Hello again, dear readers! Thanks to everyone who stopped by to have a look at this, and extra-special thanks for those who alerted/favourited/reviewed - this week my shout-outs go to: iloveashandquinn, a lovely guest, Time-Dog and Sev. Thanks very muchly for reviewing!
Exciting news about the author - I'm living in Turkey now, and flew out two days ago to see my house for the first time! Therefore, I am writing to you from Istanbul - whoop!
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars, or any of its characters. Only Alice is mine.
From the cockpit, their predicament was clear – instead of descending gracefully towards the planet of Alderaan, they were dodging past huge hunks of floating rock, some bigger than the ship itself. "Um," Alice said, clutching the back of Han's chair as they slalomed through the rocky minefield, "why is this happening?"
"Meteor shower. But they shouldn't be here," Han said grimly, "our position's correct, but there's no Alderaan."
"What do you mean, where is it?" Luke asked.
"That's what I'm trying to tell you, kid, it ain't there. It's been completely blown away."
"So, what you mean to say is," Alice said, tentatively, "we're flying through Alderaan." She tried to remember anything and everything she had learned about astronomy in physics at school. Damn, why did I have to be good at the humanities rather than the sciences? Dredging up something about dying stars, she added, stupidly, "A planet can't just explode, can it?"
"It must have been destroyed by the Empire," Ben said.
Han shook his head, "An entire star fleet couldn't destroy the whole planet, it would take a thousand ships with more firepower than I've ever-" He paused, inspecting the screen. Slowly, a frown formed on his face.
"Oh yay," Alice said miserably, "what is it now?"
"There's another ship coming in."
"So let's go," Alice said. The three men (and one wookiee) ignored her completely.
"Maybe they know what happened?" Luke suggested.
"It's an Imperial fighter." Ben sounded definitively certain about this, though Alice wasn't sure how.
Outside the windows, several of the meteors exploded as the other ship's lasers just missed the Falcon.
Luke now: "So they followed us?"
She tried again. "Let's just go."
"No," Ben disagreed, "it's a short range fighter."
Alice rolled her eyes, cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, "Why are you guys still talking about this, let's just go?!"
"There aren't any bases around here, so where did it come from?"
I give up. "Why are we following it, for goodness sake? We're just, like, asking for trouble."
Ben: "A fighter that size couldn't get this deep into space on its own."
Luke: "It must have gotten lost, been part of a convoy or something."
"But why are we following it?"
"Because, even if there is an Imperial base nearby, he ain't gonna be around long enough to tell anybody about us," Han said grimly.
"Right, now you hear me. Hold on. You mean you're going to destroy it?"
"That's right, sweetheart," he said, leaning forward over the controls.
"Oh…"
"Alice?"
"…Give me a minute." She slipped out of the door, and leaned against the wall, feeling torn, when Threepio appeared around the corner, with Artoo rattling along in tow.
"Oh, Miss Alice! May I inquire as to the situation?"
"Alderaan's been blown up, we were spotted by an Imperial fighter and now we're going to blow it up even though just turning around and going back into lightspeed would be an effective way to hide and would involve minimal loss of life."
"An Imperial fighter!" Threepio repeated, alarmed, "Oh, my!"
"Ben's right – I come from a place where you generally don't see violence on a daily basis, and this is a little too much for me!"
Artoo warbled sympathetically.
"Somewhere along the line, people, I have made a serious error of judgement. I suspect it was the point at which I agreed to come on the dangerous mission to the rebel planet with the old man and the farm boy with the 80s haircut. Dammit! The next civilised planet we come to, I'm staying there!"
Even as she said it, she realised it wasn't true. Sure, they're just going to keep leading me into dangerous situations where I'm completely useless, but I don't know anyone else. Not to mention I have no idea what I'd do. Right now I need…an overarching plot structure to follow. Making your own decisions is for people who actually have some clue what's going on. Looks like I'm just going to have to readjust my world view a little, at least until I can go home.
With a groan, Alice returned to the cockpit.
"Sorry guys, just a momentary pause for reflection. What's happening? How much trouble are we in?"
