What the hell is an aluminium falcon?

[jediwiseass.livejournal.com]

She'd done it again. She'd promised that she wouldn't but she'd done it all the same. She'd lost her cool and let her emotions govern her again. She feels the vestiges of what she felt at Mykr; rotten, brittle kindling in her gut. All it takes is a single match...

It won't happen again. She's stronger than that. Bee-lining through the ship and chastising herself under her breath, she goes in search of the only thing she had ever needed. Family. They're here somewhere, but between Stacy's awesome presence in the Force and the thrum of life vibrating from the pod caverns she has difficulty centering herself. Not keen on the idea of trawling the entire ship (that's no moon... but it's not far of) she decides to wait for them in the one place they would know to look for her.

Here in the hangar she could be at peace. When people confound her, she knows she can always turn to her beloved machines for solace. Machines speak plainly, machines she understands. When she asks a machine what is wrong, it tells her so that she might fix it.

And that is precisely what she does. She picks a ship, and boy, is it a doozy. Yes, she thinks her family will find her here.

Leaping with the Force onto the battered hood of the craft, she surveys its condition and tuts, "What has he been doing to you, poor baby?"

Minutes later she's an ocean in the stillness of night, absolutely dead to the world. A pair of oversized blast goggles slung over her eyes, she sets about blasting debris from one of the forward vents with a vibrotorch. Occasionally and without realizing, she slips into tunelessly whistling a popular ditty from home.

Comments

[yubyubcommander.livejournal.com]

Wedge had been checking up on the x-wings. He checked at least once a day (sometimes more) just to make sure no one was tampering with them. As he was passing by the 'fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy' he grinned as he noticed the young woman perched on the top of it and waved up at her.

"I see you found the Falcon, Jaina. Is it in a flyable condition? Honestly I'm surprised Han hasn't been down here yet..."

[jediwiseass.livejournal.com]

"'Course she's flyable," Jaina replied, the goggles giving the grin she shot back at him a thoroughly gormless quality, "This old girl could be held together with string and she'd still fly. Whether she could do faster than a one-legged rancor, however..."

The tone of her voice was a mixture of anticipation and trepidation as she continued, "So he is here..."

Her father was here. He was safe. Was he going to be different, like Mara?

[yubyubcommander.livejournal.com]

"He's...yeah, he's here. I saw him up at the podpop the other day. I'm surprised you didn't run into him. He had Chewie with him." Wedge rolled one shoulder, still looking up at the young Jedi woman.

"Kind of hard to miss that big wookie."

[jediwiseass.livejournal.com]

"He had... Chewie?" But Chewie was... no. If Wedge and Mara could be the people she'd known as a child, then so could Chewie. For everything its crew had lost, Stacy still managed to come bearing small blessings.

Mixed blessings. If Chewie was here then there was a chance that her father wouldn't recognise her. Not as the woman she had grown into. Not as the woman war had turned her into.

She went back to her work. Nothing's happened yet, girl. You're fine.

"It was crowded," was her lame excuse, "I knew if he was going to find me anywhere, it would be here."

[yubyubcommander.livejournal.com]

"I hope he does find you...though I don't know exactly what time he's from. He looked younger than the last time I saw him though, just a warning..." He sighed and patted the Falcon.

[jediwiseass.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, I figured that it was a possibility," she replied with resignation. How could she be dreading the sight of her own father?

Finding difficulty concentrating, she finished the work she was doing on the vent and came to perch over the side, goggles slung around her neck, "Even the Falcon is different. It's like she's older and younger at the same time. Most of the modification that's been done to her over the years is gone or there's older mod work in its place."

Legs dangling absently, she asked, "How was he? Did he seem okay? And Chewie?"