A Confederation cruiser in low planetary orbit would soon fire its turbolaser batteries down at the forests, setting portions of them ablaze. But this strike would be surgical, precisely following the kilometers-long line of beacons Leia had planted. Once that line was drawn, the turbolasers would broaden it toward the east… and the Falcon, other freighters carrying fire-snuffing foam, and Wookiee firefighting teams would control it along its western perimeter. The controlled burn, once extinguished, would leave only char for the advancing wildfire to meet-and that char would be too broad for windborne sparks to jump.
The fire would end here. And the Falcon and other ships would move on to create firebreaks elsewhere, eventually checking the wildfire everywhere. Finally, its food all consumed, the firestorm, the beast, would die of starvation.
Leaving behind millions of burned acres and a scarred, smoke-shrouded world.
Han heard the winch stop its whir then, moments later, resume it, bringing Leia up to him. He felt a wash of relief. He knew she could take care of herself. That didn’t mean he didn’t worry whenever she put herself in the path of danger.
He set the Falcon into a gentle eastward course, sending it away from the firebreak area, and checked to make sure his communications were still set to the Confederation frequency. “Millennium Falcon to Lillibanca. Beacons are in place. You can begin. At Number One, if you please, not Number Twenty.”
He heard a chuckle before the voice of the cruiser’s male communications officer replied, “Acknowledged, falcon. And thanks.”
Then there was a new voice-female, pitched low and seductive-from close behind Han. “Your feelings betray you.”
Jolted by adrenaline, Han jerked around to look.
Standing in the entrance to the cockpit was a woman. She was robed nearly head-to-foot in dark garments. Only her face showed, and it was a beautiful face, blue-skinned, cheerful of expression.
Her name was Alema Rar, and she had come to kill him.
Han drew his blaster. As he did, Alema gestured, a flourish that swept her cloak away from her body, and reached out with her left hand as her right snatched her lightsaber from her belt. Han’s pistol, barely clearing its holster, flew from his grip and into hers.
Han gaped at her. She should not have been able to do that. Her left arm was useless, had been ruined years earlier-but now it was fine.
She tsk-tsked at him. “We are a Jedi. We choose not to be shot. We have been shot before. It is not pleasant.” She dropped the blaster. It rang as it hit the deck plates.
Han put bravado he didn’t feel into his voice. “So? What are you going to do, talk me to death?” His mind flashed through the weapons and resources he had at hand. They included one hideaway vibroblade, which wasn’t much use against a Jedi like Alema, and one very large weapon that had seldom let him down.
“We are going to wait until your piranha-beetle of a wife can see, and then we will shove our lightsaber through your heart. She can hold your corpse and cry. Won’t that be nice?”
“Not really.”
There were times when it was a wonderful thing that Han knew the Falcon as well as he did-that he knew her well enough to handle every control, every instrument even if blind or disoriented. Without taking his gaze off Alema, he reached forward and disengaged the freighter’s inertial compensator and artificial gravity generator. In the same instant he hit the thrusters and hauled back on the control yoke.
He stood the Falcon on her tail and blasted off toward space. With the inertial compensator off, the sudden acceleration crushed him back into his seat. His head swam with unaccustomed dizziness.
Alema’s expression changed from one of good humor to round-eyed surprise as she fell backward. Han heard her thump against the wall of the cockpit access corridor-she had to have hit where the corridor angled away toward port and stern. He heard his blaster pistol clattering along after her. Then there were more thumps and clatters as Alema and the blaster rolled down the slope the angle wall now constituted.
There was also laughter-peals of Alema’s laughter.
Waroo, his golden-brown fur gleaming orange and red in the glow of fire visible through the docking ring, was just hauling Leia aboard when the Falcon bucked, her bow suddenly pointed straight toward the smoke-filled sky, and accelerated. Waroo and Leia were slammed into the aft bulkhead of the corridor just inside the starboard docking ring. Abruptly the bulkhead was floor, and the acceleration pressed them down like a big invisible hand.
Leia unbuckled herself from the winch harness and drew in a breath to shout at Han. Could he have failed to notice that the Falcon’s artificial gravity wasn’t functioning? Then she heard it, laughter echoing off the Falcon’s bulkheads and floor plates.