One could not have said, precisely, that the Gresla bar on the planet Lemia made Mos Eisley's Cantina look tame.

'Comatose' would probably have been a better word.

Brawls, laser battles and occasional acts of mayhem were not only commonplace here, they were ongoing and were fully regarded as part of the entertainment. Gresla's patrons considered it intrinsic to the rustic appeal of the place that no one ever knew which of the combatants, if any, had been hired by the management.

Lindelle Reioux was still trying to find out why Captain Han Solo, who had promised to deliver her to Master Luke Skywalker for the refinement of her Jedi training, had brought her here.

"Hey kid, just relax, will ya?" Solo admonished, and without warning, a multi-eyed Sorvite went flying over the table between them. Sorvites didn't normally fly, but in this place, anything was possible. "All aspiring Jedi knights start out this way. I know all about these things. Trust me. "Captain Solo--" She had to shout over the din of a nearby fist -- or rather, tentacle -- fight. The Sorvite and a Virellian tree-borer opponent were entangled on the floor like mismatched lovers, battling it out amid screeches and bellows that were only in part of their own making. Lindelle could see now why the Gesla didn't employ a live band. No one would have been able to hear it.

"Captain Solo--" she tried again. "I only wanted to meet Master Skywalker to request further instruction in the ways of the Force. With the Empire crumbling, the resurgence of the Jedi is all the more vital. We must be certain that nothing can resurrect the Empire, ever again."

"Huh?" Watching the brawl, he hadn't heard half of what she'd said, and the half he did hear he misunderstood. "No one can resurrect Palpatine," he said. "Him, Vader and all the rest of them are dead."

"That isn't quite what I was getting at."

"What?"

Another body -- this one of a species Lindelle couldn't identify -- rolled/flapped across their table, squawking angrily.

"Never mind," she yelled, still not certain he could hear her at all. "Can we please get out of here?"

"What for?" A hammer-headed waitress wearing fu-fu feathers plunked two pirini cocktails down in front of Han. He picked them both up before a flailing tentacle wielded by the Virellian brawler could sweep them off the table, and reached across to press one into Lindelle's hand.

"Relax!" he told her. "Enjoy yourself!" He sat back and sipped the cocktail, grinning. "And what about Master Skywalker?"

"Who? Oh, Luke! Well, they're meeting us here. He and Leia are interviewing some other Jedi candidates over at Port Reyes. Oughta be here any time now." He toasted her with the tall pirini glass. "Drink up."

Lindelle sipped at the concoction, choked, and put it back on the table, fervently wishing for yet another battling bar patron to come sailing between them and smash it to bits. "Can we at least go outside for some fresh air?"

Han drained his glass just as a particularly robust Lemian fulfilled Lindelle's wish by landing full weight on the table, which splintered and collapsed beneath him.

"Yeah," Han said, nonplused. "I guess it is a little dull in here tonight." He got up -- none too steady on his feet, Lindelle noted -- and headed for the nearest exit. She felt a little light-headed herself, come to think of it. That pirini must be very potent stuff.

Neither of them, preoccupied with the life-threatening feat of maneuvering through the mass of brawling aliens, noticed that two of those aliens rose from a shadowed rear table to follow them out of the bar.

Captain Solo didn't quite make it to the plasti-crete table he'd intended to collapse on. Instead, he folded onto the flagstone paving on the way out of Gresla's rear entrance. Lindelle bent down beside him, intending to help, but instantly, her head began to spin and the world went reeling.

The drinks, she realized. Some one put something in the drinks.

Footsteps on the flagstones were too late a warning. Something hard and blunt struck her from behind, and the universe was plunged into darkness.

When opened her eyes, it was to see Solo directly opposite her, tied, as she was, to one of the passenger seats aboard the Millennium Falcon. The engines throbbed beneath their feet; proof, to her surprise, that the ship was in flight. Two oversized Thigi rodents, their hairless tails curled over the captain's and first mate's chairs, were piloting the ship. The Thigi had a well-deserved reputation as interplanetary terrorists. What they might want with Han Solo and a mere Jedi novice, however, was as yet a mystery.

