A/N: Hello! This is my first Star Wars fanfic and, as you might have guessed from the summary, it is my idea of Han’s past and future. Now I will freely admit that I don’t follow the Expanded Universe to any great extent, so I wasn’t even aware that someone had already published an account of his past before I started writing this. So if you’re a diehard fan of the Expanded Universe, please don’t read this.

If you’re still here, thanks. I’ve never worked with the Star Wars characters before, but there’s a first time for everything, right? With that said, I’d really appreciate any concrit you’d have, seeing as it’s my first romp in the SW fandom.

On to the story then. I’ll update eventually.

Disclaimer: I don’t own the Star Wars series or any of its characters.

Stairway to Heaven

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

Venor was one of the first planets in the rather isolated Noba system to be touched by civilization. Centuries ago, the rocky brown planet had been home to several ancient races that built primitive villages, hunting and gathering their food and believing they were the only intelligent life-forms in the universe. There isn’t much known about the nature of these cultures, as the only information available comes from the rather unreliable tales told by the various ex-cons and pirates who occasionally used Venor as a refuge from law enforcement, and were fortunate enough to run into the timid peoples.

Eventually, though, the first permanent human settlers reached Venor in the form of mining companies, who quickly built small mining towns and set to work extracting the rich minerals from the rocky terrain. Mining towns blossomed into villages, villages into cities, cities into huge nations, and as more people—alien and humanoid alike—flooded onto Venor, those natives that had once ruled the planet were rudely brushed aside, exterminated else forced into slave labor. Little is known of where the remnants of these cultures are now.

Now swarming with cities and people, a key commercial center of the system if not the galaxy itself, Venor was a place of urban chaos and dubious legality. Many important commercial companies—Inter-Galactic Transports, Suube Private Construction, Tern Security II, to name a few—had their headquarters here, and day and night the enormous cities were alive with lights and chatter and traffic. Yet these cities were not without their vice, for in all the dark corners and shady pockets, even as officers patrolled the streets and commerce bustled, transfers and trades with varying degrees of illegality were conducted as a part of daily life.

Mudoc-Non was one of the smaller of the Venorian cities, and yet, being relatively new, was consequently more crowded. High-rise apartment buildings, their chambers designed to fit all form of alien and humanoid habitation, towered above the smaller chain stores, the business buildings, the simpler merchant booths, the worn but well-constructed streetways. Venorian summers had the distinct reputation of being unbearably hot during the day and freezing cold during the night, and this day was no exception.

The temperature was just beginning its drop into the coolness of evening when the doors to Mudoc-Non’s single, tiny orphanage were thrown open and a small boy was unceremoniously shoved outside, stumbling slightly from the momentum.

“Eepta, kuro eschi doo!” a screechy voice shouted at him from the light inside the small building.

The boy turned at that, dark hair glowing softly in the light, even darker eyes glittering with fury. “Fine!” he yelled, his voice small and rebellious. “I never liked it here anyway!”

“Kee-tooda!” And the door slammed shut, locking the boy out in the darkness.

Nine-year-old Tidou took a moment to give the closed door one final glare before flinging a sizzling oath at it in classic Urbese. That finished, he turned, still grumbling to himself, wrapping his thin clothing more tightly about his tiny body as he walked slowly off into the dark of the city.

---

At thirty-four, Everin Solo knew he was in his prime.

Seated at the long bar in one of Mudoc-Non’s many cantinas, watching the rest of his crew laughing and sharing drinks, the veteran Corellian pirate knew he was past the boyishness of his youth, but had enough fire to withstand the passiveness of middle-age. His days of immaturity were over, but sageness—and the grey hairs that came with it—were still a ways off. He was probably never going to become a better pirate than he was now.

Which was saying something, because Everin was quite possibly one of the best pirates in the business. He and his four-man (well, actually, three-man-and-one-woman) crew, along with their trusty ship, the Celtic, had just pulled off a job on the spice-mines of Gargon that would grant them bragging rights for the rest of their lives in the criminal community. And they had gotten away clean, too.

