Star Wars_ Millennium Falcon - James Luceno [15]
Conveyed downside to his small garage in the Duros Sector, what remained of the Corellian-made ship hung in a cradle in the center of the bay. Bammy hoped that one day he'd be able to afford a repulsorlift, but until then he had to make do with cranes and gantries to support the vessels he repaired. He had hired a crew of salvagers to remove the twin mandibles, outrigger cockpit, and whatever else was loose or ruined. That left him with a crumpled saucer. The seven legs that formed the landing gear had fused to the carapace when the YT had skidded along the hull of the Jendirian Valley III before slamming into the underside of the bulk freighter's armored deck.
The ship was in much worse shape than he had been led to believe by the EVA team that performed the initial zero-g assessment. Bammy had already filled a dozen oversized trash containers with hazmat debris, and he was just getting started. A YT-1300p that had collided with an asteroid near Nal Hutta would supply replacement mandibles, along with a more spacious main hold, deflector shield generator, and a pair of six-being escape pods. But while the Stellar Envoy's hyper-drive, Quadex power core, and still-state-of-the-art Rubicon astrogation computer were sound, the pair of Giordyne sublight engines would have to be rebuilt from top to bottom.
Worst of all, the ship needed a new droid brain.
“Boss, where do you want this?”
Bammy cupped a hand to his ear and whirled to one of his subordinates. “Shut that kriffing torch off!” Swinging back to the Iktotchi who had called to him, he asked: “What have you got?”
“Fuel drive pressure stabilizer.”
“Serviceable?”
The horned alien rocked his head. “More or less.”
“Which is it: more or less?”
“More.”
Bammy indicated a pile of numbered and categorized parts near the stern of the suspended ship. “Stow it over there. And be sure to brand it.”
The pile was one of many, the garage resembling an ongoing archaeological restoration project more than a ship rebuild.
While the Iktotchi was hauling the stabilizer across the bay, the voice of one of Bammy's pair of human employees rang out. “This flux compensator is shot. Same with the alluvial dampers.”
“You can't fix them?”
“Not me.”
Bammy shoulders slumped. “Add them to the list.”
He hoped one day he could afford to hire a Givin or a Verpine.
The situation was going from bad to beyond belief. But at least his full complement of mechanics was back on the job after a month of joining the rest of Nar Shaddaa in celebrating the end of the war. Nar Shaddaa had no special fondness for now-Emperor Palpatine, but many felt that Palpatine would be so consumed with consolidating power in the Core that worlds in the Mid and Outer Rims would once more become lucrative markets for spice and other proscribed goods. More important, smugglers would be able to travel without fear of interception or attack by Separatist droid ships or Republic cruisers.
There'd been no club or cantina partying for Bammy. Rej Taunt was expecting a ship, and it was best to avoid disappointing a crime boss by failing to deliver on time or superseding an estimate.
Bammy looked up at the saucer's singed stern. The blackened areas were carbon scoring—the result of a turbolaser hit from a big Republic ship. He couldn't be sure, but he'd stake credits that the hit had been indirectly responsible for the collision. The bolt could have overwhelmed the shields and left the guidance systems stunned. Once he tore apart the power core, he'd know for certain—but it was clear the freighter had gotten herself mixed up in trouble. It was clear, too, that Bammy wouldn't be the first mechanic to rebuild her. In all his years of tinkering with ships and landspeeders, he had never come across a vehicle