Never Tell Me the Odds
By Elektra
(elektrasfic
(at) yahoo.co.uk)
The Millennium Falcon glided gracefully through space ¾ or at least it glided as gracefully
as was possible for a beat-up freighter caught on the wrong end of an Imperial
laser burst.
A limp is
more like it, mused Leia Organa,
one-time princess and senator, now lube-covered crew member. If there had ever
been any doubt that her mechanical skills might be less than adequate, it had
been fully erased after the activities of the previous shift, a fact that was
had contributed to her present bad mood. She didn't like to fail, especially in
front of Corellians who possessed strange psychic
powers that enabled them to push her buttons at exactly the wrong time.
She grabbed a greasy rag from a
nearby toolbox and wiped her hands. At least, she could at least keep up a
pretense of cleanliness, although she was sure her hair was going to stink for
a week.
Stepping back, she admired her
somewhat amateur handiwork. Solo, you had
better be damn nice to me for this, she thought, rubbing her shoulders in a
vain attempt to ease the tension that seemed to have taken root there. Gazing
around the small hold, she realised that she felt
almost desperate, hoping that something would draw her attention ¾ any small, pointless, even smelly
task. Anything, in fact, to keep her from having to see Han.
She freely admitted to herself that
she was still angry. Angry with him for having caused her
to get this keyed up, and angry with herself for allowing his arrogant sniping
to affect her. Steeling herself internally, she turned toward the hatch.
She'd heard violence was an
excellent source of stress relief.
*****
Han sat in the cockpit, alternately
cajoling and cursing his ship. Every time he thought he'd solved a problem, he
found his solution seemed to be the precursor of at least six more. Resignedly,
he flipped a switch on the console, half-expecting what normally happened when
he flipped switches — more red lights, alarms, or as happened one time, the
eruption of the ship's entire fire prevention system. That time, he'd come back
to the cockpit to find Chewie covered in the sticky
foam that was meant to extinguish fires.
Now, though, his eyes widened in
surprise at the readings ¾ it looked as if
something were actually working! Reading through the diagnostic, he realised the operational component was actually the system Leia had been working on. The slightest mention of her name
— even in his own head — caused him to abruptly lose his train of thought.
Just one
more stubborn woman in my life, he thought. The engines groaned worryingly. And not the only one causing
problems on this trip.
The Falcon he at least understood. Although he had to admit that his
ship couldn't hold a candle to Leia Organa wearing Rebel fatigues and arguing stock prices with
Gorlassians. Now, that had been some trip.
He still felt like the galaxy's
greatest clod for having blown what had been a reasonable outing by arguing
with her over his lack of commitment to the rebel cause. His exact words had
been something to the effect of, In my life, Princess,
charity is letting someone know you're sorry before double-, triple-, or quadruple-crossing
them.
The memory made him suddenly angry
again, and in self-disgust, he savagely pulled on an exposed circuit hanging
within reach.
Damn! The ship came to a very
abrupt halt. Han was thrown against the instrument board,
causing hell only knew how much damage to those carefully maintained systems.
Easing himself up, he turned to see a very irate Alderaani
desperately attempting to disentangle herself from the wires outside the
cockpit. He rushed to help her to her feet, brushing aside the microcircuits
that held her prisoner. The look in her eyes was bone-chilling.
"Captain, if you feel the need
to practise emergency stops, the standardprocedure
is, I believe, to..." The whine of the Falcon's
engines drowned out the rest of her diatribe. Consolingly, Han reached up and
brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Hoping she wouldn't make a lunge
for his jugular, he smiled apologetically.
*****
Leia looked into his eyes,
her heart beginning to beat faster. What would he do next? She knew she was
acting like a lovesick teenager, but some contrary part of her brain refused to
allow her quickened breathing to pace itself. Standing
there, she allowed herself the luxury of savouring
the warmth of his hand near her cheek and wondering idly what colour his eyes were. She decided that when he looked at
her like that, she didn't really care what colour his
eyes were. It was almost as if he were looking into her than at her; she felt
as if he could see every secret she'd ever hidden.
She panicked suddenly, unsure where
this train of thought would lead her, and looked away, stepping sideways to
avoid his gaze.
"Sorry 'bout that." His
voice rumbled through the still air between them.
She knew that he was apologising, not only for dumping her in the ship's
innards, but also for their argument earlier. She decided to accept this rare
turn of events without comment, if only because she wasn't sure that her voice
would co-operate. Instead, she nodded and gave him a small smile, knowing he'd
understand the goodwill the gesture implied.
Not wanting to push his luck too many times in
one day, Han stood back and raised his hand towards the lounge area.
"C'mon, I've got something to
show you," he said teasingly. Leia raised one
eyebrow. "Hey, I promise ¾ it's just what you
need."
With a theatrical sigh, the princess
pushed herself off the wall she was leaning against and preceded him to the
table, where he invited her to be seated.
