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“So tell me one thing,” Han drawled, and clunked his glass down on the table. “What’s with all this hero worship? The great Commander Skywalker, king of the stars.” He jerked his head in Luke’s direction, and Luke felt his cheeks color. It was true that this batch of new recruits had a lot of questions, and comments, and ridiculous gossip about the shot he’d made on the Death Star, but he wouldn’t call it hero worship . Just… curiosity.
“Han.”
“Naw, kid, let me finish.” Han turned to the pilot on his left and said, “It was one lucky shot, you know. One.”
“Yeah,” the pilot countered, “but it was one in a million. And they say he did it without the targeting computer!”
“Like I said”—Han tapped his glass for emphasis—“lucky shot. Not that I’m not glad he made it. But all I’m saying is, you put me and Luke up there, side by side in a couple of X-wings, and I’m gonna outshoot him. Luck,” he said, and clapped the young pilot on the shoulder, “has got nothing on age and experience.”
It wasn’t luck , Luke wanted to say, but he’d had this argument with Han before. And even though he kept denying it in front of other people, Luke did think Han was starting to come around when it came to the Force. Besides, he kind of liked the way Han got after a couple of glasses of whiskey. And he definitely liked the way Han was smiling at him—kind of crooked, with a challenge in his eye.
“Don’t get cocky, Han.” Luke smiled back, and even though it tasted completely vile, knocked back the rest of the contents of his own glass. He wasn’t about to let Han show him up in front of all the new recruits, not when Luke was the one who actually had to serve as their commanding officer. “You really think you can outshoot me?”
“I know I can, kid.”
“All right.” Luke shrugged. "I'll take you up on that."
A whooping cheer went up around the table, and someone yelled, "We have a challenge!
And for the first time that night, Han’s bravado seemed to waver. He glanced around the table, from one grinning face to another, and shook his head. “Fine," he said. "You and me, kid, tomorrow. We’ll see who can outfly who.”
***
It wasn’t that Luke forgot about it, really, but he didn’t think Han was serious. A little bragging over a couple of drinks was, he had found, just about par for the course around the base. By the time the knock came on his door the next evening, Luke was ready for dinner, and a shower, and bed. Flying was one thing; teaching other people to fly was something else, and this whole command thing was both exciting and completely exhausting.
“Yeah?” Luke called. “I’m here. Who is it?”
“Gold Six, sir. Meren. Captain Solo sent me.”
“Han?” Luke frowned, and open the door. “Is something wrong?”
“No, sir.” The young pilot shook his head. “He’s waiting to take you up on your challenge.”
“ My challenge?” Luke groaned to himself, but that wasn’t entirely inaccurate. They’d both been full of themselves last night—that, and full of too much whiskey. “All right,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll be down there in a minute.” Now he was going to have to apologize to Han, and in front of all the men and women under his command.
He didn’t even bother to put on a flight suit; it wasn’t like he was actually going to challenge Han to a dogfight.
But when Luke got to the hangar, there he was: Han Solo, in borrowed pilot’s orange, leaning against the hull of an X-wing with the kind of smug, cocky smile that Luke was never quite sure if he wanted to punch or to kiss.
“You’re late,” Han said, and made a show of looking Luke over, head to toe and back again. “And not even dressed. Looks like I win by default.”
And there was something about the way he said it. Something about the way he looked up at that X-wing—who had loaned Han an X-wing anyway?—like he owned not only it, but the whole hangar. The whole base. The whole galaxy.
Luke couldn’t say no.
“All right,” he made a show of grumbling, even though he was fighting not to smile. “Give me a minute. I thought you were kidding.”
“I don’t kid, kid,” Han replied, but he cracked a little knowing half-smile.
***
“Listen up,” Wedge explained, when Luke was dressed and Artoo ready in his socket. “This is how the challenge is going to go. We’ve rounded up five targets of various sizes—old equipment that the Alliance doesn’t need, that they’re happy to have you blow up if you can catch it. We’ve hooked each one up to a transport, which will pull the target on a tow cable over the jungle. The area’s uninhabited, but try not to damage the local plant life too much. The two of you will fly after the targets and attempt to shoot them off their cables. The pilot who manages to destroy the most targets will be officially deemed the better shot. Any questions?”
“Sounds good to me,” Han said. “Stand back, and let the master show you how it’s done.”
The others cheered as the two of them ascened their ladders and ran the pre-flight diagnostics with their astromech droids. Luke didn't get the sense that any of them were really cheering for him over Han, or vice versa. They were just excited at the thought of the heroes of the Battle of Yavin wasting Alliance resources on a glorified cock-measuring contest.
