When Kyra emerged from unconscious she didn't understand where she was or how she'd gotten here.

She was on her side, staring at a blank gray bulkhead. Metal stun cuffs pinned her wrists behind her back and the slight tingling at the ends of her limbs confirmed that she'd been hit by a stun blast. Certainty brought more memory: the flash of blue light from Jariah's blaster and the thump of impact in the center of her chest, followed by fast-blossoming numbness that had consumed her. She also remembered the shock of Jariah's last words, their causal cruelty, and the hard pressure of the young Sith's forearm on her neck.

She remembered Jao, cut deep with a red lightsaber, and that mattered more than anything. With an effort, Kyra rolled away from the bulkhead, onto her back, then onto her other side. Jao was there, lying face-up on a bench along the opposite wall of this small chamber. She kicked out, put feet on the floor, and staggered across the room. Weak legs buckled beneath her but she made it to Jao's side.

He made no response as she fell to her knees. His eyes stared unseeing at the ceiling but his breath rose slowly up and down. She looked at his side and saw that his torn clothing had been peeled away and a few bandages had been applied to the wound. She hesitated, then turned around and, hands still behind back, awkwardly peeled away one bandage. She saw it had been merely slapped across the lightsaber-carved gash. Her stomach churned at the sight of burnt flesh and she stuck the bandage back on.

Kyra struggled to calm herself and assess the situation. They were on a ship. She listened to the faint sound of air cycling through vents and the distant sound of engines. Those were sublight thrusters, and they seemed to be at low power. No inertia rocked the room. They were in steady orbit or maybe deep space. Waiting for something.

She recalled more of the fight on Tython. Jariah had stunned the Twi'lek Sith, Darth Talon. The young human, the one who couldn't have been much older than her, had stabbed Jao, grabbed Kyra, and apparently somehow escaped with them to his ship. She didn't know what happened to Jariah and she found it hard to care. In her last scraps of memory he was callous and cruel.

The Sith had them captive. He was holding them here as he waited for something. He'd surely have some way to monitor his prisoners, but when she looked around she noticed no camera lens.

Since there seemed no other way, Kyra stood up, walked on steadier steps to the door, then slammed her less-sore shoulder into it.

She slammed again, then shouted, "Help! We need help in here! Please! He needs medical attention!"

She turned around and tried cracking the rims of her cuffs against the door. She jammed it with her shoulder again and shouted some more. After five minutes her throat had gotten sore and her limbs hurt. She sat back on her bench and gathered strength for another round.

That was when the door opened. The young man was standing in the middle. Back on Tython he'd seemed fierce and dangerous, but when Kyra's eyes lit on him she thought he looked tired. Bags gathered under his dark eyes and black hair was a messy smear around his face. In his hand he held a lightsaber, and with the tap of a thumb the red blade shot out in front of him, dispelling any impression of weakness.

"Please," she said, voice cracking. "Jao needs a medkit. He'll die if we don't help him."

She couldn't say he might well die already. She'd been given some field medic training over the past year, mostly by Jao himself. Without the Force, he'd told her, they needed all the practical help they could get.

The Sith stared at her, not even glancing at Jao. She repeated, "He'll die. Then you won't be able to use him as a hostage. Please, let me help him. He's my…"

She halted. The Sith pressed, "Your what?"

"My teacher," she said weakly. He almost was, or should have been.

"Were you an Imperial Knight? A Jedi?"

"No." She shook her head. "I was… I was going to be something. It doesn't matter. He needs help."

The Sith regarded her, "This ship has a medical droid. It's not first-class, but it's better than a medkit."

"Then help him." Kyra leaned forward. "Please. He's no good to you dead."

The Sith glanced at Jao, finally, but his lightsaber stayed angled at Kyra. She didn't even think of trying to charge him. He looked back at her and gave a tiny nod. As he reached into his pocket with his free hand and drew a comlink she felt weak with relief and had to remind herself that she was still being held captive by a murderous Sith.

