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As she rounded the corner into the engineering bay, she spotted her quarry. On the far side of the freight lift, Alema Rar stood beside the broad circular housing of the hyperdrive. She held her lightsaber in two good, steady hands as she drove its point deep into the housing, sending up sparks that illuminated the bay brilliantly.

And she was standing on the floor—the true floor, her feet planted on the surface above Leia’s head, as though gravity didn’t matter.

She looked over as Leia entered. “Princess! Come help us destroy the hyperdrive. Then together we can cut the engines to pieces.”

Wary, Leia advanced. “I’ll cut you to pieces first. That will show me how to do it.”

“You first—”

Alema’s words were cut off as the Falcon suddenly spun axially, dropping the floor from beneath her feet and sending her crashing into the ceiling, throwing Leia shoulder-first into the starboard bulkhead.

A few moments before, Lumpawaroo had held the four corners of the cockpit doorway with both hands and both feet. He grumbled loudly at Han.

Han glared at the Wookiee over his shoulder. “I don’t care what Leia said, get back there and help her.”

Grumble.

“I’ll shut the cockpit hatch. If Alema gets back up here, she’ll have to cut through it, which will give the two of you plenty of time to get here.”

Grumble.

“If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll look where I’m flying.” Han turned to face forward. “Not that there’s anything else up here! And the proximity alarms will let me know if—”

The proximity alarms shrieked an alert and the sky outside the cockpit viewports lit up so brightly that Han’s vision washed away to whiteness. He believed he could feel an instant sunburn on his face and hands. Waroo howled.

Shutting his eyes, Han snap-rolled to starboard. Waroo’s howl of complaint remained constant—the Wookiee hadn’t been torn free from the cockpit opening.

What had he almost flown into? Then Han knew. Lillibanca, in orbit, had begun her firebreak bombardment, and Han’s maneuvers had sent the Falcon straight toward the first blast.

But now which way could he go? He couldn’t see, and any direction might send him straight toward—into—the second blast.

Any direction but two.

He continued his spin into the tightest rightward arc he could manage, bringing the Falcon around 360 degrees so swiftly that the freighter’s struts and rivets groaned in complaint. Then, when only his pilot’s experience told him he was again on his original course, he pulled the yoke back and sent the freighter straight up once more.

Flying that way, he couldn’t move laterally far enough to hit the second beam. He was momentarily safe.

Waroo wasn’t. The Wookiee’s howl modulated from outrage to surprise. Han heard Waroo slam into the bulkhead of the cockpit access passage, then follow Alema’s earlier, bumpy path as he rolled down the corridor.

There was a momentary silence. Han winced as he visualized Waroo being catapulted into the main access corridor. In an instant would come a big bang of Wookiee on metal—

The Falcon’s spin pinned Leia against the corridor for long moments. She drew on the Force to help her push away from it, resisting centrifugal effect, but it took all her concentration—that, and the need to keep an eye on Alema and an ear on all the items of cargo, machinery, personal gear, and, for all she knew, personnel ricocheting off bulkheads all over the ship.

Alema was not as encumbered by the Falcon’s movements. The spin had pinned her for a moment to the ceiling, but now she rose as if its gravity were proper and steady.

She rose on two good feet, despite the fact Leia knew she’d lost half of one foot. Her features were as youthful and unblemished as when Leia had first met her fifteen standard years before.

Leia forced herself to keep her voice low and calm. “Finally invested in some prosthetics, did you?” And some vanity surgery to rid yourself of facial lines, sags, scars…

“Nothing so crude. We are simply ageless and eternal now, as we have always deserved to be.” Alema lifted