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Her expression graduated to scorn. “Have you ever studied Darth Vader? Clearly, you got your intelligence and your political acumen from your grandfather.”

He nodded. “There we are in agreement.”

In the private hangar bay set aside for the use of Anakin Solo’s commander, a team of security specialists, carrying standard scanning gear, walked down the yacht’s boarding ramp. Moments after the last one reached the hangar floor, the ramp rose into place, sealing the yacht.

Jaina Solo, stretched out on her back in an oppressively enclosed space, watched them leave. She did not watch them directly, but through the portable monitor she held in her hands. A shielded data feed led from the device into the metal wall of this smuggling compartment.

Beside her, Han stirred but did not open his eyes. “Are they gone?”

Jaina twisted a dial at the bottom of the screen, flipping its view through all of the Love Commander’s exterior holocam feeds. “No, they’re walking the yacht perimeter, doing a final scan.” Irritated, she checked her chrono. “How long can Mom keep Jacen distracted?”

Han shrugged. “Hard to guess. My estimate is that he’s not going to fall for guilt, but he’s pretty reactionary these days. If she can push the right argument buttons, he’ll be defending his politics and decisions from now until his next birthday.”

“How’s that going to make Mom feel?”

Han’s expression turned sad. “How do you think?”

An ominous scratching sounded from the far end of the compartment.

Jaina looked past her feet to the cage situated there on the compartment floor. A cube one meter in each dimension, it was made of thin, brightly painted durasteel bars. Within it was a jagged piece of polymer shaped like a stunted tree bole, and holding on to the sculpture was a reptile—a little over a meter long, greenish, with two sets of clawed legs and a long tail. It stared at them as if waiting for a reply to its statement.

Jaina wrinkled her nose at it. “I hate that thing.” It was an ysalamir, a lizard from the world of Myrkr—one of a species that had long ago evolved the ability to project an invisible bubble of Force energy in counterbalance to the Force all around it, making everything inside its border undetectable by Force-sensitives outside its range. So long as Jaina and Han, and Zekk and Jag in the next compartment, remained nearby, Jacen could not detect them.

Of course, Force-sensitives within the bubble were blind to the Force while they remained there.

Han’s voice turned mocking. “Poor little girl. Suddenly has to rely on just her sight, hearing, and wits—”

“It’s still like losing one of your senses.”

“—just like her old man.” He opened an eye and peered down at the reptile. He waved. “Hang on there, little guy. I’ll get you back to Karrde when we’re all done here.”

As if in response, the ysalamir flicked out its tongue for a fraction of a second.

Movement on the monitor drew Jaina’s attention. “Sensor crew is leaving. But there are still two guards on the exit, and two just outside.”

Han leaned over to peer at the monitor. “Got the hangar holocams picked out?”

Jaina nodded. “Yeah. I don’t want to Force-flash them constantly, but we can use blind spots between parked vehicles a lot of the time. And we have one piece of real luck. Jacen’s shuttle is right here, in this hangar.”

“Let’s go.” Han exerted himself against the durasteel panel directly overhead and it swung open, admitting cool air from the Love Commander’s atmosphere conditioners.

They executed their plan in several stages, each accomplished very quickly and with the precision that only Jedi and someone like Han Solo could manage.

Silently, the four exited the Love Commander through a cargo hatch in the blind spot between her starboard side and the mass of maintenance machinery immediately beside her. Jaina, carrying the electronics package whose construction had been supervised by Iella Antilles—a package now disguised as a mouse droid—reached a wall datajack and plugged the package