And now that he'd thought of it that way, of course, there was no way he was going to let himself not win.
One by one, the transports took off, and in the distance Luke could see the first of them drop its so-called target. He couldn't really be sure at this distance, but it looked like some kind of metal panel.
"Hey, Han," he said into the ship’s com. "Don't tell me you spent all day setting this up?"
"Don't look at me," Han's voice crackled back in reply, and Luke glanced down at the cheering crowd. "Hero worship. I'll telling you. Great motivator."
Luke shook his head and turned off the com as the last of the transports took to the sky. The marshaler, grinning as wide as half the pilots, gestured to Luke that he was clear for takeoff, and a nervous flutter rose up in Luke's stomach as Artoo raised the landing gear. "I'm not nervous," he lied, in response to the little droid's concerned question. But even though he knew this wasn't exactly a serious mission, and that he'd already proven to Han in actual combat that he could more than hold his own in the cockpit of an X-wing, the same spirit of competition that had driven him through run after suicide run with Biggs through Beggar's Canyon wouldn't let him back down now.
"All right, Artoo?" he asked. "Okay. Let's go."
Luke could see the closest target, already halfway to the horizon—half the hull of a Y-wing that had been destroyed in a maintenance bay explosion. Luke just hoped they'd salvaged all the usable parts before recycling it as target practice.
"Hey, Luke?" Han's voice buzzed in his ear, as the second X-wing rose out of the hangar. "You think they stripped that thing for parts?"
Luke grinned. "It's like you read my mind."
He wasn't up here to talk, though, and while Han was distracted by their conversation, however momentarily, Luke cut sharply to the side, blocking any shot Han might have had at the Y-wing, and lined the battered piece of metal up in his sights. He switched the com back to internal only, and glanced back over his shoulder. "You ready, Artoo?" he asked. "We're going in."
He opened fire, racing forward over the jungle, and felt rather than saw Han drop down behind him, barely skirting the tops of the trees.
Artoo squealed, as if the move were a personal insult, and Luke smiled. “Yeah, I saw it.” It was a smart move. Han was giving Luke the first target so he could rush ahead and get a head start on the others. “Nobody said we had to go in order,” he reminded the droid. “Let’s take care of this one first, and then we’ll worry about the others.”
Artoo’s complaints segued quickly enough into a triumphant chirrup as the remains of the Y-wing vanished in a cloud of shrapnel. “Point one to Luke,” Wedge said over the comlink, and Han came back almost immediately with, “Yeah? Well don’t start cashing in your bets just yet.”
A burst of red and orange flame colored the horizon.
“And point one to Solo.”
“Nice one, Han.” Luke scanned the horizon, but there was no sign of the other X-wing, or of the transports carrying the other three targets. The scanners were picking up five other ships, but without visuals it was impossible to tell which one Han had taken out.
“That one.” It was just a gut feeling, but those had gotten more and more trustworthy lately. That was the transport that had just lost its target, and that was Han’s X-wing, speeding away from it. “Artoo,” Luke said, “I’m bearing left. We’re taking out this one next.”
The jungle parted, making way for a deep river valley that cut a steep gorge in the land below. For a moment, Luke slowed. It still caught him like this, sometimes. The wonder of a galaxy full of life and green.
Artoo trilled a question that Luke didn’t fully understand, and he lowered his eyes to check the monitor.
Are you going after the target in the gorge?
“ In the gorge?” Luke squinted at the horizon. “I can’t see anything yet. Looks like your sensors are sharper than my eyes. I’m going to get closer, see what’s going on down there."
The third transport was not, as Luke had originally feared, actually attempting to navigate the gorge. It was, however, making a straight line through the air above it, dragging its target through the trees and rocky outcroppings that lined the canyon walls.
A smile spread across Luke’s face. The Force had led him to this target for a reason.
“Hold on, Artoo. We’re going in!”
The little droid squealed in protest.
“Don’t worry,” Luke said. “There aren’t any TIE fighters after us this time.”
He pushed the joystick forward, edging the ship down through the winds that shook the trees and threatened to knock whatever this target was from its cable.
"Looks like we're after the same one this time," Han said over the com. Luke looked up, and saw the second X-wing swooping down to join him in the canyon.
This was fun. It was also crazy, stupid, and too insane for even Han to have thought up on his own. But it was fun. It had been a long time since Luke had really enjoyed flying. There was too much weighing on him most of the time now—the lives he’d taken on the Death Star, the lives his command decisions risked every day. It had been a while since he’d just enjoyed the freedom of flying—of daring fate alongside someone he trusted with his life and more, even if they were technically, at the moment at least, rivals.
