"It's people like this that give space pirates a bad name," Han commented as he and Gwynplaine sat in a dark cold dungeon cell aboard the ship that attacked them.
What had happened was still a bit of a blur, they were rammed, shot at, and then pulled in by the enemy ship's tractor beam. The hatch had been forced open and something had been dropped in that when it exploded it temporarily blinded and deafened everybody. During that time, all three of them had been manhandled and forced off the Falcon and onto the other ship.
Han didn't know how much time had passed but around the time he could start to see lights and hear sounds he was aware of several people screaming in his ear, it took a few minutes for him to realize they were asking questions, asking being a loose term, they were screaming every question in his face and spitting on him in the process. It didn't take long for him to reach the conclusion they had hijacked the wrong ship, literally, based on the demanding interrogations being blared into both ears as he was getting the hell beat out of him, it was obvious they had intended to do this to someone else who would actually have an answer to all those questions. It didn't dawn on them they had the wrong ship and the wrong crew and it didn't do him any good to try and point that out. He and the girl had been thrown into this cell that was so antiquated there were bars on a hinged door that swung when it was unlocked, and the last he knew, they'd hauled Chewbacca off for further interrogation, he almost felt sorry for the poor bastards who had no idea what they'd just gotten themselves into. But that had been a while ago, and everything had been quiet since.
Gwynplaine paced anxiously in the dank cell, she hadn't said a word since they'd been locked in, and as far as Han's memory served, she hadn't been manhandled near like he had. While she paced, Han sat against one of the cold walls and tried to figure what the next move was.
Finally the silence was broken when the kid stopped in her tracks and out of nowhere asked him, "Will they kill the wookiee?"
The question was so unexpected that Han's mind couldn't even think for a minute. He opened his mouth and a single laugh came out, and it was followed by another, and another, and another, every laugh an individual sound in itself and just enough breath in between to distinguish between one and the next, each one got a little bit louder until his chest rose and fell with every single guffawing sound escaping him, to the point he could hardly breathe, his eyes were just about squinted shut and one burned as a stray tear jerked itself loose and slid down the corner of his eye, and were it not for the wall behind him, he would've tipped over and fallen flat on the ground.
It was a good couple minutes before the smuggler was able to compose himself, he took in a couple deep breaths that half came back out through his nose in a snort as he tried to pull himself together. He took in another breath, and was actually able to swallow, before he responded to her, "That's a good one." It was the hardest he ever remembered laughing at anything, and truth be told there weren't a lot of those instances to compare it to.
Gwynplaine didn't see the humor in it and was completely lost as she asked him, "What do you mean?"
"He," Han answered, "is far more likely to kill them. If they don't know what they've gotten themselves into, they're about to find out." He sounded amused as the prospect of it.
"But what do we do?" Gwynplaine asked.
"What is there to do?" he replied. "They took our weapons, there's no way in hell we can bust that lock, there's nothing to do but wait."
"Wait for what?" she asked.
Through the walls of the dungeon they heard a faint sound of a wookiee howling, something crashing and people screaming.
"That, for starters," Han said as he stood up.
The noises carried on for a moment, then got louder, then the door to the room opened, a shaft of light faintly illuminated the corridor outside the cell, and Chewbacca came into view.
"Chewie!" Han reached through the bars on the door to hug his friend, "Am I glad to see you, let's get the hell out of here."
The wookiee grunted and nodded, then Han stood back as he grabbed the bars of the door and letting out a particularly loud howl, ripped it off its ancient hinges.
Gwynplaine ducked around Han and dashed out of the hole where the door used to be and made a beeline through the corridor to try and find her way back to where they'd been brought aboard the ship. As she turned a corner in the main hall and started up a circular set of stairs, she screamed as she felt something grab her. Looking down, she sat somebody had grabbed her by the ankle and was trying to pull her down. It was a young man, who didn't look much older than her, tall and lanky with short dark hair and a boyish face, his voice was slightly older as he told her, "You cannot escape."
