Star Wars_ Millennium Falcon Part 28

"You're telling me you never heard of the Millennium Falcon?" Poste said.

"I've been saying it for the past four hours." Jadak stroked his beard. "Maybe I read something about it when I was playing info catch-up at Aurora, but obviously it didn't stick."

Still half drunk on Fargil's homebrew, they were standing on the roof of a prefab building that overlooked the s.p.a.ceport. In a roofless docking bay at the edge of the field, a modified YT-1300 freighter sat on her hardstand with starboard boarding ramp extended. Only moments earlier Han Solo, his wife, a young girl who was probably their ward rather than their child, and a golden protocol droid had boarded the s.h.i.+p.

"Let's start with the Galactic Civil War," Poste said. Jadak held up his hands. "Save the refresher course for some other time..."

"No, no," Poste cut in, shaking his head, "you need to hear some of this right now before you land us in a very serious situation." Jadak opened his mouth, then closed it. "Keep it short."

"Han Solo," Poste began, slurring his words, "Han Solo is ... well, he's what you might call a certified hero. He's not only fought in every war since the Rebellion, he's played a major part in winning them. Understand? In winning them."

Jadak blew out his breath. "Okay. I'm impressed. What else?"

"His wife-that would be Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, former Senator and Chief of State Organa, present-day Jedi Leia Organa Solo-is a hero of the same caliber. They're like a match made in the stars, and the point I'm trying to make is that we don't want to cross them. Under no circ.u.mstances do we want to cross them."

Poste was getting a bit shrill, and Jadak gestured for him to keep it down. "I appreciate your concerns for our safety..."

"No, I don't think you do. Not fully."

Jadak gritted his teeth. "You going to let me state my piece?" Poste put his forefingers in his ears.

Jadak moved Poste's hands and forced him to sit on the roof's retaining wall.

"That s.h.i.+p, no matter what Rej Taunt or Quip Fargil or Han Solo calls her, is the Stellar Envoy, and no matter where she's been or what she's done in the past sixty-two years she's the key to our finding a treasure of unimaginable proportions. Now, if you're willing to walk away from that just because the present owners are two galactic heroes, you can do that and I'll take over from here. But after all the par-sees we've logged and with what we stand to gain, I think you've got to consider your decision carefully."

Poste stared at him. "Did I mention how good Solo is with a blaster? Did I mention how kriffing lucky he is? Did I mention that his wife carries a lightsaber! And knows how to use it?" He swung around to gaze at the Falcon. "Take another look. Maybe you're wrong about her being your s.h.i.+p. Maybe Parlay Thorp's broke down, and this is some other YT. A replacement."

Jadak turned. Though he wasn't about to admit as much to Poste, he did have his doubts. The Falcon wasn't just a modified YT-1300, she was a hybrid. More, she was closer to a wars.h.i.+p than a freighter, boasting a thickly armored hull, outsized thruster ports, a pair of military-grade quad lasers, and a high-powered rectenna dish. The front mandibles were nothing like those of the Stellar Envoy, and the docking rings had been altered. Even the c.o.c.kpit was slightly different.

And yet, despite the differences, every fiber of his being told him that the Falcon and the Envoy were one and the same s.h.i.+p, and just looking at the aged YT made him feel whole again.

"Here's what we're going to do," he said. "I'm going to answer the Solos' HoloNet message and arrange to meet with them. While I'm doing that, you're going to steal the s.h.i.+p and pilot it to Lesser Vaced. Then I'm going to get myself there, one way or another, and we're going to complete this treasure hunt."

Poste stared at him as if he hadn't heard or comprehended a word.

"I think you left out a few parts of the plan."

"What parts?"

"The part where I foil the Falcon's anti-intrusion system, which the Solos most certainly will have enabled! The part where I pilot a stars.h.i.+p to another planet! The part where I'm caught stealing a s.h.i.+p and sentenced to ten years in Carcel or some other kriffing prison!"

Jadak made a placating gesture. "Lesser Vaced is only a world away, and piloting a YT-Thirteen-hundred is child's play. It's no more difficult to pilot than that candy-colored airspeeder of yours."

