Saga - PT HAN SOLO'S TASTE OF FATHERHOOD

"Okay, Chewie." Han Solo yelled as he ran up the boarding ramp of his freighter,

the MILLENNIUM FALCON.

"Start checking her out for lift-off." He loped into the cockpit where his friend and co-pilot

was replacing a component on the fligh deck controls. The Wookiee looked up just in time to

see Han flash a quick, self-satisfied grin in his direction.

"I just closed the sweetest deal in history." He announced as he slumped into his

pilot's chair, relishing every word.

"Simplest job we've ever had. All we have to do is fly some stuffy diplomats to Lyra...."

Chewbacca gave a reserved woof as he finsihed his task.

Han ignored him.

"Do you have any idea of what we're being paid? Thirty-five thousand credits for a

straight passenger run. Can you believe that?"

The Wookiee barked his opinion of this seemingly good fortune.

Han's smile faded momentairily. "What do you mean 'there have to be strings attached?'

There's no hitch, their contact already paid me."

Chewie interrupted with a suspicious comment.

"Don't be such a pessimist; I DIDN'T get taken. I'm telling you, Chewie, Luck

was smiling on us this time." He slapped the Wookiee's furry back, his enthuiasm returning.

"They will be here in about this base's standard hour."

Chewbaccca shook his head and barked a question.

"Where do I USUALLY make most of our deals?" Solo countered. "There was

this Regent guy there, looking to hire a ship for transport. He told me he'd already been

turned down by three pilots - they must've been stupid to turn down thirty -five easy

credits.

the Wookiee barkd an impatient request, not mentioning his opninon of how

suspect those three refusals looked.

"You're sure getting touchy in your old age, pal." Han teased in mock

seriousness. "Yeah, I'll go out and check the running lights. Just yell when you

are ready to turn 'em on." Han removed his booted feet from the edge of the

flight console, and strode through the hatchway.

****************************************************************************

"They're all working." he yelled, giving his co-pilot a reassuring wave. He

walked around the ship, eyeing each part carefully, making sure all the cables were

secure and not showing signs of wear.

Glancing around the port, a very strange sight caught his

eye. He watched a moment, then leaned forward to get a closer look at

what he THOUGHT he was seeing.

Walking towards the FALCON in an even, unhurried, almost military stride was a tall

uniformed man; one he recognized as the Regent with whom he'd made the transport deal.

But, it was what was walking BEHIND the man that was the cause of Han's

rapidly mounting apprehension. Lined in single file, according to height, were

what looked like five children, each carrying a personal case. As his heart lurched in dread,

Han prayed that they were not his passengers, or that if, by some chance, they were, they

would at least be members of some race of small people. He watched in open-mouth

shock as they marched directly up to him, and, at a soft command from the Regent,

halted.

"Captain Solo" the man greeted, 'These are your passsengers. Children,

this is Capain Han Solo."

"Oh NO!" The Corellian found his voice and began a vehement protest.

"You said DIPLOMATS. I'm not transporting any kids!"

"Captain." The Regent spoke in the calm, patronizing tone Han remembered

from their earlier encounter, and was now beginning to dislike.

"These children ARE the diplomats." Solo looked at each composed face

as the Regent continued. "Just as elsewhere in the galaxy, Princes and Princesses

are such at birth, so are these children born to their positions. They will assume their

diplomatic duties when they come of age."

Han remained adamant. "Look, I'll give you back the credits. Find youself

another pilot."

"There is no other who will take them." The man admitted. "All the others
I could find turned me down."

"Did you tell THEM they would be carrying kids?" Han spat the last word

as if it were some contagious disease.

"Yes."

"Then why didn't you tell me?" Han felt his temper rising.

"You would have turned me down, like the others."

"Damn right I would've!"

"Captain!" With a nod, the Regent indicated the proximity of the delicate-eared

children. "I was desperate, and I knew that once I had paid you, your Corellian ethics

would compel you to honor the bargain."

In total frustration, Han began to pace in front of the group. The Regent

took his arm and led him a short distance away, where the youngsters couldn't hear what he

had to say. "They MUST be delivered to their relatives on Lyra. The Council here

is failing, due to outside influences, and very soon their parents, and I fear myself, along with

them will be terminated. The same fate awaits them if they remain here. The political

collapse on this planet is happening much faster than we had anticipated, and we want

them to be off this planet before anyone notices their absence. We only want you

to take them to Lyra in the outer rim, where they will be met by relatives. We have

sent a secret, encoded message to them and they know to expect you.

"Surely, you can cope with them for a mere standard flight day-and - a-half

journey." He nodded to the small group. "See how well behaved they are?

Why, there's no way they could be any trouble. Besides, when was the last

time you earned so large a sum for such an easy job?"

To Han's way of thinking, they had wildly different definitions of the word 'easy'.

The Regent withdrew a bulky packet from inside his coat. "These are the legal

documents and DNA identifications of the children. They will be met on

Lyra by an uncle, they'll know him."

With that,Han resigned himself to the inevitable and took the packet. It was

difficult to argue after a speech like that.

"All right" Solo began, "Everybody on board."

As they filed past, the Regent clasped the shoulder of each child, and

introduced them. "Tigo and Kebo, twins. They are the eldest at twelve

revolutions. Han looked at them closely, then, with a nod, motioned them up the ramp.

