There was a moment of relative calm in the docking bay, during which Zak and Tash could watch Quagga's team running out across the loading platform unopposed. It was as if 5/DX's rain of destruction had been so excessive that the firefight gave up on itself. Zak's mouth began to creep into a smile at the thought that maybe they'd already busted through the worst of these guys.

Then a fresh volley of laser bolts hit the roof of the lookout, spraying metal and vaporizing rainwater. Without flinching, Jan Ors and Wade Vox responded in kind. Before ducking away from the windows yet again, the Arrandas caught sight of more humanoids in bone armor spreading before the edge of the Gravestone's hull, where Boba Fett had been. Payvees stayed where he was, feeding missiles into 5/DX's back while shots spattered against the droid's thickly armored body.

Wherever Fett had disappeared to, he came back with a vengeance, as Zak had known he would. Trailing twin cones of fire from his jetpack's nozzles, the hunter wove through the open air, firing from two E-11 blaster rifles, rattling the lookout with a fierce spray of fire. Wade and Jan flinched, trying to track their canny adversary even as tibanna sizzled and zapped around them. Meanwhile, there were frantic exclamations from their teammates on the ground; more bone guards had rushed from the freighter's loading ramp to stop them.

Kzerrrr-CLICK!

5/DX's rear hatches clanked shut. Payvees leaned around the droid, using his scanning helmet, then scurried back as a volley of missiles burst forth, curving right at Boba Fett.

In a maneuver that seemed impossible for a human, Fett threw himself into a sharp loop that carried him back toward the Gravestone, chased by yellow darts from Jan's sniper rifle as well as the spiraling pair of missiles. The bounty hunter corkscrewed through the air, firing frantically past his boots. The missiles detonated, their shock wave tossing him like a leaf. Thrown off course, Fett missed the Gravestone's front-port cargo container by no more than a couple meters, reengaged his jetpack, and soared back toward the battlefield.

Oh, thought Zak. It's going to get worse, isn't it?

A snout-nosed Mustafarian in mismatched bone armor gave a haunting yodel as it sprang from its hiding spot beneath an overturned binary loadlifter. Sparks marked the alien's trail as the Aargonarian power hammer in its clubby hands dragged on the dock's metal floor. Its target, Mort, was busy laying down suppressing fire and was only warned of the creature's presence by its voice. The sound should have been startling, terrifying, but he did not flinch or flee. A product of the clone masters of Kamino—an artwork of theirs, rather—he was not an ordinary human soldier; fear had been bred out of him before he emerged from his growth jar.

He simply pivoted and drew a bead on the new target. His DC-17m blaster rifle kicked out a glowing burst of cobalt. The Mustafarian's yodeling changed its pitch, its ruined chest smoldering, but it had all the momentum it needed and then some. In a fraction of a standard time part the power hammer was plummeting down toward Mort's visor.

Even a Katarn-class commando armor helmet couldn't stop a full-force blow from an Aargonarian power hammer.

So Mort did instead.

He stepped forward and clamped his left hand onto the hammer's shaft just below the head, and it was like time had frozen. His cybernetic arm's electrodrivers squealed, tested to their limits. While the Mustafarian's battle yodel was still tapering off to a confused "OOOoooOOOooOO-ooooooo...", Mort crammed the DC-17m's barrel up its snout and squeezed the trigger.

Rule #1: Kill 'em before they kill you.

"Mort, what's your status?! We still need covering fire, mir'osik!"

His helmet's mini-sterilizer beam wiped gore from Mort's visor as he resumed his firing position. Meanwhile, the voice on his helmet comm was familiar; it was his own.

"Stand by. Someone wanted my autograph."

He leaned out from the half-melted container he'd been using as cover, throwing fans of shots at the bone guards who were trying to reconstruct a defensive perimeter. These enemies—apparently mercs of some kind—were not the best-trained or equipped, but they still dangerous. Even so, Mort was more worried about the Mandalorian in the skies, and he kept an eye out.

Quagga, Able, and Maxis were more than halfway to the target freighter's loading ramp. The latter creature, despite his diminutive stature, managed to draw the most fire with his incessant leaping and demented, near-constant shrieks. Mort felt no ill will for any of his teammates, and he couldn't deny that this brazen tactic had proven effective so far.

But he also felt certain that Max would be the first of them to die. When that happened, Mort would mourn for him as he always had for fallen comrades, beginning with his fellow commandos in the Shadowlands of Kashyyyk.

Mort had lost track of Ktrame Zaposug, but knew he was hiding somewhere. The Ruurian confessed to being inept with blasters, but said he'd had some experience as a battlefield medic. As with the lagomorph, Mort didn't put good odds on the doctor's survival.

The mini-sterilizer wiped rain from his visor. Up ahead, he saw Able was mounting a small hill of debris, some parts of which were still burning. Where his brother had eschewed the Alliance field ponchos, Able wore his over his battered old Phase I armor, and it flowed behind him as he charged past dancing flames and pulsing lasers.

Mort's position became sub-optimal; Team Proton was advancing rapidly. "Moving up," he said over the comm, then took off. He jinked and zigzagged, firing ahead briefly when he was able. A squad or two of bone guards had appeared atop the freighter, alternating their targets between Jan Ors's team in the lookout and the advancing men below. Mort lamented that he'd never been able to find the accessories for this old DC-17m on the black market.

I'd give my other arm to have the sniper attachment right about now!

Still running, he spotted more hostiles fanning out from the Gravestone's entrance hatch. "Keep up with us, Dr. Z! We might need you in the next minute!" he shouted over his shoulder.

The Ruurian answered, but Mort paid no attention. Ahead he could see Max dancing in the carnage, firing liberally while barely hitting a thing. Meanwhile Quagga and Able were each crouching behind a crate, pinned by converging fusillades of energy from ahead and above. Able blindly tossed a concussion grenade out of his hiding spot, but it blew nowhere near his assailants. The Wookiee, meanwhile, was getting grazed by laser bolts while he recharged his bowcaster; the big furball could hardly fit behind anything for cover.

It was a bad spot for both of them, and as far as Mort was concerned, accomplishing their objective was a tall order, Team Strange's support notwithstanding. But he had no fear, no frustration; that simply wasn't in him. The objective or death. The mission is all.

He threw himself prone in a gap between two chunks of blackened debris, then started picking off bone guards.

