CHAPTER 4:

Inside Ben Kenobi's abode, Luke Skywalker hovered over the ground with his eyes closed, his legs crossed, and his hands resting on his thighs. With steady and even respiration, he calmed his mind and focused within, letting the Force flow through him. Everything was falling in place. Lando Calrissian successfully became one of Jabba the Hutt's trusted guards. Han was freed from carbonite. Luke sensed both Chewbacca and Han Solo were together, though wherever they were, it was a cold, dark, and dank place. And Princess Leia Organa…

Leia!

Luke's large blue eyes popped open, his respiration sped up, his heart began to race, and he dropped to the ground with a sand-muted thud. The Jedi's anger began to rise from the pit of his stomach and into his chest as a vision of Leia's plight filled his mind. He could feel phantom pains in his abdomen, a pressure in his chest.

Luke's first impulse was to rush over to Jabba the Hutt's palace with his light saber ablaze. He could seem himself slashing down all the scum in the palace and torturing the crime lord to a slow death. Skywalker wanted revenge.

But Jedi do not get revenge.

Shaking, shocked and uneasy, Luke realized that he probably would be able to kill every last one of Jabba's lackeys, the bounty hunters that hunted Han down, and Jabba the Hutt on his own. He could vision it, see himself striking down his enemy clearer than he could see the visions of his friends. Luke grabbed his head. How easy it would be to turn to the Dark Side. He could save his friends, but he'd lose himself in the process, and Vader and the Emperor would win.

Luke should have never let Leia join them on this mission. He closed his eyes to capture the tears that threatened to fall. How easy it would be to fall to the Dark Side to save her, and that scared him. She was his greatest weakness.

The princess would have never let Luke and the others rescue Han without her. And Luke needed her there. In his vague visions, he saw Leia's importance, though he could not clearly see the part she would play.

Skywalker pushed back against his tears, took control of his ragged breathing, and focused on the princess. He reached out to her but found her mind in a distant place, hazy. She must have been drugged. Luke dug deeper, dug through her haze as he tried to see through her eyes. He pushed down the physical pain—her pain—that he felt, and did his best to soothe her mind.

Luke stood up and pushed her suffering out of his mind. If he carried Leia's suffering with him, he would certainly fall to the Dark Side. But he could wait no longer. Now dressed in black, he donned a black hooded cape and left Kenobi's home without looking back. Skywalker mounted his speeder bike and zoomed off to face Jabba the Hutt.

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Han Solo leaned against the cold bars that held him and Chewbacca in Jabba's custody as he tried to focus his eyes. Between the shadows, he could see a bright stark light that shot down from above and illuminated a brown blur. The brown blur was snoring. Chewbacca told him to rest, but Han had rested long enough. Six months to be exact. Well, at least his eyesight was improving like Leia said it would. He wished he knew where she was. Not knowing was worse than knowing.

Or maybe not.

Where was Luke? Han turned around and wrapped his fingers around the cold bars in front of him. Facing away from the light in the cell, the dark was blacker, more oppressive. He pressed his face close to the bars and looked to his left. He saw a faint light at the far end, the way out. If only he could get through these bars.

"Chewie!"

The Wookie continued to snore.

"Chewie! Wake up you furry oaf!"

Han's best friend growled and grumbled but sat up anyway.

"To the left. That's the way out, right?" There was hope in Han's voice.

Chewbacca groaned.

"If we could figure out a way to break through these bars—"

The Wookie cut him off with a series of garrawfs and horours.

"Are you sure it leads to the main chamber?"

Chewie continued to damper Han's plan.

"So we don't have weapons. We get them off the guards."

Chewbacca sighed and grunted.

Han's enthusiasm waned as he thought about it more. He turned around and leaned against the bars once again. Chewbacca was right; if they did manage to get past the guards, they were grossly outnumbered and would be no help to Leia—if they were even to find her. Han had no idea where she was being kept. He whirled around and punched the bars and then grabbed his hand in pain.

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Lando Calrissian walked the halls as if he was there with the intent of guarding the corridors. But he had another reason to be walking the halls this late at night. He made his way to the slave quarters, pressed his hand against the security pad, and entered the darkened room. Lando activated the glow lights, keeping them on the lowest setting. That's when he saw her: Princess Leia lying in a ball in the middle of the room. Normally the slave quarters were occupied by many females, but tonight Leia was alone. Jabba had killed off his seven of his slaves in less than a week, including sweet Oola who lost her life to a Rancor. A horrid death.

