The Millennium Falcon set down in Mos Eisley early in the afternoon, kicking up sand all around in the open-topped ship dock. Han Solo and Chewbacca ran through the shut down procedure. "I tell ya, Chewie, I'll be glad to have this debt paid off and out of my mind."

Chewbacca grunted in agreement.

"Who knows, maybe Jabba will give us another job."

Chewie turned to Han and gurgled out his thoughts to his friend and business partner.

Han looked up and nodded contemplatively, casting his gaze out at the docking bay wall. "I know you miss `em, pal," he said. "They're good kids... but joining the rebellion is riskier than smuggling."

Lando Calrissian stood outside the ship, waiting for them to come out. He wore black pants and tall black boots with a blue pirate shirt and a long purple cape. His curly black hair fluffed out an inch off his head. The ship's ramp slid down behind him, but he didn't turn around. He heard Han's boots clack down the ramp, followed by Chewbacca's heavy feet. Han spotted his brown-skinned friend halfway down the ramp. He approached him without a word, glanced back to find Chewbacca behind him with his hands on his bowcaster.

"Lando?" Han asked.

Lando turned his beaming face on Han, flashing his white teeth. "How ya doing, buddy?" Han smirked and reached out his hand to shake, but Lando grabbed him up into a quick hug.

"Couldn't be better," Han said.

Chewbacca grunted at Calrissian.

"What's up, Chewie," Lando said.

"What are you doing out here?" Han asked. He tried to keep his suspicions out of his voice. In his line of work it was dangerous to trust his friends.

"Jabba sent me to escort you to his palace," Lando said, his voice smooth and deep. "He would've sent a bounty hunter, but he was afraid you might kill `em."

"Hey, he shouldn't have sent that poor excuse for a bounty hunter after me anyway. Jabba knows as well as I do that Greedo couldn't catch a womprat if someone handed it to him in a box. He was going to shoot me just for fun, you know."

Lando laughed and turned to lead them to the XP-38 speeder Jabba had loaned him. It was sleeker, shinier, and faster than the speeder Luke had sold to pay Han. Lando took the controls, Han the passenger seat, and Chewbacca filled up the backseat. It took them about a minute to get out of town and into the desert wasteland. Han weighed the pros and cons of joining the rebellion. Chewbacca had been trying to convince him to join the entire trip back to Tatooine.

Chewbacca gurgled interrogatively to Lando.

"I've only been here for a couple weeks, Chewie," Lando replied. "I know there's an imperial garrison in Mos Eisley..."

"They started up a few weeks ago, just before we blew up the Death Star," Han said.

"Don't tell me you took part in that," Lando said, glancing to his friend.

Han's expression turned mock-indignant, as well as his tone. "Well why not?" he said. "They paid well enough!"

Lando chuckled. "Han, old buddy, you're turning into a big softy. It's about a girl, isn't it?"

"I told ya it was about the money, Lando."

Chewie grunted, and Han spun and shot him a scowl.

"Princess?" Lando said. "What princess?"

"Ah, she's too stuck up for me. Besides, Luke's got his eye on her..."

"Luke Skywalker?" Lando asked.

Han tossed him a puzzled expression. "You've heard of him?"

"The empire just put a price on his head so large every bounty hunter in the galaxy is looking for him," Lando said. "You'd think he was the last Jedi, the price they're paying."

Han knew the truth to Lando's speculation. Luke was no Jedi, but he could become one, if he survived long enough to learn. Han wondered if his joining the rebellion would help Luke. He considered the possibility that Chewbacca might join with or without him.

Lando parked the speeder outside Jabba's palace, in the midst of several other speeders. The palace snuggled high atop a rocky plateau, surrounded by rocks and lizards and speeders and cacti. Loud up-tempo jazz music poured from the open entrance to Jabba's stone palace. The entrance was wide enough to drive a speeder bike through. A tall lanky figure with black skin and deep purple hair stood on one side of the door, his rifle openly displayed and ready in his hands. He wore dark blue clothes and a black lightsaber handle attached to his belt. He turned his glowing green eyes on the approaching visitors. Opposite him stood a tall, wide, and in all other ways large humanoid with a tusked sneer across his face, wrinkling his pug snout nose. His black hair ran in a spiky strip all the way down the back of his neck. He wore a black tank top over his muscled form, and loose black pants that draped over his open-toed shoes. He rested a battle-axe on his brown shoulder. As Lando led Han and Chewie into the palace a tall pale blue-skinned man with a long tentacle growing from the back of his head approached them. He stepped into the sunlight, revealing his colorless eyes and smiled, flashing his needle-sharp teeth at them.

"Jabba is waiting," he said in the Hutt's language, then turned and led them down the wide corridor.

As they followed the music grew louder, and the smell of burnt opiates drifted lazily through the air on smoke rafts. Dozens of voices chattered in Huttese as well as the galactic standard language. A twelve-foot long orange slug with a face and arms rested on a giant floating metal slab beside an equally huge hookah sending clouds of smoke into the air. All around him were aliens of all shapes and sizes, most of them on two feet. The conversed and drank and smoke and watched the half-naked blue-skinned girls dancing to the music. The band was a mixed bag of creatures, one of them a blue pachyderm behind a big slab of keys, another a ballooney green guy with a big round head and a little face that blew expertly into its brass horn. A four-armed, lanky white-skinned humanoid pounded out the beats on an electric drum kit while a long-legged yellow-skinned gal with dark green spots sang soulfully in her own language.

Jabba's booming laugh filled the room and rattled the walls, louder than the band, which suddenly dropped off in volume and intensity as the visitors walked into the room. "Han, my boy," the hutt said in his own language. "I'm glad you have returned to pay off your debt. I would hate to have to waste such a good smuggler."

Han pulled a small plastic card from inside his vest. "I've got the money in a bank under a false name. This is the access key."

"I'll transfer the funds before you leave, my friend," Jabba said while the pale blue guy with the tentacle took the card from Han and walked out the room behind Jabba. "I have another job for you, Solo... if this transfer goes through."

"Forget it, Jabba," Han said, and glanced back at Chewbacca. "We're joining the rebellion, Chewie and I."

Jabba laughed more heartily than before, and a few others started in with him. Lando swung his incredulous look on Han, who smirked at him. Chewie garbled his affirmation. The music stopped, and the room grew silent when Jabba stopped laughing. "Well, Captain Solo, this job might give you an opportunity to help the rebellion and make us both a profit."

"What's the job?" Han asked.

"A client on Coruscant has requested a few crates of illegal guns."

"That's suicide," Lando said.

Chewbacca grunted shortly.

Han smirked and turned to Lando. "You want to come with us, Lando?"