into the chaos! → luke skywalker ✓

xv. plan a

⋆☆* ✧✰.✦

ON A PLANET LIKE NABOO, Jabba's palace would be the obvious home of a crime lord, but on Tatooine it looked like a place for royalty—which it was, in a sense, seeing as Jabba had more power than the mayor in Mos Espa. It was a grand compound containing countless rooms, including enough bedrooms to house Jabba's favorite bounty hunters.

When they arrived at the palace, Cas asked if there was somewhere she could go to freshen up, knowing for a fact that he'd take her to his room before they went down to join the company. It wasn't a necessity, but she wanted to see everything as soon as possible, for it would give her more time to memorize the layout—that, and she wanted to make contact with the others as soon as possible.

One way Jabba's palace differed from an Imperial facility was that he didn't bother to search his guests for comms. Once in the refresher, Cas shut the door and turned on the faucet (of course Jabba had plenty of access to water and a perfect water recycling system on a poor desert planet). Then, she withdrew her encrypted comlink from a hidden pocket in her trousers and held it up, speaking quietly into the device.

"Luke, hey, do you copy?" There was static for a moment, then Luke's voice came through. She visibly relaxed.

"Cas, yeah, hi. Are you okay? Er, are you in?" The way in which he rambled was always adorable to her.

"I am." She wanted to say more, to give a full report, to talk to the others, but they were short for time and they both knew it.

"Be careful in there."

"Will do." And so she turned the device off and tucked it away again. She splashed her face with some water, touched up her lipstick, then went out to where Naris Granger was waiting for her. He smirked as he looked her up and down, unashamedly letting his eyes fall upon every piece of her. She couldn't wait to knock his ass out when the time came.

"How did I get so lucky as to stumble upon the most stunning damsel in distress?" he purred, taking a few steps toward her but stopping at a safe distance. At least he wasn't too forward in that department. Cas crafted a shy smile and tried not to think about just how wrong he was.

"I really appreciate you allowing me to stay here with you, Naris," she told him, placing her hand gently on his bicep. Cas thought back to the one other time she had done something similar for a mission. Leia had been with her, and the princess had been greatly amused at how a hardass like Cas managed to know just how to get under a man's skin in the best way. Her response was that she knew how to get under their skin in the worst way, too.

Cas forced her thoughts back to the present before she could distract herself any further. Luckily, the bounty hunter had been too entranced by her gesture to notice her silence.

"It's no trouble," he replied.
"You can have anything if it means I can enjoy your company. Speaking of, shall we go down? I'd love to show you off to the others." Cas refused to be someone's object, but Lila didn't mind in the slightest. She linked her arm with his, and off they went.

From what she could tell, Jabba was something akin to royalty on Tatooine, and the fact that he had his own receiving room was yet another sign that she had discerned correctly. It seemed his receiving room was the highlight of the palace; guests were littered about, and Cas could tell that parties were probably held in that same room just about every night. She looked around, taking in everything as she entered, and her eyes soon landed upon a familiar face, covered almost entirely with a mask.