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  Jard looked puzzled. “I doubt they will answer.”

  “Try, Commander.”

  Aryn did not need to consult her scanner display to know that the ships of the convoy were peeling away to give the cruiser and frigates a clear field of fire. Zeerid said nothing, merely handled the stick, worked the instrument panel, and occasionally consulted the scanner readout. Fatman banked hard right, jumped away from the near freighter, and covered the short gulf of empty space between it and the next. Zeerid was frog-hopping along the convoy, all while trying to get Fatman closer to the planet.

  But the convoy was starting to break up. The freighters and frigates accelerated away from one another. And above them all loomed the enormous bulk of the Imperial cruiser, waiting for its chance.

  “I’m running out of ships, Aryn. We have to make a run for the atmosphere.”

  Before them, the glowing orb of Coruscant’s night side hung in the deep night of space. The sun crested behind the planet, and Coruscant’s horizon line lit up like it was on fire.

  “Do it,” she said. “No, wait. They’re hailing us. Holo.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  Aryn shook her head and Zeerid activated the small transmitter mounted in his instrument panel.

  A hologram of an Imperial bridge took shape. Crew sat at their stations, their images clear in the holo’s resolution. Two human men stood in the foreground, one a thin redhead in the uniform of a naval officer, one a towering, bulky figure of a man who wore a heavy black cape and whose eyes seemed to glow in the light of the bridge’s instrumentation. The eyes studied Zeerid with such intensity that it made him uncomfortable even through the holo. A respirator clung to the man’s face, covering his mouth. His pale skin looked as gray as a corpse’s.

  “Power down entirely,” said the tall man, his voice as raw as an open wound. “You have five seconds.”

  Aryn leaned in close to see the hologram better. The man’s eyes moved from Zeerid to her and even across the distance he felt their power. She recognized him. He had fought in the Battle of Alderaan.

  “He is Sith,” Aryn said. “Darth Malgus.”

  Motion behind Malgus caught Aryn’s eye, a third man, short, arms crossed across his chest. She and Zeerid almost bumped heads as they eyed the holo. Aryn recognized him. So did Zeerid, it seemed.

  “That’s the man that ambushed us in the spaceport,” Zeerid said. “Vrath Xizor.”

  “He alerted them we were coming.”

  Zeerid stared at the holo then leaned back, eyes wide. “Stang, Aryn. That’s the same man I saw in Karson’s Park on Vulta.”

  “Where?”

  “He knows I have a daughter.”

  “You have two seconds,” Malgus said.

  Zeerid hit the TRANSMIT button. “To hell with you, Sith.”

  He cut off the transmission, unleashed a rain of expletives, and put Fatman into a rapid spin that turned Aryn light-headed and would make it as difficult as possible for targeting computers to lock on.

  Malgus stared at the holotransmitter, now dark, on which he had communicated with the freighter, the freighter that had a Jedi aboard.

  Torn, he thought of Eleena, of Lord Adraas, of Angral, of the flawed Empire that was taking shape before his eyes and how it fell short of the Empire as it should be, an Empire congruent with the needs of the Force.

  “They will be clear of the convoy shortly, Commander Jard,” said Lieutenant Makk, the bridge weapons officer.

  Malgus watched the freighter dance among the now-separating ships of the convoy, trying to hug what vessels it could as it skipped toward Coruscant.

  He thought he should shoot it down and hope that the death of a Jedi over Coruscant would destroy the peace talks and restart the war.

  He should do it.

  He knew he should.

  “I think he’s going to try to make the planet,” Jard said. “Why doesn’t he just jump out?”

  Members of the bridge crew shook their heads at the pilot’s foolishness. Were he wise, he would have jumped into hyperspace and fled.

  “His need to get to the planet outweighs the risk of his getting shot down,” Malgus said, intrigued.

  “All this for spice?” Jard said.

  “Perhaps it is the Jedi’s need that drives them.”

  “Curious,” Jard observed.

  “Agreed,” Malgus said. With difficultly, he let curiosity murder temptation. “Get close enough to use the tractor beam. There is more to this than mere spicerunning.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Malgus tapped the earpiece and reopened the channel with Darth Angral.

