For once Han Solo was going straight. He and his Wookiee sidekick Chewbacca had abandoned interstellar smuggling for the safe, legitimate enterprise of running a holotheater for the insectoid natives of Kamar.
They should have stayed illegal. When they put on the wrong show, the Kamarites destroyed the holoprojector and nearly did the same for Chewie and Han, who had to blast off in their starship Millennium Falcon seconds ahead of a raging mob. They were dead broke.
But there's always work for a space-going freighter captain who doesn't ask awkward questions, and Han quickly got a job that would pay him a cool 10,000. It would also, he discovered when he made planetfall to pick up his cargo, earn him and Chewbacca summary execution. The Corporate Sector Authority could overlook many crimes, but the slave trade carried with it mandatory capital punishment.
Thanks to the quick thinking of Blue Max, computer-partner of Han's work 'droid Bollux, Han was able to turn the tables on the slavers and free their captives. All the same, he and Chewie were still penniless.
Figuring that somebody still owed him 10,000 credits, Han kept a rendezvous the slavers had arranged with their shadowy boss. They lovely girl who kept the date didn't fit his idea of a slave trader, and she wasn't. From Han's point of view, she was almost worse—for Fiolla was a full-fledged officer of the Sector Authority…most of whose laws he had broken or meant to break some day. But Fiolla needed Han and the Falcon for her secret mission to the distant planet of Ammuud, and she was prepared to ignore his past and future transgressions if he cooperated with her.
Still in pursuit of the elusive 10,000, Han accompanied Fiolla to Ammuud, escaping a determined kidnapping attempt on the way—only to find himself pitted against a hired gunman in a duel to the death!
It looked as if those 10,000 credits were going to be pretty hard-earned…
After a string of unsuccessful smuggling ventures in the Corporate Sector, Han Solo and his Wookiee copilot, Chewbacca, quit that part of space. Down on their luck after a botched smuggling run on the Rampa Rapids, Han Solo and Chewbacca found themselves on the planet Kamar, showing holodocumentaries to the natives. They soon realized they weren't cut out for legitimate work, and found themselves nearly broke, with no prospects in sight. In these dire straits, Han and Chewie accepted a job offer from an anonymous employer to fly blind for a cool ten thousand credits. However, after flying the Millennium Falcon to the planet Lur for the pickup, they discovered that the cargo was a load of slaves—something neither Han nor Chewbacca had any tolerance for. Some fast thinking by their two droids, Bollux and Blue Max, provided the two with an opportunity to turn the tables on the slavers' attempt to commandeer the Falcon, and escape with both their lives and their ship. As far as Han Solo was concerned, somebody still owed them for their trouble. So they set out to track down the recipients of their intended cargo to get their money one way or another.
Han Solo and Chewbacca set a course for the planet Bonadan, where the slavers' leader, Zlarb, was to meet his contact for payment. Instead of the contact, however, they crossed paths with Fiolla, an assistant auditor-general employed by the Corporate Sector Authority. She was also following a lead on a group of slavers operating within the Corporate Sector, and convinced Han that his only chance of getting paid was to aid her in tracking down the slavery ring. During their investigations on Bonadan, Han and Fiolla discovered that Authority executives may be involved in the slavery ring. In the meantime, Chewbacca foils the attempted repossession of the Millennium Falcon by a Tynnan skip tracer named Spray. After reading Zlarb's data plaque, the group made plans to travel to the planet Ammuud, to investigate the slavers' connection to the shipping firm of one of the governing clans there. Unfortunately for them, the slavers were watching Fiolla and were keeping their eyes on Han and Chewbacca now, as well. Due to some unfortuitous circumstances with the slavers watching the Falcon, Han and Fiolla are unable to board the ship, and the two smugglers are forced to split up. Chewbacca, Spray, and the droids lifted off in the Falcon, while Han and Fiolla sought passage on a passenger liner.
En route to Ammuud, the hull of the Millennium Falcon was compromised by a sleeper bomb placed by the slavers on Bonadan. The crew had to make an emergency landing in the mountains on Ammuud. Prior to planetfall, however, Spray sent the two droids to the spaceport in a lifeboat, in search of Captain Solo. Meanwhile, the liner that Han Solo and Fiolla were aboard was hijacked in transit by the slavers, in an effort to capture the pair. The couple was able to escape detection in a lifeboat of their own, and arrived on Ammuud with the hope of uncovering the evidence Fiolla needed to implicate the high-ranking Authority officials in the slavery ring. After Han had befriended the Mor Glayyd, by foiling the plot of Gallandro to harm the clan leader, he was furnished with the permission and the repair parts to search for his missing copilot and starship. After finding Chewie and the Falcon, making repairs and raising ship, the crew was beset by the slavers once again. It was the Corporate Sector Authority and Gallandro who came to their rescue, however.
The gunman was actually coming to the aid of his superior, Spray, who was in fact the Corporate Sector Authority's Territorial Administrator Odumin, working undercover to expose the slaver ring and the corruption within the Authority. Despite the circumstances, Han Solo and Chewbacca were to be placed under arrest for previous crimes committed against the Corporate Sector Authority. In a daring attempt to escape incarceration, the pair of smugglers kidnapped the Authority administrator, and were able to barter for their freedom and collect their payment at long last.
- ISBN 9780345284754; October 12, 1979; Del Rey; US hardcover
- 3670; 1979; Del Rey; Book Club Edition
- ISBN 9780345288400; June1980; Del Rey; US paperback
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