The young man gave a few short orders via comlink, and a minute later a droid floated over his shoulder and into the room. The spherical medical robot was the size of a human head, with a half-dozen multi-tool appendages dangling from its lower side. The droid hovered over Jao, examined him, then began peeling away the bandages, revealing his black-scorched gash to the open air.

"Lightsaber wound, lower abdomen," the droid's tinny voice recited the obvious. "Well within registered protocols."

"Treat him," the Sith said.

"Affirmative," chirped the droid. "Will begin interior micro-sutures followed by surface-level bacta salve."

Kyra sagged against the bulkhead. Jao's injuries had stirred her with a primal panic. Over the past year he'd become more than a mentor; he was the best friend she had and the closest thing left to family. Being helpless to save those she cared about was like being back on Svivren all over again, trapped by blood and ash and senseless death.

She still didn't know if Jao would survive. When she turned her head to the Sith, still standing there with his red light-saber, she reminded herself that trust was something she could hardly afford.

"Where are we?" Kyra asked. "I can tell we're not in hyperspace." The Sith pointedly ignored her and watched the droid work on Jao. "Your master, Darth Talon, isn't here, is she? Skywalker has her, doesn't he?"

"Skywalker," the young man said, "Doesn't even have himself now."

After everything else she'd practically forgotten. "But you left your master with them, didn't you?"

Pointedly avoiding her eyes, he nodded. "I didn't kill your other friend. The one who shot you."

"He's not my friend," she said, quiet but firm.

He finally regarded her. "What's your name?"

She hesitated, but silence meant nothing. She was no one important, never had been and never would be. Her name meant nothing. "I'm Kyra," she said. "Just Kyra. That's Jao Assam. Imperial Knight."

"I know who he is. I've met everyone in your group at Te Hasa… except you."

She recalled Skywalker's story about capturing Talon and her apprentice. "I was in Gree space then too. I guess we just missed each other." After a pause she asked, "Am I going to get your name?"

The Sith hesitated as she had. Then he said, "Eli Horn."

Kyra recalled something else Skywalker had said; that he'd known Talon's apprentice when they were both students on Ossus. "You used to be a Jedi padawan."

Horn flinched, and his face screwed tight. "I barely remember that."

He looked young and transparent, and she intuited something else. "You're trying to get your master back, aren't you? We're waiting in orbit over Tython, right?"

He ignored her. Understanding that she wouldn't get any more answers out of Horn, Kyra rested shoulders against the bulkhead and watched the medical droid work in silence. From this angle Kyra couldn't see much of its grisly work, which was fine by her. She waited until it withdrew its metal appendages from Jao's side, hovered high over the prone body and announced, "Operation complete. Internal micro-sutures are installed. Bacta bandages have been replaced and will need changing every six hours."

"So he'll survive?" asked Kyra.

"Survival rate projected ninety-one percent," the machine affirmed.

She exhaled in relief. They were still so far from safe, and it might take Jao weeks to fully recover from that kind of injury, but at least she'd done something for him. She wasn't useless after all.

"Good," Horn said coldly. "Your work is done, droid. Return to your station."

"Affirmative," the droid chirped, then floated its way out of the chamber.

The Sith turned to follow but he lingered to look at Kyra for a moment. She was in no mood to thank him; luckily, he didn't seem to expect it. His lips pressed tight, as though he was holding back words of his own. Then he turned and stepped outside. The door hissed shut and locked behind him.

Jao was still unconscious, and the droid had neglected to close his eyes. She walked across the room, turned around, and carefully shut his eyelids with the touch of both hands. Then she withdrew to her bench; there was nothing to do now but wait, and to think.

She was surprised her thoughts veered toward Eli Horn. Whatever evils he'd committed with the Sith it was clear he was tired and overwhelmed. In another situation she might have felt sympathy with him.

Not so now. Mynock would catch up with them, Kyra was certain of that. When it did, she hoped she and Jao and all their friends got out of the confrontation safely. Whatever had to happen to the Sith would happen. The people she cared about had to be protected. Nothing mattered more than that.

