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“Kill the two of them now,” Skynxnex said. “If we work fast, we can cover everything up.”

Han felt sudden fear return. “Now, wait a minute! I’m sure we can fix this with a few careful messages. I am the ambassador, after all! Diplomatic credentials and everything. I wouldn’t want a simple misunderstanding—”

“No!” Skynxnex said, keeping his attention fixed on Doole. “We can’t risk that. You know what Solo has done before. He knows you tipped off the Imperial tariff ships to go after him.”

Actually, Han hadn’t been certain until that very moment. “Now, there’s no need to panic,” he said again. “I can talk to the New Republic Senate. I know Mon Mothma personally, and my wife Leia is a cabinet member, and—” His mind whirled, trying to think of how Leia would handle this. Many times he had watched her smooth diplomatic problems. She had a finesse with words, a way of approaching other people’s concerns and stroking them, delicately maneuvering opposing sides into a compromise. But right now Leia wasn’t with him.

“Yes, I think I agree,” Doole said, tapping a finger against his swollen lips. Han let out a sigh of relief. “I agree with Skynxnex, I’ll review the battle tapes, but I don’t believe you transmitted any messages after coming out of hyperspace. One of our fighters shot off your subspace antenna dish. The New Republic has no way of knowing you arrived safely. With no evidence they will conclude you got swallowed up by the Maw.”

Doole began to pace in front of the large viewing window. “We’ll delete any mention of you from our records. Instruct all my mercenaries to forget about the attack. Yes, that’ll be the safest alternative!”

“You’re making a big mistake!” Han said. He could barely restrain his urge to yank at the stun-cuffs.

“No,” Doole replied, tapping his squishy-tipped fingers together. “I don’t think so.”

Chewbacca bellowed a loud string of guttural words.

“My best bet would be to kill you right away,” Doole answered; then he rubbed his fingers against his blind eye. “But you still owe me for this, Solo. Even if you worked every day for a hundred years, it would never repay me for the loss of my eye. You both are going down into the spice mines, the deepest and most distant tunnels. They’ve been needing quite a few replacements lately.”

Doole grinned with his wide froglike mouth. A final flicker of blue sparks rippled at the corner of his lips.

“No one will ever find you down there.”

5

The former Imperial Information Center lay buried deep beneath the old palace, covered by layers of shielding walls and guarded by tight security at every entrance. To keep the temperatures within tolerable limits for the great data archive machines, vast heat-exchanger systems and powerful cooling units filled the room with a background roar.

Hunched over fourteen consoles were lumpy dull-gray slicer droids, hardwired into the terminals as they meticulously hacked at the security encryption codes and backup viruses set up in the Emperor’s mainframes. The slicer droids had been working for a full year, ferreting out vital tidbits from the labyrinthine databases. Already they had exposed twenty-three Imperial spies in deep cover trying to sabotage the burgeoning New Republic.

The hum of the cooling units and the motionlessness of the slicer droids blanketed the Center with an echoing emptiness. Lonely and fidgety, the protocol droid See-Threepio paced back and forth, his servomotors whirring, as he viewed the room with his optical sensors for the hundredth time.

“Haven’t you found anything yet, Artoo?” he said.

Jacked into one of the information ports, Artoo-Detoo bleeped an impatient negative and continued whirring as he tunneled through the overwhelming amounts of information.

“Don’t forget to double-check everything,” Threepio said, and began pacing again. “And don’t be afraid to follow unlikely leads. Master Luke would call them hunches. This is very important, Artoo.”

Artoo hooted indignantly.

“And remember to check every planet from the Old Republic.