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  “I hope you’ll reconsider your position,” Doman said, rising from his chair. “I have no wish to embarrass you.”

  Leia shook her head. “You’ll only embarrass yourself, Senator—not least in the eyes of a little girl who once looked on you as family, and Exmoor as a second home.”

  In the time Chewbacca had been on Kashyyyk, the Millennium Falcon had become Rwookrrorro’s leading attraction. Its arrival had been a signal event, and its presence on Landing Platform Thyss brought an ongoing stream of visitors from Karryntora, Northaykk, and even the distant Thikkiiana Peninsula. They came despite the fact that all there was for visitors to do was look at the outside of the ship and have a holo taken of themselves standing beside it.

  Chewbacca had left the ship in the care of his cousin Dryanta and his cousin Jowdrrl. They had nearly begged him for the honor, and they had taken the responsibility to heart. For Dryanta, a pilot, and Jowdrrl, a ship systems engineer, leaving their homes to live aboard her was an almost unmeasurable privilege.

  They had kept the Falcon sealed to everyone but themselves and arranged for the platform to be watched around the clock. During the morning and afternoon open-platform periods, either Dryanta or Jowdrrl—and often both—stood watch to see that no one came within arm’s reach of the hull.

  But there were no visitors on the platform when Chewbacca, Freyrr, Shoran, and a disconsolate Lumpawarrump approached it. Mallatobuck had chased the crowd away without apology and set Dryanta and Jowdrrl to work preparing the Falcon for space.

  [Lumpy, I need you to go to the home tree,] Mallatobuck said after she greeted the party. [Kriyystak has been preparing a food bundle for your father’s ship. See if it’s ready, and bring it when it is. Quickly, now.]

  He accepted the chore without protest and hurried off.

  [You chose to bring him back rather than leave him with Freyrr,] Malla said, turning to Chewbacca.

  [It falls on me, not on him. But he was not ready,] said Chewbacca. [Perhaps he will be more ready the next time. Has there been any further news?]

  [The grids are silent. The misfortune that has befallen our friend is not yet public knowledge. Ralrracheen has sent a message to the Princess on your behalf, but there has been no reply.]

  [And the ship?]

  [Jowdrrl will know best,] Malla said, turning and leading the way onto the landing platform. She called out to the ship’s custodians, and both came running at her voice.

  [Chewbacca, ten thousand apologies. The ship is not quite ready for you,] said Jowdrrl. [I have twenty minutes of work left in the upper gun turret.]

  [Explain.]

  [I meant it as my gift to Han Solo, in gratitude for your life. I expected to be finished before you returned—]

  Chewbacca bared his teeth. [What gift?]

  [Cousin, I studied the ship closely while it was in our care. I saw certain weaknesses, and Dryanta helped me devise improvements—]

  Chewbacca’s grimace grew into a snarl. [Are you telling me that the Falcon is not ready because you have been tinkering with it while I was gone, and it is still in pieces?]

  [No, cousin, no. Dryanta and I worked all night to finish what we had planned. I need only to test the new systems. If I return to my work now, I will be done by the time you have loaded and received clearance.]

  Dispatching her with a growl, Chewbacca turned angrily to Malla. [Did you know of this?]

  [Do not turn your fears for Han into fury at your family,] Malla said reprovingly, her snarl matching the intensity of his. [You did not even stop to consider the value of Jowdrrl’s gift before rejecting it.]

  [She should not have presumed to change anything,] Chewbacca grumbled.

  [She is your closest cousin, and all too like you,] Malla said. [How long will it take you to reach Coruscant?]

  [I am not going to Coruscant. I can do nothing for Han from there,] Chewbacca said. [He is in Koornacht Cluster, so I must go there.]

  [But the Princess asked you to come to Coruscant. Go, listen to her message, it’s saved for you on the Falcon.]

  [If she then asks me to go to Koornacht, I will have lost hours that Han may not have to spare. And if she does not ask me to go there, I must do so anyway, or betray my honor. So I will go there directly.]

