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Lando extracted his blaster from beneath the folds of his hip cloak. He brought it up parallel with Han’s and fired, catching the faceplate of the intruder who had shot the droid. That man, too, staggered back and down, adding to the congestion at the doorway.

Leia finished her sweep with the lightsaber and a rough circle of flooring a meter and a half in diameter dropped away into darkness, rattling against a hard surface a moment later. “Let’s go,” she said, making it sound like a suggestion, and dropped through. Her lightsaber lit her new surroundings; she was in a darkened, narrow corridor.

Lando looked at Han. “You first.” He took another shot at the doorway, catching a CorSec trooper in the second rank right on the kneecap.

Han gestured for Lando to go. “Age before beauty.”

“Idiots.” Teppler dropped through, blaster in one hand and tumbler in the other, landing awkwardly behind Leia.

Rear ranks of invaders shoved the plug of stunned or injured troopers out of the doorway; four spilled into the bar, more jamming up at the door. Han fired again and caught one in his armored gut, sending him spinning to the floor. The others returned fire and Han, braced behind the tabletop, stared in alarm as whole chunks of its artificial wood surface were torn away, not impeding the blaster bolts in the least.

Beside him, Lando slid through the hole. He kept his cane from colliding with anything, but his hip cloak caught on one edge of the hole and was yanked free of his shoulders. He landed gracefully and glared up at his traitorous garment. Then he trotted after Leia.

Han grabbed one table leg and fell through the hole, hauling the leg with him. All four table legs dropped into the hole, leaving the tabletop flush against the floor. The awkwardness of his descent caused him to hit the corridor floor hard and go to his knees, but he rose unhurt and sprinted after the others, guided by the glow-rod-like qualities of Leia’s lightsaber.

Han rounded a corner and caught up with the others. This chamber was as large as the taproom above but stacked high with plasteel crates and falsewood kegs.

Leia stood at the top of a short permacrete ramp. A metal door barred her way. She slashed at the top hinge of three, cutting through it. Teppler stood behind her, calm, blaster and tumbler at the ready. Lando, like a catalog holo of elegant indifference, leaned against the wall, twirling his cane.

Han gestured toward Teppler’s tumbler. “Get rid of that.”

“Can’t,” Teppler said. “It has my fingerprints on it.”

Han grabbed the tumbler from him, tossed it into a corner, and pumped three blaster shots into it. When the smoke cleared, it was a melted, charred mass of transparisteel.

There were more blaster shots from back the way they’d come. Han heard pieces of wood raining down into the corridor.

Leia finished the second hinge and got to work on the third. Teppler stepped forward and raised his arm to catch the top of the door when it toppled.

The door fell. Teppler wrenched it out of the way, and it clattered to the permacrete floor. On the other side, the ramp continued up; several meters beyond it, Han could see speeders roaring past what had to be the end of the alley behind the cantina. He, Leia, and Teppler ran toward the escape the street represented. Lando remained behind—to delay pursuit, Han assumed.

Leia extinguished her lightsaber as they reached the alley mouth. A narrow sidewalk gave them an avenue for escape, and cross-traffic just a few centimeters away roared past, the speeders’ running lights leaving colorful horizontal streaks in the air.

Han looked at the situation. This was going to turn into either a running blaster battle or a blaster battle performed on stolen speeders. “Ready to go, sweetheart?”

“Garbage loader,” Leia said.

“You always know the right thing to say.” Han followed her gaze. Lumbering up the flyway toward them, low toward the ground, was a repulsorlift-based garbage loader, a story and a half tall, wider than a standard traffic lane, with droid arms along its upper rim to seize garbage