Boba Fett raced back to town with the unconscious boy, looking over his shoulder the entire way in case the child's former guardians had decided to pursue him despite his sizable head start and the risks of doing so. He would have to be gone by the time the alarm was raised amongst the other moisture farmers and just about everyone on the sparsely inhabited planet would be on the lookout for the boy. The farmers on Tatooine could be quite fierce when one of their own was taken, and didn't want to have to go through the hassle of fighting them.
After setting the child down in the room he had rented when he returned to Anchorhead since he didn't want to be flying after dark which was a dangerous proposition at the best of times in these parts, he took off his armor, tossed on some street-clothes he kept in case he needed to get away from somewhere unnoticed, and headed down to the local version of one of the numerous convenience stores that littered the galaxy to make a couple of purchases.
The next morning, when the first of the farmers arrived to have some words with Jabba's local representative, nobody paid any attention to the dark haired man carrying a sleeping boy who looked like he could be his younger brother or even his son considering how early some of the locals married to a slightly battered speeder bike, and left town.
When Fett reached his ship with his new responsibility in tow, he decided to place the boy in one of the capture cages until he could clean out the junk he kept stored in the small bunk his father had made for him long ago. After stowing the boy, he made a quick departure from the planet, swiftly getting his ship into hyperspace, and on a course for a world where he could pick up some reasonably good quality supplies for the child. Practically the instant the ship was safely in Hyperspace, he began looking a space in the cargo hold where he could stash the stuff that was on what had once been his bunk until he could sort through it.
&!&!&!&!&
Luke's head hurt when he awoke. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the metal bars of some sort of cage or cell. The second thing he saw was that his hand was the wrong color. In fact, all of him was the wrong color. Someone had kidnapped him and done something to him. Frightened and in pain, Luke curled up into a ball and cried out for his Aunt Beru.
&!&!&!&
Yoda sat in meditation on the planet Dagobah. As he connected himself to the Force, he felt what had been one of the most desirable of the possible futures that lay ahead wink out of existence. The Jedi order that he had served for nearly nine centuries would be no more after he was gone. Luke Skywalker, the one who would've rebuilt the Jedi Order, would become something else. He hoped that the boy wouldn't turn to the Dark Side as his father had done, and throw the galaxy into even greater chaos from which it would not recover.
&!&!&!&!&
It took two weeks for Fett to pull Luke out of his shell. Luke's early awakening in the capture cage had made for a very bad first impression. Locking the boy in his bunk so he wouldn't get into mischief after the child had tried to break something in order to stop the ship so they would have to return to Tatooine hadn't helped at all. Eventually, the boy started talking to him since there was no-one else to talk to, and he learned that Luke's sister might not have died as he previously thought. In fact, Luke never knew he had a sister, and there was a strong possibility that Luke's relatives hadn't known about her since they had never mentioned her. It would have been just like the Jedi to tear a family apart for no good reason. They had done it all the time before the Empire had destroyed their order.
On the fourth day of the second week after he had taken Luke, he learned exactly how the boy had gotten the bruise on his cheek. He had been looking around for a tool that he had misplaced when Luke closed his eyes and after a moment told him exactly where it was. The boy suddenly realized what he'd done, backed away saying that he hadn't hidden the tool and begged him not to hit him. It seemed that as well as refusing training, the boy's family or the boy's uncle Owen rather had tried to beat the ability out of him.
He decided then and there that despite his motivations taking the child had been a good thing. Who knew how far his "family" would've gone had the child's abilities continued to manifest? He decided that he was going to find Luke's sister as quickly as possible rather than take on another hunt to recoup the funds he had lost in taking Luke, before the Jedi trained her too much, or before the family they had given her to hurt her too badly. If they hadn't carefully vetted Luke's relatives before handing him over, odds were that they hadn't properly vetted whoever the hell it had been that they had handed his sister over to.
