HOW DO I DRIVE THIS THING?
Chapter 4
(Han)
The flight to Tralus was smooth and as I expected, Jaina was exhausted. She complained that she wasn't tired all the way till the time she crashed on one of the small bunks I'd put in for the kids when they were younger. We docked in Tralus overnight, and I managed to get about six hours of sleep, so I was good to go when it was time to head for Drall.
Jaina had been awake before me and actually warmed some flatbread with honey and made kaf. It's about the extent of her culinary skills, but she is only twelve. So I'm mystified as to why she doesn't respond when I call her.
"Come on, General, let's move!" I call to her.
No response.
I head back to the lounge, and she's nowhere to be seen. The 'fresher is locked, but it's not like her to take forever in there.
"Honey, we need to get going," I call to her.
"Okay." She sounds real upset. She didn't seem that way till a while ago.
She comes out, her face streaked with tears. "Daddy, can you leave me alone for a few minutes?"
"Sure, sweetie." I head back to the cockpit. My comm indicates an incoming text. It's from Leia.
"She's having her first period," Leia explains. "I told her where to find my supplies but I don't think I have any pain meds. If you can give her some, I think she'll be okay."
I text her back. "Glad you're prepared on the supply thing, because I'd have no idea where to get them."
"Don't make a big deal out of it. Just give her some pain pills and let her rest for a little while. Cramps are nasty."
"Thanks."
Jaina comes up to the cockpit, still looking unhappy, which is understandable because she appears to be in pain.
"Need some Zopran?" I ask her.
She nods. "Yeah, I think so. I don't feel good, Daddy."
"It's okay. I'll drive for a while. You can rest a little longer."
"Okay." If she's like her mom, a short nap and some pain pills will have her back on her feet in no time.
Trying to look at it from her point of view, this has to be miserable. I would think that it's a confusing time and a time when a girl needs her mom. Being stuck alone with Dad is not optimal right now.
Drall is only six standard hours away, and that's at slightly sublight. A bit trickier than Tralus, but not a lot more. Trickier is going to be Brentaal, which is our next port of call after Drall. We'll probably get some dinner at Drall; there's an excellent seafood place I enjoy. Yes, I do have a favorite restaurant nearly everywhere. The one on Drall isn't like Jaix's; you choose what you want cooked, and they hand it to you with plenty of tubers and vinegar and you walk away with a plastipaper bag filled with greasy goodness. Leia loves the place. I wasn't sure how she'd react when I took her there for the first time, but she raved about it. They deep fry everything till it's got a light brown crispy crust. I know it probably clogs arteries. I don't have it often enough to count is my justification.
We're a little bit ahead of schedule, and while I'm piloting alone, I can make up a lot of time.
It's not two hours later when Jaina arrives in the cockpit. She has color in her face again and she's smiling.
"Can I drive?" she asks me.
"Sure. You might wanna slow down a bit. I've been pushing my old girl a little harder than usual."
"Okay. Daddy, do you have any chocolate on board?"
"No, I don't, but we can pick some up at the marketplace on Drall." I'm trying to keep a straight face; she is totally Leia in this regard. I can tell where she is in her cycle by her chocolate consumption.
"Okay."
I slide over into the right hand seat and let her take the captain's chair after I've put her leg wells in place.
She pilots quietly for a while, her microphones from her music device jammed into her ears. As long as we're in a clear stretch, which we are, I don't mind, but I remind her that she has to take them out when we're about 90 minutes out from our landing point on Drall.
So far, she's doing it well. I'll have her land on Drall and drag her to the seafood place.
As for chocolate, there's a bakery nearby that makes an incredible chocolate cake.
"Daddy, when did you know Mom was 'the one?'" Jaina asks me, making air quotes.
"About half an hour after I met her."
"Daddy, I'm serious!"
"So am I. I said to your Uncle Luke, either I'm going to kill her or I'm starting to like her."
"So why'd you start to like her?"
"Because...she had a lot of fight in her. She was brave and outspoken and very, very funny. Later on, I discovered that she was also very sweet and kind, but that took a little time."
"She says you guys argued for like a year."
"The whole base was watching and listening. At least we gave them something amusing to talk about."
"So when did you know you wanted to marry her?"
"Night of the victory celebration for the Battle of Yavin. Which would not have happened had I not gone back for Uncle Luke."
"That's what Mom says."
"I couldn't let him have all the credit."
She laughs. "Why the victory celebration?"
"Oh, she looked beautiful in her white gown, and she smiled at me and stepped on my feet while we danced and I was like, this is the woman of my dreams."
"So then why'd you fight for so long?"
"Because neither of us wanted to admit to ourselves that we liked each other."
"Mom says you guys had your first kiss inside a space slug. Gross."
"We didn't know it was a space slug until we almost got devoured by it. I was looking for a safe place to land. Hyperdrive was down and we had the Imps all over our asses."
"She said you just floated away with the trash, after you landed on an Imperial star destroyer and then you went to Bespin."
"Not one of our more cheerful memories."
"She says you got frozen in carbonite. What's carbonite?"
"One of my many ideas about what hell is like."
"Mom said Uncle Luke rescued you and her."
"That he did. I'd have been dead meat without him."
"And Mom killed Jabba the Hutt. Uncle Luke told me that, not Mom."
