The Dark Ring

by Dave

The Empire uses brains and brawn to threaten the New Republic's stability. UPDATE! I have published Fantasy Novels on Amazon. You can search for my name, "David Pontier," or the title of the first book in the series, "The Scepter of Amon."

4. Part 4

Chapter 25 "Skirmishes"

Captain Sanson looked down on the planet from her position of five thousand kilometers above the colorful sphere. She could see the large, dark spots on the globe's surface that she knew to be the huge mines for which the planet was famous. Her last attack had been in conjunction with Commander Qwi'tek, as this one was. They had attacked Gensiffery and Frection. They had not unleashed a shot on the valuable resource planet of Frection, but had decimated the tropical planet of Gensiffery. She regretted that they had not been as successful in their last campaign as they had hoped and planned to remedy that this time.

Sanson pulled her gaze away from the planet and returned it to the space battle around her. She wasn't concerned about it either. The planet and small fleet that she and Qwi'tek had trapped here, wouldn't be going anywhere, except maybe hell. She and Qwi'tek were using the same type of tactics that they had used in their previous battle, dropping in from hyperspace on directly opposite sides of the patrolling fleet. The New Republic fleet was forced to divide its ships, half of them facing one fleet and the other half oriented one hundred eighty degrees opposite, facing the other one.

Sanson had ordered the fleet under her command to fire on the ships facing Qwi'tek's fleet, and she knew Qwi'tek's fleet was firing on the ones facing her. Although the fleet trapped in the middle was larger than the sum of the fleets attacking, they were badly out positioned and greatly out strategized. With Sanson's vast knowledge of her enemy's ships, she had her turbo lasers fire at the idle sublight engines.

When ships are in an orbital pattern they use only their minor motivators, allowing the normal component of the orbital acceleration brought on by the planet's gravitational pull to propel them forward. In battle the main motivators are sometimes activated, but Sanson was willing to bet that in the fleet's awkward and, mostly, stationary position, they had not changed from their orbital engines. It did not matter because whatever the case, their sublight engines were definitely not in use, and they were the most direct route to the ships' main reactors.

Sanson watched as the ships her fleet was firing on started to buckle and explode. A few of the ships began to realize what was happening and activated their sublight engines. With the sublight engines engaged, the energy feed back safeties were activated, but even at the smallest power setting, the sublight engines propelled the ships toward Qwi'tek's fleet and away from the protection the pack had to offer.

Qwi'tek didn't have the knowledge that Sanson had of the New Republic design (Sanson had not told him, wishing all of the glory for herself - some things never change) and wasn't causing quite as much damage as his female counter part. His success changed when the ships that Sanson was firing at, activated their sublight engines, propelling themselves one by one into the middle of Qwi'tek's fleet. He hit the ships from three sides, and in many cases allowed the soon powerless ships to drift harmlessly through his fleet.

The New Republic ships had very little choice. They could stay where they where and blow up from a reactor overload, or shoot themselves suicidally right into the middle of the enemy fleet. The ones that stayed, exploded, and the ones that attacked Qwi'tek head on, entered the gauntlet running and emerged from the other end shieldless and powerless. Qwi'tek made sure that the ships leaving his fleet were redirected enough that their path dropped them into a low orbit around the planet. Like a speeder bike tied to a tree, the gravity pulled them into a downward spiraling orbit. Unlike the speeder, the doomed ships weren't likely to make even one revolution before crashing into the planet.

The second half of the New Republic fleet noticed the first half's poor predicament, but were reluctant to turn their backs to Sanson's unerring turbo lasers to help. The commanders of New Republic had strict orders on how to respond to an Imperial attack. First you should call for assistance from the three closest fleets, and at their discretion, they will send you reinforcements. Second you never give up, but stay and wait for reinforcements. This was on the belief that the men and recourses lost in a naval defeat, didn't come close to the amount of loses from a planetary bombardment. Third was, of course, to win. Everyone in the New Republic recognized this moral builder for what it was. The New Republic was taking some heavy loses all over the border region, and any little word of encouragement was sorely needed.

This battle was looking to turnout a lot like every other battle in the past week. With the New Republic ships that had been facing Qwi'tek now tumbling into the planet's atmosphere, Qwi'tek, despite the fact that he didn't know what to aim at, had the rear ends of the remaining New Republic ships laid out before him, and they didn't last long.

The New Republic realized that they were going to lose, but tried to find a way to prolong the fight. The remaining ships faced Sanson and they turned on their sublight engines, and as a whole, sped toward the Imperial fleet. In a normal battle the charged fleet would have to hold its ground or let the charging escape. This wasn't a normal battle. Sanson knew all the tricks and was pretty sure as to what the New Republic's orders were. She angled her fleet downward and shot past and underneath. The New Republic found that it was now charging into empty space. They could launch themselves into hyperspace if they wished, but they had no choice but to turn around and face the foe.

Qwi'tek was shocked that Sanson had given up her position so easily, not seeing that the New Republic charge had merely been a bluff. Sanson had called the bluff and found that the New Republic had been holding a flush - right down the refresher. Qwi'tek had first not seen the bluff for what it was and had ordered his ships to fire on the activated sublight engines in an effort to disable them and keep them from escaping. As the New Republic ships deactivated their sublight engines to turn around, Qwi'tek realized the strategy that had allowed Sanson to disable her targets so much more quickly. The selfish no good . . . He would have to remember to congratulate her on her cunning battle prowess. He knew when he had been beaten, although it was a little easier to take in the midst of a victory.

Many of the New Republic ships weren't able to complete their turn because of Qwi'tek's recent discovery. They drifted at a perpendicular vector to the Imperial fleet, and Qwi'tek understood better the true meaning of the popular insult that his fighter pilots often threw at each other. If you couldn't hit the broad side of a Calamarian Cruiser then you were indeed a horrible shot.

The few ships that were able to complete the turn found that Sanson had wasted no time turning her ships around and both fleets bore down on New Republic ships. Ten short minutes later the battle was over.

Sanson contacted Qwi'tek and congratulated him on a job well done. She decided to keep her wise cracks on how she thought he would never take out a ship until later. Now it was time to move on to phase two. This was the first battle that neither the Captain nor Commander had used fighters. The reason for Qwi'tek had been simple. He had no more pilots. His earlier entanglement with the 185th had left him with three hangers full of fighters and bombers, but no one to fly them. Sanson wasn't in the same position but decided to not gloat over her plethora of fighters, and fought the battle fighterless.

Phase two involved the fighters. Qwi'tek's TIE's were useless without pilots and they decided to put them to good use. Instead of filling the cockpit of the fighter with the bulk of a pilot, the Imperial flight technicians stowed several massive explosives in the spherical cavity, also loading the torpedo tubes to their capacity. Flown by computer the TIE's streaked toward the unprotected planet. The TIE's were much more accurate than the turbo laser fire that rained down around them, because unlike the light orientated lasers, the TIE's underwent no refraction as they passed through the thick ozone layer of the planet. The TIE's were also controlled manually until right before contact.

Needless to say, the explosions that the beefed up TIE's produced were over 20-fold those of the lasers. Out of curiosity Sanson had loaded a few advanced TIE's with explosives and sent them on identical kamikaze runs. She had all of the safeties removed from the fighter and right before impact, she had the advanced TIE's enter hyperspace. Kinetic energy equals one half mass times velocity squared. Force equals mass times acceleration. Momentum equals mass times velocity. These equations flashed through her mind as she watched the TIE undergo near infinite acceleration, attaining a velocity many time that of the speed of light before colliding into the planet. She got to experience the equation e = mc^2 as well, as the fighter atomized into a two million megaton yield explosion, leveling over one thousand square kilometers of the capitol city. Neat.

The other TIE's were aimed at the mining complexes. The unprocessed ore was turning out to be quite flammable and the pockets of natural gas produced fire works that were much more enjoyable for the Imperials at five thousand kilometers than they were for the miners at about fifty meters.

It was with great regret that Captain Sanson received the hypercom message from Hastrin. Her pleasure for destruction did not eclipse her pleasure for remaining in command however, so she followed the orders to pull back. The last of the TIE bombs were sent down, and the fleet left the hapless planet below. Two minutes after the Imperial fleet jumped out, the overdue reinforcements jumped in.

* * *

General Oskiman was finally understanding something that had puzzled him for the past week. In Sanson and Qwi'tek's original report on their battles over Gensiffery and Frection, Oskiman had been troubled over a line from Qwi'tek's report. "We were bombarded by the expertly executed attack of three unknown fighters, forcing our early disembarkment." Oskiman did not question his commander directly, knowing that he took defeat very hard, but he was perplexed as how only three fighters could swing the entire flow of battle. He now knew.

* * *

Jon squealed as an energy bolt seared just under his left wing, but relaxed as he executed a tight corner around a crowded hanger bay. The trailing Imperial wasn't half as skilled, and he crashed into an exiting TIE. Jon notched his counter up another digit.

The remaining two fighters of the trio picked up the chase where their comrade had failed. Jon saw his two tails and adjusted his side cannons to fire straight ahead, instead of to a point. He took a sharp diving turn around the far side of a Star Destroyer. There was another Destroyer flying in formation, and it was a tight fit between the two large ships. The TIE's had to fly tight to follow. Jon used the zero turning radius of his fighter to flip around. Now he was coasting backwards and facing his enemy. The distance between the closely packed TIE's was about equal to his wing span, and he loosed a few bolts into the unsuspecting fighters. Jon punched his accelerator, pressing him back into his seat. The W-wing groaned under the drastic change in momentum, but it was all worth it a second later when he shot through the dying explosion of his enemies.

Vince and Bep were again fighting together and basically picking up tails so the other one could take them out. Vince and Bep preferred to attack the Star Destroyers directly instead of messing around with the TIE's, but on this encounter they had been on patrol when the Imperials had jumped in, so by the time they had boarded and left their carrier, the battle was already engaged, and the capitol ships were attacking each other. Jon was the only one that dared play around the Destroyers while the capitol ships exchanged fire. Not even the most skilled fighter could avoid a beam weapon that traveled at the speed of light. The W-wing had the strongest shields of any fighter, and although they could repel other fighters' fire, they were quite useless against a heavy turbo laser.

The New Republic was out gunned again, but the fighters were proving to be no trouble at all. Once the TIE's were diminished enough to be almost totally disregarded, the leaders of each squadron were assigned an Imperial capitol ship to harass. With this new strategy of five E-wings against a Victory class Star Destroyer, the New Republic was able to even the odds somewhat. It wasn't until Jon took out an Imperial Star Destroyer by destroying the bridge, that the tide actually turned to the New Republic's favor.

Jon had used a trick that he had invented on the spot. Bep had equipped each W-wing with a small tractor beam designed for towing crippled fighters back to the carrier. Jon was able to lock it on to one of his tails with out the Imperial noticing. The TIE must have thought he was an incredible pilot, staying on Jon's tail like he was. Jon's rear shields were depleting quickly, and the tractor beam was draining a lot of power. He sped toward the bridge of the doomed Imperial Star Destroyer at top speed. Normally the TIE would have had no chance to keep up, but this oddity failed to register in the over zealous TIE pilot's brain.

Jon unleashed a salvo of missiles at the Destroyer weakening its shields and allowing his tractor beam to keep its hold through the disturbance of the deflector. The trail realized his fate too late. Jon pulled an impossible maneuver, jerked the flight stick back at the last second, yanking the nose of his nimble craft upward and out of danger. Jon released the tractor beam and watched as the helpless pilot tried desperately to pull the same maneuver as Jon. He soon realized exactly how much the tractor beam had been aiding him. The TIE paid a personal visit to the bridge crew of the huge ship and rendered the mechanical monster driverless.

Oskiman saw the skill in which the pilot had executed the move and thought as Qwi'tek had that there had to be a Jedi in the cockpit. Oskiman dreaded the fact that he might have to retreat his position, when the hypercom message came in. He gladly complied with the message and relayed it to the rest of the fleet.

Captain Tremon saw the Imperials leave and called the fighters back. Jon not wanting to return to his carrier with any torpedoes left unleashed the rest of them at the retreating ships before complying with the order.

* * *

Everywhere the Imperial ships broke off their attack, and the New Republic was happy to see them go. As if following the script of a story, the two collective fleets ended their minor conflicts and organized themselves together for one final battle.

Chapter 26 "Quiet Before the Storm"

Leia was yapping at Wedge's heels like a small dog as he walked briskly through the halls of the Imperial palace on Coruscant.

"What about Han? Aren't you going to send a second fleet? You can't just strand them on Hastrin!"

Wedge stopped as he approached the door at the end of the hallway. "Listen, Princess," he turned to look at her, "I told you that we can't afford to send a second fleet to Hastrin. We've barely scrounged up enough ships to make a decent fleet as it is. We definitely can't afford to sponsor another fleet to Hastrin to meet who knows what." Feeling that he had ended the conversation, he continued toward the door. It opened with a swoosh, and Leia could see the inside of a hanger. "If you really want to help see if you can find us some more ships," Wedge threw over his shoulder as the door closed behind him. Leia was left standing alone in the corridor. She was about to follow him when his words sunk in. More ships - she could do that.

* * *

Leia waited, as her holo message was being connected and then answered. The face of Teneniel Djo gazed inquisitively at Leia. "Yes, Leia?"

Leia reached out desperately for her diplomatic skills. "Good," she paused, searching for the right word, "morning," she finally guessed. Teneniel nodded in compliance. "Have you been able to restore the damage that hideous Imperial assassin did to your beautiful dining hall." Leia was sure to use adjectives that would set up Teneniel's emotions to her advantage.

"No we haven't quite finished all of the repairs yet, but surely that isn't the reason you called."

Leia realized it would be hard to work with someone as professional as the Queen of the Hapes cluster. She decided to get right to the point. "Queen Djo," she started remaining professional, "we are in a terrible war with the Imperials right now. A war that has even reached your capital through the acts of the assassin." Leia had to throw that line in, not yet giving up on her diplomatic suave. "We have grown strong over the past decade and felt that we were safe from outside invasion. But recently the Empire has proven our idea of safety to be a false one. They have struck many civilian targets, killing millions. They have used tact and strategy that has always been thought to be out of the Empire's reach to reduce our fleet drastically in both size and strength. I call you now not only as one friend to another, but as one government to another.

"We are presently preparing for a huge confrontation. The Empire has built another behemoth of a battle station, and it has placed the lives of many in jeopardy. We have received the plans to the super structure and are preparing for an all out attack. The future of the entire galaxy may be resting on the outcome of this battle. If we were to lose, the Empire would gain the upper hand in the power struggle, and would not hesitate to press that advantage. I won't insult your intelligence by spelling it out for you, but you can understand what it would be like if the Empire were the dominant force in the universe.

"We are asking for ships. We realize that you will be hesitant in joining a battle that will result in heavy casualties, but we ask you just the same. If you aren't willing to risk the lives of your people, than at least consider sending unmanned ships for us to use. This cry for help comes from us at our most desperate hour."

Teneniel paused considering the request. She made the obvious connection that Leia had been hesitant to point out. She did not want a universe dominated by the Empire. The Hapans mainly kept to themselves, but Teneniel wasn't naive enough to believe that the Empire would just leave them alone. They had fought the Empire before when her husband's safety had been in jeopardy, surely they could put forth some effort here when the safety of the whole galaxy hung in the balance.

"Yes, Leia. The Hapan government will be willing to support your venture. We will be happy to be part of the fleet that puts an end to the Empire."

They exchanged information about fleet size and made the final arrangements right there. "Don't you have to okay this decision with your government?" Leia asked.

Teneniel smiled broadly. "You forget Leia that I am the head of a matriarchal society. I am the government."

Leia thanked her one final time and disconnected. She had news for Wedge. The 75 ships that Teneniel had promised almost doubled the New Republic's present fleet. She also knew that the Hapan technology was more advanced than their own and their ships more destructive.

* * *

Wedge was speechless.

"We can send a fleet to Hastrin now, right?"

Leia had found Wedge in the hanger as he was helping to prep the ships and pilots for the upcoming battle. She had finally managed to tug him away from an X-wing squadron to tell him about the 75 Hapan ships she had gotten to add to their fleet. Wedge had been ecstatic at first, but now saw her, not so hidden, agenda. "Now more than ever, we have to focus everything on the Dark Ring," he said. Leia's face fell considerably so he continued. "Can't you see that now we have a formidable fleet and might have the scales tipped in our advantage. If we split the fleet we might just lose that advantage, and it could cost us a victory. However, now that we have a bigger fleet, we can be assured that there will be enough ships left over to make a Hastrin run."

