"You sealed our entrances."

Kerioth clasped his hands at the small of his back. "It would be unfortunate if insurrectionist elements learned that we'd found a way to make stormtrooper armor invincible, would it not?"

We found a way? Tinian silently protested.

Grandmother Augusta glided forward, rustling her robes. "Our security has always been unparalleled, Moff Kerioth. You need have no fear concerning our-"

"Naturally, then," continued Moff Kerioth, "you understand that everyone who has worked above certain levels on this project must return with me to the Doldur system. This item must be manufactured under strictly regulated conditions. The New Order controls Doldur right down to food prices. It is the safest world for advanced military manufacturing."

It's your turf, Tinian realized. You want this manufactured where you can watch.

Grandfather's eyes narrowed. "I am sorry, but this family cannot travel. Augusta needs medical care."

Tinian fingered the black body glove's sleeve selvage.

"After all these years of hard work, they deserve peaceful retirement," she protested. "Daye and I are prepared to run the plant.

We'll..." She hesitated, then plunged on. It was the only way.

"We'll go to Doldur with you. But Grandfather and Grandmother are retiring to Geridard."

"No," said Kerioth. "You will return to Doldur with me. All of you."

"Sir," Augusta spoke up, "I apologize for making things difficult, but our application for the Geridard Convalescent Center has already been processed. We've advanced them 90,000 credits for life care."

Kerioth turned away. He tilted his chin as if rereading the I'atts' requests off the ceiling. When he pivoted back around, his condescending smile had returned. "You will not travel to Doldur? I cannot convince you?"

"Unfortunately, sir, it's impossible." Strephan folded his arms over his black uniform's decorated breast.

"Perhaps not so unfortunate. That enables me to dispose of your retirement and health worries simultaneously."

Kerioth swung his swagger stick at the nearest stormtrooper.

"Take them both."

Before Tinian understood, the stormtrooper whipped up his blast rifle and fired twice. Grandfather Strephan tumbled to the duracrete.

Augusta gasped before she collapsed over Strephan.

They didn't move again. Too shocked to protest, Tinian covered her mouth with both hands. Daye bent his knees, ready to lunge. "Why did you do that?" he whispered.

Kerioth angled his swagger stick like a weapon at Daye's chest.

"I'll let you youngsters in on a secret," he announced.

"I have been sponsoring research into this type of anti-blaster energy field on Doldur. Emperor Palpatine will be most grateful when I present this invention as my own... with all the uncooperatives out of the way.

"You do wish to cooperate?" he asked blandly. Grandfather!

Grandmother! Stunned by her grief and horror, Tinian had to survive .

.. to avenge them. She nodded. Say yes! she mentally begged Daye.

He straightened slowly, but he didn't speak.

Kerioth shrugged. "Binders for the boy," he ordered another trooper.

"How long and how comfortably you live, boy, will depend on how well you cooperate." He stressed the word again.

Daye adjusted his stance, turning both feet out slightly.

One trooper reached into a utility-belt compartment.

Tinian glanced from the trooper to Daye. Daye eyed the trooper.

Daye had learned some self-defense from Wrrl.

He could move faster than anyone expected.

She must create a distraction.

"Wrrl!" she cried. "Help!" She spun around and dashed for the door.

Wrrl's roar frightened even Tinian. He slammed the code panel with one gigantic paw. A transparisteel blast wall plunged out of the ceiling, trapping Kerioth and two stormtroopers on the inside.

But four troopers remained. Wrrl rushed the pair blocking the exit, lifted each by a shoulder, and bashed their helmets together.

Tinian sprang through.

"Go left!" Daye shouted behind her. "Wrrl, stay with Tinian!"

Tinian whirled left and tried to run. One of her loose leggings tripped her. Blaster fire whizzed over her head.

Wrrl tried to scoop her up with long shaggy arms. Fur shriveled where he touched her.

"Don't!" she cried. The field unpredictably damaged living flesh that touched it. Tinian scrambled to her feet. Wrrl sprinted past a bewildered-looking service droid. She caught a' whiff of burned fur.

"Daye?" she cried. "Wrrl, where's-" Wrrl shrieked something about separating the storm-troopers.

They reached the lift tube. Tinian jumped onto its floor grid.

It didn't activate to carry her upward. "They've shut it oft" she cried.

Wrrl stepped in front of her, clearly inviting her to climb onto his back: There was no other way out of this bottleneck. Tinian switched off the armor field, vaulted up, and clenched her hands in front of Wrrl's throat, hoping nobody shot at them. Singed, matted fur brushed her face. The stormtrooper-sized breastplate dug into her stomach.

Wrrl leaped up the shaft wall, catching enormous claws-she hadn't even known that he had claws! - - in its duracrete sides. Powerful muscles rippled under Tinian's hold. She clenched her knees around his sides, trying to keep her weight from choking him.

He dragged his weight and hers up to the main floor. A security droid rolled toward them, four claw-mounted blasters and scanners installed atop a perfectly balanced sphere. It endlessly repeated, "Halt! Drop all weapons!

Halt-" Tinian gulped a deep breath. "Recognition," she shouted over Wrrl's shoulder. Her voice ought to shut it off...

"Confirmed." The droid spun in place. It retreated, still broadcasting.

Daylight shone through the southeastern service door.