Well, not entirely, Everin mused as he took a sip from his drink, watching with passive interest as two of his male crewmen, Tootcha and Codi, discussed the advantages and disadvantages of guiding a ship through planetfall while under the influence. Tootcha was half-intoxicated already, and was burbling his argument—that your awareness was heightened and your reflexes honed, as long as you didn’t drink too much, anyway—in his native Hongian tongue, pincer-shaped hand—which had surprising dexterity despite its clumsy shape—snapped firmly around his cup. Tootcha was twice Everin’s age, but seeing as his species had an average lifespan of three hundred years, in a relative way he was still very young. With his catfish-like whiskers, flapping gills, hard, dark red outer shell, and pincers, he looked very much like a huge lobster that had been hauled out of the water, shoved into pilot’s clothing, and dumped unceremoniously into the cantina. Indeed, Hongians were aquatic creatures, though they were able to survive on land just fine—else Tootcha would never have made it on Everin’s crew.

Codi Luoc, in the meantime, was arguing back in a calm and logical manner that seemed uncharacteristic of the Corellian that he was. He was thirty-two, had gone to flight school with Everin, and was what could be considered to be Everin’s best friend. One hand was flopped lazily on the table next to his half-filled cup, while the other was resting lightly on the thigh of his wife, Leena.

Leena, the only woman on Everin’s crew, was about as tough as Corellians could get. A sensuous, strong female of twenty-eight, she was like a ticking time bomb just waiting to explode if you pushed her buttons wrong. And one of her biggest but most dangerous buttons was being treated like a woman—by her definition, being coddled or pitied or protected in any way. In fact, had any other man had his hand on her like that, she would have snapped his wrist without a second thought. As it were, though, Leena had a soft spot for her husband that she would only admit—and grudgingly at that—under the most excruciating of pressures. So the hand stayed, and Leena leaned sweetly over Codi’s shoulder to add a point to his argument, causing Tootcha to grunt in annoyance at being bested two to one.

Everin’s fourth and last crewman was nowhere to be found, but that didn’t worry the pirate. Eurik-Roon Sabasha, known to his fellow pirates simply as Roon, was the Celtic crew’s primary technical hand, and was at the moment back in the docking bay, working on repairing Everin’s beloved ship. The savage dogfight that had resulted when they were escaping from Gargon had blown away one of the gun turrets and damaged the ship’s hyperdrive, so Everin had chosen to take refuge on Venor for the time it took to make repairs. Under normal circumstances, he and his crew would be helping Roon, but having a large group scurrying around the city scavenging for weapon parts was sure to attract suspicion. Besides, Roon was a reliable man—or dwarf-man, Everin thought with a smile. He was sure to have the Celtic back in working condition in a couple of days—that is, if his short, stubby arms could support the weight of the machinery.

Everin smiled softly and shook his head. Roon was a Sutti-Cha, a dwarfish race that originated somewhere in the Bespin system. People soon learned not to judge the little, four-foot-tall, miniature men by their size, however. Their mastery of technology was astounding; give a Sutti-Cha a glow-rod, it was said, and he could turn it into a fully-functioning blaster in less than five minutes, using only his spit and his hair as materials. Everin had never tested Roon like that, but he was pretty sure the Sutti-Cha could pull it off. So he had no worries about the Celtic.

It was at that moment that Everin felt something on the back of his belt stir ever so slightly. Taking a nonchalant sip from his cup, he sat carefully still, feeling for—yes, there it was again: a soft, experimental tug on the credit pouch tied to his hip. Everin made no reaction; he knew what was happening to him, and how to deal with it. Waiting patiently until the instant the pouch slipped off his belt, the Corellian spun with amazing speed in his chair, already reaching out with one hand, seizing the unfortunate culprit by the throat.

For an instant, but only an instant, Everin blinked and felt confused, wondering if he had gotten the wrong guy. What he saw in front of him was a little boy, perhaps no more than nine or ten years old, dark hair, dark eyes. His clothing was thin and tattered; a street boy for sure. There was fear in his eyes, and Everin almost let him go—until he noticed the credit pouch clutched in the boy’s small hand.

