"Han Solo's ship?"

"Yes, sir." Kueller smiled. The boy took a step backward. "Well, Sinewy Ana Blue did her job, even if she is a bit late. Double her credit account as promised." The boy looked at him oddly. "Yes, sir." Solo was here. He didn't really need him anymore because Organa Solo was already on the planet, but Kueller would take what he could. Solo was a vigorous defender of family and friends, and once Kueller was done with Solo's wife and brother-in-law, he would go after Solo's children. It would be a lot easier to do that with Solo gone.

"Yanne!" Kueller yelled.

Yanne looked up from his post near the tactical display. "Milord?"

"We have guests in the outer rim of our sector of s.p.a.ce. Veer off a destroyer and get rid of them, will you?"

"Sir, we've got the New Republic fleet in a perfect pincer movement. If we veer off ships now, we run the risk of losing all of them." Kueller shrugged. "Do as you see fit. But don't let those two new ships leave. I want them destroyed." Yanne frowned. "Yes, sir."

"And Yanne."

"Yes, sir?"

"Until I return, you are in charge of all of this." Kueller smiled. "And remember. I dislike failure." Yanne put a hand to his throat. "I'm not likely to forget, sir."

"Good." Kueller left the command center. It had fatigued him to be inside. That sense of failure followed him. Yanne had tracked down the feelings Kueller had gotten after giving the orders. The droids had been destroyed on Smuggler's Run. The stolen droids. But the regular ones had not. Which meant that someone had discovered the detonators and deactivated them.

Brakiss?

Kueller shook his head. He would have sensed the betrayal. No. It had come from a source he hadn't suspected, hadn't even known existed.

Someone on Coruscant must have discovered the droids.

He should have thought of that.

But no matter. The government on Coruscant was self-focused. They wouldn't think to warn all the governments in all the sectors. And Brakiss had outfitted all new droids with the detonators-had done so now for nearly two years. That would be enough to put terror in the hearts of the entire galaxy.

Kueller would do that shortly. First he would guarantee he had all the power he needed.

It was time to take care of Skywalker and his sister.

Kueller had sensed the disturbance in the Force when Organa Solo landed on the planet. His own private monitor had shown her ship landing near the towers, and he had felt Skywalker's valiant attempt to drive off his guards. Kueller had ordered that there be no reinforcements.

He wanted them for himself.

The tower wasn't far from here.

With Skywalker weakened, and Organa Solo untrained, Kueller would have the advantage.

He gripped his lightsaber in his right hand. An advantage did not guarantee a win. He would have to have some backup.

Skywalker and Organa Solo would not leave Almania alive.

FORTY-SEVEN.

As Brakiss and his droids marched Cole deep into the factory, Cole's mother's angry description of him ran through his head like a mantra: impetuous, stubborn, impulsive. She had said those words to him when he wanted to go to the Jedi academy, when he went to work in Anchorhead, and when he left Tatooine. She had said his desire to be a hero would get him in trouble one day.

She was right.

Even though her words ran like background music through his brain, his conscious mind was examining the possibilities. Brakiss had him at blaster-point. The a.s.sa.s.sin droids also had their weaponry out, and up ahead, he saw old-style Imperial gladiator droids.

Cole was alone, with one rather flaky protocol droid and one savvy R2 unit, both of whom were, at the moment, not available to help.

Maybe by now, Mon Mothma or Admiral Ackbar might know where he was, but there was no guarantee that they'd care.

Impetuous, stubborn, impulsive.

Might as well add stupid to the list. His faith in R2 was so great that he had somehow thought the little droid would have things under control.

Strike that.

His faith in himself hadn't allowed him to think of this possibility. He had thought that a hero only needed to be on the right side in order to win.

The floor sloped downward, and all the signs had disappeared. The walls were unfinished, and the glow panels above were bare-something he had never seen before. They gave a starkness to the scene, a bleakness that matched what he was feeling inside.

