"Launches, " said Ula as the ship roared forward.

Larin glanced at telemetry just long enough to take a quick snapshot of the wider battlefield. It was dominated by several overlapping debris fields in low orbit over Sebaddon, the largest centered on where the Corellia had broken apart. The "safe" segment of the Republic fleet and several dozen escape pods were now well clear of danger, regrouping near the planet's rocky moon. The Imperial fleet was in the process of splitting in two, as uninfected ships copied the Republic's tactic of retreat. Two squadrons of Imperial fighters were disabling the engines of several vessels, so they couldn't spread their infection by ramming or detonating nearby. Larin approved of the tactic. She might have suggested it herself had not the infected Republic ships seemed so intent on targeting the Empire.

Republic fighters swarmed around the uninfected section of the fleet, keeping the hexes at bay. Defying gravity and distance, some actually managed to reach that far. If just one was carrying a nest, the infection could take root all over again.

Her mind latched on to that thought-and for an instant she was back on Hutta, staring at the droid factory, and the Sith blade was flashing like a crimson lightning bolt past her eyes all over again. Her fingers fell with the comlink to the metal floor and a scream of pain boiled in her throat.

She blinked and was back in the present. The scream remained.

Launches, Ula had said. She focused on that instead.

Five missiles were rising through the atmosphere of Sebaddon, launched separately in groups of two and three. The first pairing was aimed at the Imperial forces. The others-she was relieved to see-were aimed nowhere near the Auriga Fire or the rest of the Republic fleet. They appeared in fact to be aimed nowhere at all.

The possible motives of Lema Xandret and her followers fell from Larin's mind as the Auriga Fire came within range of the giant hex agglomeration. She did as Shigar had suggested, putting bolt after bolt into the nearest internal cl.u.s.ter. That had a satisfactory effect, at first. The hexes' combined mirror-shield defense was soon overwhelmed, and the cl.u.s.ter began to look decidedly threadbare, like a crater-riddled moon on the verge of collapse. But then, once again, the hexes demonstrated their ability to adapt in the face of a threat.

The cl.u.s.ter rearranged itself into a stubby tube, with one flat end pointing at the Auriga Fire. Larin fired at the tube as a matter of course, and the mirror shields flashed into life, catching the laser bolt and channeling it along the tube's center. The bolt ricocheted backward and forward, joining others she fired after it, until the whole tube began to glow. She took her remaining thumb off the trigger just as the tube released all the energy it contained in a single, powerful pulse, aimed back at the Auriga Fire.

Even through the ship's unusually powerful shields, the impact was deafening. Larin fell back into her seat with one arm covering her eyes. A split instant later a second bolt struck the ship, this one created by Shigar's attempts to destroy the target. The Auriga Fire went into a wild tumble, then righted itself with a jerk.

"...fire! Cease fire!" Jet was yelling.

"All right, we get it. " Larin adjusted her earpiece. "What are we supposed to do now? Pull faces at it until it goes away?"

"I don't know, " he said, "but we can't take another hit like that. Our shields are down to forty percent. "

"Angle the shields forward, " said Shigar. "Set a course for the closest of those tube things. When I tell you to, put the sublights on full. "

"That's madness!" said Ula.

"No, I see where he's headed. " Jet brought the ship around to face the tube Larin had fired into. Bright discharges still sparked from hex to hex, running in waves up and down the length of the tube. "It wants energy? Energy I'll happily give it. "

The Auriga Fire leapt forward as though to ram. The hexes fired ineffectually at the forward screens, and the agglomeration's arms curled in to embrace their attacker. Larin's hands lay restlessly on the cannon controls as the tube grew rapidly larger ahead of her. This, she told herself, was one situation where firing would definitely make things worse.

Instead, she was part of the bullet and the trigger at the same time.

The Auriga Fire reached the tube's open end. It was just wide enough for the ship to fit inside, a fact for which Larin was completely grateful: the tri-laser blisters marked the ship's widest point. The moment it and its pa.s.sengers were completely encapsulated, Shigar shouted "Now!" and Jet switched the sublights to full.

