Log:The Sarlacc Job: Part Two

The Sarlacc Job: Part Two

Location: Tatooine, Outer Space
Participants: Rey, Chewbacca, C-3P0, R2-D2

TIME: 1161 - Shortly After the Battle of Exegol

PLACE:The Millennium Falcon, Engine Bay

CURRENTLY PARKED ON: Tatooine

"FWEEEEE-dee-DEET! Dooo-OOO-WOOP!"

The chirps and whistles of a very familiar astromech droid ring out through the corridors of the Millennium Falcon, punctuated occasionally by the sounds of metallic clanging and the unmistakably sparking noises from an arc welder. Like the Falcon itself, the astromech is woefully outdated, but perhaps that's part of the reason it makes such an excellent engineer for the (occasionally) flying antique.

The other reason for both R2-D2's longevity, and that of the Falcon, is that they don't really make either the same way anymore. Some people don't mind a bit of rust when the frame is solid.

Lying on his back on the cold metal grating, the Mighty Chewbacca could probably do without the rust at the moment. It's one thing to prize an (occasionally) flying antique aesthetically. It's quite another to do the actual maintenance required to keep it from crashing the next time it enters atmosphere. Judging from the deliberate, skillful way that Chewie and R2-D2 are handling this welding job, that's probably not going to happen for at least a few more weeks. If they can ever get this 'slightly used' capacitor bank attached to the quantum manifold.

Holding the capacitor bank up as if he were trying to bench press the heavy, rectangular hunk of metal, Chewbacca offers some words of encouragement to the astromech droid as he welds.

"ArRrRrRrRrRrRrRrR!"

Taking a quick scoot back on his rear wheels, R2 whistles defensively, narrows the lens on his dome, and then returns to welding.

Unfortunately, he happens to weld a bit of Wookiee finger in his haste. The reaction is both predictable and immediate. As Chewie howls in anger and pain, the little bot makes quick egress from the engine room, zooming down the corridor as fast as his wheels can take him.

"EEEEE-YAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOO!"

The Falcon was a ever-consistent measure of work. Both inside, and out.

While Chewbacca and Artoo worked on the extensive hardware issues from inside, Rey had just returned from the exterior with a whole host of cleaning supplies. She'd taken it upon herself to clean up some of the carbon scoring, and scorch marks on the exterior hull of the ship. Not that aesthetics were a hinderance to performance, but it did help the ship have a bit more legit 'cred' for those who saw it. But really, the main motivation for her to help clean up the hull was based on it being easier to work with when they needed to get at some of the systems from outside, or replace entire hull plating segments.

Trundling up the gangplank, Rey is half way up when she hears the Wookiee's holler, which causes her to double her pace. Setting the cleaning equipment down in the corridor beside the ramp entrance, Rey rushes toward where the two are working. "What happened?" She is quick to ask, as she starts to take in the sight of the two, and their work status.

"Is that burnt hair I smell?" she asks, raising one hand up to put her index finger beneath her nostrils for a moment, as her dark lashes flutter at reaction to the scent.

"Maybe I could help with this a bit more?" She asks them both, knowing they both are not quite so sure of her repair skills. She's a known scavenger, but not a known repairman.

Still holding up the roughly refrigerator-sized boxy hunk of metal, and looking all sorts of uncomfortable, Chewbacca is not really in any mood to refuse help from anyone. And if Han trusted her repair instincts enough to offer her a permanent job on the ship, that's good enough for Chewie. Sure, it's a dubious honor, but dubious or not, Han's instincts tended to work out really well roughly forty percent of the time.

Beneath his dark welding goggles, Chewie watches as the young woman approaches, and as the terrified astromech skedaddles past her so fast that if she was a normal woman she'd be lucky she didn't get kneecapped. Of course, it's unlikely that anything as slow-moving as a droid could ever get the drop on Rey. But something will probably get the drop on Chewie if this thing doesn't get welded in place in a timely fashion...

"HRRRRR! GRRRAAAAA! RRrrRRRRRRoooOOORRRRR! GRR-HRrRrRrRrR!"

Despite the Wookiee's obvious discomfort, you can say this for him, the part stays in place, held up by nothing other than a deceptively strong set of hair-covered arms. He gestures with his forehead in the direction of the handheld arc welder. Looks like they'll have to do it the old-fashioned way.

"HrRrRrR, hrrrRRRrrrr..."

With the fleeing droid rolling away from the ire of the massive Wookiee, Rey just lets him go. She glances after Artoo, and considers calling out to him, but relents in the moment. Instead she looks back to Chewie, and her brows raise up. "You're holding that on your own?" She asks, now moving toward him. Her legs step over his, the tabards on her garments flowing around her thighs and knees as she gets a leaning position to peer at the spot where it was to be welded. "Oh, gosh." She quietly exclaims, noting the visible Injury to the Wookiee's hand.

