One moment, Han Solo had been watching out for Jabba's goons in Mos Eisley. The next he'd gotten caught up with interstellar politics, religious gobbledygook, and a pair of prickly teenage girls.

Now-somehow-he'd ended up in the middle of a Rebel base. Not a scratch on him. Not on Chewie, either. They'd rescued a princess. They'd gotten a reward big enough to cover all their debts with plenty left over. Even the Falcon had been repaired at no cost to them.

Apparently, all the good luck had gone to his head. Han had promptly turned around and invited Lucy Skywalker to join their smuggling operation. Lucy!

It wasn't that he didn't like her personally. He did. But-Lucy, who'd convinced him to go haring off after the princess. Sure, that had turned out all right, but they could just as easily have all died. He knew perfectly well she'd try the same trick again. It wasn't like he and Chewie needed another partner, anyway-and if they had, they could have done better than a little blonde with a hero complex.

But they could have done worse, too. A lot worse. Lucy might be a kid with no real idea of how the galaxy actually worked, but at least she was smart and loyal. She had plenty of nerve, too, she shot what she aimed at, and she knew her way around a starship.

Not much of a surprise, if she really was Anakin Skywalker's daughter. Sure, the Jedi stuff was just children's stories and an old hermit's imagination, but the Clone Wars sure as hell weren't. Han remembered the wars. He remembered Skywalker and Kenobi. Mostly Skywalker-he'd been the best starpilot living, everyone said. The old man hadn't needed to make up stories about that.

Han glanced at Lucy. He hadn't been sure at first, for all that she looked like a tiny, girlish version of Skywalker. The more he thought about it, though, the more he couldn't believe that anybody could be so staggeringly stupid as to use the names of two Jedi heroes as pseudonyms. But the old man might be just dim enough to use his real name and let Lucy run around with hers.

Besides, he'd dueled with Vader himself. Lost, but it wasn't like Vader got into swordfights with just anyone. Yeah, between one thing and another, Han figured that Kenobi really was the Negotiator, if prematurely aged and senile, and Lucy probably was Skywalker's daughter. After the TIE fighter attack, he didn't have much doubt. If that was her first fight in zero-grav-

Well. A little experience and they might be damn lucky to have her onboard.

Now thoroughly satisfied with himself, Han's attention reverted to the base. Pilots were either running this way and that, or climbing into their ships, while dozens of astrodroids beeped and wailed, and officers oversaw the whole mess. Hardly any of the latter wore flight suits-they wouldn't be fighting with the troops. Another shocker.

"Lucy?" one of the pilots called out.

Han stopped in his tracks. Lucy, her face lighting up, had already spun around to peer upwards.

"Biggs?"

The pilot—Biggs?—sprang down. He was tall and dark, with a lovingly trimmed moustache and an almost Imperial swagger in his step. Twenty-five or thirty, Han thought, his eyes narrowing as Biggs grabbed Lucy's arm, but the man didn't push his luck, just looked thrilled. Lucy and Biggs beamed at each other.

"Lucy! I don't believe it!" Biggs threw her a look of soppy adoration, and Han mentally downgraded his age to twentyish. "How'd you get here? Are you going up with us?"

Lucy, oblivious to her friend's blatant infatuation, scowled at the ground. "No."

"They don't let women and children in," Han said. "Lucy here's unlucky enough to get disqualified on both counts."

Lucy's head snapped up. "I'm not—" She caught his grin, and smiled, a little reluctantly, in return. "Oh, right: Biggs, these are my friends, Han Solo and Chewbacca. Han, Chewie, this is Biggs Darklighter, my best friend back home. He jumped ship from the Imperial Academy!"

The other man—boy, really—eyed Han. "Nice to meet you," he said. His polite tone just fell short of outright hostility.

"Same," said Han, amused.

Biggs returned his attention to Lucy. "I can't believe they didn't let you in! You're the best bush pilot in the Outer Rim territories!"

She turned red, either flattered or angry. After a moment's consideration, Han decided on the latter; Lucy was many things, but overburdened by humility was not one of them.

"Well-"

"The entire Outer Rim, huh?" Han slanted a half-laughing, half-impressed look at her. "I guess you really do take after your old man."

