Frontier refuel stations were always ugly, but the one at Far Qasqi was something else: a shapeless, thorny contraption that its own designer must have turned away from in disgust. Decades older than the Empire itself, the entire structure looked ill and infirm, visibly stained with the various putrid colors of rust even from kilometers away. One easily imagined that the entire misbegotten facility would drop out of Far Qasqi's sallow skies any minute—from shame if not from repulsorlift engine failure.

The assault transport Bloodshark circled down through the atmosphere, cutting through mustard-colored clouds that retched sheets of foul rain. The odious picture was completed by the presence of native gastronorfs: bloated balloon-like fauna dozens or hundreds of meters across, these creatures traversed the gas giant's swirling currents, subsisting on minute traces of nutrients in similar fashion to the more famous beldons of Bespin.

According to last-minute data pulled from Alliance Intel by R2-Q8, the station payed protection money to Black Sun, which handled orbital security. In exchange, the station's internal security was kept at the edge of nonexistence, particularly when it came to safety and security checks of visiting freighters.

"Black Sun's got the same setup in a lot of run-down stations," Rianna Saren had commented. "Their employees get to refuel here without any 'excessive legal entanglements'—meaning none of the staff will have a problem with their cargo holds being packed with spice, or slaves, or whatever they're running. On the flip side, it'll work for us in one way: every ship that docks is expected to provide its own security, so the facility's staff shouldn't give us much trouble."

If Far Qasqi had much trouble in store for the Bryar Force, it was being shy about it. The orbital patrols had been relatively friendly. Even better, the assault transport was still on approach when its pilot, Natalie Darr, excitedly called Kyle Katarn to the cockpit.

"We've found 'em, boss!"

Kyle leaned in toward the scanning readout, following the Pantoran's pointing finger. It was there, all right: a single Aratech BFF-1 bulk freighter, nestled into one of the light capital-sized docking bays, hooked up to a fuel line. Its identity beacon was still sounding off, like a bloated Herglic talking in its sleep: FRT Gravestone, registered as an independent freighter, exactly as the e-mail had described.

He smiled tightly. Carefully. "Looks like it. Have we got landing clearance?"

"[It just came in,]" honked the Wookiee Quagga from the copilot station. "[They invite us to Docking Bay 13.]"

"That's two rows away from our target," Kyle observed, studying the facility. "Bit of a walk, but we'll make do. All right, Natalie, take us in. Nice and casual."

The woman signaled "OK", and Kyle pressed his thumb to the onboard comm control. "Bryar Force, this is the bridge. Target has been located, we're coming in for a landing. All teams, lock and load."

Jan Ors had to give the universe credit: in a galaxy of four hundred billion stars and trillions of inhabited planets, moons, space stations, and more minor habitations, no two skragholes were quite alike. Far Qasqi had all the grime of Nar Shaddaa and a smell that reminded her of Anoat, where Kyle had dragged Moff Rebus out of the capital's labyrinthine sewers. However, steady acidic rain gave the refuel station its own savor, a uniquely repulsive, omnipresent moistness. Strained through the gas giant's outer layers, even the daylight was sickly, saturating everything in shades of yellow, brown, and orange.

But Jan had been in uglier places—like Imperial holding cells, Zygerria's vast slave pastures, and even the dungeon aboard Jabba the Hutt's personal space yacht—and so, as she led her squad through the fueling station's public corridors, all these loathsome details meant as little to her as a passing breath. Her comfort was irrelevant, her safety negotiable. What mattered was the safety and security of others: her comrades, the Rebel Alliance, the many children all over the galaxy who were at risk, and all sentient species who yearned to be free.

Team Strange moved as a unit with her at its front, like the point of an arrow. Fanned out behind her were Wade Vox and Polio Jode; the Nautolan's movements were impressively fluid and hushed, notwithstanding his customized suit of composite armor. Between them marched 5/DX, its steps as heavy as a binary loadlifter's, followed close behind by Payvees. The Gran was practically invisible on account of the explosive arsenal he was humping: as well as various types of missiles for his droid companion, he carried bandoliers and belts filled with thermal detonators, concussion and fragmentation grenades, and smoke bombs. Bringing up the rear were Tash and Zak Arranda. Except for the droid, all were wearing loose, hooded ponchos to protect against the rain.

Kyle had spoken strongly against the kids being brought along at all, and Jan had backed him up on that; so had Able, Mort, Polio Jode, and Dr. Zaposug. The Arrandas were special, more capable than any of them had suspected, but they were still children, and the Bryar Force was supposed to be protecting them, not putting them in danger. However, Tash had proven her preternatural abilities so thoroughly that even Kyle couldn't deny them, and Shaparo had put his faith in her. In particular, her ability to sense danger before it arose would prove invaluable, and because she was willing to put that at the Bryar Force's service, he saw no reason to prevent her. Besides which, he argued, Zak had already demonstrated that unless they were allowed to contribute, the Arrandas would simply get into trouble on their own, which would be just as dangerous for them, if not more so.

And so Tash scurried along at the back of Team Strange with Zak at her side; not because he had any mystical gifts to offer, but because he insisted—as stubbornly as only a teenager could—that his sister wasn't going anywhere without him. To Jan, it was heartbreaking; she could not decide whether the two were heroes, or so irreparably scarred that flirting with peril was the only way they knew how to live. She'd experienced similarly mixed feelings before. On more than a few war-torn worlds she had met sentients in their teens or even younger, putting their lives on the line to oppose the Empire's tyrannical rule, facing the same dangers that actual Rebel soldiers and spies, fully-trained adults, grappled with—day after day after day.

If it were up to Jan, she wouldn't have let them, but the decision belonged to Shaparo: a man proven in the rigorous gauntlet of Alliance Intelligence operations, but also broken by the loss of his wife and son. Jan could only pray to the Force—as she had so many times already—that his judgment was not misplaced, that he truly saw something in these two that the others could not.

Team Strange made its way along walkways and gantries overlooked by awnings of moisture-smeared transparisteel. The pattering of rain came and went as staggered clouds shifted overhead. Stagnant water trickled through gaps in the ragged ceiling or babbled as they were channeled through the archaic gutter system. The corridors were practically deserted, except for a bedraggled, empty-eyed Wroonian janitor here or a rusted, clunking MN-2E maintenance droid there. Like the Twi'lek had said, internal security was close to null.

But not quite.

Jan checked her datapad, found they'd come to a junction that was right along the edge of Docking Bay 4, where the Gravestone was berthed—right as a squeaky voice came echoing down the corridor.

"Hey, you! You all there! You're not authorized in this area!"

