Edit: 1/18/05- Hey, I'm going back and editing all my old stuff. With this one I mostly just reformatted it, so that it would be easier to read. It was fun to go back and read it; it's been a long time since I was the person who wrote this… Anyway, it's a light-hearted romp so give it a try! Personally, I'm surprised it hasn't gotten caught by the anti-real-people scanners. It's not actually about Harrison Ford anyway…
"The Secret Life of Harrison Ford"
in which Han, and others, have a slight identity crisis, there are some "simple tricks and nonsense," and that Nazi with the funny little weasel laugh keeps turning up...
I do not own the characters being used in this story. Lots of other people do, and no infringement on their rights is intended. Well, Larry's mine for what that's worth. No money is being made from this work; the purpose for writing this is for the enjoyment of the readers and to get rid of, for the time being, the annoying little muse who sits on my shoulder and says, "Write this..."
This story was originally inspired by the short story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." However, it has grown quite a bit since it was born. It contains many references to obscure movies and television shows, some of which Harry wasn't even in, and which you might not have seen. Just laugh anyway.
Thanks: to Berger who insisted on describing to me in detail every scene of Air Force One, to Lindsay(excuse me- Darth Bean) who made me laugh when I got too serious, and to Jenny who got all the inside jokes and wouldn't let me rest until was I finished. And who knows, maybe he is Batman.
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted;
persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished;
persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
By Order of the Author-
Mark Twain
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"The Secret Life of Harrison Ford"
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He lifted the golden statue from its pedestal and quickly placed the bag of sand in its place. Covetously holding the idol close, he had turned to leave when, behind him, he heard the ominous sound of the upper portion of the pedestal sliding down into its base with a grinding screech that was unnervingly loud in the tense silence. Glancing up, he watched as the wall in front of him began to crumble, and the floor started to tremble. Oh shit... he thought...
"You see? I told you it would be all right!" Sallah's voice drifted down to him from the top of the pyramid shaped room. Staring down an asp not five inches from his face, he couldn't quite see how anything was "all right." Snakes, he thought. Why did it have to be snakes? He tensed and rolled away from the creature...
And Han Solo abruptly fell out of bed. "Hmmm?... Wha-? Han?? That's the second time tonight..." Leia mumbled sleepily, coming awake slowly.
"Uhh, it's nothing," he replied, climbing back into bed. "Go back to sleep." Shaking his head, he mumbled, "Whew, what a strange dream." He fell asleep with the sound of strange laughter ringing in his ears.
-
A few days later Han, Leia, Luke, and Chewie were on the Millennium Falcon heading back to Coruscant after their vacation on Kashyyyk.
"I've had just about as much vacation as I can stand," Leia declared wearily.
"What are you talking about?" said Han. "We haven't even crashed yet."
A look passed between Leia and her brother.
"You know, Han," Luke said cautiously, "you've been acting kind of unusual lately. Is there something wrong?"
"Unusual? Whaddaya mean?"
"For example, what's the CIA?"
"The what?" replied Han.
"The CIA," repeated Leia. "And these Nazi people you keep talking about."
"Nazis? Never heard of them."
"You seem to have very strong feelings for these people you don't know," said Luke. Suddenly a TIE fighter flew past the viewport.
"Nazis," said Han. "I hate these guys!"
"Here we go again," sighed Leia.
A warning light began flashing on the console.
"Those stupid Russians again! They're on my plane!" Han exclaimed. "You stay here," he told Leia. "I'll take care of this. They won't hold my family hostage!" He jumped out of his seat and ran to the back of the ship.
Luke sighed, "Guess I better go keep an eye on him."
"Well somebody's got to stay up here and fly the ship," Leia said, moving to the pilot's chair. Luke gave her a questioning look, and she added, "If you see Chewie send him up."
"I'll do just that," he said, disappearing down the corridor. The scene he found in the cargo bay stopped him dead in the doorway. Several burly, dark-haired men were fighting another group of men- these others mostly with blond complexions and well kept uniforms. Han stood in the middle of the room demanding of a confused looking Lando, "How did you know she was a Nazi?"
"What are you talking about?" replied Lando.
"What do you mean, 'She talks in her sleep'?"
"Han, what's going on?"
"'I didn't trust her, why did you?'"