  “What is happening there?” Angral asked, his tone perturbed.

  Malgus offered a half-truth. “A spicerunner is trying to get through the blockade.”

  “Ah, I see.” Angral paused, then said, “I have received a communiqué from our delegation on Alderaan.”

  The mere mention of the delegation caused Malgus a flash of rage, a flash that almost caused him to reconsider his decision to capture, rather than destroy, the freighter.

  Angral continued: “A member of the Jedi delegation has left Alderaan without filing a flight plan and without reporting her intent to her superiors. The Jedi have reason to believe that she may be heading to Coruscant. Her activities are unauthorized by the Jedi Council and she is to be treated no differently from the spicerunner you are pursuing now.”

  “She?” Malgus asked, eyeing the freighter on the viewscreen, recalling the woman he had seen in the vidscreen. “This rogue Jedi is a woman?”

  “A human woman, yes. Aryn Leneer. Her actions, whatever they may be, are not to be attributed to the Jedi Council or the Republic. The Emperor wants nothing to affect the ongoing negotiations. Do you understand, Darth Malgus?”

  Malgus understood all too well. “The Jedi delegation told Lord Baras of this rogue Jedi? They sacrificed one of their own to ensure that the negotiations continued smoothly?”

  “Master Dar’nala herself, as I understand it.”

  Malgus shook his head in disgust. He felt a hint of sympathy for Aryn Leneer. Like him, she had been betrayed by those she believed in and served. Of course, what she believed in and served was heretical.

  “If this Jedi does attempt to reach Coruscant and she falls into your hands, you are to destroy her. Am I clear, Darth Malgus?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  The freighter broke free of the convoy into open space and flew an evasive path toward Coruscant. Perhaps the pilot thought to escape in the planet’s atmosphere.

  “Engage the tractor beam,” Commander Jard said, and Malgus did not gainsay the order.

  He cut the connection with Angral.

  He had disobeyed an order, taken the first step down a path he had never before trod. He still wasn’t sure why.

  There was nothing between Fatman and Coruscant but open space, and that meant fire would be incoming. Aryn watched the distance to the planet’s atmosphere shrink on her scanner. She sat hunched, braced against the plasma fire she knew must soon come. She thought they might make it until Fatman lurched and lost half of its velocity, throwing Aryn and Zeerid forward in their seats.

  “What’s that?” Aryn said, checking the instrument panel.

  “Tractor beam,” Zeerid said, and pushed down hard on the stick. Fatman dived, her nose facing the planet, and Aryn could see the night side of Coruscant, the lines of light from the urbanscape like glowing script on the otherwise dark surface.

  The ship was not accelerating. Alarms wailed and Fatman’s engines screamed, battling with the tractor beam but losing decisively.

  The cruiser started to reel them in.

  Cursing, Zeerid cut off the engines and Fatman’s reverse motion increased noticeably. Through the canopy, Aryn watched the distant stars move past them in reverse. She imagined the cruiser’s landing bay opening as they approached, a mouth that would chew them up.

  She cleared her mind, thought of Master Zallow, and rea
died herself to face the Sith Lord and whatever else she might find on the cruiser. She reached into her pocket, traced her fingers over the single stone she’d brought from Alderaan, the stone from the Nautolan calming bracelet Master Zallow had given her. The cool, smooth touch of it helped clear her mind.

  “I’m sorry, Zeerid,” she said.

  “I was coming anyway, Aryn. And you didn’t get me caught. I got you caught. And anyway don’t apologize yet.” His hands flew over the instrument panel. “No Imperial tractor beam is holding my ship. I have to get back to Vulta and my daughter.”

  He ratcheted up the power to the engines, though he didn’t yet engage them. The ship vibrated as Zeerid backed up the power and held it just before the exchange manifolds, a river of energy gathering behind a dam.

  “What are you going to do?” Aryn asked, though she suspected she knew.

  “Shooting this cork out of the bottle,” he said, and diverted more power to the engines. He made as though he were shaking a bottle of soda water. “Get yourself strapped in, Aryn. Not just the lap. All five points.”

