Leia rested a hand gently on the pilot’s forehead. He was still so pale, but at least the fire no longer burned beneath his skin. They had brought him back to the ship and soaked his wounds in bacta, but beyond that there was little they could do for him. The Millennium Falcon was equipped with only the most basic medical provisions.

As Han, Luke, and Chewbacca worked to put the weapons systems back online, Leia had sat by the anonymous pilot’s bed, waiting for him to wake up. It had been nearly a day.

We don’t even know who he is, Leia thought, watching his eyeballs twitch faintly beneath his lids. If he dies out here, no one who loves him will ever know what happened.

She tried not to think about it. After all, his pulse was strong. His wounds were healing. There was no reason to think he wouldn’t make a full recovery.

If he ever woke up.

They owed him so much, she thought. He’d saved them from certain death at the hands of the Empire. Whoever he was, whatever his motives, there was no escaping that truth. They owed him.

“But if you want us to pay you back, you’re going to have to wake up,” she murmured.

“You drive a hard bargain.”

Leia started in surprise, jerking her hand away from his forehead. “You’re awake!”

“Seems that way.” He smiled, and tried to sit up, groaning at the effort.

Gently, she pushed him back down to the bunk. They were in a cramped room just off the main hold, where Han had stored his meager medical supplies. “Easy,” she told him. “You lost a lot of blood.”

He grimaced. “That wasn’t part of the plan.”

“What plan?”

A strange, blank look flashed across his face, and then it was gone, so quickly that Leia thought she might have imagined it. Especially when he smiled. His eyes sparkled with good humor, and some of the color seemed to come back into his face. “The plan where I rescue the fair maiden and reap her eternal gratitude.”

Leia suppressed a grin. This was still a stranger, she reminded herself, and they were at war. You couldn’t trust every would-be hero with a charming smile. Just look at Han, she thought. Hero one moment, scoundrel the next.

The galaxy could be a confusing place.

“If you’re well enough to flirt, you’re well enough to answer some questions,” she said sternly. “Want to tell me what you were doing out there, fighting someone else’s battle?”

“Is that your way of saying thank you?” the pilot asked. “Because if so, you and your blast-happy friend have some work to do on the etiquette front.”

Leia sighed. “Thank you. Now … what were you doing out there?”

“What were you doing out there?” he countered. “Who are you people, anyway?”

“I asked first,” Leia said, biting down hard on the corners of her lips to trap another grin.

“Indeed you did.” The pilot looked thoughtful for a moment. “Truth?”

“That would be nice.”

He raised a hand, wincing at the effort. She shook, being careful not to squeeze too hard. “Tobin Elad,” he told her. “Dissident, guerilla warrior, exile, orphan, and rather atrocious poet. Though not in that order.”

“Leia,” she said, keeping her surname to herself.

“Professional damsel in distress?” he suggested, when it was clear she wouldn’t be offering any additional information.

“I prefer to rescue myself, thank you very much.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for the future,” he said lightly. “Wouldn’t want to overstep.”

“You call yourself a warrior,” Leia said. “That means you have an enemy.”

He grew serious at once. “We all have an enemy. The Empire.” Again, he tried to push himself into a sitting position. This time, despite the pain, he made it upright. “Though I suppose some of us have more reason to fight than others.”

Leia suspected that the pain written across his face had nothing to do with his wounded shoulder. “And your reason?” she asked softly.

“Reasons,” he admitted. “Three of them. Or hundreds of thousands. Depending on how you count.” He fell silent.

Leia waited, letting him go forward at his own pace.

He kept his eyes fixed over her shoulder, gazing intently at the wall of instrument panels behind her head. She took in the faded bruises on his arms and torso, the network of scars criss-crossing his weathered face. He was a few years younger than Han, but the darkness in his eyes made him appear much, much older.

“At first, I wanted only peace,” he said, his voice barely audible. “Peaceful coexistence with the Empire. Preservation of our way of life. Have you ever been to Malano III?”

Leia shook her head. She knew it was a world just beyond the galactic core, but she had never been.

“It’s a beautiful place,” he said. “Trees everywhere. Even our cities were idylls of green, laced through with crystalline blue rivers. And we are a peaceful people.” He frowned. “Were. We were peaceful. But that wasn’t enough for the Empire. No, it wasn’t enough that we obey quietly. They wanted our cities, they wanted our land. They wanted to turn our quiet planet into a home for their armies and their weapons installations. Cover the land with barracks and factories. Turn its citizens into workers. ‘Work,’ that was their term.” His face twisted. “I called it what it was. Slavery.”

“The Empire must have appreciated that,” Leia said wryly.

“Not so much,” he agreed. “Those of us who objected were soon driven out. We who had been peaceful objectors became saboteurs, sneaking into the city in the dead of night, setting explosives, struggling to regain control.” He shook his head. “We were fools. I see that now. Insane to think the Empire could be deterred.”

“It’s never foolish to fight for what’s right,” Leia said fiercely.