When she straightens up again, her brown eyes dart to the tool that Chewie indicates, but instead she just takes a step back.

"I have a better idea..." She quietly says. With a focus befalling her youthful facial features, Rey's right hand comes up, her delicate looking fingers spread apart, and her eyelids slip down to a state of concentration...

It takes a moment for Chewie to feel it, but the weight in his arms, pushing back against his shoulders and elbows, slowly begins to relent.

"You can let it go..." Rey says in a hushed tone of voice, "I have it..."

She stands back, that hand up and out, slightly belt at the elbow, the young woman seems completely at peace as she communicates with the heavy object, through the tendrils of the mystical energy field binding her to it...

"You can start the welding. We'll tend to your injury after you've finished it." She further states in a moment of inner peace, the practice with the Force ever something she has to keep up, after all.

Feeling the weight shift off of his hands, the Wookiee finally gets a chance to relax. He drops his arms with a grateful growling noise, and takes the briefest of seconds before sliding out of the way and snagging the arc welder with that long simian arm of his. There's no time for stretching when one's co-pilot is holding up half a ton (give or take) with her brain. Or with... whatever organ the Force lives in. It's not really Chewbacca's area of expertise.

"Hrr-RrRrRrRrRrrr..."

The quick howl of warning is all the announcement given before Chewie begins doing exactly what he had suggested would be the ideal course of action. Tacking the corners with the arc welder and some solder, he attaches the piece semi-permanently to the durasteel mounting bracket. There it will live, until it eventually fails like its predecessor did, at which point it will be unceremoniously cut off with a laser torch and replaced with a slightly newer model.

As the corner welds quickly cool, Chewie looks back to make sure that the Jedi is still in the hippie trance which, in his limited experience, suggests that she's doing just fine and doesn't need a break. So he continues the welds, making surprisingly straight lines for a beast with a wounded claw. Sparks fly as the arc welder melts metal, allowing it to stitch together in the open air. Open air which is slightly fouled by the fumes of the welder and the carbon from the burning metal. But it's probably not worse breathing here than any other are of the Falcon...

"GrrAAAAhhhAAAAhhhAAAAArrrrr!"

When the Wookiee rose up, and told her to keep her eyes shut, Rey's eyelids slipped fully closed. She there-after remained essentially statuesque as the Wookiee set about securing the piece via the torch. When the sparks flew, and the sound of the welding sizzled in hot strikes around her, Rey's lashes gently fluttered, her outstretched fingers gently twitched, but she remained perfectly still, and calm.

The sparks flashed before her, illuminating her face, as Rey's focus was fully upon that of the energy between she and the part Chewbacca was tending too.

When he finally rumbled a response out to her, Rey's eyes opened, and her hand's muscles relaxed. She lowered her right arm to her side, and gave her hand a little wiggle at her side.

The young Human smiled at the Wookiee, and gently dipped her chin toward him. "You never know when, and how, you might be able to find aid in the Force. But that is half the journey, I suppose." She responds to him.

Her eyes dart to the part, and a greater return of focus falls across her facial features. "Are we good then?" She asks him, once more sweeping her stare back to her comrade in this ship's caretaking.

"Remember to just ask, if you need further help of this kind. It's far better than..." She glances at his injury.

"Let me go get the medical kit.." She states then, her palms going to the front and top of her covered thighs. She wipes her hands gently on the tabards of her attire, as she turns to head toward the storage lockers where she knew a med kit was stowed.

Before Chewie can bellow out "RrrHhrrrr..." in his howling, growling, snarling native tongue, the pint-sized Jedi is already leaving. As she's decided upon a course of action, Chewie let's the matter rest. He's never been one to unnecessarily tough it out when he has an injury or illness, and doesn't seem likely to break that habit now. Instead, he turns to watch her leave, his thoughts all but indecipherable beneath that virtual mask of hair and the hard line of muzzle full of jagged teeth.

As she leaves, Chewie pulls up those welding goggles, giving him the chance to inspect the welds more carefully. He sees no fault in the work, which is to be expected, though he stoops enough to look at all of the lines up close. In more primitive times, something like this would have been secured by heavier supports, but the slightly recessed bracket seems more than sufficient to keep it from falling to the floor when the artificial gravity is kicked on.

"GrrrrAAAAaaaarrrrr. HrooRRRoooRRRrrrr..."