  Aryn did so. “You could tear the ship in half,” she said. “Or the engines might blow.”

  He nodded. “Or we might break loose. But for that to work, I need to get oblique to the pull at the correct moment.” He checked the scanner. “You’re not so big,” he said to the cruiser.

  His even tone and steady hands did not surprise Aryn. He seemed to thrive under stress. He’d have made a decent Jedi, she imagined.

  She checked the distance between the cruiser and Fatman, the speed the beam was pulling them.

  “You have five seconds,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “Four.”

  “Do you believe that’s helpful?”

  “Two.”

  He tapped another series of keys and the engines whined so loudly they overwhelmed the alarm.

  “One second,” she said.

  In her mind’s eye, she imagined Fatman snapping in two, imagined she and Zeerid perishing in the vacuum, their dying sight pieces of Fatman flaming like pyrotechnics as they cut a path through Coruscant’s atmosphere.

  “And … we go!” Zeerid said.

  He twisted the stick leftward at the same moment that he released all of the pent-up power into the engines.

  The sudden rush arrested the backward motion of the ship and Fatman bucked like an angry rancor. Metal creaked, screamed under the stress. Somewhere deep within the ship, something burst with a hiss.

  For a fraction of a second the ship hung in space, perfectly still, engines wailing, their power warring with the tractor beam’s pull. And then Fatman tore loose and streaked free. The sudden acceleration pressed Aryn and Zeerid into the back of their seats.

  Fire alarms sounded. Aryn checked the board.

  “Fires in the engine compartment, Zeerid.”

  He was talking to himself under his breath, handling the stick, watching the scanner, and might not have heard her.

  “He’s right behind us,” Zeerid said.

  “Get into the atmosphere,” she said. “That cruiser has no maneuverability outside a vacuum. We can ditch somewhere, get lost in the sky traffic before they can dispatch a fighter.”

  “Right,” he said, and slammed down on the stick.

  Fatman dipped her nose and Coruscant once more came into view, tantalizingly close.

  Smoke wafted into the cockpit from the rear, the smell of seared electronics.

  “Aryn!”

  “I’m on it,” she said, and started to unstrap herself.

  “Chemical extinguishers are in wall mounts in every corridor.”

  On the main screen, Malgus watched the freighter’s engines flare blue. The ship shook loose of the tractor beam’s noose and dived toward the planet like a blaster shot. A murmur went through the bridge crew.

  “Pursue, helm,” Commander Jard said.

  The helmsman engaged the engines and accelerated after the freighter.

  “The tractor has failed, my lord,” Commander Jard said to Malgus, checking the command readout. “We will have it up again in moments.”

  Malgus watched the freighter open some distance between it and the cruiser, and made up his mind. He had crossed a line and started down a road when he had first engaged the tractor beam. But the time was not yet right to walk farther down that road. He could not afford to let the Jedi, Aryn Leneer, get to Coruscant, lest Angral start to perceive motives in Malgus that Malgus would not yet acknowledge in himself.

  “No,” he said. “They’ll be in the atmosphere in a moment. Shoot them down.”

  “Very good, my lord.” Jard looked to the weapons officer. “Weapons free, Lieutenant Makk.” Jard looked to Malgus. “Shall I alert the planetary fighter wing, my lord?”

  “That shouldn’t be necessary, provided Lieutenant Makk does his job.”

  “Very good, my lord.”

  Red lines from Valor’s plasma cannons filled the space between the ship, the fire so thick that the lines seemed to bleed together into a red plane.

  Aryn got halfway out of her seat when an explosion rocked the ship. Fatman lurched and Aryn fell to the floor.

  “Back in your seat,” Zeerid said. “Weapons are hot on that cruiser.”

  Aryn climbed into her seat and got the lap strap on. The moment the buckle clicked into place, Zeerid went evasive. Coruscant spun in the viewscreen as Fatman spun, wheeled, and dived. The red lines of plasma fire lit up the black of space. Zeerid went hard right, down, then left.

  The ship knifed into the atmosphere.

  “Divert everything but the engines and life support to the rear deflectors.”

