"Somewhere between a minute and never. Most likely the latter. "

The ship creaked from nose to tail as though something had grabbed it at either end and twisted. Ula clutched the arms of his chair and closed his eyes. This wasn't what he had signed up for. Being an informer was supposed to be sitting in the shadows, stealing information, and plotting the odd a.s.sa.s.sination. It wasn't fighting killer droids, being tortured by Mandalorians, or diving headlong into a black hole. That's what Cipher Agents did.

A strong hand gripped his elbow. His eyes flickered open.

"Don't worry, " said Larin. "We'll make it. "

He nodded and forced his hands to release their grip on the chair. Let her think he was rea.s.sured, when in fact he was the exact opposite. Shigar's psychometric revelation had raised her faith in him to new heights, although there was a new tension between them now, as though their relationship had fundamentally shifted. That, Ula thought, might be the most galling thing about his situation.

Her hand slipped away. Her good hand. The one cut in half by the Sith was encased in a mechanical glove, a paddle-like mitten that enabled her to grip, little more. That was the full extent of the Auriga Fires prosthetic provisions.

The ship lurched again. Clunker came forward, swaying and rocking, and ran a cable from his midsection into the main console.

"What's he doing?" Ula asked.

"Syncing his mind to the ship's computer, " said Jet past his droid's battered casing.

"You're letting him fly the ship?"

"He's got a good head on his shoulders, and his reaction time's much faster than mine. "

As if to disprove let's a.s.sertion, the Auriga Fire tilted alarmingly to starboard, then whipped back to port. Ula was thrown about in his seat harness, but somehow Clunker managed to stay both upright and plugged in.

A moment later the ship's flight grew calm. The vibrations eased; the complaints from both hyperdrive and hull receded into the background. The knot of tension in Ula's stomach began to unwind.

"Okay, " said let, punching b.u.t.tons. "It's coming up now. Hold on!"

Ula stiffened again as the warped textures of hypers.p.a.ce receded. Normally, a speed-stretched vista of stars would take its place, but out here, on the very fringes of the galaxy, they were pointing out into the relative black. Only the faint light of distant stellar islands existed to be warped by the ship's motion.

With a gut-roiling wrench, the Auriga Fire returned to reals.p.a.ce, and the shaking resumed.

Jet shut down the hyperdrives and put the repulsors on full. Ula was pressed into his seat as the ship came about. Sensors swept the sky ahead, revealing vistas unseen by anyone apart from Lema Xandret and her companions in the history of the galaxy.

It was much lighter than Ula had expected. That was his first impression. As the ship hove about and the black hole came into view, he saw not a dark absence of light but two bright yellow jets squirting from either pole of the singularity. That was what remained of the hole's last meal-a dead star, perhaps, or a lonely gas giant that had been unfortunate enough to cross paths with this bottomless monster. As though someone had crammed too much food into their mouth at once, some of the meal squirted back into s.p.a.ce, blazing away like celestial torches against the backdrop of the galaxy.

The second thing Ula noticed was the galaxy itself. The ship and its pa.s.sengers were far enough away from the galaxy's inhabited disk that they could see it from the outside. A beautiful spiral with a fat central bulge, it occupied almost half of the sky. As it swung into view, Ula forgot his anxieties for a moment and experienced nothing but breathless awe. Every nebula, cl.u.s.ter, and gulf was revealed to him with more clarity and beauty than any map could show. It was hard to believe that something so sublime could be the locus of so much war and grief.

"There's the planet, " said Jet, playing his instruments like a maestro.

"Sebaddon? Where?" Shigar peered out at the spectacular vista.

"There. " Jet indicated a display. Ula could see nothing more than a dot. "It's farther out than I expected. We'll loop around the hole and catch it on the upswing. "

"Is that safe?" Ula asked.

"Relatively. As long as we don't come too close. "

Ula didn't want to ask: Relative to what?

Shigar was watching the display. "No sign of any other ships, " he said. "There's a small moon. "

"How could it have a moon?" asked Hetchkee from the seat behind Ula.

"How could it be here at all?" added Larin.

"A black hole will kill you if you come too close, " said Shigar, "but not if you're at a safe distance. Things can easily orbit it. Sebaddon, any random piece of junk it's snapped up over the years, us. "

The way the ship was rattling didn't make Ula feel remotely safe. "What about heat?" he asked. "Those jets are hot, but not that hot. "

"As the planet orbits, the hole's gravity will stretch and squeeze it, stopping its core from solidifying. I bet we'll see volcanoes when we get closer. That must be what's bringing all the rare metals to the surface-and carbon dioxide, too, which would also help keep the atmosphere warm. "

The jets were getting visibly larger ahead. Clunker remained plugged in. Sebaddon was still invisible to the naked eye, and Ula gave up looking for it.

