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Mon Mothma interrupted, somehow finding the energy to speak a harsh sentence. “I will not allow this young man to be portrayed … as a war hero.” She paused for a deep breath and raised her clenched hand to signal that she had not yet finished. “His personal crusade must stop. General Solo, can you halt Kyp Durron?”

“I’ve got to find him first! Give me the reconnaissance information your scouts gathered from the Cauldron Nebula and Carida. Maybe I can track him down. If I could just talk to him face-to-face, I’m sure I could make the kid see reason.”

“General Solo, you will have access to everything you desire,” Mon Mothma said, spreading her palms on the synthetic stone surface in front of her, as if to support herself. “Do you require … a military escort?”

“No,” he said, “that might scare him off. I’ll take the Falcon and go myself. If I’m lucky, maybe I can bring the Sun Crusher back, too.” Han gazed slowly around the Council chamber. “And this time let’s make sure we destroy it completely.”

Packing the Falcon, Han had almost finished his last-minute emergency preparations when he heard a voice behind him. “Han, old buddy! Need some help?”

He glanced over his shoulder to see Lando Calrissian striding toward him across the hangar bay, ducking under the flat aerofoil of an X-wing starfighter.

“Just leaving, Lando,” he said. “Don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”

“I heard,” Lando said. “Hey, why not let me come along? You’ll need a copilot, with Chewbacca gone on the Maw mission.”

Han hesitated. “I’m doing this by myself. I can’t ask anyone else to go with me.”

“Han, you’re crazy to fly the Falcon alone. You don’t know what sort of hostile situations you’re going to get into. Who’ll be at the controls if you need to go up into the gun well?” Lando flashed his most winning smile. “You’ve got to admit, I’m the obvious choice.”

Han sighed. “Chewbacca would be my first choice—I miss that fuzzball, you know? At least he doesn’t try to gamble the Falcon away from me.”

“Awww, we don’t do that anymore, Han,” Lando said. “We promised, remember?”

“How could I forget?” Han groaned. Lando had beaten him in their last round of sabacc, claiming ownership of the Falcon—and then he had given the ship back to Han, just to impress Mara Jade. “But what’s your take on this, you old pirate?” Han said, raising his eyebrows. “Why do you want to come along so bad?”

Lando shuffled his feet on the polished floor of the landing bay. At the other end of the chamber a sublight engine started up, blatted, then coughed as a team of mechanics scrambled over the fuselage of a dismantled A-wing.

“To be honest … I need to get to Kessel within a week.”

“But I’m not going anywhere near Kessel,” Han said.

“You don’t know where you’re going yet. You’re looking for Kyp.”

“Point taken. What’s at Kessel?” Han asked. “I didn’t think you’d want to go back there soon, after what happened last time. I sure don’t.”

“Mara Jade’s going to meet me there in a week. We’re partners in a new spice-mining operation.” He beamed, tossing his burgundy cape over his shoulder.

Han tried to cover his skeptical smile. “And does Mara herself know about this partnership, or are you just talking big?”

Lando looked hurt. “Of course she knows … sort of. Besides, if you get me to Kessel, maybe I can find the Lady Luck again, and I can stop hitching rides with people. This is getting old.”

“That’s for sure,” Han said. “All right, if we go near Kessel, I’ll take you there—but my priority is tracking Kyp.”

“Of course, Han. That’s understood,” Lando said, then mumbled under his breath, “just as long as I get to Kessel within a week.”

7

As a disembodied spirit, Luke Skywalker could only watch as his Jedi trainees and his sister Leia filed into the grand audience chamber. Artoo-Detoo trundled ahead, like an escort, silently coasting to a stop before the platform on which he lay.

The other Jedi trainees stood in a row in front of the motionless form. They stared respectfully at his motionless body as if they were attendees