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Back at the entrance, a hydraulic lift whined as it raised a huge “curtain” of some kind of camouflage net over the entrance. Teams of Wookiees were busily draping the Falcon in more netting.

Chewie came up behind him, and growled a soft apology for not warning his friend better about what was going to happen. “Let me guess,” Han said, surveying the “nets.” “Those things contain either jamming nodes or they send out some kind of camouflage frequency, so the Imps can’t trace us here.”

Chewbacca confirmed Han’s guess. Local Wookiees used this landing site to receive smuggled goods, and they knew the drill.

“Wow,” Jarik muttered. The young man was staring around the “cave” in openmouthed wonder as the lights came up. The inside of the “cave” was a well-stocked, completely functional docking site and repair facility. “Wow! This is something!”

Han still couldn’t believe they were standing inside a tree. No, not a tree, but a tree branch. If one branch of a wroshyr was this big, the idea of the whole tree was mind-boggling. He shook his head. “I gotta admit, Chewie, your people have got a slick operation here.”

After carefully locking the Falcon, Han and Jarik followed Chewie out toward the front of the “cave.” There they were introduced to a crowd of Wookiees. Han had some trouble following the conversation, because he wasn’t used to hearing seven Wookiees talking rapidly all at the same time. Chewbacca was howled at, hugged, thumped, shaken, thumped some more and generally exclaimed over with great joy.

When Chewie introduced Han as his “honor brother” to whom he owed a life debt for freeing him from slavery, Han in turn was in grave danger of being similarly thumped, shaken, etc., but, thankfully, Chewbacca intervened and provided more conventional introductions. Not all of the Wookiees understood Basic, so a lot of translating was necessary.

Three of the Wookiees Han met were relatives of Chewie’s … the Wookiee with the whorls of auburn hair turned out to be his sister, Kallabow. Jowdrrl, a smaller, chestnut colored female (Han was surprised to note that he could actually see a family resemblance!) was a cousin, and Dryanta, a darker brown male, was another cousin. The other four were members of the Wookiee underground resistance movement, who had come in especially to meet Han and negotiate for his cargo.

Motamba was an older Wookiee, a munitions expert whose blue eyes lit up when Han revealed how many boxes of explosive quarrels he had to sell. Katarra was a young Wookiee, younger than Chewbacca, and she was the underground resistance’s leader, as near as Han could tell. The Wookiees listened to her with a great deal of respect. She consulted regularly with her father, Tarkazza, a burly male who was the first Wookiee with black fur Han had ever seen. He had a stripe of silver-colored fur running down his back, which was evidently a family trait, for Katarra had one, too, though her fur was brown and tan.

After several minutes of confusion, Chewbacca roared an order to his friends. Han caught most of it. Something about, “fetch the quulaars.”

What are quulaars? Han wondered.

He soon found out. Two long bag-like pieces of woven fabric—or was it woven hair?—were produced. Chewbacca turned to Han, and pointed from the Corellian to the quulaar. Han stared at his friend, incredulous, and shook his head. “Get inside? You want me and Jarik to crawl into those things? So you can carry us up the trees? No way, pal! I can climb, just as good as you can.”

Chewbacca looked at his friend and shook his head. Then he grabbed Han’s arm, and hustled the Corellian over to the entrance to the cave, and, lifting the camouflage hanging, gestured Han to step outside, onto the lip of the cave.

Jarik had followed them outside, as had the other Wookiees. The youth was confused, having understood almost nothing of what had been said. “Han? What do they want?”

“They want us to crawl into these sacks, kid, so they can haul us up the tree trunks until we can catch the lift for Rwookrrorro. I just told Chewie