"We're caught in a tractor beam, that space station is pulling us in," Han explained briskly. Alice frowned, about to ask 'what space station', only to find the answer directly in front of her eyes, rapidly approaching through the viewscreen.
"There's got to be something you can do," Luke said.
"There's nothing I can do about it kid, I'm at full power. I'm going to have to shut down. They're not going to get me without a fight."
"You can't win," said Ben, "but there are alternatives to fighting."
Alice couldn't contribute to the conversation – she was merely gazing, awestruck at the monumental hugeness of the space station. A vast metallic sphere the size of a planet (well...she didn't know much about the size of planets, but that thing had to be as big as…Pluto, at least), it filled the entire view screen, blotting out everything else.
"How the hell did they even build that thing?" Alice asked, dismayed, "It must have taken years!" The Millennium Falcon was a pinprick in comparison; when they flew up, or rather, were dragged in, towards one of the loading bays, they slipped through the huge steel doors like a minnow through a trawler's net. Silence fell in the cockpit. Until Alice asked the question no one else wanted to.
"So…now what?"
BREAK
"This? This was the best you could come up with?" Alice hissed.
"Well, excuse me, sweetheart, but I notice you weren't particularly keen to offer any ideas!"
"I thought I told you not to call me sweetheart!"
Ben's voice carried clearly from their left. "Silence!"
"I still don't know why I had to go with you," Alice grumbled.
"Because you're the smallest, alright? Don't blame me for the old man's decision."
"Pah."
Alice and Han were currently crammed into a very small compartment under the floor of the Millennium Falcon, while Luke and Ben and the two droids were under another two. Chewbacca, being around seven foot tall, had his own compartment. Alice was extremely unhappy with this situation, because in order for them to fit, touching Han was more or less unavoidable.
"Could you take your hands off me, please," Alice said sharply, slapping the smuggler's hands away from her waist.
"Look, kid, there are loose wires down here! I'm just trying to stop you from electrocuting yourself!" He replied in exasperation.
"Oh, suuuure-"
"Shh!" And for the second time in their acquaintance, Han Solo slapped his hand over Alice's mouth. She huffed in irritation, but remained silent, listening carefully.
She heard footsteps over their head, and then a storm trooper's voice saying, "There's no one here." There came some rustling, then more footsteps, which gradually faded away.
Alice waited a moment longer, for safety's sake, then bit down hard on Han's finger.
"Ow!" He dragged his hand away from her, inspecting the bite. "Dammit, woman, what was that for?"
"You deserved it," she said primly, pushing at the floor panel above their heads.
Han shot her a glare as he helped her lift the panel, "You're ridiculous."
"Yeah, well…look at your stupid 70's coiffure! Your hair is so bouffant it's practically made of marshmallow!"
"Han, Alice, please," Ben said, gesturing for them to lower their voices, "we must try and get out of here as soon as possible."
"How?" Han demanded, "Even if I could take off, I'd never get past the tractor beam."
"Leave that to me," Ben said.
"Oh, I knew you were going to say that."
"Really?" Alice asked, sarcastically, "Did you, Han? Somehow I doubt that."
Han rolled his eyes at her as Ben said, "Who's more foolish, the fool or the fool that follows him?"
Alice blew her hair out of her eyes, "You know what Ben, that little aphorism pretty much sums up my life at this moment."
Chewie wailed, and Alice pointed at him, "See? He knows what I'm talking about."
"They're going to send a scanning team in," Luke said, "what are we going to do?"
Everyone looked at everyone else, hoping for a spark of inspiration.
"Uhh…"
Luke, who was standing in the corner of the room by the door, keeping a cautionary eye out, suddenly darted back, bumping into Ben and nearly sending the old man sprawling, "Quick, hide, hide!"
"Chewie," Han snapped suddenly, "with me."
Alice held her breath as she, Ben and Luke took refuge in various places around the room, while Chewie and Han took up positions on either side of the door, their backs to the wall and blasters (or in the wookiee's case, a huge, mean-looking crossbow) in their hands.
"Silence now," Ben warned, pretty unnecessarily, Alice thought.
