Beyond the forward viewport hung the gossamer veil of Ashteri’s Cloud, a vast drift of ionized tuderium gas floating along one edge of the Kessel sector. Speckled with the blue haloes of a thousand distant stars, its milky filaments were a sure sign that the Rockhound had finally escaped the sunless gloom of the Deep Maw. And after the jaw-clenching horror of jumping blind through a labyrinth of uncharted hyperspace lanes and hungry black holes, even that pale light was a welcome relief to Jaina Solo.
Or rather, it would have been, had the cloud been in the right place.
The Rockhound was bound for Coruscant, not Kessel, and that meant Ashteri’s Cloud should have been forty degrees to port as they exited the Maw. It should have been a barely discernible smudge of light, shifted so far into the red that it looked like no more than a tiny flicker of flame, and Jaina could not quite grasp how they had gone astray.
She glanced over at the pilot’s station—a mobile levchair surrounded by brass control panels and drop-down display screens—but found no answers in Lando Calrissian’s furrowed brow. Dressed immaculately in a white shimmersilk tunic, lavender trousers, and a hip cape, he was perched on the edge of his huge nerf-leather seat, with his chin propped on his knuckles and his gaze fixed on the alabaster radiance outside.
In the three decades Jaina had known Lando, it was one of the rare moments when his life of long-odds gambles and all-or-nothing stakes actually seemed to have taken a toll on his con-artist good looks. It was also a testament to the strain and fear of the past few days—and, perhaps, to the hectic pace. Lando was as impeccably groomed as always, but even he had not found time to touch up the dye that kept his mustache and curly hair their usual deep, rich black.
After a few moments, he finally sighed and leaned back into his chair. “Go ahead, say it.”
“Say what?” Jaina asked, wondering exactly what Lando expected her to say. After all, he was the one who had made the bad jump. “It’s not my fault?”
A glimmer of irritation shot through Lando’s weary eyes, but then he seemed to realize Jaina was only trying to lighten the mood. He chuckled and flashed her one of his nova-bright grins. “You’re as bad as your old man. Can’t you see this is no time to joke?”
Jaina cocked a brow. “So you didn’t decide to swing past Kessel to say hello to the wife and son?”
“Good idea,” Lando said, shaking his head. “But … no.”
“Well, then …” Jaina activated the auxiliary pilot’s station and waited as the long-range sensors spooled up. An old asteroid tug designed to be controlled by a single operator and a huge robotic crew, the Rockhound had no true co-pilot’s station, and that meant the wait was going to be longer than Jaina would have liked. “What are we doing here?”
Lando’s expression grew serious. “Good question.” He turned toward the back of the Rockhound’s spacious flight deck, where the vessel’s ancient bridge droid stood in front of an equally ancient nav computer. A Cybot Galactica model RN8, the droid had a transparent head-globe, currently filled with the floating twinkles of a central processing unit running at high speed. Also inside the globe were three sapphire-blue photoreceptors, spaced at even intervals to give her full-perimeter vision. Her bronze body casing was etched with constellations, comets, and other celestial artwork. “I know I told Ornate to set a course for Coruscant.”
RN8’s head-globe spun just enough to fix one of her photoreceptors on Lando’s face. “Yes, you did.” Her voice was silky, deep, and chiding. “And then you countermanded that order with one directing us to our current destination.”
Lando scowled. “You need to do a better job maintaining your auditory systems,” he said. “You’re hearing things.”
The twinkles inside RN8’s head-globe dimmed as she redirected power to her diagnostic systems. Jaina turned her own attention back to the auxiliary display and saw that the long-range sensors had finally come online. Unfortunately, they were no help. The only thing that had changed inside its bronze frame was the color of the screen and a single symbol denoting the Rockhound’s own location in the exact center.
RN8’s silky voice sounded from the back of the flight deck. “My auditory sensors are in optimum condition, Captain—as are my data storage and retrieval systems.” Her words began to roll across the deck in a very familiar male baritone. “Redirect to destination Ashteri’s Cloud, arrival time seventeen hours fifteen, Galactic Standard.”
Lando’s jaw dropped, and he sputtered, “Tha … that’s not me!”
“Not quite,” Jaina agreed. The emphasis was placed on the wrong syllable in several words; otherwise, the voice was identical. “But it’s close enough to fool a droid.”
Lando’s eyes clouded with confusion. “Are you telling me what I think you’re telling me?”
“Yes,” Jaina said, glancing at her blank sensor display. “I don’t quite know how, but someone impersonated you.”
“Through the Force?”
Jaina shrugged and shot a meaningful glance toward a dark corner. While she knew of half a dozen Force powers that could have been used to defeat RN8’s voice-recognition software, not one of those techniques had a range measured in light-years. She carefully began to expand her Force awareness, concentrating on the remote corners of the huge ship, and thirty standard seconds later was astonished to find nothing unusual. There were no lurking beings, no blank zones that might suggest an artificial void in the Force, not even any small vermin that might be a Force-wielder disguising his presence.
After a moment, she turned back to Lando. “They must be using the Force. There’s no one aboard but us and the droids.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.” Lando paused for a moment, then asked, “Luke’s friends?”
“I hate to jump to conclusions, but … who else?” Jaina replied. “First, Lost Tribe or not, they’re Sith. Second, they already tried to double-cross us once.”