"I don't take my airspeeder into outer s.p.a.ce!"

Jadak's lips became a menacing thin line. "Are you going to calm down, or do I have to sedate you?"

Poste dropped his head into his heads and muttered at the roof. "Please tell me I'm hallucinating on Fargil's homebrew."

Jadak lifted Poste's head. "We pa.s.sed a droid shop when we were casing the town. Do you remember it?"

"I remember."

"You're going to use the last of our credits to rent a slicer droid. I know there's one there, because I saw it through the window. The droid is going to help you overcome whatever security the Solos have installed in the Falcon, and the droid is going to link with the s.h.i.+p's droid brain and auto-guidance systems and pilot the s.h.i.+p to Lesser Vaced."

Poste regarded him openmouthed. "The droid is going to do all that."

Jadak nodded. "You just need to follow the droid's instructions."

"I just need to do what the droid tells me to do." Jadak smiled. "See how easy it is."

"I'll just have a cup of tea," Leia told the Eatery's Twi'lek waitress. "Amelia, are you sure the frosty treat will be enough? You skipped lunch."

"I just want the treat."

"Is the nerf fresh or flash-frozen?" Han asked.

"Free-range. From a ranch south of here."

"Then bring me a double stacker with the special sauce."

Leia frowned as the waitress hurried off. "I thought you said you were cutting down on nerf?"

"I am. That's why I only ordered a double."

"Can I have a bite if it's good?" Allana said.

Han threw Leia a covert wink. "Sure you can, sweetheart. We can even split it if you want."

That was one way of getting her to eat, Leia thought. Ever since they had heard from Quip Fargil, Allana-beside herself that her plan had succeeded-had scarcely stopped to breathe. It was Fargil who had suggested meeting at the Eatery, which was distant from the s.p.a.ceport but advertised that its meals were home-cooked. As eager as C-3PO had been to join them, Han had asked him to remain aboard the Falcon.

A handsome, muscular man who looked decades younger than his seventy-six years, Fargil was sitting opposite Leia at the round table, tucking a napkin into the collar of his s.h.i.+rt. While he spoke in the archaic manner of some of the settlers they had met on Vaced, there was something almost sophisticated about him, and his hands were as soft as an executive's. His utility suit had come straight from one of the shops on Main Street; it was spotless-possibly right off the rack. Leia had noticed Han sit straighter in his chair when Fargil approached the table, and that Han was continuing to size him up at every opportunity.

"You know, we asked all over for you," Han said. "But no one had even heard of you."

"That's because you asked for Quip Fargil, and I haven't gone by that name in more than forty standard years. It was my name during the Rebellion."

"Parlay Thorp said she thought you might have been a member of the Alliance," Leia said.

"She was right-though a long way from where you served, Princess Leia. And maybe a couple of years earlier."

"Who was your commander?"

"Our group was based on Tuerto. We received orders from a lot of different people-Mon Mothma, even Garm Bel Iblis once-but I never met either of them."

"Mon Mothma," Leia said in surprise. "Then you might have had indirect dealings with my father."

Fargil hesitated for a moment. "Senator Bail Organa. No. But I knew of him, of course."

Leia smiled through a sudden feeling of distrust. For the briefest instant she sensed that Fargil was on the verge of saying Anakin Sky-walker. But that couldn't be; Fargil would have been a teenager when Anakin became Darth Vader. How in any case would their paths have crossed? Still, there was more to Fargil's story than he was revealing, and Han had also picked up on it.

"I've got to say, Quip, you don't look a day over forty. What's the secret-something in Vaced's air or water?"

Fargil laughed to mask what seemed to be his embarra.s.sment. "Simple genetics. My father's hair stayed blond until he was eighty years old."

"Lucky you, huh?"

"At looking young?" Fargil said, a slight edge in his voice. "Doesn't matter a whole lot to me."

"Is it true that you donated the Falcon to Parlay Thorp?" Leia said quickly.

Fargil nodded. "I gave her away."

"Was she already called the Millennium Falcon when you flew her?" Han asked.

"Gone to Pieces," Fargil said, then added: "That was her original name."