"Because he didn't take my advice," replied Jabba, who was suddenly present.
"Donovan!" cried Han. "I knew you'd sell your mother for an Etruscian vase, but I didn't think you'd sell your country and your soul... to the slime of humanity."
Before Donov- er, I mean Jabba could respond, a mob of people with funny little red hats (followed closely by a short, strange looking guy, who ran all hunched over and laughed in a loud annoying voice), jumped on all the men who were already fighting each other. While Jabba took off down the hallway, the leader of the funny red hat men said to Han, "You must ask yourself why do you seek the Cup of Christ? Is it for His glory or yours?"
"I'm not looking for the Cup of Christ, I'm trying to find my father," Han told him impatiently.
"Well, in that case," said the man, disappointedly, "proceed."
"Thank-you." Han took off down the hall after Jabba. Thoroughly confused, Luke ran after him.
"What the ----?" Han yelled as he almost ran over Darth Vader in the dark corridor. "What are you doing here?!?"
"Han, I am--"
"Sorry," Han interrupted him. "Don't want to hear it. Excuse me." He continued down the hall. He found Jabba strapping on a parachute and preparing to jump out of the airlock. Grabbing Jabba in the vicinity of the neck, Han threw him against the closed airlock door. In a disgusted voice with a hard edge to it, he ground out, "Get off my plane." He pulled the handle, shoved the door open, and pushed Jabba out of it violently. Jabba started floating away at an alarming velocity when, suddenly, he was snapped back by the parachute cord which had become entangled in a protrusion on the inside of the Falcon. The audible crack of his neck was heard.
Searching for Han farther down the corridor, Luke paused and leaned against a bulkhead. He watched the short, weasel man run past laughing, and then his quarry appeared from the doorway next to him, wearing an assortment of bushes and reed plants. Luke was really worried now.
"Han, what are you doing?"
"Shh," he replied. "Going hunting," he gestured down the hall to a large bird with beautiful plumage that was sitting there.
"That's it," a fed up Luke declared. "We're going to land this thing right now and get you some medical attention. Chewie, take him up to the cockpit and strap him in."
A willing Chewbacca escorted a bewildered Han to the cockpit where Leia was already taking them out of hyperspace to land on the nearest planet, which happened to be Tatooine- the crossroad of all Star Wars movies. Watching his sister fly the Falcon into the spaceport like a seasoned smuggler, Luke wondered aloud, "Maybe we should all get our heads checked out. This has definitely been the weirdest of all the weird trips we've taken on this ship."
Chewie readily agreed with him.
-
As they exited the ship and went in search of a doctor, they noticed several unusual denizens of the city whom they were sure had not been there on their previous visits. Marko Ramius, former Captain of the Russian submarine Red October, was talking quietly to Jack Ryan standing in the doorway of the Mos Eisley Cantina.
Han walked over to the party mumbling, "Dad? What are you doing here? I told you, the rats are huge."
Chewie gently steered him back toward the rest of the group as Ramius raised an eyebrow and said, his gaze settling on Leia, "Mrs. Pedecaris, you are a great deal of trouble."
No one had time to say anything about this unusual remark, as at that moment two more strangers, both young boys, came running up.
One began kicking Han insistently in the leg, shouting "You cheat Dr. Jones! You cheat!", while the older one grabbed Luke by the arm.
"Tobias!" the kid cried. "It's me, Lucas. Where's Captain Bridger, Scott, and the rest of them?"
Any reply to these developments was again forestalled by the arrival of a pod-racer which tore through the town followed by several camera-men, a couple of Sand People riding Banthas and waving Gaffi sticks who seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely, and an irate man who yelled after them, "No! Not over there! That way! That way! Ohh...ahhhh... pudu!!!" He threw a collection of papers in the air and stalked off the way he'd come shouting, "Someone call John and tell
him the whole thing's off!"
A man approached him saying, "Now George, calm down..."
"Awhhh- buzz off Steve!" came the reply.
They disappeared down the street, and Chewie used the distraction to slip the group unnoticed into a small establishment with a sign that proclaimed, "Arkham Institute of Mental Health: Tatooine Division."
"What the ----?" Han cried out as he almost ran over Darth Vader again in the dark room. "What are you doing here?! Wait- I don't want to know."
