"You're serious, Chewie?" Han asked his friend as he watched Chewbacca draw a dried piece of bantha hide across the top of Thisny's drum. "You're going to repair that thing?"

Chewbacca gave a small nod and howled in response as he drew it as taut as possible without tearing.

"Your dad ain't gonna like it," Han pointed out.

Chewie snorted in response to that, and grumbled something else.

"What do you mean?" Han asked.

The wookiee looked one way, and the other, as if making sure no one overheard them. He nudged something out from under the table with his foot, then reached down and picked up a new, bigger drum, which would no doubt make a lot more noise.

Han let out an amused chuckle. "Well Thisny ain't gonna be expecting that, but then what happens to this one?"

Chewbacca howled in response.

"Oh Lumpy gets it, your dad's going to hate you when you leave, you know that, pal?"

Chewie grunted in reply as he strapped the hide in place and gave the drum a testing thump.

"Sounds good as new," Han concluded, "but don't let Itchy see it."

His navigator pushed the new drum back under the table and put the finishing touches on the old drum before Izaal entered the room and let out a questioning grunt.

Han turned and shook his head, "Nope, Izaal, we haven't seen Nikomi, you guys playing hide and seek?"

Izaal chattered worriedly as she walked up to the smuggler and pressed her furry face into the side of his jacket.

"What do you mean you can't find her?" Han asked.

He and Chewie exchanged a look.

"She's got to be somewhere, come on," Han said.

They headed downstairs and heard a commotion of the other cubs all chattering at once and Malla howled at her husband in worry.

"Alright, Malla, don't panic," Han said. "Nikomi's got to be here somewhere, where was the last place anybody saw her?"

Everybody had a different answer and nobody was sure about who had seen her last.

Malla raise a large furry arm and gestured to the window and chattered frantically.

Han blinked. "Outside? In this storm?" He turned to the window and saw the snow continuing to fall heavily outside. He turned back to the wookiee and started to say, "She would never..." but that sentence died on his tongue as his brain switched gears and he decided, "we better check."

He stepped over towards the fireplace and picked up his coat, shook off the snow and started putting his arms in the sleeves when Thisny came over howling anxiously as he pawed the smuggler trying to get his attention.

Han was barely holding it together as he fumbled with the buttons on his coat and told the cub, just as anxiously but trying to pretend otherwise, "there's no reason to panic, wherever she is, we'll find her, just stay here and keep calm."

Thisney howled even louder as he tried to stop the Corellian, but Han pulled away and headed to the door.

"Don't worry, Malla," he told Chewie's wife, "I'll check it out, I'm sure she's fine."

The door slid open and Han let out a startled exclamation of, "Whooaaaa!" as his foot slid out from under him and he fell flat on his back half in and out of the doorway. He felt temporarily blinded again as his whole back seemed to pulsate with pain, he heard the wookiees around him making assorted noises as they tried to figure out what happened. The Corellian tried to get up but his feet slid on the porch and couldn't gain traction all the while the snow pelted him like a million tiny freezing vibroblades.

Chewbacca leaned down and grabbed Han under his armpits and pulled him back inside and roared as the door shut again. The house was in total pandemonium as the wookiees all chattered over one another, Han slowly sat up and tried to regain his bearings when Thisny shook his shoulder and howled at him. When the other wookiees heard what he had to say, Itchy snarled at the cub and Malla growled at him herself.

Han shook his head and waited for the ringing in his ear to stop, but as he got to his feet and took off his coat he responded, "Hey, that's good, that means Nikomi couldn't possibly have gone outside before the ice set up, so she has to still be in the house."

Malla grunted questioningly and held her arms out in a matching gesture.

"I don't know, Malla," Han replied, "we'll just have to go room by room."

So they did, everybody split up and searched a different room, calling Nikomi's name, but receiving no answer.

Han entered the kitchen and looked at all the cupboards that could serve as a potential hiding place.

"If this is a game," he commented to himself, "it's way past the amusing stage."