Grinning, the Corellian pirate slowly rose to his feet; as he was, even by Corellian standards, a tall man, he lifted the boy right off his feet and into the air, suspended only by Everin’s hand still locked around his throat. Behind him, the debate between Tootcha and Codi stopped as both men, plus Leena, turned to watch the spectacle with amusement.

“Well, hello there,” Everin said, voice cheerful. “What’s a little kid like you doing in a tough place like this?”

He wasn’t holding the kid tightly at all, so the boy was able to reply relatively easily. “Nothing,” he answered, though his tiny hands were prying desperately at Everin’s fingers.

“Nothing?” the pirate repeated. “Certainly didn’t look like nothing to me. Looked like the most pathetic pickpocketing I’d ever experienced.” Which was a lie, actually—had the boy been just a little more subtle, Everin might not have noticed the theft at all—but the rest of his crew laughed anyway.

The boy glared, eyes angry. “Let go of me.”

“Sure, sure,” Everin said, holding out a hand for the pouch, “As soon as you give that back to me…with a little extra, of course.”

The boy’s eyes narrowed almost to slits, and in the next instant he did something that no one expected but that people in the cantina talked about for days: he kicked Everin in the crotch as hard as he could.

The Corellian crumpled, and the boy tumbled to the floor, free at last from that iron grip. Turning, he bolted—not toward the exit, but toward two towering dark figures in the corner of the cantina.

“Why, that little…” Leena drew her blaster and started after the boy with Codi by her side as Tootcha helped Everin to his feet.

The boy, in the meantime, had reached the two figures and was wuffing and barking at them in a language that Everin recognized but did not comprehend. The two huge Wookiees in the corner looked up from their drinks, seeming to notice the commotion for the first time. Their eyes settled first on the boy, who was waving his arms and still barking, before focusing on Leena, Codi, Tootcha and Everin. Both of the huge humanoids suddenly roared and started toward the four pirates.

Everin didn’t have to look twice to know they were in trouble. Leena, panicked, raised her blaster to shoot but Codi quickly grabbed her wrist, lowering it and shaking his head at her dangerously; no one picked a fight with a Wookiee, much less two of them, and won—not even with a blaster.

Everin tried not to focus on the burning pain in his lower regions as he turned to his crew and barked, “Everyone out now!”

Watching from the corner as the four rough-looking people turned and scrambled for the exit, followed closely by the two furious Wookiees, Tidou grinned and, clutching the credit pouch close, slipped out the back exit.

---

A little while later, after robbing two more people and swiping some grub off a third, Tidou was making his way merrily back to the little alleyway he called home, chewing on something warm and fried as he counted the credits he had “earned” that day. The two merchants he’d robbed had hardly anything in their pouches; a few hundred between them both, those cheapskates. But the man at the cantina—his pouch was a winner.

“One-thousand-nine-hundred, two-thousand-fifty…” Tidou shook his head, marveling at his luck. “Two-thousand-sixty-fi—”

He rounded a corner and smashed face-first into something big. Falling back onto his rear, credits scattering into the dirt, he took a moment to clear his head before looking up—and up, into one of the scariest faces he had ever seen.

Karinic was a slave trader, and a good one. But he had the wounds that came with the business too: his face was lined with scars and burns, and one eye was completely gone, the empty socket covered with a battered black eyepatch. A long, jagged scar ran down from his right temple across his nose to the left corner of his mouth, curving it up slightly and giving him an eternal cruel smile.

At the moment, though, it was an intended and not an involuntary smile as Karinic looked down at the little boy below him. “Well, well, well,” he said, “Looks like my luck is pretty good this evening.”

Reaching forward, Tidou tried to grab one of the credits near the slave trader’s feet, but Karinic’s boot came up and crushed the thin metal disk—and almost got Tidou’s fingers too. “Nah-ah-ah,” Karinic said. “Runnin’ into me was very rude, boy, and now you’ll have to pay for it.”

“Go to hell,” was Tidou’s immediate reply as he scraped at the scattered credits, trying to shove them back into the pouch and get away from there as fast as possible.

