Hero's Trial: Agents of Chaos I (3 page)

C-3PO understood that he may not have been allowed to attend the funeral, in any case. Everyone attending the memorial was a member of Chewbacca’s extended family, but it was unlikely that the affiliation applied to him—much less to his counterpart, R2-D2. For all their espousal to machines, intelligent and otherwise, flesh and bloods could be extremely proprietary about matters of kinship and family.

Close to Ralrra squatted Chewbacca’s father, Attichitcuk, along with Chewbacca’s auburn-furred sister, Kallabow. Alongside them sat Chewbacca’s widow, Mallatobuck, and their son, Lumpawarrump, who had taken the name Lumpawaroo—Waroo for short—on
the successful completion of his rite of passage. Interspersed among the Wookiee contingent stood assorted friends, kin-brothers, cousins, nieces, and nephews—Lowbacca among the latter, a Jedi Knight.

The humans numbered only six: Master Luke, Mistress Leia, Master Han, and the three Solo offspring, Anakin, Jacen, and Jaina. Conspicuously absent was Lando Calrissian, who, much to Master Han’s disquiet, had sent word that unexpected—and unspecified—developments would prevent his attending. Master Luke’s wife, Mara, might have attended if a sudden relapse in her mysterious malady hadn’t forced her to remain on Coruscant.

The exquisitely carved table at the center of the circle rested on a carpet of wroshyr tree leaves, its pedestal base entwined with dark-green kshyy vines and its round top strewn with kolvissh blossoms, wasaka berries, Orga root, and the glossy yellow petals of the syren plant. The cool air was redolent with the aroma of smoldering tree-resin incense.

[Here on Kashyyyk, Chewbacca’s mettle made itself known at an early age,] Ralrra continued. [With his late friend Salporin]—he paused to glance at Salporin’s widow, Gorrlyn—[Chewbacca left the nursery ring to venture down along the Rryatt Trail to the Well of the Dead, in the heart of the Shadow Forest. Armed only with a ryyyk blade, he braved mock shyrr, jaddyyk moss, needlebug, trap-spinnerr, and shadow-keeperr to harvest strands from the heart of the flesh-eating syren, thus earning the right to wearr a baldric, carry a weapon, and confirm the name he chose to be known by. Here, too,
Chewbacca ventured into the great Anarrad pit—not once or even twice, but five times, taking down the taloned katarn on three of those hunts and once receiving a wound from the beast in return.] Ralrra indicated a spot on his shaggy torso. [Here, on the left side of his chest.

[In preparation for his marriage, which took place atop this very branch, Chewbacca descended to the fifth level and there with bare hands captured a quillarat and presented it to Malla as an expression of his love. And when it came time for Waroo’s initiation, Chewbacca was steadfast in his support and encouraging of his son’s quest of the scuttle grazerr.]

While some of Chewbacca’s accomplishments on his homeworld were familiar to C-3PO, his memory lacked anything in the way of corroborative data, so he summoned recollections of his own experiences with the Wookiee and was immediately inundated with a rapid-fire sequence of images, some of them dating back twenty-five standard years.

His first sight of Chewbacca, standing like a cinnamon-colored tower outside Docking Bay 94 in the Mos Eisley spaceport on Tatooine … Chewbacca as a sore loser in dejarik holoboard contests … Chewbacca on Bespin’s Cloud City, incorrectly reattaching C-3PO’s head after it had been used by Ugnaughts as a plaything in a game of Wookiee in the Middle … Master Han’s assertion that Chewbacca was always thinking with his stomach … The many, many times Chewbacca was referred to as “flea-bitten furball,” “overgrown mophead,” “walking carpet,” or “noisy brute,” occasionally by
C-3PO himself—in imitation of humans, of course—and always with affection, given Chewbacca’s scrupulous character and great size.

A sudden flutter gripped C-3PO, and he found that he was unable to summon additional recollections. An unnatural and most discomfiting heat surged through his circuitry, prompting him to run a diagnostic program, which ultimately left the source of the glitch unrevealed.

Ralrra woofed, brayed, and barked.

[Natural curiosity compelled Chewbacca to leave Kashyyyk at an early age, but like all of us he was soon enslaved by the Empire. Fortunately, Chewbacca regained his freedom at the hands of a man of like strength and honorr—ourr revered brotherr Han Solo. And in the company of Han Solo, to whom he had pledged his life, Chewbacca was to play a crucial role in the Rebellion, and in the events that led eventually to the downfall of Emperor Palpatine.]

