More clouds of debris were blowing away from Outbound Flight's flanks as the starfighters blasted their way through the hulls, sweeping new waves of sudden death through the outer areas of the Dreadnaughts.

But for all the effect the attack had on him, C'baoth might not even have noticed it. His face remained as hard as anvilstone, his eyes burning unblinkingly across the Springhawk's bridge.

And Mitth'raw'nuruodo was still dying.

Doriana curled his hands into helpless fists. So it was finally over. If this second a.s.sault had failed to kill C'baoth, it was because he'd hidden himself well away from the vacuum that had now snuffed out all life in the Dreadnaughts' outer sections. Even given the thinner bulkheads and blast doors of the ships' interior sections, there was no way even droid starfighters could clear out the maze of decks and compartments in time.

An odd formation caught his eve as it shot into view outside the canopy: a pair of starfighters flying in close formation with a fat cylinder tucked between them. Not just one pair, Doriana saw now, but ten of them, heading at full speed toward Outbound Flight.

He remembered Kav mentioning this particular project of Mitth'raw'nuruodo's, and the vicelord's contemptuous dismissal of the cylinders as some sort of useless fuel tanks. Frowning, he watched as, in ones and twos, the starfighter pairs drove through the newly blasted holes in the Dreadnaughts' hulls and disappeared inside.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, abruptly, a haze of pale blue burst outward from the openings, nearly invisible amid the floating clouds of wreckage.

And with a sudden gasp of air, Mitth'raw'nuruodo collapsed forward against his board.

"Commander?" Doriana called, trying to get past the circle of crewers.

"I'm . . . all right," the other panted, rubbing his throat with one hand as he waved off a.s.sistance with the other.

"I think you got him," Doriana said, looking over at the comm display.

C'baoth was no longer in sight. "I think C'baoth's dead."

"Yes," Mitth'raw'nuruodo confirmed, his voice quiet. "All of them . . .

are dead."

A strange sensation crept up Doriana's back. "That's impossible," he said. "You only had one or two of those bombs in each Dreadnaught."

"One was all that was necessary," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said with a sadness that Doriana had never heard in him before. "They're a very special sort of weapon. A very terrible sort. Once inside the protective barrier of a war vessel's outer armor, they explode into a killing wave of radiation.

The wave pa.s.ses through floors and walls and ceilings, destroying all life."

Doriana swallowed. "And you had them all ready to go," he heard himself say.

Mitth'raw'nuruodo's eyes bored into his. "They were not meant for Outbound Flight," he said, and there was an expression on his face that made Doriana take an involuntary step backward. "They were intended for use against the largest of the Vagaari war vessels."

Doriana grimaced. "I see."

"No, you do not see," Mitth'raw'nuruodo retorted. "Because now, instead, we'll need to destroy the Vagaari remnant aboard the disabled vessels in shipboard face-to-face combat." He pointed out the canopy. "Worse, some of the war vessels and civilian craft have now escaped to deep s.p.a.ce, where they'll have time to rebuild and perhaps one day will again pose a threat to this region of s.p.a.ce."

"I understand," Doriana said. "I'm sorry."

To his surprise, he realized he meant it.

For a long moment Mitth'raw'nuruodo gazed at him in silence. Then, slowly, some of the tension lines faded from his face. "No warrior ever has the full depth of control that he would like," he said, his voice calmer but still troubled. "But I wish here that it might have been otherwise."

Doriana looked at Kav. For a wonder, the Neimoidian had the sense to keep his mouth shut. "What happens now?"

"As I said, we board the Vagaari war vessels," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said.

"Once they've been secured, we'll free the Geroons from their prisons."

Doriana nodded. And so that was it. Outbound Flight was destroyed, its Jedi-especially C'baoth-all dead. It was over.

All, that is, except one small loose end. No matter what the outcome, Kav's warning echoed through his mind, in the end this Mitthrawdo will have to die.

And in the swirling chaos of a shipboard a.s.sault, accidents inevitably happened. "I wonder if I might have permission to accompany the attack force," he said. "I'd like to observe Chiss soldiers in action."

Mitth'raw'nuruodo inclined his head slightly. "As you wish, Commander Stratis. I think you'll find it most instructive."

"Yes," Doriana agreed softly. "I'm sure I will."

The vibrations from the Dreadnaughts above, transmitted faintly through the metal of the connecting pylons, finally came to an end. "Is it over?"

Jorad Pressor asked timidly.

Carefully, Lorana let her hand drop from the bulkhead where she'd been steadying herself. The sudden, awful flood of death from above had finally ended as well, leaving nothing behind.

Nothing.

"Yes," she said, trying hard to give the boy an encouraging smile. "It's all over."

"So we can go back up?"

Lorana lifted her eves to Jorad's father, and the tight set of his mouth.

The children might not understand, but the adults did. "Not quite yet,"

she told Jorad. "There's probably a lot of cleaning up they're having to do. We'd just be in the way."

"And would have to hold our breath," someone muttered from the back of the group.

Someone else made a shushing noise. "Anyway, there's no point in hanging around here," one of the older men spoke up, trying to sound casual.

"Might as well go back to the Jedi school where we can at least be a little more comfortable."

"And where we'll be properly locked in?" Uliar added sourly.

"No, of course not," Lorana said, trying to get her brain back on track.

"There's plenty of spare building material crated up in the storage areas. I'll cut a section of girder and prop open the door. Come on-everyone back."

The crowd turned and shuffled back the way they'd come, some of the children still murmuring anxiously to their parents, the parents in turn trying to comfort them. Lorana started to follow, paused as Uliar touched her arm. "So what's the real damage?" he asked softly.

