Luke jumped onto the pile of chitin and metal in front of him. Two of Raynar's Unu bodyguards immediately popped up and sent a burst of shatter gun pellets zipping down the corridor toward him.

Luke flicked his hand and Force-batted the projectiles into a wall, then the bugcrunchers at his back sent a stream of cannon fire down the hall. Raynar ignited a gold lightsaber and deflected most of the volley, but a few of the bolts made it through and splattered his bodyguards across the walls.

"It's not too late to surrender." Luke started forward at a walk. "I'm not eager to do this."

Raynar's burn-scarred lips twitched in a faint hint of a smile. "We are."

Raynar raised his lightsaber and jumped onto the carnage heap.

Luke ignited his own blade and raced forward, using the Force to keep himself from stumbling over debris. A loud crunching erupted behind him as his surviving droids raced after him, then half a dozen of Raynar's bodyguards leapt up from the other end of the pile and started forward, firing shatter guns with their lower set of arms and carrying flame tridents with their upper pair.

A flurry of cannon bolts zipped past Luke from behind and took out three insects. Raynar pointed at the attacking droids. A m.u.f.fled thump erupted inside one of them, and it went down in a sizzling, popping crash of laminanium. Luke killed the last of Raynar's bodyguards by Force-slamming them into the wall so hard their thoraxes burst, then the two Jedi were on one another, their lightsabers flashing toward each other's heads with all the speed and might they could summon.

That was the trouble with powerful men-especially younger ones. Awed by their own strength, they so often believed strength was the answer to every problem. Luke was older and wiser. While Raynar swung, he pivoted.

As Raynar's gold blade sliced the air where Luke's head had been, Luke's boot was kicking him behind the ankles, knocking his legs out from under him and stretching him out flat.

But Raynar was a Jedi, and all Jedi were quick. He caught himself in the Force, levitating himself just long enough to bring his golden blade sweeping in at Luke's shoulder.

Luke had no choice but to block with his blade, and no place to block but the forearm. Raynar's lightsaber went spinning off, still securely in the grasp of his three-fingered hand, and caught one of Luke's bugcrunchers squarely in the back. The weapon sliced through six centimeters of laminanium armor before the severed forearm flew free. The blade deactivated, and the hilt disappeared into the tangle of death and destruction at the droid's feet.

The pain of losing an arm might have forced a common Jedi to stop fighting, but Raynar was no common Jedi. He had the Force potential of the Colony to draw on, and he did that now, swinging his remaining hand up to hurl Luke down the corridor as he had done before.

But this time, Luke was ready. He placed his own hand in front of Raynar's and rooted himself in the heart of the Force, and when he did that, he became the very essence of the immovable object. Nothing could dislodge him-not one of Lando's asteroid tuggers, not the Megador's sixteen ion engines, not the black hole at the center of the galaxy itself.

Luke stood that way, waiting, dimly aware that his surviving bugcrunchers were moving into defensive positions, one at his back and the other just inside the burst hatch. Raynar continued to struggle, trying to hurl Luke down the corridor, trying to move him a single centimeter.

Luke did not budge, and finally Raynar stopped struggling and met his eyes with a stunned and anguished gaze.

The Master sighed and shook his head. "What am I going to do with you, Raynar Thul?" he asked. "You learn nothing from your mistakes."

Luke deactivated his lightsaber and picked Raynar up by the collar and slammed him against the wall. He used the Force to pin him there, waiting for an answer to his question, watching as the expression in his captive's pained eyes turned from astonishment to anger to calculation.

But when Raynar's free hand rose, it was not to summon the Force lightning that Luke had expected. It was to call his lightsaber back, to attempt to continue the battle that he obviously could no longer win.

It was in that moment that Luke finally decided that the life of Raynar Thul would be spared. He intercepted the weapon and used the Force to pin Raynar's remaining arm against the wall along with the rest of his body. Then he opened the hilt of the captured lightsaber and removed the focusing crystal. He held it up in front of Raynar.

"Someday I may return this-but for now, it's staying with me." He zipped the gem into a pocket of his vac suit, then reached out to Raynar in the Force and spoke in a softer voice. "Your days as UnuThul are done, Raynar. It's time to surrender and come home."

The eyes beneath Raynar's lumpy brow flashed with alarm. "The Colony is our home."