Of course Brakiss knew about the detonators. He'd put them there. And he seemed to have the same sort of charisma that Leia Organa Solo had, something that Cole was beginning to understand came from the Force.

He was letting them take him far from the freighter, but he saw no other choice. He had to give R2 time to work, to do whatever he thought he could do here.

Finally they reached a large steel door. Brakiss keyed in a code, and the door hissed open. Cole tried to take a step back, but Brakiss placed a hand against Cole's back.

The room was large and smelled of ozone and burning metal. Sparks flew as droids screamed. Large zaps and zots filled the air, followed by more cries from artificial voices. This was a droid torture chamber. Cole had heard of them but had not believed in them.

It took a particularly s.a.d.i.s.tic mind to determine effective ways to torture creatures that could not feel pain.

But Cole could.

The steel on the door had double reinforcements, and so did the walls. A thin droid made from unfinished metal chuckled when she saw him.

"A human for you, Eve," Brakiss said. "See what you can do with him. I want to know why he's really here, so don't kill him."

"Deal with him yourself," the droid said in an hypnotic female voice. "I hate easy targets."

"Hurting him is easy. Keeping him alive is hard, and keeping him sane will be even harder. I trust your devious mind can find ways to do both."

The droid walked toward Cole on thin legs. She tilted her head and peered into his face. Her eyes were gold slits, and her metal smelled of blaster scorches.

"I am Eve-Ninedeninetwo. I have headed cyborg operations and retraining at this facility since my prototype, Eve-Ninedenine, was purchased by a Tatooine crime lord. I am said to be twice as ruthless as she. I tell you this as a warning, and with the thought that you might want to confess whatever it is my master wishes to know now, before I discover the limits of human pain." In spite of himself, Cole shuddered. So far, though, he didn't see any R2 units in here, nor did he see 3PO. "I told your master why I'm here." He glanced at Brakiss, whose eyes glittered as cruelly as the droid's did. "I found some detonators in some droids that came from this facility, and I thought he might want to know about it."

"An altruist," Brakiss said dryly. "Who conveniently forgets that he sent his droids out into the nether reaches of my facility." Eve rubbed her clawlike hands together. "I would prefer to have the droids." That confirmed, at least, that they hadn't caught 3PO or R2 so far.

"I didn't see the signs," Cole said.

"This story has its limitations, Fardreamer," Brakiss said. He was standing alone in the doorway. The a.s.sa.s.sin droids remained in the hall.

"Tell me how useful you are to Skywalker, and I might let you go." Cole shrugged. "I'm just his mechanic."

"A man who can go off on his own, with some of the most important droids in the galaxy? Skywalker must trust his servants, then." A boxy droid with a cylindrical head was having its feet heated and reshaped. The droid's scream was a high-pitched whistle that eeped intermittently. Off in a side room, there was a loud splash, accompanied by a droid begging in unmodulated mechanical tones.

"No," Cole said. "He just expects us to have initiative."

"I see," Brakiss said. "And no one else could have come here? No one else could have sent a message to me?"

"I thought the matter rather delicate," Cole said. "It wouldn't do to broadcast that droids all over the galaxy weren't safe."

"No, it wouldn't do at all," Brakiss said. He shoved Cole toward Eve. Her claws grabbed his arms so tightly that it cut off the circulation.

"Remember," Brakiss said. "Alive, and sane."

"I won't forget," she said.

The a.s.sa.s.sin droids had disappeared. This had to be quite the terrifying place, even for droids.

He would only get one chance. "Did you know," he said to Eve in a husky, satisfied voice, "that you have your claws wrapped around my pleasure centers? " She swiveled her head in startlement.

"No," Brakiss said, but it was already too late. She had loosened her grip.

Cole pulled his arms free, and ran for the door. He b.u.mped Brakiss as he did so, and grabbed Brakiss's blaster.