“Which makes them as crazy as a rancor on the dancing deck,” Lando said. “Abeloth was locked in a black-hole prison for twenty-five thousand years. What kind of maniacs would think it was a good idea to bust her out?”
“They’re Sith,” Jaina reminded him. “All that matters to them is power, and Abeloth had power like a nova has light—until Luke killed her.”
Lando frowned in thought. “And if they’re crazy enough to think they could take Abeloth home with them, they’re probably crazy enough to think they could take the guy who killed her.”
“Exactly,” Jaina said. “Until a few weeks ago, no one even knew the Lost Tribe existed. That’s changed, but they’ll still want to keep what they can secret.”
“So they’ll try to take out Luke and Ben,” Lando agreed. “And us, too. Contain the leak.”
“That’s my guess,” Jaina said. “Sith like secrecy, and secrecy means stopping us now. Once we’re out of the Maw, they’ll expect us to access the HoloNet and report.”
Lando looked up and exhaled in frustration. “I told Luke he couldn’t trust anyone who puts High Lord before his name.” He had been even more forceful than Jaina in trying to argue Luke out of a second bargain with the Lost Tribe—a bargain that had left the Skywalkers and three Sith behind to explore Abeloth’s savage homeworld together. “Maybe we should go back.”
Jaina thought for only an instant, then shook her head. “No, Luke knew the bargain wouldn’t last when he agreed to it,” she said. “Sarasu Taalon has already betrayed his word once.”
Lando scowled. “That doesn’t mean Luke and Ben are safe.”
“No,” Jaina agreed. “But it does mean he’s risking their lives to increase our chances of reporting to the Jedi Council. That’s our mission.”
“Technically, Luke doesn’t get to assign missions right now,” Lando pressed. “You wouldn’t be violating orders if we—”
“Luke Skywalker is still the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy. I think we should assume he has a plan,” Jaina said. A sudden tingle of danger sense raced down her spine, prompting her to hit the quick-release on her crash harness. “Besides, we need to start worrying about saving our own skins.”
Lando began to look worried. “What are you saying?” he asked. “That you’re sensing something?”
Jaina shook her head. “Not yet.” She rose. “But I will be. Why do you suppose they sent us someplace easy to find?”
Lando scowled. “Oh …” He glanced up at a display, tapped some keys—no doubt trying to call up a tactical report—then slammed his fist against the edge of the brass console. “Are they jamming us?”
“That’s difficult to know with the ship’s sensor systems offline for degaussing,” RN8 replied.
“Offline?” Lando shrieked. “Who authorized that?”
“You did, ninety-seven seconds ago,” RN8 replied. “Would you like me to play it back?”
“No! Countermand it and bring all systems back up.” Lando turned to Jaina and asked, “Any feel for how long we have until the shooting starts?”
Jaina closed her eyes and opened herself to the Force. She felt a mass of belligerent presences approaching from the direction of the Maw. She turned to RN8.
“How long until the sensor systems reboot?”
“Approximately three minutes and fifty-seven seconds,” the droid reported. “I’m afraid Captain Calrissian also ordered a complete data consolidation.”
Jaina winced and turned back to Lando. “In that case, I’d say we have less than three minutes and fifty-two seconds. There’s someone hostile coming up behind us.” She started toward the hatchway at the back of the cavernous bridge, her boots ringing on the old durasteel deck. “Why don’t you see if you can put a stop to those false orders?”
“Sure, I’ll just tell my crew to stop listening to me.” Lando’s voice was sarcastic. “Being droids, they’ll know what I mean.”
“You might try activating their standard verification routines,” Jaina suggested.
“I might, if droid crews this old had standard verification routines.” Lando turned and scowled at Jaina as she continued across the deck. “And you’re going where?”
“You know where,” Jaina said.
“To your StealthX?” Lando replied. “The one with only three engines? The one that lost its targeting array?”
“Yeah, that one,” Jaina confirmed. “We need a set of eyes out there—and someone to fly cover.”
“No way,” Lando said. “If I let you go out to fight Sith in that thing, your dad will be feeding pieces of me to Amelia’s nexu for the next ten years.”
Jaina stopped and turned toward him, propping one hand on her hip. “Lando, did you just say let? Did you really say no way to me?”
Lando rolled his eyes, unintimidated. “You know I didn’t mean it like that. But have you gone spacesick? With only three engines, that starfighter is going to be about as maneuverable as an escape pod!”
“Maybe, but it still beats sitting around like a blind bantha in this thing. Thanks for worrying, though.” She shot Lando a sour smile. “It’s so sweet when you old guys do that.”
“Old?” Lando cried. After a moment, he seemed to recognize the mocking tone in Jaina’s voice, and his chin dropped. “I deserved that, didn’t I?”
“You think?” Jaina laughed to show there were no hard feelings, then added, “And you know what Tendra would do to me if I came back without Chance’s father. So let’s both be careful.”
“Okay, deal.” Lando waved her toward the hatchway. “Go. Blow things up. Have fun.”
“Thanks.” Jaina’s tone grew more serious, and she added, “And I mean for everything, Lando. You didn’t have to be here, and I’m grateful for the risks you’re taking to help us. It means a lot to me—and to the whole Order.”
Lando’s Force aura grew cold, and he looked away in sudden discomfort. “Jaina, is there something you’re not telling me?”
“About this situation?” Jaina asked, frowning at his strange reaction. “I don’t think so. Why?”
