In Fair Aldera Where we Lay our Scene

Chapter Two

When Chewie had informed Han that Delia had left him a message on his comm he had originally thought that Chewie was messing with him. He and Delia were friends (kinda) but they weren't exceptionally close, they hadn't really hung out together in a few years and Han also knew that Delia liked Chewie better than him.

Chewie had informed Han of this message after he had returned from Chalmun's Spaceport Cantina where he had managed to secure a job taking a small family to Alderaan in a few days time. They hadn't paid much upfront but Han would receive more payment once they reached the destination and Han wasn't really in a place to complain at the moment.

Despite managing to salvage enough side jobs to get the money to make up the money lost Han had lost Jabba when he was forced to dump that load of spice to avoid being captured by the Empire, which was still at large at the time, Han hadn't made much of an interest and Jabba, partly out of pure annoyance, had been keeping Han and Chewie on the hook ever since and they had to rely on paid voyages and occasional mechanic work to buy essentials. They were all fairly low paying especially for the work they were doing but Han guessed that beggars couldn't be choosers.

"Hi Han," the holographic image of Delia said in an almost bored tone, "so I heard about your little drama with Jabba and I've got a proposition that you might be interested in. There's this Alderaaian, Captain Antilles, who works for the royal family and he needs help fixing up what remains of the Alderaaian fleet which fought in the battle over Courscant a few months ago. I recommend you and Chewie to him and he said he'll pay well. Message me if your interested."

After the message ended Han paused for a moment but before he could properly start thinking about Delia's offer he was interrupted by a growl from Chewie who was asking for help with the wiring in the cockpit.

"Alright! Alright! I'm coming!" Han yelled as he made his way to the cockpit.

When Han was inside he removed one of the panels underneath the ship's controls, garbed a hydrospanner and some spare wires to start working on the loose and broken ones.

*So what did she want?* Chewie asked in Shyriiwook while he was working on the wires underneath one of the panels above his head.

"Job offer," Han explained while he grabbed a blue wire. "Some Alderaanian captain wants help with fixing his ships."

*I'm assuming you're oversimplifying the matter,* Chewie said and even without looking Han knew that he was rolling his eyes. *So do you want to do it? If it's legitimate work then we may get a good paycheque.*

"Yeah I guess it's a good idea," Han shrugged as he carefully removed pieces of a broken wire then began to replace it. "Apparently the guy works for Alderaan's royal family and Delia says that he pays well plus I just accepted a passage to Alderaan in a few days so we'll be their anyway. That'll also mean more credits."

*Sounds like a good plan,* Chewie said then happily added: *plus I've heard that Alderaan has beautiful nature so I can get some flowers for Malla. I'm on, you should call her back.*

Malla was Chewie's wife and mother of his son Lumpy. Han was also friends with her and always felt guilty about how much time Chewie spent with him in comparison to his family.

"Yeah I'll do it in a minute. I want to finish this first though," Han said then let out a string of curses after he received a mild electric shock form one of the wires who's casing was broke.

**********

After finishing the wiring in the cockpit Han went back to the main hold to send Dalia his response before he started making his and Chewie's dinner which consisted of a bowl each of noodle stew and a roll of bread.

Delia responded shortly after they'd finished dinner and Chewie had gone to sleep in his hammock while Han was doing the dishes. She'd sent him Captain Antilles contact information so Han quickly sent him a message before getting himself a bottle of the Corellian whiskey Whyren's Reserve from the fridge in the Falcon's gallery.

Despite the fairly large time difference between Tatooine and Alderaan Captain Antilles responded shortly after. The two then exchanged information and details, Han telling him that he would be on Alderaan in a few days and then discussing Han's payment which after a bit of back and forth they had agreed on a fair price. The two then officially agreed to work together and decided that Han and Chewie would sign their contracts when they arrived on Alderaan.

Afterwards they both signed off before Han downed the rest of his whiskey before preparing for bed. He had a quick shower, brushed his teeth then stripped down to just his boxers before crawling into his bunk and pulled out an old datapad.

He then started doing a light holonet search on Alderaan to familiarise himself with the planet since he would be staying there a while though he was only really half paying attention because he doubted he could get in that much trouble on a pacifist planet when he was doing legal work repairing ships. Really he was just doing it so Chewie wouldn't get annoyed with him later. He'd already know that Alderaan was a rich Core World with a monarchy who were involved with the rebellion and the New Republic and he was pretty sure he'd heard somewhere that their princess was also their senator but Han didn't really care much. He did find out that Alderaan had very strict gun control laws but since he was an off-worlder and was being watched over by a captain anyway so he should probably be fine and even if he wasn't he could always just hide his blaster.

It's weird, Han thought as he put the datapad back away. Although he was only twenty-three years old, Han had been a criminal for pretty much his entire life and the only 'legitimate' job he'd ever had was during his short time in the Imperial Navy a few years ago before he'd been kicked out. His dishonourable discharge had prevented him from taking on any kind of 'proper' job afterwards. He'd never run any strictly legal jobs or charters afterwards and the only Core Worlds he had worked on were the lower levels of Coruscant and the poorer areas of his home world of Corellia.

Even with the fall of the Empire and the rise of the Republic Han knew that he was going to be a smuggler until the day he died (Chewie reckoned that he was going to get shot for saying something stupid) as while he doubted that the Republic would care about his discharge they would care about his smuggling escapes regardless of how he ended up there.

Still work was work and Han wasn't one to be overly picky as long as he got well paid and there weren't too many'complications'. Yeah. This was probably going to be fine. Nothing spectacular.

Authors Notes: There's a small detail in this that you'll want to put a pin in for later.

As mentioned above Malla and Lumpy are Chewie's wife and son who were first introduced in 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special. Which apparently is a Thanksgiving special not a Christmas special but I haven't watched it anyway.

Story Word Count: 1207
Published: 07/09/22