Pirate's Price

by Lou Anders

Well, that got all the ruffians’ attention fast.

  Of course, Maz is very famous, and we were on her planet. So quite a few of the ruffians were just standing there gaping at the crazy orange lady bearing down on them.

  But then one of them, who had the dark striated skin of a Delphidian, pointed a finger and yelled, “Stop her!”

  Well, Maz was not to be stopped.

  She hefted Chewbacca’s bowcaster, and she fired a plasma energy quarrel.

  It missed the Delphidian, but it sure made a big explosion where it hit some cargo crates. They went kaboomy-boom and flew apart in pieces.

  Unfortunately, they were not the only things that flew. The little pirate lady was flung backward through the air, and she crashed right into my torso, knocking the wind out of these old lungs.

  We both went down in a heap of brown and orange limbs.

  Glancing up, I saw that Maz and I were at the center of a ring of very unfriendly faces. Worse, we were also at the center of a ring of blaster barrels. We were captured.

  “Well, Maz,” I said, “you think you made a good enough first impression?”

  Hondo stopped speaking and took a big sip of his drink.

  “Wonderful, wonderful,” he said, leaning back in his chair and propping a foot on the table.

  “The drink is that good?” asked Bazine.

  “What?” replied the old pirate. “No, the drink is fine, but I was referring to my storytelling abilities. You know, if I did not already have a successful career as a pirate, I bet I could make a go of it writing holodramas. What do you think?”

  “You want to know what I think?”

  “That is why I asked.”

  “I think it’s time you took me to see the Falcon,” said Bazine.

  Hondo frowned. He had been fishing for praise and gotten none. Then he looked over Bazine’s shoulder, scanning the cantina crowd.

  Bazine turned to follow his eyes.

  She couldn’t place where he was looking. But she did notice the little Yarkoran from the card table had reentered the room. The Yarkoran caught her gaze, and he ducked quickly back outside.

  Bazine turned back to the Weequay.

  “So you’ve told me why you think the ship is special, and you’ve told me about how you flew her. Can we negotiate a price now?”

  “Almost,” said the old pirate. “You must be patient.”

  “I’ve been very patient so far,” snapped Bazine.

  “Then you know how to do it,” said Hondo through a big smile. “Relax. I have just one final story.”

  “Just one?” sighed Bazine.

  “Just one. How the ship that I so wanted to steal on so many occasions finally came into my possession. And it was freely given. Freely given, with a catch.”

  “Don’t think I’m not happy to see you, Maz,” said Han Solo, “but this is about the worst rescue I’ve been in.”

  “Grrraaaarrrrraaaarroooo,” said Chewbacca, which meant “And that’s saying something” in Shyriiwook.

  We were all hanging in the air then, our arms over our heads and our legs dangling above the ground. It was actually quite good for my back, but I worried that might not matter very soon.

  “You wouldn’t need rescuing at all,” said Maz, “if you’d played things a little smarter.”

  “Hey, you asked me to find out what’s going on, didn’t you?” said Solo. “Now you know.”

  “This wasn’t what I meant. Oh, never mind,” said Maz. “Look who I’m talking to.”

  Well, I thought that was sort of a rough thing to say to your boyfriend, to be sure, but I didn’t have long to ponder.

  The Delphidian approached us.

  “Name’s Tjepo Juibop,” he said with a nasty grin. “I’m the boss of the Hackjackers. But you’re Maz Kanata.” He gave the little orange lady an appraising look where she hung in the air. “I must say, it’s an honor to have the pirate queen in my hideout.”

  “What about the honor of the famous pirate Hondo Ohnaka?” I asked. “Do I look like chopped convor liver?”

  “Not everything is about you,” said Solo. Then he spoke to Tjepo. “By the way, I’m Han Solo. Famous smuggler, hero of the Rebellion.”

  “Brrrrgrrrrawwwww,” said Chewbacca, not one to be left out.

  Tjepo shrugged.

  “The more the merrier, I suppose,” he said. “We weren’t ready to move against you yet, Maz, but now we won’t have to.”

  Maz snorted.

  “If you thought you were in trouble before,” she said, “you’ve got no idea the trouble you’ve just bought yourself, mister.”

