"I don't care what you say," Han said as he returned to the cockpit, "We're not turning around."

Chewbacca disagreed and let him know.

"We're finally making good time, if we turn around now and head back to that hellhole of a planet, do you have any idea how long it's going to take to get back on track? And through the asteroid field again. We already had to stop once to make repairs, I'm not doing that again. We're staying on schedule, gonna meet the buyer, drop off the weapons, that's the end of it."

The wookie howled his disapproval at the plan.

"It's not my fault we're stuck with her," Han pointed out.

Chewbacca had a response to that too.

"Alright so the hatch was open, you win," Han replied, "we're still not turning around. She has no business being here in the first place."

The low snarled response had him admitting that he was also curious about this newfound passenger and her story.

"They had to realize she was gone and they never went back to look for her?" he asked himself as well as his friend, "It doesn't make sense."

Chewy had a response for that too.

Han nodded, "I know, if she was lying she could've made up a lot likelier story."

The answer had finally popped in his head about the name of that planet they'd briefly stopped on, Ar-ra, he knew it well enough to know he wasn't looking forward to going back, no matter the circumstances. He turned to the wookie and insisted, "But I'm still not turning around, do you know how much time we're going to lose?"

It was obvious that Chewbacca did, and he still disagreed with Han's idea.

"Look, you can rip both arms out of my sockets, I don't care," Han said determinedly, "we're not turning around until we make the drop-off, and that's that."


"Okay, here's the plan," Han addressed Gwynplaine, "we're going to circle back around to Ar-ra and try and find out what happened to the people you were with, and as soon as we're done there we're getting back on course to meet with a prospective buyer."

The young girl looked at him as if she didn't know what to make of this announcement. She merely responded, "Thank you."

Han turned to Chewbacca and murmured through his gritted teeth, "I hope you're happy." He turned back to the kid and asked her, "What was the name of the ship you were on?"

"Krull," Gwynplaine answered.

"That should easy enough to find out about," he said, and pointing a finger at the girl he told her, "On the way back, don't make any trouble, I've already had a long day and I'm not in the mood, you got that?"

"Yes, captain," she responded simply.

He blinked. Han made it a habit not to take on many passengers, but the few times he'd had to, he'd always stressed the point that he was the captain, he was in charge, and this was the only time anybody had actually addressed him as such.


It was late when they returned to Ar-ra, nobody was around and were it not for the lights of the establishments, would be pitch black. They'd just gotten off the ship and Han was trying to get his bearings when something wrapped around his ribs and was choking the air out of him. After letting out a brief "Gah!" he realized it was Gwynplaine clinging to him. He pushed her away and told her, "Don't do that!"

"Sorry," she said meekly.

It was a small planet, the joke was it got its name because you could orbit the whole thing in the time it took to say it. It was a place to stop, fuel your ship, get a drink, something to eat, but little more than that. Han figured if anybody anywhere was going to be able to help them, the first place to look was in the bar. As they walked up to the place he felt Gwynplaine grabbing onto the back of his belt and sticking to him like a shadow. He reached behind and jabbed at her to back up, but she never got more than a foot away from him. The three of them headed into the establishment and found the lights were on but the place was empty.

"Hello?" Han called out, "anybody here?"

"We're closed!" a rude voice called back.

He looked around but didn't see anyone. "Who said that?"

"I did."

Han looked around again, still nothing. "Where are you?"

"Up here!"

He turned, and followed the voice to a small hole in a wall shaped like a door, the door itself was only about a foot tall, it rested six feet off the ground. Standing in the little doorway was a creature that looked similar to a squirrel, its little hands were folded together in front of it and its yellow eyes practically glowed as it chewed out the smuggler. "We're closed! Come back tomorrow!"

"We don't want service," Han said as he headed over to the wall, "we need some information."

"I don't give anything away for free, you want information, come buy it with a drink in the morning," the creature said, then turned around and swung the door shut.

"Hey wait a minute!" Han pushed the door open and stuck his head in it, "We're not going anywhere until-" A sudden noise of someone biting something could be heard followed immediately by Han's pained scream of, "OWWW!"

