Hellooo, dear readers. Lots and lots of snow here in England - my friend and I made a snow-frog. Any other English readers made an interesting snowman? Animals, igloos, daleks...? Feel free to share, there may be cookies for the best ones. ;)
This week's shout-outs go to: Nanobot5770, iloveashandquinn, Lywick, Sev, Taboo22 and Rday. Thanks for the reviews, guys, and to anyone else that followed/favourited - it's much appreciated.
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars, or any of its characters. Only Alice is mine.
Alice limped her way to the canteen where she helped herself to a tray of unidentifiable but yummy-smelling space food. She turned around, tray in hands, and was immediately struck by the age-old school-time fear…where should she sit?
There was a large table full of men directly ahead of her who were all laughing loudly, elbowing each other and generally being blokes. Eh…bad idea. Where else…a group of technicians, working studiously away. Awkward… Um…there was a bunch of normal looking people chatting normally with each other to her right, perhaps they were her best bet…
"Hey, Alice!"
She jerked her head up in surprise, and saw Liana, the technician who had shown her around, waving enthusiastically at her from a table sparsely populated by two other women. Wow! Real girls! I mean, not that Leia isn't a real girl, but she's not a normal person…okay, look, I didn't mean that either.
"Hey," she said brightly as she reached them.
Liana looked delighted, and waved at her to sit down, "Hi Alice. Guys, this is Alice Miller. She's the one who's friends with Skywalker and Solo, remember? Alice, this is Clementine-" The one to her right, a tall, slender woman with strawberry blonde hair scraped up into a bun nodded politely enough at Alice, "and this is Aleya."
The second one, pretty with dark hair, Alice had a vague idea she recognised, "You work in the tauntaun stables, don't you?"
"Yes," the woman replied shyly, "I saw you there, talking to Private Tal." Am I wrong, or did I hear a definite note of longing in that statement?
"Oh, yeah," Alice said, chirpily, "he seemed nice. Do you talk to him often?"
Instantly, Aleya turned bright red, "No, not really."
"Maybe you should," she suggested.
"So, Alice, what have you been up to?" Something about the enthusiastic smile Liana was giving her gave Alice the sense that there was more than a touch of her friend Emi about the technician. (For those not acquainted with said friend, a brief description would be: stark raving mad.)
"Well," Alice said, delighted to have the chance to properly talk (complain) to someone, "Leia's got me into basic training, so I've more or less just been in the gym, being hurt and humiliated."
"I remember basic training," Liana said with a fond smile, "worst two weeks of my life."
"It goes on for two weeks?" Alice said, aghast, "I don't think my muscles can take it."
"You'll get used to it," Clementine said, her tone slightly condescending, which Alice was willing to let slide.
"Who have you got supervising you?"
"Captain Starn. I think he's starting to realise just what he's let himself in for, taking me on though. Bless. I can only hope it'll be worth it in the end…"
Pleased with her socialising efforts that lunch, Alice returned to the training room refreshed and raring to go. Well, not really, but if I could ask you to stretch your imaginations momentarily…
"Right!" Starn snapped, bringing her back down to earth (or rather, Hoth) with a bump, "Following our efforts to train you in the use of firearms this morning-" Alice coughed, embarrassed, "we are now going to move on to covering basic combat."
"Ooh!" To her own surprise, despite her aching muscles, Alice perked up a bit here, "That's kinda exciting!" Her trainer seemed to find her enthusiasm for this area more frightening than encouraging, and called in another beefy, buff officer (also with sideburns – no moustache though) to assist him.
"I'm going to pass you over to Lieutenant Grant for this aspect of your training."
Grant stepped forward, and Alice started, open-mouthed at the way every single muscle in his body seemed to ripple when he so much as shifted his arms. "Right. The first thing we should see," he said, in a deep rumbly voice, "is if you can make a fist properly."
Tentatively, Alice held up her hand, and curled her fingers into a fist, instinctively tucking her thumb underneath her fingers. He shook his head slowly, and reaching out, moved her fingers, "Keep your thumb on the outside of your hand. Otherwise it might break when your punch connects."
"Right." Mental note.
And so it went on, day in, day out. At this point, we would normally have a montage of some description, if we had any means of visually conveying this story to you. But unfortunately, you'll just have to imagine the amount of pain Alice put in just to make a tiny bit of improvement. She focused on general fitness and combat training interspersed with practice on the shooting range. Shooting range practice went like this generally: "Left. Left. LEFT!"