Luke shook his head. "That can't be anymore, Raynar," he said. "The Colony can't be anymore. If you stay with the Killiks, the entire species will die."

Raynar curled his scarred lip. "Lies."

"No." Luke touched Raynar through the Force. "You're still a Jedi. You can sense when a person is telling the truth. You can sense it in me, now."

Hoping to force his Will on his captor, Raynar accepted the contact-as Luke had known he would-then gasped in astonishment as he sensed the truth in what Luke was saying. "How?"

"Because as long as you are the Prime Unu, Lomi Plo will be the queen of the Gorog." Luke began to press, as though he were trying to force his will on Raynar. "And as long as there is a Gorog, the Colony will be a threat to the Chiss."

Raynar began to pull, learning from Luke's earlier tactics and trying to use Luke's own attack against him. "The Chiss are a threat to the Colony."

Luke went along with Raynar-in fact, he pushed even harder.

"That's right. The Chiss are a threat to the Colony," Luke said. "They have developed a weapon that can wipe out the entire Colony. They tried to use it here. Jaina and Zekk stopped them ... but we both know they have more."

Backed by Luke's strength, the truth was too much for Raynar. His Will broke, and his resolve turned to panic. "We know," he admitted.

Luke continued to push. "And they'll use it-if you stay with the Colony."

Raynar shook his head. "We can't let them."

"Then you have to leave," Luke said. "It's the only way to save the Killiks."

A terrible sadness came to Raynar's melted face. He lowered his burned eyelids and reluctantly began to nod-then suddenly stopped and glanced toward the hatch through which he had burst earlier.

"Not the only way." Raynar's voice a.s.sumed a dark tone, and Luke knew his true target was finally preparing to show herself. "Maybe there is a weapon to kill the Chiss?"

Luke resisted the temptation to look toward the hatch. Lomi Plo would not show herself if she knew she was expected.

"Even if there was such a weapon, it wouldn't he right to use it," Luke said. "The Jedi won't permit speciecide against the Chiss-any more than we would against the Killiks."

"But you could . . . if it was self-defense." Raynar bared his jagged teeth in a try at a grin. "Destroying the Chiss would be self-defense, so you would have to permit it."

Raynar began to push back now, filling Luke's chest with the dark weight of UnuThul's Will.

"If it were self-defense, we might have to permit it," Luke said, playing along-and again using Raynar's own attack against him. "But even that wouldn't save the Colony. It cannot survive as it is. We know that."

"How do we know that?" Raynar demanded angrily. "We know no such thing."

"We might," Luke insisted, exerting his own will through the Force again, reeling Raynar in. "If the Colony grew too large, it would devour its own worlds and destroy itself."

"There are always more worlds," Raynar countered.

"Not always," Luke said. "Sometimes all of the other worlds are taken. That could have been what happened when the Killiks disappeared from Alderaan." He paused, then used the Force to pull as hard as he could, trying to draw Raynar into his own view of reality. "In fact, I'm sure that's what happened on Alderaan. The Killiks devoured their own world and tried to take someone else's. That's the reason the Celestials drove the Killiks into the Unknown Regions."

The fight finally went out of Raynar. "You're sure?" He folded his cauterized forearm stump across his stomach and cradled it with his other arm, his lips quivering in pain and tears welling in his eyes. "You know-"

The question was drowned out by the roar of a blaster cannon, and Luke glanced down the corridor to see the bugcruncher stationed there suddenly powering down. The droid fell out of the opening backward and crashed to the deck, then Lomi Plo scuttled through the hatchway on her mismatched set of legs-one human, the other insectile. She turned her bulbous eyes and noseless face down the corridor, then extended her crooked upper arms toward the lightsaber in Luke's hands.

The last remaining bugcruncher opened fire, forcing Lomi Plo to ignite the lightsaber in her lower set of hands. Her blocks and parries came so slowly that she was barely able to deflect the cannon bolts and she was forced to swing her upper arms toward the droid and drain its power. Raynar, thankfully, continued to stand dazed-and seemingly impotent.

Determined to reach Lomi Plo before she drained his lightsaber's power cell, Luke sprang down the corridor and leapt off the carnage heap to attack. Lomi blocked his first pa.s.s with her white lightsaber. Then, in place of the purple lightsaber she had left in Jacen at the end of their last meeting, she ignited a familiar-looking green blade-the lightsaber Raynar had confiscated on Woteba. Luke's light-saber.

