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“Now what?” he asked. “Magic words?”

Jadak tightened his lips. “Maybe we need to set her down.”

“Worth a go.”

His hand steady on the repulsorlift control, Han began to lower the ship a meter at a time. Fighting gusts of cinder-laden wind, the Falcon was fifteen meters from the platform when Leia shouted: “Stop!”

Schematics flashed on the display screen. “We're being scanned by some kind of authenticator,” she said.

“It's trying to confirm that she's the Stellar Envoy,” Jadak said.

Han blew out his breath. “Then we're out of luck. Just since I've owned her, the registry transponder has been changed more times than I can count.”

Leia's eyes were still fixed on the displays. “The authenticator isn't interrogating the transponder. It's trying to establish a physical match between the ship and the platform.”

“A template,” Han said. “We could set down, but the turbolift won't take us inside until the authenticator tells it to.”

“Then why isn't it doing that?” Leia said. “The Falcon and the Stellar Envoy are the same ship.”

“Key's the same,” Han mused. “Maybe the lock's been changed.”

“But they're not the same ships,” Jadak said a moment later. “The Envoy was rebuilt with parts taken from an old YT-Thirteen-hundred-pea.”

“And she's a couple hundred kilograms lighter,” Han said. “But none of that should matter. The pea had an almost identical profile. The differences were all on the inside—cabin space instead of cargo space.”

“Almost identical.”

“I'm not about to start chopping pieces off her.” Han pivoted the chair toward the hatch. “Threepio!”

“Coming, Captain Solo!”

By the time the droid had clattered into the cockpit, Han had called up side-by-side schematics of the Falcon and a vintage YT-1300p.

“What's wrong with this picture?” When C-3PO made his confusion evident, Han said: “The landing platform is only going to respond to a stock YT-Thirteen-hundred. How's the Falcon different?”

C-3PO fixed his photoreceptors on the schematics and responded almost immediately. “The escape pods, Captain Solo.”

Han, Leia, and Jadak scrutinized the schematics.

“Can't be,” Han said.

“The way they are positioned, the Millennium Falcon's number one and number four escape pods exceed the YT-Thirteen-hundred template by three-point-two centimeters at each side. The difference is quite obvious, Captain Solo.”

“He's right,” Jadak said.

“Don't encourage him,” Han muttered. But he managed to muster a grin when he looked at C-3PO. “Go below and use the manual override to drop the number one and number four pods. Activate their locators, in case there's time to retrieve them before we leave.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Go with him, Poste.”

“Brother, the duties I pull.”

“That droid's a wonder,” Jadak said when the two had hurried off.

“Keep it under your hat, but I don't know what I'd do without him.”

Han maneuvered the Falcon to the rear edge of the cleared area in the hope that the escape pods would land short of the thorn trees. When two telltales on the console flashed, showing that the pods had been jettisoned, he took the ship forward and hovered directly over the center of the landing zone.

Below them an array of illuminators configured to match the outline of the ship came to brilliant life.

“We've been recognized!” Leia said.

But Han kept the Falcon right where she was.

“This facility's been sitting here for at least sixty years—twenty of them buried under Yuuzhan Vong foliage. We don't know what shape the lift is in.” He glanced at Leia. “I want everyone out of the Falcon while I set her down.”

BY THE TIME THEY HURRIED DOWN THE BOARDING RAMP, THE WIND had picked up and the air was loud with the strident keening of sentinel beetles and the rumble of distant volcanic eruptions and thunder. Cinder, ash, and swollen drops of rain swirled around them as they ducked their heads and scampered to the edge of the platform. Thousands of noxious-smelling dweebit beetles ran riot at the edge of the barbed vegetation, and spark bees swarmed overhead.

Buffeted by the gales