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Commenor, then Han had time to consider histemporary copilot. He had not missed the lightsaber hanging inside the Arcona’s ragged flight tabard, nor the significance of the mind game he had played on CorSec agents. Still, while there were now enough Jedi in the galaxy that Han no longer knew them all by name, he would have heard about an Arcona Jedi—especially a salt-addicted Arcona.
    “So,” Han asked. “Who are you?”
    “Izal Waz.” The Arcona turned and, smiling crookedly, extended his three-fingered hand. “Thanks for taking me aboard.”
    “Waz? Izal Waz?” Han shook the hand. “Your name sounds familiar.”
    Izal’s gaze flickered downward, and he released Han’s hand. “Anything’s possible, but we haven’t met.”
    “But I
do
know the name,” Han said. “What about you, Leia?”
    He turned to look and found her chin slumped against her chest. Though her eyes were closed, her brow was creased and her hands were twitching, and it made Han’s heart ache to see her suffer so even in her sleep.
    “Looks like I better put our patient to bed.” Han unbuckled his crash webbing. “We’ll talk more in a few minutes.”
    “Good,” Izal Waz said. “I’ve always been curious about your years in the Corporate Sector.”
    That was hardly the discussion Han had in mind, but he left the pilot’s chair and took Leia back to the first-aid bay. She did not stir, even when he lifted her into the bunk and connected her to the medical data banks. He knew she needed her rest, but he wished she would open her eyes just for a minute and give him a smile, some indication that she would recover—that
they
would. He had needed to mourn Chewbacca’s death, he knew that, and maybe he had even needed to crisscross the galaxy helping Droma search for his clan. But only now was Han beginning to see how he had surrendered to his grief, or to understand that there had been a cost.
    “Get well, Princess.” He kissed Leia on the brow. “Don’t give up on me yet.”
    The monitors showed no indication that she heard.
    Han buckled the last safety strap across her chest and magnoclamped the repulsor chair to the deck beside her bunk, then went aft to check on the other patient aboard the
Falcon
. Hergurney was clamped to the floor of the crew quarters, a pair of data umbilicals connecting the portable bacta tank to an auxiliary medical socket. C-3PO stood in a corner, his photoreceptors darkened and his metallic head canted slightly forward in his shutdown posture. The covers on the three bunks were rumpled.
    Han did a quick check to make certain the bacta tank was still functioning, then reached behind C-3PO’s head and reset his primary circuit breaker.
    The droid’s head rose. “… can’t leave her in the middle of …” The sentence trailed off as his photoreceptors blinked to life. “Captain Solo! What happened?”
    “Good question.” Han glanced around. “I thought Izal turned you back on.”
    “If you are referring to that salt-happy Arcona whom Mistress Leia asked you to bring aboard, absolutely not!” He gestured at the portable bacta tank. “I was instructing him where to secure the gurney when … well, someone must have tripped my breaker.”
    “You didn’t cross the medical bank data feeds?”
    “Captain Solo, you know I don’t relish memory wipes,” C-3PO said. “And I assure you, I know the proper way to access a data feed. I wasn’t even near it.”
    “That’s what I was afraid of.”
    Han stepped over to a bunk and found what looked like a large black toenail on the covers. There were similar flakes on the other bunks, and, on the third, a pair of disassembled transmitters—the really small kind, such as a CorSec agent might hide on a portable bacta tank. Han placed his hand in the center of the rumpled covers. The bed was still warm.
    “Go to the first-aid bay and stay with Leia.” Han folded the flakes and transmitters into his hand, then started for the door. “Don’t let