Tsavong Lah drew his slashed lips into a smile. "We shall find him soon enough." He turned to the voxyn handlers. "Two voxyn to join the advance guard!" he ordered. "All of them to find Jacen Solo!"

"At your command, Warmaster!"

"Capture him for sacrifice if possible. But if not, call the G.o.ds to witness and kill him where he stands!"

Tsavong Lah had to shout over the noise the grutchyna made disa.s.sembling the tunnel wall. Two of the voxyn snorted on to the head of the advance guard, and the whole body of a thousand set off at a purposeful trot.

Jacen Solo. At the thought of Jacen the warmaster's vua'sa foot clenched, the claws scoring the stone floor. Jacen had thwarted him at their every encounter-had smashed his foot in personal combat, requiring its replacement, and when captured had humiliated him with his sham defection. Now Jacen dared to thwart him again.

It was only now that he wondered why. Why would Jacen Solo fly alone to Ebaq 9 so that he could be hunted by Tsavong Lah and ten thousand Yuuzhan Vong warriors?

At once the answer came to him. The twin sister!

Jaina Solo-she who mocked Yun-Harla the Trickster with her devious ploys-must be among the Jedi trapped on Ebaq 9.

Joy raged in Tsavong Lah's breast. The twin sacrifice! Once he had planned to sacrifice the Solo twins, an ambition that had been thwarted by the treasons of Jacen and Vergere. But now the sacrifice would come to pa.s.s! And once the two were dead, Tsavong Lah himself could go to his G.o.ds with a smile on his slashed lips.

The tunnel wall crashed in as the grutchyna broke through to the mineshaft beyond. "Onward, soldiers!" Tsavong Lah cried. "The Jeedai are to be sacrificed! Forward!"

Jaina heard the tunnel wall come down, and then she heard the ma.s.sed baying of Yuuzhan Vong warriors from the corridor beyond. It sounded like thousands of them. "Back!" she said. "Fall back to the next intersection."

They left antipersonnel mines behind, set to go off' when they detected the body heat of the enemy. The mine galleries branched here, and Jaina consulted the map of the diggings she'd stored on her datapad and chose the branch that gave her the most options. They moved down the tunnel, and the Jedi used the Force to keep everyone from b.u.mping into each other in the low gravity.

Then came a shriek, a screech with an ultrasonic component that froze Jaina's blood and raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

"What was that?" one of her pilots demanded.

"Voxyn," Tesar said. "They hunt uss."

"We can kill them, right?" Anxiously.

She heard one mine go off, followed by a shriek and a roar of anger from a hundred warrior throats.

"I hope we just did," Jaina said.

Jacen sped down the corridor, flying easily with the Force in the moonlet's light gravity, his flashlight picking out the details of the tunnels ahead of him. He, too, had a map of Ebaq 9 on his datapad, and he figured the Yuuzhan Vong were in occupation of the command areas and the central corridor. He planned to materialize in the central corridor, strike the Yuuzhan Vong, then retreat. He would do his best to sow confusion and lead the enemy away from Jaina.

At least he could lead the voxyn on a chase, and with any luck trap them in the narrow pa.s.sages and kill them.

His expanded Vongsense filled the moon. The sheer number of enemy warriors was intimidating, but he still hoped that, with luck, his plan would succeed.

Unfortunately his equipment was spa.r.s.e. He had just his lightsaber, plus the blaster pistol and the two grenades that were in the X-wing's survival kit. But he could fight with Yuuzhan Vong weapons if he needed to, and if he got the jump on some enemy warriors he could equip himself with their gear.

And then he felt the mental surge of a voxyn looking for him, and he pushed out with his Vongsense, tried to convince the voxyn not to see him. But he wasn't expert enough-there was a mental click of the voxyn locking on to him, and he heard a distant howl that echoed down the shaft, followed by a surge of glee and determination from hundreds of Yuuzhan Vong warriors, and he knew he was being hunted.

He reversed direction-there was no possibility now of catching the Yuuzhan Vong by surprise. It was time to find one of those narrow corridors he'd been thinking about.

Jacen found a right-angle bend in the corridor and decided to make a stand while he still had options for retreat. He stationed himself behind a curve in the tunnel and ignited his lightsaber, then primed one of his two grenades and held it in his left hand. Objectively he considered the use of the Vongsense in combat-he could influence some of the enemy weapons, render them useless-but decided against it. There were simply too many enemy coming for him. He could convince a few of their amphistaffs to bite their owners or go limp, he could convince a few thud bugs to go off prematurely-but he couldn't influence them all.

The Force was better for this situation. He let his Vongsense ebb and called the force to him.

He heard the enemy rush toward him, shouts and the rush of feet. A horde packed into the corridor, skimming along under the light gravity.

The ultrasonic screech of the voxyn caught Jacen by surprise and almost paralyzed him-he had forgotten how numbing and terrifying the sound was. He wrenched himself free of the shock and hurled the grenade around the corner, exposing his head just enough to use the Force to guide the grenade down the open mouth of the voxyn. The voxyn, in its turn, was spitting toxic sludge at Jacen, but Jacen used the Force to catch the acid stuff and flung it back in the direction of the enemy warriors.

