FORTY-THREE

“Good news—Master Lowbacca wishes to report that the Tachyon Flier will be ready for launch before you attack the queen.”

Horrified that Em Teedee’s sharp voice would carry down the dusty slopes to the grashal’s protective thorn hedge, Anakin and several others fumbled for their hanging earpieces. They were studying the cloning lab from more than a hundred meters distant, but the air in this part of the worldship was so still that even soft sounds carried.

“He’s reinserting the reactor cores now,” Em Teedee said. “We’re going home, Master Anakin. You’re going to survive after all!”

“Affirmative.” Anakin’s voice was barely a whisper. Earlier, Jacen had felt a single voxyn presence inside the huge grashal, so it seemed likely they had at last reached the queen. Now all they had to do was kill her before the Yuuzhan Vong realized they were here. “Maintain comm silence.”

“Comm silence?” Em Teedee’s voice was quieter now. “Does that mean you’re in—”

The question came to an abrupt end as the droid was switched off, then Lowbacca acknowledged with a comm click. Anakin responded with a double click and continued his reconnaissance. The cone-shaped grashal stood in the heart of what had once been a vaulted dome, but which had become an immense basin when the shapers reoriented the worldship’s gravity. As the strike team had seen from the other side of the spaceport, the peak of the huge structure protruded through the outer shell of the worldship and—judging by the number of patching membranes —provided some much-needed support for the makeshift ceiling.

Whether Nom Anor understood that this was where his prey had gone was impossible to say, but Anakin felt an urgency in the Force. The strike team had escaped through the voxyn lair over an hour ago, so the executor certainly realized by now that his quarry had disappeared. Provided he knew a shorter route, he might even be waiting inside. Someone should have been able to help with this question, but Anakin could not think who. Alema? Tahiri? Both had experience with Yuuzhan Vong bases, but their knowledge of this complex was no more specific than anyone else’s. He shook his head. There was someone else, but for the life of him he could not remember who …

Inside the Tachyon Flier, a battered but serviceable Corellian Engineering Corporation YV-888 light freighter, Lowbacca tightened the last shielding bolt to its proper torque, then initiated a self-test. The instrument panel broke into a flurry of dancing lights as the reactor brain checked its circuits. Finally, bright green steam began to rise behind the shielding door’s observation panel. When none of it appeared to be seeping through the seal, he authorized a pressure check, slipped the hydrospanner into his equipment belt, and started forward to check on his patient. Tekli had assured him that the dose of tranqarest would keep even a Jedi quiet until long after the others returned, but Lowbacca wanted to be sure. He had already been forced to secure Raynar in crash webbing after the feverish Jedi Knight thrashed his wrist against the bunk’s safety rail.

As Lowbacca passed the air lock, he heard someone banging on the outer hatch. He went to the security panel and activated the external monitor. The vidcam was so dust-caked he could see only the vague shape of a small vac-suited human, hammering at the durasteel with the butt of a minicannon. He activated his comlink and started to ask what was wrong, then recalled Anakin’s request for comm silence and stepped into the equalization chamber. He sealed his vac suit, then shorted two wires dangling from the control box.

As the outer seal broke, he experienced a sudden ripple of danger sense and snapped his lightsaber off his belt. The hatch opened, and Lomi Plo’s voice came over his personal channel.

“There’s no need for that.” She tossed the minicannon at his waist, forcing him to lower his arms to catch it. “Come along—the scarheads have your friends cornered.”

She turned and started down the boarding ramp, unslinging her own T-21 repeating blaster as she ran. Pausing only to clip his lightsaber on his harness, Lowbacca rushed after her.

The Wookiee was already at the bottom of the ramp when he sensed another human behind him, lurking somewhere beneath the Tachyon Flier. Instinctively bringing the minicannon up, Lowbacca spun around to find Welk stepping out from behind a landing strut, a blaster pistol aimed at his chest. Needing no further evidence of the pair’s treachery, Lowbacca squeezed the minicannon’s trigger.

