Star Destroyer Chimaera to Slave I Fett, change of plan.

I need you to seize a Star Destroyer for me.

Before you ask-yes, I know that'll cost extra.

-Message from Admiral Daala to Boba Fett, awaiting orders ten standard minutes' hypers.p.a.ce jump from Fondor ANAKIN SOLO, INSIDE FONDORIAN s.p.a.cE.

Caedus felt stronger now, but the raw energy of the battle link with his commanders, built up and discharged into the minds of the Fondorian shield technicians, hadn't yet returned.

Exhausted, he had to rely on the natural skill of the com-manders who'd rallied to him. Two Fondorian frigates cir-cled the Anakin Solo, pounding the shield generator dome.

He was also sick of hearing Niathal's repeated signal to all GA vessels.

"... all ships, Colonel Solo no longer holds command, You are to pursue and disable the Anakin Solo, or, if necessary..."

"Traitor, "he whispered. "Traitor... traitor!" His voice rose to a snarl. "Traitor! Shut that comm down, Inondrar. Look at her! She thinks she's a martyr, a hero!" Caedus jumped up and stalked to a holochart showing the close view of Fondor. GA ships loyal to Niathal were formed up with the Fondorian navy, blocking Caedus's fleet by form-ing a defensive barrier between Fondor and its attackers. "She's spending our lives to shield the traitors. She's throw-ing away Alliance lives. What does she think, that Fondor's going to make her a national hero now?

They'd better, be-cause she's never setting foot on Coruscant again.

Never."

Inondrar paused and waited for him to return to his seat. "Yes, sir." The Anakin Solo's executive officer now filled the breach left by Captain Nevil. He was doing his best, but it wasn't enough. And when Caedus found Nevil, he was another traitor who would die. "Sir, there's..."

"Nevil's betrayed me, too, hasn't he?"

"There's one escape pod missing, and Captain Nevil can't be found.

But..."

Caedus considered just jumping to hypers.p.a.ce and fight-ing his corner from Coruscant, but that was just fatigue talking. He had a fleet here, and the battle wasn't over.

"Save your time. I don't feel him on the ship."

"Sir, the Imperial Remnant-the fleet is turning toward us, and Lieutenant Veila is comming you."

Caedus was too thinly stretched to read much from her in the Force.

Was the Remnant rejoining the battle to finish him off? He groped around for a sense of danger, but the carnage and chaos of the engagement drowned out all detail. He was under fire on all sides.

"Lieutenant, go ahead."

"Sir, Admiral Pellaeon is dead, and the Imperial Remnant is rejoining your forces."

She said it calmly, as if it were a routine thing to have achieved.

A subdued ripple of approval pa.s.sed around the bridge crew. Caedus veered between prizing this loyalty and knowing that they had no choice but to fight, seeing as the Anakin was now the prime target and they were stuck in it.

But they're still here, and Nevil isn't.

Caedus gestured to Inondrar to take over, and moved to a comm station where he wouldn't be overheard.

"Did you finish the job yourself, Tahiri?"

"I... I shot him, sir."

"You've probably saved the Galactic Alliance."

"I didn't feel much of a savior. He was just an old man."

But Caedus noted that she had done it anyway, no senti-mentality, no weakness. "How do we get you back on board in the middle of this, Tahiri?"

"It's going to be difficult."

"We'll do it. You're still in Bloodfin, yes? You'll be safe there for the time being."

"I'm stuck in Bloodfin. The crew mutinied and the com-manders are trying to regain control. We're on emergency power-environment control only." Tahiri seemed to lose her detachment for a moment. "We were taking fire from other Imperial ships until the Moffs called it off-they've transferred the flag. But the senior Moff commanders are all stranded here."

"I'll come for you, Tahiri."

"The crew can't hold those sections forever. When the fighting's over, they'll be able to send any number of ships back to storm Bloodfin."

And perhaps not be too careful who they blast when they try to get the Pellaeon loyalists out.

"I'll still come for you-when I can extract myself from this." He could feel her now that he focused. She was un-happy, not afraid; full of doubt, but not about getting out of Bloodfin in one piece. "Are you ashamed, Tahiri? Are you ashamed because you killed an old man?"

Tahiri didn't answer for a moment. "It's not quite the heroic role I had in mind."

"But you did it."

"Yes."

"Tahiri, in the long term, it's easier to kill a powerful enemy than it is an apparently weak one. If you bring down a giant, you're a hero. If you kill something weak-even if it has to die-then you endure contempt. Being will-ing to be despised to serve the common good...

that's the mark of a true Sith. You're going to make a fine apprentice forme, Tahiri."

"Oh. I'm... official, then."

Tahiri had a way with bathos that he'd thought was sim-pie ba.n.a.lity, but she seemed to use it as to defuse situations she found too awkward. Then again, she might have been subtly mocking him. "You may call me Darth Caedus. I shall be known only by my true name from now on."

"Yes.... my lord."

"And I'll come for you, Tahiri. I won't abandon you."

The tide had turned. Caedus sensed another cog turn, shifting every part of the whole machine of existence. The galaxy was an altered place.

The majestic power of an Imperial fleet joining his loyal ships felt like the rush of energy in his veins from eating a sustaining meal after a long fast. There was something else, some other harbinger of great mechanical power and energy, but it was hard to pick it apart from the growing excitement of a fleet about to throw everything it had at the enemy.

"Sir, the senior Imperial commanders want your orders, "Inondrar said, as if he'd repeated it several times be-fore and got no response.

"Let's give Niathal the fight she wants, then."

