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“Cosmetic tinting,” Leia explained. Even if her heart was not in it, she knew what Han needed from her. “To make her harder to identify.”

Sal-Solo looked doubtful. “What are you trying to pull, cousin? This woman can’t be your daughter.”

“I could confirm her identity with a simple genetic test,” Dr. Nimbi suggested. “We could have the results in, oh, two days.”

Sal-Solo glowered at the doctor, then turned to the nurse. “Check the admission data. Who’s the responsible party?”

Han had not changed so much in his time away that Leia could no longer see through his sabacc face. He awaited the nurse’s response with a feigned air of disinterest, but his eyes were fixed behind her, where a reflection on the surface of tank two showed the data scrolling up the display. When the screen finally stopped rolling, its reflection showed several blank data fields. Han’s gaze shifted quickly back to the nurse.

“She was admitted anonymously.” He stated it as though he knew it for a fact. “No name, no contact information.”

The nurse’s jaw fell, but she nodded. “Not even notes about the receiving circumstances.”

Han turned to Sal-Solo with a smirk. “That’s all the proof you need, Governor-General.” He pressed a finger to the bacta tank, and the green eyes of the woman inside fluttered open. “She leaves with us—or I inform every media station in the system that you’re holding our daughter against our will.”

Sal-Solo glared at him. “I could prove that you’re lying.”

“True,” Han said. “But could you prove it to the Yuuzhan Vong?”

Sal-Solo’s face grew even stormier, and he turned to the doctor. “Can she be moved—now?”

“We can lend them a temporary bacta tank,” Dr. Nimbi said. “As long as they change the fluid each time they stop for Leia, this patient should be fine as well.”

Sal-Solo studied the tank, no doubt trying as feverishly as Leia to puzzle out what the woman inside had to do with the Solos—and of what interest she might be to whoever had sent Roxi Barl. Finally, a full minute after Leia had given up on the riddle, he made a sour face and turned to Dr. Nimbi.

“I think I do see a certain family resemblance,” Sal-Solo said. “But you’ll sell the tank to them, not lend. I don’t want anyone coming to return it.”

THE OLD REPUBLIC

(5,000–33 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE)

Long—long—ago in a galaxy far, far away … some twenty-five thousand years before Luke Skywalker destroyed the first Death Star at the Battle of Yavin in Star Wars: A New Hope … a large number of star systems and species in the center of the galaxy came together to form the Galactic Republic, governed by a Chancellor and a Senate from the capital city-world of Coruscant. As the Republic expanded via the hyperspace lanes, it absorbed new member worlds from newly discovered star systems; it also expanded its military to deal with the hostile civilizations, slavers, pirates, and gangster-species such as the slug-like Hutts that were encountered in the outward exploration. But the most vital defenders of the Republic were the Jedi Knights. Originally a reclusive order dedicated to studying the mysteries of the life energy known as the Force, the Jedi became the Republic’s guardians, charged by the Senate with keeping the peace—with wise words if possible; with lightsabers if not.

But the Jedi weren’t the only Force-users in the galaxy. An ancient civil war had pitted those Jedi who used the Force selflessly against those who allowed themselves to be ruled by their ambitions—which the Jedi warned led to the dark side of the Force. Defeated in that long-ago war, the dark siders fled beyond the galactic frontier, where they built a civilization of their own: the Sith Empire.

The first great conflict between the Republic and the Sith Empire occurred when two hyperspace explorers stumbled on the Sith worlds, giving the Sith Lord Naga Sadow and his dark side warriors a direct invasion route into the Republic’s central worlds. This war resulted in the first destruction of the Sith Empire—but it was hardly the last. For the next four