A/N: Last year I decide to undertake two writing projects relating to the notoriously bad 'Star Wars Holiday Special'. The first one was to rewrite the canon story and just remove the things that didn't work. The other idea was to do a completely new and different story. Since the original plot was always going to be about Chewbacca's family regardless of how the final product turned out, I decided to do a different spin on the idea. Try as I might I wasn't able to completely omit canon material but I'm hoping everybody will enjoy the way it all comes together. This also may not be the holiday special that audiences should've gotten originally, but it's probably closer to what it should have been. Happy holidays! Hope you enjoy, please read and review! Keeping with the canon timeline this is set sometime after ANH.
The Star Wars Holiday Special 2.0
"This is a brilliant plan, Chewie," Han Solo said as they flew through the eternal night that was outer space. "Sometimes I'm such a genius I scare myself."
His furry navigator roared in reply from the seat next to him. Han half scowled and told the wookiee, "That was rhetorical, I wasn't looking for a second opinion."
Chewbacca snorted in reply and turned his attention to the stars outside the windscreen.
"I don't know why I didn't think of this years ago," Han said. "We leave two days early and we'll get you home to your family in plenty of time for Life Day, no more cutting it right down to the klaxon."
Chewbacca nodded in agreement and gave a small grunt.
Speaking of klaxons. An alarm started bleeping, alerting the copilots to the fact that they had company. Han stood up to turn off the alert and dropped back in his seat at the sight of two Imperial star destroyers.
"Oh great, where the hell did they come from?" Han asked himself.
The destroyers started firing at the Millennium Falcon, which came very close to getting its proverbial nose blasted off. Chewbacca howled at the Corellian.
"No way, they couldn't have followed us," Han said. His chest heaved as a troubling thought occurred to him. "I hope the others weren't followed."
Chewbacca growled in suggestion.
Han shook his head. "No way, we're not going to risk communication, this close to these guys the connection could be tapped, we'll contact Luke and the princess once we get you home."
The wookiee suddenly sounded less optimistic about that possibility.
Han grumbled to himself as he thought quickly, something he'd done all his life, and it only worked most of the time.
"Don't worry, pal," he said as he flipped switches and levers, "I'm going to get you back there in plenty of time, we'll set short coordinates and we won't jump far, just enough say goodbye to our friends here. Hang on, we're going to light speed."
Chewie howled victoriously, the ship practically rattled with the vibrations, and in a few seconds the stars outside became long white streaks as they successfully jumped into hyperspace and the left the Imperial ships far behind them.
"Kashyyyk, here we come," Han announced.
Kashyyyk was a tree-covered forest planet and home to most of the wookiee population. Chewbacca had been born there 200 years ago, he'd been married there, and his family still lived there. High above the ground in a two-story tree home resided his family, his beautiful wife, Malla, eight feet tall just like him but with a lighter and notably smoother fur pelt, his father, Itchy, a white furred wookiee who once stood as tall as his son, but time had put a gradual curve in his spine and his joints and these days he only stood about six feet tall, and his children.
Living for so many years, it stood to reason that any wookiee would have a lot of children, some more than others. As far as Malla was concerned, their house was full enough with the five they had.
Lumpy was the youngest, and as such, the one to get into the most trouble. He had fur just like his father's, though he was young enough it was still smooth and shiny. He had a sister and a brother who were twins and weren't much older than he was: Nikomi and Chinook, both of whom had a notably darker shade of fur than their father. Then there was Lumpy's oldest brother Thisny, and his oldest sister, Izaal. Both stood a foot taller than Lumpy, Thisny had blondish tan fur and Izaal had variegated white and brown fur.
The day before Life Day and the wookiee household was total chaos. Tomorrow Chewbacca would be home, hopefully. Malla shook her head as she tied her apron and prepared to start cooking for tomorrow. Every year Han Solo promised he would get Chewbacca home safely for the next Life Day, and every year the whole family waited anxiously to know they got through the Imperial patrols unscathed.
