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  Jaina rolled them to starboard and angled into line behind a string of dark specks drifting across the face of the worldship, now so large that it completely filled the dome. Anakin had Ulaha activate a holocam and begin feeding mapping information to her datapad. The long journey between galaxies had left the massive spacecraft dilapidated and spent. A few black, jagged scars denoted breaches in the outer shell, but most of the planetoid seemed a mottled patchwork of gray dust and jagged yorik coral. A sparse network of surface utility lanes curved along the surface, occasionally converging in starburst intersections or vanishing down the dark mouth of an interior access portal.

  The worldship still did not hail them, and the back of Anakin’s neck began to prickle with danger sense. No New Republic base would allow any ship to approach so closely without making contact. Jaina maintained her spacing behind the other ships, following them around the curve of the planetoid. A complex of cone-shaped grashal peaks appeared on the horizon, protruding up through the outer shell, a little to the starboard of the long line of vessels they were following. Even with the naked eye, Anakin could see that the buildings emerged from the surface close to the city-sized square of a huge black pit.

  “Maxmag that, Ulaha,” he said. “What’s it like?”

  Ulaha turned her holocam on the complex and increased the magnification. “It appears to be some kind of spaceport,” she wheezed. Though the Bith was much improved after her healing trance, she remained weak and colorless. “There is a large pit surrounded by many entrances, with what look to be loading facilities.”

  “Abandoned?”

  “Empty,” Ulaha corrected. “No vessels in sight, but the landing pads are stacked with cargo pods … and cages.”

  Anakin reached out to the facility with the Force. He no longer felt the pained presence he had noticed before, but the hungry stirring of voxyn was still powerful. The tingle in the back of his neck became a nettling, and, noting that their current approach would keep them well away from the complex, he suddenly understood why the worldship had not yet hailed them.

  “They’re trying to lead us into a trap. Jaina, turn toward that complex now!” Anakin activated the comlink. “Ganner, you and Tesar ready that missile. Stand by for targeting coordinates. Everybody, secure your vac suits. We’re in for a rough ride.”

  As Jaina swung the ship around, Lowbacca rumbled an alarm. “Oh, dear,” Em Teedee chirped at Anakin’s collar. “Master Lowbacca says there’s a cruiser—”

  “I heard him,” Anakin said.

  A distant ovoid of yorik coral floated over the horizon, moving to position itself between the Exquisite Death and what Anakin now felt certain was the loading area for the cloning complex. Lowbacca warned that the corvettes coming from Myrkr were accelerating and spreading out, and the half-dozen vessels they had been following were turning toward the cruiser. When Em Teedee attempted to repeat this information in Basic, Anakin switched him off.

  One of the small villips next to the ship’s hailing villip suddenly pushed through its eversion orifice, taking the shape of a lumpy Yuuzhan Vong head ringed around the brow by goiterlike growths. “Gadma dar, Ganner Rhysode.”

  Anakin turned to Tahiri for a translation, but the villip began to speak in Basic before she could supply it.

  “Stroke the hailing villip, Jeedai, so that we can speak.”

  Before obeying, Anakin said, “Jaina, continue on course. Lowie, get a targeting lock on that cruiser and feed the coordinates to Ganner and Tesar.”

  The Yuuzhan Vong grew impatient. “It should be the leathery disk next to this one, Jeedai.”

  Anakin stroked the appropriate villip. Instead of everting, its central orifice opened and extended toward him a short tentacle with a black eye at the end. The Yuuzhan Vong—or rather, his villip—raised his brow and started to demand something in his own language, then caught himself and smiled.

  “Very good, Ganner Rhysode. I see we are not the only ones who use masquers.”

  Seeing no reason to disabuse an enemy of his mistake, Anakin left the holoshroud on. “I’m sure this is more than a social call, shipmaster.”

  “Commander,” the officer corrected. “It is my obligation to recover the vessel you have stolen.”

  “Stolen?” Anakin asked. “We’re just borrowing it. You can have it back when we finish.”

  The commander’s villip went blank for a moment, then frowned. “I fear it is needed now. Surrender to the matalok ahead, and you will be the only one who suffers for the … misuse … of the Exquisite Death.”

