Mayv collapsed into the copilot’s chair. Chewie was already in the captain’s seat, grumbling and fussing, directing furious rants at the droid who was no longer there to hear them and wouldn’t have understood them even if he were.
“In a way, I’m glad,” said Mayv.
“HRUHHHH?” said Chewie, completely flummoxed by that absurd statement.
“What I mean,” said Mayv, “is that now that it’s out of our hands and we can’t get it back, I’m glad the book is not going to the Emperor. Who knows what the Empire might have learned from it? How to be worse than they are already, probably.”
Chewie cocked his head to one side and thought that over. He certainly didn’t want the Empire to gain any new power. But he also wanted to get Han back.
“MYUURRGRRPH…” he said, and Mayv understood.
“Yeah, well, that’s the bad part of this. Instead of getting what Alinka sent us for, all we’ve got is a cargo hold full of insane snarlers!”
Chewie cocked his head again.
“BRRRNGGUPH RRUUNRUNN!” he announced excitedly. “BRRRNGUPHH! MHURR MHYUGHHH!”
Chewie spun around to the controls and started flipping switches and twisting dials.
“What? What are you doing?”
Chewie spun back.
“BRNNNNNGGUPH RRUNNNRUUN!” he repeated, making wild gestures with his arms and looking very satisfied with himself.
“What? You’ve got a plan? What is it?”
“MHURR BRNNNNGGGUPPHHRR,” he roared as he fired the ship’s thrusters.
The ship lurched into the air, and Mayv nearly bounced out of her seat. Then as Chewie slammed the throttle forward and the main engines kicked in, she was pushed back down by the acceleration.
“I hope it’s a good plan,” she croaked.
“RRGHHAWRRRRRRRRRRR!”
Han was bored.
For a few hours he had amused himself with escape plans.
Plans where he got out with the credits.
Plans where he got out with the credits and a few priceless objects.
Plans where he just got out.
But he had rejected them all. And he had known he was going to reject them all.
There were simply too many thugs with blasters. That was the one thing he hated most about the smuggling business: thugs with blasters. All the other stuff could be dealt with, but at a certain point, too many thugs with too many blasters was going to be a problem. Sometimes the thugs were just thugs, sometimes they were stormtroopers, and sometimes Han himself ended up playing the role of thug with blaster.
But he didn’t like that.
Han liked a job with a little more glory to it. A little daring, a lot of luck, and maybe a big surprise that would catch the thugs off guard.
Yes, that was his kind of plan.
And Chewie’s, too.
“Finally!” said Alinka Aloo when a screen blinked the message that the cargo ship was swooping in for a landing.
She got up and started for the doors that opened onto the landing pad.
“Uh-uh, not you,” she said to Han, pushing him back in his seat. And then to her thugs: “You, you, and you, keep your blasters on him. The rest of you, come with me.”
She pressed a switch, and the big doors slid open. She stepped out onto the landing pad, flanked by thugs with guns on each side.
The ship landed.
The cargo door clanked open.
And chaos was unleashed.
The snarlers, cooped up in the cargo hold for hours, were hungrier and angrier than they’d ever been.
They lunged for the thugs. The thugs, caught off guard, fired wildly as they tried to lunge for the nearest escape route.
Alinka Aloo began shouting orders, which got the attention of several snarlers but none of her thugs.
For a split second, Han thought, Oh, no, not more of those blasted hounds like Rebolt had on Corellia! Then he realized what was going on, grabbed the blaster from the nearest open-mouthed, off-guard guard, and used it as needed. Even before the third guard hit the ground, Han was scooping up the credits and one of the Junarian vases.
“THURGGHA BRRRUG!” Chewie was yelling at him across the chaotic scene.
“WHAT?”
“THURGGGHA BRRRUG!”
“The book? What book? Oh, that book.”
Han grabbed the little book that Alinka had been waving about earlier, then headed for the ship’s cargo hold door.
He passed Alinka, who was running the other way, pursued by a snarler.
“YOU—” she began, but Han didn’t hang around to hear the rest of the insult.
He ducked some blaster shots, squeezed between a couple of snarlers that were busy chewing on thugs, and jumped through the cargo hold door, which was already closing.
He and Chewie looked at each other for a second.
“What is that smell?” Han asked. He looked down to see that he had landed in something squishy and awful.
“BROOONAUGHHH RRUUG RRRUD!” As you probably can guess, that loosely translates to “That’s what you get for sending me on a pet-sitting job.”
Chewie was still laughing long after he’d run back to the cockpit and blasted off.
Chewie landed the little ship in the corner of the docking bay where they’d left the Millennium Falcon.
There was no time to lose. They had to take off before Alinka Aloo could fight off the snarlers, guess where they were headed, and alert the authorities.
They were too late, of course. The authorities had been alerted and told to blast the Millennium Falcon out of the sky. So Chewie and Han had to outmaneuver a few dozen TIE fighters before the Falcon could make the jump to lightspeed. But of course, that’s what Chewie and Han were best at.
With a whoop, Han pulled the lever, and the Falcon blasted away from Coruscant and into hyperspace.
“MRRRURUURRURRRRR,” trilled Chewie, glad to be done with that cruddy cargo ship and back on the best ship in the galaxy.
“Wait,” said Han, looking at the navicomputer. “Where are we going?”
“HHRRROMBRRRR!”
“Taking who home?” Han asked in disbelief. “The kid?”
Han turned in his seat to take another look at her.
Mayv had ignored the whole TIE fighter chase and was busy reading a book. Han rolled his eyes.
But of course, we know it wasn’t just a book. It was the book she had risked everything for, the Mola Oktaro. It was an honor just to hold it. A sacred experience to read it. And Mayv would be the one to return it to her people. She had repainted her triangles in a pattern she had never worn before: a triangle made of triangles. Hope.
“Hey, kid, where you going?”
“Home,” she said. “To Oktaro.”
“Whew…” whistled Han. “That’s a long way. That’s gonna cost you at least—”
“GRRRRHOMMMM!”
“All right, pal, all right….Looks like it’s a free ride this time, kid.”
“Thanks, Chewie,” said Mayv, and she put the book down long enough to jump up and throw her arms around the Wookiee and plant a kiss on his big hairy head.
“WRRWRRAA HHWURGHRWHRG!” said Chewie.
And I’m sure you know what that means.
Tom Angleberger is the author of the Origami Yoda series and the Return of the Jedi novelization Beware the Power of the Dark Side! He lives in Virginia with his wife, author Cece Bell; two dogs; and a herd of cats. Regrettably, the cats have been waging a war against his Star Wars toys.
Andie Tong has worked on franchises such as The Zodiac Legacy with Stan Lee, Tron: Betrayal, Spectacular Spider-Man UK, The Batman Strikes, Tekken, Plants vs. Zombies, and Masters of the Universe, for companies such as Disney, Marvel, DC Comics, Panini, Dark Horse, and Titan Publishing. Andie has also worked on a range of children’s illustrated storybooks for HarperCollins, as well as commercial illustrations. Malaysian born, Andie migrated to Australia at a young age. He currently resides in Singapore with his wife and
children.
Tom Angleberger, Star Wars
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