Leia's eyes scanned the man carefully, measuring in every detail. The man seemed to scream 'uptight'. His stiff navy jacket was starched to look unbendable, buttoned up to his neck. His boots were meticulously over-shined, and she swore that she could have seen her own reflection if she had just inched forward a little. A mane of straight auburn hair extended to the small of the man's back and was tied back so as not to get in his way. He was fairly thin, tall and sickly looking due to the lack of natural sunlight and hollow cheeks that were an indicator of stress. Leia though he looked much like a young, long-haired, Wilhuff Tarkin.
At this, she snorted, thinking to herself: Well, maybe not half so menacing. She squinted for a moment, and then decided, If he softened some, he could be handsome.
"Why hello, Jaren," replied Sabé, "I wanted to introduce you to someone very special - Leia Organa. Leia, this is Jaren Siol, my long time friend and administrator of this whole little Center. I've promised to introduce you - he is also from Alderaan, and has admired your leadership for a long time."
The man Siol dipped his head in recognition, and she did the same. Then she held out her hand to shake, but he took it to lightly touch his lips to. The smallest hint of color gathered on her cheeks as she tried to cover up the fumble, but the man seemed not to notice.
"I'm honored to have your acquaintance, Princess."
Now this was getting really embarasssing. On top of that, Han glared blaster bolts and the man and Luke stayed silent, simply fading into the background. This was turning out to be an interesting visit, and Leia was happy to find another Alderaanian who shared her feelings over the destruction of her home. It was like an opportunity to focus on something closer to her heart than just all the fighting, planning, and the sneaking suspicions.
"With all respect, Mr. Siol, I'm glad to have met you. By the way, this is Han Solo, Captain of the Millenium Falcon. And his co-pilot, Chewbacca. Oh, yes, and Commander Luke Skywalker."
Slowly, he replied, "Please, call me Jaren. I get enough of "Mr. Siol" all day. And I am happy to meet all of you. Of course, you are friends of the Princess!" A small beep came from nowhere when Jaren dug out a small wrist chrono from his pocket.
"Really - it's already time for the morning rounds. But of course, if you would like to stay and have a look around I'm sure I should like to talk and get to know each other better. Excuse me, but I must really help the others. Good day, Princess, Corrin." With that, the made one last bow and set off in the opposite direction.
Once he was gone, Han muttered, "Good riddance." Which was consecutively followed by, "What was that, Solo?"
"Me? I didn't say a thing, sister. Not a thing." The Corellian put on his best innocent expression and whistled low. Luke could swear that under a layer of fur, Chewie was smiling.
"Well then I must be going deaf, Captain. Because I clearly heard, 'Good riddance'. Now what's got your wires in a knot?"
"Yeah, Han, " Leia piped in, "don't tell me you're...jealous." The particular emphasis she imposed seemed to prove its purpose, and the subject was changed abruptly.
"So, now that we've got these parts with us, when are we gonna get the Falcon? I don't wanna leave 'er alone too long with Goldenrod - it might start picking up the ability to yak off useless info. And who knows what might have happened since we left it out there. I mean, I know Abber Bonks said he'd watch it an' all, but if he's related to that other guy, who knows what coulda happened to 'er by now..."
"All right, all right, Captain. We'll leave now and maybe the Princess can speak to Jaren later. Your ship should be in the same condition as you left it, and the Gungan's name is Abso Bar Binks, for that matter. Well, there's on way in, and one way out. Let's get going."
Luke took a place in the backseat of the small craft and faded silently out of conversation. He had not said a word since they had been in the tunnels, and he was on the verge of using the Force to find out just what all this meant. The whole trip here had turned out to be a bundle of coincidences. First, discovering their aunts, cousins and basically all of their maternal heritage. Then, they find another Alderaanian who had escaped the planet's destruction. This nest of gundarks was getting more crowded by the minute.
It was hard to read into this situation - Ben had told him that he would need to learn things on his own. It was turning out to be easier said than done. Sabé Corrin became a more dangerous personage in his mind than anyone else at present, and he could sense that deep beneath the brown eyes she hid something. Something that could very well change everything.
Frustrating as it was, Luke would just have to deal with it for now, and continue to pursue his hunch. He sighed inwardly as the speeder slowed in the deep of the forest, and finally came to a halt. The satchelful of parts next to him jiggled precariously close to falling, until he used the Force to sway them back into position.
"Alright, Luke, gimme those parts, an' I'm gonna get right on fixin' her." Han unceremoniously caught the heavy bag and threw it over his shoulder to trudge forward fast-paced.
When they reached the spot of their landing from two days ago, the Falcon seemed to have been moved, and the trees which had been demolished now stood in a comical curve. Several Gungans with their kaadus milled around the area, brushing various bits of dirt and leaves off of the hull and attempting to right the position of the surrounding vegetation.
Han gaped in horror at his precious ship, looking decidedly forlorn in its dormant, temporarily inactive state. A string of inaudible curses were uttered under his breath, but before he could comment, Lana So Gallos appeared out of the crowd which had gathered at the site.
"Greetings, yousen pepples. We'sa been tryin' ta move yous ship, and trying ta see what'sa we can be doin', but da trees is'a goin' everyway!"
Leia replied dazedly, "Thank you very much, but I'm sure that if your people will just help us to remove the debris, we can take care of the rest." She looked awed at the sight of the Millenium Falcon. It looked more like a bucket of bolts than ever, meaning that there was definitely a lot of work to do.
After some moments of dreamy silence, Chewbacca barked impatiently. [I think that standing here will not do us any good. We must begin.]
"Yeah, yeah... of course. Chewie? I think I'll need a hydrospanner."