Not flinching, not blinking, Jan turned to see a short, stocky, sweating, snuffling, snub-nosed Ugnaught in soiled security fatigues, shuffling assertively in a sudden and suspicious approach from an inauspicious angle. His tusk-rimmed mouth was still opening to issue another command when Jan's DH-17 cleared its holster and discharged a flashing blue ring. The guard dropped like a child's toy before the rest of Team Strange had even finished turning to regard the source of the disturbance.

"Smooth," commented Wade Vox.

Jan regarded him with a look of durasteel; Kyle was perhaps harsher than he needed to be, but humoring this guy would not do him or the team any favors. "Get him out of sight," she told him.

"Yes, ma'am."

While Wade dragged the Ugnaught's pliant frame into the nearest refresher, Jan checked the schematic and followed it to a restricted service turbolift. A short moment later she had sliced the lock, and Team Strange was inside, the lift whistling upward.

A high-pitched, disturbingly chipper voice crackled from Jan's comlink. "This is Team Proton. In position, hoping for some mayhem."

The actual leader of Team Proton was Quagga. Since not all of the Bryar Force understood Shyriiwook, though, his diminutive second-in-command was handling comms for his quad. Jan shared Kyle's misgivings with regard to Max's mental stability, but if things got sticky, the trigger-happy lagomorph would be in the best position to help cover the other teams.

"This is Team Sulon," came another voice, gruffer and more familiar to Jan. "We've had to put a few guards to sleep. Almost in position. And Proton, cut the chatter."

The lift's shaft was dark at first, but metal abruptly gave way to dynaglass, forcing Jan to squint against Far Qasqi's rancid light. Before her stretched a vast elongated cavity, where massive docking claws held the Gravestone over the gas giant's abyss. To all appearances it was a standard BFF-1, produced by Aratech Systems and the Phylon Transport Corporation: two pairs of XTS Type-A cargo containers hermetically locked to the sides of a thin rectangular hull. The walls of the bay surrounding it were honeycombed with maintenance corridors and turbolifts such as the one Team Strange was currently riding.

Far below and still receding, a retractable platform was extended to meet a loading ramp that had jutted out from the "chin" at the front of the freighter's central hull. Several dozen metallic crates had been staged on that platform and were being taken aboard by binary loadlifters. The humanoid figures overseeing them were too distant for Jan to make out any details.

"Looks like they're getting more here than fuel," commented Wade.

Polio Jode nodded, his arms crossed. "It could be foodstuff or other essentials. Things they can't produce at their headquarters."

Two other voices chimed in—Zak and Tash Arranda.

"I just hope—"

"Don't worry, they don't see us."

This service turbolift was cramped, especially with 5/DX in the middle, but Jan made a point to turn round and look the girl in the eye. "Tash, listen to me. If you...sense anything strange going on—and I mean anything—do not keep it to yourself. Do you understand?"

"Yes. Of course I understand," Tash said, scratching her arm.

Jan held her hooded gaze a moment, trying to parse the difference between genuine resolve and arrogant bravado. Naturally it was impossible.

Tash could detect things beyond the reach of ordinary senses, or predict events before they happened. She'd proven that back at Searchlight with a few self-devised tests, most of them involving randomly-selected people trying to sneak up on her. As far as Jan was concerned, though, she hadn't proven herself under fire; the last thing their team needed was Tash's ability being hampered by girlish second-guessing.

Even so, Jan had imbibed a healthy dose of Kyle's skepticism, so she wasn't going to rely on this youngling's untrained mystical abilities any more than absolutely necessary. In her mind, the Arrandas were still fundamentally civvies, in need of escort. That was why Kyle had given Zak his personal shield generator after Payvees finished repairing it; he said that the kids would need it more than he did, and Tash insisted on her brother having it.

The turbolift stopped fifty meters up, and the door opened to one of the many corridors rimming the docking bay. The squad set off, their ponchos rustling, the missile-toting droid laboring to keep up.

"All teams, this is the Bloodshark," said Natalie Darr through the comlink. "Everything's quiet over here."

Kyle answered. "Copy that, Bloodshark. This is Team Sulon. We're in position, preparing to infiltrate. Team Strange, report."

Jan replied, "Strange here. Give us thirty seconds."

A door on the right wall opened to a lookout: a bare, medium-sized room with three windows, dust-smeared tables and chairs, and a broken flatscreen. Jan guessed it was or had been a break room for facility staff, but right now it provided a perfect view of the loading platform below. Rain splattered from cracks in the room's corners, ran in veins down cheap dynaglass.

Jan went to the first window and slid it open. "Okay, people. Let's set up shop."

On the opposite side of the docking bay, Kyle Katarn crouched on the shoulder of a massive crane, which spanned thirty meters of empty space before dipping down to latch onto the Gravestone's aft. Sheathed within a framework of durasteel girders, a quadex-rubber tube big enough to swallow an X-wing starfighter was pumping liquefied anthracite into the bulk freighter's fuel tanks.

Scatters of acidic rain crackled across the metal, ran down the folds of Kyle's Alliance Special Operations synthmesh field poncho. In a tight cluster around him was the rest of Team Sulon: Rianna Saren, lightly clad beneath her own field poncho; the holodroid MIMIC, lifelessly motionless; and a droid companion of Rianna's called Z-58-0. Better known as Zeeo, it was a customized Arakyd Industries security unit: a floating tri-photoreceptored orb sprouting a quartet of weapon/implement pods.

Kyle kept in touch with his other squads—tamping down on Max's rambling, acknowledging Darr's report—with the same vacuum-sealed discipline that had been drummed into him by the Imperial Academy of Carida.

Though he had many worries, getting out of here once their objective was complete was not one of them. Black Sun's orbital security consisted in patrols of Starypan/SunHui Razor-class starfighters and several of Sienar's Marauder corvettes. If the Bryar Force ended up needing to make a hot exit, the Bloodshark was tough enough to punch through that. Moreover, the Moldy Crow was wedged into its ventral cargo bay and could be launched to provide additional fire support, if need be.

No, everything that worried Kyle Katarn was right in front of him.

This BFF-1 bulk freighter: plain as an orange sunset back on Sulon, but at the service of a shadowy cult, responsible for unspeakable evils. There was no telling who or what was inside, but Kyle and his team needed to get in and out, one way or another. Either silently or explosively.

He was as ready for the latter as he was for the former; besides his trusty bryar pistol and E-11, he was laden with slings and straps supporting an Imperial Machines repeater gun and a rail detonator with extra charges. Finally he had the tracking beacon strapped to his back. Cumbersome and outdated, it was the best the Bryar Force could cobble together on short notice; Kyle would need to plant it inside the freighter's engine room, so that ion propulsion emissions would hide the device from internal security scans. It was only natural that Kyle be the one to handle this part of the operation; he'd done the same thing on Cal-Seti, tracking a smuggler who'd been hired to supply General Mohc's dark trooper project.

