"Or who?" another put in.

"Something's not right," Cohl said, shaking his head.

"I smell a womp rat." Boiny glanced at him. "Never met one that could pilot a pod like that, Captain." Cohl slapped the armrests in a gesture of finality. "No more wasting time. Engage the primary fusials."

"Now you're talking," Rella remarked, carrying out the command.

Without warning, Boiny all but shot from his seat, gesticulating madly at one of the console sensors and tripping over his own words.

"Boiny!" Cohl shouted, as if to break whatever spell the Rodian was under. "Out with it!" Boiny swung about, his black orbs radiating incredulity. "Captain, we've got a thermal detonator affixed to the pod's drive core!" Cohl stared at him in similar disbelief. "How long to detonation?"

"Five minutes and counting!" W ith its sterile surfaces, sunken control stations, and circular plasma screens that shone like aquariums, the bridge of the Acquisitor was identical to that of her sister ship, save that it held a full complement of bridge officers, and all eight were Neimoidians.

Commander Nap Lagard gazed out the forward viewports at the distant Revenue.

At this remove, the bulbous-nosed pods and barges flooding from her cargo holds were mere specks glinting in the sunlight, but magnified views had revealed hundreds of burst pods--the result of collisions and of starfighter laser bolts-- their payloads of lommite surrendered to s.p.a.ce.

A heartrending sight to behold; but Lagard had already decided that he would retrieve as much of the cargo as possible--a.s.suming that the terrorists could be chased off.

The stamp of the Nebula Front was all over the crippled Revenue, in the form of blistered durasteel, erose penetrations in the hull, pieces of twisted superstructure.

Recently strengthened and overlapping deflector shields had prevented the terrorists from inflicting similar damage on the Acquisitor.

More, the Acquisitor carried twice the usual number of droid-piloted craft.

No sooner had the freighter decanted from hypers.p.a.ce than the Nebula Front ships had flown against her. In concert with the freighters' quad lasers, the starfighters had succeeded in warding off the attack and forcing the terrorists back toward the Revenue, where the conflict was still raging. Countless droid ships had disappeared in globular explosions, but the Nebula Front had not been spared casualties, having lost two CloakShapes and one Z-95 Headhunter.

Only the Hawk-Bat--the light-freighter-size gunship of the mercenary known as Captain Cohl--had been a continuing menace to the Acquisitor, trying the fort.i.tude of the freighter's new shields with disabling runs.

Just now, however, even the Hawk-Bat was in retreat, streaking off in the direction of Dorvalla's polar ice cap, the blue vortices of the gunship's thrusters visible from the Acquisitor backslash bridge.

"It seems we have driven them off," one of Lagard's subalterns remarked in the Neimoidian tongue.

Lagard grunted noncommittally.

"Captain Cohl must have issued the abandon-ship order," the subaltern continued. "The Nebula Front would rather see our lommite lost to s.p.a.ce than allow it to reach our customers on Sluis Van." Lagard grunted again.

"They may think they have struck a blow against the Trade Federation. But they will think again when Dor valla is forced to make rest.i.tution to us." The subaltern nodded. "The courts will stand with us." Lagard turned briefly from the view. "Yes. But these acts of terrorism cannot be allowed to continue."

"Commander," the communications officer intruded. "We are receiving a coded transmission from Commander Dofine."

"From the Revenue?"

"From an escape pod, Commander."

"Put the message through the annunciators, and ready the tractor beam to retrieve the escape pod." The bridge's speakers crackled to life. his Acquisitor, this is Commander Daultay Dofine." Lagard hastened to the center of the walkway. "Dofine, this is Commander Lagard. We will have you safely on board as quickly as possible."

"Lagard, listen closely," Dofine said.

"Contact Viceroy Gun - ray. It is urgent that I speak with him immediately."

"Viceroy Gunray? What is so urgent?"

"That is for the viceroy alone to hear," Dofine hissed.

Realizing that he had suffered a loss of face, Lagard stung back. "And what of Captain Cohl, Commander Dofine? Is he in possession of your ship?" Dofine's brief silence a.s.sured Lagard that the barb had found its mark.

"Captain Cohl fled the ship in a facsimile cargo pod." Lagard turned to the viewports. "Can you identify it?"

"Identify it?" Dofine asked sharply. "It was a pod like all the others."

"And the Revenue?