The day had started out sunny but cool, but it had quickly given way to gray clouds that looked like they might give way to rain. Malla was sure it had rained for Life Day before, but right off hand she couldn't recall any. She knew Han's ship, the Millennium Falcon could touch down in all sorts of weather, but she also knew they wouldn't appreciate landing in the middle of a downpour.
From the living room she could hear the assorted sounds of the kids playing and their cranky grandfather growling at them to knock it off. Malla went to see what was going on and found Itchy sitting in his chair in the middle of the living room, and all five kids were practically standing on each other's shoulders to make funny faces in the giant mirror that hung high over the fireplace.
Few things were actually big by wookiee standards, but the gilded mirror that had been their wedding present was 15 feet wide and 10 feet tall, big by any standards.
Malla came over and swiped a large furry arm at the kids and howled at them to go find something else to do and quit pestering their grandpa. With assorted grunts and whines, the kids left the living room. Malla turned to her father-in-law to see what he was doing and saw that Itchy was tinkering with his antique laser camera. Big by human standards, big by modern standards, the camera was roughly the size of the comm directory, and it had a huge laser bulb that gave off such a flash that in its unaltered form, it was strong enough to actually cause temporary blindness in humans. The camera was an antique even when Chewie and Malla got married, but for every big occasion, Itchy would get it out and get it working again for a new picture. Malla had to admit the results were nice, but it was such a hassle.
A knock at the front door got both wookiees' attention. They weren't expecting anyone today. Chewbacca and his human Han Solo were due in tomorrow. Malla let out an inquiring roar.
"It's me," a voice on the other side said, "Saun Dann."
Malla howled in acknowledgment and opened the front door.
Saun Dann was a human trader on Kashyyyk, he was about 60 years old, about Itchy's height, he had grayish hair and glass spectacles, he wasn't a fat man but he did have a slight belly on him. Always a friendly face in Chewbacca's household, he'd been friends with the wookiee family for many years.
"Good morning, Malla, how's everything going here?" he asked.
Malla gave a small howl in answer.
"Well that's always good to hear, say, you see that sky out there? Looks like a storm's gonna brew in," the human told her. "Oh, I got a little early holiday surprise for you guys, uh..." Saun Dann looked around and asked, "where're the kids?"
Malla grunted in answer.
"Oh good, if they saw what I got, it wouldn't last very long," the human carried a crate in and set it on the holotable. "Not part of your typical Life Day feast, but I thought you guys would get a kick out of it." He took the lid off the crate and announced, "Hydramelons."
Malla rubbed her paws together as she looked down at the large green fruits. They were a rare delicacy at any time of the year but they especially weren't ever in season now.
"Take a look at them," Saun Dann reached in the crate, and let out a groan as he heaved a particularly big melon on the table, "each one of these babies weighs 15, 20 pounds. I had them imported from a tropical system, they had an unexpected bumper crop so I got a good deal on them."
Malla picked up the largest melon in the crate and tapped the side of it, it made a hollow swishing sound. A sure sign of freshness.
"That ought to really perk Chewbacca up when he gets home," Saun Dann said. "Uh, he is coming tomorrow, right?"
Malla nodded and made a whining howl letting the trader know he ought to.
"If I know him, and I have for many years as you know," he told Malla, "he won't let anything get in his way."
Malla snorted in response and gave a small nod.
"Well, I'll get out of your hair, enjoy the melons," the human said, "Happy Life Day you guys. Oh..." he walked over to the white-furred wookiee in the chair, "Hey Itchy, if you ever decide to trade in this heap for a new camera, I got just the thing-"
Itchy growled warningly before even raising his head and looking at the trader, and when he did he showed all teeth, moreso than usual.
Saun Dann held his hands up in a sign of retreat and told him, "Just saying, I'll be on my way now."
Itchy reinforced that idea with a pronounced growl and a sharp nod of the head to match.
"See you guys around," he called before the door slid shut behind him.
