Not sure if the reaction timing rules or card wording makes this legal. Fleeing the Empire has a reaction that lets you add a shield token to a unit or objective after refreshing. Questionable Contacts has a reaction that lets you damage it to move a damage token from a friendly unit to an enemy unit.

So a two part question:

1. If I use a shield token to negate the damage done to QE by its reaction ability, are the conditions of the reaction still met? Does the damage have to actually get through, or is the attempt to damage enough?

2. Assuming I can use the shield token and still meet the conditions of QE's reaction, could I, after refreshing, first use Fleeing the Empire to put a shield token on Questionable Contacts, then use QE's reaction ability to damage itself and absorb it with the shield token?

I just found the same thing tonight. Han and Leia go well together, btw.

I think it does work. They are both reactions triggered by the same event (after refresh). As such, the rules say the active player chooses the order in which they resolve. You put the shield on Questionable Contacts, then resolve QC. You deal a damage to QC (which the shield soaks, as done by the definition of a shield), and resolve the rest of QC.

Unfortunetly, this will not work as the rules for shielding prevents this. Shield Tokens may only absorb enemy placed damage and/or focus tokens.

Shielding (Page 23) - "A player may discard a card's shield token to prevent one damage or one focus token that would be placed on the shielded card by an attack or an enemy effect (i.e. it cannot prevent damage and focus tokens placed by it's controllers cost or effects)."

Okay, that's doubly eye-opening, because I'd somehow missed that a shield could prevent a focus token. I assume that can't be used to prevent gaining a focus token from striking as part of the controller's turn?

It cannot prevent any tokens or damage created by the controller of the card exactly as the rules quoted by Starduster say.