High overhead, missiles lanced back and forth. Smoke billowed and thunder rolled. Bone guards—or pieces of them—twirled into the air like batons.

Another blast of thunder, a big one behind them, finally gave Mort pause. Rolling behind the debris—in the process nearly rolling over Dr. Zaposug, who had joined him—he tracked the fading smoke trail of the last missile to the outer wall of the dock, part of which was on fire.

Was melting.

Was collapsing.

There were two craters in the wall, actually: one beside Team Strange's pillbox and another below, the latter close enough that its shock wave must have shattered the lookout's windows; the glass was still falling, sparkling as it went. Meanwhile waves of flame were chewing across the superstructure of catwalks, stairs, and ladders, weakening joints so that entire segments were sagging beneath their own weight, soon to fall. A burgeoning glow was also issuing from viewports across the docking bay wall—flames spreading inside.

Mort stared, analyzing the damage, assessing what had happened. Both those missiles, he realized, had been fired from the Mandalorian. No doubt the others baselessly assumed he was Boba Fett, but whatever his identity, he'd pulled some impressive ordinance for this job. As far as Mort knew, the only small arms that could accomplish what he was seeing would be thermobaric mortars of the kind the used by the Empire's infamous elite incinerator troopers. In addition to its impressive explosive energy, such ordinance also discharged volatile incendiary fluids. Most often it was dylinium hydride; more commonly used as fuel for jet-wing craft on the Gall supply moon, its ignited form was astoundingly hot. Probably not hot enough to actually melt durasteel...but if it weakened the support beams in the docking bay wall enough, that might not even matter. Dust kicked out from widening cracks as alternating sections of the wall began to sag.

"YOW!" shouted Max over the comm, so loud that Mort winced. "Now that was a doozy! Team Strange, you okay!?"

Jan Ors's reply was threaded with static and blaster fire. "...abandoning position...stand by..."

Mort turned his eyes upward and spotted a curl of smoke—not the type left by a missile.

They'd been going about all this wrong, he realized. In any battlefield, whoever had the high ground, the elevated position, had the advantage—and there was no purer form of high ground than air superiority.

"Protons! Eyes in the skies!" he shouted, and then Fett zoomed past him, strafing some eight meters overhead. Mort drew a bead on him, but staggered as a torrent of shots washed over his position, red bolts pounding his chest, grazing his thighs, ripping chunks from the platform. The bounty hunter didn't slow down, sweeping his deluge on toward Quagga and Able. Mort tried to steady his aim again—

"MASTER MORT! GET DOWN!"

Dr. Zaposug's voice triggered Mort's commando conditioning; no questions, just move. Only as he dove did he see the grenade bouncing beside him—dropped, no doubt, by Fett in his passing.

The flash was blinding, agonizing, beautiful. For what seemed like hours there was no longer a dock or a freighter, no objective, no hostiles, not even any friendlies. No light or heat, no pain. Nothing existed anymore except Mort, who floated in his growth jar, held in the dark, blissful embrace of its metaembryonic fluid.

Then—

"Master Mort! Master Mort!"

Full sensation and awareness returned in an instant as Mort crashed back into his body. With a harsh motion he shoved the Ruurian doctor off his chest.

"Usen'ye! I'm—I'm fine, doctor! Get offa me!" he growled, sitting up.

"But sir, your wounds!"

"Wounds? Hell..." Mort paused, blinking as his vision cleared and his heads-up display became legible again. He felt burns all over, maybe a few cracks—the grenade seemed to have thrown him a good distance—but his vitals were solidly in the yellow. He was fine. "You don't know what this armor's capable of! Now, get to cover!"

Zaposug slithered behind the nearest obstacle, dragging his medkit with him, while Mort pawed about for his blaster and tried to assess the situation. He'd been blown a little closer to the others. Half a grenade's throw away, he watched as five bone guards rounded Quagga's hiding space—only to be ripped through by a full-charge spread from the warrior's bowcaster.

Past them, Able and Max were concentrating fire on a mound of debris to Mort's right—which served as shelter for none other than Boba Fett himself.

Despite all his training and conditioning, Mort was astounded. The man was just begging for a good flanking.

At last his hand found his DC-17m—or what was left of it: a sparking, charred mangle that had once been a weapon. Mort dropped it in disgust, then reached for the sidearm and frag grenade on his belt.

As he did so, Fett feinted a movement around the right side of his shelter. As his attackers' shots strayed that way, he instead slid around on the left, bent over, and activated his jetpack. The bounty hunter shot low over the dock and slammed headlong into Able...except when Mort blinked, he realized Fett had actually grabbed hold of the other man and plucked him off the deck. The two soared into the air like a tranthebar mountain ripper carrying off its prey, before the hunter let go and arced upward. Flailing helplessly, Able's lethal course took him into a brutal collision with the hull of the freighter's left cargo container. Crippled if not killed outright, Able's Alliance field poncho became a bellowing shroud as he tumbled limply through the air and fell out of sight.

"ABLE! NOOO!"

Boba Fett again looped back toward the battlefield, coming in fast.

Mort checked the charge of his sidearm, steadied his arm. Fear had been bred out of him.

But not rage.

It had gotten worse, a lot worse, and this time Zak hated being right.

He brought up the rear with Tash and Polio Jode, sheltering behind the Nautolan. Blasters flashed in the dust- and smoke-choked air ahead. Sections of floor and ceiling alike cracked and sagged, and gusts of fiery wind billowed from doors and hatches.

Boba Fett's second missile would have killed them, had Jan and Wade given him a chance to take aim. Even so, it had damaged the lookout, and this part of the docking bay, sufficiently to force a tactical retreat. And while they were doing that, more of those bone-armored goons had tried to sneak up on them.

The blaster fire ended. "Everyone pick up the pace!" Wade yelled over his shoulder. "They're getting pasted down there!"

Zak needed no convincing; they'd heard the comlink chatter. From the sounds of it, one of Team Proton had just been killed. And they still had no idea what had happened to Kyle Katarn and Team Sulon.

He glanced at Tash, who seemed shaken but steady enough. Zak himself felt like he had a good grip, but the situation was frustrating. The Bryar Force was just about the toughest bunch of people he'd ever met. Far as Rebels went, he thought they'd give even Luke Skywalker and his friends a run for their credits.

