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By Root 681 0

Corellian carousel—putting the ship into a slow left-hand roll when making an approach in traffic or maneuvering under fire. Han’s addition of a single high-mounted sensor dish to the Falcon only accentuated the need to use the carousel routinely, since the dish had an even larger blind spot than the pilot.

Jowdrrl had never flown aboard the Falcon, and Chewbacca had never complained about its peculiarities in front of her. But she summed up the problem with one clear, simple truth Chewbacca had not yet managed to impress on his son: [A Wookiee hunter who stands beside a tree hides half the forest from his eyes.]

Jowdrrl’s solution was a simple if not obvious one. Everywhere there was an existing viewport—the port and starboard loading hatches, the dorsal and ventral gun turrets—Jowdrrl had covered it with a custom-fitted optical transducer panel.

The output from all four of the nearly transparent sensors was routed to flatscreen displays in the cockpit, giving the pilot the benefit of the familiar views from those four locations. Together, the new sensors eliminated most of the ship’s blind spot, leaving only a small area directly aft—an area that was already well scanned by the sensor dish.

In explaining what she had done, Jowdrrl changed from Shyriiwook to the Thykarann dialect, which was much richer in technical vocabulary.

she told Chewbacca.

Chewbacca grunted grudging approval.

[I did not have enough time to work on the other problem,] she said, switching back to Shyriiwook, her tone apologetic.

[Which problem is that?]

[That a Wookiee hunter does not have enough hands to climb and aim at the same time.]

Again, her words showed a surprising awareness of the Falcon’s operational realities—in this case, the fact that it was almost invariably undercrewed. The Corellian YT-1300 was officially rated as a four-place freighter for in-system work and an eight-place—four stations, four berths—for interstellar flights.

The cargomaster was expendable, but none of the other three stations was. Even with the cockpit remotes for the gun turrets, it was impossible for two people to simultaneously fly and fight the Falcon effectively. The Falcon had survived most of its gun battles by fighting just long enough and just well enough to make a break.

[The more mouths at the table, the poorer the feast,] Chewbacca said. [And the silent hunt is best undertaken by a party of two. Still, sometimes four hands are not enough.]

Jowdrrl changed dialect again.

Chewbacca said.

said Jowdrrl. She thumbed one of the eight cables used in the cockpit aiming system.

The system Chewbacca had created involved eight motorized cable spools, turning the turret into a mechanical puppet controlled by a joystick in the cockpit.

she said.

[I do not have time to talk about what might be done,]