Leia didn't want to argue anymore. She didn't want to point out that if they did destroy the Dark Ring and Han and Luke were still alive, their victory might trigger her husband and brother's execution. She didn't want to argue that since the Empire seemed to be pulling back from their attack, they probably had all of their ships protecting the Dark Ring, and all that would be needed for a successful Hastrin attack would be a few ships. She didn't want to argue because she was the chief of state and fighting with the admiral of the military wasn't in the job description.

Leia was about to leave the hanger, when she spotted the Millennium Falcon sitting in the corner of the hanger. She saw Lando and Chewie scrambling around the underside of the makeshift ship, checking and fixing numerous systems and gadgets. She was suddenly hit with an idea. She made her way over to her friends.

Lando looked up from his wielding job and saw Leia coming. He put down his equipment and wiped is hands on his mechanic's apron. "Good evening, Princess," Lando could see that Leia was coming over for more than just a friendly visit and continued, "what's the problem?"

"Wedge won't send anything to Hastrin to check on Han and Luke."

Lando had suspected that this was Leia's concern, but knew there was little he could do about it. He had reactivated himself into the New Republic military, but deferred his previous status as General, and merely took on the rank of a fighter pilot. If he wanted he could regain his former rank and challenge Wedge's decision, but that wasn't his place. He was doing this for two reasons. He knew that his mining operation would be in danger if the Imperials gained power. He had left everyone back at the asteroid to continue the work and to protect it. The second and more important reason was that he simply hated the Empire.

"You know that I can't go against Wedge's orders."

Leia frowned. "I thought you still had some significant military pull?"

"I gave up all of that when I retired; however," Lando was quick to continue, noticing Leia's crestfallen state, "we might be able to manage something."

"What do you mean?" Leia was curious.

"After the attack, which we expect to end abruptly, all of the ships are supposed to jump out to a preset rendezvous point. From there we are going to count our losses, refortify our ranks, and decide where to go from there. We could forgo that order, skip the rendezvous, and simply jump straight to Hastrin. I'm not really part of the military anymore, so it's not like they can court martial me. I'm in this fight as a mercenary."

Leia looked a little hopeful. "Are you sure that the Millennium Falcon alone will be enough?"

"It's been enough in the past; it will be again." This satisfied Leia. "You better go," Lando said. "Here comes Wedge. We wouldn't want him to think anything was up."

Leia scurried off towards the exit while Lando busied himself with prepping the Falcon. Lando feigned surprise when Wedge approached. They greeted each other formally and then got down to business.

"Is the new firing mechanism in place and functioning properly?" Wedge asked.

Lando nodded. "Chewie and I modified one of the torpedo tubes to fit the new specifications. She should fire just fine."

"You are remembering to be especially careful with the 'igniter,' right?"

Lando disliked the code name that the military had given the supernova weapon, but he went with the flow. "Yes, Wedge," Lando responded in a sarcastically exasperated voice as if he were twelve and speaking to his mother.

Wedge smiled. "You can never be to sure you know." He glanced down at the data pad he was holding. "On to bigger an better things. Did you and Chewie get the coordinates for your jump yet?"

"Yep. We're jumping in alone, separate from the rest of the fleet, right?"

"Separate from the rest of the fleet, yes, but not alone. I'm assigning our three best fighters to accompany you. You'll be jumping in above the Dark Ring, so you can see through the open end of the station. Our scientist say that because most of the sun's radiation is being reflected inside the sphere, the radiation that escapes out of the holes in the north and south poles, will be tremendous. Your sensors and navigation equipment will likely be useless. You will be a sitting duck. Of course any enemy ships will have to get close to hit you, because they won't be able to get a lock on you either. Because your targeting systems won't work, be careful that you have a clean shot before you fire the igniter."

Lando looked hurt. "Are you saying that I can't hit the broad side of a star?"

"No, I'm saying that you can't accurately predict the radiation pattern that will be shooting out of the top of the Dark Ring. It will be like the Great Aman Coast on Calamari during a tropical storm. The waves will be incredible and unpredictable. Just make sure it's on target before you let it fly. We only have one shot at this, and we need to make sure it's successful."

"What about our escorts?" Lando asked. "Won't their systems be inoperable too? Or are they just there for cannon fodder? If that's the case then I don't want them."

Wedge smiled and shook his head. "These guys probably don't even use their targeting computers."

"Who are they, Jedi?" Lando had heard the story of how Luke had turned off his targeting computer right before firing upon the first Death Star.

Wedge shook his head again. "You don't understand."

"Apparently not," Lando agreed, hinting that he wished to become informed.

"Come with me and I'll introduce you to the 185th fighter squadron."

Wedge led Lando through the assorted collection of fighters. Lando saw that the New Republic was really scrapping the bottom of the barrel for this fight. There were Y-wings and A-wings being serviced and repaired for battle. Lando wondered if they were just cleaning the cobwebs off or actually doing mechanical labor on them. Those fighters had been decommissioned a long time ago. Lando thought privately that the X-wing should go next, but he knew that the popularity of the old ship, largely due to Luke and Wedge, would keep the out of date craft around a lot longer than it should be.

Pondering the history of the X-wing and of the old days of the New Republic, which had then been called the Rebellion, got Lando thinking about all of the giants this rag-tag bunch of fighters had slain. He hadn't been there for the Yavin battle, but he had heard enough about it after it had happened. He had been there against the second Death Star and he knew all about what the New Republic had to go through to defeat Thrawn. Were these Rebels just lucky, or was there something else? If it was just luck, Lando hoped that he wouldn't have to be there when it ran out. In all the many years that the New Republic had existed, there had been few battles in which they had been the favorite to win.

Lando, like Han, hadn't been a big believer in the Force, but just the history of the New Republic's many battles, disregarding what he knew about Luke and all his students, made him more than a little curious as to if there was an over ridding Force controlling the flow of history.

Wedge led Lando past the museum of ships, and they stopped in front of a trio of fighters that Lando had never seen before. "We call them W-wings," Wedge said.

Lando frowned slightly at the name. He had never liked the New Republic's habit of naming ships after letters, but he had to agree that it was a proper name. The centered cockpit swept back on either side into two engines and then back up again into twin laser cannons. Lando could see the torpedo bay underneath the cockpit and immediately saw all of the maneuverability bonuses of the engines without Wedge having to tell him.

"Who designed the ship?" Lando asked.

"I'll let you meet them." Wedge walked into the middle of the three ships and found Vince, Bep, and Jon working on the ships. "Fellas, let me introduce you to Lando Calarissian, the pilot of the ship you're going to be escorting."

The three of them got off their respective apparatuses that they had been propped up on to work on their ships and walked toward Lando. Lando was immediately struck by their collective height. All three of them towered over Lando as they shook his hand. The initial shock of their height quickly passed, and he proceeded to evaluate, who Wedge had called, the best squadron in the fleet.

All three of them appeared to be no older than 20 and they weren't wearing the normal pilot attire. "Do you guys mind if I take a look at your ships?" Lando asked, always the curious mechanic.

They shook their heads collectively. "Go right ahead," Bep said.

Lando walked over to Jon's ship and noticed what he had called him away from initially. There was a half-painted emblem of some kind on the side of his cockpit. Lando pointed to it with a questioning look on his face. "Do you know what a wusket is?" Vince asked.

"Yea, it's a three-eared bat from Corellia."

"It's our symbol," Vince explained.

"Were the Flying Bats," Bep proclaimed.

"The Three Wusket-Ears!" Jon added emphatically.

Lando smiled at the mascot for these misfit pilots. He could already appreciate all of the other comparisons they hadn't pointed out. 'They could fight the enemy blind.' 'Like bats in the night sky, they were deadly in space.' And many more that Lando was sure they spent sleepless nights thinking about. He made his way over to the boarding ladder and climbed it to get a good look inside the cockpit. Vince hurried to get another ladder and propped it up against the other side of the craft. He climbed it quickly so he could answer any questions Lando might have about the controls.

Lando looked at the varied and numerous buttons and switches that crowded the cockpit. He saw that they didn't crowd the cockpit too much because their seemed to be an enormous amount of leg room. Lando saw Vince on the other side of the nose of the fighter and asked him several questions about the contents of the homemade spaceship. He had already guessed the answers to most of his questions, until he came across a small bracket on the side of the interior. "What's that?" he asked, pointing to the item in question.

"It's a blaster rifle bracket," Vince replied.

"What you need a weapon for inside a one man fighter?"

Vince looked toward his two friends before answering. "You have to remember that this is Jon's ship." Vince paused. Lando realized this piece of information should have some sort of special meaning to him, but it didn't. Vince realized this after he had said it and continued. "Jon used to fly in a depressurized cabin with a space suit on. After he would disabled an enemy fighter, he would pop the hatch and finish them off with a rifle."

Lando gawked at this new piece of information, wondering if he wanted these guys as his escorts. Vince saw his reaction and smiled. "Don't worry he doesn't do it any more. He found out it slows him down considerably, and gives him too few kills."

Lando remembered that Wedge had claimed this squadron to be the best in the fleet. That recognition usually went to the squadron with the most kills. He also noticed, obviously, that this squadron only had three members. "How many kills does he have?"

Vince reached into the cockpit and flipped a switch under a small digital display. The display lit up, declaring the number '728.' Again Lando gawked at the high number, but paused to consider all of the variables. "How many missions have you guys flown?"

"Forty-eight," Vince answered.

Lando did the math in his head. "That's over fifteen kills a run!" Lando said a little too loud.

"Are you bragging about me again?" a voice came from down below.

Vince leaned over the edge of the ship. "If your head gets any bigger were going to have to get you an Ackgrogian fish tank for a helmet." Lando could here Bep laugh at that comment and add his own insults aimed at Jon. Lando decided these pilots would make fine escorts.

Chapter 27 "Family Ties" (Part I)

Han walked cautiously down the street. He just didn't feel safe walking openly in an Imperial city. He knew that with the beard that Luke had given him and the uniform he was wearing, he wouldn't be easily recognized, but that didn't soothe his uneasiness. He stroked the rough whiskers on his face. He had seen himself in a mirror earlier that morning and it had reminded him of a Dr. Kimble he once knew.

He didn't want to stick out too much, so he tried to keep from asking direct questions about Jaina, but without direct questions, he wasn't getting very many direct answers. Han thought that the best way would be to just wander from bar to bar until he found her. He tried to formulate what he would say to her.

If Luke was right and she was under some kind of hypnosis, there wasn't too much he could say that she would believe. "Hello, I'm your father," didn't seem to hold too much water. He also had this sinking feeling that she might be looking for him. Han honestly doubted that the Empire would capture and brainwash a Jedi just to throw her into their city as a nobody. The way that they had molded Jacen into the next Darth Vader, made him think that Jaina was probably some kind of undercover operative, or something like it.

Han doubted that the Empire would simply let Han and Luke roam around their city without trying to apprehend them. Han also doubted that they would send in a whole troop of storm troopers. Not only would that kind of task-force ruin the tidiness of this city, but the Empire knew as well as Han did, that storm troopers were more than inadequate when it came to capturing him and Luke. It was far more likely that they would have an inside operative either spy on them or try to recapture them. Jaina seemed like the perfect choice. Han could imagine the smile on Tallon's face when he gave the orders to Jaina to go capture, kill if necessary, her father.

Han had been to most of the smaller drinking establishments, and was just about to enter another one, when a flashing sign caught his attention. "Imperial Bar and Lounge - Live entertainment every noon." The building beneath the sign was a large one. Han had been avoiding the larger buildings, and therefore most of the people, as much as possible. He realized though, that he was much more likely to find Jaina in one of these larger places than he was in a small one. He had already found out that most of the women in this city were prostitutes, and they always go where the men are. Han sincerely hoped that Jaina wasn't involved with the afore mentioned promiscuous activity, but if she was, this was where she'd be.

Han threw away his old plans of trying to keep a low profile and walked over to the Imperial Bar and Lounge. The inside was pretty crowded but Han was able to find a solitary table in the back. He ordered a glass of ale and scanned the room. Most of the men inside were crowded around a large stage that was set up on one side of the main room. The words "Live entertainment" danced in Han's mind, and he hoped that everything that the Imperials did for entertainment didn't involve sex. Han was about to leave when he noticed a sign at the top of the stage proclaiming the next act. "Skywalker meets the Emperor: What really happened." Han pulled a 180 and went back to his table. This could be interesting.

Han knew what *really* happened on board the Death Star above Endor, and he sincerely doubted that this fiasco was going to be one hundred percent accurate. The curtain lifted and Han saw what he took to be the throne room on the second Death Star. The Emperor was sitting on his throne looking out of the fake window toward the battle over Endor. The Emperor was looking young and healthy, certainly healthier than any of the holos Han had seen of him.

A moment passed and doors opened on the far side of the stage. Darth Vader was unmistakable, but the person he was escorting looked nothing like Luke. "Luke" looked to be about sixteen years old. His hair was more than just a little unkempt, and his pants were rolled up at the ankles, making him look like a kid who was trying on his dad's clothes. Father and son made their way up to the Emperor, Luke tripping on his pants the whole way.

"Welcome young Skywalker, I have been expecting you."

"I'm not young!" Luke shrieked in a voice so shrill that Han's glass quivered. "I'm," Luke paused as he counted on the fingers of handcuffed hands, "twenty-one!"

Vader and the Emperor ignored Luke and continued their performance. Vader walked up to the Emperor and handed him Luke's lightsaber. "Here is his lightsaber, Master." As the lightsaber changed hands, a few of the pieces fell off. Vader was quick to swipe them up and replace them.

"Hey," Luke shouted, "it took me five months to build that!"

Han thought that they were over doing the "little kid" bit, but he scanned the crowd and found that the audience loved it. He was glad that Luke wasn't here.

The Emperor turned the makeshift lightsaber over in his hands. "So you have built your own lightsaber. You are now truly a Jedi." As he was looking at it, it broke completely in half, and Han could see that it had only been held together by a few pieces of electrical tape in the first place.

Luke made another desperate gesture with his hands toward his beloved weapon, but the cuffs inhibited him. As if on cue, the Emperor motioned with his hands and the cuffs fell off. "You won't be needing those."

The cuffs fell off Luke's wrists and landed directly on his foot, causing him to yelp in pain. He reached down and grabbed his foot, hoping around madly on his other one. All this motion caused his baggy paints to descend rapidly. As the large waistline got entangled amongst his knees, he fell to the ground. The audience roared with laughter.

It took several moments for the crowd to quiet and allow the actors to continue. As Vader led Luke to the window where his friends were fighting and losing, Han searched the crowd of people for the first time since entering. He was surprised to find absolutely no females in attendance. He had not expected to find Jaina right away, but now wondered if he had to change his strategy entirely. Maybe the women of the city only appeared at night, or there might be places where women weren't allowed.

Han turned his attention back to the actors on the stage. Luke was fighting Vader now, or at least trying to. His lightsaber, which was a bad prop to begin with, kept blinking on and off. This made for long pauses in the battle while Luke, using a roll of tape and a hammer, tried to fix his ailing weapon.

Finally Luke threw the useless piece of junk to the floor and ran off to hide behind a pole on the edge of the stage. Vader watched him try to hide himself behind the three-centimeter wide pole, but pretended not to know where he was. Vader rambled off to Luke trying to draw him out of hiding. Han listened to Vader's speech with amazement. So far everything other than Luke's childish antics, had happened pretty much as it had 27 years ago. Han wondered how the Imperials got their information on what had happened.

When Vader mentioned Leia, Luke could stand it no longer and ran out from behind his pole, fell at Vader's feet, and began to grovel. Han too could stand it no longer and prepared to leave. He downed the last of his drink and looked up at the door. He froze with his hands on the table. Jaina had just walked into the building.

* * *

Jaina opened her eyes and groaned. The headache was incredible. She closed her eyes, but the pain remained. She opened her eyes again with the grim reality that she was going to have to face the day sooner or later. She glanced at her clock and realized that it was already later, so she slowly sat up and hung her legs over the edge of her bed. What had caused this awful headache? She searched back in her mind to the previous night. Alcohol. She definitely remembered drinking a terrible amount of alcohol. Men. There were lots of men around. Noisy, obnoxious, drunk men. But there was one man in particular that stuck out in her memory. He was kind of cute. She sat up straight and looked quickly over her shoulder with a sickening feeling. She breathed a heavy sigh of relief when she saw that the other side of her bed was empty. She looked at her dresser and was happy to see a rather large credit pouch that she didn't recognize. Many men had tried to find their way into her room, and although their money made it without failure, Jaina made sure that they never did.

Jaina smiled at this realization. As bad as her headache was, she was sure that where ever that cute man from last night was, he would have a much worse headache, if he had a head at all.

