Red Hat Girl

Red Hat Girl
Nude on the Beach
One Moment in Time
precious time
Not that Luke appeared to care. "Refugees!" Then I did see a space battle!"He rambled on rapidly, excited. "Tell me where you've been—in how manyencounters. How is the rebellion going? Does the Empire take it seriously? Haveyou seen many ships destroyed?" "A bit slower, please, sir," Threepio pleaded. "You misinterpret our status.We were innocent bystanders. Our involvement with the rebellion was of the mostmarginal nature. "As to battles, we were in several, I think. It is difficult to tell when one is notdirectly in contact with the actual battle machinery." He shrugged neatly. "Beyondthat, there is not much to say. Remember, sir, I am little more than a cosmeticizedinterpreter and not very good at telling stories or relating histories, and even lessproficient at embellishing them. I am a very literal machine." Luke turned away, disappointed, and returned to his cleaning of Artoo Detoo.Additional scraping turned up something puzzling enough to demand his full attention.A small metal fragment was tightly lodged between two bar conduits that wouldnormally form a linkage. Setting down the delicate pick, Luke switched to a largerinstrument. "Well, my little friend," he murmured, "you've got something jammed in herereal good." As he pushed and pried Luke directed half his attention to Threepio."Were you on a star freighter or was it—" metal gave way with a powerful crack, and the recoil sent Luke tumbling headover heels. Getting to his feet, he started to curse—then froze, motionless. The front of the Artoo unit had begun to glow, exuding a three-dimensionalimage less than one-third of a meter square but precisely defined. The portraitformed within the box was so exquisite that in a couple of minutes Luke discoveredhe was out of breath—because he had forgotten to breath.