Doon's sister nodded. "More than half of the players bombed out by the second day. Dad made it to the third, but he was hanging on by his teeth. On one round the pot grew to ninety thousand credits. He didn't have anything near the amount needed to remain in the game, but he had a hand he didn't think anyone could beat."

"Except for Lando," Han said.

Doon nodded. "An idiot's array. And of course, by then Dad had thrown the Falcon into the pot. Not all that different from the way you won the ship, if the stories are true."

"In our match, Lando was one card short of an array," Han said.

"What happened with all the credits your dad owed?" Allana linked.

Doon smiled at her. "You know, it's the strangest thing, but as soon as Dad lost the Millennium Falcon his luck changed completely. He convinced some folks to stake him to one game or another, and he had a lucky streak that continued for the rest of his life."

"He used to joke that losing the Falcon might have been the best thing that ever happened to him."

"The two happiest days in a starship owner's life," Doon's sister said. "The day he buys the ship and the day he gets rid of it."

Han could feel Leia's eyes on him, but he refused to look at her.

"The result of that streak is what you see here," Doon said, gesturing broadly to the finely appointed office. "PlanetDreams was only too glad to bring him aboard as a partner."

Han absorbed it. "So it wasn't Cix who named her Millennium Falcon."

"No," the younger brother said. "He certainly would have taken credit for that if he had."

"Did he ever mention how or where he got the Falcon?" Leia asked.

"Yeah," Allana said. "That's what we want to know."

Doon thought for a moment. "I'm sure he did, but I don't remember anything specific." He looked to his siblings, both of whom shook their heads. "There is someone who would know," he added finally. He touched a b.u.t.ton on a comlink set into the top of the table. "Is Waglin around?" he asked of the voice that responded.

"He is, sir."

"Tell him I need him in the office."

"Who's Waglin?" Allana asked.

Doon grinned. "He was my dad's copilot."

Lando's face was onscreen in the main hold when the Falcon blasted away from Oseon VII two standard days later. "Cix never told me the full story," he said to Han and Leia. "Now I'm back to feeling sorry about having taken the Falcon from him."

"Yeah, well, don't," Han said. "He ended up doing pretty well for himself without her. Anyway, if you hadn't taken her from him, I couldn't have taken her from you." He grinned for the cam.

Lando forced an elaborate frown. "Did you learn anything about where the Falcon was before Cix?"

"Yeah," Han said uncertainly. "From his copilot. A Weequay Must be at least a hundred and fifty years old. As wrinkled as the Lava Labyrinth."

"What's he doing on Oseon Seven of all places?"

"Cix kept him employed all these years," Leia said. "He's not much more than a fixture now, but Cix's children treat him like family."

"He was with Cix when he got the Falcon?"

"No, they hooked up much later," Han said. "But he knew the story."

"He bought the Falcon from a circus," Leia said.

"The Molpol Circus."

Lando touched his mustache. "You know, I think I remember hearing that the Falcon had been part of a circus."

Han nodded. "The story sounded familiar to me, too."

"You have the name of the being who owned her?"

"Vistal Purn," Han said.

"He's no longer with the circus," Leia said. "Now he organizes creature shows."

Lando laughed. "That's a short leap. Any idea where he is?"

"Running a show on Taris."

"Really," Lando said slowly. "Tendra, Chance, and I were just there-well, two months ago, at any rate."

"Business or pleasure?" Han said.

"A bit of both. We were finalizing a deal with the Taris government for a shipment of YVH droids, and doing some shopping."

"What's Taris need with Hunters?" Leia asked.

"A well-armed criminal element has moved in. The deal was sanctioned by Chief of State Daala herself. But the point I was trying in make is that we had what you might say was a strange encounter while we were here." Lando paused briefly. "With Seff h.e.l.lin." Leia blinked in surprise. "We know Seff." She turned to Han. "Seff was the oldest of the Jedi group that was moved from Yavin Four to the Shelter station. Maybe fourteen years old at the time."

Han scratched his head. "Tall kid with curly hair?" Leia nodded. "His mother is Corellian."

"Okay, now I remember him."

Leia positioned herself for the cam. "What happened, Lando?"

"He came to visit me at the hotel where we were staying. He wanted to know the details of the YVH deal."

"Did you tell him?"

"I told him it was none of his business. Then he wanted to know what I thought about the fact that Daala is employing Mandalorians as a kind of royal guard."

"Why would it matter to Seff what you think?" Han said.

