Star Wars - The Courtship of Princess Leia

by Dave Wolverton

  "All right, you can accompany me," Leia said, and she admired Isolder for having the courtesy to ask to accompany her. Han would have demanded it. She wondered if Isolder's good manners were a natural part of his personality or if they had become ingrained simply because he was reared in a matriarchal society where women were shown greater respect. Whatever the case, she found it charming.

  He took Leia's arm, and they strolled out to the curb, flanked by Isolder's amazon bodyguards, to wait under the marble porte cochere for Leia's hover car. Old Threkin Horm came humming up the street in his repulsor chair. The broad streets here were fairly empty at this time in the morning, a couple of Ishi Tibs strolling, an old droid painting the lampposts. Threkin greeted them casually, as if he just happened to be passing by, but he did not volunteer to leave. Instead, he thumbed the switch that stopped his chair and just sat, waiting for the hover car. "I hear that it's such a nice day up top," Threkin said, nodding toward the towering buildings above them, hover cars moving through slants of sunlight, "that I'm almost tempted to go sunbathing. Almost."

  Isolder tenderly gripped Leia's arm, and Leia suddenly wished that Threkin would just get lost. She looked up at Isolder, and he smiled down as if sharing her thought.

  "Ah, here's your car now!" Threkin said. A black hover car plowed down the street, slowed, swerved in close. The tinted glass in the passenger's window shattered as someone shoved a blaster barrel through.

  "Down!" one of Isolder's bodyguards shouted, and the woman leaped in front of Leia as the first volley of red bolts cut through the air. One of the bolts caught the woman in the chest, lifted her and threw her back. Gouts of blood glittered in the air, and Leia smelled the familiar stench of ozone and charred flesh.

  Threkin Horm cried out and hit a button on his repulsor chairhe went hurtling south as fast as if he were in a land speeder, shouting at the top of his lungs.

  Isolder pushed Leia back behind one of the broad pillars of the porte cochere and was a blur of motion as he whipped off his belt. Part of ita small gold shieldhe held in his left hand, and from somewhere he drew a small blaster. Leia heard a humming noise and a second volley issued from the carbut the red flaming bolts hit the air in front of them, exploded harmlessly.

  A thin, blue, circular haze shimmered before Isolder, white at the edges, like a ring around a moon on a cold night. Personal shielding , she realized. Leia was suddenly conscious that the remaining amazon bodyguard was behind her, taking momentary advantage of the shielding to shout into a hand-held comlink for a backup.

  A burst of blaster fire whizzed past Leia's head, hitting the marble above them, and Leia turned. The droid that had been painting on the corner fired a blaster at them.

  "Astarta! Get the droid!" Isolder shouted. The prince's shield couldn't cover them in the crossfire, and they couldn't count on the marble pillars for much protection. Leia lunged for the dead amazon's blaster, fired off two quick rounds, enough so that the droid hid behind his lamppost. It was only then that Leia registered the oddly erect main body, the bullet-shaped head and long legs. An Eliminator assassin droid, model 434. Astarta joined her in opening fire on it.

  The hover car stopped, and two men leaped out, firing. Leia knew that Isolder's personal shield couldn't hold for more than a couple more seconds. Personal shielding tended to provide minimal protection, because you couldn't get a power source strong enough to deflect enemy fire and still last for more than a moment. The second danger came from the shield itselfthe energy shield got so hot that the wielders risked frying themselves if they accidentally touched it. Isolder held the shield before him, lunged at his attackers.

  Two more bolts whizzed past his head, and Astarta fired. Leia looked just in time to see the amazon's single bolt hit the assassin droid at midtorso. Metal bits flew into the air, followed by a massive explosion as the droid's power plant exploded.

  The prince swung his shield as a weapon, and its energy field knocked his attackers backward. Blue sparks erupted in the air as it made contact. One man cried out and dropped his blaster, holding his burned face. Isolder raised the shield over his head, spun it and tossed it at the last attacker. The shielding caught the assassin in the chest, sliced through him like a lightsaber, and then Isolder stood alone with his blaster, aiming it at the remaining assassin, who was screaming in agony, clutching his face. He once had been a handsome man, Leia thought. Too handsome. A Hapan.