"Hello, my name is Dr. Burton. How can I help you?" stated a voice from the shadows. Vader stepped forward, removed his helmet, and sighed.
"Doctor, I need help. After seeing my parents brutally murdered in front of me when I was very young, I dedicated my life to the upholding of justice. As the 'Dark Knight' I have brought many criminals to justice, but I feel that I am now trapped in this world I have created..."
Luke's laughter cut him off. "And I thought we had problems. Come on guys, lets get out of here."
Now firmly convinced that he was the only one still in his right mind, Chewie followed the group out the door wondering if he should just knock them all over the head, drag them back to the Falcon, and head out for Coruscant as fast as possible. He found Han standing in the street proclaiming loudly, "I am the President of the United States!" Suddenly, blaster fire sprayed them from a nearby rooftop. As the weasel man ran around in circles laughing dementedly, completely oblivious to the term "friendly fire," they scattered, diving for cover. Leia hid behind a generator which moments later exploded with a fiery blast. Any attempt by her companions to determine her condition was blunted by the continuing attack from the rooftop. They decided to leave the area and meet somewhere safer.
An hour later Chewie stumbled into a familiar cantina. Han was seated at a table with several empty bottles and a monkey. He looked up as Chewie walked over. "Marion's dead," he said evenly. "Those damn Nazis killed her." Chewie politely inquired who Marion was as he shooed the monkey off the table. Han blinked several times before replying, "Idon't know."
Luke and Leia entered and walked over to the table. " Marion...?" Han mumbled dazedly. Leia walked over and kissed him full and deep on the lips. Coming up for a breath Han stated, "You're not Marion."
"And you're not Robin Hood," she replied. "Now that that's settled, what are we going to do?"
"Yeah, how are we going to get outta here?" Luke broke in. "Leia and I stopped by Docking Bay 94 on our way over here- the Falcon's got more Imps surrounding her than the Emperor had concubines."
"Those dang Russkies. Well," Han frowned drunkenly, "we'll think of something, Katherine."
"Katherine?" echoed Leia.
He glowered at her. "Katherine! If you give a mouse a cookie..."
"Um...He'll want a glass of milk?" she hazarded.
Han smiled contentedly. "Exactly."
Hesitantly, Chewie spoke up that he had a plan. After a chorus of "Well?", he outlined it to them.
"Hmmm," Han stared thoughtfully into space, all traces of drunkenness gone. "With a few special modifications that just might work. Come on guys, let's get busy."
-
The stormtroopers placed on guard around the Millennium Falcon lazed about the docking bay. They saw no point in guarding a ship that was obviously a piece of junk and physically unable to take off. Furthermore, their orders had come directly from the weasel man, and they had absolutely no respect for a man who laughed like a weasel. So they watched nonchalantly as a man, followed by a woman leading a camel with large baskets hanging off either side of it, walked in. Yelling at the woman in a loud, heavily accented voice, the man went straight to the ship's ramp and proceeded to go up it. The commanding officer barred his way and demanded to know his business. The woman came up behind them in time to hear the man say, "This is a castle, isn't it? There are tapestries?" She jabbed him in the side with her elbow.
"Oh yeah, right... wrong script," the man mumbled. "I mean, I'm the President, and if you don't let me on my plane, I'll have you court-martialed! Ooh!- How about this one- we're with the Russian news reporters and..."
"How long have you had those droids?" the trooper interrupted. Looking around for something which might have prompted that response, the man whispered to the woman, "We don't have any droids with us. We got ourselves a real nut case this time. This guy must be spiced or something."
"Just get us on the ship, flyboy," she retorted.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm working on it." He addressed the stormtrooper. "Look, we need to get on the ship to..."
"We don't need to see his identification," the trooper interrupted him again. "Move along."
"Whatever you say... let's go Leia." They hurried up into the ship, the camel taking a potshot at the trooper's faceplate on the way up the ramp.
-
After pulling Luke and Chewie out of the baskets, Leia helped them shove the camel into one of the smuggling compartments while Han readied the ship for takeoff. Dodging Imperial starships, they entered hyperspace without a hitch- one more strange event in a very strange journey.
