AUTHOR'S NOTE
This novella is set between the events of Edge of Victory II: Rebirth and Star by Star. It was inspired by an unpublished short story by Dan Wallace about Grand Admiral Grant and the Yuuzhan Vong.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE
8t88, defective administrative droid
Etahn A'baht, general (Dornean male)
Eryl Besa, Jedi apprentice (human female)
Octavian Grant, former Grand Admiral (human male)
Kaerobani, retired smuggler (human male)
Pollum Morano, captain, Intrepid (human male)
Yuhlan Sarn, Jedi Master (Tunroth female)
Anakin Solo, Jedi apprentice (human male)
Tahiri Veila, Jedi apprentice (human female)
Floran Welby, first officer, Intrepid (human female)

-{}-

The light-stream of hyperspace dissolved into nothing. Stars spread in every direction, glistening faintly against a backdrop of endless black. There were no planets in this desolate part of space, no moons, no stations. There weren't even any ships.

That was the disturbing part. Sitting behind the shuttle pilot's seat, he leaned forward in his crash webbing and said, "Well, is there any sign of them?"

"Not yet, sir," the pilot checked his scanner. "He might be late."

It was plausible, but he didn't like it. He'd been skeptical about this rendezvous from the start, and if the request had come from anyone except his most trusted ally, he'd have never agreed to it in the first place.

"Switch to long-range scanners," he said impatiently.

"Already doing it, Grand Moff," the co-pilot said.

Their faces were hidden behind black Imperial pilots' masks and it was impossible to tell if they were as anxious as he was. Somehow that made him even more anxious.

"Well, gentlemen?" he pressed.

"I'm sorry, sir," the pilot said, "We don't have any-"

"Wait!" the co-pilot interjected. "Something's dropping out of hyperspace."

Before anyone could say another word there was a flash of light off their port bow. He strained his crash webbing as he tried to get a better look at the newcomers.

Somehow, he wasn't surprised to see a full squadron of New Republic E-wing fighters veering toward them.

"It's a trap!" the pilot snapped. "Shields up!"

"Plotting a jump vector now," the co-pilot said.

But, somehow, he knew they wouldn't make it.

The E-wings' laserfire splattered against their shields but the two lead fighters launched twin volleys of proton torpedoes. He knew the shields couldn't stop them, not when they were already overwhelmed with laserfire.

Four blazing warheads filled the viewport. He gripped his chair-arms tight and waited for them to blow the universe away.

Then he woke up.

Octavian Grant sat up slowly in his bed. It was a soft one but his whole body ached, like it always did on waking. He looked around the room. Morning light fell through open windows and breeze played with shimmer-silk curtains. It wasn't his room. It took him a moment to remember he'd stayed at Kaerobani's mansion the night before.

He hated that dream. He'd had it too many times to count over the years since he'd helped the New Republic intercept and destroy the shuttle of his former ally, Grand Moff Ardus Kaine. No, put it clearer: Since he betrayed Kaine to rebel assassins to save his own neck.

Grant had learned long before that the best way to deal with a guilty conscience was to keep busy, keep climbing, and don't look back. That had worked well enough until he'd surrendered to the rebels, exchanging all the secrets of the last grand admiral for amnesty and a guarded villa on Rathalay. After that he'd had no place to climb.

That had been twenty years ago. By the time he'd surrendered, most of his peers were already dead. Zaarin went first, getting himself killed in a stupid rebellion against Palpatine. Grant had found it amusing at the time, but then Declann had died with the Emperor on the Second Death Star, and after that they'd kept falling one after another. Poor Osvald Teshik, one of the few other grand admirals that Grant had been able to stand, had been captured and executed. Martio Batch, another decent man, had killed by his own crew. Grunger and Pitta had annihilated each other, Il-Raz had proved longstanding accusations of insanity by driving his ship into the heart of a nebula. Makati had been assassinated by rebel agents in the Corporate Sector. Tigellinus had been too competent for his own good: a bunch of Moffs had had him executed for threatening their power.

On and on it went. Only Thrawn had given the rebels the fight they deserved; he probably would have succeeded if all the fractured Imperial warlords had gathered under his banner instead of huddling in their own scattered fiefdoms.