The power pack did not even contain enough energy to activate the depletion alarm. Struck by the depth of the betrayal, Lowbacca lowered the minicannon and switched to Welk’s personal channel, then growled a one-word question.

“Because your friends are going to get themselves and everyone with them killed, that’s why,” Welk answered.

He fired, catching Lowbacca full in the chest with a blue stun bolt. The Wookiee choked out a pained growl and dropped to a knee, drawing on the Force to keep himself conscious. He hurled the minicannon at Welk and reached for his lightsaber, then rolled over his shoulder and came up on a knee, molten bronze blade slashing toward the Dark Jedi’s waist.

Stun bolts began to pour in from behind.

“Play nice, Wookiee,” Lomi said. “We could have set our weapons to kill.”

Anakin had almost finished explaining his plan when a blue glow shone down through the transparent ceiling patches. He lifted his gaze and saw the Tachyon Flier shooting into the green sky, its efflux nacelles glowing brilliantly as the ion drives flared to life.

“Lowie?” he gasped.

Jaina and the others were instantly on their comlinks, trying to raise Lowbacca and find out why he was leaving. They received only static in return.

“Strange,” Tesar Sebatyne rasped. “This one has always heard that nothing is more loyal than a Wookiee.”

“That’s right,” Jacen said. “And Lowbacca is more loyal than most. Something’s wrong.”

“Fact,” Tenel Ka said.

The strike team stared at each other blankly while Anakin tried to raise Lowbacca again. When that did not work, Jaina switched channels and sent an activation signal to Em Teedee.

“—danger?” the droid asked, finishing the question that had been in his circuits when Lowbacca shut him down. “Oh dear, when did we launch?”

“Em Teedee, what’s Lowie doing?” Jacen asked. “Why’s he leaving?”

“Leaving? Why, Master Lowbacca is doing nothing of the sort. He’s right here with …” The droid let the sentence drift off, then screeched, “Help! They’re stealing me!”

“Who?” Anakin asked.

“Who?” Em Teedee echoed. “Lomi and—”

The explanation ended in a crackle of static.

“Welk,” Zekk finished, his voice hard and angry. “Lomi and Welk.”

As soon as he heard the names, Anakin recalled the Dark Master who had guided them through the training course—and whose last sentence to him had been something along the lines of “We were never here.” He had seen her hand rise and felt the Force behind her words, but Lomi was as subtle as she was powerful. He could not even remember if there had been time to resist.

Ganner might not have been the first to realize what the ship’s theft meant for Anakin, but, as usual, he was the only one bold enough to say it. “Anakin, I’m sorry. Once we found out they were Dark Jedi, we should never have—”

“Yes, we should have,” Anakin said. He was surprised to discover how calm he felt, how focused he was on the duty at hand. “Without them, we wouldn’t have made it this far—and I would have died in the arena anyway.”

“Not anyway,” Tahiri insisted. “We’ll find another way off this rock.”

“First things first,” Anakin said softly. Though Tekli was still working on him, reaching into his wound with the Force to repair his torn organs, he could feel his strength fading and his pain rising. “Let’s concentrate on the mission.”

The blue dot of the Tachyon Flier’s ion drives blinked completely out of sight, then a flight of coralskippers streaked across a patching membrane and shot into space. A moment after that, the dark shape of Nom Anor’s frigate floated over the horizon, also pursuing the YV-888.

“I hope the scarheads catch them,” Alema Rar said, her voice full of bitterness. “I hope they dump ’em in a voxyn pen.”

“I do not.” Tenel Ka displayed her comlink, which was already pulsing static as the first plasma balls battered the Flier’s shields. “Our friend Raynar is still aboard.”

The sinking feeling in Anakin’s chest was all too familiar. He activated Lowbacca’s comlink remotely and found it completely silent.

“But not Lowie,” he said. “And if he had been killed, I’m pretty sure we would have felt him die.”

When no one said anything, he looked up from his comlink and found everyone else studying him. There were tears welling in Jacen’s and Jaina’s eyes, and Tahiri was wiping her cheeks with the cuff of her sleeve.