Lando exhaled in relief. “Jaina, my dear, perhaps no one has mentioned this to you before …” His voice grew more solemn. “But when a Jedi starts talking about how much you mean to her, the future begins to look very scary.”
“Oh … sorry.” Jaina’s cheeks warmed with embarrassment. “I didn’t mean anything like that. Really. I was just trying to—”
“It’s okay.” Lando’s voice was still a little shaky. “And if you did mean something—”
“I didn’t,” Jaina interrupted.
“I know,” Lando said, raising a hand to stop her. “But if things start to go bad out there, just get back to Coruscant and report. I can take care of myself. Understand?”
“Sure, Lando, I understand.” Jaina started toward the hatchway, silently adding, But no way am I leaving you behind.
“Good—and try to stick close. We won’t be hanging around long.” A low whir sounded from Lando’s chair as he turned it to face RN8. “Ornate, prepare an emergency jump to our last coordinates.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible, Captain Calrissian,” the droid replied. “You gave standing orders to empty the nav computer’s memory after each jump.”
“What?” Lando’s anger was edging toward panic now. “How many other orders—no, forget it. Just countermand my previous commands.”
“All of them?”
“Yes!” Lando snapped. “No, wait …”
Jaina reached the hatchway and, not waiting to hear the rest of Lando’s order, raced down the rivet-studded corridor beyond. She still had no idea what the Sith were planning, but she was going to stop them—and not only because the Jedi Council needed to know everything she and Lando could tell them about the Lost Tribe of the Sith. Over the years, Lando had been as loyal a friend to the Jedi Order as he had to her parents, time after time risking his life, fortune, and freedom to help them resolve whatever crisis happened to be threatening the peace of the galaxy at the moment. He always claimed he was just repaying a favor, or protecting an investment, or maintaining a good business environment, but Jaina knew better. He was looking out for his friends, doing everything he could to help them survive—no matter what mess they had gotten themselves into.
Jaina reached the forward hangar bay. As the hatch opened in front of her, she was surprised to find a bank of floodlights already illuminating her battered StealthX. At first, she assumed Lando had ordered the hangar droid to ready the Rockhound’s fighter complement for launch.
Then she saw what was missing from her starfighter.
There were no weapons barrels extending from the wingtips. In fact—on the side facing her, at least—the cannons themselves were gone. She was so shocked that she found herself waiting for the rest of the hangar lights to activate, having forgotten for the moment that the Rockhound did not have automatic illumination. The whir of a pneumatic wrench sounded from the far side of the StealthX, and beneath the starfighter’s belly she noticed a cluster of telescoping droid legs straddling the actuator housing of a Taim & Bak KX12 laser cannon.
“What the …?”
Jaina snapped the lightsaber off her belt, then crossed twenty meters of tarnished deck in three quick Force bounds and sprang onto the fuselage of her StealthX. She could hardly believe what she saw. At the far end of the wing stood a spider-shaped BY2B maintenance droid, her thick cargo pedipalps clamped around the starfighter’s last laser cannon while her delicate tool arms released the mounting clips.
“ByTwoBee!” Jaina yelled. “What are you doing?”
The pneumatic wrench whined to a stop, and three of the droid’s photoreceptors swiveled toward Jaina’s face.
“I’m sorry, Jedi Solo. I thought you would know.” Like all droids aboard the Rockhound, BY2B’s voice was female and sultry. “I’m removing this laser cannon.”
“I can see that,” Jaina replied. “Why?”
“So I can take it to the maintenance shop,” BY2B replied. “Captain Calrissian requested it. Since your starfighter is unflyable anyway, he thought it would be a good time to rebuild the weapons systems.”
Jaina’s heart sank, but she wasted no time trying to convince BY2B she had been fooled. “When Lando issued this order, did you actually see him?”
“Oh, I rarely see the captain. I’m not one of his favorites.” BY2B swung her photoreceptors toward the hangar entrance, and a trio of red beams shot out to illuminate a grimy speaker hanging next to the hatchway. “The order came over the intercom.”
“Of course it did.” Jaina pointed her lightsaber at the nearly dismounted laser cannon. “Any chance you can reattach that and get it working in the next minute and a half?”
“No chance at all, Jedi Solo. Reattaching the power feeds alone would take ten times that long.”
“How’d I know you were going to say that?” Jaina growled. She turned away and hopped down onto the deck. “All right—finish removing it and prep the craft for launch.”
“I’m sorry, that’s impossible,” BY2B replied. “Even if we had the necessary parts, I’m not qualified to make repairs. The specifications for this craft weren’t included in my last service update.”
“I flew it in here, didn’t I?” Jaina retorted. “Just tell me you haven’t been mucking around with the torpedo launchers, too.”
“This craft has torpedo launchers?” BY2B asked. “I didn’t see any.”
Jaina rolled her eyes, wondering exactly when the droid’s last service update had been, then rushed over to a small locker area at the edge of the hangar. She activated the lighting, flipped the toggle switch on the ancient intercom unit in the wall, and stepped into the StealthX flight suit she had left hanging at launch-ready.
A moment later Lando’s voice crackled out of the tiny speaker. “Yes, Jaina? What can I do for you?”
Jaina frowned. The voice certainly sounded like Lando’s. “How about a status report?” she asked, pushing her arms through the suit sleeves. “My StealthX is really messed up. No use taking it out.”
“My that is too bad,” Lando’s voice said. “But don’t be concerned. Ar-en-eight has nearly sorted out the system problems.”
