Ebrihim asked.

"I am not expecting," Marcha said. "I am hoping that a being-a young being-with extraordinary abilities will be able to help us. I believe we are in the right spot, in any event. I took all of the tracking information from Q9's movements through the tunnel system on Corellia That showed that the chamber we want was exactly three and two tenths kilometers due south of the main entrance, with the top of the chamber one hundred ninety meters below the level of the main entrance.

According to our instruments, we are just that distance from the entrance on the hillnd ground level here is one hundred seventy meters below the entrance point.

Unless I am very, very much mistaken, we should be able to dig twenty meters straight down into the tunnel system from here."

"Perhaps so, dearest aunt. a.s.suming all your guesses are right.

a.s.suming our Drallist friends up on top of the hill are not already looking for us, and aren't about to descend upon us. a.s.sume all goes well. a.s.sume what you want. But after tonight, don't ever call me the reckless one in the family."

Marcha smiled. "Agreed," she said.

Just then the ground shook with an odd, low, thud that lasted a trifle too long to be anything natural.

Chewbacca already had the sounder up and running.

They went over to see how he was doing, and felt another of the deep long thuds rattle through them just as they got to where he was working.

Chewbacca was examining a datapad readout.

He nodded in satisfaction, and then moved the sounder over another few meters to take another reading.

The sounder and the borer were compact mining tools that Chewbacca had dug out of the Millennium Falcon's cargo bays. The Falcon carried many such tools, the sort of things that came in handy to a ship that was out on its own.

The sounder consisted of a beating device which struck the earth with a series of very rapid sledgehammer blows, and a sonic detector that used the resultant vibration patterns to develop a three-dimensional map of whatever lay beneath the surface. After getting readings from four or five different points on the surface, Chewbacca had enough data to put together a reasonably clear threedimensional map of the subsurface.

He set the sonic detector down on a convenient rock and activated its holographic display.

A complicated image appeared, showing a density map, running from blue for most dense to red for average density to yellow for least dense.

Chewbacca worked the controls and made all the blue imagery go away, and then all the red. A bright bar of yellow light glowed in the display, about thirty meters away to the north.

"Excellent," said Marcha. She pointed at the display.

"We dig there." Ebrihim reached for the display controls. He brought the red and blue back in and pulled the image out to show the maximum volume of s.p.a.ce. "I don't see anything in this imagery like the sort of chamber we're looking for," he said.

"Of course not," said Aunt Marcha. "Remember how carefully hidden the one on Corellia was. So too with this one. It's shielded from any form of detection."

"I only wish I was as sure of myself as you are, dearest aunt.

Very well, friend Chewbacca. Let's see about getting that drilling machine set up."

The borer was a simple device as well-a bank of - what were in effect high-power short-range blasters set into a spinning drill head about seventy centimeters wide. The drill head spun, and the blasters fired, disintegrating the rock or soil in front of them.

The drill head rode in a sleeve that it pulled along behind itself. A long flexible tube was attached to the end of the sleeve.

Chewbacca set up the drill head and the sleeve over the selected drilling point, hanging the head from a tripod-mounted winch. The tripod holding the winch unfolded to stand about three meters high.

The winch helped control the descent of the drill head, and would extract it once the hole was made. Chewbacca walked the end of the exhaust tube as far downwind as possible from the drill hole and the car.

He staked the end of the tube down carefully and checked his work. The vaporized, superheated rock and dirt and dust were blown out the end of the tube at high pressure, effectively sandblasting anything in its way, and Chewbacca did not want that exhaust tube giving him any surpnses.

Chewbacca checked the hookup one last time, then spoke for what was, for him, a long time, a very complicated series of whoops and roars and growls.

Ebrihim listened carefully and nodded.

"I understand. II anyone is watching in infrared, or listening, they will be able to spot us very easily. I have seen no sign of surveillance or monitoring, but it is senseless to take needless risks. I will have the aircar at the ready, and be in the pilot's chair, prepared to take off at a moment's notice."

Chewbacca nodded.

Ebrihim turned toward Marcha. "Will you come with me, my dear aunt?" he asked. "The noise is likely to be quite ferocious."

Aunt Marcha shook her head. "No," she said. "I am too eager to see what happens next.

"Very well," he said.

