The Antilles Trap

by Paul Nankier

Jump back to the high-flying 70's with this AU sequel to A New Hope. Han Solo is forcefully reunited with his swashbuckling past and the harsh pirate, Captain Antilles. Go back when Darth Vader was not Luke's father, just the baddest bad guy in the galaxy

6. Chapter 6

Han Solo was mad, and mostly at himself. In his rush to take off from the base, he hastily fastened the housing containing the circuit boards of the small but very important navigation computer. He had done what any responsible captain would have done. He updated the star navigation data from the base's headquarters. But upon throwing it back in and preparing to blast off, he left one of the hinges pushed in but not locked. He knew it because it didn't click, and it didn't click on the third and fourth try, when it finally jammed. It had to be completely removed and re-set, and only then it would be secure. He had known this from experience, but he had also known that if it were jammed in hard enough it would stay, and work just fine.

It wasn't until a rogue TIE fighter came up behind the ship and blasted them hard, shaking everything looses not nailed down, that Solo realized his mistake. When they were just about to jump into hyperspace, the nav computer beeped a little error message, and went offline.

"Fine" Han calmly thought, "it just came loose". It was when he approached the access hatch in the narrow gangway and saw the small device scattered in a half dozen pieces that he really lost it.

"Chewie!" he yelled as yet another blast knocked his off of his feet.

"Rhaaargh!" Chewie yelled back in disgust.

"I don't care how many destroyers, just dodge them. I'll be right back!" Han yelled up the short hallway towards the cockpit.

"I think we're in trouble", he said quietly to himself while holding two main pieces of the nav computer that would never go back together again. Just then he heard a large explosion overhead. Then another. He made it back to the cockpit windows to see two huge TIE fighter wings spinning apart and shooting past them in flames. In between them a lone X-Wing fighter soared past and zoomed back up and out of site.

"Haa haa! That's our boy!" Han laughed and shouted as he pushed and pulled Chewbacca's fur on the back of his neck, just as he did his family pet as a kid. It was something that Chewie never really cared for.