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Ben grimaced. This was going to be difficult to explain, to put into words. On the other hand, Nelani was a Jedi. “I waited around for a while, trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I guess I wasn’t thinking. More like feeling. And I kept noticing when shuttles landed. They kind of drew my attention, even when transports and cargo ships didn’t. Which seemed weird at the time.”

Nelani nodded. “The Force was guiding you. You were open to it.”

“I guess. And then I remembered something my mother says a lot. She says that any detail, no matter now small, could turn out to be important. And I remembered about the shuttle from Toryaz Station. Mom’s a spy, you know.”

Nelani grinned. “I know.”

“So I went through my datapad, all Jacen’s notes on details we haven’t had time to go through, and I decided to see if the spaceport records showed anything about that shuttle. And there it was, parked half a kilometer from where the Y-wing blew up.”

“Who’s it registered to?” Jacen asked.

Ben pulled out his datapad and opened it. He’d left all that information on the screen. “A human woman named Brisha Syo. She’s from Commenor. She wasn’t at the shuttle; she’d just paid for a week’s worth of hangar space. She left no contact information. The spaceport authority thought she was staying aboard, but the ship’s systems were all shut down. I told Lieutenant Samran. He’s got somebody watching it now.”

“Very good,” Jacen said. “But what if this Brisha Syo sneaks aboard and takes off when Samran’s guard is snoozing?”

“Then the transmitter we stuck on the top of the hull will tell us where she goes.” Ben shrugged as if the matter were of no consequence.

Jacen laughed. “Good work. And what did you do with the rest of your time?”

Ben scowled at him. “Now you’re making fun of me.”

Jacen nodded. “You’re getting so good at what you do, if we don’t make fun of you, you’ll have a colossal, Lando Calrissian–sized ego.”

“That would be fun.” Ben modulated his voice to something like the smooth, insinuating tones of the old Solo family friend. He turned toward Nelani. “Hello. I’m Ben Skywalker.”

“Oh, that’s ghastly,” she said.

“And I’m trying to figure out whether I’m more suave or more debonair. Maybe you can help.”

“Stop it,” she said.

“I’ll pour the wine, and you tell me what you like best about me.”

“Jacen, now he talks too much…”

chapter twenty-seven

CORELLIA

Roaring at tremendous speeds along the avenue, tall buildings flashing by to either side so fast that he couldn’t register details of their color, much less their design, Han kept his attention focused on the vehicle just ahead of his own. It was a black disc with three fiery apertures, thruster tubes, pointed back at him—the tail end of a Corellian YT-5100 Shriek-class bomber just like his own. It galled him that Wedge’s bomber was in the lead—it was an unnatural state of affairs, and he planned to correct it as soon as possible.

Laserfire flashed over his cockpit from ahead, and the monitor screen showing data on his shield status flashed red in his peripheral vision, signs that his Shriek had been hit—but there had been no shudder, so the impact had to have been glancing. He saw Wedge’s Shriek waver and sideslip just a little, a successful bid to reduce the amount of laserfire converging on him from ahead. That, Han realized, was his key to getting in front.

He saw another series of red flashes from ahead, more concentrated laserfire, and gauged that the thickest stream of fire was moving in toward the Shrieks from the port side. He did not swerve, but hit his thrusters.

Wedge did swerve, sideslipping again to avoid the worst of the fire, and Han’s perfectly timed acceleration brought him alongside Wedge’s bomber, then just ahead of it. Han ran into the thickest of the laserfire and his shield monitor flashed alarmingly bright—but he was ahead.

And ahead of him, too close, was the artificial gray mountain of the Terkury Housing Complex, the building he was supposed to fly beneath in less than