Pirate's Price

by Lou Anders

  Beside me flapped Puffy. But he was starting to look uncomfortable. In fact, the little guy was burping.

  But right before I reached the Falcon, I slipped—on a stray puff cube, no less—and down I went.

  And then Trunc appeared, standing over me—with his blaster pointed at my face.

  “This is as far as you go, Hondo Ohnaka,” he said.

  “If it is all the same to you,” I replied, “I would like to go just a little bit farther.”

  “Nice try,” he said with a chuckle. “But I don’t think so. No, it’s time to put you out of my misery for good. Any last words?”

  “Last words,” I said. “Let me think.”

  If I was going to have last words, I needed to make them count. Then I looked up for inspiration, and I saw, perched all along the bulkheads, my little friends. Only they were all starting to look uncomfortable—gassy and maybe embarrassed.

  “Only two,” I said.

  “Two?” he asked, confused.

  “Yes,” I said. “Two words.” And then I looked at the porgs over Trunc’s head, and I shouted my two words.

  “Bombs away!”

  “Bombs?” said Trunc, confused. “What are you talking about? You don’t have any bombs.”

  “That is correct,” I said. “But they do. And I think I’ve been feeding them entirely too much today.”

  Trunc turned to look where I indicated. And just at that moment, all those little porgies let loose at once, if you know what I mean.

  It was like a fall of snow from the sky, if snow were very stinky and sticky and altogether unpleasant.

  Splat, splat, splat, splat, splat!

  And Trunc, he was screaming and yelling, bombarded by the remains of all those little porgies’ lunch. If he didn’t like the porgs before, he really didn’t like them then.

  He set off running back toward his ship, and the ship was rocking terribly, and he was slipping in the ick.

  And Hondo, oh, I was laughing so hard, but not so hard that I couldn’t release the docking clamps holding my ship.

  And then, when they had finished their business, I raced with my feathered friends back to the Falcon.

  Straight to the cockpit I went, and into hyperspace we jumped, leaving Trunc’s spaceship spinning out of control and, I am sure, in quite a messy state.

  “Ha, ha,” I laughed with the porgs. “It looks like everything worked out in the end.”

  Okay, that was a bad pun. I admit it. But I was free. The Falcon was mine. And I was heading to Batuu.

  But I had a small pack of porgs following me everywhere I went.

  “What to do with you, my little furry companions,” I said to them. “I must say, you are cute when someone gets to know you. Perhaps I could sell you as pets.”

  Well, Puffy nipped my finger at that—just to let me know his opinion of my plan.

  “Oh, you have sharp teeth for a birdy,” I said. “But I suppose that quashes the idea. Okay, Hondo promises no selling. I guess you’ve earned your place on the Falcon. Anyway, I think you’re going to love it on Batuu.”

  “Well, there you have it,” said Hondo.

  “That’s it?” said Bazine. “You’re done? That’s all there is to say about your history with the Falcon?”

  “All I feel like talking about today,” replied the pirate. “But such fine stories—and most of the bits were true. If I were you, I would be very pleased.”

  “I’ll be pleased when I have the ship,” said Bazine.

  “And have it you shall. For the right price, of course.” The Weequay stood up from the table.

  “Come with me,” he said. “It is time we draw a line under our negotiations.”

  Hondo led Bazine out of the cantina and into the streets of Black Spire Outpost.

  By then the day was nearly done. The light of the setting sun turned the petrified trees into long shadows that fell across the outpost like the fingers of giant ghosts reaching toward them from the past.

  The pirate led the mercenary to the spaceport. There a large facility had been built, partially carved out of the surrounding cliff wall. Towers and cupolas blended with rocklike spires, and a prominent flight tower sat above a large entrance at the base. On the tarmac, there was an enormous collection of cargo crates of various sizes and colors, lumped together alongside scattered tools and other maintenance equipment.

  Hondo pointed at the untidy jumble.

  “May I present the Millennium Falcon,” he said.

  “What?” said Bazine. “Where?”

  “Oh,” said Hondo, embarrassed. “I forgot.” Then he rummaged in a pocket and pulled out a small controller.

  “See?” he said. “I have a blinky-blinky doohickey, too.”

  Hondo held up the controller and pressed a button.

  Suddenly, what looked like cargo crates began to fold up or deflate. Bazine even thought she saw a few of them stand up and walk away on broad metal feet.

  When all the decoy crates had folded, shrunk, or ambled away, there it was.

  “The Millennium Falcon,” Hondo said, with a flourish of his hand. “Hide in plain sight, I always say.”

  Scuffed and scarred, battered and bruised, and yet somehow as splendid as one could imagine. It was almost impossible to believe it was really the Falcon.

  Bazine was surprised despite herself. After such a long quest, she expected some sort of trick from the pirate. But no, there was the ship, the loading ramp invitingly lowered.

  “After you,” said Hondo, and they went inside.

  The interior was every bit the mess she predicted it would be. Hondo may have fixed the Quadex power core, but he certainly hadn’t done any cleaning.