“Hey, Luke,” Han said, and there was something softer in his tone. “You okay down there?”
Luke shook his head. He’d kind of gone on autopilot. Thinking too much about Yavin. About Biggs. About Han , and those weren’t thoughts he needed to be having. Han hadn’t been flirting, when he’d proposed this… whatever it was. It just annoyed him not to be the center of attention. And besides, he’d been drunk, and Han did things like this when he was drunk, like that time he’d gone on a bona fide rant about how Luke was only more popular because of his “pretty blue eyes.”
“Just zoning in on the target.”
“Good,” Han said, and accelerated until Luke could see the orange glow of his rear engines. “I’d feel bad kicking your ass if there was something wrong.”
Luke drove his X-wing forward. “Take all power from the shields, Artoo. We’re not in any danger here.”
Artoo, apparently, disagreed, but he did as Luke requested, and the little ship rumbled as the engines took full power, plowing forward down the canyon and overtaking Han.
“How the hell are you doing that, kid?” Han asked. “This some kind of Jedi mumbo-jumbo?”
“No Jedi tricks here,” Luke promised. “Just Artoo.”
They streamed forward, faster than the wind and far faster than the sluggish transport. Luke could finally make out the shape of the target: an Alliance-issue mattress.
“Is that what I think it is?” he asked.
“I don’t care what it is,” Han said. “It’s gonna be spacedust in a minute.”
Luke switched off the com. If competitive was the way Han wanted it, he could do competitive. And he could see a clear path—not a straight path, but a clear one—down the canyon to the target. He dove under a rocky overhang, swerved right to dodge an ancient, gnarled tree. And then it was there, in his sights, the point that would put him ahead of Han. Luke positioned his hand, ready to fire.
And then the mattress crashed into a wall.
Luke jerked the joystick back, forcing the X-wing skywards. Something hit the hull, shaking the unshielded ship, and for a brief, heartstopping second Luke was sure that the setting sun in his eyes was something from beyond, and that he’d left his body behind on the cavern wall.
“Han!” he screamed. “Han, watch out!”
It took another second for Luke to remember he’d turned off his com.
He was alive. And he’d turned off his com, and it was taking a second to come back online. And below him, too far away now for Luke to get a clear shot of his own, Han’s X-wing was speeding toward the transport, and the target, through a wall made not of stone, but falling water.
A waterfall. The first waterfall Luke had ever seen. And he didn’t even have time to enjoy it before Han’s laugh boomed through the com, somehow managing both to soothe Luke’s rattled nerves and simultaneously rattle them even more.
“Two to one,” Han said.
“Good one,” Luke said, grateful at least that Han either hadn’t figured out his mistake or was being nice enough not to taunt him about it.
“Two points to Solo, one to Skywalker,” Wedge said, and Luke frowned down at the ship’s scanner. He had to take out both of the remaining targets if he wanted to beat Han.
“Watch and learn, boys. And girls,” Han added. “And next time, put your hero worship where it belongs.”
For some reason, that stung. It was wrong, for one thing. The guys in his squadron didn’t worship Luke, and he’d never set himself up as a hero. Even after making commander, he still hung out with them, joked around with them, ate with them in the mess hall. If anything, it was hard for him to be strict with them when he needed to be.
But at least Luke knew that Han was wrong about that, if he was even being serious at all. What really bothered him was this feeling that maybe, even after all they’d been through, Han still didn’t see him as an equal. It wasn’t that Luke expected Han to go around bragging about anyone’s piloting skills but him own. But he wished the moments of recognition weren’t quite so few and far between.
He switched to a private com channel. “Hey, Han? Why exactly are we doing this again?”
For a minute, there was nothing but static on the line, like Han had blocked the connection, or was ignoring it. He brought the nose of his borrowed X-wing up at an angle that gave Luke a pretty good idea of the target he was going for next, and Luke raced forward, full power, to meet him.
“Once you’ve been around as long as I have,” Han said, “there’s a couple things you start to learn. First, a little hero worship ain’t a bad thing, when it comes from people supposed to respect you. Second, this Rebellion of yours has a lot of junk lying around that they apparently need us to shoot out of the sky. And third, and most important, sometimes you say stupid shit when you’re drunk, and you’ve got to pretend you weren’t all that drunk the next day.”
Luke had to smile at that. “Got it,” he said. “But for the record? I’m still not going to let you win.”
The fourth target was the smallest yet—at least assuming Han’s first point had come from something at least as big as the mattress. It was a training remote, bigger than the one Ben had used for lightsaber practice, intended for group combat training. Luke wasn’t exactly sure why the Alliance wanted to trash it, though. Even at a distance, he could tell the remote’s flight mechanism was still operational. It tugged at its tow cable, jerking in directions that had nothing to do with the movement of the transport that was carrying it.