The plan was adjustable, though; no matter what happened, Kyle was not going to leave Far Qasqi empty-handed. If he was discovered and failed to plant the tracker, that was where the other two teams came in. Under covering fire from Team Strange above, Team Proton would charge the loading platform, board the freighter, and slice its navicomputer and other systems. As well as uncovering the Gravestone's destination, it would hopefully divide onboard security enough to allow Team Sulon to get out. No matter the cost, they would find out where this ship was going.

Jan's infinitely admirable voice hissed from the comlink. "This is Team Strange, in position. I've got eyes on the loading platform...and it looks like they're taking other essentials aboard. Foodstuff and the like. Those containers look civilian. Standard. I count thirteen...no, fourteen guards down there. Mercs, from the looks of 'em. Bone armor. Blaster carbines. Couple of riflemen. Humans and near-humans, mostly. Don't look like pushovers, but they're not on edge, either. Over."

Kyle glanced at Rianna. Her smile was all too warm. He looked away and answered Jan. "Sulon Team, acknowledged. Commencing infiltration. Strange, Proton—stand by."

He nodded over each shoulder, then led the way out along the refueling crane's central girder, careful to keep his footing on its rain-slickened metal. Rianna and MIMIC followed close behind, Zeero hovering along silently at her shoulder. Below them, through the crisscrossing beams of the crane, they could see the same thing as above: an endless expanse of poisoned, brazen clouds.

Three quarters of the way across, Kyle's heart began to gallop. Before he could begin to think of the cause, he heard Jan's voice again.

"Strange here. Sulon, please come in."

Kyle drew out the comlink, signaled for the others to stop, and they all crouched low against the crane. "Sulon here."

"Sulon, we...Third Eye says she just got a bad feeling, that maybe there's danger. She thinks someone down there knows something is wrong."

Kyle did not move. Rain fell against his hood like the planet Gesaral Beta's infamous glass hail.

"Demo Man here," added Wade Vox. "It could be I'm just nervous, but I think I feel it too. Something's not right here."

The rain fell.

And fell.

And fell.

Jan again: "Sulon, it's your call. What do we do?"

Kyle stared down at the comlink as though it knew the mysteries of the universe—and was refusing to share them.

There was no denying it, not to himself. He could feel it too, like he had on Nar Shaddaa, on Danuta, and on other worlds.

It wasn't for nothing that he'd been wound as tight as a quadanium steel spring since the briefing back at Searchlight.

He had led men and women into combat before—and lost some of them. It had happened on his Imperial Omega Exercise, the raid on the Rebel asteroid base, and on a few occasions since defecting. On the journey from Orion IV, he had vividly recalled what that felt like. And he had wondered if that was why, since joining the Rebellion, he had always preferred to work alone—except with Jan, who nearly always stayed out of the firing line, supporting his missions from a safe distance: because for all of his strengths as Mon Mothma's top soldier, maybe he wasn't strong enough to carry the weight of an officer, a commander.

But maybe I am, he'd told himself. Shaparo thinks so. So does Jan. Everyone else seems to.

It was no coincidence. He, Tash Arranda and Wade Vox wouldn't all get nervous at the same time for no reason, but none of them knew what it meant. Had one of the teams been detected? Had the enemy just been tipped off? Was this all some kind of impossibly subtle, elaborate trap?

There was no way to know.

Kyle was in the dark. All of them were in the dark, but he was in charge, and he had to make a decision. Here. Now.

"Sulon here—continuing infiltration. We can't leave empty-handed. Proceed with the mission as planned. But Strange, Proton...watch your backs."

"Strange—acknowledged."

"Proton—you've got it."

They moved again at Kyle's signal. Climbing down the end of the crane would take almost as long as getting across it. Instead, they simply grabbed hold of Zeeo and had the security droid lower them to the bulk freighter's hull, one at a time. Kyle groaned when his shock boots at last touched metal and he let go of the floating orb.

"You okay?" asked Rianna.

"Yeah. Just forgot how much I'm carrying here."

"It's why I travel light."

From there they traipsed a short distance, splashing through oily puddles that had formed on the bulk freighter's rough, uneven hull. Floating ahead unencumbered, Zeeo promptly located an air lock over the engineering section and sliced it. As its inner hatch whistled and opened with a grinding noise, Kyle and Rianna discarded their heavy, dripping field ponchos. The Twi'lek, essentially half-dressed as usual, distracted Kyle with a few dubiously necessary stretches before he regained his focus.

He brought the comlink to his lips. "This is Sulon. We're in. Teams, report. Any activity?"

Strange and Proton both replied in the negative. Kyle refused to be either reassured or perturbed.

The corridors were dark metallic throats dotted with pale white glowbulbs. Their walls were slanted outward, their high ceilings choked with tangled wiring and pipes. Footsteps echoed—slow, plodding. At a signal from Kyle, MIMIC went to the nearest corner, took a peek, and returned to the group. Shrouds of light rolled over his frame, until the form he assumed matched the guards Jan had described at the loading platform: a humanoid in a dark bodysuit, studded with slightly mismatched plates of sharp, dull-colored armor. Bone armor, as it was called—reportedly constructed through a fusion of ceramic-fiber materials with actual bones from the galaxy's carnivores. Favored by mercenaries, raiders, and pirates with a certain taste for brutality.

"That's pretty impressive, MIMIC," Rianna said.

The holodroid grunted, eyeing her crudely. "Just doin' my job."

An unfamiliar voice rang over the freighter's onboard comm: "Attention, all hands. Fuel cycling will be complete in ten standard minutes. Prepare for departure."

The Twi'lek raised a brow. "Stang. We're really cutting it close here."

Both droids had downloaded BFF-1 schematics back at Searchlight. Leading the way, MIMIC went on a good distance ahead of Kyle and Rianna, with Zeeo floating halfway between. The holodroid deftly guided them through several twisting halls and down several laddered service shafts, aiming for the main engine room. Bone guards (as Kyle thought of them) wandered or loitered here and there. Passing by so quickly made it hard to evaluate these mercs, but Kyle tentatively put them at a lower caliber than stormtroopers.

They only had one close call when a door on the left unexpectedly opened, admitting a lone bone guard. The human's blaster carbine was in its strap; his hands instead were busy holding a little device up to his neck. He stopped short, eyes bulging beneath the rough rim of his Taunghead-shaped helmet.

Kyle stepped away, his repeater blaster snapping up to fire, but held off as Rianna passed him like a warm breeze. Then the guard was shaking like an electrical arc had caught him; the Twi'lek seemed almost to be levitating, a whirl of orange curves and black leather that pummeled him against the wall with a dozen or more kicks in one quarter as many seconds. Finally the guard was curled up on the floor, senseless.

