Teamwork
"How's that?"
"Oh, yeah, that's good, that's real good."
Leia put her hands on her hips. "If you're going to be sarcastic about this…."
Han looked up at her and winced. "Sorry, it's just the position you have me in and I'm not really familiar with your technique."
Leia winced back at him. "It's something Luke taught me."
The princess' comment startled Han so much that he bumped his head. "Something he taught you while I was frozen in carbonite?" he asked, rubbing a hand over the lump forming on his forehead. "Am I bleeding?"
"You're not bleeding," she responded, swatting him across the head with an oily-rag.
Han looked at his hand, just to make sure. "How soon are we supposed to have this thing together and on-line?"
"By second sunrise, and it's almost first," Leia said looking toward Tatooine's eastern horizon. "Luke really wanted us to have this new vaporator ready for the new owners by the time they arrive."
Han sighed with a shrug. "Well, I guess I could have this done by then."
"Thank you," Leia smiled.
A half hour later, as Tatoo One lifted itself above the horizon, Han bumped his head again. "Son of a jumpin'- Grab that little future handbag before he gets away!"
Leia looked up from the moisture vaporator's control panel. "I've almost got this- EEK!" she screamed as something slithered around her ankles one at a time before sliding into the sand around her feet. "What was that?"
"I don't know, but it's got the last gasket I need to finish this thing," Han said as he crawled out from under the vaporator. "Where did he go?"
"But Han-."
"There he is!" Han shouted, crawling on hands and knees as he chased an orange-skinned lizard under their landspeeder. "Grab me my vibro-blade."
"What?"
"The gasket's stuck on his tail!"
"You are not going to cut off that creature's tail!"
Han bumped his head on the speeder's undercarriage. "Only if I don't catch him I won't," he growled. "He can grow back his tail if he misses it." His hand darted out from underneath the craft, just missing the lizard's tail. "Blast it," he growled in disappointment.
Leia's boot pinned his hand to the sand.
"Blast it!" he roared in pain. "What do you think you're doing?"
Leia sighed. "There's a reason Luke gave us a box of spare parts," she said, bending down to show him the gasket in her fingers. "Will this do?"
Han looked at her then at the lizard who was staring back at him from out of arm's reach. The lizard's forked-tongue flapped out of its mouth and licked its eye. Han couldn't help but feel like it was mocking him. "Yeah, that will probably do."
Tatoo Two was just breaking the horizon as the moisture-vaporator's motor came to life.
"Now, that wasn't so hard, was it?"
Leia smirked at Han. "I don't want to."
"What?"
Leia shook her head. "Whatever it is you're planning to make me pay for this, I don't want to do it," she said, throwing their equipment into the back of the speeder.
Han put on his best devil-may-care smile. "Who says you wouldn't want to do it in the first place?"
Leia couldn't think of anything to say.
End