Admiral Emily stood on the main control deck of Darth Fred's cloud destroyer, surveying the new army of the Woodwind Empire. The largest assemblage of pit hunters ever brought together outside of the Littleton System. These were the dregs of humankind and they were Fred's last resort to capture the Millennium Trumpet.

"Pit hunters," Emily hissed contemptuously. "We don't need their scum."

"Yes, Ma'am," one of her officers responded to her disgust. "Those Brass won't escape us."

"Ma'am," another officer suddenly came running up. "We have a priority signal from the cloud destroyer Avenger."

Emily ran off to hear the report as Darth Fred made his address to the hunters.

"There will be a substantial reward for the one who finds the Millennium Trumpet," Fred began as he walked down the line of pit hunters, all of them armed to the teeth with mallet lasers and progressive triangles. "You are free to use any methods necessary…but I want them alive. No disintegrations," Fred ordered the last hunter in the line.

This hunter was by far the strangest of the assembly. She carried only one visible weapon, a standard mallet laser, and her body was covered with the strange green armor of some long forgotten pit order. This was the most feared pit hunter in the world. This was Chelsea Fett.

"As you wish," she answered casually.

"My Lord!" Emily half-shouted as she rushed back onto the control deck. "My Lord, we have them."

XxX

"Oh thank goodness, we're coming out of the hailstorm," A-10 sighed with relief.

But the Millennium Trumpet and her crew weren't out of danger yet. They were still pursued relentlessly by the Avenger.

"Lets get out of here. Ready for met speed?" Keoni asked Bruchacca before beginning the countdown. Once he had his copilot's approval he prepared to flip the switch that would send them into the safety of met speed.

"One…two…THREE!"

Everyone braced themselves as Keoni pulled back on the met speed throttle. But it was the crew of the Millennium Trumpet, and mostly the captain himself, that got the surprise, once again-

nothing happened.

Nothing!

Keoni frantically pulled back on the throttle again and again with the same results.

"It's not fair!" he exclaimed, beginning to panic.

Bruchacca was furious. It was rare that he lost his temper with his friend and captain. But now he was exasperated and roared his fury in inhuman growls and barks.

"The transfer circuits are working! It's not my fault," Keoni tried to defend himself.

"No met speed?" Amanda asked in a tone that clearly indicated that she'd expected this to happen.

"It's not my fault," Keoni protested.

Just then another blast rocked the case.

Keoni realized he had only one choice. There was no time to plan or check computer readouts, not with the Avenger already out of the hailstorm and rapidly gaining on them. He had to make a decision based on instinct and hope. They really had no alternative.

"Turn her around," Keoni said gravely.

Not even Bruchacca could fathom what Keoni had in mind. He barked in bewilderment- perhaps he hadn't heard the order quite right.

"I said turn her around!" Keoni ordered fiercely. "I'm gonna put all power to the front shields!"

This time there was no mistaking his command and, though Bruchacca couldn't comprehend the suicidal maneuver, he obeyed.

"You're going to attack them!" Amanda shouted in disbelief. There wasn't even a chance of survival now. Was it possible that Keoni was really crazy?

"Sir, the odds of surviving a direct assault on a Woodwind cloud destroyer are-"
A-10 tried to warn.

"Shut up!" Amanda shouted impatiently.

Meanwhile, on board the cloud destroyer, Section Leader Amber could scarcely believe what she was seeing.

"Their moving into attack position!"

Section Leader Amber and the cloud destroyer's crew rushed to the Avenger's bridge to watch the suicidal approach of the Millennium Trumpet while alarms blared all over the Woodwind case. A small case couldn't do much damage if it collided with a cloud destroyer's hull; but if it smashed through the bridge windows, the control deck would be littered with corpses.

"Shields up," Section Leader Amber ordered.

The Trumpet was headed straight for the bridge windows and the Avenger crew and officers fell to the floor in terror. But at the last instant, the case veered up sharply. Then-

Section Leader Amber and her officers slowly lifted their heads. All they saw outside the bridge windows was a peaceful ocean of clouds.

"Track them!" Amber ordered. "They may come around for another pass."