What in space was going on, then? Why had this mission gone down a black hole so fast? How were things going so wrong? Right before the shooting started, he remembered Tash had sensed danger, sensed that someone was aware of the teams' presence.

He wondered what that meant. Did we just get unlucky? Did those bony creeps or Boba Fett spot one of us, or...were they ready for us? Did they know we were going to be here?

Eyes widening with dread, he looked from one companion to the next: Jan, Wade, Payvees, 5/DX, Polio. His mind cycled through all the new people he had met at Searchlight Station. Could one of them be a traitor? Or an imposter?

It seemed unthinkable...but if Zak was going to be honest, it really, really wasn't. There was no end of horrible possibilities. Tash had once had her brain temporarily replaced with that of a murderer, Karkas, leaving him in control of her body until the B'omarr monks had switched them back. The evil Imperial scientist Borborygmus Gog had once used a telepathic alien to trap them in lifelike nightmares, tricking them into mistaking illusions for actual people. Gog himself had been a Shi'ido like Hoole, able to impersonate others with the same shapeshifting ability. On Hoth, Zak had fallen victim to the influence of a dead snowtrooper's spirit.

Heck, he thought, even the Bryar Force has MIMIC. A holodroid capable of replicating anyone's appearance, voice, and mannerisms. Who's to say...

They passed a stretch of hallway strewn with bodies wearing bone armor. Several were still twitching. Tash flinched away from one in disgust, but Zak barely saw it. His steps slowed. He was in the grip of a terrible suspicion.

What if it was MIMIC? The cult might actually have captured and reprogrammed him while he was on the space platform! He could have been working for them ever since! And right now, he was—

"Hey, Zak! Hurry up, laserbrain! What's the matter!"

Zak shook himself, realizing he had fallen back a ways. Tash was waiting for him with hands on her hips, her face reddening.

Zak's eyes tightened with annoyance. Did she really need to call him names like that, when they were in the middle of a crisis? Even now he sometimes wondered why she always got to pass herself off as the older, more mature one.

He opened his mouth first to retort, then to apologize when he observed Polio Jode beginning to turn back in concern, but in the end he didn't get a chance to say anything.

Tash's eyes strayed past her brother, then bulged as she shouted, "ZAK, RUN!"

Before he could move, though, a powerful arm wrapped around Zak's throat and he was pulled back, nearly off his feet, the heels of his boots scraping metal. Rough edges of bone ground against his throat. The guard—evidently one who was not as dead as they thought—used his free hand to turn a blaster pistol on the team.

Payvees and Polio dove for cover while Wade and Jan whirled, but Tash dropped to her belly, yelling, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot my brother!"

Wade answered with several words which would get him in trouble if Uncle Hoole heard them used in front of his niece and nephew.

The guard let off a few more wild shots, until Tash reached out a hand and plucked the blaster out of his grip with the Force. Cursing, the armored man wrapped Zak in both arms and started running backwards down the hall. Zak gagged and struggled, but couldn't break free. He couldn't even take a breath.

Meanwhile, Polio Jode was running full-tilt to catch up. The bone guard freed a hand—Zak didn't know why—as the Nautolan leaped high, then flattened himself in midair, thrusting his booted feet forward like electrodriver pistons. The sound of the impact was savage. Zak wasn't sure if Polio had only broken the guard's neck or kicked his head clean off, but he wasn't keen on finding out. As the man's grip slackened and Polio fell on both feet, Zak pushed himself free and ran into the Nautolan's arms.

"Augh! Thanks!"

Polio looked down at him with a cocky grin.

Then his cocky grin vanished as his head turned, apparently following something that was moving along the floor past them.

Then he snatched Zak up in his arms and bounded down the hall, the same way the would-be kidnapper had been going, chased by an expanding sphere of fire from the dead man's thermal detonator. When they stopped, Zak, stepped out his hold and braced himself against the wall—then jerked away. The permacrete was so hot that he could barely stand it.

The hall they'd been in seemed to be gone. In its place was a shimmering, half-molten sinkhole of layered building materials, belching foul smoke.

Polio Jode spoke into his comlink while Zak gaped at the sight. "We're okay, Jan."

"Thank the Force. We made it through too."

Metal groaned as yet more support beams in the building weakened. "I don't see a way for us to follow you. Go on without us and help Quagga and the others. Zak and I will find another way around and come join you."

Jan tersely acknowledged and signed off. Polio re-armed his vibroknucklers and gave Zak a nod. "Come on, now. Stay close."

In the shifting shade of the hanging platforms, dazzled by the glowlamp glare filtered through the slotted layers above, Kyle Katarn fought for his life, hand to hand. It wasn't by choice; he'd have preferred to use his stun baton, but first he would need to get it unhooked from the back of his belt.

Meanwhile, Hellanah Glittersky's arms came at him like Jaykay's metallic tentacles, striking so fast that one punch seemed like four. Even when Kyle cleanly blocked or deflected a blow, it tore at his muscles and jabbed breath from his lungs. A blur of orange knuckles found his jaw, half-spun him, sent him reeling. As he went, he let the momentum carry him in a blind spinning backfist, which found Glittersky's cheek with a pop.

Kyle kept up his retreat to the edge of the platform, where he braced himself against the railing.

"You've got a pretty mouth there," commented his opponent, who had not kept up. Again that self-violating voice, with the high-projected pitch undermined by its natural masculine depth.

The inside of Kyle's cheek stung, and he spat blood. "Not as pretty as it's going to be."

The repulsive giggle provoked by this report proved it had been ill-considered: "Oh, that's for sure."

Kriffing stupid, Kyle thought, trying to recenter himself. He wasn't sure how long he'd been brawling with Glittersky, only a minute or several. He didn't know where MIMIC was; the holodroid might or might not be able to clear that hole blasted in the stairs to join him. As far as Kyle knew, then, he was fighting alone against...

The figure facing him tossed oversized head-tails back across bulging shoulders, then cracked his tree-trunk neck.

...against that.

In the precious seconds he'd been given, Kyle tried to shut down his emotions, analyze the opponent. He'd fought big, burly aliens before—Gamorreans, Whiphids, Yuzzem, and more—and they all had weaknesses. He just had to find them.

He just had to look past the fact that this body-painted, skirt-wearing, musclebound cultist had killed Rianna Saren and Zeeo. Killed two squadmates. Killed two people who had done a lot of good for the Rebellion and for the galaxy—and who Kyle had taken responsibility for.