But she did as she was told, holding her breath and pulling anxiously on a curl that had worked its way loose at her left temple.
There was a loud crash from around the corner where Han and Chewie were, and after a brief pause, she heard Han calling, his voice a little muffled and further away than before, "Hey, down there! Would you give us a hand with this?"
"What's he doing?" She hissed.
Luke shrugged, and Alice rolled her eyes. Fat lot of good you are.
Suddenly, there came the sound of another, slightly quieter crash, making Alice jump, followed by a low groan.
She and Ben looked at each other; Alice was half-concerned, half-reassured to find that Ben looked amused more than anything.
"Alright, come on out!"
"Let us see what our resourceful captain has managed to come up with," Ben said, floating serenely around the corner.
"Hm," Alice scoffed under her breath as she followed, "Resourceful."
Four bodies lay unconscious on the slightly grimy floor of the Falcon, two stormtroopers and two men dressed in smart grey uniforms. There was also a very large metal crate lying on its side. Above this scene stood Han Solo, looking a little maniacal and very pleased with himself.
"There. Took care of the scanning team."
"Yeah," Alice said, raising her eyebrows, "we see that. Good job. Now what though?" She pointed at the bodies, "How long do you think we have before anyone notices they're missing?"
Han rubbed his jaw, "Scan would probably take about half an hour, so we don't need to worry about anyone looking for them anytime soon," he said, pointing at the guys in grey suits, "them, on the other hand…"
They all considered the two white clad bodies on the floor.
"I assume that those are the stormtroopers you invited onto the ship, are they not?" Ben asked.
"Hey," Han pointed indignantly at the old Jedi, "they must have heard the crash, they would have come looking anyway."
"Sure they would," Alice muttered, rolling her eyes.
"Ben," Luke said, before Han could register Alice's insult and retaliate, "you said you could take care of the tractor beam, right? How?"
"By taking out the generator, though I'll need a plan of the station to find it," Ben said, giving Luke an approving look.
Alice wondered if the old man had been deliberately withholding that rather important piece of information just to test them all.
"And how on earth do we get our hands on one of those?"
There was a crackle from somewhere at their feet; one of the stormtroopers' helmets was spitting angrily at them, "TK-421, why aren't you at your post? TK-421, do you copy?"
Luke looked around at them, his expression vaguely panicked, "What do we do?"
Alice and Han looked at each other, and somehow she just knew that they'd both had the same stupid, ridiculous idea.
"Go, go, go," Han said, dropping to his hands and knees and pulling frantically at the stormtrooper's limp arm.
Alice was right behind him, pulling off the man's boots.
"What are you doing?" Luke asked, but as soon as he said it, his eyes lit up in understanding. Turning around, he started to get undressed while Han and Alice struggled to work the stormtrooper out of his armour and the tight jumpsuit underneath it.
"It would have been much easier if we could have had them strip at gunpoint," Alice grunted.
Han looked at her. Luke looked at her. Ben looked at her. Even Chewbacca looked a little unnerved. "Alright, alright," she said, raising her hands, "calm down, you goody-two-shoes. It was just a suggestion. Excuse me for thinking efficiently."
"TK-421!"
Han wrenched the helmet free of the stormtrooper's head and offered it up to Chewie. With a whine, the wookiee crushed the little speaker, which sparked and fizzled.
"Right," Han said, one minute later: after the quickest quick change in history and lots of swearing on Alice's part, Luke was dressed in the stormtrooper's armour.
"What an amazing coincidence that he should be happen to be just the same size as you," Alice observed, folding her arms.
"Well, get out there, kid," Han said, pressing the helmet into Luke's hands and shoving him towards the entrance to the Falcon, "stall a little would ya, buy us some time?"
Luke's face looked very pale, but there was a glint of determination in his eyes as he pulled on the helmet and marched out the door.
Panting a little, Han started working himself into the armour of the other stormtrooper, which Ben had taken the trouble of removing twice as fast as the others had managed on their guy.
"I take it you have a step two to this plan of yours?" Alice said, turning her back as Han pulled his shirt up and over his head.