She sighed. "I don't sense any life up there. None at all."

"Could you be wrong?"

"It's possible," she admitted. "But I don't think so."

He was silent for a moment. "We'll need to make sure," he said. "There may be survivors who are just too weak for you to sense."

"I know," she said. "But we can't get up there yet. The fact that the turbolift cars won't come implies the pylons are open to vacuum somewhere. We'll have to wait until the droids get them patched up."

Uliar hissed between his teeth. "That could take hours."

"It can't be helped," Lorana said. "We'll just have to wait."

23.

The battle had been over for nearly three hours, and Car'das was starting to get seriously bored when he finally heard the rhythmic tapping at his back.

He half turned over and rapped the same pattern with the edge of the macrobinoculars. Then, turning back around to face the stars, he worked the kinks out of his muscles and waited.

It came in a sudden flurry of activity. Behind him, the door to his prison popped open and he felt the sudden tugging of vacuum at his lungs and face as the air pressure in his bubble exploded outward, shoving him backward out into the corridor. He caught a glimpse of vac-suited figures surrounding him as he was enveloped in a tangle of sticky cloth. Before he could do more than scrabble his fingertips against it in an effort to push it away from his face there was a harsh hissing in his ears, and the cloth receded from him in all directions.

And a moment later he found himself floating inside a transparent rescue ball.

"Whoa," he muttered, wincing as his ears popped painfully with the returning air pressure.

"Are you all right?" a familiar voice asked from a comlink connected to the ball's oxygen tank.

"Yes, Commander, thank you," he a.s.sured the other. "I gather it all worked as planned?"

"Yes," Thrawn confirmed, his voice carrying an odd tinge of sadness to it. "For the most part."

One of the other rescuers leaned close, and to his surprise Car'das saw that it was the human who'd introduced himself aboard the Darkvenge as Commander Stratis. "Car'das?" Stratis demanded, frowning through the plastic. "What are you doing here?"

"Luring the Vagaari into my trap, of course," Thrawn said, as if it were obvious. "Or had you forgotten that the Chiss do not engage in preemptive attacks?"

"I see," Stratis said, still eyeing Car'das. "So those spy accusations you were throwing around aboard the Darkvenge were nothing but smoke?

Something to cover you in case the whole thing fell apart?"

"It was protection, yes, but not for me," Thrawn said. He gestured, and the rest of the group began maneuvering Car'das's rescue ball down the corridor. "It was to protect Admiral Ar'alani, the officer commanding the transport that arrived an hour ago to take the freed Geroon slaves back to their world."

"And who couldn't afford to be even unofficially involved in any of this," Stratis said, nodding. "But who could make sure to look the other way at all the right times, leaving you and Car'das to take the blame if anything went wrong."

"Never mind the blame," Car'das put in. "What happened with Outbound Flight? I saw the starfighters take off after it."

Thrawn and Stratis exchanged looks. "We were forced to go farther than I'd hoped," Thrawn said.

Car'das felt his heart freeze in his chest. "How much farther?"

"They're dead," Thrawn said quietly. "All of them."

There was a long silence. Car'das looked away, his eyes catching glimpses of dead Vagaari as the Chiss continued carrying him along. Thrawn had abandoned his attack on known slavers and murderers to destroy thousands of innocent people?

"There wasn't any choice," Stratis said into his numbness. "C'baoth was using his Jedi power to try and strangle the commander. There was no other way to stop him."

"Did you ever give them a chance to just leave and go home?" Car'das retorted.

"Yes," Thrawn said.

"More than just one chance," Stratis added. "More than I would have offered them, in fact. And if it matters any, I was the one who actually pushed the b.u.t.ton."

Car'das grimaced. On one level, it did matter. On another, it didn't.

"You're sure there aren't any survivors?"

"The Dreadnaughts were taken out by radiation bombs," Stratis told him.

"We haven't actually sent anyone over yet to check, but if the commander's weapons stats are accurate there's no way anyone could have lived through that."

"So you got what you wanted after all," Car'das said, feeling suddenly very tired. "You must be happy."

Stratis looked away. "I'm content," he said. "I wouldn't say I'm happy."

"Well?" Kav demanded as Doriana stripped off his vac suit in the privacy of one of the Springhawk's prep rooms. "I hear no wailings of despair for the fallen captain."

"That's because the captain isn't fallen," Doriana said. "I never had an opportunity."

"Did not have one?" Kav asked. "Or did not make one?"

"I never had one," Doriana repeated coldly. He was not in the mood for this. "You want to try to a.s.sa.s.sinate a military commander in front of his men, you go right ahead."

He finished undressing in silence. "Yet he must die," Kav said as Doriana began pulling on his own clothing. "He knows too much about our part in what has happened."

"Mitth'raw'nuruodo is no ordinary alien," Doriana pointed out. "And there's still a matter of finding an opportunity."

"Or of making one." Stepping close, Kav pressed something into Doriana's hand. "Here."

Puzzled, Doriana looked down. One glance was all it took. "Where did you get this?" he hissed as he hurriedly closed his hand around the small hold-out blaster.

"I have always had it," Kav said. "The shot is small and hard to see, but highly intense. It will kill quickly and quietly."

And would condemn Doriana in double-quick time if he was caught with it.

Feeling a sudden sheen of sweat breaking out beneath his collar, he slipped the weapon out of sight into a pocket. "Just let me handle the timing," he warned the other. "I don't want you hovering around like an expectant mother avian."

"Do not worry," Kav growled. "Where is the commander now?"