2 ABY

Kyle settled back into his chair, exhausted, laying a hand on his fork though he had no intention of finishing his chandads and mounder potato rice. Recounting the entire story of the Surraj affair had been cathartic, but it had also put an end to his appetite. Jan Ors, on the other hand, had somehow managed to finish her own dinner without Kyle noticing. He guessed he could chalk that up to her talents as a spy.

It was late, long past serving hours, and the Independence's mess hall had mostly cleared out. Dishes clattered and glassware clinked (and occasionally shattered) as droid and organic waitstaff cleaned their way through the cavernous room.

Subtly, Jan's look reached into Kyle and warmed a very deep and hidden part of him. He realized it was because he was allowing her to. Up to this point, he hadn't told her a whole lot about his upbringing.

"Your father was a very wise man," she said quietly. "You really can't tell a good person by a uniform."

Kyle nodded, supposing there were many people she could be referring to. The two of them, for instance. Several times they had met as enemies, Imperial and Rebel, before she showed him which side the good men of the war belonged on. But there was also Crix Madine, whose true character, it seemed, had been obscured by both uniforms.

Jan continued, "Those two men, what they did... I don't understand, how could a small community even survive something like that? Being fooled, being... infested by those monsters? The scandal, the shame, the— How could they trust anyone ever again? Or each other? The community should have shaken itself apart."

"That's the thing, Jan. It didn't. Everyone knew about it, all the adults, and it was a shock. I bet it still gets talked about. But at the end of the day— I mean, fundamentally it was just another local problem, so the men of the community got together, took care of it, and went on with their lives... There was nothing else they could do."

From the look on Jan's face, Kyle could see that she didn't quite follow. Though he didn't know where home was for her, he would've bet a lot of credits that it was a coreward system, someplace densely populated with bright lights, slick maglevs that always ran on time, clean turbolifts, and a smiling planetary security officer on every street corner. Despite all the smarts and guts which served her so well in Alliance Intelligence, Jan Ors did not intuitively grasp the underlying logic of frontier life on the Rim.

Contrariwise, Kyle Katarn—dirt farm Rimmer that he was—did not understand anything else.

"They took care of it fast. I'm not sure how long it took Jameson to figure out what the Surrajes were up to—but after he did, it was over and done with in a week. Less than a week." He snapped his fingers sharply for effect. "I think that's what gets me about this whole Madine thing— I mean, part of it. They drop the news that Crix is a groomer and a child rapist. The Alliance rank-and-file goes absolutely crazy, starts flinging out stories and speculation and accusations... and High Command just sits on it. For days."

"Something like this is big," Jan pointed out. "It'll take time to investigate thoroughly."

"Sure it will, but in the meantime they're doing frack-all to calm anyone down. Every time I log onto FleetNet, it's crazier than the last time. This afternoon, there was the stupidest subcomment I ever read in my life: some nikkle nut-brained skraghead accusing Luke Skywalker of covering up what Madine was doing."

"Now that is a stretch," said Jan, laughing without mirth.

"All the monitors do is delete transmissions that directly break the rules, but even then it's only sometimes. And there's only been one official statement since the news first broke. They're letting people run wild."

Jan knitted her brows. "I read you, Kyle, but how do you think they should handle this? Just stop everyone from talking somehow?"

Kyle took a few seconds to think, then firmed his jaw. "Absolutely. If it was me in charge, I'd ban anyone who engaged in discussion of Madine while the investigation was ongoing." Just saying that, declaring it, articulating such an obvious and commonsensical action made him feel deadly, as he had while blasting his way through hologram Imperials back in the training concourse. "We need a total and complete shutdown of anyone publicly discussing Madine until Cracken's people can figure out what the hell is going on."

Jan stared at him, her head cocked, not opposed but not fully convinced, either.

"Come on," Kyle told her, "you work for Intelligence. Controlling information's right up your hyperlane, isn't it?"

Her eyes tightened, grew resolute, as though Kyle had made a joke in poor taste. "Information warfare is for the enemy, Kyle. Not other Rebels."

Grimly, subtly, Kyle grinned back at her. Jan was no pushover. She knew how to punch back, rhetorically and otherwise, and he couldn't help being impressed.

Meanwhile, there was the matter of Crix Madine himself, and whoever on Kolaador Base and perhaps beyond had aided and protected him while he preyed upon defenseless younglings.