He just had to forget about how he had lost his bryar pistol, one of the few precious gifts that his father, from the humble circumstances of life on an Outer Rim farm, had bestowed on him.

He had to do that—shut down the part of him that felt. He'd done it before.

This time he didn't.

Hellanah Glittersky stalked forward, and Kyle ripped the stun baton free as he jumped to meet him. He thumbed the weapon on and jabbed, but the false Togruta slapped his arm wide and planted his knuckles in Kyle's collar bone. Kyle rolled with the punch as best he could, grabbing onto one of his assailant's fat, writhing head-tails—but the extremity stretched only a little before it came free in his hand with a dry snap. He spun away, flailing his arms while trying to regain his balance. Seeing Glittersky trying to stay with him, he flung the squirming prosthetic in his face.

The orange man reflexively slapped it away and shrieked, "You motherkriffer!"

On the floor far below, flames were still churning where Rianna Saren's body had fallen.

"Like you've got something to be mad about," Kyle snarled, and swung his stun baton. Skirt twirling, Glittersky dodged, sweeping his foe's legs out from under him with a kick.

Kyle belly-flopped hard, then pushed himself up with one hand while blindly jabbing the stun baton forward. Next thing he knew, he was frozen in place. One freakish fist was clumped around his hair as if to rip it clean of the scalp; another was locked to his wrist. The baton's twin mandibles, sparking and sizzling, had stopped just between the crouching cultist's spread, muscular legs.

"Ooh...that's not ready yet, boy."

Nausea squirmed like a baby dianoga swimming in Kyle's guts. The grip on his hand with the baton started to twist, spilling fire into the bone there; in seconds it would snap. He raised his eyes. That painted face, orange on white, leered down at him: grinning, seething, snarling, flecking him with sweat and other, stranger odors.

Kyle made a thick, hauwking sound in his throat and spat into that made-up face. When Glittersky flinched away, Kyle freed his left hand from the floor; instantly his eyes watered and pain shot through his skull, as Glittersky's hold on his hair was the only thing keeping him up. Screaming from his throat, Kyle rammed his fist into the orange man's groin with all of his strength.

What exactly he hit, he could not say, but he felt something give beneath the punch with a wet splurch.

Instantly Glittersky dropped him, and again Kyle hit his head. The impact knocked him halfway out of his body; muddy blackness clung to his mind, threatening to pull him under into total numbness, but he refused to give in.

He had at least two teammates to avenge.

He had a piece of Morgan Katarn's legacy to avenge.

And he had a mission to complete.

Kyle pushed himself up and looked in the direction of an intermittent noise, a sort of choked screaming. When his eyes cleared, he saw that it was Hellanah Glittersky: bent over the railing of the platform, vomiting into the burning abyss below.

No hesitation.

No disgust.

Only cold fury.

Kyle blinked and he was there, his arms moving like alternative gravidic pistons: fist pounding, stun baton lunging. Arcs of lightning seared flesh and melted leather. The mass of orange muscle flailed, crumbled, quivered, and finally a shove from Kyle's shock boot sent it rolling beneath the rail into the empty air—now free, freefalling, Hellanah Glittersky entered the flames and disappeared.

"Attention, all hands," blared a voice that rang through the cavernous room. "Fuel cycling is complete. Disengagement from dock will commence in four standard minutes."

The words shocked Kyle back to himself, blew the rage and satisfaction away like smoke. He pulled out his comlink and tried to call Jan, only to find the signal was being jammed.

"Commander..."

The voice came from MIMIC, who was crawling up the remains of the stairs. The glow of the power cell in his chest undulated, worrisome and irregular.

"MIMIC!"

The holodroid held up a hand as Kyle rushed over. "Commander, forgive me. My...damage seems to have been more severe than I thought. My servomotors may soon give out completely."

"Well, can you stand? We've got to get out of here!"

"Perhaps it would be best if you went on without me."

Kyle's spine locked; before his eyes he saw again the thermal detonator's destructive sphere, Rianna Saren's broken body rolling over the railing.

"That's a negative," he said coldly. Even as MIMIC protested, he slung one of the droid's arms across his shoulders and took his blaster pistol. "Now come on, let's move out."

He recalled seeing at least one door at the top level of these platforms. Awkwardly, he guided his damaged squad mate toward the stairway leading up, keeping the pistol in hand. There were sure to be more bone guards coming soon.

A half-familiar noise drew his eyes beyond the platform: metal squealing, clanking...and some meters below, at the edge of the flames from the still-burning debris that had fallen, he thought he could see something large start to crawl up the damaged walls of the chamber...

Fresh sweat ran down Kyle's forehead and he tried to pick up the pace.

The loading platform was a mess, strewn with bone armored bodies, blown-open containers, destroyed binary loadlifters, and unrecognizable debris, much of it still covered in fiery tongues that hissed against acidic rainfall. Halfway across, Payvees and 5/DX stopped to set up a firing support position; the Gran technician huffed and sagged under his packs of explosives, despite having half as many as he'd started with. Tash dropped to one knee beside him, sheltering behind the towering droid while Jan Ors and Wade Vox ran on.

"Just stay with me, and we'll be okay," Payvees told her. "We're gonna set up a special delivery for those fierfeks up there."

Another word Uncle Hoole doesn't let us use, thought Tash. She took a peek around 5/DX's legs.

The firefight ahead was intense, with Boba Fett diving and weaving, raining destruction on Team Proton as they struggled to track him. Based on comlink chatter, one of them was already dead, and the survivors—Mort, Maxis, Quagga, and Dr. Zaposug—were in danger of being forced apart and picked off. They also had several bone guards on the platform shooting at them, and to make matters worse, another wave was rushing down the Gravestone's ramp.

Jan and Wade were hopefully going to the rescue. They advanced under fire like true soldiers, zipping from one bit of cover to the next, pausing but never hesitating, and blasting from their rifles whenever they got the chance.

Tash gripped her macrobinoculars, struggling to keep them steady. Quagga was locked in close combat with several bone guards, brutalizing them with his fists as well as point-blank shots from his bowcaster. Mort was propped with his back to a crate, drawing crazed blue spirals into the sky, trying to bring Fett down. Off to the right, Tash saw a laser bolt pass through one of Max's long, floppy ears, burning the top quarter free. The little lagomorph screeched, but returned fire even as he leaped and spun like a toy gyrothopter.