  Anakin glanced through the bridge dome and saw an ovoid as long as his arm. The distance between the vessels had to be no more than a dozen kilometers, and still the cruiser had not opened fire. Perhaps the commander had dreams himself of presenting Tsavong Lah with seventeen Jedi—or perhaps he did not think his cruiser had much to fear from a ship as small as the Exquisite Death.

  Lowbacca growled a report saying there were half a dozen coralskippers and as many corvette analogs moving into position over the cloning facility.

  “It would be futile to make my matalok attack, Jeedai,” the commander warned. “My trap was well laid, and the warmaster has said that if we must open fire, the Talfaglion hostages are forfeit.”

  “Has he?” Anakin opened his emotions to the others so they would be ready for what he intended. “I see we have no choice.”

  Hoping Luke had everything ready on his side of the galaxy, Anakin snatched his lightsaber from his belt and, thumbing the ignition switch, slashed the hailing villip apart.

  “Full ahead, Jaina.” He activated his comlink. “Ganner, target cruiser. Set fuse to proximity, fire when ready.”

  “Missile loose.”

  The report came almost before the order was finished, but it took Anakin until the missile flashed past to realize Ganner had known what Anakin intended. The strike team had established its battle meld automatically, perhaps even unconsciously, as soon as the likelihood of combat became apparent.

  The missile’s unexpected appearance confused the Yuuzhan Vong for only a few seconds. A flurry of plasma balls boiled out to intercept the missile, causing the droid brain to activate its countermeasure program. The missile diverted some of its power to shields and continued toward its target in an evasive corkscrew. Anakin did not need to tell his sister to circle around the target. Baradium was the same substance that made thermal detonators such fearsome weapons, and the missile was carrying enough of the explosive to equip an entire assault division.

  The Yuuzhan Vong gunners tried in vain for another few seconds to hit the spiraling target, then gave up and turned the ship’s defense over to the shielding crews. A black dot appeared half a kilometer from the ship and sucked the missile toward its doom.

  As soon as the droid brain detected the existence of a shielding singularity, it used its guidance laser to measure the distance to target, calculated that 98 percent of the mass fell within its blast radius, and triggered a thousand kilograms of baradium. The cruiser vanished in a blinding sphere of white fire that resembled, for a few seconds, a one-kilometer sun.

  The Exquisite Death shook beneath the shock wave, then Ganner’s voice came over the comlink. “What now? Plan D?”

  “Sort of.” Anakin looked toward the cloning compound and saw a dozen yorik coral flecks swarming over the buildings. They were not coming out to attack, so it seemed apparent they were conserving their energies and would not open fire until the Exquisite Death reached point-blank range. Given the likelihood of a miss hitting the corvette analogs streaking in behind the Death, it seemed a wise strategy. “Here’s what I want.”

  Anakin had barely described his plan before Ulaha held out her datapad.

  “What’s that?”

  “I must be the one to stay with the ship,” she said.

  Anakin felt his sister’s alarm as acutely as his own. “No offense, Ulaha,” Jaina said, “but you’re hardly up to something like this.”

  “Perhaps
not, but I am a pilot—and the Exquisite Death is hardly a starfighter.” Ulaha pressed the datapad into Anakin’s hand. “As stated, your plan has a twenty-one percent success probability, with a casualty projection in excess of ninety percent. Without me to burden you on the ground, your success probability rises to almost fifty percent.”

  “That high?” Anakin did not even want to hear the casualty projections. “Okay, but just drop Two-One-S’s shuttle and go. Do you need anything?”

  Ulaha thought for a moment, then said, “If there is time, I would like a length of metal tubing from the droid kit. Leave it in the corridor.”

  “Count on it.” Anakin wanted to hug her or shake her hand or something, but that all seemed so final, so irrevocable. Instead, he sent Jaina after the rest of the team, already gathering in the first hold, then paused at the door valve and looked back. “No heroics, Ulaha. That’s an order. Just drop Two-One-S and go.”