How many accomplices did Madine have? How highly ranked were they?

What would happen if some of them were never caught?

"If Cracken doesn't solve this case soon," said Kyle Katarn, "then the Alliance will become its own enemy."

A full standard week passed.

Kyle hounded Mon Mothma's office daily, first thing every morning and sometimes in the afternoons when he got sick of prowling the Independence's concourses and corridors like a kath hound pacing in its cage. Sure enough, the Chief of State was barricaded behind her staff and their usual shield of excuses—she was too busy, High Command hadn't yet called for an operative with Katarn's skills, and so on.

The temptation to blast his way through the secretaries and protocol droids to talk to the woman in person doubled each morning, and the only way to wrestle it down was by hitting the training rooms and the dojo—hard. Kyle sharpened himself until he was like a vibroblade fresh out of the Merr-Sonn factory.

He saw Jan when he could, which wasn't much. A quick lunch here and there. Intel was still burying her with datascreen work, but since it was Intel, she couldn't say much about it. More importantly, it was obvious that she wasn't sleeping well. A consummate professional, Jan didn't complain of the work... but she did complain about her colleagues. Gossip about the Madine scandal was still sizzling hot wherever she went—the offices, the water unit, the mess hall—and rarely did anyone take Jan's hints that she was sick of hearing about it.

As for Kyle, he stopped checking FleetNet after a day or two. It was just more of the same bolshit, and he felt stupid for the many hours he had already wasted reading it. He spent most of his remaining time in the solitary repair bay, helping Molindi fix up the Moldy Crow. There were times when it grated on Kyle's nerves. The little Mon Cal was as jumpy and absent-minded as ever, and he often misplaced more important things than just his comlink. But on the whole he was a steady mechanic and made good company. The guy took pride in his work. It felt good to be working toward a goal again, watching the Crow come back together, piece by rickety piece.

Still, by midweek, Kyle's mind was made up. If the Alliance didn't find some work for him by the time the ship was ready, he'd leave the fleet and go back to freelancing for a while. Enough was enough.

Kyle was in an upper level of the main concourse, elbows on the railing, staring down into the beating heart of the Rebel Alliance. It was a few hours after lunch cycle, not quite as hectic as 0700, but the traffic was plenty fierce—every man, woman, and droid singularly focused on getting around each other and to their individual destinations.

It was strange to think they were still managing that, considering the endless gigabytes of shrieking blather they were pouring into FleetNet on account of Crix Madine. According to the latest survey, more than 94% of Alliance personnel logged into FleetNet at least four times a standard day. And contrary to popular aphorism (and it was the same with the Empire's HoloNet), there was no hard and fast distinction between what people transmitted and "real life"—every stupid, bizarre, meandering string of grammar-butchering words or shaky, stammering holovid footage came from a real person somewhere out there in the galaxy. And as much as Kyle tried not to, he kept overhearing conversations about the scandal, variations of every vacbrained opinion imaginable. How could any of them concentrate on anything, when they were so constantly overstimulated, overexcited? It was no way to run a military. Even the Imperial Academy had followed greater discipline.

His comlink buzzed, and he raised it to his mouth, still squinting down into the crowd. "Katarn here."

"Kyle, where are you?" Jan's voice.

"Uh..." Kyle glanced around. "The main concourse, Level 4."

"I need you in my quarters."

The words I thought we were only friends rolled onto Kyle's tongue, but stopped there. Jan's voice was tight and ragged. It had the same tone as when she was threading the Moldy Crow through the cloud of TIE Fighters over Talus. Whatever was going on, this was not the time for a quip.

He pushed off from the rail. The adrenaline was already pumping. "What's wrong?"

"Just get the frack over here," said Jan.

Jan engaged the door's magnetic seal as soon as it hissed shut. "Have you been on FleetNet?" she asked.

Kyle frowned. "Not lately... Haven't felt this good in weeks. Why?"

"I need you to look at this."

As for Jan Ors, she wasn't looking too good. Shadows hung from her eyes, and loose strands of hair dangled sloppily as though her ponytail was fraying apart. Her combat vest lay in a heap on the room's only bunk. Kyle followed her to a desk and waited as she flipped her portcomp open. The woman's every move, every gesture, was graceless and precise. If Kyle didn't know better, he would think she had been attacked.

