Chewbacca cut a path back toward Han’s booth. If the almost two-and-a-half-meter-tall frame of shaggy brown hair didn’t clear the way, the teeth and claws that completed the package did. Very few people knew Chewie had a mushy heart under that warrior’s exterior.
The Wookiee looked at the girl in Han’s lap, then at his friend, waiting. Han shrugged. What could he do? Some folks were just born irresistible.
But—hey, this was the opportunity he’d been waiting for. “Meet Chewbacca, my copilot. Chewie, meet…”
Han let his voice trail off, hoping she’d jump in and introduce herself. Instead, she pulled her head back, the way a serpent did right before it struck.
“Um…Allea?” he guessed.
Chewie groaned. The girl merely stood up, picked up Han’s drink, and threw the remainder in his face.
“It’s Jenny,” she said as she tossed her hair over her shoulder and stormed off.
Oh, yeah—Jenny from Mos Espa!
His copilot snickered as Han used his black vest to wipe his face off. The truth was, he did feel bad about his memory slip, not that he would show it.
“Laugh it up, buddy.” Seeing Chewie’s look, Han added, “Hey, you’re the married one. Find me a human girl with Malla’s brains and silky hair and maybe I’ll consider it.”
If a Wookiee could blush, Chewbacca would have been pink all over. He growled out a question.
Han sighed. “Yeah. I saw you with that old relic. Do I need to remind you he doesn’t seem to like letting people keep their limbs?”
Chewie rumbled out a sharp response.
“Yeah, hard to miss the sword, pal. Of course I know what a lightsaber is. I wonder what antique trash heap he found it in.”
The lightsaber was the chosen weapon of the Jedi Order, who served as peacekeepers in the Old Republic—pre-Emperor Palpatine’s takeover. There was some religious mumbo jumbo about meditation and something called the Force. A great big wad of nonsense, if you asked Han. Their kind had been extinct so long they were practically ancient history.
“What’s the job?” he asked. Chewie barked a response, and Han’s eyes found the blond kid again. The teen was fidgeting, looking around uncomfortably near the bar. Every now and then, he straightened his simple pale tunic. His hands were shaking so badly Han was surprised the little guppy didn’t spill his drink.
“Passage?” Han repeated, turning back toward Chewie. “To the Alderaan system?” That was it? Usually when people wanted to hire a smuggler’s ship, it was to disappear into restricted territory or one of the shadier hubs in the hopes of getting lost forever.
The Wookiee nodded.
“Think it’ll pay well?”
Okay. He had standards, but he also needed to pay back one of the galaxy’s biggest crime lords. He could be flexible with his standards.
Chewie thumped the table as he snarled a response, going on and on about its being easy money. Finally, Han sighed and said, “Fine. Bring ’em over.”
Han took a moment to straighten his vest and lean back in the booth, eyes scanning the cantina one last time for trouble. Chewie ushered the old man and the kid into seats across the table from him.
“Han Solo. I’m captain of the Millennium Falcon. Chewie here tells me you’re looking for passage to the Alderaan system?”
“I’m Ben. This is Luke,” the old man said, gesturing to the teenager. His calm presence was at complete odds with the kid’s barely contained energy. Luke there looked like he was about to jump out of his skin, he was so eager to get going. “And, yes, indeed. If it’s a fast ship.”
Han scoffed. “Fast ship? You’ve never heard of the Millennium Falcon?”
Ben raised a white eyebrow. “Should I have?”
“It’s the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs!”
The kid, like most people who heard the tale, looked impressed. The old man was not, however, “most people.”
“Anyway,” Han said, before he could be called out on his lie. The Falcon was fast, and that was all that mattered. Point five past lightspeed was nothing to sniff at. “I’ve outrun Imperial starships. Not the local bulk cruisers, mind you. I’m talking about the big Corellian ships now. She’s fast enough for you, old man. What’s the cargo?”
Ben gave a thoughtful hum before answering. “Only passengers. Myself, the boy, two droids, and no questions asked.”
Suddenly, Han had a bad feeling about this job. “What is it? Some kind of local trouble?”
