This story follows directly from Mission to Galadan.
NOTE: In my version of this galaxy far, far away, the Galactic Standard Year consists of ten calendar months, each containing 40 days, or four ten-day weeks. A Galactic Standard Day consists of twenty, fifty-minute hours. But this is usually deferred in preference to local time.
Inspirational music: "Blade Runner" soundtrack by Vangellis, "The Dish" soundtrack by Edmund Choi, "X-Men" soundtrack by Michael K-men. "Lord of the Rings- The Two Towers" soundtrack by Howard Shore.
UNDER CORUSCANT.
By Leela Starsky.
CHAPTER ONE
Luke Skywalker had heard stories about Coruscant, the planet that had been the seat of government for the Old Republic and was now the centre of the Empire, but none of them had prepared him for the actuality of seeing a planet totally covered by technology. A planet that was one, great city.
Like the corusca gems for which it was named, Coruscant seemed to glow from within. And around it swarmed millions of ships, all of them busily coming or going. Some of them conducting business, legal or otherwise, with the great Imperial city; some of them obviously military.
From his position behind Chewbacca in the Millennium Falcon's cockpit, Luke could see that there were at least three Star Destroyers in their immediate space and he found himself trying to shrink back further into his seat, fighting an irrational fear that the great battleships would sense them somehow.
But Solo sent out the false transponder code, which the Rebellion had arranged for his ship, and they were soon in a holding pattern approach with the traffic that had not been redirected to orbiting platforms or space stations. It was only because the Falcon was a freighter that they were able to land on Coruscant at all, and the Millennium Falcon was just one of many YT-1300 Corellian freighters plying the trade lanes. Fortunately Han Solo had made a living out of keeping his ship unremarkable, and the military modifications he'd made were subtle and mostly invisible to all but a practiced eye.
For Princess Leia Organa, the flight into Coruscant was fraught with memories. She had never particularly liked the planet perse; it was far too chaotic for her artistic tastes. But it had been her home for the last three years. Years she had spent in the Imperial Senate, pathetically struggling against a tyranny that would see her home world of Alderaan destroyed.
Where once Coruscant had simply been the hub of the galaxy for her; a world teeming with unnatural life and frenetic energy, now it was a dark and evil place. The heart of a tumour that was eating away the life of the galaxy. A tumour that went by the name of Palpatine.
Just thinking about the Emperor filled her with anger and fear.
"Are you ok?" Luke asked, and Leia looked at him.
She had been unconsciously tapping a rapid staccato on her knee with one hand. A nervous reaction to the situation, and Leia was embarrassed and cross with herself for giving so much of her current state of mind away. She nodded curtly and returned her gaze to the world they were fast approaching, her body language stiff and uncompromising.
"I'm fine," she said.
When they finally got the clearance to land, Solo brought the ship into the atmosphere over a part of the planet she had never been to. The other side of the planet from the one she had worked in. No senatorial buildings, no ambassadorial apartments, no Imperial Palace to put her even further on edge. For that she was grateful.
He landed the ship on a mass freighter dock, his ship an insignificant blip among over a hundred other freighters. It was not the part of the planet they ultimately wanted to be in, but it was one where the Falcon would go unnoticed.
They had agreed that their first port of call would be one of Solo's contacts. Someone who, Solo seemed certain, would be able to re-task their microchips himself or at least point them in the direction of someone who could. It was the one part of his plan that Leia couldn't argue about.
Solo had admitted that finding the contact could be a problem. It was apparently a long time since he'd dealt with him, although Solo wouldn't clarify how long. Yet he seemed confident that the contact wasn't dead, and even more confident that he would help them find Perron.
"You don't have to do this, you know."
Leia looked up, surprised to realise that Solo and Chewbacca had completed their shut down of the Falcon and Solo was now out of his seat and waiting for her to leave the cockpit. His words penetrated and she realised he was giving her an out. A chance to remove herself from the game without losing face. But Leia still felt somewhat responsible for Perron Solo's capture and knew that rescuing him was something she had to do. If not for her own peace of mind, then for the help and information he could provide to the Alliance.
