by James Luceno
“I find it circumstantial,” Oxic said. “What's more, hasn't Solo had that particular YT forever?”
“No, he hasn't. He and his family are looking into the origins of the ship. That's why they visited Aurora—to ask Parlay Thorp if she knew who had owned it previously. Is it so hard to accept that Captain Jadak was one of the former owners?”
Oxic considered it briefly. “You're making a case that while Jadak has been searching for the ship forward in time, Han Solo has been searching into the past?”
Sompa shook his head tresses in exasperation. “Exactly.”
“There is an appealing symmetry to it,” Quire said.
“Here's another thing for you to consider, counselor,” Sompa said. “Jadak was a professional swoop racer. Any freighter he piloted would have been a fast one, and the Millennium Falcon is known to be one of the fastest ships of its kind in the galaxy.”
“Appealing and somewhat convincing,” Quire said.
Oxic muted the audio once more. “Do we have a clue as to Jadak's present whereabouts?”
“Not a whiff of a clue. If he contacted Rej Taunt, he did so by comm.”
“Have we checked incoming and outgoing communications?”
Quire laughed. “You can't be serious. Check Rej Taunt's communications?”
Oxic made a dismissive motion. “Forget I asked.” Audio reactivated, he turned to the three-quarter holoimage of Sompa. “Was Dr. Thorp able to provide Solo with any useful information?”
“Of possible use. She was executing one of her mercy missions on Vaced when she was given the ship by a human named Quip Fargil.”
“Vaced?” Oxic said, looking at Quire.
“Out past Bilbringi, I think.” She frowned in thought. “I'll have to check.”
“That, in any case, is where the Solos are headed,” Sompa said.
“Thank you, Lial.”
Oxic deactivated the holoprojector. Pressing the tips of his fingers together, he brought them to his lips. “How astronomical would the odds be?”
“That the Stellar Envoy and the Millennium Falcon are the same ship, or that Jadak and his partner are bound for Vaced?”
“Take your pick.”
Quire shrugged. “If they are the same ship, then just about anything is possible.”
“Let's suppose for the sake of argument that the ships are one and the same. If we could get our hands on the Millennium Falcon before Jadak does …”
Quire nodded. “Then Jadak would be forced to come to us to get what he needs from the ship.”
He watched Quire closely. “At worst all we'll have done is steal the wrong ship. Or would that be a problem for you?”
She thought for a moment. “I've always thought of the Falcon as Han Solo's ship. But he happens to be married to the woman who in some sense rescued my species. Were it not for Leia Organa, my people might still be drifting among the stars in stasis or enslaved on some remote world.”
Oxic narrowed his eyes. “If I knew your real name, I could compel you to help me.”
Quire gave him a look he hadn't seen before. “That's not even funny, Lestra.”
“I'm sorry. I'm simply trying to find a way to make this palatable.” He blew out his breath. “I wasn't suggesting that you and I carry out the theft personally.”
“That much was obvious. But that doesn't alter the fact your employees simply aren't up to this, Lestra. Not against a former general and a Jedi Knight. Four of them couldn't handle Jadak, and the rest of us failed to keep even one Colicoid in custody.”
“Perhaps it's more a matter of our being on hand to supervise them, Koi.”
“On Vaced.”
“Or nearby.”
“SOMETIMES I FORGET THAT PRIMITIVE PLACES LIKE THIS STILL EXIST,” Leia said.
“I know what you mean, but I'm glad they do,” Han said.
She looked at him askance. “You're starting to sound like Lando.”
“Every once in a while Lando makes a good choice. Worlds like this make me wonder why we keep circling the Core when there are plenty of other ways to live.”
They were meandering through the Vaced's principal spaceport settlement, which could have been the Mos Eisley of thirty years earlier, except that Vaced was savanna and forest as opposed to Tatooine's sand and more sand. Allana and C-3PO were several meters ahead of them, keeping count of the huge rodents that crossed their path. Structures on both sides of the unpaved street came in two varieties: preformed shells made of duraplast and boxes banged together out of local woods.