Now fully awake, Jaina decided to do something about the throbbing in her temples. She closed her eyes and filled her head with a soothing calm that she drew from all around her. She opened her eyes to find the pain gone and herself ready to face the day.

She totally removed herself from her covers and went over to her small bathroom. She looked in the mirror and saw that she was going to need more than just a splash of water in her face to make herself ready. After a long shower and a cup of hot tea, the most ruthless killer on Hastrin was at last at one hundred percent.

She walked over to her desk and turned on her small computer. She started to scroll through the news of the day when she noticed a small blinking light on the console, informing her that she had a message. She pressed the appropriate key sequence and her screen was filled with a picture of Han Solo.

"This is your next assignment." Jaina loved how her superiors called her targets assignments. It made it sound like she was in school and her victims were simply tests. She planed on graduating with straight A's. "His name is Han Solo. He has escaped from our mountain base and is presently suspected to be somewhere in the city. He was scheduled for a public execution, but we would be appreciative if, as always, you didn't make his timely demise all that public. Upon completion of this task, you may pick up your payment from the usual spot.

"There are two catches that make this assignment a little more challenging. The first is of no great importance, and is not likely to cause you that much trouble. Solo is a con artist. Expect him to try to talk his way out of everything. We don't expect this to be a problem with your level of professionalism, but we thought it necessary to bring to your attention.

"The second matter is of much more importance. He escaped with Luke Skywalker." At this point in the mission briefing Han's face disappeared and was replaced with that of Luke's. "We don't know if you are aware of him or not, but he is very dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. We have reason to believe that Solo and Skywalker have separated, so this too should not be a problem. However, if upon locating Solo, you find that Skywalker is still with him, you should abort mission. It is also possible that Skywalker will be able to detect your presence. If a confrontation does occur, do not feel restricted by any of our usual policies. A public confrontation maybe the only way out. If you should happen to dispose of both Solo and Skywalker, four times your usual pay will be found in the normal spot. Do not view this added payment as incentive to seek out Skywalker. End of message."

Jaina knew of Skywalker. He had visited her ancestors on Dathomir shortly before she had been born. He had judged the night sisters to be evil and had set out to destroy them. Her parents had escaped but only to be killed a few years later by the New Republic. She knew of Skywalker's strength and both hoped that he wouldn't be with Solo, and at the same time that she might be able to enact revenge on him.

Jaina looked at her clock and saw it was almost noon. Solo would probably be in a bar somewhere. She reached out with her inherited magical abilities, searching for Solo. With a name, a picture, and a probable mental condition, she was usually able to find her victims without leaving her room. She settled on a man in the Imperial Bar and Lounge. He had a beard that the man in the picture did not posses, but she was sure it was Solo.

After grabbing her invisi-blade and cloak, she made her way out of her room. She left the building and entered the street in the same secretive fashion that she always did, with her hood up and her presence concealed. The walk to the Imperial bar and Lounge was a long one, so she had time to think of her tactics. If Skywalker was there, she might not be able to turn back. With that thought, she stopped in the street and did a mental scanning of the distant eating establishment. If Skywalker was there, he was hiding his presence from her. She continued walking after receiving a few odd stares, cursing herself for not rehiding her presence before beginning the search.

If Solo was alone, she decided that she would have a little extra fun. He would no doubt try to con her in some way, and it would be fun to play along, for a while.

She entered the bar and saw that the entertainment was already in progress. She took a few seconds to appreciate the form of Luke Skywalker groveling at the feet of Vader before she scanned the crowd. She removed her hood and looked around at all of the men seated there. Solo wasn't hard to pick out. He was staring right at her. Jaina dispelled the initial shock of him staring at her with a bit of logic. She hadn't even thought about what clothes she had put on this morning. In her line of work she so often played the role of the seductress that she owned plenty of revealing clothes. She knew she was wearing particularly revealing ones now and used this to explain Solo's sudden interest in her arrival. She snickered at his state of total absorption in her appearance. Men trapped in lust were twice as easy to work with as men who were drunk. She swished her hips as she walked over to his table.

She ran through opening lines as she neared him. "Excuse me, is this seat taken?" "Have we met before?" "How's the show?" "You look lonely." She didn't get to use any of them, because Solo spoke first.

"Jaina! I've been looking every where for you!"

Jaina was shocked. Very few people knew her name, at least her real name. If this guy was a con man, he was indeed quite good. No one, no matter how good, could guess that well without any inside information. She looked around at the rest of the room to see if anyone else was in hearing range. Everyone else was busy watching Vader rebuke Skywalker and telling him not to act like such a baby. No one was paying any attention to her and Solo.

She quickly sat down and decided against playing her seductive role. "How do you know my name?" she asked. Normally she would have shrugged off such a comment, but she didn't mind opening herself up a little bit to this man. After all, nothing she told him would ever get repeated. Dead men don't tell tales.

Han did some quick thinking. "Your father told me."

"My father is dead. Strike one. Like in smashball, four strikes and you're out."

"No he's not. He's part of the New Republic. He sent me to find you."

"Strike two. My father was killed by the New Republic, so if he were to come back to life, I sincerely doubt that he would join them," Jaina was smiling. Maybe she'd help him out. "If my father sent you, you know my last name."

Han paused. He knew what it used to be. "Solon?" he guessed, remembering what Jacen had called himself.

"Strike three," she tried to ignore how close he was to Solok and gave him one last try. "Tell me one thing that only my father would know."

Han knew this answer. "You have a purplish birth mark on your upper left thigh."

Five points for a smashball banza, Jaina thought. She quickly grew serious. Han felt his throat tighten in a Force grip. "Who are you?" she sneered.

"Your father sent me," Han choked, sticking with his original story. Jaina held him in her grip as she thought about the situation. Han was growing blue in the face and he was having a hard time keeping balanced on his chair. He motioned to Jaina that he wanted to speak and needed more air. She let him go, and his chair slammed back down onto all fours.

The noise startled a few of the closer men. They glanced at the table and saw Han panting heavily staring at Jaina. They also saw what Jaina was wearing, put two and two together, and decided to watch the father and son show on stage.

"You better start making sense soon, pal." Jaina tried to think of any other way that Solo might know about that birthmark. None of the men she'd ever been with had ever gotten far enough with her to discover that mark, at least none that she could remember. She looked at Solo still gasping for air. This man was old enough to be her father; he had definitely never gotten that far with her.

"Your father sent me," he started over. "Your parents aren't dead. They weren't on the ship when it blew up." Han took a risk in guessing the means of death that the Empire had implanted in her head. He figured that it was a pretty safe gamble. "The New Republic was after someone else on the ship, so they kept your parents off it. But in order to keep true motives safe, they had to keep your parents in hiding, to complete the illusion." This story made no sense to Han, but Jaina appeared to be soaking it up. "As soon as that part of the war was over, your parents began looking for you. I finally found you."

Everything that Solo was saying made sense to Jaina. She had never seen her parents actually get on that ship, and the whole memory was a little bit hazy. She stopped her line of thinking at once. She had been told that Solo would try to talk his way out of everything, and here she was buying into his story like some kind of amateur. But she couldn't just discount everything Solo had said. He had recognized her right away and did seem to know a lot about her.

"What are you supposed to do now?" she asked. "Surely you know that I'm working for the Empire now and have no love for the New Republic." Jaina didn't care if she was telling this man highly classified information. She had already done a sweep of his person and found he didn't have any type of recording or broadcasting device on him. He didn't even have a blaster.

"You're supposed to come with me so I can show you further proof."

"Where are we supposed to go?"

"Coruscant."

"Whoa, buddy. Aren't we getting a little over anxious? I'm not going anywhere near Coruscant."

Han knew that Coruscant was a stretch, but he felt that he would need Leia's help to turn her back. She should be back from Hapes by now.

Jaina considered this change in events. She doubted that her superiors would let her go to Coruscant, but then if she went, she wouldn't tell them anyway. There was something deep inside her, something she couldn't identify, that was telling her to trust this man. Something telling her that he was an old family friend. She nodded slowly. "Okay, Solo, how do we get to Coruscant."

Han couldn't believe his ears. He hadn't really expected Jaina to go along with him. "Well," he started, "I don't have a ship here. I came in on a transport from the Imperial station. This is where you come in."

This last comment won Jaina over. If he was really trying to trick her, he wouldn't have admitted that he had no way off the planet, placing his fate in her hands. She still had doubts about him but they were now reclusive. "I can get us a ship," she said.

The two of them got up and left the bar, just as Vader was heaving Skywalker down the elevator shaft.

Jaina led the way down the street with Han in toe. Han was looking around at the people they were passing. He wondered why some of them were giving him a look like he was going to his own funeral. He paused to regard his daughter in front of him. What kind of reputation did she have in this city? Han felt the sooner that Jaina remembered who she was, the better.

They walked to the edge of town where Han had never been. Jaina picked her way skillfully through a thick crowd of men who were pouring out of one of the near by buildings. A noise caused Han to turn his gaze to the sky. The transport that had just dropped off these men was now leaving. He looked back down and it took him a while to relocate Jaina in the thick crowd. She was making her way to a less busy space port.

Han wondered how they were going to get past the guard at the door, but Jaina produced a small card from beneath her cloak and the guard let them go through. Jaina moved through the clean halls with a quick step, and Han could barely keep up. The maze of hallways soon led to a large hanger with several shuttles.

Jaina stopped and turned to Han. "Don't be surprised how easily it will be for us to get a ship, or how strangely some people might act toward me. I have," she paused searching for the right word, "a certain 'way' with people."

Han nodded. "I know of your Force skills. Your mother has them too."

This last statement only strengthened Jaina's resolve that she was doing the right thing. Nobody could know about her mother's ability except a family friend.

As they made their way to the nearest shuttle an Imperial officer ran up to them. "Excuse me. This is a restricted area. These ships aren't for the public use."

"We can use this ship," Jaina said with that eerie quality to her voice Han was so used to.

"You can use this ship," the officer repeated.

"You will get it prepped for take off for us."

"I'll get it ready for take off for you," he said, and scrambled away to do just that.

Ten short minutes later, Jaina and Han were aboard the shuttle as it lifted away from the city. They were soon in space, and after gaining clearance from the patrolling fleet, they blasted off into hyperspace.

Han wasn't in the cockpit when they left. He didn't feel comfortable next to his daughter. This thought angered him. The Empire had tried to kidnap his kids for a long time, and it had made his life as a parent horrible. Seeing what they had turned Jaina and Jacen into nearly drove him to tears.

Jaina walked into the room where he was sitting. Han composed himself and looked up at her. He could tell that she was tired of waiting. "Okay, Solo. I just disobeyed about a hundred different Imperial regulations, and I don't even really know why. I want some answers right now, or I'm turning this ship around."

"I've told you everything I know," he tried, but he knew that she was going to need proof.

"You have to have some kind of hard evidence. If you came here to bring me away from Hastrin without evidence, then you're not a very good family friend."

An idea started to form in Han's mind. "You can read minds, right?"

"If someone lets me, yes."

"Then you can see if I'm telling you the truth."

Jaina paused, looking for a trap. Seeing none, she nodded slowly. She sat down across from Han, and he watched as she closed her eyes and began to concentrate. He could feel a little tingle in the back of his mind and he tried to gain control of his thoughts.

He knew that he had only one shot at this, if he failed then Jaina would never take him to Coruscant, and would probably kill him, like she was supposed to. Han closed his eyes and began to think about his life with Jaina. Somewhere in the recesses of Jaina's mind she still had her true memory, Han just needed to jog it a little. As quickly as he could he ran through his memories of Jacen and Jaina. He remembered their birth and his immense joy. He ran through the all of the attempted kidnappings; the birth of Anakin; all of the games of hide and seek that they had played; the first flight they had together in the Falcon; the trip they had taken to Corellia and all of the dramatic events that it had entailed; the time Jaina had broken her arm and he had rushed her to the medical center in his arms; the time he had dropped them off at the Academy; all of his many visits to the Academy; and finally of their graduation less than a month ago.

Han opened his eyes and found the sassy, hard-edged assassin that had been sitting across from him when he had closed his eyes, was now his crying 22-year-old daughter. Jaina held her face in her hands, and was shaking violently. "Jaina?" Han asked.

"Dad," Jaina looked up from her hands, tears running freely from her eyes. Han rushed over to her and embraced her, as a loving father should. "Dad," she started again, "I'm so sorry. I," but she was choked of by her continuing sobs.

"It's okay," Han promised. "Everything's going to be okay."

They remained locked in their embrace for what seemed to Han like hours. He would gladly have stayed there, holding his daughter forever, but she broke off suddenly.

"Jacen and Lowbacca."

"What?" Han asked.

"All three of us came to rescue you and Uncle Luke."

"Luke's fine," Han answered her unasked question.

"We were captured. They must have brain was-," she started to cry again. "I've killed so ma-" she fought against the tears. "I was supposed to kill you." The tears began to flow again. Han moved in close again, but she shook her head and cleared her throat. "I'm okay, but we have to go back for Jacen and Lowie."

Han nodded. "Luke is going after Jacen, but we didn't know where to look for Lowbacca or if he had even come with you."

Jaina was now almost back in total control of her emotions. "I think I remember over-hearing some men talking about how there was a new wookiee at the Arena who was the best fighter they had ever seen." She looked over at her father. "Do you know what the Arena is?"

Han nodded, not wanting to tell that story now, seeing as how he didn't even fully understand what had taken place with Luke. That story could wait for another day. Both of them ran off to the cockpit. They left hyperspace, turned the ship around, and set a new course for Hastrin.

Chapter 28 "Family Ties" (Part II)

Luke found the ground transport where he and Han had left it. He wasn't questioned or approached as he boarded the craft and flew it out of the building. The streets were crowded and Luke had to move slowly through them to avoid hitting anyone. Once out of the city, Luke could move more freely and he accelerated to a modest speed.

Luke had to think about what he needed to do. He had been part of, or a spectator to, several of these types of confrontations before. He knew that there were several different ways to go about such a confrontation.

When Luke had confronted Darth Vader on Bespin, he had every intention of killing him. It was a very naive notion, Luke realized now, but it had been his motivation at the time. He had gone into that confrontation with blaster firing and lightsaber swinging, trying to save his friends. Luke thought that this time the situation warranted a different approach.

On Wayland he had gone again to destroy C'boath, but he had allowed a little room for trying to turn him away from the Dark Side. There had been no good in the evil clone, and Luke had been forced into a battle to the death. Luke knew that there was good in Jacen, but it would be likely that Jacen would not remember it.

The situation varied only slightly from Endor for that same reason. Luke had gone to face his father, knowing that Vader remembered who Anakin Skywalker was and what he used to be. Jacen wasn't likely to remember who he used to be. Luke knew that they had planted false memories in Jacen of his time at the Academy, and Luke doubted that they would even remotely compare to the actual time Jacen had spent there. Also when Luke had faced his father above Endor, he had freely surrendered to the Empire. Now, since Jacen had no agenda involving a Dark Skywalker, he would have Luke killed on the spot. To top everything off, Luke had no weapon. He could get a blaster from the first guard he met, he had no doubt about that, but a blaster, even in the hands of Luke, was no comparison to a lightsaber in the hands of a Jedi.

Luke decided that he must go about this confrontation like a combination between Endor and what he saw take place between Obi Wan and Vader on the first Death Star. He needed to go into the mountain complex looking for his lightsaber, knowing that he would eventually run into Jacen. Luke only hoped for a better out come than Obi Wan had gotten. Jacen would try to cut down Luke with out hesitation, unlike all of the conversation that had taken place on the second Death Star. Luke needed that conversation. He had been brainwashed before, and he knew how to over-come it, but he first had to talk his way into Jacen's mind, and that wouldn't be easy.

Luke slowed the transport as he neared the edge of the forest clearing. He hid the vehicle amongst the trees and moved cautiously toward the base. He scouted the outskirts of the mountain. There were a few patrolling storm troopers and a couple stationary guards. Luke had only been in and out of one of the doors and knew very little about the inside of the fortress. He reached out with the Force to try and get a sense of where the largest mass of people was. He ran into the ysalamiri field. Luke shook his head in frustration. This wasn't going to be easy. He had to find a place where he could cross the field without being seen.

Luke moved through the forest looking for an opening in the base's defenses. Luke couldn't see any of the ysalamiri that were causing the field, but remembered that most of this base was underground and so were the ysalamiri, most likely. Luke finally found a spot were there didn't seem to be any stationary guards. Luke began timing the passage of the patrols and found that they operated on an organized time schedule. Tallon sure kept the base operating in a secure manner. Luke hid himself with the Force and crept to the edge of the ysalamiri field. He paused as he timed the guards passing. He didn't know how wide the ysalamiri field was, but he only had a 15-second window to work with between patrols. Luke saw the storm troopers round the corner of the cliff, and he bolted forward into the Forceless bubble.