  "Who hired you?" Isolder demanded.

  The assassin screamed out, "Llarel! Remarme!"

  "Teba illarven?" Isolder asked in Hapan.

  "At! Remarme!" the assassin begged.

  Isolder kept the gun leveled at the assassin a second longer, and the man shouted again. A piece of burned flesh tore away from his face. The man leaped into the gutter for his gun, and Isolder hesitated. The assassin fumbled for the gun, pointed it at his own face, and pulled the trigger.

  Leia turned away. Suddenly Isolder's bodyguard was pulling at Leia's arm, yelling, "Inside, get inside!" and Isolder grabbed Leia, took her back into the house. There was an alcove by the door where guests could hang their coats, and Isolder pulled Leia toward the alcove, then stood protecting her, breathing hard and looking out into the hallway. The bodyguard, Astarta, had bolted the door. As on most of the consulates, Leia's door was made of ancient blastplate and could withstand even a sustained assault. The bodyguard was yelling into her communicator again. Leia couldn't understand Hapan, but the guard was making a lot of noise.

  "Who sent them?" Leia asked.

  "He wouldn't say," Isolder answered briefly. "He only begged me to kill him."

  Outside, through the walls, Leia could hear New Republic forces shouting as they sought to secure the area.

  Isolder stood panting, listening intently, probably trying to eavesdrop on both his bodyguard and the police outside, make sure it was safe. He held Leia lightly, protectively, and her heart hammered. She pushed at him gently, and said, "Thank you for saving me."

  Prince Isolder focused on the sounds around him so strongly that at first he seemed not to notice that she was pushing him away. Then he looked down into her eyes. He lifted her chin and kissed her forcefully, passionately, and stepped in closer so that the entire length of him pressed against her.

  Leia's mind seemed to go white, and her whole body felt electric. Her jaw was trembling, but she kissed him long and slowly, the seconds ticking away far slower than the pounding in her chest. With each second she could think of only one thing, I'm betraying Han. I don't want to hurt Han. But then Isolder whispered into her ear, demanding. "Come away with me to Hapes! Come see the worlds you will rule!"

  Leia found herself crying, had never really imagined that she would let something like this happen. But at that moment, whatever attachment she had ever felt for Han suddenly seemed to become as insubstantial as fog, as a gentle white mist, and Isolder was the sun, burning it all away. With tears running down her cheeks she tangled her arms around Isolder and promised, "I'll come with you!"

  Chapter 6

  I don't know why I asked you here," Han said to Threepio, waving his hand in an expansive gesture. They sat in a booth in a cantina on Coruscant. It was a tame place by any standardsclear air, couples dancing slowly to the sound of Ludurian nose flutes.

  Chewbacca looked up from his drink with weary eyes and growled. Chewie knew Han was lying. He knew exactly why Han asked Threepio there.

  Threepio glanced at both of them, and his logic drive told him to probe further. "Is there anything I can help you with, sir?"

  "Well, see . . . you've been closer to Leia over the last couple of days than I have," Han said, hunching his shoulders. "She hasn't exactly been happy with me . . . and she's spending all of her time with that prince, and after what happened to them this morning, they are so tightly surrounded by bodyguards that you can hardly get a glimpse of them. And now Leia left me a holo message to say she might be going to Hapes."

  Threepio studied the words for 3.12 seconds, s
earching through layer after layer of innuendo and unspoken meanings. "I see!" he said. "You two are having diplomatic problems!" Although Threepio was a translator with some of the finest programming in the galaxy, his human friends seldom called on his talents when dealing with their own complex emotional entanglements. Threepio perceived immediately that Han was placing an inordinate amount of trust in his abilities. This would be a rare opportunity to prove himself. "You've certainly come to the right droid! How may I help you?"

  "I don't know . . ." Han said. "You see them together a lot. I was just wondering, you know, how things are going. Are they really getting that close?"

