He was alive.

She reached for him. Luke?

And got no response. But instead of being discouraged, she was heartened.

At least she hadn't hit that white wall she had hit before.

He was alive.

She swallowed. They were entering the Almanian sector. Soon the fleet would show on whatever kind of monitoring equipment Kueller had. Her time would be limited, and she would have to act quickly.

She was still alone in the c.o.c.kpit. She had kept the military personnel out with the promise of allowing them to help once the battle started. By now, she should have felt tired, but she was curiously elated. She loved this feeling. She had had it several times in her life. The first was the day she met Han. After the experience with the interrogation droid, after watching Alderaan shatter, after losing everything, she should never have been able to run through those corridors, blast her way into that garbage bin, and shoot her way to the Falcon, But she did.

Han called it a core of strength within her, but it was more than that.

No matter what, she would never give up. She would win and take risks just as Han did. She had proven that when she had sent the fleets to Koornacht the year before.

Now she would have to do it again.

Only this time, it was her own life she gambled with. Hers and Luke's.

She just hoped she would be able to contact him before she reached Almania. Her plan depended on knowing where to find him.

Almost as if it heard her thought, a private message light appeared on the controls before her. It had come on the channel she used with Luke, a private channel that they had relied on ever since she had gotten the Alderaan.

She shut off any speakers to the rest of the ship, then ordered the computer to play the message for her.

She glanced at the screen.

CODED, it read. FOR YOUR EYES ONLY.

She acknowledged the coding. The Alderaan knew who she was. No need for a retinal scan. The computer skipped all of the preliminaries and went straight to the message.

IT IS IN BINARY. DO YOU WANT ME TO TRANSLATE?.

Luke had never sent a message in binary before. But she didn't know his circ.u.mstances. This might be the best way for him to reach her.

She asked the computer to translate and waited until the message scrolled onto the screen.

NEW-MODEL DROIDS DANGEROUS. TO BE SAFE, SHUT DOWN ALL DROIDS. REPEAT.

NEW-MODEL DROIDS DANGEROUS. TO BE SAFE, SHUT DOWN ALL DROIDS.

There was no signature. But the message continued to scroll, repeating over and over.

Leia studied the message. It made no sense. If Luke was in the kind of trouble she believed him to be in, he wouldn't have sent a message like that. Unless it was another code.

Or unless it was true.

She shuddered, and buzzed the galley. "Lieutenant Tchiery to the c.o.c.kpit, please." The lieutenant acknowledged her, and signed off. A moment later, he appeared in the c.o.c.kpit door, his bowling-ball shape barely fitting in a door designed for humans.

She showed him the message, explained the circ.u.mstance, and asked his opinion.

He glanced at her, then at the message. "This message makes sense, President," he said. "Given the detonators on the X-wings." She nodded.

She had already thought of that. "How important are the droids to the fleet's mission?"

"Important," Tchiery said. "But we can get along without them. We aren't using many X-wings, and we still rely on sentients for much of the shipboard work."

"Then I want you and your team to deliver this message to the fleet."

"I'll leave some of the officers here."

"No," Leia said, hoping she hadn't spoken too quickly. "We can't send messages. I received this one only by virtue of the code that my brother and I had developed. If you keep two officers here, and the message was important, and something happens, we'll always regret it. I'll be all right for the time it will take to make the deliveries."

"Ma'am, my orders are to take care of you." Leia smiled. She had suspected as much. "I'm afraid, Lieutenant, that I've always done quite well at taking care of myself. I'm changing your orders. Now we don't have time for argument. I will dock with one of the nearby ships momentarily."

"Yes, ma'am." The lieutenant nodded to her, took the message, and left the c.o.c.kpit.

She let out a deep sigh, and leaned her head against the chair. In a moment, they would all be gone. She would leave the matter of the droids in Wedge's hands. He would know what decision to make.

And he would make it after she had gone to Almania.

Alone.

THIRTY-NINE.

The strange prolonged agony from a distant system had drained his energy.

Luke had sent heat, as he had before, but it took something out of him.

Luke leaned against the wall, his splinters around him. The creature remained in the other room, snuffling. A constant threat, but for the moment it left him alone.

Almost as if it knew he suffered.

He was dizzy and tired and his back still hurt, although the pain had subsided somewhat. He couldn't feel his ankle at all, unless he stood on it. Then pain shot through his leg. Only the splint held him up. He needed water. The burns were bad enough to continually sap his strength.

Kueller wanted both of them, him and Leia.

He would have both if Luke didn't do something about it.

Which meant getting out of there.

The creature snuffled again. Luke didn't entirely understand the creature, either. It had clearly just eaten before Luke was placed in its cage. So was it there to hold him? Or was he to be tomorrow's lunch?

It peeked its head around the corner. The ma.s.sive face had a quizzical look to it. It held out its paw, and large drops of blood fell on the ground. Yet the creature didn't seem angry.

But then, it hadn't seemed angry when it had tried to swallow Luke, either. Maybe it was a big, cheerful eating machine.

It mewled at him. Then it extended its injured paw. Luke raised a splinter, and the creature batted it from his hand, sending him flying head over heels. He hit his back, and the pain made him cry out.

He stopped rolling and tried to get to his feet. The creature had run beside him. It looked down on him, its face getting closer and closer.

He had no more weapons.

The creature opened its mouth.

