fulfilling a promised lesson on the fine art of blasting things ...

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Walking back to the Millennium Falcon through the Nexus has gotten a little bit easier each time.  The first time, it took him more than an hour to get back despite the fact that his ship has always been parked about a thousand yards away from a path that leads to the forum.  The shiftable nature of this place makes no walk to and from anywhere as straightforward as it seems, but you can get used to it.

 

For a while, he cleans up the areas that he thinks both he and Verity are likely to be in for a while - the cockpit and the lounge especially, but also near the entry ramp and the living quarters.

 

He did promise lessons on how to fly and in due course, he will get her into the sky with him ... but he's still doesn't have a ton of fuel yet and the priority was always teaching her how to use the blasters.  So he's pulled four weapons out of the storage lockers, completely disassembled them and cleaned them.  He also discharges all, but one, of the plasma magazines.

 

They get placed them on top of the holochess board, which, sadly, is among one of the biggest flat surfaces available to him on the YT-1300 and then, he takes a shower and slips into a light weight pair of pants.  It seems to take a long time for him to drift off in the small bunk that he's claimed for himself.  The sound of the winter wind skips across the surface of his ship and makes a low howling sort of sound.

 

This is one of the reasons it's always preferable to put your ship in a proper hanger, but, when you're Han Solo, you work with what you got.  After a few hours he wakes up, not knowing what time it is, until he opens the entry ramp and looks outside.

 

It seems too early for her to arrive.  The sun hasn't even reached the apex of it's path yet, so he decides to lay back down.  Leaving the ramp down for her to facilitate her letting herself in. 

Comments

[brave_heart_verity]

Yeah, it's easy when you know where things are. Ver's never seen the movies this sort of thing before in person.

She climbs back down before replying again. Enjoy the show. "That's good. I'd hate to think a morally upright citizen like myself would be entirely foreign there."

Again with the tone. No, she's not necessarily a good girl in everyone's eyes. For instance: she could explain the cowboy thing, but she's not going to unless he asks.

"I'm going to start to think you're trouble if you're not careful, you know."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"What did I do this time?"

Because, you know, he has to presume he's done other things already, for starters. And, he's also convinced that his looks have been subtle.

[brave_heart_verity]

Her answer is more in a look than in a word: she looks back up at the illegal laser guns before saying anything. "Whatever made you need those." In other words, she was teasing again.

She knows he's trouble.

It's why she likes him so much.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"Ah." He says with a slow nod. "Well, for what it's worth, they were there when I acquired the ship. I do make good use of them, though, at times."

That said, she's absolutely right about him being trouble, hence him skipping right past the false pretense and getting to the part he messed up at. He's also thankful he doesn't have to be put in a position of lying/not lying about a possible wandering eye. Yet.

[brave_heart_verity]

"Oh, well, that's entirely different." No, it's not. "You wouldn't want them to go to waste or get rusty."

Wandering eyes don't always bother her. She knows people are going to look. She looks, a little, sometimes. It's all in the how and the when. So long as he's looking at her when they're talking, she suspects they'll survive.

"Because rust in space is a serious issue, I'm sure. And, like, space barnacles or something."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Again, in not wanting to get into talking about the Empire (they're having a relatively nice time and it will certainly sour his mood to talk politics), he avoids this tidbit, but they we're always illegal to have on your ship, either.

Still, he gets that she's teasing.

"Things that cling to the ship? We get Mynock's. They've got leathery wings and chew on the power cables of star ships."

Han begins walking them toward the life support system, which will no doubt be a trip to show her. Bacta tanks. There's nothing like that on earth.

[brave_heart_verity]

Evil regimes are never fun to talk about, no. They could swap stories about the atrocities and the just plain stupid, but... why would they want to?

"Mynocks. In space? Because that's... well, that's honestly pretty terrifying."

Learning about the life support systems sounds like a better time. Less existential horror involved.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"Oh, you guys have those too?"

In his galaxy, they're mostly a nuisance, but fortunately their population isn't rampant throughout all of space. It's more that there are pockets of them in certain areas. Near as Han can tell, they seem to live in packs.

Han stops them in front of an empty and clear tank that looks like it's made from something like earth's glass. It doesn't look like much of anything, but he taps on it one time with the back of his hand.

"C-8 life support. I hope never to have to use it."

[brave_heart_verity]

"Nnno I don't think so. Maybe they're like bats? But bats can't live in the vacuum of space." Which is the scary part, for her. Yes, sure, she can handle amazing technology and the existence of magic, but nothing should be able to live in space that's just weird.

