Fic: Not a Bad Day's Work Nc-17 Slash
Jan. 8th, 2004 06:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltdNot a Bad Day’s Work
2003 Angel
“Check the mass again, willya, Luke?”
“Han, we’re half a kiltonne over, and it is not the instruments. You’ve got to clean out the hold. There’s no way we can lift.”
Han thumped the control panel and sighed. Luke was right. There was no way they could lift. The detritus of living twenty years aboard the same ship had finally caught up with him. This new consignment, although small in size, was right knife-edge on the Falcon’s mass tolerances, and the fee was enormous. They needed this job and that meant something had to go.
Luke tipped a sly smile over at him, his eyes half-lidded in the way Han found almost irresistible. “Clear out the hold, have a cleaning sale, makes some money and lift. What could happen?”
“The mind boggles, kid.”
“Where’s your spirit of adventure, Han?”
“Uh, that’s in my other pants.” Luke had a point. He was forever buying or “picking things up” because he couldn’t find tools and parts he needed, yet he knew he had.
“Which are in the cargo hold.” Luke slipped over and was straddling his lover’s lap before he’d finished. “Besides, I’m more interested in what’s in this pair at the moment.”
“Oh really? And here I thought we were on a delivery timetable.” The determined nibble at Luke’s neck gave lie to the words.
“I thought this was the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy.” Luke ground his hips against Han’s as he ducked in for a kiss.
“Smartmouth.”
“Procrastinator.” Luke took one more kiss before swinging off Han’s lap and heading for the cargo hold.
“Hey, what about–“
“When we have the sale set up. Consider it...incentive.”
Cursing Jedi control, Han headed to the cargo bay. It was going to be a long night. But there would be something good at the end. Two somethings, Luke and extra cash. He could always use extra cash. And Luke, Luke was as essential as air.
Things went reasonably well for the first shipping container. It was mostly clothes that other people had left aboard. Luke found a violet velvlon shirt, and Han saw the longing in his face as he folded it into the “Men’s clothing” pile.
“Luke, if you see something you want, go ahead and try it on. That one would look great on you. Blonds always look good in purple.”
“If we keep everything we like, we’ll never get anything unloaded.” Luke really wanted the shirt but felt the need to be logical about the situation.
“So make a pile of the stuff we want, and if it’s bigger than the stuff to sell, we reconsider.”
They sorted a while in silence until Luke, overcome with curiosity by the contents of a very heavy crate, had to ask. “Han, why have you kept every burned-out flux capacitor you ever had?”
“Lots of worlds consider them hazardous waste and charge an arm and a leg to dispose of them. Easier to toss them in the crate and wait til I hit a world that didn’t.”
“And from the looks of it, you never found one. There must be fifty in here.”
“No sense dumping them until I had a full crate.”
“Of course not.” Luke set the crate in the discard pile. He held up a green jumpsuit with bust darts. “And whose is this? Should I worry? It’s too big for Leia.”
“Katya.” Han’s face went grave.
“Ah, right.” Luke remembered the story of how Han and his shipmate had been the only survivors of a hunt by the winged folk of Skye. He’d met Katya but briefly, and remembered the way she had died: absorbed in her sleep by a creature of pure Force. He folded the jumpsuit carefully into the sell pile. The earrings and necklace stacked atop it.
“Luke? You want this?”
“Whatcha got?” Luke was testing hydrospanners to see if they worked. Han had amassed an impressive collection, including several stamped property of the local authorities. He caught the cube by reflex, and tripped the viewing switch. “Now why would I want your old dirty movie collection?”
“Watch it a minute, kid.”
“Whoa, whoa, what’s that? They look like–“
“Yeah, us. It’s Imperial make and was circulating after Yavin. I was taking some serious grief about a jailbait lover in the portside bars and couldn’t figure out why, until someone gave me this. Too damn close for comfort on the likenesses.”
“After Yavin? Before we got together?” Luke was half-absorbed in watching their dopplegangers. A bizarre sense of voyeurism warred with his arousal.
“Yep. Gave me some ideas, I’ll tell you that.”
“Maybe I should keep it. Get some ideas for myself.” Luke set the cube on the keep pile.