-{}-

Despite having taken a pair of stun blasts, Lowbacca was the first one to stir, and Deliah awoke less than twenty minutes after. By that time they'd already moved Cade and Talon both inside Mynock. The former he let sprawl unconscious on the sofa in the crew longue; as for the latter, he trussed her hands and feet, then sealed her in the airlock vestibule. It never hurt to be too careful, and he had more important things to worry about than one Sith witch.

Once they were recovered, Lowbacca and Deliah joined Jariah and the droids in the longue. They stood around the sofa, looking grimly at Cade's twitching form, as Jariah explained everything that had happened on the plain.

"I don't know what shape the Imp's in," he said, "I don't even know if he's alive. But Kyra, all she got hit by was a stun blast."

"So now she's locked up by a Sith," Deliah shook her head. "Do we know where they ran?"

"No, but I checked Mynock's sensors. They picked up a ship shooting into orbit about three hours ago. Came from about fifty kilometers away."

Lowbacca gave a series of roars, and C-3PO said, "It is possible that Master Horn hasn't yet left the system. He may be staying nearby to retrieve Darth Talon."

"Maybe. Or he's hightailed it off to the closest Sith hideaway, tail between his legs," said Deliah.

Or, Lowbacca suggested, he'd already uncovered the secret Khat Lah had come here for.

Jariah shook his head. "I don't know. I figure if they'd found what they were looking for, they'd've left Tython before we even got here. Besides, without the Force they're as deaf and dumb as we all are."

All of them except Cade, he thought grimly. Times like these he wished they'd never learned Cade was a Jedi at all. Then they'd still be flying free, him Cade and Deliah, not caring about the greater good of the karking galaxy. Then every planet would still be in Krayt's hands, and Cade would still be burning with repressed rage, and Rav would still have a hold over them both. Still, right now, it felt like a worthy trade.

"We're not gonna get answer standing around," Deliah said, voice icy cold. Jariah knew what was coming next. "Let's see if we can get straight answers from the prisoner."

Lowbacca grunted agreement and followed her to the airlock. The Wookiee shouldn't have been so eager; he'd never seen Deliah moved by rage, and it was a sight no righteous Jedi would approve of. The Zelton plucked a bag of repair tools off a table as she moved out of the lounge and walked the rest of the way on long fast strides. When she opened the door to the airlock Talon was awake and on the floor, lithe body awkwardly contorted with both wrists and ankles clasped behind her back.

"How you doing, schutta?" Deliah asked cheerfully, then slung the tool bag off her shoulder and tossed it. The heavy thing crashed down inches from Talon's face. Metal smacked on metal and Deliah crouched to her haunches in front of the Twi'lek.

"I realize you're not big on talking," the Zeltron said, "But you're going to tell us what you were doing on Tython, where your boy-toy ran off to, and what the kark happened to my Cade. You got that?"

Talon's blue eyes didn't blink. Jariah stepped up behind Deliah and put hands on his hips. "Seriously, you'd best do some talking. Cade's still out of commission. Your apprentice flew off with two of our own. Maybe he's trying to figure out how to rescue you. Maybe he left you to die. I don't know. All I do know if that you're stuck here with us, cheeka, and without your grancha Force powers you won't last long against Blue's mean streak."

"You really won't," Deliah affirmed.

She reached into the toolbag and drew out a small, thin welding tool. With the flick of a switch, the tip became superheated and bright. Lowbacca growled uneasily but didn't intervene. If things went far enough he would, but right now he seemed willing to give Deliah a little leeway.

Deliah didn't move too fast. She dangled the hot device over Talon's cheek and said, "Getting all those tats must've hurt. I bet enduring the pain was some Sith rite of passage. Well, I can hurt you a lot more, and you won't have any Force to call on. So you'd best start telling us what you know before I get ahead of myself."

Face half-pressed into the floor, Talon said, "I can't tell you anything."

"Not good enough." Deliah inched the welding torch closer.

"Not won't, can't," Talon insisted, and fear tremored her voice. "I don't know what happened to Skywalker. The pyramid was as inert for us as it was for you, and anyone else without the Force."