C-3PO focused his photoreceptors on Master Han, whose eyes were red-rimmed and narrowed, and whose right hand Mistress Jaina had taken between her own. The dark-blue military-style trousers Master Han was wearing were similar to the tattered pair he had attempted to preserve for posterity, but which only the previous day had proved incapable of conforming to Master Han’s slightly increased waistline and had torn irreparably. Present during the incident—the cause of no small measure of vexation to Master Han—C-3PO had assisted in affixing to the outside seams of the replacement trousers twin embellishments known as Corellian Bloodstripes.

Across from the father and daughter stood Master Jacen and Mistress Leia, her head resting on her elder son’s shoulder and her cheeks glistening with tears. Near them squatted Master Anakin, brooding and withdrawn, along with Master Luke, certainly no stranger to death, having lost both his natural and adoptive parents, as well as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, two of his Jedi mentors.

[Chewbacca went on to become a soldierr in the New Republic,] Ralrra boomed and rumbled. [He aided in Kashyyyk’s liberation afterr the Battle of Endorr. But he remained first and foremost devoted to Han Solo, as friend and indebted protectorr, and as guardian to Han Solo’s spouse and three children.] Ralrra turned to Han. [It was Chewbacca’s honorr to have been able to come to his friend’s rescue on several occasions, even as recently as the crisis involving the Yevetha, when he freed Han Solo from imprisonment aboard a Yevethan warship.]

Once more C-3PO tightened the focus of his photoreceptors on Master Han, who lowered his head in abject grief, as Jaina stroked his shoulders. Master Han’s relationship with Chewbacca was similar to C-3PO’s with R2-D2, though it seemed at times that the two droids had been together even longer than had the human and the Wookiee.

R2-D2 must have been regarding Master Han, as well, for the astromech suddenly rotated his monocular receptor to C-3PO and warbled tremulously, almost as if he, too, had picked up an enigmatic flutter.

C-3PO changed the cant of his head.

The past several months had afforded ample opportunities to study humans in grief, but for all his observations he was no closer to understanding the process than he had been before Chewbacca’s death on that dreadful world. All living beings eventually died, when not from the effects of age, then as the result of accidents or illnesses almost too myriad to catalog. Death was in some ways analogous to deactivation or memory erasure, but in fact it was something quite different, a total ceasing-to-be—the end to all adventuring, indeed. In the face of that revelation, C-3PO felt compelled to wonder if he hadn’t been wrong all along about his lot in life. If, as he so often declared, droids were made to suffer, what then of flesh and bloods?

Perhaps it was better not to know.

As constructed, C-3PO was incapable of shedding tears or enduring heartbreak, as it was called, but his programming did allow him to experience sorrow of a sort, if not nearly to the depth experienced by humans and other living beings. And it was suddenly clear that sorrow was the source of the flutter that continued to plague him. Try as he might, he could not summon a sound thought, and with each glance at Master Han his dismay increased.

As the one closest to Chewbacca—and perhaps because he was a very
human
being—Master Han seemed to be suffering the most, alternating between anguish and rage, despondency and agitation. The man C-3PO had once dismissed as impossible was now deeply distraught, as unreachable as if he were encased in carbonite, and there seemed nothing C-3PO could do to put the matter right. Being fluent in millions of forms of
communication did not guarantee an understanding of human behavior, let alone human emotions. C-3PO was only a droid, after all, and not very knowledgeable about such things.

There had been an incident during Master Han’s courtship of then Princess Leia when Master Han had had occasion to place a hand on C-3PO’s arm and say, “You’re a good droid, Threepio. There’s not many droids I like as much as I like you.” He had gone on to ask C-3PO’s advice on matters of the heart, and C-3PO had gladly provided a poem for Master Han to use as ammunition in his contest with Prince Isolder for the princess’s hand.

But curse my metal body
, C-3PO said to himself. Why hadn’t his maker equipped him with the necessary programming to come to Master Han’s aid now? Instead, all he could offer was mindless philosophizing!

[Adventure is as alluring and potentially dangerous a thing as the heart of the syren plant,] Ralrra roared plaintively. [But even Chewbacca’s final act was one of sacrifice, giving his life to save someone dearr to him.] The aged Wookiee looked at young Anakin, then at Master Han and Mistress Leia. [And as everr he kept his claws retracted in battle. Now, in the same way the branches of the wroshyr seek out and support one anotherr, Chewbacca’s spirit merges with and gives sustenance to ourr own, strengthening us forr the challenges we have yet to confront.]