The ship docked on Hokra, Lemia's fourth moon. Solo came to while their captors were busy with something outside on the landing ramp.

"What the--?"

"Quiet!" Lindelle urged him. "Something was in our drinks, Captain Solo. Two Thigi jumped us outside the bar."

"Thigi! Those slime-balls put their paws on my ship and I'll-"

"--You're a bit late for threats. They've already flown us to Hokra."

"Well what the blazes is on Hokra?! Besides dust, a couple moldy Imvu monasteries, and a lot of swell craters?"

The Thigi chose that moment to return; one holding his blaster on them while the other released their bonds. ''Out," they barked in guttural Thigi. "You will pay homage to your new Emperor."

_That,_ thought Lindelle as they were herded down Millennium's landing ramp, _is what I was afraid of._

The would-be emperor was human -- or he had been, once. His name was Vigo, and like Palpatine before him, the hatred he fed upon had twisted and darkened his features, leaving him lined, withered, hollow-eyed.

When the prisoners were brought before him, he regarded them coldly before asking his first question. "Which of you is the Jedi knight?"

Han and Lindelle exchanged glances, the same unspoken question in both their eyes. Who was this upstart and what did he want with them anyhow?

"Maybe you and your little rat-tailed buddies didn't get the word," Han goaded. "But the Empire is dead. Gone. De-feated. You understand what I'm saying?"

Annoyed at his sarcasm, one of the Thigi struck him in the small of the back with the blunt end of its blaster. Gasping, Han went to his knees.

Vigo's large, black eyes glared at them like twin afterburners. "I asked a question. I expect an answer. Which of you is the Jedi?"

Lindelle's courage dissolved. "I am," she admitted.

Vigo's eyes fell on her. "A touching confession," he rasped. At his signal, one of the Thigi pulled Han up off the floor. "But you do not look like a Jedi. At least, not quite so much as this one."

Lindelle blinked in confusion. Did this pretender to emperorhood really not know who Captain Solo was? From the look on Han's face, he was wondering approximately the same thing.

"That's right," Han said abruptly. "I mean, you're right. About the Jedi. I'm it."

"You are schooled in the ways of the Force?"

"Yeah. Sure. I mean, what kind of a frigging Jedi knight would I be if I didn't know all that Force stuff?"

His sarcasm was lost on Vigo. "You will teach me."

"How's that again?"

"I wish to know the secrets of the Force. All of them. You will teach me."

Lindelle opened her mouth to protest, but quickly shut it again at Solo's harsh glance. "Sure thing," she heard Han say. "Anyone can learn this stuff. I dunno why you didn't just ask us nice-like to begin with. Could've saved us all a lot of trouble."

Vigo scowled, black eyes narrowing to slits. "You will tell me how I may begin to infuse my being with the power of the Force."

"Right." Han looked sidelong at Lindelle, half smiling. "Well, the first thing you have to do is... empty your mind."

That hadn't ought to be difficult.

"Now stand up and hold out your arms. The Force can only flow into you if you give it an open channel, see."

_Getting into the spirit of this little game, are you Captain Solo?_

"The next thing to do," Han instructed, lying outrageously, "is to bend over. No, don't fold your arms in! Keep 'em stuck out, like that. That's it. Now, put your head between your knees, and--"

Vigo straightened, and his face turned a deep shade of magenta.

_Took him long enough to catch on._

"Secure him!" Vigo ordered, pointing at Han. The nearest Thigi moved to obey, binding Solo's hands behind his back.

"You will tell me what I wish to know eventually. You see, I already have one tool necessary to the proper use of the Dark Side."

From a latched box near his makeshift throne, Vigo withdrew an object that both his captives recognized. When he pressed a button on its grip, the flame-red blade of a light saber streaked outward.

"My tool can be most useful in the art of persuasion." Vigo swept his idle hand in Lindelle's direction, prompting the second Thigi to move forward. "Take her to a cell. If this one is lving, I will need her -- later."

Lindelle tried to tell them they were wrong on both counts, for neither she nor Solo could teach anyone the ways of the Force. She'd learned very little about it herself as yet...