More clothing, some male, some female, left by various passengers and pick-ups. Luke tucked back a pair of very skimpy underwear, also in purple and quite sheer. He would wash them, and surprise Han later.
Some holo cubes, mostly tech manuals with the occasional travelogue and pornographic cube thrown in. The latter were all at least ten years old. Luke noticed Han automatically sorted those to the sell pile.
“Can we sell those without a license?” Luke knew some worlds were fairly strict about that sort of thing.
“Sure. No sense keeping them.” Han didn’t add, Not now that I have you.
Luke pried open the next crate, and fell back gagging. “What died?”
Han was on his feet before the smell could infest the whole ship and slammed the crate closed “Huttese food.” He swore softly. “I knew I had loaded twenty crates, and thought I’d off-loaded all of them. Let’s get it out of here. You don’t want to know how old it is.”
“Did it smell that bad before or has it rotted?” Luke was turning a shade of green that clashed with his hair. His face was tangled in a revolted grimace.
“Both,” Han said, breathing through his mouth.
They wrestled it onto a handtruck and took it out to the garbage heap near the spaceport. They walked back, slowly, enjoying the mild night, and the pleasantly flower-scented air after the reek of the Hguttese food. Luke looked up at the stars and wondered what the locals saw as constellations. Han looked at him, watching the small hurtling moon cast a changing shadow over his face. After a moment, he leaned in and kissed Luke’s neck.
Luke smiled and met him for a long kiss, letting the moon set before he broke them apart. “You’re just a romantic at heart, Han.” He knew his lover would deny this, but loved to tease him about it.
“What I am is horny out of my mind. You make me crazy, kid.” The very ambitious hands that had worked their way into Luke’s pants argued in favor of this theory. “Let’s go take care of this,” Han squeezed the hard shaft in his hand, “and then get back to sorting.”
This time, it was Luke nibbling at his lover’s neck. “You sure you’re not developing mind-reading talent?”
They made their way back to the Falcon. Luke stripped out of his clothes with controlled speed, eager for Han’s touch, but not wanting to linger on the foreplay. Han was still untying his blaster holster when Luke spread himself across the bed.
He stopped to look. Luke was nicely built, the constant training keeping him in peak condition. Han loved watching him move, and stretch and fight. When Luke spread himself out like this, on his back, he looked like a gorgeous golden banquet just waiting to be devoured from blond head to darker curls and strong legs.
Luke rolled over.
Han felt the way he imagined religious peiople must feel when their deity talked to the, Luke was a revelation in himself. Looking at the bare back, all solid muscle and tan--all over tan and when had Luke managed to sneak that past him?–it made him hungry. He was out of his clothes as fast as he could and managed to lie down beside his lover without actually pouncing on him like a starved ferl.
“You’re beautiful, you know that, right?” Han said against Luke’s neck, running his tongue over the strong shoulder and turning Luke to face him, so he could continue over the collar bones into the hollow of his lover’s throat.
“You say so often enough.” Luke caught Han’s face in his hands and pulled him up for a kiss. “You inside me. Now if not sooner.” He levitated the bottle of lubricant from the floor beside the bunk.
“And I thought I was the desperate one.” Before he could ask about position, Luke had already rolled to his knees and elbows, and gave him a come-hither leer from where his face rested on the bunk. Han slicked himself quickly. There was a gorgeous naked Jedi ass-up in his bed begging for it, enough to make any sane man catch his breath and dive right in. Which he did, taking great pleasure in Luke’s moan of satisfaction.
He moved slowly, hoping for a word or two of encouragement, wanting Luke to let him know how he was doing. Nothing except gasps of pleasure came from his lover.
Luke’s head was spinning. His skin was afire with cold lightening that aroused and did not harm. His bones were melting. He wanted to tell Han how much he loved him, how incredible this felt, but only inarticulate gasps came from his mouth. He couldn’t stand this. It was too much arousal for him to process. When Han’s hand reached around for him, he came on the first stroke, shouting his orgasm in a harsh yelp.