"Now you're just ticking me off," Luke said.

Lomi clacked her mandibles and hissed, then launched a deadly low-high-low combination with her flashing blades. Luke parried, ducked, and jumped, then brought an elbow up under her mandibles and sent her staggering back, all four arms flailing as she struggled to catch her balance on her mismatched legs.

Luke whipped his blade around, c.o.c.king it for a death slash across her middle-then had a p.r.i.c.kle of danger sense between his shoulder blades and tried to spin away. He almost made it.

Something heavy and huge slammed into his shoulder-a shatter gun pellet?-and sent him tumbling across the floor past Lomi Plo's feet. He tried a reactionary slash as he rolled by, only to discover that was he was no longer holding his lightsaber, and he could not move his prosthetic hand-nor the rest of his arm.

Lomi Plo's two blades began to chop the floor behind him, so he used the Force to accelerate himself and continued to roll, then came to his feet two meters on the other side of her and called his lightsaber back to his good hand.

The weapon arrived just ahead of Lomi Plo, and suddenly Luke found himself on the defensive, being driven into a corner while Raynar Thul-not so impotent after all-used his other hand to fire more shatter gun pellets.

In lightsaber combat, Luke favored two-handed styles, but he could still fight single-handed-even with his weak hand-just as well as anyone in the academy. What he could not do, however, was fight wounded and weak-handed against twin blades while a second party fired a steady stream of hard-to-deflect shatter gun pellets at him. In short, Luke was desperate.

So he dropped to his side and caught Lomi Plo's human leg in a scissoring motion between his feet. The knee bent backward and popped with a sickening crunch.

She fell, squealing in pain and clacking her mandibles-and redoubled her attacks, slashing so ferociously with her twin blades that Luke's lone hand barely had the strength to block.

Of course, Control picked that moment for an important announcement from the Megador. "Be advised that three Killik swarms are diverting to attack Healing Star."

Lomi Plo's attacks slackened for a moment, and Luke realized that she was gently probing him through the Force, searching for any hint of fear or doubt. He put the Healing Star-the fleet's main hospital ship-out of his mind and remained focused on the fight. Lomi Plo had almost certainly used the Dark Nest to divert those swarms, to try to create an opening that would give her power over his mind.

Still dodging shatter gun pellets, rolling back and forth on the floor and parrying madly, Luke glanced up the corridor and used the Force to reach into the carnage heap beneath Raynar's feet. He grabbed the largest, heaviest thing he could find-a disabled bugcruncher droid-and jerked it free.

The pile shifted and Raynar crashed down on his back, but Luke barely noticed. He was pulling the droid down the corridor straight at Lomi Plo.

She deflected it easily, of course-but she had to spin away from Luke and wave a hand, and that gave him the chance he needed to Force-spring up the corridor toward Raynar, who was just returning to his feet.

"As I was saying," Luke said, pointing his lightsaber down at Raynar's chest. "You never learn."

Raynar's eyes flashed with alarm and he rolled away-presenting the side of his head for a perfect knockout blow. Luke brought his lightsaber down, but deactivated the blade and flipped it around at the last second to strike at the base of the ear.

The blow landed with a sharp crack that suggested a breaking skull, but Luke had no time to worry about Raynar. Lomi Plo was dragging herself out the hatchway, trying to escape into the general confusion of the Ackbar's recapture. He sprang after her, using the Force to drag her back into the corridor.

Lomi Plo whirled around, her lightsabers rising into a guard position but not attacking. Trapped on the floor with a broken knee, she knew as well as Luke did that she could not defend herself; that he could kill her any time he wished.

So Luke was half expecting it when Control's voice sounded in his earpiece again. "Be advised, Killik swarms are opening fire on Healing Star."

Lomi Plo's mandibles opened wide, and a long, gurgling hiss erupted from her throat. Luke did not need to speak Killik to understand what she was saying-or even to probe her meaning through the Force. She could call off the attack on the hospital ship.

All Luke had to do was let her go.

Luke snorted. "That's the trouble with you ruthless types-you're all so predictable."

Lomi Plo grabbed hold of the sides of the hatchway with two of her hands, then pulled herself up on her insect leg and c.o.c.ked her head so that only one of her bulbous eyes was turned toward Luke.