Lowbacca roared a question, and Jariah translated, "How'd you get on Tython in the first place?"

Talon hesitated, but her gaze darted to the torch as she said, "We learned Khat Lah had come here from a xenoarchaeologist on Sebiris."

Lowbacca roared again, and Deliah dipped the torch in close. "We were there when the Nagai dove in and tried to wreck the place. You called them down, didn't you, to cover your tracks?"

Talon's lips twisted and refused answer. Deliah drew the torch back, then dipped it down onto Talon's exposed shoulder. It was there for less than a second, but long enough to burn red-dyed skin. Impressively, Talon did not cry out, though her bound body twisted and she bit her lower lip hard enough to draw blood.

Deliah seemed to enjoy that. "Plenty more where that came from, darling. A little burn's the least you deserve. Your Nagai buddies killed thousands of people on Sebiris, and guess what? It was all for nothing. Cade figured out about Khat Lah and Tython anyway." She shook her head. "All right, next question. What the hell is that thing? You must have some idea."

"I don't," Talon insisted. "Tython was inhabited by Force-users over thirty thousand years ago. Long before the Jedi or the Sith. I have no idea what that pyramid is, and I have no idea what it did to Skywalker."

She was probably right, but it wasn't the answer Deliah wanted. The Zeltron played with the torch, considering whether to let it drop again. Jariah crouched beside her and told Talon, "Your apprentice has our friends. We know he took off as soon as he got back to your ship. Where'd he go?"

"I don't know."

"What, you don't have a backup plan?"

"We were not expecting this encounter. Were you?"

She had him there. "I bet he's calling for help. Where's the nearest Sith outpost?"

"Nowhere near here."

"Not an answer." Deliah dipped the torch again, this time close to Talon's face.

"The Sith don't care about this," she blurted. "Darth Nihl is focused on conquest. He's pulled most of his Sith to the Outer Rim, or to spy on Coruscant. This mission…. This was just Eli and myself. To Nihl our mission is a fool's errand. Unimportant." Her eyes dropped to the floor, despondent. "We are unimportant."

She sounded like a woman rejected by a lover; no, a parent. Jariah wasn't in the sympathetic mood right now and neither was Deliah, but Lowbacca roared behind them, asking both to step outside. Just like a Jedi to put a breaker on things when they were making real progress. Jariah was reluctant, but he'd made a rule not to argue with Wookiees, and it wasn't like Talon was going anyplace.

"Come on," he tapped Deliah's shoulder. "Let's take a breather."

The Zeltron nodded reluctantly and switched off the torch. She straightened, picked up her tool back, and followed Jariah and Lowbacca out into the hallway. They sealed the door behind them.

They were surprised to see C-3PO waiting in the hallway. The droid's photoreceptors swung back and forth between them, as though he were worried about something, and when he didn't start blabbing right away Jariah asked, "What is it, Threepio? Were you waiting outside the whole time?"

"Not the whole time, Master Jariah, only the past one minute and twenty-six seconds. I didn't want to interrupt the interrogation process, no matter how critical the news."

"News? What news?"

"It's Master Cade, sir. He's woken up."

As soon as the words came out Deliah was sprinting down the hall. Jariah and Lowbacca followed, only a little bit slower, leaving the droid to shuffle after them. Back in the lounge, Cade was still on the sofa, but his eyes were open and looking up at the ceiling. R2-D2 tittered anxiously beside him.

"Oh, Cade, baby, talk to me, meeshku," Deliah said. She dropped to her knees beside R2 and squeezed Cade's hand tight.

He squeezed hers back, weakly, but he didn't stir and didn't look at her. His eyes were still boring into some other place, some other time.

"Perhaps I should have qualified my statement first," C-3PO said apologetically. "Master Cade has regained some awareness… But his mental state is still quite abnormal."

Jariah wanted to make some brash comment about how Cade had always been a little abnormal, but it was difficult when Deliah was squeezing his hand and begging for reply.

Finally, his jaw hinged open. Voice creaked out from his throat: "There's… so…. so much…"

As firmly as he could, Jariah asked, "What is it, pateesa? What's there a lot of?"

