Eleven

The asteroid crusher Ormni hung in the distance ahead, a gray wedge silhouetted by the fiery glow of its own smelter vents. Beneath its belly billowed a dust cloud three times its size—all that could be seen of the asteroid it was slowly devouring. Both ship and cloud were surrounded by a swirling mesh of blue slivers—the efflux tails of the Ormni’s tender craft going about their business.

Sitting in a little ScragHull spyboat on loan from Lando, Leia was still too far away to see the tender craft with her naked eye. But on her dimly lit tactical display, she saw the transponder codes for dozens of blasting yawls and ram galleys—the slaveships that broke the asteroid apart and pushed the pieces into the Ormni’s processing maw. She also counted four huge cargo transports clustered around the Ormni’s stern, five Bes’uliik starfighters on patrol, and three assault transports departing on a mission.

By now Han could be aboard any one of those vessels, being moved from the Ormni to a new location before she had a chance to rescue him.

Leia longed to reach out in the Force and search for him. But during the last moments of the firefight at the Blue Star, both she and Luke had felt a dark presence working against them, and now it seemed entirely possible that the Qrephs might be working with Sith. If so, using the Force would alert the enemy to their approach just as surely as firing the ScragHull’s engines. Leia had no choice but to watch and worry as they drifted toward the Ormni, unpowered, all the while terrified that Han would be gone—or already dead—by the time they arrived.

Leia was no stranger to worry, of course. During the Rebellion, she and Han had risked their lives almost daily. As a diplomat of the New Republic, she had seen her children kidnapped and used as political hostages. Later, she had watched those same children become Jedi Knights and leave on dangerous missions of their own. Twice she had suffered the anguish of losing a son to war. And now, with her daughter known as the “Sword of the Jedi,” a month seldom passed when Leia did not find herself wondering whether her last surviving child would return from a mission alive.

So Leia knew all about worry, and she knew how to handle her fears—even how to use them.

But this time felt different. Han called on luck the way Jedi called on the Force—and luck wasn’t the Force. The Force was all-encompassing, eternal, and infinite. Luck was fickle. It came and went, favored some and spurned others. Luck was mathematics, the rules of probability. Mathematics said you simply could not win every long shot.

And yet Han had been taking long shots his whole life. If this turned out to be the time his luck finally ran out, the Qrephs and Mirta Gev would pay dearly for taking him. Leia would see to that—even if she had to spend the rest of her life hunting them down.

“Careful,” Luke said. He was seated next to her in the cockpit’s dim blue light, monitoring the tracking beacon they had attached to Gev’s transport as she fled with Han. The vessel was still aboard the Ormni—that much they could be sure of. But who knew where Han was? “Hatred leads to the dark side. So does vengeance—even plotting it.”

“Who says I’m plotting?” Leia asked.

Luke only looked at her through the dim light—patiently.

“Sorry,” Leia said, realizing she must have been allowing her rage to seep into the Force. “I wouldn’t call it plotting … but it’s hard not to dwell.”

“I understand,” Luke said. “But you know there’s no sense in it. Han has been in worse situations, many times over.”

“This feels different. The Qrephs are always two steps ahead of us. And that scares me.”

“Me, too,” Luke admitted. “And I keep asking myself, Why Han? What makes him worth a million-credit bounty, when they were trying to kill Lando and us?”

Leia considered the question for a time, trying to recall anything in her husband’s past that might explain the Qrephs’ interest in him, then finally shook her head.

“All I can think of is a hostage situation,” she said. “They probably know that Ben and Tahiri are in the Rift looking for Ohali. Maybe they were hoping to have some leverage after they killed you and me.”

Luke shook his head. “They’re too smart to believe that would work,” he said. “And that spider-bomb operation was a mess. I still don’t know why Dena Yus was trying to hold on to those things.”

“You don’t?” Leia asked. The Blue Star surveillance vids had gone “missing” by the time R2-D2 could access the casino’s security computer. But she and Luke had managed to piece together a decent picture of Dena’s actions during the firefight from their own memories and Lando’s account. “It’s pretty obvious—she froze.”

Luke considered this, then nodded. “I guess, but why? She’s been working with the Qrephs from the beginning, that much is clear. And she’s the one who set us up for the ambush. So why hesitate to finish us, when she just helped the Qrephs kill thousands of refinery workers?”