"I'm sorry, maybe you should stop shouting at me!"
"You're aiming at the wrong target, Miller, what am I supposed to do, let you merrily continue?"
"It's better than yelling at me – look, I jumped so much that the shot went up!"
"Again!"
And so on. Combat training was a little more successful, probably because Lieutenant Grant went for the cautious approach, and for the first couple of days wouldn't actually let her physically punch anything. He said she'd probably fall over if she tried. Alice had to agree. By the end of the first week, he'd allowed her to progress to hitting a dummy, and by the end of the third week, the two of them were actually beginning to spar together.
They stood opposite each other on a padded floor, hands wrapped in bandages to protect their knuckles. Alice bounced up and down on the balls of her feet, keeping her eyes firmly trained on her opponent, repeating in her head a steady mantra of. Focus, focus, focus. Taking a series of short, shallow breaths, she lunged forward with a yell, powering the palm of her hand towards Grant's sternum. He thrust her arm aside and returned with a blow for her face. Crapbuggerdamnation-
With a little scream, she dropped to the floor, holding her hands over her head.
She heard a loud sigh and looked up to see Starn looking down at her in exasperation, "Miss Miller. How many times must I say this. When someone goes to hit you, you cannot simply roll into a ball on the floor and expect them to leave you alone. You have to retaliate. That's the whole point of fighting!"
"I know," Alice said, tentatively uncurling slightly from her foetal position, "but Grant's really big. Couldn't you find someone…a bit less intimidating?"
Starn shook his head, and ignoring her question, he and Grant wandered away, probably to go and mutter about how rubbish she was. Alice sat up with a sigh, plucking at the neck of the plain white t-shirt she was wearing. She stared across the training room unhappily. I'm never going to be good at this. And let's be honest, no one is ever going to let me get into a fight situation, because they know I'm never going to be good at this.
"Alice?"
She looked up to see Clementine, the fierce-looking woman from the canteen standing above her. She was wearing a similar set of clothes to Alice – white t-shirt, loose fitting work-out trousers tucked into combat boots – but on her, they looked neat and professional. Alice, sitting sprawled on the floor with her hair tied up in a messy, floofy bun on the top of her head, was pretty sure she didn't look that grown up.
"Hello, Clementine," Alice said, uncertain if this was a social visit or something more official.
"Still completing basic training?"
Alice sighed, "Yeah."
"How are you getting on?"
"It's dismal, if I'm honest."
Clementine tipped her head on one side, and glanced over at Starn and Grant, still deep in conversation on the other side of the room, "Perhaps I can be of some assistance."
"Um…sure. I need all the help I can get."
Clementine gave her a small smile and a nod and marched off to join the two men. Huh. What's that all about? Getting to her feet, Alice stretched, easing out her aching muscles; first her arms, then her legs. Finally, she took a deep breath, then bent neatly at the waist and touched her toes, relishing the pull through her hamstrings.
"Miss Miller?" She straightened up to see Starn heading back towards her, Clementine at his elbow. He looked grumpy, but at the same time pleased. How does that work? "Lieutenant Threpe has kindly offered to assist Lieutenant Grant by being your sparring partner."
"Really?" Alice said, perking up at once, "Great! Thanks, Clementine! I mean," she shot a slightly guilty glance at Grant, "You're great, sir, but…um…"
"I understand," he said, raising a hand, "anything that will help you to make progress."
And with Clementine's help, Alice did make progress. Of a sort. It would be fantastic if the author could tell you that within another week of training Alice was kicking hordes of armed ninjas in the arse with ease. Unfortunately, it would also not be accurate. Alice had only managed to win one match against Clementine, knocking her opponent over by sweeping her legs out from under her. Her victory was short-lived, however, when Clementine had simply reached out and tugged Alice's legs out from under her a moment later.
It was while she was working with Clementine that Alice seemed to suddenly gain an audience. She hadn't really noticed it at first, but it seemed that in two or three weeks that had passed since Clementine had volunteered to start training her, whenever the rebels had a spare moment, they quite enjoyed coming over to the training room and watching Alice either fail to hit anything with her blaster or fall over in combat training.
Today, a full month and a bit after Alice had arrived at Echo Base, they were out in full force – about twenty men in flight suits, laughing, joking and waiting eagerly for the fun to begin.
"Sadists," Alice muttered, wrapping bandages round her hands. Bracing herself for humiliation, she strode on to the mat to face Clementine, and was surprised by the sudden wave of cheering this produced.