Rianna pressed a button, shutting the guard back on the room from which he'd emerged. "Well, that was fun."

"You probably could've done that quicker," Kyle hissed.

She cracked her neck. "You should see me when I'm armed—hey, check this out."

Kyle looked. She was holding up the little device that the guard had dropped.

"Looks like a hypopen. Same kind you took from that Bothan, even."

Nar Shaddaa flashed through Kyle's mind—the starscraper with tarpaulins tossing in the wind, flashes from his bryar pistol and dynaglass shattering, Deena Demarakesh tumbling, shrieking.

"Keep it if you want. No time to go gathering clues right now."

From then on they descended quicker than before, MIMIC steering them away from further bone guard patrols, Zeeo slicing through security doors that would otherwise block them. Kyle clamped down on his own thoughts more and more with each level they passed. BFF-1 bulk freighters had a simple layout, and he knew them like the back of his hand; the crew didn't seem extremely dangerous as far as mercenaries went; getting out would be faster than coming in, once he'd unloaded the tracking beacon.

And yet being here felt wronger and wronger each second, as though Sulon Team was a quartet of mynocks unwittingly creeping down the throat of an exogorth space slug. It more than jitters, more than nerves, more than the weight of command...because, again, Tash Arranda and Wade Vox felt something, too. But Kyle had made the call, and he would see things through.

"Main engineering's just ahead," MIMIC said gruffly as they gathered before a security door.

Zeeo beeped out a warning as it plugged its scomp link in. Kyle and Rianna both understood. Engineering was pretty big—had to be, for a bulk freighter—but there were only a couple life forms inside.

"Attention all hands. Fuel cycling will be completed in five standard minutes," droned the same voice as before.

"Last leg of the Kessel Run," murmured Rianna, peering back along the dark hall they'd come from. Something about her had settled down in the last few minutes. Her hands hardly left the belts and straps where she kept her weapons—a variety of blaster pistols and small blades.

Kyle produced his comlink. "Sulon here. About to infiltrate engineering. Teams, report in."

There was no answer.

"Strange Team, Proton Team—what's your status?"

Seconds passed. Zeeo reported the door was unlocked.

His heart sinking, Kyle adjusted the comlink and checked its readout. Its receiver was practically shrieking—universal signal overload, exactly like you got from a medium-range, military-grade jammer.

"Kyle!"

The whisper turned him round. Rianna was crouched against the wall, a blaster pistol in each hand. One of her cybernetic lekku pointed into the darkness, which echoed with footsteps. Lots of footsteps.

Zeeo beeped again, reporting partial interference with sensors, beginning in the last few seconds, but it thought there were a dozen or so organic signatures approaching.

There were no vents, hatches, or side-doors to duck into. Only two options: the hallway and main engineering.

Kyle gripped his repeater. Again, his call. Again, he had to make it in the dark.

"Everyone inside," he breathed. "Go!"

Zak fought to keep from squirming as he pressed himself to the back wall of the lookout. In a nearby corner, a strand of dung-colored water fell from the leaky roof to patter and drain out through the leaky floor. Ahead, Wade Vox and Jan Ors each crouched at a window, rifles steady in their hands. 5/DX was rooted in the room's center, dark and ominous, undergoing a system triple-check by its Gran partner. Polio Jode kept watch at the door.

And Tash, of course, was right next to her brother, blonde braid hanging out from her hood, blue eyes wide and shining under its dark, as steady as any of the adults—while Zak could hardly keep still.

It had been extremely prime of Wade to give Zak the energy slingshot, but Kyle Katarn's personal shield, hooked at the front of his belt, was an honored gift. He'd switched it on as soon as Tash mentioned her premonition. Back at Searchlight, they'd had a spat over which one should wear it, but Tash had won the argument.

I've got the Force to warn me against danger, she'd said, so I'll be fine. Besides, tech like that, it's really up your hyperlane more than mine. Trust me, Zak. You need it more than I do.

He had only protested because he'd wanted to look out for Tash; meanwhile, she was obviously right. No matter what she said, Zak didn't have the Force on his side, and so gaining an edge with advanced technology was his style.

For the thousandth time, he adjusted the straps of his backpack and smoothed the folds of his Rebel Alliance field poncho. When he glanced at his sister, he found she had closed her eyes.

"Team Strange, this is Proton," came Max's piping voice. "You seein' increased activity on the platform?"

Jan answered him immediately. "That's a positive. I count six additional mercs coming off the ramp. Stand by."

Zak's gaze stayed on Tash's calm, troubled, weirdly grown-up face. Not for the first time, he had mixed feelings about her sense for trouble—which she liked to call her "inner alarm". On one hand, when extreme danger was about to strike, it was nice...well, less horrific...to not be totally blindsided by it. On the other hand...

Well, sitting around and waiting without knowing what it was, that wasn't really prime.

"Hey, Tash," he whispered. "Anything?"

Her expression rippled with strain. Her eyes opened. "Up."

"What do you mean, up?"

"I don't know, just up. I can't always—" Interrupting herself, Tash swept forward to the window between Wade and Jan. She produced a pair of macrobinoculars and Zak, fumbling, did the same.

Jan Ors's tone was as cold as a droid's. "Wade, have a look at that freighter for me."

"On it."

Squeezing into the window frame beside his sister, Zak pressed macrobinoculars to his eyes and zeroed in on the Gravestone's main hull. Anything but smooth, it was covered in protrusions of blocky machinery, elongated pipe-like bulges of metal, and dips which had collected puddles of Far Qasqi's gross rainwater. With streams still running down in front of the window, it was hard to keep anything in focus. More than once Zak thought he glimpsed something out of place, only to lose it.

Then, finally...

"Hey, someone's walking out there on top of the ship!" he said excitedly.

"Where?" asked Wade.

"On the central hull, the left side. He's moving toward the front."

Zak gritted his teeth, tuning the viewfinders and gradually bringing his target into sharp focus. It was a tall humanoid, covered in scarred battle armor that looked much sturdier than the creepy bone-plates worn by the guards below. Though he carried a rifle, other heavy weapons were strapped to him—some energy, others explosive, and a few Zak couldn't guess at—as well as a large jetpack.

Right as Zak started to think that it all looked a little disturbingly familiar, he recognized the antennaed blast helmet, with a black visor that gleamed faintly even through the gloomy rain.

"Holy kriff, it's him," said Wade Vox, dumbfounded.

"Who? Who is it?"

Even as Jan spoke, the armored figure came to the edge of the Gravestone's hull, overlooking the transparisteel front of its command deck. There he dropped into a crouch and tilted his head up, scanning the walls of the docking bay, and froze.