“Let’s just say we’d like to avoid any Imperial entanglements.”
“Well,” Han said, leaning forward. Oh, this was going to be easy. “That’s the real trick, isn’t it? And it’s going to cost you something extra. Ten thousand, all in advance.”
For the first time, the kid, Luke, spoke. “Ten thousand? We could almost buy our own ship for that!”
“Yeah, but who’s going to fly it, kid? You?” He looked like he wouldn’t be able to figure out how to retract the landing gear, never mind make a jump to hyperspace.
“You bet I could. I’m not such a bad pilot myself!” Luke turned toward Ben and started to stand, anger flaring hot and fast across his face. “We don’t have to sit here and listen—”
The old man waved his hand, and the kid settled back into his seat. “We haven’t that much with us. But we could pay you two thousand now, plus fifteen when we reach Alderaan.”
Seventeen! Han wondered if he needed to clean his ears.
“Okay, you guys got yourself a ship. We’ll leave as soon as you’re ready. Docking bay ninety-four.”
“Ninety-four,” Ben repeated, nodding. Luke looked unhappy at the arrangement but managed to hold his tongue this time. Behind them, a flash of white caught Han’s eye. Four uniformed stormtroopers were making their way up to the bar, attracting looks of scorn from the other patrons.
“Looks like someone’s beginning to take an interest in your handiwork.” Han tilted his head in the bar’s direction.
His new passengers turned to look, the kid about jumping out of his skin as the barkeep pointed toward them. It was left to Ben to drag the kid off into the shadows, pulling him toward the back entrance. By the time the stormtroopers looked again, they were gone.
Han spun toward Chewie, gripping the silver bandolier across the Wookiee’s chest. “Seventeen thousand! Those guys must be really desperate. Get back to the ship and get her ready.”
The Wookiee slid out of the booth as Han signaled to the barkeep to close out his tab. Han fought the urge to sag in his seat in relief. The reasonable part of him knew it would only be a matter of time before he found a job to cover the cost of Jabba’s lost cargo. But another part of him was starting to lose hope he’d get the credits in hand before a legit bounty hunter found him. It had been plain bad luck that an Imperial customs ship had crossed their path as they were preparing to leave Kessel with the illegal shipment. And now it was dumb luck that he could cover his rear.
Han stood, stretching out a kink in his neck. He took one step forward, right into something hard, cold—something that felt suspiciously like the business end of a blaster. Then he heard in Huttese:
“Going somewhere, Solo?”
HAN FORCED A relaxed smile and turned slowly. The face that stared back at him was vivid green, covered in scales and bumps. Black glassy eyes sat atop a short trunk-like nose.
Greedo. In the grand scheme of bounty hunters and henchmen, the Rodian was about as dangerous as a fly buzzing around a bantha’s bottom. Unfortunately, he was on the trigger-happy end of the spectrum of Jabba’s hired help.
The captain slid back into the booth, relaxing in his seat. If he showed a hint of nerves around the cretin, even with a gun pointed at him, Han would never forgive himself.
“As a matter of fact,” he told the Rodian, “I was just about to go see your boss. But now you can tell Jabba that I’ve got his money.”
“It’s too late,” Greedo said, a little too happily for Han’s liking.
“You should have paid him when you had the chance. Jabba’s put a price on your head so large that every bounty hunter in the galaxy will be looking for you. I’m lucky I found you first.”
Han was lucky, too. If it had been a reputable bounty hunter—say, Boba Fett—he would have been in a galaxy of trouble. Still, he wasn’t sure if Jabba’s contract on his life had the “dead or alive” clause, so he wasn’t about to go shooting off his mouth. “Yeah, but this time I got the money.”
“If you give it to me, I might forget I found you….” Greedo leaned across the table. He would have winked if he had a sense of humor.
“I don’t have it with me. Look, it was a little thing, getting boarded….” Han slowly reached for his gun under the table, sliding it from the holster at his hip. His fingers brushed against the cool metal as he sucked in a lungful of the cantina’s warm smoky air.
