• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

[The grids are silent. The misfortune that has befallen our friend is not yet public knowledge. Ralrracheen has sent a message to the Princess on your behalf, but there has been no reply.]

[And the ship?]

[Jowdrrl will know best,] Malla said, turning and leading the way onto the landing platform. She called out to the ship’s custodians, and both came running at her voice.

[Chewbacca, ten thousand apologies. The ship is not quite ready for you,] said Jowdrrl. [I have twenty minutes of work left in the upper gun turret.]

[Explain.]

[I meant it as my gift to Han Solo, in gratitude for your life. I expected to be finished before you returned—]

Chewbacca bared his teeth. [What gift?]

[Cousin, I studied the ship closely while it was in our care. I saw certain weaknesses, and Dryanta helped me devise improvements—]

Chewbacca’s grimace grew into a snarl. [Are you telling me that the Falcon is not ready because you have been tinkering with it while I was gone, and it is still in pieces?]

[No, cousin, no. Dryanta and I worked all night to finish what we had planned. I need only to test the new systems. If I return to my work now, I will be done by the time you have loaded and received clearance.]

Dispatching her with a growl, Chewbacca turned angrily to Malla. [Did you know of this?]

[Do not turn your fears for Han into fury at your family,] Malla said reprovingly, her snarl matching the intensity of his. [You did not even stop to consider the value of Jowdrrl’s gift before rejecting it.]

[She should not have presumed to change anything,] Chewbacca grumbled.

[She is your closest cousin, and all too like you,] Malla said. [How long will it take you to reach Coruscant?]

[I am not going to Coruscant. I can do nothing for Han from there,] Chewbacca said. [He is in Koornacht Cluster, so I must go there.]

[But the Princess asked you to come to Coruscant. Go, listen to her message, it’s saved for you on the Falcon.]

[If she then asks me to go to Koornacht, I will have lost hours that Han may not have to spare. And if she does not ask me to go there, I must do so anyway, or betray my honor. So I will go there directly.]

[And what will you do there?]

[Whatever is necessary,] he said. [I must go see what Jowdrrl has done. Will you bring me my blaster from the home tree?]

[I will gather what you will need,] Malla said. [Be forgiving of Jowdrrl. She follows the dictates of her honor conscience, just as you do.]

Growling to himself, Chewbacca turned and climbed the Millennium Falcon’s boarding ramp with long strides. Malla turned to Freyrr and Shoran. [Come,] she said. [I must speak with you, and there is not much time.]

Grudgingly, Chewbacca was forced to admit that Jowdrrl’s modifications to the ship were not only perceptive, but long overdue.

One of the much despised idiosyncrasies of the Corellian YT-1300 stock freighter was the severely restricted field of view from the cockpit. Though the flight crew enjoyed an unobstructed field of view forward and to starboard, visibility aft and to port was virtually nonexistent.

That, plus the extreme offset of the cockpit, made maneuvering or landing a YT-1300 in tight spaces a challenge. Most examples of that model sported five-axis laser-ranging pods as add-ons on the blind side, just forward of the loading port—often installed at the insistence of spooked pilots after a close call with a docking bay wall or another ship. But out of some combination of stubbornness and ego, Han had refused to let Chewbacca install a ranging pod.

“Do you look at your feet when you walk? A real pilot feels where his ship is,” Han had insisted. “I don’t want anyone looking at the Falcon and thinking we need that kind of training-school crutch. Give me a meter of clearance and I’ll fly this thing anywhere. Do you think Lando could have made that run into the Death Star at Endor if he’d depended on ranging pods?”

But the Falcon’s enormous blind spot was an even more serious issue in flight than during landings. That fact was the genesis of the maneuver known to pilots as the