More WIPS, all Star Wars

[valarltd]

A beautiful night. I sit on a limb, and let my nose enjoy the smells of
this green world. The ship is home, but I try not to smell too many things
aboard her. Engine propellant, coolants and lubricants, nutrimix, metal,
and the smell of human permeate her. I owe my LifeOathFriend much, but not
constant inhalation of his used clothing.

The little furry brothers have retired for the night. The humans are
falling asleep. I can smell the whole world if I try: the trees, the
ground, the little creatures on the ground. In the distance, a fire, and
burning metal. It is where the cub has cremated his father. He returned
to us, whole in his mind, but haunted.

I let my nose wander. There. Captain Antilles. Asleep, and drunk, with
frustrated rut overlaying both scents. There, the droids. The sharp metal
tang of their bodies is at odds with the mild organic smell of their brains.

Now this is interesting. The Princess is asleep, and smells of my Han. I
smile quietly. It is high time they accomplished a mating. Four months
of smelling them in frustrated rut aboard the ship nearly drove me mad.
She's stirring and waking up.

And there are the men. My Han and the cub walk together, unable to sleep.
More interesting still.

******



Leia Organa, Princess of Alderaan, sat at her dressing table brushing her waist-length brown hair. Her nurse came in and began to braid it into the symbol of her rank.

"Why do you smile, sweet?"

"Nana, I had the most wonderful dream. I dreamed I was the empress, and I wore beautiful dresses and everyone loved me."

"Lovely dream, darling. Now, your breakfast waits, and then your tutor. She wants you to recite your letters today."

"I can do it, Nana. I know them all. I can even read short words."

The woman kissed her charge on the head and the little princess bounded toward her sitting room for her breakfast.

"Good dreams, again, sweet?"

"Oh, yes. I was the empress again, and I was making everyone happy. I took care of all the problems people had with a wave and an order."

"Your braids look nice, darling. Now go to breakfast. Your tutor wants you to recite the History today, and play the new sila composition."

Leia made a face at the mention of the stringed instrument. "I hate sila practice, Nana."

Privately hiding the smile at what her child would look like in the fast approaching adolescence, the nurse said "Breakfast, Leia."

Leia braided her hair solemnly. This was the last morning she would wear the child's style. Today, she was an adult. At her party, her new tanihen would unbraid her child's braids and coil the hair into the mature princess style. She would wear the new one until she married. Today, she would savor each moment of her old life, because tomorrow would be entirely new.

"Nana," she said, watching the woman approach in the mirror. She turned and gave her a fierce hug. "I will miss you. You've been so good to me since Mother died."

"I wish she could see you today, sweet. You look so like her. Did you have that dream again? Your eyes sparkle as if you did. Now come, breakfast awaits."


"Leia, sweetheart, wake up. You're talking again."

"Sorry Eril. What time is it?"

"Not quite dawn. The Empress dream, right?"

"Mmm-hmm. I've had it since I was tiny." She snuggled a little closer.

"Can I, uh, fix that for you?" he asked, kissing her neck.

"Sure."


*****



I'm lookin' for this guy."

Han watched as the 2D of Luke made its rounds of the table.
In the last two months he had repeated this ritual in a
hundred bars in this system. The Falcon had tracked the
TIE prototype's odd signature here, but lost it amid the
muddle of asteroids and background radiation.

"Oh, yeah! That's Lady Varla's Sleeping Beauty."

"Skelm..." began his partner.

"He's really pretty, and very expensive. Although Lady Varla
will refund you if he wakes up for you."

"He's mine. I bought him a few cycles ago, he swiped my ship
and I followed him here. Does Lady Varla understand the penalty
for accepting stolen goods? How do I find her?"

The men at the bar took in his swagger, his size, and the loose gunman's
rig. "Her place is about twelve jirt up the road. You got ground
transport, stranger?" asked the ever-helpful Skelm.

"No. You?"

"Repulsor truck. I'm headed that way. You want a lift?"

"Sure." As a rule, Han did not trust locals, and even less this
one who knew about Luke. But Chewbacca was in orbit, and would
swoop down at the touch of a button. The tracker he wore would keep
his partner alert to his location. He followed Skelm out to the truck.

It was filthy, weather-beaten and missed when the big man started it.
The inside smelled of hasty meals eaten on the road. The sleeping
shelf behind the seats where the morose partner sat was rumpled
and unmade.

They made the trip to Lady Varla's in silence. Han was wondering
exactly what he would find when he got there. His mind ran
through a variety of unpleasant notions based on that he'd heard
in the bar.

