Isolder whispered softly into her ear, "I love you."

Han Solo sat at the console of the Millennium Falcon, running dodge maneuvers through an orbital junkyard of s.p.a.ce debris off Coruscant's smallest moon. Doing computer checks of all flight systems on his ship was one thing?but Han had long ago decided that only a live test was sufficient.

Flying through a junkyard was much like negotiating through an asteroid field, except that the junk here tended to be all heavy metal, unlike those nice, soft carbonaceous asteroids. Threading his way through the debris somehow seemed to ease Han, tranquilize him. He dipped under the slowly tumbling busted stabilizer wing of a TIE fighter and then came up to the skeletal hull of an old Victory Star Destroyer, long since gutted for salvage.

Just what I want, he thought. There were some systems aboard the Falcon that just couldn't be tested in friendly s.p.a.ce, and where Han was headed, he didn't expect to meet any friendlies. He slowed to match the Star Destroyer's velocity, nosed into the main exhaust nacelle up to where its turbodrive generator had once been housed, then carefully set the Millennium Falcon down.

Han flipped on his modified Imperial IFF Transponder, switched it to option fourteen. As his ship's radio signals bounced against the metal shielding of the fission chamber, Han's proximity indicators screamed in warning of approaching enemy Incom Y4 pa.s.senger ships in every direction, their blue-gray metallic images flickering on the head-up holo display.

Han had salvaged the transponder code from a military transport ship attached to warlord Zsinj's marines. The transport ship had been carrying a twelve-member team from Zsinj's Raptors?a special forces organization supposedly devoted to surveying planetary defense systems, then infiltrating said planets and demolishing their defenses. But the Raptors were developing a nasty reputation as the strong arm of Zsinj's secret police. Ultimately, on many thousand worlds, the Raptors ruled.

Secure in the knowledge that his new transponder signal would identify him as one of Zsinj's ships, Han flipped on his jammers?and so much static and radio traffic came over his sensors that the ghost ships blanked out on his head-up display. Han smiled inwardly. Both the new transponder and the high-powered jammers were working fine. He'd need them in unfriendly s.p.a.ce.

Now that he'd tested his hardware, Han fired his sublight engines and carefully lifted the Falcon out of the rusting innards of the old destroyer. As he maneuvered through the orbiting junkyard, the call he'd been waiting for came on audio.

Leia said, "General Solo, I hear that you'll be taking a fleet to the Roche system tonight."

"Yeah, that's what they tell me," Han said.

"I'll be sorry to see you go. I was hoping we could get together for a few hours before you leave."

A fleet? She thought he was leading a fleet? One Star Destroyer could hardly be called a fleet. Han knew who was behind the orders, who had stabbed him in the back. Threkin Horm. Han had underestimated the fat man, and now they planned to ship him off, far, far away, so that Leia would forget about him. "Yes," Han said. "That would be nice. I'm kind of busy right now, trying to get a grip on a few things. I can't come down planetside. Maybe I could meet you at fifteen hundred hours at your place? Aboard the Rebel Dream? We could maybe talk a little, go out for a drink."

"That sounds good. I'll see you then." Leia signed off.

Han glanced at the timepiece on his console. Chewbacca and Threepio were supposed to meet him on the Millennium Falcon at seventeen hundred hours.

Time was running out.

When Han came to Leia's door, he had a tired smile on his face. He gave Leia a quick hug, then entered the hallway to her quarters, glancing around nervously. She stepped back to look at him. His hair was mussed, eyes fatigued. He didn't look happy at all.

"Can I get you a drink or something?" Leia asked.

Han shook his head. "Uh, no." He didn't say anything else, just stood, looking at the walls and glancing into the living quarters. In Leia's bedroom, the dull lights shone from the gems of Gallinore on her dresser.

The twin suns above the Selab tree had gone dark, as if they were on a night cycle.

"You aren't happy about your transfer to the Roche system, are you?" Leia asked.

"Well, uh, to tell the truth, I'm not going," Han admitted.

"Not going?" Leia asked.

"I resigned my commission."

"When did this happen?" Leia asked.

Han shrugged. "Five minutes ago." He walked into her bedroom, stood staring down at the bed, glanced at the gems on her dresser, the piles of treasure from Hapes. Part of Leia was still surprised to have it here. If she'd had any sense, she told herself, she would have had it locked up.

"Well, where will you go?" Leia demanded. "What will you do?"

"I'm going to Dathomir," Han said, and Leia stood with her mouth open a moment.

"You can't go there," she said. "That's in Zsinj's territory. It's too dangerous."

