After the formalities of ownership exchange had been processed, "Han stood back, just looking at the Millennium Falcon. "Mine..." he said, and grinned un-til his face hurt.
The Corellian"s mind filled with plans for fixing up the Falcon. There were so many things he wanted to do, to modify her into being the ship of his dreams. And, thanks to the sabacc tournament... he had the credits to do them!
For one thing, he intended to get Shug and S"~la to help him s",dvage the military armor plating off the Im-perial derelict Liquidator, a bulk cruiser that had be-come a casualty of the Battle of Nar Shaddaa. The airless hulk was still drifting amidst the s.p.a.ce junk or-biting the Smuggler~ Moon. Better armor plating would be a priority. Han didn"t want what had hap-pened to the Bria happening to the Falcon.
Another thing, he wanted a getaway blaster he could lower from the ship"s belly. Smuggling could get risky, sometimes, and a quick exit was required. A quick exit with cover fire was even better....
Yes, and he was going to overhaul the Falcon"s hyper-drive, and install a light blaster cannon under the nose. Concussion missile launchers, definitely. And maybe he"d move the quad laser turrets so they"d be one on top of the other, instead of on top and on the ship"s fight side. Perhaps stronger shielding, too?
Han stood there with his friepds, contemplating his ship, dreaming of what he could do to her and with her... modifying the YT-1300 into the perfect ship. His ultimate smuggling ship.
"Fake compartments," he muttered.
"What?" Jarik turned to him. "What did you say, Han?" "I said I"m gonna build some fake compartments un-der the decking, kid," Han said, throwing an arm around the youth~ shoulders. He grinned up at Chew-bacca. "And guess who gets to help me?"
Jarik grinned back at him. "Great! What"s your first cargo going to be?"
Hah thought for a moment. "Our first port of call is gonna be Kashyyyk. I"d say a nice load of bowcaster ex-plosive quarrels would probably do well, there, what do you think, Chewie?"
Chewbacca voiced his agreement, long and loud. Now that the Wookiee knew that he"d be going home, he was more excited at the prospect than Han had ever seen him before.
Two days later, with the Falcon"s new below-decks compartments crammed with contraband, Hah Solo flew his ship out of Shug Ninx"s s.p.a.cebarn and headed straight up, exulting in the MiUennium Falcon"s quick acceleration. Chewie was in the eopilot"s seat, and Jarik was riding along as gunner. Han hoped to avoid hnpe-rial patrols, but he intended to be prepared for a fight if one erupted.
Kashyyyk was an Imperial "protectorate" (transla-tion: slave) world. The Imperials had managed to pacify the inhabitants, though they kept their forays into Wookiee cities and homes to a minimum, and they always went heavily armed, and in numbers. Wookiees were known to have quick tempers and to act impulsively.
Han managed to dodge the Imp patrols and to stay out of range of any sensor satellites as he approached the verdant sphere that was Kashyyyk. The Wookiee homeworld was mostly forest, covered with monstrous wroshyr trees, with four continents divided by bands of ocean. Archipelagoes of islands dotted the gleaming coastal seas like emeralds scattered across blue satin. There were only a few desert regions, mostly on the rain-shadow side of the equatorial mountain ranges.
When they were within communication range, Chewbaeea took over the comm station, setting a coded frequency, then speaking into the corem in a series of grunts, growls, hours, barks, and hrnnn"s that, to the un-trained human ear, sounded exactly like his usual speech but wasn"t.
Han frowned, realizing that, "although many of the words sounded familiar, he basically hadn"t understood a word that his friend had said. When Chewie stopped speaking into the comm, a voice came back, giving a se-ries of what were obviously directives.
Han, who had been watching the sensors sharply, made a uick course correction There was an Imperial ship taking off, just past the limb of the planet.
"Jarik, look sharp, kid," he said, keying the ship"s in-tercom. "I don"t think we"ve been spotted, but let~ be ready."
