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But—

He knelt beside the woman, holding her hand, until her thrashing stopped.

In all his years as a bounty hunter he had never killed the wrong target before, and there was a tightness in his throat he hadn’t felt since the day of his exile from Concord Dawn. He felt an absurd desire to apologize to the woman, which was ridiculous, she was as guilty of sin as any human being had ever been in the history of time, Fett had known her in her earlier days and there was nothing worthwhile in her or in her life, and certainly the galaxy would not miss her presence—

But he had not meant to kill her.

She shuddered slightly and her hand, holding his, went limp.

The macrobinoculars buried in his helmet didn’t help much, not in this darkness; they showed the still-warm forms of four bodyguards, and the bulk of this dead old woman; they showed the heat still emanating from the lamp fixtures that were now without power.

Toward the back of the warehouse, a heat source moved.

Fett came to his feet, rifle in hand, and went Hunting.

Mandalorian combat armor.

I didn’t come prepared for this, Han thought. He had an assault rifle, taken from the bodyguard he’d kicked in the groin, but that wasn’t going to help so much, unless he got in close to Fett, and that was going to be hard, with the macrobinoculars in Fett’s helmet.

He had to get out of this darkened warehouse, out into the night, where there were places to run, and places to hide, and try to reach the speeder he’d come here in.

Han couldn’t believe this was happening to him.

He gathered his legs up beneath him, checked the safety on the assault rifle—he heard movement, out toward the front of the warehouse. Careful and quick—he kept his head down and ran in a crouch toward the warehouse’s rear entrance.

Lando would be jealous, if Han made it back to tell him about it, and Lando made it back to be told.

Leia was going to be furious.

Fett ducked down behind one of the growing tanks, unlimbered his flare gun and fired a shot toward the warehouse’s roof.

Actinic orange light flared; it would give Solo some light to work with. The interior of the warehouse became bright as day, and huge wavering shadows struck away from the warehouse’s supporting beams, as the flare hit the ceiling, crawled along it for several seconds, and started to descend.

Something rattled, off at the eastern end of the warehouse; Fett held his position, held his fire. Solo had thrown something—the sound came again. Patience, patience—

A single shot, the sound of broken glass, that was Solo making an exit for himself through one of the windows, before the flare faded, while he could still see to run, and Fett surged to his feet to shoot Solo down as he made for the broken window.

He had time to see Han Solo, standing fifty meters away, pointing one of the bodyguards’ assault rifles at him. The shot took Fett in his breastplate and blew him off his feet.

Han Solo turned and ran, hit the shattered window and dove through it like a young man in his prime.

Boba Fett rolled over, staggered back to his feet only a second later, the breastplate of his combat armor so hot it burned everywhere it touched him, and in a murderous rage charged after Solo, as unaware of the pain that throbbed in his legs and chest as if it belonged to someone else.

Han ran toward his speeder under the dim light from the planet’s only moon. He was slightly disoriented; he couldn’t remember whether the downlot where he’d left the speeder was south and west, or south and east; he ran south down one of the long alleyways between the warehouses, breath coming short, and came up to the last building, the last cover before the downlot, and hesitated before rounding the corner, the downlot was either immediately to his left or immediately to his right. He tried to envision the layout of the warehouse park in his mind—he thought he’d come the quick way around, but maybe not, and if he hadn’t, then Fett might have reached the downlot before him.

A scraping sound, metal