He was not a great deal to look at. The alien sitting beside him was far more impressive, but the smuggler himself was scrawny and scruffy. He wore the self-aware smirk that came from needing to appear cocky and carefree while actually masking a certain desperation.

Kenobi took his place opposite the smuggler and his Wookiee pilot in the corner booth. The sounds of the cantina would mask their conversation, and in any case it was the kind of place where the patrons minded their own business. Young Skywalker sat beside Kenobi, and Kenobi once again pondered the wisdom of allowing the boy to accompany him into the cantina. Skywalker was as ignorant of the ways of Mos Eisley as he was of the Force. The boy was a liability.

'Han Solo,' said the smuggler by way of introduction. 'I'm captain of the Millennium Falcon. Chewie here tells me you're looking for passage to the Alderaan system.'

'Yes indeed,' said Kenobi. 'If it's a fast ship.'

In Kenobi's experience, the more ostentatious the name, the less impressive the ship itself. 'Millennium Falcon' was the kind of name that compensated for something.

'A fast ship? You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon?'

'Should I have?'

The smuggler smiled condescendingly as if Kenobi had claimed ignorance of the colour of the sky or the number of Tattooine's moons. 'It's the ship that made the Kessel Run in less that twelve parsecs.'

Kenobi's mind automatically wrapped around this strange utterance. A parsec was a measure of distance, not time. Solo's claim was absurd. And yet he claimed to be a competent pilot, which meant he could never make such a ridiculous mistake.

Kenobi's study of the Force, and the endless hours meditating first in his cell at the Jedi temple and then in later life in his desert hovel, had given him a quickness of mind. Some Jedi could hurl lightning or fly through the air, but Kenobi's powers manifested far more subtly. He could turn the pathways of another's mind to make them hear or see things that were not there, or even command them to do his will. He could also unravel and reassemble strings of thoughts faster than most people could think them.

It was a test. The smuggler was hoping Kenobi and the boy were so ignorant of space travel they didn't know what a parsec was. Such clueless potential customers would certainly have no idea how much passage on a junk freighter cost, and Solo could charge them as much as he wanted.

Of course, Kenobi could call out the smuggler on his ruse. But then he would lack the advantage that came from being something he was not. It could be useful to appear an idiot on the subject of space travel, when in fact Kenobi had flown to parts of the galaxy Han Solo had never heard of. So Kenobi let it pass, filing the fact at the back of his mind ready to be used.

'I've outrun Imperial starships,' Solo continued. 'Not the local bulk cruisers, mind you. I'm talking about the big Corellian ships, now. She's fast enough for you, old man.'

The subtle insult of 'old man' was another trick, to put Kenobi in the subservient position in the negotiation. It wasn't a very good trick. Kenobi certainly did not feel the lesser partner in the discussion, especially given that only moments before he had saved the Skywalker boy from the hostile cantina patrons with little more than a flick of his lightsaber.

'What's the cargo?' said Solo, with the air of a man who thought he had hooked his prey completely.

'Only passengers,' said Kenobi. 'Myself, the boy, two droids. With no questions asked.'

Kenobi could almost see the credits cascading through the smuggler's imagination. 'No questions asked' was exactly the kind of phrase they lived to hear. It was Solo who was hooked, and he didn't know it.

'What is it, some kind of local trouble?' asked Solo with a wide grin.

'Let's just say we'd like to avoid any Imperial entanglements.'

'Well, that's the real trick, isn't it? And it's gonna cost you something extra.'

Here it was, the kill. The moment when Solo drew in his prey and turned out their pockets. He had already established they Kenobi was an old fool with no idea of what he would be paying for, and was desperate enough to avoid Imperial scrutiny that Solo could charge him what he wanted and tack on a few thousand extra. Solo probably considered himself to have this kind of negotiation down to an art.

'Ten thousand,' said Solo, with gravity. 'All in advance.'

Skywalker, who had stayed silent so far, pulled an appalled face. 'Ten thousand?' he exclaimed. 'We could almost buy our own ship for that.'

Kenobi did not give voice to his frustration. He would far rather the boy had kept his mouth shut. He hadn't wrecked things yet, but it was a start.

'But who's gonna fly it, kid?' asked Solo with a smirk. 'You?'

'You bet I could,' retorted Skywalker. For all he was, for all he could be, he was still a child, with a child's habit of petty boasting. 'I'm not such a bad pilot myself.' He turned to Kenobi, adopting a very grown-up tone of indignation. 'We don't have to sit here and listen to this.'

Kenobi would rather have let the discussions go on for a while longer, manoeuvring Solo into a position of completely false superiority and then drawing concessions from him while convincing the smuggler each one was his idea. There was no way Kenobi and the boy could muster ten thousand credits and he wanted to work on Solo a lot more to bring him down to a realistic price. But Skywalker's outburst could drive Solo and his Wookiee colleague away, and as unpromising as this chancer was, Solo was the only pilot Kenobi was likely to find in a hurry. He had to seal this deal now, before Skywalker made it impossible.