Cade's whole body trembled; a harsh rattling escaped his chest. Then his eyes fluttered, as though he was blinking away dreams. Deliah stroked his face with her free hand and said, "Are you with us, Cade? Tell us you're here. Please."

His eyes rolled sideways to focus on her. "True Blue," he whispered.

"That's right." She moved both hands to clasp his. "You scared the hell out of me, Cade. Don't do that again, please."

"Wasn't really… trying to."

"What happened to you?" asked Jariah. "All we saw was a door open in that monolith thing. It pulled you in, then spat you out a minute later." R2-D2 tweeted something, and Jariah patted his dome. "You've have gotten knocked up a little if Artoo hadn't caught your fall."

"Thanks, buddy," Cade told the droid. He didn't sit up or even try too; he looked on the verge of falling into another dream.

"Cade," said Deliah, "What happened to you?"

"You said… I was gone a minute."

"That's right."

"Felt like… a lot longer."

Lowbacca roared, repeating the question: What happened?

Instead of responding Cade closed his eyes. He took deep, deliberate breaths so they knew he wasn't going to slip away again. When he opened eyes he said, "I know where Khat Lah went. I saw it. And I know where he's trying to get to."

Jariah frowned. "They're not the same?"

"Hypergate. He was trying to fix up a hypergate to get to… where he wanted to go. Did fix it. He fixed it up and got it working."

"How do you know that?" Deliah's brows drew together.

Instead of explaining Cade shook his head. "I can see the planet. With the hypergate. I saw the planet, and the ones close by, and the stars… I just don't know where it is. What it's called. Got to… look at the nav database. Look at star maps. Figure it out…" His eyes darted over the figures looming around him. "Wait… Where's Kyra and the Imp?"

Grimly Deliah said, "Captured. And Jao got hurt bad."

Cade finally tried to sit up, but he was still too weak and dropped back onto the sofa. "Captured… by who?"

"Sith," Jariah said. "Specifically, that Horn kid. He grabbed them and took off in his ship. No idea where he went, or how far." Almost as an aside he added, "We've got Talon trussed up on Mynock, so it came out kind of a draw."

Cade's eyes went distant again as he took all the information in. Then he said, "Help me up. Help me to the cockpit. I need to figure out where we need to be."

-{}-

Eli had set the ship to notify him whenever sensors picked up any other vessels moving in Tython's orbit, but he was in the cockpit anyway when alarms went off and Mynock pushed out of the planet's atmosphere. He quickly killed the alarm but did nothing to activate thrusters, shields, or weapons. He simply watched Mynock on sensors. The ship didn't seem eager to escape the system. Instead it settled into a leisurely mid-orbital drift, between Ashla and Bogan but closer to the former.

For his part, Eli had kept his ship in Bogan's lower orbit, locked to face the planet at all times but close enough to the moon to make his ship hard to spot, especially as he coasted along on minimal thrust.

He'd had hours to plan what he would do next and come up to no solution. If he was extremely lucky he might get a drop on Mynock as the ship neared Bogan, cripple it with a few well-placed blasts, then force it to surrender Talon and whatever knowledge they'd gleaned on Tython.

He certainly wasn't expecting that; even when the Force had been with him it hadn't been that generous. Nonetheless, he watched and waited as Mynock dipped close to Ashla to scout the satellite. It circled around it, slipping out of Eli's view, only to reappear less than ten minutes later. Then the freighter kicked power to engines and began an approach on Bogan. Clearly, Skywalker's crew thought the same way he did.

Knowing it would never work out as well as he'd hoped, but daring to hope anyway, Eli dipped his ship deeper toward Bogan's thin atmospheric envelope. Once he determined Mynock's approach vector he nudged the ship around the moon's ecliptic and out of direct sight-line. He input quick calculations based on Mynock's velocity and estimated what speed would be required for him to circle around the Bogan and come around behind Skywalker's ship. The increase in thrust might give him away, but it was the best shot at an ambush he had.

