The medics had said the bright spots would fade within a few hours. Not that this was much comfort. He wanted to be working on the Falcon now, at this instant. Grinning momentarily at his own childlike impatience, he lifted his tumbler and took another sip of the liquid within it. It burned a little as it went down, a smooth, flavorful heat.
“What is it?” Leia, seated in the spindly metal chair next to his, had seen his smile.
“I was thinking that if you’re going to have to put up with enforced downtime, there are worse ways to do it than with a good brandy and your best girl.”
In his peripheral vision, he caught Leia’s smile, but her tone was slightly less agreeable. “So many things wrong with what you said. First, you don’t mention liquor before your wife. Then there’s the whole girl-woman issue, but that’s not relevant because you clearly didn’t mean it in a spirit of dismissiveness or disenfranchisement. But the phrase best girl implies there are other girls …”
“There are. There’s one now.” Han pointed.
Descending the Falcon’s boarding ramp was their daughter, Jaina. As diminutive as her mother, and as beautiful, though with narrower features, she had inherited her father’s knack for mechanics, as suggested by her current form of dress-overalls spattered with spots of lubricant and hydraulic fluid. She had also inherited her mother’s way with the Force, a fact attested to by the lightsaber hanging from her belt. As she descended, she wiped her hands on an oily blue rag, then noticed Han watching. “Dad! All fixed.”
“You’re kidding.”
Jaina shook her head, then took a chair at his table. “Alema’s attack did some damage, but she didn’t have much time to root around in the hyperdrive before Mom interrupted her. I replaced a couple of parts, and it checks out in the green. You’ll want to take her up and do a practice run or two, I expect.”
“I expect. Thanks.” He gave Leia a sidelong look. “I’m getting more obsolete every day. I don’t even have to patch up the Falcon’s battle damage anymore.”
Leia gave him a smile tinged with malice. “You’ll never be obsolete as long as some people prefer old-fashioned tactics and parts.”
“It’s such a shame you can’t spank a Jedi.”
There was a clattering of heels, and Han looked up to see Jagged Fel and Zekk coming down the boarding ramp.
Fel, son of one of the Empire’s most celebrated fighter pilots, and nephew of one of the New Republic’s, was a well-muscled man of middle height, his hair, neatly trimmed beard, and mustache black, a white lock at his hairline marking an old scalp wound. He wore a black flight suit; on a dark night, he would look like a face and hands floating in the air.
Zekk, Jaina’s Jedi partner, was unusually tall, his long dark hair currently braided. Like Leia, he was dressed in ordinary Jedi robes.
Jag held a blaster pistol, his finger not in the trigger housing, and as he neared Han he reversed it, offering it butt-first. “Found it.”
Han set down his drink. He took the pistol, twirled it experimentally, and bolstered it. “Now I feel dressed again. Where was it?”
“During your acrobatics, a hatch over one of the escape pods must have popped open. Your blaster fell into it, and the hatch closed and locked the next time you were right-side up.”
“Thanks.” Han turned back to Leia. “Actually, I could get used to this. Have the youngsters do all the work, all the time. Hey, somebody get me a drink.”
Zekk sat in the fourth and last chair, picked up Han’s tumbler from where it rested, and moved it two centimeters closer to Han. “Your drink, sir.”
“Well, some chores are easier than others.”
“So.” Leia fixed the three newcomers with a quick, serious look. “Anything? Any sign of Alema?”
Jag, still’standing, shook his head. “None.” His voice was thoughtful. “Extra none.”
Leia frowned, puzzled. “What does that mean?”
Zekk cocked a thumb over his shoulder toward the Falcon. “Alema left behind no fingerprints. No threads from her robes. There weren’t any skin cells on any of the bulkheads you said she hit.”
Han scowled. “She had to have left fingerprints on my blaster. She pulled it to her with the Force, caught it in her hand.”
“Her left hand, you said.” Jag’s voice was thoughtful.
“Yeah.”
“She has to have finally accepted prosthetics, “Jag considered. “Though the custom is to obtain prosthetics identical to your original limbs, down to every mole and fingerprint whorl, that’s not because of some unbreakable law of cybernetics. She could have gotten replacements without identifying features.”