Wedge sideslipped and continued to fire into the grasses, setting them ablaze, kicking up gouts of dirt and steam. Now his vision was useless, but his sensors still showed the huge mass of the rakamat, distorted by the heat from the fire.

Wedge dropped to grasstop level, heard scrapes and thumps as his lower hull was grazed by foliage-perhaps even by irregularities in the terrain. Ahead, he could see the very top of the rakamat, as its plasma cannons elevated, preparing to catch his underside as he popped up over them.

He flipped an overhead switch and his S-foils closed from the X-shaped firing position to cruise position. And as he entered the zone where the grasses were blazing, he twitched his yoke down, then up.

He had the barest flash of rakamat legs to his left and right, a looming shadow over him, and then he was For a bare moment, no plasma came streaking after him. In going under the rakamat, in emerging low from the wrong side, he'd thrown the creature into confusion. He switched his S-foils back into firing position as he climbed.

In that moment, the pursuing coralskipper roared through the fire and saw the rakamat immediately before it. The pilot must have panicked.

Over his shoulder, Wedge saw the bow of the coralskipper wobble as the pilot was torn between following Wedge under or bouncing over, and that moment of hesitation doomed him. The skip's bow rose and, at several hundred kilometers per hour, the skip plowed into the flank of the rakamat.

There was no flash of light, no noise of the impact - Wedge was racing away too fast for the sound to catch him. There was only the grisly image of the coralskipper tearing through the creature, emerging in a different, narrower shape, the rakamat being flung in two pieces away from the point of impact, the remains of the coralskipper arching up in a ballistic course and then gradually down toward the ground.

Wedge looped around to mop up. There was unaccustomed tension in his arm, and he realized that he was gripping the yoke too hard.

"I'm not going to say it," he told himself. ''I'm not."

I'm getting too old for this.

Lusankya was visible to the naked eye now, a tiny needle pointed straight for Domain Hul.

Czulkang Lah squinted up at it, irritable, his diminished eyesight insufficient to provide him with any details of what he was seeing. He gestured at an aide, who correctly interpreted the nonspecific motion and stroked the enormous circular lens in the center of the command chamber's ceiling. It distorted, stretching details at its periphery into blurriness, magnifying the enemy ship's image until it dominated the scene.

The ship had already sustained tremendous damage. The deckplating everywhere was torn, rough, like a road that had once been smooth and then had been traveled over by herds of rakamats with spike weapons on their feet. Flame jetted out from its hull in dozens of places. Its guns were mostly silent; Czulkang Lah saw only two batteries that were still active, and they seemed to be firing at random. They posed little threat to his coralskippcrs.

But there were still squadrons of enemy starfighters out there, mostly concentrated at Lusankya's stern, maintaining a savage defense over that area of the ship.

Kasdakh Bhul moved to stand beside him. "Our pilots report that the Lusankya abomination is almost destroyed. Lack of responsiveness indicates that most of her crew must be dead and most of her weapons eliminated. She will not be able to send her lasers and bolts against us."

Czulkang Lah carefully positioned his feet so that the blow would not cause him to lose his balance; that would be unseemly. Then he swung his arm. His vonduun crab armor correctly interpreted his haste and snapped his arm forward. His armored forearm cracked across the back of Kasdakh BhuPs helmet, sending his second-in-command staggering forward.

Kasdakh Bhul regained his balance and spun. Czulkang Lah could see the younger officer's features graduate from an expression of anger to one of surprise.

"You see, but you do not understand," Czulkang Lah said. "They never intended to use their weapons upon us."

"Oh." The younger officer's voice became unreasonably reasonable, a type of mockery useful in that it could be persuasively denied afterward.

"So this was simply an infidel sacrifice? An apology? They are saying, We are sorry for being bad; here, have our greatest weapon?'"

Czulkang Lah offered him a smile nearly devoid of teeth. "You persist in being an idiot. I am proud to say I did not train you; you would have been my most repellent failure. Did you not notice? They never protected their weapons. They only protected their engines. What does that tell you?"

The younger officer scowled. "That they wanted the thing to get here quickly?"

"That their engines are their weapons. Are you sure you are not an ooglith masquer with nothing actually inside?"

Kasdakh Bhul ignored the undisguised insult. "Then their intention-is to ram us?"

