The Han Solo Adventures Read Free

back’s to the wall? How could he have said no to a nice, lucrative run when usurious Ploovo Two-For-One described the riches that were to be had.
    I could always hit the beach, he thought. Find a nice planet somewhere, go native. It’s a big galaxy.
    But he shook his head. No use fooling himself. If he were grounded, he might as well be dead. What could one planet, any planet, offer someone who had knocked around among the stars? The need for the boundless provinces of space was now a part of him.
    And so when, broke and in debt, he and Chewbacca had been approached for a run deep into Authority steer-clear territory, they’d jumped at the job. In spite of all the perils and uncertainties, the run still let them raise ship again and experience the freedom of star-travel. Risk of death or capture had been, in their eyes, the lesser of two evils.
    But that brought up another point. The Authority ship had somehow picked up the Millennium Falcon before her own sensors had detected the other. No doubt the Security Police had something new in the way of detection equipment, thereby making Han’s and Chewbacca’s lives more complicated by an order of ten. This situation would require immediate future attention.
    Han kept a close watch on the jungle around him, wishing he could have left the ship’s floodlights on. So, when a voice at his side announced, “We are here,” he twisted around with a yelp, his blaster appearing in his fist as if conjured there.
    A creature, barely out of arm’s reach, was calmly standing next to the ramp. It was almost Han’s height, a biped, with a downy, globular torso and short arms and legs boasting more joints than a human’s. Its head was small, but equipped with large, unblinking eyes. Its mouth and throat were a loose, pouchy affair; its scent was the scent of the jungle.
    “That,” Han grumbled, recovering his composure and putting his blaster away, “is a good way to get yourself roasted.”
    The creature ignored the sarcasm. “You have brought what we need?”
    “I’ve got cargo for you. Beyond that, I know zero, which is the way I want it. If you came alone, you’ve got your work cut out for you.”
    The creature turned and made an eerie, piping noise. Figures seemed to grow up out of the ground, dozens of them, motionless, regarding the pilot and his ship with silent gazes. They held short objects of some sort, which he assumed to be weapons.
    Then he heard a growl from above. Stepping forward, Han looked up and saw Chewbacca standing out on one of the ship’s bow mandibles, covering the newcomers with his bowcaster. Han gave a signal. His hairy first mate put up the bowcaster and headed back inboard.
    “Time’s wasting,” Han told the creature. It moved toward the Falcon , taking its companions with it. Han stopped them with upheld hands. “Not the whole choir, friend. Just you, for starters.” The first one burbled to its fellows and came on alone.
    Inside the ship, Chewbacca had turned up the blackout lights to a minimal glow in strategic parts of the interior. The towering Wookiee was already drawing cover plates off the hidden compartments, concealed and shielded to be undetectable, under the deck near the ramp. Into this space, where he and Han usually hid whatever contraband they were carrying, Chewbacca lowered himself to stand with his waist at deck level. Releasing clamps and strapping, the Wookiee began lifting out heavy oblong cases, the huge muscles beneath his fur bulging with effort.
    Han pulled the end of a case around and broke its seals. Within the crate weapons lay stacked. They had been so treated that no part of them reflected any of the scant light. Han took one up, checked its charge, made sure the safety was on, then handed it to the creature.
    The firearm was a carbine—short, lightweight, uncomplicated. Like all the others in the shipment, this one was fitted with a simple optical scope, shoulder sling, bipod, and folding bayonet. Though the