Luke ducked.

R2-D2 led Cole and C-3PO to a small moon. Telti, according to Cole's navigational computer, had been a droid factory and recommissioning area since the Old Republic. Telti joined the Empire late in the Empire's existence, when Palpatine threatened to destroy Telti if it didn't join.

Telti continued to sell droids to anyone whose credit was good, and except for that Imperial threat, the factory's politics had remained neutral. After the Truce at Bakura, Telti pet.i.tioned the New Republic for membership, which had been granted, and had remained a quiet, stable member ever since.

So Cole felt fairly awkward, arriving in what might be considered a stolen freighter on the hunch of a droid. R2, on the other hand, seemed quite calm. He was in the lounge now, but earlier he had been in the c.o.c.kpit. He made no sounds during the flight, but he did jack into the computer once the ship was away from Coruscant. Cole suspected that R2 was sending more messages. Cole watched R2 send one to President Leia, using Luke Skywalker's codes. Cole wasn't certain who the little droid was sending messages to, but he trusted R2 to make the right choices.

The messages would help. Cole really didn't want to be doing this on his own.

As the ship entered orbit over Telti, Cole requested an immediate landing.

He received no response.

"Perhaps, sir, they use only mechanized equipment," 3PO said. He sat in the second seat, the one behind the pilot, designed for pa.s.sengers. The problem was that 3PO's voice spoke directly in Cole's ear. "It wouldn't be unusual. Why, the factory on Tala 9 allowed no sentients at all. They discouraged sentient partic.i.p.ation by using only droid languages for landing codes. Of course, they discontinued that practice when two ships collided mid-orbit because their systems weren't designed to handle..."

Cole tuned out the chatter. He sent his message again.

"... Then on Casfield 6, they discovered that the use of droid languages in landing codes caused shipboard computers to malfunction when six ships, all built by..." And again.

"... exploded on the launching pad. Quite a blow to the Offens, as I understand it. They were new to s.p.a.ce travel..." And again.

"... when their queen, a six-thousand-year-old woman kept alive by..."

"State your business, freighter." The voice that came across the speaker was mechanized. It lacked the vocal range of 3PO's.

"It's a new-model navigator droid, sir. I recognize the pitch." It took Cole a moment to absorb what 3PO had told him, since Cole had worked so hard at ignoring him.

"Freighter. State your business."

"I-ah-I'm Cole Fardreamer. I have business with your manager."

"Personal or sales?"

"Excuse me?"

"Is your business personal or would you like to meet with a sales representative?" The last question was not one that Cole expected. "It's personal," Cole said.

The mechanized voice gave him landing coordinates. Cole made certain that the computer entered them properly, then felt the freighter b.u.mp as it veered onto a new course.

"How very interesting," 3PO said. "They must handle their own sales here.

Some droids are good at business, you know, but most lack the finesse needed for what sentients call 'the deal.' '' Cole scanned the surface.

"The deal?"

"Well, yes," 3PO said. "Droids are not adept at lying, you know, and we have no interest in profit. There are no droid smugglers, at least none that I've ever heard of." The entire moon was covered in buildings. The buildings went deep underground. The landing coordinates that the voice had given him were near another, smaller landing strip. They had to have him coming in on an official path.

"When I was living on Tatooine," Cole said, not really interested in the conversation, but wanting to keep 3PO occupied, "I had heard that Jabba the Hutt had droids helping him."

"Helping him is an entirely different thing. A droid must serve his master. That is his primary function. Why, I even worked for Jabba the Hutt for a very short time. I served as its translator. Quite discouraging work, let me tell you. The things the Hutt said..." Cole headed toward the landing strip. The buildings were ma.s.sive, as he had thought, and there were droids all over the surface.

"... my counterpart R2-D2 serving drinks. It was quite humiliating. I'm not sure he ever got over it...." The freighter landed on the coordinates the voice had given Cole. A dome rose overhead and closed on the ship.

All around him, signs flared in several languages.

PERSONAL DROIDS MUST REMAIN ON SHIPS.

THIS IS A WORKING PLANT. DO NOT STRAY FROM THE MARKED SIDEWALKS.

WAIT NEAR YOUR VEHICLE. A REPRESENTATIVE WILL APPROACH YOU.

SHIPS WILL BE SCANNED BEFORE LIFTOFF.

THEFT IS AN INTERGALACTIC OFFENSE, PUNISHABLE BY DEATH.

That last sign had an Imperial insignia on it. Apparently the managers of the Telti factory had not seen the need to remove it.

The dome clicked shut over them. Then a light on the side control panels flicked on. A rear hatch had opened.

"R2," 3PO said. "Master Cole, you must stop him!" Cole shook his head.

"R2 is the one that brought us here. We need to trust him, 3PO."

"But the signs! They'll deactivate him for certain." 3PO might have had a point. Cole opened the cargo door. "Not if we distract them," Cole said.

He left the c.o.c.kpit and went out the door. 3PO followed.

"Go after R2," Cole said softly. "Make sure he's all right."

"But, sir, the signs strictly forbid my leaving this vessel."

"That's why I want you to go now. If anyone stops you, try to convince them you're from this place. If that doesn't work, tell them I forced you to leave the ship, and you think I'm abandoning you here."

"You aren't, are you, sir? I know that they have come out with a new-model protocol droid, but Mistress Leia-"