Ebrihim went back to the car and opened the door as quietly as possible. Sure enough, the car was full of sleeping children. Even Q9 seemed to have powered himself down. Ebrihim got into the pilot's seat, where Chewbacca had been, and readjusted it so that he was looking out the viewports rather than at the bottom of the control stick.

He waved at Chewbacca, and the Wookiee waved back-and then hit the start b.u.t.ton.

The sound was remarkably loud, even inside the car.

It was a huge roaring boom that went on and on, and then dropped an octave or two in tone and quite a few decibels in loudness as the drill head bit into the ground. Then came a sort of rattling, whirring sound as the exhaust tube bucked and swayed a time or two, and then, suddenly, with a low rumbling whoosh, a solid plume of rock dust jetted out the tube, still hot enough that it was glowing faintly red as it spewed out into the darkness.

"That thing is really kicking out some power," said Jacen as he woke up, climbing up into the front seat to get a better look.

"Sure hope no one's close enough to hear it," Jaina said, yawning.

Anakin climbed into his brother's lap and frowned thoughtfully.

"Chewie's got the blaster matrix focus too tight," he announced.

"How do you know that?" Ebrihim asked, vaguely thankful that the child was sleepy enough that he wasn't tempted to go retune the thing.

"I dunno," Anakin said with a yawn. "But I guess it's working okay anyway." He looked out the window and seemed to be working something out in his head. "It ought to take about twenty minutes," he said.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

Posture and Repulsion dmiral Hortel Ossilege stood on the flag deck, overlooking the bridge of the Intntde,; the Bakuran light cruiser that would serve as his flagship on this mission. The other three ships of his command, the destroyers Watchkeeper ntinet, and Defender, were keeping good formation and reporting themselves at full battle readiness. All was well. He drew himself up to his full height and puffed out his chest to stand there, resplendent in his gleaming white full-dress uniform.

"You seem pleased with the situation," Luke said to the Admiral.

"Glad to be back in action again?"

Ossilege was a full head shorter than Luke, and yet when the Admiral looked up at Luke, there was so much confidence, so much authority in his expression, that Luke felt very much like a schoolboy about to be firmly corrected. "No sane person who has been in action, '

as you put it, could ever wish to experience it anew. The thrills, the excitement, do nothing at all to compensate for the terror and the bloodshed. The task of an officer in battle is, too often, to choose which of those you command should die. That sort of action I would be pleased to avoid for the rest of my life."

Ossilege hesitated a moment, and then spoke again.

"And yet, honesty requires me to say more. There s a special excitement to it all. I cannot deny it. I am not proud of it, but I do feel it. Do you think it strange for me to feel such contradictory emotions?"

"I would never presume to question your judgment, Admiral, especially on the eve of battle. But it is a wise commander who is aware that he both loves and hates battle. The trouble is in finding the balance between the two."

"You put that well, Master Skywalker.

But a commander must also remember the price of excessive caution.

That, I think, is something symbolized by the names of our ships.

The three destroyers were originally built to guard against the possible return of the Ssiruuk, and were modffied to get through an interdiction field. Watchkeepei; Sentinet, Defender. Those are, no doubt, fine names, and they speak to the primary mission of our navy defense against a possible return of the Ssi-ruuk. But a wholly defensive force cannot win a war.

It is never enough merely to resist. One must be able to strike back."

"But here we are aboard the Intmder;" Luke said.

"Precisely! Exactly the right name for the first ship specffically designed to escape an interdiction field, don't you think?

Bakuran strategic thinking has for too long been focused on defense.

I am pleased to see our government finally taking advantage of a chance to display a more aggressive posture.

"I am less concerned about our posture, Admiral," Luke said, trying to pick his words carefully-"than I am about accomplishing our mission."

Ossilege looked at him again, smiling faintly. "That sounds something like a rebuke to me, sir. Perhaps a deserved one. But let us see how the situation develops.

You will learn, soon enough, whether I know my business or not."

Somehow, it was not an entirely comforting notion.

The thundering roar of the blasters gradually faded away as the drill head bit deeper, dying away into a low, muted rumble that was all but drowned out by the whooshing roar of the exhaust tube. At just about the twenty-minute mark, the drilling noise cut out abruptly and the sound from the exhaust tube growled down into silence.