The tank gets a curious look before she turns a clearly clueless look to him. "Some kind of emergencies only situation?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Something that's finally foreign enough to be worthy of explaination. Interesting that it comes here and now. Some of the nautical/tech stuff seemed otherwise comparable between the two universes.

"So, someone would theoretically get stripped down to almost nothing, get fitted with a oxygen mask and hung up by cables inside the tank. Then the tank gets filled with a liquid called Bacta. It assists healing."

Han sort of hates the sight of seeing people in them, possibly the way some people hate hospitals.

[brave_heart_verity]

The tour's been informative and fun for her so far. Is she not fawning enough? She's capable of more, but she's not certain he'd enjoy it as much as he thinks.

"Oh. That sounds useful and claustrophobic." Still, she's looking at the tank again, curious as she is about everything. She wonders... "Doesn't sound like you like them much. The bacta wouldn't survive outside the conditions in the tank?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

No. It seems like just the amount questions and fawning. It comes off authentic as it is. Much more and he'd start to question her sincerity.

"There's a tank of the bacta in the base there." He says, taping at it with the toe of his boot. A fairly basic looking control panel seems to operate the thing. "The most effective use they've ever found of it seems to be when people are soaking in it."

Han doesn't know where it comes from, wouldn't begin to pretend that he knows anything about medicine, really, but he's always kind of wondered is it's harvested from somewhere? Of course, big phama exists in it's own form, even in a galaxy far, far away. That market's well dominated by corporations and as such, smugglers are rarely asked to haul it ...

Except.

Except that he knows of people, a small organization, who have occasionally called upon people like him to move things like food and medicine for people who need it. Which usually turns into a raw deal for a young opportunist like Han, himself. An organization out to give aid to refugees and put strategic weapons cache's on planets doesn't really operate for profit. His face flickers for a moment of anger, when these thoughts cross his mind.

"Anyway, there's no ointments preparation or pills of it. It might not work that way."

Does he have a particular reason he dislikes bacta tanks? No. Not really. He's seen them do wonders before. It's just ... unsettling to him to see people floating in that neon blue liquid. Somewhere between life and death.

"They just creep me out a little, that's all."

[brave_heart_verity]

That would be why he probably wouldn't enjoy it. She'd rather he enjoy her authentic self instead of some giggly act she could put on and not maintain.

"Hmm. Let's hope we never have to use it." It would creep anyone out, she figures, to be awake and aware and stuck in a tube full of goop. No, thank you. Do not want.

It's best he does not tell her about any dislike of the rebellion. She's American, rebelling against tyrants is in her blood.

"You have less immersive medical supplies somewhere?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

The truth is, at this age, Han is very conflicted about both sides. He hoped to become a legitimate, respectable citizen by joining the military at one point in his life. His brief time in the Navy allowed him to appreciate just how terrible the Empire really is. On the other hand, he has an intensely personal reason to hate the Rebels right now and not likely to have those feelings resolved anytime soon.

"In the crate on the left of the tank, the one secured to the wall, is where the bulk of the non-vital medical supplies. We have a few more by the sink, though."

[brave_heart_verity]

A man usually looks good in uniform, but it has to be the right uniform. Sometimes good people do bad things, and sometimes people doing good things also do bad things. Life is complicated, but having no skin in the game, she's only got opinions on abstracts. Maybe someday he'll give her the deets.

Is he surprised anymore that she's checking to make sure she knows where these things are? She hopes not. Once she's satisfied that she can identify things, she turns to him with another smile. "Looks good. Thank you for being patient."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

They walk through other segments of the ship and he highlights things that he things might be worth her time to know, though, much of the bow of the ship is full of a lot of cargo spaces, loading doors and access panels to the electrical and fuel systems.

The port side? She's pretty well seen too. The cramped living quarters she found him in. That's going to petty well glossed over by him.

The next stop of a little more significance is the lounge and the kitchen, which, is where she'll find the holochess board with all the dissembled weapons he has layed out for later. The kitchen area is fairly small. Literally an alcove in the wall. It has something that resembles a microwave, a burner and a sink. Not much else.

"This is where I end up burning all my food."

[brave_heart_verity]

Cargo storage isn't quite so interesting unless he lets her do it like she's playing Tetris. If all the doors have the same code, it'll be good practice for her. Access panels might as well have a big 'do not touch Verity Willis' sign on them.

The kitchen gets a brief looking-over before she guesses, "Nobody ever taught you to cook?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"Ironically, for all the free time I would spend in a kitchen as a kid, I managed to pick up not a damn thing."

Not that much of his time was unaccounted for at that age. Still, he always wanted to be around Dewlana, when he could sneak away.