“We’d better do this now,” Anakin said, not wanting to lose focus. He disengaged from Tekli, then took Raynar’s G-9 power blaster off his shoulder and raised the long-range sight. “Jaina, keep a channel open to Raynar. Maybe we’ll hear what becomes of him.”

And maybe they wouldn’t, Anakin knew. In war, people sometimes just disappeared. No one ever found out what had happened to them, leaving friends and family with lifetimes of longing and uncertainty.

When no one moved to ready themselves, Anakin said, “Now might be nice.”

Spurred into action, the strike team readied their weapons and opened their emotions. Despite the lingering outrage—and some feelings of blame—over the Dark Jedi’s betrayal, the battle meld felt the tightest it had been since the detention warrens. Anakin knelt a few meters from the passage mouth and took aim at one of the dark shapes visible through the thorn hedge. When he felt the others also find their targets—two to each guard—he fired.

Eight streaks of color fanned down the dusty slope and tore through the hedge into the four dark shapes beyond. None of the bolts missed. No Jedi would bungle such an important attack, not with the Force to guide his aim. But only two shots burned through. Six ricocheted off the guards’ vonduun crab armor, blasting dust columns into the air or burning pits into the grashal wall.

The surviving guards dropped and crawled for cover. Half the strike team was already rushing down the slope, firing as they ran, their T-21 repeating blasters keeping the Yuuzhan Vong pinned and clearing the hedge for the more powerful weapons behind.

Anakin and Jaina fired again. Prone to deflection and straying at that distance, their power blasters could only flush the guards. One warrior fell to Alema’s longblaster. The other was staggered by Tesar’s minicannon, then finished by the T-21s as they reached effective range. Now the second wave was up and running. Despite the strength Tesar was sharing, Anakin could not keep pace. Tahiri, Jaina, and Tesar dropped back to stay with him.

“Go! I’ll catch up.”

“When Jawas swim!” Tahiri shot back.

“Anakin, you’re in no condition,” Jaina said. “Go back to the equipment pit and locate Lowie. Maybe if you find a safe place to hole up and go into a healing trance—”

“Too late for that,” Anakin said. “I’m seeing this through.”

“Even if it means putting others at risk?” Jaina demanded. “If you’re slow, you’re a danger to us all. At least try a trance.”

Things had gone too far for a trance, Anakin knew. He was thirsty enough to drink sweat, and his abdomen was hard with trapped blood, and the effort of finding a place safe enough to enter a trance would probably kill him anyway. But the thought that he might be endangering others did give him pause. It was one thing to face the inevitable, quite another to take others along. He sought guidance from the Force, opening himself to its tide, trying to sense where it was carrying him.

The sound of the ruffling voxyn scales rose to mind. He felt again the awe he had experienced in the arena, when he realized it had been Yuuzhan Vong patricians who fought there. The Force had spoken to him then.

“I’m going,” he said.

Jaina clenched her jaw, then looked away. “I thought so.”

The first wave reached the hedge and ducked through the burn holes. Stalks began to strike like snakes. Half a dozen lightsabers snapped to life and hacked the brambles away, then the Jedi stumbled out the other side ripping thorn tangles from around their throats and legs. The hedge struck again as the second wave crossed. The first wave left them to their own devices and continued on toward the grashal. Speed was crucial. During their reconnaissance, Anakin had sensed a company of Yuuzhan Vong lurking a few hundred meters beyond the cloning lab, presumably where the strike team had been expected to leave the voxyn warrens.

By the time Anakin and his three companions penetrated the hedge, the first wave had already cut through the grashal wall. Tenel Ka, Zekk, and Alema pressed themselves against the block and rode along as Ganner used the Force to shove the monolith inside.

A burring cloud of bugs came boiling out. The Jedi huddled down in their armored jumpsuits, their blades tracing crackling color fans as they batted insects from the air. A grenade explosion rocked the grashal, then another and another, and the bug storm withered to a trickle.

