"Raider, man incoming! Don't let him board you," Terrah ordered into her wrist transceiver as she ran. She couldn't be sure, but she thought she heard Videsse giving a similar order into her communicator as they ran down the metal hall. Their footfalls clanged on the rusted metal grates like captured animals slamming at cage bars.

"If that scum gets our ship, you'll have a price to pay, Mistok," Cotrell yelled out.

They turned the corner and came to the elevator transport, but it had already left with the fleeing pirate. Terrah shot the control mechanism on the right and then pried the doors open. As soon as the doors were open enough for her to slip through, she leapt into the black corridor. Her boot boosters ignited for a split second to soften the landing as she touched down on top of the elevator transport. With quick movements, she unlatched the dorsal hatch and dropped in. The Weequay had already exited and was in the landing bay.

The Blood Krayt lurched and shook, announcing the impending hyperdrive activation. Terrah took a step to balance and then sprinted with red-blooded strides toward Raider.

The Weequay ran from Raider, the ship's blaster fire at his heels. He dashed toward the Kom'rk fighter, but a PZ droid donning an E-11 blaster rifle stood resolutely in front of it. The fear on the Weequay's face was evident as the pirate ship shook again. He darted for the Corellian light freighter; and, finding no one guarding it, he disappeared up the ramp.

The rest of the infiltrators had now arrived on the landing bay. Calling out to the droid, Videsse ran toward the Kom'rk ship. "PZ-85, get in and get the systems on now!"

"Yes, Ohara," the PZ droid replied. Then he pivoted awkwardly and suffered a slight epileptic tremor before hobbling back to the Kom'rk fighter. He moved slowly, even for a protocol droid, twitching every other step.

The U-shaped Corellian light freighter began to lift, angling toward the exit.

Cotrel gritted his sharp teeth, before pulling out his blaster and firing on the freighter. "Get that dead man off my ship!" He knew the blaster would do no good, but he fired anyway.

With one final and unexpected lurch, the Blood Krayt erupted into hyperspace. Everyone fell to the floor with the seismic disruption. The hovering freighter slammed against the wall of the landing bay, denting it but not destroying either the bay or the freighter. The Weequay stabilized the freighter and angled back for the open bay, the blue nebulous light of hyperspace now casting shifting shadows behind him.

"What's he doing?" Cotrel asked as he got up. "He can't go out now."

However, that is what he was doing. Cotrel's freighter drifted toward the exit and started to pass through.

"He's crazy!" the Duros exclaimed.

"And he's going to destroy my ship if he passes beyond the quantum field!" Cotrel added with furious rage as he shot a glare at Mistok. Mistok looked away sheepishly.

For a moment it looked as if the freighter might be able to pass, its dual mandibles well through the exit, but that was short-lived. Once the stern of the ship had just passed out of the energy field, the ship shifted unexpectedly, its bow jerking aft just before it dissolved before the forward mandibles like sand in a river current; the bow, the engines, the cockpit and finally the stern all erased away in a granulated cyclonic mist.

The rest watched silently, their hope erased away with it.

"What did he do that for!" Noes called out. "He had to know he would have died."

No one wanted to give an answer.

"It was worth it," Terrah's eventually said with deadly finality. They turned to look at her. "He knew he was dead," she continued. "Better dead than trapped."

Terrah shifted her gaze to Videsse who was with the PZ droid in front of the Mandalorian starfighter. The droid had fallen with the hyperspace jump and struggled rheumatically to get itself up. Videsse had her arm under his, helping to lift him, like a daughter aiding an old man. There was a slow and careful tenderness in the way the girl helped the droid. She lifted him upright and rubbed his shoulder. Videsse spoke soft words to the droid that Terrah could not hear. Terrah looked away and to the ground.

...

"So, what do we do now?" Mistok asked, rubbing the gray-scaled skin of his forehead.

"We have to shut off the hyperdrive," Terrah replied with the obvious. "And quickly."

"Easier said than done," Noes chided. "You can't just flip a switch. Sleenwai's made sure of that."

Terrah turned around to think and folded her arms as she paced in front of the battered E-Wing. She looked at the E-Wing and was distracted a moment in thought. Videsse joined the group.

"Whose snub is this?" Terrah asked.

No one answered. The snub-fighter was a mystery to all of them. "Well, we need to shut down the hyperdrive," Terrah continued. "And we need to keep an eye out for the owner of this junk ship. Someone else is sneaking around here."

"I gotta idea about the drive," Videsse returned to the pressing matter and stepped forward. PZ-85 remained with her ship.

"Yeah, I'm sure you do," Cotrel jabbed and fingered his head tentacle piercing.

Videsse put her hand on her pistol. "Well, I can make sure you don't hear it if you don't wanna!"

Cotrel's slight chuckle showed that he was not affected by Videsse's threat.

"Let's hear her," Terrah said and walked up beside Videsse. "What are you thinking, Ohara?"

"We need to back-flood the motivator," Videsse said. "Just reverse hook some power cells-I saw a bunch on the cargo hold manifest-and hook 'em to the motivator. It'll choke."

"Tech talk," Mistok gasped. "What's she even saying?"

Cotrel waved his arms, "That right, Noes?"

"She could be right," the Duros said. "The motivator modifies the energy from the core for the hyperdrive. Overload the motivator, and that'll starve the hyperdrive. She may have a point, but it'll wreck the core."

"Who cares about the core?" Cotrel asked.

"We will when it blows up," Noes answered.

"Fine, forget the kid's idea," Cotrel quickly stated.

"Wait," Videsse jumped in. "It won't blow up! It'll just fracture . . . causing a gaseous fuel leak. Which . . . could explode. . . if ignited with a faulty electrical system." The loading bay lights flickered out for a moment. Videsse was not helping her argument. "But we'd have time."

"How much," Terrah asked.

"Ten or fifteen minutes, maybe," Videsse replied. "Enough to get outta here, anyway."

"I say we just blow the motivator up," Mistok added his opinion to the discussion.

"Fine," Videsse said with acidic determination. "A motivator big enough for this ship-it takes the equivalent of a Resurgent-class Star Destroyer turbolaser blast. You got that much explosive on your belt?"

The Karkaradon looked down as if he was going to check but then looked back up with embarrassment.

After a moment with no comments, Terrah asked, "Any other ideas?" No one could come up with one. "Then let's not waste time and get this done."