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Wedge’s entire deliberation took a quarter second. “I’ll make the appearance, of course.”

“Of course,” Gejjen echoed. “Dismissed.”

Wedge saluted and, a little stiff-legged, made his way from the room.

His posture was perfect for the long walk through the doors, down the long corridor beyond, past a guard station, and into the turbolift that would carry him up to ground level. But once the lift doors closed behind him, he sagged against the wall. His legs felt like rubber, and his stomach rebelled like a ground-pounder’s upon its first experience with zero gravity.

From admiral in charge of an entire planetary system’s armed forces to civilian in two easy steps, he thought, and managed a slightly nauseated smile.

And once again, he might just have signed his own death warrant. A government that was willing to assassinate foreign rulers wouldn’t hesitate at ridding itself of someone who could be a potent symbol used against them…and who had just proven that he wasn’t with them.

The instant he finished his public appearance with Admiral Delpin, the chrono would begin ticking down on his life.

The thought, so familiar after a lifetime of warfare, settled his stomach and beat back the nausea he’d felt from the moment he knew he was to be relieved of command. By the time the lift doors opened, he was standing tall again. He walked past the ground-floor security station and flashed its guards a smile suggesting that he was a rancor and they were made of meat.

GYNDINE SYSTEM TENDRANDO REFUELING AND REPAIR STATION

The vehicle lining up for an approach on the refueling station’s spinward docking bay had once been a Corellian YT-1300 transport—efficiently disk-shaped, with aggressive-looking forward mandibles and a cockpit that protruded from the starboard side of the bow to give the craft an oddly pleasing, asymmetrical profile. Now, however, countless burns of battle damage darkened the hull, and the top and bottom turrets, which had once housed laser cannons, were just gone.

As the craft made her last bank before the approach, the man waiting in the docking bay could see that the top-side turret had not been replaced or even covered over; where it had once been installed, there was a hole that gaped into the vehicle’s interior.

The waiting man would have recognized the Millennium Falcon instantly, even if he hadn’t known she would be coming to this place. He had once owned her. He still loved her, and now he winced to see what had become of her.

Still urbane and handsome, and now distinguished looking with age, Lando Calrissian stood in complete contrast with the famous transport. He was dressed in a silken ensemble that would have cost what it took to buy a good speeder but whose components were all chosen for unobtrusive elegance; the dark blue tunic, black trousers, and purple hip cloak were subdued of color and fashion. The silver-tipped black cane he carried was his one outward concession to age.

He watched as the Falcon slowly approached. As frail as she looked, he half expected her to bounce off the atmospheric shields that kept the vacuum of space at bay, but she floated gently in through that negligible barrier. Now that the transport was within atmosphere, Lando could hear a rhythmic clanking from within her hull—something gone awry within her engine housings.

The Falcon slid gently forward on her repulsorlifts and settled down to a remarkably smooth landing. Lando walked around from beneath the mandibles to look through the cockpit viewport, but the occupants had already left, so he continued around to the boarding ramp.

He had a handful of jokes in mind for the arrival of Han and Leia—I’ve seen transports crashed into the sides of World Devastators that looked better; what have you done to the old girl this time; did you buy your pilot’s license at the Drunken Mynock School of Instruction—but then, as the pair descended the boarding ramp, he caught sight of their faces.

There was not one iota of good