What unfolds in the background is the sound of Rey trying to talk Artoo out of the hiding place the droid had fled to. "He's not going to take you apart." She can be heard saying, along with. "I swear it. He's fine. You almost had it, there was just a .. bump in the road. You're safe now." She assures him. Whether or not it works though, is unknown.

A few moments later and Rey's form comes sweeping back in, with her eyes downcast on the open medical kit, and one hand rooting around inside it. "This is an old kit." She says with a bit of reserved surprise in her voice, maybe a twinge of disgust too?

She reaches a nearby surface and places the bag down upon it. Continuing to root around inside it, she starts pulling out items and clutching them in her hands.

Once she has what she feels is sufficient, she turns around and begins moving toward him. "Okay, give me your hand." She tells the Wookiee, as she holds up a cleaning utensil. She'll set a few items aside, and even place one between her teeth, to let it hang against her chin as she reaches for his furry hand, to tend to it.

Once she has the injury cleaned up a bit, the little package in between her teeth falls free down to be caught in her right palm. "This might sting a bit, but I'm sure you can handle it." She says, flashing a light grin up at the Wookiee, before her eyes bounce back down to her work.

The injury is covered in a old bacta treatment salve, and wrapped in a little bandage that she secures around his claw and thumb. "Should be good by morning, I think. Unless the bacta has really lost its potency..." The young Human states in a calming tone of voice.

It's a big change from Han. He would've told him to tough it out, or not even have ever asked about it, more likely. But such is the way of time, it always flows, and things ever change.

The Wookiee looks a bit sheepish giving her his paw, but does it anyway. Sure enough, the burn wasn't bad enough to fully sever a climbing claw or anything so dramatic. It's still a fairly nasty burn though, worth risking the application of some (possibly expired) healing salves. Head cocked in curiosity, Chewbacca watches as she works, blue eyes shifting back and forth between skepticism and admiration, sometimes within the space of a single blink. But, brave boy that he is, he keeps his complaining wailing to an absolute minimum.

Wouldn't want to break her concentration by roaring, right?

"DrrdddrrrrAAAAAAAAAAAArrrrrrrAAAAAArrrrrrr! GrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRr! Rrrrrr."

Making clear once again his distaste for any dealing with Jawas, Chewbacca nevertheless does not appear to be scolding the young 'smuggler in training'. She managed to get them exactly what they needed, in a way that has so far proven to be much easier than the alternative. Here's hoping nothing terrible happens to make them regret their choices...

He looks at his finger, flexing it gingerly underneath the bandage. "GrArrrrrAAAAA, rrrrRRRRRrrrrr?"

Rey had basic medical bumps and bruises understanding. Truth is she'd learned it from an old woman on Jakku, who passed away when Rey was 13 or 14 years old. She'd helped Rey quite a bit, when it came to surviving in a harsh climate, and with harsh people all around. She'd been the closest thing to a mother figure Rey had had in those years of her life, with Leia being the next closest. Both of them were gone now.

She has her eyes down on her 'work' the whole time she performed it, and gently shook her head to what the Wookiee questioned. A glance was sent up to him, along with a smirk to emphasize it. "Strength is in what we do, not the bandages we wear." She fires back at him before she tests the bandage with a stroke of her thumb across it, then a gentle pat of her much smaller hand given to the back of his own. "You're on your way to a full recovery, I think." She lightly jests as she reaches for the wrappers to the suplies she'd used. Turning about, Rey moved back toward the bag on the table, where she began to pull everything out to re-organize it. In her mind, she wondered if Han had been the last person to use this med kit, as it 'felt' like him, in so far as to say things looked hastily stuffed inside the container.

"We'll deliver the package the moment we arrive." she says with her back toward him, and her head down, her dark hair tied up in those three little balls on the back of her head. "I know you're not comfortable having an outsider mission to that of our own, but I promise, we'll get it done, and it'll be a thing of the past."

She glances back toward him, over her left shoulder, as she continues to organize the bag by putting things back in in a more proper placement.

"What else do we need to do before we're ready to give the ship another startup test?" She asks him, her hands running over the items until she has them in a good order, and begins to seal the container again.

The list of things that the Millennium Falcon needs to be legitimately spaceworthy is probably longer than Chewbacca's leg. But most of those things haven't been part of the ship for many years, due to the 'system' the old smuggling duo developed. Sure, it meant that things frequently broke, and hyperdrive levers didn't always work when one really needed them to, but it helped create the 'fastest hunk of junk in the Galaxy.' So the list of things that they actually need is... considerably shorter.

