Story Challenge #4: 23rd September 2003
Start with the words "No accident..." and write, for five minutes.

Alibis
A 5-minute SW ficlet by Morgan D.

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No accident could actually explain this.

Being assigned the same mission on the same city of the same planet of the same solar system had been, strangely though it seemed, an accident, a mistake from a distracted officer at the Alliance headquarters, someone who should either pay more attention to his job or talk to his colleagues more often. Simple measures that would have kept him from drafting Luke to take care of a task Han had already been sent to.

Their meeting then, right in the middle of a crossfire between Imperial troops and the locals, had therefore been a natural consequence of that officer's mistake — and a dangerous one, as Luke barely managed to duck when a wild shot from Han's blaster hit the spot where the kid's head had been a split second before.

The engine failure in their escape ship could, more or less, be blamed on an accident. If Luke hadn't ducked, the outside panel of the Millennium Falcon's Koensayr TLB power converter wouldn't have been hit, so they wouldn't have had to steal the first ship they had found lying around that looked minimally flyable, only to find out later that she wasn't flyable at all. (Also, Han wouldn't have had to swallow the humiliation of having hit his own ship, although it might have been a lot worse if he had had to deal with the consequences of accidentally hitting Luke.)

Getting stranded in that escape pod had definitely been an accident. Damn those Llagutropian ships, outrageously chaotic in their design. How in blazes would they have guessed that was an escape pod and not the subdrive propellers' well? How could they have possibly guessed that those twin levers were not the combustion curbs, but the pod door's locking system? And who would ever have thought the Llagutropians were asinine enough to build an escape pod that could only be opened on the outside?

Meddling with the ventilation system had been a most unfortunate accident. Luke didn't have much experience with alien ships, and even Han had to admit that he might have also mistaken those green buttons, labelled in Llagutropese, for the door lock override. Too bad they instead altered the chemical balance of the air inside the pod, adding a considerable percentage of xyrberyon dioxide, which sadly produced behaviour changes in humans, such as notably lowering their inhibitions. And too bad Han only figured out what was that strange smell coming from the air ducts fifteen minutes after Luke accidentally pushed those green buttons.

Thus, the laughter, the naughty mutual staring, the double-meaning banter, the casual caresses, the tight hug, even the scorching kiss... those had all been merely accidents following an already long series of peculiar accidents... and preceding the big, mighty, irreparable accident of clothes falling to the floor, skin rubbing against skin, lust and urgency giving into release and pleasure.

However, when Han woke up nine hours later, the effects of the xyrberyon dioxide long worn off, and found himself cuddling longingly to his friend's body and realising he never wanted to let go...

No accident could possibly explain that.

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