????? his "The Revenue is about to blow to pieces!" In the terrorists'

pod, Boiny studied the instrument console in dismay. "Thirty seconds to detonation. "

"Cohl!" Rella yelled when he failed to respond. "Do something!" Cohl glanced at her, tight-lipped. "All right, jettison the husk." To a one, the terrorists settled back in relief, while Boiny tapped a flurry of commands into the console keypad.

"Charges activated," the Rodian reported.

"Separation in ten seconds." Cohl sniffed. "Times like this, you wish you could see the faces of your adversaries." Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan watched Cohl's pod on their separate screens. Abruptly, a series of small explosions ringed the humpbacked craft along its equator, and it split into two parts, revealing an oblate shuttle concealed inside.

The shuttle's fusial thrust engines ignited, and the craft rocketed away from the pieces of its discarded husk. Then the lower half exploded.

"That would be our thermal detonator," Qui-Gon said. "And the tracking device?"

"Affixed to the hull of the shuttle and still functioning, Master," Obi-Wan reported, gazing at the flashing bezel. "Again, you have antic.i.p.ated Captain Cohl."

"Not without help, Padawan. You know what to do." Obi-Wan smiled as he reached for the controls. "I only wish I could see Cohl's face." Cohl's mouth fell open as he watched the pursuing pod burst apart along a midline seam. Inside was a wingless Corellian Lancet, painted a telltale crimson from pointed nose to sleek-finned tail.

"It's flying Coruscant colors!" Boiny said in astonishment. "Judicial Department."

"Matching us maneuver for maneuver," Rella reported as she wove the terrorist's shuttle through a swarm of cargo pods and cl.u.s.ters of loosed lommite ore.

"Gaining on us," Boiny updated.

Rella refused to accept it. "Since when do judicials pilot like that?"

"Who else could be piloting?" one of the humans asked. "It sure isn't Neimoidians." Cohl locked eyes with Rella.

"Jedi?" they said in unison.

Cohl considered it, then shook his head. "What would the Jedi be doing out here? This isn't Republic s.p.a.ce. Besides, no one--and I mean no one--knew about this operation." Boiny and the rest were quick to agree. "The captain's right. No one knew about this operation." But the uncertainty in the Rodian's voice was glaring, and Cohl was suddenly aware that everyone was watching him.

"No one, Cohl?" Rella said leadingly.

He frowned at her. "Outside the Nebula Front, anyway."

"Maybe the Force told them," Boiny mumbled.

Rella studied the displays. "We might still make the Hawk - Bat" Cohl leaned toward the shuttle's wraparound viewport. "Where is she?"

"Holding at the rendezvous point above Dorvalla's pole." When, after a long moment, Cohl still hadn't responded, she added, "I'll just keep flying in circles while you make your mind up about what to do." Cohl looked at Boiny. "Run a surface scan of the shuttle hull."

"Surface scan?" the Rodian asked dubiously.

"Now," Cohl said sharply.

Boiny bent over the console, then straightened in his seat.

"We're hosting a locator!" Cohl's eyes narrowed. "They're hoping to track us."

"Correction, Cohl," Rella said. "They are tracking us." Cohl ignored the remark and glanced at Boiny again. "How much time before the Revenue blows?"

"Seven minutes."

"Can you calculate the shape of the freighter's explosion?" Boiny and Rella swapped troubled glances. "To a certain extent," the Rodian said in a tentative voice.

"Do it. Then give me your best estimate of the blast radius and the extent of the debris cloud." Boiny swallowed hard. "Even my best estimate is going to be plus or minus a couple of hundred kilometers, Captain."

Cohl mulled it over in silence, then glanced at Rella. "Come about--hard." She stared at him. "It's confirmed: You've lost your mind."

"You heard me," Cohl snapped. "It's back to the freighter for us." Just inside the magcon portal of the Acquisitor's portside hangar arm, Daultay Dofine crawled indecorously from the barrel-shaped escape pod the freighter's powerful tractor beam had retrieved.

The navigator and the rest followed him out.

Commander Lagard was on hand to meet them.

"It is an honor to rescue so celebrated a person," Lagard said.

Dofine adjusted the fit of his robes and straightened his command miter.

"Yes, I'm sure it is," he replied. "Did you do as I asked and contact Viceroy Gunray?" Lagard indicated the Neimoidian mechno-chair that had probably conveyed him from the bridge. "The viceroy is eager to hear what you have to report. As am I, Commander." Dofine pushed past Lagard to get to the chair, which immediately began to move off in the direction of the centersphere-- no doubt at Lagard's remote behest.