"RrrrrRRRRRRrrr... AArrrAAAArrrrOOOOooRRRR... hrhrhrhrhr." Looming behind her, the Wookiee's height makes it possible to see most of what she's doing, despite her back being turned toward him. Of course, there are patches of fur stuck to some of the bulkheads in the ship from occasional head bumps. Really ought to get those cleaned off sometime, it's unhygienic.

"RrrRRRrrrRRRrrrrrr... GgGgGgGRrRrRrRr...." The admission is frank, without any sense of shame. He's been adjusting fairly well to his new co-pilot, though they still haven't fully found an easy rhythm. He's at least gotten used to her, and seems to be glad of her company. Maybe a bit cautious around her, but that's perhaps to be expected, given his history.

With the med kit closed up again, Rey laid it down on its side, and turned to face Chewie again. She rests one hand upon the surface edge beside her right hip, and the other falls upon her left hip, with her elbow out to her side. She smiles softly at him, and gives a glance to what they'd just finished, before she returns her eyes toward him again.

"I'm here to help." She says in response, with a glance given behind her left shoulder toward the corridor. "I think you've run Artoo off for good too, so I might be all you have now." She states, with her eyes sweeping back over to him, and a little grin peaking out from her expression now. "Unless you want me to fetch Threepio. Last I saw he was in the cockpit debating philosophy with the ship's computer."

Her grin remains as she reaches for the med kit, grabbing it by a wrapped handle on its side and pulling it from the table. "Let me just stow this again." She says as she turns to move back toward the storage lockers where she'd retrieved it. 

"RRrrrrrAAAAAAAaaaaaarrrrr!" It's a fairly neutral statement, but the tone of Chewie's voice indicates that perhaps he'd prefer that Threepio and Artoo stay exactly where they are. He also seems to really want the young woman to understand all the ins and outs of the ship. For what reason, we can only guess.

The noise that Chewbacca makes as he gets back down to his knee, and then lays down on the cold metal grating, can probably best be described as 'Old Man Arthritis Noises.' However, given his tendency to howl rather than grunt, it comes across as more dramatic. Either way some of his joints pop during the process, showing that while the years have not yet caught up with him, they are certainly beginning to gain ground.

Scooting up under the very large box, he reaches for his hydrospanner, and begins working some of the bolts off of the access panel on the bottom. Sure enough, it's a much more complicated piece of equipment than it would appear from the outside, but then that's usually the case with equipment. Lots of wires, lots of tubes, and what appear to be a series of heavy, solid state capacitors all linked together for a purpose that only a competent engineer could properly explain.

Too bad they don't have one of those... But they'll get by.

The request of a preference for her help has her smiling softly to him on her way back to the storage lockers. "I'll be right back then." She states as she goes. This giving him time to settle back in to his work, Rey is only gone a handful of minutes before her boots visibly appear again in the corridor passage. "I brought some drinks." She says, coming toward him to set the drink thermos cups down on the console beside where Chewie is working. "I put some of the Manae roots in them that we picked up in the market when we got here." She'd haggled a local farmer's wife for the roots, after sampling one and finding it to be super sweet. "It should make the water a bit more flavorful..." She says as she turns toward him then, and lowers down to a crouch beside where he is working. "How can I help?' She asks then, dropping down on to her knees on the floor to his right, her hands resting atop her thighs as she glances down at his tool set, then up toward where his furry hands are working on the machine part directly. She reaches out for one of the tools from the chest, raising it up to turn it over in her hands, tracing a thumb across the fastener lines in the durable alloy. "Some of these tools I really could've used back on Jakku..."She quietly says as she eyes it. "I had to fashion a lot of them myself, to help take machinery apart. It was a true nightmare..." She says as her eyes go back up to him, and the tool is lowered down to rest atop her lap.

Growling appreciatively, Chewbacca starts the process of tracing out the connections. For a 'real' engineer, it would probably be second nature. But for a simple country boy from the wilds of Kashyyyk who ended up as a slave laborer and 'pit monster' before signing up for a life of crime and eventually turning to terrorism... well... let's just say Chewie does the best that he can with these repairs and leave it at that.

"HrRrRrRrRrRrRr..... RAURGH!" He scoots over a bit so that she has space to slide under as well. While he does so, he reaches up, and deftly snags one of the thermos cups she so thoughtfully brought for refreshment. Sipping the water, he seems pleased. Or at least the rumble from his throat sounds more like a purr than a growl. Give it some time though, and he'll find something new to complain about, and all will be right with the Galaxy once again.