Her flush faded. "Everyone says so," she replied simply.

"You knew Mr Skywalker?" Biggs asked, eyes wide. "That's how you met?"

"Kid, everyone knew Anakin Skywalker. Except on Tatooine, apparently."

"Actually, we met when stormtroopers chased us out of Mos Eisley," Lucy told him. "Han's the captain of the Millenium Falcon—it looks like junk but it's an amazing ship—and he and Chewie got us out of there and then out of the Death Star. He's invited me to join the crew."

Biggs blinked several times. Then, recovering with a speed that Han could only assume came from years of knowing Lucy, he said, "Well, that's—congratulations, I mean. You'll get to fly after all!" His voice cooled. "I'm sure Captain Solo appreciates how lucky he is to have you on his ship."

"Yeah, he does," said Han.

The other pilots began to clamber into their ships.

"I've got to get aboard. Maybe you can come back after the Death Star gets destroyed and tell me the whole story," Biggs said, fearlessly confident as only a very stupid or very young man could be.

Lucy smiled at her friend, her expression as bright his own. "That'd be great, Biggs." She darted forward and hugged him tightly, then kissed his cheek. "Good luck."

"You too." Biggs reluctantly stepped back and began climbing up the ladder to his X-Wing. He looked back down at her. "I'm sure we'll be fine. We're a couple of shooting stars that'll never be stopped!"

At any other time, Han would have snickered. Instead, he just glanced away. You'll be dead by tomorrow, kid.

Biggs waved his last goodbye, which Lucy cheerfully returned. Then she, Han, and Chewie walked the rest of the way to the Falcon.

Han's hand was tight on the controls as he watched Yavin IV and its moon fade into oblivion. There was no point in dying for some pointless revolution, he reminded himself. No point in dying for anything. When it came down to it, not much else mattered, except life: his and Chewie's and now Lucy's. She was better off, anyway. If they'd let her fight she'd have gladly dashed herself to pieces against the Empire. This way she might live, and live well—not the soft, soul-crushing existence that the rest of the galaxy had chosen for her.

I want to fly, she'd said, with a restless, hungry look that he perfectly understood. He could give her that. He felt almost heroic.

Han glanced around. Chewie, still complaining—he was almost as senselessly romantic as the Rebels themselves—had seated himself on Han's right, manning the computers. Lucy stood behind him, her fingers tight on the back of his chair and her eyes fixed on the viewing window. She reminded him strongly of the princess, somehow, and not only because she wore a white dress almost exactly like Leia's. It was something about her stiff, straight posture, her wide eyes, her face pale beneath her tan, almost as pale as Leia's had been.

He tried to put the princess out of his mind. There had been nothing he could do for her. Even Han had known better than to bother inviting Leia onboard. She had a place in the Rebellion, and wouldn't be moved by a million stormtroopers—or one planet-destroying superweapon.

Chewie informed him that nothing would be helped by damaging the controls. Han relaxed his grip, exhaling a quick, angry burst of air.

"Lucy," he said, "I'll give you an advance. You'll need a few more things than the clothes on your back."

"It's not mine, I borrowed it from Leia," Lucy said, her tone low and flat. She even sounded like the princess. Then her voice lifted a little. "I mean, thanks. It'd be nice to have some belongings."

The last few glimmers faded to black. Then Han said, "I've got everything under control. Chewie, why don't you and Lucy move her to her own quarters?"

Chewie grumbled, but agreed, and Lucy seemed almost glad to turn away from the viewscreen. Han, left alone with his thoughts, regretted their absence almost the moment they left. This was the only choice he could reasonably have made, but that didn't mean he had to like it. He thought of the princess again, flouncing around the Death Star and shooting stormtroopers, her stern expression turning to fury almost every time he spoke to her. Not the last, though. Her eyes had gone wide and stricken when he led Lucy away from her, and the one time he'd glanced back, she'd been staring after them in something very like dread.

He didn't want her to die. Not that wanting would do anything about it. But she—she had a lot of spirit, as he'd laughingly told Lucy. Princess Leia, whatever else she might be, was very alive. And very young. Seventeen. Yet they might as well have left her to die in her cell, for all the difference it'd make in the end.