“Desperate, all right,” Han said softly, gently coaxing the end of the climax from him. A second wave, much briefer, struck and he yelled again. Han toppled them over, still buried inside, to lie side by side. He was a talker, and liked the position because it let him whisper the sexiest ideas he knew to Luke.
He timed his thrusts to his words, helping Luke come down, and his own peak build. “So gorgeous, Luke. And you came so fast.” He brought his sticky fingers up and licked one clean in Luke’s line of sight. Luke shivered. “I’m flattered. Been a long time since you got that hot, that quick. Was it the porno cube of us? Or has it just been a while?”
“Yeah.” Luke was back to monosyllables now. He managed to catch one of Han’s fingers and licked himself off it.
“You always do that. Greedy.” Han punctuated the word with a deep thrust, getting another moan of pleasure from Luke. “It looks so slutty,” he hissed, shoving as deep as he could. Luke tipped back and pulled his face forward for a kiss that left Han’s own head spinning.
“Yeah. “Swhy I do it.” The accompanying wink sent Han over the edge. “You like me greedy.” Luke arched his back, making sure Han was still seated deep inside him.
“Love you.” Han corrected. “Want you all the time,” he sighed, nuzzling against Luke’s neck and hair.
They lay in each other’s arms, dozing lightly, aware of the other’s body and satiated by the contact. Finally, Luke stirred, and sat up.
“Let’s finish sorting, shall we? We still have a delivery timetable.”
Refreshed by both Luke and the brief nap, Han dressed quickly. The rest of the sorting went fairly quickly. He kept three copies of every tool, and put the rest out for sale. They found one of Leia’s favorite hairstyling units stacked under two crates of rags and a box of holocards from various planets.
“Oh yeah. Meant to get that back to her worshipfulness but then we had that stabilizer malfunction and it got buried. We better keep it.”
“Han? Why in the galaxy do you have fluidics components? And what’s this thing tangled in them?”
“Long story, kid. Got stranded on Kamar, and shielded circuitry is a few centuries beyond them. The poor old lady was a mess of microtubes and fluidics. And that,” he disentangled the thing from the tubes, “is a musical instrument. Huh. Must have missed it when I hocked the rest.”
“No human can play this.” Luke turned it over in his hands.
“You’re right. Kamar Bandlanders are insectoids. It’s worth a few credits, drop it on the sell pile.”
Luke held up a large green-gold gemstone that flickered with opalescent fire. “This?”
Han glanced at it and went back to pawing through a box of odds and ends. “Commenorian chrysopaz.”
“The one you traded your sense of chivalry for? Still got the brandy too?” Luke had thought the answer in the Death Star control room years before had been more flip than serious.
“Kid, how long do three bottles of brandy last around here? No, I bought it for a girl I was seeing then. She dumped me for a banker. Decided the excitement wasn’t worth her security.”
“Hence the loss of your sense of chivalry.”
“I took the brandy and got very, very drunk. Kept the rock to remember not to get attached.”
Luke grinned wickedly and leaned in for a kiss. “Looks like you forgot. We’ll take this to a jeweler in the morning.”
“Didn’t forget,” Han said when Luke let his mouth go. “I never got attached to another girl.”
The hold emptied slowly, and by dawn they were setting up around the base of the ramp. As soon as shops opened, Luke took the chrysopaz and went to get it appraised. He took the money from the sale and took out ads and flyers to get word of the big sale around.
When he got back to the Falcon, Han was mobbed. Amazing how a dozen middle aged ladies could swarm and intimidate. They dickered over everything, from the four-for-a-credit holocards to the twenty credit tools. Han was looking frazzled when Luke got to him.
One matronly lady, her bustline preceding her like the prow of a ship, bought out the porno holos, a selection of tools and the green jumpsuit, which wouldn’t cover half of her. Her six children, one at a time, presented their credits for the small souvenirs of Kashyyk and other worlds, looking bashfully at the dangerous-looking spacers. The oldest, a girl of about fourteen, looked Han over and winked at him as she bought the Kamaran instrument. With a gentle suggestion, Luke nudged them all out of docking bay, making sure the children stayed close to their mother.
