▸ Column · Star Wars galaxy — smuggler's cantina advice column, debts measured in credits
HAN SOLO replies.
Replied to by Han Solo, with a rebuttal from Leia Organa.
The letter
Captain — an old bunkmate of mine, Dalla, and I go back near eight standard years. Last couple, she's tapped me for around fourteen hundred credits, the big slice being six hundred to fix her landspeeder's repulsor, which she swore on her life she'd square "by the next pay cycle, no question." Never mentioned it since. Meanwhile every time we meet up she's picking the pricey cantina and floating weekend runs to the resort moons, so she's hardly skint — she just acts like the debt evaporated. I've nudged twice: once joked "could use that repulsor money back before I book passage for my sister's wedding," once sent a credit-request she ignored for three weeks till I cancelled it, mortified. The friendship's real otherwise — we talk near daily. But I'm terrified that asking straight makes me sound like I've been keeping some quiet tally. Which, fine, I have. How do I get my credits back without blasting a friendship I actually care about?
Han Solo replies
Kid, first thing — drop the part where you're ashamed of "keeping a tally." You loaned the credits. The number's the number. Owing somebody isn't a crime; I've owed Jabba for years, and let me tell you, pretending a debt evaporated is how you end up decorating a wall in carbonite. So no apologizing for being owed.
Now the cynical read, which is usually half right: she didn't forget. Nobody forgets six hundred. She decided it wasn't real because you let her. Watch the hands, not the mouth — "swore on her life by next pay cycle," then books the resort moons while ducking your credit-request for three weeks. Talk's cheap. Behavior's the receipt.
Here's the thing, though. Those cute little nudges — jokes, a request you cancelled out of embarrassment? That's not asking. That's hoping she volunteers so you never have to. She won't. So quit smuggling it in sideways. Say the actual number to her face — "You owe me fourteen hundred, when am I getting it?" — then shut up and watch.
A real friend squares up or gives you an honest plan. If she gets weird over credits she clearly has? You found out something cheaper than I usually do.
— Han Solo
Leia Organa weighs in
Han, you turned this into a stakeout. "Say it and watch." Watch for what? She already showed you — three weeks of silence on a request she could've cleared in a breath. The data's in. Stop collecting it and decide. This is the man who dodged a debt until it nearly got him frozen, lecturing someone on facing one. Name the full fourteen hundred and a date — "by month's end" — out loud, today. Not a hint, not a joke you cancel when it stings. If the friendship survives you being plainly owed, good. If it only survives your silence, it was never the friendship you're protecting.
— Leia Organa
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