He had intended to destroy his vessel before anyone could get close to it-but it might already be too late. Too late.

"I hope you're ready for me, Zekk," he muttered. His escape pod should take him to safety before Boba Fett or the other bounty hunter could latch onto him. He sealed the hatch and hit the launch b.u.t.ton.

Acceleration threw him back against the small padded seat, and Boman Thul held on while the lifepod ejected. As the predatory bounty hunters moved into position, he looked out the small round porthole, hoping the right ship would retrieve him first.

While Boba Fett's Slave IV raced after the dwindling escape pod, the bounty hunter Shakra sat in her bare c.o.c.kpit considering another alternative, another way to achieve her goal. Her reptilian frill plumped with excitement and her large slitted eyes narrowed as she made her choice. She accelerated toward Boman Thul's newly abandoned ship. She would get aboard and tear out his computer banks with her own sharp-knuckled hands. Most of all, Shakra hoped to find something Boba Fett might have neglected. The bounty and the fame she'd receive from Nolaa Tarkona were the incentive that drove her ambition-but the reward of knowing she had outsmarted Boba Fett would be nearly as sweet.

She docked her little craft against Boman Thul's empty vessel and used robotic grapplers, magnetic sealers, and powerful blasters to rip her way into the abandoned ship. She didn't care about. causing damage. All that mattered to her was the information she might find inside. Shakra came aboard like a predator stalking a wounded creature. She looked from side to side, scanning the decks, observing the c.o.c.kpit, tasting the air with her forked tongue. Through the front windowports she watched Fett's ship closing in on the escape pod, while the newly arrived Lightning Rod raced to intercept. They had left Shakra alone with this craft, and she hoped to make a killing.

Alarms flashed in the c.o.c.kpit. The engines groaned, rumbled, and whined as power built up. Her hard lips expressed her distaste in a scaly frown.

Her slender black tongue flicked out. The air tasted hot, angry.

Apparently, this craft had sustained more damage during the attack than she had expected. But anything that remained was now hers. She let out a long hissing laugh, and her slit pupils widened as she contemplated which files to steal first. Abruptly her attention fixed on the engine diagnostics, the power levels, the heat exchangers that blazed a silent warning: a countdown. Her frill shot up in astonishment and alarm.

Thul had set his ship to self-destruct! She whirled about, her fanged jaws wide open as she gasped in the hot recycled air. The timer showed only seconds remaining. Crying out like a coward, Shakra fled toward her ship, glad that none of her brood-mates could see her reaction. If only she could get far enough away from the blast zone! Her clawed feet scrabbled on the deckplates. Through the hole in the hull up ahead she saw her own ship, her escape...

Just as she reached the opening, Borran Thul's craft exploded like a supernova, obliterating Shakra, her ship, and itself, along with any residual information its computers might have carried....

As Zekk jockeyed into position to cut off Boba Fett's ship, he looked grimly at the Lightning Rod's weapons systems. He had shot at and chased the masked bounty hunter before, but in each case Zekk had had the element of surprise, and he had fled before the firefight could get too intense. Fett outgunned him by a significant margin.

"Get the tractor beam on that escape pod," he said to Raynar. "We don't have much time."

"Which is the tractor beam?" Raynar said, looking frantically at the control panels. "We haven't covered that one yet."

Zekk dodged and rolled the Lightning Rod, skimming past a volley of laser fire from Boba Fett.

"That one!" he said, jabbing quickly at a control panel in front of the copilot's chair. He fought his impatience with Raynar's lack of training.

The blond-haired young man was just as interested in rescuing his father as Zekk was in surviving this encounter. Slave IV came in shooting. Boman Thul's voice came over the comm system.

"If you're going to rescue me, you'd better do it quickly."

"I got him!" Raynar yelled as he successfully locked on the tractor beam.

Boba Fett cruised toward them, ready to s.n.a.t.c.h the escape pod directly from their grip. At that moment, without warning, Borran Thul's ship exploded in a nightmare of blinding white that washed across s.p.a.ce in an expanding sphere.

"Hang on!" Zekk swung the Lightning Rod around to shield the escape pod just as the shock wave struck. Fett's ship was knocked into a dizzying spiral. Zekk barely held position, nudging his thrusters to keep the Lightning Rod balanced.

"We're still here. We're still intact," he said.

"So am I," Boman Thul shouted over the comm system. "But I won't be for long unless you get me aboard."

Fett recovered quickly and came after them again, angry now. Zekk fired, but his weapons were much weaker than the bounty hunter's. He fed all available power to his shields but still felt the pounding of Boba Fett's blasts. He checked to see if Raynar had drawn the escape pod into the cargo bay yet.