There followed a horrible moment when the ship strained to move forward, but all the force it produced was sucked up by the weave of tightly bound hexes surrounding it. Larin could see the effect it had on them at horribly close quarters. The hexes writhed and shook, and slowly began to glow. Metal limbs flared like magnesium burning in pure oxygen. Black sensory pods popped and hexagonal bodies stretched. She couldn't hear anything, but she imagined the hexes screaming.

Turning a laser bolt back onto its owner was one thing. Absorbing all the energy required to accelerate a starship was quite another.

The Auriga Fire burst out the other side, trailing a tail of bright blue. The hex-tube shook and bulged as it tried to contain the energy it had absorbed. A ball as bright as a sun formed in its heart, and Larin feared it might actually shoot out at them, destroying them instantly.

But then the hex-tube buckled, as the ball didn't so much explode as discharge throughout the entire agglomeration. Thousands of hexes burst apart in an instant, spraying the surrounding vacuum with exotic shrapnel.

"Yee-ha!" yelled Larin, then added more soberly, "Let's never do that again. "

The beleaguered escape pod and its occupants found themselves unexpectedly out of danger. It was a simple matter now to s.n.a.t.c.h it up in the tractor beam and haul it to safety outside the debris field, where other ships could look after it.

As the Auriga Fire turned about to look for another harried pod, Shigar said, "Wait. "

"What is it?" she asked, hearing a note of urgency in his voice.

"It's her. Master Satele is calling me. "

"I'm not picking up any transmissions, " Jet told him.

"She's not calling me that way. " Larin held her breath, not wanting to distract him as he concentrated on whatever he was receiving through the Force. "See that chunk of the Corellia over there, Jet? Head in that direction. "

"Will do. "

The Auriga Fire accelerated for a relatively large piece of the destroyed cruiser. The twisted, oval fragment was approximately fifty meters down its long axis, and featured a gold finish down one side, revealing that it had once been part of the hull. It tumbled freely through the hexes, and appeared to be the focus of a concerted scavenging effort leaching metal from one end.

Larin readied herself for the order to fire. When Master Satele's pod came into view, getting her safely and quickly clear would be the priority.

Then: "I don't see any pods, " Ula said. "Are you sure this is the right spot?"

It wasn't the first time the former envoy had expressed doubts about Shigar's abilities. Larin wondered if he was part of the axis in the Republic government that mistrusted the Jedi and their methods.

"I'm sure, "said Shigar. "She's not in a pod. She must be in a pressurized compartment in that chunk. "

"I can ready a docking ring, " said Jet, "if you can pinpoint her location. "

"We won't have time, "said Ula. "There are hexes all over that thing. "

Shigar said, "You have vac suits, don't you? I'll jump the gap. "

"I'm coming with you, " said Larin.

"No, " he said. "I'll need you on the cannon, making sure no more come aboard. Drop me off, back away, then come get us when we're out. I'll take a spare suit for her. "

"And if her compartment doesn't have an air lock?"

"Then I'll think of something else. "

She heard him crawling up his access tunnel, back into the ship, and turned to look at him. "Are you sure this is the right thing to do?" she called at him along the tunnel, unable to hide the intense worry she felt. The wreckage was crawling with hexes. One slip, and neither he nor his Master would come back.

"Positive, " he said. "She's the most important person in the galaxy. It's my duty to save her. "

Then he was gone, leaving Larin feeling slightly wounded by his words. On Hutta, he hadn't come to save her. If his deal with Ta.s.saa Bareesh had gone awry, she would have ended up rancor food for certain. But for Master Satele, he swept in with lightsaber swinging, risking life and limb and not even letting Larin help.

She wondered if he thought she might slow him down.

Don't think like that, she told herself. We're still partners, and this obviously isn't going to be over as quickly as we'd thought. Chances are we'll find plenty more opportunities to fight back-to-back.

She swung the cannon around and picked off a hex standing high on the back of the wreckage. That was one less he would have to worry about.

