Scoundrels

Han is willing to accept even greater risks to achieve his most significant accomplishment. However, he is unable to complete this task independently.

Han Solo ought to be reveling in his moment of triumph. After all, the audacious smuggler and captain of the Millennium Falcon has just been instrumental in the daring assault that annihilated the Death Star, delivering the first substantial blow to the Empire in its conflict against the Rebel Alliance. However, having forfeited the reward that his heroic actions had earned him, Han has no reason to celebrate, especially given his substantial debt to the merciless crime boss Jabba the Hutt. A bounty has been placed on Han's head, and if he is unable to produce the necessary credits, he will undoubtedly pay with his life. The only thing that can save him is a king's ransom, or perhaps a gangster's fortune. That is what a mysterious stranger is offering in exchange for Han's less-than-legal assistance with a caper that is riskier than usual. The payoff will be more than sufficient for Han to settle his debts with Jabba and ensure that he never has to negotiate with the Hutts again.

His only task is to penetrate the heavily fortified stronghold of a Black Sun crime syndicate underboss and crack the galaxy's most notoriously impenetrable safe. It sounds like a job for miracle workers or madmen. Thus, Han assembles a group of rogues who possess a combination of both qualities, including his indispensable sidekick Chewbacca and the cunning Lando Calrissian. If anyone can evade, deceive, and defeat heavily armed thugs, killer droids, and Imperial agents alike, as well as pull off the heist of the century, it is Solo's scoundrels. However, will their crime truly pay off, or will it cost them the ultimate price?

The narrative unfolds in 0 ABY, shortly after the Battle of Yavin. Han Solo had been given his compensation from the Alliance to Restore the Republic. However, the pirate Crimson Jack then stole his payment, leaving him significantly indebted to Jabba the Hutt without the means to repay him. Han responded to a job advertisement at Reggilio's Cantina on the planet Wukkar, where, following a brief encounter with the bounty hunter Falsta, he met Eanjer Kunarazti.

Eanjer informed Han that Avrak Villachor, a local crime boss, had murdered Eanjer's father and pilfered over 163 million credits from his family. Eanjer engaged Han to assemble a team of con artists and thieves to infiltrate Villachor's heavily guarded vault in Marblewood Estate, situated in Iltarr City, and retrieve the stolen money in exchange for an even split.

Han contacted Rachele Ree, a local fixer, who subsequently assisted him in locating the following team members: Bink Kitik, a ghost thief, and her twin sister Tavia, an electronics expert; Zerba Cher'dak, a magician and sleight-of-hand specialist; and Dozer Creed, a shipjacker. While Han and Chewie were recruiting their new team members, Mazzic, a mutual acquaintance of Han and Rachele, provided assistance in the form of Kell Tainer, an explosives and droid expert, and Winter, a woman with perfect memory. Finally, due to a misunderstanding, Lando Calrissian also arrived as the group's front man, despite Han and Lando's recent falling out.

Meanwhile, two Imperial Intelligence agents, D'Ashewl and Dayja, arrived on the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Dominator, tracking Qazadi, a Falleen Black Sun Vigo. Qazadi arrived on Wukkar and was lodging as a guest in Villachor's estate. Both Dayja and Han's team discovered that a VIP was staying at the Lulina Crown Hotel and was traveling between the hotel and Villachor's estate multiple times a day. Han's team placed the hotel under surveillance and discovered that Aziel, a Falleen, was staying there with a large safe. The team decided to break into the safe to identify Villachor's guest and steal whatever was being heavily guarded. As Bink, Winter, and Chewie broke into the hotel suite, Dozer and Kell distracted the guards, allowing Bink and Winter to discover that the safe contained a cryodex, an ancient Alderaanian encryption device that was unhackable. Meanwhile, Dayja discovered Han's team watching Villachor and Aziel, contacted Eanjer, and struck a deal with him. In exchange for Dayja providing additional intelligence, Eanjer would hand over the cryodex and the encrypted files stored in Villachor's vault. Using the information from Dayja, Eanjer explained to the rest of the team that Villachor was heavily involved in Black Sun and that the encrypted files stored in Villachor's vault were a cornerstone of Black Sun's power, making the files and cryodex to decode them almost priceless.

Over the following week, the team made preparations and cased the estate while Villachor hosted the Festival of Four Honorings, a grand affair where Villachor's estate was open to the public. As part of the plan, Bink attached herself to Lapis Sheqoa, Villachor's chief of security, Dozer attempted to bribe several of Villachor's security staff, and Lando introduced himself to Villachor under the alias of Kwerve, offering to help Villachor defect to a mysterious rival organization. Lando's offer was sweetened by him stating that his organization had a working cryodex, which surprised Villachor as less then a dozen survived the destruction of Alderaan. Lando agreed to return later with the cryodex as proof of his offer. Meanwhile, Villachor became increasingly paranoid that Lando and all the other mysterious events caused by Han's team were actually Qazadi or even Prince Xizor attempting to test his loyalty or position him for failure and replacement.

Lando arrived as agreed with a fake cryodex that Winter had recreated from her brief inspection of the one held in Aziel's vault. Villachor demanded proof that the cryodex could actually decode a file, and using information provided by both Han and Rachele, Lando was able to bluff his way through the meeting and convinced Villachor that the cryodex was legitimate. In the process, they swapped out the datacard Villachor gave them with a fake card that contained sophisticated sensors so they could get readings from inside Villachor's vault. Soon after departing, however, Lando and Zerba, who had been carrying the cryodex in a case, were kidnapped by corrupt police on orders from Qazadi. They attempted to steal the cryodex, but Han, Chewie, Winter, and Kell were able to rescue them.

