"Only question is, what brought it down?"

"Caluula Orbital. What else?"

Kyp regarded the coralskipper.

"No signs of laserfire from batteries or starfighter cannons."

Han's forehead wrinkled.

"Can't be."

He ducked down to appraise what he could of the underside, then stood up.

"Must have caught a bolt straight through the canopy."

"No signs of that either," Sa.s.so said, jumping down to the ground.

Han looked at Kyp.

"Could have been stunned by an ion cannon..." He let his words trail off when he realized the impossibility of it. "No craft comes down the gravity well at terminal velocity and ends up looking like this one."

Kyp nodded in agreement.

"From the way the trees are sheared off and the depth of the initial impact crater, the skip couldn't have been higher than three hundred meters."

"A patrol craft," Sa.s.so said. "That would explain why there's no heat damage."

Han turned to the Rodian.

"Could one of your people have shot it down? Someone in the resistance?"

Sa.s.so shook his head.

"We don't have the weapons for that."

Wraw leapt down from the c.o.c.kpit.

"So what happened, it suffered heart failure?"

Han made his lips a thin line and shrugged.

"Maybe with the Yuuzhan Vong devoting almost everything they have to the armada, they've exiled their shoddiest biots and least experienced warriors to worlds like Caluula." He laughed ruefully. "They're in even worse shape than we are."

"No," Kyp said. "Only here are they in worse shape."

Leia listened to them trying to convince themselves that there was a reasonable explanation for the crashed craft and the inept warriors they had ambushed. But, in fact, lack of genuine explanations had everyone on edge. Worried that the team was under surveillance, no one had slept the previous night. In the morning they had made a decision to abandon the trail and bushwhack through the thick forest, in the hope of avoiding detection. That they hadn't seen any reconnaissance biots or evidence of foot patrols had only added to the suspicion that they were being led into a trap. Then their purposefully meandering path had brought them to the coralskipper.

"You know what could have happened," Han was saying. "The yammosk could have steered it wrong."

"I can see that," Sa.s.so said. "I can even see that a crash like this could take out the pilot and the dovin basal. But why would the cognition hood die? Do the hoods feed off the basals?" He stared at the coralskipper. "I've spent more time trying to avoid them than study them."

"Our daughter could explain it," Han said. "She's actually piloted a vessel like this."

Jaina! A sense of deep concern flooded through Leia. But before she could begin to make sense of it, Han was yelling something at Wraw. Leia saw that the Bothan had clambered back to the c.o.c.kpit and was making sketches of the interior.

"Something to show the grandchildren,"

Wraw said when Han demanded to know what he was doing.

"Grandchildren? You'll be lucky to even have kids of your own."

Wraw closed the sketch pad.

"If I do, I know I'll have sense enough to keep them out of the war."

Han advanced on the Bothan with menacing familiarity.

"I'm going to have to teach you the ways of the world before this is over."

Leia could see that Kyp was ready to step between them, but the confrontation went no further.

"He's Corellian," Kyp said quietly to Wraw while Han was walking away. "They don't make idle threats."

Wraw only sn.i.g.g.e.red. Sa.s.so left to find Meloque, Page, and Ferfer.

Han, Leia, and Kyp were gathering the timbus when Han said, "You realize we're being reeled in." Kyp nodded. "It's probably been that way from the beginning. But that doesn't mean we still can't pull this mission off. We just have to watch our backs."

"Speaking of which, did Intelligence run backgrounds on Sa.s.so and Ferfer?"

"You'd have to check with Wraw. I do know that both of them joined the resistance before the Yuuzhan Vong showed up in the Caluula system.

Sa.s.so even served on Caluula Orbital for a while."

"So at least we're not being sold to the Vong."

"As far as I can tell."

Sa.s.so's whistled signal wafted into the clearing, and several moments later he, Page, the Ryn, and Meloque stepped from the trees. In her sucker-tipped hands the Ho'Din cradled a dozen or so insects, delicately winged and equipped with large bioluminescent eyespots. She set them on the ground, then sat down beside them.

"They're dead," she announced in an anguished tone. "The entire forest is littered with bodies. In most cases they died inside their sh.e.l.ls. Others appear to have died in flight."

"All of them?" Leia asked, nonplussed.

Meloque shook her head.

"But the survivors are moving very lethargically." She gazed at Leia and the others. "Something terrible has happened here."

Han and Kyp traded dark glances.

"Let's get moving," Page told everyone.

Several hours of mostly downhill trudging brought Team Meloque to a low ridge that overlooked the southern portion of Caluula City, and the prominent hivelike Yuuzhan Vong minshal that harbored the yammosk.

"There are three entrances," Sa.s.so explained from the spot of cover the team found. "Two in the front, and one on the east side. All of them are dilating membranes that can be pierced by blaster bolts. Guards are stationed at each, usually three or four at any given time. They stand long shifts, so it would be to our advantage to strike at sundown, just when the afternoon shift is ending. The garrison is made up of about seventy-five warriors. There's also a commander, his subalterns, at least one priest, and one of those long-tressed technicians-"

"A shaper," Leia said.

The Rodian nodded.

"As for the yammosk, I don't know how to kill it. But I'm guessing you have some idea."

"Leave that to me," Kyp said.

"It's important that we take out their villip communications while we're at it," Page added.