The auriga fire's vac suits were simple models, with no armor, inbuilt weapons, or maneuvering jets, and barely fifty minutes of air in their backpacks. Shigar guessed they were normally used for quick repairs outside the ship, where they could be tethered to the main life support. Shigar stripped out of the new clothes he had improvised from Ula's official wardrobe-brown robe, black pants, and sand-colored top, the closest he could approximate to Jedi colors-then picked the cleanest suit from the rack and slipped it quickly over his unprotected limbs. Ideally he would have worn a body glove, like Larin's, but there wasn't time for such niceties. He would use biofeedback to regulate his body temperature.

He fixed his lightsaber to a clip on the suit's right hip, where it would be accessible in an instant, and slung a spare suit over the crook of his left arm.

"Aft air lock primed and ready, " said Jet over the suit's intercom.

"Okay. " Shigar tested the seals one last time. The air tasted stale, but that was the least of his problems. "Get in as close to the wreckage as you can. "

His breathing sounded loud in his ears as the air lock's inner door opened and he stepped inside. As the air lock cycled, he took the opportunity to center himself. He knew what to expect. He had faced the hexes before. His priority, however, was to find Master Satele and get her out as quickly as possible. There wasn't time to fight or take any unnecessary risks. That would only get the both of them killed.

"Can you hear me. Master Satele?" he asked over the suit comm, using a band thick with the static of distant stars. Military forces normally avoided that channel, making it perfect for short-range transmissions that needed to go untraced.

"Perfectly well, " Master Satele responded, faintly but clearly.

"How's your air?"

"Running low, but not critical yet. "

The outer door opened with a puff of fog and Shigar kicked himself out onto the hull. For a moment the sheer weirdness of his position struck him hard. He was standing practically naked on the hull of a smuggler's ship, surrounded by killer droids and wrecked ships, with the galaxy's brilliant spiral to one side and the jets of a black hole to the other.

He couldn't tell if what he felt was joy or terror.

The twisted wreckage drew nearer. Larin's cannon flashed, and a hex went tumbling. Using the tractor beam, Hetchkee pulled another hex out of what had once been a window in the Corellia's hull. That created a clear spot.

Shigar braced himself to jump.

"Here's as close as we can get, "said Jet. "Don't miss. "

With one explosive kick of his muscles, Shigar cleared the gap. For a moment the sky turned about him-the planet came into view from behind the Auriga Fire, blistered with magma domes-and then he hit the wreckage solidly, with arms outstretched to find the slightest grip.

He stuck fast, and paused to catch his breath. A hex, alerted to his arrival by the subtle shift in the wreckage's angular momentum, peered with black eyes out of a nearby hole. Its forelegs came out to point at him. Shigar reached for his lightsaber, but Hetchkee was quicker. The hex swept up and away from him, into empty s.p.a.ce, where it was blown to atoms by Larin.

"Thanks, " he said.

"Pleasure" came Larin's reply. "Are you going to lie there all day while we do all the work?"

He was already moving, tugging himself lightly from handhold to handhold in the perfect free fall of open s.p.a.ce.

"You are close, " said Master Satele over the comm. "I can sense you. There's a shattered access port ahead. Go in that way. "

He obeyed without hesitation, keeping a sharp eye out for more hexes. When he was inside, there would be no rescue from Larin and Hetchkee.

The wreckage appeared to have been part of the Corellia's forward command center and had been occupied at the time of the disaster. Shigar squeezed past several bodies as he wound his way deep into the twisted structure. The path was tight and occasionally dangerous, with sharp edges and spikes to negotiate. There was very little light.

"Come to the next intersection and stop there for a moment, " she told him. "I have to tell you something. "

The sound of movement came from ahead, through the bulkheads he touched, and Shigar slowed down to a bare creep, every sense attuned to the slightest change. The intersection must once have been broad enough for a landspeeder but was now barely large enough to admit a person, particularly one as tall as him. There was definitely something moving down the right-hand bend.