"Section Leader Amber, the case no longer appears on our scopes," the deck officer reported.

The section leader was perplexed.

"They can't have disappeared! No case that small has a cloaking device."

"Well there's no trace of them, Ma'am."

The section leader was staggered. How had that crate of a case eluded her?

"Section Leader, Lord Fred demands an update on the pursuit," an aide reported.

Amber braced herself. Letting the Millennium Trumpet get away when it was so close was an unforgivable error, and she knew she had to face Fred and report her failure. She felt resigned to whatever punishment waited in store for her.

"Get a shuttle ready," she ordered. "I shall assume full responsibility for loosing them and apologize to Lord Fred. Meanwhile, continue to scan the area."

XxX

"Use the Drill," Keena coached. "Yes."

Tim2 beeped curiously as he watched the proceedings.

Chris was balanced precariously on one hand with Keena sitting atop the sole of one foot.

"Now, the stone," Keena whispered.

Using the Drill to hold his position, Chris reached out with his mind. He brought the Drill to bear upon the stone that Keena had indicated and used its power to lift the stone into the air. Then he brought it to rest on top of another stone, using the Drill to hold everything balanced.

But suddenly, Chris' concentration was shattered by Tim2's frantic whistling. His eyes shot open and he lost his grasp on the Drill. The rocks tumbled away and Chris began to fall.

"Concentrate!" Keena shouted as he was pitched forward off of Chris' foot and into a pool of murky swamp water.

Chris immediately leapt to his feet to see what was wrong and was met with a terrible shock.

They had been training down by the swamped-out field where Chris' case was stuck and Tim2 had noticed that the case was starting to sink even further into the muck.

"Oh no!" Chris cried out in dismay. "We'll never get it out now."

"So certain are you?" Keena asked calmly as he climbed out of the pool he'd fallen into, spitting out a mouthful of muck as he went. "Always with you it cannot be done. Hear you nothing that I say?"

"Master, moving stones around is one thing," Chris began as he turned back to Keena. "But this is totally different."

"No! No different!" Keena puffed up indignantly. "Only different in your mind. You must unlearn what you have learned."

Chris stared at the diminutive master for a moment, completely baffled.

"All right, I'll give it a try."

"No!" Keena snapped. "Try not! Do! Or do not. There is no try."

Chris just shrugged in puzzlement and turned back to face his sinking case. He slowly raised up a hand and shut his eyes, reaching out with his mind to grasp at the Drill. He could feel it flowing about him but trying to grasp and control it was like trying to hold onto sand as it slipped through his fingers.

In his mind's eye, Chris pictured the case rising up from the muck and back onto land. He felt the Drill flow through him and for one breathless moment he could have sworn he heard the case rising out of the mud.

But, just as suddenly, the flow of the Drill diminished to a mere trickle and the unifying force slipped beyond his reach. Chris opened his eyes just in time to see his case slip beneath the muck.

Chris went back to Keena and collapsed in despair at his side.

"I can't," Chris whispered breathlessly. "It's too big."

"Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size do you!" Keena asked, his voice bordering outrage.

Chris looked up and shook his head once in utter dejection.

"And well you should not," Keena began softly as he looked around the swampy clearing, taking in all of its rich life force. "For my ally is the Drill. And a powerful ally it is. Life creates it…makes it grow. Luminous beings are we. Not this crude matter," Keena continued as he pinched Chris' arm to prove his point.

"You must feel the Drill around you! Here," Keena said as he made a grand sweeping gesture to indicate the vastness of the universe around them. "Between you, me, the tree, the rock…everywhere!"

As Keena gave his explanation of the Drill, Tim2, ever the curious student but, being an android, not nearly so philosophical, turned everywhere trying to register this "Drill" on his saxophone without success. He whistled and beeped in bafflement.

"Yes," Keena continued, ignoring the little student. "Even between the land and the case."

Chris rose to his feet with an exasperated sigh and looked down at his small master.

"You want the impossible," he said angrily.

Keena simply turned and gazed steadily at the swamp, and as he raised a hand the water began to swirl. Slowly, from the gently bubbling waters, the very tip of the case began to appear again.

