Han Solo came back from a run to the hidden rebel base at Hoth with upgraded altitude controls for the malfuntioning T-47s, and forty boxes of nerf jerky.
He was on time - early, in fact- which General Rieekan appreciated. The faster they got those speeders working they safer they'd all be.
But Solo wasn't early to be helpful; he made opportunity so he could boast later. Rieekan tolerated it with good humor. It was a small price to pay. His freighter was fast.
Solo liked to deliver his bragging rights to Princess Leia.
Watching the Princess, unable to tactfully escape as princesses did her audience with the smuggler, Rieekan wondered if the boasting wasn't a bonus Solo threw in as part of the deal. Something to cause that mask of royal precision to fall from her face. Solo wouldn't stop until he got something out of her: a bored roll of the eyes, a spark of wry irony or a barbed comment. Whether he did it for Echo Base- because life with a Princess hell bent on winning a war was fairly intense- for his own quirky benefit, or even for her, was open to discussion. And there was quite a bit of discussion.
In the debrief, Solo seemed a little put out the jerky had been discovered.
"You didn't think we'd notice forty cases of something we didn't order?" General Rieekan pressed.
"I'm a smuggler," Solo mumbled. "No, you shouldn't notice." He insisted the additional purchase was made on his own time and at his own expense, but he refused to say why.
The answer was given easily enough, however, when Solo's buddy Luke Skywalker, asked. Rieekan was glad he happened to be in ear shot.
"All this for the speeders?" Skywalker had asked, having come to inspect the shipment with Princess Leia. Responsibility for the speeders fell to the tech crew, but everyone was invested in their progress. Skywalker glanced in amazement at the load of cases gathered at the top of the ramp of the Millennium Falcon.
"It's jerky," Solo answered, ripping open a case and then tearing into a carton- by gods, Rieekan swore to himself, observing unseen, doing the math. A gross of cartons in each case, then five dozen in each carton... that was a lot of jerky.
"I love jerky," Luke said, obviously hinting.
"It's premium nerf," Solo said, throwing a meaningful glance at the Princess.
The three were good friends, Rieekan knew. Very good friends, with a lot of history between them in a short time. But they came in sets, Skywalker the common factor. It was the three, or Skywalker and Solo, or Skywalker and the Princess, but Solo and the Princess less often.
The comment told the Princess she should be impressed, and of course she wasn't. Solo had tossed a serving of jerky to Skywalker, who had already eagerly torn into it.
"We ate jerky all the time on Tatooine," Luke said, the tough and chewy dried meat affecting his pronunciation as he spoke.
"Woulda made a better business than moisture farming," Han said. "Those two suns'll dehy meat in a day."
"Maybe," Luke said affably. "Want a piece, Leia?"
"No, thank you," she said cooly, watching Solo drop a second pack back into the box with a scowl. "Where's it from?"
Rieekan could see she wanted some though, by the way her eyes darted from the case to Luke's hand. Nerf jerky was a delicacy on Alderaan. But her friends probably did not know that. They came into her life after the destruction of her homeworld, and she didn't talk about it much.
"Why so much, though?" Luke, still chewing, wondered.
Solo was reading a carton. "It says, 'Free range herds on beautiful Naboo'", he read off to the Princess, and she nodded. He turned to Skywalker. "I figured if we're going to be stuck on this ice ball Chewie could use the extra protein."
"Oh, that's nice of you," Luke said. He hadn't managed to swallow yet.
"The smell of all this jerky better not attract the snow creatures," Princess Leia warned, quickly talking over any consideration of Solo's niceness.
"That's a thought," Solo mused. He liked to pretend to agree with her, before turning her comment around. "Could use it as bait, set traps. Rid the base of dangerous wampa. Care to req a case, Your Leadership?"
"Why, when they'll come to the Falcon?"
Rieekan gave her a point. It was his own private game, to keep a tally of which of the two ended conversations he overheard with a zinger.
"Can I have a couple to share with the guys?" Luke asked.
Solo tossed him only a few packs; he was not materially generous, and Skywalker walked away happily, leaving a dynamic of Solo and the Princess. It should be fun, Rieekan thought regretfully, but he really needed to get the crew working on those speeders.