With a pair of quick nods, to what the Wookiee says, Rey unfolds her legs out from underneath her, dropping on to her left hip slightly, she pushes herself over and under the machine to look up at it. Pressing her back against the bulkhead outcropping behind her, she's been in similar positions countless times in the derelicts that dotted the Jakku deserts. She bends her knees and lifts them up slightly, that tool she'd pulled from the set laying against her lap up beside her stomach now. She peers up at the inner workings that Chewie has exposed in the underside of the device. "I know this." She quietly says, her hand reaching up to point toward its guts and organs. "You have to connect these here, and here." She notes, moving her dainty index finger from one spot to another. "I've done this before, in reverse." She states, glancing to her left at the big Wookiee, and flashing him a grin.

She looks to the tool set on her right, beside her hip, and reaches for it. She mills about inside it as she gathers up some fasteners that she saw were tucked in to a niche in the case, then turns to display them in her palm. "Here." She states, offering him one, having one for herself too.

"How is the drink?" She asks, glinting a sly grin at him when she sees his reaction to a sip from it.

Within moments, though, Rey has her hands up and is working with the tool and fastener to create the linked juncture between the ship and the big part they had just worked to secure, her brown eyes focused up upon the work her hands were doing, her head tilting right, then left, as she vies for different visual angles around her own fingers, her bottom lip now held between her teeth as she concentrates.

Though he did his fair share of the heavy lifting on the front end, Chewbacca has less to do now that a slightly more competent (okay, much more competent) mechanic has her hands in the Falcon's guts. He returns her smile, though his own is significantly less charming and mostly just looks like he's exposing his large, savage teeth. Still, there's a certain twinkle in those old blue eyes for those who aren't intimidated by his bestial form. Or who don't mind sharing breathing space with a Wookiee, because that is definitely an acquired scent if ever there was one.

"HrrRRrrrrrr" Smacking his lips, Chewie sets the drink aside for now, and reaches a massive, hairy paw up into the capacitor bank's innards in order to give a bit of assistance. Mostly just holding things in place while she fastens them down. Occasionally he offers a bit of suggestion by way of growl, but for the most part it seems that she truly does know as much about ship repair as he does. Which certainly bodes well for their budding partnership.

"RrrrrRRRRrrrrrRRRRRrrrrr."

The sound that he makes could be mistaken for a chuckle. Surely this dour Wookiee couldn't be making a joke though? The very thought is preposterous.

One thing that Chewie will note is that Rey's hands are like a 3rd of the size of his own. This gives her an agility to get them in to places that he normally struggled with. She was securing the fasteners, linking the conduits and tightening the connectors until they were flush with one another. "Thanks." She quietly says to him, muttering here and there other distracted words as they work, such as. "I see it. I got it. One moment..." and lastly. "There." She says, dropping her hands down to her lap to give the blood a chance to flow back to her fingertips. Her eyes go back up to her work, their work, and she's staring at it when he makes his joke.

She looks back over and up at him, a curious expression showing on her face as though she wasn't sure she understood what he meant exactly. But it soon registers in her that he made a joke. She shows him an amused smirk, big and pleasant. "You're a comedian, now?" She asks. "Very funny." She states to him as she offers the tool she had been using, in exchange for the one he had. "I've never seen a comedian in person. I found some holo-recordings of one once. I don't think I've ever laughed that hard before, or since..."

She rarely ever laughs, and Chewie might be unsure if she's ever actually done it at all. Such is the way of a person who grew up primarily alone, though, right?

With the tools exchanged, Rey extends her legs out in front of her as she sits up straighter under the heavy manifold above them. With her back straight, she tilts her head to the right a little, as she makes another minute adjustment to one of the secured lines, making certain it's just right.

She's a perfectionist, that much is clear in how she trains with the Force, trains with rigorous exercise, trains her mind in those old books she always reads, and so many other ways.

"I think we have this section done... I realize now this piece is only a fraction of the size I'm used to working on. Those capital ships on Jakku, or what's left of them, they're... still a sight to behold when you get in to the meat still lingering on their bones..." She glances over at him again, and flashes another smile.

"Teaches you a lot about this stuff." She states, tapping the end of the hydrospanner against a frame edge, making two melodic noises that reverberate through the hull around them. She grins. "We used to communicate with each other like this." She explains about the ringing sounds. "It'd let scavengers know where they were, should there be fears of cave-ins, or people getting stuck."

There isn't quite enough room for Chewbacca to sit up straight under the equipment, so for the moment he stays where he's at. Those large, but surprisingly dexterous hands have their fingers laced together as he rests his arms on his chest. He looks pretty relaxed, maybe he actually wasn't joking about that nap? But... they're not entirely done yet, and once they're done admiring/checking their work, Chewie grabs the hydrospanner and puts the panel cover back in place. It only takes a few seconds to tighten the bolts to their proper torque value. Or... close enough anyway. It's an old hydrospanner, who knows if, or when, it's ever been recalibrated?