  [And what will you do there?]

  [Whatever is necessary,] he said. [I must go see what Jowdrrl has done. Will you bring me my blaster from the home tree?]

  [I will gather what you will need,] Malla said. [Be forgiving of Jowdrrl. She follows the dictates of her honor conscience, just as you do.]

  Growling to himself, Chewbacca turned and climbed the Millennium Falcon’s boarding ramp with long strides. Malla turned to Freyrr and Shoran. [Come,] she said. [I must speak with you, and there is not much time.]

  Grudgingly, Chewbacca was forced to admit that Jowdrrl’s modifications to the ship were not only perceptive, but long overdue.

  One of the much despised idiosyncrasies of the Corellian YT-1300 stock freighter was the severely restricted field of view from the cockpit. Though the flight crew enjoyed an unobstructed field of view forward and to starboard, visibility aft and to port was virtually nonexistent.

  That, plus the extreme offset of the cockpit, made maneuvering or landing a YT-1300 in tight spaces a challenge. Most examples of that model sported five-axis laser-ranging pods as add-ons on the blind side, just forward of the loading port—often installed at the insistence of spooked pilots after a close call with a docking bay wall or another ship. But out of some combination of stubbornness and ego, Han had refused to let Chewbacca install a ranging pod.

  “Do you look at your feet when you walk? A real pilot feels where his ship is,” Han had insisted. “I don’t want anyone looking at the Falcon and thinking we need that kind of training-school crutch. Give me a meter of clearance and I’ll fly this thing anywhere. Do you think Lando could have made that run into the Death Star at Endor if he’d depended on ranging pods?”

  But the Falcon’s enormous blind spot was an even more serious issue in flight than during landings. That fact was the genesis of the maneuver known to pilots as the Corellian carousel—putting the ship into a slow left-hand roll when making an approach in traffic or maneuvering under fire. Han’s addition of a single high-mounted sensor dish to the Falcon only accentuated the need to use the carousel routinely, since the dish had an even larger blind spot than the pilot.

  Jowdrrl had never flown aboard the Falcon, and Chewbacca had never complained about its peculiarities in front of her. But she summed up the problem with one clear, simple truth Chewbacca had not yet managed to impress on his son: [A Wookiee hunter who stands beside a tree hides half the forest from his eyes.]

  Jowdrrl’s solution was a simple if not obvious one. Everywhere there was an existing viewport—the port and starboard loading hatches, the dorsal and ventral gun turrets—Jowdrrl had covered it with a custom-fitted optical transducer panel.

  The output from all four of the nearly transparent sensors was routed to flatscreen displays in the cockpit, giving the pilot the benefit of the familiar views from those four locations. Together, the new sensors eliminated most of the ship’s blind spot, leaving only a small area directly aft—an area that was already well scanned by the sensor dish.

  In explaining what she had done, Jowdrrl changed from Shyriiwook to the Thykarann dialect, which was much richer in technical vocabulary.

  she told Chewbacca.

  Chewbacca grunted grudging approval.

  [I did not have enough time to work on the other problem,] she said, switching back to Shyriiwook, her tone apologeti
c.

  [Which problem is that?]

  [That a Wookiee hunter does not have enough hands to climb and aim at the same time.]

  Again, her words showed a surprising awareness of the Falcon’s operational realities—in this case, the fact that it was almost invariably undercrewed. The Corellian YT-1300 was officially rated as a four-place freighter for in-system work and an eight-place—four stations, four berths—for interstellar flights.

  The cargomaster was expendable, but none of the other three stations was. Even with the cockpit remotes for the gun turrets, it was impossible for two people to simultaneously fly and fight the Falcon effectively. The Falcon had survived most of its gun battles by fighting just long enough and just well enough to make a break.

  [The more mouths at the table, the poorer the feast,] Chewbacca said. [And the silent hunt is best undertaken by a party of two. Still, sometimes four hands are not enough.]