Three Imperial cruisers moved in to open up a furious barrage on the frigates hara.s.sing the Anakin, catching one in a cross-stream of turbolaser fire that ripped through its top solar fin. Caedus thought he saw Ocean train her can-nons on him, but it was a ship of the same cla.s.s, and other Imperial warships attacked it with the same pack tactic, subjecting its shields to a punishing combined stream of firepower that overloaded the defenses. Caedus saw the moment that the shield failed; the hull was peppered simul-taneously in twenty places at once as small cannon fire from Imperial a.s.sault fighters suddenly pa.s.sed through and made devastating contact.

He had the GA on the back foot. It was numbers, always numbers. And now he had more.

'Where are you now, Jedi? Don't want to get the StealthXs scratched, do you?

"Ah...., "said Loccin, still at his post after all these hours.

"Sir, more ships dropping out of hypers.p.a.ce."

Caedus turned, eager to see what else the Imperials had thrown into the battle.

"What's that?" He didn't recognize the vessel, and it didn't carry the Imperial livery. "An auxiliary? A fleet tender?"

Ships began popping out of hypers.p.a.ce in flares of white light, and as the transponders began kicking in and the sen-sors pinged others, Caedus knew the Jedi were back with one of their mind-games. He was on the receiving end of another elaborate Jedi mind-a.s.sault. Or at least his crew were, and now he hoped everyone understood how very real the Fallana.s.si illusions were in the hands of a master, how they registered with all the senses, and even sensors if the illusionist was powerful enough.

"It's Skywalker, "Caedus said. "Try to filter these ap-paritions out from the real threats. It's hard, but that's how he wants to decoy you, to get you firing carelessly."

"Oh, you're kidding me..." Clearly, Loccin and another junior officer, Duv-Horlo were seeing what he was, so this was a large-scale illusion registering on many minds, not just projected at one like his had been. "Did someone raid an aeros.p.a.ce museum? What the stang is that?"

"Steady, "said Caedus. "It looks real, but beware."

None of the ships' transponders registered pennant codes on the system-there was only so far that Luke could go in embroidering this fantasy, then-and the two young officers tried to identify the vessels by cla.s.s alone, as if it was some cadet instruction at the naval academy.

There were now two Crusader cruisers, a Victory-cla.s.s Star Destroyer, and a squadron of TIE fighters. A Venator and two Republic-cla.s.s ships dropped out at exactly the same mo-ment like a ch.o.r.eographed party surprise of the very worst kind.

"Sir..."

It was very convincing. It was exactly like the previous attempt, except more imaginative, and the feeling of real ma.s.s and power was detectable now. I think.... I think this might be real.

"Get me the senior Moff and ask if those are his... mili-tia forces."

The motley fleet kept growing, falling out of history into Caedus's here and now, and their weapons were real. The sensor ops team was flat-out trying to a.s.sess the battle elements ranging against them.

"Fierfek, those are a.s.sa.s.sin corvettes..."

"How many more?"

"I thought the Scimitars had gone for sc.r.a.p by now."

"This is crazy. Where did all these crates come from?"

An a.s.sa.s.sin broke out of formation, blinding white power streaming from its cannon. A GA carrier moving X-wings into position exploded, the whole aft section swallowed in a ball of expanding light.

It was no illusion.

Loccin seemed to have had enough of humoring his com-mander.

"That's really dead, sir. Sorry to argue, but that's real, it's absolutely real."

I'm losing concentration. I've got to stay sharp. Where in the name of the force did these come from? "Yes, it is, so come about and ready torpedoes."

Flaring into existence like the avenging swoophawk that the Jacipri sages said would herald the end of the universe, an Imperial Star Destroyer was now on a ramming course for the Anakin Solo.

It had an identifiable pennant code.

"Sir, it's I-Two... oh, that can't be right, "said Duv-Horlo.

"Someone's doing a psy ops job on us, real metal or not."

Caedus took a slow breath. He recognized it, too, but this time he believed. "She was never confirmed destroyed."

It was a vessel that had been flagship to the legendary admirals of modern history and fought at some pivotal battles. The veteran ship was looking a lot tidier than it had at the Battle of Bastion.

It-no, she was fully restored.

"Chimaera, "said Caedus.

"Sir, someone's emptied the whole galactic junkyard, and then some."

Caedus felt such focus and long-suppressed venom in the Force that he almost thought he'd detected a Sith, but this was mundane darkness; simmering, long-nursed griev-ances, longing for justice-diffuse longing, any justice-a piercing shaft of sorrow right through it. The sensation would have fascinated him had he not been more preoccu-pied with how much trouble was in his path.

"You know what we girls are like, "said a slightly rasp-ing patrician voice over the open comm. "We just can't throw anything away in case it comes back into fashion years later."

"You have me at a disadvantage, madam..."

"My apologies, Colonel Solo. Where are my manners? This is Admiral Daala, flag officer of the Maw Irregular Fleet, and I ask that you stand down and leave Fondorian s.p.a.ce now."

I knew she was back on the list, but the Moffs need to improve their intelligence gathering...

"As Chief of State of the Galactic Alliance, I'm afraid I can't do that." Caedus summoned his overstretched battle meditation skills.

"Flight, stand by five-seven and five-nine squadrons."

"As you please, sir, "said Daala. "Maw Fleet, patch into Admiral Niathal's combat information center and give the lady a hand."

A Moffs voice came over the comm, unhelpfully late. "We knew Pellaeon had recalled her for something under-handed."

"Good afternoon, you insignificant little man." The sat-isfied polish to Daala's voice was tarnished by some pain and regret, though.

Caedus heard it. "This one's for Gil Pellaeon. And.... Liegeus."

Chimaera opened fire. The battle with Daala's sc.r.a.pyard fleet had begun.

MANDALORIAN BOARDING PARTY; a.s.sAULT SHIP ORAR APPROACHING IMPERIAL.