She switched on the comlink and started talking.

"Dartmakers out of luck with frequently iced manifolds.

Dartmakers Out of luck with frequently iced manifolds. Dartmakers out of luck with frequently iced manifolds." She chanted the words as if they were some sort of mantra, a magic spell that could save her life.

And with any luck, that would be exactly right.

Speaking of communications, it might be that the Y-wings were trying to reach her. She hit the scan command on her com panel and sent it sniffing for all the standard frequencies. Nothing. Not that she expected it.

Fighter pilots rarely tried to chat with the people they were attempting to kill.

The Y-wings were splitting wide, trying to get her in a spherical cross fire. If they managed that, it was going to be all over in short order. Well, if they couldn't talk to her, maybe she could talk to them.

Kalenda punched in what had been the standard channel for the general fighter command link last time she had been briefed.

"Y-wing fighters! This is the X-TIE you are pursuing.

Please hold your fire! I am not hostile. I am on a courier mission." Another laser, blast streaked out. This one caught her X-E amidships. The Ugly shuddered, bucked and swayed, and the interior lights dimmed, but the shields heldhis time. A whole bunch of the lights that had been amber abruptly clicked over to red. The next hit was going to do plenty of damage. She twisted the X-E through a oneeighty and dove straight for the closest pair of Y-wings. She flew right between them and managed to get outside the formation-and then instantly wished she hadn't.

A Mon Calamari star cruiser had appeared from out of nowhere and was bearing down on her. If she had been inside the Y-wing cross fire, the cruiser wouldn't have dared fire on her. Now, however, the cruiser could blaze away as she liked. And there was the cruiser's forward turbolasers turning ponderously about, bearing down on her.

Kalenda went vertical, flipped her ship through ninety degrees, and punched for sky, trying to move faster than that gun turret could.

Hopeless, of course, but she had to go down fighting. She punched back to the NRI frequency and spoke, perhaps for the last time.

Strange that her last words were going to be a nonsense phrase.

"Dartmakers out of luck with frequently iced manifolds.

Dartmakers out of luck with frequently iced-" Suddenly a giant, invisible hand grabbed at her X-E and grabbed at it hard. She was nearly thrown up against her restraint harness and banged her helmet against the inside of the canopy. Momentarily stunned, she needed a moment to regain her senses. A near miss.

It must have been a near miss from the cruiser. She slammed over the joystick, trying to heel the ship over to port, trying to go evasive one last time. But the X-E only shuddered and moaned, and the cabin was suddeuly full of the smell of something burning. Then she got it. She cut the engines, pulled her hands off the joystick, and breathed a sigh of relief.

A tractor beam. They had caught her with a tractor beam.

She shut her eyes and slumped back against her seat back. She started breathing again, not realizing she had stopped for a little bit there. "Praise be to the dartmakers," she said to no one at all.

"Praise be to the dartmakers, and may their manifolds never ice up again.

Bakura.

Even in all the years of peace since the invasion crisis, Bakura had maintained its powerful defense forces.

There had been no sign of a renewed attack from the Ssi-ruuk, but on the other hand, there had been no warning at all before the Ssi-ruuk's first attack. It would be a long time before Bakura let down her guard again.

Which led to the inevitable question of why the New Republic had let its guard down. Part of the answer was that it hadn't. Though the fleet and the surface forces were far smaller than they had been during the war against the Empire, they were still formidable fighters.

They were simply committed elsewhere at the moment, or else undergoing repairs. The Mons Calamari shipyards were doing big business these days. If the revolt in Corellia had happened six months earlier or three months later, the New Republic could have sent a ma.s.sive fleet.

And, truth be told, Luke had a hunch that Mon Mothma cotdd have raised a New Republic force if absolutely necessary. It would have been risky and expensive, and would have left this outpost or that with minimal defenses for a while, but it could have been done.

But Mon Mothma was not just a strategist. She was a politician, and a good one. Good politicians know how to make use of a crisis, how to use one problem to solve several others. By sending Luke and Lando to call on the Bakurans, she was killing a multiplicity of birds with one stone. She was indeed conserving Republic resources, so that she could deal with other potential crises that might erupt. But she was also appealing to the Bakuran psychology. Bakura was near the borders of the New Republic, and its citizens were often fearful of being forgotten, left out of the equation. If Mon Mothma's guesses were correct, asking them for help would encourage Bakurans to retain close ties to the Republic, making them feel needed, committed to the cause.

And there was another matter. She had, not so very long ago, told Luke that it was only a matter of time before he entered the political arena, and she was perfectly capable of using this opportunity to give him a hearty shove in that direction. Going to Bakura was not a job for a hero who charged in with his lightsaber at the ready. It was a job for a negotiator. Mon Mothina was forcing Luke to act not like a lone swashbuckler, but like a leader, a representative-a politidan.

Mon Mothma was very good. There was no doubting that.

Luke sat up. Enough of this. It was ridiculous for him to be moping around this way. There was too much to do, too much to get ready for. He needed to know more. It was high time to get that briefing from Threepio.

