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Han turned to Zekk, then hitched a thumb at the corridor. “Maybe it would be better if we had a Jedi keeping an eye on things outside. My throwing arm is good, but—”

“It’s not the Force,” Zekk finished. He flipped his palm up and turned his fingers toward Han. Two of Han’s last three thermal detonators rose off the equipment vest and floated into the Jedi’s grasp. “Be fast.”

“Will do.” Han waved C-3PO toward the bridge, then activated his throat mike. “How’s it going in the bunker? Have you found those carbonite pods?”

“You could say that,” Yaqeel replied. “I guess.”

“You guess?” Han replied. “You do know what a carbonite pod looks like, right? Big black rectangle with a face in it? Mouth frozen mid-scream?”

“Han, just get over here,” Leia said. “You’re not going to believe this.”

“Okay,” Han said. When he turned to the catwalk, he saw that he’d have to open the gate for C-3PO—apparently, everyone else had just gone over. “On our way. Cover us.”

“Copy that,” Jaina said. “But run.”

“Run?” C-3PO said. “As I tried to explain to Captain Solo, my servomotors are not equipped to noooooo!”

C-3PO’s objection ended in the droid equivalent of a scream when Natua Wan appeared next to Jaina and used the Force to bring him flying toward the bunker. Han pulled the repeating blaster off his shoulder and raced after the droid in a crouching sprint. Even before the snipers opened fire, Jaina began to pick them off, silencing two with a series of quick shots.

Han turned his T-21 in the direction Jaina wasn’t shooting and, forgetting he had not switched the power level back to STUN, began to lay his own suppression fire. By the time he reached the storage bunker, the steady stream of high-power bolts had triggered the automatic fire-suppression systems. The ceiling nozzles began to pour retardant foam into the atrium.

“Nice trick,” Jaina said, speaking from behind her breath mask. She and Natua stepped aside to let Han race through the hatch. “Is that supposed to be camouflage or something?”

“Hey, if the Balmorran infantry can use smoke curtains,” Han said, flipping the T-21’s power level to STUN, “I can use a foam screen.”

Jaina rolled her eyes. “Whatever you say, Dad.”

Han shot her a smug wink, then turned to survey the interior of the storage bunker … and felt his jaw drop.

He was standing inside a huge refrigerated cylinder, on one of more than a dozen circular balconies. Hanging along the walls on each level were several hundred carbonite pods, each connected to a power supply and a monitoring station by a shielded cable.

“Bloah!” Han cursed. “We’re gonna need more transport!”

“Captain Solo, there’s no way we can take everyone in here,” Natua said. The Falleen was probably exuding calming pheromones, but if so, they had no effect through Han’s face mask. “And even if we could, there’s no way to know whether we should.”

Han frowned at her. “Of course we should!” He could not help thinking of his own experiences in carbonite, of the frozen eternity of fear and the terrible anguish of awakening. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be frozen in carbonite?”

“Han, all Natua is saying is that we can’t help them all now,” Leia said, stepping to his side. “We came to get Valin and Jysella. And it’s going to take more time than we hoped just to find them. This place is huge.”

“No kidding,” Han said. “Who are all these guys?”

Natua shrugged. “Political prisoners? Troublemaker inmates?”

“Daala’s old buddies?” Han offered.

“That’s as good a guess as any,” Leia replied. “All we know for sure is that psychotic Jedi aren’t the only ones Daala has been storing in carbonite.”

“Assuming it is Daala,” Jaina said. “This could be something Colonel Retk is doing on his own. It has a certain Yaka sensibility.”

“Yeah,” Han said. “It’s sure sick.”

He began to count, first the number of pods hanging along a ten-meter length of wall, then the number of balconies inside the storage bunker. By the time he finished and came up