Grant had figured out early that Palpatine's Empire was one where the most ruthless rose to the top. He'd seen it prove many men's undoing, even Amise Griff, the young officer he'd shepherded from captain to admiral, only to see him get killed by trying to edge past Darth Vader's fleet in the pursuit of the rebels evacuating Yavin 4. In the end even Griff had let his ego get the better of him.

It wasn't until after Endor that Grant realized that Palpatine had been the only one keeping them all from slitting each other's throats. He'd allied with Grand Moff Kaine for a time because he was the only one sensible enough to secure his territory and not pick fights, but in the end that position had become untenable. He'd surrendered, defected, sold out, turned traitor, whatever you wanted to call it.

But at least he was alive. Twenty years ago, he'd been satisfied with that.

Grant got out of bed slowly. He was past eighty, and the regenerative procedures the rebels let him have could only do so much. He used the refresher adjacent to the guest bedroom, then walked down the hall to his host's main living room.

Kaerobani was already there, watching a news holo, leaning back on his sofa with his feet on the table in front of him. The man may have made a fortune in smuggling and stolen goods but he still acted like a ruffian. The Octavian Grant of twenty years ago would have been disgusted to associate with such a low-life.

At this point, he was just glad to associate with anyone.

Kaerobani watched him as he entered. "Sleep well?"

"Sufficiently," Grant said.

On the table next to Kaerobani's feet were a few cups and the wine bottle they'd emptied the night before. Grant shuffled past the holo and over to the open chair. Slung over the back of it was a snow-white jacket, topped by braided gold epaulets. The rebels may have taken away his rank, but at least they'd let him keep the grand admiral's uniform. When Kaerobani had invited him over he'd suggested Grant wear it, implying the evening was going to be some fancy, proper, formal thing instead of the lazy, sloppy drinking they'd both known it would turn into. Grant had removed it at some point during the night, when the joke had stopped being funny.

He sat down in the chair without moving his uniform jacket. His bony body sunk into the cushions. He'd never been a big man and age had withered his already thin frame. He didn't mind that; it was better than ballooning out with age like Kaerobani.

"Well," Grant asked, "How goes the war?"

"Take a guess."

"Badly, I assume."

Since the Yuuzhan Vong had restarted their offensive, they seemed to be attacking everywhere at once with their typical chaotic ferocity. The Republic could have used the break in the action to regroup, to defend the front lines or barring that build a rampart around Coruscant and the Core, but instead they'd dawdled, bickered, blamed each other, and accomplished nothing.

If the Empire had been in charge, it would have been different. Grant had told Republic command again and again as he sent them tactical advice from his villa on Rathalay. Nobody seemed to be paying attention to his messages anymore. Nobody seemed to pay attention to him, period. In the beginning, he'd been watched over by vigilant Republic intelligence agents at once intent on making sure he stayed on Rathalay and protecting him from vengeful Imperial agents.

Now nobody cared about him at all. Well, nobody except one fat retired pirate with mansion full of toys and lots of time on his hands.

Grant and Kaerobani watched as the news presenter listed the most recent planets to be attacked by the Yuuzhan Vong. Grant stiffened in his chair when they named the Charros system as the site of an ongoing battle.

"That's a little close for comfort," he frowned.

"Oh, they talked about Charros already. Said the Republic's sent a task force to intercept."

"Which one?" Grant asked. Following the details of the Republic's fumbled response to the invasion was his only pastime.

"Can't remember. Some part of the Fifth Fleet."

"Hmmm. About time."

The Fifth had spent the early stages of the war bottled up in the Bothan sector protecting Borsk Fey'lya's home-world instead of fighting the enemy. The fall of nearby Hutt Space had finally gotten Fey'lya to spread out the Fifth to try and contain the Vong in those newly-conquered sectors.

Clearly, it hadn't worked.

"Can we get any more on Charros?" Grant asked.

Kaerobani scratched his gray beard. "You want to try and slice into Republic battle freqs again?"

"Is there anything more pressing to do?"

"I guess not. Give me a sec."

Kaerobani groaned a little as he pushed himself off the sofa. He wandered into one of the side rooms where he kept some of the spoils from his years of crime. He came back a moment later with a rectangular droid head tucked underarm. Grant couldn't remember the whole story of how Kaerobani had gotten it, but from what he'd heard about 8t88's previous activities, he was glad the droid's body was nowhere to be found.

