by Alex Wheeler
"Who? What do I care about Luke Skyhopper?" Jabba roared. "Seize him," he ordered his Gamorrean guards. "The rancor needs his supper."
"Wait!" the man cried, as a phalanx of brutish Gamorreans closed in on him, their green snouts snuffling eagerly at the thought of another kill. "Luke Skywalker is a known associate of Han Solo!"
A murmur rippled through the room. Jabba's hatred of Solo was well known. The pilot had crossed him one too many times, and Jabba had offered a reward for any information leading to his capture.
"Solo?" Jabba hissed, gobbling down another gorg. He turned to Bib Fortuna, his trusted second in command. "Is this true?"
The Twi'lek nodded, his long, fleshy tentacles swirling around his neck. "We've received reports that the two are close. Skywalker's been traveling with the Millennium Falcon. If he's on Tatooine…"
"Then Solo must be close," Jabba said, gurgling with pleasure. Soon Han Solo's body would be hanging on Jabba's wall, a reminder to all of what happened when you betrayed the ruler of the Hutts. "This Skycrabber will lead us to Solo." They would snatch the human, use him as bait. Solo would come running.
And if he didn't…well, you could never have enough slaves.
All Jabba needed was the right bounty hunter for the job. He snatched a Klatooine paddy frog from the tank at his feet, crushing it into a pulp and stuffing it into his maw. As the salty reptile juice ran down his bloated face, he realized he had just the creature for the job. "Get me Bossk," he commanded. And at his word, two of the Gamorreans went running. The Trandoshan bounty hunter would show his scaly face by nightfall. Or suffer the consequences.
"Still here?" Jabba shouted at the human cowering before him.
Shaking, the man mumbled something under his breath.
Bib Fortuna leaned toward Jabba. "The human wants his reward," he hissed.
"Reward?" Jabba asked loudly. "Reward? HO HO! This human wants a reward!" Again, the room laughed with Jabba. And kept laughing as Jabba pressed a button on the end of his long hookah pipe.
The human cowered, squeezing his eyes shut, and the laughing grew even louder. But he wasn't in pain…yet. Still shaking, he opened his eyes to see a small pile of credits in front of him.
"Thank you, Honorable Jabba," the man murmured, bowing low and piling the credits into his threadbare tunic, "you truly are the greatest of the Hutts." He kept bowing as he scuttled out of the room, a few credits scattering in his wake.
As the laughter swelled, the band struck up another tune, filling the room with jaunty music. Jabba snapped his fingers for another gorg, when Bib Fortuna leaned and whispered into his ear.
"Another one?" Jabba asked. "Make him wait."
Bib Fortuna hesitated. "But this one, he has…debts."
Jabba smiled. "Very well. Send him in."
A Toydarian buzzed into the room, flitting nervously and looking over his shoulder, taking in the courtiers and henchmen.
Jabba began to shake with laughter. "Block the exits! I will now have my justice."
CHAPTER EIGHT
It wasn't the first time Han had felt the cold durasteel of a blaster muzzle against his skin. When it came to life and death situations, he was an old pro.
Still, all things considered, he'd rather be playing a hand of sabacc.
"Hands in the air, and turn around," the voice said. "Slowly."
Han raised his hands and turned. Slowly.
The blaster was a Merr-Sonn J-I Happy Surprise hold-out model, small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, useless at distances of more than three meters. Deadly at point-blank range. A pale, stubby finger was itching to pull the trigger. And attached to it, the hand, the arm, the shoulder, the face of a man Han hadn't seen in years. A man whose last words to Han had been, "Next time I see you, you're dead."
Han grinned.
Chewbacca roared in frustration, knowing that the wrong move could get Han killed.
"Would you shut that Wookiee up!" the man yelled, pressing the blaster to Han's forehead. A few of the other gamblers looked over, then shrugged and turned back to their gaming tables. In a place like this, you didn't pay too much attention to what anyone else was doing. Not if you wanted to walk out in one piece.
"Easy, Chewie," Han said, hoping that the Wookiee wouldn't do anything rash. "Lore isn't going to shoot me, are you, Lore?"
Chewbacca barked a question.