When FleetNet had loaded, Kyle took the chair and pulled up the node Jan indicated. It was nothing special at first, just more rankweed suckers blowing smoke about what they'd do if they ever got their hands on Crix Madine. Kyle saw a lot of avatars featuring blast cannons, arrows, stylistic bloodstains, skulls and crossbones—seemed like Alliance Special Forces. This was the kind of macho tough guy talk they were fond of.

The Alliance has a serious problem with defectors and other "ex-" Imperials, said one, whose picture was a mockup of Darth Vader's helmet overlaid by crosshairs. If Madine's proven anything, it's that the vetting process needs to be way, way stricter. If that's too costly, then just purge them. No more Imperials from now on. You gassed some civvies because his majesty the emperor told you to, but now you feel bad for it? You should feel bad. Now get up against the wall, gock-sucker.

Kyle snorted audibly, then felt like punching the screen when he saw how many pluses that subcomment had gotten. Purge ex-Imperials? Did anyone even know how many Rebel troopers and officers fit into that category? Not to mention it would gut the Alliance's leadership. These bantha-brains really didn't think twice about anything that entered their heads.

It must have been nice, he thought, to be born on the right side. To not be a victim of the Imperial propaganda machine, to be so smart that you've never been tricked. To not have to live with the burden of knowing you had been used to kill good men and women who were only fighting for freedom. Not all of us are so lucky, Kyle wanted to say. But he had never left a subcomment on a FleetNet node since making his account, not once. He was a committed skulker, and he wasn't about to give that up... and again, nobody paid him to correct idiots.

Jan was hovering so close over his shoulder that he could feel her breath. "Keep reading," she urged through gritted teeth.

Kyle went on, skimming, still wondering what had gotten her so upset.

He didn't wonder for long.

Further down, somebody called Yobcrab Salad wrote, Hot tip for everyone, just found this out. While Crix Madine was trying to defect, he got foxed out by Vader and thrown in an Imperial prison on Orinackra. Scheduled for execution and everything. Just days later High Command (anyone else seeing the pattern?) sent an elite two-man team to bust him out. Has anyone heard of a spook by the name Kyle Katarn?

Kyle blinked. Then he read some more.

The next subcomment read, Katarn's not really a spook, he's a mercenary. A lot of his missions come directly from Mon Mothma. I ran into the guy once aboard the frigate Salvation. I'll bet he gets paid a lot better than any of us.

And just how the hell would you know, Pallax_Z_Tork99? thought Kyle Katarn searingly. Have you had a look at my monthly expenses?

Wonder how this piece of skrag feels, knowing he rescued a child rapist, the next subcomment said. What a hero for the rebel cause.

Wake the kriff up, people, exhorted General Kota's Top Guy. P3dophile$ protect each other. There's no Rebel/Imperial distinction for them. They are the third side in this war.

Star Creep, represented by a drawing of a k'lor'slug, added this: The merc didn't only rescue Madine. The two worked very closely on Vergesso when SpecForce was setting up shop there. Forget about General Rieekan. If Intel's still questioning people, put this Katarn guy at the top of the list. He must know something.

Eight or nine subcomments followed, all of them in agreement. One even came from a low-level Intel officer who simply noted it was Perhaps a lead we can look into.

The last message in the node said this: AI moves like a sleepy Hutt. They CAN NOT afford to sit on this. If anyone, and I mean, ANYONE, knows where Katarn is, send me a private transmission.

Cold and clinical as a 21-B medical droid, Jan continued to direct his attention. In total there were five nodes where Kyle was being talked about, all of them saying the same couple of things. The ragefleet circlejerk had found him—and a few users were asking who his partner at Orinackra had been.

Finally it was too much. Blood simmering, heart pounding, Kyle shoved the portcomp away and shot to his feet. "Bolshit," he snarled. "This is bolshit. These guys are trying to get me detained!" He faced Jan, then spun halfway back to the portcomp and froze. "We can't just— We've got to report those subcomments! There has to be a rule against this kind of crap! It's defamation!"

"I did report them," Jan spat. "All those stupid astromech monitors did was acknowledge. No deletion, no bans, nothing."

"What about the other monitors? They're not all droids!"

"They don't seem to be logged on very much these days."