When he wanted to find someone, he found them. Finding Luke's sister would most likely be tricky, since after slicing into the Tatooine Vital Statistics database, he learned that Luke had been registered as a singleton on all of the forms the Larses had submitted, which included a fake birth certificate that had listed the boy's planet of birth as Tatooine. If Luke's sister hadn't already died, she'd most likely be on some other out of the way planet, registered as an only child, and most likely hidden with relatives on her mother's side of the family considering the fact that Luke had been left with his Step-uncle and his wife. Naboo would probably be a good place to start his search, since that had been the twins' mother's homeworld.
&!&!&!&!&
Luke stared in awe at the city of Theed on the Planet Naboo. Besides Tatooine, this was technically the second world he'd been on. He hadn't seen any of the first because he'd been locked in the bunk while the man called Boba Fett had gone out and gotten supplies. Fett had brought him here because they were going to look for his sister. Up until a couple of weeks ago, he never knew he had a sister, and even now he wouldn't be too sure if something hadn't kept telling him that he did.
After walking a long way from the capitol's spaceport, through the most amazing place he'd seen in his entire life, Fett had led him to a rather nice looking building that had a lot of children running around playing outside. The sign on the front of the building said that it was something called a daycare.
"You're going to stay here for a couple of days until I've determined whether or not I've gotten a lead on your sister." Fett said as he led him inside where a woman greeted them from behind a desk.
"What can I do for you sir?" The woman asked, dubiously eying Fett's armor.
"I'm going to be here on business for a couple of days. I can't bring the kid, and I can't leave him on the ship, and I heard that you were licensed to watch kids overnight." Fett said. The first thing he'd done upon landing on Naboo was to look for someone he could trust to watch Luke while he went out searching for the boy's sister. The comments various spacers had left about the Shadyside Daycare had been rather promising.
"Pay in advance. Anything more than a week and I hand him over to children's services, you're lucky that I don't hand him over now." The woman at the desk said somewhat coldly, which was a bit surprising considering the reputation the place supposedly had.
After the transaction was complete, Fett left. The severe looking woman who had frightened Luke when he first saw her turned out to be surprisingly kind. Apparently, whatever her problem had been, it had been with Fett. When she had finished registering him, she gave him a snack from the stash she kept behind her desk, and led him to a room that was far nicer than the one he had when he lived on Tatooine. It even had a chest full of toys and a shelf full of holobooks.
"This is where you'll be staying while you're here." the woman said as she showed him around the brightly painted room that had two sets of bunk beds as well as the aforementioned toy chest and bookshelf.
"The 'fresher is in here." she continued as she led him to a door on one of the walls
He stared at the small room that the woman had led him to. The 'fresher had something that was an unimaginable luxury on Tatooine, a real water shower. On the farm, and in the ship that he'd found himself on with Boba Fett, if you wanted to get clean, you used wipes.
"He doesn't hit you does he?" the woman suddenly asked.
"Who?" Luke asked confused by the question.
"Your father." the woman replied.
"My father's dead, he died before I was born." Luke said, wondering why she had called Fett his father. The man was just some guy who had taken him from Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, and wouldn't take him home no matter how many times he begged or pleaded for him to. He had said that some man called Kenobi would have taken him away anyway and gotten him hurt or killed, but he wasn't sure if he should believe him.
"Oh, I'm sorry." the woman said as she carefully fluffed the pillow on one of the beds.
"That's okay." Luke said, wondering if the woman really was sorry or just saying it to be nice.
"Who is he then?" the woman asked, wondering exactly what kind of relationship the man in the Mandalorian armor had with the boy he had dropped off. She hadn't seen many Mandalorians, and the reputation they had wasn't the best. In fact, she'd mostly heard them being described as a bunch of bloodthirsty savages who made a job out of what they would do for free, namely kill people.
"He says that he's going to take care of me, and not hit me like Uncle Owen did. I miss Aunt Beru though." Luke replied wondering where all these questions were going. He knew better than to mention the little fact that he'd been kidnapped. Fett would most likely hurt him if he did, and the Law Enforcement people didn't care about such things unless you had alot of money with which to pay them, and Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru didn't have very much money.