He stood back, his fingers pinching his nose, as the creature came back out and shook one tiny fist at him and prattled off in a high pitched tirade that sounded like wordless gibberish. However it was coherent enough for Han Solo to reply furiously, "My nose does not look like a walnut! Now look, we're not going anywhere until someone tells us what happened to the Krull that was here."

The creature intertwined its tiny fingers and its eyes took on a different glow as it said in a notably calmer tone, "The gypsy ship...you'll have to speak to Mundo."

"Who's that and where do we find him?" Han wanted to know.


Mundo was one of Ar-ra's patrol agents. He stood half a foot taller than Han, his skin was black, his head was bald but he had a short black beard and sharply pointed eyebrows, he was covered in black armor that went up to his neck, the official uniform of the planet's patrol who kept the peace and inflicted lethal force when warranted by outsiders landing and looking for trouble. He walked a night beat, Han had been able to find him a few streets down from the bar, he'd had Chewie and the kid stay back, but if the conversation started to go sideways he knew the wookie would come in blasting. So far it had been a civil conversation.

Mundo grimly nodded his head in remembrance, "The day of the sandstorm, the Krull crashed right after takeoff, we pulled the bodies out of the wreckage, there were no survivors but a couple of them lived a few minutes after we found them."

Han sighed and closed his eyes like he had a migraine. "Great, just great. Did they say anything?"

"One was too far gone in shock, one of the others mumbled something about forgiveness for some crime," Mundo answered.

Han snorted, "A band full of gypsies, no shortage what that could mean."

"It wasn't a gypsy," Mundo shook his head. "His name was Ursus Hardquanonne."

"I should know the name?" Han asked.

"He was one of the most reputable doctors this side of the galaxy," Mundo answered, "a long time ago."

From the way he said it, Han could tell there was more to the story. "So what happened?"

"He disgraced the profession, developed some kind of god complex and started performing a lot of experimental surgeries just to say he could, he was drummed out of the practice and exiled. There was a bounty on his head if he ever set foot back on his home planet."

"So what's a guy like that doing running around with gypsies?" Han asked.

"Probably the only people who'd even keep his company," Mundo guessed.

Han spent a minute taking this information in and told the patrol agent, "Well that leaves me with a problem then, I got this kid who was on their ship, and now what the hell am I going to do with her?"

"A gypsy kid?" Mundo asked.

Han shook his head, "No gypsy, look," he turned and pointed back to Gwynplaine who stood at the corner with Chewbacca.

Mundo eyed her up and down and commented, "Not too bad looking, there are places she could go. She looks a little young but there is a market for that too, I could give you the names of a few places you'd get a good price for her."

Something in Han's stomach turned and he had the same cold feeling in his body as he'd had earlier when Gwynplaine made her comment about everybody having a price.

"Uh no thanks," he replied, "I don't think I'm interested."

"Then my advice would be find some small farming planet to dump her on and run," Mundo told him. "Any kid a gypsy would buy has to have something wrong with it, and you don't want to be stuck with a problem like that."

"Buy?" Han Solo blinked. "You think her family sold her to the gypsies?"

"It's more common than them stealing them, and any parent who'll sell theirs, there's something wrong with the kid, and since she doesn't look deformed, that probably means there's something wrong under the hood. Trust me, it's the best thing you could do, it doesn't take a genius to work the fields."

"And then what?" Han asked.

Mundo shook his head, "There's no 'then what', that's their life, work the fields, harvest the crops, and likely after a while have babies that would repeat the cycle. It's the best quality of life they can hope for."

Han felt his eyebrows knotting together as he responded, "Doesn't sound like the best quality to me."

"Don't think too much on it, Solo, that's their lot in life, just be glad it's not yours."

"One more question...what would she have been doing the whole time she traveled with the gypsies?" Han asked.

Mundo looked him in the eyes and said matter-of-factly, "There are things we're better off not knowing."

Han walked away from the conversation feeling like he needed to be run through a spaceship wash, he was starting to see why Gwynplaine had been so anxious to hop the Falcon and get out of there. He walked back over to her and Chewbacca, Gwynplaine looked at him and asked, "Well? What'd he say? Does he know where they went?"

He swallowed a hard lump in his throat, and was only willing to say, "Let's get back to the ship, I'll tell you after we take off."