Han Solo

What might surprise a person about the carbonite freezing process - since most people never get the pleasure of the experience - is the way you feel it freezing you on the inside at the same time as it's freezing your outsides. Even holding your breath, it enters your lungs fast. Harding everything you need to breathe. And the cold is so deep that it feels like every nerve is on fire.

If he'd had more than an instant, Han would have probably supposed that drowning feels like this, with less agony. All he really got to think about was the fact that this was going to be the end of him; while his friends were still in trouble ...

He could have lived with his early death if he knew that Chewie and Luke and, especially Leia, were gonna be okay. The best he could do was keep a brave face.

When Han Solo's body was extracted from the freezing chamber, it was clear that he had suffered. It had been quick. There were longer ways to hurt a guy, for sure, but the look on his face was impossible to escape. His hand held up in a pathetic defense from the gas. People were going to see that look on him forever.

~~~~~

All the scanning equipment showed that the smuggler was not dead.

The stormtroopers, many of them, were impressed by that fact because they were by far the most impassionate of all the people on the platform. The didn't hate the man the way his enemies did. Or loved him the way that his friends did.

Their boots pounded in an odd cascade against the catwalks of Besbin's mining facility. Helping a famous bounty hunter load up his prize into the old Firespray model ship.

“Ben --”

In a such a large structure with conditioners for the volume of systems and subsystems that run the Starkiller Base, it seems like there should have been more ambient noise then there was. Instead, the voice of his father cuts through the air like freshly sharpened vibroblade. It’s in the echo, however, that you can really hear the desperation.

“Han Solo, I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time.” That voice, cold and mechanical with the face Han longed to see so badly hidden behind a helmet. The Millennium Falcon’s captain has to struggle to hold back the tears that seem to want to spill from his eyes.

How you could have been so close, as he stalked behind you and still you didn’t seem to feel him or acknowledge that he was there, the old pilot will always wonder. Han’s first footfall onto the durasteel catwalk not the usual confident step, but a shaky one. He has a bad feeling about what’s about to happen and yet, it’s a feeling he has to ignore for many reasons.

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