* * *

The E-wing dropped out of hyperspace and into the ocean of life that was the Force. Anakin had practiced this transition from hyperspace to invisibility in real space before he tried it outside of Hastrin, but here in the midst of a large Imperial fleet, it worked perfectly. Anakin guided the fighter through the orbiting ships without once showing up on any of the Star Destroyer's sensors. Anakin broke orbit and descended into the atmosphere. He allowed his ship to free fall several kilometers before he activated the planetary repulsers, knowing that the surge in energy would be hard to hide in the Force.

The E-wing skimmed over the treetops and instinctively made its way toward the large mountain range on the horizon. Anakin placed his fighter down neatly next to the Scavenger. Anakin was glad to see his siblings' ship in one piece. Jacen and Jaina had thought that they had kept the ship a secret from everyone, but Anakin had always known about it. In fact several times at night he would go check out their progress. He had checked over their work meticulously. Working with machines had always come naturally to Anakin, and he had used this skill to fix a lot of problems that he had found wrong with the ship during his nightly inspections. He smiled, knowing that if Jaina had known that all of her problems that had fixed themselves "miraculously" in the night, were actually being fixed by her little brother, she would have thrown a fit.

Anakin locked down the E-wing and walked into the woods toward the mountain fortress armed with only his lightsaber. He had no idea what he was going to find inside. Lowbacca, Jacen, and Jaina had left Yavin IV two weeks ago, so they'd been here for a little over a week now. Anakin feared the worst, and hoped the best, though he couldn't think of what that best would be.

As he neared the base he reached out with the Force but ran into a blockade. Ysalamiri. Anakin had to use only his eyes to see what he needed to. This side of the base mostly consisted of cliff faces and rocky slopes. Anakin figured that the other side of the base was the front and contained all of the entrances. Anakin didn't see too many patrols walking around, but even if there were, they didn't bother him. Anakin spotted what looked like a landing pad at the top of one cliff and he thought he could make out a turbo lift shaft going down into the mountain. Seeing that as the only entrance so far, he walked toward the cliff.

Anakin approached the same cliff that his brother, sister, and friend had a week earlier. Just like they had, Anakin felt the ysalamiri field closing in around him. Unlike the earlier trio, Anakin knew how to fight back. He drew on the Force and pushed back against the small creatures. One meter beneath him, in the tunnels of the base, Anakin could feel the creatures cry out in protest and shrivel up. With his mind clear again, Anakin started up the cliff.

* * *

Darth Solon strode purposefully into Tallon's office. "Skywalker has returned."

Tallon looked up from his computer. "What do you want me to do?" He didn't mind taking the back seat when it came to Skywalker and the Force. Tallon knew that Solon had a lot more experience with these things.

"Where is his lightsaber?" the Dark Lord asked.

Tallon opened a drawer in his desk. Inside were two lightsabers, Skywalker's and Lowbacca's. Tallon picked up Skywalker's lightsaber and offered it to Solon. Solon shook his head. "Keep it here, he will come for it."

"You mean to set a trap for him?" Tallon said. He wasn't so much asking the question as he was trying to get all of the details out of him. Solon told him the details.

* * *

Luke found himself on the other side of the ysalamiri field in less than ten seconds. He quickly hid himself in the Force just as the second patrol came around the bend a full four seconds early. There were only four of them and Luke rushed over and rendered them unconscious. Luke needed all of his concentration for the task at hand, so he unhid himself. Luke thought of all of the split concentration exercises that he put his students through and wondered what they would think of him now.

Luke picked up one of the blasters, changed the setting to stun, and moved to the nearest entrance. Luke took out both guards with two well-aimed shots and defeated the security lock with the Force.

Luke crept slowly into the hallway beyond the door and used the Force as a flashlight, illuminating the path ahead of him. He came to a fork, sensed four people down one path, and took the other route.

Jedi develop a special link with their lightsaber during its construction, and Luke used this link to try and locate his weapon. Luke became extra wary when he realized the path of least resistance through the building was also the path leading him to his lightsaber. He smelled the trap right away, but saw no way around it. Luke paused at a door that was tugging at him in the Force. It was locked, but Luke defeated it easily, and it slid open.

The room was empty except for a large desk and a chair behind it. Luke moved quickly to the desk and opened the drawer. He saw his lightsaber and one that he immediately recognized as Lowbacca's. He had no belt for either of them so he put Lowbacca's in his pocket and held his in his hand.

"Hello, Luke Skywalker."

Luke spun and faced the door. There stood Tallon wearing a nutrient frame fully equipped with an ysalamiri. He was holding a blaster aimed right at Luke. Luke quickly ignited his lightsaber and stood ready.

Tallon knew what Solon's plan was, but he thought it was too risky. "I guess this is the end of the line for you." Tallon fired two quick shots at Luke, not knowing how far the ysalamiri field spread. Luke deflected both bolts smoothly, sending the second bolt back at Tallon. Tallon flinched but had no time to react. The bolt wasn't aimed at him, however, but blew his nutrient frame to pieces. The ysalamiri lay on the floor dying. Tallon looked from the floor back to Luke. He knew when he was beaten. He turned and fled out of the room.

Luke made chase. He came out of the room and was faced with 20 armed storm troopers. Not wishing to try his luck, he bolted off down the nearest connecting hallway.

"After him!"

As he ran, Luke let his lightsaber trail behind him, deflecting a few random shots. He came to a sudden fork. He didn't have enough time to scan with the Force so he picked the path with the fewest storm troopers. He cut down three men in white and black while five more shot at his back.

If Luke had taken the time to scan, he would have definitely chosen the other path because this hallway not only ended in a dead end, but a Forceless one. Luke pulled up fast as he felt the fringes of the ysalamiri bubble. He turned around and saw that the 20 storm troopers had been joined by 20 of their closest friends and were ready to have a party at Luke's expense. They weren't firing yet, respecting Luke's ability to redirect their lasers, but they were closing in fast.

Luke glanced over his shoulder at the dead end, looking for some way out. He saw a turbolift door that he hadn't seen before. He reached out with the Force, straining against the unseen ysalamiri, and just managed to open the doors. Luke turned his back to the storm troopers, took two big steps, got shot in the leg, and leaped into the lift. He scrambled for the switch to close the doors, and they slid shut just ahead of the storm troopers.

Tallon watched the scene unfold in front of him. He guessed that Solon's plan was going to have to work after all.

* * *

In the lift Luke waited patiently for the ysalamiri field to disappear. He recognized this turbolift as the one that had brought him and Han down into the base when they had first arrived. Finally the field disappeared, and Luke could tend to his injured leg. It wasn't that bad of a burn. The bolt had just grazed his knee. After a few seconds of healing, it was strong enough to stand on, and Luke was confident that it would heal completely.

Luke saw that the turbolift was almost to the top, and he stood waiting for the doors to open. Just as the lift stopped moving, Luke could feel a strong presence in the Force, and he tensed himself. The doors opened revealing the cliff-side landing pad where Han and Luke had first landed on Hastrin. Standing right in the middle of the sandy area was Jacen.

"We meet again, Skywalker."

Luke stepped out of the lift just before the doors closed.

"Jacen, I've been looking for you."

Jacen grinned. "So, we are on a first name basis now, Luke?" Jacen drew both of his lightsabers and held them unlit in his hands. "Before I was only a student, but now I am the Master."

"Only a master of evil, Jacen. You used to be in control of good." Luke began to sweat as he watched Jacen pace slowly with both lightsaber handles in his hands. Luke hadn't even thought about how he was going to fight Jacen. After Luke had watched his prized student make mincemeat out of the fighting remotes back at the Academy, he promised himself he would never fight Jacen. He wasn't sure what the effect on the students would be if their Master lost to a student. Luke was sure he could beat Jacen if they each used only one lightsaber, but the two twirling blue blades of Jacen were hard enough to trace, much less parry.

Jacen saw Luke's apprehension and smiled. "Perhaps I shall make it fair and fight with only one blade." Jacen made a motion to put one of the blades back. "Or maybe not." Both blades lit up, and Jacen charged.

Luke had deactivated his weapon in the lift, but he opened up his blade now and managed to thwart the initial attack by batting both blades wide with two quick parries. Luke flipped forwards over Jacen and ran into the middle of the clearing, giving himself more room to work with. Luke felt the bulge in his pocket, remembering he had Lowbacca's lightsaber with him. The idea left him as soon as it had come. He had never trained with two blades, and Jacen was only able to do it because he had shrunk his blades to a custom length.

Jacen turned to face Luke. "What are your parents' names?" Luke had to get him talking.

Jacen sneered at the desperate attempt. "They're dead, what does it matter?"

Luke charged this time, sweeping and stabbing. Jacen pinched the attack between his blades and spun it wide. He followed the vigorous parry with a slashing blue 'X.' Luke had to move quickly to get his blade parallel to the ground to block the attack.

"What are their names!" Luke shouted, adding a little hypnotic suggestion that he didn't think Jacen would be ready for.

"Hanson and Leon Solon!" Jacen screamed back as he blocked a sideways swipe from Luke. Jacen followed through with two swipes of his own, one high and one low. Luke blocked the high one and leaped over the low one. With their blades still in contact high, Luke used his weapon's extra length to force Jacen's blade down and across his body. Luke rotated his wrists down and around, bringing his blade down onto Jacen's prone figure.

Jacen's double swipe left his arms crossed and both blades pointing down. It was only because Luke didn't wish to cause Jacen harm that allowed the youth to recover instead of retreating. Jacen brought his top blade back up to block the attack and sent his lower blade in search of Luke's legs.

Luke was so worried that he might strike Jacen, he didn't see the low attack until it was too late. Jacen picked his spot well, and the blue lightsaber slashed across Luke's already injured leg, undoing any healing that had taken place in the lift and causing still more damage.

Luke hobbled backward on his good leg and tried to see if his bad one could hold his weight. It couldn't. Jacen got up from his crouch and saw his enemy's helpless state and smiled.

"What's your brother's name?" Luke asked.

Jacen paused for half a second. Did he have a brother? He remembered the false memory he had had of one. Or was it false? This confusion angered him more. He began to twirl his blades around him in an ever-accelerating display of swordsmanship. "What are your parent's names?" he asked as he struck out at Luke. "What's your sister's name? How old are you? When's your birthday? What's your favorite color?" With each question, Jacen slashed at Luke.

Off balanced, Luke couldn't even hope to block the attacks. A blade hit him in the side, nicked him in the shoulder, and burned his thigh. Luke went to one knee and noticed that he was at the edge of the cliff. He grabbed his bleeding side with his real hand and tried to fend of Jacen's onslaught with the other one.

Jason attacked the mechanical hand, severing it at the base of the fingers. Luke's lightsaber flew over the edge of the cliff. Luke was in a crumpled state of pain as he looked up at his nephew. Jacen still wouldn't let him in his mind, and Luke was out of tricks.

Jacen stood over his former master, definitely in control of the situation. "What would you like on your tombstone?" he asked one final question as he lashed out with his booted foot. He kicked Luke squarely under the chin, sending him both into unconsciousness and flying over the edge of the cliff.

* * *

Anakin heard the noise from the top of the cliff and reached out to see who was up there. Anakin was quite good at spilt concentration tasks and managed to keep climbing up the cliff while he scanned the area above him. As good as he was, he almost lost his grip when he found out who was fighting.

What was wrong with Jacen? Anakin could feel something clouding his mind and emanating an evil aura. Had the Empire turned him to the Dark Side? No, there was something very false about the emotions he was projecting.

When Luke's lightsaber came flying over the edge above, Anakin doubled his pace. He didn't see his uncle's body fly over the edge right away, but he could feel Luke leave the conscious plane. Anakin saw Luke tumble to the ground out of the corner of his eye and caught him a few meters above the ground. Anakin lowered him gently the rest of the way and put him in a meditative trance.

Anakin looked up and could see Jacen looking over the edge two meters up. Jacen smiled when he saw Luke's body lying at the bottom of the long drop. Anakin scrambled up quickly, not wanting to get caught on the edge of the cliff.

Jacen couldn't feel anything from Luke and took that to be because he was in the ysalamiri field when actually it was because Anakin had hid his presence in the Force. Jacen turned away from the cliff side scene satisfied that Luke was finished. As he turned he noticed movement to his left and saw Anakin scramble onto the plateau.

Both of Jacen's lightsabers were still activated, and he turned to face this new foe. Anakin stood still, his lightsaber still dangling from his side. Jacen saw the lightsaber immediately and picked Anakin out as a student come to save his master. "You're too late," he sneered, "I just through him off the cliff."

"That you did, brother."

Jacen took a step back, reevaluating this newcomer. He was getting rather sick and tired of people constantly implying that he had siblings when he was an only child. "Who are you?"

"I'm your brother, Jacen." Anakin tried to keep the hurt out of his voice from being unfamiliar to his own kin. Anakin could feel a lot of confusion from Jacen, and he tried to reach out to his mind, but Jacen shut down hard.

"You'd be wise to stay out of my mind, brother," he spat out the last word, and Anakin wasn't fooled by Jacen's supposed turn. Jacen charged Anakin, seeing his precarious position, standing on the edge.

Anakin didn't flinch. "I don't want to fight you."

Jacen slashed through his motionless brother and realized that he wasn't really there, but his image was being projected via the Force. Jacen spun away from the illusion, which faded as he turned, and found Anakin standing behind him with his lightsaber drawn and the blade pointed three centimeters away from his chest. "I don't want to fight you."

Jacen batted the blade away with a one two strike combo and followed the strike with a spinning double low, double high strike. Anakin's blade moved almost magically quick, deflecting each strike with precision. Anakin flipped back and away from the flurry of blue that was his brother.

"A worthy opponent," Jacen said when he saw the skill in which Anakin had defeated his attack.

Anakin conceded that the fight was unavoidable. "A rematch," he said bluntly.

"Only this time I have the clear advantage with two blades to your one." Jacen rushed in, but paused halfway when he realized what he had said.

"You remember our last fight together," Anakin said realizing that his real brother was beginning to surface out of this fake.

Jacen staggered, almost falling to the ground. Memories were washing over him, memories he didn't know he had, memories he didn't want. With a shout of rage he threw them out of his head and focused on Anakin.

Anakin backed away from the hate machine that was staring him down. "I'm going to kill you, Anakin," Jacen said coldly and matter-of-factly.

"You remember my name."

This was too much for Jacen. He had just fought the battle with his memories, but now they came back with renewed vigor and intensity. Jacen dropped both of his lightsabers and fell to his knees.

Anakin reached out to his brother and found that his barriers were down. Anakin took a deep breath and jumped into the utter turmoil that made up Jacen's consciousness. It was like a dream world, Anakin couldn't tell at first which memories were real and which were fabrications. After closer examination, Anakin found one characteristic that was unique about some of the memories; they were without the Force. The Force had always been with Jacen, and each of his real memories should have had some sort of Force stamp on them. Jedi see the world differently. They can see the emotions of others. They can feel the power around them and generally have a heightened sense of awareness. There were some memories that didn't have these qualities. If the Empire had implanted them artificially, then that would explain their lack of the Force. Anakin tried to show this to Jacen. He grabbed him by the mental shoulders and shook him into coherence. Together they walked through his mind, throwing away the false memories and all of the false hatred that went with them.

After what seemed like hours, but was actually only a few seconds. They both opened their eyes. Jacen's eyes were rimmed with tears at the horrors that he had been apart of. "It's not your fault," Anakin soothed.

Jacen tried to get up but couldn't. He felt nauseous. He looked around the cliff trying to get a clear bearing on what was happening. He saw the blood stained dirt where he had kicked Luke off the cliff. "No!"

Jacen scrambled over to the cliff, strengthened by his sudden anger. Anakin felt his anger and realized the danger. "He's okay. Uncle Luke is going to be fine."

"I threw him off this cliff!" Jacen screamed at Anakin as if he didn't understand what had happened.

"I know. I caught him. He's hurt, but he'll live."

The doors to the turbolift opened and both brothers spun to see who was coming. Tallon stood in the open lift and stared at the scene. It didn't take him long to figure out something wasn't right.

"You!" Jacen screamed. "It's your fault!"

