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“Coming out of hyperspace,” Han interrupted, reaching forward to prime the sublight drives and ready the subspace transceiver.

The starlines sharpened to points of light, and the starfield rotated slightly. The ion drives flared to life with a deafening whoomp! and the ship began to lurch and hiccup. From aft came the sound of stressed alloy, then an indistinct severing as if some component had been torn away.

“What was that?” Leia asked.

“Just another piece of us,” Han said flatly. “Nothing important … I hope.”

A distant object grew larger in the viewport, slowly defining itself as a linear array of geometric modules, linked by girderlike structural members and transparent tubular passageways. Docking berths extended from each module, many of them housing ion cannons and turbolasers in place of ships. Sprouting like a faceted mushroom cap from the center of the array was an enormous shield generator.

Han relaxed into his chair. “A thing of beauty if I ever saw one.”

“Looks awfully beat up,” Leia said dubiously.

Han straightened somewhat. “Yeah, now that you mention it. But the last time I passed through here the station was stocked with aftermarket parts from Lianna.”

“How long ago was that?”

Han thought for a moment. “A couple of years, I guess. But—”

A blast rocked the Falcon from behind, snapping everyone back in their chairs.

“Another piece of us?” Leia asked, leaning in to check the sensor displays.

“Worse.”

Leia’s eyes were big when she glanced back at him. “What was that you said about outrunning those skips?”

Cracken raised his eyes to the overhead viewport. “They couldn’t have followed us through hyperspace! It can’t be the same vessels!”

Han veered the Falcon hard to port, a second before two magma missiles raced past the ship’s mandibles. “Somebody’s changed the rules!” He leaned toward the intercom and called the two Noghri by name, then fell silent for a moment, listening to their reply.

“I don’t care if the targeting computers aren’t responding! You’ve got eyes, haven’t you?” He growled to himself. “Have to do everything myself around here—”

A molten projectile hit the Falcon broadside, and a wire-filled module dropped, sparking, from the cockpit ceiling. Han barrel-rolled the ship, then dived abruptly. Alarms were screeching even before he pulled out of the maneuver, and the authenticators began painting dozens of yellow bezels on the tactical display screens.

Han and Leia looked up at the same time to find themselves squared off with a Yuuzhan Vong battle group of capital vessels, gunboat analogs, tenders, and what was certainly a yammosk-bearing clustership, similar to the one Han had helped cripple at Fondor. Sentry coralskippers were already streaking for the Falcon.

“You know, you have a real knack for this!” Leia said while she called for a status readout on the shields.

“It’s not me,” Han protested. “The navicomputer has itself convinced that trouble is the Falcon’s default preference!”

“A likely story.”

Han didn’t alter course. “Grab a holo of that clustership. Download any drive signatures you can pick up and paste everything into the battle analysis computer. Then hold on to your stomach!”

He waited for Leia to carry out the tasks, then threw the Falcon into a near-vertical climb, continuing up and over in a loop that sent them racing back toward Caluula’s orbital station. The quartet of curve-tailed, six-legged skips that had apparently chased the Falcon from Selvaris were directly below, spewing plasma missiles, even as they jinked and juked to evade incessant laser bursts from the dorsal and belly AG-2Gs.

Leia swiveled to the commboard. “Caluula Station, come in!”

“Transmit our identification code,” Han said.

“Caluula Station, this is Millennium Falcon. Please acknowledge.”

“Say something,” Han muttered. “Call us a name—anything!”

The closer they came to the station, the worse it appeared. Many of the modules had been holed and scorched by fire. A pitched battle must have raged for weeks, unknown to Galactic Alliance command because of the disabled