"You've done that?" Jadak said in genuine surprise.

"More times than I can remember."

Jadak refused to allow Solo to get to him. "Well, no militia members had done it. That's how come I'm familiar with the Maw and all those asteroid fields we were talking about."

"Practice runs," Han said.

"Each and every one. You might say it was the beginning of my love affair with the ship. Experiencing what she was capable of. Extricating me from predicaments I'd gotten myself into. Exceeding expectations time and again. Like she was determined to outperform herself."

"Nothing's changed," Han said.

"But what were you supposed to do with the Falcon when you got there?" Allana asked. "To Bil . . ."

"Bilbringi," Leia completed. "What was the plan?"

"Destroy the shipyards to whatever extent possible." Han frowned. "With a single laser cannon?" Jadak laughed wryly. "The cannon was just for in-close defense. The Falcon herself was going to be the weapon." "A bomb," Leia said suddenly.

Allana looked at her, then at Jadak. "You were going to blow the Falcon up?"

He nodded. "That was the idea. But even the best ideas don't always work out."

"What were you going to detonate?" Han asked. Jadak turned to him. "A baradium fission device." Leia sat back in shock. "Those were banned-even by the Empire. Alderaan led the cause."

"They were banned, all right. But we got our hands on one without Senator Organa knowing. Besides, he was eventually persuaded to see that baradium was essential to our attempts to counter the weapons the Empire was developing." Jadak's gaze darted from Leia to Han and back again. "You two know this better than anyone."

"Was this before the Alliance started using ytterbium as a stabilizing agent?" Han said.

"Years before. This device wasn't just some supersized thermal detonator. It was a planet buster. And if it had been detonated at Bilbringi, the shipyards would have been out of commission for a decade."

Han shook his head in incredulity. "You were supposed to transport it aboard the Falcon?"

"That was the idea."

"Yeah, somebody's idea of a suicide mission."

"Not if things went right. a.s.suming I didn't annihilate myself on the way to Bilbringi or during any of the dozen or so microjumps I was going to have to execute to reach the shipyards, the plan called for me to ditch at five hundred thousand kilometers from the target."

Han shook his head. "That wouldn't have saved you. You'd still have been inside the blast sphere."

Jadak shrugged. "Like I said, that was the plan. No one was fool enough to guarantee that I'd survive." He paused for a moment. "Even when we put out the call for volunteers to transfer the device into the Falcon, we only ended up with two Duros. The rest of the group was made up of convicts who had been serving life sentences in Imperial prisons. Members of the insurgency broke them out in exchange for their help, and allowed them to go their own way after the device was safely aboard."

"Then it was up to you to follow through?" Leia said.

"Just me."

Allana stood up in the chair and leaned across the table. "Couldn't you have programmed some droids to fly the Falcon?"

Jadak smiled lightly. "We didn't want to send droids to do a person's job."

Gently, Leia pulled Allana back into her chair. "What went wrong?"

Han put his arm around Leia's shoulders, but kept his eyes on Jadak. "I think I see where this is going."

"I'm sure you do."

"You'd already spent, what, a couple of months, almost a standard year, with the Falcon?"

"Ten months to be exact."

"And since you didn't want to increase the risk of the baradium detonating prematurely, you took a slow route to Bilbringi, to avoid long hypers.p.a.ce jumps."

"Lots of time in reals.p.a.ce," Jadak said. "Weeks more. I lost thirty kilos sweating that some micrometeor impact was going to set the device off."

Han grinned knowingly. "You said you were already taken with the ship. How close did you even come to Bilbringi?"

"One jump shy," Jadak said. He cut his eyes to Leia. "But I swear to you, it wasn't cowardice. I wasn't thinking about the possibility of dying."

"I'm not sitting in judgment of you, Quip," Leia said.

"You just couldn't stand to see the Falcon destroyed," Han said.

