A Certain Point of View

Chapter 22: A Day To Celebrate

Gendered grief among humans was the oddest of things. In the smuggling world, males and females seemed to take on whatever roles kept them alive: their clothes and mannerisms were nearly uniform, to the extent that they sometimes fooled Chewbacca's eyes, and only his razor-sharp sense of smell could tell the equally hairless human sexes apart. Keeping a wary eye on the civilian passengers as the Falcon sped away from the Death Star, he understood perhaps it was not so everywhere.

The young male, Luke, was from the farthest reaches of the Outer Rim, one of the poorest parts of one of the poorest worlds. The young female was very clearly from one of the wealthiest houses and families in the Core. Maybe that had something to do with it; maybe not. But in the space of a few minutes they taught the Wookiee that here, in more standard human societies, males were socialized to be warriors and females to be nurturers. It was something he'd ask Loyal Han Solo about one day. Han had been shot at by many human females in his travels; if they were not normally raised to be warrior-caste, Chewbacca now wondered what their fights could possibly have been about.

The boy, having lost a single very old comrade-in-arms, was inconsolable. Slumped over the Dejarik table in abject grief, he was comforted by the girl who had lost her home, her family, her entire world, everyone she had ever known and all of their kin. He sensed an incredible strength in both of them, but there was no question: these hardest of moments were what she did best. He wondered for the first time, but not for the last, why the human females, so equipped to withstand excruciating pain and possessed of such quick little bodies in a blaster-wielding society, were casted to be caregivers, and big warm loud males the warriors.

He touched them both with exceedingly gentle paws as he passed, as if to model for the male what it was like to share in the grief of others as well as his own.

"How are we doing back there, pal?"

Chewbacca started up at the sound of Han's voice. Remembering his errand, he hurried to the power bay, hydrospanner at the ready, and wrenched off the converter cover as quickly as he could. The sound he made in response was not a proper word in Shyriiwook, but clever Han Solo understood it just the same.

"Nothing?" he called back.

Chewbacca hustled back to the cockpit. "Power converters were burned out fighting the tractor beam," he warbled. "The coils may heat up one or two systems, but we're not making a lot of fast-twitch adjustments."

"No dogfights?" Han pouted. "I love a good dogfight."

"Not without precision power controls," said Chewbacca. "This ship is going to handle like a garbage scow."

"If we hit sentry orbit, they'll blow us to bits," said Han. "How long till you can give me a jump to hyperspace?"

"Without slotting in the new converters?" Chewbacca lowered his lip into a frown. "A few minutes at best. L3's offline with no convertible power to the main banks. The Class 2 hyperdrive runs on standard, but I'll have to do some of the connecting calculations longhand."

Han's eyes betrayed his fear as he looked toward the edge of the Death Star's sentry orbit.

"We don't have that kind of time," said the smuggler. "You think that kid can shoot a cannon half as well as he shoots his mouth?"

"He'd better," Chewbacca warned. "The missiles are offline without the converters."

Han cursed. "No L3, no missiles... we got anything that isn't offline?"

Chewbacca shrugged. "Deflector shields, the main turrets, and whatever came with the ship."

Han smirked out of the corner of his mouth. "Great. So, landing gear, sublight, the Class 2, and if we're real lucky the refresher still flushes."