At the next opportunity, Han made contact and offered to set up a meeting between Villachor and the leader of Lando's shadowy organization while the rest of the team made their final preparations. As more and more unexplained events occurred, Villachor became paranoid enough to make preliminary contacts with the Imperials, hoping that if he defected and turned over information on Black Sun's organization, they could protect him from whatever was happening; however, in the end, he decided against it. Dayja warned Eanjer, but Eanjer decided not to warn the rest of the team that Villachor might be taking an unexpected turn by dealing with the Empire.

Finally, the day of the heist arrived, and the entire team sprang into action. Han approached Villachor with a datacard that was supposed to have the time and place for a meeting; however, Villachor immediately took him prisoner. Dayja, who had been making his own attempts to infiltrate both Villachor's organization and estate, was also spotted and captured. Bink, who had been flirting with Sheqoa throughout the whole festival, stole his keycard to get access to the estate, and then using one of Zerba's illusions, she switched places with Tavia so Tavia was with Sheqoa and Bink was free to infiltrate the house. Sheqoa immediately suspected Bink of having stolen his keycard; however, as he was now with Tavia, he could find no evidence of the theft. Even so Qazadi ordered her into the estate for a more in-depth interrogation.

With several members captured, the team had to improvise. Lando dead dropped the cryodex in an attempt to ransom out Han, but nobody on the team expected that to actually work. Instead, they had realized that as Winter had copied Aziel's cryodex perfectly, Qazadi would immediately suspect his aide of treachery and would call him to the estate immediately. If the team could keep the real cryodex from being in the same room as the fake then Qazadi would keep the prisoners alive so he could get more information out of them. Winter and Dozer went back to the hotel to stall Aziel while Bink, Zerba, and Kell infiltrated the estate. Both Han and Dayja escaped their captors, and Han joined up with his team while Dayja went to the roof to observe. Bink, Zerba, and Kell were able to cut their way into the vault chamber, and using data from the fake datacard on the inside, they were able to penetrate the vault completely. Meanwhile, Winter and Dozer staged a landspeeder accident and then hotwired Aziel's landspeeder to operate by remote. Dozer took control of the vehicle and smashed Aziel and his bodyguards all over a parking garage before he opened the side door and grabbed the cryodex while the guards were too dazed to react. Dozer and Winter tried to escape but were stopped by a detachment of stormtroopers who put everyone under arrest. Unexpectedly D'Ashewl appeared and let Dozer and Winter go in exchange for the cryodex. When Winter communicated this out to the team they realized that Eanjer's contact had been with Imperial Intelligence and became aware that there was another operation underway.

Villachor realized that the intruders were already breaking into his vault and tried to get their in time but due to various delays organized by the team he was too late to catch Bink, Zerba, and Kell. Instead when he opened the vault chambers explosives went off that caused the vault, that shaped like a sphere, to roll out of the estate entirely and into the front lawn. Meanwhile Lando, Chewie, Bink, and Eanjer attempted to rescue Tavia from Qazadi's chambers. Bink arrived first but she was quickly incapacitated by the falleen's pheromones. While Chewie and Lando dealt with the last of Qazadi's guards Eanjer arrived and killed Qazadi with a hidden hold-out blaster pistol. Lando, Chewie, Bink, and Tavia quickly escaped from the estate while Eanjer stayed behind under the excuse that he had to finish his revenge on Villachor. Out on the front lawn Kell and Zerba emerged from the vault with both credits and blackmail files and the rest of the team arrived and picked them up. Lando left early, exchanging his share for the blackmail files. Dayja spotted him leaving with the box however and alerted the orbiting Star Destroyer to capture him. Unbeknownst to Lando and Dayja, Han had handed over an empty box instead of the blackmail files as he realized that Dayja had been watching.

Eanjer, meanwhile, hurried to the landing bay where the Millennium Falcon was parked and waited to spring an ambush on Han and Chewie when they arrived to leave. He realized too late, however, that what he thought was the Millennium Falcon was actually a decoy set up by Dozer. Han's team had learned that the real Eanjer had been killed six weeks ago, long before hiring Han and that the whole deal had been some kind of set up. Without the real Eanjer to unlock the credit tabs where the money was stored the team would have to settle for significantly less, about eighty-thousand credits each instead of 14.8 million. Han offered to exchange his share for the black mail files that he intended on turning over to the Alliance.

At the New York City ComicCon of 2011, the Del Rey Star Wars Books panel revealed that Timothy Zahn would author a Han Solo-centered novel set within the original trilogy's timeframe.

Timothy Zahn communicated via Facebook that his story received official approval on February 22, 2012. Initially, the book's release was slated for "Winter 2012," later specified as December 26, 2012. However, on October 1, 2012, the release of all Random House books scheduled for the twenty-sixth was postponed to January 1, 2013.

While conceiving the narrative for Scoundrels, Timothy Zahn found inspiration in the Ocean's 11 film, featuring Frank Sinatra, which was subsequently remade with George Clooney.

• ISBN 9780345511508 ; January 1 , 2013 ; Del Rey ; US hardcover [1]
• ISBN 9780345511508 ; 2013; Del Rey; US hardcover, Science Fiction Book Club edition (1364596) [11]
• ISBN 9780345536570 ; January 1, 2013; Del Rey; US eBook [2]
• ISBN 9780345511515 ; November 26 , 2013; Del Rey; US paperback [3]
• ISBN 9780593974339 ; February 4 , 2025 ; Random House Worlds ; The Essential Legends Collection Paperback [12]