Eli kicked the shuttle ahead. He armed cannons and raised shields as he circled the moon. Tython swing out of view, replaced by dense-packed stars. His heart beat faster and harder, until he thought the tension would burst through his chest. Tython appeared again and Eli watched carefully for the bright blaze of Mynock's rear engined. He would get one shot at most, and he armed his missiles and prepared for a crippling blow.

He kept swinging around Bogan, but Mynock was nowhere to be seen. He took his eyes off the viewport and checked sensors. No ship behind him. No ship in view at all. Perhaps they'd circled Bogan at a fast speed, in which case they'd be on the opposite side of the moon by now. Eli increased speed and his heart beat even harder.

Then, suddenly, his sensors wailed. Mynock dove in from above, emerging from Bogan's atmospheric envelope near the moon's north pole. Laser blasts fired wide, but the volleys gained accuracy as Mynock drew closer. Eli froze at the critical moment, unsure whether to fight or flee.

Then his comm board lit up. Eli slapped it to open the channel, and a smug voice said, "Hey, we gonna play peek-a-boo all day or are you gonna come out and talk?"

So it would be neither fight nor flight. Eli angled his ship to face the approaching one. He kept forward shields to full and waited until he got a target lock on Mynock before replying, "I have both of your people. They're alive."

"We're gonna need verification on that, pateesa," the man on the other line said. He was pretty sure it was the one he'd fought on Tython, Jariah Syn.

"What about Darth Talon? If you're talking to my captives, I need to talk to yours."

"We've currently got her trussed in an airlock."

"I need to talk to her."

"Go get your prisoners, we'll get ours."

"All right, stand by."

As he rose from the cockpit seat Eli wondered if he'd made a tactical mistake. Of course Skywalker's people wouldn't harm Talon; they had a Jedi among them, and Lowbacca would never let the spacer trash kill or maim her. He should have asked instead about Skywalker's status; that was really what this conversation would hinge on.

Eli ignited his lightsaber before unlocking the door to the cell. When he stepped inside he found Kyra and Jao Assam as he'd left them: the young woman slumped awkwardly with hands bound behind her back, the Imperial Knight lying face-up and slowly mending on his bench. Eli was surprised to find him conscious; Assam rolled his head slightly to see the newcomer but didn't have the strength to sit upright.

To Kyra he said, "Come with me."

Still on the bench she said, "Why should I?"

"So you can talk to your companions."

She straightened in surprise, then got to her feet. Eli stepped back and let her pass out of the room, then shut the door behind her. The girl turned and looked at him, expectant, until he remembered she'd never seen anyplace else on the ship. With the jab of a lightsaber he directed her to the right, then marched her down the halls until they reached the cockpit.

After she sat awkwardly in the co-pilot's seat, Eli said, "Talk. The line is open."

Kyra looked around until she found the comm unit, then hunched forward and said, "This is Kyra. Who is this?"

"It's Jariah," the voice returned. Eli watched with interest as her hopeful expression wilted.

Frowning, Kyra pressed on. "Who else is with you? Is everyone all right?"

"We were gonna ask you that," said a new voice, female. Deliah Blue. "What happened to Jao? Is he still alive?"

"He is," Kyra exhaled. "The shipboard medic droid patched him up, but he's still in bad shape. He can't even stand right now. He needs a couple days in a bacta tank."

"Understood. We're glad you two are okay."

Eli, hovering over Kyra's back with the lightsaber deactivated but still in hand, said, "Let me speak to Darth Talon. Is she with you?"

He heard faint shuffling, then Talon's voice. "I am here, apprentice."

Eli felt a rush of relief; he was no longer completely alone. "Good. What happened to Skywalker? Is he still unconscious?"

There was a tense pause, as though the people on the other side were deciding what to say. Then a new voice came on. It was audibly tired and half-familiar. "Yeah. He woke up."

Eli realized he was talking to Skywalker himself. The man's smug bravado was gone. So was the usual taunting sneer. He asked, "What happened to you on Tython?"

There was another pause as Skywalker gathered his thoughts. Eli and Kyra leaned forward intently, mutual distrust dissolved by the need to know.