He opened the doors as he went, seeing a lot of dishes and other assorted objects for the kitchen, but no wookiee cub. Han reached the broom closet and knew better than to even try looking in there. He looked towards the back door but remembered what Thisny said about pouring water outside both doors, so that part of the porch would be equally frozen, so she wouldn't be out there.

The frustration was mounting in the smuggler and he snapped and hollered out, "Nikomi, where are you!?"

He was surprised to hear a muffled roar in response.

Han turned on his heel and looked around the kitchen, trying to figure out where the noise had come from. A few seconds later his eyes widened as he realized it was coming from behind the cellar door.

"Nikomi?" he called out as he walked over to it.

He heard her frantic howls and heard her banging on the door. Han turned his head and bellowed out to the living room, "CHEWIE! MALLA! I FOUND HER!", and moved to open the door, but it wouldn't budge.

Chewbacca howled as he entered the kitchen. Han waved him over, "Come over here and give me a hand, something's wrong with the control panel."

It didn't make any sense, he'd just been in there a couple hours ago and there wasn't anything wrong with it then, but he couldn't get the door to slide open now for the life of him. He and Chewie both struggled with the controls and Han hollered for Nikomi to stand back, they were going to have to break the door in.

At the last moment however, the door finally slid open and the sudden momentum about threw Han to the floor, but once the door opened the dark furred wookiee threw her arms around Han's waist and let out an almost mournful howl.

"Hey," Han knelt down to be closer to her own height and hugged the cub, "what is it, Nikomi? Huh? What happened, sweetheart?"

Nikomi was visibly upset and wasn't making much sense except for a little bit Han was able to make out about getting locked in. He patted her furry back and noted, "Poor kid, you must've been scared out of your mind."

He also noted that she didn't seem too eager to let go of him, even for a child she had inhuman strength and Han was sure she'd crack a couple ribs before she was done. He managed to half turn towards Chewbacca and tried to nudge Nikomi over to him, "Here's your daddy." Chewbacca pulled his daughter off of Han and howled as he picked her up.

"For the time being we better prop the door open so nobody else gets locked in," Han said as he stepped into the cellar and came back a few seconds later with a large bushel basket full of fruit and set it against the door. That seemed to hold it in place for the moment. He turned back to the cub and asked her, "Nikomi, what were you doing in there?"

Chewie's daughter howled in response, Han blinked.

"You woke up in there?"

Nikomi nodded and grunted in response.

Chewbacca put her down and chattered at her to run along, once she was out of the room Han leaned over and asked his friend, "Has she ever had any problems sleepwalking?"

The wookiee shrugged his massive furry shoulders and snorted in reply.

"Well that's one crisis averted but..." Han was thinking, "the last time we were here, I left some spare tools around here, right?"

Chewie rumbled and nodded.

"Good, I'd hate to try getting back to the Falcon in this weather," he replied. "I'll find my tools and we'll see if we can fix the door."

Outside the storm raged on, snow fell in almost blinding blankets that threatened to white out everything, the sky that had been dark gray all day was starting to turn black as day slowly turned to night. Aside from occasional glances out the window to see how high the snow had gotten, which the last time anybody checked, the drifts were already more than five feet tall, the blizzard was ignored by the occupants of the tree home. Malla stayed in the kitchen cooking, while her husband and his human spent the better part of an hour working on the cellar door.

"Well here's the problem," Han concluded, "several of the circuits shorted out."

Malla howled in response from where she was working at the table rolling out the dough for the pies.

"It's no problem, they're easy enough to replace," Han said, "we'll have them swapped out before you can say 'bantha fodder'. Just make sure the kids stay out of the cellar before we're done...hey, for that matter..." the Corellian just realized how quiet it was, "where are they?"

Malla rumbled in answer.

"Oh well that's fine," Han said, "how much trouble could they get into watching a video?"

Outside the snow continued to flurry and heap down upon everything, and as the temperature grew even colder, the wind whipped up and started to howl and wail until it sounded like some ghastly creature come to life. The perfect atmosphere for watching a holofilm.

The five cubs were gathered around the holotable in the living room with the lights off watching a tape, a horror movie in which a hooded killer sneaked into a house that was cut off from the rest of civilization by a storm, then proceeded to kill off the people inside one by one. Their eyes were huge as they sat on their haunches and anxiously awaited what was going to happen next. They were all so engrossed in the film that they hadn't paid any attention to the fact there was now one less of them seated around the table.

