Ever.

Chewbacca had returned. He growled over the crying around him.

"Fifteen ships is better than I expected," Han said. "Why don't you get them started loading the Falcon? I want to be in the first wave out of here." Chewie yarled his agreement. He hurried over to the medic, and together they examined which group of survivors should be moved.

Han made his way across the rubble. As the smoke cleared, he saw more and more body parts among the stone and still-hot metal. Fingers, wings, even one severed head. The stench of burning flesh made his already disturbed stomach churn even more. This time, though, as he pa.s.sed wounded, he clasped the hands reaching for him.

"We'll get you out of here," he kept repeating over and over, hoping that the promise would keep the injured alive until someone did pull them free. Sometimes hope was all it took.

Finally he reached the Lady Luck. Lando was carrying a Ruurian. Its woolly coat was scorched, and most of the feathery antennae had burned away from its face. Its tiny mouth kept opening and closing, the only sign that it was alive.

"It'll take us days, Han, just to find everyone." Lando bent as he climbed up the ramp. The Lady Luck was a ghost of herself. Seluss was making final repairs on the computer systems.

Han scowled at him. "Can you trust him?"

"I honestly don't care," Lando said. "He'll help me get these wounded off this rock. That's all that matters. " Han nodded. The injured were already strewn around the Luck. She no longer looked like a pleasure craft, but instead like a hospital ship from the Rebellion. The moaning was terrible. Sstys without hair, Oodocs without spikes, humans without arms, made the devastation seem even more personal in here.

"I'm going to take a load out of the Run. Blue told me that the droids that exploded were meant for Coruscant."

"Blue?" Lando set the Ruurian down on a pallet near a Rodian who was missing both eyes. "But I thought-"

"She was working for someone named Kueller. From Al-mania. He wants Leia."

"Almania." Lando stood and put his hand on the small of his back as if it hurt him. "It all comes back to that, doesn't it?" Han nodded. "I guess I was bait."

"If the droids were meant for Coruscant..." Lando's voice trailed off.

Then he smiled wanly. "Tell you what, buddy. I'll do double runs here.

You do what you have to." Han squeezed Lando's shoulder. "You're a good friend, Lando. I've realized that more and more on this trip to the Run."

"I reformed, Han," Lando said softly. "There was a time when I wasn't much better than Blue." Han shook his head. "You'd never have been a part of this, Lando. Ever. She knew what those droids would do." Lando grimaced. "Karrde said things had changed here. No wonder he never wanted to come back."

"Yeah." Han started down the ramp, then stopped. "Thanks," he said.

Lando made a vain attempt at a smile. "You have it all, pal. I envy that.

"Someday, Lando," Han said.

"Someday," Lando agreed, and turned back to the Ruurian to make it more comfortable.

Han hurried out of the Luck. He hoped he still had it all. Losing Leia and the children was a threat he seemed to have to deal with constantly, and it was one he never wanted to contemplate. He knew what he would do if they were murdered, and it would be ugly.

If something happened to Leia and the children, Han would never be considered nice again.

The creature licked him.

Luke put his arms over his head as the smooth tongue washed over him, once, twice, three times. The stench was incredible, but the sensation was actually pleasant. The burning pain in his back was easing.

And he felt as if he had been wrapped in a thick, warm blanket.

He had read about such things before: creatures with anesthetic in their saliva so that the intended victim would feel no pain as it died.

Although he thought the anesthetic would also sap his will to live. It did not. He felt as if he was gaining strength.

But he couldn't move. The tongue was heavy and effectively held him down.

Then a picture grew in his mind. A little Luke cringing on the floor, holding a weapon. The pain in his hand-no, paw-and the blood. The confusion-why do these creatures constantly hurt him? - and the deep, deep loneliness. A longing for cool woods and fresh water, and sunlight.

Sunlight.

It-the Thernbee-missed sunlight.

It was psychic. The creature had psychic powers. The Thernbee had tapped into Luke's mind.

"Hey," Luke said. His voice was m.u.f.fled against the large tongue. "I need to breathe." Immediately the tongue pulled away from him. He felt a.

twinge of fear in the large creature, a hope that he wouldn't attack it again. Luke took a deep breath and held out his hand.

"I'm not holding anything." The creature tilted its head. It didn't understand him.

Luke formed a picture in his own mind: that of himself, breaking the splinters over his knee and tossing them away. Then he imagined pulling the splinter from the Thernbee's paw, and medicating the wound.

I'm sorry, Luke said. I thought you were going to hurt me.

The Thernbee sent images. Tiny people attacking it, biting it, slapping at it, screaming, poking it with sticks and flames. It would bat them away, and eventually, they would die. Its meals came so irregularly that sometimes it would have to eat the dead, a thought that made it vaguely ill. Even the meat it had eaten upset its stomach. Here it had to chew its food, which disgusted it even more. Thernbees could eat meat, but they preferred vegetation and small slithery creatures that resembled snakes. Its teeth were made for ripping branches and leaves, and pulling the slithery creatures into its mouth. It preferred to eat something large, and then not eat again for weeks. But in this place, it had only had tiny bits of food.

Its body was three times smaller than it should be.

The Thernbee was starving to death.

Slowly.

All alone in the dark.

Luke shuddered. He had no idea how long the creature had been here, but he deduced it had been a while. He stood and walked over to it, then pointed at the grates in the ceiling. He imagined the Thernbee batting the grate out with its paws.

The Thernbee stood on its hind legs, and stretched its long body. The grate was about a meter higher than its paws could reach.

It showed him all its attempts to escape, trying to get the guards, trying to use pieces of wood, trying to jump. Nothing loosened the grate.

