She tripped over a bench. Nobody protested, so it must be vacant.

She sank down, exhausted and ashamed. She had to get off Druckenwell, the only world she'd ever known.

But how? And... alone? Daye would meet her here, if he could.

She swallowed on a parched throat. Mustn't use her credit account.

She dug into a third jumpsuit pocket and found a few credit tokens worth a cold glass of Elba water.

She dropped them onto the table.

Then she pillowed her sweaty forehead on her arms and tried to think.

She couldn't've gotten this far unless Kerioth had sent most of his troopers chasing Daye.

Therefore, Daye must be a prisoner. (Her mind writhed again: Daye!

Wrrl, oh, Wrrl!) On second thought, she'd worn the invaluable armor.

They'd've all chased her.

No, he'd co-developed the anti-energy field. They needed Daye alive.

Kerioth was undoubtedly tracking them both-Daye Azur-Jamin flattened on the floor of a narrow service tunnel, scarcely breathing.

During his first moments of flight, he'd been clipped by blaster fire halfway down his left thigh. It'd stopped throbbing several minutes ago.

Now it simply felt dead.

Three pairs of white boots scurried past, outside the shaft's access panel.

They'd find him sooner or later.

Daye dragged himself past the panel, deeper toward the center of I'att Armament.

Using his tiny comlink, he'd monitored Eisen Kerioth's command frequency. Poor Wrrl had paid off his life debt in full, and enabled Tinian to elude pursuit, but Keri-oth-who'd escaped his transparisteel cage by talking a trooper through code permutations-had ordered repulsorcraft.

They'd catch Tinian quickly unless he could divert them.

Daye's comlink also let him follow stormtrooper teams as they hunted him. Kerioth had ordered all personnel off factory grounds-he meant to use IR scanning, and fewer warm footprints inside the factory would help.

It would be a race, then. I'att Armament's power grid lay under a force shield, open to the sky; the plant was built around it like a vast open square. In half an hour, Daye could crawl to the main power station. In two minutes more, he could backfeed the force shield into the power grid. That would take out the whole factory. Daye had hesitated to endanger innocent bystanders, but Keri-' oth was clearing bystanders away.

He probably wouldn't escape. But at least Eisen Kerioth wouldn't steal I'att Armament's anti-energy field-Daye and Strephan's own brainchild-and get away with it.

No one would ever know what Daye had done, either, except Tinian.

She knew him too well.

The thought made him smile. He crawled on.

"Why, hello, Princess Tinian."

Momentarily terrified, Tinian flung herself upright.

She breathed again when she saw two familiar people standing over her.

Happy's Landing's current torch singer, Twilit Hearth, wore a scandalous, shimmering sap-phire-blue gown. Twilit's mate, Sprig Cheever, sported a short, neat goatee and nondescript clothing. He set a glass of Elba water in front of her.

Tinian dashed tears away from her eyes and guzzled it.

Twilit touched her shoulder. "Hey. Hey, what's wrong?"

"I" Tinian gulped. She needed allies, and Daye-deft reader of strangers' intentions had liked these two.

(Where was he?) "I've got to hide. I'm in big trouble."

"Hey, it couldn't be that ba-"

"Stormtroopers. They've shut down the factory."

"No," whispered Twilit. "Where's... you know, your prince?"

"I don't know," Tinian groaned.

Twilit seized Tinian's elbow. "Come with me. There's no time to lose."

Twilit pulled her through a dark, cluttered hallway behind the kitchen, then up one flight of stairs to a cramped little dressing-sleeping room.

"Twilit, thanks," Tinian objected, "but they'll search up here."

She laid her valuables under an old boot rack, then startled. She'd sliced three c-boards off the control panel. Now she had only two.

"We'll hide you in plain sight." Twilit grabbed a shimmering red gown.

"But we've got to move fast. Put this on."

She'd dropped one c-board! Concentrate, Tinian. First you've got to survive. Tinian eyed Twilit's curves, then glanced down her size-one jumpsuit. "Twilit, it won't-"

"You've only got minutes," said the singer. "Are you going to walk into their gunsights wearing that uniform?"

Tinian skinned out of her jumpsuit and yanked up the extravagant gown.

To her shock, padding slid into position over all the right places.

The singer was no more voluptuous than Tinian, not in the flesh. She glanced into the room's only mirror. Her face and someone else's body looked out.

"Not bad," said the singer, "but we can do better."

She spun a pair of shoes across the floor toward Tinian and rummaged in a tattered duffel. "I assume you can sing."

"Not like you." Tinian gratefully pulled on one shoe.

Too big, but it would protect her throbbing foot.

"Most Imperials wouldn't know a song sparrow from a cloud crupa.

