A panicked pa.s.senger-a Rodian, Zak guessed, by its green skin and short snout-tried to shove Hoole away, but in his Hutt shape, Hoole was just too big.

Intimidated by his size, the pa.s.sengers fell into line. Zak and Tash had followed their uncle as he cut a pathway through the crowd, and now they found themselves right next to one of the life-pod doors.

"Inside," the Hutt-shaped Hoole ordered, shoving the two Arrandas into the escape craft.

"Critical meltdown in five minutes," the loudspeaker announced.

"Evacuate ship immediately!"

The fear and tension were thick enough to cut with a vibroblade.

Five minutes until the ship exploded. Anxious pa.s.sengers crowded forward as more people arrived at the rear, pushing and shoving together. The lines started to break up.

Someone screamed. Zak almost missed it over the shouts of other pa.s.sengers and the shrieking alarms, but he followed the sound until he saw a woman at the back of the room. She was screaming, "My baby! My baby!" and trying to force her way through the crowd.

"Over there!" said Tash, who'd also heard the woman. Zak followed her pointing finger. On the opposite side of the observation deck, a two-year-old girl sat huddled in a corner, crying.

"They must have gotten separated by the crowd," Tash guessed.

"She can't see her daughter from where she's standing," Zak said.

"Come on!"

Together, Zak and Tash dashed back out of the life pod.

Immediately, two pa.s.sengers jumped in to take their places.

The two Arrandas wormed their way back through the crowd. Tash ran for the little girl, while Zak headed for the mother, ducking and dodging, sometimes dropping down to his hands and knees and crawling between legs. A large, hairy-footed Talz stepped on his fingers and a big-eared Chadra-Fan almost tripped him, but he struggled on.

Once he was in the crowd, he could no longer see the woman, but he could still follow the sound of her cries. He reached her in less than a minute.

"Come with me," he said, grabbing her hand.

Dumbstruck, the woman followed as Zak headed in the direction of Tash and the little girl. Halfway through the crowd, he b.u.mped into someone for probably the hundredth time in the last sixty seconds-but this someone was Tash, and she was holding the little girl.

"My baby!" the woman cried.

"Get on a life pod, and hurry!" Zak said.

The woman flashed them a nervous, thankful smile, then disappeared into the crowd.

Zak and Tash tried to force their way back toward the front of the observation deck, but a big, bald human with a wicked scar on his cheek stopped them as they tried to pa.s.s. "Where do you think you're going?"

"We already have seats in that life pod," Zak replied.

"Sure," the human sneered, "your seat is right behind mine. Now wait your turn."

"You don't understand," Tash added, "we were just helping someone!"

The bald man snarled, "Good for you. Now let me help you. Right into the storage closet!"

The man grabbed them each by the arm. Turning angrily, he strode to an open storage room at the back end of the observation deck and dumped them inside. Then he hit the control switch, closing the door.

As they picked themselves up, Zak and Tash heard the loudspeaker announce, "Critical meltdown in three minutes. Explosion imminent."

"That was rude!" Zak said.

"Just get the door open!" Tash replied.

There was a control panel on the inside of the storage room, too.

Zak touched the Open b.u.t.ton.

Nothing happened.

He touched it again.

Nothing.

"Could he have locked it?" Tash asked.

Zak studied the control panel. "There aren't any locks on this door. It's just stuck!"

Outside, the loudspeaker boomed, "Critical meltdown in two minutes.

Prepare to jettison life pods."

"Use this!" Tash said, holding up a piece of metal pipe. It looked like a spare part for a maintenance droid. Together, Zak and Tash jammed the bar into the door and started to pry it open.

"It won't budge," Zak grunted.

"If we don't hurry, all the life pods will be gone," his sister warned.

They kept at it. It seemed to take forever, but finally metal creaked against metal, something in the door frame gave way, and the door slid slowly open.

"We did it!" Zak cried. He jumped out of the storage closet...

... and into an empty room.

Uncle Hoole, the crowds, and the life pods were all gone.

CHAPTER 6.

"Critical meltdown in two minutes!" the computerized voice announced.

"They left us," Tash whispered. "They left us."

