The Joiner King (9 page)

“Where do you fellows think you’re going?”

The lead bug stared up, ticking its mandibles nervously, and emitted a soft drumming from its chest.

“Burrubbubbuurrr, rubb.”

It dropped to all sixes, lowering itself to about knee height, then dipped its antennae politely and shot between Han’s legs.

“Hey!” Before the bug could continue up the ramp, Han spun around and caught it by the undersized wings on its back. Some insects had a habit of hiding eggs wherever they could, and he didn’t want any infestations aboard the
Falcon.
“Hold on!”

The bug spun its head around to meet Han’s gaze, then pointed at his hands and gently clacked its mandibles.
“Ubburr buurr ub.”

“Captain Solo,” C-3PO said helpfully, “I do believe the insect is requesting that you release it.”

“You understand this stuff?” Han asked.

“I’m afraid it’s only an educated guess,” C-3PO said. “This form of their language is as obscure as the dance—”

“Then not a chance.”

“Han,” Leia said, “I don’t sense any danger here. Until See-Threepio figures out how to communicate—”

“I
am
communicating.” Han fixed his gaze on the nearest of its eyes and said, “I don’t know who you think I am, but no one boards the
Falcon
until
I
say so.”

The other five bugs dropped to all sixes, then slipped to the underside of the ramp and continued toward the hatchway.

“No!” Han flipped the insect he was holding off the ramp, then started after the others. “Stop them!”

The Noghri stepped in front of Leia and placed themselves squarely in the door, crouched for action. The bugs swung back to the ramp’s upper side and tried to squeeze aboard the
Falcon
anyway. The first pair were knocked away by a pair of quick Noghri kicks.

The remaining trio of insects stopped where they were and dropped into a six-limbed crouch. Their antennae fell flat against their heads, and a soft little
“rrrrrrrr”
began to come from their chests. Someone else might have described the sound as meek, but Han knew better than to assume. Bug minds did not work the same way as those of other species.

BD-8, the Solos’ battle droid, appeared behind the Noghri and pointed his blaster cannon over Meewalh’s shoulder. “Do not be alarmed!” With the full jacket of laminanium armor and red photoreceptors in a death’s-head face, he still resembled the YVH droid from which he had been refitted. “Intruders identified. Permission to fire?”

“No!” Leia snapped. “Stand down! Return to leisure station.”

“Leisure station?” BD-8’s tone grew doubtful as the other bugs continued up the ramp. “Ma’am, we’re being boarded!”

“We’re
not
being boarded,” Leia said.

“Not if I can help it!” Han said.

He snatched another of the bugs and, in the low gravity, sent it spinning twenty meters across the hangar. Cakhmaim and Meewalh removed the last two, grabbing a mandible and executing quick twists that sent the insects tumbling away.

Han nodded his approval. “See?”

A bitter odor began to waft up from the floor. Han looked
down to see two of the dislodged bugs standing beside the ramp on their four front limbs, their abdomens raised so they could squirt greenish fluid on the sides of the ramp.

“What the garzal?” Han cried.

“Ubbub bubbur,”
the bugs drummed.

“Bubbur yourselves!”

Han raised his arms to shoo them away. They continued to squirt, and C-3PO picked that moment to interrupt.

“Captain Solo, we seem to have another visitor.”

The droid pointed past Han’s shoulder.

Han turned around to find a tall, bald-headed figure with large, buggy eyes and a pair of thick tusks approaching the
Falcon
’s boarding ramp. In his hands, he carried a rag and a spray canister.

“Great,” Han said. “Now an Aqualish.”

“That can’t be good,” Leia said. The Aqualish were an aggressive species known across the galaxy for picking fights—and jumping into the middle of them. “What’s he want?”

“To wash the viewports, it looks like,” Han said. The Aqualish reached the base of the ramp and started forward toward the bugs. “What do you want, Fangface?”

The nickname was despised by Aqualish, but it was better to take an aggressive tone with them. They were less likely to start a fight with someone who did not intimidate easily.

“Nothing, friend.” The Aqualish spoke in the gravelly voice typical of his species. “Just to help you out.”

Han and Leia exchanged puzzled glances.
Friend
was not usually a word you heard from an Aqualish.

