Saga "No... There is another..." Flash-fan-fics

Hi, everyone-

I'm new to this, but started writing short fan-fics recently to tide me over until TFA comes out. My idea is just to write short moments that take place during the events of the films, but depicting characters who are off-screen. So far, I've written about Dooku during the funeral of Qui-Gon, and about Bail and Breha Organa during the destruction of Alderaan.

Thank you for reading.

- Sean P. Thalviepe

 

Title: But Which One Was Destroyed
Author: Thalviepe
Characters: Dooku, Qui-Gon Jinn, Mace Windu
Setting: Funeral of Qui-Gon, Naboo
Genre: Flash-fiction

"Sir, the Funeral Temple is off-limits," the guard cautioned. He brandished no weapon and was certainly not eager to engage in any more combat, given the carnage he'd survived earlier that week. But he tried to be as firm as possible in his warning to the mysterious, cloaked figure.

An arm extended from the cloaked mass and a hand waved past the guard's face.

"You will let me pass," Master Dooku said.

The guard's expression became entirely neutral as he intoned, "I will let you pass."

The guard stepped aside, and Dooku walked through the small foyer of the stone tower, which led to the bridge to the temple. Once on the bridge, Dooku could see the funeral in progress. He had felt a disturbance in the Force when his former apprentice was killed, and he was informed of his death on Coruscant. But somehow, Dooku had not accepted that Qui-Gon Jinn, once the young boy he had trained, had been struck down. It wasn't until he stood on the bridge and saw Jinn's body on the pyre that Dooku truly accepted that Qui-Gon was dead.

Such a feeling of loss was unfamiliar to Dooku. Never had death felt so arbitrary, so preventable... Only a few days earlier, Dooku spoke with his former apprentice on Coruscant. Their conversation had been brief, as Jinn was due at a meeting with the Council. But in that time, Jinn had confided in Dooku that he had encountered a Sith on Tatooine.

After Jinn returned to Naboo with his apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Dooku approached Master Windu and asked about the Council's investigation into the emergence of a new Sith threat.

"You would be privy to such decisions, Master Dooku," Windu had said, brushing him off, "if you had not declined a seat on the Council."

Dooku became aware of the arrogance typical of the Masters on the Council long ago, which contributed to his decision not to accept a position among them. Blinded by pride, the Jedi Masters had not taken Jinn's warning seriously. Their inaction cost Jinn his life. Still on the bridge, Dooku could see some of them standing in the Funeral Temple: Master Yoda, Master Windu, Master Koon, Master Mundi...

Another feeling caught Dooku by surprise. Was it anger? A lifetime of negotiating fraught situations across the galaxy as a Jedi mediator had certainly brought its fair share of frustrations, but Dooku could scarcely recall a time he had felt such bitter rage at his Jedi peers. Through the flickering flames that consumed Jinn's body, Dooku could see one other person--perhaps the only other man who could appreciate his disillusionment with the Order: the newly elected Chancellor Palpatine. In recent months, Dooku had shared his growing discontentment within the confines of the Jedi Order with Palpatine, who had himself shared his contempt for the corruption of the Republic Senate.

As the flames began to fall, Jinn's remains disappearing into ash, Dooku felt his allegiance to the Jedi similarly going up in smoke. With one more rueful glance into the Funeral Temple, Dooku turned away from the glow of the fire and crossed the bridge into the darkness of the Naboo night.

 

Title: The Disaster
Author: Thalviepe
Characters: Bail Organa, Breha Organa, Leia Organa
Setting: Destruction of Alderaan
Genre: Flash-fiction

A strange breeze picked up around them, which made Bail immediately uneasy. It was common for gusts to come down from the Triplehorn mountains, but this wind blew in the opposite direction, appearing to come from the motionless Lake Aldera. The wind, in fact, didn't feel particularly like wind.

Bail's eyes scanned the dinner table before him. The edges of the table cloth seemed to be rising at the edges. The cutlery rattled. Slowly, Bail looked up, at his wife, seated across from him. Breha stared ahead, her eyes filled with tears. Bail opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong, but there was no need. He pushed out his chair and rose to his feet, still looking at Breha, his wife, the Queen of his people. Bail buttoned his vest and pivoted on his heels to face whatever horror it was that awaited them.

In the sky, death.

Appearing just over the mountains, was the space station. As a flower petal soared past his ear and toward the mountains, Bail understood that the wind was the gravitational pull of this new mass in their planet's orbit. Bail wished, in that moment, that he had never gotten Breha involved, never shared his rebellion with her. If he had spared her the knowledge of his conspiracies against the Empire, she would not have recognized the weapon that loomed over them.

He watched as the space station slowly rotated, its concave blast-dish turning to face them. Bail heard Breha rise from the table, and a moment later he felt her hand clutch his arm, her head fall on his shoulder.

Thoughts flooded Bail's mind--thoughts of politics, philosophy, his own life--but Breha whispered only one word, as her tears fell on her husband's collar.

"Leia."

Bail saw in his mind's eye the face of the beautiful girl he and Breha had raised: Leia, Princess of the House of Organa.

Governor Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader's leash.

But his daughter's face was soon supplanted by another: the face of her mother, Padmé Amidala. Senator Amidala had given the Republic everything she had--her fearless leadership, her passion for true justice and lasting peace, and her life.

Bail recalled seeing Padmé in his first year as a Senator to the Republic. She was little more than a child, but with greater conviction and courage than any politician he had ever seen. If she were here now, what would she say? What would she do?

He took Breha's hand in his and quickly walked into the palace, as she stumbled slightly behind him.

"Where are we-?" she started to ask.