"My plan?" Han said, sounding entirely too energised by this whole situation, never mind that there were more than enough stormtroopers on this planet-sized station to kill them all ten times over, "This was your idea as much as mine, kid. What do you think we should do?"
Luckily for Alice's dignity, Ben answered for her, "We should be able to access a map of the station from the control tower across the landing bay, with Artoo's help, of course."
The little droid whistled a confirmation, and Han grinned as he turned to face them, fully decked out in stormtrooper gear and sweating a little, "Alright then, follow me."
He led them to the very far end of the ship, which curved round in an arc. Up against the wall was a hatch in the floor, a hatch marked 'Do Not Open'.
Han caught her eyeing this sign dubiously, and grinned at her, "Always good to have an exit strategy. Come on."
Together, she, Han and Chewie lowered the droids through the narrow hole, then slithered out themselves, with Ben bringing up the rear. They crouched in the Falcon's shadow, staring out across the landing bay. There were a large number of crates nearby, which they could hide behind, but as they got closer to their destination, the hiding places grew fewer and further between; the last stretch was nothing but open space. If the men in the control booth looked down, or stormtroopers emerged unexpectedly from either of the two doors opening onto the hangar…
That didn't stop Han. He led the way, and the others had no choice but to follow as he darted from shadow to shadow, until at the very edge of the crate maze, he just stood up, and pushing Alice in front of him, escorted the lot of them confidently towards the base of the control tower.
"Are you mad?" Alice wheezed, her heart pounding in her chest as they moved, totally exposed through the hangar, "What if someone sees us?"
"Look," Han muttered, gesturing over to the right. A single, rather short stormtrooper stood on the gangway of the Millennium Falcon, his blaster held almost innocently in his hands. As they reached the elevator at the base of the tower and piled in, Alice saw him suddenly cock his head, glancing upwards as if in response to a sound, before rapping his fist against the side of his helmet and shaking his head once or twice.
"The kid's not half-bad," Han said, sounding impressed, "couldn't have done much better myself."
Alice almost exploded as she repressed the need to start whistling 'Singing in the Rain' or some similarly cheerful tune as they stood, cramped awkwardly together in the lift. Luckily, they reached the top quite quickly, and she let out a huge gasp of relief as she climbed out.
Ben led them quickly and quietly to the right, where a thick metal door blocked their way, "In there. Chewbacca, be ready for when it opens."
The wookiee growled softly, and raised one huge fist.
Not a moment later, the doorway slid open and Chewie hit a very surprised looking man in the face. He collapsed instantly, and Han, raising his stolen blaster, shot the only other man in the room in the chest.
They surged into the room, Alice running directly to the windows overlooking the landing bay, "I don't think anyone heard."
The door hissed shut behind them, and Alice glanced round to see Luke pulling his helmet off, looking more than a little peeved, "You know, between his howling and you blasting everything in sight, it's a wonder the whole station doesn't know we're here."
"Well, bring 'em on, I prefer a straight fight to all this sneaking around," Han said, rather cockily considering they'd only taken out six soldiers total in a facility that probably housed thousands.
"Would you two please stop bickering," said Alice, rolling her eyes, "it's like being back at primary school."
"You're not exactly perfect yourself, little lady," Han said, indignantly.
"While I am both little and a lady, I object to being referred to as such. Equally off-limits are the endearments 'sweetheart', 'honey', 'darling' and 'duckling' because I just don't like that one."
"What the hell is a duckling?"
"A baby duck, you tight-trousered fool."
"We've found the computer outlet, sir." Luke, Han and Alice turned in surprise to see Threepio waiting patiently for their attention.
Ben looked pleased, "Good. Plug in, Artoo should be able to interpret the entire Imperial network."
Artoo whistled obediently, and as he had done with the door at Ben's house, he started to hack into the computer.
Alice fidgeted, and fanned her face while they waited, "God, it's hot."
Han and Luke gave her a strange look.
"What? I can't be the only one who's feeling the heat. Seriously? Well then. Sorry to interrupt the tense and brooding atmosphere…"
"Where did you pick this one up?" Han said in disbelief, cocking his thumb at Alice.
