Five others, plus a Defel skulking somewhere in the shadows as backup. Once again, they weren't taking any chances.

"Well, well," Control's voice said as Luke eased his way out of the disemboweled droid and stood up. "Took a wrong turn, did you, Mensio?"

"No, I think it was Lanius who took the wrong turn," Luke said, keeping his hands away from his blaster as he looked around. They were in a large, high-ceilinged room, with stacked boxes lining two of the walls. His box had been set down in an otherwise unoccupied corner away from the rest of the merchandise; the eight pirates were arrayed in a rough semicircle around him. He didn't spot the Defel, but it was probably somewhere between him and the only door, across the room behind the ring of blasters. "I came to see your captain, not your inventory."

One of the pirates facing Luke growled something unintelligible. "I think you ought to know that Hensing there really despises sarcastic jinks," Control said.

"Really," Luke said, sending another casual glance toward the door area. The glow panel switch was just to the side of the panel: a simple push plate that he could trigger with the Force. Perfect. "Sorry to hear that."

"You could get a lot sorrier," Control warned. "He has a theory that jinks get less sarcastic when they've had a hand or two blown off."

Luke smiled grimly, flexing the fingers of his artificial right hand. "He's right about that," he said. "Take my word for it."

"Just so we understand each other," Control said. "Take out your blaster-I'm sure you know the routine."

"Sure," Luke said, pulling out his blaster with exaggerated care and lowering it to the floor in front of him. "You want the spare power packs, too?" be asked, pointing to the two small flat boxes riding the other side of his gunbelt.

"No, you're welcome to hide behind them if you'd like," Control said. "Just kick the blaster away from you."

Luke complied, using the Force to make sure the weapon skidded to a halt precisely at Hensing's feet. "Happy?"

"Happier than you're going to be," Control said. "I don't think you realize how much trouble you're in here, Mensio."

It was time, Luke decided, to switch tacks. "Fine, no more nonsense," he said, putting an edge into both his voice and his posture. "I'm here to talk to your captain about making a deal."

If Control was impressed by the new Mensio, his voice didn't show it. "Sure you are," he said. "What, you couldn't call for an appointment?"

"I wanted to check out your security," Luke told him. "See if you're the sort of people my employer would be interested in doing business with."

"And what would this business consist of?"

"I was instructed to discuss it with your captain," Luke said loftily. "Not underlings."

Hensing growled again, lifting his blaster. "Then your employer is either stupid or a fool or both," Control said. "You have five seconds to give me something solid. After that, I turn Hensing loose on you."

"If you insist," Luke said, crossing his arms across his chest and looking across the room at the glow panel switch. That warning tingle had returned . . . We understand that you're using clones to crew some of your ships. We want to discuss hiring some of them from you."

Control tsked. "Sorry-wrong answer. Take him." The pirates lifted their blasters&mdash And reaching out through the Force, Luke flipped off the glow panels.

There was a snarled curse, almost drowned out by the sputtering of multiple blaster bolts cutting through the air where Luke had been standing. But Luke was no longer there. A Force-strengthened leap had sent him sailing over their heads toward the door, lightsaber ready in his hand. If they'd been overconfident enough not to leave a guard outside the door&mdash There was a flicker of premonition, and he had the lightsaber in guard position just as he spotted the Defel's pale red eyes gazing down at him from, the top of one of the stacks of boxes. He sensed rather than saw the weapon tracking toward him, igniting the lightsaber just as the blaster's flash sparked from between the red eyes.

The green blade blazed into existence, startlingly bright in the darkness, deflecting the Defel's blaster bolt harmlessly away. But even as he hit the floor beside the door, Luke realized the Defel had won this round. His shot had missed, but he had forced Luke to reveal both his location and his true ident.i.ty.

The other pirates weren't slow in picking up on either. Someone across the room swore-"It's Skywalker!" another shouted&mdashand suddenly a fresh volley of blaster fire was raining through the air toward him.

Luke backed to the door, letting the Force guide his defense. The door had probably been sealed; jumping sideways toward it to temporarily throw off his opponents' aim, he slashed twice with his lightsaber. A flat dive out the opening, and he was free.

The corridor outside was deserted. Rolling back to his feet, lightsaber at the ready; he stretched out with the Force, seeking the ambush that must surely be lurking nearby. But there were no other presences that he could detect. "Giving up already?" he called.

"Hardly," Control's voice came from a speaker set into the ceiling a few meters away.

"Rather foolish of you to give away your ident.i.ty so quickly."