“Clear!” Zekk yelled.

Ganner and Jacen ducked inside. Jaina hefted her power blaster to follow, but then everyone’s comlinks popped and hissed static. There came a ripple in the Force, maybe strong enough to be Raynar’s death. Anakin looked to the ceiling, saw nothing through the patching membranes but Myrkr’s green glow. He would never know.

“They’ll pay.” Jaina tore her eyes from the ceiling. “They will pay.”

“Then so will we,” Anakin said. Jaina’s eyes were sunken with fatigue and her mouth was drooping with sorrow, and she looked more frail and troubled than Anakin had ever seen her. “We’re here to destroy the queen, not take revenge.”

“Right.” Jaina stepped through the opening. “Revenge comes later.”

Anakin left Tahiri and Tekli at the breach with Alema’s longblaster and followed his sister into the grashal. It was like stepping into a Yavin 4 nightstorm, a dark fog hanging overhead, glow lichen up there somewhere casting sallow halos, blaster bolts and lightsabers flashing like colored lightning—and the humid air muffling the scream and roar of combat, making all that death seem more distant than it was.

Anakin spun out from behind the door block and batted a razor bug from the air, found himself staring through a jungle of pulsing white vines, their corkscrew stalks rising out of planting bins filled with briny-smelling mud. The Yuuzhan Vong were ahead everywhere, their presence too dispersed and indistinct to tell him much. A pair of thud bugs sent him diving for cover. He exchanged his lightsaber for the power blaster and came up firing.

The first shots left him so light-dazzled he glimpsed only a dark shape on the opposite side of the bin, diving for cover. He spun around the end of the box, heard the snap-hiss of an igniting lightsaber, then Tesar Sebatyne’s familiar hissing. The Yuuzhan Vong had thrown his last bug.

Anakin reached out with the Force and found the rest of the strike team taking heavy swarm, pinned down in the darkness. Easy enough to fix. He reached for his incendiary grenades, but felt Tesar already lifting three objects into the dark fog overhead.

A smug Yuuzhan Vong presence drew Anakin’s attention to the next planting bin. Rolling from his hiding place, he saw a dark figure leaping across the aisle ahead, amphistaff poised to strike. He lifted his power blaster … and pitched forward as a razor bug sliced across his neck from behind, vibro-sharp mandibles gliding off his jumpsuit’s armored lining. The insect banked and came back, pincers stretching for his face. Anakin pivoted and took a cheek slash, fired at his original target.

The bolt caught the Yuuzhan Vong in a shoulder seam and spun him around. An arm flew off trailing the smell of scorched flesh, but the warrior did not even scream. He just pirouetted and, now swinging one-armed, brought his amphistaff down.

Anakin’s razor bug came around again, this time slashing for the throat, and he had to turn away. Behind him, Tesar’s lightsaber snapped to life and sputtered harshly. Anakin blocked with the body of the power blaster, then took a pair of thud bugs in the flank and slammed to the floor. He heard the dull thump of an amphistaff hitting a thick reptilian skull, and the flow of strength trailed off as the Barabel plummeted into insensibility.

Anakin did not consciously fire his power blaster. He was too busy reaching up into the darkness, searching for falling grenades. How many seconds left? The power blaster just flashed, and Tesar’s attacker crashed to the floor.

Anakin found what he was looking for and pushed. A ripple of danger sense made him roll away as the razor bug crashed to the floor where his head had been. He hammered the thing dead, then heard the telltale crackle of the grenade detonations. Hoping he would still be there when the sound fell silent, he closed his eyes and reached out to find his attacker through the lambent crystal.

Not easy—too many Yuuzhan Vong in too many places—but he felt something off to his left. He spun and fired.

The depletion alarm sounded, just loud enough to be heard over the crackling flames above. The Yuuzhan Vong presence was closer now, eager. Flinging the useless blaster aside, he plucked his lightsaber from his belt and thumbed it to life, brought it into a cross-body guard—caught an amphistaff descending toward his head. Eyes still squeezed shut against the brilliant glare above, he swung his legs around and scissored his attacker’s knees. The contest ended in a quick lightsaber thrust.