An alarm sounded. "Ships, " said Jet, "behind us, exactly where we came out. "

"Who do they belong to?" asked Larin.

"Wait until we've gone around. Then I'll be able to tell you. "

The display dissolved into static as they fell deeper into the black hole's frighteningly intense magnetic field. A smell of ozone filled the c.o.c.kpit. Anything containing iron began to vibrate at an annoyingly high pitch.

There was no sense of weight because they were free-foiling around the hole, using its gravitational pull to launch them out to where the planet was...o...b..ting. Still Ula felt as though he was being simultaneously stretched and squeezed, just like Shigar had described when talking about the planet. Tidal effects, they were called. His lungs struggled to pull in enough air, and purple spots danced in front of his eyes.

Then they were past and the pressure began to ease. He sagged back into the chair, sweating heavily and thanking the Emperor he was still alive.

"Right, " said Jet, "that's the hard part over. Thanks, Clunker. Sebaddon coming up ahead. We'll make orbital insertion in about a minute. As for those ships... " He scanned the revived sensor displays. "I count fifteen, with Republic transponder codes. Stantorrs must have moved Coruscant itself to get them here this fast. "

Shigar nodded. It was clear he, too, was impressed. "No sign of Stryver?"

"That's what the scopes say. "

"What about the Empire?" asked Ula.

"The only ships here are those fifteen and us, " said Jet.

"How would the Sith know where to come, anyway?" asked Larin. "They didn't have the navicomp. "

"They might have thought of something else, like we did, " said Ula, trying to keep his hopes up even though he phrased it as a warning. "Best not to underestimate them. "

"Indeed, " Larin said. "There it is, " she added, pointing through the forward ports.

Ula craned to see.

Sebaddon was a small world, scarred by tectonic activity, just as Shigar had predicted. Its surface ranged from gray basalt to red-glowing mantle exposed to the atmosphere by constant plate motion. The atmosphere was dense enough to breathe and showed signs of both clouds and precipitation. There were no oceans, just the occasional shining surfaces on the cooler parts of the planet that might have been lakes.

"If that's water, " Larin said, "the surface could actually be habitable. "

Near one of the "lakes" was a cl.u.s.ter of bright radiation sources, indicating a city of some kind. Elsewhere on the unfolding globe were other bright points, possibly mines or smaller settlements.

"Someone's been busy, " said Jet. "How long have they been here?"

"We don't know, " said Shigar.

"I'd guess twenty years, a.s.suming only a small group to start with. The infrastructure is patchy, and there are some places they haven't spread out to yet. "

Jet pointed at the viewscreen as he talked. There were no ships in orbit or satellites. The tiny moon was completely untouched.

"Do you want me to hail them?" he asked.

"No, " Shigar told him. "Wait for Master Shan to arrive. She should be the one to make first contact. "

"What about Ula?" asked Larin. "He's the Republic envoy. "

"No offense, " said Shigar, turning to speak directly to Ula, "someone superior to both of us should handle this. I hope you understand. "

"Completely, " he said, with manufactured grace. He would have preferred to bungle a Republic approach to the valuable world in the hope that his enemy's overtures would be repulsed. But there was no way to argue the point without making people suspicious. He would just have to bide his time and hope another opportunity arose.

The Auriga Fire slipped neatly into a long polar orbit around Sebaddon, and the ship's engines fell blessedly quiet. Clunker disconnected himself and returned to his place in the corner. It had been hours of racket and mayhem ever since they'd commenced the last jump, and Ula was profoundly glad it was over.

Jet clearly shared his sentiments. The smuggler stood up and tapped at the shielding above the instrument panels. "Come on, " he muttered. "I know it's here somewhere... "

A hidden panel popped open, and he slipped a hand inside. "Aha! Those fragging Hutts didn't find everything, thank goodness. "

The hand reappeared in view, holding a slender bottle of golden liquid. Jet cracked the seal and knocked back a swig. "Anyone else for a toast? To making it alive, despite crazy pa.s.sengers and unreliable directions?"

Jet's behavior went largely ignored. For the moment, all eyes were on Master Satele's approaching flotilla. Like Jet, she had chosen to come around the black hole rather than try to power outward against its considerable pull. The vast forces acting on the ships were much more apparent from the outside. Ula was shocked by the speeds they reached at their closest points to the black hole. One of them foiled to make the correct insertion and drifted just a fraction off its course. Instantly the hole s.n.a.t.c.hed at it, tumbling it end-over-end into the gaping maw. It disappeared with a scream of X-rays.

One by one, the remaining fourteen ships came out the other side, shaken but intact.