"Before I resigned, I ordered the Indomitable to run a strike-and-fade against some of Zsinj's outposts on the edge of New Republic s.p.a.ce. Zsinj will be forced to fortify those outposts, drawing any ships away from Dathomir, and I should be able to just slip between the cracks. He won't even know that I'm there."

"That," Leia said loudly, "is an abuse of authority!"

Han turned his interest from the gems, looked up at her and grinned. "I know." Leia didn't say anything else. When he got in one of these headstrong moods, she knew she couldn't talk any sense into him. He shrugged again. "No one will get hurt. I ordered them to attack only with long-range drones. Our soldiers will be okay. You know, I think I must have been looking at that holo of the planet too long. I dreamed about it last night: running on the beach, the wind in my face, water slapping against my ankles. It was all so sweet. So when I got my orders today, I just decided. I'm going."

"What will you do there?"

"If I like it, maybe I'll just stay. It's been a long time since I've felt sand beneath my feet. Too long."

"You're burned out," Leia said. "Don't resign your commission. I'll pull some strings, get you rea.s.signed. You can have a few weeks off . . ."

Han had been looking at the floor, but now he turned his attention to her, studied her face. "We're both tired," he said. "We're both burned out. Why don't you come with me, run away?"

"I can't do that," Leia said.

"That's what you're planning to do with Isolder. Run away. Why can't you give me equal time? Chewie and Threepio are going to meet me at the Falcon in an hour. You could come with us. Who knows, maybe you'd fall in love with Dathomir. Maybe you would fall back in love with me."

He sounded so pitiable. Leia felt guilty for the past few days, for ignoring him, deserting him. She remembered how she'd felt the day that Vader had encased Han in carbonite, shipping him back to Jabba the Hutt, the joy they had shared when the Emperor was vanquished. She'd loved him then. But that was a long time ago, she told herself. "Look, Han, I'll always be fond of you," Leia found herself saying. "I know it's hard."

"But have a nice life?" Han asked.

Leia found herself shaking. Han strolled over to her dresser, and Leia saw that he was looking at the polished black metal of the Gun of Command. "Does this really work?" he asked. He started to reach for it, and Leia realized what he planned, shouted, "Don't touch that!"

Han s.n.a.t.c.hed the gun and spun, faster than she would have believed possible. He stood pointing it at her. "Come with me to Dathomir!"

"You can't do this!" Leia pleaded, raising a hand as if it could ward off the blast.

"I thought you loved rogues," Han said. A spray of blue sparks erupted from the gun, bringing forgetfulness and the night.

"Are you sure that General Solo kidnapped the princess?" the queen mother asked. Even though his mother's image was only carried on holo vid, Prince Isolder dared not look up at her veiled face.

"Yes, Ta'a Chume," he answered. "A news network planted a fly eye in the hallway leading to her quarters, and it filmed Leia leaving her quarters with the general. She walked like one who is dreaming, and Solo was armed with the Gun of Command."

"So, what steps will you take to recover the princess?" Isolder could feel the weight of the Ta'a Chume's stare. The queen mother was testing him. On Hapes, the women in authority often spoke deprecatingly of the "inept.i.tude of men," their seeming inability to ever do anything right.

"The New Republic has already a.s.sembled a thousand of their best detectives to track down Han Solo. Astarta has secured hourly progress reports, and we have put out calls for bounty hunters."

The Ta'a Chume spoke softly, menacingly. "Look into my eyes."

Isolder gazed up at her, tried to relax. His mother wore a circlet of gold, and a thin yellow veil obscured her features. The lights around her lit the gold so that she seemed almost to generate an aura of power.

Isolder focused beyond the veil, at her dark eyes boring into him.

"This General Solo is a desperate man," she said. "I know what you are thinking. You want to rescue Princess Leia from his clutches yourself.

But you must remember your duty to your people: You are the Chume'da.

Your wife and daughters must someday reign. If you place yourself in jeopardy, you will be betraying the hopes and dreams of your people. You must let our a.s.sa.s.sins handle General Solo. Promise me!"

Isolder stared hard into his mother's face, tried to hide his intent, but it was no use. She knew him too well. She knew everyone too well. "I will hunt down General Solo," Isolder said. "And I will bring home my bride."

Isolder waited for his mother to explode, waited for the hot wrath in her voice to pour over him like magma. He could feel it in the silence that followed, but the Ta'a Chume was not the kind of woman to show her anger.

