Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 04_ Agents of Chaos 01_ Hero's Trial - James Luceno [74]
More to the point, what could droids, or a single droid, have possibly done to fill Nom Anor with such hatred? In searching for precedents, C-3PO could recall instances of droid enmity coming from humans forced to wear artificial parts. But many humans were perfectly comfortable with harboring nonliving parts. C-3PO couldn’t recall a single instance of Master Luke railing against his replacement hand.
It was all so baffling!
C-3PO had had more than his share of personal brushes with annihilation. An arm torn off by Tusken Raiders, traumatic dismemberment by Imperials on Cloud City and rioters on Bothawui, an eye yanked out by Jabba the Hutt’s Kowakian monkey-lizard … But only to be reassembled after each calamity, defragged and degaussed, bathed in oil—a droid’s bacta tank—and polished back to his auric splendor.
Those periodic resurrections made actual deactivation inconceivable, or at the very least, challenging to contemplate. In effect, ceasing-to-be was shutting down permanently—eternally. But how could that be? And how torturous it must be to suffer forced deactivation at the hands of adversaries!
“We’re all doomed,” C-3PO muttered aloud. “It’s the lot of all sentient beings, metal and otherwise, to suffer.”
But exactly why was deactivation such a frightening prospect to ponder?
Did the fear owe to a desperate desire to remain activated, to sustain awareness indefinitely and at all costs? Or did it owe to an unnatural attachment to existence? An attachment that, if surrendered, would take with it all fears of ceasing-to-be—
The revelation discombobulated him momentarily, and he came to so sudden a halt on the permacrete landing field that a protocol droid not entirely unlike himself rear-ended him.
“E chu ta to you!” C-3PO said, throwing the droid’s rude expletive right back at him.
The nerve, he told himself as he resumed his pace. To disrespect one who had seen so much in his time, who had traveled so widely, who had amassed so much knowledge since his first job of programming binary loadlifters—
Quite unexpectedly his photoreceptors zeroed in on Master Solo. Conversing with a … why, a Ryn, of all species.
As C-3PO hastened toward them he couldn’t help but note that Master Han and the Ryn looked somewhat the worse for wear, as did the shuttle they had obviously exited, accompanied by a mixed lot of woebegone beings and a red-capped R2 unit. And, in fact, Master Solo and the Ryn weren’t so much conversing as arguing.
“See you around,” the Ryn was concluding as C-3PO neared.
“Not if I can help it, partner,” Han said, in a manner that held little sympathy.
“Master Solo!” C-3PO called, waving an arm over his head. “Master Solo!”
Han turned and saw him, then snorted a laugh—not at all as surprised as C-3PO might have expected him to be. But then, he had been made aware of Mistress Leia and C-3PO’s impending visit to Ord Mantell. So perhaps he had come looking for them.
“Master Solo, you’re injured,” C-3PO exclaimed, on seeing dried blood on his hands and face.
“Could’ve been a lot worse,” Han replied with his usual penchant for understatement. “Where’s Leia, Threepio?”
“Why, she’s at the Hotel Grand as we speak, sir.”
Han thought for a minute, eyes narrowing as he glanced at C-3PO. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of your not mentioning you ran into me?”
C-3PO inclined his head in perplexity.
“No, I suppose not,” Han said, answering for himself. He blew out his breath. “In that case, I guess you’d better lead me to her.”
EIGHTEEN
“I still can’t believe you’re here,” Leia said as she applied a transdermal bacta patch to a nasty abrasion above Han’s right eyebrow. Han was seated at the vanity in Leia’s elegant hotel room, with Leia leaning over him and C-3PO standing silently in the background. Olmahk and