Star Wars Journal - Hero for Hire by Han Solo (2 page)

Sai’da:
I’m afraid that, once again, I can be of no help. I heard that you were suffering from hibernation sickness, but I have no idea how long it lasts. I believe your time in carbonite was a bit of an experiment.

Han:
Great. That’s helpful.

Sai’da:
I apologize for my lack of knowledge in this area. Perhaps as you’re waiting for your sight to return, you could begin telling me a bit of your history.

Han:
Didn’t you just say something a while ago about you monks studying your private philosophies and keeping to yourselves?

Sai’da:
As a historian, I am a bit different from my fellow monks. By necessity I have an interest in that which takes place beyond my order. It is sometimes a struggle, this difference in outlook.

Han:
I can relate to that. I’m an outsider myself. In any case, I guess I’m stuck sitting here. It’s not like I’m going to plan a big escape in this condition. Maybe I oughta just talk to you and get my mind off the situation. Maybe you’ll see what a swell kind of guy I am and be a little more helpful.

No comment? That’s okay. You’ve got the patience and I’ve got the time.

Well, now, I’ve never been a reflective kind of guy, but now that I think about it, you’ve caught me—so to speak—at a good time. I haven’t had much of a chance to chat lately, master mind, so I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to make some sense out of all this. At least if I die, the Han Solo legend will live on.

Chewbacca:
Varawrk!

Han:
Not funny, Chewie. Hey, I haven’t officially introduced you to Chewbacca, my first mate. I’m sure he’ll have a few things to say unless he’s changed a lot this past year. Seems like other people have changed, right, Chewie? Ha!

If what Chewbacca says is true, Luke Skywalker is now a Jedi Knight and he’s going to rescue us at any moment. That makes me laugh. I find it highly unlikely that the kid can pull that off even if he is calling himself a Jedi these days. He did say this himself, huh, Chewie?

Chewbacca: Vrowwf.

Han: A lot of changes happen in a year. I might even believe him if he gets us out of this creepy palace. Let’s hope he at least finds Leia. The thought of that slimy, overstuffed gangster toad touching her…

Chewbacca:
Gggrrowwwl!!

Han:
It’s okay, buddy. She’ll be fine. You said Luke’s on the way. Who knows? The kid has had some amazing moments, I have to admit.

Han:
Okay, where do I start? If what you want is a historical record, I suspect it has more to do with the Rebel Alliance than with just this scoundrel’s adventures, as fascinating as they might be. So I’ll start with right before I met old Ben and the kid.

I’m a smuggler. Might as well set you straight on that right away. Don’t want you thinking I’m some kind of dedicated Alliance hero. I’ll own up to my past.

Sai’da:
The smuggling is behind you now?

Han:
I don’t know. It’s starting to look that way.

Anyway, back before I met up with my current Rebel pals I was too busy trying to keep the
Millennium Falcon
and Chewie and me afloat, moneywise, to give a lot of thought to the Rebel Alliance. The
Falcon
takes some major upkeep because she’s the fastest ship in the galaxy, and that isn’t braggin’. Ever since I won her in a—shall we say—game of chance, I’ve tried to do good by her. You don’t come by a ship like her very often.

I wasn’t giving a lot of thought to the Rebels in my smuggling days. Not that I was a supporter of the Imperial Forces either. Absolutely not. They were always trying to shut me down.

I just tried to steer clear of any situation involving the Imperials or the Rebels. Politics didn’t interest me. Survival did.

My one encounter with the Rebel Alliance was not a happy one. This is kind of off the subject, but you should know that there were reasons I wasn’t feeling real thrilled with the Rebel forces. You see, I risked my neck to help this old friend… okay, this pretty, young woman. Her name was Bria Tharen. Anyway, she convinced me to help her and her Alliance buddies, and I convinced my friends to help, too. Now, maybe you can’t call a bunch of smugglers friends, exactly, but the smuggler’s code means something. It’s a kind of friendship.

I hadn’t seen Bria for a long time. And then she shows up in my life as an agent for the Rebellion. I wasn’t listening to any of her “Let’s help the cause, Han” nonsense. Until she started talking money. More money than I’d ever dreamed of having. She knew how to get to me.