  In fact, several small feathery creatures were nesting in various nooks and crannies.

  “The porgs, I presume?” Bazine asked.

  “There’s Puffy now,” said Hondo, indicating a fat little bird and smiling. “Oh, and watch out,” he added, pointing at another. “I call that one Snappy.”

  As if on cue, Hondo’s finger strayed too close, and Snappy lunged for it. The Weequay pulled it back hurriedly.

  “As you can see,” Hondo said with a grimace, “Snappy and I are still working out the finer points of our relationship. Not going to miss him, I’ll tell you that much.”

  Then he led Bazine to the cockpit.

  Hondo sat in the pilot’s chair, then he spun to face her. He stretched his legs out languidly. The pose said, This is still very much mine until you pay what I want. Sure enough, he got right to the point.

  “And now I name my price,” he said. Then he named a very large amount.

  Bazine raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow.

  “You could buy a small fleet of YT-1300s for that,” she said. “It’s not like they’re new ships.”

  “But you don’t want a new ship, or even another YT-1300,” said Hondo. “You want this one. And this one is very special. Special to me personally, as you now know. That raises the price. Also, I don’t like dealing in credits. So that raises my price again. Also, it is not technically mine, and I have yet to think of a lie to explain to its owners why I sold it. So that raises the price again. And finally, I threw in a few dozen extra credits as a fee for my excellent storytelling skills.”

  Bazine rolled her eyes.

  “Fine,” she said. “It isn’t my money anyway.” She pulled out a small device and pressed her thumb to a sensor. It beeped softly as figures flashed on a screen. “Done,” she said. “You’ll find the credits in your account.”

  Hondo’s eyes lit up. “I am almost sorry you didn’t barter,” he said. “Almost.” Then he rose and bowed to her.

  “A pleasure doing business with you,” he said.

  Turning away, Hondo laid a hand on the wall of the Falcon.

  “Good-bye, old girl,” he said. “It has been an experience and then some.”

  “Oh,” he added, and he rested an unwelcome hand on Bazine’s shoulder, “and good-bye to you, too, my scary
mercenary friend.”

  Then he walked out of the cockpit and off the ship, leaving the Falcon in Bazine’s black-fingered hands.

  She waited for him to leave, then she slid into the pilot’s chair. Taking out the same device she had used earlier, she thumbed a different button.

  “I’ve got it,” she said into a transceiver.

  After a moment, someone replied. The voice was deliberately distorted to protect its owner’s identity.

  “Good,” the voice said. “Transmitting rendezvous coordinates now.”

  Bazine checked the coordinates and lifted off. The old Corellian freighter was trickier to fly than she had anticipated, even after hearing Hondo’s tales. But she was capable of adapting to tricky situations. And as it turned out, she didn’t have far to go.

  The rendezvous coordinates took her to Beixander 9, a lonely little moon in a quiet system. She hit the atmosphere and flew across a still ocean to a sleepy spaceport on a hill. She spotted an innocuous light shuttle outside the walls of the settlement and landed beside it.

  The contact who met her was a woman—middle-aged, fit. Bazine could tell another fighter when she saw one. The woman looked like she’d been up against it more than a few times.

  “I was expecting…” began Bazine.

  “Your expectations are not my concern,” replied the woman. “I will take delivery of the ship now and inform our employer of your success.”

  “And my payment?” asked Bazine.

  The woman scowled as if she were somehow sullying her organization’s reputation by dealing with mercenaries and their money matters. But she held up a similar device to Bazine’s. The transfer of funds took only an instant. It was a fraction of what Bazine had authorized to be paid to Hondo for the ship. But it was still a large amount for a job where she hadn’t been required to kill anyone or place herself in too much physical jeopardy. Good. It was done.

  Bazine looked at the shuttle.

  “I suppose a lift would be too much to ask?”

  “It would,” said the woman. “We are not a taxi service for mercenary scum.”

  “Beixander isn’t exactly a bustling port,” argued Bazine.

  “That’s obviously why we chose it for this delivery,” said the woman. “You have been well compensated for your efforts. You’ll be able to hire a lift off-moon…eventually. But you had better hurry. The settlement has a curfew in place. It will shut its gates for the night soon, and you wouldn’t want to be alone out here when any of Beixander’s nocturnal fauna come out to play.”

  Bazine stared at the woman. She didn’t like her. But the job was done. There was no sense hanging around.

  The mercenary turned away—the Falcon wasn’t her problem anymore—and hurried to the small outpost, hoping she could at least find decent lodging before everything shut down for the evening.

  The woman watched her go. Then, completely ignoring her own shuttle, she boarded the Falcon. Reaching the cockpit, she took off.

  Hondo was still waiting in the docking bay of his transport enterprise when the Millennium Falcon landed again.

  He didn’t act at all surprised to see the woman striding down the loading ramp.

  When she approached him, he flashed her a big smile.

  “Welcome to Black Spire Outpost,” he said, his smile widening, “Mahjo Reeloo.”

  “Hondo Ohnaka,” said Mahjo. “It’s good to see you in person.”

