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That was why he hadn’t accepted Waroo’s offer to assume Chewbacca’s life debt. He simply hadn’t wanted to be responsible for the death of another friend.

But now Leia believed that Jacen was alive. This wasn’t a vague hope based on a mother’s desire to see her son again, as Han had earlier suspected, but a sending through the Force, a message aimed at Leia herself.

Han had no direct experience of the Force himself, but he knew he could trust Leia not to misread it. His son was alive.

So maybe Death wasn’t following him so closely after all. Or maybe Han had just outrun him.

Stay alert, he told himself. Stay strong. You may not have to die today.

Cold determination filled him.

Make the Yuuzhan Vong pay instead, he thought.

He made a last scan of the displays. The near-side flight had turned to pursue, dividing into two V formations of three coralskippers each. They hadn’t reacted very quickly to his abrupt change of course, so Han figured he wasn’t dealing with a genius commander here, which was good.

It was impossible to see the far-side flight on the other side of the gravity-distorting mine, but he had a good read on their trajectory, and there hadn’t been any reason for them to change it.

The dovin basal swept closer. The Falcon’s spars moaned as they felt the tug of its gravity.

“Ten seconds,” Han told Leia and Dorja, and reached for the triggers to the concussion missile launchers.

Anticipation drew a metallic streak down his tongue. He felt a prickle of sweat on his scalp.

“Five.” He triggered the first pair of concussion missiles, knowing that, unlike the laser cannon, they did not strike at the speed of light.

“Two.” Han triggered another pair of missiles. The Millennium Falcon’s engines howled as they fought the pull of the dovin basal’s gravity.

“Fire.” The dovin basal swept past, and suddenly the display lit with the six approaching coralskippers. The combined power of the eight lasers fired straight at them.

The six coralskippers had also split into two Vs of three craft each, the formations on slightly diverging courses, but both formations were running into the Falcon and her armament at a combined velocity of better than 90 percent of the speed of light. None of them had shifted their dovin basals to warp space defensively ahead of them, and the pilots had only an instant to perceive the doom staring them in the face, and no time to react. The first formation ran right into the first pair of missiles and the turbolaser fire, and all three erupted in fire as their coral hulls shattered into fragments.

The second formation, diverging, was not so suitably placed. One coralskipper was hit by a missile and pinwheeled off into the darkness, trailing flame. Another ran into a burst of laser fire and exploded. The third raced on, looping around the gravity mine where Han’s detectors could no longer see it.

Exultation sang through Han’s heart. Four kills, one probable. Not a bad start at evening the odds.

The Millennium Falcon shuddered to the gravitic pull of the dovin basal. Han frowned as he checked the sublight engine readouts. He had hoped to whip around the space mine and exit with enough velocity to escape the dovin basal’s gravity and get into hyperspace before the other flight of coralskippers could overtake him. But the dovin basal was more powerful than he’d expected, or possibly the Yuuzhan Vong commander was actually ordering it to increase its gravitational attraction—there was a lot the Republic didn’t know about how the Yuuzhan Vong equipment worked, so that was at least possible.

In any case, the Falcon hadn’t picked up enough speed to be sure of a getaway. Which meant he had to think of something else brilliant to do.

The other flight of six coralskippers was following him into the gravity well of the dovin basal, intent on staying with him. The one intact survivor of the second flight was in the act of whipping around the dovin basal, and wouldn’t enter into his calculations for the present.

Well, he thought,