"Oh." the woman said, wondering what idiot had let a walking armory become a foster parent.
Two days later Boba Fett returned, rather upset. More than upset actually, he was royally pissed.
"She's not here." He said in response to Luke's first question.
"Why are you angry?" Luke asked somehow sensing that it had to do with something other than his sister.
"I'll tell you later, after we're in space." Fett replied as he pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to Luke. "I've got something for you."
"Who is she?" Luke asked as he looked at the flatpic that Fett had handed him.
"Your mother." Fett responded.
&!&!&!&!&
When Fett got back to the Slave I he tried to calm down and find a way to tell Luke that his mother's family had absolutely no idea he existed. When he had tried to tell them after failing to find Leia or Leila (whatever her name was), they had flat out refused to believe him, believing that Senator Amidala had one child that had died with its mother, and that he was running some sort of scam. He'd finally left when an angry Sola Naberrie called Security, since he didn't want to bring unwanted attention to either himself or the boy. Thanks to the Jedi, chances were that if he hadn't taken Luke, and the boy had tried to connect with his family when he was older, he would have been angrily turned away by relatives who thought he was playing a cruel joke.
It took a couple more days for him to find the girl that was most likely Luke's sister, and it gave him another reason to curse the Jedi. He had followed an off chance lead, remembering the fact that the guards outside Senator Amidala's delivery room had supposedly been from Alderaan, and that as he had left the facility when his arm was fixed he had seen what he could've sworn was Senator Organa.
As he studied the holo of the Alderaani princess that he'd copied off of a press release, he was almost one-hundred percent certain that the girl was Luke's sister. She bore a strong resemblance to a childhood holo of Senator Amidala that he'd picked up for Luke in a shop on Naboo. She also had the same smile as the man he believed to be her father had had as a child. Luke told him that the young princess looked like a holo he had seen of his grandmother Shimi when he saw her image.
Tearing a family apart was one thing, but this, this took the cake. A man who could have easily have afforded to take both children in had taken only one, whom he raised in the lap of luxury on Alderaan while he left her brother to be raised on a barely habitable sandpit amongst abusive relatives.
&!&!&!&!&
Leia Organa smiled up at the sun in the sky outside her six year-old girl was happy to be at the family's forest retreat, as this was a rare treat indeed. After swiftly grabbing her clothes for the day, she headed to the bathroom to shower and change. As soon as she was dressed and ready, she ran to her toy box and grabbed what was currently her favorite toy, a large red bouncing ball.
Ball in hand, she left her room and raced towards the door that led to the yard nearest the woods, noting that Guard Dakir was not on duty as she did so. Today would be a good day indeed.
Before she could reach the door, someone swooped down and picked her up, causing her to shriek in surprise. Her captor then started tickling her ribs, causing her to laugh and drop her ball.
"So, where's my little girl going without breakfast, hmmm?" Bail Organa said to his adopted daughter as he carried her towards the dining room.
"Put me down Daddy, I want to go out and play." Leia said through her laughter.
"You can go outside after you eat breakfast." Bail said as he set his daughter down in a chair in front of the family dining table.
Leia practically shoved two slices of toast in her mouth, and got reprimanded for doind so. She slowed down when she ate her porridge and some scrambled eggs that her mother had scraped onto the plate that had held her toast.
"Can I go outside now Daddy?" Leia asked the instant she'd washed down her breakfast with a glass of fruit juice.
"For heaven's sake, Bail let the girl go outside." Breha Organa said as she looked up from her breakfast.
"Fine, out you go Leia, be back in time for lunch." Bail said as he picked up his Caf and his morning report.
"Yay!" Leia yelled as she scooped up her ball and ran for the door once more.
&!&!&!&!&
Boba Fett crouched in the woods near the Alderaani royal family's secret forest retreat. He wondered exactly how he was going to do this, since taking a princess is a great deal more difficult than taking a farm-boy. He had been surprised at how easily the security around the retreat had been breached, but considering the fact that a week earlier he had gotten close enough to the princess to get the genetic sample that confirmed that she was indeed Luke's sister, he shouldn't have been. The security forces on this planet were much too complacent.
