Lando's first impression of Luke Skywalker wasn't very positive. Dumb kid who stumbled into the Empire's crosshairs somehow and then wandered into an incredibly obvious trap and needed to be rescued by the very friends he was supposed to be rescuing. Lando felt sorry for him, sure—he'd been young and stupid himself, once, although surely never that bad? And he'd been totally outclassed by Vader, and was lucky to have gotten away at all. A hand was a small price to pay for a life.

Still. The world was full of such dumb kids. He'd either learn or get himself killed, and either way, Lando only really cared insofar as Skywalker's fate would affect whether he was going to get Han by himself, or whether he'd be working with Chewie. Chewie liked the kid, and what's more Chewie loved Princess Leia, who also liked the kid. A lot more than she liked Lando.

Once they reached the Rebel fleet, Leia and Luke were whisked away to the med bay, Chewie trailing after them, while Lando was led into a non-descript conference room and seated at the table opposite a light-skinned Human man introduced to him as General Draven.

"So," Draven said, reading from a tablet. "'Baron' Lando Calrissian, self-styled, won the Tibanna mining facility on Bespin known as "Cloud City" in a rigged card game six years ago, has since run it on considerable profit through expanding tourism and evading taxes on the finished product. Very adept at staying under-the-radar of any larger entity that might interfere. Until Darth Vader showed up at your door."

"That's me," Lando said.

"No previous political opinions, or at least none that took a form anyone on the outside could notice," Draven continued. "Until recently."

"What do you want to know?" Lando asked, warily. He had no love for the Empire, but he'd never gotten involved in the Rebellion for a reason. Politics was dangerous.

"Everything," Draven said. "Starting with the first contact you had with the Imperials."

"And what will you give me in return?" Lando asked.

By the set of his mouth, Draven was unsurprised and disapproving. "What do you want?"

"Help rescuing Han from Jabba, for a start," Lando said. "And Cloud City—with resources to rebuild it—if you defeat the Empire."

"If we defeat the Empire, and there's anything left of your city, you'll get it back," Draven said. "Resources … will depend very much on the state of the galaxy at that point. And we have nothing to spare to intervene in a smuggler's dispute."

"Really?" Lando said, settling in to negotiate. "Then you can forget me telling you what I know about Vader and his ship."

Between negotiations and sharing his intelligence—which wasn't that much, all told; it wasn't like Vader had shared his long-range goals with him—it was a long day, and when he was done, he joined Chewie and Leia in the med-bay. Chewie huffed at him, as he came in, but they'd have a better chance of succeeding together than working separately, and Chewie knew it.

"Chewbacca," he said, bowing to his old friend. "Have you had any thoughts on going after Han?"

Some, Chewie growled. It'll be a lot easier if we can intercept Fett before he rendezvous with Jabba. Fett's better than any of Jabba's thugs, but there's only one of him.

"The Rebels have a small file on Fett, and a larger one on Jabba," Lando said, handing a tablet reader to Chewie with the file loaded. "It's not much, but it's a place to start."

Leia stuck her head in the door. "Luke's done for the day, you can come in now."

Chewie got up and hurried in to see his friend. Lando debated what to do, but decided to tag along. He didn't know Luke, but it wasn't like he had any place else to be.

"—they won't get in a prosthetic that will fit me for a day or so," Skywalker was saying as Lando entered. "And then there's going to be some physical therapy to make sure I'm adapted to it, and haven't lost any dexterity."

We can't wait that long, Chewie said. The sooner we catch up to Fett, the better. Much easier to take him on before he's got all of Jabba's thugs on his side.

And also, Lando thought, it was a lot less likely to end with Jabba on their tails.

"Oh, yeah," Luke said, making a face. "Don't wait for me. If you can't get to Fett in time, I can join you on Tatooine, or wherever Jabba's hiding out, because that's when you'll need more firepower."

"I'll be coming, too," Leia said. "Will you need me until Tatooine? If you think I'll make a difference against Fett, I'll go with you, but if not, there are some things I need to take care of here before heading off again."

Lando and Chewie exchanged glances. "Not sure yet," Lando said. "Depends on what we find in the files I got out of General Draven."

