The Falcon appeared to be no different from the thousands of other CEC YT-1300 light freighters flying the star routes of the Empire. However, Han Solo, First Mate Chewbacca, and the Falcon have always been famous in smuggler circles. Just before hiring Luke Skywalker, Kenobi, and the droids, Solo was smuggling spice for the gangster known as Jabba the Hutt. Unfortunately, Solo's famed "smuggler's luck" failed him, and he was forced to jettison the cargo of spice when he was boarded by an Imperial Custom's cruiser. Solo's inability to reimbures Jabba for the lost cargo led the Hutt to pust a significant bounty on the young Corellian's head.
    Beneath the Falcon's battered exterior hides a fast, tough smuggling vessel. It has a class .5 hyperdrive, which is nearly twice as fast as the fastest Imperial warships. It is filled with top-of-the-line (and highly illegal) sensor suite system to detect Imperial ships long before those craft notice the "lowly freigter." And Solo has shielded smuggling compartments hidden through the ship's interior.
    When combat is necessary, the Falcon is ready. It sports a deflector-shield system "liberated" for the Imperial maintenance facilities at Myomar. Two quad laser cannons are enough to stop TIE starfighters and pirate ships, while concussion missiles provide short-range punch. Solo is an expert at the quick getaway: the ship has a remarkably short start-up sequence of about three minutes and sports a retractable repeating blaster for covering fire.
    Solo's modifcations push the ship far past the manufacturers original specification, but both the sublight drives and the hyperdrives are a finicky as they are fast, and Solo frequently has to crawl around inside the hull making last-minute repairs to get the ship flying. The Falcon's three droid brains often predict that the ship simply wont fly-but somehow Solo and Chewbacca manage to get the Falcon through countless scraps, from evading Imperial Customs ships to dodgins vengeful pirate corvettes.