What shocked him was the number of those same warriors. It was one thing to sense diem coming; it was another to actually see them, and at close range. They seemed to go on forever down the tunnel. There were hundreds . . .

He ducked back around the corner as the grenade took off most of the voxyn's head. Jacen knew that even this was unlikely to kill the creature, so he drew his blaster pistol with his left hand and began firing around the corner again, at the voxyn and at any enemy warriors behind it.

The voxyn, blinded or mad with pain, thrashed in the corridor with amazing energy and incredible speed. Its flogging tail had already brought down a number of warriors, but as Jacen began firing, again exposing only his hand and head, the Yuuzhan Vong gave a shout and surged forward, right over the thrashing voxyn, some even shoving the creature ahead of them as they impaled themselves on its poisoned spikes. From the warriors' hands came a rain of thud bugs.

Jacen leapt back from the corner, parrying wildly with his lightsaber as the thud bugs soared toward him, either making the sharp turn or bouncing off a wall and then coming on. One bug hit him on the thigh and spun him around, and he used the Force to maintain the spin, his lightsaber a green blur as he batted the missiles away. He made a complete turn and then used the Force to hurl himself backward down the tunnel while he parried with his lightsaber and fired the pistol left-handed to discourage the Vong from rounding the corner.

He didn't discourage them. The first half dozen went down in a sprawl alongside the wounded voxyn, but then the rest came on, a long column of them, shouting their battle cry.

"Do-ro'ik vong pratte!"

From behind them somewhere came the cry of another voxyn.

Jacen fired round after round from the blaster, though he knew it would do no good. And somewhere in the Force, he felt Jaina's anguish.

"Bring the roof down," Jaina said. "Right here."

"How?" one of her pilots asked. "We've got mines, not explosives."

Jaina reached out with the Force and sought out cracks and flaws in the structure of the stone overhead. Tesar and Lowbacca joined their power to hers.

"Stand back," Jaina said. A half-ton overhead boulder came down with a sudden crash, followed by debris and rubble. She widened the hole overhead, gouging at the rock, bringing more of it down.

Then a shriek seemed to steal the breath from her throat, and a voxyn was there, somehow managing to writhe through the storm of falling rock and leap into the midst of Jaina's party. She had forgotten how fast they were.

She managed to get a Force shield up in time to deflect a hail of toxic spit, and leapt over the first lash of the tail while she drew her lightsaber and ignited the violet blade. There was a thud and a cry behind her. Blasters flamed in the dark, confined s.p.a.ce, and concussions slapped her ears. Lowbacca was slashing at the thing's head, the brilliance of his lightsaber reflecting off the voxyn's glittering eyes.

The tunnel reeked of the voxyn's acid spit. The tail lashed a second time and Jaina leapt again, then came down slashing at the tail.

The tail parted near its root, and acrid blood spattered Jaina's vac suit.

And then the three Jedi were fighting side by side, lightsabers swinging in a frenzy of close combat against teeth and claws and poison and sheer single-minded viciousness. Whenever one of the other pilots could get a clear shot he let fly with a blaster. Blood and acid spattered and hissed on the tunnel walls.

The voxyn didn't stop fighting until it was literally cut to pieces, and the fight left Jaina exhausted, gasping for breath and leaning against the wall of the shaft. She had taken only a few breaths when she heard the howl of Vong warriors, and looked up to sec them filling the tunnel just beyond her rock barrier.

A barrage of thud bugs came over the obstruction, followed by a mob of warriors scrabbling over the fallen stone. Jaina fired her blaster rifle left-handed at point-blank range while using her light-saber to slice the thud bugs that came at her.

"The roof!" she gasped. "Let's get the roof down!"

She and Tesar and Lowbacca united their Force talents once more and clawed at the roof, bringing down rubble and stones at first, then boulders. Blaster bolts ricocheted among the rocks, reflecting in all directions-Jaina parried one with her violet blade. And then the roof was down with the sound of thunder, a billowing cloud wall of dust rolling down the mineshaft toward Jaina. She had seen at least half a dozen Yuuzhan Vong warriors buried.

"That won't hold them long," one of her pilots said. "Those rocks won't weigh much in this gravity. And look how they got around the blast doors."

Maybe it'll hold them long enough for me to get another idea.., Jaina thought.

"Pull back," she gasped. She wiped dust and sweat from her face and felt a faint surprise that she had any sweat left.

It was only then that she found she had casualties. Her stomach queased as she saw Twin Four sprawled against the wall where the voxyn's tail had thrown him, his vac suit punctured by a score of poison spines.

Twin Seven had been hit in the chest by a thud bug and knocked sprawling.

He claimed he'd just had the wind knocked out of him, but Jaina didn't like the way his face shivered with pain when the others stood him on his feet.

Two carried Twin Four's body to the rear, and another two supported Twin Seven. The Jedi stayed behind as rear guard until they reached a three-way intersection. The pilots ahead halted, and one of them looked over his shoulder.

