by James Luceno
A droid-piloted vessel in stationary orbit between the planet's two inner moons transmitted live feeds of the battle to an enormous holo-screen in the resort's gaming room, around which a mixed-species crowd of rowdy bettors had gathered for near-continuous drinking and impromptu wagering on whether the space station itself would survive. The remote vessel captured the moment of the Desolator's reversion from hyperspace in what was to have been a sneak attack on anti-Imperial forces, as well as the insurgents' swift counterstrike, which not only caught the Imperials off-guard but drove the TIE fighter kill count to twenty in a matter of minutes. Cix was relieved that he hadn't wagered on the over–under of forty-five, but suddenly found himself having to root for a rally by the Imperials lest the insurgents ruin the spread by destroying too many TIEs.
Gnawing at a fingernail, he studied the updates on the screen, shutting his ears to the game room's caterwaul of energized voices. The insurgents had scored thirteen kills; the Imperials, five. But TIEs were still buzzing from the Desolator's launch bays and the Star Destroyer itself, safe within its combat shields, was beginning to bring its turbolaser arrays to bear on the flights of Headhunters and ARC-170s.
Cix kept his eyes riveted to the scoreboard. The Imperials were beginning to score, driving the number of insurgent kills into the teens. But the Imps were going to have to do a whole lot better in order for Cix to collect on his bet.
Evading individual engagements with the TIEs, the foolhardy militia pilots were actually going after the big ship, flinging at it everything they had in their limited arsenal, and disappearing one after another in short-lived blossoms of roiling fire.
The crowd was in an uproar, clearly split down the middle in terms of those who had bet the spread and others who had wagered with the Hutts—the over-under number already closing on forty-five with a lot of fight left in both sides.
All at once the holoimages grew noisy with static then vanished altogether, with the score standing at insurgents with nineteen kills; Imperials with twenty-eight. A deafening shout rose from the bettors, many of whom were clambering onto the tables and waving balled fists at the club's Givin proprietors.
“The remote has been destroyed!” one of the owners finally announced. Receiving an update from somewhere, he added: “The Desolator intercepted the coded feed from the remote. The Imperials believe that we're furnishing intelligence to the militia. The Star Destroyer is coming around … We're being targeted!”
“To the ships!” someone in the crowd yelled, and twenty beings leapt from their seats and raced for the corridors that led to the moon's small spaceport. Chaos gripped the room as bettors began to scurry every which way, colliding into one another, tripping, slipping on sloshed drinks and going head over heels. Wading into the turmoil, Cix located his copilot and the two of them managed to squeeze into one of the crammed corridors and run for where the Falcon was docked—all the while Cix asking everyone he passed for an update on the score.
The Imperials were still leading the kill count, a Rodian said; the insurgents had evened the score, said another; the Hutts' over–under number had already been superseded.
The first ground-shaking volley from the Desolator struck the moon base as the Falcon was warming for launch. Half of the docking bay collapsed, and the ceiling aperture froze a few meters short of fully opened. Cix nosed the YT up through rampaging flames and clouds of black smoke and shot for space even while packets of scarlet energy were continuing to rain down on the hapless moon. Ships to both sides of the Falcon disappeared in fiery explosions.
“Get the deflector shields up!” Cix told his copilot. “Then plot us a way out of this mess!” He pulled the comm headset on with one hand and enabled it with the other. “I gotta find out the score!”
The ship shook and nearly flipped over onto its back.
“Laser cannon,” the copilot said when he could. “The Givins' resort is history. The Imps are targeting departing ships!”
Cix took his eyes off the communications suite to glance out the viewport. The Desolator was a few degrees to starboard and employing all its forward batteries to make mincemeat of the moon and everything close to it. He threw the ship through a barrel roll and accelerated to port, narrowly evading a stream of destruction.
“We can't jump to lightspeed from this side of the second moon,” the copilot said. “We need to find a way around the battle.”
