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  Kyp Durron’s excited voice came over the tactical net. “Right behind you, Farmboy!”

  “Neg that, Headhunter,” Luke ordered. If Kyp realized he had three pilots EV, there was no trace of it in his tone. “You’re already down three. Stay here and cover refugees.”

  “Cover? But we’re the most experienced—”

  “Headhunter,” Luke said in a stern voice. “You have your orders.”

  There was a moment of silence, then, “Copy.”

  Kyp’s resentment lingered in the Force like the aftersmell of a bad blaster burn. Luke was troubled by the continued lack of compassion. If Kyp was ever going to—

  Skywalker! Mara’s thought was a shout inside Luke’s head. The battle?

  Sorry.

  Something inside Luke suggested dropping three shadow bombs. He did. He had given himself over to the Force completely, and the battle seemed to drop into slow motion. A trio of black-faceted corvettes drifted in from different angles, filling space with magma missiles and grutchins. Luke continued to fly straight and sensed a question rising in the back of Mara’s mind—then felt it change to approval when he reached out with the Force and nudged the nearest magma missile into a grutchin.

  Luke perceived a sudden need for forward protection and ordered R2-D2 to shift all shielding power to the front. A tiny red speck blossomed from the nose nodule of the closest corvette and, at the squadron’s closing speed, flowered almost instantly into a plasma ball. Finding his view blocked, Luke closed his eyes and reached out to the rest of his squadron, using their perceptions to guide his shadow bombs home. He saw the blinding flash of his detonating weapons through their eyes, then felt his X-wing buck as the enemy plasma ball erupted against his forward shields.

  There came a surge of trepidation from the Mara-place in the center of his heart—followed almost instantly by a sharp sense of reproach.

  Next time jink!

  R2-D2 whistled a warning and shut down the overloaded shield generator to begin an emergency cool-off. Luke eased between Mara and Tam, more for his wife’s peace of mind than his own. The way he was feeling today, he could have continued without shields. They passed through a field of drifting corvette hulks—Luke was not the only one in his squadron to claim a picket ship—and were through the blockade, following the Shockers past Talfaglio.

  The enemy assault fleet moved its frigates forward to form a defensive screen, but continued to withhold its coralskippers, determined to reach the escape corridor before stopping to do battle. With eight New Republic starfighter squadrons, two cruisers, and a pair of frigates close behind him, Luke carried the battle to the enemy and called for long-range fire support.

  The New Republic cruisers and frigates laced the darkness with turbolaser flashes. The enemy answered with plasma balls and magma missiles. The Jedi squadrons continued forward, relying on flying ability, danger sense, and shield weaving to twine their way through the fiery mesh. A pair of Shockers turned back when they were damaged by near-hits. One of Luke’s pilots lost an S-foil to a grutchin and went EV. The Shockers punched through the frigate screen.

  Rigard Matl’s X-wing vanished in a ball of fire.

  The Shockers’ formation disintegrated into a confused swarm of ion trails as the dazed pilots contemplated the loss of their veteran leader. Luke extended himself into the heart of the fireball and experienced a moment of unbearable prickling—then a strange sense of calm familiarity. He focused on the calmness just long enough to confirm that it was what he thought: Rigard had survived the hit and gone EV.

  Before Luke could pass on the good news, Rigard’s static-laden voice crackled over the emergency channel.

  “Tighten up, Shockers!” He sounded pained but confident. “You’re embarrassing …”

  His voice trailed off into sizzle as the assault passed beyond the limited range of his suit’s comm unit, but the chastened Shockers formed themselves into three shield trios and continued forward. The Force was truly with them today; so far, the Jedi had lost no one.

  The heart of the Yuuzhan Vong assault fleet lay before them now, half a dozen yorik coral pebbles gleaming in the light of Talfaglio’s crimson sun. The skip carrier and one of the cruisers were slipping behind the warship analog, while the other three cruisers moved out front and began to deploy skip squadrons. Luke had R2-D2 send the coordinates of the shy cruiser to the Star Destroyers for a subspace relay back to Saba, then opened a channel to both the Sabers and Shockers.

