound of it, Han figured that she was holding him personally responsible for this mishap. As if he really wanted to be stuck in a confined space with her for any length of time. He decided to ignore her jibes, wrenching off the access panel cover next to the hatchway.
"Aw, Sith!" He couldn't help the pained exclamation.
"What now?" Leia was by his side in an instant, if only to watch his discomfort. He stepped back slightly, holding up the mass of melted circuitry for her inspection. Things were not looking good.
***
Leia tried not to wrinkle her nose at the stench of various components burning. She couldn't even tell what the board was supposed to have been, or even how much of it was coating the inside of the Falcon's hull. She eyed the main hatch with dismay, there was no way in hell anyone was getting through there any time soon. Determined to take some kind of affirmative action, she headed back toward the main hold area, calling over her shoulder.
"What about the airlocks? We should at least be able to switch one to manual."
Han followed, wiping his hands on a filthy rag that, as always, he'd managed to conjure from nowhere.
"Depends if it's just the regulator circuits that are offline. If it was, then we're fine, if not, then it's going to get real cosy." The smug grin on his face gave her an undeniable urge to wipe it off. Hard. She watched him slide into the diagnostic station on the other side of the hold, hoping that for once, this ship had broken in a good way.
The sudden grimace on Han's face told her it hadn't.
***
He just couldn't believe it. According to the comp, not only had the main hatch been fried, but both airlocks and the emergency repair tube hatch were sealed shut against the imaginary depressurisation that it had undergone. He mentally cursed his ship, while she was his pride and joy, she could act like a hungover Kell dragon at times. A bit like the other lady present. This would have had to happen while Princess Leia Organa was here. Pushing himself away from the terminal, he braced himself for the verbal assault that was due to start any moment. It didn't come.
Hoping fervently that she'd suddenly (and quietly) dematerialised, he raised his gaze to where she was standing, to find it met by a pair of piercing brown eyes.
"Nothing?" She asked, in a resigned tone. He shook his head, his gaze tracking back to what the diagnostic was now telling him.
"According to this, the ship thinks that the hull's breached and we're in deep space." He ignored her rolled eyes, however endearing he usually found the gesture. "The hatches can't be cycled until 75% equilibrium is reached outside, but if I can convince it that -- aw hell!"
***
"What now?" Leia was beginning to feel that nothing this ship did could surprise her anymore. Han looked ever so slightly hesitant about telling her.
"The power dissipater crashed." That sentence on its own meant nothing to Leia.
"And?"
"It means, that when the hatches slammed, there was a huge power surge to all the operating circuits." She knew what that meant. Everything that could get them out of this ship was probably vaporised.
She leaned her head back against the bulkhead, trying to think her way out of this situation. Fried circuitry meant a full-scale replacement of boards, and she seriously doubted that even Han carried that many spare parts.
"Can you open the airlocks from the outside?"
"Nah. We took the manual overrides of f the outside a long time back. It makes it harder for people to get in. " Which in Han's line of work was probably an intelligent precaution, unless of course by some cruel twist of fate, you happened to get trapped in the ship thanks to its effectively senile computer. Leia slid down the bulkhead onto the deck, she could feel a headache building up in her temples.
"So we get to sit here and rot?"
"Probably." His answer was terse, thrown over his shoulder as he moved off towards the airlocks. She watched him go, reflecting on just how much the powers of the galaxy seemed to hate her. Of all the times to shut them on a ship together, now was a pretty bad one. They'd barely been speaking for the past week, the only reason she was here today was that she couldn't avoid asking him about a supply run any longer.
Leia would freely admit to anyone who asked that she and the Corellian had more than their fair share of disputes, usually highly public and going nowhere. But the latest one had been different, it had turned into something horribly personal. The thought of his stinging words made her grit her teeth in frustration again, ever since that mission to Lahal, a planet where clothing was forbidden for religious reasons, there had been a new kind of tension between them. It was almost as if Han had decided to change the rules of the game they'd played since Yavin, turning it into more than a battle of wills. Leia had a sinking feeling that the stakes were getting far too high.
***
Han cursed his ship, its systems and whatever cruel twist of fate had landed him here with her. Resisting the impulse to pound the unyielding bulkhead, he turned his anger onto the panelling covering the controls for the upper airlock, wrenching it free with much more force than necessary. As he poked through the molten mess, his mind wandered back to the Ice Princess sitting in his hold. She was obviously about as pleased as he was to be here, and probably for the same reasons. He knew he'd pushed her too far in their last fight, but he hadn't been able to help himself. He was feeling an increasing desire to get to know Leia Organa much better, and the only successful way he'd found of getting past her defences was by hitting a sore spot once in a while. Maybe more than once in a while.
