High Heavens (Star Wars - Luke Skywalker)

IX - And So It Begins

Mara and Han made short time of the journey to the docking bay, beating Luke and Ben. She figured her new companions were still held up selling Luke's speeder for the two-thousand credits they owed Han. 

"Ah, there's my baby!" Mara exclaimed as her eyes fell on the hunk-of-junk, YT-model freighter that was the Millennium Falcon. 

Han rounded on her, looking equal parts offended and incredulous. "Your baby?"

Mara turned towards him, grinning. Oh, how she loved teasing him about this. "Technically, she does belong to me."

"That whole thing was a fluke and you know it," Han said, waving it off. 

"Well, I was the one who won her back, so technically-"

Han cut her off once more, but this time by grabbing her shoulder and yanking her out of sight. Pressed against the wall, Mara shot him a bewildered look before she got a look of what surrounded their ship.  A ragtag crew of alien smugglers and bounty hunters were pouring in from the entrance opposite of them, weapons raised. At the head of the group was a giant, grotesque slug creature, bellowing for Han to show himself. Mara scowled, recognizing that dreaded language as Huttese. 

"Solo! Solo! I know you're in there, Solo!"

If looks could kill, Mara would have melted the Hutt on the spot. "Son of a-"

Han whacked her, and Mara shut up. After a moment of watching, Han calmly stepped out into the open. Mara followed, but her hand didn't stray far from her open blaster holster. 

"Right here, Jabba," Han said, gaining the group's attention. "I've been waiting for you."

Jabba the Hutt was one of the galaxy's most notorious gangsters, and the closest thing you could get to a king on Tatooine. The Hutts owned Tatooine--and this whole area of the Outer Rim--through unwritten law. Captain Antilles had told Leia all of this on their way to Tatooine, but Mara knew it all from her time working with Han -- time that, ultimately, was spent working for Jabba. 

And Mara, unabashedly, unequivocally, loathed him. 

"Have you now," Jabba laughed, and then his reddish snake eyes flitted over to Mara. "And I see you've found your missing partner."

Mara waved her hand, dipping into a sarcastic half-bow. At least this time around, she could glower at him with all the disgust and contempt she had to stifle when she worked for him. "Jabba," she drawled.  

"You didn't think I was going to run, did you?" Han said, beginning to walk over to the Hutt.

"Han, my boy, you disappoint me," Jabba stated. "Why haven't you paid me? And, Mara, my girl, why did you fry poor Greedo?"

Mara shrugged, crossing her arms. "Not my fault I'm the quicker draw," she said evenly. With a sharper tone, she added, "And don't call me that." She didn't belong to Jabba, not anymore.

She looked to Han, sharing a nod with him, before making her way to the lowered ramp of the Falcon. She stopped when she found it guarded by two of Jabba's twerps.

Mara crossed her arms. "Excuse me."

The two alien smugglers sized her up, and gave no indication of moving. With a sigh, Mara feigned defeat, and took a step down the ramp. Then she whirled around, hitting the closest guy square in the nose with her fist. In the next instant, she sent the heel of her boot into the other's kneecap. Amidst unexpected pain, neither had a chance to stop her before Mara knocked them both off the loading ramp. 

Mara huffed, blew some hair out of her face, then dusted herself off and keyed in the passcode for the Falcon. The door slid aside for her. Han still hadn't changed it. Nerfherder.