He was on the verge of pushing the intercom b.u.t.ton to summon Threepio when the intercom came on all by itself-with Threepio on the line. "Master Luke." Anna please come to the c.o.c.kpit. Artoo is pa.s.sing us a feed from the military sensor net.

There's some sort of intercept taking place. A flight of Y-wing fighters are attacking some peculiar combination of an X-wing and an oldstyle TIE fighter."

Lando's voice came on, very excited. "It's an X-TIE Ugly, Luke!

And the only shipyards that can put those together-"

"-are in Corellia," Luke said, finishing Lando's thought as he ran out of his cabin toward the c.o.c.kpit.

The c.o.c.kpit hatch was open and he dove through it.

"Tell Artoo to contact the intercept fighters!" he said. "Tell them to call off-"

"No need," Lando interrupted. "Whoever is on that thing must have done some fast talking for himself. The Y-wings ceased fire and the cruiser Naritus slapped a tractor beam on her. They're taking her aboard.

And before you can tell me to do it, yeah, we're changing course. That's got to be someone with news."

Luke dropped back into the copilot's seat and punched up the audio com channel to his X-wing.

"Artoontact the cruiser and request permission for us to come aboard."

Artoo replied with an affirmative-sounding triple beep. Luke leaned forward and peered eagerly through the viewport of the Lady Luck The Naritus was nowhere near, of course, and it was going to take some time to get there, but maybe now they were going to get some information.

"Turn this thing around, Lando. Let's get moving."

Kalenda knew her problems weren't over, not by a long shot. Not when she was sitting in a cell in the cruiser's detention block, rather than at a table in its briefing center. Not that she could blame the captain of the Naritus for viewing her with more than a little suspicion.

She was, after all, traveling without any papers or proof of her ident.i.ty; the NRI did not send its agents out on undercover missions with photo ID. Even if she had carried ID, it would have been phony from top to bottom, matching her cover story from the time of her entry into the Corellian system. But she had ditched that long ago, of course. That ident.i.ty was blown, and blown big.

So all they had was a frazzled4looking young woman in a rumpled jumpsuit, both woman and jumpsuit badly in need of cleaning. But Kalenda was not about to ask for a shower or a fresh set of clothes.

Not yet. So far they had just given her a quick pat-down, checking for weapons. They hadn't thought to search her clothing all that caretully, and she didn't want this crowd finding that datachip.

No.

She had her orders regarding that.

But there was another worry. That X-TIE she had stolen. That they were going over with a fine-tooth comb, and she couldn't blame them. The trouble was, she had no real idea what was aboard it. It took very little imagination to think of things that could be aboard the Ugly, things that could get her into very, very big trouble. But, she told herself once again, no point at all in borrowing trouble when there was so much currently available.

She could hear the outer hatch of the detention block opening, and, a few minutes later, the door of her own cell opened. The hard-bitten rating who had taken charge of her came into the room.

"Still checking your story," she said. "The NRI confirms that's a legitimate one-shot word code you used, but they point out that those things aren't foolproof."

Kalenda nodded. She knew at least three ways to get around the word codes-but that was why the NRI didn't take word-code recoguition signals on faith, even with a positive voice-pattern match. "So they've sent Anna MMUU Ar WLONM 65 you to get fingerprint and retinal patterns and a DNA sample," she said.

The rating c.o.c.ked her head and gave a sort of half smile. "At least you know your NRI procedures. If you're a plant, they did a good job briefing you."

There didn't seem to be much to say to that, so Kalenda said nothing.

"1 don't suppose you've changed your mind about making a statement," the rating said.

"Sorry," Kalenda said. "I have orders from the other side.

Direct from the Chief of State." Well, not quite direct. But surely the Chief of State's husband was close enough, even if it didn't sound quite as authoritative. "I am to talk only to Admiral Ackbar, Mon Mothma, or Luke Skywalker." And that wasn't quite accurate, either, but it was close enough. Han Solo had told her to hand the datachip over to one of those three, and no one else. She couldn't pull the datachip and tell her captor she wasn't allowed to hand it over to her.

Not unless she wanted the chip being played back by the captain of the Naritus five minutes from now. There had been too many leaks already.

The story of the starbuster plot would have to be tightly held, in order to avoid a panic, if for no other reason.

The rating shook her head. "You don't ask for much, do you?"

"I don't write the orders, friend. I just follow them."

After I've rewrttten them, she thought.

"Wish to burning stars I could get the same folks to write my orders," the rating said. "Yours seem to get results."

"What?" Kalenda asked. "What do you mean?"

"Be back in a second," the rating said. With that she left the cell. Kalenda could not help but notice that she had left the door open.

Was that a test? Did they figure if she wasn't who she said she was, she'd try to make a break for it? Or should she try to make a break for it?

What did the rating mean about getting results? Were they about to bring in some sort of interrogation specialist? Whatever the rating had meant, it didn't sound very pleasant. But no. Stop being foolish.

They could interrogate her all they wanted. All they'd get was the truth.

Still, that didn't make the thought of someone using all the latest hardware to perform science experiments on her mind seem all that comforting an idea.

