[Black Fleet Crisis(25)

“And you want to be left alone to do it. “

“I need to be, Han. Will you help Leia understand? “

“I can try, ” Han said dubiously.

“I can’t ask more than that. “

“Um-look, with everything you’ve said, I already know the answer. But I gotta ask, so I can tell her I did. Leia wants your help with something. “

“I know. “

“She wants you to come live with us for a while. She needs help with the kids. “

“She thinks she does, ” Luke said. “I’m sorry. I have to say no. “

“Okay, ” Han Said with a shrug. “I had to ask. I guess she thought, you know, family and all, maybe you could become a hermit next month instead of this month. “

Luke stood. “She’s important to me, as are the children, as are you. You know that. “

“Sure! “

“That’s why my answer is no. It has nothing to do with this other matter. “

“It doesn’t? ” Han asked, struggling to his feet.

“My sister Leia has all the talent and wisdom she needs to be not only the mother, but the model, your children need, ” Luke said. “She has only to believe in herself, and she’ll find that nothing is beyond her. Which is why the worst thing I could do for your family right now is come to her rescue, to encourage her to look to me to solve her problems. She’ll only undercut her own authority with the children, and yours with it. They must learn their first and most important lessons from you. In that, they are no different from any other children. “

Han pursed his lips as he considered Luke’s answer.

“All right, ” he said, offering his hand. “Good luck, Luke. I hope this won’t be the last time I see you. But you call us-we won’t call you. Okay, buddy? “

Taking the offered hand, Luke looked intently into his visitor’s eyes.

“Thank you, ” he said, with a small but affectionate smile. “I couldn’t ask for a better friend than you, Han. “

As always, the open emotion made Han uncomfortable.

“You could ask, but you don’t deserve one, ” he wisecracked, patting Luke on the arm and then pulling away. He circled around Luke toward where the chamber’s entrance used to be. “You get right to work moving that mental furniture around, or whatever it is you hermits do. I’ll just go home and tell Leia you’ve cracked up—it’ll be a lot simpler. No, don’t bother, I can find my way out. I never have seen a maze that couldn’t be greatly simplified with a good blaster-“

The golden sheen of the droid’s metal skin made a brilliant contrast to the tangle of broad green leaves and dangling vines through which he was noisily making his way.

“Impossible! Such arrogance! ” the droid said aloud as he struggled with the thick growth, though he did not yet know there was an audience for his thoughts. “For all he listens to me, you would think that he is the protocol droid and I the astromech. “

Flailing his arms at a snarl of branches blocking his way, the golden droid stopped and looked back the way he had come. “I hope the stonebats rip out your circuits and nest in your equipment bays, ” he called into the jungle. “I hope a kitehawk drags you off to the temples and feeds you to her kits. It would just serve you right. “

But when he turned back to consider his own plight, the droid found his way blocked not only by the flora

of Yavin 4, but by a

tall, broad-shouldered man in a military flight suit.

“Oh! ” SeeThreepio exclaimed, and fell back a step.

“General Calrissian! You startled me, sir. Where did you come from? “

Lando grinned. “With all the noise you were making, a platoon of stormtroopers could have snuck up and startled you. Don’t tell me you’re still fighting with Artoo after all this time. You two are worse than brothers. “

“That stubborn, contrary pile of tin is no brother to me, ” Threepio said with stiff pride. “If I had been as carelessly constructed as he was, I would return myself to my maker to be scrapped. In all my years, I have never met another R unit as erratic and egotistical as Artoo-Detoo. A simple rebuild of the secondary power grid, and Artoo turns it into a major project. I could give you a list of his operational anomalies as long as-“

“That will have to wait, ” said Lando. “Right now you need to pack your polish and power couplings. You’re coming with me on a little trip. “

“Sir, I would be most delighted to accompany you. For all I care, Artoo can fall in a mud bog and rust away, ” Threepio said, extracting himself from the snarl of vines and circling a tree to join Lando. “But Master Luke brought me here to manage the administrative needs of the Academy, and he did not change those instructions before he left. “