The a.s.sa.s.sin droids outside were gone as if they had never been. If he could only remember-A bolt of electricity wrapped itself around him, sending a tingly jolting feeling through him. His body jerked, and flailed, and jerked, and his breath locked in his throat. His eyes were bugging out of his head, and he couldn't breathe..

... couldn't...

... breathe...

- and then the bolt released him. He fell to the floor, flopping like a fish, wishing he could stop, but completely unable to. Finally his muscles stopped jerking and he lay still, his muscles as useless as water.

Brakiss kicked him, turning him over. There was no one else near him. Eve remained in her torture chamber, in the same position she had been in before. Cole saw no stun equipment, nothing that could have caused that thoroughly unpleasant experience.

"Don't cross me again, boy," Brakiss said. "I could easily torture you myself, but I don't have the time to waste."

"You did that?" Cole asked, even though it came through his immobile mouth sounding like "eww ii aa?"

"Your friend Skywalker frowns on such use of the Force, but I find it helpful. Now cooperate with me, Fardreamer, and I'll let you "Can't,"

Cole said. It came out as "aae." He couldn't even talk, couldn't even defend himself.

"I'll leave you to Eve for the time being. If at any time you change your mind about your story, just let her know. She'll contact me." He stepped over Cole and walked down the hallway. Little tremors ran through Cole's body. He had no control at all. Eve stepped over him, bent down, and gripped his ankle in her claw. He couldn't even kick at her.

She dragged him by the leg back into the torture chamber. Then she lifted him as if he weighed nothing and threw him on a tilted, ribbed piece of metal. It reclined slightly. Above him were dozens of drills, saws, and welders. He recognized all of them, and knew most of them were built for metal equipment.

Eve seemed to smile as she bent over him. "This is your last chance, human." But his mouth didn't work. He couldn't confess, even if he wanted to.

Luke rested for a moment beside Leia. A lesser man would have been dead by now. She was amazed that he could keep going.

"We have to get out of here," she said.

"I know." He spoke softly.

But he seemed to be waiting for something. She hoped that something wasn't Kueller.

She put her arm around Luke's waist, careful to avoid the wounds on his back, and pulled him to his feet. Then she slung his arm over her shoulder, taking his weight off his ankle, and together they walked toward the hangar.

Just as a familiar double tone warned her that the Alderaan's self-destruct had just kicked in.

"We've got trouble," she whispered.

Luke gathered strength from somewhere and stood without her help. He pulled out two blasters. So did she. Then she crept in the shadows toward her ship.

A triple tone sounded. When the ship reached five tones, it would explode. Her throat was dry. The Alderaan was their only way off this empty husk of a planet.

She peered into the hangar, and saw no one. Footprints obscured her own near the Alderaan, half a dozen footprints, maybe more. A blaster scorch on the door told her what had happened.

Where were they now?

"You see anyone, Luke?" He shook his head. He looked distracted, as if he were hearing faraway music. She had seen that look before, when he had lost his hand below Cloud City. She had never known if the look meant that he was in great pain or if it came when he was listening to something inside his head.

That time he had been feeling Vader's presence.

Did he feel Kueller now?

Four tones chimed from the Alderaan. It was now or never. Either she saved her ship or she saved herself.

She ran into the bay, both blasters out, and launched herself at the Alderaan. Her ship scanned her handprint, her retina, and her voice as she spoke the internal code. The door swung open just as the five-tone chime began.

And stopped.

Her heart was pounding. No one had shot at her. Whoever had disturbed the Alderaan had touched it, and left when the auto-destruct had started.

She opened the internal control panel near the door and shut off the auto-destruct.

Then she leaned her head out the door, and shouted, "Luke!" But he didn't respond. She couldn't see him in the shadows in the bay.

"Luke! Now!" Still nothing. Had he collapsed out there?

She would have to go back and get him.

She stepped out the door when she heard the hiss of a lightsaber. She tapped her belt. She wore hers. Luke hadn't been wearing one.

Her heart pounded harder. There was only one other person adept in the Force on Almania.