Two days of exhaustive searching for Quip Fargil had yielded nothing. The HoloNet listed a human by that name, born on Denon about thirty-three years before the Battle of Yavin, but if Fargil was on Vaced no one seemed to know him or know of him, or they just weren't willing to say. If Parlay Thorp's hunch about him having been military was correct, then Fargil could have died during the Rebellion or in any of the bloody campaigns since.
“Why would someone give away a ship with a military-grade hyperdrive?” Leia asked for the third time that morning. “Even one with a discharged laser cannon.”
“Out of respect for the relief work Thorp was doing?”
Leia nodded unconvincingly. “That sounds like someone who would join the Alliance. But still, a starship?”
“Okay, then maybe this someone had to get rid of the Falcon for some reason.”
“Such as?”
“He bought it on time and couldn't keep up with the payments. Repossession neks were hounding him.”
Leia looked around. “Does Vaced strike you as the sort of world a former Rebel would choose to retire to?”
“Looks more like a place you'd come to hide.”
Leia pursed her lips and exhaled. “At least we know Fargil existed.”
“Yeah, but remember that Thorp found the name in the Falcon's registry, which could mean that Fargil was a previous owner, but not actually the guy who gave her the ship.”
“Either way—”
“All I'm saying is that if it's come down to doing research, we don't have to do that here.”
Han fell silent for a moment. “Would you want to live to be two hundred?”
“Only if you would,” she said, taking his hand in hers.
Up ahead, Allana and C-3PO had turned around and were hurrying toward them.
“We have an idea,” Allana said. “Tell them, Threepio.”
The droid adjusted his stance. “Mistress Allana suggests that we make use of Vaced's local HoloNet to announce our interest in locating Quip Fargil. Assuming that he is somewhere onworld, he is certain to receive the message. And that way, our chances for success are greatly increased.”
Han and Leia swapped smiles.
“Couldn't hurt,” Han said.
“And it keeps us right here.”
Jadak and Poste climbed off the aged Mobquet swoop they had rented at Vaced's poor excuse for a spaceport and stared down the dirt lane that allegedly led to Quip Fargil's cabin.
“Next time, you ride on top of the drive,” Poste said, rubbing his rear.
Jadak grunted a laugh. “Not likely. I've seen how you pilot.” He walked ten meters down the lane, inspecting broken branches on the tall shrubs that bordered it. “He owns a landspeeder.”
“You think we would've had a hope of finding this guy if Zenn Bien hadn't remembered?”
“Not a hope.”
They had been halfway out the door of The Kindest Cut when the Sullustan stylist had recalled that Quip Fargil had changed his name to Vec Minim, though she hadn't said why. The journey to Vaced had taken two days and all but cleaned Jadak out of what remained of Core Life's indemnity payment. Jadak had been cautious at the spaceport, on the watch for signs that they were being followed by Lestra Oxic's henchmen. Finding none, they had rented the swoop under Jadak's false identity and begun the search for Vec Minim.
Vaced wasn't an uncomfortable world; just one you wouldn't want to homestead on unless you had good cause.
Covered with forest, relieved here and there by expanses of natural grassland. Indigenous wildlife had rule of the place. Settlers ran the gamut from humans to Gotals, most of whom were either subsistence farmers or shopkeepers. Visitors came to hunt, and were well served by a string of costly lodges accessible only by airspeeder. Jadak suspected that Quip Fargil wasn't the only local to have changed his name and reinvented himself.
He studied the dirt lane for a moment and returned to the swoop. “If this lead doesn't pan out, we're going to have to resort to finding work or stowing away on the next ship out of here.”
Poste winced.
“Work won't kill you.”
“Maybe not, but it could kill my spirit.”
Jadak laughed and shook his head. “You figure we made a mistake coming here?”
“For what it's worth, yes. Look at it this way, even if the YT didn't end its days at Bilbringi, think how many times it could have changed hands since Zenn Bien stole it. Five? Ten? And like you say, we're almost tapped out.”
“What's your plan, then?”