"Which way, Major?"

Jaina pulled her datapad from the pocket on her sleeve and looked at it. The map seemed to swirl before her eyes. She was too tired to think properly, she realized. She forced her mind to work on the problem.

"You go left," she said. "Streak and Tesar and I are going straight ahead."

"Wait a minute!" Twin Ten, with Twin Seven's arm around his shoulders, was indignant. "What do you mean by splitting us up?"

"The Vong are hunting Jedi," Jaina said. "You'll be safe if you take a detour. And we'll be safer if we don't have to worry about protecting you."

And you won't die with us, she thought.

"We can fight, Major!" Twin Ten insisted. "We can help you!"

"I appreciate it, but-"

"We haven't come this far with you just to let you go off and fight the Vong on your own. You made us a team, and we're sticking together."

Jaina fought back the tears that suddenly stung her eyes. This was the fighting spirit that she had created, created with the drills and painstaking labor and blood. But all this admirable resolution could do right now was get the others killed unnecessarily.

She straightened and took a breath and looked at Twin Ten. "Do I have to make this an order, Lieutenant?" she asked.

Anger and frustration twitched across Twin Ten's face. Then he shook his head. "I guess not, Major," he said.

"Then get moving. I'll sec you when this is over."

Jaina watched for a moment as her weary pilots limped away, then dragged herself down the tunnel she'd chosen. Her mind swam with weariness.

"Gather strength from the Force," Tesar said. It was more an order than a suggestion.

Jaina was too tired to agree verbally; she just expanded her Force awareness and let its power drain into her. There was a limit as to how long she could keep this up-ultimately there was no subst.i.tute for nutrition and bedrest-but as the Force swam through her body, flushing every cell with energy, she found herself standing straighter. Her step was more firm, her breathing less labored. She consulted the map in her datapad and made a decision.

"We turn here."

Tesar and Lowie looked at the blank tunnel walls in surprise. Lowie growled a question.

In answer, Jaina pointed above their heads.

An air shaft went up, connecting the tunnel to another gallery above their heads. The other two used the Force to help Jaina rise into the shaft, and then by bracing her arms and feet against the rough sides of the shaft she was able to chimney up six or seven meters to the gallery above, where she turned and aided the others. The maneuver was made very easy by the light gravity. Even Lowbacca didn't weigh any more than fifteen kilos.

Tesar turned on his belt light and looked each way down the corridor. Frost glittered on the rough stone walls. "Where now?" he asked.

"We wait right here. We can hold this shaft forever, or at least until they find another way into this gallery. And then when they come, we run the other way."

Tesar seemed to find this plan acceptable and switched off his belt light. The three stood in the frigid tunnel and waited, knowing they wouldn't wait long.

Jaina closed her eyes and opened herself to the Jedi meld. Uncle Luke., she sent, where are you?

Luke was wondering how to retake the moon when the New Republic didn't have any troops on hand. They hadn't antic.i.p.ated ground combat, so the only forces available were the lightly armed military police on the large capital ships.

These, and the Jedi. Whom Warmaster Tsavong Lah hoped would land on the little moonlet. Whom he had invited to land.

The New Republic forces were on the verge of engaging the small squadron the Yuuzhan Vong had left behind to guard their ground forces.

The Yuuzhan Vong would fight bravely but wouldn't last long against the New Republic's numbers.

Luke wondered how long it had been since the odds were on his side.

It was then that he felt the query from Jaina.

The reply he sent was nonverbal, just a basic mental impression that meant, Where are you?

Jama's response was equally nonverbal, pictures as well as anything else. Tunnel. Voxyn. Troops.

How many troops? Picturing numerals and enemy warriors.

Lots. Coming soon. With mental pictures of Vong packed shoulder to shoulder in the narrow mineshafts.

Luke verbalized his next sending. Can you get to the surface from where you are?

Negative.

He clenched his teeth. His next message was complicated, and it took him a moment to arrange his thoughts. Would it be possible to get a starfighter down Ebaq's central shaft?

In Jaina's reply, Luke sensed a weary amus.e.m.e.nt at the sheer audacity of the idea, flying an X-wing down the shaft and blasting hosts of Yuuzhan Vong from their perches.

In response was a picture of the shaft, which showed it wide enough; but then Jaina sent another picture of the shaft head, with its heavy ore-hoisting equipment that would have to be gotten out of the way.

Still, it was the best plan Luke had come up with.

We're coming for you, he sent. Just wait.

Again Luke sensed amus.e.m.e.nt, tinged this time with bitterness. As if Jaina had said, Like I have a choice.

Through the meld, Luke told the other Jedi to prepare for a landing on Ebaq 9, and a fight against overwhelming numbers.

The first voxyn that Tsavong Lah sent up the vertical shaft came down in pieces, and was followed by a grenade. A dozen brave warriors who tried to chimney up the shaft were killed by blaster fire before they got more than a few meters, and another grenade dropped down and killed a dozen more.