"Credits?" Han said. "Aurodium? What kind of treasure?" Jadak shook his head. "I don't know."

"How could the Falcon know where this treasure is cached?"

"The Republic Group set it up to know. They saw where things were headed with Palpatine and must have been preparing for a time when they could wrest power away from him. What they didn't fore-see was how the Clone Wars would end, with the Jedi murdered and the Emperor all but untouchable."

Han holstered his blaster and began to pace. "Then this treasure could be a trove of weapons."

"Maybe," Jadak said, watching him. "Or a combination of weapons and precious metals."

"The Republic Group said honor,'''' Leia chimed in, "not strength." Han came to a halt and turned toward the hologame table. "How could Oxic have learned about it? Was he a member of the group?"

"I think I know," Leia said. "To the best of my knowledge he wasn't a member. But he was close friends with many of the beings who were. One of them may have told him about the cache."

Han considered it. "Why not just tell him where to find the treasure?"

"The location may have been a closely guarded secret," Leia went on. "Whoever told Oxic knew only that the Falcon was the key to finding it, and that Tobb Jadak was the last person known to have piloted it."

"Are we gonna go and find the treasure?" Allana asked.

Han steered a course around the question. "The first thing we have to do is check the ship for homing devices, just in case Oxic is thinking about following us. We won't be able to scan the hull until we revert to reals.p.a.ce, but we can run a scan of the interior." Han turned to C-3PO. "You know what to do."

"I'll begin at once, Captain Solo."

Han whirled to Poste. "Threepio said you had a slicer droid with you."

Poste gulped and nodded. "It was with me in the c.o.c.kpit when Oxic's goons got the jump on me. It could have deboarded while they were busy chasing me through the ship."

"Could have?You mean to tell me it could still be aboard?"

"I'm just saying that I didn't see it leave," Poste said.

"Threepio!" Han shouted. "We have a revised priority!" As if only just remembering, he opened his left fist and glanced at the transponder. "Why did this thing suddenly go active?"

"Because I entered a code sequence into the navicomputer," Jadak said.

Han's eyes narrowed. "The transponder received the code, and tried to transmit."

"We need to put it back where we found it," Allana said, going to the bulkhead alongside the engineering station.

Leia looked at Han, waiting for him to speak.

"This is crazy," he said finally.

"It's not," Allana said. "It's just a treasure hunt."

"Nothing affixed to the hull," Han announced from the pilot's chair.

Leia and Allana were beside him, Jadak and Poste in the rear chairs. Outside the viewport the stars were visible once more, the Falcon drifting aimlessly among them.

Swiveling toward the ship's intercom, Han said, "Threepio, what's taking you so long?"

A note of distress punctuated the droid's voice as it issued through the c.o.c.kpit enunciators. "I am working at all speed, Captain Solo. The cargo areas are free of tracking devices. I will sweep the rest of the Falcon from the stern forward."

"Fine. Just be quick about it."

Han muted the audio before C-3PO could respond. "Have to keep him on his toes," he said over his shoulder.

"Oxic's boys aren't stupid, just incompetent," Jadak said. "They'd expect you to scan for a homing device."

Han nodded. "Still, why take chances."

"Captain Solo," C-3PO said a moment later, "I am receiving an anomalous signal originating from within the escape pod access."

"Could one of the pod trackers be enabled?" Leia said. "Possibly." Han leaned toward the intercom. "Threepio, stay put.

We're on our way."

The five of them tiled out of the c.o.c.kpit and wended their way into the Falcon's rear hold. C-3PO was peering into the escape pod access-way, his photoreceptors glowing in the dimness.

"I believe..." he started to say when Han ducked into the s.p.a.ce, sending the broad beam of a glow rod into the darkest areas. Twisting over, he craned his neck toward the ceiling and trained the light on a spot above the hatchway.

"All right, you," he said, "come down from there."

"What are you planning to do to me?" a raspy mechanical voice asked.

"That depends on what you tell me."

"I was only following orders."

"That's everybody's excuse. Now come out of there before I decide to use a disruptor on you."

No sooner did Han step back into the hold than the long-snouted slicer droid glided from the accessway, trembling as it hovered a meter off the deck.

Han slapped a data interface connector into C-3PO's hand. "He's all yours."

"Thank you, Captain Solo."

The slicer droid floated backward against the ring corridor bulkhead. "Hey, watch out with that thing, it has a probe on the end of it."

Locating the dataport beneath the slicer's snout, C-3PO inserted the probe and studied the tool's alphanumeric readout display. "He is harboring a homing device, Captain."

"As a precaution against theft, my master installs trackers in all rentals," the slicer said.

"How long has the tracker been transmitting?" Han said.

"Since the ship launched. It's not my fault."

Han nodded to C-3PO. "Go ahead."

C-3PO made an adjustment to the probe and deactivated it. Photoreceptors blinking out, the slicer droid drifted slowly to the deck, where it collapsed in a heap.

"Now can we put the transponder back?" Allana said while everyone was staring at the droid.