"I prefer to think of it as an overabundance of confidence," Luke countered, stretching out a little harder. Still nothing; and if he'd really caught them off. guard, it wouldn't be smart to give them time to regroup. Picking what he hoped was the direction he'd come from, he set off at a fast trot. "You ready to tell me where you're getting your clones from?" he added toward the speaker. "I'd really rather not have to hunt down your captain and ask him personally."

"Hunt all you like," Control said, his voice now coming from a different speaker farther down the corridor. Clearly, they were tracking Luke's movements. "You won't find anyone here who knows. But thank you for confirming that was what you came here to learn."

"You're welcome," Luke said, clenching his teeth as the tingle of danger again tugged at him. Ahead, the corridor curved gently to the right, and somewhere beyond the curve he could finally sense other presences waiting for him.

It was a cla.s.sic bottle-squeeze setup: pin the enemy in a curve or angle where he would be trapped in a crossfire without the two ends of the crossfire shooting' at each other. He could sense the pirates he'd left behind in the storeroom piling out into the corridor now; a few more heartbeats, and there would be blaster fire coming at his back.

But the pirates' contingency plans were unlikely to have included the possibility of a Jedi running loose in their base. Just this side of the curve, a heavy blast door revealed the presence of a side corridor leading out of the trap to the left. The blaster he'd left back in the storeroom wouldn't have made a dent in it; but he had a far more efficient way of opening doors than the pirates could have antic.i.p.ated. Skidding to a stop in front of the blast door, he ignited his lightsaber and slashed throu gh the lock mechanism. It began sliding ponderously open&mdash There was a flicker of warning, and Luke spun around just in time to sweep the lightsaber blade across three incoming blaster bolts. The pirates from the storeroom, seeing their bottle-squeeze about to fail, were charging full speed toward him, firing as they ran.

Luke blocked two more bolts-the rest were going wide-and ducked through the still opening blast door into a wide corridor.

The corridor's appearance was a surprise. Unlike the roughhewn feel of the rest of the base, this area looked like it might have been transplanted straight from inside a capital starship. Smooth metal-lined walls formed a square cross section about four meters wide, the corridor itself stretching twenty meters before ending in a T-junction with another of the more typical rocky corridors.

The only light was the spillover coming from behind Luke and the similar glow from the far end. Even so, there was enough illumination to see that all the surfaces of the corridor-walls, ceiling, and floor-were covered with a decorative pattern of three-centimeter-diameter circles s.p.a.ced about ten centimeters apart.

The corridor itself was deserted, and Luke could sense no one skulking around the corners ahead. Apparently, he had indeed caught them off guard.

But his danger sense was still tingling. Something about the corridor? Still, with two groups of enemies behind him, there was nowhere to go but through. Senses alert for a trap, he headed down the corridor.

He'd made it four steps when, without warning, gravity abruptly reversed itself, sending him falling toward the ceiling.

There was no chance for physical or mental preparation. His head and shoulders slammed into the metal, sending a jolt of pain arcing through him, the rest of his body tumbling down with a dull thud and more pain. He gasped for breath-the impact had knocked most of the air out of him-but before he could get more than half a lungful he was falling again, this time sideways toward one of the side walls.

He landed hard on his right side, a fresh stab of pain lancing through head and shoulder and hip as he scrabbled around for a handhold. But there was nothing to grip on the smooth metal. Stretching out to the force, he sensed the gravitational field starting to change again; and then his new floor suddenly became the ceiling again, and he was falling toward the far wall.

But not toward flat metal this time. Twisting his head around, he saw that what he'd taken to be decorative circles drawn in the wall were in fact the heads of flat-tipped metal rods. They had extruded outward from the wall now, rising like a forest of blunted spears to meet his descent.

Clenching his teeth, Luke reached out to the Force and threw out his hands to meet the oncoming bars. With their tight s.p.a.cing there was no chance for him to slide between them; but if he could grab two of them and slow his fall, he could at least keep from landing on them at full speed. He caught hold of the two pointed at his face and chest, reaching to the Force for the strength to slow himself. He succeeded, and for a brief moment held himself balanced over them in midair&mdash And then he was slammed onto them anyway as a corresponding set of bars from the wall behind him jabbed hard into his back and legs, driving him forward. He grunted as the wind was again knocked out of him, trying to twist around against the forest of bars digging into him.

But even as he struggled to work his left arm through the rods pinning it, two more sets of bars slid out from the floor and ceiling, slamming into his shoulders, head, and legs and pinning him even tighter in place. There was another flurry of gravity changes that did little except jam every part of his body in random turn against the various sets of bars&mdash And then gravity settled back to its original vector, leaving him suspended more. or less upright in the room.