“Great.” Jaina sealed the flight suit’s front closure and stepped into her boots. “I’ll head aft and check out the hyperdrive.”
“Oh.” Lando’s voice seemed surprised. “That won’t be necessary. Ar-en-eight is running diagnostics now. I’m sure the Em-Nine-O and his crew can handle any necessary repairs.”
And his crew. If there had been any doubt before, now Jaina knew she was talking to an imposter. Not long ago, Lando had confided to Jaina that the only way he had survived all those solitary prospecting trips early in his career was to close his eyes whenever one of the Rockhound droids spoke and imagine she was a beautiful woman. He would never have referred to M-9EO as a male.
Jaina grabbed her helmet and gloves out of the locker, then said, “Okay. If you’ve got everything under control, I’m going to stop by my bunk and grab some shut-eye before my shift comes up.”
“Yes, why don’t you do that?” The voice sounded almost relieved. “I’ll wake you if anything comes up.”
“Sounds good. See you in four standard hours.”
Jaina flicked off the intercom switch, then started back toward her StealthX, securing her helmet and glove seals as she walked. Gullible, no Force presence, and a terrible liar—the Voice definitely belonged to a stowaway droid, probably one sent by the Sith. That made enough sense that Jaina felt vaguely guilty for not anticipating the tactic in time to prevent the sabotage. The only thing she didn’t understand was why the Sith hadn’t just rigged the fusion core to blow. A living stowaway, they might have valued enough to work out an escape plan—but a droid? She could not imagine that any Sith deserving of the name would give a second thought to sacrificing a droid.
Jaina reached her StealthX and found BY2B standing behind the far wing, holding the last laser cannon in her heavy cargo arms. Jaina made a quick visual inspection of the bedraggled starfighter, then asked, “Is she ready to fly?”
“Ready would be an overstatement,” BY2B answered. “But the craft is capable of launching. I do hope you checked your flight suit for vacuum hardiness.”
“No need—it’s not me that will be going EV.” Jaina ascended the short access ladder and climbed into the cockpit. As she buckled herself in, she asked, “ByTwoBee, have you seen any new droids around here lately?”
“No,” the droid said. “Not since departing Klatooine.”
“Klatooine?” Jaina’s stomach began to grow cold and heavy. “Then you did see a new droid before we left for the Maw?”
“Indeed, I did,” BY2B replied. “A Rebaxan MSE-Six.”
“A mouse droid?” Jaina gasped. “And you didn’t report it?”
“Of course not,” BY2B said. “Captain Calrissian had warned me just a few minutes earlier to expect a courier shuttle carrying a new utility droid.”
Jaina groaned and hit the preignition engine heaters, then asked, “And I suppose he told you this over your internal comlink?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact,” BY2B replied. “How did you know?”
“Because that wasn’t Lando you heard,” Jaina said, speaking through clenched teeth. “It was a sabotage droid programmed with an impersonation protocol.”
“Sabotage?” BY2B sounded skeptical. “Why would anyone bother? We don’t even have an asteroid in tow.”
“It’s not an asteroid they’re after.” Jaina unfastened her flight suit just far enough to retrieve her comlink from her chest pocket, opened a secure channel to Lando, and demanded, “What was the last meal I ate before boarding the Exquisite Death?”
“You expect me to remember what you had for lunch thirteen years ago?” Lando replied, taking the verification query in stride. “But you didn’t have time to finish it. I remember that much.”
“Good enough,” Jaina said, satisfied that she was talking to the man and not the mouse. The meal to which she was referring had taken place aboard Lando’s yacht, the Lady Luck, shortly before he had tricked a Yuuzhan Vong boarding party into taking her and the rest of a Jedi strike team aboard their ship. “Did you buy an MSE-Six while we were back on Klatooine?”
“No … why?”
“Because ByTwoBee saw one come aboard,” Jaina replied. “Apparently, you told her to expect it.”
“I told her?” Lando fell silent while he digested Jaina’s meaning, then said, “Blast! Those aren’t Sith out there—they’re pirates!”
Jaina was skeptical. “What makes you think so?”
“Slipping a stowaway aboard is an old pirate trick,” Lando explained. “Only this time, they were creative, impersonating the captain instead of just blowing an air lock.”
“Maybe,” Jaina said, still not convinced. An alert tweetle sounded inside the cockpit, announcing that the StealthX was ready to launch. “Time to go. You handle the mouse, and I’ll take care of … whoever sent it.”
“Affirmative,” Lando said. “I’ll have ByTwoBee organize a hunt. Can you lend her your comlink?”
“Sure.” Jaina passed the comlink out to the droid. “Lando has a job for you.”
The droid extended one of her delicate tool arms to accept the comlink. “How do I know this is the real Captain Calrissian?”
“You’ll have to trust me on that.” Jaina closed her flight suit again, then added, “That’s an order, by the way.”
“Well …” A soft hydraulic hiss sounded beneath BY2B as she allowed her telescoping legs to compress. “If it’s an order.”
Jaina lowered the canopy and fired the engines, then slipped through the containment field and swung toward the stern, hanging tight beneath the asteroid tug to avoid silhouetting herself against the milky glow of Ashteri’s Cloud. With the Rockhound’s sensor suite temporarily disabled, any worthy captain would maneuver around behind the huge tug, then launch a first salvo from as close as possible, straight down the thrust nozzles.