The whirlwind continued. Spacers from other bays dropped over and bought tools and parts, sometimes proving what Ben Kenobi had once said: “Corellian terminology for who owns what cargo get a bit muddled.” Luke lifted a dozen unpaid for hydrospanners from as many pockets. Han laughed when he tapped the first victim on the shoulder with the tool, and said “Did you forget to pay, sir?”
At noon, the traffic slowed, and Han dashed out for food while Luke looked over their stock. They’d made over two thousand credits on the junk, and the Falcon now met her lift specs. However, they couldn’t take any of it back aboard.
When Han came back with local food, fried dough balls filled with meat and vegetables, Luke checked the public terminal for a suitable charity. He called one that said it cared for orphans of the War. They said they could send someone by to pick stuff up at sunset.
“Not a bad morning haul, eh kid?”
“But we’re still over weight if we take this stuff back in. I’ve made arrangements with a charity to pick up what’s left when we lift. Just so we don’t get hit with littering fees. You got liftoff clearance, right?”
“Naw, I thought we’d spend a couple more days in the scenic docking bay.”
“Spacecase,” Luke said affectionately. Han ruffled his hair.
The afternoon wore on, and only a few stragglers wandered in. Han went aboard to run the preflight, and Luke sat in the shade of the ship drinking a bottle of purple Tykaran beer, one of the few alcoholic drinks he’d developed a taste for. He finished it, and began to box up the sale goods.
He left them, clearly labeled for the charity, near the door of the docking bay and went aboard to lift.
The Millennium Falcon strained under the mass of her cargo, but made the jump, complaining in every seam and fixture.
“Glad it’s a short hop,” Han said. “The lady just ain’t comfortable.”
Luke kissed him and said “Two thousand, six hundred three and a half credits. Not a bad day’s work. Now, come on back, we have a little time before the transition.”
“You go on, I’ll be there in a minute.” Han was checking a couple of gauges that looked bad.
Exactly what I wanted to hear, Luke thought. He changed into the clothes he’d set aside.
Han came back to find the lights in his cabin at half level, and Luke sprawled invitingly on his bunk, wearing the purple velvlon shirt, a pair of very skimpy, very sheer purple underwear and nothing else.
Definitely a profitable sale, even forgetting the two grand and the hefty cargo fee.
2003 Angel
“Check the mass again, willya, Luke?”
“Han, we’re half a kiltonne over, and it is not the instruments. You’ve got to clean out the hold. There’s no way we can lift.”
Han thumped the control panel and sighed. Luke was right. There was no way they could lift. The detritus of living twenty years aboard the same ship had finally caught up with him. This new consignment, although small in size, was right knife-edge on the Falcon’s mass tolerances, and the fee was enormous. They needed this job and that meant something had to go.
Luke tipped a sly smile over at him, his eyes half-lidded in the way Han found almost irresistible. “Clear out the hold, have a cleaning sale, makes some money and lift. What could happen?”
“The mind boggles, kid.”
“Where’s your spirit of adventure, Han?”
“Uh, that’s in my other pants.” Luke had a point. He was forever buying or “picking things up” because he couldn’t find tools and parts he needed, yet he knew he had.
“Which are in the cargo hold.” Luke slipped over and was straddling his lover’s lap before he’d finished. “Besides, I’m more interested in what’s in this pair at the moment.”
“Oh really? And here I thought we were on a delivery timetable.” The determined nibble at Luke’s neck gave lie to the words.
“I thought this was the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy.” Luke ground his hips against Han’s as he ducked in for a kiss.
“Smartmouth.”
“Procrastinator.” Luke took one more kiss before swinging off Han’s lap and heading for the cargo hold.
“Hey, what about–“
“When we have the sale set up. Consider it...incentive.”
Cursing Jedi control, Han headed to the cargo bay. It was going to be a long night. But there would be something good at the end. Two somethings, Luke and extra cash. He could always use extra cash. And Luke, Luke was as essential as air.
Things went reasonably well for the first shipping container. It was mostly clothes that other people had left aboard. Luke found a violet velvlon shirt, and Han saw the longing in his face as he folded it into the “Men’s clothing” pile.
“Luke, if you see something you want, go ahead and try it on. That one would look great on you. Blonds always look good in purple.”