I could, Luke thought.

The Thernbee looked quizzical again. Its eyes were round and blue and very gentle, its nose a delicate pink. Its teeth had the blunted edges of vegetarian animals.

Luke wondered how he had ever thought it dangerous.

He imagined himself on the tip of the Thernbee's paws, climbing through the bars in the grate, and releasing the Thernbee.

The creature sat on its haunches, glanced at the grate, then at Luke, and sent him a picture of himself, pulling through the bars in the grate and walking away.

It had happened before. The creature showed a few other humans doing the same thing. The images came mixed with a lot of sadness, and an unwillingness to trust again.

Luke pondered the image for a moment. Then he let his memories slide into images, showing himself working with Yoda, helping the Jawa on the Eye of Palpatine, talking to Anakin, Jacen, and Jaina in the medical center. He showed examples of his work with the students from various species, and he showed what he could of Jedi philosophy. Most of it seemed simplistic, done in imagery alone, but it apparently got the message across.

The Thernbee extended its left paw, the uninjured paw.

Without hesitating, Luke stepped on it, and began climbing. It was hard because he couldn't put any weight on his left ankle. Mostly he had to pull with his arms. He climbed to the top of the pad and grabbed the claw. The claw was about the length of his leg, and he had to wrap both arms around it to hang on tightly. The Thernbee stood on its hind legs, stretched its long body, and reached toward the grate. Luke stood, carefully leaning against the claw, and managed to grip the metal. Then he pulled himself up.

The air was clearer here. The corridor was wide and clean. The walls were made of a material he had never seen before; some sort of gray paperish substance that had small designs embellishing it. He didn't have time to look. He peered back through the grate.

The Thernbee was on its haunches again, its eyes glowing in the darkness.

Luke sent it an image of the floor above. Then he scanned the edges of the grate to see if he could pull it free.

"Actually," said a voice behind him, "you have to pull the lever. Over to your left." Luke looked. A lever extended from the floor tiles near the wall. Beside the lever stood four guards, all holding blasters on him.

They were wearing stormtrooper uniforms. The guard who had spoken had his mask off. He nodded in the other direction.

Luke turned. Seven more guards covered him from the other side.

A feeling of despair so fierce it almost knocked him over filled him. The feeling was coming from the Thernbee. Luke wanted to send it an image, warning it not to give up, but he didn't know how. Nor did he have the time to concentrate on it.

Instead, he said, "What makes you think I want the lever?" The stormtrooper shrugged. "It would make for a lot of chaos around here to free the Thernbee." That it would. Luke wished he had thought of that immediately. He could have leaped for the lever and the situation would have changed instantly. But he hadn't. He would have to fight this one alone.

"I guess I'm your prisoner again," he said. "What do you plan to do with me?" No one answered him. Luke smiled at them. "Have you ever met a Jedi Master before?" They stared at him. He used his good foot to leap across the grate, and hit the lever with his bad ankle, forcing the lever back despite the pain. As he did so, he used all his strength to pull the blasters toward him. A huge wind blew up and yanked them toward him. It sapped him, made him weak. He wondered vaguely if the same thing had happened to Vader when he had made the same move in Cloud City.

Then the grate fell open with a bang, nearly knocking over two of the guards. The blasters skidded near Luke's feet. The guards were clinging to the walls, the floor, even the edges of the grate to avoid being swept away by the wind that Luke had created.

He bent over to pick up the blasters as something large and fuzzy and white floated past his vision. The Thernbee had jumped out of its cell.

Luke let the wind die. The moment the guards landed on their feet, they were screaming and running away.

Luke grinned at the Thernbee. The creature's eyes twinkled.

"We got them that time," Luke said. He gathered up all eleven blasters, and found various ways to hook them to his clothing. "But I have a hunch that, from now on, things aren't going to be that easy."

FORTY-THREE.

The TIE fighters arrived first, zooming by with their characteristic whine. Or at least that was how Wedge imagined them.

He was standing in his command center watching the TIE fighters on three different sets of tactical computers. In the s.p.a.ce around him, he could see small blips that probably were the Star Destroyers, but he couldn't see the fighters. He wouldn't be able to unless they were right over him.

Man, he missed fighting.

"Blue Squadron has reached the TIE fighters, sir," said Ginbotham.

"Let's monitor this," Wedge said.

Instantly the crackle of the poor communications systems in the A-wings filled the command center.

"... Overhead Blue Leader."

"Copy Blue Five."

"... sending more fighters. I can't believe all these ships!"

"Keep to the pattern, Blue Ten." Wedge stared at the screen, fists clenched. He wanted to be holding the joystick, issuing the orders to attack the TIE fighters. Instead, he was coordinating. He hated it.

"... Green Eight, watch your back."

"I see him."

"Move three point one, Green Eight. I'll get him."

"Copy."

"I've got him. I-" Static.

The blip on the screen that marked Green Six was gone. There were suddenly dozens of TIE fighters all around.

"They're going to get slaughtered out there," Sela said. "We need reinforcements."

"Not yet," Wedge said. "We don't know how many ships they have."

"They can't have a lot. We never heard about the Empire storing that many ships." Her comment bothered him. All around, the voices continued.

"... lost tactical, Yellow Leader. Am returning to base."

"Copy, Yellow Two."

"Green Leader, eight more TIE fighters bearing five point three."

"I've got them..." Two TIE blips disappeared off his map, followed by three of his own ships. Wedge frowned.

"... beneath you, Blue Eight. I'll get him."

"It's too late-" The voice disappeared in a scream that ended in more static.

"... bearing down one point eight. I count six more launching."