Leia had lost track of how many times Allana had asked the question. Putting her hand on Allana's shoulder, she looked at Han.

Han compressed his lips, then forced a laugh. "What could go wrong?"

"Can I do it-please?"

"Sure you can," Han said. "You're the one who found it."

"I'll probably have to reenter the navicomputer code," Jadak said.

Han nodded and prized the transponder from his pocket. "Leia, you have the helm while Amelia and I put this thing back where it be-longs."

"Where do you want me?" Poste asked.

"I want you and Threepio to keep an eye on this droid."

The six of them split into three teams. Moments later, Han was in the main hold, watching Allana fit the transponder into its pocket in the bulkhead, the device's mimetic alloy making it seem to disappear.

"We're all set!" Han shouted.

In the c.o.c.kpit, Leia watched Jadak reset the Rubicon navicomputer and enter a numerical code. Instantly time-s.p.a.ce coordinates appeared on the display screen.

And the Millennium Falcon jumped into hypers.p.a.ce.

"You've lost the signal," Lestra Oxic said.

The Gran rental agency owner, Druul, gestured dismissively. "They found the primary tracker-the obvious one. The redundant system is integrated into the slicer's carapace and will continue to function even if the droid is deactivated. The device uses the ship itself as an antenna."

The monitor in Druul's office beeped.

"What did I tell you," the Gran said.

Lestra looked at Koi Quire, who showed him a subtle nod of appreciation.

"Where is the ship?"

"In reals.p.a.ce, though nowhere in particular," Druul said, two of his three eyes scanning the monitor's star map. "Rimward of the Hydian, perhaps three-quarters of the way to Toprawa."

"What now?" Oxic said.

One of the Gran's stalked eyeb.a.l.l.s fixed on him. "That's entirely up to you. Yon're the one paying."

"Patience, Lestra," Quire said. "We've come this far. Besides, Remata and Cynner are still being processed."

"Who's handling the bail arrangements?"

"We're using a local to supply the bond."

Oxic fell silent and began to pace. If things had gone according to plan, he would have had both the Falcon and Jadak in hand by now. Even so, they had caught a break, thanks to the slicer droid Poste had rented. That in itself had to be a sign that the treasure was destined to be his. As Koi had said, they had come this far- "The ship has jumped back to lightspeed," Druul said suddenly.

Oxic hurried back to the monitor. "Where are they headed? Does it show a destination?"

Druul was doing input at the monitor. "It's showing coordinates. Give me a moment to see what they refer to." Alphanumeric text began to scroll on the display, and a series of star maps flashed onscreen and disappeared.

"The name!" Oxic said. "I need the name of the world!"

The Gran gave his full attention to the display, then turned to Oxic. "Tandun Three."

Oxic glanced at Quire, who shrugged. "I've never heard of it."

"It's unimportant," he said. "Quickly-to the ship."

With their organic technology-their tentacled war coordinators and gravity-generating dovin basals-the extragalactic Yuuzhan Vong had superseded every threat the galaxy had faced. But if the Falcon had discriminated between coralskippers and TIE fighters, she had kept the distinctions to herself and fought valiantly from the Outer Rim to the Core, taking on all challengers.

For a time following Chewbacca's horrible death on Sernpidal at the start of the invasion, Han had secretly wished that the Falcon would refuse to function. He knew that a ship was incapable of missing its pilot the way a pilot could miss his or her ship, and yet he wanted, the Falcon to mourn the loss of the Wookiee's special touch, or at least to perform poorly without him. No one had put in more time working on the ship, and even when railing at it Chewbacca had a love for her that matched Han's. So when the Falcon failed to mirror Han's grief and despair, Han had given serious thought to retiring her from service.

Stripped to the bone, Han had questioned if he could even set foot inside the YT without his first mate, let alone pilot her into action. And so the Falcon became a kind of ghost ship.

Then, in a complete reversal, Han had set out to even the score with the Yuuzhan Vong. Driven by rage, he wanted the Falcon to partic.i.p.ate in exacting revenge. And in the midst of his one-man campaign he found that although he had lost his closest friend, Leia was there to fill not only Chewbacca's outsize A copilot's chair but the empty s.p.a.ce the Wookiee had left in Han's heart.

But in the same way that the Yuuzhan Vong had left vestiges of themselves and their exotic savagery on Coruscant and a host of other worlds, the war itself had opened wounds that were long in healing, leaving scars that refused to fade. Chewbacca was one of those; Anakin, the Solos' youngest son who had seemed destined to live forever, another.

Years later Jacen's death had reawakened all the anguish.

Jacen, who in a real sense bad come closest to understanding the Yuuzhan Vong and had looked to the Force for a peaceful resolution to the war. Only to fall... to die and merge with the Force rather than disappear into it. Or was he, as Han sometimes liked to believe, merely exiled, as the Yuuzhan Vong had been to the sentient world of Zonama Sekot, and advancing toward redemption'?

Chapter thirty.

"Was swoop racing part of Quip Fargil's past or yours?" Han said.

"That was some of me creeping into Fargil's story. I raced on all the major circuits before the war-the Clone Wars."