“Maybe she was supposed to hit us somewhere else, or maybe the firefight vacced her brain, or maybe the purse latch was stuck.” The speculation was beginning to frustrate Leia, for it only served to remind her how little they actually knew about the Qrephs and their organization. “She didn’t stick around to take questions, so all we can say for sure is that Dena Yus works for the Columi. And whatever they have planned, by the time we figure it out, it could be too late for Han.”

“It won’t.”

Luke’s hand settled on Leia’s arm and squeezed, and she began to feel a little less helpless—if not entirely confident.

“Han is going to be fine,” Luke said. “I promise.”

“Thanks. I appreciate the reassurance.” Leia patted Luke’s hand, then removed it and said, “But I don’t want you making promises that may get you into trouble. These guys are too dangerous for that.”

“You seem to be forgetting who I am, Jedi Solo,” Luke said sternly. “We are going to get Han back. And we are going to stop the Qrephs.” He paused for a moment, then let out an exaggerated sigh. “Once we figure out what they’re doing here, of course.”

Leia had to smile. “Well, at least you have a plan—sort of,” she said. “I feel like Han is back already.”

An alert chime sounded over the cockpit speaker, then a standard distress message scrolled across the pilot’s display. INCOM RECONNAISSANCE CRAFT X396 REQUESTS EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE. ALL SPEED.

Leia’s brow went up. “Three ninety-six,” she repeated. “Isn’t that—”

“Ohali Soroc,” Luke finished. Over nonsecure comm networks, Jedi StealthXs were currently identified only as Incom Reconnaissance Craft. “Artoo, give us the coordinates.”

R2-D2 replied with a negative chirp, then loaded a routing report onto the pilot’s display. It showed that the message had passed through only one repeater beacon.

“Wherever that came from, it’s definitely close,” Leia said, already starting to feel torn. She wasn’t about to leave without Han, but the first law of space travel was Respond to a distress signal. And this was a Jedi in distress. “She has to be less than a light-year away.”

R2-D2 gave a confirming tweet. A schematic appeared on the display, showing the repeater beacon within a quarter light-year of the ScragHull, somewhere within a 140-degree arc to the stern.

“Why behind us?” Leia asked.

Another chart appeared on the display, this one showing the location of every repeater beacon nearby. The Ormni was hanging at the absolute edge of the ’Mesh, with nothing beyond it but a huge bubble of uncharted Rift. Since the message had come over a RiftMesh repeater beacon, it had to have come from behind them.

Leia began to feel even more worried and lonely. She could not count the number of times that she had stood on the edge of the abyss, staring down into its black heart. But it had never felt quite so literal before—perhaps because Han had usually been there, staring down into the darkness along with her.

Leia’s contemplation was interrupted when Luke asked, “Artoo, is there any indication that Jedi Soroc is still with her craft? Or whether she’s still alive?”

The droid responded with a negative chirp.

“So, maybe a trap,” Luke said. “Gev could have found our tracking beacon.”

“Probably a trap,” Leia corrected, her heart climbing into her throat. If the Qrephs knew about the tracking beacon, they would be expecting Luke and her to make a rescue attempt on Han. “It seems very unlikely that Ohali Soroc just happened to run into trouble nearby while you and I are trying to sneak aboard the Ormni.”

“Right. And if something had just happened to her this close, we would have felt it in the Force.” Luke paused to think, his face growing more sad and worried as he worked through Ohali’s possible fates. “This is no coincidence. They’ve captured Ohali’s StealthX, and they’re trying to use it to draw us out.”

“And if the Qrephs have Ohali’s StealthX …” Leia let the sentence trail off as she sorted through the implications of the distress signal, then finally asked, “Luke, what about Ben and Tahiri? If they’ve been looking for Ohali, they might have run into the Qrephs themselves.”

Luke shook his head. “They’re fine,” he said. “At least, Ben felt fine when I tried to summon him.”

“When did you do that?” Leia asked. She did not need to inquire how Luke had tried to summon his son. Force-sensitive relatives could usually sense each other across vast distances. “After they took Han?”

Luke nodded. “Before we left the Blue Star,” he said. “I thought we could use some backup.”

Luke did not need to add that it was impossible to know whether Ben had actually understood what he wanted. For all its power and mystery, the Force could provide only a vague impression of a loved one’s condition—it wasn’t a comm network.

“Backup couldn’t hurt,” Leia said. “But even if Ben and Tahiri haven’t tangled with the Qrephs yet, I’m worried about that distress signal. We need to warn them off.”