When the rating returned, with a tall, grim-faced stranger, the idea seemed even less pleasant. Was he an interrogator? He was a tall, lean man, sandy haired and blue eyed, wearing a New Republic Navy fighter pilot's undress uniform, with no insignia. He didn't look like an interrogator. In fact, his face seemed familiar. She had never seen him face to face, of course, but still "My name is Skywalker," the stranger said. "You wanted to talk with me?"

CHAPTER FOUR.

The flowers of Home The Millennium falkon eased cautiously out of its parking orbit around Drall and headed down toward the planet's surface. Chewbacca, in his accustomed seat in the copilot's right-hand chair, made a nervous little moaning roar as they headed in. "Don't worry," said Q9-x2, who was clamped to the floor behind Chewbacca. "We are now well inside the Drallish defenses. Our slow approach strategy has paid off."

"I wish I shared your confidence, Q9," said Ebrihim.

The Drall was distinctly too short for the pilot's seat, and was reduced to the indignity of standing on the seat in order to see out the forward viewscreen. He was more or less strapped in, but he knew perfectly well he was not all that likely to stay in one place if the going got difficult.

Ebrihim was tall for a Drall, though he was well aware that was not saying a great deal. He was about a meter and a quarter in height.

He had short, thick gray fur, with a sprinkling of lighter gray on his face and throat. Like all Drall, he was short-limbed, with clawed, fur-covered feet and hands. Like nearly all Drall, he was a bit on the roly-poly side by human standards. While normal for a Drall, being short and pudgy and furry was often a nuisance for a dignified creature, especially when dealing with humans. Too many of them seemed ready to regard a Drall as a sort of living stuffed-animal toy.

Perhaps that was why Drall tended to stand so much on their dignity.

Q9 turned toward Chewbacca. "My master is often extremely overcautious," he said. "I am glad to see you do not share this trait."

"I am not overcautious, but neither am I not madly overconfident, as some are. Drall's defenses are not elaborate, and are intended to detect fast-moving, aggressive craft. I am sure we have gotten past all the defenses I know about, and those this ship can detect, but that's a far cry from saying there will be no further surprises."

Chewbacca moaned again and shook his head.

"a.s.suming I understand you properly, I quite agree," said Ebrihim.

"I, too, have had my share and more of surprises on this trip."

He glanced up toward the interior monitor screen, which was showing a view of the three children in their cabin, strapped down on their beds, which were doing double duty as acceleration couches.

At least the children were behaving for the moment.

When those three got going, there was no way to stop them. Why in the blue sun he had volunteered to become their tutor, he would never know. He had thought a temporary job teaching a few basics of Corellian life to the children of an extremely powerful and influential human might prove entertaining, and provide him with some opportunities he would not otherwise have had, perhaps improving his prospects in the job market as well. But the entertaining temporary a.s.signment had ended up with him being shot at and chased off the planet.

68 1og. rMocMdMM ASMULT AT aROMA 69 "Mi will be well," Ebrihim said in his most rea.s.suring voice. "We will be able to set down quietly on my family lands. There you will be able to effect repairs on the ah-ship." He had been about to refer to the Millennium Falcon by a less respectful term, until he hadn ticed the Wookiee's expression. Chewbacca seemed to have a complicated love-hate relationship with the old rattletrap of a s.p.a.cecraft. One minute he prized it above all things, and the next he cursed it most impressively.

"Little good repairihg the ship will do while the entire system is under this interdiction field," Q9 said. QX2 bore a vague family resemblance to the R2 series of astromech droids. More accurately, the Q9 series was an experimental design, based on the later-model R7 cha.s.sis. Opinion was still split on the outcome of the experiment. Some argued it was a flat-out failure, while the optimists argued it was still too early to know for sure.

Q9-X2's behavior did not always make him the best argument for success. He was nothing more or less than a nuisance most of the time.

He seemed to have a knack for driving his master-and everyone else-to distractiOn, and then demonstrating his own indispensability.

Q9 had saved Ebrihim's life in the Corona House attack, a fact that had reminded the tutor just how useful it was to have an overintelligent droid with too much initiative. But even so, Q9 could still be most aggravating.

For one thing, Q9 was forever modiing himself, installing new equipment. He had installed his own repulsor units, allowing him to move far more freely over terrain where his wheels would not take him.

He had also installed his own voder unit, rendering him capable of speech, rather than being forced to rely on the hoops and bleeps of the average astromech. Ebrihim was not certain that Q9 with a voice was an improvement. Ever since he had plugged the voder in, he had talked too much. "Once the ship is repaired, what will we do?" Q9 asked, demonstrating that very tendency.

"Once we are on the ground, we will plan our next move, Ebrihim said, attempting to dismiss the question.

"That is a nonanswer," Q9 said. "It offers no information."

"Perhaps because I have none," Ebrihim replied, quite testily.

"Honestly, Q9, you can be most aggravating. When we land, I hope to contact members of my family who will help us stay hidden while we gather more information. Our prime duty is, of course, to the children. We must ensure their safety. How we are to do that, I do not know."