"This had better be good."
"Your Highness, I'm always good."
His low reply made her flush. She was very acutely aware of base gossip on his
'talents'. Feeling a bit cornered, she defended the only way she knew how.
"I'm assuming mechanical repair
was not one of the criteria in that assessment?"
Han just turned and gave her a
wickedly innocent look that made her heart skip a beat. "Wouldn't you like
to know?" He headed for the galley, leaving her open-mouthed and shocked,
and unable to come up with a retort quick enough to maintain her dignity.
A few minutes later, he returned
with two glasses of wine and a deck of sabacc cards.
Sliding onto the couch opposite her, he handed her a glass across the game
table. She took a hasty sip of the dark liquid so that she wouldn't have to
speak immediately, and her eyes widened in surprise and delight as she recognised the distinctive taste. She thoughtfully set the
glass on the table, wondering where in space this man had appropriated that
vintage. Perhaps she didn't want to know.
He saw her questioning look.
"Yeah, Highnessness, just 'cause its good doesn't make it legal."
She hadn't wanted to know. But as
he'd already opened the bottle, she reasoned, it would be a terrible waste for
her not to drink it. Opportunist, a
disbelieving voice at the back of her mind snapped. Ignoring the annoying
tendency of her subconscious to remind her of her ethical and moral beliefs
when she was trying to not remember them, she brought her mind back to the
present.
Han was shuffling the deck, adeptly
turning and replacing the cards. She found herself admiring the strength of his
hands. The way the tendons on his knuckles flexed as they moved, the slight
caressing movement his fingertips made over the cards. Those hands fascinated
her. They fit their owner, she
decided ¾ confusingly versatile. She managed pull her thoughts back to a
semi-normal pattern as he offered the cards to her to cut. She noted the design
on the backs, surprised to see it.
"A Corellian deck? I thought nobody played by those
rules anymore."
"You'd be surprised ¾ it's just the Empire's way of
making themselves just a little more unpopular."
Leia remembered that the only
reason this particular deck had been banned by the government was the presence
of such cards as Freedom, and Equality. She herself had played with them as a
child, enthralled by the story behind each card. She sipped her wine while
watching him deal, noting the small scar on the back of his right hand.
When she picked up her cards and
inspected them , she was pleased to discover that she
had a reasonable hand ¾ the Jedi, the four of sabres and the eight of staves. A grand
total of eighteen. Good in some circumstances, but she very much doubted
it was good enough to beat Han. But therein lay half the fun of the game.
*****
Six rounds later, Leia was beginning to wonder why she'd agreed to this game
in the first place. Or even if she had agreed to this game in the first place. Han had won
every round so far, by more than a large margin. This hand didn't bode well,
either. She held the Queen of Air and Darkness, a strong card. She also held
the Jedi Knight, which reduced the strength of her queen. She remembered that
the old story of the Knight explained that he wasn't strong enough for the
queen despite his love for her, and that all his attentions caused a depletion in her strength, because he didn't let her
realize her own potential. The knight had been unable to handle her, because
although he had been quick enough to recognise her
strengths, he was unable to understand her weaknesses. In the Alderaaii version, the queen ended her days in madness. Leia wondered if the Corellians
had come up with a happier ending. Her final card was Equality, which took
power from her hand even more. Han was going to have a walkover on this one.
She'd almost given up, when the randomiser gave an
incongruent beep, signifying the card changes. Han had already laid out his
hand on the table, a good score of twenty-two materialising
on the card faces. Leia decided to trust blindly in
fate and laid out her cards without looking.
First she saw the Queen again,
strong and proud, but yet Leia could almost see the
loneliness behind those holographic eyes. She realised
that she probably knew that woman better as herself. She then turned over the
Rogue, a wild card, assigned any particular value
depending on the combination he ended up in. She groaned inwardly ¾ those two in the same hand would
surely mean she would lose. She could see a victory smile beginning to hover on
Han's face. Resignedly, she turned over the last card. Her hand almost froze. A
brilliant star shone in the centre of a rotating galaxy, but if you looked
carefully
enough, then you saw that it
wasn't a star, but a diant. Eternity.
She looked across at Han.
He smiled back at her. "You
win, Your Worship. Best hand in the deck!"
She grinned back, and held out her
hand. "Pay up Solo ¾ you can afford it since
you've won so much tonight from me!"
He made a show of grudgingly
checking his pockets, but the arrival alarm cut off all possibility of her
collecting her winnings at that moment. He made a semi-apologetic show before
dashing to the safety of the cockpit. But for once, her mind wasn't on the fact
that she'd beaten him. Instead she picked up the Queen and smiled.
She remembered the tale of the
lonely strong woman, and the scoundrel who'd stolen her heart. She replaced the
card on the table; the odds of that happening were astronomical. And somewhere
in the back of her mind, a deep Corellian voice
stated flatly, "Never tell me the odds!"