"What I must tell you is this, " Master Satele said. "Ever since we heard the droids, I've been wondering just how much of herself Lema Xandret put into her creations. The answer is around that corner, Shigar. Can you see it yet?"

He edged around the corner to see what lay ahead of him. There were nine motionless hexes cl.u.s.tered around a pressurized door, as though waiting for it to open.

"I'm behind that door, " she said, "and soon you will be, too. "

"How, Master?" He couldn't conceive of a way to defeat nine hexes at once, when just two had been more than a match for him on Hutta. There was barely enough room to slide by them, let alone fight.

"You told me that the droid factory contained a biological component, " she said. "It seemed reasonable to wonder if the hexes might also. "

"There's a fluid inside them, " he said, remembering what he had seen on Hutta. "It looks like blood. But they're definitely droids. They're not cyborgs. "

"Not in the usual sense. They're something else. But the fact that they are at least partly alive is the only reason I'm still here. "

"You're influencing them?"

"As much as I can, which isn't very much. They only attack when either obstructed or threatened. I'm doing neither, so they're letting me be. They won't go away, but at least they're not being aggressive. I think I can hold them back while you come to the door. "

Shigar swallowed. "You want me to walk right through them?"

"It's the only way. "

"And then what?"

"Then you open the door and let me out. "

"I have a suit for you..."

"I won't have the chance to put it on. There's no air lock. I'll keep a bubble of air around me using a Force shield. That'll give me a couple of minutes. You'll have to move much faster than that, though. I won't be able to hold the hexes and the shield at the same time. "

Shigar clenched his fists. It seemed impossible. But she was relying on him. No one else could help her.

"I'm on my way, Master. "

He nudged himself around the corner and came into full view of the hexes. Despite his faith in Satele Shan's mental powers, he fully expected to be shot down at once. Instead the hexes just looked at him with their black sensory pods, and rearranged themselves slightly, so they could watch both the door and him at the same time.

Feeling like he was in some kind of surreal nightmare, Shigar pushed himself into the tangle of fat bodies and angular limbs, taking the utmost care not to touch anything. He didn't want a chance b.u.mp to wake them from their uncharacteristic complacency. He even breathed quietly, despite the perfect insulation of the vacuum around him. The intensity of the hexes' gaze made him squirm inside.

Finally he was at the door. A red light warned of pressure on the far side. He keyed an override into the pad and the light turned green. The door would open at his command now, expelling the air in an instant.

"Are you ready. Master?"

"Yes. "

He pushed the b.u.t.ton. The gale tried to blow him away but he was firmly braced against the opposite wall. The hexes flailed in surprise, suddenly released from Master Satele's calming influence and blinded by the frozen air coating their sensory pods. Shigar was partly blind, too-he could see only blurrily through the mist stuck to his visor-but he had the advantage of not having to see. His Master's presence was like a beacon to him.

He lunged into the tiny chamber and hit the switch to seal the door behind him. The hexes scrabbled to get in. It wouldn't be long before they cut their way through. He had maybe seconds to find another way out.

Master Satele floated in a ball in the center of the room, her Force shield shimmering around her, a milky luminescence maintained barely a finger-span from her body. Shigar was struck by how small she looked. In his mind, she always seemed of gigantic stature, not just dominating the Jedi High Council but influencing the course of the Republic as well. Now, though, she seemed tiny.

A grating noise came from the door. The hexes were already cutting through. Master Satele had left her lightsaber floating beside her, outside the Force shield. He took it in his left hand, reached for his own with his right, and activated them both simultaneously. Their greens were not quite identical, and by their combined light odd shadows danced across the walls.

The room was barely three meters cubed. Apart from the door, there were no other entrances. That didn't matter. Shigar could make his own. Raising both lightsabers, he stabbed into the wall at a point above his head, then spread both blades out in a circle before meeting at the level of his knees. A red-edged section of the wall fell free, and he kicked it into the s.p.a.ce on the far side. Using telekinesis to gather up Master Satele, he propelled himself through the gap.