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more, Han wanted to give Cakhmaim the chance to hone his firing technique. All Han and Leia had to do was help line up the shots.
    From the way the coralskippers reacted to the
Falcon
’s sudden turnabout, Han could almost believe that the enemy pilots had been eavesdropping on his communication with the Noghri. The first skip—the more battered of the pair, showing charred blotches and deep pockmarks—poured on all speed, separating from his wingmate at a sharp angle. Smaller and faster, and seemingly helmed by a better pilot, the second skip shed velocity in an attempt to trick the
Falcon
into coming across his vector.
    That was the skip that had taken out the swoop, Han decided, sentencing the pilot to be the first to feel the
Falcon
’s wrath.
    Leia guessed as much, and immediately plotted an intercept course.
    Exposed, the skip pilot went evasive, moving into the gun-sights and out again, but with mounting panic as the
Falcon
settled calmly into kill position. The dorsal laser cannon was programmed to fire three-beam bursts that, all these years later, still had the ability to outwit the dovin basals of the older, perhaps more dim-witted coralskippers. While the enemy craft was quick to deploy a gravitic anomaly that engulfed the first and second beams, the third got through, blowing a huge chunk of yorik coral from the vessel’s fantail. Han tweaked the yoke to place the skip in the Money Lane, and his left hand tightened on the trigger of the belly gun’s remote firing mechanism. Sustained bursts from the twin cannons whittled the skip to half its size; then it blew, throwing pieces of coral wreckage in every direction.
    “That’s for the swoop pilot,” Han said soberly. He turned his attention to the second skip, which, desperate to avoid a similar fate, was jinking and juking all over the sky.
    Zipping through the showering remains of the first kill, the
Falcon
quickened up and pounced on the wildly maneuvering skip from above. The targeting reticle went red, and a target-lock tone filled the cockpit. Again the quad lasers rallied, catching the vessel with burst after burst until it disappeared in a nimbus of coral dust and white-hot gas.
    Han and Leia hooted. “Nice shooting, Cakhmaim!” he said into the headset. “Score two more for the good guys.”
    Leia watched him for a moment. “Happy now?”
    Instead of replying, Han pushed the yoke away from him, dropping the
Falcon
to within meters of the surging waves. “Where’s the swoop?” he asked finally.
    Leia was ready with the answer. “Come around sixty degrees, and it should be right in front of us.”
    Han adjusted course, and the swoop came into view, streaking over the surface, bearing two seriously dissimilar riders. In pursuit, and just visible beneath the surface, moved an enormous olive-drab triangle, trailing what appeared to be a lengthy tail.
    Han’s jaw dropped.
    “What is that thing?” Leia said.
    “Threepio, get in here!” Han yelled, without taking his eyes from the creature.
    C-3PO staggered into the cockpit, clamping his hands on the high-backed navigator’s chair to keep from being thrown off balance, as had too often happened.
    Han raised his right hand to the viewport and pointed. “What is that?” he asked, enunciating every word.
    “Oh, my,” the droid began. “I believe that what we’re looking at is a kind of boat creature. The Yuuzhan Vong term for it is
vangaak
, which derives from the verb ‘to submerge.’ Although in this case the verb has been modified to suggest—”
    “Skip the language lesson and just tell me how to kill it!”
    “Well, I would suggest targeting the flat dome, clearly visible on its dorsal surface.”
    “A head shot.”
    “Precisely. A head shot.”
    “Han,” Leia interrupted. “Four more coralskippers headed our way.”
    Han manipulated levers on the console, and the
Falcon
accelerated. “We gotta work fast. Threepio, tell Meewalh to activate the manual release for the landing