Tash was suddenly breathless. "It's Boba Fett!"

No sooner had she said that than a piercing electric whine signaled the charge of Wade's disruptor rifle. The hairs on the back of Zak's neck stood up.

The next thing he knew, all hell had broken loose.

"Well, isn't this a lovely surprise?"

The voice that greeted Team Sulon as they scampered into main engineering was bizarre—somehow undulating between an exaggeratedly high pitch and a gravelly, throaty bass. While Zeeo shut the door behind them, Kyle, Rianna, and MIMIC sought cover behind the nearest bank of insulated power modulators. The voice echoed through the cavernous chamber, and Kyle's head whipped in search of its origin, hopping from one empty overhead catwalk to the next, until finally he found the one he sought, and...

And he was confused.

Their challenger stood on a platform some eight or nine meters off the deck, a full head taller than either of the bone guards flanking her...or Kyle thought it was a she at first. Like Rianna Saren, the being had rich orange skin and a penchant for exhibition; the bare arms and midriff, the excessive leather, and the self-defeatingly short skirt all bespoke feminine wantonness—which Kyle Katarn, raised as he had been in the Sulonese outback, instinctively shrank back from in disgust. Even so, he had never seen a humanoid woman so tall or so muscular that it bordered on the grotesque. Furthermore—

Well, as for the species, it was Togruta...or he thought it was. The face, sharply lit by the engine room's powerful glowlamps, sported milky white splotches around the eyes. Likewise, a pair of horn-shaped montrals flanking the head ran down into striped head-tails similar to those of a Twi'lek, except...why were they so fat? And why did their movements seem...off, like there was no match between their gestures and the rest of the person's body language?

Kyle squinted, studying the face and head—and that was what did it. A female might conceivably build that kind of muscle mass through extreme training (and, more than likely, copious abuse of stimulant boosters). However, the neck and the jawline, the cheekbones...unmistakably male. And on the crown of his head, between the montrals, those odd little lumps, obviously not skin but colored the same...

They're in a pattern, Kyle realized, his stomach turning. That's where the horns of a Zabrak would be. Should be. Used to be. This is another one of them. Another Utric Sandov.

More important: he's caught us.

His mind processed all this new data in the course of a few standard seconds. Then blaster bolts scattered over the deck, pocking metal and flinging sparks. Team Sulon moved like startled womp rats, putting the power modulators between them and the not-Togruta. Rianna gracefully leaped and slid over the machine to the other side, followed close by her droid companion. Meanwhile Kyle had to go around, weighed down by his gear like a Jawa lugging its own weight in salvage. MIMIC was the last one behind cover; Electricity spurted from his torso where a laser had grazed him, and his holographic disguise collapsed.

"Oh, is that what he is!" crowed the orange man on the catwalk. As he continued, Kyle was able to parse the voice: its baritone quality was inherent, natural to it, whereas the high pitch was effected, practiced. "Here I thought someone had gone off his medicine."

"You've had a makeover since I last saw you, Hexid!" Rianna called.

Kyle was perplexed even as he scanned the expanse of the engine room. It stretched a good distance, with plenty of other large pieces of machinery to use as cover, but he saw no movement—whether bone guards or anyone else. "You know this space freak?" he asked out the corner of his mouth.

"We've traded bolts before. He sometimes does dirty work for Black Sun."

Black Sun, Kyle thought, which has influence here...

"I'll catch you up!" called their assailant. "The name's Hellanah Glittersky now!"

Kyle traded glances with his companions.

MIMIC hefted a blaster pistol and said, "Commander, may I point out that the odds are currently four against three?"

Kyle Katarn liked those odds, so he nodded.

Then he edged out from behind the modulator bank, blue lightning flaring as he loosed a burst from his Imperial repeater. MIMIC and Rianna opened fire from the other side, while Zeeo floated straight up and contributed with its own onboard blasters.

The two bone guards staggered as packets of light glanced off their armor and speared flesh. Meanwhile, Hellanah Glittersky vaulted from the catwalk, returning fire even as he descended.

Sick fark doesn't even wear armor, thought Kyle, beginning to track him. Shouldn't be hard to—

But then the door which Zeeo had sealed exploded inward, and a rush of smoke preceded the advance of no less than a dozen bone guards, armed to the teeth.

Sulon Team retreated deeper into the engine room, flitting from cover to cover as the bone guards spread out and advanced, trying to flank them. The grimy dark of the engine room danced and flowed like liquid dark as flashes of energy flew and burst.

"Commander, behind you!" called MIMIC.

There was no time to look; Kyle simple flinched aside, and a red-white arrow singed the shoulder of his reinforced blast jacket. Turning in the same motion he found the source, a bone armor-clad guard, and dropped him with a triple-shot from his repeater.

Not good, he thought. That guy wasn't with the dozen who had followed his team from the main corridor. Alarms wailed, emergency lights pulsing the color of fresh blood; the Gravestone was on the alert, and onboard security was converging on them from across the ship.

The primary objective was karked. If they planted the tracking beacon now, it would surely be found and disabled. The mission came down to Jan and Quagga's teams; Kyle's only job now was to get his squad out of here alive.

Sighing, he unstrapped the now-useless beacon and let it fall to the deck, relishing the absence of its weight from his shoulders. "Find a turbolift!" he shouted.

Team Sulon continued its retreat, scattering and reforming, taking fire from more and more angles as bone guards slipped out from behind engine components and appeared on the catwalks.

The farther they went, the narrower the engine room became, until they were sandwiched between a pair of towering quadronomic fluxers. A security door occupied the far wall, overlooked by a red light, indicating an active lock. "Zeeo, get that open!" ordered Kyle.

The droid squeaked and plugged in while Kyle, Rianna, and MIMIC edged back on its flanks, pushed by an advancing wall of bone guards. At this juncture, there was no point in holding back. Kyle let go of his Imperial repeater, allowing its strap to catch it, and took hold of the rail detonator. No need to aim—too many targets—so he brought it up and squeezed the trigger on pure instinct. The electromagnetic launch mechanism kicked like a ronto. A bright yellow rail charge blurred into the midst of the bone guards and burst to flame and shrapnel, throwing bodies in all directions.

Laser fire continued to rain on them, peppering Kyle and his teammates with debris. Rianna shouted over the din for him to follow. With eyes full of light and flame, Kyle sent a second rail charge into the enemy line, then switched back to his repeater blaster and sprinted for the door. MIMIC lingered beside the aperture, providing cover fire even as his chassis sparked from at least one recent hit.