“It’s foolish to deny what you know to be the truth. And the truth is, we were few, we were weak. The Empire was strong. If they’d only punished us …” His throat choked off the words. Then he cleared his throat. When he spoke again, his tone was nearly expressionless. “Mirabel, that was our capital. They used thermal detonators to create a firestorm that consumed the whole city. Thousands upon thousands died. Everyone I’d ever cared about. Everyone I’d ever known. My wife …” He hung his head, and continued in a whisper. “My child.”

“I’m sorry.” They were such small, pathetic words. Nothing, in the face of what he’d lost.

And Leia understood loss.

“It was a long time ago,” Elad said, his voice stony. Leia recognized that tone, that hardness. You had to block out the storm of emotions — forget the past — if you were going to go on. “I’m on my own now, hitting back at the Empire where and when I can. That’s what I was doing when we crossed paths — I figured if I could get my hands on a TIE fighter, I could fly right into the heart of the Empire, really do some damage before they caught on.”

“A single ship against the Imperial Fleet?” Leia asked in horror. “But that’s —”

Certain death.

He nodded. “I guess I owe you and your crew an apology. I’d been planning to force that Imperial into a crash landing on the moon — but I guess I chased him right into your path.”

“So saving us ruined your plan?”

“Revenge can wait a little longer,” Elad said. “To be honest, it’s the only thing left keeping me going. When you’ve lost as much as I have …” He shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand. I hope you’ll never have to.”

Leia rested a hand lightly on his. “I understand.”

She needed only to say the word, and he would see.

Alderaan.

It filled her mind, every day, every minute. Their faces, their voices. The lush, green parks, filled with children on a summer’s day. The sweet scent of t’iil, blossoming over a meadow. Her father’s embrace.

Gone.

They lived inside of her, but she trapped them within. The pain was too fresh, too raw. It was too hard.

And yet suddenly, it seemed all too easy to let it out.

“Sometimes I fear the fight is all that keeps me going,” she told him. “I draw breath, I eat, I move forward, only because I know the fight must continue. Maybe that’s why I fight so hard. Because if I didn’t have that —” Leia stopped. She’d never admitted that to anyone before. Maybe not even to herself.

And this was a stranger. What was she doing?

“If you didn’t have that, you fear there’d be nothing left?” It didn’t sound like a question.

Leia stood up abruptly. “I should let the others know you’re awake,” she said brusquely. “They’ve been concerned.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Elad pointed out. “They can wait.”

She was tempted to stay, to talk — and that decided her. “Someone will be back to check on you soon,” she told him, backing out of the small room. She needed to get away from this man — to stay away from him. He tempted her to trust too much, too easily, and that way led only to danger. “Lie back. Rest.”

He followed orders, poorly disguising a sigh of relief as his head hit the pillow. “Thank you, Leia. For sitting with me. It seems I haven’t had anyone to talk to — really talk to — in a long time. It felt surprisingly good.”

“Sometimes you just need someone to listen to you,” Leia said, shifting uncomfortably under the weight of his stare.

“Yes,” he said, gazing so intently that she feared he could see right into her head. “Sometimes you do.”

The severity of his injury had been unexpected, but it had worked to his advantage.

X-7 made everything work to his advantage; it was the only way he’d stayed alive for as long as he had.

The princess had bought the act completely, he could tell from the glassy sheen that fell across her eyes when he unspooled the lies about a dead wife and child. Soon she would open up to him, tell him whatever he needed to know.

X-7 regained his strength quickly, but feigned weak ness over the course of the next two days. Hobbling around the ship gave him a chance to observe the crew. And certainly no one would expect the brave, wounded hero to pose a threat.

They’d put the weapons systems back online, and were now in a stable orbit around Muunilinst. X-7 suspected they were waiting to decide what to do with him before they made their next move. His next job was to convince them he could be trusted with the content of their Rebel mission — the first of many Rebel secrets he would possess.

He bided his time; he watched. Humans were sad creatures, he thought, so unaware of their own selves, their own weaknesses. Leia and the captain, Han, for example. They argued ceaselessly, oblivious of the energy that lay beneath the surface of their every encounter. Neither understood the unspoken bond they shared. But X-7 saw it, and this was knowledge he could exploit.

And the boy … now, there was an interesting case. When Luke had faced the reek with his lightsaber, X-7 had nearly given himself a way with a gasp of surprise. He’d heard of the Jedi, of course, but everyone knew they were long extinct.

Yet somehow the boy possessed the weapon of a Jedi, even fancied himself a Jedi, despite the fact that he could barely strike a blow without falling on his face. There was strength there, X-7 knew, but it was well hidden, buried so deep that Luke might never find it.

The boy was too innocent, too trusting, and this, too, was something that X-7 could use. While X-7 suspected Han Solo might be persuaded to sell his information for the right price, Luke might offer it up for free.

Either could easily prove to be the weak link he needed.

Yes, someone on this ship would lead him straight to the being who had destroyed the Death Star. It was only a matter of time.