  “Forget the skips. Expand your inertial compensators to full and comet right past them. What we want is the carrier.” Of all the ships in the assault fleet, the skip carrier was the most dangerous to the refugee convoy—and to their friends from the New Republic. “We’ll make it look like we’re going after the cruiser on the left, then launch everything we have the moment we have a clear angle to the real target.”

  By the time both squadrons acknowledged, the cruisers had swelled to arm-length lozenges of scabrous black yorik coral. Plasma balls streaked past or blossomed against the shields of the leapfrogging X-wings, and the tiny nuggets of the first distant skips glinted in the flashing battle light.

  “Split by trios,” Luke ordered. “Do what you can to save your shields.”

  The first handful of coralskippers streaked into range, spitting plasma and grabbing at shields. One pair vanished when they crossed their own cruiser’s firing lane, then the X-wings were past the initial wave, still traveling at near-light and moving too fast for the skips to turn and follow. The Shockers angled toward the cruiser on the left. The Yuuzhan Vong captain put his ship into a tight turn, trying desperately to bring his flank around to present the maximum number of shielding dovin basals and weapons nodules.

  R2-D2 informed Luke they had reached maximum proton-torpedo range to the skip carrier, but the warship analog was keeping its bulk between them and the target. The cruiser’s flank weapons began to open up, filling the darkness with clouds of white energy and spiraling streaks of fire.

  “All trios, break formation!” Luke ordered.

  He jinked right, checked his tactical display, found the warship still shielding the skip carrier—and the skip carrier slipping past toward the escape corridor.

  Luke ground his teeth in frustration, then sensed the bud of an idea forming in Mara’s mind. “Go ahead, Mother.”

  “All pilots, target cruiser,” she commanded. “Fire all proton torpedoes and break for safety.” Luke, with me. “Repeat, target cruiser and fire all proton torpedoes.”

  In the instant of hesitation that followed Mara’s command, a grutchin caught a Shocker X-wing and began to devour the wing. The veteran pilot popped the canopy and went EV, and the starfighter exploded.

  “Now!” Mara growled.

  Blue tails of ion efflux crisscrossed in front of the cruiser as dozens of torpedoes streaked toward their target. A line of shielding singularities appeared along the flank and began to devour the proton torpedoes, but it was instantly clear the vessel’s defenses would be overwhelmed.

  A long tail of what appeared to be white flame appeared behind one of Mara’s engines, then her X-wing spiraled out of the battle plane. Luke followed, experiencing the barest instant of worry until he felt her drawing on the Force and realized what she was doing.

  Nice trick. This came not from Luke, but from Tam, still maintaining the shield trio. “Learn that from Izal?”

  Yes, Mara replied. She was a little shaken, Luke sensed, by the idea that Tam was also sharing in their thoughts. “How long have you been eavesdropping?”

  Tam responded with a mental shrug. “Wasn’t trying.” A young navigator-turned-fighter-pilot, the Duros’ father—the Jedi Daye Azur-Jamin—had vanished on Nal Hutta a year earlier, and since then, Tam had been having trouble shutting other people’s thoughts out of his mind. “You two have just been sort of …” SHOUTING.

  The exchange took only as long as it required the squadrons’ fusillade of proton torpedoes to hit the cruiser and detona
te. A brilliant light flared above and behind the trio, and Luke’s tactical display danced with static as R2-D2 struggled with the electromagnetic pulse.

  The Force glow trailing from Mara’s engines flashed into a firelike ball that engulfed all three X-wings. “Okay, boys, shut down your sublights.”

  Luke was already flipping the switch—and drawing an alarmed whistle from R2-D2. “It’s okay, Artoo.” He flipped the toggle. “This is part of Mara’s plan.”

  R2-D2 tweedled sharply. Luke checked the readout.

  “Of course you didn’t hear the plan,” he explained. “It didn’t come over a comm channel.”

  R2-D2 trilled in doubt.

  “Trust me, Artoo, there is a plan.”

  “Time for a little lifting,” Mara commed. “Follow along.”

