Half a galaxy away, Leia sat at a small glass topped table with a large pretty drink in hand. She should have made this getaway with Winter, she thought unhappily. Being by herself in the hotel lounge was the epitome of lame. Not that she hadn't enjoyed the sunbathing. Not that she didn't desperately need time to think. It's just that being by yourself the whole time was lame. This past month had been tough. She was nearly killed by a she-bitch droid, kidnapped by one of the most notorious crime bosses in the Empire, and found out that her soulmate was actually her twin brother!
But on one happy note, Luke did bring his Jedi Master with him.
Obi-Wan Kenobi was, without a doubt, the true reason for her being so unhinged. Was Luke right? Had she already forgotten about Han? The first time she saw him, she had been more affected than when she'd first seen Prince Xizor, even with the Falleen's strange ability with pheromes. Whe she healed him, not only was he finding out just how far advanced her powers with the Force were, but he was finding out who she was, on the inside. Leia knocked back the drink. No wonder he backed off!
But she couldn't help how she felt. The more she tried to put him out of her mind, the more she thought of him. She even seemed to see him across the room. A man with red hair, but no beard. She had an urge to buy the man a drink. She watched for a few moments, then he glanced up her way. He nodded his head and lifted his drink. She watched as he walked over a few moments later.
"Well, what's a class act like you doing all by herself here?" the man wondered aloud. He didn't sound like Obi-Wan, Leia thought with disappointment.
"What's your name?" Leia smiled.
"Darren, and you would be?" he asked smoothly.
"Leia," she answered. "Great weather here this time of year, isn't it?"
She and Darren talked about some things, nothing serious. Darren was smooth, a bit on the sophisticated side. A good talker. Leia found that her drink got done pretty quickly once he arrived. He offered to take it back up to the bar and get it refilled. She gave it to him.
While she waited, her head buzzed a bit. The drink had been the kind of alcoholic beverage that was so delicious you barely tasted the alcohol at all. She rarely drank; ever since she'd joined the Rebellion, she always needed to have her wits about her. But just this once, she was letting her defenses down... Darren returned with the drinks. They continued talking about this and that.
Leia felt herself sway slightly. Damn, she should have eaten something with these drinks! She tried to keep her eyelids open; she didn't want Darren to think she was bored. "Say, Leia, you seem a little smashed. Maybe I should take you back up to your room?"
She fought the urge to put her head down on the tabletop. "No, no. I'll be alright," she told him. More like told herself. Chewbacca could always help her to her room. Better him than this fellow she barely knew. Wait a minute! she thought in panic, you left Chewie back with the Fleet. Didn't want to drag him to the beach! Well, there was no use in trying to call Chewie on her comlink. Darren was able to easily lift her from her seat; she had so little strength to fight him.
Through the haze, Leia managed to say one word. "Drugged."
"Now, what room are you in?" he asked her, still nicely. Still smoothly. Leia couldn't remember her room number anyway, even if she was inclined to tell him what it was. The lounge began to spin wildly, around and around. Until it stopped on a tall male figure with a pitch black Imperial flightsuit on, along with the mask Imp pilots always wear.
Imperial Flightsuit strode over to Darren. "Excuse me, young man. Where are you taking my daughter?" he demanded. Leia found enough strength to look up in shock. She knew that voice! What the hell was Vader doing here?
"Huh...Your daughter? I thought she was alone!" Darren protested.
"Oh, I'll just bet you did! You just roofed my daughter, didn't you?" Vader growled.
"N..No sir! Please!" Darren yelled. Vader picked Darren up by his neck and tossed him into the bar itself, sending a row of stool scattering, and no doubt putting Darren in traction for quite some time.
Leia felt herself now being picked up by Vader. "Leia, keep trying to block the effects of the drug. Use the Force! Now, let's get you back to your room," he told her quietly as he strode out into the hotel lobby. Leia was getting quite a few stares from other guests, but Vader paid them absolutely no heed.
"What'reyoudoinhere?" she slurred.
"Never mind that right now. Just get in the refresher." He put her on the floor inside the refresher, right next to the commode. Leia turned and looked into his mask, and could just see the outline of his eyes under the dark visor. She made a "blech" kind of face. "Better out than in, Princess."
Leia knew he was right, so she stared down into the water. It helped her to visualize the poison being filtered out of her blood as it passed through the Force. She knew it was working; it was filling her stomach. It was a shame; that was a really great drink... She pushed her long hair back off her face so it wouldn't fall into the bowl. And then, nasty black stuff came up...
Needless to say, once that was over with, Leia was feeling better, though the taste in her mouth was wretched. And then she realized that Vader had been holding her hair back the whole time. "Thank you." She flushed, made a wincing face, and then he helped her stand up.