  Tjepo laughed.

  “Well, I think I’ve just bought myself a castle,” he said. “We’ll enjoy taking control of the whole planet now. And there’s not a thing you can say about it.”

  “I might have a word to say myself,” I said.

  Tjepo looked at me then.

  “A word?” he said. “What word?”

  “Carbuncle,” I replied.

  “Carbuncle?” repeated Solo. “What kind of word is that?”

  But Tjepo’s eyes were going wide in his striated face.

  Well, Maz was smarter than Solo. The credit chip dropped for her before the smuggler figured it out.

  “Hondo, you old traitor!” she yelled.

  “Why? What’s he done?” said Solo. “What’s carbuncle mean?”

  Maz fixed me with an angry look.

  “I’m guessing it’s today’s password,” she explained.

  “Wait,” said Tjepo, and he fixed me with a surprised eye. “You’re my buyer?”

  “You son of a bantha!” yelled Solo. “I thought you were here to rescue us.”

  “Rescue, well,” I said, “technically, I was more riding along on the rescue. Like an observer. Maz is the real rescuer. So it is her fault it didn’t work.”

  Well, Maz, Chewbacca, and especially Han Solo really had some unkind things to say about yours truly while the Hackjackers lowered me. “I suppose I deserve a small part of that, maybe,” I said, “but I didn’t know you were going to go and get yourselves kidnapped. I was just on Takodana to see about purchasing some ships and ship components. It was a perfectly legitimate illegitimate business deal before you three had to go and get yourselves involved.”

  That set off another stream of very nasty things said about poor Hondo, and I didn’t really like hearing them.

  “Well, I can’t hang around here,” I said. Then I realized they were all still hovering above me. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean hang. I just can’t leave things with Tjepo up in the air. Oh, sorry. I mean, it’s not like our business negotiations can be suspended—oh, sorry.”

  Sometimes you have to quit while you are ahead. So I left my friends fuming at me, and I walked off with Tjepo to see what ships and ship parts he had for sale. He really had quite an operation going, and I saw many fine things—flechette torpedoes, sensor jammers, enhanced scopes—so much that a pirate could want. I was like that kid in a candy store again.

  Only just then, I heard a commotion high above us. I looked and saw two droids pulling a curtain of hanging vines aside. I realized I was seeing a cavern opening, disguised with vegetation to be invisible from the outside.

  And gliding through that newly revealed opening was the Millennium Falcon.

  “Hey, that’s my ship!” called Solo, but nobody paid him any attention.

  A little Yuzzum scurried down the boarding ramp.

  “We found her parked outside, Boss,” the Yuzzum said.

  Tjepo walked up to the ship, sizing her up, looking very pleased.

  “Quad laser cannons, Arakyd ST2 concussion missile tubes, a BlasTech Ax-108 blaster cannon, duralloy plates, and three deflector shield generators,” explained the Yuzzum.

  Tjepo whistled.

  “That’s quite a prize, boys,” he called to his gang. “Let’s start breaking her down.”

  “Get away from my ship!” Solo yelled again. But he really couldn’t do anything but y
ell.

  I, however, was shocked.

  “Breaking her down?” I exclaimed. “Tjepo, my friend, don’t you know what this is?”

  “Sure,” he replied, blinking at me. “It’s a Corellian YT-1300 light freighter.”

  “No,” I said. “This is the famous ship, the Millennium Falcon.”

  “It’s old,” he said. “And it looks like it’s barely holding together as it is.”

  “But the ship…it has a history. It fought in the Rebellion. It blew up the Death Star.”

  “Two Death Stars!” shouted Solo.

  Tjepo shrugged.

  “It made the Kessel run in less than fourteen parsecs,” I added.

  “Twelve parsecs!” shouted Solo.

  “It’s an antique,” said Tjepo. “Junk. Trust me, it’ll be worth a lot more in pieces.”

  “Pieces?” yelled Solo. But I nodded. After all, it was a very old ship. And I had lots of opportunity to make some good negotiations that day.

  Still, I felt sad. And Hondo does not like to feel sad. So I walked away to see what goodies I could find to interest me.