Bria had a good plan. The Hutt lords on Ylesia had stockpiled a huge supply of the best glitterstim. The Rebellion needed money and needed it bad. The plan was simple: steal the spice and sell it to the Hutt crimelords. If my buddies and I would help, we would get half the high-class spice as reward. Now that would light a spark to any smuggler’s ambition. And it did. It took me no time to round up a crew.

So far, so good, right? Not for long. I won’t bore you with the details of just how tricky this deal turned out to be. Let’s just say it was more than a simple theft, and it involved a lot of fighting. And when we finally get to the spice warehouses, what do you think happens? Bria and her fellow idealists take all the best glitterstim and leave the second-class spice for us, the low-life smugglers.

If I thought I had some tenuous friendships, well, I could kiss them good-bye. My pals turned on me in a flash. Refused to believe I didn’t know how this would turn out ahead of time. My so-called betrayal made them truly furious. They thought I was in on the deal with Bria. You want to talk about some seriously bad attitudes. They blamed me for her treachery!

And she was treacherous. Bria was so completely into the Rebel Alliance that she just had to use me one more time before taking off. Am I a sucker, or what? So when she said she knew where the High Priests stored their treasures and asked if I could help… Yep, even after that spice fiasco I thought I was gonna pocket a few jewels. Think again. The minute we found that treasure and I reached for a share, she pulled a blaster on me! Said she was sorry, but the Alliance needed it more than I did, what with having to buy ships and weapons. Gratitude was not her strong suit, that one.

Sai’da:
But she deeply believed in the Alliance? Isn’t this a human trait, allegiance?

Han:
Yes! But that’s not the point! Sure, she went on and on about the Empire planning something big and the Rebels having to stop them. She was sincere. But she lied to me! You’ve got to be able to trust people and she didn’t show me that the Rebels were people you could trust. I lost my friends, and I didn’t make any credits on top of it.

Chewbacca:
Ahhhhroarr.

Han:
You’re right, Chewie, I didn’t lose all my friends. I still had my best buddy, my first mate. But I was not in a good mood, to say the least.

Anyway, you understand now why my history with the Rebels was not a particularly trusting one. I’m not talking politics here. Just plain old human interaction.

I’m the kind of guy who likes to keep to himself and avoid entanglements. Not that that’s always possible. There’s always someone you gotta deal with or take a chance on. I don’t have to like it, though.

All right, history man, I’m tired and I’ve just started. I don’t know if it’s the carbonite or just telling you about my first minor foray with the Rebels. I’m not exactly used to talking. Living inside your head is not an easy deal, even if you seem to think it is.

Anyway, I heard later that Bria was killed in a raid. That shook me up. I mean, even after her betrayal I still cared about her.

And now. Well, here I sit with Leia captured and awaiting who knows what fate. Do you think she’s in some miserable cell like this one? Is Jabba leaving her alone?

Sai’da:
Mr. Solo, I recommend focusing on the fact that your princess is alive. This is all I know.

Han:
I wish I could pull myself together. And stop thinking about the here and now. But it isn’t easy. I keep thinking about the princess. So I won’t stop asking you for help as long as she’s a prisoner. Got it?

Han:
So, forget my problem with the Rebels for the time being. Back to the first point of this story, which is meeting the old man and the kid—the trouble duo. I would have avoided them if I hadn’t been desperate for money. Story of my life.

Your neighbor, Jabba the Hutt, was not happy with me after I dumped a load of spice I was smuggling for him. He’s not a very under standing kind of guy. He didn’t much care that the Imperials had boarded me and I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life being tortured by a bunch of goons. I’m funny like that.

I really thought I’d find that load of spice I’d jettisoned. Dream on.

So Jabba’s on my tail, pestering me to pay up for the loss, and I’m slinking around Mos Eisley avoiding him and trying to wrangle up some cash. To tell the truth, I wasn’t looking at much work when Chewbacca here tells me there’s money to be had off these two characters in Chaimun’s cantina. Chewie’s hooting about some fresh-faced kid right off the farm and an old coot with a lightsaber. A lightsaber, believe it or not. I was thinking, “Who uses one of those antiques anymore?” But Chewie said the old man knew how to use it. It was no gimmick. Pulled it on a couple of brawlers who were threatening the kid and took ’em apart.

