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ISBN 978-1-368-02575-1
Design by Leigh Zieske
Visit the official Star Wars website at: www.starwars.com.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
About the Author
About the Illustrator
Dedicated to Roscoe Lee Browne,
the narrator of the “Story of Star Wars” tape
I played a million times as a kid.
For me it will always be his voice that says,
“A Long Time Ago….”
A Wookiee was sent on a pet-sitting job.
If you think the Wookiee was happy about this, then you don’t know Wookiees. Especially not this one: Chewbacca, the infamous smuggler and copilot of the Millennium Falcon.
Chewbacca was, in fact, very angry about this job and at his partner, Han Solo, who had stayed behind with the pets’ wealthy (and beautiful) owner, Alinka Aloo.
But the Wookiee was about to get a lot angrier. You may want to cover your ears.
“WURGGRRRRRRBLE!”
That was the sound of Chewbacca grumbling as he took off from Coruscant in a cargo ship full of cute tooka cats.
You know what a tooka cat is right? Sort of like a small, furry, hyper dragon but with big fuzzy ears, a chunky striped tail, and more teeth? A lot more teeth! Anyway, one of those was rubbing its body against Chewie’s leg while he was trying to fly the ship.
“Meeeeyu?” (That was the tooka.)
“MRRRRRGGGGH!” (That was the Wookiee.)
There are many nuances and hidden meanings in the Wookiee language, Shyriiwook, but I believe he was complaining about the job in general and preparing to get more specific. I’ll do my best to translate, but it’s not my native language.
“NWURRRG!”
That was his opinion of the cargo ship, which was indeed pretty cruddy.
“URRRRRGG!”
And that was his opinion of the cargo ship’s controls. Also cruddy.
“WGHYAARRRRR!”
As you can see, he was becoming increasingly frustrated with the controls.
“NYARRR RYARRR WHRRRG!”
Oh dear, I hope none of you do know Shyriiwook, because that was quite rude. However, he made a valid point: the controls weren’t just bad; they were not working at all.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
That, of course, was not Chewie speaking but Chewie’s massive hairy fist pounding dents into the control panel. The tooka scampered out of the cockpit when the banging started, which was a smart move. If you ever see a Wookiee losing his or her temper, you are in the wrong place and need to get to the right place, which is a long way away. Scamper if you must.
“YHWARGGHHHHHHHHHH!”
Now that was indeed an extremely angry roar, but I have to warn you the next one is going to be a lot louder. Because, you see, this pet-sitting job was just supposed to be a local, in-system shuttle run. There was absolutely no need for the hyperdrive to kick in and fling the cruddy cargo ship across the galaxy at lightspeed.
But that’s exactly what happened.
FWOOOOOOOOOOOOSHHHHH!
“MRAWWWWWWGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHRRRRRRAWWWWWWWWW!”
I’m sure that needs no translation.
Even as the echoes of his howl of rage bounced around the cockpit, Chewbacca began trying to rip the navicomputer loose, probably with plans of stomping it to pieces.
“Please don’t rip that loose.”
Chewie leapt from the pilot’s seat and whirled around in one surprisingly quick movement. He saw just on the other side of the hatch the ship’s only passenger, the tooka cats’ keeper, a human named Mayv Trillick.
Chewie had met Mayv briefly before they boarded the cruddy ship. He’d thought she seemed pretty short, even for a young human. He’d also noticed the line of gold triangles painted across her forehead, because honestly, they were hard not to notice.
But he barely noticed them now, being much more interested in smashing something.
The girl shrank back, worried that she might be the something that got smashed. But she continued: “I read a book once where someone busted the navicomputer during a hyperspace trip and the whole crew got marooned on a dead star.”
“MNRUFFFFF!” Chewie begrudgingly admitted that ripping the navicomputer apart was a bad idea, so he contented himself with angrily flipping switches and mashing buttons as he tried to figure out where the ship was taking them.
“I, uh, know where we’re going, if that’s what you’re trying to figure out,” the girl said. “It’s some planet I’d never heard of in a system I’d never heard of. Ushruu, I think. I’m not sure how to pronounce—”
“MHHHHRUNG?” This wasn’t just a question; it was a very suspicious question. And an angry one. Chewie wanted to know why the tooka keeper knew more about where the ship was going than he did. And if he didn’t like the answer, then he was going to get a lot angrier.
Mayv stepped back and kept one finger near the button that would shut the hatchway door between them. She didn’t need to speak Shyriiwook to know the Wookiee was angry.
But she had known she’d need to explain herself eventually, so she had a little speech prepared.
“The first thing you should know,” she said, “is that you’ve been double-crossed, but not by me.”
“HURRGGGGRRR.”
