Benb the technician stood nearby with both hands gripping a rail, staring into mid-distance and occasionally glancing at the chrono. It was an awfully long time for a few minutes. Pellaeon caught his eye.

"I won't insist on a union card," he muttered.

"One standard minute," Baradis called. "Stand by, Propulsion."

And maybe we'll end up a few hundred light-years Core-ward.

"Thirty seconds."

I'm glad it was Leveler that got the call, though, Hallena.

"Twenty ..."

I should be out of my mind with worry. I'm not. Don't I care enough?

"Ten . . ."

Worry doesn't help. Problem solving does. Get a grip. Keep on top of it. That's the only way.

"Five ..."

And n.o.body could spare a ship to back us up?

"Four."

Get used to it. We were never ready for this war.

"Three."

Except the clone army, of course.

"Two."

Dirty politics. Or maybe the Jedi sensed what was coming, and got ready. But for whose benefit?

"Disengage!"

Pellaeon's speculation ended abruptly as the visible starscape snapped back into normal points of light and the hairs on the back on his neck tingled. Normal s.p.a.ce. Reals.p.a.ce. Where?

The swirled green disk of JanFathal filled the far right section of the bridge viewport. Ash bounced up and down on the spot for a moment like an excited teenager, grinning from ear to ear. She was an excited teenager. She was also in the middle of a war. Pellaeon had just enough time to give her an approving thumbs-up and switch the ship's comms to pick up Skywalker's and Rex's channel before Derel reminded them exactly what they'd jumped back into.

"Enemy contacts, range four thousand klicks, close to JanFathal, two vessels in pursuit of a CR-twenty, four more Sep vessels changing course." The clone warfare officer paused to check the monitors as bridge teams prepared to direct the turbolaser batteries. "Turbolasers one, three, five..."

"LEVELER, that'd be us," said Skywalker's voice over the corn-link. "The CR-twenty. Two Seps on our tail and a serious casu-alty inbound. Ignore your transponder codes. Repeat, ignore your transponder codes."

"General, we're back to basics," Pellaeon said. "Manual targeting. Thanks for the heads-up. Can you outrun them? Can you jump?"

"Jump, yes. Outrun-maybe. But this is their vessel- they're all networked because of the droid command system. They can see the jump points we lay in."

"Think you can land it on the hangar deck?"

"If you've room ..."

Pellaeon gestured to Rumahn. "Clear the hangar deck, Number One. General-you're going to have to follow our lead. We'll close the gap but you're going to have to do some sharp flying to stay out of the firing line when we engage the two ships pursuing you."

"Copy that, Captain. Just make sure the bay doors are open wide, and we'll do the rest."

Jedi were very confident pilots. Sometimes Pellaeon wondered if they had delusions of immortality. He put the question of who the serious casualty might be to the back of his mind because it would only get in the way of what he needed to do now. The ship was back in the hands of ordinary flesh and blood, crew who knew their tasks and how to carry them out even with essential systems crippled, but it had been handy to have some Jedi help with the nav computer, and they'd need it again very soon when they jumped clear of the system.

"Damage-control parties, medbay team, stand by on hangar deck." Rumahn's knuckles were white as he gripped the comlink held close to his mouth. If a vessel that big hit the deck wrong, then the damage could be catastrophic. "Deck crew, prep for emergency landing." .

"Baradis," said Pellaeon, "take us in, please. Derel-engage enemy vessels at will. Jedi Jarvee, Propulsion-stand by to get us out of here as soon as the transport's inboard and the bay is secure."

Leveler began her attack run. It wasn't the textbook way to stage a rescue, and Pellaeon could have done with those concus-sion missiles about now. As learning curves went-this was an ice-covered vertical mountain on Hoth, minus ropes.

Pellaeon hovered on the verge of saying something inspirational and suitably go-get-'em, but it didn't seem quite fitting. There was no inherent glory in getting killed. But there was a lot of sense for a malfunctioning ship to survive to fight another day.

Pity the concussion missiles aren't online.

On the sensor screen-glitches or not-he could see the more distant Sep ships heading his way. Leveler bore down on the two vessels harrying the CR-20, devouring the distance so quickly that the flashes of cannon fire were now visible with the naked eye against the darkened limb of the planet. Either the Seps lacked a certain skill in firing solutions or Skywalker was a prodigious pilot when it came to evasion. Pellaeon suspected the latter.

"You've come a long way since Geonosis," Pellaeon said, almost to himself, and then remembered that none of the Jedi on his bridge had actually fought in the very first days of the conflict.