  Threepio immediately accessed all visual records where he'd seen Leia and Isolder together over the last couple of days dinners three nights in a row, council meetings where the two of them discussed potential difficulties in negotiating a settlement between the Verpines and the Barabels, just walking, dancing at a party for a minor dignitary. "Well, sir, during their first day together, Prince Isolder kept an average distance of point five six two decimeters between himself and Leia," See-Threepio said, "but that space is closing rapidly. I would say that the two of them are becoming very close indeed."

  "How close?" Han asked.

  "Over the past eight standard hours, the two have been touching nearly eighty-six percent of the time." Threepio's infrared optical sensors picked up a slight brightening as blood rushed to Han's face. He quickly apologized, "I'm sorry if this news disturbs you."

  Han downed a mug of Corellian rum. Since it was his second in the past few minutes, Threepio quickly calculated Han's body mass and the alcohol content of the rum and decided that Han was more than mildly inebriated. Yet the primary manifestation of the intoxication seemed to be only a slight slowing of his speech.

  Han placed a hand on Threepio's metal arm. "You're a good droid, Threepio. You're a good droid. There's not many droids I like as much as I like you. I don't know, what would you do if some droid prince was trying to muscle in on the woman you loved?"

  Threepio's sensors picked up heavy emanations of alcohol from Han's breath, and he leaned away to avoid any corrosion to his processors.

  "The first thing I would do," Threepio proffered, "would be to gauge the opposition and see what I have to give that the opposing party does not. Any good counselor droid could tell you that."

  "Uh-huh," Han said. "So, what do I have to offer Leia that Isolder doesn't?"

  "Well, let's see . . ." Threepio said. "Isolder is extremely wealthy, generous, well-mannered, andat least by human standardsattractive. So, now all that we need to do is see what you have to offer that he doesn't have." Threepio searched his files for several moments, overheating his memory drives.

  "Oh dear!" he whined at last. "I see your problem! Well, there's always emotional attachment, I suppose. I'm certain that Leia won't forget about you just because a better man has come along!"

  "I love her," Han said emphatically. "I love her more than I love my own life, more than breath. When she touches me I feel like . . . I don't know how to say it."

  "Have you told her?" Threepio asked.

  "Like I say," Han sighed, "I just don't know how to say it. You're a counselor droid." He poured another rum, just stared at it. "Do you know how to say it? Do you know any songs or poems?"

  "Indeed! I carry masterpieces from over five million cultures in my memory banks. Here is one of my favorites, from the Tchuukthai

  "Shah rupah shantenar

  shan erah pathar

  thulath entarpa

  Uta, emarrah spar tane

  arratha urr thur shaparrah

  Uta, Uta, sahvarahhhh

  harahh sahvarauul e thutha

  res tana hah durrrr "

  Han listened to the gentle music of the words, the soft curling snarls, the muted thunder. "That sounds pretty good," Han admitted. "What does it mean?"

  See-Threepio translated it as closely as possible.

  "When lightning rushes over the evening plains,

  I return to my cold den

  with a thula rat in my jaws.

  Then, I smell your sweet spoor

  smeared on the bones by the cave's maw.

  Then, then my head fins begin to tremble

  And my tail sways majestically as my mating howl

  begins to fill the hollow of the night "

  Han stopped him with a wave of the hand. "All right, all right, I get the picture."

  "There's much, much more," Threepio assured him. "It really is a beautiful epic, all five hundred thousand lines of it!"

  "Yeah, yeah, thanks," Han said, sounding as disheartened as ever. He sat, listening to a foursome who had just sat down at another table, and Threepio realized that over the past minute, Han had been focusing on them. Threepio downloaded his auditory tracks and played back the conversation of those at the other table to find out what so intrigued Han.

  FIRST WOMAN "Oh, look, there's General Solo!"

  SECOND WOMAN "Gee, he looks pretty bad. Look at those bags under his eyes."

  FIRST MAN "Kind of scruffy looking, if you ask me." second woman "It makes you wonder what Leia ever saw in him, anyway."

  FIRST WOMAN "Now that prince from Hapes, he is so gorgeous! Down on Coruscant, street merchants are selling posters of him!"

  SECOND MAN "Yeah, I bought one for my sister."

