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So Chewbacca and the others waited, staying close to the Falcon and watching the neighboring ships in the berth line come and go. The arrival of e’Naso’s delivery sled brought a welcome interruption to the waiting, and several hours’ work studying, testing, and stowing the gear took the edge off their impatience. But by the next morning, Lumpawarrump was bouncing off the bulkheads as though the Falcon were a cage.

[How much longer, Father?]

[Long enough for you to take five falls with Jowdrrl in the forward cargo hold.]

[She is busy with the dorsal gun turret again.]

[She is making herself busy—she will make the time if you ask.]

[Could I take some falls with you instead?]

[You already know how to lose—and I must go see other brokers and old friends,] Chewbacca said, ruffling his son’s fur roughly. [Stay here. Study the ship, practice your skills of defense and attack—you will need them soon enough.]

A day of drinking in the slava bar, listening to smugglers’ bragging and tall tales, ground Chewbacca’s own patience thin. When the third fight of the afternoon broke out, he roared to his feet, seized both adversaries, and flung them into opposite corners—for no reason other than that he needed to release the restless tension building up inside.

He returned to Formayj’s brokerage the next morning, but the visit claimed little of his day.

“Difficult,” said Formayj. “Come back two days.”

Two days later, he said the same thing.

On their fifth day in Esau’s Ridge, Chewbacca yielded to Lumpawarrump’s endless pleading looks and took his son into the sanctuary.

The excursion almost ended as quickly as it began, when Lumpawarrump took too close an interest in a parked slaver for the liking of its Trandoshan owner.

“Mind your own business!” the owner shouted from atop the ship. An instant later, a blaster bolt singed the flowing fur on Lumpawarrump’s right shoulder. “Move along!”

Chewbacca seized his son by the scruff and dragged him away toward the tunnels, waving his bowcaster and exchanging threat-growls and insults with the owner as he did so.

[Did you not listen to me? Curiosity is not rewarded on Esau’s Ridge,] he chided Lumpawarrump when they were alone inside. [Watch, but do not be caught looking; listen, but do not be caught overhearing; ask no questions, and question no lies—that is the code honored here.]

Seven days after their arrival, Formayj called Chewbacca to his brokerage. “I show you price first, you decide,” he said.

[You would not cheat me,] Chewbacca said. [Show me what you have.]

The price was almost unspeakably high, but the value was there. A smuggler’s annotated copy of a Yevethan navigational map—six years old, but priceless even so. An even older Imperial autopsy report on three Yevethan corpses. A recording of Nil Spaar’s address to the Senate. A still of a spherical starship with the entryways and gun emplacements overmarked. And the capper: the data and holo files of a New Republic recon pass over Wakiza, complete with an NRI seal.

“So new you can still smell Imperial City on it,” said the broker, pointing. “You like?”

[You are the best, Formayj.]

“Of course. That is why they come here.” Smiling, he took Chewbacca’s payment, then disarmed the erase-bot and other daemons that would otherwise have been unleashed by a trigger in the brokerage door. “Now, the other matter.”

Chewbacca was already rising to leave at that point, and rumbled questioningly.

“You asked all around the Ridge about Han Solo. Did not ask me, as if I did not know he is a prisoner in Koornacht,” said Formayj. “I know where everyone has come from and where everyone is going when they leave. I know why customer wants the information before I sell it to them. At times must even disappoint them because of what I know. You plan a rescue, yes?”

Chewbacca growled his assent.

“You ask where he must be held. Even though you do not come to me, I inquire on my own.” Formayj shook his head. “Discouraging. No one knows. There is no prison. His name is not spoken by any who would know, on Coruscant