"No. So what do you want to do?"

"Are you really giving me the choice?"

"Not really, just seeing if you could come up with a decent argument. "

Tiny points of light flared in the holoprojector as the Paramount sent every missile it had on the way.

CHAPTER 42.

Larin ran lightly over the uppermost dome of the skyhook, keeping low to avoid the occasional potshot. The structure was made entirely out of linked hex bodies. Some of them retained a modic.u.m of individuality and raised a limb to fire as she went by. She couldn't watch everywhere at once, but she had managed to avoid any serious injuries thus far.

That would change the moment her message was received, or the fleet opened fire regardless. There was no way off the skyhook now that it was in flight. If it went down, so would she and all her squadmates. Not all of them had jumped aboard with her, but those who had knew what they were getting into. There were perhaps two dozen troopers like her scattered across the moving skyhook, all operating independently.

Comms came and went; she had set her transceiver to broadcast at the earliest opportunity and let it spool on without her hearing. Each transponder she placed pointed to an air vent or sensor array, or anything else that might suffer from an accurately placed hit. She hadn't wasted time on trying to sneak inside the skyhook. There would have been little benefit in getting herself killed that way.

It was ironic, she thought. Telemetry told her that the skyhook was bringing her closer to where Shigar should have landed, but she probably wouldn't make it, and neither had he, most likely. His transport had gone down in flames. She might share the same fate as he had and never know it.

Blue light flashed to her right. A trooper had been pinned by three widely s.p.a.ced hexes, all firing simultaneously. He returned fire, crouching low to present a smaller target, but he couldn't fire at all of them, and he had nowhere to retreat to. As she watched, taking the measure of his predicament, a shot clipped the neck seal of his helmet, triggering a jet of precious air. He went down, thrashing about to reach the leak, but his shoulder joints wouldn't flex that far.

She came in low and fast, shooting the nearest hex first, before getting a bead on the others. They shifted their sights to her, but she was practiced at fighting hexes now. She aimed for the sensor pods first because they were easiest to hit. Without eyes, how could they shoot back?

Two other hexes joined in before she reached the fallen trooper. She scooped him up with one hand under his left underarm and kept moving, firing as she went. Using gravity and her own momentum, she took him down the dome as if they were running down the side of a hill.

When they were out of range, she skidded them to a halt. The edge was in sight. Beyond that point, there was nothing but Sebaddon, far below.

He was still thrashing about. She reached for the repair kit in her thigh pocket and urged him to stay still. He obeyed. As she applied the fast-acting sealant to his damaged neck joint, they recognized each other.

The trooper looking up at her was Ses Jopp.

His voice traveled clearly through the material of their suits.

"You're the last person I expected to see. "

She didn't want to say that the feeling was mutual. "I couldn't just leave you there. "

"And I'm grateful, believe me. Thank you, Lieutenant. "

She couldn't tell if he was sincere or not, but it was something.

"There, " she said, smoothing down the last of the sealant. "You'll live to fight another day. "

His eyes tracked to her right, over her shoulder.

"Probably not, " he said. "Look. "

She turned and stared up at the sky. Clearly visible were the white streaks of Imperial artillery coming their way. It looked as if the crew of the Paramount were giving it all they had-precisely as they ought to, she thought.

Rather than craning awkwardly up at the approaching missiles, she turned and sat down next to Jopp.

"Best seats in the house, eh?" she said.

He laughed. "Yeah. People would kill for 'em. "

She thought of her former colleagues in the Blackstars, of the bravado and the bonding and the sense of belonging that she had missed so deeply.

"Grunts like us never learn. Fireworks are only pretty from a distance. "

Jopp nodded soberly. "Makes a pleasant change to have an officer down here with us. "

He turned to look at her.

"Guess you're not so bad after all, Toxic Moxla. "

She smiled. That was as close to an apology as she was likely to get, but in the service it amounted to a vow of loyalty that would endure until they died. It was a shame, she thought, that that wasn't going to be very long.

CHAPTER 43.

Exhaust trails drew complex hieroglyphs across the sky. No less than fifteen missiles were converging on the object that had risen out of the lake. The blast radius was going to be so huge, there was no point running.

Shigar braced himself for the explosion. There was a small chance that he could shield himself from the worst of it, but what happened afterward was the great unknown. There might be no island left at all. He couldn't float about forever on a sea of lava.

On the brink of death, he caught a glimpse of how his life would have played out, had he lived. He knew, intellectually and viscerally, that he had earned the rank of Jedi Knight. Master n.o.bil couldn't deny him that now. He had fought and made deals with enemies. He had wrestled with the dark side. He had conquered his one remaining weakness. And, most important, he was willing to fight.

You arc a product of your time, he heard his former Master saying. You must confront the times ahead with great care. The Sith are the enemy, but we must not become like them in order to beat them. We must remain true to all that we stand for.

