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Well, this meeting was still a success. She’d learned two important things: that the Galactic Alliance probably knew about developments at Centerpoint Station, and that Han Solo could be just as hard and ruthless as his cousin, Thrackan Sal-Solo.

Saxan let a gracious smile return to her face. “Never fear, Corellia knows who her friends are,” she said. “By the way, how long will you be staying insystem?”

Leia shrugged. “A few days.”

“Excellent. Perhaps you will do us the honor of paying us an official visit sometime. Whether it’s wartime or peacetime, your husband is one of Corellia’s favorite sons.”

“That would be most agreeable.” Recognizing Saxan’s words as a conclusion to the audience, Leia rose and pinned her veil back in place. Han followed his wife’s lead and began wrestling his sand-mask into place.

“Oh, Han…” Saxan smiled as she saw the tiniest of frowns mar Leia’s brow, reaction to her inappropriate use of Solo’s first name. “If I see Thrackan, do you have any message for him?”

Mask in place, Han pulled his hood up. “Sure. How about, ‘Look out!’”

“I’ll pass that along.”

OUTER SPACE, CORELLIA TRADE SPINE, PASSING YAG’DHUL

The passenger-seating compartment was not ideal. It was, in fact, a cargo container, the sort used to transport bulk goods from one port to another. But it had been fitted with reclinable seats from decommissioned passenger shuttles. Every row was a different color, and some of the seats smelled bad.

Jaina’s smelled bad. If she’d been in a self-destructively contemplative mood, she might have speculated that at some time in the distant past, it had been occupied by a Hutt with a digestive disorder. Every so often, an injudicious movement on Jaina’s part would compress the padding she was sitting on and an odor, half bitter, half sweet, all repulsive, would cause her nose and the noses or equivalent equipment of the other passengers in the vicinity to twitch.

Those passengers were an interesting collection, Jaina decided. Most looked and acted like beings on the run, eyes alert to anyone who might be giving them too much attention, clothes bulky enough to conceal the blasters tucked away underneath, bags and satchels containing who-knew-what always close at hand. Some were humans, some Bothans, some Rodians. Jaina spotted one Bith at the rear of the compartment. It appeared that one passenger was a beaten-up YVH 1 combat droid traveling without a companion.

And of course there were Jedi, though they didn’t look like Jedi. Jaina was dressed in a fashion that would have let her fit in with her father’s old friends—tight-fitting trousers and vest of black bantha leather, a red silk shirt with flowing sleeves and a matching hair scarf, a blaster holster on her belt. Half her face bore an artificial tattoo, a red flower on her cheek with green leafy tendrils spreading across her jaw and up to her forehead, and her hair was blond, a temporary dye job.

Next to her, Zekk, eyes closed in sleep, wore a preposterous tan jacket of fringed leather. Beneath it was a bandolier holding eight vibroblades. Two false scars marked his face, one a horizontal gash across his forehead, the other down from the forehead to the right cheek; an eye patch with a blinking red diode covered that eye.

The two compartments directly aft were sectioned into small, claustrophobic sleeping berths. The compartment aft of that held luggage.

And they were surrounded by containers holding Tibanna gas, harvested on Bespin, where this cargo vessel had begun its journey. If the vessel was attacked, incoming damage could ignite the cargo, and Jaina and all her Jedi friends would be vaporized.

This was, despite its size, a smuggling vessel. The Tibanna gas it carried boosted the destructive power of blasters. Its mining and export was carefully limited by the Galactic Alliance government, which was why a daring smuggler with a large cargo of the stuff could make a substantial profit by taking it to a system whose industries wanted it—for instance, Corellia, this vessel’s destination. And since the cargo was