"Mara and Jacen are in a hospital back on Coruscant," Luke explained. "There's n.o.body aboard Healing Star but a few mouse droids. Admiral Bwua'tu said you were going to attack it. And by the way, I have no doubts about Mara. She says h.e.l.lo, in fact."

Lomi Plo's reaction came so suddenly that Luke doubted even she was expecting it. She just came flying at him with both blades flashing, striking high and low from opposite sides in a desperate attempt to finish him off.

Luke, of course, had antic.i.p.ated this, too. Lomi Plo had no power over him. He simply stepped inside her attack and flicked his wrist twice, first sweeping his blade upward, then whipping it around in a backslash, and she landed at his feet in four parts.

Luke stood looking down at the pieces for a moment, half expecting them to turn to smoke and vanish, or to dissolve like a bad HoloNet signal. It was hard to believe that a woman of mere flesh and blood and chitin had caused so much trouble-had brought the galaxy to the edge of eternal war-but of course, beings of flesh and blood were always starting wars. That's why the galaxy needed her Jedi.

Luke reached down and retrieved the two lightsabers Lomi Plo had been wielding. He tucked the white one inside his flight utilities and hung the green one in its proper place on his belt, then returned to the side of his former student.

Raynar was still unconscious, but his vital signs were stable, and he did not seem to he in any great danger.

Luke broke out a medkit and started to work. "Let's get you patched up, son," he said. "We're going home."

EPILOGUE.

The air had long since grown stale and the caf bitter, but the mood in the Megador's cramped briefing room remained upbeat. Aristocra Formbi was more than two standard hours late for the long-distance conference, but no one was surprised. The Chiss had taken a battering even after the Alliance arrived, and the Jedi had prevented the deployment of their "secret weapon"-the insidious parasite bombs. Without a doubt, the Chiss were going to make their displeasure known, and Leia was just happy they were not doing it with megamasers.

Finally, Admiral Pellaeon's comm officer announced that Aristocra Chaf'orm'bintrano had opened a channel. Formbi's jowly blue face appeared on the giant vid display hanging at one end of the room. He did not bother introducing himself-or apologizing for his tardiness.

"The Ascendancy is ready to hear your peace offer," Formbi said. "But I warn you, we are not interested in any proposal that fails to eliminate the Colony threat."

"We understand that," Leia said evenly. "And we have already done so."

Formbi's eyes grew suspicious. "Really."

"As a matter of fact, yeah," Han said. He pointed a thumb at Luke, whose arm remained in a sling from the injuries he had suffered aboard the Ackbar. "Luke killed Lomi Plo, and Raynar's going back to the Galactic Alliance with us."

Formbi's face showed his alarm. "You're taking Raynar Thul into Alliance s.p.a.ce? I thought you had killed him!"

"We've neutralized him," Luke said. "Raynar realizes that his continued presence can only bring more disasters like this one down on the Killiks."

"Besides, we have him b.u.t.toned up tight in a special brain hood Cilghal designed," Han said. "If he even thinks about a bug, he gets zapped with dazers."

Formbi frowned. "The Ascendancy would feel more comfortable if he were dead."

"He will be, if we find our measures are insufficient to keep him isolated until he recovers," Luke said. "Rest a.s.sured, the Colony has been destroyed. The Jedi will do whatever is necessary to ensure that Raynar Thul never troubles you again."

Formbi's brow shot up, but he quickly caught himself and a.s.sumed a doubtful scowl. "What of the Twi'lek Jedi?" he demanded. "This Alema Rar? Isn't she a Dark Nest Joiner?"

"She was," Leia said. "As of now, she is presumed dead."

Formbi's scowl deepened. "We Chiss prefer certainties to presumptions, Princess."

"As do we all," Leia said. "But I'm afraid that's impossible in this case. We were unable to locate her body, and I'm fairly certain that's because she was eaten."

Formbi was too shocked to feign disbelief. "By what?"

"Some sort of spider sloth," Leia said. "I can't actually name it. All I can tell you is that we were fighting on Tenupe when the creature attacked. I escaped and Alema didn't. The creature disappeared into the jungle with her upper body in its mouth."

"If that is what you Jedi mean by destroying the Colony, then I must inform you that your definitions are not acceptable to the Chiss," Formbi said. "If she survived and returns to the Dark Nest, she could restart the entire Colony."