"You love it, space man," she said, with an awkward eye-twitch she had originally intended to be a wink, "Okay, ignore that. That wasn't supposed to happen…"
"Master Luke?" Everyone turned to face Threepio, "He says he's found the main controls to the power beam that's holding the ship here. He'll try to make the precise location appear on the monitor."
Artoo twisted the dial to the right, and suddenly thin green lines appeared on one of the screens, joining together to make what Alice assumed was a detailed map of the station, "The tractor beam is coupled to the main reactor in seven locations. A power loss at one of the terminals will allow the ship to leave." The map zoomed in suddenly, and part of it started to flash, highlighting, probably, the location of the nearest terminal.
The humans glanced around at each other. Alice took a step back, raising her hands in the air, "Don't look at me, I'd be useless. I almost failed my half-GCSE IT course."
Ben nodded, "And I don't think you boys can help either. I must go alone."
"Whatever you say," Han said, "I've done more than I bargained for on this trip already."
"Wow," Alice said, looking at him, "I knew you were a callous mercenary only interested in helping himself, but that's heartless, my friend. You didn't even offer to help."
"Sorry to disappoint, missy," he said, "but with me, what you see is what you get."
Alice snorted "Yeah, you're telling me."
Luckily a pointed cough from Ben stopped Han from shouting at her.
Alice waved at the old man, "Good luck! Come back safe, alright?"
He smiled dryly, "I make no promises, my girl, but I will certainly try." He spoke quickly with Luke once more, too quietly for Alice to hear, then departed.
Alice sighed, "I've got a bad feeling about this."
Chewbacca grumbled loudly, and Han replied, "You said it, Chewie. Where did you two dig up that old fossil?"
Alice glared at him, "Shut up, flyboy, you don't know what you're talking about. Though I appreciated the way you used 'dig up' and 'fossil' to keep a common theme running through the line. Well done. But you're still wrong. Ben's great."
"Yeah, great at getting us into trouble," Han said derisively.
"I didn't hear you giving any ideas!" Luke exclaimed, clattering over in his storm-trooper armour.
As they shouted at each other, Artoo beeped at Alice, loudly and insistently. She bent down next to him, "Huh?" He beeped again, more slowly. "Yup, that's what I thought you said."
She straightened up again, and raised her voice to get the attention of the two squabbling boys, "Guys! Shhhhhhhh." She waited, smiling brightly as the two of them turned on her, faces disbelieving, "Artoo is trying to say something, if you don't mind." She gestured elegantly to the droid, "Artoo."
The droid bleeped, and all three humans glanced at Threepio for a translation. "I'm not quite sure what he means sir," the golden droid said apologetically, "he keeps repeating 'I've found her', and 'she's here'."
"Did you say 'she'?" Alice asked, scrambling to the monitor and leaning over it, "Do you mean to say there is actually another woman in this galaxy? Another sentient being without a Y chromosome, or implied masculinity?"
"Believe me, I'd be crying if you were the only one left," Han grumbled, glancing over her shoulder at the screen. Without taking her eyes from the screen, Alice reached up and flicked Han's arm. "Ow!"
"Who?" Luke said, confused, "Who has he found?"
"Princess Leia of Alderaan," Threepio said.
Luke looked extremely excited about this, "The princess? She's here?"
Alice frowned, "Hold on, who was that again?"
"Princess?" Han repeated, clearly extremely confused by all this.
"The woman from the recording saved in Artoo's memory systems," Threepio explained.
"Ohhh, right. Good. No, no, wait a second," Alice's stomach lurched, "she's from Alderaan? The planet that was just blown up? Oh my god, that poor girl…"
"Where is she, Artoo?" Luke asked, hurriedly, his face grim.
"What is going on?" Han demanded.
Artoo bleeped, and Threepio said, "Level Five, Detention Block AA-23." Another pause, and another series of high pitched whistles from Artoo. "Oh dear…"
"What?" Alice and Luke asked together.
"Well, I'm afraid she's scheduled to be terminated."
Alice felt as if her stomach had just dropped out. The princess was going to be killed?
"Oh shi-"
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