"The Emperor's teams used equipment like this as sort of a Force detector, for his henchmen to read the auras of people they suspected of having Jedi talent. According to the records, the remnants of the Jedi Knights held this thing in great fear--but maybe we can use it to restore the Jedi."

He grinned, and for a moment he felt like the fresh, excited farm boy he had been back on Tatooine. "Hold still, Leia. Let me test this on you."

She stood back, alarmed. "But what does it do?" Both Wedge and Ackbar had stepped over to watch.

"Trust me," Luke said. He held the sheet-crystal paddles at arm's length, bracketing Leia. When he tripped the scan switch, a thin slice of coppery light traced down Leia's body from head to toe. Suspended in air above the control pack, a smaller echo of the copper scan-line reappeared in reverse motion, a.s.similating the data and constructing a tiny hologram of Leia.

It looked different from the small holo of Leia that Artoo Detoo had projected for Ben Ken.o.bi. Instead, it was a wire-frame silhouette of her body, with color-coded lines tagged to readings that projected a column of numbers in the air. Surrounding the outline was a corona of flickering blue, faint but definite.

"Can you understand anything from that, Luke?" Admiral Ackbar said, peering closer.

"Let's get another one for comparison." This time Luke pointed the paddles at Wedge, who flinched as the coppery scan line ran up and down his uniform. When his wire-frame holo appeared beside Leia's, most of the color-coded details were similar--but his image showed no blue corona.

"Now let's try you, Admiral." He extended the paddles toward the Mon Calamarian, adjusting the control pack to take Ackbar's alien physiology into account. When his scanned image appeared, it too lacked the blue aura. "Leia, would you do it to me, just so we can be more sure?"

Leia handled the equipment reluctantly, as if uneasy to touch a device that had been used by those who had designed the interrogation droid. But she operated the scanner easily, holding the sheet-crystal paddles on either side of Luke.

His image bore the bright corona.

"This is very valuable," Luke said. "You don't need any particular skill with the Force to use this equipment. We can find people with Jedi potential just by scanning them. It will be a great help in finding candidates for my academy. Maybe some good will come of this device after all these years."

"Very good, Luke," Ackbar said.

Luke pursed his lips. "Wedge, I want to try something. Would you relax for a minute and let me do a mind touch on you?"

"Uh," Wedge said, then saw his team members looking at him.

He straightened. "Whatever you say, Luke."

Luke wasted no time, reaching out to touch Wedge's temples, running a mental probe over the surface of his mind, back to the primitive area, the surprising nub in the contour of thoughts--But when Luke touched it, nothing happened.

Wedge probably didn't even know he was being probed. Luke pushed harder, but he triggered no reflexive counteraction, no uncontrolled push as Leia had given him.

"What was that all about?" Wedge asked. "Did you do anything?"

Luke smiled. "I just strengthened a theory of mine. We have gotten a lot closer to bringing back the Jedi Knights."

At least the ship didn't explode on impact.

That was the first thing Han Solo thought as painful consciousness returned. He blinked his eyes, listened to the hissing of atmosphere streaming through breaches in the Millennium Falcon's hull. Somehow they had survived a crash landing. He wondered what planet he was on.

Kessel!

His eyes widened as he saw red splashes across the control panels.

His own blood. His leg felt as if it were on fire, and he tasted liquid tin in his mouth. As he coughed, more blood splashed out. Han had not managed to strap himself in before the crash. It was a good thing he had not stayed up in the gun well. From his skewed vantage he could see that the ship had spun on impact, with the top gun well crushed beneath them.

He hoped Chewbacca had fared better. Turning his head, Han felt as if shards of ground gla.s.s were rubbing his spine. In the copilot's chair, the Wookiee lay motionless, his pelt matted with discolored blood oozing from wounds hidden by his s.h.a.ggy fur.

"Chewie!" he managed to croak. "Say something, okay?"

Han heard the thud of a small explosive charge on the primary hatch; then someone from outside managed to hot-wire the ramp. The rest of the Falcon's air spurted into Kessel's thin atmosphere. "Great," he mumbled. With the shattering pain in his ribs, it had already been hard enough to breathe.

Heavy footsteps marched up the ramp. Han wanted to pull out his blaster or at least knock a few enemies down in a fistfight. But he could barely raise his eyes, expecting to see an orderly column of white-armored stormtroopers. That would be an appropriate end to a day like this.

Instead, the intruders wore a hodgepodge of armor, some parts modified from prison-guard uniforms, other plates adapted from stormtrooper equipment. None of it made any sense to Han, but his mind had already maxed out with things that should never have happened. A TIE fighter and an X-wing fighting side by side? Against him?