"Well, well," Control's mocking voice said into the silence. "Surprised, are we?"

"A little," Luke conceded, fighting past the dizziness left over from the gravity changes and looking around as best he could with his head pinioned rigidly in place. The entire corridor had become a huge three-dimensional crosshatch of rods, filling the whole s.p.a.ce between the blast doors that had slid into place at both ends, sealing him inside.

"We set this up about five years ago," Control continued. "Your Yavin academy was seeding the galaxy with c.o.c.ky little would-be Jedi, and we figured it would be only a matter of time before one of them dropped in on us. So we figured to have a surprise ready for them.

Never figured on having the Grand High Moffling himself show up. So, what do you think?"

"It's inventive, I'll give you that," Luke said, testing the strength of the bars with his shoulders and arms. He might have saved himself the effort. "I hope you're not expecting it to hold me for long."

"You might be surprised," Control said. "I take it you haven't noticed where your lightsaber ended up?"

Luke couldn't even remember when during all those gravity switches he'd dropped it. Now, straining out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the weapon fifteen meters away across the room, wedged just like he was within the interlocking sets of bars. "You can see it's a tighter group of bars over at that end," Control pointed out. "Holds the thing pretty solidly in. place."

Luke smiled. Clearly, for all his preparation, the pirate hadn't learned enough about Jedi. Reaching out with the Force, he activated the lightsaber's switch. With a snap-hiss the green blade flashed into existence; reaching out again, Luke attempted to twist the handle sideways.

Nothing happened.

"You see the genius of the design," Control said conversationally. "It's held at just the right angle so that the blade sticks out in the gap between bars, without touching any of them. Clever, eh?"

Luke didn't answer. The lightsaber seemed to be solidly wedged in place . . . but if the blade wasn't touching the bars, the handle ought to slide freely either backward or forward. Getting a Force grip on it, he slid it forward.

"Oh, it'll go that direction, all right," Control said as the light-saber began to move.

"Unless it gets hung up by its switch or something. But that won't do you any good. The blade still won't touch any of the bars-"

The tip of the blade had reached the wall now. Luke continued forcing it that direction, pushing the blade straight into the metal plating.

"-and naturally we weren't stupid enough to put any critical equipment behind the walls for you to cut into," Control finished. "A little more impressed now, are we?"

"Maybe a little," Luke said. "Now what?"

"What do' you think?" Control retorted, his voice suddenly dark. "We know what you Jedi can do, Skywalker-don't think we don't. I figure that from that little ride through our base alone you've probably already dug out enough dirty silt about our operation to send everyone here to Fodurant or Beauchen for the next twenty years. You think we're going to just sit here and let you do that to us, you're crazy."

Luke grimaced with the irony. Control was right: using his full Jedi strength, he almost certainly could have invaded the pirates minds that deeply. But with his new reluctance to use his power. so casually, he had in fact done nothing of the sort. "So what do you want to do, make a deal?"

"Hardly," Control said. "We want you to die."

"Really," Luke said dryly. The bars here might be too strong for human muscle, but that was hardly the limiting factor for a Jedi. Bending enough of the bars out of the way for him to get to his lightsaber would be a long and tedious job, but he bad more than enough depth in the Force to accomplish it. "From old age, or do you have something more immediate in mind?"

"I'm actually kind of sorry," Control said. "Seems a waste, dusting you like this, especially after what this Jedi trap cost to build. But no one's offering bounties on captured Jedi these days. Even if they were, I don't suppose that cage would hold you long enough for us to collect. So there it is. Good-bye, Skywalker." There was a click, and the speaker fell dead . . . and in the silence, Luke heard a sound that hadn't been there before.

The quiet hiss of escaping gas.

He took a deep breath, stretching out to the Force. There were Jedi poison-neutralizing techniques that should be able to handle whatever they were pumping in at him. Still, he'd better not dawdle on getting out of here. Closing his eyes, reaching more deeply to the Force, he began bending one of the bars away from his face&mdash And then, suddenly, his eyes snapped open as the truth belatedly hit him.

The pirates weren't pumping poison in. They were pumping the air out.

And not even a Jedi could survive for long without air.

Luke took another deep breath, pushing away his rising fear. A Jedi must act when he is calm, at peace with the Force. All right. Artoo and the X-wing might already be in the pirates' hands. Even if they weren't, there was no way for the snubfighter to maneuver its way through the cramped and twisting corridors. He was on his own here, with no resources but the few pieces of equipment he was carrying: a comlink, glow rod, datapad&mdash And two spare blaster power packs.