She said calmly, almost with a sigh, "You disobey me lightly, but no matter what you think, your tendency toward selfless heroics is no virtue. I would cure you of it if I could." She did not speak for a moment, and Isolder waited for her to p.r.o.nounce his punishment. "I suppose you are too much like your father. General Solo will probably seek refuge with one of the warlords, someone who might hope to withstand the might of the New Republic. I will gather my a.s.sa.s.sins and bring a fleet to Coruscant immediately. It goes without saying that if I find Solo before you do, I will kill him."

Isolder let his gaze drop to the floor. Isolder had wildly hoped that now that Leia had been abducted, his mother would forgo this trip, stay away.

But it made sense: Solo had kidnapped her successor. Honor demanded that she take all steps to recover the princess. "I know you are displeased.

Yet when I was a child you often said, 'Hapes can only be as strong as those who lead her.' I often reflect on your words, and I've taken them to heart." He ended the communication, sat back and considered. Isolder almost pitied Han. General Solo could not possibly guess the kind of resources his mother would bring to bear on him.

Corporal Reezen had somehow managed to work in the military for seven years in relative obscurity, never attracting the praise or attention he felt to be his due. All too often, that is how it went in military intelligence. You sc.r.a.ped and slaved for years to break a big case, hoping that some useful information might cross your way.

That is why he planned to send this report to warlord Zsinj directly, for his eyes only, signing his name to the doc.u.ments so that none of his superiors could take credit. It was only fair. Corporal Reezen was the only person to notice it?three strike-and-fades over a period of nine days, maneuvers designed to draw off Zsinj's fleet. Obviously the New Republic was planning some sort of an attack, hoping to open enough of a hole to send a fleet through. And it had to be a fleet?something more important than a mere spy ship?for anyone to have spent so much money ensuring that the ships got through the corridor safely.

Reezen could feel it in his bones?something big was coming. So he had calculated the vectors, gauging possible military targets, had narrowed his list to six, ranking them by possibility. So much territory to cover, and so much uncertainty. Reezen pondered the possible targets one last time, and looked beyond the obvious possibilities. There, far off on his charts, was Dathomir, and Reezen studied the planet, felt an odd tingling in his bones.

Dathomir was already well protected, so far within Zsinj's territory that the New Republic could not possibly know of the warlord's operations there. The shipyards? Could the New Republic be planning to attack the shipyards? No, that didn't feel right. They wanted something on the planet. Such a rugged, dangerous place. There were a number of prisoners on the planet that the New Republic might want?if the New Republic even knew of the penal colony?but no one would be stupid enough to try to land there. Reezen had met the natives, and the very notion of landing on Dathomir sent a chill creeping down his spine. Still, the planet seemed to beckon to Reezen. Here, here. They are coming here!

Once, when Reezen was in his early teens, he'd watched a military parade on Coruscant with his father, and during the parade Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, had stalked by?nearly. Instead, Lord Vader had halted the parade, stopped to look at Reezen, pat him on the head. Reezen remembered how his frightened image had been reflected in the Dark Lord's helmet, remembered the cold terror as that armored hand patted his head, but Vader had only said softly, "As you serve the Empire, trust your sensitivity," and then he moved on.

Hesitantly, Reezen suggested reinforcements for Dathomir despite his belief that the New Republic would not attack, then keyed in the sequence on his computer terminal that would send the encrypted warning to Zsinj.

The warlord was a thorough man. Zsinj would take care of it.

Chapter 8.

Leia awoke to darkness. She had been lying still for a long time, staring up into blackness, unmoving. She had been concentrating on being still, concentrating so hard that her head ached and her muscles cramped. Han's last words had been "Lie still and be quiet," and with all her might she had struggled to comply.

With the sudden realization of that betrayal, she screamed, "Han!" and tried to sit up. Her head hit something hard, and she had to lie back down. She felt a grate beneath her and the familiar, subdued rumble of the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive engines. It had been five years since she'd last hidden in the Falcon's smuggling compartment, and it still smelled the same.

Han Solo, I'm going to kill you, she thought. No, on second thought, you'll be lucky if you only die. She felt in the dark around her for the latch, found it, tried to pull it back. It wouldn't open. She fingered it, found that it was broken. She rolled over, found something small and metal, banged it against the roof.

"Han Solo, you let me out of here this minute!" she shouted, felt the thing in her hand vibrate and emit a hissing noise. Leia held it to her ear. Oh great! An air exchanger! At least he didn't want me to suffocate.

She shook it, listened to the rattling of the air exchanger's busted innards. "All right, Solo. You let me out of here! This is no way to treat a princess!" She banged on the ceiling of the compartment, kept banging, but got no response.

As the air got warmer, Leia began to wonder if Han could even hear her.