An amnesic Luke fed sleeping drugs to make him the passive toy.

A comatose Luke being taken shameless advantage of.

A violent Luke, forcibly resisting this re-enslavement, and being clubbed
into passivity.

A scheming Luke, biding his time, pretending to be exactly what was demanded
while he planned escape and revenge.

The first two he could handle. The others might welcome his rescue, but would
exact a heavy toll for the battle that had landed him here to begin with.
He hoped the last threat he'd seen from the sith lord's lips was just
a threat and not an actual plan.

Lady Varla's House commanded an impressive view from the top of the hill.
The huge structure was all balconies and dormers and bay windows as if an
architect had gone wild with his sense of whimsy. The scrollwork dripped
from every eave and balustrade, and even the shrubbery was clipped into
shapes of flowers and animals. The setting sun bathed it all in an
orangy glow, making the windows look as if they held pure fire.

The repulsor truck stopped outside the tall scrolled gates. Han
handed the driver a generous amount of the local currency. "Thanks."

"Good luck getting your beauty back," Skelm wished him. "I got a
schedule to keep." The repulsor truck sped into the night. Skelm
knew he'd had enough profit from the lucky crash, and wanted to be far away
when the stranger discovered it had been him and Yohns that sold
Sleeping Beauty to Lady Varla.

Han pushed the gate open and strode up the winding, tree-lined drive
in the last of the daylight. He climbed the steps of the porch,
and banged the obscene metal knocker against its equally obscene striker plate.

A woman's head appeared in holo before him, very human, very beautiful.
"Lady Varla caters to the most sophisticated tastes, and only
to the cognoscenti. Speak your desire."

"Beauty. I want your sleeping beauty."

"An expensive delicacy, spacer. Maybe too expensive for a starhopper.
Come in and show me the color of your money."

The holo vanished and the door swung open. Han stepped into the foyer,
doing his best not to gawk.

The floor was pure Sakkan marble, at least a millennium old, since
the marble quarries on Sakka had been depleted for over 900 standard
years. The walls were paneled in rare scarlet gra'al wood from the
Tion Hegemony on the other side of the galaxy. The stair was carpeted in
chromosilk, handwoven if his eyes didn't mistake the design. A huge stained
glass window, magnificent and erotic, caught the last of the sun's rays.

They also caught the hair of Lady Varla who stood on the landing, turning the
golden coronet of braids deep red. She was built on the same opulent scale as
the house. Even at a distance, Han could tell she was taller than Chewie,
and proportioned accordingly. The sky blue shimmerdress swirled to the floor.
Her hair cascaded down her ramrod straight back just as neatly.

One elegant, enormous hand slid along the Alderaanian lerv wood bannister as
she made her way down the stairs with a distinctive glide. The eyes matched her
gown and missed no detail of his appearance.

"You have expensive taste, little Corellian. But then, all my goods are
expensive." She looked down at him, and laid a hand aside his face that could
have encompassed his whole head. He looked up at her face, realizing
this was one time he could be excused for staring at her chest. "With
proper presentation, even you could be expensive."

"I am expensive, Lady. My master, Lord Vengar, gave an entire system's
ransom for me. He is the one with expensive tastes. I am his emissary on this
mission." He dug out all the protoccol Luke had demanded and turned his
considerable natural charm on her as well. "Observe."
He took a holoplayer from a pocket, and activated it, playing
the spliced holo he and Chewbacca had created.

An image of Lord Vengar, in his hooded black robe, materialized.
"To the viewer of this holo: greetings. It is my hope that we can
come to a reasonable accommodation regarding the disposition of my
stolen property. The young man you currently are aiding is mine.
He stole himself and fled. Adjutant Solo has all the authority he needs
to retrieve my property. What is mine, I keep."

The holo winked out. Han stashed the player and took out an Imperial
cash voucher drawn on the Bank of the Imperial City. He'd paid substantially
less than its face value of fifty thousand credits, mainly because it was
as false as the holo.

"Lady Varla, my first offer will be my last. I offer you fifty
thousand credits for your Sleeping Beauty. Consider it recompense for
the expense you've had taking care of him. If you refuse this, I will
take him, and you will have no profit."

The woman looked stunned. "I had no idea he was stolen goods. I'd
never have bought him if I had. And you say he belongs to the prince?"

"That's right, Lord Vengar, the Emperor's son. And I tell you this, Lady,
the Emperor is _very_ fond of his son. Should you oppose me, they will be
more than happy to demonstrate for you."