This wasn't just bad. It was terrible. Tash couldn't prove it empirically, but she was more convinced than ever that the Bryar Force hadn't just slipped up and gotten caught; they'd been expected. Boba Fett had only spotted them because he'd known to look for them in the first place. Now they were fighting for their lives, and at this rate they weren't even going to make it aboard the Gravestone, let alone steal its navigational data. As if that wasn't bad enough, Zak and Polio Jode were still separated from them, and no one had any idea how Kyle and his team were doing.

"Easy does it...easy does it..."

Payvees was squatting beside 5/DX, staring at the battlefield through his oversized scanning helmet. Hopefully the device's many blinking lights wouldn't make him too tempting a target.

Something pulled Tash's attention back to Mort. For a short time she watched him continue to chase Boba Fett with his blaster rifle—Jan and Wade were giving him some help with that—but as the moment went on, a terribly cold feeling settled in Tash's mind. It was more than a feeling, of course; she had no Jedi training, but most of the time she knew when the Force was trying to tell her something.

It was telling her that Mort was about to die.

Nothing more than that. No details, no precognitive flash in which she saw it happening before it actually did. Only the warning: Mort was about to die.

Meanwhile, Tash Arranda was no soldier, no Rebel agent; much less was she a Jedi Knight. The years since losing Alderaan and their parents had curbed her brother's appetite for danger and excitement somewhat, and she liked it even less. She had never thought of herself as a particularly brave person, especially compared to the extraordinary beings she had met—people like Uncle Hoole, Luke Skywalker, and Glup Shiitö. Her only weapon was a CDEF blaster pistol calibrated for stun-only—but whether it shot real laser bolts or spitballs, Tash had next to no experience with guns. Jan Ors had good reason for telling her and Zak to stay at the back of the team, no matter what else happened.

But Mort was about to die, and no one knew it except Tash.

Tash, who chose to amend the warning: he was going to die unless someone did something about it.

Unless I do something now. Right now.

There was practically nothing that a sixteen year-old girl could do to help a highly-trained commando against a horde of killers. It would be crazy of Tash to even try.

Tash put the macrobinoculars away, took a deep breath, and bolted across the dock, poncho rippling behind her.

"Hey, you! What in the blue blazes are you doing?! Get back here behind 5/DX!"

Payvees's bellowing voice cut through the rain, but Tash ignored him and disappeared into the maze of twisted junk. Yes, what she was doing was crazy. Yes, she was scared inside, even terrified. But she was also an Arranda; for her family, what was left of it, madness and terror were simply everyday facts of life, like a headache or a stubbed toe or a power coupling that needed replacing. She also wanted to be a Jedi someday. Jedi believed in doing what the Force led them to, and she thought the Force wanted her to run, so she was running. The rest she would figure out later.

Instead of going straight for Mort, she ran along the right side of the platform not far from its edge, hiding behind debris whenever she could—diving, crouching, crawling. She didn't go unnoticed; laser bolts bit into the metal behind her or pocked nearby crates.

Fusillades of missiles from 5/DX roared across the platform and exploded, but to less effect than the Bryar Force hoped; Boba Fett again saw them coming and shot several before they could reach their targets.

Tash threw herself prone beside the mangled chassis of a binary loadlifter and paused there. She was close enough for the noise of blaster fire to pop her ears, close enough to smell the ozone. Ahead to her right Max was dancing about, his twin blasters spraying emerald. Ahead to the left was Mort: still behind cover, still firing overhead. Tash hadn't noticed before, but he'd been shot in the upper leg—apparently more than once. The armor there was gone, and Dr. Zaposug was finishing up applying a bacta patch.

A bone guard leaped atop Mort's crate, caterwauling as he raised a power hammer high overhead—until a disruptor beam lanced through him. Dirty gold energy chewed through his molecules until a clattering pile of armor and weaponry was all that remained.

Boba Fett flew overhead yet again. Crisscrossing bolts of yellow and blue (from Jan and Mort, respectively) skimmed his armor and tore the barrel off one of his blasters. He retreated to the right, but Tash's attention left him. Instead her eyes followed a smaller checkered yellow canister that sailed from among the advancing bone guards. The funny-looking thing slammed into Mort's crate, jolting him slightly, and stayed there, hissing out a trail of gray smoke.

It looked very similar to the rail charges Tash had seen Kyle Katarn carrying.

Fear squeezed her heart, sending her blood surging. This was it. She had only seconds.

Using the Force, she focused on the rail charge, thinking to throw it back the way it had come, but all the the explosive did was rattle slightly. It was embedded in the crate and wouldn't come out cleanly. Close to panicking, Tash put out both hands toward Mort and Dr. Zaposug and shoved as hard as she could. The two went sliding a good ten meters across the open floor, stopping beside Quagga.

Tash couldn't say whether the rail charge's detonation stunned her or she exerted herself too much. The next thing she knew, though, she was lying face down, shaking dark spots from her eyes. Looking again, she saw Mor struggling to his feet, standing back to back with the Wookiee, the two defiantly howling together as the bone guards tried to flank them.

Tash yelped as blaster fire stitched flaming lines into the metal on either side of her cover. She'd been spotted—and she'd been caught alone, just like Mort and the doctor had been!

Shots passed her, going both ways; Jan and Wade, a good ways off to the left and back, had also spotted her and were trying to give her cover. But she had glimpsed—and could even dimly sense—a terrifying number of bone guards creeping forward on both sides.

Now Tash had really done it; she'd saved two teammates, but in the process put herself in massive danger. It occurred to her—not for the first time—that maybe she wasn't so different from Zak, with his impulsive nature and taste for pulling stunts.

"Hi!"

The bizarrely chipper voice made her jump. Gasping and hugging the debris even closer, Tash turned to see Maxis Makinene...and he was a sight: one ear missed a quarter of its length and sported a charred hole through its center, while the other was simply gone. Smoke curled from grazing wounds up and down his body, and the stink of burned fur and flesh were palpable. Yet for all that, Max was still smiling, and his beady eyes overflowed with flame.

"Are you—" Tash began.

