An AU I've been considering writing for a while. I finally decided to do it. I'm just scared that I won't finish it.

Disclaimer: If I had the hundred-billion-zillion dollars that Disney would charge for it, I might own Star Wars. Unfortunately, I don't.

Leia stared unseeingly at the pristine white wall of her cabin. 'I hope that I can find General Kenobi,' she thought.

A loud knocking brought her of her reverie. "Come in," she called. A golden protocol droid opened the door and he and a R2 droid came in at her beckon.

"Princess Leia, Captain Antilles wishes for me to tell you we are in the atmosphere and we will be making our descent to the planet soon," the droid pompously stated.

"Thank you…"

"Oh, I am C-3PO, human cyborg relations. My services are at your disposal. This is my counterpart, R2-D2."

Leia nodded absently, still trying to think of any and all scenarios of what could happen on this planet. Several loud beeps emitted from the R2 unit, sounding oddly urgent for a machine. "Now R2, the princess–" The droid was cut off by a loud banging and the ship shuddering violently.

Leia sprang immediately to her feet and grabbed the stolen plans off of her portable desk, knowing that despite her efforts to evade them, the Empire had found them. Either that or it was just space pirates, but she wasn't naive to believe that. "Come on!" she ordered the two droids.

The three rushed outside of the room into the hallway outside. Seeing all the armed security detail rush to the entrance of the ship, Leia pulled her blaster out of its holster and headed down to the escape pods, the two droids following behind her.

As they walked to the adjacent part of the ship, several powerful shudder shook the transport. A loud alarm started blaring, echoing in the princess' ears. She grit her teeth together as C-3PO's voice rang out behind her,

"Did you hear that?" R2-D2 beeped a response. "They destroyed the main reactor! We'll be destroyed for sure! This is madness!" R2-D2 gave him several more loud beeps and squeaks.

Abruptly, Leia realized that she had made a mistake in her navigation of the ship, and instead of going to back way to the escape pods, she had gone the way that cut directly in front of the main entrance. One of the men getting into defense positions noticed her, and gave her a confused and incredulous look. Leia motioned to the escape pods beyond the hallway, then lifted the Death Star Plans and indicated to the droids behind her.

"We're doomed," C-3PO said, "Princess, there won't be an escape this time." Leia ground her teeth again. That droid was getting extremely annoying. She looked toward the security officer who'd noticed her before, and he glanced at the sealed door before gesturing frantically for her to cross.

She did so, entering the escape pod area and making sure that the R2 unit kept up with her, while easily losing the protocol droid. "R2," she muttered to the droid, "I'm going to put these plans into your memory system and then I need you to record a message for me." He beeped something that sounded affirmative. Leia quickly placed the data into the small slot and waited while the information locked itself into the droid's systems.

Once it finished, she yanked out the empty disc, leaned over, and turned the few dials that would start the recording.

"General Kenobi," she started, letting the speech come naturally to her, "Years ago, you served my father in the Clone Wars; now he begs you to help him in his struggle against the Empire. I regret that I am unable to present my father's request to you in person; but my ship has fallen under attack and I'm afraid my mission to bring you to Alderaan has failed. I've placed information vital to the survival of the rebellion into the memory systems of this R2 unit. My father will know how to retrieve it. You must see this droid safely delivered to him on Alderaan. This is our most desperate hour. Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi; you're my only hope."

As she finished, Leia turned her head at the sound of the fighting coming closer. At the same time, the protocol droid has finally realized that his counterpart was missing and was calling for him.

"Go,' Leia whispered to the little droid. She retreated into the nearest alcove, and watched as the two droids headed towards an escape pod. She waited for a few more moments before heading towards another pod and started manipulating the wiring expertly. Her fingers seemed to move on their own and she found herself relaxing, as she always did when messing with mechanics.

The sound of boots nearing brought the tension back to her shoulders. She finished rewiring the pod controls as fast as she could and scrambled in just as stormtroopers entered the area. Breathing as heavily as she could without attracting attention, Leia slowly slid farther into the pod to where the inside controls were accessible.

The controls, which were located in the very back, would be easy enough to navigate with, Leia supposed. 'Of course,' she thought, 'Papa says that I could fly anything as long as it had controls.'

The stomping of the stormtroopers soon died out and she decided that it would be worth the risk to jettison.

Leia took a deep breath to steady her heartbeat, and punched in the code to launch the pod. The sudden lurch that came with it was far from pleasant. The stale air wasn't helping to calm her either. Leia looked out of the viewport after a few minutes of sailing aimlessly through space and let loose a huge sigh of relief when she saw they weren't attacking the pod. It seemed that her plan of rewiring the pods systems to hide her life signs had worked after all.

Leia stared out of the viewport for several more minutes before getting a headache from the spinning stars. She shut her eyes and started to feel the heat from entering the atmosphere. It was definitely not as hot because of the cooling system, but Leia was still sweating profusely.

