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]

"Mm, true, but being close it often the only way to see the truth." She would know.

The cockpit does promise all kinds of interesting adventures, and she does perk up a bit when she sees it. "Yeah. But why is it off-center?" That's going to be hard for her to get used to. "Doesn't that make it harder?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"I think," granted, it's a guess, "it has to do with the position of the sublight engines for this ship and the way they layed out the fuel and electrical lines running to those engines."

But, he shrugs.

"I'm not really well studied in Engineering."

At present, they have walked all the way in and now, she's treated to the spectacle of analog technology that is the cockpit of the Falcon. There are four chairs and Han helps himself to his own seat. He's not possessive overall, but he does feel pretty attached to that particular chair.

"Does that make it harder?" He muses. "Depends on what you're doing. Most of the time you're flying through a vast amount of open area." Flying through an asteroid field on the other hand is something of a bitch, but who would do that? Surely not Captain Solo.

[brave_heart_verity]

"Oh. Okay." It sounds reasonable enough to her. She is also not an engineer, but there has to be a reason other than 'Hey it looks cool this way'. Right?

After he takes his seat she takes the one next to it. Comfy, but everything seems set up for someone much much taller... Ooh, computers. It's an effort to pull her attention away from them to listen to him. "Well, anyone can pilot until there's something you might hit," she jokes.

"I don't want to make the tour take too long, but I should warn you, I am going to have so many questions about these computers later. But I promise not to take them apart to satisfy my curiosity.."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"That is definitely true." He says smiling in something of a rueful, thoughtful way.

Realistically, ninety percent or more of your voyage will be very easy. It's the taking off, the landing and the adjustments you need to make between your departure point and your destination point that will take any sort of still.

He's willing to answer questions. It would probably be easier for him to answer her questions as they occur to her while he's trying to teach. He's never taught anyone how to fly who didn't have some inkling of knowing how before. Comparatively speaking, teaching her how to shoot will be far easier.

"Hey, no disassembling anything unless I'm around." He figures she wasn't going to, but he wants to make that abundantly clear that such a thing would draw his ire. "I willing to teach as much as you want to learn, but the Falcon is ..."

His home? Deeply important to him? His one great source of pride and joy in the universe?

"... special."

[brave_heart_verity]

It's the taking off and landing that'll worry her the most. The 'keep an eye on things while I'm asleep' part of traveling with him wouldn't be so bad for her. She's pretty sure she could avoid any surprise moons. Maybe not their tractor beams.

No, she wasn't going to, and she just promised. She can tell the ship is his baby and she knows better than to mess with someone's baby. Besides, she has some studying to do before taking anything apart would help. And if she really wants an analog computer to take apart, she can probably find one for sale somewhere and not have to answer to anyone if she can't make it work again.

"Yes, sir," she promises again. Just to be clear. "I'll be good." His promise to teach her as much as she wants to know is what's getting the grin. "So this is the computer that helps with navigation?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"That one." He confirms with a pointed finger. Just to be sure they're talking about the same thing, but it's pretty clear which one it is. It's the only one with a monitor.

Which, now that he thinks about it, could be problematic to her learning. There's something mystical about the Nexus that facilitates communication - he thinks - but, she may need to learn some of the languages to really be able to get by where he comes from. Or to be able to use the navcomputer at all.

Han closes his eyes and rubs the heels of his hands against them. This exercise is becoming more complicated that he initially thought.

[brave_heart_verity]

The monitor does make it distinctive. If he turns it on and lets her play with it, he may discover she's not having a problem with the languages. And, truth is, she's been given something that translates for her--it would never be a problem for her to understand the languages of his galaxy. But it's magic, and he doesn't like magic, so she's reluctant to mention it.

She looks faintly concerned when he rubs his eyes, not sure if he's frustrated or tired. "Well, I'm good at math, so I should get along with this one real well."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Best to let him come to the knowledge of her magic very, very, gradually. When he starts to see how useful it is, he'll be inclined to be more forgiving toward it too. Probably.

"Fire it up, if you want."

She can calculate till her heart desires. While they're on the ground it doesn't matter what she runs. Again, he's under the impression it will look like gibberish to her.

[brave_heart_verity]

She can only hope so, at this point.

"Thank you." For now, she'll enjoy playing with something new. Math and computers were her only companions most of her life, so this shouldn't take her a terribly long time to figure out. It's certainly not gibberish to her.

"Does passing by gravitational fields affect the engine's fuel efficiency?" Whoa slow down there crazy lady what are you even doing worrying about efficiency before you even have a star chart.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Good at math is something he can appreciate, but not exactly empathize with. Han tends to know enough to get by in the maths and sciences, but he's had no formal education to speak of. He relies hard on his intuition and, for where it's gotten him so far ... most would probably say he's doing pretty good.

Good enough to get through the galaxies on most days, with enough guile and guts to keep himself alive. Really, he should focus more on what he's been able to do and not what he can't do.

"Of course. Resistance will change the amount of fuel we're using." Which, now that she brings it up, could be why he ran out of fuel coming here. If they encountered some dense gravity that he didn't anticipate ... certainly possible considering the Nexus.

[brave_heart_verity]

He's spent his time on better things, like social skills. That gets her envy, not her scorn. There's no question in her mind that he's doing well for himself, but she's noticing he's not as self-assured as he pretends. That's okay. Neither is she.

She gives him a moment to think about that before continuing with her questions. "Does the navcom account for that?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

He nods.

"Theoretically, if your maps we're updated well enough and you were flying through friendly skies, you could plot your course and ship could practically fly herself."

But when is Han ever taking a quiet cruise through friendly skies? Even when there's no threat of Empirical interference, half the thugs of the galaxy seem to wanna gun him down for one reason or another.