"Wisdom. At last. So, even an ooglith masquer can learn a little when submerged in knowledge."

"Then we must make sure the abomination is incapable of reaching us. Of maneuvering adequately to ram us."

"Very good. Issue the orders, Ooglith Masquer."

Three coralskippers, all that remained of the latest wave, turned and sped away.

Doubtless they'd regroup with reinforcements in a minute and return. Luke checked his sensor and status boards. He was now two pilots down, and the remainder of his units were battered; he had some plasma scoring on his starboard top S-wing and engine. "Blackmoon Leader to squadron," he said. "We have a moment. Anyone with stripped shields, now's the time to commence a power restart." He goosed his thruster to come up behind and below Lusankya's port-side thruster banks; he kept well to port of them. This position gave him a good view of the Yuuzhan Vong worldship ahead. "Anything I should know?"

"We have Blackmoon Eleven back on the status board." That was the voice of Lieutenant Ninora Birt, Black-moon Ten, the squad's new communications specialist. A freelance smuggler, she'd loaned her expertise and her freighter, Record Time, to the cause of this operation.

Her freighter had been half destroyed during the taking of Borleias, and the job had been completed above Cor-uscant weeks later; now, with a new military officer's commission, she was still fighting the good fight.

Luke glanced at his status board. It did indeed indicate that Blackmoon Eleven was active. Distance and direction suggested that the X-wing was on Borleias.

"No way." That was Blackmoon Five. "Koril's in bacta somewhere. I saw the medics haul him off."

"Doesn't matter," Luke said. "Concentrate on what's at hand."

"Blackmoon Leader, this is Twin Suns Leader."

"Go, Goddess.''

"Sharr is detecting skips regrouping in a bunch of different units.

All at a uniform distance away from Lusankya."

"We'll set up for a new wave, then. Thanks, Exalted One."

Finally Jaina could see the incoming squadrons on her sensors.

There were a lot of them, eight groupings at least, and the three squadrons at Lusankya's stern were losing strength. "Time for a Goddess chase, don't you think, Sharr?"

"Ooh, your words thrill me, Great One,"

"Don't be so thrilled that you screw up."

"Ooh, your supportiveness thrills me-"

"Get back to business, Sharr."

"Right." Sharr was silent for a long moment, during which the units of coralskippers got closer, moving in from all directions. Then: "Nearest dovin basal minefield is ahead and to port. The Goddess should aim for that. Piggy, when do the incoming units get close enough to recognize us by sight?"

"Forty seconds, but if the Goddess goes off straight toward that minefield, she'll pass close enough for them to see her."

"Ooh, right. Adjusting course... Twin Suns Leader, prepare yourself for the chase. Three, two, one... chase."

A missile roared away from Twin Suns Ten, streaking off to port at nearly a ninety-degree angle to their current course, aiming toward the largest gap between any of the inbound squadrons. Jaina activated her gravitic signature and transponder switches. Abruptly her designation on the sensor board went to Twin Suns Nine, while the ourbound missile, just as instantaneously, became Twin Suns One.

There was a momentary wobble in the movements of skip squadrons to port. Then four of the squads in that direction changed course, converging on the missile.

"Well done, Sharr," Jaina said. When she'd switched to the Twin Suns Nine identity, her comm system should have activated a program to alter her vocal characteristics, making her sound like an older woman, one with a deeper voice.

"Thanks, Nine. And nice to have Leader gone. She's so bossy."

Kyp cut into the conversation: "Heads up. We still have incoming contacts to starboard. Prepare to repel boarders. Break by shield trios on my command... three, two, one, break."

While Beelyath held position within the Twin Suns Ten-Eleven-Twelve shield trio, Sharr kept his attention on his special sensor and comm boards. The distant missile code-named Goddess, and now, courtesy of Cilghal's biotechnical magic, characterized by the precise gravitic signature of Jaina's X-wing, had onboard computers and logic programs that allowed it to execute its mission on its own, but Sharr could still feed it priority updates.

He switched to a wire-frame view of local space as the Goddess missile and the coralskippers pursuing it entered the dovin basal minefield. The green wire frame superimposed on the scene showed the spatial distortions caused by the mines and their gravitic influence on their surroundings.

Sharr kept the missile's speed down to that of an X-wing's standard cruise rate, allowing the pursuing skips to gain on it. So far, they were still far enough in its wake that the pilots could not see it with their naked eyes, could not realize that it wasn't the true Jaina Solo.

