The first thing that grabbed Han Solo's attention as he and Chewbacca stepped up the boarding ramp was the deafening roar of an amass of tools being used on the ship. He looked around and was in awe, Charon seemed to have a full crew working for her and all of them were strewn clear through the deck working on something or other.
It was a struggle to actually hear Chewbacca roaring over the noise of the men working.
"No, Chewie," he answered with a slow shake of his head, "This is definitely not typical for any ferry."
From an upper deck they heard somebody call, "Heads up down there!" and both looked in time to see a large metal beam falling towards them. Chewie howled angrily as he caught it two seconds before it would've crushed them.
"Good catch," Han noted, and bellowed up the stairs, "Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Sorry, sir!" the young man called down.
A dark copper colored humanoid droid made its way over towards them, its photoreceptors lit up red as it searched each of them for any recognition hits and when it came up empty it asked them in an borderline polite tone, "Are you the engineer the captain sent for?"
"No," Han shook his head.
"Oh, alright then, I will tell you our rates: a one-way fare for one person is 20 credits, a round-trip fare is 35 credits, wookiees are 10 credits-"
Han cut him off, asking in disbelief, "You're actually traveling like this?"
"Well no," the droid answered, "the ferry leaves port in 6 days and 14 hours, but if you would like to make your reservation early..."
"Hey rust bucket, we're not passengers," Han told him, "the captain invited us on. Where is she?"
"Oh...let me see...the captain is..." the droid went silent, and his body went stiff, and for a few seconds nothing happened, then he started to make a sound that had Han and Chewie looking at each other, wondering if he was going to blow up, right now he sounded like a motor on a land speeder refusing to turn over. Then the noise quit as suddenly as it started and he resumed, "below deck in the storage hold."
"How do you know that?" Han asked.
"My databank feeds into the ship's comm system, there's no audio on the storage hold's link but there is visual. Oh, oh, wait...now she is entering the cargo elevator, now-"
"Save it, we'll catch her on the way up," Han said as he and Chewie headed over to the elevator door.
Chewbacca grunted something as they waited.
"I never had much use for droids myself," Han replied as he looked around and saw how much of the crew seemed to be mechanical, "but on a ship this size, you'd about have to have them."
The elevator door opened and Charon stepped out and fluidly entered into the conversation, "Something the old time ferrymen refused to accept."
Han looked at her with a dumbstruck expression, she pointed out, "The elevator has a comm system too, genius. Decided to take me up on my offer?"
"It was more Chewie's idea, he's never been on a ferry before," Han answered.
"Sure," she sarcastically replied.
Han took another look at the men and machines working tirelessly: moving, hauling, tightening, connecting and welding all sorts of things.
"When you said overhaul, you weren't kidding," Han commented.
"You don't know the half of it," Charon replied. "We work while we're transporting passengers and we work nonstop when we dock and the place is empty for a few days. It's a never ending cycle and it's both vicious and exhausting."
That thought of telling Charon to junk it all and come away with him and they'd figure out a new plan was starting to rise up in Han's mind again. He settled for asking her, "So why don't you just walk away from it?"
"I can't," she answered, "this ferry's such a credit pit in its current state I'm currently facing an ultimatum of paying the crew or feeding them, walking away's not an option, failing is not an option, this has to work."
Han felt a strange sensation as he stood there facing her. Charon had turned out to be far more responsible than he'd ever figured her for, which wasn't to say anything bad about her, but the way they grew up it was every man for himself. He couldn't believe she'd be willing to stay and crash with these people.
Chewbacca howled and Han's eyes widened when he heard what his friend was proposing. He turned to argue with him but realized it was a fight he'd never win, and Chewie had a point.
"Since we're stuck here for a few days ourselves," he reluctantly said to Charon, "I can get my tools and we'll see what we can do to help you out."
Charon shook her head, "I appreciate it, but no thanks."
"Oh come on," as much as Han didn't relish the idea of getting sucked into working on this white bantha of a ship, he hated even more the idea of his help (and presence) not being welcome. "There's no way in hell you guys will be ready to leave port in a week."
"You might have a point," Charon reluctantly conceded, she looked at him and asked, "You know anything about a hyperdrive for a ship this size?"
"The ferries don't have hyperdrive," Han remembered.
"They didn't use to, we've got one but we need it installed," Charon told him.
Suddenly Han Solo felt curious.
"I'll see what I can do."
"Han...Han...hey cowboy!"
"Ah!" Han jolted awake and shot up from wherever he'd fallen asleep, which he realized was in a ball on one of the benches where the passengers sat. He looked around and didn't immediately remember anything and asked, "What time is it?"
"Who knows?" Charon handed him a cup of something. "The caf takes like toxic sludge but it's all we got."
"Nobody drinks caf for the taste," he replied, but still made a sour face when he got a mouthful of it. He forced it down and asked her, "So...why the ferry?"
"What do you mean?" she asked as she sat down on the next bench.
"I mean these things have always been the slowest, most excruciating way to travel," Han said.
"So doesn't it make sense to overhaul everything about them?" she pointed out.
"Sure, but why bother in the first place?" he asked.
"I've been working on the ferries for five years," she told him, "when the old man died it made the most sense to take it over, I know the ins and outs of them like the back of your hand."
"Five years?" Han couldn't believe what he'd heard. "Why?"