Did they feel it was their war now? He resolved never to see the Jedi Order as one seamless and tidy bloc under Yoda again. It was simply the public face of something far more complex that he might never understand-the paramilitary wing, perhaps the most organized faction of something that had all kinds of splinter groups he didn't even know existed. He'd heard that there were even Jedi opposed to the Republic who thought it was their duty to bring it down and refuse to be its enforcers.

They were a strange bunch. He had a feeling that they were going to play a much bigger role in his life now, and that it wouldn't always be a happy one.

"Your beloved will be fine," said the pleasant young man who'd explained the computer-meld so vividly. He'd sensed Pel-laeon's uneasiness but interpreted it as something else entirely. "I feel that certainty in the Force."

"What else do you feel in the Force?" Pellaeon asked.

The young man smiled. "That we're going to kick their b.u.t.ts, Captain."

COMMAND DECK, CR-20 TROOPSHIP, INBOUND FOR LEVELER.

Another cannon round rocked the troopship, making the hull boom and vibrate.

Joc and Hallena tried to hold Ince steady as Callista and Hil worked on his shattered leg. It was hard trying to do that while keeping his legs elevated to help circulation. He'd lost a lot of blood; his heart would be struggling to keep it pumping, and keeping his head lower than his legs gave him a better chance.

"Is he warm enough?" Coric kept chipping in with suggestions. They all knew emergency first aid, it seemed, and not being able to apply it appeared to be driving them nuts. "Hypovolemic shock. You need to keep him warm."

The other clones squatted nearby, visibly frustrated, with their helmets on the deck, leaning on them one-handed. They re-minded Hallena of a smashball team, all very young, earnest, and fit. Even Coric looked too young to her. Then they all put their helmets back on and just waited.

They're talking among themselves. That's what they're doing, talking on their private comm circuit.

Hallena couldn't find it in herself to feel excluded from the conversation. She just felt oddly guilty.

"Joc, did I hear right?" she said quietly. "You're only just out of basic training?"

"Yeah." He didn't look up. He was focused on Ince. "Not quite two weeks."

She didn't know what else to say. She wasn't sure if she'd get a chance later.

"Find me some more wadding," Callista said to n.o.body in particular. "Anything clean and absorbent."

There was nothing by way of med supplies on board because droids didn't need them, and they definitely didn't need pain-killers. If the Neimoidian pilots kept first-aid kits for organics, Hallena hadn't been able to find any.

Boom. The CR-20 shook again. Ince was unconscious. At least that solved the problem of keeping him topped up with a.n.a.lgesics.

"I think they gave up on taking us alive," Ahsoka said. She obviously didn't like standing around doing nothing in a crisis- even though standing was the last thing even a Jedi seemed able to do with the troop cruiser jinking and looping to evade enemy fire. "Masters, do you mind if I take the other cannon? Rex can't cover all the angles."

Hallena paused and looked up. She could see Altis with both hands on the controls, shoulders hunched, but-in the reflection of the viewscreen-both eyes tight shut. She really didn't want to look at Skywalker in case he had his eyes shut, too. That was too much to handle.

I don't know what they're doing when they go into that trance stuff. At least, I hope that's what the old guy is doing . . .

"Knock yourself out, Snips," Skywalker said.

Ahsoka scrambled up through a hatch, and a few moments later the booming discharge of the cannon on one side of the ship was matched by identical noise from the other. A child was pounding the Nine Corellian h.e.l.ls out of two enemy warships. That child was older than the visibly battle-weary soldier firing out of the other turret.

And that's this war in a nutsh.e.l.l. What's going on here?

Wondering wasn't going to help Ince. She emptied out the contents of the clones' medpacs on the deck and rummaged through the various sealed flimsiplasbags, looking for anything sterile to pack into the wound. Ince had lost a fist-sized chunk of thigh just above the knee, and the area around it was shredded.

"Gunnery wasn't part of my basic weapons training," she said to Callista.

"Mine either." Callista seemed pretty adept at first aid and unfazed by the blood that had soaked into her sleeves. She looked up a few moments before Geith appeared in the hatchway, even before Hallena heard his boots tapping on the metal deck, as if she'd sensed he was coming. "Found anything?"

Geith held out a bundle of cream-colored rag that might have been a dust sheet of some kind. "Not sterile, but we can deal with any infection later."

"He won't have to worry about bugs if we can't stop this bleeding."

"Can't you do some Jedi stuff?" Hallena asked. "You can smash droids to shrapnel, but you can't hold this kid together?"