  Behind me, I heard the noise of a fusioncutter powering up. Tjepo’s men were already starting in on the Falcon.

  I looked back, and I stopped. I just stood there watching.

  I couldn’t turn away.

  When the fusioncutter sank into the Falcon’s hull, I thought I could hear the old bird screaming. I told myself it was just the noise of the fusion beams.

  But I knew it was my favorite ship in the whole galaxy dying.

  “Oh, well,” I said, “nothing lives forever.”

  Tjepo overheard me say that and laughed. He thought I was talking about the Falcon.

  But no, I was talking about myself. I excused myself for a moment, to “think over” our negotiations. I pocketed a little fusioncutter, just a small one—good for cutting chains. And when no one was watching, I slipped back into the tunnel.

  I picked my way through the dark until I reached the fearsome beast on the chain. I held up the fusioncutter and steeled myself for what I had to do.

  Well, you should have seen all their faces when the nexu came bursting out of the tunnel.

  It was all snarly and snappy, and its little red eyes were full of hate. Not for Hondo. Hondo had freed it. Hate for poor Tjepo and his Hackjacker gang.

  There was shouting and screaming and some crunching and snapping. In all the confusion, no one paid attention to old Hondo when he made his way to his companions.

  “Let me get you down, my friends,” I said as I turned off the containment field and brought Solo, Chewbacca, and Maz tumbling to the floor.

  Maz didn’t hesitate.

  She snatched up Chewbacca’s discarded bowcaster. Then she gave me a dirty look. For a moment, I thought maybe I was on the wrong end of a plasma quarrel.

  “Maz,” I said, trying to laugh and be friendly, “didn’t you learn the first time? What are you doing with that bowcaster?”

  “Giving it back to my boyfriend, where it belongs,” she said. And she handed it to Chewbacca.

  Boyfriend? Chewbacca? Not Solo?

  I was dumbfounded.

  But as I said, it takes all types to make the galaxy go ’round.

  Then Solo was in my face.

  “Don’t think I’m not going to pay you back for this, you—”

  “Yes, yes,” I said, interrupting him. “We can negotiate my rescue fee when this is over.”

  “Rescue fee?” he cried. “That’s not what I meant.”

  But then a blaster bolt flew between us, striking the cavern wall. At least some of Tjepo’s gang were not occupied by the nexu and had noticed our escape.

  “We’ll figure it out later,” said Solo. I nodded.

  He recovered his blaster, and the fun began.

  I say fun, but what I mean is shots firing everywhere—bdew-bdow—and the nexu clawing and biting—and the Hackjackers screaming.

  We made a break for the Falcon, which fortunately was mostly still intact, while Chewbacca laid down some covering fire with his bowcaster.

  And we almost made it.

  But then there was Tjepo.

  He had a big gun, a DLT-19 heavy blaster rifle, and he was pointing it at us.

  Well, Solo fired his blaster, just to buy us time, and we dove behind some cargo crates. Tjepo did the same.

  “Give up!” Tjepo called.

  “You first,” I answered. I popped up for a look, but a bolt of plasma energy had me ducking for cover again.

  Solo and Chewbacca both tried to get shots off, without success.

  “He’s too well covered,” said Maz. “And we’re pinned down.”

  Solo nodded, but then his eyes went to something past Tjepo: a rack of stolen weapons and other bits and bobs behind the shipjacker.

  “Just keep him talking,” Solo said, and he began to move slowly around the corner of the cargo crates.

  “Tjepo, my friend,” I called, “there is still a way to profit from this day, I am sure.”

  “You’ve made a mess of my operations,” he called back, “and now you want to talk to me about profits?”

  “I always want to talk about profits,” I said, raising my head again. “That is what makes me a businessman, and not run-of-the-mill scum like you.”

  “Hey, I resent that,” said Tjepo, and he stood up and fired at me.

  But that was the distraction Han Solo needed.

  He returned fire. But he was not aiming at Tjepo, who still had very good cover.

  No, he was aiming at that rack of weapons and other bits and bobs he had spotted behind Tjepo.

  Specifically, he was aiming at the shelf of concussion bombs.