The flames crackled out. Anakin opened his eyes and saw yellow glow lichen shining bright, the last wisps of vapor cloud evaporating into the hot air. He lay there for a long time, taking stock of his condition, trying to fight off his anguish. It took five full breaths to establish that the pain was caused only by his old wound, ten heartbeats more to bring it under control.

Gradually, Anakin grew aware of the battle meld again, of the strike team’s mounting elation. Pushing his agony aside, calling on the Force, he lifted himself to his feet. The Jedi were advancing on the left side of the grashal, driving back the last handful of shapers and guards, slashing nutrient vines and cloning pods as they went. Through the pulsing tangle of stalks, he could not see what they were hunting—but he could feel it, over by the grashal wall, trapped a little below floor level, unsettled, wild, ferocious. Afraid.

Behind Anakin, the longblaster boomed. He felt panic from Tahiri and turned to find her rushing into the grashal. A ball of fire followed her through the breach and exploded into the monolith standing there, and Tahiri went flying.

Anakin rushed to help, but she was up before he took two steps. “Magma spitters! We’re cut off.”

Anakin did not bother to look. “Tekli?”

Tahiri pointed behind him, where the Chadra-Fan was sprinkling stinksalts on Tesar’s forked tongue. The Barabel was smiling, but not waking.

“Take him … and go.” Every word filled Anakin’s belly with fire. He pointed toward the others. “You may need to cut a way out.”

“ ‘You’?” Tahiri said. “I’m not going—”

“Do it!” Anakin snapped. When Tahiri’s face fell, he spoke more gently. “You need … to help Tekli. I’ll be along.”

“Yes, Tahiri,” Tekli said. She cast a knowing glance at Anakin, then kneeled astride the Barabel and began to slap him. “Tesar is not responding. I cannot move him and work on him both.”

Tahiri looked doubtful, but could hardly refuse to help. Blinking back a tear, she stretched up to kiss Anakin on the lips—then caught herself and shook her head. “No—for that, you have to come back.”

Anakin gave her his best lopsided smile. “Soon, then.”

“Soon,” Tahiri repeated. “May the Force be with you.”

This second part, she added so quietly that Anakin did not think she meant him to hear it. All too aware of the growing weakness in his legs, he went to the makeshift doorway and peered around the edge. An artillery squad had set up beyond the thorn hedge, their four magma spitters trained on the opening.

No one was attempting to move closer, which meant the main force would be attacking from the other side. Anakin turned toward the primary entrance and focused on what he felt through the lambent crystal. It did not surprise him at all to sense a heavy Yuuzhan Vong presence streaming in from the ambush site.

He set off at a painfully slow run. Twice, he dropped to a knee when his legs buckled—once while trading blows with a glassy-eyed Yuuzhan Vong who had no more business in hand-to-hand combat than he did. He won that fight by slashing open a planting bin, then levitating himself while the nutrient mud spilled out and swept his foe off balance. The next combat he nearly did not survive at all, catching an amphistaff butt in his wound and popping the external stitches. His life was saved only when he used the Force to bounce his blaster off the warrior’s tattooed brow.

As he retrieved his weapon and rose, Anakin vomited blood. Even before he was finished, he was using the Force to lift himself to his feet, willing himself to run. He had to beat the enemy assault force to the door. At last, he cleared the planting bins and spied the door membrane twenty meters to his left, as wide as an X-wing was long and twice as high. The far corner of the membrane rose slightly. Anakin ducked back into the planting beds, free hand already pulling a thermal detonator from his harness.

When Anakin saw the figure who stepped through, he nearly dropped the detonator. The newcomer’s back was turned, but he wore a tattered jumpsuit and stood a head taller than most humans. He set off for the voxyn pen at a sprint.

“Lowie?” Anakin called, using the Force to make his weak voice carry.