One of Jacen's lightsabers leapt off the ground and flew to Jacen's hand. Before Anakin could stop him, Jacen hurled the weapon at his former commander. Tallon scrambled for the door switch as soon as Jacen summoned his lightsaber. The doors slid shut just as the sword hit the lift, sinking into the metal up to its hilt. Tallon was flattened up against the back of the lift while the blue blade protruded from the door, ending only forty centimeters away from his chest. Tallon was about to relax when the blade suddenly grew thirty-five more centimeters. Tallon didn't move a muscle, praying that the lightsaber didn't have another length setting. By now the lift had started its descent, and the handle got caught on the ground outside of the lift. The blade made a clean vertical cut along the door and finally through the roof of the lift before it left.

Anakin ran over to his brother and put a hand gently on his shoulder. "Let go of the anger, Jacen. Whoever that was, he'll pay in due time. But not because of revenge, because of justice." This seemed to cool Jacen somewhat. He called both his weapons back to him and placed them, deactivated, on his belt.

They both turned and leaped off the cliff. They floated like leaves to the ground, and Jacen quickly bent over his uncle's prone form and checked his vital signs. The bleeding from his side had stopped and all of his wounds had a warm feel to them as the Force worked to heel them.

"We need to get out of here," Jacen said, looking around.

"Where are Lowbacca, Jaina, and Dad?"

"Dad's probably in the city, but I don't know what the Empire did with Jaina and Lowbacca. If the Imperials have touched a hair on Jaina's head, I'll . . ."

Anakin could feel the anger rising back to the surface. "Justice, not revenge. Always remember that. And remember that she's my sister too."

Jacen nodded, not feeling awkward accepting advice and correction from his younger, but seemingly, wiser brother. "Uncle Luke probably took the speeder they stole when they escaped. It should be hidden in the forest on the other side of the base."

"It looks like we have a mountain to climb then," Anakin said. Jacen rushed off to retrieve Luke's lightsaber, pausing only briefly to regard the remains of the severed hand. The two of them helped each other move their uncle and started off into the forest in search of a good place to cross the mountain range.

* * *

Tallon waited as the lift lowered itself back into the depths of the base. He wasn't looking forward to the confrontation with Thrawn that he knew was unavoidable. Thrawn had given him free reign, only occasionally suggesting certain courses of action. Tallon had been quick to follow those suggestions and had been met with undeniable success. It was only recently that failure started to creep into the works. Tallon had forgotten to follow Thrawn's advice regarding the possibility that Luke's surgery might have been undone. That problem had now ballooned into an even bigger problem, with ramifications of which Tallon was sure he had not yet seen the end.

The doors opened at the bottom of the shaft, and Tallon saw that he was going to have the dreaded confrontation sooner than he had thought. Thrawn gazed quizzically at Tallon as he stepped out of the lift. Tallon called on all of his training to try to remain rigid in front of the all-knowing eyes of the admiral. Thrawn wasn't fooled. He could tell from the initial shock in Tallon's face from his presence, that Tallon didn't have any good news to tell. Also the cut in the turbolift doors was still smoking, meaning that Tallon had just survived an attack from the Jedi.

"Report," Thrawn demanded, growing impatient with the game Tallon was trying to play. The two of them started walking down the hall.

"I'm uncertain of all the details, sir, but I was just attacked by Darth Solon."

"And why would our most trusted Lord of the Sith attack his commanding officer?" Thrawn asked with a ring of sarcasm.

He no doubt knew the answer, Tallon thought. "I'm not certain." Thrawn stared at Tallon, not accepting that answer. "It is possible that he has been turned away from the Dark Side."

"Do you think that this might have anything to do with the fact that the person who beat you to him was Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master? The only person in known history who has successfully turned a Dark Lord of the Sith away from the Dark Side." Tallon stood fast under the rebuke that he knew he deserved. "In Vader's case, he ended up killing his master, the Emperor. Feel lucky that Jacen only attacked you."

"This is only a minor set back," Tallon tried to salvage the situation. "We will still crush the New Republic at Danzig 359."

"Minor set back?" Thrawn questioned Tallon's judgment. "Jacen was to play a major role in the upcoming battle at Danzig 359." Tallon understood that Thrawn had used C'boath in the past to coordinate his fleet attacks and had been planing to do the same with Jacen. "Now we have the Solo boy and Skywalker loose on Hastrin. Have you received any word from Jaina?" Tallon shook his head. "When was the last time Jaina has taken this long to perform a job?"

"She has never taken this long before," Tallon gave the answer that Thrawn already knew.

"I believe that it's quite probable that Solo has had a little more luck than we figured on. If that's the case we have three Jedi loose on Hastrin. That is of course before they get to Lowbacca."

Tallon knew that Thrawn didn't have all of the facts. "I saw another Jedi on the landing pad next to Jacen. I didn't recognize him."

Thrawn had expected news like this to come out. He had received reports from a concerned hallway guard that two of the ysalamiri in the perimeter had suddenly shriveled up and died. The spot was just below the landing pad and had happened when Luke was still in the base. If this new Jedi had powers strong enough to repel ysalamiri, something that Luke couldn't even do, then they were indeed in trouble.

"So we have a potential of five Jedi on Hastrin," Thrawn said.

Tallon was beginning to see that they were in more trouble than he had thought. "I'll organize a storm trooper squad equipped with ysalamiri to hunt them down."

"You'll do nothing of the sort," Thrawn said and stopped in the middle of the hallway to face the much taller Tallon. "I am from this point on assuming command of this outpost. You will go up to the fleet in orbit around the planet and set up a planetary shield. If we can't find the Jedi quickly, we can't allow them to leave either."

Tallon had wondered when this transfer of power was going to take place. He had looked forward to serving under Thrawn, but hadn't foreseen that his failure was what was going to bring about the transfer. Tallon saluted smartly, and went off in search of the shuttle hanger.

Chapter 29 "The Dark Ring" (Prelude)

Wedge watched from the command deck of the Calamari Cruiser, The New Frontier, as the Hapans dropped out of hyperspace. The New Republic was in orbit around Endor. Wedge was skeptical about using the forest moon as the jumping spot simply because it seemed way too cliché. He had been here 27 years ago fighting the Death Star, and now they were going to fight another Imperial super weapon. Wedge had been hesitant, but the advantage of this spot was too great to pass up. Endor was only eight hours outside of the Danzig system and meeting at a planet also helped hide the number of ships from any probes that might be on the alert. The planet of Endor also provided a large moral booster, but the real moral booster was the 75 Hapan ships that were dropping in right now.

Leia was in the hanger of The New Frontier when Wedge came down to get her. Wedge walked up to the Millennium Falcon where Leia was helping Lando and Chewie prepare the ship. Wedge and Lando had finally been able to convince Leia that her place was not on the Millenium Falcon. Back in the days of the Rebellion, they had needed as many people as possible, but now her presence was not necessary. Her position in the New Republic government was far too valuablle to have her risk her life in battle. Lando had also managed to convince her, without insulting her skill as a gunner, that he could find an adequate replacement for her on the Falcon.

Though they had convinced her that her presence on the Falcon wasn't needed, they couldn't keep her from helping them prepare her husband's ship. "Leia," Wedge said, pulling her away from her work, "the Hapans have jumped in. I thought you might want to be there when we speak."

Leia nodded. "Thanks Wedge. Let me get cleaned up, and I'll be there in a second."

A few minutes later Leia was standing next to Wedge looking out of the window at the large fleet of Battle Dragons and Star Destroyers. The number of Imperial ships that the Hapans had been able to capture over the years impressed Wedge. Over half of the ships the Hapans had brought were Imperial made. Wedge had made sure that the few Star Destroyers the New Republic owned had come along, but now they were much better equipped.

As good as the many Star Destroyers were, and as much as they helped Wedge's battle plan, he was much more appreciative of the 20-some Hapan Battle Dragons that had joined the fleet. The rust-colored disk-shaped ships were known throughout the galaxy as some of the most powerful. It was these ships' reputation that had allowed the Hapan cluster to remain safe from smugglers and thieves over the years.

"Sir, the Hapan fleet is sending a message."

Wedge turned to the officer who had spoke. "We'll receive it in my office."

Leia and Wedge moved into his office just off the bridge. They stood in front of the computer on his desk to receive the call. Leia was quite surprised to find Tenel Ka on the other end. She was also happy to see that the young leader was wearing her lightsaber.

Wedge dispensed with the pleasantries and got down to business. He sent her all of the battle information and they wished each other luck. After the transmission ended Lando looked at Leia. "I don't know if I like having someone that young in control of the fleet."

"Trust me, Admiral," Leia reassured him, "the Hapans are in good hands."

* * *

Danzig 1 was huge. No, it was bigger than huge; it was gigantic. It was the biggest star in the entire Danzig system, and, for that matter, the biggest star in all the Core systems. It was the only known star that actually had other suns as satellites.

The Danzig system was devoid of planets. The sheer number of stars and relative closeness of them didn't allow any atmosphere to survive. If ever there had been a planet in the Danzig system, it had been burned into an asteroid and rendered lifeless many eons ago. Because of this, most of the stars stood alone. Some had a few asteroids orbiting around them, but these orbital patterns were not stable, and the asteroids would often jump from one star to another.

Danzig 1 was different. Danzig 1 had five other stars in a constant orbit. Danzig 2-6 (in order of orbits) were among the smallest stars known in the galaxy. Danzig 6, the smallest of the five stars, was only slightly bigger than an average planet.

This phenomenon was stable, but at the same time, very fragile. It was nothing that the Empire was concerned about, however. In order to alter the course of an orbiting planet, a super weapon had to be used. The Imperials didn't think that even a Death Star would be able to affect a gaseous body, even if it was in a delicate situation. Though the Empire was correct in thinking that it would take an incredible amount of force to change the orbital pattern of a star, they didn't quite appreciate the significance of the orbiting stars.

Stars, even small ones, produce enormous gravity wells. When an object orbits a sun, it gets caught in the outer rings of this well. Every mass creates its own gravity field and the sun's well has to be great enough that, at the distance of the orbit, its own well is greater than that of the satellite. If it is too much greater, the satellite will decay in orbit and if it is too weak, the satellite will fly off on its own. A sun's density is so much greater than that of a planet, that in the Danzig 1 arrangement there was a lot less room for error. In order to orbit another star not only does the central star have to be producing an incredible gravity well, but also each of the orbiting stars has to be in exactly the correct orbiting distance. Even the smallest change in the orbiting distance or velocity, will change the orbiting pattern exponentially.

None of these facts were even remotely considered by the Empire while it prepared for the coming of the New Republic fleet.

Chapter 30 "The Dark Ring" (Part I)

Commander Skeener paced impatiently on the bridge of the third quadrant of the Dark Ring. The third quadrant was starting to rotate out of position, and he thought that he would soon have to move to the fourth quadrant. He had met with all of the military leaders and Thrawn just a few hours ago. Thrawn hadn't been there in person, but he had done most of the talking. There were plenty of strategies that were discussed and as usual, Thrawn had dissected the battle plan to pieces.

Skeener had come to a similar conclusion as Thrawn though not identical. The "front" of the Dark Ring had been decided as the section that was facing New Republic space. The front was the obvious place for the New Republic fleet to jump in, being the closest one to their space. It was for that simple reason that Thrawn, and Skeener, had thought that the New Republic would jump in at the rear of the Dark Ring. Skeener had thought that the New Republic would jump part of its fleet in at the front, try to draw all of the ships and fire power in that direction, and then jump the rest in at the back.

Thrawn disagreed. He had taken that thinking one step further. With jumping in at the rear being the ploy in this battle, the strategy that Skeener suggested was the most obvious, Thrawn dismissed it. He suggested that the New Republic would jump in immediately at the rear. Skeener thought that this would destroy their surprise attack completely, using their trick right away.

Thrawn carried his idea one step further saying that the defense the Dark Ring would have ideally for the New Republic would be one ready for the trick of the rear entrance, but expecting a front one. The Empire would then be forced to scramble around back to fortify the few ships that they had left in the rear to prevent the "trick." Skeener had made the connection immediately. That would leave the front open for attack.

Skeener was no longer in the rear of the Dark Ring. For the past twelve hours he had been moving from quadrant to quadrant, always trying to keep himself in the rear where most of the ships were. Skeener moved to a turbolift that whisked him to the fourth quadrant. He began thinking about the upcoming battle and the hopeless situation that the New Republic was facing. Surely even the largest fleet couldn't stand up to the Dark Ring, but the Empire had most of its fleet here as well. Skeener ran through the list of fleet commanders in his head: General Oskiman, Captain Sanson, Commander Snotzenexer, Commander Qwi'tek, and many more. All of them were exceptional leaders. Skeener was beginning to wonder if the Empire even needed the Dark Ring. He doubted that the New Republic stood a chance against the fleet alone.

In his movement through the Dark Ring, Skeener bumped into the two Salynoids. He could tell that they were exited. This was mainly their creation, and it was the Dark Ring's first real test. They recognized Skeener as the commander of the station, saluted him, and kept going on their furious checking of the systems.

Skeener walked onto the bridge of the fourth quadrant just as the New Republic ships jumped in.

* * *

Calamari Cruisers were the first to jump in, followed by the carriers, which were quick to unload their fighters, and finally the smaller Frigates and Corvettes. The smaller ships moved into flanking position and the fighters sped ahead, eager to engage the enemy. For all of the New Republic pilots, this was the first time they had ever seen the Dark Ring and many were hesitant to continue the battle. Even Wedge, who had tried to prepare himself for the mechanical monstrosity that they were going to be facing, felt a little queasy at the sight of the wall in space. This was way bigger than any Death Star that he could possibly imagine.

Wedge thought of their plan to use the Sun Crusher torpedo on the Dark Ring and was glad for that plan. He had studied the plans for the Dark Ring, as had all the generals, and he had come up with no flaw in the design. To be honest, it didn't appear to be related to any other Imperial device he had ever seen before.

The Empire tended to make things big, but foolish. Everything had an obvious flaw in it. Star Destroyers had their shield generators located in plain sight and very accessible. Wedge had never understood the reason that this obvious design flaw wasn't ever remedied. The Calamarian Cruisers' shield generators were tucked away neatly behind the large engines, feeding off the same fusion reactor.

TIE fighters though fast and nimble had absolutely no shields to speak of. One well-aimed shot from a New Republic fighter could take one down. Even the A-wing fighter, the New Republic's weakest, was equipped with shields able to absorb several bolts before failure.

Of course there was the obvious exhaust port fiasco with the first Death Star, and while the second Death Star had no obvious flaw other than its incompletion, it had been taken out by only a few shots. This battle station had no central power source to aim at, other than the sun. And that sun was producing enough energy to sustain its particle shields with out the aid of a planet below. The Dark Ring had a strong energy shield too, but Wedge had reasoned from the blueprints that they wouldn't be able to keep the shield up and fire their Death Star lasers at the same time.

Their battle plan was the same as it had always been: distract the enemy while the true strike force attacks the main power source. Wedge looked at his chronometer. It would be another two minutes before the Hapans and the rest of the fleet jumped in on the other side of the Dark Ring, and then another five minutes before Lando and the 185th were due. Seven minutes. It wasn't that long under normal circumstances, but in war, with people dying all around you, each second dragged on for an hour.

Wedge checked out the scene before him. Not a shot had been fired yet, but as the X-wings and E-wings sped towards the Star Destroyers, Wedge knew that that was going to change.

* * *

Oskiman looked out at the New Republic fleet from his vantagepoint aboard the Doomsday Hammer. He was surrounded by his best military leaders, all aboard Imperial Star Destroyers. He watched as the cluster of New Republic fighters met the incoming swarm of TIE fighters. They met like opposing water waves, causing massive destructive interference. The New Republic capitol ships were still out of range of the Star Destroyers, but Oskiman knew that the Dark Ring had a rather impressive range.

As the capitol ships began to form a strategic ring, Oskiman scrutinized the band of ships that came to attack. He was impressed with their fleet size. The Empire had a large information net and had just engaged the New Republic in several skirmishes, so they had a good idea of how many ships they had. The number in front of him matched the estimated number, and Oskiman smiled at their wealth of knowledge on the enemy.

Oskiman was curious, though, about the make-up of the fleet. To his knowledge, the New Republic had captured several older Star Destroyers, but they were no where to be found amongst the New Republic's fleet. Oskiman smiled again when he realized when they'd show up. He had at first thought as Skeener had, that they would use this "back door" as a counter attack, or a trick, not, as Thrawn had suggested, as their main means of attack. It was only Thrawn's strategy that had placed as many ships behind the station as there were. If it weren't for their foreknowledge, they would likely be scrambling right now to try to bring the fleet around the huge Dark Ring from the front.