“We’re not your friends,” Han said.

“You will be.”

The Aqualish waited until the bugs finished squirting, then shooed away the one on his side of the ramp and sprayed a harsh-smelling foam over the same area.

“That stuff better not be corrosive,” Han warned.

Aqualish could not smile—the need had probably never arisen during their evolution—but this one lifted his head and managed to seem like he was.

“It’s not.” He tossed the spray canister to Han. “You need to clean that mess up.”

The Aqualish pointed at the far side of the ramp, where the other worker had squirted its goo, then started to wipe the area he had already coated. Han sprayed a thick layer of foam over the side of the ramp, filling the air with a smell somewhere between rotting fruit and burned synfur.

“Tell me again what I’m doing?”

“When you tossed the workers off, they marked you,” the Aqualish explained. He tossed Han the rag. “Now you have to start over, or they’ll call their soldiers and tear your ship apart to see what you’re hiding.”

“Start over?” Leia asked.

“Transacting,” the Aqualish explained. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“Uh, maybe,” Han said. “You mean like trading, right?”

“More like taking,” the Aqualish said. “They take what they want. You take what you want. Everybody’s happy.”

The insects started up the ramp again.

“Boarding imminent,” BD-8 reported. “Permission to—”

“No!” Leia said. “Stand down.”

Han finished wiping the foam away, then stood up to find the six insects lined up on the ramp below.

“They’re not going to lay eggs or anything?” he asked.

“No, they only do that in the heartcomb,” the Aqualish assured him. “Just let them bring out whatever they want, then take back whatever you want to keep. It’s a lot easier—and safer.”

“If you say so.” Han stepped aside to let the bugs pass. “Okay?”

The lead worker responded with a single mandible clack, which was simultaneously echoed by the rest of the squad.

“That would be an affirmative,” C-3PO offered helpfully.

The bugs started up the ramp.

Han jumped down beside the Aqualish and returned the spray canister and rag. “Sorry about that Fangface stuff.” He reached for his money. “What do I owe you for the help?”

“Nothing, friend.” The Aqualish waved a dismissing hand. “It happens to everyone the first time.”

“Really?” Han’s mind began searching for angles, trying to figure out what kind of swindle the Aqualish was trying to pull. “Hope you don’t mind me saying so, but you’re a pretty helpful guy for your kind.”

The Aqualish watched the last bug disappear into the
Falcon
, then nodded. “Yeah. I don’t get it, either.” He turned and started back toward his own vessel. “This place just makes me feel good.”

Han, Leia, and the others spent the next hour returning to the
Falcon
most of what the bugs carried off. At first, the work was confusing and frustrating—especially after they had carried the same crate of protein packages aboard for the seventh or eighth time. But eventually order emerged, with the ship’s crew leaving anything they could bear to part with at the foot of the ramp and stacking whatever they wanted to keep in the forward hold. Toward the end, the bugs even started to add balls of wax and jugs of some amber, sweet-smelling spirit to the
Falcon
’s stack.

Finally, the only item under contention was
Killik Twilight
, a small moss-painting that had once hung outside Leia’s bedroom in House Organa on Alderaan. Designed by the late Ob Khaddor—one of Alderaan’s foremost artists—the piece depicted a line of enigmatic insectoid figures departing their pinnacle-city home, with a fierce storm sweeping in behind them. Han had no idea why the bugs were so taken with it—apart from the subject matter—but every time he put it on the
keep
stack, an insect would deposit a jug of spirits or a shine-ball in its place and carry it back down the ramp again. Han was about ready to start exterminating. The painting was Leia’s most prized possession, and he’d almost died trying to recover it for her on Tatooine.

A bug emerged from the
Falcon
carrying
Killik Twilight
in its four arms and stopped about halfway down the ramp, peering over the top of the frame. Han, waiting at the bottom, folded his arms and sighed.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get it over with.”

Instead of continuing down the ramp, the worker jumped to the floor and disappeared behind the disordered heap of crates and spare tools stacked next to the
Falcon.

“Hey!”

Han rushed to the other side to cut off the bug’s escape, but it was nowhere to be seen. He glanced back at its buddies—waiting for this last bit of “transacting” to be completed—but they only turned their oblong eyes away and pretended not to notice. Han sneered, then knelt down to peer behind the
Falcon
’s landing struts.