Clementine, Alice had discovered, was a demon in hand-to-hand combat. She was faster than a cheetah on steroids, and not at all averse to giving Alice the odd bruise. She gulped. Come on Alice. Channel your inner ninja. You can do this.
"Ready?" Clementine asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Ready."
Almost before the word was out of her mouth, Clementine lunged towards her, right fist sailing through the air towards her head. Alice dodged and backpedalled frantically, trying to keep her eyes fixed on Clementine and not fall over at the same time, which was harder than it sounded.
Clementine advanced, her hands held ready in front of her, her eyes tracking Alice's every move. Gosh, she is scary sometimes…
Feeling Starn's glowering gaze burning into her back, urging her to actually attack for once, Alice feinted left, then dodged right and grabbed Clementine by the shoulder, simultaneously trying to sweep her feet out from under her. This was the move that she had used on that one shining occasion that she'd managed to bring Clementine down – and unsurprisingly, it didn't work a second time.
Clementine simply planted her feet, snatched Alice's arm and twisted it painfully up behind her back. Alice yelped, and though her instinct was to pull away, she knew that struggling would only hurt more.
Might as well give up now, she thought glumly.
"Alice! Trust yourself, remember your training."
Ben?!
She hadn't heard his voice since the Battle of Yavin, and had kind of dismissed it as an auditory hallucination, the result of the extremely stressful situation she'd been in. Hearing the old man again now had a surprising effect on her; suddenly she felt calmer, more confident, and most important of all, she knew how to get free.
With a short, sharp yell, Alice threw her weight forward into her right leg, relaxing her caught arm as much as she could to reduce the pain. At the same time, she lifted her left foot and kicked back hard. At the last second, she snapped her head over her shoulder to see her heel connect with the top of Clementine's thigh, near where it met her pelvis. The woman grunted, and stumbled, and Alice was free. Faintly, she heard a chorus of interested murmurs run through the watching audience.
Alice spun, wondering if she could get a shot in while Clementine was unprepared, but by the time she'd regained her equilibrium, the other woman was ready for her, both fists raised. However, she noted that her kick had done more than get her out of a painful arm lock: it had also given her a small advantage. Clementine was favouring her right side, her left leg probably bruised or at least numbed by Alice's kick.
With a sudden surge of confidence which was almost completely alien to her, Alice moved forward, going on the offensive again, edging towards Clementine's right side, hoping that she would slip and expose her injured leg. But Clementine wasn't fooled by Alice's feinting this time, and carefully kept her left leg behind her and protected, keeping the right side of her body towards Alice.
Stymied and aware that the fight was already stretching out too long, Alice started to move even closer, not striking, but almost certainly inviting a blow. Clementine watched her, her expression focused but curious, and she could almost see her opponent shrug mentally before she struck out at Alice, taking her bait. All of her nerves on fire with adrenaline, Alice ducked right under Clementine's fist and went to one knee. This put her in a perfect position to slam her fist hard into Clementine's already weakened left thigh, right over the spot where her kick had landed – which she promptly did.
The older woman's breath flew out in a rush and she stumbled, her leg half-collapsing underneath her. Seeing the opportunity, Alice twisted on the spot, kicking out hard at Clementine's ankle, knocking it out from under her and sending her toppling sideways. With victory in sight, she nearly tripped herself up in her hurry to get over to her downed opponent; righting herself at the last minute, she pressed one knee over Clementine's chest, pinning her to the ground, and raised her right hand in a fist, ready to strike the other woman if she needed to.
"I concede."
There was a moment of silence, then suddenly the room erupted into applause. Her head spinning a little, partially from exertion and partially from sheer surprise, Alice looked up to find all the pilots in the room giving her a standing ovation.
"And the match goes to Cadet Miller," Starn called from the corner of the room, a small smile on his face, the first she'd ever seen.
Vaguely stunned, Alice hopped away from Clementine and held out a hand to help her up. The older woman was grinning, and she clapped Alice hard on the back, "Well done, that was excellent."
Alice stared at her own hands, quite baffled by what had just happened. The fight couldn't have lasted more than three minutes, but it felt like she'd run a mile within those minutes.
"Thanks…I'm…huh."
"Um…Alice?"
Alice spun, and felt an irrepressible grin work its way across her face. Standing at the edge of the mat were two of her favourite people in the entire galaxy (which now that she thought about it, wasn't saying much, considering the number of people she knew), both of them looking extremely taken aback.
"Han! Luke!"
She forgot the shock of actually winning a fight for once instantly and hurried over to join them.