She shrugged, "There's not much else I'm qualified for, that's legal anyway. What else was I going to do, join the Imperial Navy as a TIE fighter?"
"Point taken," he replied.
She looked at him and told him determinedly, "Being poor I have had to do a lot of things that I did not want to do...I've ridden on ferries most of my life, it's what I know...so why not stick with it?"
Han shrugged, "I guess it is job security."
"Oh don't get me wrong, it was a lot more fun just bouncing around from place to place taking what we could," Charon told him, "but these days I need something a little more routine where I know what to expect."
"Except there doesn't seem to be anything routine about anything going on right now," he observed.
"I know," she replied, "I'm hoping soon we can get all the kinks worked out and get back to business as usual...and I'm hoping the ferry starts doing better than usual. Oh, what about the hyperdrive? Did it work?"
"You'll never do the Kessel Run in this behemoth, it was a little small for the system but it should get you to where you're going faster than before," he answered.
"Thank you," she told him as she stood up, "I wish there was something I could do for you after all the help you guys have been."
"Eh, don't mention it," Han said as he got up.
"What's that?" Han asked when he boarded his ship and saw a large box of parts sitting in the middle of the main hold.
Chewbacca grunted in answer.
"I can see that," Han replied, "where'd it come from?"
Chewie had an answer for that too.
"Oh yeah?" Han asked. "Who brought it on board?"
The wookiee snarled and shrugged.
"You didn't see who brought it?"
Chewbacca made a sound that resembled sneezing and shook his head. Han pored over the contents and had to agree with his fuzzy friend, "Yeah, looks like some of the stuff we need..."
Chewie snorted questioningly.
"I'm not sure," Han answered. "See what you can do with it and I'm going to go pay the ferryman a little visit."
Han entered the captain's quarters and looked around and found himself alone. "Charon? ...Charon? Stupid droid, 'tuned into the ship's comm system' my afterburners."
He looked around the place and realized it probably hadn't changed much since the last captain died. It was sparsely furnished and very sterile and impersonal. He moved over towards the wall and found a door, opening it he saw it was a closet and saw a few sets of clothes hanging up. But something else caught the smuggler's eye, towards the back he found a set of body armor commonly worn by bounty hunters and a carbine blaster.
He heard a door open behind him and he spun on his heel and saw Charon entering the room, dripping wet from the fresher and draped in a towel, who stopped when she saw him but didn't look all that surprised to see him.
"Forget something?" she asked.
In the moment Han had forgotten why he'd originally come there, he gestured to the armor and tried to ask what it was about, somehow he just knew it hadn't belonged to the old man, but for some reason the question wouldn't come.
Charon stepped over towards him and saw what he was pointing at and made a small sound of acknowledgement.
"You remember earlier I mentioned having to do things I didn't want to do? I did a short stint of bounty hunting before I joined the ferry."
"Bounty hunting?" Han made a sound in his throat and cynically added, "Impressive."
"Think it's any worse than what you did?" Charon asked.
"Never said it was," he shook his head.
Charon moved past him and took a change of clothes out of the closet, but made no move to change as she told him, "The pay's good but you need a carbonite constitution to do that kind of work and I just couldn't stay with it too long."
"How long?" he wanted to know.
"I did three jobs...then I went to work on the ferry," she answered. "Then I had to swallow my pride and do it again. My last job was for some guy named Jabba the Hutt."
"I know Jabba," Han told her, "I've done a couple jobs for him."
"Not bounty hunting," she said.
"No, Jabba likes spice, lots and lots of spice," Han answered.
"Among other things," she replied. "I worked for him a few months ago, put myself out as a freelance hunter offering my services, he was looking for a guy that stiffed him, his men couldn't catch the guy, so I took care of it. I hate to say it, but the money I got from Jabba is the only reason the ferry's still up and running, as bare boned as it is."
"That's rough," Han commented.
"Well there was a slight upside to it," she said, "once I handed over the bounties there was no further need for their ships, so I brought them back here and I have the crew scrap them for any usable parts, saves us a few credits in the long run."
"So that's where the parts on my ship came from," Han said.
She shrugged, "It was the least I could do after all the work you and Chewbacca did for us."
"Well how'd you know what we needed?" he asked. He definitely remembered Charon hadn't been present for that discussion.
She smirked at him and answered dryly, "Oh honey, that ship needs everything short of the galley sink. It'd need a few gallons of miracle water if I could get any."
In spite of himself and the situation, Han laughed. These kinds of conversations were one of the things he'd sorely missed over the years.
"It's been great to see you again," he told her.
She smiled at him, "It's been great to see you too and know you ain't gotten yourself killed yet." Han laughed again, Charon added, "I suppose that wookiee will be helping with that little job from here on."
Even after all the years apart, some things were still reflex. Han instinctively reached to kiss her but he stopped himself at the last minute. He had to keep reminding himself that was the past, they weren't married anymore, he'd seen to that, and if he allowed himself to forget now, he was just putting a target on Charon's head again, and he wasn't going to do that, no matter what.
"I guess I better get going," he said.
"Great, you can start by getting the hell out of here so I can put on my under-things," Charon sarcastically responded as she gestured to the door.
"You always did have such a way with words," he replied teasingly as he headed for the door. He stopped just short of exiting, and turning back to the ferryman he added somberly, "I hope I see you again sometime."
She nodded, "Me too. Goodbye, Han."
A/N: One more chapter to go.