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By the time they docked at Nal Hutta, Luke had recovered somewhat from his earlier embarrassment and had begun to focus on how to get off the ship without alerting his unyielding medic. The only thing more irritating than Dukous's insistence on bedrest was Han's agreement with her. Han himself had no intention of staying onboard the ship, however, and was quickly persuaded that the best way to protect Luke was to stay by his side, which meant they were heading down to the surface together.
Being dragged around every cantina in the Northern hemisphere wasn't exactly what Luke had imagined when envisioning his first shore leave of the trip, but he didn't really mind. There weren't many adults in the Imperial Palace irresponsible enough to take a 12-year-old to spice dens and Hutt palaces, but Han didn't believe in keeping kids cooped up just because they were royalty. Usually.
"Look, if you don't stay by my side, I'm gonna comm Lieutenant Piett and get him to send stormtroopers down here to drag you to safety. I ain't having you shot by spice dealers so soon after those Rebs nearly killed you. It's bad for my reputation." Han grabbed Luke by his collar to avoid getting separated as they marched on to the next cantina. It was the sixth one they'd been to and they hadn't even stopped for a drink.
"Han, you haven't got a reputation." Luke struggled in Han's grip, trying not to twist his back too much. If he moved at an odd angle, the old injury would come alive again. It only took a tiny action – tilting his head the wrong way, leaning over to put his comm on the bedside table, reaching too high on tiptoes – and his spine would light up with pain, as fresh as when Vader had first thrown him. "Now, let go of me anyway. Nothing's going to happen to me. No one even knows I'm here. You're watching me. The RPOs are watching me. Those stormtroopers over there are pretending not to watch me. You can bet Vader's got plainclothes watching me. I'll be fine."
"Famous last words," mumbled Han. He made as though to enter another cantina but stopped at the sight of a poster on the door. It was advertising a slave market that was apparently taking place across the city today. The longer Han stared at the poster, the narrower his eyes got.
"It's not forever, Han," said Luke quietly. He'd stopped trying to extricate himself from Han's grip and was watching his friend closely. "I promised you. When I'm emperor, I'll put a stop to all of this, I swear."
"I know you will, kid." Tearing his eyes away from the poster, Han yanked at Luke's shirt again and marched forward until they came to another cantina, this one without any posters on the door. He let go of Luke's collar to point at the cantina sign. "This is the one."
"You've said that half a dozen times already."
"Yeah, but this time I'm right. Look at this place! The floors aren't even dirty: a cantina fit for a prince." Han slapped Luke on the back – too gently to agitate the scar, he was always careful – and marched inside, Luke slouching in after him.
"Why does it have to be a nice cantina anyway?" grumbled Luke. "The nicer the cantina is, the less chance I'll get served. It's an inverse correlation." He pronounced the last two words with diffident precision.
"You sound like you've just walked out of a stats lesson," said Han derisively. Luke bristled. So what if he'd spent the morning catching up with his maths homework?
"What's wrong with knowing the technical terms for things?"
"Nothing, if you're twelve," replied Han. "Most kids think it makes them look smart."
Luke didn't deign to respond to that, stalking stiffly away towards a booth in the corner and sitting down. He glared at Han's back while his captain ordered drinks; no sense provoking questions about his age by ordering himself. Besides, he was used to having other people perform even the most basic tasks for him. He kept his eye on the door while he waited, making a note of anyone who could potentially be one of Vader's spies.
Most of the new arrivals were clearly regular patrons: they walked directly from the door to the counter and addressed the droid behind it with confidence. Some were clearly new customers, many of them on shore leave from the Executor. Each of them paused as they walked in, looking around to familiarise themselves with the new location and cautiously picking their way across to the bar. Most of the off-duty crew were easily distinguishable even without their uniform; their ramrod spines and haughty looks towards the nonhuman patrons were clear from parsecs away.
Han returned, setting three drinks down on their table and passing one to Luke, who frowned at the glass.
"Why is mine a different colour to yours?"
Han rolled his eyes. "Kid, what I'm drinking would knock you out for a week."
"I could handle it!" protested Luke. To prove it, he grabbed his own drink and knocked half of it back in one. It burned his throat and his tongue curled up at the bitter taste as he fought to keep a straight face. His eyes watered. "See?"
"Barely bothers you at all, right kid?"
"I can hardly taste it," insisted Luke. "That was nothing. There was barely even any alcohol in that. What is it, like thirty percent or something?"
An amused smirk curled Han's lips. "Yeah, something like that. Thirty or forty, maybe? It's about half as strong as beer."
Luke nodded, intent on demonstrating his expertise on the subject. "Yeah, the beer I usually drink is about eighty percent alcohol. Sometimes more if I don't mind being hungover."
Han laughed at that, shaking his head. "Sure it is, junior. Now shut up and drink your fruit juice."
Luke felt his face grow hot as he scowled at Han. He lifted the glass up again to hide it, eyes darting around for something to distract Han from his blushes. "Why have you got two drinks anyway? Are you just showing off?"