Nothing.

“Blast!” Han slowly turned, his pulse pounding as he searched for the bug. Halfway up the hangar wall, he saw the Skywalkers emerging from a passage with Saba Sebatyne and a black-furred Ewok, but no sign of the thief. “Huttslime!”

“Han?” Leia appeared at the top of the boarding ramp, her arms loaded with provisions that she and the others were stowing again. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Han answered. “The bugs are getting sneaky.”

Leia put her load aside. “Define
sneaky
, Han.”

“Nothing to worry about.” A soft rustle sounded from the transaction pile. Han peered over a stack of raw protein packages and saw a slender insect foot sliding behind a crate of Endorian brandy. “I’ve got everything under control.”

Han slipped around the stack of packages, then pulled the crate aside and found the worker bug cowering with
Killik Twilight
in its four hands.

“Uub urr,”
it thrummed.

“Yeah? Two can play that game.”

Han pulled the painting from its grasp, then turned to find Ben rushing up ahead of Luke and the others.

“Uncle Han!” He raised his elbow in an old smuggler’s greeting Han had taught him. “Dad said you were here!”

“Good to see you, kid.” Han touched his elbow to Ben’s. “I’d love to talk, but I’m in the middle of a contest of wills.”

Leaving Leia to slow down the bug and greet Luke and the others, Han carried the painting onto the
Falcon
, then knelt on the floor and opened a smuggling compartment.

“That’s a funny place to put Aunt Leia’s painting,” said Ben, who had followed him aboard.

“Tell me about it,” Han said. He slipped the painting into the
compartment, closed the cover, and stood. “Now let’s go see your mom and—”

The bug appeared in the corridor, sweeping its antennae along the floor. It passed Han with a polite rumble, then stopped and began to pry at the secret panel. When the compartment would not open, it sat down and began to clack its mandibles.

“All right! You don’t have to call your buddies.” Han knelt on the floor beside the bug. “Just get out of my way.”

Han opened the panel. The insect pulled the painting from the compartment and turned to leave, then let out a startled rumble when it found Saba and her Ewok companion coming up the corridor. The Ewok snatched the painting from the bug’s hands, turned it over, and spat on the back.

“What the blazes!” Han turned to Saba. “Is this guy a friend of yours?”

“Tarfang and I have made no killz together,” Saba said. “But he can help us.”

“Yeah?” Han watched doubtfully as Tarfang placed the painting on the floor. “How?”

The Ewok glared up at Han and jabbered something in the squeaky language of his species, then motioned Han and the others toward the boarding ramp.

“Listen up, Cuddles,” Han said, “I don’t know who you think you are, but on the
Falcon
—”

“Uncle Han, look!”

Ben pointed at
Killik Twilight.
The bug stood holding the painting in its hands, running its antennae over the back where the Ewok had spit. It repeated the gesture several times, then emitted a sad little hum and returned the painting to the smuggling compartment.

Han looked back to Tarfang. “How’d you do that?”

The Ewok’s only answer was an indignant snort. He spun around and started for the boarding ramp, no longer seeming to care whether Han or anyone else followed.

“Touchy little fellow, isn’t he?”

“Tarfang is not a nice being.” Saba started after the Ewok. “But his captain can help us find Jaina and the otherz.”

Han caught up to her outside, where C-3PO informed them
that Luke and the others had gone on ahead with Tarfang. Despite Saba’s assurances that
Killik Twilight
was perfectly safe now that someone had spit on it, Han asked the Noghri to stay with the painting.

They dropped Ben at the
Shadow
with Nanna, then joined Luke, Mara, and Leia outside the blast-pocked, carbon-scored disk of a small YT-1000 transport. A smaller cousin to Han’s own YT-1300, the YT-1000’s cockpit sat atop the hull where the
Falcon
’s upper laser cannon turret was located; there was no lower turret at all. For defense, the vessel had only four short-range blaster cannons spread evenly along the rim of its hull.

“That thing
flew
here?” Han gasped.

An indignant Ewok voice chuttered from inside the vessel’s shadowy entrance.

“He says it came straight from Regel Eight,” C-3PO translated.