The boarding party wore oxygen masks fitted over their faces to let them breathe the thin atmosphere of Kessel. Their voices were m.u.f.fled as they shouted orders to each other.

One man, looking scarecrowish with impossibly long arms and neck, strode into the Falcon's c.o.c.kpit. Han felt recognition stir inside him, but he couldn't pinpoint a name. The scarecrow wore armbands from an Imperial prison, but at his side he carried a modified double-blaster that was patently illegal on most planets. The scarecrow turned wide-set, flinty eyes on Han.

"Han Solo," he said. Though the breath mask covered his lower face, Han could tell the man was grinning widely. "You're going to wish you never survived landing on Kessel."

With a flash of memory, the scarecrow's name came to Han. Skynxnex.

That was it! But Skynxnex had been locked up in the Imperial Correction Facility, barely avoiding a death sentence. Questions had just begun forming in his mouth when Skynxnex brought an armored fist down on Han's head, sending him back into unconsciousness...

Kessel. Spice. His thoughts mixed into nightmares as he fought to come back to himself. Han had always been proud to boast that the Falcon had made the Kessel run in record time, but he rarely recounted the whole tale, that he had actually been fleeing Kessel with a full load of spice in his secret below-decks compartments, when Imperial tariff ships had tagged him.

Han got the shipment, as always, from Moruth Doole, the froglike man in charge of skimming black-market spice from Imperial production quotas. Doole was some sort of official in the gigantic Imperial prison complex, from which came most of the spice-mine laborers. The Empire maintained strict control over the spice output, but Doole managed to keep quite a little side market of his own. Han Solo and Chewbacca had run spice for him, whisking it past Imperial patrols and putting it into distribution channels run by gangsters such as Jabba the Hutt.

But Moruth Doole had a habit of stringing along his helpers until he decided he could gain bigger favor by turning them over to the authorities. Han had never been able to prove it, but he suspected that Doole himself had tipped off the tariff ships on the Falcon's flight away from Kessel, providing the exact coordinates where Han planned to enter hypers.p.a.ce.

Han had been forced to jettison his entire cargo of glitterstim spice, worth a fortune, just before being boarded. When Han tried to circle back later and retrieve the floating cargo, the Imperials had given pursuit. During the chase he had desperately skimmed closer to the gravity influence of the immense black hole cl.u.s.ter than the navcharts claimed was possible. One of the tariff ships had been lost in the swirling maelstrom of hot gases plunging into a bottomless singularity.

But the Falcon had survived, breaking into hypers.p.a.ce and fleeing to safety.

Temporary safety. The lost cargo of spice alone had been worth 12,400 credits and Jabba the Hutt had already paid for it in full. Jabba had not been pleased. ...

The thought of all those months frozen in carbonite, motionless, hanging on Jabba's wall, made him shiver. The cold was black around him, and he couldn't see. His teeth chattered together-- "Cease your thermal convulsions!" a raspy metallic voice snapped.

It sounded like a plasma saw cutting through rock. "The temperature in the medical center has been lowered to minimize surgical shock to your metabolism."

Opening his eyes, Han stared up into the bullet-like face of a medical droid. Most of the metal was a primary green, but a black hooded attachment extended over its optical sensors. Segmented mechanical arms reached toward him, displaying a wide variety of out-of-date medical implements, all of them sharp. "I am the prison medical droid. I have not been programmed for anesthetics or the niceties of making you comfortable. If you fail to cooperate, your treatment will only be more unpleasant."

Han rolled his eyes back. This was a far cry from traditional medical droids who were programmed specifically with the patient's comfort in mind. Han tried to move. Around him the prison medical center was white and cold, with gleaming medical appliances and empty bacta tanks mounted on the wall. Han vaguely sensed several guards standing near the doors. When he turned his head, the medical droid reached out with cold metal hands to clamp against his temples. "You must remain motionless. This will hurt. A great deal. Now relax--immediately!"

Out of sight on the other side of the room, Chewbacca let out a great roar of pain. Han was relieved to know the Wookiee was still alive.

Before treatment, at least.

Han winced as the medical droid began to work on him.

Chewbacca shook him awake with a hairy, enthusiastic, and grateful hug. Han groaned and blinked his eyes, but the room was so dim he had to stare for a few minutes before anything came into focus. His entire body felt as if it had been beaten instead of healed.

Chewbacca groaned and hugged him again. "Take it easy, Chewie!

You'll send me back to that medical droid!" Han said. Instantly, the Wookiee released his grip. Han mentally a.s.sessed how he felt. He sat up, flexed his arms, then got to his feet. Two, no three of his ribs, as well as his left leg, tingled with the maddening bee stings that indicated where bone knitters had repaired the fractures. Han remained weak, but replacement-nutrient solutions had probably brought him back up to nominal levels.