"What the hell was that, kid?" Han asked, jerking his chin towards Clementine, who was limping away with help from Lieutenant Grant.
"Huh? Oh, I've been doing combat training."
"Why?"
"So I can become a full member of the rebel army and actually help with the war effort and stuff."
Han folded his arms, looking less than impressed, "And whose idea was that?"
Alice huffed, "Leia's. Now are you going to stop interrogating me and actually say hello, or what?"
The smuggler grunted indignantly, "Hey, kid."
"Well, that sounded lovely and sincere," she said, sarcastically, rolling her eyes at Luke, who grinned back. Looking at him properly, Alice observed to herself that he seemed…older somehow, though she couldn't quite put a finger on anything different about him.
"Ignore him, he's just in a bad mood because of the cold."
"Aww, poor thing." Han shot a glare at her, which she brushed off with a sweet smile, "Anyway, what took you guys so long? Have you told Leia that you're here yet?"
"Not yet," Luke answered, "we were on our way but we must have taken a wrong turn somewhere."
Alice snickered, "Pride of the rebellion, you two."
"Hey," he said, mildly, "it's a big base, you know."
Suddenly, Alice realised what it was that seemed different about their resident Jedi: his gaze was steady, and his bearing was calm and relaxed. Up until the attack on the Death Star, he'd been like an excitable puppy, ready to snap or burst in delight at a moment's notice. Now, barely a month later, he seemed way more chilled out, like he'd gotten a handle on the last of those teenage hormones floating around in his system.
That, and he'd had a haircut. It suited him. I'll have to ask him where he had it done.
"Yeah," she said, "true. No worries though, I can take you to Leia. Well, in theory…" She turned around to look for Captain Starn, only to find him directly behind her, watching her with his arms folded.
Feeling instantly guilty, she snapped him a salute, "Sir. Allow me to introduce Commander Skywalker and Captain Solo. Boys, this is Captain Starn."
Why does this feel like introducing friends to my dad?
Rolling his eyes at Alice's less than formal introduction, Starn nevertheless gave both men a curt nod. Han looked a bit wary, but Luke saluted, throwing in a respectful, "Captain," for good measure. Alice had to stifle a smile as Luke's normally irresistible charm simply earned him a narrow look. Luke blinked, and backed away a tiny bit.
"You still have an hour left of training to do today, cadet."
Alice winced, "I know, but…please, sir, could I maybe finish early today? Seeing as how the captain and Commander Skywalker just arrived?"
Starn frowned fiercely, and Alice was preparing herself for his flat-out refusal when all of a sudden, he said, "Very well."
"Huh?" She said, eloquently.
"We can finish early for today, cadet. But I want you back here tomorrow morning at 0600 hours as usual. It's your last day of training, so for goodness' sake turn up on time."
That was easy…wait, last day of training?!
"Of course," Alice said, trying to contain her glee, "thank you, very much, sir."
To her shock, he actually smiled a tiny bit, "Good work today, Miller."
Flushed with the compliment, she which was probably the first he'd ever given her, and indescribably relieved to hear this was her penultimate day of torture, Alice saluted, then turned back to Han and Luke. "Right. Come on, you truants, follow me."
Linking arms with both of them, she led them from the room and started to beat the familiar trail to the control room.
"Who was that?" Luke asked, glancing over his shoulder.
"Hmm? Oh, that was Captain Starn. He's been overseeing my training."
Luke raised his eyebrows, "Is he always that…?" He gestured vaguely in the direction of his face, which Alice could only assume meant 'bristly'.
"Oh yeah. But he's not so bad, really. Just grumpy and extremely demanding. And, as you can see, I have actually got better at the whole fighting thing."
"Yeah," Han said, "though when you're going to need to wrestle a stormtrooper into submission is anyone's guess, kid."
"Hey," Luke said, elbowing his friend in the side, "it was impressive, alright? I bet you couldn't fight like that."
Alice grinned and blew Luke a kiss, "My hero. Anyway, you two never answered my question. What took you so long to get here? Did they have you packing up things for ages back on Yavin Four?"
"That, and we ran into a bounty hunter on our way over here," Luke said, with a glance at Han.
Anxiety snatched at Alice's heart and she scanned them both again quickly, searching for injuries she might have missed. "A bounty hunter?"
"Bossk," Han growled, glaring into the distance, "that little creep's had it in for me ever since Chewie and I started working together. Trandoshans, the only race stupid enough to hunt wookiees."
