Star Wars_ I, Jedi - Michael A. Stackpole [94]
My eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“You were CorSec. You just don’t like the idea of someone like me with his hands on the Sun Crusher.”
That brought me up short. I looked at him, then away at the dark jungle. Was I allowing old prejudices to rear up and influence me? For years I’d looked forward to getting a shot at Han Solo if he ever ventured back into the Corellian system. Even after joining the Rebellion I had severe reservations about him. In meeting him the first time I thought I had laid all that to rest.
I looked back at him. “Time once was when you’d have been right. Not now. If I actually thought that, I’d be down there stealing the Falcon and going after Kyp myself.”
Han slowly nodded. “Look, kid, Corran; going after Kyp is the only thing I can do. You’re a Jedi. You can be here and help Luke in ways I can’t. I’ve got to do what I can do, and so do you. I’m going to leave you here so you can take care of Luke; so you can help my wife and watch my kids.”
“You’d allow someone from CorSec to watch over your kids?”
“Getting soft in my old age, I know, but I understand it’s possible to let old opinions die.”
“Thanks.” I narrowed my eyes. “What’s going to happen if …”
“Kyp turns on me?” Han slowly shook his head. “I think I told you, your father hunted me once. I had to run to Carida to escape having a Horn on my tail. Doing what he’s done, Kyp’s destroyed even that haven. If it comes to that, good hunting.”
TWENTY-THREE
That night, as I fell into bed and waited for sleep, I refused to review the dinner conversation, even though I had a nagging sense something of importance had been said during it. I didn’t want to get anywhere close to going over again what I’d felt during Carida’s death. I had once thought myself so hardened that a distant tragedy like this would tote itself up as just a statistic.
My training in the Force had changed all that. It hadn’t made me any softer or weaker, but just more aware. I became cognizant of more of the connections between things and people. The pain of those who had died at Carida had echoes in the pain of relatives who would never see kin again, expatriates who could never go home again, people like Han Solo, whose memories of Carida would forever be tarnished because of what Kyp had done. While all of this would have been obvious to someone who sat down to think about it, it had come to me full blown through the Force. It amazed me, and also reinforced how vast my sphere of responsibility had become.
Sleep, when it finally came, was mercifully dreamless. I awoke a bit late and skipped my run, instead helping Han pre-flight the Falcon. He loaned me a couple of hydrospanners so I could work on Mara’s Headhunter. He then said his farewells to his family and raced off, leaving his children flanking their mother, waving fervently until the Falcon vanished from sight.
I spent much of the rest of the day working on the Headhunter. When Artoo was not busy with babysitting duties, he helped me out. He saved me from a mistake where I crosswired two boards in the navicomp that would have transposed coordinates, sending me off in directions I didn’t want to go. By early evening I’d fixed most of the things Kyp had broken and figured I would resume where I left off the next morning. I finished the day with an evening run and a long soak in a cool stream, then dropped into bed.
I felt more than heard the children scream. I bolted from bed and ran to the turbolift, but the car was already moving upward and away from my level. I ran to the internal stairwell and started sprinting upward as fast as I could. Above me, in the Grand Audience Chamber, I could feel forces gathering, and was surprised that the person sitting with Luke had not raised an alarm. Streen is smart enough to summon help.
The second the old man’s image popped into my mind, a piece of the dinner conversation echoed through my head. “I can’t get away from him,” he’d said desperately. “The dark man. A dark man,