  FIRST MAN "As for me, I'd take one of his bodyguards any day."

  FIRST WOMAN "With a body like his, I'd kill to be his guard."

  SECOND WOMAN "Well, you can guard that body all you wantI'd rather be his masseuse. Can you imagine kneading that hot flesh all day long?"

  Han said angrily, "Look, Threepio, why don't you keep an eye on Leia. If she asks about me, tell her I miss her. All right?"

  Threepio stored the request. "As you wish, sir," he said, rising to leave the bar.

  Chewbacca growled a good-bye to the spy. Threepio made his way out into the streets, wandered down chasms toward one of Coruscant's central computers that had a reputation as something of a gossip. Such a computer would gladly tell a droid secrets that it would never reveal to a biological life form. So Han needed a diplomatic counselor. This would be a wonderful opportunity for See-Threepio to prove himself! A wonderful opportunity!

  Threkin Horm looked his bestdressed in a long, dark green waistcoat and white pants, his thinning hair meticulously curled so that ringlets danced around his ears. Leia noticed that he didn't look as fat as usual when he stood under his own power, and he was standing now at the podium. "As you all know, I have called this session of the Alderaanian Council so that we can discuss preparations for Princess Leia's marriage to Prince Isolder, the Chume'da of Hapes."

  The crowd erupted into vigorous applause. The plush council room with its curtained walls and plum-colored chairs could hold nearly two thousand people, yet only a hundred members of the council were present. The rest of the seating was occupied by curious onlookers, while the back of the hall was a gleaming forest of metallic media droids. Leia sat in her seat on the front row, only a couple of meters from where Threkin stood on the podium. Han sat in a back row, dressed casually in a white shirt and vest, looking very much the way he had when they'd first met, years ago. Chewbacca sat beside him.

  Leia had intended to discuss her plans here bluntly but hadn't been prepared for so much media attention. In the past day she suddenly found her entire life in the spotlightthe attempted assassination of the morning before had been covertly filmed from eight different angles and was playing on all the stations. New Republic Intelligence officers had swept the embassy for bugs this morning and found microphones with open channels to fifteen networks. It seemed that the only thing the public liked better than a royal marriage was a royal assassination, and the media hounds were lapping this up. Leia's only consolation was that if another assassin struck, he or she would have to shoot through the camera operators to get her.

  Ah well, best to get this over with. "Threkin, members of the council," Lei
a said, standing. "I would like to thank you all for coming here, but don't you think this is a bit premature? I agree that this seems like a marvelous offer, but I haven't consented to marry Prince Isolder yet." She sat down again.

  "Oh, Leia," Threkin said with a condescending smile. "Often in the past your clear head and cautiousness have served you well, but in this particular case . . . ?" He shrugged. "I've seen how you two look at each other, and you have agreed to a six-month excursion with Isolder, touring the worlds of Hapes. I think it's a grand idea! It will give you and Isolder a little time to grow closer while the royal house of Hapes gets an opportunity to see how well that pretty little head of yours wears a crown!" The crowd tittered with nervous laughter at the jest. "Let's put it before the council." Threkin waved at the seated assemblage. "Don't you all think that Leia and Isolder make a beautiful couple?"

  Most of the professional politicians remained somewhat somber, but many of the traders snickered while members of the media and audience cheered and clapped. This didn't look at all to Leia like a normal council meeting, this looked like a carnival.

  "You can't plan my wedding without me!" Leia interrupted, rising from her seat, astonished at Threkin's audacity. "Isolder understands, as I'm sure that you must, that we aren't engagedeither formally or informally. I'm going to Hapes simply to . . ."

  And she realized the truth. Isolder was taking her to Hapes so that the planetary dignitaries she might someday rule could study her, measure her for the crown. And she was going so that she could have time to get closer to Isolder. It was just as Threkin said. No matter how she might try to deny it, everyone else in the galaxy could see what was happening. She glanced over at Han. He looked miserable. She sat down, tried not to blush, intensely conscious that this encounter was already being carried live over dozens of news nets. She knew she should argue against Threkin, if only to save face, but right now she just couldn't think. For the first time in her life, Leia was at a loss for words.