"Yeah, Lore and I go way back," Han said, winking at his assailant. "Long time no see, Lore. How's it going?"
"Better, now." Avik Lore—failed musician, failed gambler, failed cantina owner, successful smuggler—snarled at Han.
"Don't tell me you're still mad about that little incident back on Dubrillon," Han said wearily.
Lore's eyes widened. "Incident? You shot me!"
Han shrugged. "Not on purpose," he pointed out. "Besides, it was just a flesh wound. Don't be such a baby."
"I couldn't sit down for a month!"
Chewbacca let loose a hiccupy gurgle that Han knew was suppressed Wookiee laughter. Lore shot him a sharp glance. Chewbacca pounded his chest in a good imitation of a Wookiee not at all amused.
"How was I supposed to know it was you behind that door?" Han wheedled. "I though it was the G'looth Brothers!"
"You could have asked," Lore said. "You could have knocked. Or you could have opened the door and taken a peek before you let loose with your blaster. You could have done a million things."
"Could have," Han said. "Didn't."
Lore sighed. "I know, I know, rule number one—"
"Always shoot first," Han finished with him. "And I always do. Best way to keep breathing."
"Not when you're the one who gets shot," Lore growled.
Han was getting tired of staring down the barrel of a blaster just because Lore was a little grouchy about some flesh wound from a hundred years ago. Slowly, Lore's blaster tracing his every move, Han rose to his feet. "Look, friend, fun as this little reunion has been—"
"Who said you could stand up?"
"Well now, I don't know," Han mused, raising his left hand as if to scratch his chin in thought. "Who said that?" Ever so slowly, he let his fingers creep toward his forehead, toward the muzzle of the blaster, until—
"Hey!" Lore shouted, as Han wrapped a hand around the muzzle. "You think I won't shoot you?"
"No…" While Lore was distracted by the tussle over his weapon, Han's right hand darted to his holster and whipped out his DL-44 heavy blaster, optimized for quickdraw capabilities. "Not if I fire first," he said, grinning, his blaster held steady, inches from Lore's face.
Lore's blaster didn't wobble.
"You think you're faster on the trigger than me?" Lore challenged.
Han grinned. "Either I can prove it to you, or you can lower your blaster, and I'll lower my blaster, and you can buy me a bottle of lum."
Lore squinted, knitting his eyebrows together like two wriggling hagworms. "You're buying," he said finally.
"Done," Han said. "On three?" They counted down together.
"One… "
"Two…"
"Three!" On three, each man blasted a hole in the wall, just behind the other's head.
"Just a warning," they said, in sync, then burst into laughter.
Han slapped his old friend on the back. "Always good to see you, Lore. So how about that lum you're buying me?"
"You're buying," Lore said, sliding comfortably into a seat next to Chewbacca. The Wookiee glared suspiciously and grumbled under his breath.
"Don't mind Chewie," Han said, waving over a serving droid and ordering a round of drinks and a bowl of won-wons for the Wookiee. "He doesn't like it when people try to shoot me."
"I know how he feels," Lore said ruefully, rubbing the site of his old blaster wound.
Chewbacca took a large gulp of won-wons and growled.
"Long before your time," Han replied. "Lore and I met when I saved him from an angry nexu."
"He was only angry because you blew up his cave!" Lore
reminded Han, launching into the story of the carnivorous beast.
Han laughed as the memories came flooding back. It felt good to talk about old times, times before he'd met Luke or Leia, before he'd gotten all tangled up with the Rebel Alliance. Back then his only worry had been when the next job would come in, and his only cause had been himself.
"Hey, Lore, you got anything going on?" he asked suddenly, the beginnings of an idea taking shape.
"Got a routine run to Siskeen for a shipment of rock wart eggs," Lore said. "Could do it in my sleep."
"What if I had something more…interesting?" Han asked, leaning forward and lowering his voice. Chewbacca issued a warning growl, but Han ignored him. Sure, Lore was a little rough around the edges, but that was part of his charm. "I've got a job coming up," Han confided, "a big one. And I could use a little of your brand of help."
Chewbacca growled louder.