"Beats me. But I finally figured out what he was getting at."

"Which was what?"

"Whether Tendrando had given thought to manufacturing a Mandalorian Hunter droid."

Leia and Han traded glances. "Are you certain, Lando?"

Lando shrugged his shoulders. "Not a hundred percent. But that's what it sounded like."

Han turned to Leia. "You think he's still on Taris?"

" I don't know. This new crime syndicate could be the reason Luke sent him there in the first place."

"Anyway," Lando interrupted. "Just thought I'd let you know. And make sure to fill me in on what you find out about the Falcon, buddy."

"Will do," Han said.

From a room high in the Oseon Tower, Waglin watched the Millennium Falcon emerge from a private docking bay and launch for the sky. Merging with outbound traffic, the century-old freighter rose on a column of blue energy and disappeared from view.

"They're on their way to Taris right now," the Weequay was saying into a comlink. "I'm watching them with my own eyes." He paused to listen. "You're right, who'd want to tangle with Han Sold and a Jedi. But Solo has a lot of influential friends, and I thought he might be a way for you to get what you're after. Besides, Solo's a far cry from the hotshot he was. Slower on the draw."

He listened some more.

"That's up to you, of course. But I agree, you'd have to give him a good reason for helping you. I'm just being neighborly by letting you know he's headed your way. There is one more thing: they're traveling with a young girl. Some war orphan they adopted a few years back." Waglin waited, then said: "I don't have any permacrete ideas to offer along those lines. I'm just saying that the Solos would probably do anything for her."

Waglin listened. "I appreciate that. You didn't hear about her from me, though. Old-timers like us have to stick together. Plus, I've got a job and a reputation to protect."

The being at the other end of the communication spoke for a while.

"That could work. Good luck with it, then. And let me know how it ends."

Chapter sixteen.

As a much younger man, Jadak had done his fair share of planet-hopping. But few of the trips he had logged could match the two days it took him to travel from Obroa-skai to the Smugglers' Moon, going by way of Balmorra and Onderon in an effort to foil possible pursuers. To his eyes, the galaxy had changed that much.

There was a time, for instance, when Nar Shaddaa's s.p.a.ceport officials couldn't have cared less who arrived on the moon, or for what purpose. Sixty-two years later, human visitors had to submit to retinal and body scans.

Basic was still the prevalent language of trade and exchange, but Outer Rim accents were now heard as often as Core dialects. And perhaps as a result of what the Yuuzhan Vong had wrought during their push for Coruscant, you encountered fewer beings from Perlemian Trade Route worlds and more from the outlying systems. Putting their war reparations to work, Corellians and Wookiees were scarce, busy rebuilding their worlds and putting out fires. The only place a traveler might rub elbows with a Kuati was in premier cla.s.s. Jedi had never been a common sight even when they were twenty thousand strong. Now they were said to be as rare as mynock teeth. What you saw instead, and in unsettling numbers, were members of various militaries, security personnel, and surveillance droids of all description.

The sight that had widened his eyes the most was a band of Mandalorians strapped into their c.u.mbersome trademark armor and marching down a s.p.a.ceport concourse like they owned the place. A near-mythic group when Jadak was piloting for the Republic Group. In many ways, the galaxy seemed as wide open as it had been in the years preceding the Trade Federation's embargo of tiny Naboo. Human travelers no longer had to wonder every time they dealt with a Gossam or a Koorivar or a Muun, or watched a pack of Geonosians hurrying into one of their organic-looking starships, if they had just crossed paths with an enemy agent. But if even distant star systems were more accessible, beings of all species seemed more self-absorbed, quieter about who they were and whatever business they were up to. There was something purposeful in the way they spoke and moved; something about them that struck Jadak as driven. Maybe that was the reason for all the tight security. The current regime wanted everyone marching in step. Disturbances to the hard-won peace, by accident or design, would not be tolerated. The cams and scanners that tracked everyone's movements seemed to say: Your actions are being monitored, and we don't care that you know.

Jadak hadn't liked running out on Aurora the way he did. He owed Sompa and the rest for at least prolonging his life, if not precisely saving it. But he couldn't forgive the fact that they had tried to toy with him. Tracing him wouldn't likely pose a problem for anyone with a speck of know-how, but Jadak thought there might be some advantage to getting a running start. With any luck he'd be able to hold on to the lead until he could be fitted with a new ident.i.ty, which on Nar Shaddaa used to mean only a couple of hours. Now he wasn't so sure. At Balmorra s.p.a.ceport, feigning interest in seeing how his new legs looked on the display screen, he had bribed a Bothan security agent to allow him a peek at his scanner image. The everyday ident.i.ty chip Aurora had implanted in his wrist showed clear as day, but nothing else leapt off the screen. If the Smugglers' Moon was still the criminal paradise he remembered, he would have himself scanned for locator chips, as well.

