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'The fleet is finally breaking up,' he answered as he pointed out a port window. 'I'm hoping they follow standard Imperial procedure and dump their garbage before they go into light-speed.'

The princess reflected on this strategy for a moment, and then began to smile. This crazy man might know what he was doing after all. Impressed, she patted him on the head. 'Not bad, hot shot, not bad. Then what?'

'Then,' Han said, 'we have to find a safe port around here. Got any ideas?'

'That depends. Where are we?'

'Here,' Han said, pointing to a configuration of small light points, 'near the Anoat system.'

Slipping out of her chair, Leia moved next to him for a better look at the screen.

'Funny,' Han said after thinking for a moment, 'I have the feeling I've been in this area before. Let me check my logs.'

'You keep logs?' Leia was more impressed by the minute. 'My, how organized,' she teased.

'Well, sometimes,' he answered as he hunted through the computer readout. 'Ah-ha, I knew it! Lando - now this should be interesting.'

'I never heard of that system,' said Leia.

'It's not a system. He's a man, Lando Calrissian. A gambler, con artist, all-around scoundrel...' he paused long enough for the last word to sink in, and gave the princess a wink, 'your kind of guy. The Bespin system. It's a fair distance but reachable.'

Leia looked at one of the computer monitor screens and read the data. 'A mining colony,' she noted.

'A Tibanna gas mine,' Han added. 'Lando won it in a sabacc match, or so he claims. Lando and I go way back.'

'Can you trust him?' Leia asked.

'No. But he has no love for the Empire, that much I know.'

The Wookiee barked over the intercom.

Quickly responding, Han flicked some switches to bring new information to the computer screens, and then stretched to look out the cockpit window. 'I see it, Chewie, I see it,' he said. 'Prepare for manual release.' Then, turning to the princess, Han said, 'Here goes nothing, sweetheart.' He leaned back in his chair and smiled invitingly at her.

Leia shook her head, then grinned shyly and gave him a quick kiss. 'You do have your moments,' she reluctantly admitted. 'Not many, but you have them.'

Han was getting used to the princess's back-handed compliments, and he couldn't say that he really minded them. More and more he was enjoying the fact that she shared his own sarcastic sense of humor. And he was fairly sure that she was enjoying it, too.

'Let 'er go, Chewie,' he shouted gleefully.

The hatch on the underbelly of the Avenger yawned open. And as the Imperial galactic cruiser zoomed into hyperspace, it spewed out its own belt of artificial asteroids - garbage and sections of irreparable machinery that scattered out into the black void of space. Hidden among that trail of refuse, the Millennium Falcon tumbled undetected off the side of the larger ship, and was left far behind as the Avenger streaked away.

Safe at last, Han Solo thought.

The Millennium Falcon ignited its ion engines, and raced off through the train of drifting space junk toward another system.

But concealed among that scattered debris was another ship.

And as the Falcon roared off to seek the Bespin system, this other ship ignited its own engines. Boba Fett, the most notorious and dreaded bounty hunter in the galaxy, turned his small, elephant's head-shaped craft, Slave I, to begin its pursuit. For Boba Fett had no intention of losing sight of the Millennium Falcon. Its pilot had too high a price on his head. And this was one reward that the fearsome bounty hunter was quite determined to collect.

Luke felt that he was definitely progressing.

He ran through the jungle - with Yoda perched on his neck - and leaped with gazellelike grace over the profusion of foliage and tree roots growing throughout the bog.

Luke had at last begun to detach himself from the emotion of pride. He felt unburdened, and was finally open to experience fully the flow of the Force.

When his diminutive instructor threw a silver bar above Luke's head, the young Jedi student reacted instantly. In a flash he turned to slice