“Uh, right, not…by…me. But just to go ahead and be honest: I’m not really the tooka cats’ keeper. I’m a bounty hunter. Mayvlin Trillick. They call me Mayv. Heard of me?”
“MMMNHH…” Chewie hadn’t heard of her, and he wasn’t sure if he believed her. She didn’t seem like a cat keeper or a bounty hunter to him. Probably just another Coruscant underworlder—trying to act tough but barely living better than a stray tooka. There were millions of them on Coruscant’s lower levels, and it never paid to trust any of them.
“And your friend called you Chewie, is that right?”
“HURFFF,” Chewie answered impatiently.
“Okay, Chewie, the second thing you should know is that this isn’t really a pet-sitting job. The whole thing was a trick. But like I said: not by me!”
“MHHGRRRRRRR…”
“Right, and keep that in mind when I tell you the third thing….Your friend is now the prisoner, not the guest, of that rich princess.”
“WHRRRG?” Mayv had expected more outraged roaring, but Chewie wasn’t that surprised. He’d known something was up, but Han had been too distracted by Alinka’s flirtations. And now, as usual, there was going to be a price to pay.
Chewie cocked his head and listened carefully. With Han trapped, it was going to be up to him to figure out how to get out of this one.
“That’s right,” Mayv continued. “They needed you to go on an insanely dangerous and morally dubious mission, and they figured the best way to get your cooperation would be to hold him hostage. Were they right?”
“MHHHGG…”
“They tricked me the same way. Well, pretty close to it. Basically, we’ll both have to work together to finish this job or your friend is dead. And probably us, too.”
“WHUGGGG…” Chewie wasn’t the least bit surprised by that, either.
“All right, as long as you don’t bust up the controls anymore, the ship will get us where we need to go. At some point, Alinka is going to tell us what the real job is. Right now I better go check on those cats. It sounds like they’re terrorizing the cargo droid again.”
The mighty Wookiee sank back into the pilot’s seat.
“MWWRRRGHGHGHGHGH…”
This was not a howl of anger or even a grumble. This was more of a satisfied grunt. Maybe even a chuckle?
Like I said, Shyriiwook is awfully hard to translate precisely, but the meaning is clear: Chewie was glad this wasn’t going to be just a pet-sitting run after all.
The trick was a clever one.
Han and Chewie had been hanging around Urrett’s Marque, which was one of the rougher bars on 1329, which was one of the rougher levels of Coruscant’s underworld, which was the roughest anywhere.
The two smugglers had docked the Millennium Falcon on Coruscant a week earlier to drop off some (illegal) cargo. They had been hoping to pick up a small job or two before they left.
But what they got was one very small job that looked like it would earn so much that they wouldn’t need any other jobs for a while.
A beautiful extremely pale woman—trailed by a team of ugly blue-skinned bodyguards—had approached them, asked a few questions, and then handed Han a metal card. The address burned into it looked like a misprint.
Han’s eyebrows rose in spite of his desire to play it cool. “I didn’t know anybody lived that high up.” The higher up on Coruscant you lived, the better off you were. This address was really high up.
“‘Anybody’ doesn’t,” the woman said. “I’m not ‘anybody.’ I’m Alinka Aloo. That’s right: Sim Aloo’s daughter. Come to this address tonight…and don’t forget the card or the guards will kill you before you can knock.”
She winked, the bodyguards glared, and then they all left.
“WHHHRRRF!”
“Don’t worry, Chewie, I’ll check it out before we go. I see our old friend Sarlee Jax over there. Let me see what she knows about Aloo.”
Chewie ordered some fried nerf nuggets. If Han got them mixed up in something, he might not get another good meal for a while.
“Ugh,” said Han as he slid back into his seat. “How can you eat those things?”
“HYROOMPH!”
“Well, knock yourself out then, ’cause I think we’re going to be busy. I’ve got a good feeling about this one, pal. Sarlee told me all about the Aloo family. The father, Sim Aloo, is someone really big in the government. And not the local government. He’s like the Imperial whizbag or something. The one we just met, the daughter, runs the family business when he’s busy.”
“MLURRG?”
“Well, no, I didn’t find out what the business is. But trust me, these people are rich in the galactic sense of the word.”
“WHHHHARG MRYURRRR?”
“Well, yes, now that you mention it, she is attractive, but don’t worry….After what happened on Elgamor 5, I’m keeping this strictly business.”
“HRMMMPH!”
Han beamed. “Hey, I can’t help it if my natural charm always shines through.”
The guards stationed in front of Alinka Aloo’s tower were much more interested in the metal card Alinka had given Han than in his natural charm. It got him and Chewie in the front door and through two more security checkpoints—including a weapons check, where Han and Chewie very reluctantly left their blasters.
“MLURPHHH.”
“Of course it’s not a trap. Or at least, I don’t think it is. People this rich don’t need traps! Just relax….”