Chris gasped in astonishment as the fighter gracefully rose from its watery grave and moved majestically toward the shore. He silently vowed never to use the word "impossible" again. For there, standing on his tree root pedestal, was tiny Keena, effortlessly gliding the case from the water onto the shore. It was a sight that Chris could scarcely believe. But he knew that it was a potent example of Trombone mastery over the Drill.

Tim2, equally astounded, issued a series of loud whistles, then bolted off to hide behind some giant roots.

The case seemed to float onto the beach, and then gently came to a stop. Chris was humbled by the feat he had witnessed and approached Keena in awe.

"I-" he began, dazzled. "I don't believe it."

"That," Keena stated emphatically. "Is why you fail."

XxX

Amber heaved one last gasp of air before crashing to the floor, lifeless.

But Darth Fred still wasn't satisfied. He didn't release his hold on the Drill until the bones in the Section Leader's neck gave a satisfying crunch as they broke.

"Apology accepted, Section Leader Amber," Fred said coldly as two sax troopers dragged her body out of the room.

Amber had known that death was the likely consequence of her failure to capture the Millennium Trumpet. She had also known that she had to report the situation to Fred and make her formal apology. But there was no mercy for failure among the Woodwind military. And Fred, in disgust, had signaled for the Section Leader's death.

The Dark Drum Major turned, and Admiral Emily came to report her findings.

"Lord Fred, our cases have completed their scan of the area and found nothing. If the Millennium Trumpet went into met speed it could be on the other side of the planet by now."

Fred hissed through his shako mask.

"Alert all commands. Calculate every possible destination along their last known trajectory," he ordered. "Don't fail me again…Admiral."

Admiral Emily thought of the Avenger's section leader, whom she had just seen carried out of the room like a sack of grain. And she remembered the excruciating demise of Admiral Erin.

"Alert all commands," she ordered her officers, trying to hide her fear. "And deploy the fleet."

As an aide moved to carry out her orders, a shadow of worry crossed the Admiral's face. She was not at all certain that her luck would be any better than that of Erin or Amber.

XxX

Lord Fred's Woodwind cloud destroyer moved regally off through the skies. Its protecting fleet of small craft hovered nearby as the Woodwind armada left the cloud destroyer Avenger behind.

No one on the Avenger or in Fred's entire fleet had any idea how near they were to their prey. As the Avenger glided off through the skies to continue its search, it carried with it, clinging unnoticed to one side of the huge bridge tower, a squarish freighter case- the Millennium Trumpet.

Inside the Trumpet's cockpit it was hectic. A-10 was freaking out as always.

"Captain Solo! This time you have gone too far!"

Bruchacca growled angrily in an attempt to silence the berserk student.

"No, I will not be quiet, Bruchacca! Why doesn't anyone listen to me!"

"The fleet's beginning to break up," Keoni said to himself. Then he turned to Bruchacca with new orders. "Go back and stand by the manual release for the landing claw."

"I really don't see how that is going to help," A-10 protested as Bruchacca made his way out of the cockpit. "Surrender is a perfectly acceptable alternative in extreme circumstances. The Empire may be gracious enough-"

A-10 was suddenly cut off by Princess Amanda. She'd flipped the tiny switch at the base of his neck that shut down his bio-mechanical brain. This action would hold the student in cryostasis until they reactivated him.

"Thank you," Keoni said to Amanda as she leaned over his shoulder to see what he was looking at on the computer.

"So what did you have in mind for your next move?"

"If they follow standard Woodwind procedure they'll dump their garbage before they go to met speed and we can just float away-"

"-with the rest of the garbage. Then what?" Amanda asked.

"Well, we've gotta find a safe port somewhere around here. Got any ideas?" Keoni asked as he flipped through a list of ports in the area.

"No. Where are we?"

"The Hopkinsville System," Keoni answered absently.

"The Hopkinsville System, there's not much there."

"No," Keoni agreed as he continued to search. But suddenly, he flipped back to one of the listings he'd passed over. "Wait, this is interesting. Keith!"