  Jowdrrl changed dialect again.

  Chewbacca said.

  said Jowdrrl. She thumbed one of the eight cables used in the cockpit aiming system.

 

  The system Chewbacca had created involved eight motorized cable spools, turning the turret into a mechanical puppet controlled by a joystick in the cockpit.

  she said.

  [I do not have time to talk about what might be done,] Chewbacca said. [But I see from what you have done that I have not given you enough credit for your skill. You have grown while I have been away.]

  [Thank you, cousin.] Jowdrrl closed her tool kit and turned to face him. [I hope that that means you will accept me as your partner on the journey you are about to begin.]

  [Do not talk foolish talk.]

  [I know by what Malla has said that you will face an enemy as fearsome as the webweaver, and more vicious than the gundark. You should not go alone, and you need not go alone.]

  [No,] Chewbacca snarled curtly, turning and clambering down the access ladder to the main deck.

  [We are family—the life debt to Han Solo does not stop with you,] said Jowdrrl, following closely behind. [And you do not have enough hands. What can you do alone to help him?]

  Chewbacca had reached the cockpit by then and slipped into the pilot’s seat. Turning on the ion coil preheaters, he began running through the Falcon’s streamlined preflight procedures. [You have three minutes to collect your belongings from the crew quarters and leave the ship.]

  [Aren’t you going to talk to Malla before you lift?] Jowdrrl said, gesturing sideways.

  Chewbacca glanced in the direction of Jowdrrl’s gesture. He saw Malla, Shoran, and Dryanta standing together on the landing platform, looking up at the cockpit. Dryanta and Shoran were wearing hunting bandoliers instead of baldrics, and a pair of tough-shelled tree bags were lying on the ground at their feet.

  With a fiercely impatient growl, Chewbacca clambered out of the pilot’s seat and half ran to the boarding ramp.

  [What is this?] he demanded over the rising whine of the Falcon’s idlers.

  [The rest of your crew,] said Malla.

  Shoran grinned brightly and drew himself up to attention. [The First Wookiee Expeditionary Force, reporting for duty.]

  [Malla told us that you’re going straight to Koornacht,] said Dryanta. [We can’t let you go alone. We’re here to help.]

  Chewbacca looked to his wife. [You can’t ask them to risk their lives on my debt.]

  [I did not have to ask them,] said Mallatobuck. [I only had to tell them why you are going and what you face.]

  [It was our idea,] Shoran said, reaching down and shouldering his well-stuffed bag. [And you can’t deny us this hunt without risking betrayal of your debt—if you go alone and fail, you will have no honor.]

  Behind Chewbacca, the hiss of injectors and the clicking of compressors told him that Jowdrrl was continuing the Falcon’s preflight without his assistance.

  [I never wanted any of my family to have to fight again,] said Chewbacca. [I am honor-bound. If I must, I will give my life for my friend. But I will not give yours.]

  [My life is not yours to offer,] said Dryanta. [It is mine. And I pledge it to you, my cousin, and to your friend.]

  [You cannot refuse us without shaming us, cousin,] added Shoran. [Jowdrrl, too.]

  [Go, then, and get aboard,] he said, shooting an annoyed look at his wife. They hastened toward the ship, leaving Chewbacca alone with his Malla. [Your cleverness could cost our family their lives.]

  [Or save yours,] Malla said. [I am at peace with my choice.]

  Chewbacca seized her in a firm embrace, and they growled with fierce affection into each other’s shoulder fur. Then the high whistle of the thrust vents called him toward the ship, telling him that it was ready to lift. But a new voice called him back.

  [Father—]

  Chewbacca turned and saw Lumpawarrump standing in the wooden arch of the landing platform entryway. He was wearing his bowcaster and carrying the freshly camouflaged tree bag he had taken on his aborted journey of ascendance.

  [We will finish your tests when I return,] Chewbacca called.