"See if you can raise them yet, " said Shigar. "Code word hawk-bat. "

"Will do. " Jet capped the bottle and put it away before turning to the comm. "Long-range subs.p.a.ce is scrambled by the singularity, so you can't call home, but we should be able to open short-range transmissions with them in a moment or two. "

"Weird to think that this could all be over in a few minutes, " said Larin as Jet attempted to hail the approaching ships. "I mean, Stryver has either lost interest or fallen into the hole. The Empire has no clue where we've gone. Once Master Shan gets in touch with Lema Xandret, our job is done. "

"You've forgotten the Hutts, " said Ula. "If they have put a homing device on the ship, they'll soon track us down. "

"Only if they're looking for the signal in the right direction. And who'd think to look up here? It's the perfect hiding place. "

Jet had a point, but Ula didn't want to admit it. Once Sebaddon was annexed by the Republic, there was nothing he could do but report the planet's position when he returned to Coruscant, long after the issue of its ownership had been resolved. His mission was on the brink of utter failure, and there didn't seem to be much he could do about it.

"That Mandalorian seemed pretty canny to me, " chimed in Hetchkee. "I can't see him falling into a black hole, unless he was pushed. "

"I'm of the same mind, " said Shigar. "It would be unwise to a.s.sume we've seen the last of him. "

"Got her, " said Jet, falling back into his seat in satisfaction. "Go ahead. Grand Master. "

"Very good work, Shigar, " crackled the voice of Satele Shan from the subs.p.a.ce communicator.

"Thank you, Master. " The Padawan was clearly buoyed by the praise.

"The Supreme Commander would like you to return Envoy Vii to Coruscant as soon as possible. "

"With your permission, " said Shigar, "we'd like to join the companies you brought with you and observe the negotiations. "

"Hang on a minute, mate-" said Jet, but Shigar cut him off.

"We've been chasing Lema Xandret for so long. It seems a shame to come all this way and just turn back. "

Ula didn't know what he thought about that prospect. On the one hand, he expected nothing more interesting than very familiar diplomatic wrangling; on the other hand he was in no hurry to report his failure to either of his masters.

"I expected that, " Master Satele replied with the hint of a smile in her voice. "Colonel Gurin has command of the fleet. I'll suggest you fall in with Second Company and take the place of the ship we lost. Expect a tactical feed shortly. "

"Thank you again. Master, " Shigar said, surrendering control of the comm to an unhappy Jet Nebula. Already instructions and telemetry were flowing into the Auriga Fire from the approaching ships. When Jet patched his ship's computer into the feed, it would become part of a much larger tactical ent.i.ty, no longer a free agent.

"Cheer up, " said Shigar to Jet with a grin. "You've worked for the Republic before, haven't you?"

"Sure, but only for their money. Not for glory or the fun of it, like you seem to. "

"It won't be for long. I just want to see this. "

"You're not fooling anyone, Shigar. I know you don't want to make good on your deal with Ta.s.saa Bareesh. "

Shigar pulled down the corners of his mouth but said nothing to deny the charge.

The cruiser Master Satele occupied hove past them, a golden lozenge that looked deceptively smaller than it actually was, with a command nacelle protruding like an insect's sting from the rear and a hull studded with turbolaser and ion cannon blisters. By craning his neck, Ula could make out the telemetry streaming into the Auriga Fire. The cruiser was called the Corellia. He recognized its name from Supreme Command Stantorrs's reports.

Jet surrendered his ship to Republic command. Soon they were just one of eight vessels obeying instructions from Colonel Gurin. The a.s.sembly of ships moved smoothly into a lower orbit, juggling course and att.i.tude changes with confident ease. Cheerfully business-like intership chatter filled the comm, both biological and droid. Clunker's usual blank posture became more attentive. Ula, too, listened closely for valuable intel. In such tense times, military protocols changed almost daily.

"I'm registering activity down below, " said Jet. "Xandret and her people know we're here. "

"Why aren't they saying anything, then?" asked Larin.

"Perhaps they're shy. "

"What kind of activity?" asked Shigar.

"Heat dumps, mainly, perhaps reactors firing up. A couple look like industrial sites, but their signatures are off the scale. "

"Are you pa.s.sing the data on to Colonel Gurin?"

"He's seeing exactly what we're seeing, unless he's admiring the view elsewhere. "

The galaxy formed a beautiful pinwheel backdrop as Satele Shan made her first broadcast to the people of Sebaddon.

"My name is Grand Master Satele Shan, " she said, broadcasting on all frequencies, since most commonly used bands were clogged by radiation from the black hole. "I come not in the name of the Republic, but on behalf of the upholders of peace and justice across the galaxy. "

"What's that all about?" asked Hetchkee.