Evidently, though Skywalker also had few possessions, he liked to share. The Rogues got a taste of that premium nerf jerky, and the next morning, Han Solo emerged from the Millennium Falcon to find half the squadron clamoring for jerky.
Han peeled off his snow gloves, a sign he was ready to do business. "How badly do you want it, boys?"
Rieekan was carefully navigating the passage which took him to the hangar when he saw them. The constant traffic of warm bodies along the snow-covered tunnels inside the hollowed out ice mountain caused the snow to compact into bruising and slippery ice; he was going to have to do something about that. His goal before heading to the command center was to check on the progress, if any, the altimeter replacement made to the speeders.
He slowed, not for an icy patch this time, but to observe the line of men gathered in front of the Falcon. Antilles, Janson, Kleviann... these were Skywalker's buddies, Rogue Squadron.
Solo and Skywalker were facing the line, a kind of counter made from crates between them and the men. Solo's co-pilot, the Wookiee Chewbacca, was howling in protest.
"Don't you worry about it," Solo soothed impatiently. "I got it once, I can get it again if we run out, right? How many?" he said to Dak.
Dak held up a gloved hand. "Two," he said. And Skywalker dipped down and passed something- it was the jerky- across the crate.
"What's going on?" Rieekan sauntered over as casually as he could while simultaneously maintaining his balance.
"Attention!" Skywalker tried to bark. He was a good pilot and a proven hero, and he wasn't promoted to commander because of his ability to bark orders.
The men snapped guiltily into the pose before a superior.
"Sir, we're off duty," Skywalker attempted to explain.
"Nothing in the rules against us gathering," Janson muttered darkly. He was the prankster of the group, Rieekan knew. He had pegged Janson as a bit anti-establishment.
"No, nothing in the rules," Rieekan agreed mildly. "Just wondering if I was missing out on anything."
"Apparently, sir," Solo was the only one not standing at attention but nor was he required to, "I'm having a grand opening sale. Welcome to Echo Base Commissary. Nerf jerky. Two credits a pack."
"You're selling a gift you bought for your partner?" The Wookiee rumbled an appreciative noise, and gave Solo an I-told-you-so shove. Rieekan wondered if anyone had asked Chewbacca. "Would you mind if I had a sample, Chewbacca?"
The Wookiee bowed- he never saluted, but then neither he nor Solo were enlisted- and gave Rieekan six packs. He, evidently, was the sharing type.
"Six!" Solo objected.
Rieekan used a packet to point at the men. "At ease," he told them. "Thank you, Chewbacca. I'll enjoy these. Haven't had nerf jerky in a long time."
As he tread with care over to the speeders, he heard Janson mutter, "you didn't charge him," and Rieekan chuckled.
Rieekan was beginning to think Solo had missed his calling. He was a hard man to pin down. Good at what he did and proud of it, but you couldn't get him to apply himself.
There was no doubt he was innovative, and that flexible thinking really took off with the Commissary. Ever since his success with the jerky, Solo kept an eye out for items that were not only useful for the unique situation at Hoth, but also made life a little brighter. Perhaps if Solo hadn't made the disastrous detour as Imperial Navy pilot, he'd have found success at product placement for one of those huge retail outlets that peppered the galaxy.
Princess Leia and Chewbacca were the only ones who didn't participate in the commissary. Most of the products were geared for life in the cold, and maybe the fur-covered Wookiee didn't feel it like the humans did.
The Princess thought Rieekan should shut the commissary down. "He's taking advantage of the men," was one point she made. "They don't earn much as it is."
"True," Rieekan allowed. He was from Alderaan too and he often deferred to his Princess, but he got the sense her feelings on the matter were complicated. "But they can spend it how they want."
"Captain Solo is operating a for-profit business on a military base," she persisted.
"Your Highness, you know on settled worlds bases have places for their soldiers to unwind. We let them drink and play sabacc here. I would think that has more potential danger than purchasing jerky."
The Princess's voice was harsh and her lips were a thin line. "The purchases are out of contract and not endorsed by the Alliance."