Oskiman was very pleased with the situation. He almost laughed out loud at what he knew must be going through the minds of the New Republic leaders. The Imperial fleet behind the Dark Ring was actually smaller in size than the New Republic's, but as far as total ship strength went, the Empire had the distinct advantage. The leaders of the attacking fleet likely thought that they had successfully lured the whole Imperial fleet away from the front, when in actuality, Captain Sanson and Commander Snotzenexer waited on the other side with the Empire's other Super Star Destroyer and almost as many Imperial and Victory class Destroyers.

* * *

Wedge watched the flanking procedure of the Imperial fleet curiously. He tried to figure out the logic of their maneuvers. Instead of remaining between the New Republic fleet and the Dark Ring, the Imperials were moving into a large ring, almost creating a bull's eye for the enemy to shoot on. All of Wedge's questions disappeared when, from the middle of the bull's eye, the Dark Ring fired, vaporizing two Calamarian Cruisers and one Frigate instantly.

* * *

Skeener waited patiently as General Oskiman moved his ships out of the way, clearing an alley for the Dark Ring to fire. As soon as the circle had grown large enough to give three super lasers open range, Skeener gave the order to fire at will. He watched eagerly as the three lasers lanced out, instantly vaporizing the puny ships in the New Republic fleet.

Because the Dark Ring collected its power from solar panels, it took a very large area of the inefficient panels to power a Death Star laser. A lot of the energy was stored in huge batteries, but all of the energy could not be drawn from a battery at once or it would overload. It took about fifty square kilometers of solar panels to fire one super laser, this seemed large at first, but it was less than a millionth of a percent of the total area on the inside of the Dark Ring.

Because of this incredible accumulation of energy over a very large area, it took about 20 seconds to fire again from any specific laser orifice. Skeener had the computer on the Dark Ring calculate the area the New Republic covered and the amount of super lasers that would be in range. Skeener was very please to see the number 7 appear brightly on his screen. Once the Imperial fleet got out of the way he would be able to take out 21 ships a minute.

Skeener was a little mad that these were not his orders. He was only supposed to take occasional pot shots, killing no more than a few a minute. Oskiman had insisted that the fleet needed more practice against live targets. Skeener shrugged in frustration. Oh well, he thought, only a "few" a minute. Skeener smiled as he thought of a very loose translation of the word "few." He gave the order to fire again, this time from four super lasers.

* * *

Snotzenexer waited patiently on the other side of the Dark Ring. He had been the only person who had initially agreed with Thrawn's evaluation of the situation, and so he had been the only one who had volunteered to sit and wait for the fleet. He had just gotten the report from the other side of the Dark Ring that the first part of the fleet had jumped in. The Dark Ring blocked all communication between the fleets, and everything had to be relayed through the Dark Ring. This caused for a slight time delay, but it was a minor inconvenience.

Snotzenexer scanned the list of ships that were being reported. Absent from the list, as he had suspected, were the Imperial ships that he knew the New Republic had captured. The New Republic was trying to make it look as real as possible that this first fleet was their entire attack.

Sanson walked up behind him to read the information for herself. This situation had been odd for the fleet. Sanson had the rank of captain, just below General Oskiman. Snotzenexer, although he only had the rank of commander, had always been thought as the next in command to Oskiman. Sanson had willingly joined Snotzenexer on this fleet assignment.

Many of the Imperials were a bit skeptical as to the reason for her willingness to serve under a lower ranking officer. It wouldn't have been that odd for anyone else - there were several other captains who could have served under him - because Snotzenexer was very well respected, but Sanson was definitely the most defiantly independent officer. Of course many people had a different idea entirely as to why Sanson had accepted Snotzenexer's invitation.

Rumors had been generated over the past few months about a relationship between the two successful military officers. These rumors had never been confirmed or denied. Nobody feared what Snotzenexer would do if people started talking. The shy genius wasn't very aggressive, and nothing seemed to bother him. But Sanson was likely to rip the larynx out of anyone who so much as hinted about such a relationship. Only Tallon knew the truth, and he wasn't going to tell anyone.

Sanson patted Snotzenexer gently on the butt as she approached her commanding officer from behind. She glanced over her shoulder at the underlings huddled around the computer consoles, daring anyone who had seen her sly movement to start whispering. No one did.

"Yes, dear?" Snotzenexer asked, guessing that none of his male officers would be bold enough to slap his rear.

"What have we got?"

"It appears that the New Republic is indeed using the strategy that we predicted. The rest of the fleet should be jumping in shortly. Though I don't believe it will be very big." Snotzenexer did the math in his head. "The remaining ships in the New Republic's possession consist of Imperial ships they have stolen and number fewer than fifteen. Unless . . ." a thought crept into his head. He knew about Laya and her lack of communication over the past few weeks. It was possible that Laya had been put out of commission, and if the Hapans knew about the Empire's role in her actions, then it was possible that . . . The second New Republic fleet jumped in and confirmed Snotzenexer's fears.

Sanson and Snotzenexer watched as the Star Destroyers and Hapan Battle Dragons organized themselves into an attack formation. Snotzenexer didn't know if Sanson knew what the saucer-shaped ships were, or who they belonged to. Snotzenexer was hesitant to tell her that they belonged to the Hapans and that this unexpected alliance probably sprung up because of the Laya incident, which he wasn't sure if she knew about either. He didn't want to sound insulting. If Sanson already knew what they were, she might not feel pleased about being made to look like an uninformed officer. If she didn't know, she probably wouldn't stoop to ask, but would like to be informed just the same.

Snotzenexer turned to face her, but she spoke first. "Enlarge one of the Battle Dragons." Without a word, Snotzenexer moved over to a computer, brought one of the saucer ships up on the screen, and enlarged it. "See those small slots on the rim of the ships?" she asked, pointing to the screen.

Snotzenexer zoomed in a little closer and confirmed her observation. "Those slots are for space mining probes. They're used to mine hyperspace to create a temporary interdiction zone. It's not likely that they will use them, because it would be pointless to trap an immobile station in space, so they'd only be hurting themselves. The probes themselves are highly explosive. Tell your fleet to target the slots, but only the fighters will be able to get close enough. The Hapans are advanced technologically and have developed a cloaking device against large weapon locks."

Snotzenexer realized that there was a good chance Sanson did indeed know what the saucer ships were. He took this in stride. He was not offended that she had given him what sounded like a direct command. After all, she did out-rank him. "It would be pointless then for the Dark Ring to target them." It was more of a statement than a question. Snotzenexer turned to his bridge crew and relayed the information to all of the fighters. He then contacted the Dark Ring and told them to concentrate fire upon the Star Destroyers.

Snotzenexer had already moved his fleet into a ring by guessing, and guessing correctly, where the incoming fleet would jump in. The front side of the Dark Ring had the same orders as Skeener and the backside of the battle station had: Don't take out too many ships, but let the fleet have some practice. Snotzenexer watched as the Dark Ring took out two Victory class Star Destroyers belongong to the New Republic. He noticed that the fleet of Star Destroyers was quite substantial. He would have to read the history of the Imperial involvement with the Hapans. They had way to many Imperial ships.

Snotzenexer waited for the Dark Ring to fire again, and then remembered Oskiman's orders. The man was a fool, Snotzenexer thought. He meant to give the New Republic a chance by letting them tackle the fleet instead of the Dark Ring. A compassionate Imperial leader should never have made it to the rank of General. Snotzenexer understood Oskiman's intentions and knew that they were far from compassionate. The idea of giving the fleet practice during a crucial battle was an error. No matter what advantage you had over an enemy, if you held them in contempt by saying that you don't have to try your hardest to beat them, then you will lose. If you stop trying, it makes the enemy try all the harder, and they will gain the edge.

Snotzenexer did not wish to buck the orders. He had no intention of getting a court marshal over a matter that in the final out come, probably wouldn't matter. It wasn't okay to take this risk, but they weren't quite walking across a tight rope without a net. Snotzenexer knew that the Dark Ring was just about the biggest net you could find anywhere.

While Snotzenexer had been contemplating these things in front of a monitor, Sanson had moved down amongst the crew ordering the targeting assignments for the entire fleet. Snotzenexer admired her technical knowledge and appreciated her help more than he disliked her over stepping her bounds.

Sanson knew all about the old Star Destroyers they were attacking. She told the fleet that the weak spots on the shield towers weren't the globes themselves, but the supports holding the globes, in particular, the central power cable. She explained where the weak spots were on the hanger doors, and once the doors were gone, where they should fire torpedoes to get the best chain reaction. She explained that toward the back of the Victory class Destroyers there was a small oxygen intake valve used during inner-atmosphere travel. There was a door closed over it during space travel, but if taken out with lasers, a well-aimed torpedo could enter the valve and travel straight to the main fusion reactor. She explained where the thinnest parts of the Battle Dragons' hull were and which ion cannons were routed directly through the main reactor and which ones ran off separate batteries. She also recognized some of the Imperial class Destroyers as an older type of ship that had been discontinued for some over looked flaws. She explained how a few well aimed ion shots at the forward sensor arrays could short circuit the entire system of long range scanners and scramble their targeting system for a few minutes.

Snotzenexer listened to her rattle off strategy after strategy, becoming more and more impressed with her knowledge every passing moment. In simulations, she had come the closest to beating him in a fleet battle, which is to say at the end of the battle she was only outnumbered four to one. Snotzenexer understood his supremacy in fleet command, but also knew all about Sanson's strengths.

Snotzenexer moved down off of the elevated command section of the bridge and began to coordinate the fleet beside his fiancé.

Chapter 31 "The Dark Ring" (Part II)

Lando checked the hyperspace chronometer for the sixth time in the past seven seconds. He was fidgeting with the controls involuntarily. Chewie barked at him again to calm down, but the reality of what he was going to do started to nag at him. He was going to blow up a star and kill over a billion people.

Lando had felt similar feelings after the battle of Endor, when he realized that Luke had just gotten off the Death Star in time. When he thought about it, his mind raced through all of the people that didn't make it out and had died a fiery death. Lando had a long conversation with Luke about it later. Luke hadn't justified the death of all the Imperials. He reminded Lando that he had killed just as many in the first Death Star. The only comfort the Jedi could give was that they had to choose the lesser of two evils. Killing a billion now would save trillions later. Luke had also launched into a sermon on preserving the Light Side of the Force. Lando hadn't paid too much attention at the time, but now, with all of his experiences with Jedi, he understood better what Luke was talking about. Everyone had a presence in the Force, even non-Force strong individuals. In order for history to continue in good instead of evil, the Dark Side had to be defeated or, in many cases, killed. Lando understood that this battle, on the surface, simply looked like a battle between two empires struggling for power, but it was really Light versus Dark. This battle had larger ramifications than Lando could accurately discern, but he knew that a loss here, failing to blow up the Dark Ring, would lead to very Dark times.

Lando swallowed down a lump that had been forming in his throat. He looked again at the chronometer. There was one minute left until they jumped in. Lando yelled back at the passengers to buckle up. Land had picked up two young fighter pilots who's ships were inoperative. Lando would rather have people he knew and trusted to fire the Falcon's guns, but he had been assured that Haivven and Bremmy were excelent marksmen.

"Is the cloaking device working properly?" Lando asked his copilot. Chewie barked an affirmative. At the last second, Lando had decided to attach the device that they had "borrowed" from the Imperial crystal mine. He knew that it wouldn't work in the radiation they would be flying through, but he didn't think they'd be in the radiation all the time.

Lando watched the countdown descend from thirty. He hovered his hand over the hyperspace lever. His hand started to shake from nervousness, and he dropped his hand down onto the lever to control the shaking. Sweat began to bead up on his forehead. His voice cracked slightly when he told Chewie to get ready. Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, twelve, . . . He looked back over his shoulder to make sure that the two passengers where secured. He had never jumped into heavy solar radiation before and didn't now what kind of turbulence they'd experience.

He turned to look back at the countdown and the ship shook violently. Thoughts of pure horror began running through his mind. Had the nav computer miscalculated their jump? Where they flying through the sun, or worse, the Dark Ring in hyperspace. Suddenly the star lines disappeared and they were back in normal space. Lando looked down at his hand and saw that he still had the lever in the hyperspace position. The chronometer was just now ticking down to zero.

"An interdiction field!" Lando yelled. Chewie roared in agreement. They and the three W-wings were still a ways away from the Dark Ring, and they weren't hidden in the radiation field. "Chewie," Lando called, "we have a blown hyperspace fuse. We're going to need to make a fast get-a-way pretty soon and it needs to be fixed. Haivven and Bremmy we need people at the turret guns. The Imperials know we're here." Chewie barked at him. "Right! Of course, I forgot." Lando reached over and activated the cloaking device.

* * *

Skeener received word that the second fleet had jumped in. His orders were clear: Activate the interdiction as soon as all of the enemy ships had jumped in. Skeener planned on waiting a few minutes yet. He didn't think that the New Republic actually expected to pull off a victory with just these two fleets, they had to have something else up their sleeve. If it was another fleet, he wanted to trap it too. If it was a secret weapon, he wanted to keep it out.

It was now almost five minutes since the second New Republic fleet had jumped in, and Skeener was getting anxious. "Activate the interdiction field and lock it," Skeener gave the order. The Salynoids had built a locking mechanism so that if an attacking fleet managed to take out a section of the Dark Ring, the interdiction field wouldn't go out. Normally all extra-curricular activities would be shut down, in a structural break down, but now the interdiction field was on for good until deactivated from the control room.

As soon as the interdiction field went up four blips appeared on the radar. Skeener saw them. "What do we have here," he said to himself. His timing couldn't have been better. He wanted to make sure that all of the ships could join the party. "How far away are the four new comers?" Skeener asked his officers.

"They are within gun range, sir," the officer replied, knowing why Skeener had asked. The four new ships had jumped in above the hole in the north pole of the station where the only Dark Ring guns were on the rim of the hole. If they were too close, the angle of fire would be too great, and they would be out of range. Also they would be in the radiation storm. "Do you wish to fire on them, sir?"

Skeener didn't know what the ships were doing there, but he knew they didn't pose much of a threat. At the angle from which they were approaching, they wouldn't be able to target any vital systems, save perhaps the most vital of all - the sun. Skeener laughed to himself at the idea of the small fighters trying to load the sun with laser fire. He finally decided that the angle of their approach was due to the fact that it kept them out of range of the Death Star lasers. "If they're not bold enough to challenge us directly, we won't honor their presence. Inform the fleets, however."

* * *

General Oskiman looked down at the message that was being relayed to his command post. He had noticed the ships when they had popped on the radar a few moments ago, but had yet to recognize their presence. The report from the Dark Ring told him that Skeener was going to ignore them. Oskiman looked out at the fleet battle in which he was engaged. He didn't have time to chase after four fighters that couldn't even jump in at the right coordinates. If they were to incompetent to follow the rest of the fleet, then they didn't deserve his attention.

* * *

Snotzenexer didn't bother to read the report. Sanson was bent over the screen, and Snotzenexer watched her for her reaction. Snotzenexer knew that he was advanced in IQ far above the rest of the imperial commanders, he had idolized Thrawn when he was growing up, and like him he tried not to let his style become cocky or arrogant. He had noticed the ships of course, and this message could only concern them, as nothing else of any significance had happened. He also knew what everyone else must be thinking because it was what had first flashed through his mind. Sanson nodded to herself after she had finished reading the message, and Snotzenexer was disappointed that she agreed with the idea that these new fighters presented no threat.

"How many TIE squadrons should we deploy to engage them?" Snotzenexer asked her as she turned to let him read the message. "Five? Seven?"

Sanson wasn't surprised at the fact that Snotzenexer knew what the message had said without reading it. He had done a lot more impressive things than that before. She was surprised however, that he thought these ships needed their attention. "You don't share the idea that these ships are harmless."

"Why should they be?" Snotzenexer queried, wanting to hear her reasoning.

"They obviously erred in their jump and came out of hyperspace not only late, but in the wrong area."

"It does look obvious, doesn't it. Maybe they planned it that way." Sanson knew what he was getting at. He and Thrawn always put themselves in the enemy's shoes, taking the thinking process one step further. "Did you happen to look at their radar signatures."

"They don't mean anything to me," Sanson said, getting impatient. Now was not the time for a strategy lesson.

"I have committed several of the New Republic's ships' radar signatures to memory. The larger fighter is the Millennium Falcon and the three small fighters are of the same design as those that attacked Commander Qwi'tek during your Gensiffery attack. I'm sure you know all about the Falcon, and Qwi'tek told you about the proficiency of the three smaller fighters that single handily defeated his fleet."

"We have no reason to believe that anyone of importance is at the cockpit of the Falcon, and you can't tell if they are the same fighters that attacked us at Gensiffery."