"Pajam, the next eldest, is ten revolutions." The boy joined his brothers.

"Simon, at eight revolutions is the youngest son." A gentle nudge from the Regent

started the boy up the ramp.

Han was somewhat awed by their absoute silence; he was beginning to think this

would be as easy as he'd first thought.


"And this...is Shanna....the only daughter of the family. She's very important

to the continuation of the family line of Cunnan.The females hold prominence

here as do males on other worlds."

Han looked at the pretty, curly-haired girl that stood with a royal stance before him;

her bright lavender eyes seemed to appraise him as well. She smiled up at him.

"She's five."

"Aren't you coming with us, 'FayNor?" She asked the Regent as he

gently guided her to the starship.

"Not his trip. I still have other duties to attend here."

Shanna scurried up the ramp to join her brothers, who were standing in the hatchway.

The Regent turned to Han. "A good trip, Captain Solo, and thank you.

Your help will preserve a remnant of our government that may one day return to rule

our system.

It was difficult to respond to a comment like that, so Han only nodded

and watched the man walk away.

He made his way into the FALCON, then, brushing past his small passengers and eyeing

them suspiciously.

"Are you sure this thing can fly?" Kebo asked.

Han flashed the boy a cynical look, "Watch your mouth kid, this seems to

be your only way off-planet so don't knock it."


Tigo spoke blandly. "It is an established scientific fact that it is aerodynamicall impossibe for the Buzzhe-Beha, a native arachnia ot Topae, to fly, yet it does. Perhaps your craft is of the same principle, Captain."

 

Hi, and welcome to the Fan Fiction forums!

Quite an interesting start. I love the imagery of Han having a handful of kids dumped on him. Nice use of Corellian ethics to trap him, by the way. I'm finding the Regent - if that's who he really is - a bit fishy, but that's just me.

I am definitely looking forward to seeing how this turns out.


A couple of non-story related nitpicks:

You're using the wrong tag. Before - Legends is for stories that take place in the pre-Disney continuity befoe The Phantom Menace. This story is probably Saga - Legends, though it may be Saga - PT. Please see this thread for details.

. . . You've probably noticed that your story has been stripped of indentations. That's a browser thing, I'm afraid. It's possible to fake it using

Code:

[color=#ccc]. . . [/color]

at the start of every paragraph, but I don't recommend it. The standard format is to put an empty line between paragraphs (which usually don't have any line breaks in them, by the way).

 

Thank you for the pointers. I'm new to posting on this site, but not new to fan writing.

I'm learning things that to the rest of you fan writers on this site is second nature.

One question if you will. All my pieces are under 4,000 words. Is it alright to post

all the short story?

We have nine inches of snow here,sto I'm in for the day and may write more

about FATHERHOOD. I had so much fun writing this one.

 

Er . . . sorry, I'm not quite sure what you're saying.

If you're asking if it's okay to post an entire 4,000-word story in one go, then yes.

If you're asking if it's okay to post each up-to-4,000-words story in its own separate thread, then yes.

If you're asking if it's okay to post all your stories in one thread, then yes - though it may cause problems with the era-tagging system if you're not careful.

If you're asking about something else entirely, please feel free to ask.

 

Sorry to have been so confusing. Yes, I was asking if it was alright to post a 4,000 word story

at one time.

You are the first other fan fiction writer I've 'spoken' with, so nice to meet you.

And, again, thanks for the pointers and the help.

 

Here's the second person, with a really, really odd tip: you don't have to press enter when you reach the end of the line in the box you're writing in. Most text processors do that on their own. You only need to press it twice for a new paragraph. If you want any more formatting help, feel free to message me.

Nice start to the story, too - but these formatting issues make it really hard to follow.

 

Thank you for the information....I will follow your advice.

I really had a lot of fun writing FATHERHOOD...it was written years ago.

I will probably add more today as we have 9 inches of snow here and
I am in for the weekend.

 

Hey there! Welcome to the boards!

The idea for this story is so much fun! Han having to transport a bunch of kids should be a great romp.

A couple more technical aspects. You gave this story the wrong tag. I have gone ahead and given it a general SAGA tag, simply because I wasn't quite sure of the timeframe. If you'd like to change the tag, simply go to the bottom of that first post, press "Edit" then press "more options", you will be brought to a new page where you can change the tag. For more information about the era tags, please see this thread.

If you would like more feedback on formatting style that is easiest for readers to read, please do not hesitate to ask in the Fanfic Writer's Help Desk

 

This story slightly, but just slightly reminds me of the Ewoks and Droids comic cross-over where Artoo and Threepio have to deal with one certain Prince Plooz. Sure, there's no "falling through a black hole and ending in future" plot here, but Plooz was quite an issue.


"Simplest job we've ever had." - that's what all of us say. Famous, extremely famous last words. Seeing Han trying to change his mind was...great. And the whole idea of child diplomats, in a story that I understand was written before the Prequel Trilogy...just awesome!


I love using the term "revolution" as opposed to "standard year". One can see that this story features some bits from before the whole SW universe framework was shaped to be the way it is today. Like, you're an oldbie, you've got all the cred. It, however, leaves me wondering if you're talking about year on Lyra, a year on Corellia or something else.

On to the second part.