THIRTY-SIX.

The walls and floor were coated in a frozen black wax that absorbed the light from Luke's helmet lamp and made the pa.s.sage seem even darker and murkier than it was. Every few meters, a fissure caused by the tunnel's sudden decompression ran all the way to the moon ice, sometimes exposing a short length of spitcrete piping or power conduit. There were none of the shine-b.a.l.l.s that illuminated other Killik nests, nor any sense of order to its convoluted plan. The pa.s.sages seemed to meander at random, twining around each other like vines, branching off at arbitrary intervals and rejoining the main pa.s.sage without crossing any obvious destination between.

At the speed he and Mara were sailing through the darkness, using the Force to pull themselves along through the zero-g, Luke was growing badly disoriented. He no longer had any sense of whether they were traveling deeper into the moon or back toward the surface; whether ten meters of ethmane ice separated them from the hangar or a thousand. Were it not for the frozen beads of vapor that his leaky vac suit was leaving behind, he wasn't even sure he could have found his way back down the same pa.s.sage.

Mara suddenly grabbed a crack in the wall and brought herself to a stop. Luke did the same and found himself looking at one of the bulging hatch membranes that Killiks used instead of air locks. A pull chain hung to one side of the hatch, attached to a set of valves positioned to spray sealing gel over the membrane before anyone tried to push through.

Mara didn't reach for the pull chain, and neither did Luke. Both their spines were p.r.i.c.kling with danger sense, and they were all too aware of how difficult it was to sense Gorog in the Force.

"Ambush," Mara concluded. "They're starting to come after us."

"Starting""

Luke looked around, and his helmet lamp illuminated a torrent of dartship pilots pouring around the bend, at most thirty meters away.

Wearing their dartship canopies like carapaces, they were scurrying along every available tunnel surface, with their legs and arms sheathed in a shimmering fabric that bunched and gathered at the joints. They had no weapons other than their six limbs-but that would be enough if the swarm ever caught up.

There was no question of using the Force to hide. Whenever the Gorog lost sight of their quarry, they simply spread out, scrambling over every surface in every direction, literally hunting their quarry down by feel.

Luke began to pour blasterfire into the front ranks. Most bolts ricocheted off the canopies, while those that hit a limb simply activated a safety seal at the nearest joint. The insects just kept coming.

"Trouble," Luke said over the suit comm. Lightsabers would be more effective, but he really didn't want to go hand-to-hand with who-knew-how- many bugs. "Big trouble, in fact."

"Maybe not that big," Mara said.

"No?"

"They can't all be dartship pilots," Mara said. He felt rather than saw her nod at the bulging hatch membrane. "So they won't all be wearing pressure suits."

"You're right," Luke said. The first pilots were less than ten meters away now, but he holstered his blaster and grabbed his lightsaber.

"Not that big."

They ignited their lightsabers, then pressed themselves against the tunnel wall and slashed a large X across the center of the hatch. The membrane blew apart, and their would-be ambushers went tumbling past on a tide of explosive decompression, crashing into the pilot swarm and bringing its advance to a tumbling, confused halt.

Once the torrent slowed, Mara floated through the tattered membrane into a corridor filled with flash-frozen Killiks. Luke followed a few meters behind, using the Force to pull himself along, shouldering aside Gorog warriors with heads painted in the dark spray pattern of decompression death.

"How's that hisser?" Mara asked.

Luke checked the heads-up display inside his faceplate. He was down to just fifteen minutes of air, and the loss rate was increasing.

"Fine for now."

He turned his helmet lamp back through the burst hatch and was relieved to illuminate only a small portion of the throng that had been pursuing them so far. About fifty of the insects were still coming, pushing their way up the body-choked pa.s.sage toward him and Mara. The last dozen or so were scurrying in the opposite direction, vanishing into the darkness behind the hundreds of pilots that had already started back toward their dartships.

"But the next time we come to a pressure hatch, let's try to leave it intact," Luke said. "I think our rescue party is about to be delayed."

The navigation lock finally reached the center of the display.

Relieved to note their Chiss escorts were still behind them-the cruiser was less likely to blast the Falcon to atoms that way - Han began a slow, spiraling descent into Kr's thickening fog. He would have liked to drop into a power dive and go screaming down to find Luke and Mara, but that would have looked suspicious. And when Chiss grew suspicious, they killed things.

"Let's see what it looks like inside that fog," Han said. "Activate the terrain scanners."

Leia brought the scanners online. Unlike ethmane ice, ethmane fog was almost as transparent to sensors as air, and a moment later the mouth of a broad funnel-like pit appeared on Han's display. The hole appeared to be a deep one, descending more than two kilometers before finally curving out of sight.

"Any sign of rescue beacons?" Han asked.

Leia shook her head. "None." She closed her eyes. "They're too deep."

"Deep?"

"Inside Kr," she said. "I think they're in the nest."

'In the nest?" Han felt like he was going to choke on his heart.

"That's not funny, Leia."

"It gets less funny," she said. "Luke seems to think we'll meet a reception committee."

"You don't say." Han smiled. "Good."

"Good?" C-3PO demanded. "I don't see anything good about this situation at all. There's every chance that both Master Skywalkers will be killed by our baradium missiles!"

"Not really." Han pushed the Falcon's nose down and dropped into a steepening dive. "For that to happen, we'd have to actually fire the baradium missiles."

"You don't intend to fire them?" C-3PO asked, growing even more alarmed. "Not even one?"

