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By the time the attached data had been downloaded, Dryanta had replaced Lumpawarrump in the lower gun turret, and the youth joined his father in the cockpit.

[What are you looking at?] he asked eagerly.

[A friend sent something interesting,] Chewbacca said.

[Can I see?]

Chewbacca waved a hand toward the data display and shifted to his left so that Lumpawarrump could lean in between him and Shoran.

What he saw was a Fleet Intelligence assault plan for a Super Star Destroyer—a complete three-dimensional technical drawing of the ship with the location of the cell blocks marked, the best breaching sites highlighted, and the shortest paths between them drawn in.

[We’re sure to find him now, aren’t we?] Lumpawarrump asked excitedly. [How does Formayj do it? Where does he get his information?]

[Exactly my question,] said Shoran. [Chewbacca, this gift worries me. Would you trust Formayj to guard your back?]

[That question does not trouble me,] said Chewbacca. [Formayj can make more money cheating his customers than killing them. Lumpawarrump, call the others down from the turrets—I am ready to make the jump. I want everyone to study this on the way in. Shoran, launch the first string of mines.]

[Yes, Father,] said the youth, hastening away.

[Yes, cousin,] said Shoran, leaning forward to the controls.

Chewbacca did not point out to either of them that, unlike the material Formayj had delivered to him at Esau’s Ridge, the assault plan could not have come from any data mine or broker’s archive—the timestamp on the document was less than forty hours old.

I wonder who this map was drawn for, Chewbacca thought as he set up the jump. And I wonder what happened to them.

[Mines are away.]

Chewbacca threw the throttles forward, opening up a gap between Falcon and the rocketing mines. When the gap had reached five hundred kilometers, he moved his large, furred hand to the hyperdrive controls.

[Set off the string,] he ordered.

Shoran sent the triggering signal, and as the first of the mines exploded spectacularly behind them, Chewbacca pushed the ship forward into hyperspace, racing the light of the explosion to N’zoth.

By necessity, the plan was simplicity itself: Hit fast and hit hard.

When the Millennium Falcon burst out of hyperspace eleven hundred meters off the starboard bow of Pride of Yevetha, the intense burst of light and radiation from the first of the firecracker mines had just flooded the sensors of the Yevethan defense grid, momentarily blinding the operators and scrambling the analyzers. The mines continued to explode at ten-second intervals, effectively masking the Cronau radiation from both ends of the Falcon’s microjump.

Meanwhile, Chewbacca whipped the transport into a smart half turn, standing it on its tail with the engines at maximum thrust. That maneuver quickly killed off the ship’s velocity, at g-loads that tested the limits of even Wookiee physiology. For the gun crews aboard the Yevethan flagship, it was like looking up into the subatomic fury of a fusion reactor. For seconds afterward, the best-positioned batteries could not see to find their target.

Those were precious seconds to the Falcon. As quickly as the ship slowed, Chewbacca diverted engine power to the combat shields, reserving only enough to wheel the ship over on its back and match orbital velocities with the great Star Destroyer. By the time the first blaster bolts lanced out from the side of Pride of Yevetha and from the two trifoil fighters closing in, the Falcon was inside the shield radius, and Chewbacca had spotted his landing site.

Following their instructions, the moment the Falcon came under fire, Jowdrrl and Dryanta began a savage counterattack with the ship’s quad turrets. Chewbacca roared with delight as a Yevethan fighter disappeared in a fireball, and growled at Shoran to launch the remaining mines. When the mines were away, he sent the Falcon diving edgewise toward the many-faceted hull of the Star Destroyer.

[Go stand by the cutter,] Chewbacca ordered Shoran as he guided the Falcon