He couldn't tell if her voice was in the present, or an echo of the future that would never be. Similarly, he couldn't tell if she was reproaching him or offering him encouragement.

I cannot stand by while politicians play their games, he said in reply. It was an act of thievery that led us here-an act conducted on behalf of the Republic. Even in this corner of the universe, privateers and false treaties have endangered billions of lives. When the whole galaxy is at stake, who can stand idle?

Not you, Shigar Konshi. Not you.

I don't understand. Are you telling me that I'm wrong, or that I'm right?

Perhaps both. The answer is beyond my sight.

He snapped back to reality.

A powerful roaring filled the air. The lines in the sky converged on a point. The hieroglyph was complete.

Darth Chratis vanished behind a shimmering Force shield.

Shigar stood unprotected, at one with the other troopers staring up at their deaths. He wasn't afraid to die.

There was a bright flash, then another, then so many they became one simultaneous a.s.sault.

Shigar shielded his eyes with his hand.

That he still had a hand and eyes surprised him.

He squinted through his fingers.

The ma.s.sive structure had generated a broad electromirror shield, and was deflecting the full force of the blasts back out into s.p.a.ce.

Relief flooded him, then dismay. He was still alive, but the plan had failed. What now?

Darth Chratis emerged from his shield as superhot clouds radiated above them. He looked as surprised as Shigar felt.

"Unacceptable, " he said.

A second series of flashes came from the south, where something else was undergoing bombardment from above. They turned to see another work of mega-engineering from the hexes drifting across the sky, trailing explosive streamers in its wake. An identical electromirror shield protected it, too.

A skyhook, Shigar realized. The other half of the thing looming over him, undamaged by everything the Empire and the Republic could throw at it.

He almost laughed. "It was all for nothing, " he said to Darth Chratis. "You, me, Larin-everything. "

"Do you find this amusing, boy?"

He didn't, but the moment had a hysterical edge all the same. He could agonize all he wanted about the choices he had made and would make, about the Jedi Order's role in the Emperor's plans, and about the Republic's feet of clay when it came to taking decisive action-but if nothing stopped the hexes, there wouldn't be a war at all. The future of the galaxy ended here.

You win, Lema Xandret, he thought, wherever you are.

CHAPTER 44.

Cinzia Xandret stared out of her tank at the girl she might have been.

"Don't look at her, " whispered her mother.

"Why not?"

"She's not real. "

"She looks real enough. "

"But she's not you. "

"She's me as I might have been. "

"You are not her. You will never be her. She is a lie and she is evil. She is..."

"Shut up, Mother. "

The whisper ceased. Cinzia's attention returned to the two people outside the tank, a mature woman with gray-streaked brown hair and her more youthful companion, both dressed in bloodstained armored suits, both strangers, at least to the complex. One she recognized. She had seen that face all her life. It was her own.

"Who are you?" The more senior woman of the two looked shocked and surprised. "Are you Cinzia?"

"I'm her clone, " she said. There was nothing to be gained by hiding the truth, and there was no harm in just talking. "My mother took a tissue sample from me before I was taken away. She made me all over again. The same daughter, but better, purer. "

"That explains why you look younger, " the woman said. She glanced at her companion, who seemed incapable of speech. "My name is Satele Shan. What do you mean-purer?"

"The fluid I'm breathing suppresses my Force abilities. There's something in it-a metal, I think, or an extract from something that feeds on metal. It keeps me safe. "

"Safe?" Now the other Cinzia spoke. "Dead, more like it. "

The sneer on her own face-beautiful, she was pleased to see, with the addition of a couple more years-was simply horrid to behold.

"See?" her mother whispered. "She thinks you a monster. Call the droids, now. She must be stopped!"

"No, " Cinzia said. "Let me talk to her first. I want to know what happened to her. I want to know why she's here. "

"She's come to destroy everything. That's what they do. They take and they destroy. They will show you no kindness, just as they showed none to her. "

"I told you to be quiet. Mother. Besides, I don't trust the droids anymore. You know why. "

That did the trick. The eddying swirls of the fluid around her grew quieter.

"Have you lived here all your life?" the woman called Satele Shan asked.

"Yes. I can access all the complex's cams. Much of it's automated, you know. The droids are my eyes and ears. "

"You control them?"

"If I want to, " she said, although she was less sure of that now than she had been.

"So you're responsible for what's happening out there?" asked the other Cinzia.

"To be honest, " she said, "I don't know what's going on out there. They do seem rather busy, though. They're designed to protect me, and the definition of protect is a bit vague. I guess at the moment that means not telling me stuff. Whatever they're up to, I'm sure they mean well. "

"You should take a look, Cinzia, " said Satele Shan. "The hexes are killing people. "

"Are you sure?"