  Luke felt Mara gathering the Force in, then saw her unpowered X-wing rise slowly out of the light ball. He lifted his own craft after hers and glanced back to see Tam doing the same. Mara let the glowing sphere spiral off. When they still did not draw any Yuuzhan Vong fire, she dispelled it in a final flash of brilliant light.

  Luke looked up and saw they were less than a thousand meters beneath the skip carrier’s spindly armed form. A full squadron of skips still hung from each of its fifteen arms, and the big warship analog was out in front, paying no attention at all to their dark ships.

  Luke started to congratulate Mara on her strategy, but she cut him off. “What’d you expect, Skywalker? Subterfuge is my specialty.”

  R2-D2 trilled urgently and displayed a warning about non-optical sensors.

  “I know they can still detect us,” Luke answered. “But they’re going to be confused for a second—and a second’s all we need.”

  Mara dropped her shadow bombs, then used the Force to send them sailing up toward the heart of the monstrous ship. Tam’s were close behind. Luke was still launching his when the first explosion erupted from the carrier’s central disk.

  Danni rose into her crash webbing. Fighting to keep breakfast where it belonged, she wondered if the blastboat’s overhaul had been a good thing. With every seam rewelded by the maintenance droids on Eclipse and the frame inspected by certified space techs, Wonetun thought he could fly it like the squadron’s new X-wings—and he still insisted on keeping the inertial compensator dialed down to 92 percent. The Brubb swung into a vectored-thrust turn so tight the blood pooled in Danni’s fingertips. She had to squeeze her eyes shut to keep them in their sockets. A bad thing, she decided. Something popped in the systems bilge beneath her feet. Definitely a bad thing.

  A distant flash shone through the forward viewport. Danni looked and saw the white spheres of three proton detonations winking back into nothingness. The Wild Knights had emerged from hyperspace far above Talfaglio’s orbital plane and rolled into an inverted nosedrop, so she had the sensation of diving “down” toward the battle. Another proton explosion lit the darkness, vaping the central disk of the big skip carrier. The vessel’s arms spun off into space. Burning coralskippers tumbled in every direction.

  “Ah—Master Skywalker, he is enjoying his hunt.” Saba activated a targeting reticle and slid it across the transparisteel viewport to a Yuuzhan Vong cruiser trailing behind the debris. “There is the shy vessel, Danni. See if it has what we want.”

  Danni linked her sensors to the reticle. A dozen gravity arrows leapt to life and began dancing to the enemy code.

  “Affirmative,” she said. “That ship has a yammosk.”

  “Not for long.” Saba sissed uproariously, then transmitted the coordinates to the Rogues and the rest of the Wild Knights. “There is our target. Be careful of her big hatchmate.”

  The enemy warship was just ahead of the yammosk cruiser, hurling an unending salvo of plasma balls and magma missiles at the New Republic flotilla blocking its route to the escape corridor. Fortunately, the Mon Mothma and Elegos A’Kla had made short work of the Yuuzhan Vong blockade and were dashing forward to support the other New Republic forces.

  A flurry of bouncing data bars drew Danni’s eye back to her holodisplay. “They’ve seen us.”

  Fifteen seed-shaped lumps of yorik coral dropped off the enemy cruiser and angled up to meet them, and its weapons nodules began to spew plasma fire and magma missiles in their direction. Danni felt like they were flying into a star.

  Wonetun put the blastboat into a wild corkscrew and followed the rest of the squadron into battle, and Izal Waz opened up with the big quad lasers. Danni grabbed the arms of her seat, trying to keep Wonetun’s wild gyrations from slamming her against her crash webbing. The gravity arrows in her holodisplay went wild.

  “Ready concussion missiles and decoyz.”

  “Ready.” The reply came from both Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon and Lando Calrissian’s Lady Luck, flying behind the blastboat above and below.

  “X-wingz, ready all torpedoes,” Saba said. “Target cruiser only; ignore skipz.”

  “Wild Knights ready,” Drif Lij commed.

  The communication was more for the Rogues’ sake than Saba’s. With the Force as thick as it was today, the Wild Knights could feel the readiness of their fellow pilots. The Rogues had to rely on more conventional means.

  “Rogues ready,” Gavin Darklighter confirmed.