Chewbacca also looked scruffy and haggard. Patches of fur had been shaved from his body, and Han could discern lumpy scars where medical droids had made quick patchwork with no finesse. After treatment the two of them had been tossed into this dank place. Finally, Han took a deep whiff of the air inside the chamber. "What died in here?" He suddenly realized that wasn't just a joking comment.

Chewbacca answered by pointing to the hulking form that occupied a third of the s.p.a.ce in the cell. Han blinked again to be sure his vision was adjusting properly.

The thing was huge and hideous--part crustacean, part arachnid, and judging from the rows of dagger teeth, entirely carnivorous. Its claw hands were as big as a human was tall, and its jointed body armor was covered with scab-like b.u.mps. The only good thing about it was that it was dead. The carca.s.s reeked.

The first time Han had been near a rancor, he had been blind from hibernation sickness after being thawed in Jabba's palace. Jabba fed the monster below his throne room with his enemies--or anyone else at random.

Han had seen many more rancors on the planet Dathomir during his courtship of Princess Leia. One of the beasts had somehow died here in the Imperial Correction Facility. The rancor had decayed as far as it was going to, and then mummified the rest of the way.

The prison itself, from what Han knew of it, was a cross between a zoo and a correctional facility, because the different life-forms had different degrees of sentience. The only factor in common was that they were all violent.

Their cell was gigantic, as far as cells went--large enough to hold the rancor and give it room to maneuver. Brittle, moldy bones lay scattered around the floor, many of which had been gnawed and pulverized, as if in a desperate attempt by the starving rancor to find more food.

Green and blue smears of slime oozed down the walls. Tiny dripping sounds were the only noises Han could hear.

"How long have we been here, Chewie? Do you know?"

Chewbacca didn't know.

Han ran it over again in his mind. They had come to Kessel, they had identified themselves both by name and with a New Republic call sign.

A fleet of ships had come out to attack them--TIE fighters and X-wings and a motley bunch of other ships. Obviously, the people in charge of Kessel were up to something, and they didn't want the New Republic to know about it.

Then he remembered scarecrow-like Skynxnex, who had boarded the crashed Falcon. Skynxnex had been a thief and an a.s.sa.s.sin, the primary point of contact between Moruth Doole and the spice smugglers. Skynxnex had wrangled a nominal post as a prison guard in the correction facility, but now he seemed to have changed jobs ...

Han heard the click and hum of the deactivation field around the cell doors, and then a grating whirr as hydraulic lifts hauled the huge door upward. As the door raised, garish white light flooded into the room. Han clapped a hand over his eyes. He hadn't realized the cell was so dim.

"Get ready, Chewie!" Han whispered. If there weren't too many guards, they could rush them, slug their way out, and escape. But then he felt a twinge of pain from his recently broken ribs, and dizziness washed over him. Chewbacca leaned weakly against one of the damp walls of the rancor's cell and groaned.

Well, maybe if there's only one guard, who has poor eyesight and is recovering from weeks' worth of dysentery ...

"Never mind, Chewie. Let's see what they have to say."

The skeletal figure standing in the door was obviously Skynxnex. As Han's eyes adjusted to the light, he could see four other guards behind Skynxnex, wearing not-quite prison uniforms, patches of body armor to protect sensitive areas but showing no rank or insignia.

"So, Han Solo, I trust you appreciate our ... hospitality?"

Skynxnex asked.

Han smirked and looked behind him at the dank cell, the dead rancor. "Yeah, you guys are really turning Kessel into a resort world.

Just like the planet Ithor."

Skynxnex followed his gaze to the mummified monster. "Ah yes, during the turmoil when we took over the prison, someone forgot to feed the rancor. It was a pity. Months pa.s.sed before we remembered him. A double pity, too, because by the time we thought of him, we had plenty of Imperial prisoners we needed to dispose of. That would have been fun to watch. Instead, we had to send them all into the spice mines."

Skynxnex smiled for just an instant; then his face took on its flat, mechanical composure again. "I hope the medical droids helped you recover from your crash injuries. It's important that you both are healthy enough to withstand interrogation. We want to learn exactly why you came to spy on Kessel."

It occurred to Han that for once he could actually tell the truth and be completely open about his mission. "Ready when you are, Skynxnex."

Somehow he was afraid the truth wouldn't be good enough in this case.

The gangly man allowed another flash of a smile. "So you do remember me, Solo? Good. Moruth Doole will want to talk to you immediately."

Han raised his eyebrows. That meant Doole was still alive, still running things--but Han had no idea how the pieces fit together. "I'd love to talk to old Moruth. It's been a long time. He was a good buddy of mine!"

Skynxnex snickered at that, then stopped. The other guards behind him also chuckled. "Yes," Skynxnex said, "I do believe I've heard him mention your name. Several times."