Jadak lowered his head, just as Quip Fargil had done when he had recounted the story. "The thing was," he said, looking up, "a lot of good people had been counting on me. Bilbringi's destruction would have const.i.tuted a victory the insurgency sorely needed back then. And I sabotaged it-for a ship."

"You might not have made it," Allana said. "You could've exploded."

"She's right, Quip," Leia said.

"I told myself that over and over again when I was jettisoning the bomb. I might not have made it, anyway. And for a while I let myself be fooled into believing that. I even started dreaming about heading for the Outer Rim and setting up shop, just me and the Falcon. Vaced was supposed to have been the first stop, but it turned out to be the last. Not only couldn't I keep the ship, rebel agents were probably already looking to execute me for dereliction of duty-especially after an attempt was made to inflict damage at Bilbringi using a different YT-Thirteen-hundred and more conventional explosives. The two pilots who died didn't get anywhere close to the planet before Imperials destroyed their ship.

"When I happened to run across Parlay Thorp and her crew of do-gooders, helping the sick, offering relief to folks the Empire had trampled underfoot, I realized I'd found a perfect future for the Falcon. So I just . . ."

"Gave her up," Han said.

Jadak nodded, playing his role to the hilt. He had his mouth open to say more when Poste burst into the restaurant, his face smeared with grease and his clothes stained with what looked like oil or lubricant of some kind.

"Hey . . Quip," he said, breathless when he readied the table, "I bet you're surprised to see me..."

"Did you get those machines running?" Jadak said in a rush, his thoughts swirling.

Poste gestured to himself. "Uh, as you might guess by looking at me, I ran into a couple of problems."

Jadak turned to the Solos. "Mag, here, helps out at the ranch." He whirled to Poste. "I'm not sure I grasp why you decided to come here, Mag."

Poste looked at Han. "To tell Captain Solo that when I was coming past the s.p.a.ceport, I saw the Millennium Falcon launch."

Han shot to his feet so quickly that his chair hit the floor. "What?"

"What?" Leia, Allana, and Jadak said at nearly the same instant.

"I'm certain it was the Falcon, Captain," Poste went on. "Launched straight from one of the landing bays."

Han was already halfway to the door. "Whoever took her won't get far!"

"He's right about that," Poste muttered to Jadak as Leia and Allana were hurrying off.

Han had asked local enforcement agents to meet him at the Falcon's landing bay. By the time he, Leia, and Allana arrived at the s.p.a.ceport, three agents were climbing out of an old landspeeder with a faulty repulsorlift, and the Millennium Falcon was just returning of her own volition from a short jaunt into Vaced's upper atmosphere. The human marshal-Climm-looked as if he spent most of his off hours bellied up to the Eatery's all-you-could-stomach buffet bar. His Bothan deputies were more interested in capturing comlink cam images of themselves with Han and the Falcon than anything else.

Pacing the bay's duracrete floor, Han was preparing to storm up the boarding ramp the moment it lowered when Marshal Climm ordered his two deputies to block the way.

"Your ship's a crime scene, Captain Solo. No one boards until evidence has been gathered and the scene cleared."

"I'll show you a crime scene," Han said, glowering at him.

Leia thought it prudent to intervene. Letting go of Allana's hand, she touched Han on the shoulder. "We do want to respect the local laws, don't we, sweetheart?"

Han scowled but acknowledged the sense of it.

It wasn't the first time the Falcon had gone missing while Han was off on a treasure hunt. There'd been that time on Dellalt when he and Chewie had agreed to search for the Queen of Ranroon, the legendary treasure ship of Xim the Despot. But this was different; this time it was personal.

Settling onto her landing gear, the Falcon loosed a series of hydraulic hisses and mechanical clicks. The boarding ramp extended from be-neath the starboard docking arm, and two large beings-a human and a Nautolan-descended, hands raised and looking downcast and embarra.s.sed.

Climm and the deputies had their blasters out.

"You boys are under arrest," the marshal announced.

Han took a menacing step forward. "The Falcon had better be exactly as you found her. And how'd you get past our security system and droid, anyway?"