Rieekan sighed and reminded himself he was the General of Echo Base. "If I may speak frankly, Your Highness, I think that is what bothers you the most, that Solo hasn't embraced the Alliance. I would tell you he has; the Battle of Yavin was two years ago and he's still here. All that's missing is the paperwork."
"He's hiding from his bounty is all he's doing. If he thinks operating a store is going to earn him enough to repay Jabba the Hutt-"
"I'm going to turn a blind eye," Rieekan told her frankly. It was an old discussion. "I don't see the harm. In fact, I think it will do some good. Did you have some jerky? I swear to you, Your Highness, it was like tasting happiness."
With every modification they attempted for the damned speeders, Solo came back with something. Blankets sold like hotcakes. The gloves were actually better than the ones the Alliance issued, and Rieekan sent him back out with an official purchase order for more. Regarding the hats, however, he had to draw a line. The colors were fun, but the long tails, fringe, and pompoms might get caught in equipment and were for off duty use only. They did make for a nice scene around the sabacc table.
The Princess remained stubborn. Skywalker bought her a blanket and some candy from the commissary, but Rieekan suspected the candy got fed to the tauntaun mounts housed in Husbandry, and he was certain the blanket was stowed folded and unused somewhere in her quarters.
It hadn't helped that Solo goaded her. "Put a hat on," he encouraged her. "No one looks at your hair."
Rieekan wanted to pull him aside and explain how that was the wrong thing to say.
"No, I'm not going to give her one," Solo argued when Skywalker suggested presenting the Princess with a bottle of sonic shampoo. "She can buy it like anyone else."
Skywalker wasn't stupid. "That's just it, Han. She doesn't want to be just anyone else."
Solo wasn't stupid either, but when it came to the Princess, he could be clueless. "Not my fault she was born a royal."
"No, that's not what I-"
"Forget it, kid. I'm a proprietor." He talked over Skywalker's scoffing cough. "The vibrosaws are on sale, by the way."
The saws were one of Solo's flops. No one saw the appeal of carving ice sculptures outside. Piece puzzles were another poor seller: even with the sleeker gloves the act of pinching and clasping was frustrating, and fingers exposed to the climate risked frostbite.
Rieekan was modestly proud of the community that was Echo Base, and he hoped it was his leadership that had contributed to it. His men and women were tough, adaptable. They were a tight unit, making the most of difficult conditions.
And conditions were deteriorating. Rieekan was catching hell from Alliance Command, stationed elsewhere- warmer, no doubt- about the speeders.
New steering vanes, power cells, maneuver controls- whole new control panels, for that matter- the time and cost the Alliance invested in those damn speeders! They might as well have scrapped the T-47s and provided Echo Base with something brand new.
And the wampa were becoming more worrisome. Rieekan suspected they had added humans to the list of things they would eat.
A graver worry was intel indicated the Empire was searching their quadrant of the galaxy for any Rebel presence. The alert status level was raised from two to four.
It was most likely temporary, Rieekan addressed the base, lying to stay upbeat, and leveled humorless eyes at Janson, who moved his hands across his body in the manner of a priest blessing the dead until Skywalker nudged him with his elbow.
Rieekan explained their new way of life. Pilots would maintain shift hours, except they would do ground patrols on tauntauns. They were not to leave the planet. Supply runs to and from Hoth were halted, which meant they were put on rations. It also meant the Commissary would have to shut down, but Rieekan did not say that out loud. A bounty was set on wampa, and efforts on modifications of the T-47s would double.
Life changed with the higher alert status. Echo Base burrowed even deeper underground. Fighter pilots were bored and restless. Chewbacca took to hunting wampa, venturing out into the snowy plains with his bowcaster. He dragged a few carcasses back and was getting paid regularly. Solo, grounded and bored, actually volunteered for sector patrols.
The Milennium Falcon looked like a freighter again when the last of the vibrosaws finally sold and Solo put away the crates.
Rieekan drilled his crews and worked them hard. Battle was imminent, he knew it. He wondered what the Imperial snowtroopers would think of all the ice sculptures dotting the landscape when they came.