Clearly, Chewbacca is not a perfectionist. Nor was his previous partner. It's an occasional source of some minor friction, but that seems to have mostly been worked through. They're doing things 'Rey's Way' more often than not these days, and Chewbacca's tantrums are getting further and further apart.

He listens intently, for a creature that would rather be sleeping. She has an interesting life story, after all. But his eyes light up at the sound from the Scavenger's Code, and he taps one of his claws against the frame edge to almost perfectly copy the ringing tones she created. Not that he knows what they mean just yet.

"HrrrRrrrrrrrRRrrrrr.... hr hr hr!"

Rey ducks down again when Chewie moves to put the panel back over the shell of the device. She watches him make the final seals on it as she raises up her right knee to rest her hand upon it. She listens to his response to her, a faint smirk still present upon her pink lips as she hears him speak of his own world. She turns her eyes to stare up at him, tilting her head softly to the side. "The Shadowlands?" She questions, softly shaking her head side to side. "We'll have to go there some day. I've heard stories of Kashyyyk, mainly from a crew of Wookiees who used to come through Jakku on a trade route." She says as she turns to drop the tool in her hand back down in to the case, right in to its desginatedesignated slot in the case.

"It's how I picked up the language, listening to them talk, and the translator droid they had with them. I wasn't able to really picture what a world like that would look like, until we arrived at Maz's place..."

Her eyes go forward then, as she leans back against the bulkhead. "I told Han how bewildered I was at the sight of all the greenery, let alone the endless water." She glances back to Chewie then, smiling more happily at him. "I imagine your world is similar to that one. Beautiful, and serene."

Reminiscing about the good old days when Rey was just a random hitchhiker seems to make Chewbacca happy. It's been long enough now that he can discuss his crotchety old best friend without succumbing to too much sadness or anger. Other losses have happened recently as well, and nearly all of his old friends are dead. Attuned as she is to the thoughts and emotions of others, it's likely that Rey has picked up on how adrift he feels at times. But admirably, he always seems to find something else to fight for. Or, on occasions like this, something else to fix. The Falcon provides a seemingly endless supply of such distractions.

"RrrrrrAAARrrrrrhhhRRRRR!"

While Chewie responded to her, Rey went back to sorting the tool kit now. She'd found a new project to focus on cleaning up and re-organizing. It was another element of her time on Jakku. Once she'd found that AT-AT, and claimed it as her private residence, she'd spent the next several years organizing it to make it a space of her own. Some parts of that behavior were bleeding over in to how she treats Han's ship now too, case in point. She adjusts a few items as she listens to Chewie, her head down as she has her shoulder turned away from him slightly.

But she stops when he mentions his wife. She turns back toward him, leaving her right hand on the lip of the tool case. She stares at him with her expressive eyes questioningly upon what he'd just said. Had her ears heard that right?

"Wife?" She asks him. "You're married?" She further asks. When she sees his reaction she tilts her head with a curious flame sparked inside of her. "When did you see her last? I've never heard you mention needing to get back there..."

She sits up a little straighter then, her hands both on her lap now. "We can make time for you to get back there, if needs be." She assures him, since they'd been traveling for the past two years and change, since Jakku, since the passing of Han, and now Leia just a handful of weeks ago.

She flashes him a smile. "I don't want your family to worry about you, anymore than they surely already are." She further states, knowing Wookiee life spans are very different from Humans, but she still wants to make sure the offer is known, even if she has a lot of work to embark upon to rebuild... the Jedi Order... which is not daunting of a task, at all.

It's not often that Chewie talks about his past. And there hasn't been much time for the sort of long rambling conversations he used to have when he and Han were hauling spice all across the Galaxy. There's been a star war going on, and all of the accompanying drama. But it's true, now that the war is over, one would think that Chewie would have taken the Falcon, and headed home. Yet he's sticking around with this human, who until two years ago was a complete stranger, who has virtually no connection whatsoever to any of the humans that he was so close to before their inevitable demises. What, indeed, is up with that?

Maybe we'll find out one day. But in the meantime, Chewie changes the subject. Looking at her through blue eyes that are almost human, he answers with a mouth that is decidedly... not.

"MrrHrrrr... Rrggggg." He almost sounds like he'd rather go and visit the Fire Slugs. "GrRrRrRrRrRrRrRrRr..." The use of 'our' might be revealing, or it might just be a passing comment. He starts to scoot his way back out from under the bulky, freshly-installed engine component, pausing awkwardly for barely a moment when he gets a little too close for comfort to the fearsome, though tiny Jedi Knight.

