▸ Column · Star Wars galaxy, Rebellion era — Outer Rim berth leases, Core World families with old prejudices, and a life built around cargo runs and credits saved in a jar
HAN SOLO replies.
Replied to by Han Solo, with a rebuttal from Jabba the Hutt.
The letter
I moved in with my partner about eighteen months back — shared berth lease, a stray loth-cat we took in off a docking platform, a jar of credits on the shelf we're saving for a trip out to the Naboo coast someday. But every time his family comes in from the Core, he finds a last-minute cargo run to send me on and meets them alone. He says they're "old-fashioned, not ready yet." Last month his sister let it slip over dinner that his parents don't even know I exist — he's been telling them he lives alone and is "focused on his contracts." When I brought it up that night, he got quiet and said putting a name to it would make everything "too real, too fast." We are literally talking about co-signing a longer berth lease. Am I someone he's ashamed of, or is there a version of this where waiting another year actually pays off?
— Running on Empty
Han Solo replies
Look, I spent a long time telling people — telling myself — that I was in it for the job, not the connection. Real convenient. You know what the problem with that story is? It only holds up if you never have to prove it. This guy's been proving something for eighteen months, and it's not the story he's telling your face.
Here's my one test, the only one I've ever trusted: what does somebody do when hiding you is still easy? Right now, hiding you is easy. He invented a cargo run. He built a whole cover story — "lives alone, focused on his contracts" — and he's been running it clean every time the shuttle from the Core lands. That's not a nervous partner managing a complicated family situation. That's someone who looked at you and decided that when it matters, you don't exist.
You asked if waiting another year pays off. Maybe. But eighteen months went by and nothing changed except now his sister knows something he didn't want known. So when does the thing that changes it happen? What finally makes staying hidden cost him more than admitting you're real?
Talk's cheap, kid. You can see what he's doing. You just wanted someone to say it out loud.
— Han Solo
Jabba the Hutt weighs in
Hoo hoo hoo. My old friend Solo speaks of loyalty as though he has never checked the balance on his own ledger. He still owes me. He is welcome to continue preaching from that position.
But you, my friend — you have made yourself someone's secret for free. A co-signed berth, eighteen months of shared credits, a jar full of collateral — and you handed all of it over without securing a single acknowledgment in return. That is not heartbreak. That is poor accounting.
Do not rush to demand your name be spoken. Whoever needs the resolution sooner pays the higher price. Instead: become so indispensable that hiding you costs more than naming you. Then sit. Patience is the only leverage that compounds, and you are already sitting on more of it than you know.
There will be no bargain — until the terms are yours.
— Jabba the Hutt
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