“Maybe,” Luke said. “Let me think.”

He fell silent, no doubt contemplating the same dilemma as Leia. Trying to warn Ben now—even by reaching out in the Force—would probably alert the enemy to their own presence. That would compromise their attempt to rescue Han and probably put him in even greater danger. Leia did not think she could bear turning back, but neither could she risk her teenage nephew’s life to save her husband’s.

“Luke,” Leia said. “There’s nothing to think about. Ben will respond to that beacon—”

“Ben is a Jedi Knight,” Luke interrupted. “So is Tahiri. If I didn’t trust them to handle situations like this, I wouldn’t send them out.”

“Luke, we know this is a trap. Han wouldn’t want us to risk Ben—”

“And Ben wouldn’t want us to sacrifice Han,” Luke said, cutting her off again. “But it’s not their decision, or even yours. It’s mine—and I have faith in Ben and Tahiri.”

Leia fell into silence, unsure of whether to thank Luke or defy him. No matter what they did, they were putting someone in grave danger—which was probably exactly what the Qrephs intended.

As Leia struggled to adjust her thinking, Luke turned to R2-D2 and asked, “How long will it take that distress signal to reach the Falcon?”

Even before he had finished the question, Leia’s stomach sank. Lando and Omad were waiting aboard the Falcon, just two light-years away—and they didn’t have the Force to warn them off. When Ohali’s distress signal reached the Falcon, they would no doubt respond—and fly straight into the Qrephs’ trap.

R2-D2 spent a few moments calculating, then tweedled in uncertainty. A brief message scrolled across the pilot’s display. MINIMUM TWENTY MINUTES. MAXIMUM UNKNOWN.

They pondered the droid’s answer for a moment, then Luke said, “I think we proceed as planned. Even if the distress signal reaches the Falcon in just twenty minutes, it will take time for Lando and Omad to pinpoint the source and plot a course. And then they’ll still need to make the trip. So we have at least forty minutes—and, more likely, four or five hours.”

Instead of answering immediately, Leia paused to think. Beyond the forward viewport, the Ormni had already stretched to the length of her forearm—large enough that she could see tiny specks of astrolith tumbling down the intake maw in its bow. But there was nothing to suggest that she and Luke had been spotted yet—which was not surprising, given the nature of their borrowed vessel.

Lando’s little ScragHull spyboat used some of the same sensor-defeating technology as a Jedi StealthX—and it was better armored. Its biggest drawback was the lack of low-visibility sublight engines, but that deficiency could be overcome by simply drifting to the target—as Leia and her brother were successfully doing at that moment.

Leia glanced back at R2-D2. “Artoo, if we get jumped, the first thing you do is warn Lando and Omad off that distress signal. I don’t like gambling with their lives.”

R2-D2 emitted an acknowledging bleep.

“Good,” Luke said. “And may the Force be with us—all of us.”

But it seemed the Force wasn’t with them. A few moments later, a spray of blue darts exploded from a hangar mouth on the near side of the Ormni. Leia recognized the sight as a launching starfighter squadron, and her assessment was confirmed when the designator symbols for ten Mandalorian Bes’uliiks appeared on the tactical display. She reached for the engine igniter switch—but instead of fanning out to attack, the Bes’uliiks arranged themselves into a delta formation and circled back over the Ormni.

“They’re forming up for escort duty,” Leia said. “Someone is getting ready to leave.”

As she spoke, the silvery crescent of a personal transport rose from a docking berth atop the Ormni. The tactical display identified the vessel as the Marcadian luxury cruiser Aurel Moon, but its transponder code quickly grew unreadable as its escorts swarmed around it. Leia looked up again to find the entire formation turning away, heading deeper into the Rift—beyond the RiftMesh.

“The Qrephs must be more frightened of us than we thought,” Leia said. “That’s uncharted Rift they’re heading into.”

Luke remained silent and stared out the viewport, his face clouding with worry. Leia needed only a second to realize what was bothering him. The Qrephs had paid handsomely to take Han captive—and Leia didn’t see them leaving their investment behind.

“They’re taking Han with them,” she said.

Luke nodded but said, “Assuming that’s actually them in the Aurel Moon.” His gaze remained fixed out the window. “But these are Columi. If we try to outthink them, we’ll lose.”