"Your mom is amazing."
"What's a Hutt?"
"An oily, slimy, amoral, unethical, reptiloid life form that only cares about squeezing the most money they can from anyone they can shake down."
"You worked for him, didn't you?"
"I worked for a lotta people I hated, sweetie. But I got kicked out of the Imperial Navy - "
"Wait wait wait! The Imperial Navy?"
"Yep."
"You were an Imp?" My daughter seems shocked by this.
"Only for a short time. I wanted a career that involved flying. The Imperial Navy trained for free, and since I didn't have any credits, free was good."
"So why'd you leave?"
"'Cause of your Uncle Chewie."
"Is that why he has a life debt to you?"
"Yep. I was supposed to kill him."
"Kill Uncle Chewie? He's the nicest sentient ever!"
"Yeah, well, the Imps used the Wookiees as slaves. If there's anything that really boils my blood, it's slavery."
"Mom told me that. I mean, the part about how you hate slaving."
"There are a lot of things that are wrong, but everything about slavery is wrong."
"You miss Uncle Chewie? He's the one that usually flies with you."
"Uncle Chewie's a good pilot and a great gunner and yeah, we have a lot of fun together, but I think I like my new copilot just fine."
"Why did you leave the Rebel Army?" she asks me.
"Several reasons. The main one being that I can't stand to salute anyone. I'm not all that well cut out for taking orders."
"Now there's a shock," she says, laughing. "But you take orders from Mom."
"What can I say? She's the boss."
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Jaina does a much smoother landing than she did on Corellia. Drall's not densely populated, so the landing pads aren't as plentiful or as large, but there's a lot less traffic to deal with.
"Nice job, sweetie," I tell her. "Ready for some of the best seafood in the galaxy?"
"Do they have anything chocolate?"
"Bakery in the same marketplace. Order the dark chocolate fudge cake. It'll be a party in your mouth."
"Okay." She's yawning; she'll never admit she's tired, but I can tell. Been kind of a major day for her. And not insignficant for me; my only daughter is now on the way to her journey in becoming a woman, and there's nothing in the universe to stop it.
I order the same thing Leia and I always get and I persuade Jaina to give it a shot. It's not strongly flavored, and the crusts on the tubers and the fish are incredibly light and crunchy.
"Daddy?"
"Yes, honey?"
"Can I have some credits, please?"
"You need something?"
"Chocolate cake. And...stuff."
"Sure." I give her some. Leia's stash may not have been as large as I'd imagined. "Get me a slice, too."
"Thanks." I take care of our orders once they're up, and head to the tables scattered throughout the marketplace. A short time later, Jaina's back, balancing a bakery box and carrying a bag from the apothecary. I then realize that my baby girl is in fact not a baby anymore.
"Eat it while it's hot," I advise her.
She bites in, and she closes her eyes and smiles. "How come we can't get fish this good on Coruscant?"
"Because we don't live near the oceans." There's plenty of seafood available, but not in its just caught state. That makes all the difference.
"We're going to Brentaal next, right?"
"That we are."
"Are we flying tonight?"
"I'm debating. We could, but it's a nine hour flight, and I'm thinking we could both use some sleep. How about we crash out when we get back to the ship and wake up in about nine hours, and then we'll hit Brentaal by midday."
"That sounds good."
"Ooh, Kairos is calling." Kairos is Jaina's best friend. "Hey girlfriend, I'm eating dinner with the old man. I'll text you back. Mwah!"
Wow. I actually won out over her best friend. Hard to believe, but I'm very flattered. Of course, what I should be is suspicious that she's going to start in with 20 Questions again.
"Are you ever gonna take me to Shug's?"
"Sorry, sweetie, no time to get to the Outer Rim on this trip. Shug is gone, but his daughter still runs the place. Maybe someday."
"How about Tatooine? We've never been there."
"Uncle Luke ever tell you about it?"
"Some."
"What'd he tell you?"
"It's got two suns, it's hotter than the nine hells, and it's totally boring."
"All true, but it's where Mos Eisley's located. That's where I met your uncle and Ben Kenobi and got sucked into all this." I smile at the memory. "I did have to kill a bounty hunter who was annoying me, but things like that happen all the time there."
"You killed a bounty hunter?" My daughter's eyes grew three sizes that moment. "That's so cool!"
"I had a number of ways to describe it, but cool wasn't one of them," I tell her.
"Was it human?"
"Rodian."
"They're kind of weird looking."
"I wanted to keep its head and mount it on a plaque in the living room, but your mom doesn't like my taste in decorating." We both laugh. "But the one I really wanted was Boba Fett."
"What kind of name is that?" She looks as if I've told her something ridiculous. Which, in fact, I have.
"The name of the worst bounty hunter I ever came across. But he got his. He's currently being devoured by the Saarlac in the Pit of Carkoon."
"Eeuw."
"No one ever deserved it more."
"I hope I never meet one."
"About that, my baby girl, you are correct."
"I'm not a baby."
"I don't care how old you are. You'll always be my baby girl."
I think she's a little annoyed and also secretly happy that she holds that position in my heart.
We finish the fish and Jaina pulls out the bakery box. "How many slices did you buy?" I ask her.
"I couldn't decide. So I bought all of it."