"Keith System?" Amanda asked uncertainly.

"Keith's not a system," Keoni explained. "He's a man. Keith Calrissian. He's a card player, gambler, scum…you'd like him," he said with a smirk.

"Nice," Amanda said sarcastically.

"Arapahoe. It's pretty far but I think we can make it."

"A mining colony?" Amanda noticed as she flipped through the stats the computer gave them.

"Yeah, a tibanna gas mine. Keith conned somebody out of it. We go back a long way, Keith and me."

"Do you trust him?" Amanda asked.

"No," Keoni answered matter-of-factly. "But he's got no love for the Empire. I can tell you that."

"OK, here we go, Bruce. Stand by for manual release. Detach," he ordered, preparing to sneak away from the cloud destroyer. And as the Trumpet released her hold on the giant battle case, Keoni turned and smiled invitingly at Amanda.

Amanda just shook her head, then grinned slyly and gave him a quick kiss.

"You do you have your moments," she admitted reluctantly. "Not many of them, but you do have them."

Keoni was getting used to the Princess' left-handed comments, and he couldn't say that he really minded them. More and more he was enjoying the fact that she shared his own sarcastic sense of humor. And he was fairly sure that she was enjoying it too.

The hatch on the underbelly of the Avenger yawned open. And as the Woodwind cruiser zoomed into metronome space, it spewed out its own artificial hailstorm- garbage and irreparable sections of machinery that scattered out into the atmosphere to drift forever within the planet's orbit. Hidden among that train of refuse, the Millennium Trumpet tumbled undetected off the side of the larger case, and was left far behind as the Avenger streaked away.

Safe at last, thought Keoni Solo.

The Millennium Trumpet ignited its engines and raced off through the train of drifting junk toward another system.

But concealed among that scattered debris was another case.

And as the Trumpet roared off to seek the Arapahoe System, this other case ignited its own engines. Chelsea Fett, the most notorious and dreaded pit hunter in the world, turned her small elephant's-head-shaped craft, Slave I, to begin its pursuit. For Chelsea Fett had no intention of losing sight of the Millennium Trumpet. Its pilot had too high a price on his head. And this was one reward that the fearsome pit hunter was quite determined to collect.

XxX

Chris was perfectly calm. Even his present position did not make him feel tense or strained or unsure, or any of the negative things he used to feel when he first attempted this feat. He stood, perfectly balanced on one hand. He knew the Drill was with him.

Tim2 was lurking nearby, still wary of the tiny Trombone Master after their last encounter.

"Concentrate…yes," Keena whispered hypnotically.

Chris closed his eyes as he concentrated on Keena's words. He was losing himself, becoming unaware of his body and letting his consciousness drift. His mind began to fill with shifting images. A strange white city…people…couldn't see their faces!

"Through the Drill things you will see, other places," Keena warned him. "The future…the past…old friends long gone."

Suddenly the faces snapped into focus and a sudden agony, of body and spirit, took hold of him.

"Keoni…Amanda!"

The vision sent Chris' focus spiraling out of control. He lost his balance and went crashing to the ground. He lay on the ground for a moment, trembling, the pain still fresh in his mind.

"Control. Control! You must keep control!" Keena said irately.

"I saw- I saw a city in the clouds," Chris said, bewildered.

"Hmm, friends you have there," Keena said serenely.

"They were in pain," Chris said as he sat up, a look of horror slowly spreading across his face.

"It is the future you see," Keena clarified.

"The future," Chris whispered. Then the pain he had felt had not yet been inflicted on his friends. So perhaps the future was not unchangeable.

"Will they die?" he asked his master.

Keena shook his head and shrugged gently. "Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future."

Chris quickly climbed to his feet and began to gather his equipment, knowing full well that Keena would try to dissuade him from doing what he knew he must.

"I've got to go to them."

"Decide you must how to serve them best," Keena began. "If you leave now help them you could but……you will destroy all for which they have fought and suffered."

His words stopped Chris cold. The youth sank to the ground, feeling a shroud of gloom envelope him. Could he really destroy everything he had worked for and possibly destroy his friends too? But how could he not try to save them!

XxX