The Nightsisters pa.s.sed in the narrow corridor, and one woman's black skirts slapped against Teneniel's. And then they were past.

The Nightsisters stopped, and Luke could feel Teneniel's fear, could feel how she wanted to run.

"Halt! You there!" a Nightsister shouted at their backs, her voice dry and crackling like rotted leather. As one the group stopped. The Nightsister demanded, "What were you doing so late at the prison?"

Han turned, answered through his helmet microphone. "Trouble in cell block C."

The Nightsister nodded her head thoughtfully, began to turn away, but looked back at them. "What trouble? Why wasn't I notified?"

"A minor scuffle between inmates," Han said. "We did not wish to disturb you."

The Nightsister pulled her hood back, and in the brilliant lights, Luke was struck with horror. Her white hair was unkempt and matted. Her bloodshot eyes were a vivid crimson. But most horrible was her face?a purplish monstrosity from ruptured blood vessels, gray and dead in the cheekbones.

"I feel your fear," the Nightsister said. "What would a Nightsister have to fear here?in our domain?"

"With so many guards gone, there are rumors of an impending riot," Han said, stepping forward, inserting himself between Teneniel and the Nightsisters. "I'm afraid there may be some truth to those rumors."

The Nightsister nodded thoughtfully. Luke could feel her trying to probe them, and he almost pulled his blaster. Instead, he channeled the Force, let it flow into the witch, quiet her suspicions. "I will pay a visit to block C. My presence should cow the rabble," she said. "Thank you for alerting me."

Han nodded, and the Nightsister turned, pulled up her hood and proceeded to the elevator.

Han led the way into the gla.s.s tower. He opened a door and marched them through some kind of common room.

A dozen Nightsisters dressed in black robes lounged on plush couches in a circle, engrossed in the spectacle of watching ghostly floating images of beautiful men and women. The Nightsisters sat snacking on exotic foods, and did not even seem to notice them pa.s.s.

Han led them to an elevator, and as the door closed, Teneniel nearly collapsed. "The Nightsister we pa.s.sed," she said. "That was Gethzerion. I was sure she'd recognize me." She swallowed a deep breath.

Luke stood looking at the elevator door, and suddenly he felt as if he were very high in the air, looking down at Dathomir below, and all of it was black. All of it was frozen. Every bit of it. Everyone, everything was dead. He closed his eyes, tried to rest for a moment, thinking that perhaps his fatigue was affecting his vision, but the blackness remained, and a tremendous sense of despair and urgency filled him. He stared into the blackness, knowing it for what it was: A vision of the future.

"What?" Leia said, turning to Luke. "What is it?"

"We can't leave here," Luke said, the words feeling dry in his mouth. "We can't leave this world yet?not this way."

"What do you mean?" Isolder asked, and Han said, "Yeah, what do you mean?

We've got to leave!"

"No," Luke said, staring away. He pulled off his helmet, gasped for breath. "No, we can't. Everything here is so wrong. There's so much darkness." He could feel the darkness coming, the cold, seeping into every fiber of his muscles.

"Look," Han said. "We're going to get some spare parts for the Falcon, then the whole bunch of us are going to fly our tails back to safety. As soon as we get back to Coruscant, we can send a fleet in, you can command a million troops?whatever it takes!"

"No," Luke said with certainty. "We can't go." He was frightened. But he had no plans. He couldn't go back up to the Nightsisters and attack them.

They couldn't afford a confrontation now.

"Listen to Han," Isolder said. "These people have been trapped here for years! They don't need us to martyr ourselves for them tonight. They'll last until we can get back to rescue them."

A pale light of certainty seemed to flash through Luke, and the Jedi turned to Isolder, glanced quickly at all of them. "No, they can't.

Watch, and you'll see. Believe me, the powers of darkness are gathering rapidly. Isolder, you said your fleet will be arriving in six days. But if we don't stop it before then, this planet will be destroyed!"

Han shook his head doubtfully. "Listen, kid," he said. "Don't go getting all crazy on me. I know you're under a lot of pressure. You've got a few problems now?and I really do sympathize?but if you keep talking like that and scaring these folks, I'm going to have to bust you in the chops."