Provided that his credits held out.

The galactic jump had eaten deeply into the ten thousand he had recieved from Core Life. If he kept spending at the same rate, he'd be looking for a job long before he caught up with the Stellar Envoy- a.s.suming it was still in one piece somewhere, under someone's command.

In Aurora's library he had read that Nar Shaddaa, much like Obroa-skai, had suffered greatly during the war with Yuuzhan Vong. Obroa-skai had even hosted a war coordinator. But Jadak was encouraged by what he saw and heard on pa.s.sing from customs into Nar Shaddaa s.p.a.ceport's main terminal. Beyond the terminal's floor-to-ceiling window panes rose the ancient, kilometers-high refueling spires and loading docks he remembered from a lifetime ago. The reek of widespread pollution was beyond the capacity of the terminal's air scrubbers. And if nothing else, Vertical City was still the loudest place in the galaxy. The moon's residents were so accustomed to outyelling the decibel racket of construction droids, deliberately loud skimmers, blasting radios, and blasterfire that whenever or wherever a Nar Shaddaan was encountered, you could be a.s.sured of a high-volume conversation.

Angling for the exits, Jadak waded deeper into the mixed-species crowd. Short of the automatic doors, he stopped to gaze at a bewildering splash of advertising holodata that crowned them-images of hotels and restaurants, comeons for transport to different sectors of the ec.u.menopolis, and other local services. Only weeks into his new life and he was already wondering if he would ever be able to keep in step with those around him. Or if he wanted to. But his sense of having unfinished business compelled him to forge ahead. Something needed to be put to rest before he could even hope to move on.

Flitcher Poste spotted his mark on the arrivals level of s.p.a.ceport: a lanky human of forty-five or fifty years, blond hair worn long, a short heard and mustache. He was gazing out on Nar Shaddaa's skyline like he'd just arrived from some backrocket world in the Cron drift. Studying the holoadverts above the exit doors, trying to figure out if he should ride a hovercab, a mag-lev, a shuttle, or maybe risk renting an airspeeder.

Just a rube from a faraway planet.

Poste kept him in his sights as he rode a turbolift down to the arrivals level. He walked out the tall doors and moved toward the hovercab stations, carrying a small black attache case. That struck Poste as curious. Only beings who had business on Nar Shaddaa arrived with attache cases. Tourists, gamblers, players, visiting dignitaries or criminals usually arrived with luggage, sometimes a full pallet of bags. Clearly the guy wasn't a resident-not with that lost look on his face. So maybe he had arrived from a low-tech world and was carrying all his worldly possessions in that one case. But then why would anyone with so little come to Nar Shaddaa? Well, okay, the moon was often a final stop for folks who had nothing more to lose, but this human didn't give that impression. Maybe he had family or friends here. Km friends or family wouldn't leave someone to the mercy of people like Poste, who made a living prowling the s.p.a.ceport for innocent travelers, getting to them before they could be fleeced or set upon by the currency changers, holdup artists, and scammers who worked the rest of the urban sprawl.

Hurrying after the human, Poste noted that he walked like some one who was still getting used to his legs, or maybe someone who had had ill-fitting prosthetics installed. That meant he could be a veteran who had lost his legs to blasterfire in one war or another. Though the human didn't meet anyone's gaze, Poste could tell that he was taking stock of his surroundings, aware of everything that was going on around him. How else would he be able to steer through the s.p.a.ce port throng with such an easy grace? That was it.

New legs or no, there was something inherently nimble about his movements. Something capable, one might say. Self-possessed.

Poste drew nearer. The stranger didn't appear to be armed. No weapon strapped to his ankle or wedged into the rear of his trousers that might create a telltale bulge beneath the thin material of his jacket. Poste began to wonder if the lost look and awkward gait might be for show. Maybe the newcomer was looking for marks. Worse, maybe he was trying to lure petty criminals like Poste by baiting, then entrapping them. But the idea of a plainclothes cop on Nar Shaddaa was even crazier than the idea of arriving onworld with no more than an attache case.

