Star Wars - The Han Solo Trilogy - Rebel Dawn

by A. C. Crispin

  Hah fired his braking thrusters hard as he neared the cave opening. They passed through it, and suddenly the muted sunlight was gone, and the space before them was revealed only by the Falcons infrared sensors and the beams of the landing lights.

  Han killed the last of their forward motion, then low-ered them onto their landing struts, using his repulsors.

  Moments after they touched down, Jarik appeared in the doorway of the cockpit. The youths hair was prac-tically standing on end. Hah, youre crazier than I thought! That landing--!

  Shut up, kid, Han snapped. Chewie was howling at him insistently, demanding that Han immediately turn off .all power in the Falcon except for the batteries to power the airlocks, and to do it now!

  Okay, okay, Han muttered, doing as he was told. Keep your fur on .... Quickly he killed all the power, save for the batteries. The interior of the ship was now lit only by the weak, red-tinted emergency lights.

  So, want to tell me just what is going on? the Corellian grumbled. Fly here, turn there, land here, turn off the power... good thing Im a sweet-natured guy who learned to take orders while I was in the Navy. So what gives?

  Chewbacca urgently beckoned the humans to follow him. The Wookiee seemed nearly beside himself with excitement. He roared his pleasure and his eagerness to breathe the air of his homeworld.

  Outside, something clanged against the Falcon new armor-plating. Hey! Hah yelled, jumping up and el-bowing his hairy friend out of the way, watch it, that my hull!

  Hitting the open ramp release, Hah raced down the ramp, then stopped in wonder. When hed first flown into the cave it had seemed a tight ft, but now he real-ized the place was so big it had echoes.

  Back at the entrance, a hydraulic lift whined as it raised a huge curtain of some kind of camouflage net over the entrance. Teams of Wookiees were busily draping the Falcon in more netting.

  Chewie came up behind him, and growled a soft apology for not warning his friend better about what was going to happen. Let me guess, Han said, survey-ing the nets. Those things contain either jamming nodes or they send out some kind of camouflage fre-quency, so the Imps cant trace us here.

  Chewbacca confirmed Han guess. Local Wookiees used this landing site to receive smuggled goods, and they knew the drill.

  Wow, Jarik muttered. The young man was staring around the cave in openmouthed wonder as the lights came up. The inside of the cave was a well-stocked, completely functional docking site and repair facility. Wow! This is something!

  Han still couldnt believe they were standing inside a tree. No, not a tree, but a tree branch. If one branch of a wroshyr was this big, the idea of the whole tree was mind-boggling. He shook his head. I gotta admit, Chewie, your people have got a slick operation here. After carefully locking the Falcon, Han and Jarik fol-lowed Chewie out toward the front of the cave. There they were introduced to a crowd of Wookiees. Han had some trouble following the conversation, because he wasnt used to hearing seven Wookiees talking rapidly all at the same time. Chewbacca was howled at, hugged, thumped, shaken, thumped some more and generally exclaimed over with great joy.

  When Chewie introduced Han as his honor brother to whom he owed a life debt for freeing him from slavery, Han in turn was in grave danger of being similarly thumped, shaken, etc., but, thankfully, Chew-bacca intervened and provided more conventional in-troductions. Not all of the Wookiees understood Basic, so a lot of translating was necessary.

  Three of the Wookiees Han met were relatives of Chewiek... the Wookiee with the whorls of auburn hair turned out to be his sister, Kallabow. Jowdrrl, a smaller, chestnut colored female (Han was surprised to note that he could actually see a family resemblance!) was a cousin, and Dryanta, a darker brown male, was another cousin. The other four were members of the Wookiee underground resistance movement, who had come in especially to meet Han and negotiate for his cargo.

  Motamba was an older Wookiee, a munitions expert whose blue eyes lit up when Han revealed how many boxes of explosive quarrels he had to sell. Katarra was a young Wookiee, younger than Chewbacca, and she was the underground resistances leader, as near as Han could tell. The Wookiees listened to her with a great deal of respect. She consulted regularly with her father, Tarkazza, a burly male who was the first Wookiee with black fur Han had ever seen. He had a stripe of silver-colored fur running down his back, which was evidently a family trait, for Katarra had one, too, though her fur was brown and tan.