He remembered how she'd looked on Lahal, her hair flowing around her, more for warmth than modesty. How any planet could ban clothing with a climate like that he'd never know. He also remembered trying to fix the Falcon on that particular occasion; arc welding while naked was not something that inspired a sense of safety. And he'd had to take the upper airlock offline…
A slow grin spread across his face. It looked like he had a way out of this after all, providing of course the comm still worked.
***
The sight of Han reappearing from the cockpit with a grin on his face raised Leia's spirits slightly, after all, there were only so many times she could count floor panels.
"Did you find something?" She scrambled to her feet in anticipation. Han turned to her smugly.
"Do you remember on Lahal?" There were lots of things she remembered on Lahal, most of them having nothing to do with the Falcon and a lot to do with her captain. She nodded, pushing one of the more persistent mental images firmly to the back of her mind.
***
"Well, we had to take the airlock offline, which means that though it got fried on the inside, if the outside is rewired then it can be opened from there." Han was interrupted by Leia's whoop of joy, he hadn't expected her to be quite that pleased to get out of his company.
"So I called Chewie, and he and Luke are starting on it right away." He refrained from mentioning the abuse that had been hurled at him over the comm from both parties, each seeming to think that they were top-notch comedians.
Leia nodded in agreement, before and evil twinkle appeared in her eye.
"They'd better, I think I
still have that holo of them on Tanin."
Han laughed admiringly, that threat should definitely get them out of here. Although he couldn't really see why Luke wouldn't want a holo of him and Chewie in Leia's underwear doing some fifth rate dance routine
broadcast to the entire
Still smiling appreciatively he moved into the galley, pulling out a bottle of Corellian brandy from a cupboard. He held it up for her inspection.
"Want a drink?" Leia turned from where she had seated herself at the holochess table and shook her head.
"Just water for me. If we get out of here today I've got a meeting to get to."
"More financial fun?" It wasn't common knowledge
that the
"Dodonna thinks that there's a mistake in the figures…"
"Sweetheart, Dodonna thinks it’s a good idea to plan missions using a map of the galaxy made before even he was born," Han cut in. That made her smile. Dodonna may have been a good officer in the Clone Wars, but he did wield a large amount of power, completely out of proportion to his competence.
"Well, thankfully there's not a lot I can do about it now." She looked at the ceiling of the hold, "how long before you think they can get in?"
"It'll be a while yet, why? Did you have an idea to fill in the time?" He leered at her across the table, amused when she rolled her eyes at him.
"In your dreams, flyboy."
"Always, Princess." She averted her gaze as a blush stole across her face. Han just stared at her, captivated by her response.
***
Leia could feel his gaze boring into the side of her head, even as she mentally cursed her fair complexion for giving her away so easily. Uncomfortable with being the sole focus of his attention, she got up from her seat, crossing the hold to the storage lockers. She could feel his eyes tracking her, but she wouldn't look round. She knew that if she met that look then she'd lose it completely. She had to distract him before this got any further. A dent in the wall above her caught her attention. Leia knew that the Falcon had taken many a beating, but most of that damage was confined to the outside of the ship. It didn't look like a blaster scar either, more an impact crater. It could provide Han with an opportunity to start on tall tales of the good old days.
"What’s that?" she asked, pointing to the dent.
"Ex-girlfriend," he replied, deadpan. Leia realised that she didn't want to know what the two of them had been doing to dent the wall like that.
"She, uh, threw a toolbox at my head." Leia laughed at his apparent discomfort. Han shot her a dirty look in return. Pleased with the information, Leia turned her attention to the lockers by her feet, hoping to dig up some more pieces of information on this puzzling man. She heard Han's footsteps behind her, heading toward the cockpit.
"I'm just going to see how Luke and Chewie are getting on, okay?" She didn’t reply, fascinated as she was by the incredible amount of junk Han seemed to have collected. She could see why he hadn't jumped on her for digging in them. He probably saw it as a chance for someone to do some housekeeping for him.
As she rummaged, Leia found mostly
broken tools, thrown in there for repairs when time allowed and forgotten.
However, in between the various implements, she found small clues as to who Han
Solo was. An Imperial beret with the badge ripped off, a set of shipping
permits for the Corporate Sector, an impressive collection of wanted posters,
all stating that while alive was preferable, dead was no problem. 'What the hell have you been up to, Solo?'