“If we keep everything we like, we’ll never get anything unloaded.” Luke really wanted the shirt but felt the need to be logical about the situation.
“So make a pile of the stuff we want, and if it’s bigger than the stuff to sell, we reconsider.”
They sorted a while in silence until Luke, overcome with curiosity by the contents of a very heavy crate, had to ask. “Han, why have you kept every burned-out flux capacitor you ever had?”
“Lots of worlds consider them hazardous waste and charge an arm and a leg to dispose of them. Easier to toss them in the crate and wait til I hit a world that didn’t.”
“And from the looks of it, you never found one. There must be fifty in here.”
“No sense dumping them until I had a full crate.”
“Of course not.” Luke set the crate in the discard pile. He held up a green jumpsuit with bust darts. “And whose is this? Should I worry? It’s too big for Leia.”
“Katya.” Han’s face went grave.
“Ah, right.” Luke remembered the story of how Han and his shipmate had been the only survivors of a hunt by the winged folk of Skye. He’d met Katya but briefly, and remembered the way she had died: absorbed in her sleep by a creature of pure Force. He folded the jumpsuit carefully into the sell pile. The earrings and necklace stacked atop it.
“Luke? You want this?”
“Whatcha got?” Luke was testing hydrospanners to see if they worked. Han had amassed an impressive collection, including several stamped property of the local authorities. He caught the cube by reflex, and tripped the viewing switch. “Now why would I want your old dirty movie collection?”
“Watch it a minute, kid.”
“Whoa, whoa, what’s that? They look like–“
“Yeah, us. It’s Imperial make and was circulating after Yavin. I was taking some serious grief about a jailbait lover in the portside bars and couldn’t figure out why, until someone gave me this. Too damn close for comfort on the likenesses.”
“After Yavin? Before we got together?” Luke was half-absorbed in watching their dopplegangers. A bizarre sense of voyeurism warred with his arousal.
“Yep. Gave me some ideas, I’ll tell you that.”
“Maybe I should keep it. Get some ideas for myself.” Luke set the cube on the keep pile.
More clothing, some male, some female, left by various passengers and pick-ups. Luke tucked back a pair of very skimpy underwear, also in purple and quite sheer. He would wash them, and surprise Han later.
Some holo cubes, mostly tech manuals with the occasional travelogue and pornographic cube thrown in. The latter were all at least ten years old. Luke noticed Han automatically sorted those to the sell pile.
“Can we sell those without a license?” Luke knew some worlds were fairly strict about that sort of thing.
“Sure. No sense keeping them.” Han didn’t add, Not now that I have you.
Luke pried open the next crate, and fell back gagging. “What died?”
Han was on his feet before the smell could infest the whole ship and slammed the crate closed “Huttese food.” He swore softly. “I knew I had loaded twenty crates, and thought I’d off-loaded all of them. Let’s get it out of here. You don’t want to know how old it is.”
“Did it smell that bad before or has it rotted?” Luke was turning a shade of green that clashed with his hair. His face was tangled in a revolted grimace.
“Both,” Han said, breathing through his mouth.
They wrestled it onto a handtruck and took it out to the garbage heap near the spaceport. They walked back, slowly, enjoying the mild night, and the pleasantly flower-scented air after the reek of the Hguttese food. Luke looked up at the stars and wondered what the locals saw as constellations. Han looked at him, watching the small hurtling moon cast a changing shadow over his face. After a moment, he leaned in and kissed Luke’s neck.
Luke smiled and met him for a long kiss, letting the moon set before he broke them apart. “You’re just a romantic at heart, Han.” He knew his lover would deny this, but loved to tease him about it.
“What I am is horny out of my mind. You make me crazy, kid.” The very ambitious hands that had worked their way into Luke’s pants argued in favor of this theory. “Let’s go take care of this,” Han squeezed the hard shaft in his hand, “and then get back to sorting.”
This time, it was Luke nibbling at his lover’s neck. “You sure you’re not developing mind-reading talent?”
They made their way back to the Falcon. Luke stripped out of his clothes with controlled speed, eager for Han’s touch, but not wanting to linger on the foreplay. Han was still untying his blaster holster when Luke spread himself across the bed.