Another pair of stormtroopers crouched beside it, obviously alerted over Kerioth's comlink. "Freeze," ordered one.

Tinian slid off Wrrl's back and slapped the field control back on.

Then she dashed at them, too full of adrenaline to cower or even flinch this time.

While the troopers fired at TinJan, Wrrl sped past her on long, shaggy limbs. He reached them before she did and bodily flung them aside.

She'd never seen a Wookiee's full strength before. He terrified her.

Outside the service door, two energy-fenced conveyors connected the entry with I'att Armament's main receiving area. Wrrl howled encouragement at her.

Tinian leaped onto one conveyor and dashed toward the open spaces and freedom. Fabric flapped around her feet, dangling but giving her feet some protection. She grabbed a fistful of loose fabric above each knee and pulled up. That helped a little, but she couldn't bend her elbows far enough to do any real good.

She jumped off the conveyor onto gray duracrete. A three-meter wall surrounded the complex, surmounted by a catwalk with heavy gun emplacements. When Tinian glanced up, her heart sank. Five stormtroopers dashed along the top of the wall, three from the north and two from the west, converging on the corner ahead of her and Wrrl.

Then she remembered her good-luck piece. "Wait!" she cried. She dug down through layers of clothing and extricated a small hunk of chepatite impact explosive.

She'd picked it up the first day Grandfather (her mind spasmed in pure, illogical grief: Grandfather!) had let her work a full shift. A silly souvenir and dangerous, maybe, but she couldn't fling it hard enough to set it off.

Wrrl could. "Take this," she exclaimed. "Throw it-there."

She pointed at the big corner gun. Two troopers aligned its sights on her and the Wookiee. "Then duck."

Wrrl bared his teeth, seized the explosive, and hurled it. Sweat trickled down Tinian's chest. She was roasting-Dust, grit, and duracrete boulders blasted in all directions.

A gap appeared beneath where the gun had been.

Tinian sprinted toward it. Her shoulders and back flashed hot again.

More troopers must have rushed in behind her.

The rubble pile was almost two meters high. Wrrl urged her to hurry.

Tinian yanked the bunched fabric and scrabbled upward. "How bad-are-you hurt?" she gasped.

He growled defiance.

"Wrrl-you need-a medic-" He tossed his head and kept running.

Tinian scrambled over the top. A laser blast whizzed off her right pauldron. That blast came from outside the wall! She flung herself backward into Wrrl's arms.

Wrrl yipped surprise. Had she singed him again?

He shoved her aside, grabbed a duracrete boulder, and heaved it down at the outside trooper. Then he woofed gently at Tinian, urging her out.

A blast from behind struck him. He howled.

"Are you all right?" Tinian cried.

He gurgled and pointed outside the wall.

"Not without you!"

Disregarding the armor field, he cuffed her with a huge paw.

Tinian jumped down the rubble pile, spun around, and glanced up.

Wrrl stood framed by the gap. Another bolt caught him in his side. He screamed and turned full around, then lurched toward the stormtroopers inside the enormous guard wall.

Grief-stricken and stumbling with every other step, Tinian dashed across a weedy field that surrounded I'att Armament. This was a secure area, maintained in case of internal disaster... and to enable guard wall staff to watch incoming traffic.

Why weren't they chasing her? Had Wrrl stopped all of them?

Wearing heat dissipation armor, she'd shine like a beacon to IR sensors. It would be easy to tag her with heavy weaponry. Moff Kerioth was probably calling over to IL Avali Spaceport right now.

How could she have been so wrong about the Empire?

When had it changed?

At the weed field's edge, dilapidated duracrete buildings formed a toothy perimeter. Tinian slapped off the field projector and stumbled toward an abandoned warehouse.

Its door hung askew. Two maybe-Human derelicts scrambled deeper into shadows inside.

Tinian tried to imagine what they'd seen: the top half of an armless, unhelmeted stormtrooper? She pushed away from that warehouse and ran two more turns around bends in the alleys, but didn't find any better cover.

She shoved the flapping armor pieces up over her head, then shed the black glove like an old reptile skin.

She was about to abandon it when a thought bigger than fear struck her: Moff Kerioth wanted this protection field badly enough to kill for it.

She must use it to hurt Eisen Kerioth.

She dug her utility vibro-knife out of another jumpsuit pocket.

Painstakingly she sliced vital components off the breastplatemthree electronic c-boards, controls, conduits-then the carapace-insulation, plus the projector itself.

Overhead movement snagged her peripheral vision. A silent repulsorcraft sped over the warehouse row.

Tinian shrank into the nearest building's shadow. She stuffed everything small into her pocket along with her vibro-knife. Then she bundled the rest of the vital parts together. Dashing barefoot around the next corner, she stepped on something sharp and almost fell into a rubbish heap ready for droid pickup.

That gave her another idea. Limping, she hurried back to the debris she'd left. She scooped shell fragments into the body glove and flung them behind the rubbish, safer from detection. Then she limped deeper into IL Avali's bad quarter.

Happy's Landing must be nearby. She and Daye had visited the ale house several times, thinly disguised in working-class coverails, looking for good music and flamingly spicy food. Luck and adrenaline got her there after only one wrong turn. She paused in the doorway, then plunged into its dark interior without giving her eyes time to adjust. It sounded nearly vacant. Late afternoon had never been Happy's busy hour.