Grant watched him crouch next to the transceiver array connected to the holo-projector. He plugged a few cables into the hole where the droid's neck should have been a flicked it one. Two small glowing eyes winked to life: one red, the other violet.

"Well, Master," 8t88 said in a crisp, sarcastic tone, "What's the bidding today?"

"I need you to hack into the battle freqs again, Eight-Eight," Kaerobani said.

"Oh, lovely," the droid said. "I'm so glad to be of service for this crucial task. Who are we spying on this time?"

"There's Fifth Fleet action at Charros," Grant said. "I want to know what's really going on."

"Charros?" 8t88 sounded a little surprised.

"If the Vong decide to swoop down on Rathalay, you want to be the first to know, right?" Kaerobani patted the droid's head affectionately.

"Oh, of course. After all, it would be a shame if they put me out of my misery," 8t88 groused.

Kaerobani grinned, like he found the decapitated droid's self-pity funny. Grant didn't. It hit a little too close to home.

And if the Vong did come to put him out of his misery, well, it would be the most exciting thing to happen to Grand Admiral Grant in over twenty years.

-{}-

It was a little weird, being so close to someone you loved but unable to touch him or even see his face.

Tahiri Veila was strapped into the rear chair of their two-seater B-wing, which meant she was stuck looking at the back of Anakin Solo's helmet as the blue-and-white glow of hyperspace flashed outside their cylindrical cockpit. Even if she unbuckled her crash webbing and leaned all the way forward she'd just barely miss touching the shoulder of his flight suit.

He'd been pretty quiet on the long outbound trip to Rathalay, but Anakin had never been the talkative type. Once, Tahiri probably would have filled the silence with chatter about anything she could think of, but small talk had gotten a lot harder after her experience as a Yuuzhan Vong science experiment on Yavin 4. Looking back, she couldn't remember what she'd ever thought worth going on about.

Even though it was frustrating, being so close to Anakin but so far, she didn't want to be anywhere else except by his side, and despite everything that had happened, she drew great strength by knowing he felt the same way.

Still, the silence yawned a little too loudly to Tahiri's liking, so eventually she asked, "Have you ever met Eryl's master? I can't remember her."

"Yuhlan Sarn? She didn't hang around Yavin 4 much. She spent a lot of time exploring the Outer Rim. It's where she found Eryl in the first place."

"I know, but have you met her?"

Anakin thought for a moment. "Once, yeah. I met her with Uncle Luke on Mon Gazza. She's really tough and big, maybe twice Eryl's size, but she's a Tunroth, so you'd expect that."

Tahiri hadn't even known Anakin had been to Mon Gazza, but then, she'd lost count of all the adventures he'd had without her.

"Figures," she said.

"What figures?"

"You know everybody."

"That's not true. I just, you know, meet people through Uncle Luke."

"Master Skywalker to the rest of us."

"Okay, sure."

"I just can't keep track of all the places you went while I was sitting on my butt on Yavin 4 with all the kids."

"Tahiri, I'm not trying to show off." His voice strained a little. "I was just saying, I met Master Sarn once. That's all. I wasn't trying to brag."

She rolled her eyes. "I was teasing you, Anakin."

"Oh," he said after a second. "Okay."

She laughed lightly. She couldn't help it.

He asked, "What, what is it?"

"You may be the Jedi Order's big new hero, Anakin Solo, but you're still learning when it comes to girls.

"Umm… sorry?"

"That's okay," she smiled tightly. "It's what I like about you."

She couldn't see his face, but she bet he blushed.

They fell back into comfortable silence. It was good to prod Anakin sometimes, good for them both. Tahiri needed to reassure Anakin and herself that despite what the Vong had done to her, despite the three scars they'd left behind to mark her forehead, she still had some of the old Tahiri inside.

And Anakin, despite that fact that he really was the big new hero for a whole generation of Jedi, never let it go to his head. Even after two years, he still wasn't over the fact that Chewbacca had died to save him. He still didn't feel like he was worth that sacrifice.