“So we need to locate Han,” Leia said, coming to the same conclusion. “Which means using the Force.”

“We don’t have a choice anymore,” Luke said. “The only way our drift approach makes sense now is if we assume Han is still aboard the Ormni—and how likely does that seem?”

“Not very.”

“Not at all,” Luke said. “You’ll have a better feel for where Han is, so you take the yoke. I’ll ready our weapons.”

Luke armed their entire magazine of proton torpedoes and began to designate targets. Leia watched just long enough to see that he was preparing a close-range shock attack, then closed her eyes and extended her awareness toward the Aurel Moon.

She sensed dozens of Force auras around and aboard the yacht. There was the cold focus of the Mandalorian escort pilots, the embittered anxiety of the Moon’s crew and domestic staff, the arrogant self-satisfaction of the Qrephs themselves … and a groggy, slumbering, cranky presence that had slept next to Leia for decades.

Han.

“Found him,” Leia reported. “He’s on the Moon.”

This was one of those rare times Leia wished Han were Force-sensitive, so he would feel her presence nearby and know she was coming for him.

“How does he seem?”

“Drugged,” she said. “And pissed off.”

Luke smiled. “Good. Pissed off is when Han is at his best.”

He started to reach for the torpedo launchers—then Leia felt something dark and oily brush her in the Force.

“Wait!”

She pulled Luke’s hand away from the launchers, then tried to follow the dark tendril of Force energy back to its source. But the presence retreated as swiftly as it had appeared, and she was left with nothing but the chill it had sent down her spine.

“We have Sith,” Leia confirmed. “And they know we’re here.”

As she spoke, the Aurel Moon’s escort squadron was already going into stealth mode, deactivating their transponders and bringing their sensor negators online. They even deployed the efflux baffles that made their Bes’uliiks slower and less maneuverable—but far more difficult for conventional weapons to target.

Fortunately for Leia and her brother, Jedi were not conventional weapons. She simply called up the ScragHull’s systems and began to disable the proton-torpedo guidance and propellant modules. Beside her, Luke closed his eyes and began to breathe in a steady rhythm, no doubt reaching out in the Force to search for their deadliest enemies—the unseen Sith.

“Where are they?” Luke asked.

“I couldn’t tell,” Leia said. “I only felt one touch, and it was faint. If we’re lucky, it’s only one or two.”

Luke opened his eyes. “Let’s hope,” he said. “I can’t feel any Force-users now, so they’re probably waiting until we make our move.”

Leia nodded. Now that they had been detected, the safe move would be to withdraw and find another way to rescue Han.

But the safe move wasn’t always the right move.

Leia looked over.

Luke nodded. “Han wouldn’t turn back now.” He opened the launch tubes. “We won’t, either.”

Leia felt the soft thump of ejector charges pushing proton torpedoes out of their carrying racks. Four slender white cylinders slid into view, gliding ahead of the ScragHull. Normally, the thrust engines would ignite once the torpedoes were a safe distance from the cockpit, but with their guidance and propellant systems disabled, the cylinders merely continued to glide.

By then the Ormni was a looming wedge of durasteel, its gray hull blotted by the radiant squares of open hangar mouths. The steady stream of blasting yawls and ram galleys entering and leaving suggested that no battle alarms had yet been sounded.

Leia glanced over and found her brother staring into the darkness above the Ormni, his gaze fixed on a cluster of tiny delta-shaped shadows that kept appearing and disappearing against the glow of passing tender craft.

Without looking away, Luke said, “I’ll take starboard. You’re port.”

“Good.”

As Leia spoke, she opened herself to the Force and felt the cold, focused presences of perhaps ten pilot-and-gunner teams swirling above the Ormni. She used the Force to grab two of the proton torpedoes they had set adrift earlier, then accelerated them toward the left edge of the formation above them.

The Ormni continued to swell as the ScragHull closed, growing so large that it stretched across the entire viewport. After a few moments of Force-use, she felt the oily brush of the dark side again, and this time it did not withdraw. No matter. Soon enough, the Sith would not be the only enemy who knew where to find Leia and her brother.

The salvo passed above the Ormni. Leia guided her first torpedo into the nearest Bes’uliik and was rewarded with the symmetrical white blossom of scattering protons. The viewport dimmed as the ScragHull’s blast-tinting activated, and she felt the hot sharp surprise of two lives being torn from the Force—then felt it again as Luke’s first torpedo found its target.