“Or through it,” Cix said. He whipped the headset off and locked his hands on the control yoke. “Listen for a score!”
A globe of explosive light flared in the distance and washed into the cockpit.
“The space station,” the copilot said. “That'll set the insurgents back some.”
Cix muttered a curse. “I knew I should have taken that bet.”
“Comm from the Hole Card outbound from Yag'Dhul. The militia have destroyed twenty-one Imperial fighters and lost thirty of their own. The remaining Headhunters are jumping to lightspeed.”
Cix turned to him wide-eyed. Subtracting ten from the number of Imperial kills would put the score at twenty to twenty-one, and mean that he had won the bet. “Is that a final?”
“He didn't say. But with insurgent fighters out of play—”
Cix hooted in celebration. With ten deducted to the Imperials, the spread was a guarantee. “Now we just have to survive this.” Nudging the throttle, he sent the Falcon on a corkscrewing course for the second moon; the Desolator was far off to starboard now but several TIEs were taking a keen interest and dropping into the YT's wake.
The copilot gripped the instrument panel as bolts hammered against the rear deflectors. “What are you trying to do, add us to the tally?”
“That's exactly what I don't want to do,” Cix said through clenched teeth. “Just keep your finger away from the laser cannon trigger.”
“Shields are down to sixty percent. Don't take another hit.”
“Easy for you to say.”
Cix changed course, slipping between two inbound TIEs and rolling into a course change.
“Desolator is coming around, aft batteries traversing.” The copilot swallowed hard. “We're not going to make it!” The light-side crescent of the second moon expanded in the viewport. “Even the Falcon's not that fast.”
“You want to bet?”
Cix leveled the ship and maxed the throttle. Energy bolts streaming across the bow and whizzing past both mandibles, the Falcon hurtled forward at bone-jarring speed. Something rattled loose from the bulkhead and crashed on the deck.
“Desolator's got a lock on us. Firing—”
Cix twisted the control yoke, following the cratered sweep of the moon into blazing starlight.
Off the fantail, just to port, two fireballs flashed.
“What was that?”
“Two TIE fighters. Friendly fire from the Desolator.”
Cix blew out his breath. “Close, too close.” He was swiveling toward the navicomputer when the copilot launched a curse at the ceiling.
“The TIEs count!”
Cix whipped around, slack-jawed. “That's impossible! The battle was over!”
The copilot listened for a long moment, his eyes growing dull. “One Headhunter hadn't jumped to hyperspace when the TIEs got hit. The officials are ruling that the battle didn't end until the final insurgent Rebel fighter jumped.”
Cix continued to stare at him. “The TIEs were in play? The TIEs were in play?”
The copilot nodded. “The first TIE kill made for a push, but the second puts us one fighter under the spread!” He blinked. “We lost.”
“Big-time,” Cix said softly. “Big-time.”
“After Yag'Dhul, everyone he had borrowed from was out looking for him,” Doon was telling Han, Leia, and Allana. “Dad saw only one way out: the annual Cloud City Sabacc Tournament. He showed up at the Yarith Bespin Hotel with just enough to cover the ten-thousand-credit buy-in and the ante for the few hands he figured he would need to win to remain in the tournament to its end.”
“Obviously that didn't happen,” Han said.
Doon's sister nodded. “More than half of the players bombed out by the second day. Dad made it to the third, but he was hanging on by his teeth. On one round the pot grew to ninety thousand credits. He didn't have anything near the amount needed to remain in the game, but he had a hand he didn't think anyone could beat.”
“Except for Lando,” Han said.
Doon nodded. “An idiot's array. And of course, by then Dad had thrown the Falcon into the pot. Not all that different from the way you won the ship, if the stories are true.”
“In our match, Lando was one card short of an array,” Han said.
“What happened with all the credits your dad owed?” Allana asked.
Doon smiled at her. “You know, it's the strangest thing, but as soon as Dad lost the Millennium Falcon his luck changed completely. He convinced some folks to stake him to one game or another, and he had a lucky streak that continued for the rest of his life.”