"What do you think I'm doing?" Callista looked agitated. No, Hallena was never going to come to terms with beings who could alter the physical world without touching it. "He's already lost a lot of blood. He needs more pumped in."

"Hey, if we're a compatible group, I've got blood to spare," Hallena said, gesturing with one arm. "Got any large-bore sharps? We can do an emergency intravenous. I've seen it done."

Hil nodded, eyes still on what he was doing-trying to compress the smaller blood vessels. "Yes, but no tubing."

"Well, the sooner we get on board Leveler, the better." Hallena was on the verge of ripping out some hydraulic line, but there was no way of cleaning it. "Better hope the Force is with him, yes?"

Boom. The hull shook again. How much longer was this going to take? Ross came and knelt down beside her, taking off his helmet again.

"I'll take over," he said.

It was a polite hint to get lost and let him take care of his buddy. She could understand that. She didn't want to take her eyes off Ince, either, because Vere was already dead thanks to her, and she didn't want two way-too-young men dying because she couldn't do her job-to get in, do the job, and get out without needing the whole stanging fleet to come to her rescue. She knew what everyone thought of spooks; the very name said it all. Shadowy, cold, not like normal beings, casual in the dispensing of death, at ease with the dirtiest of tricks. No, she didn't feel like that at all. She had no problem killing when she had to because it really was often a case of kill or die, but that didn't mean she took it lightly or had lost all sense of what she left behind in her wake.

Shil. Merish. Varti. Who knows what they went through in their lives. And I show up to help keep barves like the Regent in power. And the three of them are dead. Is that the kind of galaxy I want to live in?

It wasn't. And that was a sickening thought.

Ince made another incoherent sound or two. He wasn't unconscious, then. Callista and Hil were getting quieter and more intensely engrossed in the battle to save him, their heads almost touching as they leaned over his body.

"His pulse is thready," Callista said.

"Stang, he's cold."

"Geith, is it safe to give him epinephrine? That helps heart output, yes?"

"I don't know. I just don't know if that'll make matters worse."

Boro cut in. "But you can feel his . . . life, can't you? I mean, Jedi can feel the life force. Is he going to make it?"

"I'm doing everything I can," Callista said. "Geith, just concentrate on constricting blood vessels. Visualize the smallest ones closing. Try to keep his blood pressure up."

It was the first time Hallena began to understand how Jedi dealt with things-Callista, anyway. She seemed very practical, not remotely mystic, just a regular woman who saw the physical world as Hallena did, except that she could touch it with thought, and even move it.

"Got it?" Callista said.

Geith had his eyes shut. "I think so."

"Bleeding's slowing a bit," said Hil.

The deck now looked like an operating theater, covered with small piles of blood-soaked material. Neither Skywalker nor Altis turned around to look over the back of their seats; they were locked in their own struggle, steering this unfamiliar ship through a pursuing barrage of cannon fire while Leveler raced head-on to meet them. Hallena braced her back against the bulkhead that ran across the width of the ship and looked straight ahead.

Yes, Leveler was rushing at them head-on.

The warship was a definite arrowhead of light now, growing by the second. Brilliant streaks of laserfire seemed to be streak-ing out to meet her as the pursuing ships missed the CR-20 and the cannon rounds went wide of its hull.

Hallena didn't know that much about fleet combat tactics, but she knew about arcs of fire and muzzle awareness. The CR-20 was almost sandwiched between the pursuing Seps and Leveler. If Leveler opened fire ...

Gil knows what he's doing. So does this Skywalker guy.

"It'll be fine-don't worry," Altis said suddenly.

His head was still bent over. Hallena had no idea if he was just making generally comforting noises or if he could sense her and her anxiety. She would have preferred the former.

"Master, if you could concentrate on deflection from the port side ..." Skywalker muttered.

No, she preferred the latter. Altis could be as otherworldly and magical as he liked as long as he could get cannon fire to skid off the hull. That was what he was doing, then; why didn't every warship deploy with a Jedi? It would save a heap of prob-lems.

There probably weren't enough of them to go around.

"Skywalker." A voice emerged from the open comm. It wasn't Gil. "Skywalker, this is Leveler. You're closing fast now. Are you ready? When you get to five hundred meters, just dip underneath us. Just dip, okay? When you clear our stern, come about, align with the bay doors, and land any way you can."

Easy enough for you to say. Five hundred meters. That's nose-to-nose in s.p.a.ce terms at these speeds.