Was background noise drowning out her calls? She lay next to the Quadex power core, the main power source for the ship, and every few moments the piping above her head would hiss as coolant surged toward the core. The compartments weren't large, but they circled a third of the interior of the ship?from the entry ramp, over to the c.o.c.kpit corridor, and around to the pa.s.senger bunkbeds. Leia closed her eyes and considered. Han and Chewie normally bunked over by the technical station in the lounge. There was a wall separating her from the technical station, but Han should have heard her pounding if he were there. He might, however, still be in the c.o.c.kpit, a good seven or eight meters away. If they were in the c.o.c.kpit, and the bulkhead door was closed, there would be no way for Han or Chewie to hear her calls.

And now her air was running out. Leia picked up the busted air exchanger, banged against the ceiling harder and harder, but resisted the impulse to yell for fear that her oxygen would run out all the faster. After only a few minutes, her arms burned with fatigue, and Leia stopped to rest. She felt like crying. Han knew she didn't trust this faulty metallic melange gleaned from forgotten junkyards and cut-rate dealers. Sure, the Falcon was fast and well armed, but it was also always falling apart. Han had three droid brains running all his jury-rigged, modified systems, and Leia felt sure that all his technical problems couldn't come by mere accident. Han said that the brains bickered, but those droid brains had to be sabotaging each other's systems. Someday, one of them would do something really bad, and the whole ship would blow. It was just a matter of time. She banged on the ceiling again.

The hatch above her opened a crack. Chewbacca growled.

"What do you mean the sound couldn't be coming from here?" Threepio said, his voice m.u.f.fled by the hatch. "I'm sure I heard something banging right under here. Why you don't sc.r.a.p this old bucket of s.p.a.ce debris is far beyond me!"

The hatch flipped open, and Chewie and Threepio peered in. Chewie's eyes widened in surprise, and Threepio lurched back. Chewie howled, and Threepio said, "Princess Leia Organa, why are you hiding in there?"

"I've come to kill Han," Leia said, "and this is the only way I could sneak aboard the ship. What do you think I'm doing in here, you turbopowered dummy, Han kidnapped me!"

"Oh dear!" Threepio muttered, and he and Chewie looked at each other, then hurried to help her from the hold.

Leia got up, feeling a bit dizzy, and Chewbacca looked off toward the c.o.c.kpit. His eyes were hard, and the fur on the back of his neck had raised. He growled menacingly, and for one moment Leia thought that surely Chewie would rip off Han's arms in typical Wookiee fashion. Chewie stalked toward the c.o.c.kpit, and Leia ran after him, saying, "Wait, wait .

Han was sitting in the captain's chair, his fingers flying over the instrument panels. The wash of stars in the view-screens was a brilliant white?signifying that they were hurtling through hypers.p.a.ce at the Falcon's top speed of point six above lightspeed. Chewie growled, and Han didn't turn to face them.

"So, did you figure out what that banging noise was?" Han asked.

"You bet he did!" Leia said.

At her back Threepio shouted, "I suggest you return the princess immediately, before we all wind up in the brig!"

Han turned calmly, swiveling in his chair, and put his hands behind his head. "I'm afraid we can't return just yet. We're locked on course for Dathomir, and the helm won't respond to any other orders."

Chewbacca rushed forward to the copilot's seat, hit a sequence of keys, growled questioningly at Leia. Threepio translated, "Chewbacca wants to know if you would like him to beat Han for you."

Leia looked at the Wookiee, knew how much that question must have cost him. Chewbacca owed a life debt to Han, and was bound by his code of honor to protect Solo. But perhaps, under the extreme circ.u.mstances, the Wookiee felt Han needed a little correction.

Han raised a hand in warning. "You can beat me if you want, Chewie, and I doubt I could stop you. But before you knock me senseless, I want you to think about something: it takes two people to bring this ship out of hyperdrive, and you can't do it without me."

Chewie looked at Leia and shrugged.

"You think you're so smart," Leia said. "You think you have all the answers. Chewie, keep him in here. He brought a Hapan Gun of Command aboard, and I'm going to shoot him with it."

Han pulled a gun from his holster, and Leia realized it wasn't his normal blaster. It was the Hapan gun?but Han had broken off the circuitry on the barrel. "I'm sorry, Princess, I think it's busted."

He let it drop to the floor.

"All right, what is it you want from me?" Leia asked, feeling somewhat defeated.

"Seven days," Han said. "I want you to spend seven days with me on Dathomir. I'm not even asking for equal time with Isolder, just a mere seven days. After that?I'll take you straight back to Coruscant."

Leia folded her arms and tapped her foot nervously, looked at the floor, made herself stop tapping, then looked up at Han. "What's the point?"