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Han suppressed a grin. "Or what?"

"Or…or…" He obviously couldn't come up with anything.

It was equally obvious he wasn't about to leave his friend behind. Han couldn't help but admire him, thief or not.

He glared at the kid straining against his grip. "If I let you go, you promise not to disappear on me?"

"He doesn't promise anything," the mouthy one said. "You want to turn us in, go ahead. We're not going to help you."

"Why would I want to turn you in?"

"Why wouldn't you? We tried to steal from you."

The kid may have been bold, but he wasn't very bright, not if he was standing here in public admitting to his crimes. Han could have taught him a few things.

If he was in the business of babysitting bothersome little punks, of course.

"For one thing, you may be thieves, but you're not very good thieves," Han said. He smirked. "And for an old man, I know a thing or two about needing to steal."

The kid jerked his head at the one Han was holding onto. The boy immediately stopped squirming. Han let go.

"What do you want?" the boldest one said. "We don't have all day."

Acting like he's in charge, Han thought with a grin. Kid doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut.

"I can get you inside," Han offered. "If you want."

The kids shook their heads.

"But you're here," Han said. "You don't want to see the show?"

"Only here because we got nowhere else to be," the lead kid said. He was a bad liar, but Han let it pass.

"Hungry?" he asked. They shook their heads—but when he offered them the bag of Corellian potato sticks he'd been snacking on, they took it.

"So you're from Alderaan?" he asked.

"From nowhere," the kid said. "Not anymore."

"Come on, Mazi, not today," one of the other boys said.

" Every day, Jez," The one called Mazi scowled and shoved his hands into his pockets.

"You ask me, we're better off forgetting the whole thing ever happened. We are from nowhere. Now."

"I can't forget," the third, youngest boy said softly. He kept his eyes on the entrance to the building, as if secretly wishing he could go inside. "I don't want to."

Now that they'd dropped the tough act, Han realized they were younger than he'd thought. The oldest couldn't be more than fifteen, if that. Some might think that was too young to be on your own. Han knew better.

"Go on," Mazi said. "Ask. You know you want to."

Han shrugged. "Maybe I'm like you, kid. I don't want anything."

"He means you can ask us how we ended up here," the smallest one said. "We don't care."

Han did want to know. But not as much, he suspected, as they wanted to tell him.

"You got me," he said. "Shoot."

"It was my idea," Mazi said. "Jez and Lan didn't think our parents would agree, but I talked 'em into it."

"Mazi can talk anyone into anything," Lan said, looking at the older boy with something close to worship.

Mazi shrugged, but a smile pulled at the corners of his lips. "Dad was easy. Like always. But Mom…"

"She thought we were too young to go by ourselves," Jez said. "She worries a lot."

"Worried," Mazi said sharply.

Jez flinched. "Yeah."

"There was a smashball tournament on Delaya," Mazi said in a dead voice. "We got permission to go to the game, stay overnight on our own, then go back to Alderaan in the morning."

Han winced. "But that was the day…"

"Yeah," Mazi snapped. "That was the day. So here we are. On our own." He glared at Han. "Don't think you have to pity us or something. We're fine. We know how to get by.

We do what we need to do."

"Yeah," Han said. "I can see that."

"So aren't you going to tell us how everything's going to be okay, blah blah whatever?"

Han pressed his lips together. He leaned back against the wall, tipping his head up to the sky. He'd heard Alderaan had once been close enough that you could see it with the naked eye. Not in the daytime, of course. Under the bright sun it was easy to imagine that Alderaan was still up there somewhere. But Han didn't believe in lying to himself.

He knew what these kids were in for. He'd been there.

"Kid, if you're lucky, you'll live through it. Nothing