“MLURRRRPH…”
At last, an elevator took them high into Alinka Aloo’s towering residence. Yes, the young lady really was Sim Aloo’s daughter. She hadn’t been lying about that…just everything else.
The elevator doors opened onto the most lavishly decorated room Han had ever seen. It was like an art museum had been cleaned out and all the stuff had been packed into one room.
Everything had probably once been priceless on some planet or another, but here it was just one more rug or picture or lamp or weird-looking statue-type thing that glowed and played music if you waved your hand near it.
A while back, Han and Chewie had been paid a small fortune to smuggle a Junarian vase off of Chandrila for Gorga the Hutt. Alinka Aloo had three of these ornate vases. They had been shoved to the end of a table as if she was bored with them and had wanted to make room for something new.
“Oh, Captain Solo,” called Alinka from some sort of floating sofa draped in lush purple tapestries. “It’s so nice of you to come here to see me. I hate having private conversations in front of my bodyguards.”
“Well, I—”
“Now, I want you to peek out the window there at the landing pad. Do you see that little ship?”
“Yes, it looks like a—”
“Oh, I don’t know a thing about it. Father loaned it to me. Could your furry man fly it?”
“You mean Chewbacca? Of course, he can—”
“Oh, wonderful. I just need him to fly it over to Centax 3.”
“Centax 3? You mean one of the moons?”
“Right, we have a place there. How much would something like that cost? Ten thousand? Twenty thousand? You’ll have to tell me. I’ve never done anything like this before.”
Again, Han tried to play it cool. But seriously, it’s not easy to play it cool when someone offers you twenty thousand credits for a five-hundred credit job that you probably would have done for two hundred fifty because you’re desperate.
“What do you think, Chewie? Twenty should cover it? Maybe twenty-five if there’s trouble.” Chewie’s eyes widened as he heard Han naming such a ridiculous amount, but he knew how to play it cool, too, so he just grunted.
“Oh, there won’t be any trouble,” said Alinka. “It seems like the simplest thing in the world, and I was about to do it myself, but Father didn’t want me to just because it’s very slightly illegal!”
Aha, thought Han, now we’re finally getting to the truth.
But of course, we weren’t.
“What exactly is the cargo?”
“It’s my tooka cats! You’ve heard of code three-one-something? It’s some new rule that says you can’t have tooka cats on Coruscant anymore! Apparently, there are millions of them running around down there in the city. But why shouldn’t I have them up here in my tower?”
“Well, I—”
“Anyway, Father thinks it’s best if we send them away for a little while, poor things. And he thinks we should do it quietly and without exactly telling the spaceport people what we’re doing. But you know all about that, right? That’s why I’m hiring you!”
“Oh, yes, I’m sure we—”
“Wonderful! Mayv! Mayv!”
Han wasn’t sure what “Mayv” meant, but then a young human appeared from the next room. She looked a bit scruffy, Han thought. Of course, Han looked pretty scruffy, too, especially surrounded by all of Alinka’s luxuries.
“Mayv is my perfectly wonderful tooka keeper!” said Alinka.
Mayv was, in fact, carrying a golden tooka cat, but she wasn’t all that wonderful at keeping it. The toothy creature was squirming, scratching, and making a sound not unlike that of a grumpy Wookiee.
Han and Chewie had seen countless tooka cats in backstreets and alleys on many planets. But they had never seen one wearing a jewel-encrusted collar and headpiece before.
As soon as it saw Chewie, the tooka cat wriggled out of Mayv’s arms, bounded across the room—breaking several irreplaceable treasures—and leapt into his arms, purring and rubbing its ear against him.
“MMMLRFFFFFF,” complained Chewie.
“Yeah, but…twenty thousand credits, pal,” whispered Han.
“Oh, good! It likes you already!” said Alinka. “That will make everything so much nicer! Now, Mayv, go ahead and put it on the ship. Are the others already loaded up?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” said Mayv, trying to remove the creature from Chewbacca.
“‘Your Highness’?” repeated Han.
“Oh, don’t worry, Captain Solo, you needn’t call me that,” tittered Alinka. “It’s so embarrassing, really. And I can’t have you calling me ‘Your Highness’ all evening.”
“‘All evening’?”
“You wouldn’t mind staying here to keep me company would you? Your friend will only be gone a couple of hours, but I’ll be so lonely without my tookas….”
“Well, I—”
“Wonderful!” she chirped, patting the space next to her on the floating sofa. “You can tell me all about your spaceships, and maybe I can think of some other jobs you can do…or maybe we’ll do something else entirely, Captain Solo.”
“You, uh, can call me Han,” he said, giving her that smile that Chewie knew would only lead to trouble.
“Now, Han, you just sit here and enjoy some of Father’s wine while I have a quick word with my cat keeper.”
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