“He used to joke that losing the Falcon might have been the best thing that ever happened to him.”
“The two happiest days in a starship owner's life,” Doon's sister said. “The day he buys the ship and the day he gets rid of it.”
Han could feel Leia's eyes on him, but he refused to look at her.
“The result of that streak is what you see here,” Doon said, gesturing broadly to the finely appointed office. “PlanetDreams was only too glad to bring him aboard as a partner.”
Han absorbed it. “So it wasn't Cix who named her Millennium Falcon.”
“No,” the younger brother said. “He certainly would have taken credit for that if he had.”
“Did he ever mention how or where he got the Falcon?” Leia asked.
“Yeah,” Allana said. “That's what we want to know.”
Doon thought for a moment. “I'm sure he did, but I don't remember anything specific.” He looked to his siblings, both of whom shook their heads. “There is someone who would know,” he added finally. He touched a button on a comlink set into the top of the table. “Is Waglin around?” he asked of the voice that responded.
“He is, sir.”
“Tell him I need him in the office.”
“Who's Waglin?” Allana asked.
Doon grinned. “He was my dad's copilot.”
Lando's face was onscreen in the main hold when the Falcon blasted away from Oseon VII two standard days later. “Cix never told me the full story,” he said to Han and Leia. “Now I'm back to feeling sorry about having taken the Falcon from him.”
“Yeah, well, don't,” Han said. “He ended up doing pretty well for himself without her. Anyway, if you hadn't taken her from him, I couldn't have taken her from you.” He grinned for the cam.
Lando forced an elaborate frown. “Did you learn anything about where the Falcon was before Cix?”
“Yeah,” Han said uncertainly. “From his copilot. A Weequay. Must be at least a hundred and fifty years old. As wrinkled as the Lava Labyrinth.”
“What's he doing on Oseon Seven of all places?”
“Cix kept him employed all these years,” Leia said. “He's not much more than a fixture now, but Cix's children treat him like family.”
“He was with Cix when he got the Falcon?”
“No, they hooked up much later,” Han said. “But he knew the story.”
“He bought the Falcon from a circus,” Leia said.
“The Molpol Circus.”
Lando touched his mustache. “You know, I think I remember hearing that the Falcon had been part of a circus.”
Han nodded. “The story sounded familiar to me, too.”
“You have the name of the being who owned her?”
“Vistal Purn,” Han said.
“He's no longer with the circus,” Leia said. “Now he organizes creature shows.”
Lando laughed. “That's a short leap. Any idea where he is?”
“Running a show on Taris.”
“Really,” Lando said slowly. “Tendra, Chance, and I were just there—well, two months ago, at any rate.”
“Business or pleasure?” Han said.
“A bit of both. We were finalizing a deal with the Taris government for a shipment of YVH droids, and doing some shopping.”
“What's Taris need with Hunters?” Leia asked.
“A well-armed criminal element has moved in. The deal was sanctioned by Chief of State Daala herself. But the point I was trying to make is that we had what you might say was a strange encounter while we were there.” Lando paused briefly. “With Seff Hellin.”
Leia blinked in surprise. “We know Seff.” She turned to Han. “Seff was the oldest of the Jedi group that was moved from Yavin Four to the Shelter station. Maybe fourteen years old at the time.”
Han scratched his head. “Tall kid with curly hair?”
Leia nodded. “His mother is Corellian.”
“Okay, now I remember him.”
Leia positioned herself for the cam. “What happened, Lando?”
“He came to visit me at the hotel where we were staying. He wanted to know the details of the YVH deal.”
“Did you tell him?”
“I told him it was none of his business. Then he wanted to know what I thought about the fact that Daala is employing Mandalorians as a kind of royal guard.”
“Why would it matter to Seff what you think?” Han said.
“Beats me. But I finally figured out what he was getting at.”
“Which was what?”
