into the chaos! → luke skywalker ✓

viii. the hyperdrive issue

⋆☆* ✧✰.✦

THERE WERE TIMES when Leia made Cas's job a million times harder, and that day was one of them. The Empire was closing in; even with their AT-ATs down, their shields had been destroyed and it was only a matter of time before their ships swooped in. They needed to leave, immediately, but Leia was Leia and she was barking orders even as the base shook warningly.

Cas wondered what Luke was doing, what he had done, and if he was okay. She knew he hadn't died, they would have reported that over the comms, and she knew they had taken down the walkers under his command, but that had been nearly ten minutes ago. Knowing him, he was probably doing something stupidly heroic. She nearly smiled at the thought.

Then the base shook again, this time worse than the last.

"Princess, we really should be going," she told Leia urgently, but the woman kept running from console to console.

"We have to get that last transport ready, Captain," she reminded Cas.

"They can do that without you." She didn't snap, but she wasn't exactly calm about it either. Her job was to keep Leia safe, and that often meant arguing with her in times of crisis because she constantly insisted upon putting herself in mortal danger.
"We need to be on that last transport, if you'd recall." Leia didn't reply and instead continued throwing orders around. She was rather good at it, Cas thought, and she would have been impressed had they not been minutes away from being captured or killed.

More laser blasts hit the base and Cas had to lean against an abandoned console to keep steady. She opened her mouth to snap at Leia, but another voice spoke before she had the chance.

"You all right?" It was Han, who had just entered the command center a few seconds earlier. Leia, surprised, looks to him.

"Why are you still here?!" she shouted by way of a response.

"I heard the command center had been hit." That was his way of saying 'I need to make sure you were okay,' that much Cas knew for a fact. Leia's tone softened as she spoke again, but not entirely.

"You got your clearance to leave." And that was her way of saying 'get yourself safe'. But Han was as stubborn as ever.

"Don't worry, I'll leave. First I'm going to get you to your ship." Cas scoffed.

"You don't think I've been trying to do that for the past ten minutes?" Han took note of her exasperation and gave a sympathetic shrug.

"Your Highness," began C-3PO,  turning to Leia.
"We must take this last transport. It's our only hope."

"Yeah, listen to him," said Cas with a great deal of urgency.
"We need to go, now." Leia didn't ignore her, but she didn't reply either. Instead she turned to the controller and gave her another order. As she finished, yet another blast hit the command center, sending Cas back into the same console again. And, as if it couldn't get any worse:

"Imperial troops have entered the base," said a voice over the base-wide intercoms.

"Your Highness—" Cas said tensely.

"Come on, that's it," Han added, his time even more urgent than before. Finally, Leia turned to the head controller one last time and resigned to being dragged away as she spoke.