What do you know, she almost looks like she knows what she's doing on that computer. Huh.

[brave_heart_verity]

"That sounds like less fun," she admits with a slightly mischievous smile. What kind of proper adventure is it if everything is smooth sailing?

Yes, yes she does. She's not one of her world's many supergeniuses, but she can learn. And she is not at all embarrassed that a four-year-old once confused her with technobabble so hush. That kid was Valeria Richards; nobody can keep up with a Richards except another Richards and maybe a Stark or a Doom.

(Now there's someone Han would hate: Doom uses science and magic together, at the same time.)

Anyway, new topic. "Do you have a flight recorder?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"In so much as a log of our take off and landing coordinates."

It's not like a TSA black box or anything. She's not going to find any records of his dialogues in the cockpit with people. If that was a thing, he would have disabled that shit immediately.

"Why?"

[brave_heart_verity]

"Ah."

She gives a little shrug, shutting down the navcom before focusing entirely on him and the new topic. "If something had recorded any turbulence or anomalies you encountered, it might have helped us figure out how you got here and find it again. But retracing your path should do that too."

Yes, it's an 'us'. She's not going to abandon him to dealing with it all by himself.

"And it's good to know what systems are on a ship I might someday be a little bit responsible for."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Han eyes Verity sidelong and for a moment, he wonders who should be teaching whom here? Not that it isn't a pleasant surpise, but, she's a hell of a lot further along that he would have expected considering what she told him of her earth.

Still, the thought of a them is kind of ... pleasing.

"Yeah." He says, picking himself up out of his chair. "Good point."

[brave_heart_verity]

Ver smiles and climbs out of the chair to follow him. Being the passive observer for so long has let her pick up on a lot of things. It's nice to surprise people like that sometimes. And one thing she's been learning is that everywhere has its own good ideas.

"What kind of defenses does the ship have?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"Deflector shields." That's the jargon that they use in his galaxy though and he doesn't know if earth has anything like it, he'll try to explain ...

"It's a kind of energy shield that surrounds the ship. It's meant to create just enough of a barrier around the ship that the enemy fire ricochets away from us, rather than absorb the blast entirely."

That said ...

"The Falcon isn't meant for taking heavy fire, though. Escapability is her best defense."

Out of the corridor to the cockpit, when you head directly to the middle of the ship is a curious looking ladder. That's where they're heading next.

[brave_heart_verity]

It's not a technology she saw in her everyday life, but she can guess the basics from the terms. Hurrah for clear nomenclature. "That makes sense. To deflect instead of taking the full force of the attack. And then get away."

It's not unlike her own self-defense philosophies: run away whenever possible, and try to avoid getting hurt.

The ladder is indeed curious. She didn't think the ship had multiple decks.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

It's possible that he's getting the impression he's over explaining to her. In his defense, though, she hasn't called him out or asked for a lesser amount of detail.

"Quad lazer turrents." He says, gesturing to the ladder. "One above and one below. Relatively effective against small fighter craft and allows us to target quicker than any of the other weapons systems."

[brave_heart_verity]

If she minded, she'd say something. Maybe she just likes to hear him talk, has he considered that?

"Ah. I'm guessing I'm not using those for target practice today. May I go look?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

He has not thought, even for a brief moment, that the questions were for the sake of continuing to hear him talk. While she might feel that way, it's just not the kind of thing that would occur to him at this point. Also, that can only be part of the reason at best since, she seems to have a pretty genuine curiosity?

Mmm. It's not that he's got a problem with her looking, it's just that there's not room for the both of them at one of the turrents. He can't watch her handling his Falcon as closely from here. On the other hand, if they were for real getting shot at, he'd probably have no choice but to let her use one. She might as well see the thing before then.

"Yeah, go ahead." He says, after talking himself through that. "I can't really fit in there with you, though."

[brave_heart_verity]

See? Not so hard to figure out after all. She likes hearing him talk about his ship, because he's kind of adorably fond of the Falcon. She also likes getting answers even when she's halfway sure she knows what the answer is before she asks. Asking questions also lets him know she's interested and engaged with the topic. Such a complex and terrifying creature, having three motivations like that.

The hesitation doesn't go unnoticed. "I won't touch anything. Will you talk me through the controls while I'm looking at them?" See? Still the captain. If he's watching from below she'll sit on her hands once she gets up there so he can see she's not in any danger of doing something she shouldn't.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Speaking of alterior motives, he almost wishes he wouldn't have made her feel like she had to sit on her hands. Seeing as how it obstructs a certain look he might have been trying to get. He got to watch her walk up the ladder, though. You know, for safety reasons.

"So what you have in front of you are AG-2G quad laser cannons. Its a pair of foot pedals that control the rotation." She probably can't reach the pedals at all since the seats are adjusted for Han and Chewie, but they're there and she should expect to move if she would press down on one.

"Those are twin firing grips in front of you. The triggers are on the back side." He pauses for a moment to think of what else to tell her. "A display screen is on a swing arm to your right side."

That's the basics of what she's looking at up there. After a moment, it occurs to him to add, "having these on my ship is technically an illegal modification and could get me jailed for a long time, if anyone caught me."

Though, hardly the only one of those on the Falcon.

[brave_heart_verity]

Poor Han, how he suffers. Having to be all 'safety'-minded instead of enjoying the view. Life is terribly unfair. But take heart: she'll be coming down again soon.

There's several things she can't reach easily; she wonders if the seat and controls are adjustable, and how hard that would be. Not that she wants to have to use these things, but she might have to be prepared to do it standing up. Won't that be fun.

"What, you mean your part of the galaxy isn't a lawless expanse where anyone with a gun is their own authority?" Her tone strikes a careful balance between sarcasm and teasing. "And here I was going to get myself a cowboy hat."