Several tense seconds later, Han heaved a sigh of re-lief as the instruments indicated that the ImP vessel was proceeding serenely on its way, unaware of them.
When Han turned back to Chewie, the Wookiee launched into a series of directives and coordinates that his contact had given him. Han was to fly low, actually within the boundaries of the tallest wroshyr treetops, and to be prepared to make precise course changes the instant Chewbacca told him to.
"Okay, pal," the Corellian said. "It~ your world, and you"re the boss. But... what was that lingo you were talkin"? Some kinda Wook code?"
Chewbacca chuckled, then explained to his human friend that the Imperials were so stupid that most of them didn"t even realize that all Wookiees were not the same. There were several related, but somewhat dif-ferent, Wookiee sub-species. Han already knew that Chewbacca was a rwook, and bore the typical brown, red and chestnut hair of that people. He also knew that the language that he had learned to understand, but not speak, was called Shyriiwook, which, loosely translated, meant, "tongue of the tree-people."
Chewie went on to explain that the language Han had just heard him speak, xaczik, was a traditional tribal language spoken by the Wookiees indigenous to the Wartaki island and several outlying coastal regions. It was seldom heard, since Shyriiwook was the common language of trade and travel. So, when the Imperials had taken over Kashyyyk, the Wookiee underground had adopted xaczik as their "code" language. They used it whenever they had to give directives or pa.s.s along in-formation that they didn"t want the Imperials finding out about.
Hah nodded. "Okay, pal. You just tell me how to fly, and where, and I"ll take us where your buddies in the underground tell me."
Flying low, skimming barely above, and, at times, be-tween the tip-top branches of the wroshyr trees, Hah sent the Falcon blasting along in the precise course and speed Chewie specified. Every minute or so, the Wook-ice conferred with his underground contact.
Finally, as they neared Chewie~ hometown, Rwookr-rorro, a kilometer-wide city set on platforms made by crisscrossing branches of the wroshyrs, Han"s copilot made him shear off in a dangerous swoop and take them straight down between the branches for a thirty-second plunge. Han"s heart was in his mouth as the Falcon dived like its namesake into the green forest, but Chewie~ coordinates were right on the credits.
Even though it looked through the viewport as though they were going to be engulfed and smashed to fiinders, nothing touched the ship. Chewie barked an order, and Han shouted, "Hard to port... now!"
He sent the Falcon into a screaming left turn, then, before him, saw something that the Corellian at first took to be a huge cave, a vast black hole waiting to swal-low them up.
But as he neared it, Han realized that what it was in actuality was a ma.s.sive wroshyr branch, balanced across other equally huge branches. Either by accident or de-sign, the branch had split off from the main tree, and been hollowed out, to form a "cave" the size of a small Imperial docking bay.
"You want me to land in there?" Hah hollered at the Wookiee. "What if we don"t fit?"
Chewie"s snarled comment a.s.sured Han that of course they would fit.
Hah fired his braking thrusters hard as he neared the "cave" opening. They pa.s.sed through it, and suddenly the muted sunlight was gone, and the s.p.a.ce before them was revealed only by the Falcon"s 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 c.o.c.kpit. The youth"s hair was prac-tically standing on end. "Hah, you"re 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 I"m 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 he"d 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 can"t 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 couldn"t 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 wasn"t used to hearing seven Wookiees talking rapidly u 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 resistance"s 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. He"d 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 Han"s 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. "I"m 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 he"d 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 human"s head down into the sack, warning him to keep his arms inside, too, and to stay still, so he wouldn"t 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 ma.s.sive, 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 ma.s.ses 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 youth"s shoulder. "Hey, kid, you okay?"
Jarik shook his head, then looked as though he"d 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 don"t 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! That"s 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 couldn"t p.r.o.nounce 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 ain"t worth much .... "
Which wasn"t true. A suit of stormtrooper armor in good shape was worth well over two thousand credits, depending on the market. But hey, Hah thought. They"ve got no use fi~r it, and I gotta make a profit on this trip .... I ain"t 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."]