Luke looked down on the bridge from the gla.s.sed-in confines of the flag deck that looked down on the bridge proper. Luke and all his companions were there, strapped into their seats and ready for action.

Belindi IKalenda, Lando, Gaeriel, Artoo, and Threepio.

And Ossilege, of course, along with his staff officers.

The bridge down below was a fairly standard arrangement, borrowing as much from Imperial ship design as anything else. There was a central raised walkway, with the various control stations in sunken trench like operations centers that lined the perimeter of the bridge.

Luke glanced over at Lando and grinned. "Let's see if we can make it all the way in this time," he said.

Lando smiled back. "Absolutely," he said. "I don't like getting doors slammed in my face."

"enty seconds."

"I don't know why they bothered with the countdown 1UW n-U-KMMW clock," Lando said. "That's just a best-guess estimate of the edge of the field. It's bound to be off."

"It never hurts to give the crew something to focus on," said Admiral Ossilege. "And it makes it a great deal easier to coordinate between the four ships."

"Fifteen seconds."

"I quite agree with Captain Cairissian," Threepio volunteered.

"I've , always found this sort of thing terrifically disturbing.

"Threepio, pipe down," Lando said. "And I don't ever want to hear you agreeing with me again. Is that understood?"

"But, Captain Calrissian-" Artoo cut Threepio off with a rude noise.

"Well, I never!" Threepio said. "Such language!

Artoo, you ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"Ten seconds."

Luke looked over to the tactical display, showing the colored dots of the four ships moving toward the dotted blue line of the field's estimated limit. Then he turned back to the forward viewport, determined to see the actual moment of the Intruder's impact on the interdiction field.

"Five seconds.

"Four."

"Three."

"One."

"Zero."

Nothing happened, but then, Luke hadn't really expected it to. He looked over to Lando, and Lando shrugged. The two of them had done the best they could to measure the field using the Lady Luck's instruments, but they knew better than anyone how rough and ready those measurements had been. It was no surprise at all that they were off by a substantial margin.

"Plus two seconds,"

"Plus three."

Lando looked toward Luke. "Hey, who knows?" he asked.

"Maybe, t, hey dropped the field. Maybe we can do this the easyKA-RAM!

Luke was slammed forward into his restraint harness, and thrown to one side at the same time. The forward viewport was suddenly a blaze of surging light, reds and oranges slashing down as star lines flared into view and then vanished again.

"WE ARE IN THE INTERDICTION FIELD!" the tactics officer shouted over the sudden din of hooting alarms and emergency systems.

'M4INiAiNING STAHC Hll? ERs.p.a.cE BUBBLE. FIRST STATIC BUBBLE GENERATOR DECAYING AT EXPECTED RATE. COLlAPSE IMMINENT-" BLAM! The whole ship bucked and shuddered as the first bubble generator blew out and the second cut in.

The main lighting died for a moment, but kicked back in before the emergency systems had a chance to come on.

The shaking and shuddering got worse, moment by moment, and Luke heard the faroff crash of something slamming into a bulkhead on a lower deck.

BLAMM! The second generator blew, and the third snapped on, more abruptly than the first two. An overhead lighting fixture overloaded and blew out, throwing a shower of sparks across the flag deck. One spark managed to start a fire on the deck carpet, but Artoo had his built-in extinguisher out and on before Luke could even call out a warning.

BA-LAAMM! The third generator blew, and the fourth cut in.

"Maintaining hypers.p.a.ce bubble!" the tactics officer called out, the noise level down enough that she did not have to shout quite so loud.

"Losing hypers.p.a.ce momentum at rate inside projections. Projecting virtual full stop relative to interdiction field in thirty seconds."

"If we hold together that long!" Lando shouted.

There was another crash somewhere below decks, as if to emphasize his point.

BAA-LAAMMM! There was no doubt about it. Each bounce in and out of hypers.p.a.ce was a bit slower-but a bit less violent-than the one before it. They were through the worst of it. Now if only the ship could hold together for whatever punishment was yet to comewHAMMM! The shock was the hardest yet, and suddenly the ship's artificial gravity failed, just as the lights died again. The ship began to tumble, end over end, as new alarms began to blare and honk. The red emergency lights came on, revealing a scene of chaos. Two or three bridge officers had been thrown clear of their stations, and were flailing about in midair, struggling to grab hold of something, anything, and hang on.

Dozens of small objects had been thrown loose by the impact, and they were caroming about the interior of the bridge. A similar cloud of debris filled the flag deck.

A command station down below on the bridge sparked and flared, throwing lurid shadows in the red-lit gloom.

"Main power coupling off-line!" the tactics officer announced.

"We have lost positive ship control, but hypers.p.a.ce bubble is holding."

Ossilege punched the com key that linked him to the ship's master.

"Captain Nisewarner! Cut the by, p, ers.p.a.ce sustainer! Drop us into normal s.p.a.ce at once.

