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"Doesn't mean they don't hear us," Jaina pointed out. "They might just have a receiver and no transmitter."

"Or they might be setting a trap," Anja said.

Han brought the ship in low over the largest fanning village he could find. Jaina maneuvered the Falcon to a smooth landing not far from the cluster of rickety homes. The boarding ramp extended, and the group climbed out, blinking in the hazy sunlight of the war-torn world.

In the distance, the smoke from the distant fire curled up from the hills.

The timid villagers slowly crept out of their huts, heads lowered and shoulders hunched. They gaped in astonishment and fear at the strange spaceship. Jaina and her companions lifted their hands in a wave of greeting.

Han Solo said, "I'm an official representative from the New Republic, come to investigate your civil war and to offer any assistance we can."

The people remained quiet and did not venture any farther out of their shelters.

"You'd think they'd have some kind of welcoming conu-nittee," Zekk muttered. He stepped close to Jaina.

"Maybe they can't afford one," Han mused aloud.

The buildings needed a great deal of work. Every one of them had obviously been patched and rebuilt numerous times in the wake of repeated battles. Some of the walls were new; others were composed entirely of salvage and scrap. A rickety grain-storage tower barely managed to stand upright at the rear of the village.

The hazy sky was bright, the air humid and warm, smelling of smoke.

Cleared flatlands extended into the distance toward a thick forest that separated them from the rugged mountains. From what little Jaina knew about farming, she suspected this should have been the peak of the growing season-but she saw only a few skittish figures out working in the fields, hopping and dodging about in a strange way that made no sense to her. No crops grew in the barren fields, only a few patches of greenery that had sprouted all on their own.

Jacen bowed and flashed a friendly smile, trying to charm the villagers.

"Take us to your leader?"

Finally, several of the farmers came out. Their eyes were sunken, their faces gaunt. Some looked angry; many wore bandages from injuries.

Anja hung back, scowling, and muttered to Jacen, "I can't believe we were ever afraid of these people. They look too skittish to fight a nerf colt."

"They've probably been through a lot," Jacen said.

"So have my people in the mountains," Anja retorted.

The other villagers faced one of the central dwellings and waited until a door swung open and a broad-shouldered man hobbled out. He had obviously once been a muscular person, perhaps a great farmer who could lift his own weight in punja grain or fight herd beasts bare-handed.

But now the man's skin had a pale appearance, as if he spent all his time indoors.

As he stepped forward, the man's left foot clanked on the ground.

Jaina saw that his real leg had been amputated just below the knee; he wore a makeshift replacement limb, cobbled together from secondhand droid parts that didn't quite fit together. Although the servomotors no longer functioned, the man used his droid limb as a peg leg to help him walk about as he needed.

"We don't get many visitors here," the man said, "except for people wanting to sell us weapons... or to prey on us."

"We're not trying to do either," Han Solo said. "We want to help. "

"Then I don't know what you think you can do for us." The man sighed and clomped forward, extending a callused hand. Han Solo took it gratefully.

Jaina also shook the man's hand while the others greeted him in their own ways. Anja remained at a distance, her face a mask of distrust.

"My name is Ynos," the man said. "I'm what passes for a leader in this group of villagers, though we're mostly starving and we don't amount to much of anything."

"If you're starving then why aren't you out working the fields?"

Jaina asked. "There seems to be plenty of cropland, and it's a beautiful day."

"Because we're afraid to," Ynos said, his lips twisting in an angry snarl. "The mountain miners have