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"Well, what am I supposed to do, Chewie?" Han asked, leaning back in his chair. It should have felt good to be back on the Millennium Falcon, but something still felt off. A strange, queasy feeling, like everything was off-balance.

It's got nothing to do with Luke and Leia, he told himself. Probably he was still unsettled by Lore's betrayal, and the thought that once, he might have done the same thing.

Or maybe he'd just eaten some bad meatlump.

"You expect me to power up the hyperdrive and speed off to Tatooine?" Han asked. "All because I overheard something that may mean Luke is in danger?"

Chewbacca's response made it clear this was exactly what he expected Han to do.

"You know who else is on Tatooine?" Han said. " Jabba. You realize that puts my life in danger, right?"

Chewbacca barked a dismissive reply.

"No, Jabba doesn't scare me," Han retorted hotly. "But he's got half the bounty hunters in the galaxy out looking for me—and you want me to show up on his doorstep? Without his payment?" Han shook his head. "Besides, don't you think it's just a little convenient that we stumbled onto exactly the information we were looking for? That of all the Imperial stations in all the galaxy we ended up on this one? A little too convenient, maybe?"

Chewbacca growled a final answer and, as if to make clear this was last word on the issue, turned his back on Han and began monkeying with the dented power cell housing.

"Don't know why you're so sure I'll do the right thing," Han muttered, staring blindly at the navigation computer, trying to decide which coordinates to enter.

"Not like I ever have before."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I would know if Luke were dead, Leia kept telling herself. I would know. I would know.

Three words, repeated over and over again, got her through each moment and the next. They meant everything to her—and nothing to anyone else. As darkness fell, Luke's friends were ready to give up on him, but Leia insisted on staying and searching the area of the crash, seeking some clue to Luke and Jaxson's fate.

Of course, their broken skyhoppers were a clue. The fiery shards of durasteel were clues. The scorched desert, gashes in the ground, the smoldering ruins, all clues.

But not the kind of clues Leia was looking for.

While Luke's friends poked halfheartedly through the wreckage, already mourning the lost pilots, Leia and the two droids scoured the crash site.

Suddenly, R2-f0 D2 beeped eagerly, twirling in circles on a patch of empty ground. C-f0 3PO tottered over to him, then waved a golden hand at Leia.

"Princess! Artoo says he's found something!"

Leia hurried over to the droids. "What is it?"

R2-f0 D2 let out a long string of beeps and trills. C-f0 3PO waved his index finger through the air. "Are you certain?" he asked the astromech. "We don't want to be too hasty—"

R2-f0 D2 beeped indignantly.

"Of course you wouldn't be reckless at a time like this," C-f0 3PO said. "I only meant that perhaps in your eagerness to help—"

R2-f0 D2 cut in with a series of high-pitched, angry beeps.

"Fine," C-f0 3PO gave in, and turned to Leia. "He says that he's picked up traces of an airspeeder, heading away from the crash site."

"Traces?" Leia looked around, seeing no telltale signs of any other vehicle.

"What kind of traces?"

"Oh, patterns in the sand, trace amounts of baridium, any number of things,"

C-f0 3PO said. "We droids are very sensitive to minor changes in the environment. Why, I once found a Zenji needle buried in a thirty meter high stack of—"

"Enough!" Leia snapped. "Can he track the airspeeder?"

R2-f0 D2 beeped, then rolled a few meters toward the west. He paused, as if waiting for Leia to follow him.

"He says if we follow him, we'll find Master Luke," C-f0 3PO said.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Leia asked Luke's friends, as she hopped into the rusted landspeeder. "Let's go."

Fixer and the others hadn't moved.

"What is it?" Leia asked impatiently.

"Those are the Jundland Wastes out there," Fixer said finally. "You don't know