Another strange thing- the ship flew sluggishly; as if the cargo bays were full, but they had had no cargo in them since before the timeline of this story began. Going up to check them out, Han and Luke paused a moment before the door, remembering what happened the last time they came here. Taking a deep breath, Luke hit the panel that opened the door. The sight that greeted them was, in a word, unexpected. The cargo bay was full of boxes. This would not be unusual for any normal ship, but the Falcon was far from normal. If it had been empty except for a single Buddhist priest, full of llamas conversing on the topic of flight ratios of unladen African swallows, or once again filled with large men with bad accents- now that would fit more with the canon of this journey. But no- large, nondescript boxes filled the cargo bay like there was no tomorrow.
"Where in the seven hells of Barabel did all this junk come from?" a flustered Han asked of the air.
"Actually, the little known eighth hell of Barabel is the origin of many of these crates," responded, not the air, but the weasel man, who stepped out from behind a pile of the objects under discussion, dressed like a Bedouin all in black with a red sash. He pulled on his Secret-Sith-Fan-Club™ Darth-Maul-mask and pulled his lightsaber out from its hidden position behind him; its deadly red shaft cast strange shadows in the dimly lit room. Swinging the saber around in large arcs, he emitted a desert war cry. Coming from the shadows on the other side of the cargo bay, Darth Vader sent one well aimed shot into the weasel man's stomach and murmured under his breath, "Finally got rid of him. He was starting to get really annoying." Vader turned to look at Han and Luke, but they didn't notice him. They had suddenly been visited by killer headaches, and the wild careening of the ship testified that the other crew members were having the same problems.
"Come Larry. We have work to do." Vader and his apprentice moved to the cockpit where they took control of the ship, set it down on Coruscant, and disappeared into the crowd surrounding a passing Life Day Parade, never to be seen or heard from again.
-
Han awakened first, though the others weren't far behind him. Rubbing his head he mumbled, "What happened? I feel like I've been crushed, ground into little pieces, and blasted into oblivion."
"Yeah," Leia said. "That just about covers it."
"Mhmm," added Luke. "Where are we?"
Chewie replied that they were all on the Falcon. Luke gave him a withering glance. "I know that. Where's the ship?"
"Coruscant," answered Leia. "And look at this." She pointed to what appeared to be a Holocron sitting on the gaming table in the Falcon's lounge. They all got up from the floor where they were lying, and sat around the table as Han picked up the palm sized cube and looked at it.
"Well, let's hear what it has to say." As soon as Han said this, the little cube began to glow in his hand and he quickly set it on the table. A familiar figure, six inches in height, was projected above it.
"Greetings," stated Larry, the camel. "I am Larry. It was a pleasure to share in your recent adventures. If you were wondering just what in the universe was going on, I have been charged to explain it to you. The evil-little-weasel-sounding-Nazi-man was the cause of all your problems. He cast an evil spell that disrupted the space time continuum so you all forgot who and where you were, some to a greater extent than others. When he was destroyed, the spell collapsed and everything returned to normal. My master brought your ship safely to your home. Your thanks to us for saving not only your lives but also the entire galaxy from the evil plans of this most dastardly of villains can be expressed in monetary units- our bank account number is #3263827, all donations accepted. Thank you, Larry out."
A glance passed around the table. Han rose from his seat, and announced decidedly, "Let's get off this ship. I think we all need some fresh air." "That sounds like a good idea." Slowly, they all moved dazedly toward the door. The Life Day parade was by then passing by where the Falcon was and our already disoriented heroes got caught up in the revelry; they partied all night, no one got especially drunk, Han danced with a monkey, and they eventually found their way home. Life returned to normal, well as close as it ever got to being normal, and the strange incident was soon all but forgotten in the series of strange incidents that befell the group. There was that deal with the Emperor returning from the grave- twice, and all these kids showing up, and all those women dumping Luke, and then that Mara person...... but that is another story for another day.
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The End
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"Water? No thank you, sir- fish make love in it."
(Intentional references: Star Wars: A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, The Phantom Menace; Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom, The Last Crusade; The Hunt for Red October; Clear and Present Danger; Air Force One; Six Days, Seven Nights; Monty Python and the Holy Grail; Batman Forever; The Wind and the Lion; Sea Quest(second season finale); Dark Empire: I & II; The Last Command; The Truce at Bakura; Darksaber; Visions of the Future.)