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“Then let them meet with me or Streen or Kam Solusar,” Jacen said. “Any one of us would be willing to risk our lives to help Mara.”

Cilghal looked at Jacen and Luke, her broad slash of mouth slightly ajar. “Your nephew is correct, Master. If there is some risk, you and Mara are the last ones who should assume it.”

Luke glanced around the room. “What are you suggesting, that all of us meet with them?”

“You can count me in,” Kyp said. “I’d like nothing better than a few moments alone with a Yuuzhan Vong.”

“Kyp speaks for me, as well,” Wurth said.

Lowbacca brayed forcefully. Em Teedee, the miniaturized translator droid hovering near Lowie’s shoulder on his own repulsorlift jets, supplied, “We’re all for one. Together, we are stronger than the sum of our individual powers.” Built by Chewbacca and programmed by C-3PO, Em Teedee spoke in the voice of the protocol droid, but absent his sometimes prissy inflection.

“I stand with Lowbacca,” Streen said. “Whatever insights are to be gained about the Yuuzhan Vong will be shared by all of us.”

“I, too,” Tenel Ka added.

Luke clasped his hands behind his back and paced to the windows. The camaraderie heartened him. He thought back to the early years of the academy, and how his students had rallied to defeat the spirit of a dark Jedi who had sought to possess Yavin 4. Some of those in the room now had been there—Cilghal, Streen, even the kids. And some who had joined the fight were dead, as were Cray Mingla, Nichos Marr, Miko Reglia, Daeshara’cor …

Luke exhaled slowly, turned, and nodded. “I’ll inform New Republic Intelligence of our decision. We’ll meet with the defectors as soon as they arrive on Coruscant.”

“One for the human,” the dealer said, pressing a sabacc chip-card from the shoe.

An Ithorian card-bearer fitted with a paddle appendage where an arm should have been slid his wafer-thin device beneath the microcircuitry-embedded card and deposited it faceup in front of Han.

“Six of sabers,” the dealer announced to the table.

Han calculated the total of the three cards he held and made a subtle waving motion with the forefinger and middle finger of his right hand, signaling the dealer that he would stand.

The dealer, a Bith whose opposable thumb and little fingers made for adroit card handling, looked to the Sullustan seated to Han’s left for instructions. The heavyjowled, jut-eared being rapped his fist once on the long table’s nonskid surface and failed to repress a grin when a card flipped by the bearer’s paddle turned out to be the face card Endurance.

The Bothan in the next seat folded, as did the diminutive Chadra-Fan alongside him. That left Han playing against the Sullustan, and to Han’s right, an Ithorian and a Rodian—both of whom were unscrupulous vendors—the latter holding tightly to the two cards originally dealt to him, and with none on the table.

Han leaned back to show Droma his concealed cards: the Ace of coins, worth fifteen, and the one of staves—recently altered by the sabacc randomizer from the Queen of Air and Darkness. With the six of sabers showing, the hand had a total value of twenty-two, a mere point away from a pure sabacc. He felt certain that the Sullustan wasn’t holding more than twenty, despite the Endurance face card. The Ithorian’s two table cards alone valued twelve, and from the way the alien had bet, Han doubted he held more than eighteen or nineteen. As for the Rodian, his two cards certainly totaled more than twenty but probably not more than twenty-two. A pure sabacc dealt to him earlier in the game had all but propelled him from his chair, and while he had greeted the present hand with excitement, there was nothing in his glassy, bulging eyes to suggest another instant win.

No one had fixed the value of any chip-cards by placing them in the interference field at the table’s center.

Additional cards were refused all around, and final bets were placed. Unless the randomizer struck again, Han knew he had the pot.

The Sullustan called, and everyone showed their hands.

Han’s instincts