Even at full acceleration, clearing the Rockhound took longer than Jaina would have liked. The asteroid tug was nearly two kilometers long, with a white, carbon-scorched belly pocked by rows of bantha-sized tractor beam projection wells. Around the perimeter dangled dozens of telescoping stabilizer legs, two hundred meters long even fully retracted. The stern of the ship was obscured by the glow of an efflux trail so enormous and bright that Jaina felt like she was flying into a comet’s tail.
Finally, the canopy’s blast-tinting darkened. Jaina dropped the nose of the StealthX and shot away from the Rockhound, counting on the brilliance of the vessel’s huge efflux spray to blind distant eyes to the silhouette of a departing starfighter.
“Okay, Rowdy,” Jaina said, addressing her astromech droid by the new nickname she had given him. “Bring up the passive scanners and prep the shadow bombs.”
A long whistle of inquiry filled the cockpit, and Jaina looked down to see a question scrolling across the primary display. SHADOW BOMBS? WHAT DID CAPTAIN CALRISSIAN SAY TO YOU?
“This is no time for jokes, Rowdy,” Jaina said. “Besides, your humor protocol is lame. Who installed it, anyway?”
Rowdy replied with a mocking tweedle. I WILL NEVER TELL.
Jaina chuckled. It was already an old joke between them, since she herself was the one who had designed and installed the protocol. During a recent bout of melancholy over ending her engagement to Jagged Fel, she had decided to spend a little downtime pursuing what had been one of her favorite teenage passions: tinkering with stuff. The result had been a new humor routine for her astromech droid—and one that had the unexpected benefit of reversing the R9 series’ tendency to self-enhance their preservation routines. The bolder version was a definite improvement, at least to Jaina’s way of thinking. But she still had not decided whether the lame jokes were a reflection of her rusty programming skills, or a subconscious effort to echo the bad jokes her brother Jacen used to tell back on Yavin 4—before he became Darth Caedus and she became his executioner.
An alert chime sounded from the cockpit speakers, and another message rolled across the display screen. BOGEYS COMING FAST.
The screen switched to a tactical map showing three generic starcraft symbols speeding toward the Rockhound’s tail. A fourth symbol, hanging at the top of the display, was not approaching at all.
“That doesn’t look like a turbolaser assault in the making,” Jaina observed. “Rowdy, how sure are you of your sensors?”
ALL SENSORS ARE FUNCTIONAL AND CONCORDANT, THE R9 REPORTED. WE HAVE FOUR POTENTIAL TARGETS, AND WE HAVE ONLY FOUR REMAINING SHADOW BOMBS AND NO LASER CANNONS. IF THAT IS NOT CHALLENGE ENOUGH, I CAN ALWAYS SHUT DOWN ANOTHER ENGINE.
“Very funny.” As Jaina spoke, she was watching data readouts appear beneath each of the symbols on the screen. “Didn’t I just say this is no time for jokes?”
WHO IS JOKING?
Jaina was too busy studying tonnage estimates to respond. The three craft approaching the Rockhound were carrying far too much mass to be starfighters, while the vessel hanging back was only about half the mass of the ChaseMaster frigates the Sith were using. In fact, its thermal profile lacked the high-output signature of military-grade engines at all, and there were no energy concentrations large enough to suggest a turbolaser preparing to fire.
“Rowdy, give me more on those bogeys in the lead.” As Jaina spoke, she began to ease back on the control stick, bringing the StealthX up and pointing its nose toward the trio of tiny blue flickers still closing on the Rockhound. “They can’t be fighters, or they would have attacked by now.”
A magnified enhancement of the lead bogey appeared on Jaina’s display. The image suggested a blocky craft about twenty meters long, with a wedge-shaped bow and four undersized ion engines attached to the stern. Thermal imaging showed a main cabin packed with at least twenty beings, while a small energy concentration just beneath the roof seemed to suggest the presence of a cannon turret.
Jaina frowned. “Maybe Lando was right,” she said. “That looks like an assault shuttle.”
NEGATIVE. THE HULL ARMOR ON AN ASSAULT SHUTTLE WOULD DEFEAT OUR THERMAL IMAGING, Rowdy reported. IT IS SEVENTY-EIGHT PERCENT LIKELY THAT ALL THREE CRAFT ARE LIGHTLY MODIFIED BDY CREW SKIFFS.
“Okay … and I suppose the lightly modified means that cannon turret on the roof?” Jaina asked.
AFFIRMATIVE. BDY SKIFFS ARE NOT SOLD WITH ARMAMENT OPTIONS.
“And that’s why pirates love them.” As she spoke, Jaina was trying to recall the latest intelligence on the rash of pirate attacks that Jaden Korr was investigating. The last she’d heard, he was still focusing on the middle Hydian Way, which was a long way from the Maw. “Vessels without military-grade sensors usually can’t see a small cannon turret, so they don’t get too worried when they see a BDY skiff coming.”
SO WE ARE NOT BEING ATTACKED BY SITH?
“Apparently not,” Jaina said, feeling relieved. A Sith frigate would have been a problem. But three shuttle-loads of pirates? That, she could handle. “It looks like someone is trying to board us.”
The display returned to tactical scale, and Rowdy added a designator label beneath the large vessel, still hanging back at the top of the screen. AND THIS DAMORIAN S18 LIGHT FREIGHTER IS THE MOTHER SHIP?