Back out in the rest of the ship, C-3PO has tired of debating philosophy. Entering the cargo bay, he is chock full of complaints about the state of the ship, the lack of respect afforded to droids of his experience, and the complete absence of napenthe in this ship stores. Nope, there's none in the cargo bay either... what sort of smuggling vessel is this, etc, etc. He walks right past the Jawas' crate, bumping into it slightly with his awkwardly jointed elbow. But oblivious as ever, he doesn't notice that the crate starts to shift in its spot as the golden droid leaves the cargo bay...

When Leia had asked Rey and Chewie to be the messengers sent to try and retrieve Luke, Rey had been eager to get underway. She'd settled in to the Falcon's cockpit with Cheie, and felt a fair amount of anxiety at the mission they were to embark on. But Chewie had been an integral part of her safety after Jakku, even coming back in the chaos of a world apocalypse to save she and Finn before Starkiller Base would destroy that planet it had been built in to... She owed him already for sticking his neck out for her, and she could see now that he did it because he had a heart of gold.

She raises both of her knees up then as he makes his dodging of her question, and prepares to slide out from under the engine part. She sits up again, her hands upon her raised knees as she watches him moving to avoid the edge of the part. "Watch your head." She quietly tells him with a passing smile gracing her lips before she turns back to the toolkit, and finishes her adjustments to its contents. The lid is flipped shut, and Rey takes hold of the frame of the engine part above her head, nimbly moving her lithe form out from underneath it. She is back up on her feet in moments, and leaning down to pick up the toolkit. When she raises up again, she sets it down upon the console where her water thermos was waiting.

"What do we need to do next?" She asks him, knowing that he is the lexicon of this ship, and how it needs to be repaired, and in what order. She reaches for the water thermos, and raises it up to her lips for a sip, listening to what sounds like Threepio milling about not far away.

Moments later in The Millennium Falcon's cockpit...

Sitting at his customary station, Chewbacca goes through the very lackluster preflight check routine that he's been doing for the past thirty years or so. The old analog switches still work just fine, though the tiny monitors usually don't work unless they're bonked first by a Wookiee Fist. A bonk which Chewbacca is only too happy to give as he starts bringing some of the Falcon's systems online. In the corridor behind them, R2-D2 was just working up the courage to enter the cockpit, before he saw Chewie bring his hairy, meaty fist down upon the console, and he backs right back down the corridor to go do maintenance on something else, somewhere else.

"RrRrRrRrRrRr!"

Reaching up, he flicks the golden dice, a sort of tradition that he's been carrying on since there's nobody left to do it. Notably, he still has his cup with him, though he's finished the majority of the drink. The tiny remainder gets poured into something new that's been placed on the console next to Chewie's station: A tiny wroshyr tree, kept in a small pot on the Falcon's 'dash.' Although it looks like a seedling, Chewbacca has been keeping the branches trimmed, and the root growth contained. It's almost as if he's made a tiny art sculpture out of it. Maybe it's an art form back on Kashyyyk? If only there was a name for such strange tree-shaping.

Rey had stayed back longer than Chewie had, she'd cleaned up a bit after the work in the engine parts, and by the time she joined him in the cockpit she had her white light jacket on over her white attire. Barely more than a vest with the slightest of sleeves, it did yield a bit more warmth when they were in space, and with a light exhale, Rey settled in to the seat that Han used to occupy. It was, at first, a bit weird to take the chair but after the past couple of years, it has gotten to be routine, really.

The young woman didn't notice Artoo, as her eyes were on the system check list readouts in front of her station, but she did look up when Chewie spoke about a task. She glanced from him, to his little potted plant, and with a smirk she nodded, and rose to her feet.

Stepping behind her chair, she slipped in between it and the one behind it. There she stood at the navigator's station, her back once more facing Chewie as she worked on the switches, and read the readout display the progress of the task.

"I have a list of supplies that we'll need to get in order to return here, and complete the refurbishing of the moisture farm." She says, with a glance cast over her right shoulder toward Chewie. "It will be a great place to hideout, should we need to lay low for awhile, and since Luke spoke so highly of it in his journal..." She returned her eyes to the readout and spoke softer. "I don't want to let it fall in to further ruin than it already has..."

With a breath taken in through her pert nose, Rey stepped back. "Okay, I think we're good to go." She states, placing her hand upon the back of her chair again and she once more slipped between it and Chewie's own seat.

"Turn over, and lets hope we don't have a burnout..." She quietly says with a fair amount of anticipation, and maybe worry, lacing her tone as she drops herself back down on to the chair's seat.

"GrrrAAAUGH!"

