Star Wars_ The Han Solo Adventures - Brian Daley [218]
He leaned toward her and she didn’t turn away. And then he kissed her. There was some question as to who was more surprised. Without parting, they settled into a more comfortable embrace, and gave the kiss serious attention. Skynx’s music carried them along.
She shoved herself free at last. “Han, oh, I—stop it; please, stop!” He retreated, confused. “The last thing I need is to get involved with you.”
Sounding wounded, he asked, “What’s wrong with me?”
“You run all over people and you never take anything seriously, for starters. You joke through life with that silly smirk on your face, so sure of yourself I want to bounce a rock off your skull!”
She kept him at arm’s length. “Solo, my sister Lanni inherited Dad’s Guild book, so she had pilot’s status here in the Tion. But I had to work any job I could get. Mess-hand, housegirl, sanit-crew, I’ve done them all in the camps, the mines, the factories. I’ve seen your type all my life. Everything’s a big laugh, and you can charm the daylights out of people when you feel like it, but you’re gone the next day and you never look back. Han, there are no people in your life!”
He protested, “Chewie—”
“—is your friend,” she cut him off, “but he’s a Wookiee. And you’ve got that pair of mechanical cohorts, Max and Bollux, and that hotshot starship of yours, but the rest of us are temporary cargo. Where are the people, Han?”
He started to defend himself, but she overrode him. Chewbacca, intrigued, forgot about his next gameboard move.
“I’m sure you drive the portside girls wild, Solo; you look like you just stepped out of a holo-thriller. But I’m not one of them; never was, never will be.”
She softened a bit. “I’m no different from Skynx. On my birthworld there’s a stretch of land my parents used to own. I’m going to get my cut of the treasure, I swear on my blisters, and buy it back if I have to purchase the whole planet. I’ll build a home and take care of Badure, because he took care of Lanni and me. I’ll have things of my own and a life of my own. I’ll share it if I meet the right man, but I’ll live without him if I don’t. Solo, light housekeeping in a starship isn’t my idea of a dream come true!” She drew away from him and went to join Badure, pushing her fingers through the tangles of red hair.
Skynx finished his sad song, then lowered his flute. “I wish I could see the home colony one more time, the air filled with the chroma-wings and their pheromones and the sounds of their wooing. What would you wish for, Captain Solo?”
Staring absently after Hasti, Han shrugged. “Stronger pheromones.”
Skynx started. Then, sides rippling, began chortling in the Ruurian version of convulsive laughter, issuing chittering, high-pitched giggles. Chewbacca loosed a sustained howl of amusement, slapping his thigh with a huge paw, his mane shaking. That started Han chuckling ruefully. He reached up and gave Skynx a push; the Ruurian rolled over onto his back, tittering and kicking his short limbs in the air. A guffaw exploded from Badure and even Hasti, shaking her head in exasperation, shared the joke. Chewbacca, blue eyes tearing, slapped Han’s shoulder, whereupon the pilot fell sideways, barely able to breathe for laughing.
In the midst of it all, the door swept open.
Bollux was ushered in and the door closed before any of them could do more than gape. In another moment they had congregated around the ’droid, elbowing one another, their demands for information and their questions interrupting one another’s.
After a few seconds Badure shouted everyone down. They quieted, realizing he would ask the same questions as they anyway. “What’s happened? Who are those people? What do they want from us?”
Bollux made the strangely human self-effacing sounds he employed in approaching a delicate subject. “There’s rather a surprising story here. It’s somewhat complicated. You see, long ago, there was—”
“Come on, Bollux!” Han shouted, cutting through the cybernetic rhetoric, “What are