V.E.: Well, by my calculations this should be the chapter when I get my 100th review! I am the greateful to all the support up until now. While I should be updating another story, I've currently a snag in what I'm going to do next with that.
Also, Thanksgiving break is coming up, but I will balancing writing with several projects I am going to have to work on. So while my other stories may get updated, the eleventh chapter probably won't show up until December. January will definitely have a lot of updates., so expect plot moving around then.
So without further ado, I present the next chapter in The New Hope Arc! Luckily, I'm more than half way done with it (or at least I'm more than half way done with the movie, which I watch while I write this stuff). Then we'll be heading back to the past to check in with Anakin and Obi Wan, along with explaining something that will come up in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi Arcs. What happens after that is a surprise.
Landing in garbage is never fun, but compared to all the places they could have ended up in this space station, Ahsoka counted them all as pretty lucky despite the obvious bad smell.
Luke had followed not too far behind her and had tried to blasting the door open, but it wouldn't work and now he, Leia, and herself were currently standing around and trying to keep themselves steady despite the many piles of garbage and the water beneath them, in Ahsoka's mind, didn't look all that good.
Chewbacca was still looking at the door, as if trying to consider whether he could break it down or not, when Han Solo made his appearance from above. He quickly sat up from the pile he had landed on and talked in his customary sarcastic tone, readying his own blaster for the door.
"The garbage chute was a really wonderful idea. What an incredible smell you've discovered! Let's get out of here! Get away from there..."
Chewbacca did as he was told though Luke tried to warn the smuggler captain before he did what he had previously attempted.
"No, wait!"
Unfortunetely, it came too late as Han fired. Just like the last time, the red blast ricocheted off the walls all around the small metal room designated to house the trash. All of them took cover in the piles of garbage as the blast soon exploded above their heads.
As the four came to their feet and Chewbacca stopped hunching over by the door, Luke shot an angry look at Han Solo and his voice was definitely not happy.
"Will you forget it?! I already tried it. It's magnetically sealed!"
Leia was by no means less angry as she also told the cocky captain off.
"Put that thing away! You're going to get us all killed!"
That did not shut him up as he answered the princess.
"Absolutely, Your Worship. Look, I had everything under control until you led us down here!"
Ahsoka shot the man a pointed glare as she stood to her feet and felt her light sabers that she had disengaged and placed at her sides.
"No, you didn't. Now can we stop fighting and try to find a way out of here?"
Han looked ready to fight her, but for once swallowed his pride as he came to his footing.
"You know, it's not going to take them long to figure out what happened to us."
Leia also was coming back to her stance and replied easily.
"It could be worst..."
Ahsoka cringed.
"Don't say that, then it will get worse."
The other female shot her a stern look to that remark.
"And your experience with that is?"
"A lot of dangerous missions with my Master, sometimes with Master Obi Wan, that could go from bad to worse in three seconds flat!"
To answer their bickering, a loud and horrible inhuman moan came from the watery depths of the room. The males were on high alert with their blasters as Ahsoka's instinct went to her light sabers, her hands ready at any moment to grab and fight. Chewbacca was still near the walls, afraid of whatever that was.
Han Solo's mood did not look change as he grimly stated what was on everyone's minds.
"It's worse."
The Togruta took a short nod, still keeping her hands near her weapons.
"Told ya."
Luke spoke in a frantic tone as he was glancing around the room, the princess also seeming to get a bad feeling.
"There's something alive in here."
The smuggler was just as ready to dismiss the notion.
"That's your imagination."
Ahsoka, on the other hand, could sense the other presence too.
"No it isn't. Luke, can you sense where it is?"
The blonde teenager moderately heard as he turned in a circle around his immediate settings.
"Something just moved past my leg!"
His gaze darted around the room, pointing to where what seemed like a submerged tentacle was moving. Ahsoka clearly seeing it while Luke called attention to it.
"Look! Did you see that?"
