Fame and Fortune

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

Corellia

Carrying his satchel toward his house, Han Solo felt relief to finally be home. He knew that Lando already had his next gig lined up - a starring role in another holo-film. He would be filming on the lower levels of Coruscant which was not his favorite place, but the producer and director wanted everything to appear 'authentic' and apparently a nice set on the upper levels, where things were much safer and cleaner, just wouldn't do. His new role was to play the part of a New Republic bounty hunter searching for and destroying droids that had been programmed to kill all sentient beings. To make matters more interesting, the droids in this holo-film had the ability to go undercover with a cloaking device. Han thought the premise sounded pretty lame, especially the part about hand-held cloaking devices, but they were paying him ten million credits to star in this stupidity so who was he to argue.

At least it wasn't a musical. Lando and Coruscanti Labels kept pressuring him to take roles where all he had to do was sing songs and look dashing and desperate. Han had read some of those scripts and they all had pretty much the same plot: Rich boy pretends to be poor in order to get the pretty girl that doesn't like stuck-up rich people. Poor boy pretends to be rich in order to woo the pretty girl that doesn't much care for lower class guys. Down on his luck swoop racer tries to impress pretty girl by winning a galaxy-class race, while deftly avoiding creditors. Throw in a lot of lame tie-in songs for good measure, and that was each holo-movie in a nutshell. Han put his foot down with a resounding 'no' and Lando hadn't bothered him too much lately showing him scripts for that type of drek.

Lost in his own thoughts, Han opened the doorway to his home and then stood there with his mouth hanging open in utter astonishment.

In the center of his large living room were two young Jedi teenagers, a human boy and a male Wookiee, and they were busy training with their lightsabers. A Mon Calamari that Han thought was a female was floating in mid-air, her knees splayed out, ankles crossed with her large eyes shut tight. Across the living area there was a large floor to ceiling double pane duraglass door which opened to the outside to Han's pool. There, around the pool, an adult human female was busy chasing around two young human girls who were screaming and giggling and obviously using the Force to throw every piece of lounge furniture and various flotation devices into the pool.

"Hi, Evin," Luke called out, exiting from the kitchen area and holding a large mug of what Han thought might be ale. Luke took a swig. "You're home a few timeparts early."

Mara, also holding an ale, followed Luke, and was looking amused at his expense. Han had come to the realization that Mara always seemed to think his life was amusing. "If you allowed Luke to train you, then you probably wouldn't be so surprised right now," she said, smirking. "You could have sensed there were a lot of beings inside the house."

"Mara's right," Luke added, wiping the foam from his lips. "We need to go to llum to get you a kyber crystal so you can build your own lightsaber. That's important."

"Who... who are all these beings?" Han managed to splutter, totally ignoring Mara's jab about training as a Jedi and whatever it was that Luke was prattling on about. The beings inside - and outside - sure didn't look like the sort Wes would invite over for a party, and besides, Wes hadn't yet had time to arrive back at the estate since he was in charge of packing up the stage equipment after a concert.

"Oh, those beings?" Luke asked, trying to act nonchalant. "Those are my students. The Academy building isn't finished yet, and they needed some place to live in the meantime, so -"

"So you thought they could just all come live here?" Han asked, his voice rising with each word.

"You did say you had lots of bedrooms," Luke replied, sounding a bit defensive. "I lost my lease and they had to leave. What was I supposed to do with them?"