“We go back to Nar Shaddaa, pool our talents to earn some serious credits, and hire a slicer to work on finding out where the YT ended up.”
Lestra Oxic was probably doing just that, Jadak thought. But unless the lawyer knew as much about the ship as he did, Oxic would need his help in locating the treasure. Maybe that's how it would have to play out. Still, Jadak wasn't ready to cash in just yet.
“Let me see that blaster of yours,” he said.
Poste handed it over, and Jadak tucked it into the storage compartment that held their rucksacks. “I don't want you making Quip nervous.”
They concealed the swoop in the thick foliage and headed down the lane on foot. Just into the first curve they came upon a sign lettered in Basic.
“‘Intruders will be hunted down,’” Poste read, “‘and the wounded will be prosecuted.’” He looked at Jadak. “And you don't want me making Quip nervous?”
Jadak kept walking. In a hollow another quarter kilometer down the lane sat a small wooden structure with a landspeeder parked out front. “He's probably watching us already.”
Poste gazed about him. “I don't see any cams.”
“Macrobinoculars. Or maybe his eyes are still good. Raise your hands above—”
Two blaster bolts hissed over their heads, and a voice said: “Stay right where you are. The next stretch is mined, and unless you know the route, you're going to be whicci food.”
“The local carrion birds,” Jadak said, putting his hands in the air.
“And here I was hoping the local rodents would be picking our bones.”
“Zenn Bien told us where to find you!” Jadak called out.
“Is he still selling weapons on Yaga Minor?”
“The Zenn Bien we know is a beautician on New Balosar.”
A response was slow in arriving. “I've deactivated the mines. Come forward slowly and keep your hands where I can see them.”
Jadak nodded, and they began to drop down into the hollow. A frail human male holding a blaster rifle almost as old as the swoop was waiting on the structure's front porch.
“Do we call you Vec or Quip?” Jadak asked.
“That entirely depends on why you're here.”
“We want to talk to you about a certain YT-Thirteen-hundred freighter.”
The old man added frown lines to the wrinkles that grooved his face. “Are you the ones who placed the HoloNet message?”
“Yeah, that's us,” Poste said before Jadak could speak.
“What're you, writing a news story or something?”
“You got it,” Poste went on. “For the Coruscant Journal.”
The old man lowered the weapon. “Why'd you run the message for Quip Fargil, then?”
“We didn't, uh, want to blow your cover. Vec. For all we knew, you could've gone back to using your real name. Zenn Bien wasn't clear about everything.”
Fargil snorted. “Even she doesn't know the full story.”
He motioned them inside with a nod, Jadak giving Poste a brief look of bewilderment as they sat down on rickety chairs.
“Who told you how to find my cabin?” Fargil said, laying the rifle across his knobby knees.
“A Rodian at the spaceport,” Jadak said.
Fargil nodded. “That'd be Nido. Good-for-nothing can't keep his trap shut.” He studied Jadak for a moment. “I had no intentions of answering your message, but since you've managed to find me out …” He paused to laugh. “I mean, it's about time I told someone the truth. Most anybody'd care is probably long dead. But I am a bit perplexed. Did you arrive with the present owners?”
Poste swallowed hard. “The present owners of the ship?”
Fargil turned to him. “You mean you didn't even know they were here?”
Poste glanced at Jadak. “We had no idea.”
Fargil slapped his knee in surprise. “That is amazing—amazing in the old way.”
“So they're here,” Jadak said carefully.
“A couple of friends of mine at the 'port comlinked me. Not that Nido character. And not that they know I have any connection. But just hearing about them being here made me sorry all over again about giving her away—even to a worthy cause like that Thorp woman was behind. I'm guessing you already know about her.”
“Uh, we're still, you know, putting the pieces together.”
“Dr. Parlay Thorp. Gorgeous young woman, and smart as a whip.”
“We'll talk to her next,” Jadak said.
Fargil stood up as abruptly as his legs would allow. “If I could interest you two in a drink, I've got a batch of potent homebrew waiting to be sampled.”
“We're samplers from way back,” Poste said. “Bring it on.”