Malla howled in farewell, then went over to the table to examine the melons. If the cubs found these, they'd be long gone before Chewbacca ever got home. She put them back in the crate, put the lid on it and slid it under the holotable.
Itchy put his tools down and grunted to Malla to stand in front of him to get her picture taken. Malla waved him off with both huge paws and howled in protest, she wasn't made up for pictures. Itchy growled and insisted, finally Malla relented. First she stepped over to the mirror and looked at her reflection as she smoothed back some of her fur and patted the creases out of her apron, then she stood in front of the holotable in the middle of the room. Itchy raised the camera to eye level and grunted for Malla to smile and pressed a button. A bright white flash went off with an accompanying noise that would send some life forms scurrying for cover. Malla blinked and waited for the photo to calibrate.
The deafening sound of five wookiee children howling got her attention and Malla went to see who did what to whom now, but instead she found her kids gathered around the windows looking out in amazement. Malla nudged them to the side and opened the window and looked out and saw huge white flakes of snow whipping through the sky, millions of them, billions of them. Howling in disbelief, eyes wide and her jaw dropped, Malla looked down to the ground and saw there was already a coat of white down there. It never snowed on Kashyyyk, certainly not enough to actually cover the ground, if anything just a brief flurry that melted as soon as the flakes hit the ground. The cubs pulled at their mother's apron and begged her to go out and play in it, Malla raised a hand and howled for them to calm down. This was unbelievable. She went over to the wall screen and turned it on. On the screen there was an image of a male life form with green scaly skin, six tentacles and three eyes who was giving a weather report on the planets and moons in the near system. He was explaining that a series of strange and apparently unconnected arctic storms had unexpectedly developed and all planets in the range of their broadcast could see between two and ten feet of snow over the next 24 hours. The cloud coverage on Kashyyyk alone spanned 20,000 feet high and all available forecasts predicted it would all turn to snow before the storm ended.
Malla groaned mournfully. If they got the latter part of that, by the time Chewbacca arrived, the Millennium Falcon would be half buried under the snow.
The sound of her kids asking to go out and play in the snow drew the mother wookiee out of her thoughts, but with this newfound fact to worry about, she was having a hard time concentrating on her cubs' request.
Itchy turned his head and howled at Malla to let the kids go out, he was old enough that he'd seen snow before in a couple freak storms, it wasn't anything to worry about. Not yet anyway. Reluctantly, Malla nodded and grunted for the cubs to go out and have fun, but get back inside before it got too cold. The house was filled with their young roars of excitement as they ran for the front door.
Malla waited until the door had closed behind them before she went over and sat on the arm of Itchy's chair and made a worried sound that in any other species might sound like whining, but wookiees didn't whine. She relayed her fears to her father-in-law about the possibility that this year, Chewbacca wouldn't make it home in time.
Itchy listened to his daughter-in-law's concerns, but he snarled in response and poked a large index claw to the corner of her mouth and tried to get her to smile. Chewbacca and that strange human of his had gotten into all kinds of scrapes over the years, but that Corellian always got his son home for the holiday. If the Imperials themselves couldn't stop them, the weather damn sure couldn't stop them now.
Malla reluctantly nodded in agreement, feeling less sure about that than her husband's father. Chewie getting home to be with his family was always a challenge, but it had only gotten more dangerous since he joined with the Rebel Alliance, now there weren't just normal Imperial searches and curfews to worry about, but now he and his human had gotten up to their armpits in this Rebellion, and if the Empire ever caught them, they would be executed. The weather was just the straw that broke Malla's back, there were so many things to worry about this year that they hadn't had to deal with before, but she stood up and was smoothing out her apron when the laser picture shot out of Itchy's camera. Both wookiees leaned down to get a look at it. As far as Malla was concerned it wasn't her good side, but Itchy chided her, the picture had turned out perfectly. Malla grunted in agreement but added in another grunt that Itchy better start working on the laser flash, last Life Day he'd forgotten to adjust it and Han Solo hadn't been able to see for half an hour and kept walking face-first into the walls.