"Nope, not even close—and I've never felt better!" The lagomorph cackled, hefting his pistols. The barrel tips were glowing white-hot. "Y'know, you're not supposed to be up here. This is a private party. Whaddaya say I give you some covering fire and you make a break for it?"

A disruptor beam blazed past him, striking a target neither could see. Retaliatory fire intensified, and another noise returned to the melee: an active jetpack coming closer. Tash glanced toward Wade and Jan's position.

Not waiting for an answer, Max leaned out from cover, his pistols blazing, peppering advancing bone guards at scarcely six meters away. "C'MON, YOU SUBADULT-SNIFFERS," he shrieked, "HIT ME AGAIN! I LIKE IT!"

Tash had only taken her first step when something knocked the wind out of her. He fell and rolled once, favoring her side. Next to her, Max lay on his back, groaning, smoke rising from his torso, and she realized that he had been thrown into her somehow. When the lagomorph sat up, she gasped and saw how that had happened.

The latter half of a timed rail charge was protruding from his gut, hissing contentedly.

Windmilling, Max staggered to his feet. He glanced down at the canister, then at Tash. He was still smiling, but the smile was doing strange things. Blood flecked from his teeth with his next words.

"Oh, boy...you know what this means?"

Then he threw himself into the advancing bone guards with a final, manic scream. Even as he went, Tash saw several laser bolts tearing through him, until the charge went off and its outer wave carried her across the platform.

Zak tossed the cumbersome poncho aside, then removed his backpack, knelt beside it, and got started. His face couldn't decide what to do—whether to grin from ear or ear or grimace in abject dread; his eyes were watering, and he didn't know why.

He and Polio Jode were on a platform jutting out from the docking bay wall, some ways down from the original lookout. Presumably a landing pad for small repulsorlift vehicles, it provided a sidelong view of the dock, where Teams Proton and Strange were still in a desperate firefight. The two were supposed to find an alternate way there, but every hall seemed to lead back into the area which Boba Fett's missiles had rendered impassable. Desperately, Zak had come up with his own idea of an alternative route—and, to his simultaneous satisfaction and dismay—Polio had agreed.

The Nautolan was now crouched at the pad's edge, grimly watching the battle through macrobinoculars. "5/DX's taking fire—lots of it. He and Payvees are moving for cover."

The sharp distant thrum of an explosion reached Zak's ears, and his heart skipped. "Was that...?" He didn't dare finish the question.

Polio didn't answer him immediately. "No, that was Max. He's gone, and..."

"What is it? What?" Zak twisted around, almost angry. "What happened?!"

"I see Tash on the ground. Moving, but she looks stunned."

In a flash, Polio was on his feet and coming closer. "Zak, is it ready? It's now or never."

Zak's guts coiled like a snarl of monga snakes. He could not help but look past Polio to the distant loading platform, which still glittered with flames and soaring lasers—and Boba Fett hovering this way and that, pouring death down on Zak's friends...and on his sister, who had just been hurt, while Zak had been doing nothing but getting lost.

He tried to control his pounding heart—and failed. Accepting it, he donned the cybervision helmet and switched on the HUD. "It's ready. Hop on," he said.

The skimboard's repulsors purred encouragingly as they powered up. These things were not designed with passengers in mind, but Zak had managed it a few times before, and in situations no less dire than this one. When Polio Jode got situated beside him and they each had spread their arms for balance, Zak tapped the controls with his foot. The board rose to half a meter, and he deftly maneuvered to the far end of the pad, pointing toward the melee dozens of meters away.

Pointing toward Boba Fett.

Zak adjusted the rangefinder, centering its target-finder on Boba Fett, who continued to strafe through the air, spraying energy from his blaster rifle like a fire douser.

"Have you got him?" Polio asked.

"Locked on," Zak breathed.

"You sure you can do this?"

Zak laughed once without mirth. "Hell no."

Beyond this tiny pad, there was nothing below except the brazen abyss of Far Qasqi's atmosphere. They would have to jump fifty meters just to reach the loading platform's edge, and Boba Fett was hovering between ten and fifteen beyond that. Zak had pulled off some impressive tricks with a skimboard—owing as much to Chewbacca's modifications as his own skill—but this would be something for the holobooks, assuming he didn't die. He supposed this was exactly the sort of situation where you wanted the Force to be with you—where you leaned on it to help you out.

Probably, but I'm not Tash, he thought. This is all I've got.

Polio Jode spoke again—and though Zak couldn't see his face, he heard a warm smile in the words. "I'll give you a secret, young one. You don't have to be. Now let's fly."

Bracing himself, Zak charged the forward accelerator up to maximum and gunned it. The skimboard was off like a concussion missile. At the very edge of the landing pad he kicked the vertical repulsor as hard as it would go, vaulting them into the rainy skies.

Water drops pelted Zak's visor, rattled his helmet, speared at his skin. The freezing wind passed over him, a constant, angry roar. Observing their approach to the loading platform, their progress over the cloudy void below, was like watching a sunset; he couldn't believe how huge and slow and far away everything looked.

The skimboard reached the peak of its arc, began to dip, and cleared the platform's edge. Detecting ground again, its vertical repulsor came back online, maintaining altitude at nine meters. Beneath them, the burning, wreckage-strewn dock was crawling with bone guards.

Boba Fett was still aloft, still firing down at the Bryar Force. Range: fifteen meters.

Zak raised his energy slingshot and lined up. His body felt like it was made of lightning. Nothing he did was conscious choice now; his body was simply acting out the decision he'd made on the other side of the docking bay.

With no warning, the bounty hunter pivoted toward the approaching skimboard and fired a burst from his blaster rifle. Zak's mouth opened automatically to scream, but nothing came out, and Fett's lasers vanished in flashes of green; the personal shield Kyle had loaned him proved its worth in aurodium.

Zak triggered his slingshot. The first energy orb passed Fett's shoulder, but the second and third hit him in the chest. The hunter convulsed as yellow arcs danced across the plates of his armor, and the blaster rifle fell from his hands. As they closed to a distance of mere meters, Polio Jode pounced from the skimboard like a Corellian sand panther, tackling Boba Fett in midair.

Zak whooped in triumph as he zoomed by, thanking the Force for giving him a friend in Rosh Penin.

Then things went very, very wrong for him.

