Vision of the future

'Okay, that does it,' Han called. 'I'm on my way, sweetheart.' Leia nodded, swiping a hand across her eyes again and returning her attention to the status boards. The sublight drive was out, but the indicators weren't showing how much actual damage they'd taken. The repulsorlifts were in much the same shape; the doomed fighter must have hit the Falcon's underside and scraped its way back to the stern.

Hit off-center, too—the ship was still doing a slow spin. She keyed the auxiliaries to try to straighten them out, noticing only then that the hand she'd swiped across her eyes had a bright streak of blood on it. Stretching out to the Force, she probed the injury and set the healing process in motion.

And then Han was there, dropping into the pilot's seat beside her. 'Okay, let's see,' he muttered, keying his own status board. He glanced at her, did a startled double take as he spotted the blood on her forehead. 'Leia—!'

'I'm all right—it's just a cut,' Leia assured him. 'What are we going to do about the drive?'

'Fix it, that's what,' Han grunted, climbing out of the seat again. 'And we'd better do it fast.' He took off at a dead run. Leia finished adjusting the Falcon's rotation and looked up again—

And caught her breath. Pakrik Minor, which had been uncomfortably large during the battle, now filled that whole section of the sky.

And was getting closer.

The Falcon had been with the two of them all their married life, and with Han even longer than that, and Leia knew it would hurt him terribly to let the ship go. But it was the height of foolishness to hold so closely to any possession that it killed you. Grimacing, she keyed for escape pod activation. Nothing happened.

'Oh, no,' she breathed, keying it again, and again. 'No.' But the result didn't change. The escape pods were inoperative.

And she and Han were trapped in a ruined ship, plummeting toward the ground. Swallowing hard, she keyed the comm. It would be close, but with the jamming now gone, maybe help could get to them in time.

But the comm indicator glowed red, one more casualty of the doomed fighter's impact. They were cut off, and all alone.

And they were about to die.

Leia took a deep breath, stretching out to the Force to silence the fear. Now was no time to panic. 'Han, the escape pods aren't functional,' she called, keeping her voice as steady as possible.

'I know,' his taut voice came back. 'I spotted that when I was up there. Try the restart booster.' She found the key, pressed it. 'Anything?'

'Not yet,' he said. 'Let me try something else.'

'You want me to come help you?'

'No, I need you up there at the controls,' Han said. 'And keep an eye out—if you spot another ship, try firing an emergency signal blast from the quads.'

And hope that any such convenient ships weren't running backup for the last group. 'Right.' The minutes dragged on. The red lights began to wink tentatively back to green as Han worked; but not enough of them, and not nearly fast enough. A whistling sound, soft at first but growing ever louder, began to fill the cockpit as the Falcon pushed its way through Pakrik Minor's upper atmosphere without the benefit of shields to dampen the sound and the friction. The deep black of space above her began to take on a slight haze as they drove ever deeper, and Leia could feel the temperature slowly edging up. Below her, the planetary features were beginning to take on form: here a lake, over there a mountain ridge, directly beneath and ahead a wide and fertile valley.

'Try the restart again,' Han said into the silence of Leia's thoughts, his voice startling her.

'Right.' She keyed the switch, and this time there was a tentative answering rumble from the drive.

'All right, easy,' Han warned. 'Don't try to stop us all at once—this jury-rig can't handle too much. Just ease in some power and see if you can start slowing us down. And if you've got any Jedi tricks up your sleeve, it's about time to give them a try.'

'I'm already trying,' Leia said, her heart aching within her. She had been trying, in fact, ever since realizing the full extent of the danger they were in. She'd tried to contact any Force-sensitives in the system, had quieted the distractions in Han's mind so that he could concentrate better on his work, had stretched out to the Force looking for guidance or inspiration. But none of it seemed to have helped; and with an almost overpowering sense of helplessness she knew there was nothing more she could do. She couldn't repair the sublight engines with a wave of her hand, or stop the Falcon's inexorable fall planetward, or call for help where none existed.