The Han Solo Adventures by Brian Daley Read Free Book Online Page A

Authority we’ll need a knuckle-boom to haul it all away.”
    The hyperdrive began to cut in. “But first, it’s time to meet and greet old friends. After that, everybody’d best hang on to their cash with both hands!” Han finished.
    They had to do it in steps, of course. A hyperspace jump took them to an all-but-deserted, played-out mining world where the Authority didn’t even bother to maintain offices. A lead there, from an old man who had once seen better days, put them in touch with the captain of a long-orbit ore barge. After some finagling, during which their bona fides were checked, with their lives forfeited if that check had turned up the wrong answers, they were given a redezvous.
    At that rendezvous they were met, in a deep space, by a small ship’s gig. When an inboard search by armed, wary men revealed that the Falcon carried no one but her pilot and copilot, the two were led to the second planet of a nearby star system. The gig parted company with them, and they came in for a landing, tracked by the upraised snouts of turbo-laser cannons. The site was a huddle of quickly assembled hanger domes and habitation bubbles. Parked here and there was a wide assortment of ships and other equipment, much of it gutted and decaying, cannibalized for spare parts.
    When Han stepped down the starship’s ramp, his face lit with that intense smile that had been known to make men check up and see what their wives were doing. “Hello, Jessa. It’s been too long, doll.”
    The woman waiting at the foot of the ramp looked back at him scornfully. She was tall, her hair a mass of heavy blond ringlets, and her shape did extremely pleasant things to the tech’s coveralls she wore. Her upturned nose held a collection of freckles acquired under a variety of suns; Jessa had been on almost as many planets as Han. Just now, her large brown eyes showed him nothing but derision.
    “Too long, Solo? No doubt you’ve been busy with religious retreats? Mercantile conferences? Milk deliveries for the Interstellar Childrens’ Aid Fund? Well, it’s no wonder I haven’t heard from you. After all, what’s a Standard Year, more or less, hey?”
    “A lifetime, kid,” he answered smoothly. “I missed you.” Coming down to her, he reached for her hand.
    Jessa eluded him, and men with drawn guns came into view. They wore coveralls, fusion-welders’ masks, tool belts, and greasy headbands, but they were plainly comfortable with their weapons.
    Han shook his head mournfully. “Jess, you’ve really got me wrong, you’ll see.” But he knew he had just received an explicit warning, and decided he’d better turn the conversation to the matter at hand. “Where’s Doc?”
    The scorn left Jessa’s features, but she ignored his question. “Come with me, Solo.”
    Leaving Chewbacca to watch the Falcon , Han accompanied her across the temporary base. The landing field was a flat expanse of fusion-formed soil (almost any sort of solid material would do for fusion-forming, Han knew; minerals, vegetable matter, or any old enemies for whom you had no further use). Male, female, human, and nonhuman techs scrambled over vehicles and machinery of every category, aided by a wild assortment of ’droids and other automata, engaged in repair, salvage, and modification.
    Han admired the operation as he walked. A tech who’d do illegal work could be found almost anywhere, but Doc, Jessa’s father, had an operation that was famous among lawbreakers everywhere. If you wanted your ship repaired without questions as to why you’d been through a firefight, if you needed a vessel’s ID profile and appearance changed for reasons best left unmentioned, or if you had a hot piece of major hardware to buy or sell—the person to contact, if you met his rigorous background check, was Doc. If something could be done with machinery, he and his outlaw-techs could do it.
    Several of the modifications done on the Millennium Falcon had been performed through the