She tried to pull her foot out of his grasp but he wouldn't let go. She reached into the boot on her other foot and pulled out the same knife she'd stabbed the Pompeian with, and with her other hand she reached behind her back and pulled a second knife out of its hiding place down the waistband of her pants. Gripping the two at their hilts equally, Gwynplaine raised them up and drove them both down into the opposite sides of the young man's neck at the same time.
"Where'd the kid go?" Han asked as he and Chewbacca ran through the corridor leading out of the dungeon.
There was a sound like something exploding mingled with Gwynplaine screaming, and Han felt his stomach drop as he followed the sounds, running even faster, dreading what he was going to find.
"Kid!" He turned the corner and found Gwynplaine sprawled over the bottom of a stairwell, her eyes were wide, her hair stood up in spikes and she was screaming hysterically at a body laying a couple feet from her.
"Kid! Are you okay?" Han ran over to see what had happened, and he skidded to a stop when he saw the body smoking. "What the hell?"
It looked like a boy fresh off the moisture farm, he was dressed in black clothes, sprawled on his side, his eye was open and unblinking. Han grabbed his arm and turned him over and stepped back with a grimace as he saw the flesh on the other half of the body had been chewed up, melted, something, it looked like chewed up gum, a hissing sound emanated from the corpse where the flesh was eaten away. Underneath there were wires and circuits that had shorted out, small sparks still jumped off the wires.
"What the hell?" he repeated as he looked on at this in a complete stupor.
The only thing that drew him out of his thoughts was the sound of the girl screaming. He went over to her, grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet, Gwynplaine continued screaming and struggled as he tried to get her to move. He found himself staring again into the dead but not dead face, it looked so lifelike, like it had been a real boy.
"It's a droid," he said as much for the girl's benefit as to remind himself. He couldn't get over how much like a human it looked.
Gwynplaine became a hysterical dead weight against him, he grabbed her by both arms and shoved her along. He looked down at the droid again and said with a sneer of disgust, "They're making those things too damn realistic these days."
A familiar howl got his attention and he saw Chewbacca heading their way. Just the person he wanted to see.
"Chewie," he forced Gwynplaine along a few feet and told his big furry friend, "Take the girl and get back on the Falcon, I'll be there in a minute."
With apparent ease the wookiee picked the girl up in his arms and took off running for the escape hatch. Han found an open doorway to a familiar looking room and he saw his blaster and a few other things he'd had on him laying on a table in the room. He grabbed his stuff, hopped out the door, took one final look at the droid on the floor, and his attention was drawn to one of the hands, it was still moving. It looked exactly like a human hand, the fingers curled, and uncurled, and curled again.
The hand shorted out with the rest of the mechanical body as Han stomped it to proverbial 'death'. It was no big surprise the kid was screaming her head off, even he could feel his own skin crawling at the little he'd seen of the thing.
He found his way to the hold of the ship where the Falcon had been brought aboard. Quickly making his way onto his own ship, he headed for the cockpit to get them the hell out of there, Chewie and the girl weren't there, but he knew they'd gotten onboard so he went to work starting the ship up. A few minutes later the Millennium Falcon had left the space pirates' ship in the space dust, and with no apparent obstacles dead ahead, he decided it was safe to get up and check on the others.
Entering the lounge, he stumbled on an unusual sight of Chewbacca with his arms wrapped around Gwynplaine to hold her in place as she struggled and screamed.
"I got it, Chewie, let go of her."
With a reluctant howl, the wookiee did as he said and released his hold on the girl. Han grabbed her by the arm to get her attention and tried to talk her down but she was too worked up to listen to reason, she screamed in a higher octave as she broke loose and lashed out and hit him. On a reflex, he retaliated and smacked her hard enough she fell flat on the floor. Then she got quiet.
The whole room was quiet as Han realized what he'd done. Gwynplaine was sprawled on the floor looking up at him, her bottom lip was split and blood was trickling down to her chin.
The words stuck in his throat, two small words that he made a habit of never saying. He never thanked anyone for anything, and he never apologized for anything, even though his mind was screaming at him for it now.