"Are you alright now?" Vader asked her.
"Yes, thank you for getting me away from that jerk," Leia answered. She sunk down into one of the chairs in the sitting area of the suite. "Now, what are you doing here?"
"I'm here to catch up with you. After all, I had wanted you on my Star Destroyer, but you decided to cut out with that gambler. Then, I catch a glimpse of you on Coruscant, but you and Luke took off so fast, and I was busy..."
"Busy helping us escape Xizor. How did you know to come there? You know, forget about that. There are so many more important things I have to talk to you about. Like why you didn't tell me about my brother. And why did you cut his hand off?"
Vader gave her a keen look. "You know that Luke is your brother? That could only mean that he told you what happened on Bespin. I didn't know about Luke when I told you the truth accidentally. It's ironic; the very day I tell you the truth, he came into both our lives! And as far as cutting his hand off, he's just damned lucky he didn't manage to cut my arm off, or I really would have been angry..."
"Oh, please! This 'Vader the Victim' routine is about to induce more vomiting..." Leia said very dryly.
"Princess, don't take it out on me that you've been acting like a dumbass ever since you left Bespin! Don't you think I know that, if you're really drunk, that is, that fellow who just roofed you looked a bit like Obi-Wan Kenobi? What happened to your space bum?" Vader snapped back.
"That's it! I'm sure you found out where I was by forcing out of Luke somehow! But you have absolutely no right to butt in my life! You're the absolute last person in the galaxy that I would talk to about my love life!" Leia yelled, getting out of her chair, and then gripping the arms for support because she got dizzy.
Vader laughed that comment off. "I'm afraid that you will just have to get used to the fact that Darth Vader is your father, just like Luke had to get used to it."
Leia steadied herself. "No, you're not just Darth Vader. Yes, I know you didn't tell me, but Luke did. He told me the truth! That you're really Anakin Skywalker too. Yes...just like a split personality. Vader, the mean, power hungry control freak was the one who froze my space bum in carbonite. And Anakin Skywalker was the man who I just saw downstairs in the lounge. The one who just helped me in the refresher."
Vader sighed. "Oh, Leia, this is very disappointing. I had hoped for sure that you wouldn't get on that same kick that your brother is on. You know the one: that I'm really not a bad guy after all. I was really hoping I could count on you to keep believing that I'm EEEVILLLL."
In spite of her outrage, in spite of her throbbing head, Leia had to smile at that. "You are such a piece of work. It's going to take more than Luke's words to convince me one way, and it's going to take more than your words to convince me the other."
"Princess, I mean it. I'm a Darth. A Dark Lord of the Sith. One who embraces the darkness, uses it instead of the light. One who recognizes the power that dwells where people often don't see it. There is no use trying to convince me to go back to being a Jedi. To only living half of my potential. I can still help people, in fact, I'm more well-equipped to help them than I ever was as a Jedi Knight." He got up from his seat, gazed out Leia's window at the moon that shimmered off the ocean. "There is no use for light without darkness. The Jedi Order never really understood this. That is why they all perished in the end; they were so blinded by the light that darkness overcame them and they never saw it coming."
"Luke wants to become a Jedi in the worst way. And what do you do? You go and give him a Jedi master to train him. I think that the darkness has now confused you," Leia said.
"No, I'm not confused, Leia. I admit that bringing Obi-Wan back to the living realm was impulsive. but Luke needed to be trained. In fact, I'm quite surprised that you haven't started any kind of Jedi training as well," Vader pointed out.
"Maybe Obi-Wan could train me," Leia said excitedly.
"Like hell he is, Leia! What are you hoping he'll train you to do, hmm?" Vader asked unkindly. Leia started to feel a flush cross her face. "Trust me, him training you would not even be that interesting, not that I'd ever permit it anyway. He's got one Padawan already. If he wants to stick to his precious Jedi Code, he won't take you on to train you anyway. I don't even think he'd take you on any other way either. You'd be better off trying to 'train' with the space bum in carbonite..."
"If you think he doesn't like me, than why are you so worried?" Leia shot back.
Vader growled. "Leia, you'd better stop this now! Any relationship you have with him would be all one sided, and maybe, just maybe, I'd rather not have you go through that kind of disappointment!"
"Nope, you're worried. What if Obi-Wan does like me?" Leia argued.
"Has he ever shown you any interest?" Vader sneered.
Leia felt as though someone had dumped a bucket of cold water into her stomach. "Just go! Leave me alone!" she pouted.
"Fine, I'll go, but I'm warning you, and you can pass it along to your brother as well, that you both need to get real. About me, and about Obi-Wan Kenobi as well!" Vader stomped off.