Leia gazed out over the flat rooftops of the simple city. Judging by the position of the sun, the team was in for a long wait. Ferfer volunteered to find a place to conceal the timbus. He rose, but had scarcely moved off when a gurgling exclamation of surprise rang from just inside the tree line. Everyone whirled at once to see the Ryn staggering toward them, his belly opened like a ripe fruit. Behind him emerged four relatively short and dark-complected Yuuzhan Vong warriors. Han shot Leia the briefest of astonished looks and drew his blaster. Page did the same with his rifle, but he hadn't even lifted it to firing position when it was whipped from his grip by one of the longest amphistaffs Leia had seen, and hurled through the air like a twig. Sa.s.so was already charging the enemy wielding the amphistaff, but he didn't get three meters when the warrior leapt over him and, on landing, whirled and thrust a coufee deep into the Rodian's back.

Kyp and Leia ignited their lightsabers at the same instant.

Continuous fire from Han and Wraw had driven two of the warriors to the ground, but neither had been hit. Kyp raced for the nearest one, catching the warrior across the chest with a powerful upswing of his blade. The Yuuzhan Vong growled and rolled, but his dark, unarmored flesh showed only a shallow bloodless furrow. Kyp whirled and brought the blade down like an ax. Evading the strike, the warrior rose to one knee and unfurled his amphistaff.

The serpentlike creature elongated and wrapped itself around the hilt of the lightsaber. But Kyp wasn't about to surrender his weapon. In a virtual tug-of-war with the creature, he spun and backflipped, but to little effect. At the same time, a second amphistaff la.s.soed him around the waist and arms and yanked him roughly to the ground. Han put three bolts into the second warrior, driving him two steps backward with each, but without killing him or persuading the amphistaff to loosen its constricting hold on Kyp. Han yelled for Wraw's help, but in a glance saw that the Bothan was trying desperately to keep the other pair of warriors from grabbing Page.

Without really thinking about it, Leia judged that Han and Kyp were in greater jeopardy. Holding her blade at her right hip and pointed slightly downward, she moved against the warrior whose amphistaff was flinging Kyp from side to side. Han felt rather than saw Leia race past him.

"Leia!" he screamed, firing constantly while he rushed to catch up with her.

A quartet of bolts holed the warrior Leia had targeted. But at once, the other warrior commanded his amphistaff to withdraw from the pommel of Kyp's lightsaber and fly toward Leia. Seeing what was coming, Han dived forward in a frantic attempt to place himself between Leia and the attenuating weapon. Leia watched in horror as the amphistaff struck Han solidly in the neck-and not merely with its rounded head. The jaws of the living weapon gaped, and it sank two long fangs into Han's flesh.

Han landed hard on his side, but quickly got to his knees. He managed to squeeze off three more bolts before the blaster slipped from his trembling hand. He slumped backward on his heels in shock, then tipped to one side, his body curling inward, with his shaking hands close to his chest. Kyp raced forward, only to be set upon by three of the warriors. Leia's mouth fell open in a silent scream.

She dropped the lightsaber and ran to Han. Gazing in horror at the twin punctures in his neck, she vised his spasming right hand between hers.

"Han," she cried. "Han!"

Meloque was suddenly by her side, lifting Han's head from the ground. His face was a bloodless mask of pain and sorrow.

"I k-knew from the s-s-start this wasn't my war," he stammered.

Twin rivulets of blood coursed from the wounds in his neck.

"Han!" Leia said, wide-eyed with terror. She looked up at the advancing warriors, two of whom had a tight hold on Kyp, almost as if expecting them to come to Han's aid. Instead one of them dragged her and Meloque to their feet.

"No, no," Leia said, shaking her head back and forth.

Han extended his hand to her, but the warrior kicked it aside.

Han's eyes rolled up, his eyelids fluttered, and his body went limp.

"No!" she screamed as the warriors were hauling her away.

"Casualty a.s.sessment of the first engagement, Warmaster," Supreme Commander Loiric Kaan said, gesturing to a wall niche in the command chamber of Yammka's Mount.

Nas Choka turned from the observation transparency to study the commotion of blaze bugs.

"Acceptable," he p.r.o.nounced after a moment.

"A clever use of machines," Loiric Kaan remarked.

The warmaster's finely haired upper lip curled and he glowered at his Supreme Commander.

"Another act of cowardice. Stop thinking in terms of the weapons our enemy employ, and concentrate on how they fight. Think of the machines as living beings if it will help you view the matter with more clarity."

Loiric Kaan bowed his head.

"Warmaster."

Nas Choka moved to the blaze bug niche that displayed the disposition of the enemy battle groups.

"They seek to spare the new capital," Loiric Kaan said, "but they cannot save it now."

Nas Choka beckoned to one of his subalterns.

"Escort Supreme Commander Loiric Kaan from the command chamber. If this war could be won by words of confidence, we would have already vanquished them." The warmaster kept his back turned to Kaan while he was being led to the chamber's iris membrane.

"The number of ships is significantly lower than calculated," the chief tactician said when the membrane had resealed itself.

"Of course," Nas Choka said. "Trusting to the effectiveness of their deceptions, they decided to keep additional ships in reserve to execute their secondary objectives."

"Starfighter wings forming up for strikes," a subaltern reported.

Nas Choka sniffed.

"Like a swarm of insects that can't be outdistanced or repelled.

The pests can, however, be eradicated." He turned to the female stationed at the villip-choir. "Order Domains Vang and Pekeen to spray the contaminated areas. Then command the yammosks to spruce up our formations with auxiliary coralskippers-"

The warmaster and the chief tactician swung to the transparency to see brilliant plumes of plasma discharge omnidirectionally from the core.

Dozens of the small fighters disappeared, and as many others were shocked into submission.

"Again," Nas Choka ordered.

A second torrent of molten death poured from the war vessels, obliterating yet more starfighters.

"Now, a.s.sign yorik-akaga and yorik-vec to the rear. Let mataloks serve as our spearhead."

The subaltern snapped his fists to his shoulders in salute.