Calrissian went to the unconscious princess. She had been cleaned up and now donned a metal bikini. Lando clenched his teeth together.

As if she didn't suffer enough.

Lando knelt down beside her. "Princess?" he gently shook her shoulder, but she didn't answer. "Leia."

The princess's eyes opened halfway. "Lando?" she choked out, and her eyes closed again.

"Yeah. It's me."

Leia didn't say anything, slipping back into unconsciousness. Lando scooped her up in his arms, carried her over to the cot, and deposited her there. He lifted her head and slipped a pillow beneath it. The he slipped a rough blanket over her body, bringing the edges up to her chin.

"I promise you, Jabba will pay for this," Lando told her. He took one last look at her, walked to the door and turned off the glow lights. "Good night, Princess."

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The princess slowly awoke. She found herself lying on a cot with a blanket pulled over her. Her body ached everywhere, but the pain was sharpest under her breast and along her hips. She pushed the blanket off of her and used great care to push herself into a seated position. Then she looked down at herself, and her chin hit something metal. Leia touched it. It was a metal collar around her neck. With her hand pulling on the collar, she examined the rest of her body and discovered the reason her chest and hips hurt the most; she was wearing a metal bikini. As if she didn't suffer enough humiliation.

Leia put her hand on her lower back and arched her body and rolled her neck. That just brought more pain. She tried to recall what happened to her last night, but she couldn't remember much. The pain she remembered, but she was still experiencing it so it was easy to remember. Leia recalled being unable to move her body but remained able to see and hear. Leia did have the feeling that she wasn't alone, wasn't friendless in a room full of enemies. Were they—Han, Luke, and Chewie—there? Or did she just dream them up. Luke. She did feel his hand in hers. But Darth Vader was the one who first grabbed her hand; that she remembered. Leia's spine tingled.

With a clank and a scrape, the door slid open. The princess cursed herself for not being prepared to take whoever it was out. But it turned out to be a good thing; Lando was the one to walk in carrying a tray. Her shoulders relaxed.

"How's Han?" Leia immediately asked.

"He's fine. He's being held in the dungeon with Chewie," Lando informed her. "How are you?"

"Was he there…last night?"

"No," Lando answered and saw the relief flow through Leia's posture. "There was no point cos he couldn't see."

"That was for the best."

"How are you?" Lando repeated.

"I'm fine," she lied, but it would be easier to believe that than to acknowledge what happened.

"I brought you something to eat." Lando held out the tray to her.

"Should I trust it's not poisoned?" Her tone was light and Lando took that to be a sarcastic joke. Leia placed the tray on her lap and examined the various fruits, none native to Tatooine.

Lando let out a chuckle. "I prepared it myself."

She looked up at him and smiled. "Thanks."

The door slid open again, startling the pair. Yarna d'al' Gargan, an Askajian and keeper of the slaves, walked into the room.

"Whadda ya do here?" she asked.

"Jabba ordered me to bring her to him," Lando answered.

"Then why ya' steel 'ere?"

"I thought she might be hungry."

"Alway too soft, ya' are wit da slaves," Yarna reprimanded Lando, her multiple breasts bouncing as she shook her finger at him. "She no eat." The heavy woman slapped the tray off of Leia's lap. Then she handed Lando a chain. "'Ere. Ya' do honors. Git 'er up dare to Jabba fast. It be yer head not mine if ya' not fast enough."

Yarna huffed at the princess. "No more royalty are you, lil' one." And she waddled out of the room laughing.

Lando looked down at the chain in his hand then up at Leia. "I'm sorry."

"You have no choice."

The former Baron recalled those same words Leia said to him in Cloud City when she didn't trust that he was helping her and Chewbacca escape.

You had no choice, spoken in anger, not like now where Leia placed no blame on him.

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Luke Skywalker parked his bike next to the speeder that carried Chewbacca and Leia to the palace. He would walk the rest of the way so he could take the time to let the Force flow through him, push down his anger and feelings of aggression. As a kid, Luke had heard horrific stories about Jabba the Hutt, terrifying and unreal. Were those stories just exaggerations, rumors? Probably so, but there was always some truth to such rumors, and even the paired down version of those rumors and stories were terrifying enough. Luke feared Jabba as a kid.

But now Luke was a Jedi, and he feared the Hutt no more.

Luke Skywalker approached the foreboding door of Jabba the Hutt's palace, held out his hand, and closed his eyes. The door opened under his full command.