Then Skywalker said, "That monolith I fell into is called a Tho Yor. It's been on Tython a really, really long time. It's… an ark that brought the original Jedi to Tython in the first place."

"Brought Jedi from where?" asked Eli.

"They weren't Jedi yet," Skywalker clarified. "They wouldn't be… for a long time yet. That doesn't matter. The point is, Khat Lah found that Tho Yor. He dug it up with his Vong buddies and 'cause he had the Force he got to go inside. And see what I saw."

There was another pause as Skywalker decided what to say. This time everyone waited patiently until he started again. "The Tho Yor pointed Khat Lah to a hypergate. That's why he went to Sebiris, because he needed parts to get the other one operational. Don't ask me why he didn't use the one on Sebiris. I guess it went to the wrong place or something."

"But where was he trying to get to, ultimately?" Eli interjected.

Skywalker ignored the question. "Khat Lah stole the pieces from Sebiris and put together a working hypergate. He's gone through. That's what the Tho Yor told me. This was all about a year ago. I guess he's still on the other side of the gate. I wasn't really clear on that part. Or a lot of parts."

Skywalker stopped. Eli waited this time until it seemed clear the man was done, but before he could get his question out Kyra did it instead. "Do you know where the working hypergate is? Did the Tho Yor show you?"

A sigh crackled over the comm, then silence. A Wookiee moan sounded next, and a prissy voice said, "Master Lowbacca suggests we attend to the matter at hand."

"Right," added Syn, "We got prisoners to exchange."

"Unacceptable," Darth Talon said. "Eli, do not give them the prisoners unless they give you the coordinates of the hypergate."

"But Master-"

"My mission was to find Khat Lah," she said, voice cracking. "If I can't accomplish that… then I may as well die."

The comm hummed silence. Voice not quite soft, Kyra said, "Nobody has to die today. Not unless they want to."

Eli took a breath and told Mynock, "I have my master's orders. Unless I get the coordinates, I won't give you the prisoners."

He waited, heart beating heavy in his chest. The line stayed open but he heard no sound for what seemed like an eternity. Then Syn said, "We've got the guns to disable your ship, bukee."

"If you do that, I'll kill the prisoners before you board. I promise that."

Kyra gave no reaction. Whatever kind of padawan she was, the young woman was brave.

More silence, until Skywalker sighed loudly. Eli could picture the man slumping in his chair.

"I can't give the coordinates because I don't have 'em," Skywalker groaned. "The karking vision showed me the planet and the star system but they didn't give me a map or rodding chart. You get it? We just spent hours going over Mynock's nav computer. We got the best star charts in the galaxy loaded in here, millions of systems, and we still can't find one that matches what I saw."

Eli's thoughts veered back to the Gree index that listed all the worlds the ancient empire had built hypergates on. He didn't know if that was an index of every such gate in the galaxy; the one Skywalker saw could have been built by the Kwa, Killiks, or some other ancient race and not included in the Gree index.

Yet, he realized, the only guide to finding Khat Lah's hypergate might be in his shuttle's databanks.

Eli's head swam; he might have stumbled on a victory, but he had to figure out how to use it. Trying for a casual tone he asked, "What kind of system did you see?"

There was another pause. Skywalker said, "What do you think I saw?"

He cursed himself for being transparent. "I have no idea what you saw. I just… wanted to know."

Talon said, "At Te Hasa, my apprentice retrieved a set of datacards from Darth Maladi's lab. These included translations of Gree archives, including an index of systems they'd built hypergates in. The translators were considerate enough to include coordinate listings on the standard galactic scale."

Eli couldn't believe his master confessed so much. Yet she'd cut through the distrust and deception that had dogged this entire conversation, right to the core of the matter.

"If I tell you what I saw," Skywalker said carefully, "You'll match it with your little Gree list and tell us where to find the hypergate. Is that what you're saying?"

"I won't know if I can until you tell me," Eli said. "But I will try."