  The Bith nodded at him. “It’s okay, Anakin. This is the right thing.” She turned away and reached for the cognition hood. “Now hurry; every minute of delay reduces the mission’s success probability by zero point two percent.”

  Feeling a little lonely and hollow inside, Anakin rushed down the corridor into the first hold, where the Jedi were already packing themselves and their equipment into five Yuuzhan Vong cargo pods. He left the tubing in the corridor for Ulaha, then sealed the hold door and turned to join the others.

  Zekk was packing Tesar in with Ganner, Jovan, and Tenel Ka.

  “You are sure we have enough thermal detonatorz?” Tesar rasped. “We are going to need many detonatorz for the voxyn.”

  “I packed all four cases.” Zekk pushed the pod shut.

  “Only four?” Tesar demanded.

  Zekk shook his head, then sealed the seam with a glob of blorash jelly and motioned Anakin into a pod with Raynar, Eryl, and Tahiri. “We’re the last. I thought it best to separate families and equipment.”

  There was no need to explain the precaution. Anakin nodded, then pulled up his vac suit hood and crouched beside Tahiri, opposite Eryl and Raynar. Zekk squeezed in beside Anakin, then lit a glow stick and sealed the seam from the inside. The Exquisite Death continued forward unopposed for what seemed an eternity, and, through the battle meld, Anakin felt Ulaha’s anxiety slowly giving way to bewilderment.

  “They are coming out to meet us, but they do not fire,” Ulaha commed. “Now they are spreading out, and arrest tentacles are extending from the noses of some ships.”

  “They’re still trying to take us alive!” Anakin gasped. “Why risk so much?”

  “They are alienz,” one of the Barabel sisters commed. “There is no sense trying to understand them.”

  The Exquisite Death swung sharply to port, then lurched back onto course, dipped sharply, and began to jink like a fighter.

  “You must start the drop,” Ulaha commed. The ship began to shudder. “They are shooting tentacles at us.”

  “Projected drop zone two kilometers from spaceport at bearing one-twenty-two,” 2-1S reported from the shuttle. “Surprise likelihood high.”

  Anakin gave the go order, and Ulaha put the Exquisite Death into a coral-crackling climb. At the end of the long line of cargo pods, 2-4S used his blaster cannon to open a makeshift bomb bay, and the hold decompressed with a tremendous roaring. Anakin’s pod began to slide across the floor toward the breach.

  “Decoy away,” 2-4S commed.

  Anakin’s pod, number five, slid toward the hole faster.

  “Pod one away.” There was a moment of silence, then 2-4S reported, “Enemy arrest tentacle has captured decoy pod.”

  Anakin held his breath. He had intended the decoy to detonate on the ground, but as long as it convinced the Yuuzhan Vong they were dropping bombs instead of a strike team …

  A burst of static crackled across the comlinks, then 2-1S’s barely audible voice said, “Decoy detonation. Heavy damage to enemy vessel.”

  The Barabels sissed over the comm channel.

  “Pod two away,” 2-4S reported. “Pod three …”

  Anakin did not hear the next report, for a tremendous growling reverberated through their pod as it scraped over the edge of the hole and fell free. His stomach grew queasy with weightlessness and all five of them began to float.

  “Two-Four-S away,” 2-4S reported.

  Tahiri grabbed Anakin’s arm, and Eryl began an audible countdown. Anakin opened himself to the Force as completely as possible, alert to any emotion that might suggest the others had been grabbed by an arresting tentacle, or targeted by a defensive blast of plasma. He sensed only apprehensions similar to his own—except from the Barabels, who were radiating the emotional equivalent of a big “yipeee!”

  Finally, Eryl said, “Fifteen seconds—mark!”

  According to calculations, at least, they were now only a thousand meters above the surface of the worldship. Anakin caught their vessel with the invisible hand of the Force, cushioning their descent just enough so that the deceleration kept them pinned to the floor. The war droids had calculated that a deceleration of approximately one and a half standard gravities would not be overly noticeable, yet the resulting landing would be 99 percent survivable.