“Also got some eskrat stew if you're hungry.”
“The local rodent,” Jadak told Poste quietly, then he told Fargil: “My friend will have a double portion.”
Fargil put the stew on the stove to heat and poured three glasses of thick yellow liquid from a metal container.
“I ferment it with spittle,” he said, passing the glasses around.
Jadak took a gulp, finding it tolerable. “You were saying that the ship's owners are on Vaced.”
“Strangest thing, isn't it, your being here and them being here at the same time?” Fargil shook his head in wonderment. “As sorry as I am to have given her away, I'm proud about all that she accomplished. Even if most of what she's done couldn't have been done without Han Solo's piloting skills.”
Homebrew spewed from Poste's mouth and he began coughing without letup. Jadak rose and began slamming him on the back.
“Boy's apparently not tough enough for your brew, Quip.”
Fargil pressed his lips together and nodded. “Happens to the best of them sometimes. Especially with the spittle-fermented variety.”
Sluicing tears from his cheeks, Poste gaped at Fargil. “Han Solo is here? On Vaced? Right now?”
“Well, son, who else would be flying the Millennium Falcon if it wasn't Han Solo?” Fargil took a long pull from his glass, then sat back in his chair smiling broadly. “Gave her the name myself. But that's just part of the story.”
Still trying to make sense of Poste's reaction, Jadak finished his drink in one gulp and handed the glass back to Fargil. “I think I'm going to need a refill first.”
“YOU'RE TELLING ME YOU NEVER HEARD OF THE MILLENNIUM FALCON?” Poste said.
“I've been saying it for the past four hours.” Jadak stroked his beard. “Maybe I read something about it when I was playing info catch-up at Aurora, but obviously it didn't stick.”
Still half drunk on Fargil's homebrew, they were standing on the roof of a prefab building that overlooked the spaceport. In a roofless docking bay at the edge of the field, a modified YT-1300 freighter sat on her hardstand with starboard boarding ramp extended. Only moments earlier Han Solo, his wife, a young girl who was probably their ward rather than their child, and a golden prot
ocol droid had boarded the ship.
“Let's start with the Galactic Civil War,” Poste said.
Jadak held up his hands. “Save the refresher course for some other time—”
“No, no,” Poste cut in, shaking his head, “you need to hear some of this right now before you land us in a very serious situation.”
Jadak opened his mouth, then closed it. “Keep it short.”
“Han Solo,” Poste began, slurring his words, “Han Solo is … well, he's what you might call a certified hero. He's not only fought in every war since the Rebellion, he's played a major part in winning them. Understand? In winning them.”
Jadak blew out his breath. “Okay. I'm impressed. What else?”
“His wife—that would be Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, former Senator and Chief of State Organa, present-day Jedi Leia Organa Solo—is a hero of the same caliber. They're like a match made in the stars, and the point I'm trying to make is that we don't want to cross them. Under no circumstances do we want to cross them.”
Poste was getting a bit shrill, and Jadak gestured for him to keep it down. “I appreciate your concerns for our safety—”
“No, I don't think you do. Not fully.”
Jadak gritted his teeth. “You going to let me state my piece?”
Poste put his forefingers in his ears.
Jadak moved Poste's hands and forced him to sit on the roof's retaining wall.
“That ship, no matter what Rej Taunt or Quip Fargil or Han Solo calls her, is the Stellar Envoy, and no matter where she's been or what she's done in the past sixty-two years she's the key to our finding a treasure of unimaginable proportions. Now, if you're willing to walk away from that just because the present owners are two galactic heroes, you can do that and I'll take over from here. But after all the parsecs we've logged and with what we stand to gain, I think you've got to consider your decision carefully.”
Poste stared at him. “Did I mention how good Solo is with a blaster? Did I mention how kriffing lucky he is? Did I mention that his wife carries a lightsaber? And knows how to use it?” He swung around to gaze at the Falcon. “Take another look. Maybe you're wrong about her being your ship. Maybe Parlay Thorp's broke down, and this is some other YT. A replacement.”