“That’s right,” Jaina said. “Classic pirate tactics—get close and send over some fast shuttles.”
THEN THIS IS GOING TO BE MORE FUN THAN WE THOUGHT, Rowdy reported. A DAMORIAN S18 IS LARGE ENOUGH TO CARRY SIX BDY SKIFFS.
“Now you tell me.”
Just because an S18 could carry six skiffs didn’t mean it was, but Jaina had to assume the worst. She continued toward the approaching vessels, trying to think of a way to take out six shuttles and a mother ship with only four shadow bombs, and quickly realized there wasn’t one. Those pirates were no idiots. The three shuttles were staying at least a kilometer apart—well beyond the blast radius of a shadow bomb—and they were approaching in a staggered line.
“Rowdy, arm bomb three,” she said, designating number three because bomb racks one and two were empty. She continued to close on the lead shuttle until the tiny flicker of its efflux tail had stretched into a blue dagger as long as her arm, then ordered, “Activate our transceiver and open a hailing channel.”
A bleep of protest sounded over the cockpit speaker, and Jaina glanced down to find a message on the display. A STEALTHX EMITTING COMM WAVES IS NO LONGER A STEALTHX. IT IS JUST A POORLY ARMED, LIGHTLY ARMORED X-WING SAYING COME GET ME.
“We’re required to issue a warning before opening fire,” Jaina said. Her target was just visible to the naked eye, a tiny durasteel box with a wedge-shaped head, being pushed along by an efflux tail as long as a cannon barrel. “And you know how I feel about breaking the law.”
THERE IS AN EXCEPTION FOR CLEAR INTENT, Rowdy pointed out.
“Better safe than sorry,” Jaina said. “Besides, I want them thinking about us, not the Rockhound. Do I have that channel yet?”
An affirming twoweet filled the cockpit and the transceiver touch pad on Jaina’s control stick turned green.
I UNDERSTAND, Rowdy scrolled. YOU ARE JUST TRYING TO MAKE THIS MISSION INTERESTING. COUNT ME IN.
“Glad you approve,” Jaina said, wondering if the droid might be getting a little too brave. “Launch bomb three.”
She felt a soft bump beneath her seat as a charge of compressed air pushed the shadow bomb out of the torpedo tube. Reaching out in the Force, she began to guide the bomb toward its target, then placed her thumb over the transceiver touch pad.
“Attention, BDY crew skiffs: Turn away now,” she transmitted. “This will be your only warning.”
During the two full seconds of silence that followed, the lead skiff swelled to the size of a bantha outside Jaina’s cockpit. She could see the flexible ring of a telescoping air lock affixed to the hull at the front of the passenger cabin, the band of the transparent viewport stretched across its wedge-shaped bow … and the flattened dome of a weapons turret, swinging its laser cannons in her direction.
A gravelly female voice came over the cockpit speaker. “Turn away or what, Jedi Solo? We know—”
The transmission dissolved into a stream of static as the shadow bomb detonated. Lacking any real shielding or armor, the shuttle’s crew cabin simply vanished into the silver flash of the initial explosion. The stern and bow spun away trailing bright beads of superheated metal; then the StealthX’s blast-tinting darkened, and all Jaina could see was a ball of white fire dead ahead. She pulled the stick back and rolled away, pointing her nose toward the hidden bulk of the mother ship.
A soft chill of danger sense tickled her between the shoulder blades. She slipped her thumb off the transceiver pad and went into an evasive climb, juking and jinking so hard she felt the craft vibrate as Rowdy slammed into the walls of his droid socket. The crimson streaks of cannon bolts began to brighten the void all around, flashing past a lot closer than she would have liked. Even without a comm signal for their targeting systems to lock onto, the pirate gunners were doing a good job of keeping her in their crossfire.
The gravelly voice came over the cockpit speaker again. “That wasn’t much warning, Jedi Solo.”
Instead of replying, Jaina ordered Rowdy, “Get me a location on that transmission. Is it coming from one of the skiffs or the mother ship?”
Before Rowdy could answer, the voice spoke again, “You didn’t even give me time to issue a recall order.”
Space outside turned crimson as a cannon bolt glanced off the StealthX’s weak shields. Knowing the enemy would see the bolt’s change of vector and realize exactly where she was, Jaina instantly rolled into a spiraling dive … and cringed as space again turned red. Half a heartbeat later another bolt struck, then blossomed into a golden spray of dissipation static.
An alert buzzer sounded inside the cockpit, and Jaina glanced down to see a message flashing on her display: SHIELD OVERLOAD.
“No kidding.” She pulled her nose up and corkscrewed back toward the two shuttles, and the stream of fire quickly drifted away from her StealthX. “What about that transmission source?”
THE SIGNAL ORIGINATED FROM THE MOTHER SHIP.
“Thought so.” Jaina swung onto an interception course with the nearest shuttle, then said, “Arm bomb four.”
She had barely spoken before cannon fire began to flash past again, turning the void as bright as a bonfire. She spun into an evasive helix and continued toward her target. The enemy continued to close in on her, the bolts streaking past so close that the canopy’s blast-tinting went dark and stayed that way.
“Rowdy, are we still transmitting?” she asked.
A negative chirp came over the speaker.
“What about leaks?” Unable to see her target through the darkened canopy, Jaina dropped her gaze to her display and began to fly by instruments. “EM radiation? Fuel? Atmosphere?”
Again, a negative chirp.
