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“A fight won’t change anything,” Droma advised, all but hanging from Han’s biceps.

“Except my mood,” Han growled.

“But not our appetites.”

Han lowered his arm and snatched a menu from a passing waiter. Scanning it, he jabbed his finger at a chef’s specialty and thrust the menu into the maître d’s long-fingered hands.

“Two of these—to go.”

The Klaatooinian looked down his nose at Han, then hurried off, returning shortly with the requested items.

Han and Droma took the packaged meals to tattered deck chairs in the observation bay and ate without conversation as the Queen maneuvered out of Ord Mantell space, accruing velocity for the jump to lightspeed. Starlight shone on the badly damaged outer ring of the Jubilee Wheel. Han was determined to keep thoughts of Roa and Fasgo from his mind—at least until Bilbringi.

Sated, he leaned back in the chair and locked his hands behind his head. “Where are the Ryn from?” he asked while Droma was licking his fingers clean. “Originally, I mean.”

Droma smoothed the ends of his white mustache. “A world in the Core, but even we Ryn don’t know which one.”

“Were you forced to leave?”

“There are two schools of thought. The first has us descended from a tribe of ten thousand musicians donated to a nearby world that was bereft of artists. The second has us descended from warriors deployed against an Inner Rim threat. Our language contains many military terms, such as our word for non-Ryn, which has linguistic ties to the word civilian.”

“How’d so many of you wind up in the Corporate Sector?”

“We were essentially chased there by circumstance. After leaving the Core, the Ryn learned farming, metal-working, and other skills, but suspicion followed us everywhere. With forged documents of safe passage, we were allowed to settle on remote worlds in Corporate Sector space. It helped that our healing techniques, borrowed from many disparate groups, saved the life of an important Authority executive.

“Still, our nomadic ways, our fondness for secrecy, our lack of written records—all for the sake of self-preservation—persuaded others to believe us black mages or stealthy thieves. We were said to feast on living flesh, and in some sectors laws were enacted that made it legal to hunt, brand, or kill us. We were blamed for the crimes of others. Our native language was outlawed, and many of us were sold into slavery or made breeders for slave children.”

Soberly, Han recalled the Ryn on the Wheel who had approached the Happy Dagger, and the pair that had approached him personally in the Bet’s Off, regarding onward passage to the Core.

“How did you end up on the Jubilee Wheel?” he asked.

“I was among a caravan of Ryn ships that had left the Corporate Sector for the Lesser Plooriod Cluster when the Yuuzhan Vong pushed into the Ottega system and destroyed Ithor.”

“You’re a professional pilot?”

“A fair one,” Droma said, “as well as a scout and allaround spacer.”

“So what happened after Ithor?”

“Our ships were scattered, as were our families. I’ve been searching for my clanmates ever since, including a sister and several cousins.”

“Tough,” Han said.

Droma nodded. “But what about you, Roaky? You handle a ship as masterfully as a starfighter pilot—or a successful smuggler. What brings you out here?”

Han took a moment to collect his thoughts. “I’m more a mechanic than I am a pilot. Taking time off from normal life to figure some things out.”

“So you, also, are trying to return to your family?” Droma said.

Han looked at him. “Maybe I am.”

From the restaurant came the strains of “Smoky Dreams,” a song that had been perfectly matched to Bria Tharen’s whiskey contralto, and one she would often sing.

“The song reminds you of something,” Droma said, observing Han cannily.

Han smiled without showing his teeth. “Good old days.”

“How old?”

“Old enough to be good,” Han told him.

TWENTY

His back to the room, Luke was standing at the wraparound transparisteel window when Kyp Durron, Wurth Skidder, Cilghal, and the other Jedi he had asked to come to Coruscant filed in.