She took a fortifying breath and told Solo, "I'm fine."
Solo nodded, accepting her words, although Leia felt sure he had sensed her unease.
"Good thing you dyed your hair," he said, ushering her out ahead of him and closing the hatch behind him.
Leia had been thinking the same thing. She knew Solo was referring to their run in with her old friend, David Taylor, on Galadan, and couldn't help thinking how ironic it was that she was in more danger of being recognised by surviving Alderaanians than Imperials. As far as the Empire was concerned, Princess Leia Organa was officially dead. Although that could well have changed. The Imperial medic on Galadan had run an ID scan on her, and would have undoubtedly shared the resulting information with his superiors. It was the scan that had inspired her to change her hair colour to bright copper. Hair that she was currently wearing woven into a loose plait, hoping its natural 'messiness' would help her to fade into the general background of spacers and smugglers.
The designs left on her face by Galadan's Kivvidan Shaman she could do nothing about and, although they had faded a little in the three days it had taken them to journey to Coruscant, at least they added to her disguise.
Leia walked through the main hold to the Falcon's small 'fresher and emerged moments later ready for departure. As she and Solo were the ones needing their microchips re-tasked, they were the ones going hunting. Luke and Chewie would accompany them through the port authority, but would then wait to meet them at a spot Chewbacca and Solo had agreed upon. Leia just hoped it all wouldn't take too long. To say being on Coruscant was making her nervous was the understatement of the year.
She pulled on her jacket as Solo opened the hatch and followed him down the ramp.
The air was thick with the smell of starship fuels, gases and lubricants, and Leia had to consciously stop herself from grimacing. The port was obviously not observing standard spaceport health regulations, but it wouldn't do her spacer disguise much good if she was obviously uncomfortable with dockside smells, even if they were excessive.
Chewbacca locked up the ship and they followed Solo into the spaceport proper and Leia couldn't help feeling dismayed at the size of the crowd waiting to pass through the port authority. Her optimistic visions of being able to travel back and forth from the Falcon crumbled and she couldn't help feeling disappointed. She had assumed they'd be able to use the ship as a base rather than depending on planetside accommodation, but Coruscant was obviously making sure its visitors put as many credits as possible into its personal economy.
"This is going to take hours," she muttered under her breath, then cursed herself for saying the thought aloud. The comment garnered her a smugly amused look from Solo. A look that succinctly reminded her that she was no longer travelling as royalty and to hurry up and get used to it.
The unspoken rebuke irritated her, largely because she deserved it but mostly because it had been Solo who delivered it, and she scowled out at the spaceport in general.
The crowd was mostly human; testimony to the success of the Emperor's anti non-human bias, and Leia couldn't help feeling saddened by the fact. But, as there was nothing she could do about that right now, she forced herself to concentrate on the issues at hand; on their 'mission'.
Galadan had seemed such a straightforward mission. Look for a missing Rebel operative and hopefully find whatever data he'd uncovered about the Empire's sudden interest in that world.
Well they'd found out the reason for the Empire's interest – an enzyme harvested from one of the native fauna that, at its military conclusion, could produce superhuman stormtroopers. An enzyme accidentally discovered by a geneticist who had turned out to be none other than Han Solo's father. A man the Empire wanted so they could force him to continue refining his discovery.
Perron Solo had succeeded in avoiding the Empire by living with the Kivvidan natives, but that had failed when he'd been forced to come out of hiding to take a seriously wounded Alderaanian princess to the medcentre at the Galadan University. With the Imperial authorities alerted, he had been captured soon after, and now, here they were, at the very heart of the Empire, in the hope that they could get him back.
