Millennium Falcon: Star Wars Legends

by LUCENO, JAMES

• ISBN13: 9780345510051
• ISBN10: 0345510054
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-11-24
• Publisher: Del Rey

Summary

Two years have passed since the death of Sith Lord Darth Caedus--once known as Jacen Solo. For the grieving Han and Leia, the only bright spot is Jacen's daughter, Allana, who makes a curious discovery aboard her grandfather's beloved spacecraft--the much-overhauled but ever-dependable "Millennium Falcon."

Author Biography

James Luceno is the New York Times bestselling author of the Star Wars novels Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader, Cloak of Deception, Labyrinth of Evil, as well as the New Jedi Order novels Agents of Chaos I: Hero’s Trial and Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse, The Unifying Force, and the eBook Darth Maul: Saboteur. He lives in Annapolis, Maryland, with his wife and youngest child.

Excerpts

The first time Han laid eyes on her, standing with Lando on one of Nar Shaddaa’s permacrete landing platforms a few short years before he had thrown in with the Rebel Alliance, he saw the battered old freighter not only for all she was but for all that she might one day become.

Staring at her like some lovesick cub. Eyes wide, mouth hanging open. Then quickly trying to get hold of himself so that Lando wouldn’t know what he was thinking. Dismissing the ship as a hunk of junk. But Lando was no fool, and by then he knew all of Han’s tells. One of the best gamblers that side of Coruscant, he knew when he was being bluffed. “She’s fast,” he had said, a twinkle in his eye.

Han didn’t doubt it.

Even that far back it was easy to envy Lando all he already possessed, his extraordinary good fortune to begin with. But luck had little to do with it. Lando just didn’t deserve this ship. He could barely handle a skimmer, let alone a light-fast freighter best flown by a pair of able pilots. He just wasn’t worthy of her.

Han had never thought of himself as the covetous or acquisitive type, but suddenly he wanted the ship more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. After all the years of servitude and wandering, of close calls and failed partnerships, in and out of love, in and out of the Academy, victim of as many tricks as he’d played on others . . . perhaps he saw the ship as a chance for permanence.

Circling her, fairly orbiting her, he nursed sinister designs. The old freighter drew him to her gravity, as she clearly had all who had piloted her and added their own touches to the YT’s hull, mandibles, the varied techno-terrain of her surface. He took the smell of the ship into his nostrils.

The closer he looked, the more evidence he found of attempts to preserve her from the ravages of time and of spaceflight. Dents hammered out, cracks filled with epoxatal, paint smeared over areas of carbon scoring.

Aftermarket parts socked down with inappropriate fasteners or secured by less-than-professional welds. She was rashed with rust, bandaged with strips of durasteel, leaking grease and other lubricants, smudged with crud. She had seen action, this ship, long before Lando’s luck at sabacc had made her his property. But in service to who or what, Han had no idea. Criminals, smugglers, pirates, mercenaries . . . certainly all of those and more.

When Lando fired her up for Han’s inspection, his heart skipped a beat. And minutes later, seated at the controls, savoring the response of the sublight engines, taking her through the paces and nearly frightening Lando to death, he knew he was fated to own her. He would get the Hutts to buy her for him, or pirate her if he had to. He’d add a military-grade rectenna and swap out the light laser cannons for quads. He’d plant a retractable repeating blaster in her belly to provide cover fire for quick get­aways. He’d install a couple of concussion missile launchers between the boxy forks of her prow . . .

Not once did it occur to him that he would win her from Lando. Much less that Lando would lose her on a bluff.
Piloting the modified SoroSuub he and Chewie leased from Lando had only added to his longing for the ship. He imagined her origins and the adventures she had been through. It struck him that he was so accepting of her from the start, he had never asked Lando how or when she had acquired the nameMillennium Falcon.


Corellian Engineering Corporation
Orbital Assembly Facility 7
60 years Before the Battle of Yavin

WITH HIS SHIFT WINDING DOWN, SOLY KANTT’S GAZE DRIFTED lazily between the chrono display mounted on the wall and a news feed running on the HoloNet. A tie score i

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Excerpted from Millennium Falcon by James Luceno
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.