Instead, he grabbed her by the hand and pulled her to her feet, and just said, "Come on, let's get that looked at."
Han had just finished doctoring up Gwynplaine's lip when he saw something and grabbed her hand and noticed the black marks that stained her fingertips.
Suddenly it all fit. He looked at her and said in realization, "You shorted out that droid."
She pulled her hand loose from his grip, she was shaking as she explained, "He grabbed me...I thought he was real...so I..."
Han remembered what happened on Pompeia, "Yeah I have a good idea what you did."
"He exploded," she continued, "I was thrown five feet across the room...I thought he was dead...then his hand moved, it tried to grab me...it looked so real."
"I know," he replied.
He noticed that she was still shaking, and now he was picking up on a strange sound, it took him a few seconds to realize it was her teeth chattering. He picked up his jacket and held it out for her and said, "Here, put this on."
With a slight shiver, she grabbed it and slipped it on. "Thank you." It was so quiet he almost didn't hear it. After a moment she asked him, "So now what?"
"I need to track down somebody and make a payment to them," Han said.
"When?" she asked.
"It's gonna take a few days to get there," he answered. "And in the meantime, it's late, go to sleep."
She opened her mouth and took in a noisy breath that indicated she was going to talk, then she exhaled it back out, and asked him, "Are you going to yell at me again?"
He squinted one eye in puzzlement, "About what?"
"Can I get a drink from the bar first?"
That got a small laugh out of him. "Yeah, sure, go ahead."
Things had been slow and peaceful for a while, so Han decided it was as good of a time as any to temporarily land and do a more extensive job of repairs to the Falcon after they got sideswiped. He wasn't particularly familiar with the small planet they'd docked on to do it, but it seemed fairly uninhabited which was always a good sign where he was concerned. As they headed down the ramp with the tools in hand, he felt somebody tap him on the shoulder. He turned around and saw Gwynplaine standing behind him.
"Can I help?" she tried again.
"Yeah, sure, just stay out of the way," he told her.
There was enough sunlight left in the planet's day they were able to get a couple more hours' work done on the ship, which left the smuggler confident that it could withstand about anything again, and just in time, the sun was about to set, and he was willing to take his chances on an uncharted planet when he could see what was coming his way, but he wasn't too hot on the idea of staying around after dark when who knew what could be lurking around out there just waiting to-
Han let out a scream as the ground beneath him gave way as soon as his foot made contact with it, and he felt himself falling. Suddenly he was looking down into a massive pit that had been concealed with debris, somebody's idea of a booby trap. It took him a few seconds to realize he was only half in the pit and still hovering over it. He felt somebody holding onto him by the back of his belt and heard a struggling grunt as Gwynplaine tried to pull him back, but for all her efforts he knew she couldn't do it, and any second they were both going to fall a couple hundred feet to sudden doom.
A familiar wookiee roar sent a gush of relief through his body as a few seconds later he felt them both being pulled clear back from the hole. He lay crumbled on the ground for a minute and as he tried to catch his breath he heaved out, "Thanks, Chewie."
As he got to his feet, his ego refused to let this be the final word on the subject. He found himself turning to Gwynplaine and telling her, "Now I know that looked like I fell, but it was all part of the plan."
"Are you trying to convince me of that or yourself?" Gwynplaine replied innocently.
He stabbed a finger towards the Falcon and barked at her, "GET GOING!"
His outburst was enough to draw a startled scream out of the girl as she turned and ran for the boarding ramp.
Han Solo let out a few Corellian swears he hadn't used in many years as he chucked the bag of credits on the table after he got a chance to count it and realized most of it was gone. He wished Chewbacca hadn't killed all the pirates on that ship so he could have the pleasure of doing it himself. In one night he'd gone from having enough money to start getting himself back in Jabba's good graces and not have to worry about every bounty hunter looking for him, to now he barely had enough to get from one end of the galaxy to the other. Now all the little problems that had been eating at him for the past several days were starting to come back. Not only that, he'd burnt his bridges with Khan when he killed Voldo. Khan was a shrewd businessman, and losing some of his men might be part of the cost of business, but a guy like that would not understand wasting someone making a sizeable offer for a woman.