Warfare had figured in C-3PO’s existence for so long that a new invasion shouldn’t have come as a surprise. But there was something different about the Yuuzhan Vong and the harrowing war they were waging on a
galactic scale. It wasn’t merely that they didn’t distinguish among species or among worlds—New Republic, Imperial Remnant, or nonaligned—or even that their biotic warships and weapons packed such awesome destructive power. What worried C-3PO most was that this most recent conflict was one in which not even droids were spared. And that meant that, like it or not, he might yet arrive at a true understanding of grief and death.

The circular table was covered with foodstuffs—bowls of xachibik broth, barbecued trakkrrrn ribs, forest-honey cakes, salad garnished with rillrrnnn seeds, and flasks of wines, juices, and liquors. Humans and Wookiees were conversing in groups, recounting tales of Chewbacca’s exploits that brought laughter, tears, or moments of sober reflection. The breeze had picked up, stirring leaves and enlivening wind chimes.

Han sat dejectedly on a short-legged wooden stool, resting his elbows on his knees. “Y’know, I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I think I actually envy Threepio.”

Jaina followed her father’s gaze to where the droid was standing with his squat counterpart, looking completely at a loss. “It’s better not to have a heart, you mean.”

“At times like this, anyway.” Han exhaled wearily and ran his right hand down over his face.

Jaina motioned to the table. “Let me get you something to eat, Dad. You must be starved.”

He managed a smile. “Thanks, sweetie, but I’m not hungry.”

“You should have something anyway,” she said in a maternal way.

Han brightened slightly and reached for her hand. “You help yourself, I’m fine.”

She frowned. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.” He gestured with his chin. “Get going. Eat enough for the both of us.”

Reluctantly, Jaina headed for the table. Han watched her for a long moment as she mingled with her siblings, Luke, and Lowbacca. Observing them, he wondered what he might do if he could use the Force the way the Jedi did. Would he remain on the light side, or would he avail himself of the sinister powers of the dark side to teach the Yuuzhan Vong a thing or two about vengeance? Violent and ghastly images blossomed in his mind like explosions, but he put a quick end to them. He had had months of such images already, and they had come to nothing. No amount of vengeful thinking was going to bring Chewie back.

He glanced at his hands and found them balled into fists. While he’d spent the past six months isolated and incapacitated, often in the dark or secreted inside a tapcaf on Coruscant, the Jedi had at least been taking the fight to the enemy, and that was exactly what he needed to do.

He berated himself silently, then took a deep breath and blew it out through pursed lips. Loosening his hands, he slapped his thighs in a gesture of finality and got to his feet. He was starting out for the table when Mallatobuck and several other members of Chewbacca’s family approached him. Malla was cradling a meter-long wooden box.

[Han Solo,] she said, smiling down at him, [we want you to have this.]

Han’s brows knitted. He set the box down on the stool and unlatched its finely wrought metal clasp. Inside, snug in a bed of cushioning material was a beautifully carved bowcaster, its marked and blemished skeleton stock polished to a deep brown gleam. An artfully disguised magnetic accelerator, the weapon propelled explosive quarrels at extremely high speeds. This one was equipped with a sighting scope and a recocking mechanism few human hands would be capable of operating.

“I recognize this,” Han said, nodding. He compressed his lips to trap a moan fighting to escape him. “It’s one of the first I ever saw him make.”

Malla hooted. [Chewbacca fashioned it shortly after we married—while you were here. He fashioned better versions in his time, but this one retains the warmth and power of him.]

Han hefted the weapon. “I feel it.” He turned and hugged Malla, his head barely reaching her chin. “I’ll treasure it.”

Waroo handed Han a carry pouch made of hide. [This also belonged to my father. I know he would have wanted you to have it.]

Han placed the curve-bottomed pouch over his shoulder, knowing full well that it would hang down past his knees. Malla, Waroo, Lowbacca, and the rest boomed their delight in earsplitting yowls. Jaina returned with a plate of food in time to join in the laughter.

“If Chewie could see you now,” she said, grinning for the first time all day.

Han backhanded a tear from his left eye, smiled, and
put his arm around his daughter’s waist. “The big lug would bust a gut.”