What did I care? Promise of a little money and I was heading to the cantina to check it out.

It’s pretty hard to look out of place in that outlaw haven, but they managed. I had this feeling in my gut when I met those two, like this whole simple trip to Alderaan was going to be more than I bargained for.

But with Jabba ready to sic the bounty hunters on me, I didn’t have much choice. The 17,000 credit fee—I couldn’t believe it: I only asked for 10,000, but the old man says he’ll give me 2,000 and then 15,000 more on Alderaan. Not bad for a clip across space.

And what’s the cargo? Two humans and two droids. And no Imperial entanglements. Simple, huh? Shoulda known right then that they had some kind of a bounty on them. Worse, it turns out.

You’d have thought when the Imperial goons showed up looking for them in the cantina I would have been a little more alert. I could have told them right then, “Hey, boys, this is more trouble than I need right now.” But I had the 17,000 dangling in front of me like some hypnotic mind tease, so I let my guard down.

It’s weird how you know stuff about people and you can’t even admit it to yourself at the time. Sure it was the money, but I gotta admit that as much as the kid irritated me, he also got under my skin in a funny way. I wanted to teach him a thing or two. He was too naïve. He had a smart mouth. He was still wet behind the ears, but talking about how 17,000 was too much for the trip. How he could buy his own ship for that. When I asked who was going to fly the thing, he got all indignant, like he was some super ace pilot.

I see kids like him all the time. A lot of hot air and chest thumping and nothing to back it up. They don’t last long. I just wanted to see if this kid was any different.

Talk about different—the old man, he was like some walking legend or something with his cape and lightsaber. He had a strange look in his eye. But he was all business, a straight shooter in that department. It was an easy transaction. Still, there was something weird… an intensity that you don’t see much around Mos Eisley.

Most people around the spaceport act like they don’t care about anything, and most of them don’t. Unless they take a dislike to you. Then you know it.

These two stood out. They interested me. And not necessarily in a good way.

And my ship interested them. It should’ve. The
Millennium Falcon
. I told you a little about her. She’s a beauty. Okay, a little rough on the eyes, but nobody’s got her spirit. She’s a modified Corellian stock light freighter. Boy, is she modified. Chewie and I put nothing but work into her. And even though the Jedi duo had never heard of her, most people in Mos Eisley had. She had a reputation all over the galaxy. It’s the ship that made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs!

She’s a ship to get excited over, Sai’da; one in a million.

Han:
If I had any doubts about taking off for the Alderaan system in the
Falcon
with my strange new cargo, it was quickly dispelled. Greedo showed up at my table at the cantina as soon as Ben and Luke left.

Are you following this, historian? Ben and Luke are the old man and the kid. Wanna keep you straight. And Greedo is this mindless, Rodian lug who works for Jabba. Killer for hire. Got it? Okay.

Greedo is all puffed up like one of those poisonous Eberon spiders about to capture his prey. He says that Jabba has a hefty bounty on me all because of this spice deal. I try to explain that I’m good for the money. Greedo is picturing his pockets lined with Jabba’s reward, though, and I can see right away my minutes are numbered.

It’s not that I like eliminating unsavory characters in my free time, you know, but I’m not gonna let myself be had either. I chatted with him in a real friendly way. He wasn’t as smart as he was greedy. I pulled a blaster out from under the table real easy and Greedo was no more.

That’s the trouble with Jabba’s flunkies and with most of the cretins who work for the crimelords. They can’t use their heads. Or whatever part of their anatomy their pea brains are located in. Gives me one up on ’em.

I figured that wasn’t the end of Jabba’s little harassment scheme. Chewie and I hightailed it back to Docking Bay 94, the
Falcon’s
humble home. We were prepared for some follow-up action, but not for the arrival of the king of ooze himself, Jabba. That’s how important I was to Jabba’s self-esteem. Trust me. It was about more than money. He didn’t want anybody thinking I’d pulled one over on him by not paying for the spice foul-up.

Jabba was in the docking bay with every imaginable kind of alien scum in tow. He was calling my name. I answered from behind and startled the whole motley bunch. I figured if Jabba was with them he wasn’t looking for murder right then. His henchmen tend to that dirty work these days.