Where Am I Going To?
Part One
Chapter Eight
There was a flash, a hiss, and a howl of pain as Luke whipped his lightsaber out. The pulsing pale blue light danced briefly before its wielder smashed it across one of the ruffian's chest. The other escaped with one less arm. There was a vicious sneer on his lips, his left eye twitched spasmodically, and his shoulders rose and fell in erratic, angry respiration. He breathed out one clear message: Do. Not. Mess. With. Me.
Obi Wan quickly put a hand on his charge's shoulder, and Padawan Skywalker spun around, his nerves still shot, his eyes still dilated. "Put that thing away," Kenobi hissed, motioning to the lightsaber clutched in the young Jedi's angry fist. The boy switched it off and re-buckled it his belt, trying to regulate his breathing. "Don't turn around," whispered the old man, putting a little pressure on the shoulder in order to steer Luke in the direction he wanted him to go. "Walk this way, don't make eye contact."
Luke was very consciously aware that the denizens of the cantina were watching him, quite certain that they had never seen him around before. The hum and buzz of activity returned, but Luke still felt eyes on the back of his head. The Jedi steered his protégé into a slightly more remote area – Luke noted, however, a large, six or seven foot Wookie watching them expectantly – and asked "What happened?"
"I didn't start it, Master, honest! They started trying to pick a fight, and when push came to shove I just got…."
"You got angry." Luke couldn't meet his eyes, and felt a terrible pang of failure in his breast. He'd let his idolized teacher down. "You let the Dark Side have it's way with you."
Luke looked back up, his icy blue eyes fiercely repentant. "Master Obi Wan, I'm trying so hard!"
The old Jedi's finger's tightened affectionately on the shoulder, and Luke felt a little of the guilt lift. "I know you are. You'll get better, with time. At the moment, however, pressing matters call our attention." Obi Wan turned Luke so that they faced the Wookie, who walked up to them with long strides. "Chewbacca here is first mate on a ship that might suit our needs." Luke looked slightly nervously up at the towering fur ball, who gave a growl-ish sounding hello. The boy smiled anxiously.
…
Han Solo, Captain of the Millennium Falcon. And Luke hated him.
Han had never really had a chance in Luke's ever shrinking circle of high esteem. He'd grown up hating people like Han. He hated them for their wild independence, which Luke could never have because he was forever leashed to his father and to the emperor. He hated them because they were bastard children of mercenaries and whores, whilst he was the legitimate and only son of the second most powerful man in the galaxy and a queen of a planet whose name had never been revealed to him. He hated them because there was no one telling them what they would be if or when they grew up, they had the full spectrum of choice. He hated them because there was no one to bow to and no one to call "Master." No one threatened them with Force Lightning, and no beat theory and technique into their heads day and night and night and day. And he hated them because, even if they had nothing, and Luke had everything, they were quite a lot happier than he was.
Life was by and large unfair. He knew this quite well. So the smooth talking, fast dealing, and most assuredly handsome Han Solo quite clearly fit into this rather broad category of people he loathed and would have traded places with in a heart beat. He would have given anything to have grown up as a Luke Skywalker who probably didn't know who his parents were, or cared, and was the master of his own fate. Luke wouldn't be a master of his own life until after both Emperor Palpatine and his father were dead and gone. It just wasn't fair.
Luke knew he wasn't unattractive, but compared to Han Solo he felt severely inadequate. He knew he was smart, but Captain Solo issued a life skills sort of cleverness that Luke envied desperately. And all of these biased and rather unwarranted hates brewed and nagged in the back of Luke's mind so that he very much despised Solo when all he'd said was a handful of sentence:
"I'm Han Solo, Captain of the Millennium Falcon. Chewie here tells me you're looking for passage to the Alderaan System."
"Yes, indeed," confirmed Obi Wan. "If it's a fast ship."
"Fast ship?"
Score one for the home team, Luke thought with a self righteous sneer as he noted that the barb had succeeded in severely wounding the pirate's pride.
"You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon?"
Kenobi and Luke glanced at each other, and simply returned the smuggler a questioning look. "No," replied Luke.