Minutes later, from the cold floor of the utterly featureless cell (the building had once been a monastery, and this, no doubt, one of the monk's sparse quarters) she tried to employ what little knowledge of the Force she did possess. She concentrated on the tumultuous atmosphere of the Gresla bar, where he must surely be by now, and tried to touch the mind of Master Skywalker...

* * *

"I don't understand," Leia was saying as they dodged a drunken Lemian being hurled from the bar into the dirt street. "If Han was planning to meet us here, where is he?"

"I wish I knew." Luke guided her to a plasti-crete table outside the noisy night club and sat down. He seemed distracted somehow. Not quite himself.

"Luke... What is it?"

"I'm not sure. A... disturbance... in the Force."

"I didn't feel anything." Leia grasped her brother's hand, trying hard to sense the disturbance herself, but she felt only the edges of Luke's own distress. He'd become suddenly intent on a cluster of robed Imvu mystics, whose shuttle rested, incongruously, amid the clutter of transports lined up behind the Gresla.

"Hokra," Luke said.

"What?"

"We have to get to Hokra. Come on." He pulled a confused Leia after him toward the Imvu ship.

* * *

Not certain whether her effort to touch Luke Skywalker had succeeded, Lindelle had fallen asleep on the bare floor of her prison. She was awakened some time later by the rattle of the door and a loud string of obscene epithets as Captain Solo was shoved into the cell. The Thigi who'd accompanied him snarled, delighted that the strength of his shove had landed Solo at the far end of the cubicle.

"Pod-brained, abgafroding rat-tailed friggots!"

The Corellian obscenities were unfamiliar to Lindelle, but she didn't need a translation. The guard snarled what was no doubt an equivalent Thigi imprecation before the door clanged shut, and his footsteps faded down the outer corridor.

She noticed then that burn marks covered Han Solo's now-ragged clothing, and that purple bruises were swelling on his face and hands.

"Are you all right?"

Solo nodded. "I kept telling the mother-buggers exactly where to put their light saber. But they never did catch on."

"Captain Solo... Han... I'm sorry. This is all my fault."

He looked at her almost as if he could see through her to the corridor beyond. "Something Kenobi used to say..." he muttered.

"Kenobi... Obiwan Kenobi?"

"Yeah. He used to say the Force could have an overwhelming effect on the feeble-minded."

She waited for him to explain.

"Can you tell where those two vacuum-brained swamp rats are right now?"

Lindelle closed her eyes, concentrated, found the nearby murmurs of two heartbeats. "They're both in a room just down the hall."

"Are there any others? Anyone besides Vigo?"

She probed outward, beginning to see what Han must have in mind. "Yes. Five more in the throne room. Only two here in the cell block, though."

"You think you can brain-boggle a couple of extremely dumb Thigi?"

"I've never tried."

"Never a better time to start. Call 'em in here."

Lindelle sat cross-legged on the floor, found the Thigi heartbeats again, and began to probe their decidedly limited minds.

_Inspect the prisoners,_ she commanded them mentally. _They are devising a means of escape._

* * *

Imvu mystics still came and went around Vigo's illegally-commandeered headquarters. He tended to ignore them, for as pacifists, they posed no feasible threat to him. They hadn't, that is, until two who had just arrived by shuttle from Lemia had somehow persuaded one of his Thigi guards to escort them into his throne room.

"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded, furious at the intrusion and at the lame-brained guard for permitting it. He'd been about to call for the female prisoner to continue his questioning about the powers of the Force.

The Imvu removed their hoods, revealing not Imvu at all, but a blond human male and an attractive brunette woman.

"My name is Skywalker," the first one said. "You are holding Captain Han Solo and a Jedi novice here. I want them released."

So, the female captive had told him the truth after all. A pity he hadn't interrogated her first. And this one. This was Skywalker. The very one who had slain Palpatine...

"You are a Jedi master, are you not? I have heard of you." He stood, and in that moment an alarm began wailing in the nearby cell block. The 'emperor' gestured angrily to his guards. "See to that!" he snapped. He had little concern now for the prisoners. A Jedi master was by far more useful to him than a novice.

