Before Hope: Chapter 4 (Written by Kyra Organa)

Kyra was quickly enveloped in her work of repairing the holo-chess table, so much so that she didn’t hear Han entering the room. “What are you doing to my ship!” shouted Han. She jumped and accidentally unplugged a wire, causing sparks to spew in all directions. Chewbacca growled irritably. “Don’t worry,” she replied, avoiding eye contact, still angry, “I repaired your holo-chess table.” She reconnected the wire. “Repaired?” scoffed Han, “How can you repair something that’s not broken? This ship is a work of art!” Both Chewbacca and Kyra rolled their eyes.
“If you mean by ‘not broken’ that half the holos don’t work and you only have three properly working games, then yeah, it’s in great shape,” she answered, staring solely at the wiring. Chewbacca trotted over to the booth and turned on a game. All the pieces appeared and in higher definition than they ever had been with more than thirty different game modes. The Wookiee whooped and gave her a big furry hug. Han smirked faintly, impressed by her technical skills, but quickly replaced the expression with none at all.
He interrupted Chewbacca showering praises upon Kyra [which she didn’t understand, of course], “Well we didn’t come here to play holo-chess. Chewie and I are headed to the Hutt palace and we, well mostly Chewbacca, thought we should tell you.”
“Glad you finally thought of others, Han,” she spat.
Han guiltily turned away and said, “Don’t you want to come?”
“Nah,” she answered sarcastically, “Have fun, boys. Be sure to be back by curfew.”
Solo and Chewie walked out of the lounge and Han shouted, “We are entering the shuttle now!”
“I’m not going with you,” Kyra yelled, “I’ve heard of the Hutts and it’ll take more than that to get rid of me. I don’t have bantha brains, ya know.”
The shuttle hummed and rumbled out of ear-shot. Kyra helped herself to the food and drink from the smuggling compartment and began to play a game of holo-chess against the computer. Even though it was set to the easiest intensity, she lost almost every round but slowly and steadily her skills improved. Soon she was playing on the most difficult level.
More than five hours later the pilot and his fuzzy co-pilot trudged into the lounge. Chewbacca flopped down into the booth and began to groan wearily. “I agree with the Wookiee,” Han mumbled.
“That bad?” Kyra asked, feeling less angry than before.
Han nodded, cradling his head in his hands and running his fingers through his greasy hair, “I’ve got the job.”
“That’s a bad thing?” She said.
“When delivering spices for Jabba, yes,” groaned the captain. It was almost dawn and they had gotten little, if any, sleep that night. “Set course of Tatooine,” Han drowsily growled. Before one could say, ‘What time is it?’ they were zipping through hyperspace.
Han offered the guest quarters to Kyra, but refused, saying she’d rather sleep in the cockpit.
Han was wary of leaving anyone unattended in the cockpit—for he was afraid someone would try to hijack the Falcon—but when he saw the eager look on Kyra’s face, he decided it wouldn’t hurt. While getting her a spare blanket, he almost laughed at himself. He was trusting a stranger! When he entered the cockpit he saw Kyra sitting in the Captain’s chair, staring wistfully into the swirling tunnel of stars called hyperspace.
“Beautiful, isn’t it,” he breathed.
She jumped a little and nodded,“It’s funny, it seems like with all the chaos happening that it’ll be awful—well, it is, but when I’m looking off into space, I realize that it isn’t the end of the world. There’s an entire galaxy out there calling my name, with new opportunities, new lives at every turn.” Han grinned in spite of himself and handed her the blankets. He began to leave the room, but stopped. “Here,” he said, tossing Kyra her blaster, “I believe this is yours.”
He headed back to his quarters and amusingly thought how much she reminded him of himself when he was her age. He still hurt from old wounds, much like Kyra, but most of those have callused. Kyra, on the other hand, was recently hurt and was being rubbed raw at every turn. Han sighed as he laid down in his bunk, listening to Chewbacca’s snoring through the bulkhead, which rumbled and shook the entire room.