Star Wars_ Young Jedi Knights 12_ Return to Ord Mantell - Kevin J. Anderson [7]
Han reached around Anakin and patted the droid's domed head in greeting.
"It'll be good to spend some time alone with the family. Just my kids and me," Han said. "A quiet, relaxing vacation."
"Oh, I doubt that, Dad," Jaina said. "From what I hear, there's always something interesting happening on Ord Mantell."
Even if Jacen wasn't entirely thrilled about leaving his close friend Tenel Ka behind for a few days, Jaina reveled in the chance to fly beside her father as his genuine copilot. Although she felt dwarfed by the huge seat that normally accommodated a burly Wookiee, she handled the Falcon with as much expertise as she did the Rock Dragon.
So far it was one of the best times she had ever shared with her father.
Young Anakin, with his ability for grasping problems and solving complex puzzles, studied the navigational charts and considered various paths through hyperspace, until he announced that he had found a perfectly safe shortcut to Ord Mantell.
After Han Solo double-checked Anakin's calculations, he announced that he saw no reason not to try the new route. If his son was right, the new path would cut a full six standard hours off their transit time.
Once the Falcon was in hyperspace, Han said to his children, "Ord Mantell's in the middle of nowhere, but that's not necessarily a disadvantage. A lot of smuggling traffic goes through there. Its position makes the planet about equally close to anyplace else along certain hyperspace paths. So even though it's not exactly convenient, Ord Mantell makes a good way station or stopping point."
"If it's a smugglers' hangout, you probably spent some time there between Derbies-right, Dad?" Jacen asked. "Before you became respectable, I mean."
Han Solo laughed. "Plenty of times, Jacen. I never tried to hide my checkered past from you all. Doesn't seem to bother your mother anymore.
After all, I learned some of my most useful skills when I was a smuggler and a crack pilot-even studied at the Imperial Academy for a while. All that stuff in my past is part of who I am; the things I learned made me a vital asset to the Rebellion when we fought the Empire. I don't spend time regretting what I've done in my life, so long as I can use it now to help the people I love."
Jaina raised her eyebrows. "So if we ever do anything you think is dumb, you'll understand, right? You'll just accept it as part of our growth and training?"
Han knitted his brows. "Uh, that's not exactly what I meant."
Jacen stood leaning against the back of his father's chair in the Falcon's cockpit. "Tell us what you did on Ord Mantell, Dad."
"I ended up there pretty often when I was a smuggler. Seems like every time I went to Ord Mantell I ran into one bounty hunter or another, and every one of 'em meant trouble. One of the worst was an insect creature named Cypher Bos, a mercenary, as vile and selfcentered as they come. He was impersonating his identical hatch-mate brother, who was a Rebel sympathizer. But all those bug-people look alike, and I couldn't tell the difference. Cypher Bos sold us out and almost captured your mom and Luke and me. Then the three of us nearly got fed to the Imperials by a cyborg bounty hunter named Skoff. They just never learn." He shook his head.
"But one of the worst pinches I ever got into was against a tough smuggler named Czethros, and his Rybet henchman Brim. They were licensed bounty hunters, as well as black-marketeers in the Ord Mantell system, and had some connection to Black Sun. When Chewie and I were in a tight situation once with the Falcon, we had to land on Ord Mantell and get repairs. The system was crawling with Imperials, but we made it without getting stopped.
"When Czethros found out I was on Ord Mantell, he and his pal set up a trap, kidnapped Chewie." Han gave a halfhearted grin as he relived the memory of his bygone adventure. "Told me to give myself up for the reward, or he'd kill my Wookiee friend."