"Lore knows this sector like the back of his hand," Han pointed out. "And I know he's not afraid to tangle with some Imperials—not if the price is right."
Lore's ears perked up. "And the price would be?"
"Twenty thousand," Han lied. "Split down the middle, seventy-thirty."
"Last I checked, the middle's a little closer to fifty," Lore said.
Han grinned. "My job—my math."
"Sixty-forty," Lore proposed. "And I might just know where you can get some Imperial docking codes. You're pulling one on the Empire, that could come in handy."
Han glanced at Chewbacca. "What do you think, buddy?"
Chewbacca made it clear he didn't think much of it—not the idea, not Avik Lore. But he'd come around. Han grasped Lore's hand, and they shook on it. "Just like the good old days," he said happily.
Lore winced and, once again, brushed his fingers against his old blaster scars. "Let's hope not."
The man in the gray, hooded robe slipped out of the gambling club, satisfied. Han Solo would take the job. He would infiltrate the Imperial satellite station, and while there, he would find…
Well, that was the question, wasn't it?
The man returned to the alley behind the club. These days, he felt more comfortable in the shadows. "I still don't like this," he said, to the open air.
He paused for a moment, feeling rather silly, waiting for a response that might never come.
"We agreed on this course." The figure shimmering before him was solid and not solid, there and not there, all at the same time. He glowed with an inner light, and yet the night remained dark, "Search yourself, Ferus. You know this is right."
"Perhaps. But it feels wrong." Ferus Olin was decades away from his apprenticeship at the Jedi Temple, a sanctuary that no longer existed. And yet, even from beyond the grave, Master Obi‑Wan Kenobi still had the ability to make him feel like a rebellious Padawan. Not that Ferus had ever been a rebellious Padawan. He'd done everything he was told, accepted every order without question, performed every task perfectly and without hesitation—until the day he'd made a fateful mistake, and someone had been killed. Not just someone. A friend.
And not just my mistake, he thought. Anakin's, too.
Ferus had walked away from the Jedi Order. Forever, he thought. And yet here he was, decades later, learning at the feet of a Master all over again.
He had gotten a valuable lesson all those years ago, the day Thel-Tanis had died. Sometimes a wrong decision can get someone killed. Ferus had vowed never to make such a decision again.
Yet he'd made several.
"Whatever information is on that station, I can get it myself," he said. "There's no reason to risk Han's life."
"The life is his to risk," Obi‑Wan said. "The decision was his to make."
"But we're not giving him a decision!" Ferus countered. "We're manipulating him."
After nearly two decades undercover on Alderaan, looking out for Princess Leia's safety, Ferus had struck out on his own. Darth Vader was on the trail of the pilot who had blown up the Death Star, and he couldn't be allowed to discover the truth. If he found Luke—if he guessed the truth—all would be lost.
Ferus was on the trail of First Lieutenant Slej Hant, an Imperial officer whom Vader had assigned to ferret out the information. But as he passed through the Arkanis sector, one of Ferus's informants had tipped him off about another Imperial on the same mission. According to the informant, a high-ranking officer had parked himself on a satellite station in the Zoma system, a nearly forgotten outpost that would keep him far from Vader's prying eye. Ferus's spy claimed that the man was desperate to find the Death Star's destroyer before Vader did…and he was getting close.
But so was Slej Hant, and he was about to take off for the Subterrel sector, a far-flung corner of space beyond the Outer Rim. An Imperial agent could have no possible business there.
Unless he was headed for Polis Massa, the arid, remote planetoid where Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa had been born.
Ferus was torn. Worried as he was about this other Imperial, he couldn't allow Vader's minion to ferret out Luke and Leia's identities. Obi‑Wan, as usual, had cut through the confusion, speaking with infuriating certainty, even from beyond the grave. "Han Solo will infiltrate the station. He'll find the answers that he needs."
"Solo?" Ferus had asked in confusion. "The pilot?" They'd met briefly on Delaya, but Ferus had paid little attention. Because Delaya had also been the site of his first meeting with Luke Skywalker. Every moment they had spent together, Ferus had been wracked with doubts. Should he tell the boy the truth? Or accede to Obi‑Wan's wishes, and let him chart his own course for just a little longer?