"We also have no reason to believe that they aren't the same ones. The one thing that the Empire has to learn about fighting, is never underestimate the enemy."

"What could they do from the angle which they are flying?"

"We don't know anything about the fighters, and the Falcon is constantly being upgraded. It is possible that they have developed some kind of shielding that would allow them to fly inside of the Dark Ring amongst the radiation. They could have a new kind of explosive weapon that they wish to attach to the inside of the battle station. What ever they plan on doing, I don't think that they just accidentally fell out of hyperspace at the wrong time. Also remember that they were yanked out of hyperspace by the interdiction field. They could have been headed somewhere else."

"If that is the case," Sanson responded, "I suggest that we should deploy no less than ten squadrons to intercept them."

"Consider it done. They were sent while you were reading the report."

Sanson gave him a cross look for going behind her back, but it changed into a smile at the sly way he had gotten her to agree with his already made decision.

* * *

Thrawn paced his office methodically. He had had the interior of his office filled with a plethora of plants and small trees, that made up an accurate representation of the decorative plants that were in the palace on Coruscant. His habit of collecting the art work of his enemy, had met a small road block when confronted with the New Republic. They didn't have any prolific artist, and weren't much for decoration. Thrawn had, as Snotzenexer had, at first looked past the plants, but now he realized that these plants better described the mind set of the New Republic, than anything else could have.

He looked at the Fraynion powel shoots. They were a colorful bunch of reeds that grew from seed to a full grown cluster in a mater of weeks. Thrawn remembered how quickly the New Republic had sprouted up and grown into maturity.

Thrawn walked next past the Corellion amber tree. This was still a young tree, and it stood alone in its large clay pot, but Thrawn knew what it was like in the wild. It was a strong sturdy tree. When it reached adult hood its branches would latch onto the branches of surrounding trees. Unlike a parasite vine, when the amber tree latched on to another tree, it supported it and fed it nutrients. Together, both trees would grow stronger, and then they would branch out again. The direct relation to the New Republic was too obvious for thoughts.

He next came to the Tatooine silver bud. This beautiful flower was naturally located in the hot desserts of Tatooine. At first he wasn't able to get the flower to grow in his office. He had imported the finest soil from many different worlds, but the flower kept dying. Thrawn wasn't a botanist, but he soon realized that the flower needed the parched sand to grow. With out the adverse conditions, the flower never reached its full potential. The New Republic also seemed like it flourished during bad times.

Thrawn finally stopped walking when he reached the Maltha ice vine. This plant was actually a weed. Although it was multicolored and somewhat attractive, it was still a weed. The New Republic had found it on the planet Maltha Obex before the Qella had returned. Thrawn's vine was mounted on an ice frame. There was metal tubing winding upward in a spiral on which the ice was kept frozen. The vine grew right out of the ice. The root structure was very visible inside the hardened, transparent water. There were few nutrients in the ice, and those that were there, were frozen in place. The New Republic scientists had claimed the phenomenon impossible, and some kind of Qella trick, but on further inspection, the vine was proven to be authentic. Since no one had returned to the Qella home world after they had returned fifteen years ago, the plant was very rare and expensive. Thrawn had found that cloning was much cheaper.

He stared at this vine for a long time. He seemed mesmerized by the contrasting of colors. The red roots, the dark green stem, and the bright, almost florescent, green leaves glowed when intertwined around the crystallized water. This plant demonstrated the part of the New Republic that worried Thrawn the most and the one that he was considering now. It was impossible for a rag tag bunch of fighters to defeat a fully operational Death Star. And it was just as unlikely to find a plant that grows out of ice as it was to find a ground force, out numbered ten to one, that could defeat the enemy to bring down a shield generator, and allow a fleet of ships, out numbered fifteen to one, to attack and defeat a deadly battle station.

Could the New Republic win today at Danzig 359? Their chances were less than one in a million. Thrawn looked again at the ice vine. What was its possibility of existence? Biologically this vine was an impossibility, but it was right in front of him.

Thrawn didn't feel like he had all of the facts he needed to make the connection he was looking for. He went over to his desk and flipped on his computer. He began scrolling through all of the information of the past few weeks while he thought about the battle going on right now. The information flowed past him and he tried to collect it all. His great intellect allowed him to grab all of the bits of information, twirl them around in his mind, examine them from all sides, seeing every angle of possibilities, and comparing them to the battle. Information about the recent fleet attacks flowed up the screen, as did information about the attack on Yavin IV, the attack at the crystal mine, the failed terrorism of Laya, and the first clash at the Dark Ring with the small New Republic fleet.

As the information of the crystal mine flowed past him, he paused it and requested the complete history of the outpost. He examined each name, each date, and every little detail that might be a clue. His mind ran into the one possible means of defeat in the battle just as his eyes rested on the name Qui Xux. As before the New Republic had always targeted the power source of the stations, in this case the sun. There was only one known weapon that could destroy a sun and Qui Xux had designed it. All of the pieces were falling together. If the New Republic had a sun crusher torpedo then that would explain their apparent suicide run.

Thrawn reached over to his com switch and punched in the code for the Dark Ring. He waited the few seconds that it took for the hyperspace signal to reach the station, but after a minute, Thrawn realized that they must have already activated the interdiction field. Thrawn was too late!

The admiral was known for his cool demeanor, but now his temper flared quickly. How could he have over looked such an obvious situation? He looked over at the Maltha ice vine. It seemed to sneer at him, defying the odds the way it did. Thrawn tried to gather some relief with the knowledge that Snotzenexer was out there with the fleet. Compared to the Commander, the rest of the officers were morons, but with Snotzenexer in command of one of the fleets, there was still hope. No, the New Republic would win again, they always did. He could make a stand here on the planet. He had the Jedi trapped on the planet. He could keep them here, and defend this planet from attack until the he could regroup. Tallon wasn't a genius, but he was better than Pellaeon had been. Thrawn thought back to the time he had fought the New Republic by roaming through space without a stationary base. He might have to do that again.

He got up from his desk, deciding to count the Dark Ring as a loss, and move on with the rest of his plan. He turned to leave and found the ice vine facing him. He thought he could hear it laughing at him. Thrawn allowed his anger to peek once more as he ripped the screen out of his desk and hurled it at the ice frame. The glass and ice shattered as the vine fell off the frame and lay amongst the ruins of its life source on the floor. Thrawn laughed to himself as he walked from the room.

Chapter 32 "The Dark Ring" (Part III)

"Fighters coming in!" Lando shouted over the Falcon's com.

"We see them," Haivven said from the ventral turret gun.

"Bats," Lando called, "are you still with us?"

"Copy that," Vince voiced back. "We'll plow the road."

The TIE's came in fast, but the 185th kept their squad leader's promise and evaporated the six leading fighters. Jon decided to keep a mental count instead of constantly flipping his counter. He did this for two reasons. Since they were in wide open space, he didn't have the luxury of ducking behind a capitol ship while he flipped the counter. Also he figured that with the sheer number of fighters that they were facing, his finger would get too tired.

All three fighters split up, encircling around the cloaked Falcon like bees swarming protectively around their queen. Haivven and Bremmy fired conservatively, not wanting to hit the W-wings, which were darting all over the place. Bep had designed the strategy that the W-wings were using. By linking the computers through the coms of each fighter, the complex navigational computer was able to weave the three fighters in a dizzying collage of spiraling twists and turns that left the enemy fighters in a quandary.

The TIE's were at a loss of how to track the unique fighters flying in a computer generated randomized pattern. The orderly trios of TIE fighters soon broke into a scrambled array of pods and solar panels as they tried to enter the fray of W-wings.

The Jon, Vince, and Bep weren't making many kills at all, only firing occasionally when a TIE happened to wander into their sights. However, once they agreed that the TIE's were effectively scrambled and out of their strong formation, Bep activated the derandomization program. The complex pattern began to alter slowly until, as if by magic, all three fighters pulled out of the pattern side by side. The three ace pilots resumed control of their ships and began to attack the TIE's.

The TIE's were badly out of position. Many had stopped all together to try to get a bead on the twirling crafts. Now they sat scattered all over the free space like stationary asteroids. The W-wings split up, attacking the scattered enemy ships, often finding the broad side of a stationary solar panel as their target.

The invisible Falcon had been totally forgotten, and it was allowed to continue its intercept course with the Dark Ring. The TIE's tried to regroup, but do to their cramped positions and slow speeds, their attempts simply put them in large groups making for easier targets. Jon shrieked with adrenaline as, in one pass, he was able to take out three TIE's who were trying to regroup into their traditional triangle formation.

Vince and Bep were up to their normal tricks, confusing the TIE's more than they already were. Jon found the fighting uninteresting and left to follow the Falcon.

Lando watched the fighters perform their tricks, glad that Wedge had assigned them to accompany him. He had brought the Dark Ring up on his targeting display. The missiles had locked on to the huge structure almost immediately, but he had no intention of firing the missiles desperately at the super structure. Instead, he simply used the targeting system to tabulate the distance between him and the colossus structure. The New Republic scientists had informed him what to expect when he got within three thousand kilometers of the orifice in the Dark Ring, and Lando planned to be ready for it. The targeting display told him that he was now five thousand kilometers away, and Lando could already feel the control of the Falcon begin to get a little edgy. The sensors started to fade as he went further into the radiation emission field, but he could see a small blip of his left side.

"Bremmy, I'm reading a fighter on our tail, can you confirm?"

"It's a friendly," he replied.

"Lando, thought I'd come along for the view," Jon said over the com. His voice began to break up, and Lando knew that they wouldn't be able to maintain radio communicate for much longer.

"Glad to have you, but it's going to get a bit rough, so hold on."

* * *

Wedge analyzed the battle and was pleased to see that they were holding their own against the Imperial fleet, but was more than a little distressed about the Dark Ring. It had fired only occasionally, with deadly accuracy. Wedge had been told by a group of scientists who had analyzed the plans for the Dark Ring that it would be capable of firing rather rapidly, but Wedge was yet to see proof of that. He wondered if the Empire was simply playing with them.

Wedge snapped his mind back into the battle and tried to find weaknesses in his enemy's formation. He saw two E-wings chase several TIE's into what Wedge could see was a trap. The TIE's lured the two ships in-between two Star Destroyers when four more TIE's appeared from behind the two Destroyers. Wedge cursed the fact that the doomed E-wing pilots couldn't have seen the trap from their vantage point, but he also saw a possible advantage to the unfortunate situation. Both Star Destroyers moved away from each other slightly to give the TIE's more room to work on the E-wings. Wedge contacted a Calamarian Cruiser that was near the front lines and had taken minimal damage and told it to punch that hole.

The Cruiser saw the hole and altered its course accordingly. The Destroyers saw the Calamarian Cruiser coming but didn't have enough time to close off the hole, and not wanting a collision with the large ship, they were force to make the hole bigger. The Cruiser hit the hole hard, causing sever damage to the side of one of the Destroyers. The hurt Star Destroyer was forced forward into the waiting guns of two more Calamarian Cruisers.

Wedge smiled as he waited for the outcome. It wasn't the outcome he had expected. The Dark Ring fired two direct hits on the waiting Calamarian Cruisers, evaporating both of them into fire balls. Wedge saw that this was much more than the loss of two ships. Now the injured Star Destroyer, with its forward velocity, could penetrate the New Republic's front line, while the lone Cruiser that had started the maneuver had lost its back-up and was now hopelessly surrounded by enemy ships.

The Dark Ring was watching the battle like a father watching his son play with a wolf cub. He allowed the child to tumble around with the dangerous animal, but as soon as the animal showed any teeth, the father jumped in to kill the wolf. Wedge frowned to himself, when had it ever been easy.

* * *

Tenel Ka was having a bit more success on her side of the Dark Ring. The super lasers weren't able to get a solid lock onto the Battle Dragons, so her ships were able to fight straight up with the Imperial fleet. Despite the fact that her ships were more advanced than the Imperial fleet, she found that she was being terribly out strategized. Her mother had sent Tenel Ka on this mission with full confidence in her skills as a military leader. That confidence had not been misplaced. The students at the Academy underwent military strategy training taught by Ackbar. Master Skywalker had had the foresight to realize that many of his students would be called upon to lead military forces simply because of their status as Jedi, and he didn't want them to be ill-prepared.

Tenel Ka examined her strategy again. It seemed flawless, except for the fact that the fleet she was facing seemed to expect her every move. At first she had laid out a strategy that was taught at the Academy, but she discarded it with the idea that any Imperial commander who had studied past battles, would pick up on her tactics immediately. Improvisation was the key, but it seemed that she was simply dancing to the tune of the Imperial commander she was facing.

Neither side was taking serious losses; however, almost all of the stolen Imperial ships had been destroyed by the Dark Ring. Tenel Ka understood her main priority was to keep the fleet occupied while the thrust of their attack commenced against the sun, but she didn't want to be cannon fodder either.

Oh, well, she thought after another advance had been thwarted, let's try another strategy.

* * *

Snotzenexer was holding back, waiting. He recognized the tactics of his enemy and was simply taking his time. He had sent two Imperial Star Destroyers after the Millennium Falcon and the three fighters after he saw that the W-wings had dispatched the TIE's easily. He was curious as to why Oskiman had not sent anything after the isolated enemy ships. Snotzenexer didn't try to figure out what the squat General was thinking, because normally he came to the conclusion that the question wasn't about what he was thinking, but if he was thinking at all.

Snotzenexer didn't want to commit to the battle with the Hapans totally because he wanted to keep an eye on the activity by the north pole of the Dark Ring. He figured that the two fleets that had jumped in were just a diversion.

Sanson walked up to Snotzenexer with a questioning look on her face. "It's the four fighters, isn't it?" He nodded. "If you're that concerned about them, why don't you send half of our fleet against them?"

Snotzenexer shook his head. "We can't let them know that we know their plan our they might turn desperate. Besides I still can't see what kind of strategy they could be applying, unless they plan to attack the Dark Ring from within. If that's the case, then they are poorly informed, because they'll never be able to navigate in the radiation storm. The solar wind will tear them apart." Snotzenexer looked out the window at the Hapans. He had just typed another message to some of his commanders and watched as the sly encircling tactic that a few Battle Dragons had been attempting was thwarted. "We'll just have to wait until they show their hand and then hope that they're bluffing."

* * *

The cloaking device finally gave out as they approached thirty-five hundred kilometers. Jon hadn't known how close he was to the Falcon, and backed off a few kilometers. Both ships were buffeted by the solar radiation as they flew still closer to the burning sun. Though the cloaking device was inoperable in the disturbance, both ships were invisible to all but the naked eye. However, both Vince and Bep were active and visible and now faced with dealing with two Imperial Star Destroyers armed to the teeth.

"Options?" Vince asked.

"Follow Jon into the radiation," Bep offered.

"Not an option," Vince replied. "Although they might be invisible to the Destroyer's weapon sensors, all the laws of probability that I know are telling me that the Imperials will get lucky with at least one shot, and our buddies' shields are at their limit right now. No, we're the distraction."

"You mean we're the meat they through at the banthas to keep 'em quiet," Bep corrected. "I don't like it."

"If I remember that trick correctly, there is usually poison in the meat."

This last comment awakened the fight in Bep. They had defeated bigger odds before, but it had never been just them. There had always been a fleet to divide the Imperials' attention. "Well they're almost here. I hope your lasers are powered up."

"Roger that."

"Let's get 'em!"

* * *

Lando was watching the targeting display and was growing concerned. They were now twenty-five hundred kilometers away. Lando didn't want to fire until he was at least fifteen hundred kilometers away. He knew that all he had to do was get the missile into the hole at the top of the Dark Ring, and Danzig 359's gravity would do the rest. He was afraid that if he shot too soon, the radiation interference would redirect the shot into the Dark Ring supper structure. Lando also knew that the interference was getting much worse than he had expected. It was tough to predict what the radiation would do, because nothing like the Dark Ring had ever been built before. Normally a sun can vent its furry over billions of square kilometers, but now that radiation was contained and only let out of two relatively small holes, magnifying it many times.

As Lando approached two thousand kilometers, he knew that if he went too much further, he wasn't going to be able to pull up before he followed the missile. Chewie, who had returned from fixing the hyperdrive, growled his concerns about the situation. "I know! I know!" Lando replied. "Just a little bit closer."

Chewie voiced his disagreement, adding a little more urgency. "OK, but you realize that this is our only chance." Chewie growled something about wishing to be alive to attend the victory party. "Bombs away!" Lando reached over and flipped a switch, opening the slot were the special sun crusher missile was located. Lando crossed his fingers and pressed the big red button.

