THE HUTT GAMBI(9)

Bria had been tall. This woman was short.

She was also angry. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded in Basic. “Leave me alone or I’ll summon security!”

“I … I’m sorry …” Han mumbled, stepped back, holding up both hands in as nonthreatening a manner as he could manage. “I thought you were someone else.”

“Well, I feel sorry for her,” the woman said huffily. “With an ill-mannered, scruffy lout like you in her life!”

“Look …” Han continued to back away, hands up. “I said I was sorry, sister. I’m going, okay?”

“I think you’d better,” she said pointedly. “That priest has summoned security, I think.”

Han looked over his shoulder, cursed, then took to his heels, heading away from the crowd. He could see Chewbacca waiting for him, and waved to the Wookiee.

He lengthened his stride, and a glance back at his pursuers reassured him that he was losing them.

Been drinking too much … he decided as he ran. That’s gotta be it. I’m gonna be more careful from now on … a lot more careful .

. .

“Did Han get away?” Bria Tharen asked her friend as Lanah Malo walked into the room, carrying Bria’s black cloak under her arm. Bria was seated on the single human-styled chair in the cheap room they’d rented for their short stay on Devaron.

“I think so,” Lanah Malo replied, tossing the cloak to her friend, then picking up her travel bag and dumping it on the bed. “The last I saw, he and that big Wookiee he was traveling with jumped into a public skimmer.

Security was still on foot. My guess is, he made it.”

“He’s probably offworld by now,” Bria said softly, wistfully. Rising, she walked over to the window, then stood for a moment gazing up into Devaron’s coral-tinted sky. Tears gathered in her blue-green eyes. I never thought I’d ever see him again. I never thought it would hurt so much …

The pain she felt completely eclipsed the triumph she should have been experiencing. Today she’d faced the Exultation and successfully resisted it. After years of fighting her addiction to it, now she finally knew for certain that she was a free woman. She’d looked forward to this day for a long time—but any joy she felt was drowned in her grief at seeing Han again, and knowing she couldn’t be with him.

“Couldn’t you have talked to him?” the shorter woman asked, almost echoing Bria’s own thoughts. Bria turned from the window and watched her friend and comrade-in-arms pulling on her battered, khaki colored jacket. Quickly Lanah stuffed the last of her personal belongings into the small travel bag. “What harm could it do?” she asked, giving Bria a sharp, quizzical glance.

Bria shivered, then pulled the cloak around her shoulders. It was chilly, now that the sun was low on the horizon. “No,” she said in a low voice. “I couldn’t talk to him.”

“Why not?” Lanah asked. “Don’t you trust him?”

Moving as methodically and carefully as a droid, Bria checked the charge in the blaster she wore strapped to her thigh—low-down, the way

Han had taught her, five years ago when they’d been partners, companions .

. . lovers. “Yes,” she said, after a moment. “I trust him. I trust him with anything that’s mine. But what we’re trying to accomplish—that’s not mine. That’s all of us. Betrayal at this point could mean the end of the entire movement. I couldn’t risk it.”

Lanah nodded. “Solo showing up when he did sure messed up our plans,” she said. “No telling when we’ll get a clear shot at Veratil again.

My guess is that he’ll hightail it back to Ylesia to tell Teroenza he spotted your exboyfriend.”

Bria nodded tiredly as she ran her hands through her hair. Han loved to do that, she thought with a sudden surge of memory so vivid that it felt like a blow. Oh, Han…

Lanah Malo gave her an assessing glance that was half sympathetic, half cynical. “You can fall apart later, Bria. Right now we’ve got to catch the transport back to Corellia. The Commander’s going to expect a full report.

Even if we failed to take out Veratil, we still succeeded in making contact with the Devaronian group … so the trip wasn’t a total waste.”

“I’m not going to fall apart,” Bria said dully, holstering her blaster without looking at it—the way Han had taught her. “I got over Han long ago.”

“Sure you did,” Lanah agreed, not unkindly, as the two women picked up their bags and headed for the door. “Sure you did …”