Another Script

[ysonesse]

Dream World: Lacace

They were standing on a balcony overlooking a metropolis flowing with an overabundant stream of glowing neon and vehicle lights. It was night on this planet, in its remembered form from his life.

"When were you here?" Nalieza asked Han.

Han leaned against the black durite railing, turned away from the scenery below and behind him. "I don't know..." He leaned his head back and stared up at the night sky, filled with the dancing lights of many stars. "Okay, wait, it wasn't that long ago. A couple of months before Ord Mantell. Me and Leia went there. We had to pick up some...contraband."

The Princess...she wondered when he was going to get around to mentioning her during one of their dream encounters. It had been a few weeks since the Mos Eisley dream, and things had been progressing at a steady pace. But until now, Han had never brought up the woman she had first seen in the vision of the freezing chamber. Which wasn't surprising. The most important person to him would be the one he kept tucked away deep inside of his mind, only to be revealed when and if he ever felt ready enough. And even then, it would only be a little bit at a time.

This was probably going to be the only mention of her for the moment. Frustrating, but necessary...and understandable. If she ever found herself in love with someone, she definitely wouldn't talk about that person to every half-known stranger who might cross her path. Those kinds of feelings were meant to be revealed only between the couple and possibly some of a person's closest friends. Not paraded around for every Kom, Bick, and Uarry.

"Who decided to have you guys pick up something from the holofilm crap capital of the galaxy?"

"Just some guy I knew from my smuggling years. He likes Lacace for some reason."
Nalieza was really curious about what happened there in the real version of the planet. But if she asked about one part, then she would want to know about the rest, and Han would definitely stop talking about it. And then, this entire dream experience would come to a halt. That couldn't happen. So she had to remind herself again about the matter of restraint.

She stepped onto the balustrade, and leaned over the railing. There was a lot of ground traffic below them; the moving entities of beings and vehicles. "Did you ever get approached by an agent?"

"No. But I did have a couple of holodocos made about me. Guess I'm a cinema star now."

"It might qualify you for some prime seating on the front porch of the Old Actors' Home."

He stepped away from the railing and sat down on a wattan chair. "The more I see of my life, the more it's starting to look like a holomovie."

"You've led an interesting life so far."

He rubbed the scar on his chin with the tip of his index finger. "I guess so. That would explain why some fly-by-parsec producer made three phony documentaries about me."

"There was a fake autobiography too. Most of us at my university have read it."

"Don't tell me you actually looked at that piece of garbage."

"Really, it wasn't any worse than the stuff I did on Lives of the Heart."

"That bad, huh?"

Nalieza cringed. "It's a holovision romdram. You can't expect to have quality writing on one of those. Not to mention having my first kiss with a boy seen by billions sitting around in their living rooms..." She jumped up and sat on top of the railing. "No more about me. Back to you."

"If you insist."

"Oh, I do." She swayed her left foot back and forth. "Whoever wrote that autobiography called you a pirate. A lot of other people have said the same thing. Were you really a pirate?"

Han watched the flow of air traffic going by. "No. A smuggler isn't a pirate, and a pirate sure as hell ain't no smuggler."

"What's the difference?"

An irritated look crossed his face. "Pirates take everything they can get. And they don't do anything useful. They're just parasites. Smugglers at least provide some kind of service."

"For a large fee, of course," she said.

"Yeah, that's how you make money. But most of that money goes right into the ship you're using to haul cargo. There might be some pocket creds left over for a little bender in the port bar. And maybe even a visit to one of the local ladies practicing the galaxy's oldest profession. But unless you're doing legal shipping, there's rarely enough money left after covering the necessities."

"Why did you stay in the profession if you weren't getting any money out of it?"

Han glared at her. "There was no place else for me to go."

"You weren't trapped. Nobody held a blaster to your head and made you go into the business."

"There's nothing out in the galaxy for a guy who got booted out of the Imperial forces. None of the legitimate businesses will hire you if your record ain't perfect."

