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Han shook his head. “No, they always cry when you choose.” He looked at Leia. “Come on, you can listen too. I’ll tell them a bedtime story.”

With the twins snuggled in their pajamas under warm blankets, Han sat between their small beds. Leia sat in another chair, looking longingly at her children.

“Which story do you want tonight, kids?” Han said. He held a story platform in front of him that would display words and animated pictures.

“I get to pick,” Jaina said.

“I want to pick,” Jacen said.

“You picked last night, Jaina. It’s your brother’s turn.”

“I want The Little Lost Bantha Cub,” Jaina said.

“My pick!” Jacen insisted. “Little Lost Bantha Cub.”

Han smiled. “Big surprise,” he muttered. Leia saw that he had already called up the story on the board before the twins made their decision.

He began to read. “After the sandstorm that drove him from home, the little lost bantha cub wandered alone.

“So he walked, and he walked through the desert heat till noon, when he found a Jawa sandcrawler upon a sandy dune.

“ ‘I am lost,’ said the bantha cub, ‘Please help me find my herd,’ but the little Jawas shook their heads and gave their final word.”

The twins leaned forward to watch the accompanying images activated by Han’s voice and the scrolling words. Though they had heard the story a dozen times already, they still seemed disappointed when the Jawas refused to help.

“So he walked, and he walked till he met a shiny droid. After walking by himself so long, the cub was overjoyed.

“ ‘I am lost,’ said the bantha cub, ‘Please help me find my herd.’ ‘I am not programmed to help you,’ said the droid, ‘Don’t be absurd.’

“The droid kept walking straight ahead, not looking left or right; the bantha cub just watched until the droid was out of sight.”

Leia listened as the little bantha cub’s adventures continued in an encounter with a moisture farmer, and finally a huge krayt dragon. The twins sat wide-eyed with suspense.

“ ‘I will eat you,’ purred the dragon, then he lunged with snapping jaws! So the bantha cub began to run without the slightest pause.”

Jacen and Jaina were delighted when the bantha cub finally found a tribe of Sand People, who reunited him with his parents and his herd. Leia shook her head, marveling at the fascination the children showed.

After Han finished telling the story and switched off the platter in his hands, he and Leia each gave the twins a good-night kiss and tucked them in before quietly walking out to the hall.

“I wish you would let me embellish your tale with sound effects,” Threepio said, walking beside them. “It would be so much more realistic and enjoyable for the children.”

“No,” Han said, “you’ll give them nightmares.”

“Indeed!” Threepio said in a huff, then moved to the kitchen area.

Leia smiled and held Han’s arm, hugging him. She kissed him on the cheek. “You’re a good daddy, Han.”

He blushed, but didn’t disagree with her.

14

Small, but infinitely deadly, the Sun Crusher superweapon entered orbit around the gas giant of Yavin, flying side by side with the armored New Republic transport.

Sitting in the streamlined pilot’s seat, young Kyp Durron felt the Sun Crusher’s advanced controls respond to his fingertips. He stared through the segmented viewport at the eddying orange planet below, a waiting bottomless pit where the Sun Crusher would be buried forever.

“Ready to send her down, Kyp?” the voice of Wedge Antilles crackled across the comm unit. “Straight-line plunge.”

Kyp fingered the controls, feeling a chill of reluctance. The Sun Crusher was such a perfect weapon, well designed, able to withstand any onslaught. Kyp felt a strange attachment to the splinter-shaped craft that had brought him and Han Solo to freedom. But he also knew that Qwi Xux was right in that the temptation to use such power would eventually corrupt anyone. Qwi kept the knowledge in her head, vowing to share it with no one. But the functional superweapon itself had to be taken out of everyone’s grasp.

He adjusted the sublight