Karinic grinned. “No, I think it’ll be you going there sooner than you think,” he said, and motioned to the two men behind them. They came forward and seized the boy, shoving him back so that he stumbled into the far wall, crying out in pain upon the impact and falling to the floor.

Karinic’s shadow fell over him. “Now you can make this easy or you can make it hard, boy,” he said, “But think about what I’m offering you. A new life, boy. Sure, it’s endless labor on some sad spice-farm, or maybe you’ll end up doing sexual favors for some old pervert on Mossi, but that’s a new life too.” He laughed, and his two minions with him.

The laughter stopped as soon as they felt the cold of blaster muzzles fixed on the backs of their necks.

“You’d better quit that, or you won’t have any life at all,” warned a voice that Tidou recognized.

Four figures stepped out of the shadows behind Karinic, three of them with blasters still trained on the backs of the slave traders’ heads. The remaining one stepped forward, and Tidou felt his blood run cold when he recognized the man he had robbed at the cantina. There was no way he was going to make it out of this alive.

His eyes fell on a blaster hooked on Karinic’s waist, and he suddenly got a crazy idea.

Karinic, in the meantime, was smirking. “Whoever you are,” he said, “You picked the wrong guy to mess with. Eetopii!”

Suddenly chaos erupted as Karinic’s three lookouts descended, blasters drawn and firing. The four pirates responded just as fast, though, reflexes honed by years of dodging gunfire in battles just like this one, and for about ten seconds the air was filled with smoke and red and green blaster bolts.

When the smoke cleared, Karinic—along with all five of his men—were slumped on the floor, dead or well on their way to it. Tootcha was nursing a blaster wound on his left arm; his thick exoskeleton was too hard for the bolt to penetrate, but it did crack the shell, and it hurt enough to make Tootcha grumble a little. Leena tended the wound with her portable medical pack as Codi and Everin, a little dusty but otherwise unharmed, approached Tidou.

The boy had moved from his initial spot against the wall and was now huddled a couple of feet in front of it, shivering with fear as the two tall pirates approached. His fearful dark eyes darted from one man to the other, as if unsure of which was the bigger threat.

Everin stopped about three feet in front of the frightened boy, and slowly reached a hand toward him. “Now listen, kid—”

“St-Stay back!” Both pirates jumped when Tidou suddenly pulled a blaster out of nowhere—he had swiped it off of Karinic’s belt during the confusion—and pointed it straight at the pirate captain. Cori drew his blaster at the same time, aiming it at the boy’s head, preparing to fire—

“Hold on,” Everin said, voice as calm as ever as he turned to shoot Codi a meaningful look. At first uncomprehending, the younger Corellian looked down at the weapon in Tidou’s shaking hands and suddenly seemed to understand, lowering his blaster and putting it back in its holster.

Everin turned back to the boy. “Are you afraid?” His voice was soft, soothing, like a father’s.

The boy swallowed hard and shook his head, though both Codi and Everin could hear the obvious tremor in his voice. “N-No.”

Everin took a step forward; the boy screamed and brought his weapon up, squeezing his eyes shut and pressing the trigger.

Nothing happened.

He opened his eyes again, staring at the blaster in uncomprehending confusion. The weapon sat cheerfully in his hands, not working.

“You see, kid,” Everin said, taking the blaster from the boy’s trembling fingers and pressing a button near the top of the grip, “The trick is to switch the safety off first. Then you can fire it just fine.” He did so, blowing a hole in the ground at the boy’s feet, causing the child to yelp and scramble back against the wall.

“Of course,” Everin continued, not missing a beat, “We never have that problem. See, we’re so used to these sorts of things that we don’t even bother turning the safety on in the first place. Be prepared and all that stuff.” He paused, and smiled. “Which gives me an idea,” he said, and paused to look down at the boy.

“I like you, kid,” he said. “You’ve got spunk, and you’re pretty tough. Plus you’ve got the balls to do insane things to get yourself out of trouble. That trick with the Wookiees, for example.” He didn’t mention the well-aimed kick; Tootcha still sniggered about that.

The boy was now shaking so hard that he could hardly keep his hold on the credit pouch in his tiny hands. “Wh-What do you want with me?” he asked, his voice a squeaky whisper.

