The Millennium Falcon was dark and adrift, slowly spinning end over end through the cold darkness of space. The windows of the cockpit were edge lit by emergency lighting that was beginning to fade. Smoke drifted throughout the cabin and the smell of burnt rubber and foam filled the air. Chewbacca came into the cockpit and calmly went over to a toolbox in the corner and looked for a missing wrench. Han Solo was not as calm when he clammered into the small room.

"Well?" he asked as he turned and saw Chewie in the corner.

"Garawww." Chewbacca grunted back.

"Yeah- well that really doesn't help us right now. I don't even know how you can see with these cruddy emergent lights. Why don't we get the juice back on first? Huh?" Han insisted.

"Rahh Arggh grahhh grahh", Chewie snorted in response.

"The air is fine. We can breathe, can't we? We've got plenty of air- for now."

Han looked around and leaned back, falling into his captain's chair. The interior never looked so small, he thought. It must be the lights. Everything was off. The ship had gone dead and fallen out of hyperspace, and they were nowhere. He doubted Luke would be able to find him, or would anyone for that matter. When would air be a problem? He once had to figure out the air for the hidden compartments quickly when they were sucked into that Death Star, and that was plenty for the better part of a day. This was a much larger space- but how long would they be out here? Not for long, he decided. He made his way out of the cockpit.

"I'm getting power back up", he said to Chewbacca as he left. Chewie ignored him and continued to look through the tools.

Soon Han was underneath the main deck and had wedged himself into the crawlspace. It was a little over a foot high and crammed with cables and pipes, and definitely not enough room for someone of his size. He moved surprisingly well, until he got stuck.

He could imagine Chewie getting a blow torch to get him out when he managed to squeeze himself forward and free. He placed a small flashlight between his grimaced teeth and shone the light ahead. In front of him were the couplings for the two main power systems. One was an auxillary backup, that was blown out, and the other the main. That was fried as well. Han unhooked the back up and unhooked the main.

His plan was to plug the backup into the main, combine the systems and pray it would just come back on. This was, of course, extremely dangerous and something one should never do. The two were separate for a reason, and might just blow up if combined. Han knew this, but always had a good feeling about this ship, and felt she just wouldn't do that to him, at least not without a warning.

Han went to plug into the main, but to his frustration, the coupling just didn't fit. Then he heard it. It was the unmistakable scampering of little feet. Then a rustle and a thud. There was something alive down here. Han froze for a long moment, then he tried to move fast, but could barely squeeze an inch at a time. The noise started far beyond his legs in the darkness of the small space. Then they scampered behind some unseen panel off to his right, and up past him. Now it was somewhere beyond his head. He grabbed the small light and pointed it all around, but could see just hanging wires, as it was not bright enough to penetrate more than a few feet.

He held his breath and strained to listen. Over his incredibly loud pulse that now throbbed in his ears, he heard it again. It wasn't tiny. He had a good idea what it was. When he first acquired the ship he was shocked to find on his first overnight flight huge bilge rats would come out and scour the decks for food when the lights went low. Not that they needed any. They were fat off of the some old organic waste stored far below, and they were nasty. It took both himself and Chewie to kill off a half dozen that night.

At the next port, and several times since then, he had the ship fumigated and treated for further outbreaks. He was pretty secure in the feeling they were gone forever. Now some mutant offspring had obviously found a way to survive in the bowels of the Falcon, and it made Han queezy to even think about it.

He listened again and heard movement slowly coming towards him. There was an odd clicking sound now. In a moment it would be on him. He struggled to move his arms up. He looked for a tool, anything to use as a weapon. More thuds approached. Whatever it was, it was heavy. Han grabbed the light and shone it ahead. The thing jump out at him and stopped right in front of his face.

It was a machine, a droid of some kind, and an ugly one at that. It had a big red light for an eye and few black tentacle-like arms that were swinging and rotating around. One of the arms raised up and out of it popped up a little silver metal weapon with a sharp point. Sparks started to fly out of it as a small arc of electricity shot forward from it and struck the light Han was holding.

Han dropped the light and moved back as far as he could, which wasn't much. The thing shot forward for Han. He grabbed the coupling for the auxiliary power and shoved it onto the droids little weapon. Sparks few everywhere as the light on the front of the little droid flashed a bright red. A whizzing sound could be heard as smoke arose from the top of it. The red light turned bright white then blew out, and sparks flew out of its back. It dropped down and collapsed in front of his face.

Han took a breath and then summoned all of his strength and jammed the auxiliary power coupling into the main power socket so hard that its housing cracked. Small puffs of smoke shot out and then loud thumps could be heard all over the ship. Moments later there was a low audible hum as the main power came back online. Light streamed in from the grates directly above Han, coming from the main cabin. He took a brief sigh of relief and then turned his attention to the small droid that almost took his head off. He grabbed it by the legs and made his way back out. He was glad to see the hatch that led up was fully illuminated with light again.