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“Let me guess,” the woman said. “How about: ‘Please don’t shoot my girlfriend’?”

Han looked over his shoulder. Five more of them stood in an arc back there, covering Leia. He said, “Maybe we got off on the wrong foot.”

“Oh?” Her smile didn’t look amused. “Is that the answer to your riddle?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess it is. Look, I don’t know what you want with us—I don’t even know whose side you’re on.”

“We’re on our own side.”

“So you’re what, local?”

“Local enough.”

“I take it you’re not fans of the Empire, huh?” It was a fair guess, given the state of their gear and their hodgepodge of mismatched weapons.

“Not so much.”

“Well, us either. Neither. Whatever. We’re just looking for a friend.”

“Huh. Us, too. How’s that for a coincidence?” The woman’s head canted just a bit. “This friend you’re looking for wouldn’t happen to be a Jedi, would he?”

Han blinked. “What do you know about Jedi?”

Her eyes went wide. “Cover!” she shouted, as she and the others scattered and dove to the ground—which promptly erupted in flame and molten rock under a barrage of laserfire from above and behind him.

Han looked up. Down from the clouds swooped dozens of TIEs looping in for strafing runs.

“Oh, come on!” he said. “Before I even get dinner?”

SHADOWSPAWN BROUGHT THAT SCARLET-SHINING CRYSTAL sword whistling down at Luke’s head with all the subtlety and grace of a spice miner swinging a sonic hammer. Luke met the strike easily, almost without effort. A blinding flare of green and scarlet energy flashed when the blades met, and the air stank of ozone.

And about a decimeter of the end of Shadowspawn’s crystal blade, still shimmering with that bloodshine glow, clattered faintly as it fell to the stone at Luke’s feet. “Sith alchemy, huh?”

Shadowspawn snarled and chopped at him. Luke took half a step to one side, and the blade missed him by a hair and drove into the stone beside his boot. Shadowspawn yanked it free and hacked again, and again Luke shifted his weight just enough to avoid the strike. The warlord came at him, crystal blade trailing fire as he whirled it into another thundering overhead chop.

Luke circled, still not striking back; he couldn’t figure out what to make of Shadowspawn’s style. The warlord fought like someone who’d heard of swordplay but had never actually seen it done. Luke would have found Shadowspawn’s clumsiness kind of funny, had he not been able to feel the gathering threat in the Force. The danger still grew; its shadow darkened his future.

But it didn’t have anything to do with this silly man swinging his silly sword. With his strange name …

Wait, Luke thought. That strange name … Shadowspawn. Lord Shadowspawn …

He reached into the Force and opened his perception. Waves of darkness beat against his consciousness, a tidal surge of fear and malice … but the deeper he let that surge enter, the more certain he became.

This was a put-up job.

Lord Shadowspawn … His eyes widened. He got it now, as clearly as if the Force itself had whispered in his ear. Not Lord Spawn-of-the-Shadow. Not at all.

It wasn’t a name. It was a pun. Lord Shadow’s Pawn.

The crystal sword came down again, and this time Luke didn’t dodge.

The blade froze in the air, its edge a finger’s breadth from Luke’s forehead.

Luke smiled and leaned just far enough around the blade to deliver a single, very precise punch. Not to the jaw, or the temple; this was not a conventional knockout. Luke’s fist landed exactly at the point the Force had chosen for him—on Shadowspawn’s forehead, just above his right eye—and in the fraction of a second that Shadowspawn’s head snapped back and upset his balance, Luke reached out and snatched the Moon Hat right off his head. Luke had to put some real muscle into the yank; it came free only with a wet ripping sound as if he might be tearing flesh away with it.

And the great Lord Shadowspawn collapsed like a holomonster on an overloaded dejarik board.

The corpse-looking Shadowface