  Anakin remained silent through the descent, wishing that he could see the surface, or feel the nonexistent atmosphere buffeting them, or anything. After a few more seconds, he decided that they had to be almost down and began to slow their descent still further—and then the bone-jarring shock of impact slammed everyone to the floor. They went weightless as the capsule bounced, then came down on their side and rolled more times than Anakin could count before coming to a rest in a jumbled tangle.

  Anakin used the Force to move the others off him, then ignited his lightsaber and hacked through the blorash jelly seam. He had barely opened a fist-sized hole before Zekk and the others activated the delay on four grenades and used the Force to push them up through the crack. Two seconds later, a roiling fireball erupted fifty meters overhead.

  Hoping the explosion would look realistic enough from a distance, Anakin finished opening the pod and stepped out into a dusty basin of brown, dead yorik coral. Perhaps three meters deep, the bowl was easily three hundred long and a hundred wide, probably not an impact crater, but the scar of some ancient mishap. In the far corner, almost directly opposite Anakin, sat the broken husk of a distant cargo pod, a group of minuscule figures scurrying around its base. One of the Jedi felt him watching and waved in greeting, then all four turned and started in his direction. A moment later, the pod vanished in the brilliant flare of a thermal detonator.

  Anakin’s attention was drawn skyward by a flash of movement. He looked up in time to see a small, unidentifiable shape arc into the near corner of the field, then erupt in a tremendous fireball. Thinking they were under fire from a Yuuzhan Vong warship, he almost dived for the ground—but stopped when he saw the black, star-spangled camouflage armor of a Tendrando Arms YVH S-series war droid emerge from the dust cloud and come toward him at an impossibly fast run.

  Anakin assigned Raynar and Eryl to unload their pod and sent Zekk to the basin rim to reconnoiter, then took a moment to concentrate on the others. He sensed a couple of fuzzy heads and a few aches and pains, but the team appeared to be 99 percent intact—just as the droids had promised.

  Anakin retrieved the electrobinoculars and turned them overhead. Without the blue glow of streaking ion drives to draw attention to the ships, it took a moment to locate the space battle, which had already drifted far across the sky toward Myrkr. YVH 2-1S was just parting ways with Ulaha, his lumpy black shuttle corkscrewing wildly back toward the worldship as the Bith veered off into deep space in the Exquisite Death.

  To Anakin’s disappointment, the Yuuzhan Vong had swallowed the bait only partially. The coralskippers and four corvettes were surrounding 2-1S’s shuttle, arrest tentacles lashing out to capture the careening rock—but the rest of the Yuuzhan Vong were pursuing the Death.

  A pair of heavy s
teps came up beside Anakin, then Ganner said over the vac suit comm net, “We’re good to go, Anakin. We have the bearings to the spaceport, and Two-Four-S’s sensors show no sign they realize we’re here.”

  Anakin lowered the electrobinoculars and turned away. He would have liked to stay and see whether they escaped—they deserved that much—but he knew neither 2-1S nor Ulaha would want that. Every minute of delay reduced the mission’s success probability by 0.2 percent.

  The strike team had traveled only five hundred meters when 2-4S’s metallic voice came over the comm channel. “Two-One-S reports zero survivability rating. Now optimizing—”

  An orange fireball blossomed in the sky, drowning the droid’s last two words in a tempest of electronic interference. Anakin raised the electrobinoculars in time to see a trio of enemy corvettes burst into white sprays of yorik coral. The fourth vessel, a mere splinter at this distance, spiraled away out of control.

  “Loss ratio optimized,” 2-4S reported.

  Anakin nodded and said, “Maximum efficiency.”

  They all knew from the training sessions with 1-1A that it was the highest tribute that could be made to one of Lando’s droids, and several Jedi repeated the compliment. They continued toward the spaceport, using the Force to smooth the dust behind them and keep it from billowing into the airless sky.

  A few minutes later, 2-4S detected two coralskippers approaching. The strike team had to conceal itself beneath the dust and wait as the pair swept over in a slow, curving search pattern. Once the pilots reached the drop zone, they would find four huge baradium craters and nothing to suggest the Exquisite Death had dropped anything but four poorly targeted bombs, and they would return to base laughing at their enemy’s incompetence. Until then, the Jedi would have to wait and be patient.