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She passed the inoperative weapon to him. He listened closely but heard no sound to indicate that whoever had ransacked her room was still there. He moved cautiously into the suite, listening at each doorway before he went through. He found signs of search everywhere on his wary sweep, but satisfied himself that no one remained in the rooms.

He engaged her door’s security mode at FULL ISOLATION. “Where’s Magg’s room?”

She pointed. “There’s a connecting door behind that hanging; we usually take adjoining quarters. An audit can demand very long hours.”

Sliding Magg’s door open slowly, ear cocked for any warning, he heard none. Magg’s suite was in the same state at Fiolla’s.

“You sent him back here to pack?” Han asked. Fiolla nodded, gazing around the ransacked place in some shock. “Well, somebody forwarded him for you. Grab whatever you can put in your pockets; we’re getting out of here right now.”

“But what about Magg? We have to report this outrage to the Espos.” Her voice trailed away as she returned to her own suite. He began feeding instructions into the programming panel for the servant-drones that took care of domestic chores, then went back to Fiolla’s suite.

“We don’t go to any Espos,” he called to her. “They may be part of it, isn’t that what you told me? Then don’t go cutting the charter short.”

He began inserting orders into the programming panel for her rooms, too. Fiolla returned, her various coverall pockets and pouches bulging and a slim day-tote slung over one shoulder. “I don’t like it, but you’re correct about the Espos,” she admitted. “What are you doing?”

He turned from the panel. “Well, what do you know, a female who can travel light. What I did was issue instructions for your stuff and Magg’s to be put into storage. You can come back for it later”—I hope, he thought to himself. “Are the rooms already paid for? Good, let’s jet.”

He peeked into the corridor before easing out into it. Han felt as tense as a wound spring as they rode down the drop shaft, but they encountered no trouble there or in the foyer. A robo-hack dropped them at one of the spaceport’s side gates, a freighthauler’s entrance near the Falcon that Han’s shipmaster’s credentials allowed him to use.

But when they reached the side of the approach opposite from the apron on which the Falcon was parked, Han suddenly yanked Fiolla back behind the shelter of a small orbital skiff and directed her attention to several loiterers in the area. “Recognize any of them?”

She frowned at them in the hazy sun. “Oh, you mean those goldskins? Aren’t they the other swoop riders from this afternoon? But what are they doing here?”

He made an elaborate face at her. “They came to ask us to join their aerobatics club, what else?”

“What now?” Fiolla wanted to know.

Han took his macrobinoculars from their case at his side. Through them he could see Chewbacca moving around the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, running a pre-flight check of the ship.

“At least Chewie’s onboard,” he told her, lowering the macros. “Spray and Bollux, too, I guess. Our friends are probably waiting for you and me to show up before they spring whatever they’ve got planned.” Shooting their way out wouldn’t work, he knew. Even if he and Fiolla could reach the Falcon under cover of her belly guns, their chances of evading the patrol network and picket ships overhead and making hyperspace would be almost nonexistent.

Fiolla held her lower lip between her teeth, pondering. “There are regular passenger connections between here and Ammuud; we could leave now, while they’re watching your ship, and meet Chewbacca there. But how to let him know?”

Han looked up and down the rows of spacecraft on their side of the approach. “There’s what we need,” he said and, taking her head, led her back through several rows of grounded vessels.

They came to the one Han had spotted, a large cargo lifter connected to a refueler, its outer access panels open. Han crawled up through an access panel