Star Wars: Honor Among Thieves

It didn’t blow up last time,” Han said. “Maybe it won’t blow up this time, either.

So how did you wind up joining the Rebellion?” “An old guy and a kid were looking for a ride and I needed the money,” Han said. “After that, it was just bad luck.

Saying ‘no problem’ is a sure sign that everything is about to go terribly wrong,” Han said.

We’re not anarchists,” she said. “We have goals. We want to end the Empire.” “And replace it with what? “You know what,” Scarlet said. Her crossed arms matched his own. “Are you trying to make fun of me?” “It was rhetorical. I’ve heard the speech, sweetheart. ‘A glorious return to the Republic of old.’ To a guy like me, a new boss is still a boss.

Han had been in a thousand places like it, all across the galaxy. Some had been as large as star systems, others as small as a back room in a cantina. They were the niches of the universe … They were violent places, and they were joyful, and they didn’t last.

Brother. If I call you sister, you call me brother, see, because –

Cioran, bureaucratic heart of the Empire. Or if not heart, kidney. Maybe small bowel.

What about you?” Scarlet asked. “You have to enjoy the fear, too. Just a little?” “Not the fear,” Han said. “I just like being a little smarter than the next guy.” “That’s all it is?” “That, and I really hate paying taxes.

If the last few weeks had taught Han anything, it was that he didn’t belong in the civilised part of her world. His place was in the bowels of the Falcon, or the pilot’s seat.

No one’ll see us coming,” Han said. “And everyone dies sometime.” “Not comforting.” “The alternative is we go spend a bunch of time waiting for you to come up with some other plan that doesn’t work.

But always there was the voice at the back of his head telling him that by joining the Rebellion he’d become less of a rebel than he’d ever been. Flying off to assault yet another impossibly well-defended Imperial stronghold. It was getting to be a bad habit.

I’m not embarrassed,” Han said to the back of her head. “I am a very good-looking man.” “Indeed you are, sir,” the droid replied.

Han noticed that there wasn’t a chair at that table for him. Probably because he’d said he wouldn’t come. It seemed a little rude of them to take him at his word.

I have lots of friends,” Han said. “No, my dear boy, you don’t. What you’ve got are accomplices.

Han thought again of mystical energy fields and said a quiet thank-you to whoever or whatever might be looking out for them

I was afraid you were in trouble for a second, Your Highnessness,” Han said, but the barb sounded hollow and unconvincing. Leia looked up at him, and the softness in her face told him that she’d heard the relief in his voice. He might just as well have said I thought I’d lost you. “No such luck,” she said softly. He was surprised by the power of his urge to sweep her into his arms and kiss her. For a moment, there was something else in her expression—apprehension or hope or something of both. She blinked and looked away.

Well,” Han said with a sigh, “we’ve gone from no-plan to stupid-plan. That’s progress of a sort.

What makes you such an expert on alien life?” Scarlet asked after a few minutes. “I’ve been all over the galaxy. Seen a lot of stuff,” Han said. “Plus, I have common sense.

You’re too old for fairy tales,” Baasen said.

Everyone’s got history,” Baasen said amiably. “Man still has to work, whatever’s in his past, eh?

There were going to be plenty of them who would have been just as opposed to the Republic. Trust the wrong one, and they’d all be fed straight to the Empire. Leia. Luke. All of them. It was the nature of the game.

– we’re criminals,” Baasen went on as if the other man hadn’t even spoken. “Not looking to make anything about the galaxy better except our little part. Put us in the Emperor’s palace, we’d sell all the furniture before we took off.

...any government was going to have traffic laws. Before the Emperor, the Republic had enforced its edicts at the laser-sharp edge of a Jedi’s lightsaber. It was the way the universe worked.