gunrunning, petty-cash trips to backwater worlds, all that low-ante stuff.
“Well,” coaxed Jessa, “do I tell my techs to get busy, or do you and the Wookiee plan to teach the galaxy the folly of crime by starving in poverty?”
He brought his chair upright. “You better let me break the news to Chewie first, or your wrench jockies will be nothing but a mound of spare parts for the organ banks.”
Doc’s organization—now Jessa’s—was nothing if not thorough. They had the factory specs for the Millennium Falcon , plus complete design holos on every piece of augmentative gear in her. With Chewbacca’s help and a small horde of outlaw-techs, Han had the Falcon ’s engine shielding removed and her control systems exposed in a matter of hours.
Service ’droids trundled back and forth while energy cutters flared, and techs of many races crawled over, under, and into the freighter. It made Han jittery to see so many tools, hands, tentacles, servogrips, and lift-locks near his beloved ship, but he gritted his teeth and simply did his best to be everywhere at once—and came close to succeeding. Chewbacca covered the things his partner missed, startling any erring tech or ’droid with a high-decibel snarl. No one doubted for a moment what the Wookiee would do to the being or mechanical who damaged the starship.
Han was interrupted by Jessa, who had come up to inspect his progress. With her was an odd-looking ’droid, built along human lines. The machine was rather stocky, shorter than the woman, covered with dents, scrapes, smudges, and spot-welds. Its chest region was unusually broad, and its arms, hanging nearly to its knees, gave it a somewhat simian aspect. Its finish was a flat brown primer job peeling in places, and it had a stiff, snapping way of moving. The ’droid’s red, unblinking photoreceptors trained on Han.
“Meet your passenger,” Jessa invited.
Han’s features clouded. “You never said anything about taking a ’droid.” He looked at the aged mechanical. “What’s he run on, peat?”
“No. And I warned you there’d be details. Bollux here is one of them.” She turned to the ’droid. “Okay, Bollux, open up the fruit stand.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Bollux replied in a leisurely drawl. There was a servomotor hum, and the ’droid’s chest plastron split down the center, the halves swinging away to either side. Nestled in among the goodies that were the ’droid’s innards was a special emplacement; secured in the emplacement was another unit, a separate machine entity of some kind that was approximately cubical, with several protrusions and folded appendages. Atop it was a phtoreceptor mount, monocular lensed. The unit was painted in deep, protective, multilayered blue. The monocular came on, lighting red.
“Say hello to Captain Solo, Max,” Jessa instructed it.
The machine-within-a-machine studied Han up and down, photoreceptor angling and swiveling. “Why?” it demanded. The pitch of its vocal mechanism was like that of a child.
Jessa countered frankly, “Because if you don’t, Max, the nice man is liable to chuck your teensy iron behind out into deep space—that’s why.”
“Hello!” chirped Max, with what Han suspected to be forced cheer. “A great pleasure to make your acquaintance, Captain!”
“The parties you’re picking up need to collect and withdraw data from the computer system on Orron III,” Jessa explained. “Of course, they couldn’t just ask the Authority there for probe equipment without raising suspicions, and your walking in with Max under your arm might cause a few problems, too. But nobody’s going to bother much about an old labor ’droid. We named him Bollux because we had so many headaches restructuring his gut. We never did get his vocal pattern up to speed.
“Anyway, that cutie in Bollux’s chest cavity is Blue Max; Max because we crammed as much computer capacity into him as we could, and blue for reasons that even you, Solo, can
“Well,” coaxed Jessa, “do I tell my techs to get busy, or do you and the Wookiee plan to teach the galaxy the folly of crime by starving in poverty?”
He brought his chair upright. “You better let me break the news to Chewie first, or your wrench jockies will be nothing but a mound of spare parts for the organ banks.”
Doc’s organization—now Jessa’s—was nothing if not thorough. They had the factory specs for the Millennium Falcon , plus complete design holos on every piece of augmentative gear in her. With Chewbacca’s help and a small horde of outlaw-techs, Han had the Falcon ’s engine shielding removed and her control systems exposed in a matter of hours.
Service ’droids trundled back and forth while energy cutters flared, and techs of many races crawled over, under, and into the freighter. It made Han jittery to see so many tools, hands, tentacles, servogrips, and lift-locks near his beloved ship, but he gritted his teeth and simply did his best to be everywhere at once—and came close to succeeding. Chewbacca covered the things his partner missed, startling any erring tech or ’droid with a high-decibel snarl. No one doubted for a moment what the Wookiee would do to the being or mechanical who damaged the starship.
Han was interrupted by Jessa, who had come up to inspect his progress. With her was an odd-looking ’droid, built along human lines. The machine was rather stocky, shorter than the woman, covered with dents, scrapes, smudges, and spot-welds. Its chest region was unusually broad, and its arms, hanging nearly to its knees, gave it a somewhat simian aspect. Its finish was a flat brown primer job peeling in places, and it had a stiff, snapping way of moving. The ’droid’s red, unblinking photoreceptors trained on Han.
“Meet your passenger,” Jessa invited.
Han’s features clouded. “You never said anything about taking a ’droid.” He looked at the aged mechanical. “What’s he run on, peat?”
“No. And I warned you there’d be details. Bollux here is one of them.” She turned to the ’droid. “Okay, Bollux, open up the fruit stand.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Bollux replied in a leisurely drawl. There was a servomotor hum, and the ’droid’s chest plastron split down the center, the halves swinging away to either side. Nestled in among the goodies that were the ’droid’s innards was a special emplacement; secured in the emplacement was another unit, a separate machine entity of some kind that was approximately cubical, with several protrusions and folded appendages. Atop it was a phtoreceptor mount, monocular lensed. The unit was painted in deep, protective, multilayered blue. The monocular came on, lighting red.
“Say hello to Captain Solo, Max,” Jessa instructed it.
The machine-within-a-machine studied Han up and down, photoreceptor angling and swiveling. “Why?” it demanded. The pitch of its vocal mechanism was like that of a child.
Jessa countered frankly, “Because if you don’t, Max, the nice man is liable to chuck your teensy iron behind out into deep space—that’s why.”
“Hello!” chirped Max, with what Han suspected to be forced cheer. “A great pleasure to make your acquaintance, Captain!”
“The parties you’re picking up need to collect and withdraw data from the computer system on Orron III,” Jessa explained. “Of course, they couldn’t just ask the Authority there for probe equipment without raising suspicions, and your walking in with Max under your arm might cause a few problems, too. But nobody’s going to bother much about an old labor ’droid. We named him Bollux because we had so many headaches restructuring his gut. We never did get his vocal pattern up to speed.
“Anyway, that cutie in Bollux’s chest cavity is Blue Max; Max because we crammed as much computer capacity into him as we could, and blue for reasons that even you, Solo, can
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