She turned her head and focused on the moving lights of the city below them. So it was true. One of the most common rumors about him was that he had saved his Wookiee partner-in-crime from slavery. There were many different versions of the story, and no one could ever prove it actually happened. But almost everyone she knew would claim their uncle or cousin or mother's brother or sister or aunt witnessed the event. To have it confirmed brought a larger reality to the tale. For doing what was right, Han lost everything. All of the hard work, the fight to get into the Academy when he had no connections, the endless hours of flight practice...it was for nothing in the end.

"I don't regret doing it," he said.

"You shouldn't," she murmured. Then she said in a normal tone, "I wasn't trying to condemn your past. It's just..." she tried to think of the proper word..."well, what happened to you wasn't fair."

"The universe has never been fair, kid. The ones living in it make things even more unbalanced. All the dishonest bastards get all the rewards."

She tapped her foot against the railing. "I guess that's probably true. But not always."

"I'd say it is."

"Do you really still believe that?"

"I never saw a reason not to."

"What about everything since you met...? Look, you obviously aren't the same guy I saw in the cantina. Circumstances change things. So do events. I would think hooking up with the Rebels and seeing what they've done might have altered your viewpoint."

Han sat forward in the chair. "Yeah, I have changed since I started helping out the Rebellion. But some of my opinions stayed the same. That's generally how I like it to be."

"So the potential for a better kind of life doesn't strike you as rewarding?"

"Unless it actually happens, then I can't assume there'll be a happy ending for me."

"Nobody gets a happy ending in real life. But you can always have a chance for a good ending."

"Look, I'll be ready for anything good to happen when I know for sure that it will happen."

"You aren't going to get a datatext guarantee from the universe. All you can do is have some faith."

"Have faith? Not likely. It never works."

"When is the last time you actually had even a shred of it? Would you even know what it felt like?" She jumped down from the railing. "Do yourself a favor. Become the person you want to be, and get the life you want."

He turned his head and stared out at the horizon. "I can't do anything when I'm stuck in here," he said in a low voice.

"Actually, these dreams are supposed to be helping you along in making yourself into the person you need to become. And you won't be in carbonite forever. What happens when you get out?"

"What happens if I don't?"

"Not likely." She crossed her arms. "See, I think the reason why you never have faith in anything is because there's never been a purpose to your life."

"Hey! I had a real good reason for keeping my head from getting blown off."

"Which was?"

"I wasn't ready to die yet."

"Basic survival. Doesn't that kind of get empty after awhile?"

"No. I happen to like living."

He was trying to be obtuse. A standard defense mechanism in his approach to something which challenged him directly on the personal level. It was some improvement over how he might have responded to this probing before. Most likely, he would have thrown up his hands and walked away. Or else the exchange would have ended with some cutting remark.

But he wasn't doing that now. He had evolved past those sorts of immature responses.

"Okay, so you liked life enough to stick around. Is there any reason you felt it necessary to keep on living? Like for a cause...?" She was going to tempt fate and possibly risk a negative reaction from him by saying the next part...but she had a point to prove. "Or did you stay around because of some people? One person in particular."

That caught him a little off guard. Good. She had struck the nerve necessary to motivate him.

"What you need to do is tear up the old script you've been reading from, and write yourself a new one." Nalieza began to slowly pace. "See, you've been this guy who's been trying to find some kind of meaning to his life. And you've always wanted something more. Something bigger than anything you've ever experienced. But you never knew how to get it, considering the kind of existence you already had. So you gave up."

He sat back in the chair, not saying a word.

"You have to make sure you're ready for another life. Let go of the old ways of thinking and behaving." She stopped walking back and forth. "If your life is a holofilm, then it's time to think about a sequel. Because the first two installments were filmed and put on the shelf. Now you have a chance to come up with a new plot."

Han paused, then grinned. "Can I still be the leading man in this production?"

"Hey, it can't be called The Han Solo Story if it didn't have you in the starring role."

"Should we also get you director and producer credits as well?"

"Of course. I'm the guy in charge of this whole drama. I'll even try tackling the writing part. Can't have somebody else writing my dialogue. And ain't nobody but me writing those love scenes!"