She nodded.
"Yeah."
Han's tone was as clueless as ever.
"See what?"
The Wookiee was still banging on the door as Leia seemed to be reaching for higher ground, backing away as far as she could from the murky water depths. Ahsoka and Luke both moved cautiously, as they were trying to pinpoint exactly where the thing was through their Force senses (though Luke wouldn't realize exactly how he was doing it).
Suddenly, Ahsoka could feel something come out of the water and go back down and a slimy presence going towards the direction where Luke was standing. She turned to him, her eyes blazed with alarm.
"Luke, watch out!"
Not too long after and while Luke was still processing the ex Padawan's words, the tentacles wrapped around his leg and pulled him under the water.
Han and Leia stopped trying to be cautious and distant as they both searched the depths to try and find their captured comrade with her. The two didn't seem to notice they were on the same page.
"Kid! Luke!"
"Luke!"
Han called once more as he swirled around the wreckage to get a closer look at where he was standing, Ahsoka hurrying over to join him with her light sabers if needed. Chewbacca's groans of worry accented the background.
"Luke!"
Soon enough, Luke surfaced, but was membrane tentacle around his throat. The youth was trying to get a breath of air as his limbs were thrashing through the water and trying to hit the thing so that it would let him go.
Leia pulled one of the discarded pipes and found her wave over, reaching it for him to grab on.
"Luke, Luke, grab a hold of this!"
He couldn't reach it as he called out an order to Han.
"Blast it, will you! My gun's jammed."
"Where?"
Luke seemed to be more preoccupied with other things as Han pulled him away from the unseen creature.
"Anywhere! Oh!"
True to that, Han blasted into the water and that seemed to give a reprieve to Luke as Ahsoka helped him to stand up. Han shot got again for good measure as Chewbacca kept pounding on the door.
But Ahsoka managed to lose grip on her charge as he seemed to be pulled once more down towards the water.
"Luke!"
She and Han were both crouched, searching the water. Nothing came up and it seems like all three of the ones in the middle of it were left to assume the worse as Luke's head did not pop up out of the dirty water strewed with garbage.
Then there seemed to be some metallic sound that brought them all on alert, suddenly giving Ahsoka the impression that they were about to be a lot worse trouble.
But before she could dwell on it too long, the drenched Skywalker stood up from the water, gasping for breath as Han and Ahoska helped him to his feet. Leia asked what was on their minds.
"What happened?"
"I don't know, it just let go of me and disappeared."
He coughed out some of the remaining dirty water in his mouth, as another jarring sound echoed in the metal room. Han summed up the situation perfectly.
"I've got a bad feeling about this."
Ahsoka kept herself silent, but mentally concurred with Han Solo.
You and me both.
Another strange echoing sound, peppered with some of Chewie's groans as the other four stood almost completely still to wait what would happen next. Then the walls began to move, moving the garbage closer to the center as Ahsoka got the point.
"The walls…!"
The Togruta interrupted.
"We're in a trash compacter!"
Leia didn't seem at all bothered by this as she started to reach for one of the poles.
"Don't just stand there, try to brace it with something!"
A idea sprining to mind at that exact moment, Ahsoka's eyes sharpened as she waved off the command.
"No! Let me handle this."
All of her companions looked at her with skeptical disbelief as she positioned herself solid, raising her hands up as if she they were going to push the walls away from each other. He concentrated with all the Force control she had in her, silently begging for this all to work.
Her face was deeply concentrated as her hands scrunched as the walls seemed to come to a halting stop, though still accompanied with screeches of metal. She needed a few moments to get this, but she would get it.
All of them were astonished as this young girl had saved them temporarily, in a way they couldn't even explain. The Togruta shot a painful smile at the smuggler captain still trying to keep her concentration.
"'All tricks and nonsense,' right?"
Han just kept staring at her with a blank expression, not even trying to come with a smart aleck retort.