And what plans we come up with, Chewie said, and they sat down to go through the files and share information. Chewie knew a bit, from the time he and Han had been taking contracts from Jabba, but as independent contractors, they hadn't been trusted with much high-level information. Oddly enough, Luke was a better source for Jabba's habits and living style.

"How do you know all this?" Lando asked.

"I grew up there," Luke said, as if it should have been obvious. "Not that I ever had anything to do with Jabba directly—we were moisture farmers, and too poor and far out for his bullies to bother with much, but pretty much everyone on Tatooine pays him protection money in one way or another."

"Huh," Lando said. What kind of farms did they have on Tatooine, that the farm kids kept tabs on gangsters of Jabba's stature? He had to admit, it was impressive that the kid was providing crucial intelligence on Jabba's operations and helping map out a plan before they'd even gotten the new hand on him.

In the end, the first three plans didn't work; they weren't able to catch Fett before he handed Han over. And plans four through six, once they got to Tatooine, didn't work either. And ended with Leia in chains on Jabba's throne. (At least Han was unfrozen; even if they had to carry him because of carbon-sickness, it would be easier than towing a slab of carbonite behind them.)

Plan seven went spectacularly badly, leaving Lando the only one of their little group free and undetected.

As the sail barge made its way out to the Sarlacc pit, Lando was frantically trying to think of anything he could do; they didn't have any more plans, or, really, any resources. He'd managed to get assigned to the skiff carrying Han, Chewie, and Luke; if he could get the drop on some of the other guards, Chewie and Luke could probably help him overpower them. But even then, what next? Jabba's barge had weaponry and lots of guards, and the skiffs were easily damaged and had no cover. And there were the other skiffs with all their guards. And even if Lando and the men could get away, that would leave Leia in Jabba's clutches, knowing they were here coming for her.

Luke had some sort of idea that with his Jedi powers he could handle it all, but while the kid had done surprisingly well with the Rancor, this was a significantly bigger challenge than one beast in a confined cage.

Lando would have been sweating from adrenaline even without the Force-be-damned twin suns beating down on him, but as it was, he felt like he was being boiled alive in his armor. He took a swig of water from his canteen, then held it out for Han to drink from.

"Why waste water on him?" one of the other guards asked. "He's only going to die in an hour or so anyway."

Lando shrugged. "Yeah, but Jabba wants a show, right? That's why we're coming all this way. How much of a show do you think they'll put on if they're fainting from heatstroke?"

None of the other guards helped, but none protested, either. Lando gave each of his friends some water, and went back to worrying about what he was going to do when they got to the Great Pit.

Luke looked at him, face full of calm amusement.

Lando scowled back. It fit his cover, and anyway the kid needed to learn not to be so overconfident.

Hopefully, he'd survive long enough to learn the lesson …

As it turned out, Luke was not being overconfident at all, and he did have a plan and it did work perfectly. He managed to kick off the fight, take out most of the guards, rescue Leia, and destroy Jabba's sail barge without getting more than a little damage to his artificial hand. He even figured out there was a tarp in one of the skiff's compartments and rig up a canopy for the way back, so they could at least keep out of the sun.

Lando was still not quite sure he believed it had happened by the time they got back to Mos Eisley.

Once they got to the hangar bay where the Falcon was, Leia and Chewie got Han to what passed for the Falcon's medical bay. Even if Lando had any medical knowledge, there wasn't room for three hovering over the patient, so he and Luke hung back.

"That was quite something," Lando said, eyeing Luke up and down. He wasn't really a kid at all; that first impression had been a bit misleading.

"Thank you," Luke said. "I know you didn't think I could do it."

"Neither did Han," Lando said.

"A lot's happened since the last time Han and I saw each other," Luke said. "And besides, I think he'll always remember me as that young hothead straight off the farm."

"Maybe so," Lando said.

Luke shook his head. "I've got to get cleaned up, I can't face seven hours in an X-Wing cockpit without getting the sweat off me."

"No kidding," Lando said. "Say, when we get back to the Fleet, I'll buy you a drink, to apologize for doubting you."

Luke smiled. "Thanks for the offer, but I'm not going back to the Fleet—or not directly, at any rate. I have something to do first."

"Rain check?" Lando said. Luke was an interesting man, and not unattractive, and Lando would like to know him better.

"Sure," Luke said. "I look forward to it."