Secret Plans

Star Wars is copyright to Disney, Lucasfilm etc. I own nothing except my OCs

It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire.

During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the Death Star, an armoured space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.

Pursued by the Empire's sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy...

High above the planet Tatooine in the galaxy's outer rim, the Rebel blockade runner Tantive IV raced through space, closely pursued by the Imperial Star Destroyer Devastator, both ships exchanging turbolaser fire. At last, a shot from the Devastator struck the main solar fin of the Tantive IV. Inside the Rebel ship's main passageway, two droids, C-3PO, a gold Protocol droid, and R2-D2, a blue & white Astromech droid, struggled to make their way through the shaking, bouncing passageway, alarms blaring all around them. "Did you hear that?" 3PO asked R2. "They've shut down the main reactor. We'll be destroyed for sure. This is madness!"

R2 beeped a reply as Rebel Fleet Troopers rushed past them and took up positions in the main passageway, their blaster trained on the main airlock door.

"We're doomed!" 3PO wailed. "There'll be no escape for the Princess this time." Suddenly, a tremendous clanking sounded from outside the ship. "What's that?" 3PO wandered. The source of the sound was the Devastator's tractor beam drawing the Tantive IV into it's ventral hangar bay, the Imperial ship having overtaken the disabled Rebel ship.

The nervous Rebel soldiers listened as the sound of the tractor beam subsided and they readied their weapons. Suddenly, the airlock door was blaster open from the outside and a score of fearsome Imperial Stormtroopers clad in white armour made their into the smoke-filled corridor. Within seconds the entire passageway was ablaze with blaster fire, the deadly bolts ricocheting in wild patterns, creating huge explosions. Blaster bolts hit several Rebels, who screamed and staggered through the smoke. holding shattered arms and faces.

"I should have known better than to trust the logic of a half-sized thermocapsulary dehousing assister..." 3PO grumbled as an explosion hit near him.

R2 beeped an angry rebuttal as the battle continued to rage around the two hapless droids.

The Rebels did their best, but the opposition was overwhelming and the Empire soon had the ship under their control. Once the ship was secured, the awesome, 7ft tall dark lord of the Sith made his way aboard the ship. This was Darth Vader, right hand of the Emperor. Vader was dressed from head to toe in a black life support suit, his face obscurred by a helmet, which made him stand out from the white-clad Stormtroopers. The Stormtroopers all instinctively backed away from the imposing Sith and they remained respectfully silent as he strode past them.

~8~

3PO had lost sight of R2 in all the confusion and was now looking for him in the Tantive IV's maintenance corridors. "R2-D2, where are you?!" he called out irritably.

"Shh! Not so loud!" a female voice urged him, and 3PO turned to see a young woman standing guard at the end of a hallway. Behind her, at the other end of the hallway, was another young woman, who was busy inserting a data into a slot in R2's dome. When that was done, R2 turned and trundled away to join 3PO.

"At last! Where have you been?" 3PO asked him impatiently as he heard Stormtroopers in the distance. "They're heading in this direction. What are we going to do? We'll be sent to the spice mines of Kessel or smashed into goodness knows what!" R2 trundled past him and raced down the sub-hallway. "Wait a minute. Where are you going?" 3PO demanded as he chased after him.

The two women watched the two droids leave, then they shared a look and snuck off in the other direction.

~8~

In the Tantive IV's main passenger area, Darth Vader was holding the ship's captain, Raymus Antilles, by the throat as the Stormtrooper captain arrived. "The Death Star plans are not in the main computer." the captain reported.

Vader squeezed Antillies' neck. The Rebel struggled in vain, but Vader had superhuman strength. "Where are those transmissions you intercepted?" he demanded in the deep voice that his helmet's voice unit gave him. "What have you done with those plans?"

"We intercepted no transmissions." Antilles choked out as he was lifted off his feet. "This is a consular ship... we're on a diplomatic mission."