"My specialty is burning the outside of the food while still managing to leave the inside raw."

[brave_heart_verity]

They both had their reasons for gravitating to the kitchen as a child and got as close as possible to what they needed out of it.

"Very impressive, but I think we can do a little better than that." She'd be happy to teach him, but she somehow doubts he'd want to put much time in. Patience is hard to learn and harder to teach. "I think I mentioned you'll eat well when I'm with you?" She's not going back on that.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Now that's not true, Ver.

Han will put is time in to what interests him. He maintains his ship and makes sure his shots stay sharp, both considerable sinks in his time. He's about to begin a long con on the nexus gambling circuit, that's going to take a few weeks to pay off for him.

And there's you, that he's investing in.

"Now that you bring that up, it does sound familiar."

[brave_heart_verity]

The fact he'll work hard on the things he cares about is not in question, that's obvious. But she's aware there are a finite number of hours in a day, and not everything can be an equal priority. Maintaining his ship, maintaining his various skills, finding work so he can get home, finding home... all more important than learning the five mother sauces. But she might be able to show him a few tricks to make things more palatable, and if he finds he likes cooking, she'll be happy to teach him more.

She can only hope it's worth the investment he's making in her.

"And I don't know about you, but I'm getting hungry. Shall I fetch our meal?" Maybe now it's her turn to show off a little.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Lack of hours in the day and only so much Han Solo to conquer the learnable skills. It's not for lack of wanting to better himself or to give his poor co-pilot a break from making their food. It will be a matter of trying to fit it in somewhere among all the other things.

He hasn't really gotten to the stern side of the ship, in terms of their tour, but that's alright by him. He's plenty hungry and was ready for a glass of water after all this talking. Plus, he's reasonably sure all the sublight engines and the hyperdrive will still be there after they're done.

"Sure." He says with a nod. "That sounds good by me. Is there anything I can do to help?"

Besides, you know, finding a flat surface for them to eat on.

[brave_heart_verity]

This is why ships have crews. Nobody can do it all alone, and the people who try end up dead and miserable.

She hopes the tour isn't over, but she knows she has a habit of asking too many questions and also that he's probably hungry after having been asleep. Everything will go even better after a meal, she's sure of it.

"Just find someplace for us to sit." She heads off to the port side ramp, and yes, she remembers how to get out. The picnic basket is right where she left it, and she can brush off most of the snow before heading back in.

"Here we are. I have sandwiches, pasta salad, some grapes and oranges, and pita chips. And some of that ale you were enjoying last night." Or something like it. Close enough. "One sandwich is fig and prosciutto and the other is pulled pork with red onion relish, but I wrapped the halves separately so you can try some of both if you'd like."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

For a moment Han ponders where they can eat. Objectively speaking, the falcon's design is one of purpose and it's not like it's a cruise vessel. You can adapt and get by, but it not very suited to something like this, entertaining someone that is.

Then he has the idea that if he finds three crates of the right height, they can fashion a table and chair set up out of those without messing up his arrangement of firearms. So, that's what he sets out to do while Ver gets the food. Even when he's not hauling anything, one of the things they don't usually lack for around here are crates.

As Verity herself must have noticed, while observing and asking questions that occured to her, comparing their two universes is like like looking through an unrefined Felucian crystal; most of what you're seeing remains recognizable in some form, as you look beyond the twisted hairline fractures, though dirt and impurity makes some of it impossible to recognize.

Generally speaking, that's how Han feels about the food here. Most of it is recognizable to him in some degree. The names of things, though, what they might call them in her galaxy is unfamiliar to him. As such, most of her menu goes right over his head, except ale. He's familiar with the word 'ale' quite well.

"It sounds like a lot." He says, partly because it does (expecially to a guy who generally eats cold food from a container) and partly because he doesn't have a lot of understanding of what all that is until he sees it.

"I appreciate you going to the trouble for it."

[brave_heart_verity]

Comparing universes is kind of nice for her. It's a safe way to think about what's gone, and it's comforting to know that some ideas carry on in other places. But the differences are comforting in their own way; places too close to home sometimes rub her the wrong way, forcing her to focus on what's gone instead of trying to move on. Feeling comfortable moving around in a place that's alien to her is the best she can hope for.

"It's no trouble, and I enjoy doing it." The impromptu table setup must meet with her approval because she puts the basket down and starts unpacking it. He'll see it's not a huge meal, but generous. "Besides, you're worth it."

Since he didn't show a preference, she'll hand him half of the fig and prosciutto sandwich. "Try this. It's salty and a little sweet."