He felt somewhat naked without his armor, but the discreetly placed scanners around the property would've immediately picked up the high metal content and the electronic devices that said armor contained and marked him as an intruder. Without his armor or any other non-organic objects on his person, he had been able to trick the low-tech perimeter sensors into thinking he was some sort of animal. He still kept low beyond the perimeter, and made sure his silhouette was unclear, since if any sensors he hadn't noticed recognized his shape as bipedal and therefore most likely sentient, they would send out an intruder alert and he'd be screwed.
Trying to lure the child into the woods would immediately give him away. As he was trying to figure out a way around that problem, a red ball bounced into the forest close to his hiding spot. Sensing that this was his opportunity, he hurried over to the ball, careful to keep out of sight of the yard, kicked the ball further into the woods, and hurried to a new hiding spot near the ball. His risk paid off moments later. The child came into the forest alone.
He pulled the cloth he had specially prepared out of his pocket, and waited for the child to come closer. When the girl was close enough to grab, he swiftly did so, pressing the cloth over her mouth and nose before she could scream. Based on the patrols he'd observed while, he had less than ten minutes before someone realized the girl was missing and came looking for her. He swiftly tied the unconscious girl to his back with a bit of cord that he had brought for this purpose, and silently stalked to the edge of the property as fast as he could under the circumstances.
When he got near the spot he'd marked as the weak spot on the inside edge of the perimeter sensors, he got on all fours and crawled through. On the other side of the perimeter, he quickly checked that the girl was secure and raced towards his carefully hidden speeder bike hoping that he'd be able to get out of there well before security arrived.
&!&!&!&!&
Breha Organa had been feeling too unwell to join her daughter outside, and had chosen to watch from the window as her child played happily in the yard instead. She worried about the girl's safety constantly, especially now. The family had come here in secret because a week earlier someone had gotten past the palace security in broad daylight.
Fortunately the intruder had only pulled Leia's hair and left. It had been almost as if the man had been mocking them though, telling them that he could've killed her child at any time he wanted to. There weren't nearly enough security guards here for her peace of mind, but this place was supposed to be a secret, and if they started moving security in, they would swiftly be found, and it would no longer be a safe place to hide in times of danger.
Leia was running around the yard in the back garden near the woods, tossing her favorite ball into the air and running after it. Normally, she would be playing with Winter, but Winter had been left back at the palace with Aunt Rogue and everyone else. After one especially enthusiastic toss which had most likely been meant to bounce off of a nearby tree, the ball went sailing into the forest. Leia hesitated for a minute, but instead of screaming about her ball being lost like Breha had half expected her to and like she would have done only last year, she ran into the woods after it.
Breha watched and waited. Any second now, Leia would be coming out of the trees proudly holding her ball aloft. Five minutes passed, Leia didn't return. Ten minutes passed, surely it wouldn't take that long to find a red ball in green and brown foliage. The guards watching the forest and the yard appeared to come to the same conclusion. As one, they entered the woods, thinking that Leia may have gotten lost. One of the guards came out of the woods carrying something less than a minute later. It was Leia's ball.
The guards searched the woods for several hours. There was no sign of Leia. The fact that she hadn't been found meant that there was hope that she was alive. At first, the guards had thought that she had gotten lost, and that they would find her at any moment, but five hours into the search, a quarter of a mile from the property line, one of the guards found a relatively fresh footprint that didn't match any of their shoes. Leia had been kidnapped.
Breha sobbed into her husband's arms. While she had sat and watched, her child had been taken from her. She should've known something was wrong when she hadn't come back after five minutes, she should've sent a guard after the ball instead of letting Leia get it. She should never have let Leia go outside. She should've done something other than sit back and watch.
Bail held his wife trying to be steady for her as his own heart broke. Leia had been a shining light in their lives. Breha couldn't have children, and Leia had been for them the child that Breha couldn't have.
Edited 3/12/2012