Leia put the deaths out of her mind and reached for a pair of alarmed presences near the back of the Mandalorian formation. A heartbeat later, the viewport darkened again, then darkened even more as Luke’s second torpedo also detonated, and four more Mandalorian auras dissolved into fiery anguish.

A flashing tangle of energy erupted ahead: the remaining Bes’uliiks opening fire. With the ScragHull’s engines still inactive and no Force to help find their targets, the Mandalorian attacks were as ineffectual as they were desperate. Leia did not even bother to bring the spyboat’s nose up to reduce the likelihood of a cockpit strike.

But with the Aurel Moon carrying Han away and at least one Sith out there who could target the ScragHull, continuing to glide was no option. Leia hit the engine igniters. As Luke brought up the shields, enemy cannon bolts began to converge on the little spyboat.

Leia went into an evasive roll, then gave the control yoke over to instinct, jinking and juking without conscious thought, simply trusting to her training and the Force to keep the spyboat out of trouble. A steady patter of cannon bolts blossomed against their forward shields, but many more glanced off harmlessly or missed altogether.

In the blink of an eye, the distance between the ScragHull and its attackers had closed to mere kilometers. Leia opened the launch tubes again and felt the soft thump of torpedoes being expelled. She grabbed two in the Force and accelerated them toward the enemy. At this distance, the exhaust baffles did little to conceal the Bes’uliiks’ efflux, and she could see the Mandalorian starfighters as they approached head-on, a half dozen faint blue halos growing steadily larger and brighter as they weaved and bobbed closer.

But where were the Sith? Leia could find no sign of them on her tactical display. She turned her attention back to the Mandalorians, reaching out in the Force and guiding a torpedo toward the largest halo. The Bes’uliik vanished in a white bloom of light and anguish. By then Leia had found another pair of targets near the back of the formation. The mercenaries felt as terrified as they were angry, confounded by Jedi weapons and sorry they had sold their lives so cheaply.

Leia gave them no chance to surrender. These were Mandalorians, and Mandalorians expected no mercy because they gave none. She merely held on to their fear until it vanished in a flash of pain and heat.

By that point Luke had destroyed two more Bessies himself, and the last pair was flashing past in a blazing storm of color and damage alerts. R2-D2 reported an overloaded forward shield generator and a breach in the ScragHull’s upper cannon turret.

But where were the Sith? Leia had no time to search for them. The Aurel Moon was accelerating away, and weapon ports were opening along the Ormni’s hull. The last two escorts were wheeling around to attack the ScragHull from behind, and the tactical display showed five distant patrol teams rushing back to join the fight.

Clearly, the shock-and-awe phase of the attack was over.

The Ormni loomed ahead, a massive durasteel wall mottled by the bright ovals of external operating lights. Its tender craft were scattering, their ion tails lacing space with long threads of blue light.

Leia eased back on the yoke, bringing up the ScragHull’s nose, and the Ormni’s turbolasers opened up, filling the void with billowing blossoms of fire. Leia let the Force guide her hands, barely aware of the yoke slamming to and fro as the little spyboat dodged through the stabbing forest of flame. R2-D2 reported that the forward shield generator was operating at 50 percent and the upper laser cannons remained operable, though the turret was stuck at 190 degrees.

“Set all cannons to automatic fire,” Luke ordered, “and open a hailing channel to the Aurel Moon.”

Leia raised her brow. “You’re going to negotiate?”

“I’m going to threaten,” Luke said calmly. “Artoo, lock a torpedo on the Aurel Moon as soon as you can resolve a target.”

R2-D2 let out a three-note whistle of disbelief.

“Of course I know Han is aboard,” Luke said. “Just do it.”

Leia was also surprised by the order, but she had no time to question it. The ScragHull lurched as one of the Bes’uliiks slipped a cannon bolt through the rear shields and gouged a divot in its hull armor. Leia rolled the craft upside down, using the still-functional belly turret to discourage their pursuers. The spyboat shuddered as the dual laser cannons began to fire.

R2-D2 gave a READY chirp for the hailing channel, and Luke spoke into his throat mic. “Jedi pursuit boat hailing the Aurel Moon,” he said. “Acknowledge.”

The cockpit speaker remained silent. The Ormni, which now appeared to be floating upside down ahead, drifted high enough to provide a clear view of space beyond. The Aurel Moon’s crescent-shaped hull was shrinking fast as the yacht’s big ion drives pushed her into a starless abyss between two plasma clouds.