You know all my songs, I've watched your lips move." Twilit opened a jar and smeared something onto Tinian's face. Tinian submitted to several layers of paint and a rapid, hair-pulling fluff job before Twilit announced, "Break's over, Princess. Get down there and show your stuff."

Tinian eyed the mirror again. Only the stranger looked out at her now. "Why are you doing this?" she asked. The stranger's lips moved when she spoke.

Twilit's face appeared beside the stranger's. Fire blazed in Twilit's blue eyes-the same shade as her own, Tinian realized. "The Empire and I had a disagreement four or five systems ago," Twilit answered.

"Now get down there."

"But you-"

"I'm deathly ill. Couldn't sing another note for at least an hour. Go. Cheeve and Yccakic'll help."

Tinian tottered down the steps. Now that her eyes had adjusted, she could make out the ale house's interior.

Two Human customers sat at one table, a lone Devaronian at the bar. On a clear, triangular stage raised above table level, Sprig Cheever crouched cracking his knuckles over the black, white, and green keys of a KeyBed that almost enclosed him. The other sentient band member, a Bith named Yccakic, plucked his Bottom Viol's five strings as he adjusted buttons along its tall upright neck. Redd Metalflake, the group's self-contained droid sound system, sat behind them audibly tweaking his circuitry.

"I'm... singing?" Tinian croaked. "Twilit feels poorly."

Cheever grinned down through the stage at her.

"That'll work."

Tinian climbed up to stand beside him. He played two chords she recognized, and she launched into "All I Can Ever Do" with all the guts she could muster. Now that she'd slowed down, she could only think of Daye. How could she sing, with Daye in terrible danger... if he was alive?

Without warning, two stormtroopers sprang through Happy's front door.

Tinian gulped. She covered the beat she'd missed by ad-libbing a lyric. One trooper glanced at her. Immediately he swiveled away.

She felt relieved... and hurt, too. Was she that unattractive in real life?

The troopers bustled from table to table. Just as they vanished intO the kitchens, a seismic rumble rocked the ale house. Patrons slid under tables. Tinian flailed, trying to grab something, and connected with Yccakic's arm.

"Off the stage!" Cheever commanded. Yccakic laid down his Viol and towed her down clear, narrow stairs, then out into the dusk-darkening street.

Three gargantuan fireballs lit the northern sky, rising under low clouds precisely where I'att Armament had stood.

Both stormtroopers dashed out of Happy's Landing.

Passing without a backward glance, they sprinted up the street. A customer who'd followed Yccakic outdoors saluted the fireballs with a raised fist. "Down the rich!" he hooted. "Down the Empire! Up anarchy!"

"Hey," burbled Yccakic. "You okay, kid?"

Tinian's ears sang. Her vision blacked out from the edges inward.

She collapsed in a heap.

A beefy stranger stumbled into Happy's Landing near dawn. Tinian, still masquerading as Twilit, drooped on a bench close to Cheever. The stranger demanded a TrooperBreath, downed the chartreuse glassful, then looked around for company. Spotting Tinian and Chee-ver, he wobbled over. "That oughta help. I've been hunting and lifting all night," he declared.

"What's up?" Cheever set a hand casually on Tinian's shoulder.

"I just spent four hours slaving for the Empire. The head trooper rounded up all the muscle he could find out on the streets."

"What for?"

"He had us searching I'att Armament... or the crater that used ta be I'att Armament... for survivors."

The ale house spun around Tinian.

"Find any?" Cheever squeezed her shoulder.

The bulky newcomer shook his head. "The Big Moff's speeder was the smallest wreckage we could identify.

Other than that, nothing. Totality. Looked like an inside job to me."

He burped, then grinned toothily. "Some brave, suicidal lunatic musta wanted to take it away from the Empire pretty badly." He raised a glass in wordless tribute.

Tinian stared. Daye, gone? All that promise... broken?

Not only Daye, but Grandfather, Grandmother, and Wrrl.

All her life.

She lost track of time after that. Some hours later, the band held council upstairs over the kitchens. "Time to leave Druckenwell."

Cheever draped his long legs over a packing crate. "This place is too hot for me."

"Me, too," put in Twilit.

"We'll never get away," lamented a metallic monotone.

Cheever had lugged Redd Metalflake upstairs and set the boxy sound droid on a stretch of floor. "Everyone picks on musicians."

Twilit folded her arms. "We'll go," she said firmly.

"The last time we ignored Cheever, we nearly lost our instruments in an apartment fire. Is somebody onto us, Cheeve?"

"Not yet."

Tinian barely listened. She was in shock. Nothing will ever touch me again. Nothing. No one. Ever.

Yccakic flicked a series of folds around his tiny mouth.