Stowaway Zone

Chewbacca heard a ship approaching and looked to the sky, and howled at the sight of a large gray ship, five levels tall, as long as 20 Millennium Falcons, as it approached the ground it put its legs out to land. It was several long minutes before it finally docked, he saw the boarding ramp lowering and watched as someone stepped off of the ship, and the wookiee went to meet the newcomer.

The person who had just exited the massive ship was dressed in black knee high boots, off-white pants and a long black tunic that was tattered around the edges. At first glance it looked like a man, but it was a woman with dark hair pulled back that was just short of her shoulders. A look of recognition was on her face as she approached the wookiee, and it turned into a familiar smile.

"Chewie," she said as she held her arms out to the sides. She walked up to him and hugged him as the wookiee howled in greeting. "Long time no see, you look great!"

Chewbacca howled amiably as the woman patted one of his furry arms. When she stepped back she asked only, "Where is he?"

He howled and looked towards the west, the sun was setting and it'd be dark before too long. The woman followed Chewbacca up a steep incline and once they reached the top she saw the Falcon and its pilot straight ahead. Han Solo was so far oblivious to the company steadily approaching, he stood on one of the ship's mandibles and had one of the deflector shields open and was working on it and grumbling to himself while he did it.

Han dropped something and swore in frustration, then turned and said, "Chewie, hand me the-" the rest of the sentence died on his lips and his eyes widened at the sight of the woman approaching. He climbed down and faced her as she drew nearer, with the wookiee staying several feet behind her.

She stopped a few feet away from him, stood with her feet shoulder width apart and folded her arms against her chest and was beaming from ear to ear as she looked at him.

He blinked and took a step forward, "Charon?"

"Hey Han," she replied, "how've you been?"

A couple sounds formed and died in his throat before he could get an actual word out, and instead of answering her question, he asked her, "What're you doing here?"

"I picked up your distress signal and traced you here," she answered.

He scowled at her, "I didn't send a distress signal."

"Yes you did," she replied as she moved over towards him.

"I did not," he insisted.

"Well congratulations then," she told him, "because this tin can of yours is smarter than you are."

"No no no," Han shook his head, readily looking for an argument, "there's no way it could send a distress signal, I've got the signal on this thing jammed so well, nobody can pick it up."

"Well I'm here, which proves otherwise," Charon stood her ground with a smile. "What's wrong with it now? Won't fly?"

"Oh no, it'll fly," Han insisted, then added reluctantly, "...just not for very long."

Charon was still grinning as she told him, "Lucky for you it's my off-season, otherwise I'd be on the other side of the galaxy now."

"You still got the ferry?" Han inquired.

"Over there," Charon nodded her head, "I guess you were too engrossed in your work to notice."

"Something like that."

"Well why don't you bring it on over and I'll have my guys take a look at it?" she asked.

He glared at her, "They don't know anything about the Falcon."

"And you don't seem to be having much luck," she pointed out. "Come on, let someone else kill a few hours on it. How long have you been out here losing your mind?"

Chewbacca took it upon himself to answer.

"She didn't ask you," Han told him.

"Come on, Han," she said, "fly it into the hold and we'll give you guys a lift while some of the crew work on it."

He wanted to refuse, and he tried. "You don't know where we're going."

"And you know we can only get there one sixth as fast as your ship can even with the hyperdrive," Charon replied, "but the offer's still good." She leaned over and added mischievously, "Come on, cowboy, what've you got to lose?"

Han was glad it was starting to get dark, he could feel a surge in his cheeks at that nickname; he hated it, at least he wanted to hate it, and she knew this and she delighted in throwing it around whenever they saw each other, simply because she knew it could get this reaction out of him, every time without fail, his face got warm and his mouth curled upward into a smile, even when he didn't want to. He'd tried to stop the effect by thinking of a hundred different things, even what Jabba was likely to do to him if he didn't get him paid back for the load he dropped, but nothing seemed to work.

"Alright," he conceded, "alright," he let out a combination sigh/groan and tried to sound put out by the offer, "If you insist. Off-season you say?"

Charon nodded, "You understand of course I'm still taking on passengers, but it's nowhere near as crowded as usual."

"That's good to know," he said.

As he tried to move past her, she reached out and poked him in the chest and told him, "Not so fast, first thing's first."

He laughed, "You never change, do you?"

She shook her head, "Nope, fare please."

"Okay, okay," Han took out a couple coins and dropped them in her black gloved hand. He tried to move again and this time she tapped him in the stomach with her fist and nodded her head towards Chewbacca.

"Seriously?" he asked.

She just grinned at him and remarked, "You're lucky, wookiees only travel half price."