"One of them is for me, I hope," said a new voice. Luke spun around to see who it belonged to, accidentally spilling what was left of his drink on himself as he did so. The newcomer was a smiling woman with a long face and dark skin. Her hair was hanging loose in the sort of effortless curls that had probably taken her several hours to perfect and her eyes were circled with cerise makeup. Despite the glamour, she was still instantly recognisable as a soldier.
"Of course it is," replied Han, standing up to offer her one. "Luke, this is Kessie. Kessie, this is His Royal Majesty Prince Luke of Coruscant."
"Your Majesty," said Kessie. Her smile was slightly mocking.
"Highness," snapped Luke, glaring not at her but at Han. "It's Your Imperial Highness Prince Luke, as you well know, Captain Solo."
"Forgive me, Your Majesticalness," said Han, sitting back down as Kessie did the same. "It's hard to keep track sometimes."
Kessie giggled and Luke turned to look at her. "And what's your rank, miss…?"
"Almur," said Kessie, still smiling. "And it's sergeant."
"No commission then, Miss Almur," said Luke, giving her his fakest smile.
"Not yet. I'm rather like you in that regard, Your Highness. And as I said it's sergeant, not miss, if you don't mind." Han snickered into his drink and Luke felt his face reddening again.
Luke managed not to humiliate himself any further for the rest of his time in the cantina, but the same could not be said for Han. His soppy smiles and the overenthusiastic interest he feigned at everything Kessie said were mortifying enough for both of them. By the time Han started bragging about his job to a politely smiling Kessie, Luke was feeling enough second-hand embarrassment to stop making eye contact with the pair of them (not that they'd noticed) and started to pick at his nails. Shore leave was a lot less exciting than he'd thought it would be.
"So, yeah, I saved the life of princeling here about two years ago now and I've been protecting His Pomposity ever since." Han nudged Luke's shoulder, ignoring Luke's pointed indifference. "If I hadn't done that I'd probably still be working as a pilot. Suppose I'd be a squad leader by now. But, hey, I don't regret it! I'm much happier working in the bodyguard business. There's something about protecting innocents that's just so rewarding. I guess I'm just a selfless kind of guy."
"You weren't a pilot," muttered Luke. "You were a stormtrooper and you'd just been dishonourably discharged." Neither Han nor Kessie seemed to hear him.
"That's so noble of you," said Kessie. Her hand was resting on top of Han's and her eyes hadn't left his all through his speech. "All I do is order guards round the engine rooms. It's pretty boring."
"It shouldn't be," said Luke, showing an interest in the conversation for the first time in almost an hour. "Shouldn't you all be there now, trying to track down whoever it was who sabotaged the internal gravity systems?"
Kessie shifted uncomfortably, breaking eye contact with Han. "That's not our department. We have Internal Affairs investigating the security breach. It wouldn't be my responsibility anyway, even if we were investigating ourselves: I wasn't on duty on the day of the attack."
"Who was?" asked Luke, wishing he'd thought to look into this himself beforehand.
"Sergeant Fryxell. Vader killed him for his failure, though. Sergeant Kova's taken over his shifts." Luke nodded and leant back in his seat. Maybe this explained Han's weird behaviour towards Almur – he was still investigating the attack and thought she might be behind it. It made sense. Why else would Han be showing such an interest in such a low-ranking officer? Satisfied that this little meeting apparently wasn't a waste of time after all, and very pleased with himself for having worked it all out, Luke offered to go and get the next round of drinks.
When he came back to the table, he found that the other two had finally stopped talking about themselves and had turned to watch the local news, which was being displayed on a screen in the corner of the cantina. Han had his mouth hanging open and Kessie's brow was furrowed. Neither of them noticed Luke's return.
"What's going on?" he asked, setting the drinks down on the table. The barman had refused to give him anything stronger than a muja juice. The news was showing pictures of hundreds of aliens – Mon Calamari and Givins mostly – streaming out of a large hall. They were dressed in rags and some were clutching small children to them. At the far edge of the crowd, Luke could just make out a chain of stormtroopers unloading survival packs from imperial transports and handing them out to anyone who passed.
"It's Vader," murmured Han, eyes not leaving the screen.
"What's he done?" Vader was supposed to be hunting down the Executor's saboteur and any progress in that arena was unlikely to be made public knowledge. Even if it did leak out, a Dark Lord of the Sith tearing through his underlings was hardly newsworthy.
"He's freed the slaves," said Han. "The ones at the market hall today, he's just gone in and shut the whole auction down."
"What for?" The Executor might have suffered heavy losses, but they weren't so short on crew that they needed to start recruiting slaves. Vader certainly wouldn't tolerate untrained personnel on his ship.
"I don't know. Just before you came, the reporter was saying that the organisers are insisting the market was legal. Doesn't mean it was, of course, but I doubt Vader bothered to find out."
"Maybe it's a publicity stunt," suggested Kessie.
Han shook his head. "He's not exactly posing for holos."
"Well then why did he do it?" asked Luke. "It's barely even made the news. Just the local channels."
Neither Kessie nor Han had an answer for that. The three of them sat in silence for a few more minutes, the two adults glued to the screen like everyone else in the cantina. Luke was already bored, but at least the distraction provided him with the opportunity to switch his muja juice with something stronger snatched from the table of a neighbouring patron.
