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“Yeah, sorry about that.” Recognizing the captain’s name from a few earlier GAS run-ins, Han allowed his gaze to linger on Harfard for a moment, then cast a pointed glance at the massive security detail the man was overseeing. “We didn’t want to scare you—any more than we already have.”

Daala’s eyes narrowed. “Adequate security is a sign of prudence, Captain Solo, not fear.” She looked past him toward the Temple. “But I really don’t care who the Jedi send out to surrender.”

Han’s mouth started to water, the way it always did when he managed to put a player on tilt. “Surrender?” he demanded. “Who said anything about surrendering?”

Daala’s gaze snapped back. “Master Hamner did,” she said. “He commed me himself to say the Jedi are ready to turn over the maniacs they have been harboring.”

“Maniacs?” Han pretended to be confused for a moment, then nodded as though he suddenly understood. “Oh, you mean the patients.”

“Yes, the patients,” Daala confirmed. “Call them what you will. I want them. Now.”

“But just the psychotic ones, right?” Han clarified. “You don’t want the ones who just have sinus infections or stomach flu or stuff like that, right?”

Daala’s glare turned suspicious. “I want the barvy ones, Captain Solo: Sothais Saar, Turi Altamik, and all of the other unstable Jedi who pose a danger to the citizens of this planet.” She raised her chin and spoke directly to the holocams hovering overhead. “And to this galaxy.”

“And then you’ll lift the siege.” Han phrased this not as a question, but as a condition … and he made sure he was also speaking into a holocam mike. “That’s the agreement.”

“I’ll lift the siege after I’m satisfied that the Jedi are no longer sheltering psychotic Jedi Knights,” Daala said carefully. “And I am going to search the Temple. Let’s be very clear about that.”

Han rubbed his neck, pretending to hesitate, then finally nodded. “Okay, fair enough.” He looked toward the medwagons resting on their struts behind Daala’s limousine. “You brought the brain-breaker?”

“If by brain-breaker you mean xenopsychiatrist, then yes. I brought the best.” Daala turned toward the limousine and flicked her fingers in a summoning motion. Out stepped a tall, middle-aged Bith with a dignified bearing and a huge cranium so deeply green it was almost emerald. “Allow me to present Dr. Thalleus Tharn, chair of xenopsychiatric medicine at the Greater Coruscant University. His honors and titles are too numerous to recount, but I have every confidence that Master Cilghal will know his reputation.”

Han whistled, truly impressed, then extended a hand as Tharn stepped onto the landing. The xenopsychiatrist made no attempt to reciprocate, instead dropping his ebony eyes to study the appendage as though it were being offered as an object of contemplation rather than greeting. Never one to accept a slight gracefully, Han continued to hold his hand out until Tharn was finally forced to sidestep in order to avoid it.

“I never shake hands,” Tharn said, clasping his hands behind his back. “I’m also a surgeon.”

Han’s brow shot up. “You mean you cut people open by hand, yourself?” he asked. “No droids?”

“Brain surgery is more art than medicine, Captain Solo, and droids are not capable of art.” Tharn’s voice was deep and refined, the kind that Han sometimes heard narrating advertisements for luxury airspeeders and men’s personal grooming products. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want someone with sore fingers excising a suspicious node from your prefrontal cortex.”

“I wouldn’t want anyone digging around in there. No telling what they might find.” Han hitched a thumb toward Daala. “The Chief tell you why you’re here?”

“She did,” Tharn assured him. “To oversee the sedation and transfer of the Jedi patients to a facility where they can be safely secured.”

“In carbonite,” Han added, more for holocam’s benefit than Tharn’s. “She told you that part, too, right?”

Tharn nodded. “Of course.”

“And you think that’s okay?” Han allowed some of his very real outrage to show in his wide eyes and sharp expression. He needed to get Tharn on live HoloNet