  And he hit them.

  And then everything was going boom kaboom!

  Well, we raced to the Falcon, and I ran to the cockpit and started to sit in the pilot’s chair.

  Someone grabbed me by the collar and jerked me back.

  “My ship, my chair,” said Solo, his finger in my face.

  “Of course, your ship. I was just warming it up for you. After all, it’s your chair.”

  “And don’t you forget it!” he said.

  Then we were taking off into the sky, leaving behind…well, let’s just say that Tjepo Juibop and the Hackjackers were out of business—permanently.

  Back at Maz’s castle, things were only a little less violent.

  “Explain yourself!” yelled Maz. “You were the buyer for the stolen ships!”

  “I didn’t know they were stolen.”

  She rolled her tiny eyes at that.

  “Okay, I knew they were stolen. But I didn’t know they were stolen from here. I am insulted that you think I did. And anyway, you cannot prove it.”

  “They were going to chop up my ship,” said Han.

  “Grrrgrrrrgrrr,” said Chewbacca, and I don’t need to translate that for you to know he was angry.

  “Friends,” I said, “whatever you think I may have intended to do, I did just save you all at considerable risk to myself. And more important, I saved the Millennium Falcon.”

  Well, they couldn’t argue with that.

  Actually, they could, particularly when I brought up the fee for my services. I could tell that I should postpone that conversation for another time.

  “I’ll just leave now, shall I?” I said. “You can all pay me back later.”

  And in Chewbacca’s case, he did.

  The last time I encountered the Millennium Falcon, I didn’t have to steal it. They actually gave it to me. That’s right, they gave the Falcon to Hondo.

  One day, when I least expected it, who should contact me out of the blue but Chewbacca. I was surprised to see his furry little hologram growling at me. I was also sad to learn that my dear friend Han Solo was no longer with him, having gone to that great smugglers’ den in the sky. But there was Chewbacca, nonetheless, saying that I, Hondo, was his only hope! Yes, he had come to me. You see, the Wookiee was having problems
with his Quadex power core. I understand it had given him trouble in the past, and it was beginning to go out completely. Ah, but the Falcon is a very old ship, and as you know, it has been heavily customized. So replacement parts that will actually fit and that will talk to her persnickety computer systems were getting harder and harder for Chewbacca to find.

  So after scouting around unsuccessfully for a few weeks, the Wookiee and his new partner—a new Jedi named Rey somebody—turned to old Hondo to see if I could acquire the necessary component. And of course I could. There is nothing Hondo cannot acquire. And I was more than willing to help out my old friend…for the right price, of course. Naturally, I wanted a favor in return.

  I was thinking of starting a new business venture, Ohnaka Transport Solutions. Doesn’t that name roll off the tongue? And although I had amassed many fine ships already, such a fast vessel would be useful in establishing my operation. At least until I got things off the ground, so to speak. Ha-ha. And since the Falcon had to be fixed anyway and Chewbacca owed me for my rescue of him and Han Solo, he was more than happy to lend me his vessel for a while. Oh, he acted reluctant. In fact, he drove a hard bargain. I had to throw in some ship parts and tools that he said would help out some of his friends, in addition to the power core, but I am sure that underneath all that grouchy fur, he was actually very pleased.

  Still, he said something odd to me in Shyriiwook as he handed over the ship. Now, as I said, I speak the Wookiee language with a bit of an accent. And there are nuances of meaning that sometimes elude me. What it sounded like he was saying was, “Don’t mind about all the porgs.” But that couldn’t be right, could it?

  “Watch out for the ports?” I asked. “What’s wrong with the ports? Is there a pressure leak?”

  “Prrrrrrgggs,” growled Chewbacca. “Krruuuu grrrruuuu prrrrrrgggs.”

  So I had heard him correctly. Porgs. But I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Porgs?” I said. “What’s a porg?”

  Chewbacca held up his furry hands like he was packing an invisible ball, and then he flapped his fingers. Flappity-flap. And he made a kind of cooing noise—proo-prooo.

  “Prrrrrrgggs,” he said.

  “I don’t know what you mean, my friend,” I said. “Are you making pretend meatballs?”