"At once, sir," Semmac's voice replied. A moment later, a long, rumbling ihud, almost below the threshold of hearing, a sound more felt than heard, rolled across the ship. The star lines flared almost halfheartedly to life before dying out, leaving the stars of Corellia gently pinwheeling as the Intruder tumbled her stately way across the sky.

"Fleet status," Ossilege ordered, his eyes staring out into the sky.

One of the flag-deck technicians checked his displays, listened on his headphones for a moment, and then reported, "Defender and Sentinel have just dropped out of hypers.p.a.ce in approximate formation with us, within projected parameters. Sentinel reporting only minor damage, Defender reports all boards green. As of yet, we have no track on Watchkeeper."

"what is the Intruder's location?" Ossilege asked, still watching the viewports.

"No navigational fix as yet, sir. Stand by, data coming in.

The main lights suddenly cut back in, and an automated voice boomed out, "Warning. Warning. Artificial gravity resumes in thirty seconds. We will ramp up from zero to one hundred percent of full standard gravity over a twenty-second period. Stand by for resumption of artificial gravity."

The bridge officers who had been thrown into midair had all managed to find handholds by this time and were scrambling across the overhead bulkheads to whatever ladders or guide wires they could find.

The gravitics came on again with a low hum that vanished into the subsonic almost at once. The debris caught in midair started floating downward, thudding and clattering to the deck as weight returned.

The stars stopped pinwheeling past the viewports as the navigation crew regained att.i.tude control. Luke could see one of the destroyerthe Defender, it looked likeme into view as it took up station keeping.

"We now have a solid navigational fix"' the flag-deck technician announced. "We are off projected course line by approximately ten million kilometers, and we are seventy-two hours from Selonia at flank speed."

"Are we capable of flank speed at this time?" Ossilege asked.

"Damage a.s.sessment still coming in, sir. Engineer reports maximum advisable acceleration is one third flank.

It was a pretty rough ride. Stand by. Sir, the Watchkeeper has just dropped out of hypers.p.a.ce. Attempting to plot a navigational fix on the Watchkeeper. We are not receiving any com- or data-link from Watchkeeper.

Power emissions from Watchkeeper below normal minimums.

She is tumbling badly, sir."

"Tried to ride the hyperdrive sustainer a little too long, it would appear. Very well," said Ossilege. "My compliments to the masters of Intruder, Defender, and SentineL Use laser visual signaling to order ships to get under way and rendezvous at Watchkeeper. She's the furthest toward the inner system, and we may need to render aid.

Inform me of any change in status of any ship."

"Very well, sir." Ossilege turned to Luke and Lando. "Well," he said, "it would seem we came through that in reasonably good shape.

And I expect our friends on Corellia will be more than a bit surprised to see us pop out of hypers.p.a.ce a mere three days out from the inner system. I wonder if they will be in any position to respond in time?"

R2-D2 was running at capacity. There was so much to do, so many demands on his attention. There was only so much one droid could do.

He was responsible not only for the flight-readiness of Master Luke's X-wing, but for Lando Calrissian's Lady Luck as well. Handling the standard diagnostics and maintenance and navigational updates on two ships at once was not, in itself, enough to present him with any great problem. His master, Luke Skywalker, also required his attendance a fair amount of the time, and negotiating for supplies, equipment, and datalinks with the Bakuran droids was extremely time consuming. It took a great deal of background effort to make everything go smoothly.

Artoo was aboard the Lady Luck at the moment.

Lando Calrissian's ship was safely in its lockdown point on the Intruder's flight deck, right next to Luke's X-wing, in the midst of the Bakuran fighter craft. Techs and droids were swarming over all the Bakuran vehicles, making sure they had ridden out the Intruder's violent arrival. The Bakurans were using at least one human tech and two droids on each fighter check-out. Artoo was left to do the same check-job on the X-wing and the Lady Luck by himself, and both of them were far more complex s.p.a.cecraft that the Bakuran fighters. He was on his own, save for the extremely marginal a.s.sistance of Threepio.

Artoo began his checks of the navigation systems. He plugged his dataport into the main navigation sensor arrays, and noted the dorsal infrared unit was slightly out of alignment. That he could fix from here by sending commands through the dataport link. He switched over and tested the navicomputer itself. The unit pa.s.sed e ily, solving all of the simulated problems with high precision.

Satisfied that the navigation systems were operational, Artoo moved on to test the communications equipment. As all normal com frequencies were being jammed, rendering all the com gear useless, communication testing was at lower priority than normal, but sooner or later the jamming would be lifted. It would be prudent to at least do a cursory check.

The standard hyperwave channels all tested Out normally, with no aberrations. It was impossible to do detailed checks under jamming conditions, of course, and the laser line-of-sight communications could likewise not receive a full check until the ship was out in clear s.p.a.ce.

But all the circuits seemed functional, and the com control system was operational.