He stopped to look. Luke was nicely built, the constant training keeping him in peak condition. Han loved watching him move, and stretch and fight. When Luke spread himself out like this, on his back, he looked like a gorgeous golden banquet just waiting to be devoured from blond head to darker curls and strong legs.
Luke rolled over.
Han felt the way he imagined religious peiople must feel when their deity talked to the, Luke was a revelation in himself. Looking at the bare back, all solid muscle and tan--all over tan and when had Luke managed to sneak that past him?–it made him hungry. He was out of his clothes as fast as he could and managed to lie down beside his lover without actually pouncing on him like a starved ferl.
“You’re beautiful, you know that, right?” Han said against Luke’s neck, running his tongue over the strong shoulder and turning Luke to face him, so he could continue over the collar bones into the hollow of his lover’s throat.
“You say so often enough.” Luke caught Han’s face in his hands and pulled him up for a kiss. “You inside me. Now if not sooner.” He levitated the bottle of lubricant from the floor beside the bunk.
“And I thought I was the desperate one.” Before he could ask about position, Luke had already rolled to his knees and elbows, and gave him a come-hither leer from where his face rested on the bunk. Han slicked himself quickly. There was a gorgeous naked Jedi ass-up in his bed begging for it, enough to make any sane man catch his breath and dive right in. Which he did, taking great pleasure in Luke’s moan of satisfaction.
He moved slowly, hoping for a word or two of encouragement, wanting Luke to let him know how he was doing. Nothing except gasps of pleasure came from his lover.
Luke’s head was spinning. His skin was afire with cold lightening that aroused and did not harm. His bones were melting. He wanted to tell Han how much he loved him, how incredible this felt, but only inarticulate gasps came from his mouth. He couldn’t stand this. It was too much arousal for him to process. When Han’s hand reached around for him, he came on the first stroke, shouting his orgasm in a harsh yelp.
“Desperate, all right,” Han said softly, gently coaxing the end of the climax from him. A second wave, much briefer, struck and he yelled again. Han toppled them over, still buried inside, to lie side by side. He was a talker, and liked the position because it let him whisper the sexiest ideas he knew to Luke.
He timed his thrusts to his words, helping Luke come down, and his own peak build. “So gorgeous, Luke. And you came so fast.” He brought his sticky fingers up and licked one clean in Luke’s line of sight. Luke shivered. “I’m flattered. Been a long time since you got that hot, that quick. Was it the porno cube of us? Or has it just been a while?”
“Yeah.” Luke was back to monosyllables now. He managed to catch one of Han’s fingers and licked himself off it.
“You always do that. Greedy.” Han punctuated the word with a deep thrust, getting another moan of pleasure from Luke. “It looks so slutty,” he hissed, shoving as deep as he could. Luke tipped back and pulled his face forward for a kiss that left Han’s own head spinning.
“Yeah. “Swhy I do it.” The accompanying wink sent Han over the edge. “You like me greedy.” Luke arched his back, making sure Han was still seated deep inside him.
“Love you.” Han corrected. “Want you all the time,” he sighed, nuzzling against Luke’s neck and hair.
They lay in each other’s arms, dozing lightly, aware of the other’s body and satiated by the contact. Finally, Luke stirred, and sat up.
“Let’s finish sorting, shall we? We still have a delivery timetable.”
Refreshed by both Luke and the brief nap, Han dressed quickly. The rest of the sorting went fairly quickly. He kept three copies of every tool, and put the rest out for sale. They found one of Leia’s favorite hairstyling units stacked under two crates of rags and a box of holocards from various planets.
“Oh yeah. Meant to get that back to her worshipfulness but then we had that stabilizer malfunction and it got buried. We better keep it.”
“Han? Why in the galaxy do you have fluidics components? And what’s this thing tangled in them?”
“Long story, kid. Got stranded on Kamar, and shielded circuitry is a few centuries beyond them. The poor old lady was a mess of microtubes and fluidics. And that,” he disentangled the thing from the tubes, “is a musical instrument. Huh. Must have missed it when I hocked the rest.”
“No human can play this.” Luke turned it over in his hands.