Luke reached out with the Force, lifting the small flat boxes off his belt and floating them up to where he could see them. Back during the height of the Rebellion, the mechanical genius General Airen Cracken had found a way to rig blaster power packs to explode. All it took was two or more packs fastened together with their overload sturm dowels removed, and in thirty seconds they would blow with the power of a medium-sized grenade.

The blast should have enough power to shatter or twist any of the bars in its immediate vicinity. Unfortunately, it would do similar damage to Luke himself.

But with a little ingenuity . . .

It was the work of a few seconds to remove the overload, dowels from the power packs.

Then, holding them pressed together with the Force, he maneuvered them carefully through the maze of bars toward the far blast door. If Control was still monitoring him-and if the pirate knew about this trick-he would probably conclude that Luke was trying to punch a hole in the blast door and let in some air. He would also undoubtedly conclude that the metal was more than strong enough to withstand such an explosion.

Which was fine with Luke. The longer the pirates operated under false a.s.sumptions, the slower they would react when they finally figured out what he really had in mind.

His makeshift bomb was nearly to the blast door now, with only about ten seconds left to go. Keeping the bomb moving, be reached out to the Force and slid his lightsaber backward along its single line of free movement until the belt ring was pressing against the wall.

The bomb reached the other end of the lightsaber's track and Luke settled it there against one of the bars.

The critical question now, he knew, was whether the explosion and resulting burst of shrapnel might damage the lightsaber. On sudden impulse, he stretched out and ignited the weapon, bringing the green blade snapping out to point directly toward the bomb. The blade should disintegrate whatever shrapnel hit it, providing at least some protection for the handle and the mechanism inside. Now there was nothing to do but wait and fight to keep from pa.s.sing out in the rapidly thinning atmosphere&mdash And with a tremendous blast of fire and thunder, three seconds early, the power packs blew up.

Luke bit down hard as a dozen red-hot metal splinters stabbed and slashed into his left arm and side. But the results were all that he could have hoped for. Across the room, visible through the drifting smoke, the neat array of bars had been altered by the explosion. Not much, but maybe enough. Reaching out to the Force, he slid the lightsaber forward to the bomb-mangled bars and twisted the handle.

Not much, but indeed enough. The lightsaber, partially freed from its confinement, could now reach to the side just enough to snick off the end of one of the nearest bars. Luke twisted again, this time sending two more bars clattering to the floor. He twisted again, and again, each sweep going a little wider as he methodically carved out some s.p.a.ce around the lightsaber&mdash And suddenly the weapon was free, spinning like a propeller as it cut through everything in its path.

White spots were beginning to dance in front of Luke's eyes as he sent the weapon through the blast door, cutting a triangular hole that brought a welcome gush of air rushing into the partial vacuum. He took a deep' breath, and as his vision cleared he brought the lightsaber back toward him, the spinning blade mowing through the bars like a scythe through a field of tallgrain.

A minute later he was back in the rocky corridors, thumbing on his comlink as he headed for the landing bay and his ship. "Artoo?" he called. "You there?"

The only answer was another burst of jamming static. Picking up his pace, using Jedi techniques to suppress the pain in his side and arm, he prepared himself for the pirates'

next move.

But that move didn't come. He emerged from the corridor into a large but deserted chamber and crossed into another corridor without seeing or sensing anyone.

For that matter, he hadn't sensed anyone since his escape from their Jedi trap. Were they all hiding somewhere? Or had they all simply packed up and left?

The rock floor beneath his feet shook slightly, and somewhere in the distance he heard the faint sound of an explosion. He was through the corridor and into another room when he heard and felt a second explosion, this one noticeably closer.

And abruptly his comlink twittered. He thumbed it on&mdash "Artoo?"

"Not quite," a familiar voice answered dryly. "Are you in trouble again, Skywalker?"

Luke blinked with surprise, then smiled with the first genuine pleasure he'd felt since arriving at this place. "Of course I am," he told Mara Jade. "Have you ever known me when I wasn't?"

CHAPTER 9.

"Offhand, I can't think of a time," Man had to admit, gazing out the Starry Ice's bridge viewport at the asteroid field stretched out in front of them. "Though I have to say that taking on a whole nest of pirates alone is beyond even your usual audacity level. What are you doing in there, anyway?"

"Attempting to get out," the other answered dryly. "What are you doing here?"

"Karrde asked me to check on you," she said. "Seemed to think you might need a hand."

"That I do," he conceded. "Where are you?"

"At the moment, on the outside looking in," Mara told him, frowning. Had that been an explosion over there on the Cavrilhu's main asteroid? "Are you setting off bombs or something?"

"No, but somebody is-I can hear explosions in the distance. Can you see what's happening?"