Keeping it up as he sounds kept getting more frequent and louder, Ahsoka grimaced and kept herself positioned while arching her heads towards Luke.
"You know…I can't keep this…going….for long…."
Luke nodded and then his eyes lit up as he searched for the com link he still kept at his side.
"3PO! Come in, 3PO! 3PO!"
Ahsoka felt the pressure coming as she still strived to keep it together, the walls beginning to shift and the sounds coming even more louder than before. It was getting harder and harder as the walls started to move, slower than their original pace but still moving to that. Chewbacca tried in vain to push the walls back while Leia searched through the pipes for her original plan.
Luke called in encouragement as he and Han were also trying to find the pipes to hold the walls back with the metal poles.
"Come on Ahsoka, try to hang on!"
The ex-Jedi could only nod weakly, even now she was feeling her control slip as the walls were starting to go back to their normal speed.
Han tried to move the princess up on the bigger pile.
"Get to the top!"
Unfortunetely, she shook her head at something she had already tried.
"I can't!"
Luke groaned as he tried the com link again.
"Where could he be? 3PO! 3PO, will you come in?"
Ahoska took a great breath, as she felt her control over the walls crumble and they resume their normal pace. At the very least, they were farther away from then they should have been She replied to her team in disappointment.
"Sorry guys, I couldn't keep it going."
Luke didn't seem to hold it against her as the walls were inching closer and some of the poles they had tried to set up were failing.
"You did what you could Ahsoka, which is more than any of us could do."
Han still looked at the walls closing in, his face seemed ready to accept his impending fate of being crushed to death. He then turned to the Princess to get her to climb higher.
"One thing's for sure. We're all going to be a lot thinner! Get on top of it!"
"I'm trying!"
The distance was still enough that it wasn't going to immediately crush them within several seconds, but it was getting close to that to more of the minute phase as the last of the propped up polls were starting to fail. However at that moment, Luke's com link buzzed to life.
"Are you there, sir?"
Luke immediately responded to the droid.
"3PO!"
"We've had some problems..."
Luke didn't waste getting to the point as the walls were inching ever so closer towards them, showing a temper that Ahsoka was pretty sure he inherited from her Master.
"Will you shut up and listen to me? Shut down all garbage mashers on the detention level, will you? Do you copy? Shut down all the garbage mashers on the detention level!"
Though it seemed ready for the walls to come incredibly close and smash the poor unfortunate souls that had landed their way down in there the trash compacter. Still Ahsoka, could hear the beeping from the R2 over the com link, being nearby Luke at that moment.
Mere seconds later, the walls came to a stop exactly just before they were about to prop up the walls futilely with their just own legs and arms.
In a way, Ahsoka could hardly blame the guys for the joyous shouts of relief as they were saved from Death's grasp, all she could feel was sinking down to the floor in relief though judging that the monster was possibly still down there it wasn't a good idea.
The golden protocol droid's voice dramatically buzzed through the com link.
"Listen to them! They're dying, Artoo! Curse my metal body! I wasn't fast enough. It's all my fault! My poor master!"
The blonde Skywalker hastily corrected that assumption, Han and Leia forgetting their detestation for a moment to hug in relief and Chewie also giving joyous sounds of relief. Ahsoak was merely smiling in relief, strangely not feeling as exhausted as she was a couple minutes ago.
"3PO, we're alright! We're alright, you did great! Hey, open the pressure maintenance hatch on unit number...where are we?"
Han checked the door for that and called back to the blonde.
"326827."
Sure enough within a couple of moment, a noise was heard once again in the metal room as the door opened and Ahsoka smiled, knowing who exactly helped them with this.
Thanks R2, seems like you haven't lost your touch at saving a Skywalker and anyone else in trouble.
V.E.: I'm sorry, I was planning on moving on to the next segment with them getting chased by the Storm Troopers/Clones, but it seems like this is where I'm going to end it for today.
Please show your support by reviewing and I will see you all next time.