Star Wars_ Young Jedi Knights 01_ Heirs of the Force - Kevin J. Anderson [11]
"I took care of that hours ago," he said, emerging in his clean, fresh robe. He heaved a long-suffering sigh. "At least someone's had their morning meal."
Jaina gnawed her lip, anxiously scanning the sky for any glimmer that might herald the arrival of the Millennium Falcon. She and Jacen stood at the edge of the wide clearing in front of the Jedi academy, where the hideous monster had appeared the day before. The area's short grasses had been trampled down by frequent takeoffs and landings.
Jaina smelled the rich green dampness of the early morning in the jungle that surrounded the clearing. The foliage rustled and sighed in a light breeze that also carried the trills, twitters, and chirps that reminded her of the wide profusion of animal life that inhabited the jungle moon.
Beside her, Jacen shifted impatiently from one foot to the other, a frown of concentration etched across his forehead. Jaina sighed. Why did it seem like everything took forever when you were looking forward to it, and things that you didn't want to happen arrived too soon?
As if sensing her tension, Jacen suddenly turned to her with a mischievous look in his eye. "Hey, Jaina-you know why TIE fighters scream in space?"
She nodded. "Sure, their twin ion engines set up a shock front from the exhaust-"
"No!" Jacen waved his hand in dismissal. "Because they miss their mothership!"
As was expected of her, Jaina groaned, grateful for a chance to get her mind off waiting, even if only for a moment.
Then a comforting hum built and resonated around them, as if the sound of their mounting excitement had suddenly become audible. "Look," she said, pointing at a silver-white speck that had just appeared high above the treetops.
The glimmer disappeared for a few moments and then, with a rush of exhaled breath that she hadn't realized she'd been holding, Jaina saw the Millennium Falcon swoop across the sky toward the clearing.
The familiar blunt-nosed oval of their father's ship hovered tantalizingly above their heads for a moment that seemed to stretch to eternity. Then, with a burst of its repulsor-lifts, it settled gently onto the ground in front of them. The Falcon's cooling hull buzzed and ticked as the engines died down to a low drone. The scent of ozone tickled Jaina's nostrils.
Jaina knew the shutdown procedures for the Corellian light freighter, but she wished that just for today there was some way to speed things up.
When she thought she could wait no longer, the landing ramp of the Falcon lowered with a whine-thump.
And then their father bounded down the ramp, gathering the twins into his arms, ruffling their hair, and trying to hug both of them at once, as he had done when they were small children.
Han Solo stepped back to take a good look at his children. "Well!" he said at last, with one of those lopsided grins for which he was so famous. "Except for your mother, I'd say this is the finest welcoming committee I've ever had."
"Dad," Jacen said, rolling his eyes, "We are not a committee."
As her father laughed, Jaina took a moment to study him, and was relieved to note that he had not changed in the month that they had been gone from home. He wore soft black trousers and boots that fitted him snugly, an open-necked white shirt, and a dark vest-a comfortable, serviceable set of clothes that he sometimes jokingly referred to as his "working uniform." The battered, familiar shape of the Millennium Falcon was unchanged as well.
"How do we look, Dad?" Jaina asked. "Any different?"
"Well, now that you mention it..." he said, turning his gaze to each of them in turn. "Jacen, you've grown again-bet you even caught up with your sister. And Jaina," he said with a wicked grin, "if I didn't think you'd throw a hydrospanner at me for saying so, I'd