Everyone else clearly thought he was, which was why Master Skywalker had felt comfortable sending Anakin and Tahiri both to Rathalay without a Corran Horn or some other Master to accompany them. Eryl Besa and Yuhlan Sarn were already on the planet with represent-atives of the refugee relocation committee SELCORE, trying to convince the Rathalay government to accept some drop from the ocean of peoples displaced by the Yuuzhan Vong invasion.

In truth, Master Sarn had been doing most of the negotiations. Eryl Besa, an apprentice the same age as Anakin's two siblings, had been trying to ferret out supposed Yuuzhan Vong agents on the planet, so far to limited success. Anakin and Tahri were supposed to be helping her with that.

"Hey, Anakin," she asked, "Have you ever been to Rathalay?"

After a short pause, he admitted, "Yes."

"I knew it! What for?"

"A vacation. My mom and dad took us there once. I was pretty young so I don't remember much."

"I heard it has nice beaches."

"Beaches, mountains, forests. Good weather, too."

"I heard there's a lot of rich people with mansions there."

"Yep, which is probably why SELCORE is having such a hard time with them."

"They don't want a bunch of poor refugees mucking up their pretty property, huh?"

"That's about right."

Tahiri gave a long, long sigh. "You ever wonder if the New Republic is worth saving? The way it's treated the Jedi, the way people have treated each other, sometimes I feel like the Vong should just put us all out of our misery."

"Don't say that," Anakin said seriously.

"I know, I don't mean it, not really." Tahiri shook her head. "It's just… well, the way I look at things now, and the way I did just a couple years ago..."

"It's changed for everyone," Anakin said. His voice ached with knowing. "But if the Republic falls, then it means all those people who died fighting the Vong died for nothing."

"I know," she said. "I just wish I could convince myself we deserve to survive."

Anakin didn't say anything to that. The cockpit settled into uncomfortable silence again as the flash and flare of hyperspace continued outside.

-{}-

Captain Pollum Morano had spent the past ten years on the bridge of the fleet carrier Intrepid, far from the political wrangling over which worlds should and should not be defended from the Yuuzhan Vong. His window into that world had come from sporadic communiques with his former commanding officer, the crusty old Dornean General Etahn A'baht, who'd favored spreading the fleet to defend every outlying system possible against the Vong.

Supreme Commander Sovv and the other brass on Coruscant seemed to have thought only the Core Worlds were worth defending, which was why A'baht had resigned and gone back to defend his homeworld.

Now, almost a year later, they'd been tasked with defending Charros, a Mid Rim mudball notably only for its dwindling ore mines. Half of the Fighting Fifth was still clustered where occupied Hutt Space met the Bothan sector, but Task Force Cloverleaf had been sent to intercept a Vong thrust rimward. Maybe the brass was afraid of a campaign toward Mon Cal, or maybe they were just throwing darts at a map to chose assignments. Morano had essentially given up trying to figure out the logic.

His job was to fight, and after sitting out the invasion for two years, he now had plenty of that.

The ships of Cloverleaf were spread across Charros' upper orbit. The Vong task force had plunged deep into the planet's gravity well in order to dispel some of those nasty bio-weapons into the atmosphere. The planet's bio-sphere was probably a lost cause, but Cloverleaf could still pound the enemy while they were pinned with their backs to the planet.

Standing on the bridge of Intrepid, Morano watched as a full squadron of K-wing bombers shot past the carrier's bow. A squad of E-wing fighters followed, right on their tails. Both groups dove toward the green-and-brown surface of the planet ahead of them.

The task force's heavy hitting star destroyers, Commo-dore Syub Snunb's Resolve and Captain Alax's Thunderhead, had pulled to the front of the line to exchange heavy fire with the Vong capital ships, while Captain Vatrim's cruiser Majestic and the gunships Farlight and Garland sat behind them and intercepted enemy coralskippers. Intrepid sat in the back along with the group's other fleet carrier, Ballarat.

Intrepid's primary job was to haul fighters and troops around, not engage in messy slugfests, but Morano didn't like sitting at the back of the line. Back when A'baht had commanded the Fifth, he'd had his flag on Intrepid and put them right in the thick of it. Morano was one of the Fifth's most veteran ship captains, but Commodore Snunb still outranked him, and he had to follow the Sullustan's orders.