"If this is a consular ship, where is the ambassador?" Vader countered. Antilles refused to speak, so Vader, seeing that he wasn't going to get anything from him, finished him off by crushing his larynx, then he threw the lifeless body to the floor and turned to his troops. "Commander, tear this ship apart until you've found those plans, and bring me the passengers, I want them alive!" he barked.

~8~

The two young women huddled in a small alcove in the engineering section as the Stormtroopers searched the ship. One of the two women was Princess Leia Organa, a member of the Alderaan Senate, and the other was her aide, Kali Marek. The fear in both women's eyes slowly gave way to anger as the footsteps of the approaching Stormtroopers grew louder. Leia gave the nod to Kali, and they both un-holstered their sporting blasters, ready to make a fight of it. One of the Stormtroopers spotted them. "There's two. Set for stun." he ordered his troops.

Leia promptly emerged from her hiding place and shot the trooper with a well-aimed laser blast. She and Kali tried to run, but the other troopers felled them both with stun rays and they collapsed unconscious to the floor. One of the troopers inspected their inert bodies. "They'll be alright. Inform Lord Vader we have prisoners."

~8~

R2 had reached the Tantive IV's escape pod bay and was now using his datalink to open the hatch. "Hey, you're not permitted in there. It's restricted. You'll be deactivated for sure." 3PO told him as he caught up with him.

R2 beeped a retort as he began to enter the escape pod.

"Don't you call me a mindless philosopher, you overweight glob of grease!" 3PO spluttered indignantly. "Now come out before somebody sees you."

R2 whistled something to his reluctant friend about the mission he was about to perform for the Princess.

"Secret mission? What plans? What are you talking about? I'm not getting in there!" No sooner had 3PO said that when a laser blast impacted the wall next to him. "I'm going to regret this." 3PO grumbled as he begrudgingly followed R2 into the escape pod. The hatch closed behind him and the escape pod blasted away from the Tantive IV.

~8~

Gunners aboard the Devastator watched the escape pod drifting away. "There goes another one." a gunner commented.

"Hold you fire." his superior told him. "There's no life-forms. It must've short-circuited."

~8~

Aboard the escape pod, R2 and 3PO looked out of the viewport at the receding Imperial ship. "R2, are you sure this thing is safe?" 3PO asked.

R2 beeped a reassuring response as the pod drifted down towards Tatooine.

~8~

Leia and Kali had regained consciousness and were now being led by the Stormtroopers to where Vader was waiting. The sinister Sith Lord stared hard at the two young women, but neither of them showed their fear. "Darth Vader. Only you could be so bold." Leia said disdainfully. "The Imperial Senate will not sit still for this. When they hear you've attacked a diplomatic.."

"Don't act so surprised, Your Highness." Vader interrupted her. "You weren't on any mercy mission this time. Several transmissions were beamed to this ship by Rebel spies on Scarif. I want to know what happened to the plans they sent you."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Leia lied. "I'm a member of the Imperial Senate on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan..."

"You are part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor." Vader dismissed. "Take them away!" he ordered his troops.

"You won't get away with this, Vader." Kali vowed as she and Leia were marched away by the Stormtroopers.

Vader turned and strode through the ship, accompanied by Commander Dane Jir. "Holding them is dangerous." Jir spoke up. "If word of this gets out, it could generate sympathy for the Rebellion in the Senate."

"I have traced the Rebel spies to the Princess." Vader replied. "Now she is my only link to finding their secret base."

"She'll die before she tells you anything. Her aide too."

"Leave that to me." Vader answered calmly. He had his ways of getting people to talk. "Send a distress signal, and then inform the Senate that all aboard were killed."

Just then, they were joined by Commander Nahdonnis Praji. "Lord Vader, the battle station plans are not aboard this ship, and no transmissions were made." he reported. "An escape pod was jettisoned during the fighting, but no life-forms were aboard."

Vader realised what Praji was implying. "They must've hidden the plans in the escape pod. Send a detachment down to retrieve them. See to it personally, Commander. There'll be no one to stop us this time."