Thanks to Hoole's organization, all the pa.s.sengers had managed to crowd onto the life pods, and all the pods had been released.

Zak shook his head. "Uncle Hoole never would have left the ship without us."

"He must have thought we were still on board the life pod!" Tash replied.

"Maybe there's another life pod somewhere!" said Zak hopefully.

"Come on! "

They dashed from the observation deck and down a hallway, looking for another escape pod. Now and then they came across one of the round doorways that indicated a life pod, but all of the pods had been ejected.

"Critical meltdown in one minute!"

"The docking bay!" Zak shouted. He could see the huge doors of that led to the ship landing area. "We can still make it!"

They sprinted for the doors, but when they reached them, the doors wouldn't budge. Zak punched a command into the door's control panel.

A small screen lit up and words flashed on the screen: EXPLOSION IMMINENT. ALL SAFETY DOORS HAVE BEEP SEALED.

"No!" Zak banged his fist against the door. He turned to look at Tash, but she had no more ideas.

"I think-" he started to say.

"This is it," she finished for him. Zak knew what it meant. They were going to die.

They sat down on the cold durasteel floor with their backs to the docking-bay doors. The ship was going to explode. There was nowhere to run.

The computerized warning boomed, "Critical meltdown in thirty seconds!"

Zak looked at his sister. "Tash, I... I..." He stopped. "Thanks for being my sister."

Tash put her arm around him. "Thanks for being my brother."

They sat and listened as the computer voice came back on. "Critical meltdown in ten seconds... nine... eight..."

Zak's heart pounded against his ribs. He suddenly wondered if his parents had had any advance warning before their homeworld had been destroyed. What had they felt in their final moments, before their whole planet had been blasted to pieces?

He realized that he was about to find out.

The computer continued its countdown. "... six. five..."

Zak felt his mouth go dry.

... three... two..."

He closed his eyes tight.

"... one."

Darkness.

Silence.

Is this what it's like to be dead? Zak thought. The explosion must have been incredibly quick. He hadn't felt any pain. He hadn't felt anything.

Then someone shook his shoulder and Zak nearly jumped. That's when he realized that his eyes were still closed. He opened them, and the darkness was replaced by the soft white light of the Star of Empire's glowpanels.

The silence surprised him. The ship's emergency alarms had been clanging for so long he'd almost gotten used to them.

"Zak," Tash said, breaking the silence. "We're still here."

Zak nodded, hardly believing it. He looked around.

Except for the fact that there was no one in sight, the Star of Empire looked absolutely normal. The alarm bells had shut down, the computer voice had turned itself off. They could hear nothing.

"The ship didn't explode!" Zak cried. He jumped up and grabbed his sister in a big hug. They both laughed. "We're alive!"

"It must have been a false alarm," Tash guessed.

Zak nodded, getting a sudden idea. "Yeah, or maybe SIM fixed it at the last minute."

"SIM?".

"Yeah-I was telling you about SIM when the meltdown warning alarm went off. SIM stands for Systems Integration Manager. It's the artificial intelligence that runs the entire ship. It could have found a way to stop the engines from melting down."

"Well, maybe it can tell us how to call for help," Tash replied.

"Because we're going to need it. We may be the only ones left on board."

She looked around until she spotted a computer terminal partway down the corridor. "Can we contact this SIM?"

Zak hurried over to the terminal. It was a public service terminal.

Pa.s.sengers could use it to locate the many restaurants and game rooms on the cruise ship, or find out when meals and activities had been scheduled.

"You can send messages from here," Zak noticed, touching a b.u.t.ton near the screen. "There's a function that lets people send messages over the HoloNet. But it's not going to do us any good. It looks like communications are down. I guess there was some damage to the ship after all."

Tash looked around nervously. The ship was designed to hold thousands of people. Empty, it was full of strange sounds and felt downright creepy. They could hear their own voices echoing a dozen times down the long halls. "Can't SIM fix it?"

Zak punched several b.u.t.tons on the computer control panel. He found maps to the ship, a list of all the crew members, and a schedule of events that would never take place. He pressed another b.u.t.ton and the screen went blank.

"What are you doing?" Tash asked.

"I have to figure out how to access the main computer. It's tricky.