“Keep checking,” Jaina ordered. “They’re tracking us somehow.”
A message scrolled across her primary display. BY SILHOUETTE? ASHTERI’S CLOUD IS STILL BEHIND US.
“I don’t think so,” she said, fully aware of the difficulty of tracking a distant speck of darkness by sight alone—especially one that was spiraling toward its target at thousands of kilometers an hour, with the gunners blinded by the flashing of their own laser cannons. “Not without the Force.”
A soft ding announced that they had closed to launching range of their second target. With the canopy still darkened by the constant barrage of cannon bolts, guiding the bomb to its destination by sight was out of the question. So Jaina expanded her Force awareness in the direction of the shuttle until she felt the living presences inside. She was not surprised to sense a heavy taint of darkness in them, but she was shocked by how calm they seemed, by how focused and disciplined they appeared to be.
Of course, that was about to change. “Launch bomb four.”
Jaina felt the gentle bump of the shadow bomb being forced from the torpedo tube. She reached out for it in the Force—then grew distracted by the all-too-familiar bang-screech of a cannon hit. Alerts and alarms immediately filled her ears, and the StealthX went into an uncontrolled … twirl? It felt like she was in one of those thrill rides that spun around the central axis of the car, plastering their passengers against their seats. Jaina eased the stick in the opposite direction and slowly brought the starfighter back in line … then realized she had lost control of the shadow bomb, and her heart rose into her throat.
“Uh, Rowdy?”
YES?
“Any idea where number four went?”
IT DID NOT STRIKE THE TARGET, Rowdy reported. OR US … YET.
“Not funny,” Jaina said. The extra velocity of the launch had probably carried the shadow bomb far enough away from the StealthX to avoid triggering the proximity fuse—but when it came to baradium warheads, probably wasn’t much of a safety margin. “No joking when there’s baradium involved.”
YOU DID NOT WRITE THAT INTO THE APPROPRIATENESS ROUTINE, Rowdy complained.
“Consider it an addendum.”
Noticing that the canopy’s blast-tinting remained dark, Jaina checked her tactical display and saw that she had overshot her target by only a couple of kilometers. Despite her erratic course, both shuttles still seemed to know where she was, more or less, and they continued to pour fire in her direction. She banked into a turn, starting back toward the nearest craft, and found her stick heavy and slow.
“Rowdy, what’s our damage?” she asked. “I’ve got a sluggish stick.”
THAT IS HARDLY SURPRISING, Rowdy replied. THE VECTOR-PLATE POWER ASSIST IS OUT, AND WE HAVE LOST THE END OF OUR UPPER RIGHT S-FOIL.
The attitude thrusters, of course, were located on the foil ends.
“Great,” Jaina said. She checked the tactical display and saw that the remaining skiffs had closed to within a dozen kilometers of the Rockhound. That left time for only one more pass before the pirates reached the tug and began boarding operations. “Adjust the power levels to compensate, and arm bomb five.”
OUR MANEUVERABILITY IS LIMITED, Rowdy warned. AND THE SHIELDS HAVE NOT YET REGENERATED.
“No problem.” Jaina assumed a course parallel to her targets and began to overtake them, trying to align her interception vector so the nearest skiff would be directly between her and the farthest. “I don’t need shields to take down a bunch of pirates.”
EXPERIENCE WOULD SUGGEST OTHERWISE.
“That was just a lucky hit,” Jaina said. “Never happen twice.”
Despite her words, the cannon bolts continued to come fast and close. Her blast-tinting was so constantly dark that the interior of the cockpit felt like a closet during a lightning storm, and she could not shake the feeling that those gunners were too good to be ordinary pirates. Maybe they were ex-military—something like retired Space Rangers or Balmorran void-jumpers, perhaps even a band of outlaw Noghri.
The interception vector on her display finally lined up with both shuttles, and the blast tinting grew semi-clear as the farthest stopped firing to avoid hitting the nearest. Jaina quickly swung in for a flank attack and accelerated, easing the stick this way and that, fighting to keep her interception vector aligned with both targets. As she drew near the first skiff, its cannon bolts grew brighter, longer, and closer, and again the canopy turned as dark as space itself.
Jaina reached out in the Force, focusing on the dark-tainted presences ahead, and said, “Launch bomb five.”
Again came the gentle bump of a shadow bomb being forced from its tube. She caught hold of it in the Force—and felt the StealthX jump as cannon bolts started burning through its light armor.
“Stang!” she cursed. “Who are those guys?”
A cacophony of alerts and alarms filled the cockpit. Jaina shoved the stick forward, diving for safety beneath the shuttle’s belly where, at such close range, the cannon barrel would not be able to depress far enough to target her.
And this time, she did not release the shadow bomb. She kept her attention focused on the sinister presences inside the shuttle, pushing the bomb toward them even as her StealthX spiraled out of control. Rowdy tweeted and whistled, trying to draw her attention to the urgent messages scrolling across the display, and the second shuttle resumed fire, stitching a line of holes down the fuselage.
Then a white brilliance filled the void, so bright and hot that it warmed Jaina even inside her vac suit, and she felt the searing rip of two dozen lives being torn from the Force.
Afterward, everything remained quiet and dark inside the cockpit, and Jaina thought for an instant the detonation had taken her. Then her stomach grew queasy. The blazing blue of the Rockhound’s efflux tail flashed past above her, and she realized her shoulder was straining against her crash harness. Her ears were ringing with damage alerts and malfunction buzzers, and her throat was burning with the acrid fumes of system burnouts. She hit a chin toggle inside her helmet, then coughed into her faceplate as it slid down to seal her inside her vac suit.
