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“Back here, Chewie!”

Chewie roared and Han sighed. Once, just once, he’d like to do what he wanted, when he wanted.

“I’ll go into the Skip when I’m done here,” he said.

Chewie roared again.

“Impatient sack of bones,” Han muttered. He climbed across the well and onto the floor grid. “I’m coming!”

He rounded the corner to find that Chewie had already left the Falcon. The hatch was still open. Han ducked out.

Chewie stood at the bottom of the ramp.

“You could have waited,” Han said.

Chewie put a long, hairy finger to his mouth and then pointed. Han followed the direction. On the far side of the bay, smugglers were working, much as they had on Skip 5. Han frowned at Chewie, then got off the ramp and edged past a few other vehicles parked on the bay.

Han hid under the wing of a modified Gizer freighter. The metal was rusted and pockmarked and provided perfect viewing without allowing him to be seen.

Zeen Afit was carrying computer parts. Blue followed, gingerly carrying screens. Wynni was a few yards behind, her furry arms wrapped around four chairs that had bolts in their bases. Two more smugglers, both Sullustan, were carrying the cushions on top of their heads.

They were stripping a ship. In Han’s day, smugglers never did that unless they had been betrayed by the ship’s owner or unless the owner was dead.

Something about this stripping had bothered Chewie, though, and Han couldn’t see the ship from his hiding place. After the procession passed, he slipped out from under the wing, and moved closer.

The ship looked familiar. She was a space yacht that had seen better days. Her sides were battered and her hull damaged from what appeared to be a difficult landing. Her name had been scratched off the side, but Han could still read it.

The Lady Luck.

Lando had been here.

On the Run.

And there was only one reason he would have come. Han.

Only Han was free.

Lando would never betray his smuggling friends, at least not intentionally. And for all their bluster, the smugglers on the Run were Lando’s friends, as much as smugglers like that could be friends.

Which only left one option.

Lando had arrived alone—

—and Nandreeson had been waiting for him.

Twenty-eight

Femon would have laughed at him, and told him he was afraid of his own imaginings. Sometimes Kueller missed her. She had been with him a very long time. He could still hear her voice in his head, admonishing him.

He missed her, but he didn’t regret killing her. Some things just had to be done.

He was standing on the very spot where she had died, in the control center on Almania. He had replaced the death masks she loved on the walls, and added a few of his own. His guards stood behind him, silently watching. His employees believed in him, but a few fanatics were all it took. He didn’t want to be vigilant all the time. So he had his guards. They would protect him, and they would make no mistakes.

He frightened them.

But he didn’t frighten Luke Skywalker.

Kueller pulled his chair out and sat down, extending his long legs under the console. The screen before him showed the wreckage of Skywalker’s X-wing. It had landed near some of the most valuable houses on Pydyr, houses whose wealth had not yet been plucked. For a few moments, Kueller had been afraid that he would lose that wealth, but he thought it a small price to pay for Skywalker.

Skywalker, injured, on Pydyr.

Perfect.

He punched a button and said to one of his undersecretaries in communications, “I want an interstellar link to Coruscant. I want you to get President Leia Organa Solo. Tell her it’s about her brother, and then have her hold for me.”

“Yes, sir,” the undersecretary said. The image winked away.

Kueller returned his gaze to the house that Skywalker had crawled into. Femon would have chided him: What are you so afraid of, Kueller? not realizing that the limping man with the burned back had survived the crash.

A lesser man would not have.

Kueller had expected Skywalker to come to Almania. His decision to land on Pydyr had been a surprise, as had the explosion. Kueller