“I’m offering you a chance at…what did that guy say? Oh yeah, ‘a new life.’ Except it’s not rotting away in some slave business. No, kid. I’d like you to become a member of my crew.”

Both Leena and Tootcha looked up to stare at him in dumbfounded astonishment; Codi hardly seemed surprised. Everin continued on in the same calm voice. “You’ve already got a head start in this stealing business,” he said. “Only needs a little…refinement, is all. And I think you’ll fit the role of a pirate quite nicely. So what do you say, kid?” He offered a hand to the boy. “You wanna join us, see the sights, blast some people apart?” He paused. “Or you could just stay here and continue pickpocketing unsuspecting old guys in smelly bars.”

The boy watched him for a long time; Everin could see the surprise in his eyes. He had probably been expecting to be fried by the blaster in Everin’s other hand, not to be offered this incredible opportunity. The two dark eyes flitted from Everin to Codi to Tootcha to Leena and finally back to Everin.

Then the boy reached slowly, hesitantly forward and took the offered hand, allowing Everin to pull him to his feet. When he spoke, his voice was a bit steadier. “Do you make lots of money?” he asked.

Everin laughed at that. “Sure do, kid,” he said. “A hell of a lot more than what’s in that pouch right now.”

The boy looked down at the crumpled pouch in his hands, then back up at the pirate. “I’m not giving it back to you,” he said, voice firm.

Everin just shrugged. “That’s just pocket change compared to our accounts,” he said, clapping the boy cheerfully on the shoulder. “So what’s your name, kid?”

“Tidou.”

Codi and Everin both paused in mid-stride. Leena and Tootcha looked up from their activities. A brief silence settled among the party.

Then suddenly all four pirates burst into laughter. Codi could hardly stay on his feet. Everin’s face turned red. Leena screeched like a banshee, while Tootcha’s face was contorted between pain and bone-splitting hilarity as he clutched the not-quite-mended wound in his arm, sucking in deep breaths as he tried to keep his deep, booming laughter from ripping the injury open.

When he finally regained the ability to breathe, Everin turned back to the confused Tidou. “You’re not lying, kid?” he asked. “Your name really is Tidou?” The “Tidou” part never quite got out, overtaken by another hearty bout of laughter.

Tidou turned red with part anger and part embarrassment. “It was the only word I knew when I came to the orphanage, all right?” he snapped, hurt. “So everyone just called me that!”

Everin patted his shoulder as if to comfort him, but the pirate was still chuckling, blue eyes twinkling merrily as he looked down at Tidou. “Where’d you learn to speak Wookiee, kid?”

Tidou glared, still offended. “Don’t remember.”

The Corellian shook his head. “Well, you may’ve mastered Wookiee, but you sure as hell don’t understand other languages,” he said. “‘Tidou’ is a Corellian word. Do you know what it means?”

Very slowly, Tidou shook his head.

Codi grinned and spoke before his friend could. “It means ‘asswipe,’ kid,” he said, and the four pirates began laughing again.

Tidou flushed. “It’s not—”

“Yeah, I know, it’s not your fault,” Everin said, nodding, but still having to wipe tears from his eyes. “But it’s funny as hell.” He paused, partly to catch his breath and partly to think. “Well, I can’t have anyone on my crew calling himself an asswipe,” he said, “So I guess you’re gonna need a new name.”

“Okay,” Tidou said, more than happy to be rid of this embarrassment.

“Let’s see then,” Everin said, thinking. “What would be a good name for you…”

At that moment, some monstrous creature in the distance roared. With the distortion of the echoes, it came out as a long, throaty “Haaa—nngghh.”

Everin blinked, then smiled. “Okay, Han it is,” he said. “Any problems, kid?”

Tidou considered for a moment before shaking his head. Everin straightened and nodded. “Fine, Han,” he said. “I’m Everin Solo, captain of the Celtic. Welcome to my crew.”

---

A/N: I can't help thinking that the confrontation between Karinic and Everin's crew turned out a little cliche, but I couldn't think of another way around it. Any suggestions?