As the music in the film got louder and more intense, and the cubs were bracing themselves for what was coming, a sheeted figure rose up behind them, paws raised into curled claws, and a sudden ROAR had the rest of them howling and grabbing hold of each other and scrambling around to see what it was. The lights came on and the sheet came off revealing it was Chinook, who fell back on the floor roaring in laughter and kicking his feet in the air at his siblings' reactions. That however was short lived as the other four howled and took turns slapping and kicking him for his bad joke.

Itchy made his way into the living room leaning on his cane for support, he pointed a large claw at the kids and growled at the kids in warning to behave themselves or they'd get something to howl about alright. The cubs chattered quietly as they settled around the table again to finish watching the movie.

Before the movie was over however, Lumpy decided he wasn't interested in seeing the rest of it. He got up and moved away from the table, his four brothers and sisters never even noticed he was gone. The youngest cub went over to look up at the giant mirror again and made faces in it. It wasn't as much fun when it was just him, but at the same time he didn't have to elbow anybody else out of the way to see his reflection. In the glass he could see reversed images of the holotape playing and the furry backs of all his siblings...

And a shimmering light from up the stairs.

Lumpy blinked and chattered in question as he turned and looked at the top of the stairs. There was nothing there. But he would've sworn he saw something. it was a small sparkle like light shining off a piece of metal or glass.

Curious, the small cub put one foot on the bottom step, then stepped up to the next stair, and the next, and the next, almost holding his breath as he went. Nobody noticed him leaving the living room. Down below the movie continued playing and he could hear his parents and Han Solo talking in the kitchen in muffled voices and howls.

Lumpy reached the top of the stairs, the hallway was pitch black. He didn't really need to turn on the lights, he knew the whole layout from memory. But everything up here was pitch black. What could he possibly have seen?

Now that he was up there however, his nostrils flared as he picked up an unfamiliar scent. Something didn't smell right.

Cold chills ran up his fur but curiosity drove him on, the young cub took one step, then another, and was determined the find the source of the smell.

Before he reached the end of the hall however, there was a sudden sound that made his cold chills turn to pure ice.

A muffled sound, but not enough that he couldn't recognize the familiar "A-choo!" that came from one of the rooms at the end of the hall.

There was someone else in the house!

Eyes wide, Lumpy let out a distressed howl and turned and ran, he felt something cut through the air and knew he'd just missed getting grabbed by whoever or whatever it was. When he reached the top of the stairs, he howled at the top of his lungs as he ran down, drawing the attention of everybody else in the house.

"What's going on out here?" Han asked as he and the adult wookiees came out of the kitchen.

The lights were on and everybody was gathered around looking as Lumpy reached the bottom of the stairs and chattered wildly as he gestured up the stairs.

Han's hand was already reaching for his blaster as his eyes looked up to the second floor, but even he felt his blood go cold at the sight of several armored people at the top of the stairs.

Stormtroopers.

Imperials.

And if that weren't bad enough, a droid, it was built like that bucket of bolts C-3PO except it was black colored with red photoreceptors, giving it a demonic look.

They'd been found out.

Han was only faintly aware of Chewie howling in his ear, his body was working on autopilot. He drew his blaster and fired at the army of people coming down the stairs, he hit the armor of one Stormtrooper, and then immediately heard himself yelling in pain as he dropped it, the sensations only registering in his mind after the fact of another blaster shot, and while it didn't hit him, it came dangerously close and his hand felt nearly singed from the near-contact. His eyes widened as he looked at them and muttered under his breath, "These aren't Stormtroopers."

"Get them!" one of the Imperial officers shouted.