He reached out, but felt only the same hazy Yuuzhan Vong presence as before. The newcomer turned, revealing the profile of a sandy-haired human, and raised an old E-11 blaster rifle.

Anakin was already behind a planting bin, activating his comlink. “Impostor!” he warned. “Trying for pens.”

The blasterfire crescendoed to a deafening roar, as did the Jedi frustration. The firing angles were impossible. A grenade detonated somewhere, and Jaina yelled for a charge.

The door membrane began to roll upward, revealing forty pairs of Yuuzhan Vong feet waiting to rush inside. Anakin opened himself to the Force completely, drawing it into himself through the power of his emotions—not through his anger or fear like a Dark Jedi, but through his love for his family and his fellow Jedi Knights, through his faith in the Jedi purpose and the promise of the future. The Force poured in from all sides, filling him with a swirling maelstrom of power and purpose, saturating him and devouring him. There was nothing to be frightened of, no reason to grieve. He could feel it flowing into him and himself flowing into it. Anakin was the Force, and the Force was Anakin.

Anakin rose. His body emitted a faint aura of light—the glow of his cells burning out—and the air crackled around him. His injuries no longer pained him. He was acutely aware of everything in the grashal—the musty smell of the droning thud bugs, the sultry heat rising from the planting bins, the huffing breath of his fellow Jedi, even the Yuuzhan Vong. Their presence was as distinct to him as that of his own companions, almost as though the Force had somehow expanded to include them.

Firing as he ran, Anakin raced along the rising door. Every bolt blasted a Yuuzhan Vong foot. Muffled roars reverberated through the membrane. Ahead of him, half a dozen warriors dropped and rolled into the grashal. He blasted these before they could rise, then reached the other end and stroked the tickle pad. The door lowered again.

“Hutt breath!” Jaina cursed over the comlink. “She’s escaping.”

Anakin could feel it, too. The voxyn was moving down and away. He activated his own comlink. “The impostor must have opened an escape tunnel.” It no longer hurt to speak, but his aura had gone from faint to bright. His cells were burning like fire. “Jacen, you’re in charge. Take everyone and go after her.”

Jaina’s surprise at not having her own name called carried through the Force like a shout across water, but she stifled any resentment she felt and said, “Can’t get there, Little Brother.”

“The path will clear.”

Anakin slashed the membrane tickle pad and circled toward the empty voxyn pen. He could feel Yuuzhan Vong ahead, crouching behind the last row of planting bins, secure in the knowledge that help was coming. That changed a moment later, when Anakin began to pour blasterfire into their flank. His angle was poor for head shots and his bolts too weak to penetrate vonduun crab armor, but by the time the Yuuzhan Vong realized that, they were being overrun by Jedi.

A plasma ball roared through the grashal door and set fire to a twenty-meter swath of cloning vines. Anakin charged back toward the melted membrane, miniature forks of lightning dancing off his arms and legs, the Force swirling through him like fire, burning more ferociously every moment. He was completely filled with the strength of the light side now; his injured body could hold no more. The energy was burning its way out of him, consuming a vessel too weakened to contain it.

Yuuzhan Vong—their feet fully intact—poured in five abreast. He dropped the first rank from fifteen meters out, his blaster pistol singing out twice between each step, every bolt burning through a face or a throat. The volcano cannon roared again, and a sphere of white fire blossomed in front of him, seemingly from nowhere. Anakin dived and rolled into the wall, hit boots-first, sprang into a back flip, returned to his feet ten meters from the explosion.

“Anakin!” Jaina’s cry resembled a scream.

Go! He commanded her through the Force. She’s getting away!

The blaster sang out in Anakin’s hand, dropping Yuuzhan Vong as fast as it could fire. More warriors poured in. A razor bug buried itself in his shoulder, his jumpsuit half disintegrated by the Force energy escaping his body and no longer offered much protection. He allowed the impact to spin him around, fired again and once more, heard the depletion alarm. The Yuuzhan Vong hurled handfuls of thud bugs and rushed, already pulling amphistaffs off their waists.