"Cutoffs came on!" Anakin announced. "Must be through to the top of the tunnel. Come on!"

Ebrihim, the three children, and Q9 got out of the hovercar and went over to the top of the drill head.

Chewbacca was just winching it out of the hole, moving very carefully around the still red-hot components. The winch lifted the drill head high enough -that Chewbacca could peer into the hole. The children cl.u.s.tered around him and peeked down as well. Ebrihim joined them, and was rewarded with a blast of heat to the face, and not much else. Not too surprisingly, there was nothing much to see but a black hole. Jacen shone a light into it, and if Ebrihim tried very hard, he could almost imagine that he saw a splotch of dark brown at its bottom.

Chewbacca spent the time waiting for the hole to cool by erecting a second tripod winch next to the first one and using a complicated set of pulleys to transfer the drill head to it, getting it out of the way.

That left the first tripod, with its winch, still directly over the hole.

"I suppose we'd better start down," Ebrihim said, none too enthusiastically. A nice snug burrow was one thing, but pts sunk into ancient alien , tunnel systems were quite another. "Down you go, Q9.

"What? Why me? Why should I go first?"

"Because I ordered you to do so, and because you have all those built-in sensors you're so proud of. You might actually be able to detect something with them.

We'll listen in over the hardwire line and you can tell us all about it."

"You just think I'm expendable, that's all."

"Don't encourage the notion," Ebrihim growled.

"what if-if I see something?"

"If you report danger, we'll pull you back out and we'll all get out of here. Now get moving." Q9 floated over to the drill hole with obvious reluctance. The droid's low-power repulsors were nowhere near strong enough to allow him to float down into the pit. He would have to be winched down, just like everyone else. Chewbacca hooked him up to the winch and checked all the hookups one last time. The system-wide jamming had even affected extremely short-range com systems, requiring a direct physical link before two ends of a com system would work.

Ebrihim plugged a comlink into the appropriate jack on Q9 and put on a headset attached to the same line.

"Off you go, then," he said to his droid, and signaled to Chewbacca. He watched as Q9-x2 was lowered into the hole.

"My infrared sensors show that the walls of the hole are still quite warm," Q9 said. "However, they are cooling rapidly, and should be cold enough not to harm your precious hides, if you sho, ul, d happen to work up the nerve to come down here.

"That's quite enough, Q9. One more word along those lines and I'll shut you down and let Anakin rewire you."

"I believe it would be prudent to treat that as a legitimate threat," said Q9. "Just coming out of the bottom of the drill hole. I am indeed in a tunnel very similar to what we saw on Corellia, though it is in much poorer repair. Stop lowering me, please. I am far down enough to use my repulsors."

Ebrihim signaled Chewbacca to quit paying Out cable.

The Wookiee pulled a lever, and the winch stopped abruptly.

"Fleep! Dowzer!" Q9's voice cried out, followed by a series of electronic tones that cut out after a moment.

"Q9! Are you there! Q9!"

"I'mm ball richt," Q9 said. "I'm all right. That hard stop just scrambled my voice matrix for a moment. But tell the Wookiee not to hit the brakes so hard next time.

I am going to detach myself from the winch line and the communication cable and have a look around. Please stand by."

There was silence on the line for a minute or two, and then a click as Q9 plugged himself back into the communication cable. "Allis quiet down here," he said. "I can detect no sound or movement or energy use.

You might as well all come down."

Chewie was the last of them to descend, and the drill hole was something of a tight fit for him. He brought himself down using a hardwired remote control for the winch, and left the control hanging on its wire next to the winch cable.

By the time he had reached bottom, the others had made at least a little progress in exploring the tunnels.

These were identical in design to the Corellian one big and cut out of the living rock. But the walls and floors of these tunnels were cracked and broken, and there were signs that the tunnel had flooded repeatedly over the years. The thin layer of dust over everything in the Corellian tunnels was a thick, grimy layer of mud here. Nor were there any lights functional here. The group had to rely on their handlights in the otherwise absolute darkness. Q9 extruded a pair of floodlights from his topside dome. One he directed at the ceiling to provide some sort of general lighting. The other he aimed through the direction of his forward travel.

The tunnel was full of looming shadows and weirdly lit figures that appeared in and vanished from the beams of the handlights. The tunnel was cold and dank, with a clammy feel to the air.