The lift took them out of the main cell-block areas, along a tube to the outer corners of the correctional facility. They rocketed skyward along the angled metal tracks. Looking through the scratched transparent walls of the elevator, Han could see that the prison itself was a ma.s.sive tan-and-gray edifice made of plasteel and synthetic rock. The flat front face sloped backward at about a forty-five-degree angle; elevator turrets glided along each of the corners. A gla.s.sed and mirrored substructure protruded from the slanted face, housing the administrative offices and prison personnel.

In the racing elevator car Skynxnex watched both of them with flickers of amus.e.m.e.nt, keeping his modified double-blaster trained on them. The two guards, armed with more conventional weapons, also stood tense and ready. Seeing this, Han felt ironically impressed. He didn't know what he had done to instill such fear in these people.

Both Han and Chewbacca had been strapped into stun-cuffs, a restraining fixture across the wrists that sent paralyzing jolts of electricity directly into the nervous system, proportional in strength to the amount of struggle a prisoner exerted. Han controlled himself well enough and received only an unpleasant tingle along his forearms. As usual, Chewbacca could not keep his temper in check and managed to stun himself into a stupor.

When the elevator doors opened, Skynxnex prodded the two prisoners forward. Han complied and walked easily ahead, trying to put a self-confident spring in his step. He'd had his troubles with Moruth Doole, and he did not trust the man a bit--but as far as he knew, there was no powerful grudge between them.

Skynxnex escorted them through administrative offices, many of which had been ransacked or burned. They went past a broad anteroom to a huge office faced by giant windows that looked out upon the barrens of Kessel. In the distance Han could see the crumbled salt flats. Great jets from the atmosphere factories sent gouts of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide into the pinkish sky, keeping the planet barely habitable.

Powerful radiation shields in orbit filtered out a large percentage of the deadly X-rays and gamma rays pouring from the nearby Maw. If not for the precious spice, no one would bother trying to live on Kessel.

The original sign on the desk-unit announced this to be the warden's headquarters, but someone had crossed out the previous ID tag and mounted a hand-lettered sign in Basic: Doole's Place. On the wall to the right of the desk-unit hung a man captured in final throes of agony, frozen in carbonite. Doole had taken a lesson from Jabba, displaying some old nemesis for all to see. Han shivered just to look at the trophy. Next to the window a barrel-shaped form stood silhouetted by the garish light.

Han recognized Moruth Doole immediately.

Doole was a Rybet, squat and soft-skinned. His bright-green coloring and tan highlights looked like worm stripes up and down his cheeks, arms, and shoulders. His skin was dry, but so smooth it looked slimy. As always Doole dressed in the skins of less-fortunate reptiles.

His waistcoat looked like something from an ancient history vid. Doole sported a bright-yellow cravat, which meant he was in mating readiness, though Han couldn't imagine where on the planet Doole would ever find a willing female of his own species.

Doole turned around, displaying a much-changed face, jittered with nervous tics and paranoia. His Rybet eyes were overlarge, lantern-like, with vertical slits--but one of his eyes was now milky white, like a half-cooked egg. He wore a mechanical focusing device over his other eye, strapped onto his smooth head with brown leather straps.

Doole fiddled with his mechanical eye, and the lenses clicked and whirred into place, like a camera unit. His Rybet fingers were long and wide at the end, showing signs of vestigial suction cups as he adjusted the focus and pressed his face close to Han's. The blind eye stared milkily off in another direction. After a long inspection he finally hissed in recognition. "It is you, Han Solo!"

Han frowned. "Been hitting the spice too heavily, I see, Moruth.

Always gets the eyesight first."

"It wasn't spice that did this," Doole snapped, tapping the contraption on his eye. He drew in another long sputtering breath that sounded like a carbonated drink spilled on hot coals. "Why are you here, Solo? I want you to tell me, but maybe I want you to resist just a little bit so I can make this hurt."

Chewbacca roared in anger. Han tried to spread out his hands, but the stun-cuffs zapped him. "Wait a minute, Moruth! You'd better explain a few things to me. I don't quite know--"

Doole didn't hear him, rubbing his splayed hands together and smiling with his squishy lips. "The hardest part is going to be restraining myself from having you dismembered right here where I can watch."

Han felt his heart pound. "Can we be reasonable for just a minute?

We were business partners, Moruth, and I never crossed you." Han didn't mention his suspicions that Doole had crossed him in that last spice run.

"I apologize if I did something to upset you. Can we work it out?"

He remembered his conversation with the hit man Greedo in the Mos Eisley cantina. Once offended, Jabba the Hutt had never been interested in working anything out. He hoped Doole would be more reasonable.