“You can tell that to Jabba,” Greedo said. “He may only take your ship.”
Now it was Han’s turn to sneer. “Over my dead body!”
The Rodian laughed, the sound trumpeting out of his snout as he trained his gun right on Han’s heart. “That’s the idea. I’ve been looking forward to killing you for a long time.”
A slow smile spread across the captain’s face. “Yeah. I’ll bet you have.”
Greedo disappeared in a blinding flash of white light as Han pulled the trigger on his gun. The thump as Greedo’s body slumped onto the table made the other cantina patrons look over.
Poor Greedo, Han thought, glancing down at the smoking corpse as he stood again. Never realized Han could shoot under a table just as well as above it.
“I said no blasters!” the barkeep growled.
“For your trouble.” Han reached into his pocket and flipped him a coin. “Sorry about the mess.”
He couldn’t get out of that cantina fast enough. The hot wall of desert air slammed into him as he stepped outside. Like walking into an oven, he thought, shielding his eyes from the sun beating down overhead. The dust flying through the air was thick that day. An unusual number of stormtroopers were kicking it up in the unpaved streets, dirtying their pristine white uniforms. Soon they’d blend in with the tan, sun-bleached buildings around them.
Now he had a really bad feeling about the job.
And that feeling only got worse when he saw Chewie hovering outside the hangar door and heard a deep voice calling to him in Huttese: “Come out, Solo!”
His copilot glanced back at him, hearing his boots shuffling through the loose sand.
“Didn’t want to go in alone?” Han asked, patting Chewie’s shoulder. “I don’t blame you. Let’s get it over with.”
“Solo!”
Slithering along the ground like the slug he was, Jabba waited outside the Millennium Falcon, shouting for Han. A half dozen of Jabba’s henchmen circled the ship. Han crossed his arms over his chest, counting the weapons strapped to each of the thugs. Jabba seemed to be starting a collection of the system’s ugliest—with himself as the crown jewel.
Han had told Chewie his theory once that, unlike the other life forms, the Hutts hadn’t evolved from sparks of life and matter; the galaxy had simply belched them out one day. As long as Han was tall, and carrying about five times Han’s weight, the Hutt was a putrid combination of brown-and-yellowing-green skin. All warts and wrinkles and a drooling tongue he seemed incapable of keeping inside his mouth.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Jabba,” Han said, letting his voice echo through the hangar. When Jabba and the others turned, Han felt his stomach flip. The Hutt’s gold reptile-like eyes tracked Han’s movements as he came closer.
“I expected you would be,” Jabba answered.
“I’m not the type to run.” Well, a solid 60 percent of the time he wasn’t.
Jabba liked to talk to him as if Han were his wayward son. Han let him, because Han enjoyed keeping his life. “Han, my boy, there are times when you disappoint me….Why haven’t you paid me? And why did you have to fry poor Greedo like that?”
News traveled fast, it seemed.
“You sent Greedo to blast me,” Han reminded him.
Those gold eyes widened in fake shock. “You’re the best smuggler in the business. You’re too valuable to fry. He was only relaying…my concern at your delays. He wasn’t going to blast you.”
Han waved a hand dismissively. “If you’ve got something to say to me, come see me yourself.”
“Han, Han!” Jabba let out one of his belly laughs, the same kind he gave as he fed slaves to his pet rancor. “You’re my favorite scoundrel, don’t you know? You and I are alike. We love money—the smell of it, the feel of it, the weight of it in our pockets. I understand you better than you think.”
Han recoiled at the thought that he was anything like the slug in front of him.
“If only you hadn’t had to dump that shipment of spice…” Jabba continued. “You understand I can’t make an exception. Where would I be if all of my smugglers dumped their shipment at the first sign of an Imperial starship? It’s not good for business.”
“I had no choice, but I’ve got a charter now and I can pay you back, plus a little extra. I just need some time.” Han held up his hands. “C’mon. How long have I been running for you? And this is the first time I’ve had to ditch the cargo?”