"Artoo! where are you?" Artoo could hear Threepio calling from somewhere near the Lady's main hatch.

Artoo elected to complete his present task before responding. He continued the corn check, moving on to tests on the ship's lowest priority communications device, the radionics system.

All the radionics systems seemed functional. But there was one odd thing. In spite of the jamming, it seemed to be receiving a signal. But of course. The archaic electromagnetic-radiation signaling system could not be affected by jamming of hyperwave subs.p.a.ce frequencies anymore than poisoned human food could hurt a droid. There was no way for the radionics system to detect subs.p.a.ce signals, let alone be jammed by them.

Artoo began to examine the signal. It was repeating, over and over again. A beacon, perhaps, or a distress call.

"Artoo! Artoo! where are you!" Threepio's voice again, doser and more insistent this time. Artoo tried to concentrate on interpreting the signal. It was quite a simple pattern in many ways, but he was not used to dealing with nondigital signaling, or with radionics. It appeared to be an a.n.a.log transmission, though he could not be sure of that withoutBLANG! Threepio's hand slapped down on the top of Artoc's sensor dome. "Artoo! Look alive, will you?

Master Luke wants you on the flag deck at once to record the tactics report. Stop running those redundant checks, unplug yourself, and come with me at once!"

Artoo ceased his a.n.a.lysis at once, disengaged from the Lady Luck's data port, and hurried after Threepio.

The tactical report could well provide vital data. a.n.a.lysis of low-priority signals would just have to wait.

Han sat back in his flight chair, immensely restless.

Watching Salculd do a semicompetent job of flying her ship was not doing his mood much good. Han was aboard the Selonian's nameless cone-shaped ship as it lumbered across s.p.a.ce, taking its own sweet time about the pa.s.sage to Selonia. Han was starting to lose whatever slight patience he had for the situation. They were a day and a half out from Corellia with perhaps another day's travel to go. Unfortunately, the key word in all that was "perhaps." Han was starting to believe they were never going to get anywhere.

The coneship had already suffered two propulsion failures, and Han had been drafted to perform repairs both times. What he saw of the propulsion systems in the process had not put him at his ease. It seemed the whole sublight propulsion system was held together with spit and string.

Nor had Dracmus, serving as the ship's commander, shown the best judgment. Dracmus had ordered three evasive course changes in response to what seemed to be wholly imaginary threats from the handful of craft that were braving the s.p.a.ceways. Given the extremely limited capacity of the coneship's sensors, there seemed very little point to any attempt at evasive maneuver. The only ships they could detect were the ones moving very slowly and not very far away. Nor could the coneship run fast if she were attacked, and she could not shoot at all. Unless they were attacked by an overburdened s.p.a.cetug, they were fair game for anyone. There was, therefore, very little point in trying to stay out of sight.

Dracmus, however, was not convinced by these arguments. It was starting to sink in with Han that the Selonians might be the masters of the underworld, but they needed a little practice to get good at ship handling, to put it charitably.

Of course, there were benefits to being a pa.s.senger on a slow-moving ship. Being onboard any ship, even one this crude, meant getting off his hands and knees, meant a chance to take at least a sponge bath and rinse out his dothespportunities he had not had since being captured by the Human League forces. It meant a chance to rest, to recuperate, to let a full day pa.s.s without sustaining a new injury, to use the medkit to patch himself up at least a little.

Yes indeed, looked at it that way, there were benefits.

Maybe he should take a little nap. He was just on the verge of closing his eyes when the alarms blew. He was halfway out of his restraint harness, about to rush to battle stations, when it dawned on him that he had no battle station on this boat.

Dracmus materialized from her stateroom. "What is it?" she called to Salculd.

Salculd was at her pilot's station, frantically twisting dials and setting switches, and did not answer at once. It took a full fifteen seconds for her to get the alarms cut off and the flight syStem back under some sort of control. Good thing it wasn't a real emergency, Han thought.

Otherwise we'd all have been killed before she had the alaims reset.

"Detector alert," Salculd said at last. "Another ship.

No, three-no, four others. They just popped out of nowhere, out of hypers.p.a.ce."

"But what about the interdiction field?" Han protested.

"It's still there," Salculd said. "But the ships got through it, somehow. They're coming from starboard, moving straight for us, and for Selonia.

"Full evasive!" Dracmus ordered at once, not waiting for details.

"Wait! Hold it!" Han shouted, trying to get them to stop in time. A glance at the display boards made it clear the newcomers were at least two and a half days away at any sort of reasonable acceleration. Besides which, who would send four big ships in pursuit of this glorified gocart?

But it was too late. For all of Salculd's irreverent posturing, she had never been anything but quick off the mark in obeying Dracmus's orders. She slammed the sublight engines up to maximum and heeled the nose of the ship hard over.

"Don't throttle up so hard!" Han shouted. "Your power relay inverters can't handle too many hard power-ups!"