Han fired first, and the shot went wide, as the remote darted out of the way.
“Things aren’t supposed to move like that,” he grumbled into the com.
Han was right. The flight mechanism still seemed to be functional, but the remote’s AI was obviously shot.
A grin spread over Luke’s face. Han may have had the advantage when it came to waterfalls, but Luke had been using the Force to find the problems with busted vaporators since before he even knew what the Force was. He closed his eyes, and focused on the remote. The little bursts of electricity that shot it in one direction or another we’re firing in a pattern that didn’t make much sense, but it was a pattern. Not totally random, even if it would have been near-impossible to see that with just his eyes.
Left , something told him. Right, then forward, and up at an angle.
Artoo gave him an angry squeal that had something to do with flying with his eyes shut, but sight wasn’t the sense Luke needed right now.
And… there. He fired, and knew immediately, before he even opened his eyes, that the score was now even.
“Lucky shot,” Han complained, but Luke could have sworn it almost sounded like a compliment.
“Call it what you want,” he said. Maybe he was feeling just a little cocky. “One more to go.”
“Winner takes all.”
The last target was the smallest of all—a thin piece of siding from a control panel, lightweight enough to catch the wind and dark enough that it barely caught the light of the setting sun.
It seemed to dance, dodging their blasts in a more logical way than the remote had, but Luke had always been better at reading machines than wind. His first shot missed, and while he circled around to get the target back in his sights, Han came at it with a barrage of laser fire that clipped the sheet of metal, but didn’t disintegrate it.
“Ayla?” Wedge asked. “What’s the status of your target?”
“Partial hit,” came the reply from the transport pilot. “Still mostly intact.”
“All right. No points just yet.”
In the background, Luke could hear the others cheer.
Han’s X-wing seemed to come to a halt, and spin itself around in mid-air. It was an impressive move, but Luke wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of saying so.
“Watch and learn, kid,” Han said, across the public com—and then, with no real warning, Luke saw.
He saw the path of the target, the path of Han’s shot. The Force, holding all of it together. It was what he’d felt in the Death Star trench, that overwhelming, illogical certainty that if he pulled the trigger now, the shot would be his.
It wasn’t the only thing he saw, though. He saw Han, proud and confident, surrounded by the younger pilots who, Luke knew from personal experience, were still a little in awe of Han, didn’t quite see him as one of their own. He saw another Han too, surly and dark with an anger that only covered wounded pride. Yeah , he heard, in a voice that ached with sarcasm. Nice job, kid. You got me this time.
Luke could win. But he didn’t really need to. And Han? Well, maybe Han did.
So he waited, for just a split second, and the Force seemed to whisper: Yes, now.
His blasts found their mark.
They hit the edge of the target, knocking it up into an air current that brought it right into the path of Han’s shot.
And then it was nothing. Spacedust glittering in the sunset, and Han’s triumphant laughter surging over the com.
***
It was dark by the time they returned to base, but all of the pilots were still waiting for them. Ayla from the transport gave each of them a hug that probably didn’t mean anything, but made Han smile anyway, and Meren, one of the newest recruits, said, “Now I see why they call you two legends.”
“Legend, huh?” Han grinned. “I could probably get used to that.”
Luke just rolled his eyes. They weren’t legends. But legendary overconfidence definitely suited Han.
Luke didn’t really mean to kiss him. And even after he had done it, he couldn’t be sure if he was shaking, just a little, with excitement or embarrassment or regret.
It wasn’t a deep kiss, or an especially long one, but it was long enough to leave the shape of Han’s lips—firm, and a little bit rough—on his skin.
“Hey,” Han whispered, and raised his fingers to his own lips, like maybe he still felt Luke there, too.
“Woo!” someone cried, and someone else answered, “Somebody find them a room.”
Luke’s face burned, and he couldn’t look Han in the eye. He’d been wanting to do that, on some level, ever since they’d been together on the Death Star. But doing it here, now, with half the base watching? “I’m…” he started, but Han interrupted him.
“What was that for?”
“I don’t know.” Luke was a little surprised at the confidence in his own voice, the confidence he didn’t feel but had to project, somehow, in front of his men. “I guess… I guess I like it when you’re cocky.”
“Cocky, huh?” Han leaned closer, and then he was returning the kiss—longer now, slower, exploring something they’d both wanted, Luke realized, for much too long. “Well, then, this is your lucky day, kid. Turns out, I like you cocky too.”