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Han saw her stiffen, if ever so slightly. “You said the Yuuzhan Vong are immune to that bioweapon that got loose aboard the shuttle.”

Face tightened with hatred, she nodded.

And Han grinned.

“You just remembered that I found the handler dead in the cockpit—a Yuuzhan Vong handler. You loosed that bioweapon from the safety of the cargo hold. When the toxin had dispersed enough, you came out and tipped over the handler’s carry case, knowing it would draw my attention. You were never drugged. That was all part of the act.”

Han’s smile straightened and he cocked his head toward the Falcon’s starboard ring corridor. “Droma! Take us about. Steer a course for the Yuuzhan Vong ship!”

Though muted by distance, Droma’s “What?” teemed with disbelief.

“You heard me. Unless I’m seriously mistaken, they won’t fire on us.” Drawing his blaster, he ordered Elan and Vergere to rise from the couch. “I’m not taking any chances with you two.”

“You’re making a big mistake,” Elan said.

“It wouldn’t be the first time, sister. Stand up and get moving.”

He gestured them into the portside ring corridor and marched them aft to the Falcon’s noisy rear compartment. Scrunched between the deck and the exhaust conduits of the bellowing power core, and to either side of an access shaft that had once contained a freight elevator, were the ship’s escape pods.

Roomy, state-of-the-art spheroids in keeping with the Falcon’s status as a family vehicle, the pods were launched through ventral hatches by explosive separator charges, and featured such amenities as padded g-couches; a sophisticated sensor, communications, and flight-control suite; an automatically activated distress beacon; maneuvering jets; soft-landing coils; and enough rations and survival gear to keep two or three people equipped for a good while.

Han considered confining the bogus defectors in one of the pods, but quickly changed his mind. For all he knew, they had some way of poisoning the Falcon the way they had Reck’s shuttle.

He approached one of the portside pods and slammed his hand on the hatch release stud. When the broad, circular hatch had irised open, Han motioned to it. “You’re going back where you belong, ladies, marked ‘returned to sender.’ ”

He waved the blaster, and Elan climbed nimbly into the pod. Vergere was about to follow when Elan suddenly brushed her aside, grabbed hold of Han, and tugged him headfirst into the sphere. Slamming him into the curved hull, she backed toward the still-open hatch, her mouth an intentional rictus of retaliation.

Han shook his head in an attempt to uncross his eyes. He raised the blaster and squeezed the trigger, only to realize that it was depleted. Staring at the useless thing, he felt his jaw drop.

“Careless,” Elan said as she continued to sidle toward the hatch. “But don’t worry, I’ll gladly put you out of your misery.”

“Huh?” he asked dizzily.

She grinned malevolently. “One breath for you, one left for the Jedi. Breathe deeply, Han.”

Crouched to spring through the hatch, she forced an interminable exhale. Then, whirling about, she leapt for the hatch. But the Falcon, dodging fire, slewed acutely to starboard and the hatch irised shut. Dumped onto his back, Han again got the wind knocked out of him. At the same time, Elan hit the closing hatch and rebounded.

Bug-eyed with fear, she scrambled to her feet and tried desperately to force the hatch open. She balled her hands and pounded on the porthole with all her might. Expertly, she side-kicked it, then threw her weight against the hatch repeatedly, but it refused to budge.

Dumbfounded and still unable to catch his breath, Han heard a voice say, Poisoned air—though he couldn’t be sure just whose voice he was hearing, or indeed if it was actually a voice or a thought that had come to him in response to what he’d observed on the shuttle.

As if on its own, his hand seized the survival tool clipped to his belt. Fumbling frantically with the compressed oxygen feature, he finally managed to shove the twin-tanked device to his lips and bite down on the spatulate