Now that the local news's breaking announcement was over, the screen had switched back to the main Imperial news channel. A reporter had just finished talking about the newly established network of Youth Re-education Centres that were being set up across the galaxy to rehabilitate the child victims of Rebel propaganda. Kessie was still watching with interest but Han turned back to the table, taking the stolen drink from Luke's hand as he did so.
"Are you finished?" snapped Luke. "This is my first shore leave. I want to explore the planet."
"Can't. Not safe," said Han, downing the twice-stolen drink. "Vader just publicly liberated a bunch of Hutt property. There'll be hell to pay about this, mark my words. We don't want to be in the streets when the Hutts start trying to reclaim what they've lost."
"Back to the ship then?" Disappointed though he was, Luke knew that Han was right about this. Even the few years he'd spent living on Tattooine had been enough to develop a healthy respect for the depths of slaveowners' anger. Vader's rash actions and the masters' entitlement would kill plenty of people today.
"Back to the ship," Han agreed. He turned to Kessie, who was still staring at the Holonet screen. "You coming?"
She didn't answer. Han turned back to the screen to see what was holding her attention. A reporter was speaking outside of the Mountain Palace on Alderaan, where a memorial was being held in recognition of the second anniversary of the death of Leia Organa, Princess of Alderaan. The image switched from the reporter to a shot of the royal family taking their seats for the start of the ceremony, the princess's parents leading the way.
"They don't even look sad," said Luke, referring to Bail and Breha Organa.
"Well, she was adopted, wasn't she?" said Han. "It was probably just a PR stunt to begin with. They won't have really cared about her. Not like her real parents would have."
"I'm sure they care about her a great deal," snapped Kessie, bristling. "Family is more than blood, you know." Luke nodded in agreement. Beru and Owen, Palpatine, even Han himself were more family to Luke than Vader was.
"Why are you so interested?" Luke couldn't have told Han the answer to that question, so for the first time that day he was glad that Han seemed to be ignoring him in favour of Kessie.
"I'm from Alderaan," she explained shortly. Han raised his hands in a mock surrender pose but couldn't resist a jab.
"Didn't realise Alderaanians were such royalists."
"I used to be a fleet trooper for Alderaanian consular security. I've escorted the queen and her husband on multiple occasions. And their daughter."
Han backed down at that, having the decency to look embarrassed. "Sorry."
Kessie gave a tight nod but didn't say anything. She stood up from the table, grabbing her jacket from the back of her chair. Han reached out to get it for her at the same time as she touched it, and they ended holding it awkwardly between them. Kessie raised her eyebrows.
"Can I have my jacket?" she asked. Han let go of it as awkwardly as he had picked it up.
"Are you going straight back to the ship? I can walk you."
"I'm not a dog, Captain Solo. I'll see you around." A quick turn to Luke. "Your Highness." She nodded her head to him and then turned and stalked out of the cantina without looking back.
Han watched her go with a frown. Luke could guess what he was thinking.
"Pretty suspicious, eh? Wonder why she didn't want you to walk her back. Think she's got something to hide?" He was liking this new detective game. Han might have found the potential saboteur, although Luke still didn't know how he'd persuaded her to have a drink with him, but Luke could take charge now.
"What?" Han looked confused, as if surprised to find that Luke was still there. "What did you say, kid?"
"I asked if you think she's got something to hide." Luke pushed down his annoyance at not being listened to – Han probably had a lot on his mind if he was trying to catch Kessie.
"Something to hide?" If possible, Han seemed even more bewildered. "You mean she's playing hard to get?"
It was Luke's turn to look confused. Why would a Rebel spy ever want to be easy to get? "I guess so?"
Han nodded thoughtfully. "You think I should go after her then?"
"Of course." Had Han really been considering letting a potential spy get away? "You can't lose someone as important as that. You'll regret it if you do."
Strangely, Han didn't seem to be bothered by the threat. He looked at Luke consideringly and actually smiled down at him. "Who knew you were so passionate?"
"I've always been passionate," said Luke indignantly, irritated that Han of all people would doubt his commitment to the Empire.
Han raised an eyebrow. "Sure you have." He looked like he was trying to hold back a smirk. "You've really grown up on this trip, kid, you know that?"
Luke's chest swelled with pride at the unexpected compliment and he looked away, the praise making him feel suddenly shy. He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. "Well…"
Han actually did laugh now, pointing at him. "You're blushing!"
"I'm not!" Luke insisted, but he smiled back at Han, pleased to have gone up in his esteem. "Shouldn't we get after her anyway?"
Han agreed and the pair of them walked back to the ship, both pleased with the success of Luke's first shore leave.
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Once again I have left a giant gap between updates ;-)
The laptop I was writing this story on broke, so I've had to start writing this chapter again and have had to reconstruct the story plan from scratch. I can't remember everything that was in the original plan, but the new one is probably better anyway since I've had plenty of time to improve my writing since first envisioning this story.
Anyway, I hope you all like it! As always, I plan to update soon but probably won't.