“You’re right. Kamar Bandlanders are insectoids. It’s worth a few credits, drop it on the sell pile.”
Luke held up a large green-gold gemstone that flickered with opalescent fire. “This?”
Han glanced at it and went back to pawing through a box of odds and ends. “Commenorian chrysopaz.”
“The one you traded your sense of chivalry for? Still got the brandy too?” Luke had thought the answer in the Death Star control room years before had been more flip than serious.
“Kid, how long do three bottles of brandy last around here? No, I bought it for a girl I was seeing then. She dumped me for a banker. Decided the excitement wasn’t worth her security.”
“Hence the loss of your sense of chivalry.”
“I took the brandy and got very, very drunk. Kept the rock to remember not to get attached.”
Luke grinned wickedly and leaned in for a kiss. “Looks like you forgot. We’ll take this to a jeweler in the morning.”
“Didn’t forget,” Han said when Luke let his mouth go. “I never got attached to another girl.”
The hold emptied slowly, and by dawn they were setting up around the base of the ramp. As soon as shops opened, Luke took the chrysopaz and went to get it appraised. He took the money from the sale and took out ads and flyers to get word of the big sale around.
When he got back to the Falcon, Han was mobbed. Amazing how a dozen middle aged ladies could swarm and intimidate. They dickered over everything, from the four-for-a-credit holocards to the twenty credit tools. Han was looking frazzled when Luke got to him.
One matronly lady, her bustline preceding her like the prow of a ship, bought out the porno holos, a selection of tools and the green jumpsuit, which wouldn’t cover half of her. Her six children, one at a time, presented their credits for the small souvenirs of Kashyyk and other worlds, looking bashfully at the dangerous-looking spacers. The oldest, a girl of about fourteen, looked Han over and winked at him as she bought the Kamaran instrument. With a gentle suggestion, Luke nudged them all out of docking bay, making sure the children stayed close to their mother.
The whirlwind continued. Spacers from other bays dropped over and bought tools and parts, sometimes proving what Ben Kenobi had once said: “Corellian terminology for who owns what cargo get a bit muddled.” Luke lifted a dozen unpaid for hydrospanners from as many pockets. Han laughed when he tapped the first victim on the shoulder with the tool, and said “Did you forget to pay, sir?”
At noon, the traffic slowed, and Han dashed out for food while Luke looked over their stock. They’d made over two thousand credits on the junk, and the Falcon now met her lift specs. However, they couldn’t take any of it back aboard.
When Han came back with local food, fried dough balls filled with meat and vegetables, Luke checked the public terminal for a suitable charity. He called one that said it cared for orphans of the War. They said they could send someone by to pick stuff up at sunset.
“Not a bad morning haul, eh kid?”
“But we’re still over weight if we take this stuff back in. I’ve made arrangements with a charity to pick up what’s left when we lift. Just so we don’t get hit with littering fees. You got liftoff clearance, right?”
“Naw, I thought we’d spend a couple more days in the scenic docking bay.”
“Spacecase,” Luke said affectionately. Han ruffled his hair.
The afternoon wore on, and only a few stragglers wandered in. Han went aboard to run the preflight, and Luke sat in the shade of the ship drinking a bottle of purple Tykaran beer, one of the few alcoholic drinks he’d developed a taste for. He finished it, and began to box up the sale goods.
He left them, clearly labeled for the charity, near the door of the docking bay and went aboard to lift.
The Millennium Falcon strained under the mass of her cargo, but made the jump, complaining in every seam and fixture.
“Glad it’s a short hop,” Han said. “The lady just ain’t comfortable.”
Luke kissed him and said “Two thousand, six hundred three and a half credits. Not a bad day’s work. Now, come on back, we have a little time before the transition.”
“You go on, I’ll be there in a minute.” Han was checking a couple of gauges that looked bad.
Exactly what I wanted to hear, Luke thought. He changed into the clothes he’d set aside.
Han came back to find the lights in his cabin at half level, and Luke sprawled invitingly on his bunk, wearing the purple velvlon shirt, a pair of very skimpy, very sheer purple underwear and nothing else.
Definitely a profitable sale, even forgetting the two grand and the hefty cargo fee.