  “I am sure that it is,” said the pirate. “But did you have any trouble?”

  “It was tricky, but thanks to the device you planted on her shoulder, I was able to hack into her communicates and learn the location of their rendezvous.”

  “And the real contact who was supposed to meet Bazine?”

  “I hit her with what you called my zappity-zap,” said Mahjo.

  “Oh, ho-ho-ho,” said Hondo, “I don’t envy her at all. I know how that feels.”

  Mahjo looked at him earnestly then.

  “It’s no Novian ruby,” she said, “but I hope you think this favor finally makes us even for the trick I played on you all those years ago.”

  Hondo waved a hand dismissively.

  “It was for a good cause,” he said. “As was this. For old friends, some of them gone, and, well, I know this ship has a history helping out the good guys. I am sure it has not reached the end of its days assisting the rebels.”

  “Resistance,” corrected Mahjo.

  “Rebels. Resistance. Bah, they are all the same to me. Underdogs. Do you know I am a hero of the Liberation of Lothal?”

  “I do,” said Mahjo. “You’ve told me many times.”

  “So I have. So I have. And what of you?” said Hondo. “Do you feel as though you have finally made up for your past mistakes?”

  “I don’t know,” said Mahjo. “But I’ve spent my life trying. No reason to stop now.”

  “I’m glad,” said Hondo. “The good guys need scoundrels, too, if they are to make it.”

  Mahjo smiled to be called a scoundrel. Coming from Hondo, it was an honor.

  “But what happens if Bazine figures out she was tricked?” she asked.

  “She has no reason to come back here,” said the pirate. “You tricked her, not me. I sold her the ship fair and square, and she cannot prove otherwise. What she did with the Falcon afterward is her concern. But if I were Bazine Netal, I would not be quite so eager to tell my employers that I had the ship but I gave it away—to the Resistance, no less—and took a large price for it, too. No, I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes then.”

  As he talked, Hondo led Mahjo from the docking bay back into the streets of Black Spire Outpost.

  “But come,” he said. “I am feeling generous. I will buy you a drink. In fact, I think I finally have enough to pay off my tab at Oga Garra’s cantina.”

  “My goodness,” said Mahjo. “That must be some tab.”

  Inside the cantina, Hondo was approached by the small Yarkoran from the sabacc game.

  “You did well, my friend,” said Hondo. “Thank you for contacting Mahjo Reeloo while I stalled Bazine Netal with my excellent storytelling abilities. Tell Og I want to buy you a drink. She can put it on my tab.”

  “I thought you said you were going to pay off your tab,” said Mahjo, smiling.

  “I said I could pay my tab,” explained Hondo. “I didn’t say I was going to. But grab yourself a drink, too, both of you, and give me a moment. I need to speak to an old friend.”

  When his companions stepped away to the bar, Hondo pulled out a small transceiver.

  “Grrrarrragagha,” said the person on the other end.

  “The ship is safe, my friend, and we are even,” Hondo told Chewbacca.

  “Ooooorrrrrrrhuuffff,” said the Wookiee.

  “Have no fear,” replied Hondo. “I will bring her back to you when I am done with her. Or not.”

  “Arrrrgoooorrroof?” said Chewbacca.

  But Hondo Ohnaka, pirate, scoundrel, smuggler, and storyteller, disconnected the call.

  “Now,” he said, “with all that unpleasantness out of the way, I just need to find a good crew, and I am in business.”

  Hondo walked over to a bulletin board in the cantina. Tearing off someone else’s flyer, he printed something neatly on the reverse side. Then he affixed the new advertisement to the bulletin board and stood back to admire his handiwork. The sign he had created read:

  Flight Crews Wanted

  No training necessary.

  Fair pay, great experience. Discretion a must.

  Inquire at Ohnaka Transport Solutions in the Spaceport.

  “Good, good,” said the old pirate with a smile. “I wonder who will apply for the job first.” Then he turned and spoke to the room at large.

  “Today was a good day for profit. Let’s see what tonight brings! I’m feeling lucky. Anyone for a game of sabacc?”

  Lou Anders is the author of Frostborn, Nightborn, and Skyborn, the Thrones & Bones series of fantasy adventure novels. Each of the b
ooks, in addition to being an exciting story full of heroes and monsters, contains rules for an original board game that Anders created. He is also the recipient of a Hugo Award for editing and a Chesley Award for art direction, and he was named a Thurber House Children’s Writer-in-Residence in 2016. Anders lives in Birmingham, Alabama, with his wife, two children, and a goldendoodle named Hadley. He first visited a galaxy far, far away when he was ten years old and has wanted to fly the Millennium Falcon ever since. He knows that the Force will be with him always and hopes it will be with you, too. You can visit him online at louanders.com and on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter @Louanders.

  Annie Wu is an illustrator currently living in Chicago. She is best known for her work in comics, including DC’s Black Canary and Marvel’s Hawkeye. Her previous work for Star Wars includes Lando’s Luck by Justina Ireland and the Join the Resistance series by Ben Acker & Ben Blacker.