“Whether Tendrando had given thought to manufacturing a Mandalorian Hunter droid.”
Leia and Han traded glances. “Are you certain, Lando?”
Lando shrugged his shoulders. “Not a hundred percent. But that's what it sounded like.”
Han turned to Leia. “You think he's still on Taris?”
“I don't know. This new crime syndicate could be the reason Luke sent him there in the first place.”
“Anyway,” Lando interrupted. “Just thought I'd let you know. And make sure to fill me in on what you find out about the Falcon, buddy.”
“Will do,” Han said.
From a room high in the Oseon Tower, Waglin watched the Millennium Falcon emerge from a private docking bay and launch for the sky. Merging with outbound traffic, the century-old freighter rose on a column of blue energy and disappeared from view.
“They're on their way to Taris right now,” the Weequay was saying into a comlink. “I'm watching them with my own eyes.” He paused to listen. “You're right, who'd want to tangle with Han Solo and a Jedi. But Solo has a lot of influential friends, and I thought he might be a way for you to get what you're after. Besides, Solo's a far cry from the hotshot he was. Slower on the draw.”
He listened some more.
“That's up to you, of course. But I agree, you'd have to give him a good reason for helping you. I'm just being neighborly by letting you know he's headed your way. There is one more thing: they're traveling with a young girl. Some war orphan they adopted a few years back.” Waglin waited, then said: “I don't have any permacrete ideas to offer along those lines. I'm just saying that the Solos would probably do anything for her.”
Waglin listened. “I appreciate that. You didn't hear about her from me, though. Old-timers like us have to stick together. Plus, I've got a job and a reputation to protect.”
The being at the other end of the communication spoke for a while.
“That could work. Good luck with it, then. And let me know how it ends.”
AS A MUCH YOUNGER MAN, JADAK HAD DONE HIS FAIR SHARE OF planet-hopping. But few of the trips he had logged could match the two days it took him to travel from Obroa-skai to the Smugglers' Moon, going by way of Balmorra and Onderon in an effort to foil possible pursuers. To his eyes, the galaxy had changed that much.
There was a time, for instance, when Nar Shaddaa's spaceport officials couldn't have cared less who arrived on the moon, or for what purpose. Six
ty-two years later, human visitors had to submit to retinal and body scans.
Basic was still the prevalent language of trade and exchange, but Outer Rim accents were now heard as often as Core dialects. And perhaps as a result of what the Yuuzhan Vong had wrought during their push for Coruscant, you encountered fewer beings from Perlemian Trade Route worlds and more from the outlying systems. Putting their war reparations to work, Corellians and Wookiees were scarce, busy rebuilding their worlds and putting out fires. The only place a traveler might rub elbows with a Kuati was in premier class. Jedi had never been a common sight even when they were twenty thousand strong. Now they were said to be as rare as mynock teeth. What you saw instead, and in unsettling numbers, were members of various militaries, security personnel, and surveillance droids of all description.
The sight that had widened his eyes the most was a band of Mandalorians strapped into their cumbersome trademark armor and marching down a spaceport concourse like they owned the place. A near-mythic group when Jadak was piloting for the Republic Group.
In many ways, the galaxy seemed as wide open as it had been in the years preceding the Trade Federation's embargo of tiny Naboo. Human travelers no longer had to wonder every time they dealt with a Gossam or a Koorivar or a Muun, or watched a pack of Geonosians hurrying into one of their organic-looking starships, if they had just crossed paths with an enemy agent. But if even distant star systems were more accessible, beings of all species seemed more self-absorbed, quieter about who they were and whatever business they were up to. There was something purposeful in the way they spoke and moved; something about them that struck Jadak as driven. Maybe that was the reason for all the tight security. The current regime wanted everyone marching in step. Disturbances to the hard-won peace, by accident or design, would not be tolerated. The cams and scanners that tracked everyone's movements seemed to say: Your actions are being monitored, and we don't care that you know.