Morano went over to the tactical station where his executive officer was overseeing deployment of their K- and E-wing squads.

"How does it look, Lieutenant Welby?" he asked.

"Aklay and Nexu Squads are making their attack run on the Vong picket," the young woman reported.

Morano clasped his hands behind his back and watched the markers on the holo. The green wedges denoting flights of K- and E-wings collided with red ones marking coralskipper flights.

When several of the green markers winked out, Welby grimaced. "They've got a good fighter screen, sir."

"They're not afraid afraid of dying. It's their biggest advantage over us. Well, that and their yammosk war coordinators."

"I know, sir." Welby swallowed. "When we were stationed at Bothawui, well… I was a little glad we weren't on the front lines."

Not for the first time, he was stuck by how young she was. Others on the bridge crew looked even younger. This war was eating through the officer corps too fast.

The tactical holo showed the remaining fighters and bombers slip past the coralskipper screen and begin their attack run. Their target was a small picket ship, and in theory the K-wings should have been able to handle it easily, but Morano held his breath. Nothing about the Vong was predictable.

Yet their payloads flew true. He glanced out the forward viewport to see the ship light up. A series of claps resounded on the bridge.

With the picket down, the two Nebula-class star destroyers moved confidently forward. Resolve and Thunderhead began to pound the Vong command ships while Intrepid and Ballarat's bombers added to the flurry. One of the three big Vong ships exploded and the destroyers vectored in on the remaining two.

The Yuuzhan Vong were cornered and knew it, which meant the battle had entered its most dangerous phase. As Thunderhead pounded one Vong cruiser on the nose, the other turned its broadside to absorb attacks from Resolve.

The ship facing Thunderhead suddenly began to climb fast out of the gravity well. By turning its dovin basals toward the planet and pushing away it left its forward hull exposed to Thunderhead's turbolaser and missile volleys.

Morano realized what they were trying to. He hurried over the communications station and snapped, "Get me Captain Alax, now."

The lieutenant frowned. "One moment, sir… Comm is a little tricky right now…"

"Just do it. That ship is going to-"

"Captain!" Welby called, "It's too late."

He looked out the viewport just in time to see the Vong shops ram Thunderhead. Their noses collided, crunched, then both ships exploded.

A ghostly silence fell over Intrepid's bridge. With only one Vong ship left, all of Cloverleaf's remaining ships fell on the offensive. Sunbeam, Farlight, and Garland raced forward to pound Resolve's opponent before it, too, could perform a suicide run.

"Engines, take us in," Morano commanded.

Intrepid lurched forward, Ballarat right behind it. By the time the carriers got there, Resolve and the other ships had already torn apart the last Vong capital ship, but there were plenty of coralskippers left to fight. The skips became living missiles, hurling themselves into the shields of the nearest capital ships. The nimble E- and A-wings were able to pick off many of those suicidal pilots, while Intrepid and the other big ships were able to throw full power to their particle shields and absorb multiple impacts, but the gunship Garland took two consecutive collisions to its bow and exploded. Its stern section became a ball of debris tumbling town toward the planet's surface.

Morano grimaced as he watched Garland's falling pyre. He'd first taken command of Intrepid just in time to fight the Yevetha. These Yuuzhan Vong were even more destructively fanatic than the aliens from N'zoth, which he'd have never thought possible.

The loss of two of their own stung, but there was nothing to be done. The remaining Cloverleaf ships began to pull out from the planet. The Charrosan settlers who'd been able to evacuate had already left the system to join the massive refugee stream swirling hopelessly around the Mid-Rim, though ships without hyperdrives had been forced to land on Ballarat andIntrepid.

The thought of so many dispossesed in his ship's belly made Morano anxious; he wanted to get them elsewhere as soon as possible.

"Captain," a comm officer called, "We're picking up a distress signal."

Morano held back a sigh and walked over. "From where?"

The officer held an audio transmitter to her ear. "Sir, it's coming from Rathalay. They say they're under attack."

Morano's heart fell into his gut. "How many ships?"

"They say over twenty, sir. They- Wait a moment-"

Twenty. A full-scale invasion force, likely. Rathalay was primarily known as a recreational planet. It didn't have any major resources or strategic value, but neither had Charros.

