Anakin sighed at Tahiri. "You're not exactly keeping me calm, you know?"
"I thought you loved being the self-controlled one," she teased.
"I do it for you?" he offered, smiling.
But there was an Imperial Star Destroyer approaching fast, its arrowhead bows bearing down on their freighter. It was close enough that Anakin could see the guns now.
They stayed silent as the TIEs zoomed up and dropped into an escort formation around the freighter.
Anakin had a bad feeling that they weren't just going to ride scattergun while the Chimaera sent over a shuttle with an inspection party.
"Attention, freighter Yavin Turtle," the comm-voice with the Mid-Rim accent repeated. "Power down and stand by to come in on our tractor beam."
"Great," Jaina sighed, flipping switches to shunt power away from the sublight drives. "So much for the boarding committee."
The hull shook around them as the beam locked on. The flanking TIEs spun away almost immediately, their pilots apparently satisfied that the freighter was secure - or paranoid about whatever real threat had brought them to Bespin in the first place.
"It's okay," Anakin breathed. "The worst thing we're carrying is lightsabers."
"That doesn't always stop these guys," Jaina reminded him.
"Hey," Anakin protested. "This is us we're talking about."
"And you don't have a back-up plan?" This from Tahiri, looking curious.
"And that's a Star Destroyer," Jaina emphasized.
He squinted at the Imperial cruiser. "Take out the starboard tractor beam with the quad lasers, and make a spin-break out across that side of their bows for the outer system."
"That easy, huh?" Jaina shook her head. "I guess I'd better stick up here in case they can't bring this crate into their hold straight," she said, flicking her hair back again. "You two want to get back there and provide the welcoming committee?"
"Euphemistic or literal?" Anakin asked, eyeing the Star Destroyer.
Jaina shrugged. "It's your ship. Why should I care if you mess it up, if you deal with this mess?"
Tahiri caught his eye, and grinned. She was clearly liking the idea of fighting back.
"We could use a Wookiee." He shook Lowie by the shoulder. "Come on, big guy. Some people might need disarmed."
With a long note of enthusiasm, offset by intermingled apology to Jaina, the Wookiee stood up, ducked under the hatch, and followed them down the corridor.
"We're really going to beat up the Imperials?" Tahiri asked, swaggering slightly now.
"Uncle Luke and Aunt Mara once gave an entire Star Destroyer the run-around," Anakin shrugged. "And you know about Mom and Dad on the Death Star?"
Tahiri grinned at him. "I like it when you think big, hero-boy."
"Let's just try and not do too much permanent damage?" Anakin asked. "But follow my lead."
Lowie laughed at that, for some reason. Tahiri seemed amused too.
"If they aren't dumb, we'll be nice to them?"
"Something like that, yeah."