Skywalker exhaled. "Listen, kid, I'm not gonna trust your love for your cheeka here. I gotta operate on the assumption you'll run out on us as soon as you figure out where the treasure is. I can't have that."

"Then what do you expect?"

Syn spoke next. "Let us place a tracker on your ship. You put one on ours if you want to. We follow each other to the end of the line, wherever that is."

As Eli considered he glanced sideways at Kyra, still stoic. "I could always remove the homing device on the way there," he reminded.

"So could we," said Skywalker. "Unfortunately, right now trust's an essential for both of us."

Eli doubted they'd remove their homing beacon; that would leave Kyra and Assam's life forfeit. If he removed theirs, Talon's freedom was equally ended. The Jedi was right; some grudging trust was the only way forward.

"Agreed," Eli said. "Maneuver your ship close to mine."

"Will do," said Syn.

"And if you try to board, or do anything-"

"You'll kill the prisoners. We get it. Very Sith," sighed Skywalker. "Just get ready, kid."

The man was getting his energy back, as well as his sneer. Eli killed the comm line and turned to Kyra. "On your feet. Back to your cell."

She rose, but regarded him before marching out of the cockpit. She said, "You used to be a Jedi apprentice. Why did you join the Sith?"

There were many answers to that question, and he'd recited them all to himself at intervals. Looking at Kyra he decided to give a more honest one. "The Jedi taught us we used the Force to serve the galaxy. I saw how the galaxy 'helped' the Jedi. The Sith showed me a better way, a stronger way."

This wasn't the time to explain all that had pushed him to his current path, but Kyra seemed to accept that, and she let him march her back to the cell, where he locked her inside with Assam.

After that Eli hurriedly put on his vac suit, retrieved a homing beacon from the equipment locker, and went to the airlock. After he depressurized the vestibule he opened the door to black space beyond. He always hated going extravehicular; the blackness of space seemed to yawn like a consuming maw in all directions. Here in the Deep Core it was different for all the tight-packed stars and luminous astral debris. The shuttle's hull was a small flat plan with an infinity of gleaming jewels sprawled out every direction. As Eli stood on the shuttle exterior, boots magnetically clamped to the hull, he watched Mynock's red spread-wing loom closer and closer until it occluded half the jeweled sky.

Mynock's airlock portal opened and a figure in a brown, rugged vac suit appeared. Eli couldn't see the face through its visor, nor did he have the comm code to talk to its occupant. That didn't matter. He took the homing device in both hands and carefully pushed it upward. He let it fly through the vacuum until it collided with the underside of Mynock's port engine casing and stayed there, magnetically locked. Meanwhile, the figure in the brown suit threw out a homing device that attached to the shuttle's dorsal S-foil.

Eli edged back to the airlock. The other figure retreated to the portal from which it had come. The two figures stared at each other across the void, each half-expecting the other to run out and remove the tracking device attached to his ship. In the end the one from Mynock ducked inside first and sealed the airlock. Eli did the same immediately thereafter; he had no intention of removing that homing device, especially not here.

There were other ways he could yet turn things to his advantage. As soon as Eli was underway to whatever system Skywalker had discovered, he could patch in a call to Darth Nihl. The Dark Lord would hopefully be forgiving of his and Talon's mistakes now that they'd finally obtained results, and Eli would convince him to send a few Nagai warships to meet Skywalker at their final destination. Possibly Skywalker was planning a similar double-cross, but Eli doubted it. He valued the lives of his companions too much to risk getting them killed.

Removing only the helmet of his vac suit, Eli hurried back to the cockpit. He dropped int the pilot's chair and watched as Mynock drifted away, reverting to its original position. He tapped on the comm and said, "All right. We're tacking each other now. Will you please describe the system we need to find?"

"Sure thing, kid," Skywalker responded immediately. Likely either Jariah Syn or Deliah Blue else had gone out in the vac suit, then. "You got something to write this all down?"

He was being snide again. The man knew how to rattle like none other. Eli tapped his computer console and brought up the translated Gree index. "I'm ready when you are," he said.

"Glad to hear it," Skywalker said, then told him all he needed to know.