The entire living room exploded into chaos and mayhem. The Stormtroopers charged down the stairs and at the wookiees with their blasters drawn. Itchy raised his cane and beat one across the helmet and stunned him, he fell to his knees and dropped his carbine on the floor. The kids charged one of the Stormtroopers and used their combined weight to bowl him onto the floor. Chewbacca grabbed another one that tried to grab Chinook and threw him against the wall, he sunk down to the floor. Thisny skidded over towards the fireplace and half tripped on Han's long coat that was still soaking wet. He grabbed the ends of up and flung it up and blindsided the Imperial first with the water that flew off of it, then he hurled it so it half wrapped around the human's head and while he couldn't see what was going on the cubs took turns pounding him.

Han picked up his blaster and pulled the trigger, and felt his blood turn cold when nothing happened. He looked at it and saw it had been damaged by the bolt that nearly hit him. He dropped the weapon like it was a dead whomp rat. The split second his attention was focused on that was enough for one of the Imperial officers to blitz him and try putting him in a headlock. Han tried reaching behind him to find something of the Imperial's to hurt, coming up empty he tried stomping on the other man's foot, he made contact but it apparently didn't hurt enough to break the man's concentration, or his grip. Through the corner of his eye Han saw Lumpy come up towards them, and heard more than saw the youngest cub grab hold of the officer's hand and bite it. The man threw his head back screaming, allowing Han to break free, and body slam the Imperial to the floor.

Malla grabbed one Stormtrooper with each paw and slammed the two armored men against each other so their helmets collided and they both fell to the floor unconscious. Nikomi climbed onto Chinook's shoulders and hooked her furry legs under the armpits of one of the Imperials and lifted him off his feet. The officer yelled in extreme displease when Chinook kept his sister balanced and spun around and around as fast as he could while keeping both of them upright, succeeding in making the officer very dizzy before coming to a sudden stop and the inertia sent the uniformed human flying several feet before he crash landed on the floor.

Han meanwhile had gone after another Stormtrooper, not having his trusty blaster at hand, he picked up a heavy vase off the mantle and prepared to bust it over the other man's head when Malla roared loud enough to be heard over all the commotion.

As if suddenly joining the events, the black droid turned to the two men and translated, "She says to put that down, it's been in her family for generations."

Han knew that already, still...

"Sorry, Malla," he said as he put the vase back down.

Malla let out a grunt he could interpret for himself as meaning 'Much better', and Chewie's wife herself grabbed the Stormtrooper and threw him through the window, the glass shattered and the howling winds and flurrying snow came rushing in.

Izaal just managed to escape the clutches of another Imperial and ran over to Itchy's chair and picked up his huge antique camera, reset the flash to its original calibration, and pressed the button, igniting the blinding flash right in the man's face, who screamed in pain and reached his hands to his face as he suddenly lost the ability to see anything.

Thisny had run into the kitchen to find something else to use for a weapon, and he almost tripped over the crate that had been haphazardly set half under the table. Kicking the lid off he saw the huge hydramelons and got an idea. He picked up one and headed back out to the melee in the living room. He howled at the nearest Imperial officer, who turned towards him, and Thisny raised the melon up over his head with both paws and slammed it down on the officer's head. The melon splattered, peppering the officer's face in a ton of black seeds, the melon had hit him with enough force, leaving him with a stunned expression on his face as his eyes rolled back into his head and he fell flat on his back and his legs weight straight up in the air before slamming back down against the floor.

Han wasn't able to keep track of how many officers and Stormtroopers there were, but it just seemed like they kept coming and there wasn't any sign of them stopping yet. He looked at his blaster, and then looked up at the giant mirror that hung over the fireplace, Malla and Chewie's wedding present.

"Sorry Malla!" he yelled to be heard over the fighting, he gripped the blaster in his hand, drew his arm back, and hurled his blaster towards the window. It made a direct hit, the glass shattered into a million shards and rained down on the Imperials like an ice storm.