A product of Affodies Crafthouse of Pure Neimoidia, the curious and prohibitively costly device had two sickle-shaped rear legs that terminated in single-claw feet, and a pair of double - clawed articulated guidance limbs. The laser-etched designs that covered its metallic surface were modeled after the sh.e.l.l ornamentation of Neimoidia's sovereign beetle. Gyroscopically balanced, the high-backed chair was more status symbol than practical mode of transport, but Dofine had grasped that the chair had not been provided for his benefit.

Where one would have sat was a circular hologram plate, from which projected the miniature holopresence of Viceroy Nute Gunray himself, leader of the Neimoidian Inner Circle and a member of the seven-person Trade Federation Directorate. Impediments of interstellar origin dazed the feed with diagonal lines of noise.

"Viceroy," Dofine said, bowing in obeisance before he hurried to catch up with the slowly scuttling chair.

Gunray had a jutting lower jaw, and his thick lower lip was uncompanioned. A deep fissure separated his bulging forehead into two lateral lobes. His skin was kept a healthy gray-blue by means of frequent ma.s.sages and meals of the finest fungus. Red and orange robes of exquisite hand fell from his narrow shoulders, along with a round-collared brown surplice that reached his knees.

Around his neck hung a pectoral of elongated teardrops of electrum, and a black tiara--triple-crested, with a pair of dangling tails--sat atop his regal head.

"What is so urgent, Commander Dofine?" Gunray asked.

"Viceroy, it is my sad duty to report that the Revenue has been seized by members of the Nebula Front.

The cargo of lom - mite ore floats in s.p.a.ce, and, even as we speak, an explosive device counts down the moments to the ship's destruction."

Realizing that he had forgotten to peel the timer from the back of his hand, Dofine retracted his hand into the loose sleeve of his robe.

"So Captain Cohl strikes again," Gunray said.

"Yes, Viceroy. But I bring news of an even more distressing nature."

Dofine glanced around him, in the hope that Lagard was out of earshot, but, of course, he wasn't. "The cache of au - rodium ingots," he said at last. "Cohl somehow knew about it. I had no recourse but to turn it over to him." Expecting rebuke or worse, Dofine hung his head in shame as he trailed the mechno-chair. But the viceroy surprised him.

"The lives of you and your crew were at stake."

"Just so, Excellency."

"Then stand tall, Commander Dofine," Gunray said.

"For what has happened today may well prove a boon for the Trade Federation, and a blessing for all Neimoidians."

"A boon, Viceroy?" Gunray nodded. "I order you to a.s.sume command of the Acquisitor.

Recall the starfighters and withdraw the freighter from combat."

"Cohl is headed back to the freighter," Obi-Wan said from the controls of the Judicial Department starfighter. "Could he have tricked the freighter into abandoning its cargo, even though it wasn't in jeopardy?"

"I doubt it," Qui-Gon said. He pressed his face close to the Lancet's transparisteel canopy. "All of Gobi's support ships-- even the corvette--are distancing themselves from the Revenue.His"""

"It's true, Master. Even the Aequisitor is under way."

"Then we're safe in concluding that the freighter is marked for destruction. And yet, Captain Cohl is speeding toward it."

"As we are, Master," Obi-Wan thought to point out.

"What could Cohl have in mind?" Qui-Gon asked himself aloud. "He's not a man to undertake desperate acts, Obi-Wan, let alone suicidal ones."

"The shuttle isn't decelerating or changing course. Cohl is shooting straight for the starboard hangar arm."

"Just where we started." Obi-Wan's brow began to furrow in concern.

"Master, we're getting awfully close. If the freighter is truly marked for destruction..."

"I realize that, Padawan. Perhaps Captain Cohl is merely testing us."

Obi-Wan waited a long moment before he allowed concern to show in his voice. "Master?" Qui-Gon watched the shuttle angle down toward the center of the circle that was the Revenue.

Stretching out with his feelings, he did not like what he found.

"Abort the pursuit, Obi-Wan," he said suddenly. "Quickly!" Obi-Wan fed full power to the Lancet's drives and pulled the yoke sharply toward him.

At full boost, the ship climbed in a long loop away from the freighter.