"Perhaps your friends have already escaped the hospitality of my cell block. No matter. I would sooner _you_ taught me what I wish to know."

The red light saber came to life in his hand as he descended the short flight of steps toward them. Luke's own weapon came from beneath his borrowed Imvu robes, and flashed outward to meet Vigo's in the air between them, raining sparks where it struck the other blade.

Leia backed away. Not yet trained in the use of a light saber, she did not carry one and could be of little aid to Luke at the moment. She failed to notice, however, that a sole remaining Thigi guard had maneuvered himself behind her during Luke and Vigo's preliminary sword strokes. When his fur-covered hand snaked out to cover her mouth, her first impulse was to clamp the hairy fingers between her teeth. Instead, she summoned the energy of the Force and threw it at her attacker.

_You've just been kicked in the groin,_ she sent. _Hard!_

The Thigi howled with pain, releasing her, and rolled onto the floor, clutching at his vitals. Leia deftly relieved him of his blaster. _Go to sleep,_ she thought to him. _You needed a nap, anyway._ The Thigi stopped writhing and lay still, snoring faintly under the nearby sound of clashing light sabers.

* * *

Two of his companions were likewise dozing in Han and Lindelle's former holding cell. The outside corridor was a melee of criss-crossing laser bolts. Alarms were still screaming. "How many are left?" Han shouted over the din. He saw a Thigi head peek around the corner ahead of them, fired at it, missed.

"I still count four," she shouted back, and ducked when a red bolt streaked at her, melting a small chunk out of the cell door they were using for cover.

"Any other way out of here?"

"I don't know. There might be a garbage chute somewhere."

Solo looked at her strangely. "No thanks," he said. "I think I prefer the more direct approach. Cover me."

With his confiscated Thigi blaster rapid-firing, he stormed the corridor. Lindelle shot at anything beyond him that moved, and was elated to see that by the time Solo reached the corner, two of the Thigi were down. The others had retreated, still firing. The odds, at least, were even now.

* * *

"My power will be as great as Palpatine's once was," Vigo bragged to his opponent. Their swords struck, parried, struck again.

Luke ducked a vicious, slashing blow, whirling to counter and block it with his own weapon. "You're kidding yourself, my friend. No emperor will ever rule again. We 've seen to that."

The laser battle erupted into the throne room then. The last two Thigi guards found themselves abruptly caught in a crossfire between Han and Lindelle on one side and Leia on the other. One fell on the steps of the throne dais. The other, under the withering gaze of his erstwhile emperor, dropped his blaster and fled the room in very rat-like terror, his naked tail trailing behind him.

Vigo, whose attention to the brief laser battle had distracted him from the matter at hand, suddenly found himself rising off the ground.

"Put me down!" he bawled, struggling against the invisible Force that was aiming him directly at the wood-beamed ceiling. "Stop this at once, do you hear?!"

Luke directed the squirming 'emperor' to an exposed crossbeam in the ceiling and caused the hood of his cape to loop over it, hanging him there like a string of saji-garlic. His continued ravings and rantings were subsequently ignored by all.

"Han!" Leia ran to Solo, dropping the Thigi blaster to fold herself into his arms.

Han kissed her briefly, then gestured to his companion. "Leia, Luke -- this is Lindelle. Gonna be one hell of a good Jedi knight. Take my word for it."

Luke nodded politely, clipping the extinguished light saber back onto his belt. "You got any more Thigi surprises back there anywhere?" he asked Han.

"Nope. Just a couple with a sudden attack of the drowsies. Thanks to Lindelle. Hey, what are you two doin' up here anyhow? We were supposed to meet at the Gresla,"

Luke looked incredulous. "What are we doing here? We came to rescue you, you lummox."

"Rescue me? Listen, Skywalker. The day Han Solo can't take care of himself--"

"--Han," Leia said, and kissed him to accentuate the interruption. "Just once, will you please shut up?"

Laughing, he kissed her back.
 

-- The End -