  After several minutes of confusion, Chewbacca roared an order to his friends. Hah caught most of it. Something about, fetch the quulaars. What are quulaars ? Han wondered.

  He soon found out. Two long bag-like pieces of wo-ven fabric-or was it woven hair?--were produced. Chewbacca turned to Hah, and pointed from the Corel-lian to the quulaar. Han stared at his friend, incredulous, trod shook his head. Get inside? You want me and Jarik to crawl into those things? So you can carry us up the trees? No way, pal! I can climb, just as good as you can.

  Chewbacca looked at his friend and shook his head. Then he grabbed Hank arm, and hustled the Corellian over to the entrance to the cave, and, lifting the camou-flage hanging, gestured Hah to step outside, onto the lip of the cave.

  Jarik had followed them outside, as had the other Wookiees. The youth was confused, having understood almost nothing of what had been said. Hah? What do they want?

  They want us to crawl into these sacks, kid, so they can haul us up the tree trunks until we can catch the lift for Rwookrrorro. I just told Chewie no way, that I can climb just as good ms he can.

  Jarik walked over to the lip and cautiously leaned over to look down. Then he walked back to Hah, gave him a long, silent look. Without speaking, he began climbing into his quulaar.

  Out of curiosity, Han walked over to look down, too. Hed known it intellectually, of course, but it was one thing to know it with his brain, another to know it in his gut. He was kilometers high in the air. Below him the forest went on... and on... and on ....

  The tree .trunks stretched down, past the point where Hank excellent eyesight could distinguish them from each other. Despite all his piloting experience and his outstanding sense of balance, the sight made Hans head swim for a moment. He walked back to Chew-bacca, who was helpfully holding out the quulaar. When Han hesitated, the Wookiee flexed his powerful hands and made his claws pop out. They were very sharp, and, coupled with Chewie great strength, would enable him to dig deep into a tree trunk when climbing. Im gonna regret this ....Han muttered, and climbed into the sack.

  Chewbacca wanted to carry Hah, but his relatives convinced him that, since it had been a long time since hed done any forest-traversing, it would be better if he had only himself to worry about.

  So Motamba carried Jarik, and Tarkazza carried Han, both humans stuffed inside their respective quu-laars. Hah wanted to look out, but Tarkazza was firm, pushing the humans head down into the sack, warning him to keep his arms inside, too, and to stay still, so he wouldnt disturb his carrier balance.

  Inside the quulaar, Han felt the bag sway as Tarkazza walked to the edge of the platform lip. Then, with a grunt and a powerful leap, the Wookiee launched him-self. They were falling, falling!

  Hah barely managed to hold back a yell, and he heard Jarik let out a short, bitten-off cry.

  Seconds later Tarkazza smacked into a hard surface, clung, then began climbing rapidly upward. Leaves swished against the quulaar. Han had just started to re-lax, when suddenly they leaped again!

  The next few minutes, all Han could do was try not to move, and to keep concentrating on not being sick. The sack swung and jerked and spun and slapped against the tree trunks, despite Tarkazza best efforts. Swing, scramble, climb.

  Leap, grip, swing.

  Grab, grunt, swing-climb ....

  Han finally had to close his eyes, not that he could see much anyway, and just try to hang on. It seemed as though the nightmare journey took hours, but Hah real-ized when he checked his chrono later, that it had taken only about fifteen minutes.

 
Finally, with a last swing and grunt of effort, the movement stopped, and Hah found himself lying on the ground, still inside the quulaar. When the world around him stopped spinning (which took a moment) the Corellian began clawing his way out of the sack.

  Moments later, he was standing, legs braced wide apart for balance, on the great platform where the great, mostly enclosed city of Rwookrrorro was located. It was a massive, flattened ovoid, with homes studding the out-skirts and scattered all over the platform. Branches grew straight up along the avenues, through the material mak-ing up the streets, adding touches of green.

  The world steadied around Han, and he drew a deep breath. The city before him was beautiful, in a way that Was hard to describe. Not as pastel as Cloud City, Rwookrrorro had some of the same openness and airi-ness. Perhaps because it was, like Cloud City, so high up?

  Some of the buildings were several stories tall, yet they harmonized, somehow, with the treetops. All around them the vivid green topmost branches of the wroshyr trees swayed in the breeze. The sky overhead was blue, with a hint of green. Thick, flattened masses of sparkling white clouds drifted by.