"Very well, Adjutant. Follow me if you would. I shall call the fifty thousand
fair, although it is a mere half-week's wages for my Beauty. I cannot afford
trouble with the Empire."

"No one can, Lady. Thank you for being so reasonable."

She led him up the stairs. These, unlike the rest of the house, were scaled
to his height. He watched as she unlocked one of the many doors in
the long hallway.

The room was done in pale blue, from the flocked wallpaper to the handwoven
tapestries around the huge fourposter bed. Lady Varla drew back the tapestry
and let him see.

Luke lay on the bed, his eyes closed, his breathing even. A removable intravenous
feeder tube ran to the shunt in his arm. Of course, Han thought. They had
to keep him fed, but medical equipment would be a turn off for the customers.
Aside from a faint scar on his face, there was no other sign of trauma. He
looked quite comfortable in the soft grey nightshirt, a young scion asleep on
the family estate.

"He's been like this since I bought him. We keep him nourished, and turn him
every hour to make sure he doesn't develop bedsores. He was badly battered when
he came here. I'm just pleased he healed so well. Can you wake him,
Adjutant?"

"I can try." Han had already ascertained that the constant sleep was
Force-induced, the peculiarly repulsive darkside energies setting the small hair
of his neck on edge. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and laid his hand along
Luke's face. "Luke, can you hear me? Come on, wake up. There's work to do."

He felt the pulse quicken under his hand. A noise from the bedframe drew Lady
Varla to open it, revealing very sophisticated medical equipment hidden by
the paneling. The brainwave scan showed Luke had left the slow theta pattern
that had been his norm and was resuming normal alpha function. "He's coming up," she
said, amazed that the few words from this man had accomplished what two months of
constant care, and nightly sexual use, had not.

"Luke, wake up. I have to take you home."

Luke's eyes did not open, but he rolled toward the voice, stretching out
with his left hand. Han noticed the right had been replaced at some point
between their escape and this rescue.

"Han?" he mumbled, groping for the bigger man.

"Open your eyes, kid, and let's go." He was being very ambiguous until
he saw what came awake: sith lord, pleasure boy, portmaster or something
else entirely.

"You came back for me. Have you paid Levant?" Luke's eyes still weren't
open, but he had found Han and was pulling himself to sit in the spacer's
arms.

"You're paid for. Open your eyes, kid."

The eyes that met his were blue and guileless, not the storm-grey he
had feared. "Han, are we going to your ship now?"

"In a minute. Lady, can you unhook him?"

Lady Varla neatly removed the nutrient tube's shunt, causing the bare
minimum of discomfort. She helped Han lift him from the bed and set him
on his feet. Muscles unused for weeks wouldn't support him. "I shall
carry him."

Han hastily commed the Falcon, and instructed Chewbacca to land on the
platform for which Lady Varla supplied the coordinates. They walked to
the ship, and the giantess ducked her way aboard to lay Luke gently on
the medicouch.

"Take care, Sleeping Beauty. Don't let your prince be too rough
with you." She kissed him gently. In the ring corridor, she
caught Han. "If Lord Vengar tires of you two, come back and we can
make a fortune, the three of us."

"As you did off his unconscious ass?" The words came with cold fury,
but she seemed unaffected.

"Dear boy, that's what I do. I used to sell my own body, now I
broker the pleasures of others. Here. Keep your prince's money,
and take this as well. It belongs to Beauty, and I do not
cheat my workers." She handed him both the fake cash voucher and
a credit chip, drawn on the Galactic Bank's local branch.
The numbers read almost four hundred thousand credits. Han tried
not to stare. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen that much money in one place.

"I told you he was expensive, darling. As a pair, the two of you could make
double that amount each month." She tipped him a wink
and vanished with surprising speed for her size.

"Luke, you all right? We're taking off."
The boy nodded, and Han went to the cockpit after buckling him down.

*That was quite a female, Han.*

"Sure was, old pal. Let's go somewhere peaceful and see how Luke really is."

*I know just the place, little one.*

***

They lay on the scarlet grass, watching the puffy white clouds fill the
pink sky. A week on the backwater world of Klon had established all Han
needed to know about Luke's mental state.

"Ah, you're nuts, kid. It looks like a three-legged dewback."

"How about that one? Looks like a topless Askjian girl."

"Oh yeah? You like lotsa breasts?"

"Love _you_," Luke countered, rolling until he was half atop
the bigger man. He kissed Han thoroughly.