Only in the very early morning was Tatooine this chilly. The first of the two suns had a half hour yet to rise. But that was what Boba Fett preferred as he landed his ship, Slave IV, in Mos Espa. When it's this early, most of the low lifes were living low. And Jabba's outrageous bounty on Han Solo had attracted virtually every cretin in the Outer Rim territories to chase him. It took one year and three months to get Solo back to Tatooine. Unreal! Catching him the first time had been such a snap! Bringing him here had become an epic drama!
A few droid attendants helped him unload the precious cargo. A block of carbonite, on repulsor lifts, with a human male enclosed inside. Fett leaned down and growled, "Even frozen like this, you're more trouble than you're worth!" Then he looked up, and through his narrow Mandolorian visor, he could see that something was definitely different at the spaceport than the last time he was here. "Droid! Why was it so difficult for me to get docking space here? Why is it so crowded?"
The only droid that had any vocal abilities at all looked more like a rusting vaporator than a droid. The metallic voice answered very simply, "Boonta Eve."
"Oh, dammit, you've got to be kidding! Of course; I forgot, it is Boonta Eve this weekend," Fett groaned and peered down at the hibernating Han Solo. "Looks like this is going to be one bang-up weekend, Solo. I hope Jabba's not too preoccupied to pay me for dragging your sorry ass all over the galaxy!"
Boba Fett loaded up his weapons: his Mandolorian darts in his cuffs, his rifle and rocket pack strapped onto his back, his hips both burdened with a few more blasters. He had no idea what kind of trouble he might run into between Mos Espa and Jabba's Palace. And sure enough, he barely walked out of the spaceport to try and rent some sort of vehicle to transport his cargo when he spotted some swoop bikers leaning on the outer wall. He eyed them very carefully for signs of consciousness. He could smell the alcohol through his mask. So when he turned around to leave them, he was mildly surprised that some of them sprang to life after all.
Fett's blaster was far quicker than the chains and steel bars that his enemies flung at him. A few went down, the others had blasters of their own. So Fett activated his backpack rockets, and took to the air. But he wasn't keen on staying up there too long; if one of these morons got ahold of Solo after all this trouble, he'd be kicking himself from here to the Wilds.
But then, an amazing thing happened. One of the swoop bikers, a human male with long dark hair tied back out of his face and slightly cleaner clothes than the others started blasting the others into oblivion! At first, Boba Fett remained above the fray as steadily as he could, figuring this one turned on the others. But he noticed the methodical way he fired, the position of the blaster in his hand. And he noticed, as he dove down, that this blaster wasn't one of those pieces of scrap metal you buy in junk shops. There was far more to this swoop biker than he'd first thought.
The strange biker dashed off into the spaceport again. Fett gave chase, but found he didn't even go to where Solo's carbon frozen form still lay. Well, the bounty hunter thought, he'd ask all the questions he wanted to later, but now he had to deliver his prize. And he had just the thing. Now that it's owner was dead, one of those swoop bikes would work perfectly. Boba Fett took the bike, and one of the chains out of one of the dead biker's hands, and latched Han Solo to it. He could drag the block on it's repulsor lifts across the steadily brightening sands of the desert just fine. Boba Fett was nothing if not resourceful...
Little did Fett know that the mysterious biker followed him. After all, he knew where the bounty hunter was going. And he had every interest in making certain that the carbonite block made it inside Jabba's Palace. And once the twin suns had both finally risen, Boba Fett approached the front door of the Palace, which had once been (and still technically was) the Sacred Temple of the B'Omarr Monks. The mysterious biker's eyes followed Fett as the large door rose and admitted him and Han Solo.
"Lord Vader, do you copy? This is Jix. Repeat, do you copy?" Jix held the comlink in the palm of his hand, and Vader's helmet appeared in a hologram. "Lord Vader, the womp rat has gotten his cheese."
"Excellent work, Jix. And it's about damned time too! Not a moment too soon. Now, you must go to Corellia, Jix. Check the security system in my apartment; I know you just love doing that kind of thing."
"I guess this means I can't stay for this Boonta Eve thing," Jix sighed.
"Trust me, you're not missing anything. On Tatooine, they can't even set off any fireworks like they do on Nal Hutta," Vader said lightly, from his suite in the Starshine Beach resort, where a few rooms away, Leia sat stewing in her own juices. He signed off from his spy on Tatooine.
He'd stay here long enough to see what Leia does. No doubt, she has agents watching Jabba's Palace from every angle. How long would she wait before taking her brother's X-wing back to Tatooine? How long would it take for her to figure out she's only got some silly infatuation with Obi-Wan Kenobi once her space bum is finally freed?