Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 05_ Agents of Chaos 02_ Jedi Eclipse - James Luceno [7]
“You’re worried about my hairstyle,” she fulminated, “when people here need immediate medical attention?”
“But your cheek,” one of the women said, chagrined.
Leia had forgotten all about the shrapnel. Of its own accord her hand reenacted the movement it had made earlier, fingertips tracing the raised edges of the furrow that had been opened. She exhaled wearily and dropped cross-legged to the deck.
“I’m sorry.”
Silently she allowed the wound to be ministered to, suddenly aware of just how exhausted she was. When C-3PO and Olmahk came within earshot, she said, “I can’t remember when I last slept.”
“That would be fifty-seven hours, six minutes ago, Mistress,” C-3PO supplied. “Standard time, of course. If you’d prefer, I could express the duration by other time parts, in which case—”
“Not now, Threepio,” Leia said weakly. “In fact, maybe you should immerse yourself in an oil bath before your moving parts freeze up.”
C-3PO cocked his head to one side, arms nearly akimbo. “Why, thank you, Mistress Leia. I was beginning to fear I would never again hear those words spoken.”
“And you,” Leia said, glancing at Olmahk. “See to washing that Yuuzhan Vong’s blood off your chin.”
The Noghri muttered truculently, then nodded curtly and moved off with C-3PO.
Fifty-seven hours, Leia thought.
Truth be told, she hadn’t slept soundly since Han had left Coruscant almost a month earlier. A day didn’t pass when she didn’t wonder what he was up to, although ostensibly he was searching for Roa, his onetime mentor, who had been captured by the Yuuzhan Vong during a raid on Ord Mantell’s orbital facility, the Jubilee Wheel, as well as for members of his new Ryn comrade’s scattered clan. Was it possible, Leia wondered, that the Droma mentioned on Gyndine was the same one Han was suddenly running with?
Reports would occasionally reach her that the Millennium Falcon had been spotted in this system or that one, but Han had yet to contact her personally.
He hadn’t been the same since Chewbacca’s death—not that anyone or anything had, especially occurring when it did, at the start of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, and largely at their hands. It was natural that Han should mourn Chewie’s passing more than anyone, but even Leia had been surprised by the direction he had taken—or the one his unabashed grief had driven him to take. Where Han had always been cheerfully roguish, there was an angry gravity to him now. Anakin had been the first target of his father’s outrage; then everyone close to Han had gradually fallen victim to it.
Experts spoke of stages of grief, as if people could be expected to move through them routinely. But in Han the stages were jumbled together—anger, denial, despair—without a hint of resignation, let alone acceptance. Han’s stasis was what worried Leia more than anything. Though he would be the first to deny it—vociferously, at that—his grief had fueled a kind of recidivism, a return to the Han of old: the lone Solo, who guarded his sensitivity by keeping himself at arm’s length, who claimed not to care about anyone but himself, who allowed thrill to substitute for feeling.
When Droma—another adventurer—had first entered Han’s orbit, Leia had feared the worst. But in getting to know the Ryn, even slightly, she had taken heart. While not a replacement for Chewie—for how could anyone replace him?—Droma at least presented Han with the option of forging a new relationship, and if Han could manage that, he just might be able to see his way to reembracing his tried-and-true relationships. Time would tell—about Han, about their marriage, about the Yuuzhan Vong and the fate of the New Republic.
With her cheek sporting a strip of itchy synthflesh, Leia took leave of her aides to wander forward into the passenger hold, where many of the refugees were already claiming areas of deck space. Despite the battle swirling around the transport, an atmosphere of chatty relief prevailed.