Luke remembered almost nothing of the previous year and a half:
not Leia, nor Vader, nor the Death Star. He remembered Han from
Levant's, and occasionally showed flashes of body recall when they made
love. For the first time, it was making love. There was no anger,
no power, no hate tied up in it. Han reveled in it, and Luke
demonstrated a near-insatiable appetite for touch. More and more,
the pilot was overwhelmed with a desire to spoil and care for this
boy forever. On this world, four hundred thousand credits could last
them their whole lives.

Chewbacca had made himself useful, and kept out of the way as
the men became reacquainted. Once the Falcon was squared away,
he had gone into the forests on a short religious journey.
Han didn't mind, and Luke was almost relieved. The wookiee still
made him nervous.

The good times couldn't last, Han knew. The Emperor was combing
the galaxy for his missing son, and sooner or later he would find Luke,
either through the Force or by more conventional means. The only thing
that had saved them this far was the fact the crash and unconsciousness
seemed to have damped Luke's force-signature.

"Love you too, Luke. You want or shall we go back and have
some dinner?"

A slow, incredible kiss that flashed along the nerves from his mouth
straight to his groin provided all the answer he needed.

"Dinner after. I need to work up an appetite."

Later, aboard the ship, Luke programmed the synth watching Han fiddle
with some small equipment repairs from the corner of his eye. He felt
dishonest. He hadn't told his lover everything. He knew it wasn't the
first time, but the memories were
still hazy. He knew they were bad and didn't want them to clear. He didn't
want the sheer joy of existence and new love to fade under the weight of
a conflicted history. He punched up some dinner and waited while the
ancient, cantankerous machinery decided what to give him.

//Luke.//

//Father?// Now he knew he was losing his mind. Why should he think the
imaginary voice in his head was his father?

//I have had a merry chase finding you, son. Where are you?//

//Klon. I don't know the coordinates.//

//So, your Captain found you? Are you happy?// Why did the imaginary voice
sound so angry? There was surely no harm in answering it, even if
it wasn't real.

//Very happy, Father. I love him.//

//What of your wife?// The image of a lovely dark-haired girl came unbidden
into his mind. //Have you forgotten her? And your child which she carries?//

//Wife? Father?// There was only silence.

Luke barely noticed what the foodsynth had produced and carried it to
the table. Han set the repairs aside and cleaned up.

"What is it, Luke?"

"Am I married?"

That question was out of the blue. Han sat down slowly, unsure how to answer.
"What makes you think that?"

"I keep having a memory of a girl. Young, lots of dark hair, very pretty.
Pregnant."

"The girl is a princess. She and an old man were passengers on our last
hop before you got sick." Han and Chewbacca had agreed that the boy would know
only that he was their navigator, and he'd been very ill, with an alien virus and a
high fever which had addled some of his memories. "Pregnant? I dunno. Could
be wishful thinkin'. I'm no home-wrecker, if that's what you're askin'.
I don't mess with people who are taken."

"I made love to her." Luke's voice was sure as the memory returned. "Several
times."

"You flirted like a Twi'lek dancer and I caught her kissing you once," Han
informed him, more sharply than he intended. "Now eat."


*****



Lando Calrissian was not a religious man.
Most spacers weren't as a rule. Luck and superstition
were perfectly acceptable, but dogmatic adherence to
a faith seldom survived the first planetfall. And any
organization that required regular financial support was
automatically suspect.

He strolled past the temples that lined the streets of Jealva's capital,
Sard. Vendors of various trinkets called the virtues of their wares
from the small booths in front of the massive edifices.

"Sacred medals, blessed by the Grand Flua himself."

"Holy water from the Gods' Spring."

"Actual epidermal sheddings of Sainted Sugon."

A flash of green caught his eye. The tiny statue was
a human female in a green dress, her flame-colored hair
pouring down her back. Her eyes matched her dress.
In one hand she held dice. In another, sabbac cards.
In a third, a small bag bulged. In a fourth, carved sticks
such as some places used for gambling. He realized he
had stopped and was looking at her. The workmanship was incredible,
since she was only half the size of his spread hand, yet
every detail was clear.

"Spacer, yesno? Looking for luck, hmmm? Here she is,
yesno?" The blue-furred proprieter ran a gentle hand
over the statue. "Goddess Fortune. Ten credits, and
she is yours. Bring you great good luck, spacer." The
owner noticed his intent look. "Ah, she likes you, yesno?
Wants to fly with you."

The green stone eyes held him, and he was reaching
into his pocket before he realized it. A few moments
later, his pocket was ten credits lighter, and one half-span statue
heavier.