It did, however, have a lot more people.

"Call from Commodore Snunb, sir," the officer said, and a second later a blue holo-image of the squat Sullustan appeared in front of Morano.

"All ships," Snunb said, "We've just received a priority distress call from Rathalay. They are under attack by a major Yuuzhan Vong invasion fleet."

"This was a diversion," Welby whispered. Morano hadn't even noticed her beside him.

"We've put in a request for assistance from Task Force Apex. In the meantime, we're to assist the evacuation of Rathalay anyway we can. All fighters are to be refueled, rearmed, and prepped for more sorties. Stand by to receive jump coordinates."

Snunb's holo winked out. Morano looked to Welby. There was terror in her eyes, and she didn't look young any more.

-{}-

As Grant sat in Kaerobani's living room, watching in shock and horror as the Yuuzhan Vong invasion fleet overwhelmed Rathalay's pitiful defenses, he had to admit it really was the most exciting thing to happen to him in twenty years.

The local news broadcasters could barely contain their panic as they showed live footage of the Vong fleet surrounding their planet. All Rathalay had for defense were a few old picket ships, a couple skyhooks with guns slapped on, and a few squadrons of re-sale T-wing interceptors. The Vong tore through them within minutes. Attack ships plunged toward Rathalay's major cities, apparently intent on taking captives for one of those hideous blood sacrifices. Some ships had tried to flee the planet; almost all were shot down before leaving orbit.

There'd been a tiny spark of hope when a New Republic task force jumped into the system, but that hope died the moment one of the Vong ships fired up its dovin basals to create an interdiction field over half the system. The rebels had only five ships against nearly twenty Vong ones. They'd flown right into a deathtrap.

There was little Grant or Kaerobani could say, so 8t88 asked, "Do my Masters have plans? Or are you just going to sit here and wait for the Vong to come kill us?"

"There's no place to go," Kaerobani waved a fat hand at the holo-projector. It was showing shots of coralskippers pummeling the high-rises along one of Rathalay's beaches.

"You have a shuttle, don't you?" 8t88 insisted. The droid was still plugged into to the holo-projector, though they'd stopped trying to hack into rebel battle frequencies. Those were even more depressing than the news reports.

"Even if we tried to fly out, we'd never get to the edge of the interdiction field," Grant said bitterly. "They have us all trapped."

"Count yourself lucky, Eighty-Eight," Kaerobani rumbled, "The Vong'll smash you on sight. They'll feed us to their gods."

"Or you could try to not be god-food," the droid said.

"I already told you, there's no place to go." Kaerobani's voice and eyes were empty.

"So you're both just going to wait here and die?" 8t88's two eye-light flared in imitation anger. "Really? Is this how the last grand admiral is going to end?"

Grant felt a spark of indignation, but knew he deserved the rebuke. A part of him really had wanted to Vong to swarm Rathalay and excite his last miserably boring days.

"Well, is it?" the droid pressed. "You're not even going to fight?"

Grant hadn't fought anyone in over twenty years. Nobody up in orbit probably even knew he was down there. If they did, nobody cared. They had no reason to either. He was no one, nothing, an irrelevant coward.

8t88 was right. It was a miserable way for the last grand admiral to end.

Yet, despite the indignity of it all, he couldn't bring him-self to get out of his chair.

There just wasn't anything to do.

Then he heard a screaming in the sky. The Vong ships propelled themselves with miniature singularities and made no sound except the rending of air. This noise most definitely came from spaceship engines.

Kaerobani heard it too. He pushed himself out of his chair with more speed than Grant expected from a fat old pirate. He staggered out of the room and came back a moment later with an old DC-18 rifle hanging off his shoulder. Then he waddled off down another hall.

"Wait, where are you going?" 8t88 cried. "Explain!"

The rumble of an explosion shook the house. Grant pushed himself out of his chair and moved for the hallway. He stopped, looked down at 8t88's head, and for some reason he couldn't quite explain, detached the head from the transceiver array and stuck it under his arm. He was too old; the damn thing was heavy.

"Lovely," said the droid. "Just take me right to the Vong. That will get it over with quicker."