"Yes, sir." Praji acknowledged, and set off to see to it.

~8~

The escape pod had landed in the Jundland Wastes area of Tatooine, where rugged desert mesas met a foreboding sea of sand dunes. R2 and 3PO had left the pod and were now trudging across the sand. "How did we get into this mess? I really don't know how." 3PO moaned. "We seem to be made to suffer, it's our lot in life."

R2 answered with beeping sounds.

"I've got to rest before I fall apart. My joints are almost frozen." 3PO continued to complain. They reached the top of a sand dune and 3PO looked around at the desert wasteland. "What a desolate place this is." Suddenly, R2 whistled, made a sharp right turn and started off in the direction of the rocky mesas. "Where do you think you're going?" 3PO asked him.

A stream of electronic noises poured forth from the Astromech.

"Well, I'm not going that way." 3PO said. "It's much too rocky. This way's much easier."

R2 countered with a long whistle.

"What makes you think there are settlements over there?" 3PO asked him, and R2 beeped an answer. "Don't get technical with me."

R2 continued to make beeping sounds.

"What mission? What are you talking about? I've just about had enough of you!" 3PO grumbled. "Go that way. You're be malfunctioning within a day, you near-sighted scrap pile!" He gave R2 a kick of annoyance and started off in the direction of the vast dune sea. "And don't let me catch you following me begging for help, because you won't get it."

R2's response was a rather rude sound. He turned and trundled off in the direction of the mesas.

"No more adventures. I'm not going that way." 3PO called stubbornly. And so, the two droids went their separate ways.

~8~

3PO trudged through the dune sea for several hours, but all he found to suggest life was the skeleton of a Krayt Dragon. "That malfunctioning little twerp." he grumbled. "This is all his fault! He tricked me into going this way, but he'll do no better." Suddenly, he saw a glint of light in the distance that seemed to be moving towards him and as it came near, 3P0 saw that it was some sort of large crawler vehicle. "A transport! I'm saved!" he exclaimed in relief, and waved frantically to get the transport's attention. "OVER HERE! HEY! HELP! PLEASE HELP!"

~8~

It was now dusk and R2 was entering a rock canyon. He heard a distant sound and stopped for a moment, then saw that it was just falling rocks. Convinced that he was alone, he continued on his way. Little did he realise was that he was being watched by several pairs of eyes hiding in alcoves in the canyon sides. The unsuspecting droid continued along the rugged trail through the canyon until suddenly, a Jawa burst out of hiding behind a rock and fired an ion blaster at R2. The little droid screeched as the blast overloaded his systems and with a final whimper, he powered down and toppled over onto the ground, inactive. The Jawa then gave a signal and three more Jawas came out of their hiding places and carried R2 away down the trail.

Presently, the Jawas reached their sandcrawler. They welded a restraining bolt onto R2's bodywork and put him underneath a large tube on the side of the huge vehicle. The little droid was then sucked up the tube into the sandcrawler and the Jawas scrambled up a ladder to get aboard.

When R2's systems rebooted, he found himself in the sandcrawler's main hold, which was full of scrap accumulated by the Jawas and other captive droids. A voice of recognition suddenly called out to R2, "R2? R2-D2, it IS you! It is you!" And sure enough, there was C-3PO, who scrambled over to R2 and hugged him, their earlier disagreement forgotten.

The reunion was interrupted by a loud rumbling as the sandcrawler's engines roared into life and the machine trundled away into the desert night.

Author's notes: Welcome to my latest story. I've decided to do the original Star Wars trilogy with OCs. I've had two ideas for original trilogy OCs, so I've decided to hedge my bets and do them both together. Here we've met the first OC, Kali Marek. The second OC will be introduced in a later chapter. As for Kali, her face claim is Nina Dobrev if you're wandering what she looks like. Admittedly, she'll be spending most of the story as a prisoner with Leia, but I hope to give her things to do later in the story and in the subsequent films. So, here's the first chapter and next time we'll meet Luke. See you then.