Zeeo shut the door behind them. Heaving, charged with adrenaline, Kyle skidded to a halt beside Rianna, who flashed him a grin. They turned their attention to their surroundings.

They had come into a block of rooms individually much smaller than main engineering, but with a ceiling just as high. The growth of machinery covering the walls ran and pulsed with blue light from power converters and wires; Kyle emerged from the haze of battle just enough to recognize some of the freighter's repulsorlift engine components. The machinery hummed and warbled and buzzed like a Geonosian orchestra.

There was another sound, though—one more disturbingly familiar...

CLACK-CLACK-clack-clack-CLACK-CLACK-clack-clack-CLACK-CLACK!

Kyle stared in wonder and dismay as one of the nearby doorways was filled by a lumbering, uttering inhuman shape. Low to the ground, it clanked along on crablike legs. From the front of its segmented body extended a cluster of sinuous metallic tentacles.

Jaykay—the same droid that had almost caught them in the maintenance sublevel of the Rebel Hospital Platform—was here aboard the Gravestone.

Kyle, Rianna, MIMIC, and Zeeo stared as it lumbered into the room...

Until it screamed and charged them like a zakkeg battle lizard.

The disruptor rifle went off, its beam crossing empty space to the Gravestone and blinking out. Before Zak could even blink, he saw Boba Fett falling—knocked hard against the ship's hull even as his battle armor saved him from disintegration. Meanwhile, the bounty hunter had fired a missile from his jetpack; trailing a smoke column, it veered far off course and hit the docking bay wall left of the lookout. Flame mushroomed from the impact, and the room shook.

Fifty meters below, lasers were zipping back and forth between the loading platform and the main entrance, where Quagga and his team had been hidden.

"Proton here!" squeaked Maxis Makinene. "They spotted us! They're swarmin' this way, over the dock! Guess this is where the fun begins!"

Jan Ors's cold tone did not waver. "Copy that. Team Strange, light 'em up!"

Zak and Tash hurried back into the room, dodging around 5/DX as the huge droid lumbered to take their place at the central window. Beside it was Payvees, lugging a backpack full of missiles. Wade and Jan squinted down the sights of their rifles, firing with abandon.

A red bolt lanced into the room from somewhere below, burning a neat hole through the ceiling. The Arrandas continued to back away—but then Tash spun round toward Polio Jode. "Someone's coming!"

"I know," hissed the Nautolan, who had flattened himself beside the door.

"They've got grenades!" Tash added.

A grin nearly as wide as Max's spread across Polio's face. "Interesting."

An inhumanly strong blow knocked the door from its socket, knocking it into the room with a crash. The Arrandas leaped aside, almost tripping over a table, while Wade and Jan left their perches and took aim at the door. Polio, however, seemed to have turned to stone.

At first.

When three grenades came bouncing into the room, he moved; flipping, cartwheeling, corkscrewing, head-tentacles flapping crazily, he intercepted each explosive even as they spread out from the doorway, caught them one at a time, and tossed them back the way they had come.

Zak was fumbling to get his energy slingshot charged when the explosions popped his ears. Smoke spilled into the lookout, followed by a couple of stumbling, bleeding goons in bone armor.

"ZAK, GET—"

Now it was Zak's turn to interrupt his sister. "NO, YOU GET DOWN!" he yelled, tackling her to the floor. Sparks and lasers bounced over the room; one shot turned to a green orb and dissipated as it hit Zak's energy shield.

The biggest of the bone guards carried not a blaster but a hefty, wicked-looking power hammer; a repulsor-equipped tool designed for mining, it must have been that thing that had knocked the door open. Its wielder charged into the room, swinging it like a maniac even as energy bolts converged on him, shattering bone plates and burning hunks out of his flesh. He proved braver than he was skilled, as the still-twirling Polio passed him from behind, decapitating him with a double-strike of his vibroknucklers. In a matter of seconds, his fellows met equally grim fates.

Polio threw a still-bleeding corpse away from the door like a rag-doll, checked the hall, and rounded on the Arrandas. "Are you all right?!"

"Yeah, fine," Tash said as she and her brother dusted themselves off.

Heaving a relieved breath, Zak rolled his sleeve up and double-checked the charge on his energy slingshot. He hadn't been ready; that couldn't happen again.

"I've lost Fett! Where'd he go?!" yelped Wade from his window.

"Team Sulon, this is Strange!" said Jan, who had resumed her own firing position. "The Emperor has lost his cloak, repeat, lost his cloak, we are taking firing out here! What's your status?"

There was no answer but discharging blasters and sizzling rain.

"Sulon, come in!"

Jan ducked away from the window and fiddled with her comlink a moment. A few shots from below thumped into the lookout's walls.

A gravelly voice that had not spoken before came through the channel. "Strange, this is Mort. I can't get a signal into that freighter. It must have an onboard jamming device. Sulon's out of contact."

"Stang it..." A few terrible seconds passed as Jan hung her head. Zak and Tash looked at each other, silently considering the dark implications of the past minute together. Both outside teams were already under fire, and they had no idea what was happening with Team Sulon. Kyle Katarn was definitely tough enough to take care of himself, but he was in charge of the mission; with his team unaccounted for, command fell to Jan for the time being.

"Team Proton...Quagga! We have to assume Sulon has failed and is trying to extract. That means we're going for the secondary objective. Prepare to advance on that loading ramp! We'll provide covering fire."

This time it was the Wookiee who answered on the comm, with a howl of enthusiasm.

"Payvees, are you ready?"

The Gran crouched in the central window right in front of his mechanical companion, looking down on the battlefield through the lenses of his cumbersome scanning helmet. "Acquiring targets. Give me five seconds."

Zak felt a pat on his shoulder. "Easy, brother. You're shaking."

He hadn't noticed. Things had gotten nasty, and they were about to get even worse. Remembering Fett, he hurriedly pulled out his macrobinoculars and went to peer over Wade Vox's shoulder. There was no sign of the bounty hunter, though. More than likely, he'd flown off on his jetpack, but...

"He'll be back," Tash said warily.

Her brother shivered. Boba Fett had relentlessly chased them and Uncle Hoole to Dagobah, and looking back, it was puzzling why he had apparently lost interest in them after they gave him the slip on that dangerous, swampy world. Since he worked for pay, maybe the reason was that he'd been hired for a bigger, more lucrative job. Still, he had a reputation that was unmatched in the galaxy: nobody got away from Boba Fett. If the bounty hunter recognized either of the Arrandas...

Again Zak shivered. He reminded himself that Wade and Kyle had both tangled with Fett and gotten away with it.

Still, he kept watching—and made sure Tash was behind him.

"Payvees, is he ready?" demanded Jan Ors.

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Then give 'em hell! Team Proton, get ready to move!"