In the moment it took Han to comprehend it, Leia watched his face pale. "Are you saying..."

"I renamed her. Fast as a bat-falcon, resilient enough to last a millennium."

Han sat kick as if he had just been sucker punched and Allana said, "Wow a hundred times a hundred! Wait till I tell Threepio!"

"Our protocol droid," Leia said for Fargil's benefit. Han ran his hand down over his mouth in an attempt to calm himself. It shouldn't have come as a shock, Leia thought, but she understood what he was going through. It was one thing to have flown the s.h.i.+p, another to have named her.

"So who did you get her from?" Han said at last. Fargil inhaled deeply. "Actually, I stole her from an Imperial impound facility in the Nilash system. Me and a Sull.u.s.tan."

"Why was she in impound?"

"The Imps had confiscated the s.h.i.+p from a Nar Shaddaa crime boss." Han's jaw became unhinged. "This is too much. Where did the crime boss get her?"

"Sorry, Solo," Fargil said, "but that's as far back as I can take you. Someone on the Smugglers' Moon might know."

"I spent a lot of years there," Han said. "Oh, yeah? Me, too."

"I know that whole area like I know the back of my hand. Nal Hutta, Ylesia, Sriluur, Kessel. . . You name the world I've been there."

"No kidding. Me, I took the Falcon to a lot of other places."

"Ever flown through the Maw?"

"That black-hole cl.u.s.ter? Sure. Oovo Four, too." Han's nostrils flared. "I've raced swoops there."

"Swoops? I've raced swoops nearly everywhere."

"You ever fly the Hoth asteroid field?"

"No, not that one, but dozens of others."

"Ever hear of Lando's Folly?"

"Han," Leia cut in. "While I'm sure you two could spend several days comparing runs and whatnot, Amelia and I are more interested in knowing why Quip wound up donating the Falcon to Dr. Thorp."

"Was it because you loved her?" Allana asked while Han was simmering down.

"Loved who-Dr. Thorp?" Fargil said. Allana nodded. "It was like a present."

Fargil wet his lips. "No, what happened was I fell in love with the s.h.i.+p, and that's why I had to give her away."

"The s.h.i.+p's proximity alarm system is activated," the slicer droid told Poste in a raspy voice that owed more to the shoddy quality of its vocoder than any intentional programming. "The system is linked to a Ground Buzzer anti-personnel blaster concealed in the dorsal bow. The alarm can be disabled, but there is a high probability that the protocol droid will contact its masters the moment the system is overridden."

Poste cursed under his breath. "How close can we get to the s.h.i.+p before the alarm is tripped?"

"The field extends to the perimeter of the landing bay. We can reduce our distance to the s.h.i.+p by one-point-three meters if necessary."

Resembling a primeval avian as much as it did a predatory reptile, the droid was held aloft by a small repulsorlift that dangled from a compact torso. Bulging, oval-shaped sensors atop the snout-like module that contained the slicing matrix might have been eyes, but in fact the droid's visual scanners and recorders were located beneath the tapered snout, where teeth might have been.

"What are our options?" Poste said.

"We need to interfere with communications to and from the landing bay."

"Go ahead and do that."

"The ability to interfere with communications is beyond my programming. We need a jamming device. A Locris D-Eighty field disruptor will suffice."

"Where am I supposed to get a jammer?"

"Master Druul has one in the shop. You will need to go there while I wait here."

"Go-can't we just have it delivered?"

"Certainly. Although I am obliged to point out that you will be affording Master Druul full knowledge of this operation. Normally he asks few questions of his customers, but in this instance his curiosity is likely to be aroused."

Poste cursed again. "How much is this jammer going to cost?"

"Absent current specials, the rental fee will be four hundred credits per local hour."

Poste puffed out his breath. "That'll wipe us out."

"Are we aborting the mission?"

"No, we're not aborting the mission. Find a place to hide yourself and I'll be back as quick as I can."

Hoofing it into town to save the few credits a speeder taxi would have cost, Poste hurried through the door of the droid shop, grateful to find the Gran-Druul-behind the counter. "How is the droid working out?"