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[Better that than for him to return over your shoulder, cousin.]

Freyrr showed a mouthful of teeth. [Do you question my rrakktorr?]

[No, cousin. I question his.] Chewbacca called across the Well to Lumpawarrump in a stentorian growl that startled a gathering of scur and rousted a fat-bodied charkarr to flight. Farther away, Chewbacca saw the shiver of leaves that marked a katarn turning away from a hunt.

When Lumpawarrump was slow to appear, Chewbacca repeated the call. [Come to me, first-child. You will sleep this night in the home tree. My honor brother is in peril, and I must go to him.]

Chapter 2

Wincing, Han opened a puffy, purple eye crusted with blood and forced the room to come into focus.

“Barth,” he said.

The flight engineer was sitting with his back against the opposite wall, curled up in a ball with his knees drawn up toward his chest and his arms wrapped around them. His face was downturned, his chin against his collarbone, as though he were sleeping—or hiding.

“Barth,” Han said again, more distinctly.

This time his cellmate stirred, raising his head and turning his face toward Han. “Commodore,” he said in a surprised tone, and scrambled across the rough floor to Han’s side. “I don’t know how long it’s been since they brought you in—hours, at least.”

“What’s been happening?”

“Nothing, sir. You’ve been out the whole time. I wasn’t sure you were ever going to wake up. Sir, don’t take this wrong, but I hope you don’t feel as bad as you look.”

Han let the flight engineer help him up to a sitting position. “This isn’t so bad. I’ve been beat up by experts. The Yevetha are strictly amateurs.” Han straightened a leg, grimaced, and leaned back against the wall. “On the other hand, they’re amateurs with stamina.”

“What do they want with us?”

“They didn’t say,” Han said. He worked his jaw from side to side experimentally, then sniffed and wrinkled his nose. “Tell me the truth, Barth—is that smell me?”

A faintly embarrassed look crossed Barth’s face. “It’s all of us, I’m afraid. There’s no refresher, or anything resembling one, and no water. I, uh, just picked a corner. But at least it helps mask the smell coming off the captain. And there’s something growing on him now—it’s covered most of his skin. I can’t stand to look at him.”

“Don’t, then,” Han said, looking past the lieutenant at the corpse of Captain Sreas. His face and hands were shadowed by a fine gray down. “Fungal spores, probably. It’s a dry world—you can tell from the air, and the Yevetha’s skin. A human corpse probably looks like a water hole to the stuff that lives in a place like this.”

“I don’t want to think about it,” Barth said.

“Don’t, then,” said Han. As he straightened his other leg, pain made him squeeze his eyes shut and grunt. “On the whole, I think I’d rather be beaten up by an expert. Has anyone looked in on us?”

“Not since they brought you in.” Barth hesitated, then added, “Commodore, what do you give for our chances?”

“More than I’d give you for our privacy right now,” Han said.

Barth twisted his head around, scanning the nearly featureless walls of their prison. The cell had a slitted air vent in the center of the ceiling, a slitted drain in the center of the floor, harsh lights flush in the ceiling corners, and a half-height door armored in riveted plate. “Do you think they’re watching us—listening?”

“I would be. Doko prek anuda ten?” he asked, hoping Barth knew smuggler cant.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

Han switched to Illodian sibilant. “Stacch isch stralsi?”

“Sorry, Commodore. I can get by in Bothan, handle a bit of Corporate Sector Contract Standard, and rattle off all nine water curses in Calamari, if that will help. But that’s the limit of my linguistic talents.” He ducked his head apologetically. “The Fleet Academy dropped its three-language requirement the year I entered.”

“Never mind,” Han said. “I doubt any of those would stump the Yevetha for long. Let’s just assume we have an audience and they’re getting most of the jokes. Have they given you any food?”

“No, nothing.”