Han's mind skittered away from Leia, to the pilots he'd talked to. He'd only caught a few names. Wedge Antilles, he remembered, a dark-haired man a little younger than himself. Not stupid-young, though; he'd been cheerful enough, but knew what he was getting into. Plenty of them did. The grizzled officers around Leia certainly did. Half of them had defected from the Empire proper. And then there were the kids, the kids who knew they'd win because the power of justice was on their side—damn idiots like that would-be lover of Lucy's. They didn't deserve to die, either.

Han directed a furious gaze at the door. What were Chewie and Lucy doing back there? It shouldn't take this long to take the blaster he'd given her and the stormtrooper belt to the spare quarters. He just hoped Chewie'd had the sense to hide any signs of Kenobi's occupancy. Shouldn't be hard, the old man had been as fanatically neat as he was about everything else.

Lucy and Chewbacca returned a few minutes later, Lucy's face a little pink. Apparently she'd taken advantage of the opportunity to scrub herself down, or . . . something. Han ignored the patch of slightly damp fur in the middle of Chewie's chest.

"Took you long enough," Han snarled at his friend. Chewie told him he was being foolish enough without this nonsense.

Lucy perched herself in the chair by his side, and asked a few strained questions about Jabba the Hutt. Han tried to describe him, aided by Chewie, but figured it wasn't really possible. Probably for the best.

"I never thought I'd be going back to Tatooine," said Lucy. She managed a chuckle. "Or that I'd miss Threepio and Artoo."

Han only vaguely remembered her two droids: the prissy protocol droid and the beeping little astromech. Leia's droids, she'd said on the Death Star—he definitely remembered that conversation.

For all the talk of missing someone else's pair of droids, she hadn't mentioned Kenobi since his death. Han didn't think for a moment that she'd forgotten, but he wasn't about to bring the old man up if she didn't. Didn't she have other relatives, too? He didn't know what'd happened to them, but he couldn't imagine it was good.

Han cleared his throat. "They're probably helping the princess," he said.

Lucy flinched. She didn't say anything, just stared ahead, her face white and blank. After a moment, she lifted one shaking hand to push a tendril of hair behind her ear. She still didn't blink.

The princess, he remembered, had all but adopted Lucy from the moment they fled the Death Star. He hadn't figured Leia had a tender bone in her body until he'd found her wrapping a blanket around the other girl's shoulders and stroking her hair. But he hadn't been sure if Lucy had simply accepted the princess' affection, too flattered and overwhelmed to do anything else, or returned it. Stupid of him. Lucy would attach herself to a metal can, were it programmed to speak kindly to her. Hell, wasn't that exactly what she'd done with the droids?

Chewie said that while Han seemed to be absolutely determined to abandon the princess to her death, at the very least he could avoid mentioning her to Lucy.

Han stared at the control panel, feeling almost like the walls of the compactor were pressing in on him again—Lucy pale and strung tight as a vella on his left, Chewie reproachful and disapproving on his right.

Damn it, Han thought.

"Fine," he said. "I'm not putting up with this all the way to Tatooine. Lucy, stop moping and go take over the starboard guns. I've outfitted the ship with some torpedoes, just in case, but we can't afford to waste any—you'll see the controls. Chewie, you'll have to do the flying. We've got a princess to rescue." He paused. "Again."

Chewie said he knew Han had it in him. Lucy jumped up and gave him a starry-eyed look that reminded him alarmingly of Biggs Darklighter.

"Look, it's not that I've had some huge change of heart about those idiot Rebels," Han protested. "I just don't want you two pestering me about it for the rest of my life. We'll do what we can and make it out somehow. I always do."

"Mm-hmm," said Lucy. She ran out of the cockpit before he could reply.

They knew perfectly well what it was, Chewie said, and pulled him out of the captain's chair. Han muttered to himself, grabbing the wall as the ship swerved around, then followed Lucy up the ladder, to the gunports.

He threw himself into the chair and quickly snatched up his headset, sliding it over his head just in time to hear Lucy mumbling something. He couldn't quite catch it.