"KOWEEBA!" bellowed the Gran, and let 5/DX take his place in the window.

THUMP-hiss-WHOOSH, THUMP-hiss-WHOOSH, THUMP-hiss-WHOOSH!

The noises produced by the bronze-black colossus's firing mechanism were so deep that Zak felt them in his chest. Black smoke puffed from the droid's rear exhaust vents as missiles flew free, two at a time, and arced down toward the dock below—

Kzerrrr-CLICK, Kzerrrr-CLICK, Kzerrrr-CLICK!

—and yet more awful sounds were made as holding racks deep within 5/DX's armored carapace cycled the next batch of missiles up to its launchers. When the droid ran out completely, hatches in its lower back popped open, allowing Payvees to reload it. When not busy with this, the Gran ran back and forth between the other windows, lobbing grenades. Zak was impressed by how far the burly three-eyed alien was able to throw them.

Fifty meters below, the dock turned to pandemonium as explosions checkered it. Half-destroyed containers went tumbling like Snivvian foam shape-toys. Pocked with shrapnel, binary loadlifters staggered in confused circles before collapsing. Bodies of bone guards flew, collapsed, rolled, crawled, ran in all directions.

Right when Zak thought it might never end, Jan signaled to Payvees and triggered her comlink. "Okay, Proton, that should soften them up—now move! We're providing covering fire!"

Max's crazed laughter answered her. "Here goes nothing!"

Zak and Tash took a peek over the window's rim, watching as the tiny figures of Team Proton charged over the field of burning metal and bodies that separated them from the Gravestone.

Kyle Katarn ran backwards, blue-white needles spewing from the barrel of his Imperial Machines repeater rifle. The weapon was at maximum power setting, and even as the feedback poured lightning into his arms and shoulders and core, he kept his aim steady and locked on the advancing security droid, dead-center. His teammates also were firing from other angles, their aim just as true—

To no effect.

None at all.

Plasma scatter burned Kyle's eyes as the flood of energized tibanna doused their target, only to vanish against the nigh-imperceptible bubble of an onboard deflector shield.

The droid was undamaged and yet it screamed a second time, louder than before, an undulating howl unlike anything Kyle had ever heard from a machine. Its metal tentacles lashed forward, barely visible for their mind-numbing speed.

Kyle blinked; several of the offensive tendrils had snapped taut sheer millimeters short of his nose. One of them flicked down to the right, slashing the electroscope attachment from his repeater.

Next thing he knew, a black durasteel iris was closing between him and his assailant. Still retreating at full speed, he took in the basics of his position: the next room, MIMIC and Rianna securing it ahead of him. The door controls on his left, Zeeo beeping cheerfully as it floated away past Kyle.

He sprayed a final burst from his repeater, then left off. The gun was smoking, heat washing into his hands even through the shata-leather swoop gloves.

Jaykay was caught in the interlocking slabs of the iris-door...but levered its powerful crab-legs against them and pushed outward. The metal began to buckle, hydraulic machinery squealing as it seized. Metallic tentacles writhed ahead, whipping at the walls and floor with sharp clangs.

"Kyle, come on!"

Kyle spun round. They'd backed up into a small forest of tall computer terminals, repulsorlift oscillators, and other machines sheathed in metallic mesh, sprouting bundles of wiring. MIMIC was climbing through one of the many gaps there, and Rianna was urging Kyle to follow.

Screams of breaking machinery sounded behind him. He stuffed himself into the nearest dark gap, ripping through stray wires, ducking under catwalks, cursing as his repeater rifle kept snagging on things. Ahead of him, Rianna was hurdling over and slipping between obstacles with the effortless grace of a Corellian sand panther. It was impressive; maybe she was on to something when she talked about traveling light.

Kyle preferred to err on the side of over-arming himself, but that was working against him right now. Jaykay wouldn't take long to catch up to them—and from the look of it, that thing could take as much punishment as a dark trooper. He needed to put some distance between his team and it—so he could use his rail detonator without killing them all.

Beyond that, he needed to get them all out of this ship alive.

Blasters went off ahead, sending scarlet twinkles through the jungle of machinery. Kyle burst out of the thicket, repeater at the ready, and dropped a nearby bone guard with a triple-shot to the face.

Dead ahead, Rianna was stepping over several more bodies to a heavy turbolift door, where Zeeo had already plugged in. The sounds her droid companion was making, however, were not the encouraging kind.

"Come on, you bouncing ball of circuits! What do you mean it's not listening to you?!"

"Burzurbur duweeburnu-nighgarnu-ZEE!" it retorted testily.

They cast about, but found no other exits. Then the Twi'lek tossed her lekku and tipped her head back. "Slupahgk! Guess we'll have to climb!"

A stack of grated platforms hung from the ceiling far above, and at least one door was visible up there. Between them and it, ladders and narrow stairways zigzagged up between protruding pieces of machinery, but they were not continuous. "Climbing" would involve plenty of jumping as well.

"I can't climb that with all this—" Kyle started to say, but Rianna cut him off.

"You won't need to climb, koochoo. Just hitch a ride on Zeeo."

"Go on, Commander," added MIMIC. "The two of us will manage."

Kyle was dubious at first, but he followed the Twi'lek's instructions and stood atop her droid companion. With his shock boots braced in the joints between two of Zeeo's extended weapon pods, it felt a little like riding a skimboard.

No sooner had he gotten situated than a din of tearing metal reached his ears. Sparks and spurts of flame played through the shadows that his team had passed through. Jaykay was coming for them, ripping through the mechanical undergrowth the same way a Haruun Kal grasser cleared paths through its native thyssel jungles. Again it screamed for them: a howl of tortured rage.

Two or three seconds passed as Rianna and MIMIC started to climb and Zeeo dumped auxiliary power into its repulsorlifts. Kyle shuddered at the sounds of the rampaging droid, wondering if it really was only a droid...

And also wondering what the absolute hell this thing from the Hospital Platform was doing here.

The question lingered—and then Zeeo gave a whistle and started upward. Bone guards appeared on the platforms high above and started taking potshots. Kyle raised his repeater gun and fired liberally; bodies fell, wreathed in sheets of raining sparks. Meanwhile, MIMIC and Rianna were scaling opposite walls, nearly keeping up with their leader. Slowly but surely, they approached the top, and with a bit of luck there'd be a way out of engineering from there.

"Kyle—bit of help here?!"

He looked. Rianna was shimmying up the long, thick twine of a power conduit cable—and Jaykay was barely ten meters below her, its sharp crab-legs squealing as they dug into the wall.

"Hold onto something, Rianna!" Crouching lower than before, Kyle drew his rail detonator, lined up, and fired. Golden-orange flame blossomed, but as it dissipated, he saw the droid again—still climbing, no slower than before.