Kyle growled and paced away, but Jan's voice followed close. "There's more. I think some of the guys in Intel know I helped you save Madine. At least, they suspect. They're talking. They give me these... looks, glances, when they think my back's turned, or they go silent when I come into the room. Everyone's different around me. I mean, am I crazy? It's been happening to you too, right?"

He turned to her again, scratching at the stubble which bristled on his jaw. He hadn't noticed anyone treating him differently or sneaking dirty looks... but then again, he hadn't been looking out for it. Why would he? This was the flagship of the Rebel Alliance. It was supposed to be friendly territory. "I don't know," he hedged. "Maybe."

She crossed the room to him. Her composure was cracked, brittle. The look on her face said, Hostiles inbound. "Kyle, listen to me. This is real. It's not going to go away, and it's not just people blowing off steam. Somebody could— Somebody might do something."

Kyle stared at her, through her, his mind racing like a swoop jockey roaring down Kuar Canyon. He had already considered this possibility, that the FleetNet hysteria might finally burst out into the "real world," that someone would get mad enough to take matters into their own hands... but that had only been a hypothetical, something he could daydream about for a few minutes, then shake his head and forget about. And in his head, someone else would be the target.

But this wasn't in his head. It wasn't hypothetical anymore. There were nearly seven thousand people aboard the Independence, and it was fair to assume all of them were addicted to FleetNet. Everywhere he went, people were gazing rapturously into their portcomps or stealing looks at their datapads every fifteen seconds. Completely plugged in, twenty-four standard hours a day. What if one of them really took this crap seriously—seriously enough to take a shot at Kyle? Would he see them coming out of the crowd?

What if they took a shot at Jan?

His guts went cold, started to curl in on themselves as he stared into her fierce, lovely, too fragile eyes. What the frack was going on? Why was Alliance Command allowing this to happen?

He gritted his teeth and looked away, forcing himself to slow down. He had to be calm, had to be able to think.

"You're right," he said. "We've got to find the monitors, the actual flesh-and-bloods in person, and make them step up their game. They can't go on letting this stuff get transmitted until someone's hurt. We have to—"

"We have to get out of here," said Jan, cutting him off.

"Huh?"

"We take the Moldy Crow and leave—you and me. Find some low-profile jobs on the Rim and make a few credits. Come back in a few months when all this has blown over. That's what we should do."

And just like that, Kyle's mind was racing again. It was definitely a solution, the simplest one available... "No," he said. "No way."

Jan edged closer, shaking her head. The tremor in her words was unmistakable. "It's not the same Rebel Alliance as before, Kyle. We're not safe."

Kyle fought to keep his head. "This is a terrible idea. If a bunch of bantha-breath vacbrains on FleetNet know about us—or me—then whoever's investigating the Madine case has to know, too. There were even some Intel guys transmitting in those nodes! If we're under suspicion and then suddenly we disappear, what's that gonna look like?"

"I'm telling you, we can't stay. Nothing else matters. If we don't get out now, this whole thing will fall on us. I don't— I can't explain this, but I know it. I can feel it."

They were face to face now. Again there was that rare pleading in Jan's tone, that vulnerability in the toughest woman Kyle Katarn had ever met. It sank into his chest like a Kamino saberdart.

When he could speak, he said, "You know, usually I'm the one deciding what we'll do based on gut feelings and hunches."

Jan cocked her head, trying to smile. "Guess it's my turn, huh?"

Kyle pinched the bridge of his nose, controlling his breathing. "We can't simply take the Crow and bolt. There's hoops to jump through, especially on your end."

She scoffed. "My division won't miss me. We've had nothing except busywork. All I have to do is make up a family emergency."

Damn.

This was— Actually, Jan's idea was sounding better by the second. Being cooped up aboard the Independence had driven Kyle half-mad with boredom, and the only things keeping him from leaving to find freelance work yesterday were the damage to the Moldy Crow and the thought of leaving Jan behind. But now she wanted to come with him? This was actually kind of...

Well, perfect.

Couldn't let that keep him from putting up a fight, though.

"But... But I'm getting defamed on the FleetNet here! I can't get chased away by those assholes. I've got my reputation to think of. I need to stay, find a way to—"

"Kyle, come on. You and me. It'll be like old times again."

Jan was—

She was smiling.