Six hours later, sweating and breathing heavily, Han retreated down the ramp to admire his nearly-completed work. The others had taken refuge atop their speeder, munching on several cookies Sola had packed them before they left.
"Well, I'll be Kesseled," panted Han, "That was hard. Gimme some room, will ya?"
The others laughed, and Sabé asked, "Captain Solo, I don't know how you manage it. You can fix a piece of junk like this and make her into a flying masterpiece, but you can't manage the same with a sink. Now how does that figure?"
The man in question was too tired to respond, and made due with a dissatisfactory expression and a mouthful of chocolate. All were contentedly silent, having worked on the battered ship for hours, but also having given up on the project five hours in. Han had been quite dedicated to the repair of his ship and only he, Chewie and Artoo had been left to put it back into top notch condition.
Now all there was left to do was secure the bottom gunner and clean the mess inside. The droids estimated that this should take another two or three hours, which was a relief to all.
At the moment however, Han was content just to sit back and rest for a while. Leia understood this, and used the break time to mingle more with the Gungans. Her mind soon changed when she saw Jar Jar Binks approach, smiling. No matter how sociable the Gungan was, he gave her information she had no desire to hear; more of the same.
She dreaded to hear more reminisces of the past, of her parents, of...her father. She wanted none of it, and refused to be subject to any of it. Once Leia, or any Skywalker for that matter, made their mind up, there was no changing it. Resolutely, she turned toward the trees and excused herself from any further conversation.
Only to be met by Abso Bar Binks. With him he carried a satchel containing mushrooms, and one of the long rods she had seen before at Otoh Gunga - a weapon of some sort. Immediately, he greeted her warmly, still proceeding to dig for fungus.
He hummed to himself while crouching among the dirt and rocks, using the rod to poke at prospective mushroom-growing areas. For a time, Leia kept silent and made rounds about the huge trees. That is, until she heard a scream and the thump of a dropping object. She rushed to the source of the sound, on the alert and already with her blaster.
But all that she found was Abso lying face-down on the ground straight into a pile of. . . oh, dear.
She pursed her lips to hold back giggles as she helped him off the ground. It did smell bad indeed, and she wondered what sort of creature had produced the stuff; it was worse than Tauntaun farts!
He squinted and blinked several times before shaking his head rapidly and ridding himself of the fairly pungent excrement. "Yicky. Uh, Me'sa gettin' clumsy. Borger stinky issen da worse ting to be gettin' on yous."
Leia could not stifle the imminent laughter, and shamelessly burst out in a fit of giggles. Instead of getting angry, Abso grinned widely to laugh at himself.
When they regained their composure, they retrieved the box and its former contents from the ground, washed Binks' face, and were soon stalking among a dense crowd of ferns. After one thing and another, the two were talking of romance, a very odd subject indeed.
"Whatta 'bout yousen an' dat Hannie Solo boy? Yousen da liken him?"
Under the false belief her days of blushing were over, Leia hid her face as she felt it warm. "Um...maybe. What about you?" She replied quickly, veering the subject away from her direction.
To her surprise, her present companion also became quite embarrased before mumbling, "Well...yousa not gonna tell anyones, eh? Okay, well...I'sa always tinkin' Lana So Gallos moi moi..." He seemed to be fishing for the appropriate word, when Leia chimed in:
"Beautiful?"
He looked even more embarrased by her suggestion, but conceded defeat with a very small 'yes'.
"How long has this...thinking been going on?"
At this, Abso took a moment to think. Until, "Uh...maybe I'sa tinkin'...two tens o' years?"
"Two tens? Do you mean like twenty?" She was astonished, that someone could actually hold unrequited love for that long; she and Han had been together for four years, and hadn't even realized they liked each other until a year and a half or so!
The Gungan quirked what could have been his brow. "Yes. Issun dis a bad ting?"
Twenty years! "Well, excuse me for asking such a forward question, but do you have reason to believe that your feelings are reciprocated from any indication on her part?"
"Huh?" Binks scratched his ear in confusion.
Okay, maybe too many big words. "Has she ever said, or maybe done anything, to make you think she likes you too?"
"Oh. Uh...Me'sa not knowin' dis. Maybe has, maybe nottin. I don' know." He shrugged, not really adept at the art of courting.
Leia sighed inwardly. But just as she opened her mouth to comment, she heard Luke calling her name out loud.
"Leia? Leia!"
This time, Leia sighed for real. "I'm here! What is it?"
Her brother's black-clad figure bounded in her direction, and once he was close enough to be heard without shouting, he said, "Han's going to do a test-run, and I thought you'd maybe want to see. Plus, I think you've been assigned to the clean-up crew."
"I'll be there in a second, thanks. Abso, will you be finishing up? I think that's all the mushrooms you'll be getting today."
Trudging back to the forest, they did not collect more mushrooms, or encounter any more gifts from Borgle bats. As a matter of fact, nothing was encountered until a singular blaster bolt danced across the ground, alarming the three.
"Get down!" Luke ordered, with a snap-hiss of his lightsaber, several more bolts came out of nowhere.
All of a sudden, the thin red beams showered upon them in a hail of free fire, effectively blocked by the green blade. Abso was useless with his spear, and Leia could not discern any particular target with her own blaster, and soon gave up on trying to find one. The shots came from left, right and behind, so there was no telling who or what lay beyond in that thick shield of leaves.
Leia reasoned with herself that there must eventually come a rescue, because the bolts themselves made enough noise, nevermind the swing of the lightsaber. Pulling her blaster out once again, she fired aimlessly in all directions. This seemed to help some, but if they didn't get some help soon a stray beam could do a lot of damage, and her arm was still weak from the shot she had gotten on Endor, plus the strain it had taken just two days ago when dislocated.
The fierce roar of a machine erupted from the sky as one shot singed the edge of Abso's bag.