"Should we have?" asked the old man.
"It's the ship that made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs," snarled Han through gritted teeth.
Whoop de freaking do, Luke thought, rolling his eyes. I could do that in my TIE with my eyes closed.
"I've outrun Imperial Star Destroyers, and I'm not talking the bulk cruisers either. She's fast enough for you, old man." Luke sneered at the insult to his beloved mentor, and found his hand wrapping unconsciously around the hilt of his father's discarded lightsaber. Well, if it worked with those thugs before… "What's the cargo?" continued the completely oblivious Solo.
"Just passengers. Myself, the boy, two droids. And no questions asked."
Captain Solo raised a brown eye brow, and met Luke glare for glare before breaking the eye contact. "What is it, some kind of local trouble."
"You could call it that," allowed Luke.
"Let's just say," placated the Jedi peaceably, "we don't want any Imperial entanglements."
Luke had turned his head so that he could stare at a wall. The smuggler was watching him with strange interest, and Luke just flat out refused to give anything away by looking at him. Finally, with a coy smile, the pirate turned his attentions back to the old Jedi.
"Well, that's the real trick, isn't it? And it's going to cost you something extra. Ten thousand, in advance."
Luke angrily leaped from his chair, and Han was on his feet as well. Vexed, Obi Wan had a hand to his temple. "Ten thousand?" he demanded angrily. "We could almost buy our own ship for that!"
"But who's gonna fly it, kid, you?"
Kid? He snarled. Hell, he was eighteen, why did everyone insist that he was a kid? "You bet, I'm not such a bad pilot myself!" And he wasn't. He was excellent. He got it from his father, or so he'd been told.
"Luke," sighed Kenobi, and Luke looked down at his master in fierce, protective loyalty.
"We don't have to sit her and listen to-" A look silenced all of Luke's protests, and he sat down quickly and silently, staring intently at the wall again. Solo watched him questioningly, as if silently asking him "You're tough, you can handle yourself, and you know it, too. So what the hell are you doing with this old geezer?" And in reply to the silent, unasked question, Luke's reply was It's something you wouldn't understand, I'm sure. And he was right about that. Captain Solo would never understand the intense and loving bond that Master shared with Pupil. He'd never had such a relationship.
"We can pay you two thousand now, plus fifteen when we reach Alderaan." Luke's head snapped away from the wall and stared at his master, just as surprised as the pirate was. Both jaws were gapping, and even Luke entertained the fleeting idea that the old man had lost his senses.
"Seventeen thousand, huh?" marveled the pirate, unsure if he was just really lucky, or if the Jedi was just really stupid. The Wookie chorused with an amused rolling growl sort of noise. "Okay! You guy's have got yourselves a ship! We'll leave as soon as you're ready. Docking Bay Ninety Four."
"Ninety Four," echoed the old Jedi with a nod, noting that Luke was still gaping at him.
"Look's like someone's interested in your handy work," the man said with a nod in Luke's direction. The boy swiveled his head and inwardly cursed as he saw Storm Troopers enter. The pair rose from the table, and Luke shot a furtive glance well mixed with a glare at the smirking smuggler. Without so much as a word, he followed his master away from the table and out the door.
"Master," he hissed, "why did you do that? He's not worth half so much as-"
"Luke, you've got to know when to fold them and when to hold them, as the saying goes. Now, we need out of here, and it has to be now, so, in this case, the only way to win was to relent."
"If we had a ship, I could get us out of here without so much as a bat of an eye!" Luke cried, desperately trying to make his point and save a little face.
"I know that," Obi Wan said, reassuringly patting the boy's arm, "but it would have taken too long, and we would have drawn too much attention. Don't worry, Luke, I know what I'm doing. Don't you trust me?"
"Of course, Master Obi Wan," Luke said in his customary reverence. "I'll always trust you."
"Good," Kenobi said with a nod, smiling at his apprentice. "Now, let's see if we can't scrounge up that promised two thousand, hm?"
To Be Continued…
I had a lot of trouble with the spacing on this one….
xInuyashaxangelx: Well, so long as you keep reviewing, I'll keep writing .-
