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They were well up into the heights when the blue-white sun set. The few lights of the city came on, far below and behind them. Outcroppings of rock had begun to appear, rising from the blue moss. They camped at one of these ledges, under an overhang that would afford some protection from wind. There was no fuel for a fire.

As they settled in, Han established priorities. “I’m going to check the area with the scope. Chewie will take first watch, after he eats. Badure, you take second and I’ll take third. Skynx can have the wake-up duty. Is that all right with everybody?”

Badure didn’t mention Han’s assumption of leadership, being content with the arrangement. “What about me?” Hasti asked evenly.

“You can have first watch tomorrow, so don’t feel left out. Would it be straining our bonds of affection to ask to borrow your wrist chrono?”

Teeth clenched, she threw it at him, then he and Chewbacca set off. “You’re welcome!” she called after him. “Who does he think he is, anyway?” she said to the others.

Badure answered mildly. “Slick? He’s used to taking charge; he wasn’t always a smuggler and a freighter bum. Didn’t you notice the red piping on the seams of his shipboard trousers? They don’t give away the Corellian Blood-stripe for perfect attendance.”

She considered that for a moment. “Well, how did he get it? And why do you call him Slick?”

“You’ll have to get that first part from him, but the nickname business goes back to the first time I met him, way back.”

In spite of herself, she was curious. Skynx was also listening with interest, as were Bollux and Blue Max. The two automata decided to hear Badure out before shutting down for the night; their photoreceptors glowed in the dusk.

It was becoming colder fast, and the humans pulled their cloaks tighter, Badure closing his flight jacket. Skynx curled his woolly form to conserve body heat.

“I’d been a line officer, had a few decorations myself,” Badure began, “but there was the matter of a floating Jubilee Wheel I was running onboard the flagship. Anyway, they reassigned me to the staff at an academy.

“The commandant was a desk pilot, off his gyros. His bright idea was to take a training ship, an old U-33 orbital loadlifter, and rig her so the flight instructor could cause malfunctions: realistic stress situations.

“ ‘Enough can go wrong without building more into a ship,’ I said, but the commandant had pull. His program was approved. I was flight instructor, and the commandant came along on the first training mission. He gave the briefing himself, playing up the wise old veteran act.

“In the middle of it a cadet interrupted. ‘Excuse me, sir, but the U-33’s primary thrust sequence is four-stage, not three.’ The kid was gangly, all elbows and ears, and had this big chow-eating grin.

“The commandant was cold as permafrost. ‘Since Cadet Solo is such a slick student, he will be first in the hotseat.’ We all boarded and took off. Han handled everything the C.O. threw at him, and that grin grew bigger and bigger. He really had put in a lot of time on that kind of ship.

“That crate had checked out one hundred percent, but something went wrong and something blew; a second later we had all we could do to keep her in the air. I couldn’t get the landing gear to extend, so I raised ground control and asked for emergency tractor retrieval.

“And the tractors failed, primaries and secondaries both, on the approach run. I just managed to get us up again. The commandant was white around the eyes by then; the crash wagons and firefighting machinery were deploying onto the field.

“Which was when Cadet Solo announced, ‘The reservoir-locking valve on the landing gear’s stuck shut, sir; these U-33’s do it all the time.’

“And I said, ‘Well, do you feel like crawling down into the gear bay and taking a wrench to it right this second?’

“ ‘No need,’ the kid says, ‘We can joggle it with a couple of maneuvers.’

“The commandant’s teeth were rattling. ‘You can’t take a bulk vessel through aerobatics!’ Then I said, ‘You