"No." Leia's tone was relieved. It had been her idea to bring the baradium missiles along, but she had spent most of the trip worried about how they were going to keep Alema clear when they fired the weapons at the nest. Han had not been quite so worried. "Not with Luke and Mara inside."

"But you won't be able to clear the nest!" C-3PO objected. "Without those missiles, the odds will be-"

"Easy, Threepio." The last thing Han wanted to hear was how bad the odds were. He was already having to hold the yoke tight to prevent his hands from shaking. "I wasn't counting on the missiles anyway."

"You weren't?"

"Of course not," he said. "They're baradium. You never get to shoot the baradium missiles."

"Oh." C-3PO grew calmer. "That's true. I have no record of one ever actually being launched."

They descended a thousand meters into the fog, then a Chiss voice crackled over the comm.

"Millennium Falcon, be advised that if you attempt to evade us, we will open fire."

"We're not evading," Han answered. "We're going in... and you're welcome to follow."

"Going in?" The ethmane ice was already beginning to make the comm signal scratchy. "Clarify."

"We have two Jedi pilots down inside the nest," Leia explained.

"We're going to extract them."

The clawcraft reappeared on the Falcon's tail. "We've detected no other craft-"

"Do you ever?" Han interrupted. "She said they were Jedi pilots-Luke and Mara Skywalker, to be exact. You coming or not?"

There was a moment's silence, then the two clawcraft began to drop back. "Your request lies outside our mission profile, but we have been authorized to wish you good luck."

"Thanks for nothing," Han grumbled.

"You're welcome," the Chiss replied. "We could have shot you down."

The Falcon continued to descend, then finally broke out of the fog into a twisting, ice-walled shaft that was much narrower than it had appeared on the terrain scanner. Han gasped and pulled the ship in a spiral so tight it was almost a spin.

"Oh, dear!" C-3PO cried.

"Relax, circuit-brain." Han spoke between clenched teeth. "I've got us under control."

"That isn't what concerns me, Captain Solo. We have a safety margin of point-"

"Threepio!" Leia barked. "What does concern you?"

C-3PO's golden arm stretched toward the viewport. "That."

It took a moment for Han and Leia to see the faint orange glow building in the depths of the shaft.

"Okay." Leia sighed. "That kind of concerns me, too."

"Relax. Everything's under control." Han activated the intercom.

"Juun, you ready back there?"

There was a short delay, followed by the electronic screech of someone speaking too close to the intercom microphone. "Yes, Captain, if you think this is going to work."

"It's going to work," Han said. He checked the power levels on the Falcon's tractor beam and saw that they were holding at maximum. Still, he asked, "Are you sure you're ready?"

There was a short pause, then Tarfang jabbered something sharp.

"Tarfang a.s.sures you that he and Captain Juun are very prepared,"

C- 3PO translated. "He adds that if your geejawed plan fails, it's your own fault; you shouldn't try to blame it on them."

"It's going to work," Han said.

He started to address the rest of his pa.s.sengers, but Kyp cut him off.

"Of course we're ready." Kyp's voice came over the comm channel rather than the intercom, an indication that he was already in his vac suit and b.u.t.toned up tight. "We're Jedi."

Han glanced over at Leia. "I hate it when he does that," he growled. "You ready?"

She nodded gravely. "As soon as you tell me how you're going to get past that swarm."

Han grinned. "Who says I'm going to?"

They rounded a bend and, about two kilometers below, saw the first haze of the dartship swarm filling the shaft. Han pointed the Falcon's nose at them and accelerated.

"Han?"

"Yeah?"

"You don't have to impress me." Leia pinched her eyes shut. "I've never thought you were fainthearted. Not even once."

Han chuckled. "Good. Just want to keep-"

Juun's voice came over the intercom. "Captain Solo, I have a question. "

"Now?" Han asked. The swarm of dartships had thickened to a gray-and- orange cloud. 'Wow you have a question?"

"I can't find the activation safety," Juun said.

"There isn't one!" Han said. "Just activate... now!"

"But the CEC maintenance manual clearly states that every freight-moving apparatus shall have-"

"Flip the kriffing switch!" Leia yelled.

The shaft's blue walls vanished behind the swarm, and bolts of red energy began to streak down into the shaft as Cakhmaim and Meewalh cut loose with the quad laser cannons.

"That's an order!" Han added.

Juun flipped the switch.

The cabin lights dimmed, and every display on the flight deck winked out as c.o.c.kpit power dwindled to nothing. Even the quad lasers started to dribble beams of blue light.

"Han?" Leia's voice broke with fear. "We don't have any status displays. I can't monitor our shields. Is it supposed to do that?"

"You bet," Han said proudly. "When I reversed the polarity of the tractor beam, I had to feed it every spare erg of power I could find."

All Han could see ahead was the cloud of dartships, so close now that he could make out individual exhaust trails curving toward the Falcon's nose.

"But not the shields, right?" Leia said. Canopy bulges began to appear atop the closest dartships, some with antennae waving inside, and propellant trails began to stab out from the swarm. "Please tell me we're not drawing on the-"

A cone of iridescent energy shot out from beneath the Falcon, swallowing both the Gorog missiles and the swarm beyond. A series of fiery blossoms erupted as the missiles interpreted the repulsion beam as impact and detonated. The dartships were harder to defeat. The pilots increased power, and the cloud of ships hung in stasis, still struggling to ascend the shaft.

But as the Falcon continued to descend, the beam grew stronger.

Soon the Killiks' primitive rocket engines began to overload and explode.