Han felt like a holofilm in slow motion, every huge winding step he took felt like it was slowed down to half speed as he marched over to the nearest Imperial who had ducked his head down to avoid getting cut by the falling glass. And as soon as the Corellian made physical contact with the man, he felt his reflexes and his body restored to full speed. He grabbed two fistfuls of the Imperial's jacket up under the collar, and he used his own body's weight and momentum to force the Imperial backwards across the floor. He honestly had no idea what he was doing, or where they were going, but he just kept stampeding, and pushing, and forcing the officer back, back, back, like he was a blocker in a sports game. Somewhere in his mind Han knew they were almost to the wall but he wasn't finished, he pushed harder and dragged himself along even faster, to throw this son of a bantha against the wall with all the force in his body. One more lunging step back, he shoved his weight harder and they both fell back-

And shattered the big front window as they fell through it. Han felt his feet sliding under the icy patch that Thisny had created on the front porch, they skidded towards the wraparound railing and crashed through it and fell, down, down, farther, farther...

Han had only been half aware of screaming as he fell, it came to a sudden stop in exchange for a jolted sound of surprise as he felt himself land hard on top of the Imperial, and for that matter, on top of a snow drift that caved in on him. He felt their bodies sink into the snow, below the snow, felt icy chills on his back as the snow toppled onto them.

Everything hurt. He didn't know what had happened, he didn't know if he could walk, he didn't know if he could even get up. He knew he couldn't because you couldn't get out of a snow drift, but even if he could, he doubted his body possessed that ability right now.

Han forced himself to roll over onto his back, he felt more snow fall on top of him, it was so cold it ripped the breath right ot of him. He opened his mouth to exhale and he felt a million tiny freezing cold vibroblades stab his tongue, his throat, the inside of his mouth, the inside of his nose. It was too cold to breathe and in any case, every feeble attempt at breath only let in more particles of ice and snow that worked to block his airway.

So, he thought to himself as he felt eveything growing dimmer and colder and darker, this was how it all ended, this was how he was going to die. He only hoped that it was enough that Chewie and his family would be safe. A huge pile of snow caved in on him and he felt himself smothering under it, he weakly struggled but he couldn't get it off of him.

Han was aware of sensations, feelings, the first one, he was cold, another, he was wet, he could feel cold water dripping off his hair and rolling down from his forehead to his eyebrows down his face. There was another sensation of pain, his body hurt to move, in fact it could hardly move at all. There was also another sensation, heat, warmth, something soft and furry touching his skin.

"Hmm?" Han wearily forced one eye open.

There was light, he could see, he heard a famliar crackling sound, everything was suddenly much higher than he remembered.

Han could only move his head and he was able to crane his neck back and see that he was looking at Chewbacca's living room from somewhere on the floor. Behind him he could see the fireplace lit, that's what he was hearing. But he couldn't get up, he was paralyzed.

He craned his neck back and looked down and saw that no, he wasn't paralyzed, he was just weighted down. He was laying on the floor, and Chewie's kids were curled up asleep on top of him. Lumpy, Nikomi, Chinook and Izaal were laying on him from his feet up to his chest, keeping him warm while he slept, while they slept.

Then Han realized something else, he wasn't laying flat on the floor, turning his head to the side, or trying to anyway, he saw another lump of fur behind him. Thisny was sleeping behind Han, allowing his furry body to be used in place of a pillow.

He heard a familiar rumbling grunt, and was able to see Chewbacca entering the room.

"Did I ever tell you I'm crazy about your kids, Chewie?" Han asked.

The eight foot wookiee chattered in response.

"Is everybody okay?" Han asked.

Chewie nodded and rumbled in answer.

"Good," Han tried to nod but his neck hurt too much. "It's all over?"

Another rumble and a nod. Han managed to just barely tip his head up and down. "Glad to hear it."

His eyes had just about closed but he heard Chewbacca honk in question.

"Oh yeah, I'm fine," Han forced his eyes open again. He looked at the cubs laying on him to keep him warm and he smiled to himself. "This is the best Life Day present I ever got."

Through the corner of his eye Han was able to see Chewie doing something but he wasn't sure what. The wookiee returned with the huge blanket off the couch that he used to drape over the cubs, the final move to making sure everybody was settled in for the night.

"Thanks, pal," Han tiredly commented.

The floor vibrated with the wookiee's howls, which somehow his kids slept through.

"Happy Life Day to you too, Chewie," Han felt more asleep than awake now, he could hardly keep his eyes open as he explained, "You guys are...like my own...family..."

He wasn't aware of anything else after that except a lulling sensation of being warm and at peace.