“The Ithorians will go right away,” Leia said. “The world we came down on is perfect for them. And-given how they feel about violence-it’s about the only chance they have of getting around the Reclamation Act.”
“As long as the rehab conglomerates don’t steal it out from under us again.”
“The Reclamation Act doesn’t apply outside the Galactic Alliance,” Leia said. “Besides, who’s going to tell them?”
Han nodded quietly at the navigator’s station, where Juun was mumbling to himself and shaking his head in frustration. Finally, he banged the side of his fist into his temple and whined something in Sullustan that Leia did not quite catch.
“We’ll just have to keep him close,” she whispered. “At least until we’ve relocated the Ithorians.”
Han let his chin drop. “You really know how to spoil the moment.” He stepped on the flight deck and, peering at the display over Juun’s shoulder, asked, “So, what have-“
Juun jumped out of his seat, the top of his head avoiding Han’s chin only by virtue of his short stature, then spun to face them.
“What are you doing, sneaking up like that?”
Han raised his hands. “Easy. I wasn’t trying to give you a power surge.”
“Actually, Jae, we’ve been standing here talking for a couple of minutes.” Leia leaned down to look at the display. “It appears you’ve been hard at work.”
Juun relaxed somewhat. “I’ve been running a full gravitational analysis, per emergency troubleshooting procedure.”
“Come up with anything besides a headache?” Han asked.
“Nothing that makes sense.” Juun returned to his seat and began to call up columns of stellar deflection observations. “Light is definitely being distorted at a steadily increasing rate, which means that either there’s a very large, completely invisible rogue body dead ahead-“
“Or something big is about to come out of hyperspace,” Leia finished. “Did you do a rate-of-change analysis?”
“Of course.” Juun typed a command and brought up a graph plotting angle of deflection against time. “According to this, space-time should be separating just about-“
Leia’s hair stood on end, then an iridescent flash lit the interior of the cockpit, and tiny snakes of static electric began to drag-race down her neural pathways. The proximity alarm blared to life. She hurled herself toward the copilot’s seat, but lost her footing and hung in midair for a moment, her eyes aching with the brilliance of the silvery flash ahead, her stomach swirling inside her like water down a drain.
Then Leia stumbled into the copilot’s chair and found herself staring out the viewport at an immense, cylinder-studded crevice of durasteel whiteness. Her stomach rose toward her throat as Han put the Falcon into an emergency climb, and her ribs began to throb from an impact she did not remember receiving.
“What is it?” Han yelled.
Leia activated her tactical display and found the top half rapidly filling with transponder codes. It took her a moment to find the Falcon’s own code, surrounded as it was by others of a similar color.
“I… I think it’s a battle fleet,” Leia reported.
“Whose?”
A jagged line of familiar white ellipsoids appeared along the bottom edge of the viewport. Interspersed among them were about twice as many thin white arrows.
“Hapan.” Leia did not bother to confirm her conclusion with a code search. She had seen the distinctive ships too many times - at Dathomir, Corellia, and even Coruscant-to need corroboration. “Those are Novas and Battle Dragons.”
“Yeah,” Han agreed. “What are they doing out here?”
“Going to Lizil,” Juun said. “What else?”
The comm channel crackled to life, and a voice with a thick Hapan accent said, “This is Hapes Battle Dragon Kendall hailing Galactic Alliance transport Longshot. Heave to and prepare for temporary impoundment.”
“Impoundment!” Han maintained his course. “Better let them know who we really are.”
Leia was already reaching for the transponder controls.
“Longshot, this is your last warning-“
“Battle Dragon Kendall.” Leia activated the Falcon’s true transponder code. “This is Leia Organa Solo aboard the Millennium Falcon.”
The Hapan voice grew more uncertain. “Millennium Falcon?”
“Yes,” Leia said. “Sorry for the confusion, but we usually travel incognito. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course,” the voice said.
“Good. If you’ll assign us a safe vector, we’ll move through and let you be on your way.”