With nothing better to do than wait in a very long line, Leia investigated what was left of the wound on the palm of her right hand. A poisonous thorn wound that could well have caused her death if not for Perron Solo's quick action. The new pink skin was still vaguely itchy and she rubbed it against her thigh, rested her weight on one hip and wished she could sit down.
Almost two and a half hours later, the Millennium Falcon crew finally passed through the port authority, dutifully producing false IDs and paying up-front for berthing their ship with this port. They conversed very little during their long wait, all of them aware of being overheard or observed. Luke had asked questions about procedure from time to time, but that was all.
He and Leia had to quicken their gait to keep up as Solo and the Wookiee strode confidently through the spaceport, and soon they were on a public transit system that was rushing them to another part of the planet at a tremendous speed.
They followed the Corellian and the Wookiee from one transit system to another and, by the third change, Luke knew he was thoroughly lost. They hadn't seen daylight since landing the Falcon and Luke was reminded of the claustrophobic feeling he'd experienced on the Death Star. For someone as used to wide open spaces as he was, an enclosed and technologically controlled environment such as this was far from comfortable. He was also acutely aware of the pressure changes in his ears, and knew that Solo was taking them further and further from the surface. Was overly conscious of the weight of buildings and beings over his head and had to force himself away from the analogy of being buried alive.
They emerged finally into a crowded street. A permanently dark world where any and all lighting was artificial. It was also wet and cold. The atmospheric combination of fumes and pressure settled into a substratum, which meant that it was nearly always raining in the lower levels of Coruscant. Yet, despite the rain, the street was a bustle of activity and was lined with well-patronised food vendors.
At the end of the street Luke could see the garish signage of what could only be some sort of nightspot, and the equally garish patronage milling outside the doorway attested to his assumption.
Solo indicated the garish sign with his eyes and said in a low voice, "Meet you in there in a couple of hours."
Luke watched him walk away with the princess then eyed the nightclub with something akin to trepidation. He looked at the Wookiee, his expression unenthusiastic, and decided the Wookiee seemed amused. Chewbacca indicated that he should lead the way, so Luke walked down the street towards the nightclub, the Wookiee following close behind.
Having the Wookiee at his back was comforting, Luke realised, and it suddenly occurred to him that a lot of Solo's cockiness probably came from the same source. Chewbacca was a natural deterrent to would be muggers and troublemakers and, just knowing the Wookiee was there gave him a level of confidence he hadn't experienced before.
Smiling smugly to himself as he joined the other sentients waiting outside the entrance to the nightclub, Luke appraised them with what he hoped was a suitable amount of arrogance and prepared himself for a long wait. But it was only minutes later that the heavy-set human who appeared to be overseeing admittance into the nightclub approached them.
Without wasting words, the man looked the Wookiee up and down then said, "What's that?"
"My bodyguard," Luke replied without flinching, and watched a fleeting flicker of respect pass across the guard's face. Then hoped as he handed the man the admittance fee, that his initial response to the price of entry wasn't written all over his face.
Inside the nightclub, the noise, atmosphere and throng of people was almost overwhelming. Luke immediately acceded to Chewbacca's greater experience with such places and followed him to a small, vacant table at the darkened edges of the room. They settled, and despite the Wookiee's presence, Luke found himself immediately accosted by a suspicious looking young man.
"Interest you in some deathsticks, my friends?"
Luke shook his head. "Thanks, but no thanks."
"Of course not," the man concurred, sounding as though he was stupid for offering in the first place. "You'd be the sort to want the finer stuff-"
"No," Luke insisted, cutting him off.
"Excellent grade," the man continued unfazed. "Laced with real glitterstim."
"No," Luke said firmly. "Thankyou."
"My friend, I can do you the sort of deal that will have you begging for-"
Chewbacca growled sharply and the man took a step back.
"Excuse me a moment would you?" he said, then turned and disappeared into the crowd.
Luke looked at Chewbacca who accepted his unspoken thanks with a slight smile then ordered them both drinks from the menu on the table display.