Jabba seemed to consider that. “For an extra, say…twenty percent, I’ll give you a little more time…but this is it. If you disappoint me again, I’ll put a price on your head so large you won’t be able to go near a civilized system for the rest of your short life.”
Han gave a little bow, then expertly talked the crime lord down to 15 percent. “Always a pleasure to do business with you.”
Jabba was still laughing as he slithered out of the hangar, the others trailing behind him like faithful pets. Han’s stomach didn’t unclench until Jabba was gone from sight, and Chewie let out a relieved rumble from deep in his chest.
“You said it,” Han said. “Think he would have sold us into slavery or just sent us shooting out into the vacuum of space to watch us pop into little splats?”
Neither of which would be the worst of what the Hutt had done. What Jabba lacked in looks he made up for in endless creativity in hiding the bodies of his enemies.
Han mopped the sweat off the back of his neck and shuddered. “All right, time to get down to work. Let’s get her ready to fly.”
It felt good to get back in the swing of things. He and Chewie ran through all the usual preflight checks, recalibrating some of the instruments and charting the course they’d take to the Alderaan system. Han was lovingly polishing one of the control panels when he heard someone cry, “What a piece of junk!”
The kid, of course. Clearly that one was fresh off the moisture farm if he couldn’t recognize the beauty of the Falcon’s fine lines. The YT series was the height of Corellian engineering genius. A triumph. Maybe she was getting on in age…and some of her plates didn’t match…and maybe he hadn’t been able to paint over some of the worst scorch marks—but so what? It was what was inside that counted most.
Han didn’t have much good in his life; aside from Chewie, his ship was the only thing he could count on in a real fight. She was the love of his life, had been from the moment he won her from another scoundrel in a game of cards. And if the sand rat didn’t stop insulting her, he was going to find himself blasted back down to Tatooine in an escape pod.
Han walked down the boarding ramp to meet them. “She’ll make point five beyond the speed of light. She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, kid. I’ve added some special modifications myself.”
Luke scratched his head, shooting the old man an uncertain look. Han closed his eyes and counted to ten. Seventeen thousand, he reminded himself. If it was a choice between Jabba slowly feeding pieces of him to a pit of acid or dealing with a little punk, he could deal with the punk.
“We’re a little rushed,” Han said, sweeping his hands toward the ramp, “so if you
’ll hurry aboard we’ll get out of here.”
Trailing behind the humans were two droids: one a golden humanoid protocol droid who shuffled forward on stiff limbs and surveyed the hangar with round glowing eyes, the other a white cylindrical astromech droid on three legs, with a silver domed head and blue detailing. Its small alert light flashed blue and red as it swiveled its head around. Both looked like they’d been rolling around the dunes for days.
Han waited until they were all on board before starting up the ramp behind them. He cast one last look over his shoulder. One more trip back. After he got his money, he’d make one final trip to that pit to deliver it to Jabba. And then he’d make sure to keep a few systems between him and the Hutt.
“Stop that ship!”
Han did a double take, spinning around. The thunder of feet and clattering armor was his only warning before stormtroopers poured into the hangar. Their blaster rifles were already up.
“Blast ’em!” the one out front ordered.
Han swore in three different languages as he ducked up the ramp, chased by bolts of energy burning the air around him. He turned back and fired with his own blaster. Throwing himself up through the overhead door, he slammed his palm against its release button. The stormtroopers’ shots glanced off the Millennium Falcon’s shields.
“Chewie!” Han called as he rushed past the holding area. He glanced around to make sure their passengers were buckling in. “Get us out of here!”
His copilot roared back from the cockpit, drowning out the protocol droid’s snooty, “Oh my, I’d forgotten how much I hate space travel!”
The Falcon was already clear of the hangar by the time Han collapsed into the pilot’s seat, his hands flying across the console. They rose above the dingy, sand-whipped buildings of Mos Eisley, heading into the early afternoon sky. It never got old, seeing the way the sky purpled and darkened as they blasted out of the atmosphere. That was why Han loved flying.
The Princess, the Scoundrel, and the Farm Boy Page 5
