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[Come on!] Shoran said, pulling Chewbacca away.

* * *

An eerie silence continued to surround the Falcon.

From the gun turrets, Lumpawarrump and Dryanta could count dozens of fighters cruising over the hull of the Star Destroyer—obviously searching for the intruder, and inexplicably unable to locate it. One fighter had passed within seventy meters of the ship, so close that Dryanta could see the pilot’s face, so close that it was all Lumpawarrump could do to keep his hands off the triggers of the Dennia quad.

Even stranger were the comlink reports from Jowdrrl at her station guarding the hatch.

[Someone talk to me,] she said.

[We’re here,] Dryanta assured her.

[I just had visitors,] she said. [Nine of them, almost as big as Shoran and armed like stormtroopers.]

[Help’s coming,] said Lumpawarrump.

[No, stay where you are—they’re gone now. But I don’t know why,] Jowdrrl said. [They looked over the bodies in the corridor, stood around jabbering for a minute or two, then walked right past the cut-hatch on their way out.]

[That doesn’t make any sense,] Lumpawarrump protested.

[I know. I was ready for them to rush me, but they never even glanced in my direction—as if they couldn’t see that there was a hole in the bulkhead big enough to crawl through.]

[Just like our fighters up here,] said Dryanta, both wonder and worry evident in his voice. [Like we’ve become invisible. I don’t understand it.]

Detention block two had been modified as well, though it was empty and deserted. But by the time Chewbacca and Shoran were ready to leave it, their noisy entrance had drawn a small crowd of Yevethan soldiers to the corridor outside.

With no more than a glance between them, the two Wookiees plunged through the destroyed entryway, turning back-to-back the moment they were clear of it. By the luck of the draw, Chewbacca had five targets in front of him, Shoran eight.

Roaring defiance, Chewbacca sprayed the corridor with crisscrossing blaster bolts. The last of his targets was tottering when he heard Shoran grunt, and felt him sag against his back. A whiff of burnt hair and fresh blood reached Chewbacca’s nostrils.

Whirling, Chewbacca caught Shoran up with one hand before he could fall and dispatched the last two Yevetha with a flurry of shots from the blaster in the other hand.

Then he turned his attention to the limp weight cradled in the crook of his arm. And what he saw drove him to howl with fury and scatter a dozen more blaster bolts into the corpses littering the floor.

[Shoran has fallen,] he called over the comlink when the impulse was spent. [Dryanta, come for him.]

Lumpawarrump was the first to the cut-hatch, beating Dryanta by three steps. [I’m going,] he said to Jowdrrl. [I know the map. You don’t need me in the gun turret. And Dryanta shouldn’t go alone.]

Jowdrrl saw the determination in his eyes, the eagerness in his stance, and did not argue. [Go,] she said. [Just remember that the Yevetha can see you perfectly well.]

Glancing down at his hands, the youth clicked his blaster’s lock to ACTIVE and checked the power level. [We’ll remember,] he said. [Dryanta?]

She nudged him from behind. [Take the lead.]

They met Chewbacca halfway to detention block two. Dryanta took Shoran from him without a word and hurried away back toward the Falcon, leaving Lumpawarrump with his father.

The two stood looking into each other’s eyes appraisingly, one searching for strength, the other for approval. Then Chewbacca grunted and turned away.

[Follow,] he said. [Protect my back.]

* * *

Detention block one was being guarded by half a dozen armed Yevetha, which raised Chewbacca’s hopes. But when he and his son had blasted their way through the interference, all they found were more of the grossly distended fleshy sacs hanging in the cells.

[This is taking too long—there are too many places he could be,] Chewbacca fumed. [They will have killed him or moved him by now.]

[Father, when I think about Han,