  Hearing a strangled gurgle, Hah looked over and saw Jarik, bent over, clutching his middle, obviously in dis-tress. He went over and touched the youths shoulder. Hey, kid, you okay?

  Jarik shook his head, then looked as though hed re-gretted doing that. Tm gonna be okay, he mumbled. Jus tryin not to upchuck ....

  There a trick to that, Han said mock-seriously.

  Just dont think about traladon and tuber stew.

  Jarik gave Hah a quick, betrayed glance, then, hand over his mouth, bolted for the edge of the platform. The Corellian shrugged, then turned to find Chewie filere. Poor guy. Hey, Chewie, what a way to travel. Good thing your people brought those sacks along.

  What do you usually carry in them? Luggage?

  Chewbacca lip curled, then he gave a brief, amused translation of the word quulaar.

  Hah bristled. Baby-sack? You haul Wook babies around in em?

  Chewbacca began to laugh, and the madder his hu-man friend got, the more the Wooldee cracked up. Hah was rescued by a roar from a party of Woollees coming their way from the city. There were at least ten of them, all ages. Hah noted a somewhat stooped, short, graying Wooldee, and just then Chewbacca took off, racing toward the newcomers with roars of joy.

  Watching Chewie thump and pound and hug the old Woollee, Hah turned to Kallabow, who, thankfully, understood Basic. Attichitcuk? he guessed, naming Chewbacca father.

  Chewbacca sister confirmed that, yes indeed, that was their father, Attichitcuk, who had talked of nothing else since discovering that his son would soon be home.

  There someone else that Chewie looking forward to seeing, Han said. Mallatobuck. She still live here in Rwookrrorro?

  Kallabow formidable teeth flashed in a Wooldee grin and she nodded, human-style.

  She married? Hah asked, dreading the answer. He had some idea of how much that question meant to his best friend.

  Kallabows grin widened, as slowly, deliberately, she shook her head, no.

  Han grinned back. Whoo-hoo! Thats something to celebrate, I guess!

  Hah felt a touch onhis shoulder, and turned to find Katarra standing there, with yet another male Woollee. To Han profound astonishment, the tall Wookiee opened his mouth and said, in amazingly understandable Wooldee, [Greetings, Captain Solo. I am Ralrracheen. Please call me Ralrra. We are honored, Hansolo, that you have come to Kashyyyk.]

  Han mouth dropped open with surprise. It had taken him years to learn to understand Woollee speech, and he couldnt pronounce it even after many efforts. And yet this Woollee spoke in a fashion that Han could understand very easily-and could even have repro-duced. Hey! Han blurted. How do you do that?

  [A speech impediment,] the Woollee said. [Unfortu-nate for me when conversing with my own people, but, when humans visit Kashyyyk, it is useful.]

  It sure is .... Han muttered, still amazed.

  With Ralrra help, Han and Katarra were able to be-gin negotiations over the cargo of explosive quarrels. [We need them desperately,] Ralrra said. [But we are not asking for charity. We have something to trade for them, Captain.]

  And what that? Han wondered.

  [Armor from Imperial stormtroopers,] Ralrra said. [My people began collecting it from soldiers who had no further use for it, first as trophies, then because we learned it was valuable. We have many suits and helmets.]

  Han thought about that. Stormtrooper armor was indeed made from valuable materials, and could be recycled as other kinds of body armor. It also could be chemically melted and then recast. Like to take a look at it, he said, but we may have ourselves a trade there. He shrugged. Course... used armor aint worth much ....

  Which wasnt true. A suit of stormtrooper armor in good shape was worth well over two thousand credits, depending on the market. But hey, Hah thought. Theyve got no use fir it, and I gotta make a profit on this trip .... I aint in the handout business ....

  Katarra hrrrrnnnnned vehemently, than spoke to the interpreter in rapid, accented Shyriiwook that Han had trouble following. Something about a dawn-haired human?

  Ralrra turned back to Han. [Katarra says that she knows that the armor is valuable. She knows because the female from your world of CoreIlia, with hair the color of sunrise, told her so.]

  Han attention was suddenly focused completely on the underground leader. Corellian? he said, sharply. A Corellian woman? Fair-haired?