  Luke Skywalker’s voice came over the tactical net. “The Shockers and Sabers are regrouping below the cruiser. We’re out of torpedoes, but we’ll run interference when that warship starts shedding skips.”

  “Our thankz, Farmboy.”

  All of Danni’s data bars dropped to near-zero. “The yammosk has gone quiet.” She looked forward and saw the cruiser starting to bank around, trying to bring its flank to bear on the ships jumping it from above. How it could have more weapons there than the ones firing at them from its top, Danni could not imagine. “Something’s happening.”

  “Yes. The warship is decelerating and dropping skips,” Wonetun added.

  “We have convinced them to stay and fight,” Saba said. She opened a channel to the tactical net. “Hisser here—”

  “That’s not it,” Danni interrupted. She closed her eyes, using a Jedi concentration technique to help her see the data, comprehend how it fit together. They were too close to Talfaglio for a microjump, and with two Star Destroyers moving up to support the New Republic, the yammosk had to realize that any hope of punching through to the escape corridor was gone. She patched herself into the tactical net. “They’re getting ready to microjump—away from the battle.”

  Saba turned one reptilian eye toward Danni. “Yuuzhan Vong do not run.”

  Corran Horn’s concerned voice came over the tactical net. “All units, break off,” he ordered. The Jolly Man was far above the system’s orbital plane, using its long-range sensors to monitor and coordinate the battle. “They’re trying to string you out—”

  “Give us a minute, Control,” Wedge Antilles said. “There’s something we’d like to try. Hisser, please have your squadron launch its missiles.”

  Saba did not need to be told twice. She gave the order. The brilliant circles of twenty propellant tails flashed past, then multiplied into many times that number as the decoys deployed.

  The cruiser completed its turn and began to accelerate, and all of Danni’s data bars shot to maximum, and the gravity arrows swung their bases toward the New Republic flotilla. The equipment popped and sizzled, then vented a plume of acrid smoke and went dead. Danni slapped the power cutoff—though she knew by the smell of scorched circuits it was too late to save her processing boards—and turned to answer the question she sensed coming from Saba.

  “Gravity surge—something overloaded it.”

  “So it seemz.”

  Saba curled her pebbly lips and sissed, then looked forward. With Wonetun spiraling from one direction to another, the enemy cruiser was bouncing back and forth in the viewport. It had stopped firing and seemed to be pivoting around its bow. The first wave of missiles flashed past, their ion tails bending sharply as their guidance system
s struggled to adjust course.

  Danni thought it was some strange Yuuzhan Vong evasive tactic, until the second wave angled in unopposed and detonated into the hull.

  “Disarm the missiles!” Danni yelled. She glanced at Saba’s tactical display and saw the warship also spinning out of control. “Disarm them now. We’re going to vape our yammosk!”

  “You must be right about this,” Saba warned, already transmitting the deactivation code, “or this one will eat your arm.”

  Somehow, Danni did not think the Barabel was exaggerating. “I am.”

  The cruiser broke into three pieces and began to vent bodies. The next wave of missiles curved in and struck the hull and did not explode, and Danni dared to breathe again. She opened a channel to the Mon Mothma. “General Antilles, does one of your ships happen to be an Interdictor?”

  “That information would be classified,” the reply came. “But it would be safe to assume that we were just waiting for them to microjump.”

  As General Antilles replied, the New Republic flotilla began to rain turbolaser blasts down on the helpless warship, softening it up before attempting to board. Luke and Mara and the rest of the Eclipse X-wings swung away from the conflagration and headed back to help escort the refugee convoy safely out of the system.

  With their own target as helpless as the warship, Wonetun flew a straighter course, and Han and Leia and Lando and Tendra came alongside in the Falcon and the Luck.

  Saba turned her chair to face Danni. “Now we know why your equipment exploded?”

  Danni nodded. Interdiction technology was nothing new; the Imperials had used it during the Rebellion to project artificial gravity wells in the midst of Rebel fleets to prevent them from fleeing. What was new was that the new Star Destroyers lacked the telltale projector domes of most Interdictor ships. By surprising the Yuuzhan Vong and timing their attack to coincide with the microjumps, they had put both enemy vessels out of control.