There was no fighting that.

"All right," Kyle said, "let's do it. Forget these schuttas—let 'em scream and whine and think whatever they want. Let's burn sky." Merely saying that, committing to it, felt incredible—his mind was in hyperspace already, striking out into a vortex of infinite possibility. He shifted on his feet. "I've got to go. Got to get back to my room, write up an LOA request—"

Jan's smile hadn't gone anywhere. "No you don't."

"Jan, I may be a merc, but I've still got to go through the motions. Or else getting back to the fleet will be ten times—"

Smooth as she would draw a blaster, Jan produced a datapad and flipped it into his hand. The screen blinked on. "I've written it for you," she said.

Kyle stared for a very long moment, then took the datapad and read over the form. His thumb rested on the SEND button.

"You know, I am starting to come dangerously close," said Kyle Katarn, "to enjoying your company."

Jan's smile widened, and Kyle felt like a million credits. "Not too dangerous, I hope."

"Just right," he told her.

Click.

"How's the Crow? Is she ready to fly?"

Kyle blinked as his reverie slipped away. Back to the real galaxy. Back to the facts and problems and things that needed doing. "Yeah, should be. Molindi said there's only a few tests and double-checks today, then he's done... He should be in the hangar with it right now. Hold on."

He pulled out his comlink and snapped it on. "Kyle Katarn to Molindi. Come in, Molindi."

No answer.

"Molindi, are you there? Mole?"

Not a peep.

He replaced the comlink on his belt. Jan's eyes were razor-keen now, her mirth tucked away. "Something happen to him?"

Any other day, Kyle wouldn't have taken even one second to think before answering that question. Today he did. "No, he's fine. That Mon Cal's always losing his comlink. I saw him just this morning. He said he'll be done before dinner hour."

"Well, that's good," said Jan reservedly.

"You know, it's not gonna be anything but diagnostics and other crap. Nothing we can't skip. Here—" Kyle pulled out the key card to his room and gave it to Jan. "Pack your stuff, then go and grab my gear. There's only a bag or two. Meet me at the Moldy Crow. I'll have the engines hot by the time you get there."

"Sure thing, Kyle. Watch yourself."

The door hissed open. Kyle paused at the threshold to give her a wink. "Hey. It's me."

The hangar was gloomy and disgusting, like always, and the three cannibalized ships still sat in their alcoves, untouched. In the fourth was the Moldy Crow: still centered in a labyrinth of junk-laden carts, open crates, and tool racks. While not exactly sparkling, the ship was undeniably a darn sight prettier than it had been when Kyle had it transferred here weeks ago. Not to mention it was finally in one piece again. Muted reflections from the room's glowbanks bounced off of semi-brand-new armor plates, and the red streak that edged its fuselage looked like a bloody smile.

Molindi was there, all right, milling about with no obvious end in mind: checking a fin here, a port there, or pawing at the articles on a nearby bench. Kyle called out several times while crossing the hangar, but the Mon Cal seemed to ignore him. As he picked his way through the refuse, Kyle noticed the deep, rattling hum that issued from a large dehumidifying unit that was plugged in near the Crow's engine banks, beside the door to the storeroom. Molindi hadn't heard him over the noise.

The Mon Cal practically jumped out of his skin when he finally noticed Kyle beside the Moldy Crow. A multi-torque wrench flew from his flipper-hands, tumbled, and went clattering out of sight.

"Easy there! Didn't mean to startle you!" Kyle put his hands up. He nearly had to shout to be heard over the dehumidifier.

"Augh— Katarn! You didn't— I—" Molindi's jowls rippled like the hide-sac of a fabool bird. His eyes darted about, perhaps in pursuit of the tool he had dropped. "I didn't see you coming."

"How's my ship, Mole? I'm gonna need it soon."

Molindi tilted his head, fixing one eye on the Moldy Crow like it was a kell dragon that had somehow snuck up on him. His grimy webbed hands grasped at each other convulsively. "Uhn... The ship? The ship is, ah, very nearly com— complete, sir! There are only a few— I mean, the diagnostics for the power coupling and— There's nothing else major to..."

Kyle shook his head, his brow furrowing. "Forget the diagnostics. Can it fly or not?"

The Mon Cal's fish-mouth flapped soundlessly for a moment. "Well, ahm, yes—it will fly," he gargled. "I, I've got to go now."

