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R2-D2 issued a series of solemn beeps.

C-3PO adopted an akimbo stance. “Don’t you start that again. ‘Everything terminates; face it bravely …’ I’ll have you know I’ve been facing my termination bravely since the beginning of this war. Indeed, long before I had the misfortune of meeting the likes of you. Now, do as you suggested and send a charge through the hull!”

Shuffling back to the juncture of the ring and outrigger corridors, C-3PO placed himself where he could peer through the forward viewport, as well as keep a photoreceptor on his counterpart. A moment later, R2-D2’s interface arm began to rotate—first in one direction, then the other—and an electrical crackling could be heard dancing across the Falcon’s skin. The olfactory sensor at the top of C-3PO’s chest monitored smells of ozone and singed wood.

“It’s working, Artoo!” he shouted. “The thorn hedge is retracting! Thank the maker, we’re free!”

R2-D2 squawked a question.

“Yes, of course you should lower the landing ramp!” C-3PO said as he hurried for it. “The sooner we leave this ship, the better!”

Skidding through a left-hand turn, he stepped onto the canted ramp just as its foot was striking the paving stones of the plaza.

“Freedom, Artoo—agghh!”

Without knowing precisely why, R2-D2 squealed in alarm. He might have squealed even louder had he realized that a tattooed and battle-scarred Yuuzhan Vong warrior was rushing up the ramp.

Too panicked to move, and certainly without thinking, C-3PO said, “You’re not allowed aboard!”

The warrior only growled in contempt and continued his charge. He was halfway to the top when a blaster discharged behind him and a crimson-tinged blasterbolt burned its way through the front of his neck, sending him facefirst to the ramp, not a meter from where C-3PO was standing.

At the foot of the ramp stood Captain Solo, his aged weapon in hand. C-3PO saw his master staring wide-eyed at something off to his left, at which he began firing, even as Harrar, Princess Leia, Cakhmaim, and Meewalh were hastening up the ramp, all but crawling when they reached the body of the dead Yuuzhan Vong.

“Threepio, get ready to close the ramp!” Captain Solo yelled. He fired off several blasterbolts, then ducked a hurled amphistaff and threw himself onto the ramp. “Close it!”

“But, sir—”

“Leia, get into the cockpit! Raise the ship!”

Captain Solo was still bellying up the ramp when a sudden growth spurt sent the branches through the gap between the starboard docking arm and the ramp, preventing it from elevating entirely. Into the gap grew long, thick thorns.

“They’re lethal!” Harrar shouted.

While the priest, the two Noghri, and the two humans began twisting and contorting themselves to avoid the rapidly lengthening thorns, a hail of thud bugs slammed into the Falcon’s underside. In the confined space of the ramp, Princess Leia activated her lightsaber and started hacking at the lengthening branches.

“It’s no use! They’re growing back faster than I can cut them!” Deactivating the lightsaber, she scrambled past C-3PO, heading for the cockpit.

“Artoo,” C-3PO said, “charge the hull again!”

A second crackling jolt passed through the ship. The hedge branches retreated, but instead of closing, the ramp tilted down. Two more warriors leapt in, only to be dropped by bolts from Cakhmaim, whose right arm narrowly missed being pierced by a half-meter-long thorn. By the time the ramp started to close, the hedges had returned, stopping it from sealing.

C-3PO heard the Falcon’s repulsorlift come on-line, but the freighter levitated no more than two meters before the engines began protesting.

“Han, I can’t raise her!” Leia shouted.

Another electrical charge shot through the hull. Once again the vines withdrew, and once again the ramp lowered to the paving stones.

“Artoo, no!” C-3PO yelled.

There was no halting the warriors this time—or the branches, which grew back in such profusion that the ramp refused to budge. Cakhmaim and Meewalh did what they could to