The Yuuzhan Vong pursuers were good. They were gaining faster than he expected on the missile. With his sensors, superior to the missile's, Sharr drew a course revision on his screen, sending the missile on a path that would take it past mine after mine, while giving more and more pursuers the chance to approach it. He executed and sent the course revision, then lost sight of his sensor board as Beelyath sent the B-wing into a veering turn that crushed Sharr into his restraints and caused his vision to blur, all despite the starfighter's inertial compensators.

"Comfortable?" Beelyath croaked.

"Huh?" Sharr grunted. "Sorry, I was sleeping."

EIGHTEEN.

Though he could not see the distant X-wing, Charat Kraal's cognition hood created a glow in in the distance, a glow he knew actually existed only in his mind, showing the enemy vehicle's position.

And his opponent was good, as he knew Jaina Solo to be, but this day she was flying with more skillful reckless abandon than he had ever before seen, leading the coral-skippers deep into the dovin basal minefield, doubtless hoping to elude them by passing through such a difficult and dangerous area at high speed.

For a moment, doubt flickered in Charat Kraal's mind. Why would she have left the relative safety of numbers, of her personal squadron, to lead the Yuuzhan Vong here by herself? There seemed to be only one possible answer: so she could attempt to kill them all without any of her fellow pilots to share the glory.

Was she that overconfident? Was she that mad?

Could her confidence be warranted?

The pilot to Charat Kraal's port side opened fire with his plasma cannon, sending a stream of red glows oft toward the distant target.

Charat Kraal cursed to himself. Of all the traits of the infidels'

starfighters, the one he truly envied was the ability they gave their pilots to talk to one another, voice to voice. The yammosk war coordinator kept this flight of pursuers coordinated and pointed in the right direction, but could not prevent a pilot with a rogue streak from firing on an enemy they were supposed to capture alive.

Charat Kraal dropped back a few lengths and slid in behind the errant pilot. From this close distance, he could see that the yorik coral of the coralskipper ahead was marked with the symbols of Domain Hul.

Making no effort to disguise his action, he carefully aimed at that coralskipper's stern and fired a single plasma cannon shot straight at it. As he expected, a void from the other coralskipper appeared in the path of the plasma projectile and swallowed it.

That pilot ignored the warning. He continued firing at the distant Jaina Solo and now sideslipped to starboard, distancing himself from Charat Kraal, indicating in no uncertain terms his intent to continue following his own warrior spirit, even if it meant disobeying direct orders.

Charat Kraal growled to himself and followed. He fired again, this time a continuous stream of plasma, intending to kill rather than to warn. The Hul pilot banked away more sharply, his voids intercepting the incoming plasma, and then rolled into a maneuver designed to swing him around behind Charat Kraal.

Finally, Charat Kraal grinned. In a moment, he would have another kill, this one a disobedient pilot from another domain, and would have reinforced his reputation for order and ruthlessness in his own unit.

The other coralskippers of the unit continued on their original course, closing on Jaina Solo.

Czulkang Lah made a noise of displeasure. The pattern of blaze bugs in the darkened sensor niche told the whole story of Charat Kraal's pursuit. He did not blame Charat Kraal for this momentary diversion, but was not happy at the lack of discipline shown by the other pilot. It would be best when that warrior was dead, best if he died painfully and ignobly enough to discourage other warriors from similar acts of self-glorifying disobedience.

"What is wrong?" Harrar asked. "This is the Jaina Solo pursuit?"

"It is." Czulkang Lah pointed into the mass of blaze bugs, though he doubted that the priest, unused to the complexity of battlefield images, would be able to interpret what he saw. "The pursuers are not acting in concert. It appears that one wishes to kill Jaina Solo. If we are lucky, this notion will not spread to the others."

"We cannot have that. We must capture her. Must extract from her the truth about her trickery, the truth that she has nothing to do with our gods." Harrar turned to another of the command chamber's officers.

"Have my ship alerted and readied. I will enter the minefield and join the pursuit."

At Czulkang Lah's reinforcing nod, the officer did as instructed.