"Everything working?" Han asked.

"Yeah," she said. "Just some weird feedback for a moment there. It's fine now."

The Death Star was already closing in on the base by the time the Falcon approached. It couldn't be more than a few minutes from vaporizing the entire moon. It must have followed Han's trail. Point for you, sweetheart, he thought at the princess. Maybe he'd even tell her so, if—when, when they survived.

"Faster, Chewie," he snapped.

The Falcon dove into the narrow trench that led to the exhaust port, and hurtled forwards, easily avoiding the Death Star's turbolasers. Apart from the lasers, the trench seemed empty. Han fought the sinking feeling in his stomach. It hadn't taken out the base yet.

He heard Lucy draw a quick breath.

"See anything?"

"No—no," she said. Her voice sounded a little hoarse.

"Don't lose your nerve now," Han told her.

Lucy laughed. "No, sir!"

Then he caught sight of a faint twinkle, far beneath them. The further in they flew, the more of them he saw: burning hunks of metal, spiraling downwards to the surface of the Death Star.

"They can't all—" Lucy began.

Chewie howled a warning, but Han had already seen them: three TIE fighter pilots chasing after a single, wildly careening X-Wing. TIE fighters were usually a joke, but the Empire churned them out like Jabba did counterfeit credits; they didn't need power or maneuverability when they usually outnumbered their opponents ten or twenty to one. Even three to one was pretty decent odds—but one glance told Han that the middle fighter, the leader, was a custom job.

"Up ahead," Han said.

"I see them," Lucy said tightly.

"You take the wingmen. I'll go for the leader. Wait for me to fire. We better take 'em by surprise."

"All right."

As soon as they were within range, Han set his computer, waited for it to target the leader, and fired. Lucy vaporized his left wingman, but somehow the lead pilot seemed to have noticed the attack the instant before Han fired; the customized TIE swerved, the Falcon's fire barely clipping its wing. Lucy fired at the other wingman, who darted out of the way only to strike the leader's ship. The wingman crashed into the wall of the trench, bursting into flames; the leader spiraled up into deep space.

"What the—Solo?" cried a vaguely familiar voice. Wedge Antilles.

"Wedge! You're all right!" Lucy said, even as the damaged X-Wing veered dangerously near the wall. Han spared a moment to wonder how she even knew the other pilot, then shrugged.

"Get clear! You can't do any more good in this shape," he said. "We can take it from here."

"Sorry," said Antilles. "And thanks!"

The crippled X-Wing lurched around and flew up, back to the base. Lucy was mumbling to herself again. Han caught one word this time: Force.

"Come on, girl," he said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. "Let's blow this thing and go home before any more Imps catch up with us!"

They rushed towards the exhaust port. Han adjusted his computer, unsure if even the Falcon could pinpoint such a small target at this speed. Well, nothing to do but try—

Chewie shouted through the intercom. Lucy's targeting computer had turned off.

"Lucy, what are you doing? What's wrong?" Han demanded.

"Nothing. I'm all right," she said breathlessly, and fired.

He watched, stunned, as two torpedoes darted straight into the exhaust port, not even brushing the sides, just heading right for the reactor. She'd made the shot. Without a computer, without anything. Her gasp of relief echoed across the intercom.

Chewie swerved the ship up, following Antilles' path towards the Rebel base. Han threw off his headset and hurried towards the cockpit, accepting Chewie's smug congratulations and suffocating embrace about as gracefully as he could. Lucy ran in a moment later and flung herself straight at him, her hands tight on his shoulders and her face flushed and beaming.

"I knew you'd go back!" she said. "I just knew it!"

Han just laughed and returned her hug, easily lifting her off her feet. Behind them, the Death Star began to rumble. Han set her down, keeping one arm around her shoulder, and turning them both towards the viewscreen. A few flashes burst up on the Death Star's surface. Han and Lucy held their breath. Then the entire fortress exploded into a massive, multicoloured ball of flame.

He could feel Lucy's body relax beneath his arm. Chewie cheered.

"Great shot, girl," said Han, grinning. "That was one in a million."

She glanced up and around the cockpit, then smiled back.

"Thanks," said Lucy.