Luke could feel Han's nervousness. He didn't want Luke upsetting the others. Perhaps rightfully so. The elevator jarred as it hit bottom, and Luke hit a keyplate. The doors hissed open, but Luke still had his back to the door. "Go ahead, Han," Luke said, gesturing at the immense storage chamber behind him without bothering to turn around. "Here is what you want."

Luke turned to see three dozen damaged ships?three nearly demolished Imperial lift-wing carriers, a dozen TIE fighters melted halfway down to slag, parts of broken hover cars. Han surveyed the damaged vehicles, and gasped. In the center of the junkyard, with footlights shining under them, sat a nearly completed TIE fighter and a stock light freighter that looked almost exactly like the Millennium Falcon. Most of the forward sensor forks were painted rust-orange, while the hull was a faded olive and the rear drives were an old s.p.a.ce-pirate blue. Weld marks showed where parts of three ships had been cobbled together.

"They've almost got themselves a ship!" Han said, pulling off his helmet to get a better look. "It looks like all they need is a few more cells for the sublight drives."

"We couldn't be that lucky," Leia said.

"Hey, these old Corellian stock light freighters were some of the most popular in the galaxy in their day," Han said. "And you still can't find a ship that's more durable."

Isolder pulled off his helmet, took a deep breath of the fresh air. "More overweight and clunky, you mean."

"Same thing," Han said.

Han headed down a shallow ramp toward the ship, and Leia said, "Wait!"

Han stopped, and Leia studied the shipyard suspiciously. "These are pretty valuable pieces of equipment," she said. "They're here underground, lighted. Don't you think it's odd that they aren't guarded?"

"Who needs guards?" Han asked. "These ships won't fly. Besides, you saw the stormtroopers marching off. The place is a little understaffed tonight."

"What about alarms?" Luke asked. He picked up his macrobinoculars, scanned the room, adjusted the dials. "I don't see any laser alarms, but this place could be rigged with anything?motion detectors, magnetic field imagers?and in this junk pile, we wouldn't even know where to begin looking."

"So what do you want us to do," Han asked, "just stand here? We've got to check this ship out."

"Come on," Leia said, touching Luke's shoulder. "He's right."

Han and the group crept forward, scanning the ground, the surrounding junk piles. The Corellian freighter's hatch doors were closed, and Han stopped a moment, studying the access keypad. "If I were going to guard this ship, the place where I'd put the alarm is right here," Han said.

"If someone punches in the wrong sequence, bzzzt. The alarm goes off."

"What's the right sequence?" Teneniel asked. Luke placed his hand over the keypad, but no one had touched it in a long time. He couldn't feel the sequence.

"I don't know," Han said, studying the characters. "Every captain has his or her own code. But of course the port authorities have overrides, depending on what systems you're registered in. Here are the licenses."

He pointed out a column of characters. Some of the alien scripts were tiny, delicately curved. Others were in pictographs, while still others were blockish and bold with crude knife shapes, as if they'd been designed by some warrior race. "Whoever ran this ship did a lot of traveling in the Chokan, Viridia, and Zi'Dek systems. I used to know some of those port access codes back in the days of the Old Republic, but this character was running for the Imperials. They changed all of the codes.

d.a.m.n, I wish I'd done more pirating."

Isolder stepped up to the ship, punched in the code fifteen-zero-three-eleven. The hatch swung down. "Chokan Imperial port authority code,"

Isolder said, smiling.

Han looked at him, astonished. "You worked the Chokan system? Even with that nasty plague?"

Isolder shrugged. "I knew a girl there."

"Must have been some girl," Leia said.

Han hurried up into the ship. "I'll go run diagnostics and make sure these parts are worth stealing. Isolder, you and Leia find some wrenches and get the sensor array window off, then go down in the hold and start pulling the AC generators off their mounts. Luke, run get a couple of barrels so we can drain the coolant."

As the others went inside, Luke stood with Teneniel a second, patted her on the shoulder, his face tense. "This is going to take some time," Luke said. "Keep your eyes open."