Amidst all the confusion, Han Solo had barely made an impression.
"The pilot." Obi‑Wan's cryptic smile was just as infuriating in death as in life. "He's on his own now, searching. He needs direction. And he will find it on the Zoma station."
"That makes no sense," Ferus had complained. Yet he had done as Obi‑Wan requested, opening himself up to the Force. Drawing in its strength and its wisdom as he groped for the way to move forward. And he felt it too. Obi‑Wan was right.
This was Han's mission. He would infiltrate the satellite station in the Zoma system and find the answers they all needed to save Luke and Leia.
If he survived.
CHAPTER NINE
Luke hunched over the controls of his T-16 skyhopper, waiting for Fixer to set off the starter flare. He missed the familiar feel of his old skyhopper, which was long gone, destroyed along with the rest of the Lars moisture farm. But this one, which he'd borrowed from Windy, would get the job done.
Luke engaged the repulsorlifts, hovering a few meters above the ground. He gave the thrusters a gentle push, tipping the T-16 slightly to its side and then upright again, just to get a feel for it. It had been a long time since he'd flown one of these. The last time he'd raced, he'd been curled into the cramped seat of a Podracer, a rickety bucket tethered to roaring engines that, without warning, could flip you up and out. Compared to that, the skyhopper was like a kiddie ride. Its central airfoil offered significant stability, and its gyrostabilizers would allow Luke to make hairpin turns and wild spins without fear of spiraling out of control.
No, winning a skyhopper race wasn't a matter of balance. It was a matter of speed—whether you could push the ion engine past its 1,200 kilometer an hour capacity. It was a matter of agility—whether you could gauge the angles and hit your marks better than your competition.
And, when it came to the Stone Needle, it was a matter of daring—whether you were willing to risk your life, just to win a race.
"Ready!" Fixer called, raising the signal flare over his head. "Set!"
Luke glanced at Jaxson out of the corner of his eye, then turned back to his own controls, letting the rest of the world fall away as he focused on the course ahead of him.
For you, Biggs, he thought, ready to push the thrusters to their limits.
He would risk anything to win this race.
Fixer squeezed the trigger, and the sky
flashed red with the signal blast. "Go!"
Luke took off at the signal, his skyhopper shooting forward a split second before Jaxson's. Desert streamed past, blurring into a mud of browns and grays. The small craft hummed beneath him, responding smoothly to his every shift and turn.
The walls of Beggar's Canyon rose steeply on either side, hundreds of meters of solid sandstone that would crush him in an instant if he veered off course. Luke didn't think about the risks. He focused on the jagged trail, the thunder of the engine, and the purpling sky overhead. He didn't dare look back at Jaxson's skyhopper, but he knew if he did, he'd see a cloud of dust spattering the transparisteel of Jaxson's cockpit window. As the kilometers flew past, Luke stayed ahead, and he intended to keep it that way.
He spotted a womp rat, just a blur, streaking past beneath him, and almost smiled, remembering the days when he, Windy, and Biggs could waste a whole afternoon chasing the scraggly creatures through the canyon. During those years, all he'd wanted was to get away—from his aunt and uncle's moisture farm, from Tatooine, from his life. Now he couldn't remember what he'd been running from.
But maybe life was like a skyhopper race: you couldn't look back.
Luke forced his mind back to the track. He rocketed through the straightaway, then whipped the T-16 sharply to the right, making it around Dead Man's Turn with only centimeters to spare between him and the canyon wall. Behind him, he heard the scream of durasteel on rock, as Jaxson's skyhopper gouged out a piece of the canyon while rounding the curve. It bought Luke a few precious seconds, and he pulled even farther ahead, reaching the Stone Needle while Jaxson was still navigating the Sandy Jaws. Luke sucked in his breath. His hands tightened on the controls. The spire stretched nearly twenty meters from the canyon floor—but from this distance, the eye of the Needle appeared only a few meters across, no wider than the skyhopper itself. Luke knew from experience that it was wider—but only just.
He was far enough ahead that he could win the race without threading the Needle. But that would be a coward's victory.