  Ralrra conferred briefly with Katarra. [Yes. She came here just after our most recent Life Day-about a stan-dard year, Captain-and she met with the leaders of the Underground, advising us on organization, codes, tac-tics, and so forth. She was a member of the resistance movement on your homeworld.]

  Han stared at Katarra. Her name. What was her naln ?

  Ralrra turned to the underground leader, spoke rapidly, then turned back. [Katarra says that she did not know her name, which is standard procedure, in case of interrogation. During her visit, we called her Quarrr-tellerrra which means sun-haired warrior.]

  Han took a deep breath. What did she look like? he asked. I may know this Corellian. She may be... He hesitated. She may be my... mate. We were sepa-rated long ago, by the Empire.

  Which was true, strictly speaking. Bria had left when Han was preparing to go into the Imperial Academy saying she didnt want to hold him back. He s till had the flimsy shed written him. It was stupid, keeping it, and every time he ran across it, he resolved to throw it away, but, somehow, he never had ....

  Katarras wary expression visibly softened upon hear-ing this. She put out a paw-hand and laid it on Han arm, expressing sympathy. The Empire was evil, had torn apart so many families ....

  Ralrra made a gesture in the air on the level of Han nose. [This tall,] he said. [Long hair, the color of the sunset . . . golden-red. Eyes the color of our sky. Not wide.] His hands described a slender form. [She was the leader of the team, a person of rank. She said she had been asked to come to Kashyyyk because she under-stood what it was like to live as a slave. She told us she had been a slave, on the planet Ylesia, and she would give her life to free Kashyyyk and any other world en-slaved by the Empire. She spoke with much passion.]

  Ralrra voice changed slightly, took on a more persona] note. [I, too, was a slave until my friends freed me from the Empire. Quarrr-tellerrra spoke truth about having been enslaved. I could tell. She knew what it was like. We talked much of how much we hate the Empire.]

  Hans mouth was dry. He managed to nod, and mumble, Thanks for telling me ....

  Bria, he thought, numbly. Bria, a member of the Corellian rebellion? How in the galaxy did that happen?

  It was wonderful to be back on his own world. Chew-bacca was taken from home to home, and his father, Attichitcuk, proudly showed off his son, the adven-turer, the former slave, and his human friends. All of the Wookiees made much of Hah and Jarik.

  Of course, Kashyyyk was a world occupied by Im-perial forces, so care had to b
e exercised to conceal Hans real purpose in coming there. For the duration of his stay, Han donned clothing more befitting one of the human traders who lived in Rwookrrorro. He and Jarik posed as brothers whod come to trade trinkets and household items with the Wookiees. This fiction was strengthened by the fact that both humans had brown hair and eyes, and Jarik was only a little shorter than Han.

  The Imperial presence of Kashyyyk was mostly con-fined to the posts scattered around the planet. Troopers were sent out in squads, since single troopers had a dis-turbing tendency to vanish without a trace.

  Han and Jarik were careful to avoid any contact with the Imperial squads that occasionally patrolled Rwookr-rorro. And, with the Millennium Falcon concealed in the special smuggler dock, protected by the camou-flaged and jamming devices, there was nothing to link them with any illegal activity.

  Han spent time with the Woollee techs down in the spacedock, tinkering with his new baby. Several of the Woollees were experienced techs, and they spent hours with the Corellian, checking out every system, over-hauling every bit of equipment. The Falcon was far from a new ship, but, under the ministrations of the Woollee techs, it was now in better shape than it had been for a long time.

  Chewbacca hadnt realized how much hed missed his home and family. Seeing them all again made him tempted to come home for good but that was not pos-sible. Chewie owed a life debt, and his place was by Han Solo side.

  Still, he enjoyed his time on Kashyyyk. He visited with all his cousins, with his sister and her family. Since Chewie had last been home, Kallabow had married a fine male named Mahraccor.

  Chewie loved playing with his nephew. The little Woollee was smart and fun to be with, with a lively cu-riosity about the universe. He spent hours getting his uncle to talk about his adventures out in the spacelanes.

  In addition to Chewbacca family, he saw old friends . . . Freyrr, his second cousin, the best tracker in the family, Kriyystak, and Shoran. It was a source of sorrow that Salporin, Chewies best Wookiee friend, was not there. He had been captured and enslaved by the Empire, and there was no news of his fate-no one even knew if he was alive or dead.