Leia and Isolder got some tools out of the ship, and pulled off the sensory array window. Luke went to a far wall where huge metal containers were stored, rolled a barrel across the room. Teneniel whispered some spells to sharpen her senses, but found that it did no good. Somehow, subconsciously, she had already tapped into the Force. With her heightened senses, she could hear every thudding movement and clank of tool, Han's excited delight from the c.o.c.kpit as he whispered, "Jackpot!"

the echoing pings as Luke rolled the barrel over the floor, crunching bits of sand and dirt. Luke went inside the freighter, grunting as he worked a hand pump to transfer the coolant to the barrel. Leia and Isolder carried their window inside and fired up some torches to cut through frozen bolts. The flames hissed and squealed as they cut through the metal.

Teneniel walked away from the ship so that she could hear better, wished she had a blaster rifle if only to make her feel more comfortable, better armed. There were so many sc.r.a.pped s.p.a.ceships in the room that she felt as if she were in a rocky cave. She really couldn't see much from the floor.

She decided to climb up the side of a transport that was more molten slag than it was ship. She went to it, looked for a handhold. The tang of oxidizing metal bit into her nostrils. She found a k.n.o.bby lump, grabbed it and began pulling herself up, but could have sworn she heard the swishing of skirts, a mumbled word.

She glanced around the room, lit only by the footlights at the base of the two partly repaired ships. There were a lot of deep shadows. The high ceilings mildly echoed the thumps of Han and the others as they worked.

Teneniel quickly and quietly hurried to the top of the ship, sat looking over the junkyard. From here she could see everything?the storage area, the elevators, a door that opened to a stairway on the south wall. At the far north end of the room a rectangular opening led outside. The opening was silvered by moonlight. The darkness, the creepy feel of the place, the muted echoes, the mouth leading outside. All of it came crushing in on Teneniel. It was so much like the warriors' hall she'd entered as a child when her mother died.

She felt that same suffocation here, the same yawning emptiness. She looked off into the shadows at a far corner of the room?thought she glimpsed movement, dark shapes running in the shadows. She stared at the place but could see nothing.

She began chanting softly, a spell of detection, and a bolt of cold fear pierced her. She could feel them there?in the darkness, closing in with deadly intent.

Teneniel scanned the room, searching vainly. Something was wrong with her sight. She could feel a cool pressure over her eyes, a stuffiness in her ears, and she tried wiping it away with her hands.

Suddenly her vision cleared. Baritha stood at the foot of her pile of rubble, with three other Nightsisters at her side. One of the women chanted softly, and she held her thumb and forefinger out, pinching them together.

Invisible fingers seized Teneniel's throat, choking her.

"Welcome, Sister Teneniel," Baritha said. "So, we set a trap, and look who has fallen into it! What happened, did you finally tire of hiding in the mountains?"

Teneniel gasped for breath, found herself struggling. Her ears thudded and rang; her lungs burned. She tried to sing a counterspell, but could get no air.

"Too bad I cannot let you live another moment," Baritha said. "I'm sure that Gethzerion would have enjoyed tormenting you!"

She gave a hand signal, and the Nightsister at her side sang louder. She balled her purpled hand into a fist. Teneniel felt her windpipe wrench terribly, and Luke's words rang through her ears. "Let the Force flow through you."

There were no spells she could sing, no chants, not even a funeral dirge.

The Nightsisters thought her powerless. Teneniel tried to calm herself, let the Force flow through her, open her throat. The pile of slag on which she stood seemed to twist and buck beneath her like a frightened rancor, and Teneniel dropped to her hands and knees. The Force was not there, nowhere to be found. Her heart pounded wildly with terror, and with all her will she tried to shriek for help before she died.

The world twisted, and she dropped into the dark void, swallowed by blackness like her mother before her.

Luke heard Teneniel's scream in his mind, shouted for Han, and ran down the gangplank.

He saw the Nightsisters huddled in their robes a hundred meters from the ship, Teneniel lying in a heap on the carrier above them. "Stop!" Luke shouted. "Let her go!"

He let the Force surge through him, opened Teneniel's trachea. The girl gasped for breath.

"What?" Baritha asked. "A puny little man seeks to command us?" The witches turned toward him.

"Leave this place!" Luke said. "I warn you: Tell Gethzerion to take the Nightsisters away and set your slaves free!"

"Or what, offworlder?" Baritha said. "Or you'll bleed all over us when we pop your head open? Has your stay on our world been so short that you don't know what we are?"