"That stupid kid," he grumbled half to himself, "If it wasn't for her none of this would've happened."
He played it all back in his head. If it hadn't been for that annoying stowaway, he could've gotten to Hexlan on time, gotten the weapons delivered as agreed, gotten paid as agreed, left the door open for future dealings with Khan, happily been on his way, already gotten to the other side of the galaxy, never run into the space pirates, kept his full profit, and been able to start paying Jabba back. But no, that girl had to decide she'd sneak onboard and hitch a ride out of Ar-ra, and that's where his problems had really started. He should've left her there as soon as they doubled back and touched down. He still could've made the delivery on time, and wouldn't have had any of these problems on his hands to deal with.
Chewbacca's grunting howl brought him out of his thoughts, he opened his eyes and only then realized he'd closed them. With a sigh, he silently conceded that his friend was right, no matter how much he wanted to blame what happened on that girl, not only was getting mad at her not going to solve anything, but he just didn't have the energy to waste on it. He could curse her a million times in his head, but he was too exhausted to actually give breath to any of them. It wasn't her fault. He'd seen what she was facing back there, he wouldn't have stayed either, they were the only ship heading out, of course she'd escape on it, and it wasn't her fault he was too stupid to ditch her the first chance he got. He was stuck with her, now he had to figure out what to do with her, and he wasn't any closer to an answer there than he was when they started.
Speaking of...he turned in his seat and looked around, and saw Gwynplaine slumped over the hologame table asleep.
The smuggler dragged his tired bones out of his seat, forced himself to march over to the table, grabbed Gwynplaine by the arms and pulled her to her feet and walked her over to the bunks and got her settled on the one she'd been using since her first night with them.
He looked at her for a minute, and wasn't sure how, but she seemed to get even younger when she was asleep. She was already too young to be bouncing around the galaxy in his company, but when her eyes and her mouth were shut and she wasn't on her guard, more years seemed to just fall off, she was genuinely a pup.
A sigh escaped him before he realized he was the one even making the noise. He really had no idea what he was going to do. Absently he placed a hand on her shoulder that was still clad in his jacket.
A startled gasp escaped Gwynplaine's mouth and she half shot up in the bunk and was looking around even though her eyes were barely open, "What is it? What's going on?"
Han drew his hand back, feeling like an idiot. "False alarm, kid, go back to sleep."
She did, almost instantly. For some reason he still found himself watching her for a few minutes. After a while she rolled over onto her side so her back was facing him. He moved his foot to turn and leave, but something stopped him. He found himself staring at her again.
Gwynplaine's hair was still standing on end in parts from the shock of the droid shorting out, including all the little hairs on the nape of her neck, and now that they were standing up, he could see something.
Just barely, but it was there.
He didn't even turn around, he backed up to the doorway and called out, "Chewie, come in here, be quiet."
Hearing the wookiee's approaching footsteps, he moved forward again so he was only two feet from the bunk. The redheaded kid was still sleeping like the dead.
Chewbacca entered the room and went over to Han, who just stood where he was, and nodded towards the girl, "Chewie, am I seeing things, or is that what I think it is?"
The wookiee looked and made a snorting sound in response.
Right where the hair grew in at the top of Gwynplaine's neck was a small blue mark, a tattoo, two squiggly lines running up parallel, and two running vertical parallel. A tattoo that wasn't common, but he'd seen it before.
"The Vomanor royal family," Han got out in a whisper that could hardly believe it.
The two turned and exchanged a look. Han suddenly felt strange, he was lightheaded, something was pounding like crazy in his chest, he moved unsteadily on his feet as he left the room and headed for the cockpit. As soon as he sat down at the controls, he heard Chewie joining him.
"We're..." the words died on his lips as he still tried to make any sense of this. He sucked in another breath and said more determinedly, "We're turning around...we're going to Alavak and find out what's going on once and for all."