“Activate suit support.” She grabbed her stick and began to right her tumble, bringing the starfighter under control gently, in case the superstructure had suffered any damage. “Give me a damage assessment.”
NOT AS BAD AS IT COULD BE, Rowdy reported. WE STILL HAVE TIME TO STOP THOSE LAST PIRATES—AS LONG AS WE SUFFER NO MORE LUCKY HITS.
Jaina surprised herself with a grin. “I like your style, Rowdy.” She glanced down and found the last shuttle highlighted on her tactical display, less than a kilometer behind the Rockhound and already starting to climb toward its belly. “But I was wrong. Those weren’t lucky hits.”
An inquiring beep sounded inside Jaina’s helmet.
“Their gunners have been using the Force.” Jaina swung around and accelerated so hard that her battered StealthX began to wobble and pitch. “That’s why they hit us every time I launch a shadow bomb—they can find me in the Force.”
PIRATES HAVE THE FORCE?
“These pirates do,” Jaina said. The last skiff came into view and began to swell, four tiny circles of blue arranged around a boxy gray stern. “Arm bomb six.”
Rowdy emitted a confirming tweedle, then scrolled a message across the cockpit display. IT HAS BEEN NICE FLYING WITH YOU, JEDI SOLO. THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME A SENSE OF HUMOR SO I WILL FIND THIS AMUSING.
“Relax, will you?” The hair on Jaina’s neck stood up, and a stream of cannon bolts began to fly back over the skiff’s stern. “They have a blind spot.”
Jaina pushed their nose down, and the stream began to fly past dozens of meters overhead. A moment later the skiff passed beneath the stern of the Rockhound and, dwarfed by the tug’s two-kilometer immensity, continued forward between the massive stabilizer legs.
Knowing what would happen the instant the gunners felt her reach for their craft in the Force, Jaina hung back half a kilometer, then said, “Launch bomb six.”
When she felt the charge of compressed air shove the shadow bomb free of its launch tube, she grasped it in the Force and pulled up hard. As she had expected, the skiff rolled on its back, trying to bring its weapons to bear before the bomb struck home. Jaina was already rising into its ion stream, nearly scraping her canopy on the Rockhound’s belly as she guided the bomb toward the four blue circles of the BDY’s thrust nozzles.
Rowdy issued a shrill alarm tweedle, no doubt warning her about the dangers of remaining inside the skiff’s ion tail. The friction alone would be pushing the StealthX’s skin toward the combustion point, and Jaina could feel for herself how the turbulence was straining the starfighter’s battered frame. Still, she remained inside the efflux, her attention fixed on the bright blue circles until they finally swelled into the silver flash of a detonating shadow bomb.
Half a second later the StealthX hit the bomb’s shock wave and Jaina slammed against her crash harness. The temperature inside her vac suit shot up so quickly, she thought her hair would burst into flames. The spatter of ricocheting debris rattled through the starfighter, and then there was nothing ahead but the dark-pocked sky of the Rockhound’s vast white belly.
Jaina brought the StealthX under control. The starfighter’s superstructure was showing through the nose in a couple of places, and its fuselage was vibrating so badly that she feared it was coming apart around her. She began to ease away from the Rockhound’s underside.
“Rowdy, how are you doing back there?” she asked. “Still with me?”
There followed a short silence, then a single fuzzy beep finally came over Jaina’s helmet speakers.
“Glad you made it,” she said. “What’s that mother ship doing?”
A blurred message scrolled across the cockpit’s main display. TO DETERMINE THAT, WE WOULD NEED A FUNCTIONING SENSOR ARRAY.
“Good point.” Jaina could see that the forward array had been melted completely off, so it made sense that the aft equipment had suffered heat damage, as well. “Can you open a channel to Captain Calrissian for me?”
A scratchy beep sounded inside her helmet, and a moment later Lando’s static-distorted voice asked, “Jaina?”
Jaina pressed a thumb to the transceiver pad on her stick. “In the flesh,” she said. “Do you have that mouse problem under control yet?”
“Just blasted it myself,” Lando replied proudly. “Ornate will plot new jump coordinates as soon as you’re aboard.”
“Tell her to start plotting now,” Jaina replied. She could see the hangar mouth’s dark rectangle only a few hundred meters ahead, and she wasn’t planning on making a gentle approach. “Jump the second she has them.”
“Jump?” Lando echoed. “No way, not until ByTwoBee tells me you’re aboard and—”
“Lando! Just make sure the barrier field is off.” The hangar mouth was starting to swell rapidly as Jaina approached, and Rowdy was filling her helmet with wave-off alarms and speed alerts. “If you wait for me to buckle down, the Rockhound will be taking cannon bolts up her thrust nozzle. The situation is worse than we thought. A lot worse.”
“That’s hard to believe, considering how bad it was to start with.” Lando’s voice faded as he issued orders to RN8, then asked, “Okay, Jaina, worse than we thought how?”
“Well, you were right—and so was I.” As Jaina spoke, floodlights began to shine down from inside the hangar. Ignoring a cacophony of alerts from Rowdy, she brought up the nose of the StealthX and streaked toward its gaping mouth. “They were pirates. Sith pirates.”