"I know what you are," Luke said. "I've battled your kind on other worlds."

One of the Nightsisters grabbed Baritha's arm, a warning gesture. Behind Baritha, two of the Nightsisters began to sing softly in harmony, and their images faded. Luke let the Force flow through him, realized they were trying to alter his perceptions.

"You cannot hide yourselves from me," Luke said. "No matter where you run, I would hunt you down. Your only chance to live is to leave now, peaceably."

"You lie!" Baritha shouted, throwing back her hood. At the top of her voice she began yelling her spell, "Artha, artha!"

Luke pulled his blaster and fired. Baritha cut short her spell. She reached out with a gesture and slapped the blaster bolt away.

"You are no spellcaster!" Baritha shouted, and one of the Nightsisters rushed toward him. Luke pulled out his lightsaber, flipped it on and threw it, so that it tumbled end over end. The Nightsister grabbed for the handle, and Luke used the Force to twist the lightsaber in mid-air, killing the hag. He called the lightsaber back to his hand.

Baritha and the Nightsisters drew back a pace. One of the women shouted, "Gethzerion, sisters?come to us!" And Luke knew that she was summoning reinforcements.

Teneniel lurched from the top of the wreck, took a flying leap toward Luke.

"No!" Baritha shouted, and she began chanting her spell again. A solar panel broke free from a TIE fighter, went spinning toward Teneniel, caught her in the back and knocked her to her belly. She slid next to Luke's feet, but rose to her knees. Baritha chanted her spell and another solar panel flew across the room.

Teneniel ducked beneath it and glared at the old woman. "You really don't want to try this with me!" Teneniel warned viciously. Behind them, the engines to the freighter roared to life, and Luke had to question the sanity of trying to fly the thing with over half its sublight drive cells missing while overhead the Star Destroyers were poised to blow any outgoing craft from the sky. But at the moment, he really didn't feel like arguing.

A sensor array broke free from the TIE fighter, went swirling toward Teneniel. Luke shouted, "Come on!"

But the girl stood her ground, began singing a counterattack. The computer array twisted in the air, hurtled toward the Nightsisters.

Baritha jumped aside to dodge hardware, but one Nightsister got hit and went flying to the ground.

"d.a.m.n you, Gethzerion!" Teneniel shouted to the air. "I'm sick of the way you hunt us. I'm sick of trying to stay out of your path! I'm sick of the way you hurt and kill. I'm sick?" Luke looked at Teneniel's face, realized that she was enraged, mad beyond reason. He could feel the force of her wrath. Her face was red and tears streamed from her eyes. Teneniel began muttering her song, and a hurricane blew through the room. A TIE fighter flipped over under the force of the onslaught, tumbled toward the Nightsisters. The witches ducked and raised their hands, gesturing a warding spell.

"No! Don't give in to anger!" Luke shouted, grabbing Teneniel's shoulder.

"That's not Gethzerion! That's not her!"

Teneniel turned, looked in his face, gasping for breath, and suddenly seemed to realize where she was. Han fired the freighter's forward blasters into a heap of slag, throwing shrapnel and creating a cloud of smoke and ionized gases that blew toward the Nightsisters like a storm.

Luke grabbed Teneniel's hand, pulled her up the gangplank and hit the close switch, rushed to the c.o.c.kpit. Han was there alone. Luke could not hear the witches singing any longer, but through the viewscreen he saw them, fists outstretched in a gripping gesture. Han slowly pulled the thruster stick, trying to raise the ship.

"Man, these drives are in worse shape than I thought," he said doubtfully. "I don't think this bucket can even lift off."

At the far side of the room, figures in black robes flowed from a doorway. Luke said, "Get us out of here?now!"

Han struggled to lift the stick. "This throttle is stuck!" he shouted, grasping it with both hands. Luke looked at the witches with their gripping gesture, channeled the Force through him, then reached down and pulled the throttle up easily. The ship rattled and rose, and Luke spun it around, threw the sublights on full power as they surged toward the portal on the far side of the building.

The witches behind were caught in the flash of tailfire as the thrusters ignited. The ship burst out of the building, and the freighter shuddered and rolled to the sound of blaster fire.

"Don't worry," Han said. "It's just the sentries on the prison towers.