"Yeah. What'd you do to Threepio?" Allana barked.

"I've already advised my clients to remain silent," someone said from the entrance to the bay.

Looking over his shoulder, Han saw a well-dressed, abnormally tall human hurrying toward them. Accompanying him and toting an expensive-looking carry case was a woman of such ethereal beauty, Han did a double take.

"Counselor Oxic," Leia said in astonishment.

Oxic nodded his narrow head. "Princess Leia."

Han looked back and forth between them.

Leia gestured to the now stun-cuffed ship thieves. "These two are your clients? You can't be serious."

"They have retained me as their lawyer."

Leia refused to buy it. "You traveled all the way here from Epica, or you just happened to be in the neighborhood?"

"In fact, I was wrapping up some business on Lesser Vaced when they contacted me from the Millennium Falcon."

Again Leia gestured to the thieves. "Yon expect me to believe that these two can afford to retain the legal services one of the most highly paid defense attorneys in the galaxy?"

Oxic lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "Looks can be deceiving." Indicating the woman, he added: "My personal a.s.sistant, Koi Quire. Koi, Princess Leia Organa Solo."

Leia's eye lighted up in astonishment. "You're Firrerreo."

Koi Quire smiled and inclined her head in a bow. "I was aboard the sleeper ship you discovered so long ago. I'm honored to be able to thank you in person all these years later."

"Counselor," Climm said, "we're about to charge these boys with grand theft starship."

"Add breaking and entering," Han snapped. "This ship is practically our home."

"You've given up the conapt on Coruscant?" Oxic asked Leia.

"No. But..."

"Then I'm afraid you'll have a hard time making a case for breaking and entering. More important, my clients returned the ship to precisely where they found it."

"They didn't do that," Han shouted. "The Falcon did that."

"That may also prove difficult to establish," Oxic mused. "We are perhaps willing to admit to joyriding."

Han's jaw dropped. "They stole the ship!" Oxic showed him a calm look. "You'll have to prove intent." Han whirled to the thieves. "How did you get aboard?"

"I caution you to refrain from saying anything that may further incriminate you," Oxic said well over Han's head.

Leia was prepared to see smoke coil from Han's ears when Oxic turned to her.

"Princess Leia, may we confer in private for a moment?" Leia nodded. "I won't be long," she told Allana, then stepped into the wake of Oxic's long strides. "This had better make sense, Lestra," she said, gazing up at him when they were out of earshot of the others.

He tweaked his smile so that it wouldn't seem quite so patronizing. "Princess Leia, I'm certain you don't want to spend any more time on Vaced than is absolutely necessary. If my clients take my advice and enter a plea of not guilty, yon and Captain Solo and your young ward will be required to remain here for the arraignment, and be forced to return for the pretrial and trial, a.s.suming the ease should get that far. Furthermore, you will be obliged to reside in a hotel-a.s.suming for the moment Vaced even has one-for however long it will take for this . . . law officer to complete his poking around in the Falcon on an ostensible search for forensic evidence."

Leia laughed shortly. "Nice to see you haven't lost your special touch, Lestra."

"I do what I must," Oxic said. "Of course, it's up to you to decide whether or not to press charges, though I suspect that the local judges are likely to grant my clients probation before judgment, even if the charge of ship theft holds. Out of respect for our long-standing acquaintanceship, I will try to convince my clients to plead guilty to joyriding and misuse of personal property, which will ent.i.tle you and Han to be reimbursed for the cost of fuel and the sheer aggravation of it all."

Leia narrowed her eyes. "Lestra, what are you doing here- really?"

"Nothing more than serving the needs of my clients."

"You can't be honest with me?"

"This is a legal matter, Princess. Attorney-client confidentiality must be observed."

Leia forced an exhale. "All right, Lestra, I'll put it to Han."

"What'd he say?" Han said, coming to an abrupt halt as she approached. "And who is he, anyway? How do you know him?"