Kriff me. Kyle fired a second charge, a third, relishing the harsh whir of the weapon's cycling loader. The chamber shook. Heat washed over his face, and an avalanche of metal cascaded to the distant deck—with the crab-like droid twisting through it. The impact was a beautiful inferno. Much as Kyle appreciated it, he didn't fail to notice that the first charge, a direct hit, hadn't so much as visibly cracked the droid's armor. Sooner or later it was going to climb out of that heap.

Kyle Katarn didn't plan on sticking around to see that. His hands moved automatically, slipping his spare rail charges into the loader.

"Zeeraggit-zoo-ZEE!" warned his mechanical steed.

Far sooner than he would have liked, they neared the lowest level of the platforms. A row of bone guards had assembled there. Waves of energy bolts converged on Kyle, only to scatter harmlessly. Zeeo had its own shield, he now recalled—but it was shrieking in droidspeak panic, informing him that it couldn't take sustained fire for more than a second or two.

The field shuddered and flashed millimeters before Kyle's eyes. He could barely see a damned thing, but again there was no choice but to act and hope his instincts wouldn't fail him.

He brought the rail detonator up and emptied it, alternating his shots—left, right, left, right. Pieces of armor shattered. Flash-fried bodies twisted and writhed. Half-melted chunks of grating scattered. Fiery winds blew past Kyle, tossing his hair and the flaps of his blast jacket.

Zeeo beeped and twittered again, warning that its main power cell was critical; its shield had almost overloaded. Kyle carefully leaned forward, prompting the droid to carry him forward, then promptly stepped onto the platform he had just cleared.

Or almost cleared. A few of the bodies were moving, groping for lost blasters, while yet more bone guards were clanging down stairs from the two platforms above. Not all had blasters; the first one Kyle saw was stomping toward him, hefting a power hammer which reduced the empty rail charge to scrap when Kyle threw it at him. Kyle smoothly backed away, his repeater gun roaring, only for the weapon to finally overheat and fizzle out after a single burst. He ripped it free of its strap, chucked it, then switched to his E-11.

The next few seconds were a disjointed, hellish muddle. Firing, strafing, crouching, running, Kyle was never farther than a millimeter from grisly death. As well as blasters, more bone guards entered the fray with power hammers, vibro-cutlasses, and other bizarre weapons. Once or twice Zeeo could be seen darting this way and that, physically battering the guards when its onboard blasters ran low on power.

Rianna had joined them as well. Apparently taking the bone guard's archaic arsenal as a challenge, she exchanged her blasters for what looked like a powered dagger whose blade was wreathed in violet sparks. With her usual sinuous grace, she leaped around her assailants, slid between their legs, or sprang past them, plunging the electrified blade into unarmored joints and throats.

MIMIC seemed to have disappeared—until Kyle realized that bone guards kept getting shot in the back by one of their own, who lay propped up in a far corner.

Kyle bit his cheek, tasted blood, grimaced as the noise died down somewhat. He'd been shot at least once; his betaplast armor vest had shrugged off the worst of it, but a dot of searing pain was still jabbing into his ribs. Boots clanged against metal just overhead, vague shadows moving past the grating. At his feet, a bone guard stirred, and Kyle put a laser through his skull.

A stone's throw away, Rianna and Zeeo were creeping toward one of the stairways. The Twi'lek had both blasters out, angled and at the ready—until the hovering droid suddenly gave a squawk and bumped into her, hard. Cursing in surprise, she fluidly rolled into a crouch, then popped to her feet as a dreadfully familiar silver orb came ricocheting down the stairs. Zeeo floated away, but too slow. Kyle could only look away from the thermal detonator's white-hot flash. When his eyes cleared, the security droid was gone—as well as the bottom three steps and part of the floor; the baradium detonation field had scooped out a perfect sphere of matter and wiped it out of existence.

Kyle's ears were still ringing. He could not hear himself shouting, urging Rianna to wait—and she likely didn't either, judging from the speed with which she bounded up what remained of the stairway. As he made to follow, something struck him from behind; the armor saved him again, but his right shoulder went numb with pain. His E-11 blaster tumbled through the hole opened by the detonator.

His pained scream morphed to a baying, wrathful growl as he went down. Propped up on his left forearm, he glared back to see a power hammer, its generator whirring as it cranked back for another swing—before it fell slack as wielder's face was popped open by a laser bolt.

MIMIC—no longer disguised—was approaching from across the platform, dragging one leg, his components sparking every few seconds. "Commander, you should go! I'll, I'll cover your back!"

With a groan, Kyle got to his feet, then hurdled the gap onto the stairs. Landing harder than intended, he started up at an awkward crawl, trying to draw his bryar pistol as he went. To his left on the next level up, through multiple layers of grating and mesh, he could just barely see two orange bodies tangled together—Rianna Saren and the man who called himself Hellanah Glittersky.

The Twi'lek's weapons were gone. Kyle guessed she'd been surprised around a corner, and the struggle had come down to pure physical prowess...and it was going very badly. He could hardly see what was going on, but felt the metal around him shaking with brutal impacts, heard Rianna shouting and gasping with pain.

She's getting pummeled to pieces. All those fancy jumps and twirls, against a man twice her size—she hasn't got a chance!

Kyle's legs burned as he took the steps two at a time. He finally got his bryar pistol free as he reached the top, spun round the nearest corridor, and was hit in the face, turning everything to dark smears—

He fell back, fell against the railing, and whatever had hit him was heavy, it almost snapped his neck, it was the size of a body, it was a body—

He rolled off the rail and hit the grated floor, and the slack body rolled from the rail too, but rolled over the other end, fell—

Rianna fell, was falling—

Kyle blinked, watching, his face burning, his neck his shoulder burning, his gut burning, his hands instinctively clutching the floor—

The floor that rang as heavy footsteps drew near.

His eyes raced, locked onto his fallen bryar pistol. A millisecond too late he snatched for it, before someone sent it over the edge with a kick.

For a full standard second, Kyle could not move. Even with a leather-clad, skirt-wearing, muscle-bound, deranged killer standing over him, he could not move.

Because he'd lost one of his team—two if he counted Zeeo—and that blaster...

That bryar blaster pistol had been a going-away gift from his father, when he'd left Sulon for the Imperial Academy. Cut down from Morgan's bryar rifle. The same rifle he'd let Kyle use on that hunting trip to Dantooine that he'd almost forgotten about...

"Okay, honey. Now it's your turn," said a husky voice.

Kyle couldn't move now. He couldn't speak, but there was no need to. His glare smoldered with the promise of retribution.

CHAPTER COMPLETE

PASSWORD: JEDGAR