[Dark Nest] - 1(20)

“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 SeeThreepio 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?”