Poste was intrigued. He made up his mind not to pickpocket the mark or entice him into buying a bogus nightlife tour, but he hadn't given up on the idea of seeing what that attache contained. Perhaps the newcomer would set it down carelessly, or become distracted just long enough for Poste to move in and move on. It was simply a matter of waiting for the right place and the right moment . . .

Poste studied the newcomer's clothing more closely as the two of them edged into the public transport area. The wrinkled jacket and drab trousers had the look of clothes you might be given if you'd just been released from stir, or from a psychiatric ward. Even the lower-level panhandlers and canyon kids dressed better. So there went the cop theory. Or did it reinforce it?

Poste came to a halt and turned to one side, pretending sudden interest in the display window items of a tech store. In the window's reflection, he could see the newcomer standing in a HoloNet booth, running a search of some sort. If he was looking for a hotel, it meant he wasn't sure where he wanted to go. If he was looking for a name, it meant he didn't know where the being was. Whichever, he was focused on what he was doing. On the hunt. The newcomer pulled a disposable comlink from the upper pocket of his cheap jacket and sent something to it from the HoloNet. Then he set off in the direction of the mag-lev express to the Corellian sector.

Poste sighed in disappointment. That ended it for him. He wasn't about to follow the guy all the way into Vertical City-not with his air-speeder parked in the lot across from the hovercab station and already costing him credits. Reluctantly he fell back, and he was on the brink of heading for the pedestrian walkway that accessed the lot when his trained eye settled on two beings who were plainly up to no good and beginning to converge on the newcomer as he stepped from the people mover onto the mag-lev platform. One was human, the other Nautolan, and both were heavyweights.

The interesting thing was that the newcomer had also spotted them. In what could have been interpreted as an abrupt change of mind, he made a sharp turn. Infiltrating the crowd waiting for the mag-lev, he slipped effortlessly into and out of s.p.a.ces beings often claimed as their own, then hastened for one of the platforms accessed by hovercabs and air shuttles.

The two goons had also picked up speed, the human touching his. left ear in a way that suggested he was in communication with his partner, or others as yet unseen. Without displaying any of the finesse the newcomer had shown, the pair circled the edge of the crowd using their bulk to shoulder or shove stragglers aside. Instead of making for free s.p.a.ce, the newcomer was staying well inside the crowd. If his pursuers were going to get to him, they were going to have to plow their way through.

Ultimately, that was exactly what they did, prompting Poste to do something anyone who knew him would have described as uncharacteristic.

Fast as his legs could carry him he ran for the pedestrian walkway, then for his roofless airspeeder, which was parked only a level up and close to the lot exit. Hurling himself over the vehicle's door-which didn't work in any case-he settled at the controls and hit the ignition b.u.t.ton. A short line of similar repulsorlifts was queued at the exit, so he shot for the entrance, ignoring the synthvoices of two security droids and the strobing flashes of recording cams. The speeder's virttags were counterfeit, so who cared?

By the time he had sped around the lot and maneuvered into the restricted air traffic lanes that accessed the hovercab platform, it was obvious that a melee was in progress. Beings were scattering in all directions, security droids were rolling in, and the sirens of police vehicles were wailing in the distance. When the crowd parted briefly, Poste caught a glimpse of the newcomer leaping over the spread-eagled body of one of the goons, the other one down on all fours and scrambling for a blaster he had apparently lost hold of, blood streaming from his nose. But the newcomer's handiwork or footwork or what-ever he had used to incapacitate his a.s.sailants hadn't left him in the clear. A showy SoroSuub airspeeder whipped past Poste, then cut him off and came to a sudden stop at the edge of the platform. Two humanoids-one an Iktotchi-clambered out of the pa.s.senger nacelle, gleaming weapons in hand. Spotting them, the newcomer whirled and dashed for the far side of the hovercab payment booth. The black attache case was gone.

Poste saw his chance and made the most of it. Swerving around the idling SoroSuub, he pulled up past the booth just as the newcomer was emerging from the crowd, scarcely winded and professionally alert.

"Get in!" Poste shouted. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "You've got more coming!"

The newcomer hesitated but only for a moment. Hurdling the door he landed adroitly on the speeder's bench seat. "You have a blaster?"

Poste lifted the front of his shirt to reveal a Frohard's Galactic F-7 tucked into the waistband of his trousers. In a lightning-fast motion the newcomer s.n.a.t.c.hed and activated the small weapon and raised it to Poste's temple.

"You'd better not be part of this!"