Kenobi had not completely ignored the possibility of simply affecting the smuggler's mind. It would not have been difficult – Han Solo was unlikely to be the strongest-willed of individuals. Kenobi had used that same mind-altering power earlier that day, to avoid a potentially fatal confrontation with the stormtroopers searching Mos Eisley for the droids. But the Force was not a tool or a weapon to be called upon whether it was convenient. It was not a labour-saving tool. The living Force was only to be employed when necessary, when it would become the edge the light needed to prevail over the dark. To use it for every task, including negotiating a fee from a low-life for the use of his junk freighter, was to encourage the arrogance and dependency that led towards the Dark Side.

Kenobi had felt the pull of the Dark Side at him many times in his life, a scratching and whispering at the edge of his consciousness. And though the Light Side taught not to fear, he was afraid of the Dark Side. No, Kenobi would not call on the Force now, not when he had one last card to lay down.

It had to be a deal so ridiculously good for the smuggler that it was only believable if it came from the mouth of an idiotic old man. An old man with no idea what the services of a man like Solo were actually worth.

'We can pay you two thousand now,' said Kenobi, 'plus fifteen more when we reach Alderaan.'

It was a huge risk. Any savvy operator could see through it. But Solo was as desperate as Kenobi was – Kenobi guessed he had impound fees and bribes to pay to get his ship in the air, and two thousand was probably enough to cover them while also being within Kenobi's means. It was a fraction of what Solo had demanded in advance, but the promise of a ludicrous amount of money later, while a crude rhetorical device, might just work.

Solo could not keep the astonishment off his face. 'Seventeen?' he said, momentarily stripped of the reckless confidence he took such pains to project.

And that was it. Han Solo's weakness. For some it was the promise of power, or of empty pleasures of the body. But for Han Solo, it was a deal that was too good to be true.

'Ok,' said Solo, hurriedly adopting his usual demeanour. 'You guys got yourselves a ship. We'll leave as soon as you're ready. Docking bay ninety-four.'

'Ninety-four,' repeated Kenobi, keeping up the act of mild idiocy until the end.

'Looks like someone's taking an interest in your handiwork.' Solo looked past Kenobi and Skywalker to where a pair of stormtroopers were talking pointedly with the staff and drinkers at the bar. They were speaking where Kenobi had seen off the patron who had threatened Skywalker. Kenobi had known their time was limited here and it was sheer fortune he had agreed the deal with Solo before they acquired some Imperial attention.

It was good fortune - or it was the Force, paying Kenobi back for his choosing to rely on his wits instead of a Jedi's powers. There was danger in seeing the will of the Force in every useful coincidence, and Kenobi told himself it was old-fashioned luck he was riding.

Kenobi grabbed Luke's shoulder and led him into the darkness past the stage, where the band had been playing gratingly jolly music since the pair had entered the cantina. The stormtroopers stalked through the cantina looking for the old man and the farmboy, as Kenobi steered Skywalker towards the cantina's kitchens and back entrance.

He should not have drawn his lightsaber. Of course someone would recognise the weapon of a Jedi – the tales of the Jedi Knights and their swordsmanship had not yet completely vanished from the galaxy. The stormtroopers would follow up any such rumours blaster-first.

Kenobi and Skywalker emerged into the light without being spotted. Thankfully Skywalker's speeder, where the droids were waiting, was parked a few streets away out of sight.

'You'll have to sell your speeder,' said Kenobi as he hurried towards the pair of droids waiting patiently by the dusty old vehicle.

'That's ok,' said Skywalker. 'I'm never coming back to this place again.'

The speeder would fetch the two thousand Kenobi needed. Han Solo didn't know that when they reached Alderaan, Kenobi and Skywalker would be under the protection of Senator Bail Organa and Solo would be in no position to demand fifteen thousand credits from them. Perhaps the senator would release the funds from his coffers to pay him, or perhaps Solo would be stranded on another world with his ship impounded and his pockets empty. Either way, it would cease to be Kenobi's problem.

For now Kenobi's immediate concern was getting the R2 unit and Luke to Alderaan. The Rebellion needed them both, and for all its faults the Rebellion was the only chance the galaxy had against the Dark Side completing its enslavement of the galaxy.

Luke climbed into the driver's seat of his speeder. He looked impossibly young, unblemished by the cruel Tattooine sun or the harsh life of a moisture farmer. It seemed extraordinary that this boy should encompass within him a crossroads of the Force, a rare nexus of events which would decide so much.

The Force needed Luke Skywalker, just as much as it ignored men like Han Solo.