Then something changed in the blaze bug image, and for a moment Czulkang Lah thought that perhaps he, too, was misinterpreting what he was seeing. Two of the coralskippers closest to Jaina Solo, though too far away for her infidel lasers to have hit them, had disappeared, simply winked out. Even with his enfeebled eyes, Czulkang Lah could see the blaze bugs that had represented them, now darkened, flying to the darkened back of the display niche, ready to reenter as a new contact when needed.

What had happened?

Sharr Latt was getting the hang of it now, the method of calculating the gravitic pull of a dovin basal mine on one of the Goddess missile's passes, then coming near it again and using its own gravitic attraction to whip the missile around and slingshot it in a new direction.

The missile, mostly solid-state, not disadvantaged by the physical limitations of a living pilot, could survive much tighter turns and more strenuous g-forces than the pursuing coralskippers. On the last pass the missile made past one specific mine, the two closest pursuers had followed the missile's path exactly, had been caught by the mine's gravity, had been torn to pieces by their own daring.

Plasma projectiles flashed past the bubble viewport of the B-wing's crew compartment. Fascinated with his deadly toy, Sharr ignored them, relying on Beelyath to keep him alive.

The squadrons protecting Lusankya broke toward different incoming squadrons. Jaina, still masquerading as Twin Suns Nine, kept her silence as Kyp Durron scattered Her shield trios in the path of incoming coralskippers.

As the distant skips came within maximum laser-effective range, she reached for Kyp in the Force, found nim there, found him waiting for a better shot. She reached for Jag as well, detected him, could even faintly feel the intensity of his focus, his state of alert relaxation.

But she could not interact with him as she could with Kyp, could not afford to be distracted, so she withdrew from that contact.

Then Kyp was firing and her hand was automatically squeezing her lasers' trigger, firing a quad-linked blast at one incoming skip. Both her shot and Kyp's were intercepted by voids, but Jag's, a fraction of a second later, plowed into the enemy star fighter's nose, destroying the dovin basal there, depriving the craft of its capabilities of flight and defense. Kyp and Jaina each poured another salvo of laser energy into the craft; it burst, exploding as the lasers superheated internal moisture to the state of gas, and vented atmosphere into space.

"One Flight, Twin Suns Five." That was Piggy. "Suggest you come to zero-one-zero ecliptic, hold that course for ten seconds, take targets of opportunity."

"Twin Suns Two, copy." Kyp led Jag and Jaina around in the indicated direction. Ahead, Jaina could see where Four Flight-Beelyath and Tilath-had gotten on the tails of two skips and were chasing them directly across One Flight's path. Jaina gauged Beelyath's and Tilath's firing patterns, timed them, felt Kyp doing the same.. and, as the enemy skips crossed before them, as Beelyath and Tilath sent stutterfire laser against the sterns of the skips one last time, Kyp, Jaina, and Jag fired from the skips' port quarter, their quad-linked lasers hitting yorik coral instead of voids. Both skips detonated, sending a cloud of gases and yorik coral chunks hurtling along their course.

But now the wingmate of the first skip they'd hit was behind them, closing, firing. Jaina didn't listen to the good-shooting congratulations coming across the comm board; she followed Kyp as he made a tight loop up and to starboard, trying to elude their pursuit.

Jag looped tighter, forcing the pursuer to divide his attention between his clawcraft and the two X-wings, and managed to come around behind the coralskipper even as it managed to maintain its position behind the X-wings. He poured laserfire into its stern and top hull, but all of it was dragged into the skip's defensive voids.

Jaina felt a sort of mental shrug from Kyp. "Break," she said, aloud and through the Force but not over the comm frequencies, and she broke to port as Kyp broke to starboard.

She gritted her teeth against the g-forces her tight turn exerted on her, but got oriented around toward that skip - just in time to see an X-wing flash over and past it at a right angle to its course, in time to see plasma projectiles tracking that X-wing strike the coralskipper instead. They chewed through its hull and the skip suddenly turned away, no longer anxious to fight.

Piggy's distinctive, mechanical laugh sounded over the comm board.

Jaina grinned. "Nice fleeing, Piggy."

Wedge's X-wing reached low Borleias orbit as the Am-muud Swooper lumbered along behind. He tried to remind himself that the Corellian freighter "lumbered" only in comparison with a starfighter, of course; the freighter was nearly as fast and nimble as the Millennium Falcon.

He dropped back to give his personal comlink a better chance to reach the ship. "Blackmoon Eleven to Swooper, do you have an exit path?"