Something hit Zak in the gut—something so thin and strong that it stopped him cold. His skimboard tried to keep going without him, but his heel caught the brake, though more by accident than reflex. The board stopped with a jerk, and Zak strained to pull it back under his body. Whatever he had run into wasn't letting up, and if he'd kept going it would either have plucked him off or cut him in two—like Jaykay's fibersaw-sharp tentacles. In fact, it did feel like that. Something had wrapped around him, like a wire or...

Or one of Boba Fett's capture cables! he realized—right before the line jerked hard, pulling him off the skimboard.

Grabbing the line by reflex, Zak caught a blurred glimpse of Polio and Fett, tangled together, as he swung beneath them. His scream was choked away as the cable caught him at the end of the arc. The hunter's jetpack must not have been ready for the sudden increase in weight, because the next thing Zak saw was the platform rushing up to meet him—

The pain hit him like a black tidal wave, twisting and tossing him, turning him inside-out, finally dropping him, the wave receding, but continuing to mocking lap around the edges. Noise flooded into Zak's ears as moments or seconds passed, but he understood none of it. At some point he realized the capture cable had gone slack, though it was still wrapped around him. Finally he raised his head.

Directly in front of him, Boba Fett slammed onto his back with a crash of armor. With the same double-kick, Polio Jode backflipped away, rolled, and gracefully rose again into a ready stance.

"Ungh...that hurt." Boba Fett's voice was somehow strange, different from the other times Zak had heard it, but there was nothing reassuring in that. It was still harsh, gravelly—more vicious, if anything.

"I meant it to," retorted Polio Jode, grinning. His vibroknucklers hummed as he raised them.

Fett got onto one knee. "Let's see you try it again."

Zak tried to get up—to do what, he had no idea—but pain shredded his muscles. He couldn't get one foot beneath him.

"That's a request you'll come to regret," said Polio. His arms turned to dark blurs, the vibroknucklers shining arcs, as he cut the air with a series of flourishing slashes—then sprang forward.

From a strap at the back of his shoulder, Fett drew a strange weapon: a dark gray carbine, marked by two red stripes, with an oversized barrel. When he squeezed the trigger, it spewed some kind of gray mist that covered and obscured the advancing Nautolan.

Zak stared in slack-jawed stupefaction as Polio, too quick to see mere seconds later...simply froze. As the mist settled, it turned out to have been some kind of liquid that had coated him, soaked into him, and hardened in less than a second. A potent chemical odor assault Zak's nostrils. His stomach lurched when he recognized it.

Carbonite.

His friend had just been frozen solid.

Shouts and blaster fire continued to echo over the dock. Bone guards stomped past. Ignoring them, Fett drew a blaster pistol in his off-hand.

"Cha skrunee da pat, sleemo."

Zak screamed, but it was no use. Polio Jode's frozen torso cracked apart like a lump of brittle borlestone. The arms popped in opposite directions. Tentacles scattered like icicles. The head itself—bulbous eyes sparkling, mouth still open in a defiant howl—dipped forward as though in shame. All struck the ground and shattered to a million pieces.

Zak's mouth struggled; but in all his rage, all his hurt, all the profanities he knew, nothing could express what he felt in that moment. All that came out was a whimpering gurgle.

Boba Fett turned his helmet, inscrutably studying Zak over his shoulder. Past the hunter, the Gravestone began to emit a low roar which set the whole platform vibrating. Before Zak could think of what that meant, two bone guards grabbed him.

Stepping with feet that felt like plasticrete blocks, Kyle squeezed himself and MIMIC into the lift, the holodroid's shoulder scraping loudly against the wall. As they finished turning around, Kyle was shot by another bone guard. His betaplast vest saved him again; it only felt like getting punched by a Wookiee with a blazing-hot fist.

The pistol he'd gotten from MIMIC was a SE-14r light repeater; even as the blast rammed breath out of his lungs and knocked him against the lift wall, Kyle sent a spiral of red-white plasma into the guard, who collapsed.

Breathing the fumes of his half-melted armor, Kyle punched the elevator button and sagged into the corner. The lights dimmed as they rose. The whole ship was rumbling as its repulsors and sublights prepared to engage.

MIMIC's gold photoreceptors blinked in the dark. Eyes constantly open wide. "Commander, you're hit."

"No kidding?"

A small health pack was attached to the lift wall. Kyle's free hand felt huge and alien as he clawed it open. He handed the pistol off to MIMIC and fumbled with the pack's contents, but had trouble keeping things straight.

"MIMIC." He couldn't get enough air into his lungs. "How many times did I get shot? Was that the third?"

"Fourth, sir."

"Huh. That might be a record."

He tried to load the bacta injector, but the tube slipped from his fingers, fell to the floor, and rolled between his shock boots. Kyle gave up on it. After all, he'd gotten this far...

Just as his eyes started to close, cold rain pattered on his face. Above them the hatch was opening, Far Qasqi's sky glaring. The lift clanked into place. Kyle and MIMIC shuffled out onto the hull of the Gravestone. Its irregular surface was still checkered with puddles, but now the puddles were dancing.

"We've gotta get off this thing—kriff," Kyle said, looking toward the stern. Even through the rain he could see that the refueling crane had detached itself and retracted. Meanwhile the docking claws, latched onto the ship's belly from either side, were blocked by the massive containers.

"Commander, we should head to the front," suggested MIMIC, but they were already moving that way, sloshing and splashing through dirty puddles.

With his free hand, Kyle managed to switch the comlink on without dropping it. Whatever had jammed it before must only have worked inside the Gravestone, because the signal came through loud and clear.

"Team Sulon, come in!"

Jan was practically screaming; now Kyle almost did drop the com. "I'm here! We got ambushed inside. Couldn't plant the beacon. It's—it's just MIMIC and I. We're on top of the Gravestone, comin' up front. I guess we're..." He paused, the pain of loss giving way to a feeble, self-deprecating humor. He hadn't thought of what he and the holodroid were going to do once they reached the end of the hull. "I guess we're gonna jump onto the loading ramp. What's your status?"

"Kyle, we got shredded, and we're still taking fire. Boba Fett was helping the bone guards. We're down three men, and most of the others are wounded..."

Everything blurred. For a moment all Kyle could do was trudge over the rough metal hull, trying to process what he'd heard. Fett was here—helping the Transcendent? And three more of his people were dead?

"I said Sulon, acknowledge!" Jan was so frantic now, Kyle couldn't tell if she was furious or panicked. Maybe both.