There is shaking. There is wheezing. There's even a coughing sound. But finally, the engines come online, and the displays come to life as power is distributed all throughout the Millennium Falcon. It's only after the ship finally comes to life that Chewie stops crossing his fingers, and returns his attention to operating his pilot's station. He always seems amazed by the Falcon's ability to operate, which is understandable since he knows better than anyone exactly what maintenance shortcuts have been taken over the past several decades. The Falcon's probably been 'skipping its oil changes' since before Rey's Parents were born. But somehow, it keeps on working, as if it's powered entirely by Chewbacca's disbelief.

The ship begins to rise up, kicking up a sandstorm to its rear as it slowly begins to rise, leaving its dusty landing pad and elevating above Mos Eisley!

Back in the city, a corpulent Pantoran catches a glimpse of the Falcon rising up, and takes note of the fact that they've somehow managed to to get the ship fixed, in less than a day, without giving him six hundred thousand Wupiupi. He'll have to make inquiries into this, for sure.

"Well, I'll be a Hutt's pleasure slave... they did it! Maybe I should have quoted them fifty thousand..."

When the ship came online, and everything cleared for a launch, Rey cast a sideways glance to Chewie, along with a self-satisfied grin. "We did it." She quietly tells him before her eyes go back to the forward webbed viewport. Maintaining the controls from her end, she keeps a lookout on the readings, and keys in a comm response to the air traffic controller from the Mos Eisley monitoring tower.

It is a short exchange, with the tower officer wishing them safe travels in Huttese.

"We survived Mos Eisley. We should write it down as some kind of milestone..." She states with her eyes roaming the readouts, and her hand reaching up to swipe her loose strand of brown hair back behind her right ear.

"I'll start the jump process." She states then, leaning back over the left shoulder of the chair to push a few buttons, and call up the jump calculation that was already stored in the Falcon's extensive hyper navi computer.

"Should be set by the time we get out of the gravity well of Tatooine." She states as she spins back around in her chair, her left hand adjusting her light jacket across her shoulders.

"Once we're in hyperspace, I'll check on Artoo, see if he'll do a scan on our little cargo box, make sure its in good condition for the trip."

Up, up, and into the stratosphere. The crummy town of Mos Eisley quickly disappears, as all the ground below them turns into one giant, sand-colored mass. What a desolate place this is... Tatooine's gravity fights back against the Falcon's attempts to leave planet. Harder and harder it struggles the further away from the surface they get, until they finally push past the upper limit of the planet's troposphere, and shortly thereafter the planet seems to give up, and gravity's effect on the ship is reduced to essentially nothing. It's moments like these where Chewbacca is reminded of all the many reasons that he keeps traveling, even though he really should be giving some serious thought to retirement. That knot in his back isn't going to go away sitting in these uncomfortable chairs...

Something to think about later. Surely nothing terrible will happen to him before he has time to plan out his retirement, right?

As they break away from gravity, Chewbacca places his hand on the hyperdrive lever at his station, looking over at his co-pilot with a sort of savage smile on that bestial, sharp-toothed snout.

"RrrRRrrr, RrrrrEEEErrryyyy?"

He begins to smoothly push forward on his lever.

Back in the cargo bay... it looks like Artoo won't have very much to scan. Though most of the Jawas' cargo crate is still intact, there's a noticeable hole in one of its sides. The hold seems to be almost perfectly round, a little bit larger than a human head, perhaps even larger than a Wookiee head. Noticeably, there doesn't seem to be very much left inside the crate. Oh well, it'll probably be fine. It's not like one of the ship's crew is dangerously close to retirement or anything.

The first time Rey had broken atmosphere with the Falcon, she'd been all kinds of tingly at the sensation of it. She had flown ships around on Jakku, taxi'ing them around for Unkar Plutt, but she hadn't taken one up in to space until Finn came in to her life, with a wing of TIE Fighters chasing him.

This time, she isn't really thinking about it, as the desert world is left behind. Her mind is simply on the readouts, watching the power fluctuations, and thinking about the various ship systems that are effected by it all. Once they're up, she glances over at Chewie, then moves to stand up. She turns to the side and slips between the chairs, her left hand going to his shoulder to lightly pat the hairy Wookiee. "You did a good job." She tells him, offering a smile toward the man as she starts toward the back of the cockpit. "Next stop, the most dangerous Moon in the galaxy." She says sarcastically, as she keys open the cockpit door and glides out in to the command corridor beyond.

"Artoo?' She calls out. "BB-8 is going to have choice words for you if he finds out you're hiding still..." Her voice carries back as she strides toward the middle of the freighter's interior.