R2-D2 reported a target-lock with a single chirp, and Luke launched the torpedo.

Leia watched with dropped jaw as the torpedo shot away in a flash of white heat.

“Luke!” she gasped. “What are you—”

Luke raised a hand. “Wait. I need to …”

He closed his eyes, and the blinding white sphere of a detonating proton torpedo appeared between the Moon’s twin ion drives.

“Jedi pursuit boat hailing the Aurel Moon,” Luke repeated into his throat mic. “Acknowledge.”

An instant later, the image of Craitheus Qreph’s pear-shaped head appeared above the cockpit holopad.

“S-S-Sk-Skywalker!” the Columi spat. “Are you mad? That explosion cracked the viewport on our flight deck.”

“And the next one will take out the entire deck,” Luke said calmly. “Artoo, lock two more torpedoes on the Aurel Moon.”

Leia pictured Han imprisoned somewhere aboard the yacht and found her heart climbing into her throat.

Craitheus sneered in derision. “You’ll never launch those torpedoes, Skywalker,” he said. “Then it would be you killing Han Solo, not us.”

“Han dies either way,” Luke said. “The only question is whether we all die with him.”

Craitheus’s eyes narrowed. “You’re offering a trade?” he said. “Our lives for Solo’s?”

“And ours, of course,” Luke said. “You call off your Mandalorians and put Han in a rescue pod for us to pick up. Otherwise …”

Craitheus’s tongue flicked into view between his thin lips. “You drive a hard bargain, Jedi.” The Columi’s head turned as he looked at something beyond camera range, and he said, “I’ll have to consult with my brother.”

Luke started to nod, but by then the little ScragHull was passing the leading edge of the Ormni, and Leia’s spine had gone icy with danger sense. The last two escorts had dropped so far back that they were no longer landing effective shots, and no one else seemed to be hurrying to rush in.

“Luke, he’s stalling!” she said. Where were the Sith? “Tell him it’s now or never.”

As Leia spoke, she felt herself pulling the yoke and toeing the thruster-control pedals. They rolled left—just in time to see a hatch the size of the Falcon open in the Ormni’s top hull. Leia was expecting a flight of Bes’uliiks or a concussion missile to come streaking out of the opening. Instead, she saw a flock of silver birds spraying into the void on tails of rocket fire.

The birds spread into a fan-shaped cloud and swung to block the ScragHull’s route. Leia pulled the yoke back farther, spinning and diving away from the strange flock. She had no idea what the things were—they looked like mynocks with jetpack tails—but it was clear that she didn’t want to fly into them.

The flock swirled around to follow, but they were too slow to catch the ScragHull. Leia pulled out of her dive and started after the Aurel Moon again. The blue circles of the yachts’ big drive engines were still visible—perhaps the size of her thumbnails—but dwindling fast.

Leia accelerated after them, crossing the immense breadth of the Ormni’s top hull in the span of a few heartbeats.

Luke spoke into his throat mic again. “Last chance, Craitheus.”

“Oh, I quite agree, Master Skywalker.” A sneer came to the tiny mouth on the Columi’s image. “Just not ours.”

Luke scowled and reached for the torpedo launchers. Leia started to object, but as the ScragHull reached the far side of the Ormni, a bloated amber orb that Leia instantly recognized as a Sith meditation sphere rose into view. Covered in a web of pulsing red veins, it had four hideous wings connected to its body by a network of ugly brown struts. In the center of the sphere, an organic hatch was gaping wide, spitting balls of white-hot plasma in their direction.

“Ship!” Luke hissed.

He launched a torpedo, but it was too late. The white cylinder had barely cleared its launching tube before the first ball of white-hot plasma engulfed it. Leia jerked the yoke hard, spinning the ScragHull away from the detonation, then felt the spyboat leap sideways as the blast wave sent them tumbling.

Leia hit the thrusters, trying to power her way back into control as they spiraled toward the Ormni. Somewhere behind her, R2-D2 shrieked in alarm as he crashed into a bulkhead, and the cockpit erupted in a frenzy of alarms and lights and sparks.

The Ormni’s gray hull approached fast. Leia gave up on regaining control and reversed the thrusters, but the collision was inescapable. She turned to warn Luke to brace and saw him reaching for the torpedo launchers, then felt the thump of the ejector charges and … white.