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pessimistic person she had ever met.
    Ilen asked, “Should I take us in, Your Highness?”
    â€œYes, let’s get into dock as quickly as possible.”
    A check of the sensors confirmed that the station was on the outskirts of a system that included several inhabited planets, all of them listing small agricultural settlements. There was no sign of Imperial presence. As they drew closer to the station, the bright blob on the sensor screen resolved into an image of a large torus with a docking ring all along its center. It was clearly ancient and battered, with hatches marred by old burns from docking accidents, and hull plates that were pitted and blast-scarred.
    And then the sensor alarms went off.

CHAPTER THREE
    Han said, “What now?”
    Leia gripped the arms of her seat.
Not again!
“Imperials?” The comm came to life with a gabble of conflicting transmissions.
    Han shook his head. “Somebody else is having a lousy day, too.”
    Leia frowned at the screen, not understanding, as Ilen hit the ship’s alert to warn engineering and gunnery. Then the sensor screen resolved into a blurry image.
    Between the
Gamble
and the space station, two ships were locked in combat. At first, all Leia could make out was that one seemed to have the advantage over the other, and that neither was broadcasting an Imperial ID. The current winner was larger than the
Gamble,
sleek, and well armed, but the sensors couldn’t get a clear image of it.
    Ilen said, “The one under attack is a freighter …”
    â€œYeah, a real freighter, unlike us,” Han said, hands moving over the controls to coax more data out of the sensors. “No extra weapons.”
    Leia tensed as a distress call sounded from the comm. At least one other frequency was open, and it was broadcasting shouts of alarm, sobbing, frantic commands, and the rumble of blast impacts. Han said, “The ID is for some agricultural mercantile from what sounds like a local system. The attacking ship … Yeah, that’s a faked ID.” He looked up at the screen. “We’re looking at a pirate.”
    Ilen threw a worried glance back at Leia. “We can’t help the freighter … can we?”
    Leia set her jaw. The comm transmissions were making more sense now, as the system sorted them and upped the gain on the urgent ones. One was a desperate plea to the station, the voice tripping and slurring through the words in Basic. There were twenty-three beings on board, the speaker was saying, all civilian traders. The comm controller on the station returned a reassuring litany that help was coming soon. Leia could see on the screen that the station was too far away for its defensive weapons to drive off the pirates. It didn’t look to her as if a rescue ship would even arrive in time.
    And the
Gamble
was just too damaged to help.
    â€œWe can’t afford to intervene,” Leia said, hardening her voice, trying to keep the emotion out of it. She saw Ilen’s shoulders slump in resignation.
    â€œWe’ve got compromised deflector shields, the hyperdrive is out, and the sublights are hanging on by pure luck,” Han elaborated. “We’ve got no choice, here.”
    â€œI know,” Leia muttered. But it didn’t matter how good their excuse was: they were still leaving the crew of the merchant ship to die or be taken prisoner.
    The sensor view wheeled and compensated as Han changed course. Readouts redlined and beeped in alarm as the
Gamble
’s strained systems protested. He took the ship above the battle, out of range of the other ships’ guns, then jerked his chin at Ilen. “Hail the station, tell them we’re coming in with sublight damage, and we can’t assist the freighter.” He added, “At least now we won’t need a fancy cover story to explain how we got shot up.”
    Leia agreed. As Ilen contacted the station, she watched the sensor