"They hunt them?" Alice repeated, feeling slightly sickened, "Like…like animals?"
"Yeah. It's a great tradition on Trandosha."
"But you got away?"
"Slipped past him near Florrum. He damaged the Falcon when we were escaping, the son of a..." he glanced briefly at Alice and trailed off into ominous silence.
"Why was he chasing you?"
"Apparently, there's a price on my head, courtesy of Jabba the Hutt," he said grimly, "a big one I'm guessing, from Bossk's refusal to take 'no' for an answer."
"Oh…" Alice said, worried, "You'll be safe here though, right?"
"For a little while, yes," he said. And then he clammed up and refused to say any more, which Alice found suspicious to say the least.
But by then they had reached the control room, and Alice distracted herself in gleefully anticipating Leia's expression when she heard the others were back. She swanned casually into the room, ducking confidently between bustling control staff and glowing screens. "Hey, Leia!"
The princess was leaning over an operative's shoulder but looked up at the sound of her name. Her eyes fell on Alice, then shifted to the two people standing behind her. Alice grinned as first surprise, then genuine happiness, and finally controlled pleasure passed across Leia's face.
"Han, Luke. Welcome. I'm glad that you've arrived. We could do with some extra hands around here."
"Of course," Luke said warmly, "we'd be glad to-"
But Han, his eyes resting shrewdly on Leia's face, cut him off, "Charming. It's lovely to see you too, princess."
Leia narrowed her eyes at Han, her tone turning instantly brisk, "Do you have an explanation for your delayed return?"
"Yeah," he said, stepping up onto the small step Leia was on, allowing him to get some height advantage over her as he stared her down, "A bounty hunter chased us half of the way here, we were lucky to escape with our lives."
"Really?" Leia asked, wrinkling her nose in disbelief, "Somehow I doubt that." Han made an indignant huffing sound, and Leia narrowed her eyes at him, "I believe the patrol units are still short of a few men. You and Luke may head over to the South East entrance, where the tauntauns are kept. You will receive more information there." With one last glare at Han, Leia swept off to more important things.
Alice sighed and shook her head, "Han, Han, Han…"
"What?" He said, indignant.
"When are you going to admit that you adore her?"
These words prompted an explosive reaction. "What? Oh, no, kid, you've got it all wrong. I can't think of anyone I would be less attracted to. And trust me, with my list of acquaintances, that's saying something. I like you better than her, kid. Why would you think I like her?"
She smiled mysteriously, trying not to laugh too much at his poor attempt to cover his tracks, "Oh, no reason. Forget I said anything."
Leaving him spluttering, Alice turned to Luke, whose smile had faded somewhat, "Come on. South East entrance, right? I'll take you."
They left the room. It took a moment for Han to catch up with them; but instead of walking beside them, he trailed a few feet back, looking grumpy.
"Alice," Luke said, "can I ask you something?"
"Mm? Yeah, of course. Fire away."
He hesitated, then shook his head, "Never mind."
Huh? She glanced sideways at him, but whatever was bothering him, he'd clearly put it to one side for the time being, because he looked up and smiled at her.
"How've you been?"
Flushing, she shrugged, "Oh, you know. Just hanging out. Training. I made some new friends. I know it's not quite as impressive as escaping from a bounty hunter, but social interaction can be hard sometimes."
Luke smiled, "You seemed pretty good at making friends when we met."
"That's a lie but thank you."
"Are we nearly there yet?" Han's grumpy voice piped up behind them, making Alice snort with laughter.
"Are you five years old, Han? Yes, we're nearly there." To Luke, she said, "How did you stand flying all the way here with him?"
"You're no picnic yourself, kid," Han said, and as a sign that he'd cheered up a little, he reached forward and ruffled Alice's hair.
"I have never felt so betrayed and insulted in my life."
Luke's laughter was bright and loud, and Alice felt a sudden small thrill of delight at having the two of them back. They rounded a corner, and the weird baaing cries of the tauntauns floated down the corridor towards them.
"I missed you guys, you know," she said, honestly, as she came to a halt, "it's nice to have the gang back together."
Han raised a warning finger, but he was smirking, which meant he was fighting a smile, "Don't get all mushy on us now, or we'll turn around and leave again."
"Speak for yourself," Luke commented.
Alice smiled, and gestured down the hall, "South east entrance is just down there. I guess I'll see you guys later – meet you in the cantina for dinner?"
Luke nodded, "Wouldn't miss it."
Wow. Friends are great, right?
Thanks for reading, and please review!