"Zee-Eight," Bail said, addressing his astromech droid, "I need to access the planet-wide distress network."

Z8-V1 chirped a response and quickly rolled through the palace to Organa's royal office. Bail followed the droid, with Breha following him.

The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.

"We have no way of knowing how much time there is," Bail said to her, "but I must try to address the people."

"Bail," she said, "I know."

He cleared his throat, the emotion of their final moments beginning to overwhelm him, "Thank you, my love."

No, Alderaan is peaceful, we have no weapons- You can't possibly-!

Arriving in his office, Bail and Breha found the distress network already activated. Z-8's short metallic arm extended, offering Bail a small microphone.

"People of Alderaan," he began.

Dantooine. They're on Dantooine.

"This is Bail Organa. A super weapon of the Empire has entered the system. Its military function is the destruction of planetary bodies and today we are its victims."

From the city below, he heard cries of despair ring out.

"We are a peaceful people. But conflict has visited us in the past. And always, Alderaanians have withstood it. Even now, we will withstand this attack."

What?!

"In our final moments, let it be said that the people of Alderaan cherished each other and held close to their loved ones. Let it be said that we responded, not with violence or with hate, but with love for our home and our fellow beings."

No...

A faint green hue glowed in the sky. Breha's hand tightened on Bail's shoulder.

"Long live the-"

Bail Organa, Senator to the Republic, Prince of the House of Organa, was, at that moment, suddenly silenced.

And you call yourselves humans.

 

Cool concept. The Bail/Breha one - simply, utterly riveting and poignant. Very much how I could/would imagine that unfolding.

 

Title: We Don't Need Their Scum
Author: Sean P. Thalviepe
Characters: Boba Fett, Darth Vader, Bossk, Owen Lars, Beru Lars
Setting: Empire Strikes Back, Star Destroyer
Genre: Flash-fiction

The bridge of the Star Destroyer hardly resembled an Acclamator assault ship at all. While the wartime transports of the Republic had valued visual aesthetics almost as much as practical use, the Empire had refocused military design to maximize on efficiency and firepower. The Emperor sought to communicate one thing and one thing only with the appearance of his Star Destroyers: might.

On the one hand, Boba Fett appreciated the emphasis on utility over appearance. He had taken a similar course, making tactical modifications to his own armor that came at the expense of its sleekness, its luster, its brilliance.

On the other hand, Fett recalled the interior designs of ships during the Clone Wars and he felt something, a pang in his chest. Defensiveness? Nostalgia? There was a time when the galaxy was filled with Fetts, millions of them, all skilled soldiers for the Republic.

No, Fett thought. They were not Fetts. They were workhorses, mutated to maximize their usefulness. And where were they now? Dead. Or worse: fat, sluggardly, worthless old men. They were nothing like him, Fett thought.

Then again, they were vastly superior to the Empire's soldiers. Noneof these stormtroopers could hold their own against Fett or any other Kamino-bred clone for that matter. Military life was written into their genetic makeup. All of the training the Imperial Academy can offer couldn't possibly beat that. Perhaps that's why the Emperor had decommissioned the clones to begin with: they were too dangerous and too many. Give a weak stormtrooper a powerful blaster and he's a menace to the general populace, but at the end of the day, he's still weak. He can still be controlled.

There will be a substantial reward for the one who finds the Millennium Falcon.
Fett glanced at his competitors. Also weak. Even Bossk was now a shell of his former self, relying on hisses and grunts to intimidate an Imperial bureaucrat on the bridge. How far he had fallen from the formidable Trandoshan he was during the Clone Wars, who mentored Fett with Aurra Sing.

You are free to use any methods necessary, but I want them alive.

Fett's eyes turned to the Sith Lord coming towards him. The towering Darth Vader lingered in front of Fett for a moment before adding...

No disintegrations.

"As you wish," Fett replied callously. He smirked inside his helmet, recalling the sandtroopers he guided on Tatooine a few years earlier. He led them to the Jawa sandcrawler in the Jundland Wastes, and then to the Lars farmstead. When the sniveling old couple who resided there could not deliver the droids they purchased, Fett destroyed them with his flamethrower. The troopers could not hide their terror and disapproval, even behind their helmets.

Fett's report to Imperial command on the status of his hunt for the missing droids was interrupted by Lord Vader himself, who asked for Fett to confirm the deaths of Owen and Beru Lars. Fett obliged and presented an image of their still burning corpses. Vader was silent for a long while before calling Fett off the hunt, saying that his ruthlessness was "commendable, though rash."

Although at first Fett was angered at having been dismissed from the assignment, his frustration quickly subsided when he discovered that Vader compensated him anyway.

He looked around the bridge again, his stomach turning at the sight of the pale, puny commanders pacing along the viewports. Pride was useless to Boba Fett. All that mattered was getting paid.

 

Re: But Which One Was Destroyed
This connection rarely gets explored and I loved the idea of Dooku mourning his former apprentice, as well as the subtle hints of the beginnings of his downfall. As Qui-Gon Jinn goes down in flames, another thing that's burning is his faith for the Jedi. And he's just where Sidious wants him to be.


Re: The Disaster
Before Hosnian Prime's destruction in The Force Awakens, we didn't get to see the emotions of people as their worlds are being destroyed. And what you have shown us here reminds me of the video for Ultravox's Dancing With Tears in My Eyes. The ending is a good match to what happens to protagonists of that music video in the end, but with Leia and Tarkin's dicussion interspersed with it, it truly makes for an emotional, tear-inducing read.


Re: We Don't Need Their Scum
I generally don't get adult Boba, or how his minds works, but this was interesting, nevertheless.