  Aryn worked the instrument panel, doing as Zeerid ordered.

  Another explosion rocked the ship.

  “The deflectors aren’t going to take another one,” she said.

  Zeerid nodded. The orange flames of atmospheric entry were visible through the canopy. Plasma bolts knifed over them, under, to the left. Zeerid cut Fatman to the right as they descended, risking a bad entry that could burn them up.

  The smoke in the cockpit thickened.

  “Masks?” Aryn asked, coughing.

  “There,” Zeerid responded, nodding at a ship’s locker between their seats. Aryn threw it open, grabbed two masks, tossed one to Zeerid, and pulled the other one on herself.

  “You’ve got the stick,” Zeerid said while he pulled on his mask.

  Aryn grabbed the copilot’s stick and continued Fatman’s spiraling descent toward Coruscant.

  Fire from the cruiser hit the ship on the starboard side and caused the freighter to spin wildly. Aryn felt dizzy, sick.

  “I have the stick,” Zeerid said, his voice muffled by the mask. He got the spin under control and drove Fatman almost vertically into the atmosphere. The cockpit grew hot. Flames engulfed the ship. They must have looked like a comet cutting through the sky.

  “Too steep,” Aryn said.

  “I know,” Zeerid said. “But we’ve got to get in.”

  The unrelenting fire from the cruiser struck the freighter again, the impact shoving them through the stratosphere. The flames diminished, vanished, and Coruscant was once more visible below them.

  “We’re through,” Aryn said.

  Without warning the engines died and Fatman went limp in the air, spinning, falling, but with no power.

  Zeerid cursed, slammed his hand against the instrument panel, trying frantically to refire them, but to no avail.

  “They can still hit us here,” he said, and unbuckled his belts. “I got nothing but thrusters. Get to the escape pod.”

  “The cargo, Zeerid.”

  He hesitated, finally shook his head and unbuckled her straps. “Forget the cargo. Move.”

  She stood and another bolt hit Fatman. An explosion rocked the rear of the ship. Another. They were going down. Alarms wailed. The ship was burning, falling through the sky. Zeerid hit the control panel to engage the thrusters and keep the ship in th
e air.

  For the moment, at least.

  “They are dead in the air,” Lieutenant Makk announced. “Drifting on thrusters.”

  Commander Jard looked to Malgus for the kill order. Vrath, too, looked on with interest.

  The freighter hung low over Coruscant’s atmosphere. It limped along on thrusters, trailing flames from its dead ion engines. They could rope them back in with the tractor.

  “Shoot them down,” Malgus ordered.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Vrath smile and cross his arms over his chest.

  Explosions in the rear of Fatman started to spread, the secondary explosions working their way forward in a series of dull booms. They would never make it to the escape pod.

  Aryn activated her lightsaber. “Grab hold of something.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting us out.”

  “What?”

  She did not bother to explain. Bracing herself and holding on to her seat strap, she stabbed her blade through the transparisteel of the cockpit canopy and opened a gash. The oxygen rushed out of the cockpit while the pressure equalized. Their masks allowed them to breathe, despite the thin atmosphere. The cold startled Aryn.

  She used her blade to cut a door out of the canopy. The thin air whipped by, whistling.

  “We’re fifty kilometers up, Aryn!” Zeerid said, his voice rising for the first time. “The velocity alone—”

  She grabbed him by the arm and gave him a shake to shut him up. “Do not let go of me no matter what. Do you understand? No matter what.”

  His eyes were wide behind the lenses of his mask. He nodded.

  She did not hesitate. She sank into the Force, cocooned them both in a protective sheath, and leapt out of the ship and into the open air.

  The wind and velocity tore them backward. They slammed into the ship’s fuselage and whipped through the flames pouring out its sides. At almost the same moment, plasma fire from the cruiser above them hit Fatman dorsally and the ship exploded into an expanding ball of flame. The blast wave sent them careering crazily through the sky and set them to spinning like a pinwheel. For an alarming moment, Aryn’s vision blurred and she feared she would lose consciousness, but she held on to awareness with both hands and fought through it.