Grant followed Kaeorbani down the halls to the landing pad. The pirate's modified Delta-class shuttle was sitting on the pad. An energy shield shimmered faintly around it. Beyond were the jagged green mountains that surrounded Kaerobani's mansion on all sides. He'd built it as a hide-away, far from any city or coastline, and Grant had briefly dared hope that the remote location alone would keep the Vong from finding them.

Then he saw a black pillar of smoke rise from a crevasse. It must have been under a kilometer away.

"Who crashed?" he asked Kaerobani. The pirate was leaning against the landing pad's control console.

"Didn't see them," Kaerobani shook his head.

"Do coralskippers burn like that?" 8t88 asked from beneath Grant's arm.

"Probably not," Kaerobani said. "It must have been a shuttle, or a T-wing, or-"

Kaerobani froze. Grant followed his eyes and saw a pair of coralskippers skimming low over the mountaintops, vectoring for the hidden crash site.

"They'll be coming after us next," said Grant.

"Then we should get on that shuttle and run now," 8t88 insisted.

Kaerobani didn't say anything, he just watched as the coralskippers dipped low toward their target.

Grant squinted. He thought he saw something- a tiny pinwheel of gold light- spin straight up into the hull of one of the skippers. For a second he thought it was a trick of the eye; then the skipper tumbled out of the sky and smashed into a cliff-side.

The other skipper pulled upward, then wheeled around for another pass. Grant saw more flashes of light- probably small-arms fire- lance up at the skipper, but the skipper in turn began firing blasts of molten flame that sent geysers of black smoke and flaming debris into the air. Grant still couldn't make out what the skipper was pursuing. It must have been a speeder of some kind, because the Vong ship was moving fast and making sharp turns, like it was tracking the wind of a jagged valley.

He was so captured by the strange spectacle that he didn't even realize both craft were heading right toward them, not until 8t88 said, "I really hope that shield works."

A second later, it burst into view: a little black Aratech speeder bike with two beings atop it. Both wore brown robes that flailed in the wind. The one driving looked to be a human boy with short red hair. The one in back was a big brown alien, a Tunroth, wielding a blaster pistol in one claw and a gold lightsaber in the other.

The red-haired driver must have spotted them, because he pointed his nose right for the landing pad and gunned it. Naturally, the Vong ship followed.

"Oh," Grant moaned, "I don't believe this..."

Grant and 8t88 swore in unison as they saw Kaerobani grab the control panel's power lever. The energy shield around the pad flickered and died. The Aratech speeder hopped a gap in the hills and fell down onto the landing pad. The coralskipper dove after it and fired two more molten missiles from its forward cannons.

The shield came back up just in time to catch the missiles, but the roar of the explosion nearly burst Grant's ears. The coralskipper slammed into the shields a second later, overwhelming them. Fire and smoke tumbled onto the edge of the landing pad. Grant dropped 8t88's head to the hard duracrete and batted away the black smoke with both hands.

The actual debris seemed to have fallen into the hills. The fire burned out quickly, but the smoke still rolled on the wind, stinging his eyes and choking his breath. When it finally cleared enough for him to open his eyes and his mouth, he saw Kaerobani still standing at the control pad and two Jedi directly beyond him, standing amidst swirls of clearing ash.

"Thank you for your assistance," the big Tunroth said. "I am Jedi Master Yuhlan Sarn. This is my apprentice, Eryl Besa."

"Yeah, thanks for the help," the apprentice said while discarding the smoking brown Jedi robe to reveal a tight white tunic beneath. Besa's red hair might have been cut short like a boy's but her figure was decidedly female.

Kaerobani didn't seem to have anything to say. Neither did Grant. At his feet, 8t88 groused, "I'm guessing your ship got blown up."

"I'm sorry to say," Sarn nodded. "Is yours operational?"

"It won't do much good with the interdiction field," Grant said.

"Don't worry, old man, we've got friends on the way," Besa said with the stupid confidence only a teenager could have.

"'Old man?" Grant scoffed. "Girl, do you know who you're talking to?"

The red-haired girl just stared. The Tunroth blinked its little eyes. They really didn't' know, either of them.

It was too much. Grant bowed forward, hands on his knees, and started laughing.