Anakin threw the blaster pistol at the first and dropped him and leapt the second, thumbing his lightsaber to life in the air. He landed in front of the entrance and began a whirling dance of slash and parry, blocking once and striking twice, every attack a killing blow. His aura was burning so brightly that he cast shadows behind his foes. He batted the blade left to right, overpowering two blocks to open two throats, then sent another warrior tumbling with a hook kick to the head.

And still they came, piercing Anakin in three places, one amphistaff sinking its fangs into his flesh. The Force scalded the poison from his system before he felt it, and the new wounds troubled him less than the old one—but there were a dozen more warriors behind them, and he could not hold forever. He killed another, then another, took a crippling slash to his thigh, and gave ground. The Yuuzhan Vong rushed, trying to slip past to the right.

The longblaster roared from the pen area, blowing a head-sized hole through one Yuuzhan Vong and a fist-sized hole through the one behind him. Anakin launched himself into a back flip and landed five meters away. His aura flickered wildly as his cells began to burn and burst. He hazarded a glance over his shoulder and saw Jaina peering over the pit wall, tears streaming down her cheeks, the longblaster propped against her shoulder. Jacen was beside her, likewise weeping, trying to pull her away.

Go! Anakin said through the Force. I can’t hold.

The Yuuzhan Vong charged again, and Jaina fired. Another warrior fell, and the rest came. Anakin flipped another five meters back—then felt someone, a Yuuzhan Vong, creeping along the far wall of the grashal. He retreated until he could see the figure: the Jedi impostor, perhaps thirty meters distant, dragging a heavy cargo pod toward the strike team’s makeshift opening.

The warriors arrived again, and Anakin had to defend himself. Purple blade ticking back and forth, blocking and parrying and slipping strike after strike, he faded two steps and saw an opening. He brought his feet up and planted his heels in the center Yuuzhan Vong’s chest. His lightsaber flashed twice, cleaving the skulls of the adjacent warriors, then he kicked off, launching himself into a series of Force-assisted cartwheels.

Anakin continued far enough to see where the impostor had come from, a work area near the queen’s pen. Dozens of tendrils lay stretched along a workbench, each ending in a small cloning pod, some open, some closed. It looked like a tissue transfer station.

That was what the impostor had, a cargo pod full of voxyn tissue, enough to clone a million. Anakin’s aura flashed and dimmed, flashed again and dimmed more, his cells rupturing in chain reactions, the cycles coming faster and faster as less of him remained to contain the energy. He felt himself not exactly departing, but melting back into the Force. He pulled his last thermal detonator off his harness and thumbed the timer three clicks.

Go now.

“Anakin, I can’t!” Jaina commed.

Anakin raised the detonator so his brother and sister could see. Thirty seconds. He released the trigger. Take her, Jacen. Kiss Tahiri for me.

With the charging warriors almost on him again, Anakin threw the detonator across the grashal. He wasn’t conscious of using the Force to guide it, but he must have, because it hit the impostor in the head.

Anakin was too busy parrying to see what happened for the next few seconds, but when he finally managed to spring away from his attackers—he was no longer strong enough to flip or cartwheel—the impostor was gathering himself up, rubbing his head and searching for what had struck him. Even from thirty meters, his broken nose and misshapen eye orbit identified him clearly as Nom Anor.

When the executor’s gaze fell on the silver sphere, his real eye grew as large as his plaeryin bol. He reached down.

Anakin used the Force to nudge the sphere away, then caught an amphistaff in the ribs and went down hard, letting his lightsaber fall from his hand. His aura was only a faint glow, flickering between dim and nonexistent. The maelstrom inside was dying away now, flowing back into the Force.

Nom Anor rushed for the detonator again. Anakin waited, waited until the executor was almost on it, then reached out with the Force one last time, rolling the sphere toward the cargo pod.

He did not hear the angry curse that followed, nor did he see Nom Anor fleeing at a dead run.

By then, Anakin was gone.