Remnants
Han Solo opened his eyes for about the 10th time since retiring for the night and was met with the same scene. An almost pitch darkness save for the blue lights illuminating the streets, the distant sounds of stray animals barking and yowling. The one upside was plenty of fresh air, but the downside was when the wind blew it also carried the smell from the garbage nearby. Up till a few weeks ago he'd had a wide assortment of places to pick from to stay the night, but he'd quickly found out it was harder to find accommodations when there were two of you. Suddenly doorways and the backseat of parked speeders were a little cramped.
"Are you asleep?" he asked as his head lolled from side to side on his jacket he'd folded up for a pillow.
A few feet away a slightly muffled voice responded, just as alert as he was, "Are you kidding?"
The teenaged Corellian groaned as he pulled his upper body up into a sitting position and turned and looked at his traveling companion, a dark haired girl his aged named Charon, who for whatever crazy reason, the two had become virtually inseparable since they met, when he conned her out of her money in a card game, only to find at the end that she'd picked his pocket. They seemed like a match made in paradise. In his defense, it could be a phase; Charon was out of this galaxy, literally, and there was just something about her he couldn't put his finger on, and he'd tried, sometimes it got him slapped, sometimes...
"I hope that wasn't you," she jeered.
Her voiced drew him out of his thoughts and he turned towards her. "Huh?"
The next sound out of him was a yelp as something dripped in his eye. He looked up and realized it was starting to rain.
"Great," Han said as they got up from their makeshift beds for the night, two long crates out of a whole freight shipment that would be loaded on a cargo ship in the morning. "Well, onto new locations."
They hit the ground and beat their feet as the sky rumbled and lit up with a flash of lightning.
"Why don't we find a cantina that's still open?" Charon asked. "I'm starving."
"You think I'm not?" he replied as they walked alongside each other. "We don't have enough credits."
"What do we have enough for?" she asked.
"There's a missions place that rents beds for the night, one per person, and we could barely afford that," Han told her. He stopped in his tracks and turned to his girlfriend, "Hey I've got an idea, there's plenty of guys around here who'd pay a lot of money for a few hours with a woman, you could-" that was all the further he got before he saw the murderous gleam in her eyes as she just dared him to finish that thought. Even though his plan was they could solicit one, knock him out and rob him blind, Han turned forward and resumed walking as he concluded, "Yeah, that idea wouldn't work." She was exotic, but not that exotic, they'd be lucky enough to get speeder fare out of that plan.
"What about a temple?" Charon asked. "Aren't they supposed to offer sanctuary?"
"Hell no," Han shook his head, "Not a temple, I'm never setting foot in one of those places."
"Why not?"
"They creep me out," he answered. "You ever see one of those hokey Jedis?" His whole body cringed at the thought.
"Well we better come up with something," Charon told him. "The only other place we can get out of the rain tonight free of charge is a detention cell."
"Yeah and I'll take a pass on that," he remarked.
"Hey," Charon grabbed his arm and yanked him back to get his attention. "What about that?"
Han looked where she was pointing and saw the business's sign in lights.
"A holo-theater?" he turned to her. "Are you nuts?"
"Do we have enough for admission?" she asked.
"You want to spend the last money we have on a movie?" Han asked.
"No, genius. We spend it on a nice dark room we can sleep in for a couple hours."
Han pursed his lips together as he took that into consideration. There was merit to that idea, but...
"And when the film's over?"
"We go to the fresher, wait until the next feature starts, and slip in the next theater room."
Han scratched his head as he thought about it, and then he was mad he didn't think of it first.
"Okay, but no love stories."
"You worried it'll keep you awake?" Charon asked.
"No, but I have a reputation to maintain," he told her.
"So far all that's gotten you is shot at plenty of times," his girlfriend pointed out.
"I don't recall asking for your opinion," Han replied as they cut through the traffic of land speeders and ground coaches.
They lucked out that for this hour of the night there wasn't a big crowd. Han parted with the last few credits he'd been hanging onto, they went into the assigned room, climbed the stairs to the balcony, each unfolded a couple seats and were dead asleep before the holofilm started playing.
The next thing Han knew he heard voices, he opened his eyes and realized the movie was over, the lights had come on and the crew of cleaning droids was making its way through the aisles. He and Charon headed down the stairs, ducked in the fresher as planned, and paced around to stay awake for half an hour as neither of them was desperate enough to sleep on that floor.
When it had been long enough for the second film to start, they headed back out and went to slip into the next room as planned, but halfway there Han stopped dead in his tracks, forcing Charon to knock into him.
"What was that?" she asked.
She was immediately cut off by him going, "Shhh!" sharply. Charon looked past him and saw what Han saw. A man in black leather and armor had entered the theater.
"An Imperial guard," Han said under his breath.
"Now what?"
They turned around and tried to slip away unnoticed but they heard the man calling to them, "Hold it right there!"
"We didn't even do anything yet," Charon whispered to him.
The guard came up to them and looked at them one by one, then each teenager had a portable light shone in their eyes, temporarily blinding them save for brightly colored spots.
"Is there a problem, officer?" Charon chanced asking.
Neither of them could see too well but the guard called over to someone else, "These aren't the runaways we're looking for." He turned back to the two of them and said in a commanding tone, "Get home."
"Yes sir," Han groaned as he squeezed his eyes shut and waited for this sensation to pass.
After a minute their vision cleared and they high-tailed it out of the theater. The rain was dying down but they still got wet as soon as they stepped in the street.
"Well, got anymore ideas?" Han asked.
"Just the age old one," Charon answered, "we hitch."
He turned towards her with a glare of disbelief, "You nuts?"
She shrugged. "What's the worst that can happen?"
"You show a disturbing lack of imagination," Han told her.
"I spent two years on a ferry with no hyperdrive to get to this galaxy, a lot of that fare was taken out in trade."
Han sneered at the mental image that statement gave him. Fortunately for him it was jarred loose a few seconds later as Charon shot down what he was thinking, "Cleaning, working in the galley."
"Yeah well trust me," Han told her, "most people ain't gonna give us a lift anywhere without getting something in return, and right now we don't have anything to offer."
"So what'll it hurt to try?" she asked.
Han shrugged, "Okay, we'll give it a shot."
They walked half a city square when he came to a sudden stop outside a shop window.
"Hey cowboy," Charon called as she came up behind him, "what is it?"
She looked in the big display window and saw what he saw, a new model blaster resting on a display stand. Even with his face pressed against the glass, Charon could see the big dreamy grin on his face.
"That's the one I want," he said half to himself. "I'm gonna get it one of these days."
"Gonna take a lot of card games to afford that, cowboy," Charon burst his bubble.
"Ehh," he sneered as he pulled back from the window, "I'll get something going, if we do manage to get out of here we can find some new targets to hustle."
"Yeah well if that happens, get two of them," Charon said as they resumed walking, "I don't like walking around unarmed, it makes me feel naked." Just as Han turned his head to say something she shot him down, "Get that thought out of your head before I knock it out."
"You don't need a blaster," Han commented, "your charming personality is enough to repel any unwanted lifeforms."