Despite the heat, the young woman leaned back against the insulation of the pod and tried to relax. She soon found that it was pretty much impossible, due to her father's lessons to always thinking or working to a larger goal. So she succumbed to her plans and (extremely optimistic) hopes of what would happen on this desert planet.

The ideal plan was simple: find General Obi-Wan Kenobi, convince him to help the Rebellion, find R2, find a ship, fly to Alderaan, get to Papa, and deliver the plans.

A slightly less ideal was more complicated: find General Kenobi, beg and plea on bended knee for him to help, search high and low for R2, steal a ship, fly to Alderaan, get to Papa, and deliver the plans.

The most realistic plan was exactly that; realistic. One: find and pay/threaten someone into bringing her to General Kenobi. Two: loose pride by begging for General Kenobi to help. Three: search for days on end to find R2 and most likely have to steal him. Four: pay through the nose for a crappy ship and fly to Alderaan. Five: get home and try to find Papa only to find that the Empire arrested him on false pretenses. Six: fly crazily to avoid the Imperials and get to Senator Montha. Seven: Deliver plans of Death Star to the Senator and find weakness.

'Well, isn't that such a cheerful idea,' Leia thought sarcastically.

Slowly, she opened her eyes and raised herself from the slumping position she had fallen into. It was still very warm in the pod, but the heat from falling through the atmosphere had run down into heat from the two suns in the system. Leia glanced out of the viewport again, hoping to see some form of civilization, and was rewarded with a far-sighted view of a settlement.

She carefully took hold of the controls and guided the pod done onto the sand. Once done, she immediately opened the door and let the hot air blow inside, cleaning out the musty space air. Leia breathed in deeply. Even if this planet was boiling hot, it did have fresh air.

Abruptly, she shook her head to clear the heat stupor that had already started to overcome her, mixing with her exhaustion, and briskly started out of the pod and towards the direction of the settlement.

After walking for some time, she started to regret her choice of wardrobe. A long flowing dress had made sense up in space, where she'd been told the best way to stay cool on a desert planet was to cover up with something light colored and keep her hair as close to her scalp as possible.

'I guess I'm cooler than I would be if I had worn something thicker or more form-fitting.' Though it made sense, the thought was no comfort.

Soon Leia heard a distant, but definite, triumphant cry. Looking around cautiously, she drew out her blaster pistol and walked faster towards the town. It sounded again, closer. She walked faster. Even closer. She broke into a jog. This time it was loud enough that she knew they were within attacking distance.

Leia burst into a sprint. She chanced a glance behind her, trying to see how big a threat was attacking her, and saw several masked humanoid creatures chasing her on large, furry, horned mounts. Unfortunately, while she was turned around, she didn't see a trench in the sand and tripped, sinking knee deep into the coarse sand.

She immediately cursed herself for her stupidity. 'Turing around while running? How much of an idiot can you be?'

The sand slipped around her as she tried to pull herself out. The grunting and shrieking was getting nearer as she struggled in the sand. She yanked an arm up and shot her blaster. An extra loud yell alerted her to the injury of the creature.

Regrettably, that only seemed to infuriate them even more. Leia chanced another glance behind her, still trying to pull herself out of the mess of sand, and saw that four or five had climbed off of their mounts and were starting to descend on her. 'No,' she corrected herself, 'they're right on top of you, so get out of here!'

Leia dug even more furiously and managed to free one leg, but still was stuck in the sand half-way up her calf on one leg. In less than a few blinks, the creatures were right behind her, and pain shot its way into the back of her head. The impact caused her to fall directly into the sand in front of her and Leia felt the particles burning her skin.

Blackness stated to swim in front of her vision. Her arms…they weren't normally that heavy. There was some warm liquid dripping onto her neck. Another loud battle cry from the masked things sounded above her.

'No, I am not going to die like this,' she thought doggedly. But the blackness was getting thickening and the triumphant yell was…it wasn't fading, she realized, it was changing into screams and shrieks of fear. And someone was shooting a blaster. And he was yelling. Yes, it was defiantly a man. Maybe it was a boy, because the voice wasn't that deep.

She was being turned over, and her head was being supported by a calloused hand. 'I was right,' Leia thought. It had been a man, young but not a boy. Maybe her age.

"Can you hear me?" he said to her.

Leia tried to speak, but her throat was stuck. She managed a nod instead.

"Good. Tell me, what's your name?"

A grunt came out of her mouth rather than her name.

"Okay, well, I'm Luke Skywalker, I'm gonna help you. Just relax."

Leia felt the man lift up and start to carry her somewhere. One last thought crossed her head before she lost consciousness: 'Luke… what a nice name.'

My policy with multi-chap. stories. I must get one review before I post the next chapter! Be brave, readers. Only one of you can make a difference!