"Sorry...please repeat," he panted.

"I said, they took Zak! They took him aboard the Gravestone! We tried to stop them, but—but there's too many guards now!"

Kyle stumbled, nearly fell under MIMIC's weight, and trudged on. The lip of the hull was only a stone's throw away now. He was coming to the end of the world.

"KYLE!"

"Stand by," he told her numbly. "I think we're gonna need covering fire."

The comlink slipped from his fingers, but he went on without pausing. His legs were working automatically, dragging his and the droid's weight forward. He could have walked into Far Qasqi's abyss without noticing. His chest was on fire, his mind opaque.

They took Zak. They took Zak.

MIMIC's suddenly shaky voice broke in on him. "Commander, we're not really going to jump, are we?"

Kyle had to shout when he answered; the air shook with the roar of engines and klaxons. "No, I—I"ve got a grappling hook! Just a second!"

Half a meter from the edge they came to a stop, swaying. Ahead the hull sloped down a bit; slotted viewports indicated the bridge. The loading platform stretched forth beyond, some fifteen or twenty meters below.

Giving the pistol back to MIMIC again, Kyle took out the grapple launcher and, grasping with both hands, fired it at the lip of the hull. The ultra-magnetic grabber stuck, the first half-meter of liquid-cable instantly solidified. Kyle tested it with a few tugs, then hooked the launcher to his belt in time for the rumble of the Gravestone to start climbing toward its apex. He could actually feel it moving beneath his feet now. There was no more time.

Darkness pressed in on the edge of its vision. With heartbeat, pain stabbed deeper into his body. "MIMIC, hang on!" he choked, and moved.

Only then did he realize that his strength was truly gone. He tried to jump and simply fell—rolling, tumbling, scraping, his body a lump of dead weight, MIMIC an assortment of scrap metal entangled around him.

Blaster fire—

A plunge through open air—

Stopped by his belt, yanked in two directions—

Click—

Falling again, then everything dark—

Darker.

Darker still.

Rain on his face, his heart pumping, pushing spikes and needles through every vein.

He opened his eyes. Blinking, he saw Jan and Dr. Zaposug and clouds flying overhead, the colors of amber and rust and straw and a sunset on Sulon in the harvest season. The huge black blocky shape of the Gravestone was lifting away, and a smaller, fiercer dark shape was lowering into the docking bay, slinging darts that glowed the color of blood. Bloody light. It was the Bloodshark, coming down beside the platform, one of its hatches opening...

"After 'em!" bellowed Wade Vox as he burst into the assault transport's cockpit. "After that freighter! We can't let 'em get away!"

Seated at the pilot's station, Natalie Darr tersely concurred; her sense of humor was a million lightyears away.

The Bloodshark gave a ravenous growl as its repulsorlifts carried it out of the bay. Even as it pointed toward the unseen stars, though, proximity alarms began to blare. The refuel station's internal security may not have dared to intervene in a confrontation between heavily armed customers, but it was a different story in the skies and beyond. Razor fighters screamed through the clouds, strafing the Bloodshark and needling its shields with laser and ion fire.

The pilots of Black Sun were either very brave, very well-paid, or just very stupid. With Wade Vox, Cody Darklighter, and Hantor Loftus manning its turbolaser turrets, the assault transport proved to be as mean as it looked. Fighters swooped down in brazen attack runs, only to burst into scrap or twirl into fiery, disintegrating tailspins.

Pounding footsteps entered the cockpit after some minutes. Wade glanced up from his gunner control station to see a ragged Jan Ors, and the look on her face made him want to crawl under his console and never come out again.

She looked strange, coming in by herself—until Wade remembered that she was the second-in-command for this mission, and Kyle had gotten shot up as just as badly as Mort. Dr. Z was supposed to be prepping them for bacta submersion. He opened his mouth to ask how they were, but Jan blazed past him to Natalie's shoulder. "What's our status?"

"Just breaking orbit," the pilot answered. "I've got the Gravestone on mark three-five. Range, fifty klicks. They're almost out of the gravity well."

Wade ground his teeth, tracked another weaving Razor fighter, and blew it to hell. He felt no satisfaction. Once the freighter was free of Far Qasqi's gravity, it would jump to hyperspace—and this entire mission would be for nothing.

"Can we catch up to them?" Jan asked.

Natalie's voice was pained. "Maybe, but it's gonna be close...mother of meteors!"

"What?!"

Wade checked his secondary readout, and his heart turned to carbonite.

"I've got two Marauder corvettes on scopes. Coming in ahead to cut us off from the Gravestone." The Pantoran pilot took a deep breath. "Jan, I'm sorry. I—we have to break off.

"No!" Wade realized that he had shouted that, and that he was on his feet. "You heard on the com, didn't you?! Zak's on that ship!"

Natalie's eyes were radioactive yellow. "We couldn't stand up to one corvette, let alone two! If we try to go past them, they'll blast us to atoms!"

"We saved that kid from Nar Shaddaa—and then the Hospital Platform! We can't just leave him!"

The cockpit was silent for what felt like a full minute, Wade and Natalie's eyes locked in twin agonized glares. Inevitably, though, everyone looked to Jan.

She met their stares, one after another. "Natalie's right. It's too late. We'll only be destroyed. The mission's a failure. All we can do is return to Searchlight."

A part of Wade wanted to scream at her, to yank Natalie Darr away from the controls and pilot the assault transport himself, but the horrible, collapsed sound of Jan's voice crushed his carbonite-heart to dust, like Polio Jode had been, destroyed his strength.

There was no arguing it. No denying it. No salvaging it.

They had failed.

It was still sinking in when the scanner gave a beep. They all looked and caught the split-second wink of light as the Gravestone flashed into hyperspace.

Razor fighters continued to harry the Bloodshark, but its shields held as it banked away from the corvettes. Wade sat back down, his head bowing over the gunner controls, but he left them alone. He wasn't sure he'd have the strength to lift his head or hands ever again.

That kid trusted us.

His sister trusted us.

And Shaparo trusted us.

Around them, the stars turned to lines, then broke into the void of hyperspace. In a few days they would be back at Orion IV, back at their home base, but Wade could not look forward to that. What would there really be to come home to, after a day like today?

CHAPTER COMPLETE

PASSWORD: SUNRIDER