The missile shot away from the Falcon at a great initial speed, but Lando immediately saw that the fuel storage compartment of the missile didn't hold enough propellant to fight against the radiation. Lando thought that the missile was probably designed to simply project itself toward the targeted sun and allowed the sun's gravity to do the rest. Normally a projectile in space will keep its speed without to much friction, but the missile buffeted in the radiation violently several times, and as Lando pulled the Falcon out of the disturbance, he had the sickening feeling that the missile was off target.

Jon had the same feeling, and he didn't pull out of the radiation, but stayed on course, chasing the wayward projectile. The super nova weapon had a huge lead on him, but his engines had better lasting power. By the time Jon caught up with the missile, he was only twelve hundred kilometers away from the Dark Ring. The missile had been thrown to the edge of the radiation, and it became obvious that it would crash into the super structure if Jon didn't do something about it.

Because the missile was near the edge of the radiation, Jon's sensors were coming back on line. He pulled his ship ahead of the missile so he was leading it slightly. He didn't know if his tractor beam could latch onto something as small as a missile or if it would hold on through the radiation, but it was his only option.

"Arnine," Jon said to his astromech droid mounted in the back, "I'll need your help on this one. You've got to tell me what's going on with the missile, OK." The R9 droid beeped a confirmation. Jon activated the tractor beam and waited a few anxious seconds before the R9 droid confirmed a successful catch. "OK," Jon said out loud, talking to himself as much as the droid, "I have to take it easy without to many sharp maneuvers or I'll loose the grip."

Jon was about a thousand kilometers away from the target now. The missile hadn't gone too far off course, and Jon figured that if he could get it in the center of the zone within five hundred kilometers, that it would stay on target.

Jon pulled the craft slowly back in line with the hole in the top of the Dark Ring. His droid kept him constantly informed of how far the missile lagged behind. When the distance got to big, Jon slowed a little to let the tractor beam reaffirm its weak grip.

When Jon reached the five hundred kilometer mark he came upon the grim realization that he was going to have to lead the missile the whole way in. All of Jon's past missions began flashing by in his mind. He had never really come that close to death before. He had been hit very few times, and those had only been glancing blows off his strong shields. He had never really considered death before, but if he went into the inside of the Dark Ring, he knew that his chances weren't too good for coming out.

Jon swallowed his fear an kept going forward. One hundred kilometers. Fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, ten, in. The inside of the Dark Ring was mesmerizing. Billions upon billions of solar panels, all glowing with blinding brightness.

Jon snapped out of his trance and let go of the missile. As he watched it head toward the sun, he realized that, at its present speed, it would take hours to reach the still distant sun. As if answering Jon's concern, the back of the missile lit up as its second stage thrusters kicked on. It must of had a reserve fuel tank that activated when it reached a certain proximity to the sun, Jon thought.

Now that he had gotten the super nova device to its destination, he had to get out of the Dark Ring. Jon pulled back on the flight stick, knowing that the one hundred eighty degree turn that he needed wasn't going to be possible. The shields were being pressed to their limit and about to overload. There just wasn't enough power to counter the maelstrom that existed inside the Dark Ring.

Jon managed to get his W-wing to complete ninety degrees of the turn and now faced a head on collision with the inside of the Dark Ring. Quick and painless, Jon thought and he increased his velocity. As he kept his futile attempt to pull out, he watched the distance between him and the inner wall of the Dark Ring fall beneath fifty kilometers. There was no way he was going to pull out in time.

Jon scanned his computer display as he counted down the seconds. He looked at the energy levels all pressed to their limits. The shields were about to short out. The engines were slowly loosing power, and they would cop out pretty soon, but Jon didn't think he was going to be around to notice. The laser batteries were long since drained since Jon had funneled all of the power into the shields and engines. There were still five green lights left on his display amidst all the red. Jon looked at the lights as another light slowly dawned in his mind. Torpedoes! He never bothered with the clumsy things in fighter to fighter combat, so he was still full.

Jon looked down at his proximity meter and saw that he had about fifteen kilometers left. He fired three of the torpedoes straight ahead and watched them explode against the solar panels. Jon slowed himself as much as possible, but could only pray that his torpedoes had opened a big enough hole for him. Oxygen flooded out of the hole as that small section of the Dark Ring decompressed. The out-flow of air helped to slow Jon's W-wing, but it also fed the flames of the explosions, so that Jon flew blindly into the ball of flame.

The few split seconds seemed like an eternity to Jon, as his ship flew into the hole. He expected to crash into the interior of the Dark Ring at any instant. He knew that the Imperials built their super weapons with a lot of space inside, and Jon hoped that that would help him out now.

The smoke cleared suddenly, and he found himself staring at a dead end less than a four hundred yards ahead of him. He thought he saw an opening downward and shoved the flight stick forward. The space below was extremely cramped, and it was only Jon's skill that kept him from crashing into each pipe and fixture that he shot passed.

Suddenly after a sharp maneuver that had squeezed him in-between two parallel pipes, he found himself inside a huge, straight tunnel. From what he could tell, the tunnel led in the direction of the outside surface of the Dark Ring. Jon had sudden sense of hope and throttled forward. As he flew down the multi-kilometer stretch, he looked down at his sensor display, noticing that the readouts were present once again now that he was out of the solar interference. He also noticed that he was picking up a huge power surge from behind him.

Jon watched curiously as the power surge grew astronomically. He had no idea what could cause that kind of power surge until he took a closer look at the tunnel he was in. He had looked at the specs of the Dark Ring before the mission and was aware of only one thing that could be this big. He was in one of the super laser tunnels, and it was about to fire!

Jon spared nothing to the engines. As he approached the end of the tunnel he saw that it wasn't open to space. He knew how the laser worked; Vince had told him. The main beam was split into several separate beams, each of the new beams was magnified, they were focused outside of the station to a point, and fired. Jon could see the large crystal that was used to split the beam ahead of him, and he knew that past the wall it was mounted on was open space.

Jon let go his last two torpedoes, and they exploded a huge hole in the thin wall. Jon ignored his sensor readouts that told him the weapon was firing, and focused on aiming his ship at the hole in the wall. The W-wing passed through the hole just as the laser hit the huge crystal. The hole Jon had made had shaken the entire section and had shifted the crystal's position slightly. The super laser was split into its component vectors, but because of the shift, the appropriate sensors did not pick up the components. Instead, the lasers tore through the tunnel walls surrounding the large focusing area. As Jon shot out of the hole, the entire section behind him exploded as the massive weapon misfired.

* * *

Lando had watched Jon toe the missile into the Dark Ring and had waited to see if his W-wing would reappear, hoping against hope that the ship was truly a superior vessel. He caught a glimpse of the small ship rocketing toward the inner wall of the Dark Ring, and then a large explosion engulfed the small fighter. Lando exhaled the breath he had been holding. War was a horrible thing. He knew that Jon had successfully guided the missile back on target, but he had been hoping to congratulate the courageous pilot afterward.

Lando reached for the com to inform the other W-wings of their partner's demise, when a huge explosion on the surface of the Dark Ring caught his attention. Lando stared transfixed at the sight of one of the Death Star lasers misfiring, wondering what could have caused it. He was about to chalk it up to poor Imperial engineering, when he spotted a small fighter flying just ahead of the explosion.

"He flew through the Dark Ring and out of a super laser tunnel!" Lando screamed. Chewie was no less impressed and said so. Lando continued his reach for the com, but signaled Jon instead. "You OK, buddy?"

"Never better," came Jon's nonchalant response, but Lando could hear the tension in his voice. "I just had to correct your horrible shot."

Lando wished he could sit there and chat with Jon all day, but he knew that the sun was about to go nova, and he wanted to be no where near it when it did.

* * *

Wedge was overjoyed to receive Lando's signal, being that his battle wasn't going well. He relayed the information to the rest of the fleet and ordered them to start calculating the hyperspace jump to the rendezvous point. They were going to have to cut it rather close because the interdiction field was still up. Wedge expected the interdiction field to collapse during the star's collapse and that should give them a window of a few minutes at least, probably much more, to jump out. Wedge wasn't sure exactly how fast the nova weapon worked. They had seen it work before, but this was a much smaller star than any of the others had been, plus it was confined inside a sphere, which might or might not affect it.

* * *

Tenel Ka was also glad to receive word that the task had been completed. She relayed the information to the rest of her fleet and waited.

* * *

Snotzenexer and Sanson watched the explosion on the surface of the Dark Ring, and neither of them missed the fighter flying away from the explosion.

"An interesting tactic," Sanson pointed out. "It would appear that the New Republic did indeed obtain the plans to the Dark Ring."

Snotzenexer looked at her as if she had grown another head. "Do you really believe that that is what the New Republic planned on?" It was the first time Snotzenexer had ever spoken to Sanson in contempt.

"What else?" she asked, knowing that she was about to be proven wrong. She had never known Snotzenexer to be wrong about anything.

"That type of strategy has kamikaze written all over it. To get through the Dark Ring's shielding through the top, enter the inside of the of the super structure by taking out the solar panels, weave through the infrastructure until you come to the firing tunnel, and then disorient the focusing crystal is a suicide mission. And I know from experience that when a pilot flies knowingly into a suicide mission, they make a point not to make it out alive. Besides, other than a pretty neat explosion, what did that attack give them. There are over one thousand super lasers scattered all over the Dark Ring, most of them located in the center of the station. Not only would the elimination of each, or more realistically, a few of the super lasers take an extraordinary amount of time, the success rate is almost incalculable. No, I believe that they are up to something else."

"But what?" Sanson asked, not thoroughly convinced. "Surely you don't think that they were attacking the sun. Why in order for that tactic to make any sense they would have to have a . . ."

They both looked at each other as they mentally finished Sanson's sentence.

Chapter 33 "Interlude"

Deep inside the core of Danzig 359, a bomb exploded.

Chapter 34 "The Dark Ring" (Part IV)

Borock and Thorock were busy studying the performance readouts of their creation when the power surge hit. The two Salynoids were very satisfied with the Dark Ring's performance thus far and were rather perplexed as to the cause of the sudden increase in power.

They quickly checked all of the systems on the station to see if anything had shut down. All appeared to be normal, yet the power surge continued to grow. The Salynoids were thoroughly perplexed as to what could be going wrong. They had designed the solar panels to be able to handle about one thousand times more energy than normal, knowing that stars were prone to violent solar flares, and they didn't want to have to repair panels and circuits each time Danzig 359 had a solar flare.

This wasn't a simple solar flare. The power readings were increasing everywhere, and the increase was much to uniform to be resulting from a chaotic solar flare. They had to be missing something. The two of them went to work frantically checking and rechecking everything.

In the command center Skeener was getting reports from all over the station about the power increase. "I don't want to hear about what it's doing, any more," he said to the latest report. "I want to hear how and why."

Meanwhile, the Salynoids were mesmerized by the power increase. The growth was far exceeding anything they had ever conceived when designing the station. The exponential growth kept climbing without any sign of slowing down. They were afraid to do anything with the solar panels, not knowing what reflecting that kind of power would do to the sun. They didn't dare disconnect the power systems, fearing that the immense power would explode the entire station if it had nowhere to go.

Skeener was pacing his command post when an explosion rocked the command center. He stopped his pacing suddenly. "What was that?"

"One of the batteries just overloaded, sir. We can't absorb this much power."

"Fire all weapons then. For crying out loud, we're in the middle of a war. If you can't find a productive use for a little extra energy, I'll find someone who can."

"Yes, sir."

Skeener returned to pacing but noticed that his left leg felt a little heavy. He flexed it slowly, trying to loosen the muscles that seemed to have stiffen. He tried to take another step and noticed that his right leg was stiff too. He bent over to grab his leg and noticed that his torso was also stiff. He tried to stand up, and it felt like he was wearing a very heavy backpack. "What's going on?!" he yelled. He looked around at his officers and noticed that they were struggling to against some unseen resistance as well. "I said, what's going on?!"

"It must be the interdiction field, sir. By routing the power through the offensive systems, as you requested, the interdiction field generator is producing an extreme amount of heavy space."

"Then turn the thing off!"

The officer reached over and pulled down on a large lever. Nothing happened. "It's still locked on, sir. The power surge must have fried the locking mechanism."

Skeener was finding it increasingly hard to move, and even his jaw muscle was stiff. "How much worse will . . . it . . . get?"

"Unnnknnoownnn . . . siiiir," the officer said straining to get out each word.

Skeener tried desperately to fight against the pull of the "heavy space," but his efforts were wasted against the much more powerful interdiction field.

* * *

On the New Republic ships they were experiencing the same thing. Wedge ordered all of ship commanders to have their hands poised over the hyperspace levers, realizing that their window might end up being shorter than expected.

* * *

Snotzenexer was still contemplating the idea that the New Republic might have a super nova weapon, when the interdiction field began to influence his ship. His mind raced through all of the possible causes and came up with one solution that fit all of the parameters. "Calculate a hyperspace jump to Hastrin," he ordered. No one questioned this odd order. Snotzenexer relayed this information to the rest of his ships just before total immobility hit.

* * *

All of the fighting broke off everywhere when the heavy space began to influence each ship. Vince and Bep were glad for the break in action, having faired fairly well despite the odds, but the stop in the fighting had probably saved their energy depleted ships.

Lando had just transferred the hyperspace coordinates to the three W-wings when he went immobile.

* * *

The huge Dark Ring fed off the energy of the collapsing star. The electrons of each individual atom began falling out of their outer shells and descending to the nucleus, giving off high-energy photons. The solar panels accepted these high-energy photons and transferred their energy into electrical power. The immense power was being fed into the interdiction field at an incredible rate. All of the power had been fed into the offensive systems, and while there had been an attempt to correct that error and all of the other offensive weapons were turned off, the interdiction lock had been welded into place.

The field grew in size and strength over the next few hours as the star continued to collapse. All of the ships remained motionless around the Dark Ring, as the normally fluid space became as solid as a brick. The size of the field extended far out into space. It was felt in some way throughout the entire Danzig system. It was especially felt by Danzig 6. The small star was just passing through the outer edge of its elliptical orbit when the heavy space began to surround the star.

The small star slowed down as the space around it began to thicken. It was caught right in the middle of a fierce tug of war. Danzig 1 was accelerating the small star normally, while Danzig 359, with the help of the Dark Ring, demanded that it stayed put. Danzig 6 was like a small stone in a sling shot, and the longer the tug of war went on, the further the elastic sling was pulled back.

Everything within range became totally motionless, frozen in space - almost everything. Danzig 359 was creating the power that ran the interdiction field. The Dark Ring obeyed the laws of thermodynamics, and thus didn't have one hundred percent efficiency. For that reason, Danzig 359 was always just a little bit ahead in the power struggle and was allowed to continue its collapse.

Danzig 359 was reaching the point of total collapse. The singularity that was being created had a near infinite density, and normal space was not used to such an immense property. Stability was quickly becoming a factor as the star continued to fall in on itself. Finally the shear weight of the singularity tore through the space time continuum, tearing the very fabric of existence and causing a dramatic explosion in every dimension.

Danzig 359 went nova.

The star had shrunk to a very small size, but now it expanded rapidly, sending a uniform shock wave out in all directions. The perfectly spherical shock wave met the perfectly centered Dark Ring all at once. The Dark Ring stood up against the shock wave much in the same way that a wet tissue stands up against a brick. Seventy-seven years of construction disappeared in a fraction of a second. The terrific force of nature obliterated the monstrosity.

As soon as the Dark Ring exploded, everything was released from its grip. Everywhere commanders stumbled forward as their momentum was suddenly returned to them. Men, who had been straining against the heavy space for the past few hours, found themselves suddenly free again, and they crashed into whatever they were near.

For General Oskiman and his men, this sudden freedom was short lived. The shock wave hit his impressive fleet of Star Destroyers, reducing them to space dust like a child kicking over a collection of sandcastles.

Wedge had warned his fleet to be ready, but the few seconds that they had to enter hyperspace once they were free, were not enough for some, and only about two thirds of the remaining ships made it into hyperspace ahead of the shock wave.

Snotzenexer had also warned his fleet, but his Super Star Destroyer was the only Imperial ship to escape. The Hapans had a one hundred percent success rate of escape, though none of the stolen Imperial ships made it.

Lando and the 185th also made it to hyperspace ahead of the shock wave, but they weren't headed the same way that the rest of the fleet was. They were following Snotzenexer to Hastrin.

* * *

Danzig 6 was suddenly freed from its stationary position, releasing the enormous potential energy that it had stored up. The star shot off into space, free from the orbit it had traced for the past eternity. It had now been turned into the largest comet in existence as it sped through space at one tenth of the speed of light.