Then he was moving in every direction at once, bouncing between the nearby benches, stuffing tools and parts into his belt or tossing them into a bag. Baffled, Kyle tried to keep up with him. "What's gotten into you, Mole? What's the big hurry for?"

"Auhm, ah, before you, you arrived, sir— I mean immediately before you— I received a, a call from maintenance control, I'm needed for emergency repairs on the tractor beam array. There's a fault and it's, it's a high priority—" Molindi was more than halfway out of the maze now, disturbing every bench that he passed. Metal jangled and clanked as he knocked over old power cells and pressure sealers. "I'm very sorry about the diagnostics, I– There's just no time. I'm sorry, very sorry, sir! I'll see you again soon! Goodbye, commander!"

Kyle stared until the stammering Mon Calamari had finally disappeared through the hangar door. He cast a few looks over the mechanical refuse, expecting to see Molindi's comlink somewhere, but did not.

The encounter did not put him at ease. What had gotten the mechanic so flustered? And how had he not seen Kyle coming from across the hangar? Mon Calamari had prey eyes—maximum possible field of vision. Sneaking up on them was notoriously difficult.

For different reasons, the same went for Kyle Katarn. Slowly he turned around, checking the hangar without looking like he was checking the hangar. The door, the far wall, the other repair alcoves, the empty control booth overlooking the bay—nothing looked out of place. At the very, very far end of the hangar, stars shone through the Independence's invisible particle shield. The Moldy Crow looked pretty good. There were only a few access panels near the engine block that needed to be sealed up. The dehumidifying unit continued its mindless roar.

Walking over, Kyle shrugged and reached into his blast jacket, pretending to scratch an itch, and loosened the stun baton that he had tucked into his belt. It was a souvenir from Talus. Both of his blasters were back in his quarters. He'd already been to the training rooms today. There had been no reason to think that he might need to be packing tibanna while hanging around on the Rebel flagship.

Not until he'd talked to Jan.

Splitting up had been a mistake.

He bent over and yanked the dehumidifier's plug out of the wall port, listened as the machine died with a slow, droning sigh. His eyes lingered on the innocent-looking door to the storeroom. Beside lay a narrow space along the wall that was thrown into deep shadow by the Moldy Crow's engine fins and fuselage. It looked like one of those black alleys on Nar Shaddaa that people disappeared into, or where a hologram of a little girl playing with a jumpline might suddenly appear. It looked like a hole in the universe.

"SHROOP bee-ZEE nee vriji niNEE zeedee?"

Kyle spun around to find that he'd been joined by an astromech droid, a shining white R2 unit with dark red accents.

"Schpah!" It was a Huttese profanity. "What do you want?!"

The astromech twittled something vaguely like an apology. Its whirring drive treads went silent as it stopped a meter away. Kyle realized that the noise of the dehumidifying unit had masked its approach, but before he could think any more about that, the droid pivoted its domed head and loudly repeated its original question.

Kyle had been talking to droids since he was kid, but when he translated the Binary in his head, it barely made sense. Something about a repair assignment, but the grammar wasn't clear as to whether the astromech was talking about itself or him. "I'm sorry, can you repeat that? I don't— What are you even doing here, anyway?" Molindi, he recalled, did not work with droids—not because the Mon Calamari was prejudiced, but because there weren't any to spare for him.

It started beeping again, but Kyle was no longer listening. At once, two things struck him about this astromech. The first was how its chassis showed no carbon scoring, no scuffs or smudges—it was way too clean to be a repair droid. The second was its main photoreceptor, the large ceraglass bulb set in the front of its domed head, dark and polished like a black mirror. In its liquid-smooth surface, Kyle could see himself.

He could also see behind himself.

"Hey, buddy," someone started to say, but the voice did not sound like it belonged to a buddy, and in any case Kyle was already moving, the stun baton purring as he whipped it through the air. He wasn't in a particularly sociable mood at the moment. The next thing he thing he knew, though, the alleged buddy had gotten a nice grip on Kyle's arm and, using the momentum of his own lunge against him, spun him around like they were partners in the Whirling Kavadango. The socket of Kyle's arm complained of its treatment, but all he could manage at first was scramble to keep up or risk lose his footing completely.