She was about to end her search when she felt something large at the back of one of the lockers. Clearing some of the clutter around it, she could see it was made of real wood, not the more common synthetic substitute. It finally came loose after some persistent pulling in a shower of junk, the sudden release causing Leia to fall backwards onto the deck. As she sat up, she pulled her prize closer to her for inspection. It looked like some kind of stringed instrument, with a fingerboad and tuning pegs.
Fascinated with her find, she moved to the couch to investigate it further, noting that, despite being extremely grubby, there was no damage to the instrument itself. She placed it over her lap and delicately plucked a string, listening to the note it produced. It could use a bit of tuning she decided. Long ago, her aunts had decided that musical talent was desirable in what they called a 'Proper Princess', and so began the long string of teachers on various instruments. Leia had tried, more out of guilt than anything else, and had succeeded, to the complete surprise of everyone at the Palace. She remembered the way that her father would ask her to play for him in the evenings, on those rare occasions when there was just the two of them together. She blinked back the sudden rush of tears, looking down again at the instrument in her hands.
"Where in hell did you find that?" Han's voice startled her out of her melancholy, she quickly composed herself before answering. He didn't give her chance to get the words out though, moving to her and lifting the instrument out of her hands. She could see by the smile on his face and the delicate, almost caressing way that he held it that he'd genuinely thought it lost. Han Solo a musician? The picture fit together much better than she'd expected it to. Han looked as if he expected her to start laughing at him any second now.
"Show me how," she asked gently.
***
Han was surprised by her request, and yet pleased that she'd taken an interest in it. He settled himself on the couch next to her, causing her to shift up to make room. He placed the instrument across his lap, and started to adjust the tuning of the strings.
"What's it called?" Leia's curiosity was obviously growing.
"A mandelyr, it's an old Corellian instrument." He plucked the second string, adjusting its tuning until it made a pleasant chord with the first. The third one was tricky, and he fiddled before deciding that he'd finally got it right. He strummed all three to check the balance of sounds.
"The third one's sharp." He should have known that she'd have a perfect ear as well. He could see her cheeky grin out of the corner of his eye. It felt good to see her smile.
"You an expert Princess?" he teased, half guessing the answer already.
"I used to be." He felt a flash of guilt for the faraway look of longing and sorrow that appeared in her eyes. She'd probably been playing instruments since she was in her cradle, had the best teachers money could buy. He decided not to delve into his repertoire of drinking songs at the moment.
To distract her, he placed the mandelyr across her lap, deciding that the last two strings wouldn't be needed anyway. He started to point out the basics to her.
"Let's start with an easy one. Your base note is on the second string," he nodded approval as she plucked that one, "and it goes up with four notes on a string. So for the next one, you move your finger to here and then pluck."
After a while, Han had figured that Leia was well on her way to becoming better than him, so he decided to teach her a tune. It was easier for him to demonstrate, he told himself, and he wanted her to be able to see, so he slid close to her and placed his arm around her to reach the strings. He felt her tense up at his closeness, he wondered if he'd imagined her slight gasp. Resting his chin on her shoulder, he began to gently strum a chord, trying desperately to ignore the scent of her.
***
Leia was beginning to feel completely distracted, the sense of Han Solo almost surrounding her was far more pleasant than she could have imagined. She tried to focus on his playing, but instead found herself fascinated by the deft movements of his hands over the strings. To try and get the lesson back on track, she moved her hands up to emulate his, almost gasping at the electricity that flowed when he moved her fingers into the correct position. His right hand rested next to hers, it brushed against her occasionally, sending small shocks up her arm. She felt flushed, almost overheating with his closeness and his small caresses. Part of her mind was desperately looking for an escape, another was just as desperately hoping that they could dispense with the lesson soon and get onto something much more pleasurable. As a whole Leia was just confused completely by the effect the Corellian seemed to be having on her. He'd been nice to her for less than ten minutes and already she found it addictive. She had no idea where this would end up should it continue.
Almost hypnotically she turned to face him, resting her hands on his biceps. Neither of them moved, their gazes locked in a silent confrontation. She knew it was corny, but she couldn't decide what colour his eyes were. They seemed to shift before her eyes, drawing her in. Without thinking, she leaned towards him, wondering what those lips tasted like…
A sudden clang from behind them signalled that Chewie and Luke had managed to cycle the hatch manually, causing them both to jump. Leia felt a wave of disappointment rush through her, as Han stood, removing his warmth. Almost sadly she placed the mandelyr on the holochess table, wondering when she'd have chance to make music again.