  Lumpawarrump drew closer with tentative steps. [Take me with you. You have already broken with tradition once. I ask you to do so again.]

  Malla cried out a protest, but Chewbacca silenced her with a warning gesture as he crossed the platform to where his son stood.

  [Why?] Chewbacca demanded. [Why do you ask this?]

  [I will be neither child nor adult until you return—I do not belong in the nursery ring or in the council ring,] said Lumpawarrump.

  [Are you afraid I will not return?]

  [Yes.]

  [Then are you not afraid that you will not return?]

  [I am more afraid to fail than to die,] Lumpawarrump said. [Much is expected from the son of Chewbacca—he cannot be a coward.]

  [You need not fear that now. By offering yourself, you have shown your mettle.]

  [That is not what they will see. They will say that it was only words, that I knew you would not take me, that I knew Malla would forbid it,] said Lumpawarrump. [They will see that even you did not have faith in me—that Jowdrrl and Shoran and Dryanta were good enough for you, but I was not.]

  Chewbacca shook his head. [It is not a matter of faith. I have a full crew. What skills do you bring to this hunt?]

  [Everything of you that is in me, and everything that you can teach me,] Lumpawarrump said. [Father, please—I have accepted your long absences, the duties that take you away from us. But I must have a chance to prove my worth to you. I want my baldric and my new name. Give me a chance to earn them beside you, and know that you are proud of me.]

  Chewbacca cast a sideways glance at Mallatobuck, who was watching anxiously but keeping her distance. He doubted she could have heard much of the conversation over the noise from the Falcon.

  [Go,] Chewbacca said, seizing Lumpawarrump by the arm and sending him toward the ship with a push. Malla raised a sharp wail of protest, but Chewbacca moved quickly to block her from reaching their son.

  [You can’t take him—he’s not ready,] Malla insisted.

  [If I let you tell him that, if I tell him that, it will destroy him,] said Chewbacca. [That is why I must take him. Now step back and let him see a mother’s fierce pr
ide, not her fear.]

  Her eyes sad but resigned, Malla cuffed him across the face, and he returned the kiss with equal tenderness and affection. Then he turned and bounded up the boarding ramp while Malla retreated into the growing crowd drawn to the platform by the sound of the Falcon’s engines.

  Moments later, the ship lifted and wheeled toward the sky.

  Interlude I: Vagabond

  The Teljkon vagabond had finally ceased shuddering and groaning around its prisoners. With the starship once again hurtling through hyperspace, at last there was silence.

  “Attagirl,” Lando said, patting the wall of the chamber in which he and the others floated. “It’ll take a lot more than one rusty old escort frigate to run you down.”

  “But Master Lando, this is terrible, simply terrible,” said Threepio, his damaged arm jerking spastically as he gestured animatedly. “That ship could have rescued us, and now we’ve run away from it. We may even have destroyed it.”

  “I hope we did,” Lando said. “Trust me on this—any rescue offered by an Imperial warlord in the Core is going to be no rescue worth having. There’s probably still a price on my head, maybe on you two droids, too. War hero or war criminal—it’s all a matter of your point of view. Chances are we’d find ourselves traded around until we were in the hands of whoever was willing to pay the most for the pleasure of killing us.”

  “I see what you mean, sir.”

  Artoo-Detoo burbled a terse comment.

  “I’m quite sure he’s not interested in your linguistic pretensions, Artoo,” Threepio said haughtily. “And neither am I.” The droid’s tone suddenly changed to a melodramatic melancholy. “Killed or deactivated or disintegrated to atoms, it’s all the same to me. Oblivion, the final cessation of awareness—”

  Then annoyance suddenly took over Threepio’s voice. “Not that it means anything to a random jumble of circuits such as yourself,” he added, clanging a golden fist against Artoo’s dome. “If you want to do something useful, you might see about fixing those sensors Master Lando placed on the hull. Why you let them be damaged just when we needed them most, I’ll never understand.”