"Easy, Katarn! Shouldn't be so jumpy! You might just hurt yourself in a place like this!" A sharp blow sent pain jolting up Kyle's forearm, and he dropped the stun baton. They were no longer spinning, but the room kept going a little. The other man started to crank Kyle's arm behind his back, but when he paused to kick the baton under a nearby bench, that gave Kyle a chance to jerk loose.

In a quarter-second he sized the other guy up—human, about Kyle's own size, with dark hair and big ears—and let himself go with a left hook. He was sloppy about it, feverish, putting his whole arm into the swing, letting the other man see it coming from ten klicks away and lean out of reach. The guy's mouth was half-open, upper teeth bared as he restrained a laugh, arms ready to catch the right hook.

Instead of offering a right hook, Kyle caught him in the left ear with a spinning backfist. A stiff-arm then introduced him to the nearest junk cart.

Boots thundered on all sides—men rounding the Moldy Crow's raptor-head cockpit, men barreling from the darkness of the now-open storeroom. The astromech droid screeched like a hawk-bat as it rolled toward Kyle. A white orb was sizzling at the end of its extended electro probe. With a snarl, Kyle slammed a shock boot into its domed head, knocking it over like a garbage canister.

The other men closed in. Four of them. Kyle's fist caught a dirty blonde-haired human in the jaw, sent him staggering. Before Kyle could follow up, two of the goons bulled into him and drove him hard against the side of the Moldy Crow. A backhand blow stung half of his face, left him seeing stars.

The blow's delivery man was a Twi'lek: crimson-skinned, with a long face and intricate white tattoos decorating his brain-tails. "Teach you some manners, Katarn," he said out the corner of his mouth, then came in close for a punch that made Kyle feel like a kidney had exploded.

Still juiced with adrenaline, Kyle continued to struggle even as the pain clawed away at his strength. With the other two goons pinning his arms against the starship's hull, he thrust his knee toward the Twi'lek's groin. He hit something hard, maybe felt it crack—a cup, probably ferroceramic or polyplast. The Twi'lek's eyes widened, his lips drawn tight. That was the last thing Kyle saw before his nose got smashed by the dome of the Twi'lek's skull. The middle of his face turned to a burning, bubbling mass of pain.

But Kyle had broken his nose before. In fact, it was his most common injury (he'd been eight years old the first time) and it was a pain he was most intimately familiar with, and therefore most capable of ignoring. Even as as blood and phlegm began to geyser onto his stubbled chin and his quicksynth cotton shirt, he drew his knee back and slammed it between the Twi'lek's legs, felt the protective plate there give beneath the ballistic snapweave of his combat pants. All of the red man's strength left him in a billowing wheeze of pure, bestial agony, his eyes empty of meaning as he collapsed.

The Twi'lek fell against the man holding Kyle's right arm and slid to the floor. His compatriot, a Sullustan, lost some balance as he tried to keep from tripping over the Twi'lek. When the alien's hold slipped, Kyle wrenched that arm free and caught the guy to his left with a wild punch to the neck. Then he was free, running—

The knocked-over astromech from before chittered nastily as Kyle's shock boot caught against its treads. Stumbling, choking, waving his arms wildly, Kyle caught only a flash of the blonde-haired man's face before a haymaker turned the universe into a spinning, distant gray smear flecked with darkness. More punches and kicks followed close, coming from all directions, pummeling him to the floor. He felt a man's weight pin him down—then another, and another.

Screaming with exertion, Kyle pressed against them all, pushing up from the grimy floor millimeter by agonized millimeter, fumbling for the comlink at his belt... but it wasn't there.

Kyle refused to relent. His father had taught him better than that. Even as the goons pressed him flat, he tossed and wrenched about with all the strength he had left, hoping at least to shrug one of them off. He heard the men shouting, but their voices were jumbled together.

Suddenly a cargo-claw fist seized him by the crown of his head, and a familiar face appeared millimeters from Kyle's, feral with triumph. It was the dark-haired guy who had jumped him first. At last Kyle went still, his eyes crossing as they stared down the barrel of the blaster pistol currently smooching his forehead.

It's a stunner, he told himself. They're going to stun me—

"NIGHTY-NIGHT, GROOMER!"

Kyle Katarn's mind blew to a million pieces in a blue-white thunderclap and drifted away on a silent black wind.