"What's this alarm light mean?" Raynar asked.

"It means our shields are failing!" Zekk said. Suddenly, another ship soared out of hypers.p.a.ce, emerging from the glare of Bornan Thul's self-destructed vessel. Without pausing to take aim, the new ship fired immediately upon Boba Fett. Bright streaks of fire sprayed s.p.a.ce and struck Slave IV.

"Yee-ha!" Jaina Solo's voice crowed over the comet system. "Take that, Boba Fett-and don't mess with our friends!"

Zekk fired his own weapons again in tandem with the Rock Dragon's second full-powered volley. Fett, seeing himself clearly at a tactical disadvantage and not knowing if other ships might soon arrive, broke off his attack. He sent one brief comm burst as he wheeled about.

"I have what I need." Then he vanished into hypers.p.a.ce.

"Nice turnabout, Jaina," Zekk said, with a tense smile. "About time you came to rescue me for a change!"

The Rock Dragon pulled alongside, and Jaina's chuckle came through the comm system.

"Kind of a family tradition. Dad did the same thing for Uncle Luke at the Death Star, you know. Anyway, couldn't let you keep thinking you're the only one who can pull off a surprise rescue."

Raynar was relieved, nervous, and exhilarated all at the same time. At the moment, nothing was more important to him than getting down to the cargo hold, where the retrieved lifepod rested. He ran to be reunited-at last-with his father.

THE SHARP SCENT of ozone and metal drifted up from the escape pod, along with a crackle of static electricity from the recently disengaged tractor beam. Raynar could hear the chugging of the pod's life-support systems mixed with the whine of the Lightning Rod's sublight engines as Zekk maneuvered to dock with the Rock Dragon. He had never heard or smelled anything so wonderful. The harsh glare of the cargo hold's glowpanels was cheering, welcoming. Everything seemed brighter, sweeter, fresher to him than it had for nearly a year. The galaxy would soon be set to rights.

His father had returned. With shaking fingers Raynar pressed the hatch release, and the heavy top panel popped open with a whoosh of depressurization. Giving a joyful cry of welcome, Raynar leaned into the pod-only to find a blaster aimed straight at his heart.

Jaina was the first to stumble through the airlock from the Rock Dragon.

Setting his external sensors to full alert to keep an eye out for unwanted visitors, Zekk threw aside his crash webbing and bounded out of the Lightning Rod's c.o.c.kpit and into the crew cabin. He twirled Jaina in a happy hug while they both laughed with relief, but then he growled, "I thought I told you you couldn't come with me!"

Jaina knew he was trying hard to sound stern, but she could hear the pleasure in his voice. She pulled back and favored him with a Solo grin.

"Since when have you ever done anything I wanted you to do?" She gave an unladylike snort. "I'm just as worried about your safety as you are about mine, you know."

"All right," Zekk admitted, "I'm glad you came. But I still don't know how you found us."

Jaina shrugged and grinned again.

"Trade secret."

"Hah!" Jacen said, appearing in the airlock with Tenel Ka behind him.

"Some trade secret. More like a sneaky droid, if you ask me."

Lowie also emerged from the airlock in a flurry of ginger fur and full-throated Wookiee bellows.

"Why, if you're referring to me, Master Jacen, I'll take that as a compliment," Em Teedee said, zipping past him into the crew cabin on his microrepulsor jets.

"This is a fact," Tenel Ka said. "You are an excellent 'sneaky' droid."

Zekk looked accusingly at Jaina.

"What did Em Teedee do?"

"When we were helping you with your preflights," she stammered, "I kind of, um, had Em Teedee download the frequency and encoding for the tracer you used on Boman Thul's ship."

"Hey, it was a good thing, too," Jacen picked up where his sister left off. "After we saw the delegation off to Ryloth, we all had this feeling that something was about to go wrong."

Lowie woofed and brushed at the back of his neck to indicate the tingle of danger they had sensed.

"Mom must have felt it too," Jaina said, "because when I told her you were going to need our help, she didn't even try to argue. She was glad she had some Jedi she could send on such an important mission-even if two of them were her own kids."

Tenel Ka nodded.

"Her one stipulation was that we send her a message if we required reinforcements." She raised an eyebrow and looked around at her friends.

"Do we require reinforcements?"

"Not if Boman Thul made it out intact with his navicomputer."

"Or managed to destroy it," Zekk added. "We'd better go down to the hold and find out."

"Don't shoot, Dad-it's me!" Raynar said. His father, looking haggard and wary, glanced around but did not lower his blaster. "Are you a hostage?

Have you been coerced into helping a bounty hunter or the Diversity Alliance?"

"No, Dad. Zekk may have worked as a bounty hunter, but he's a... a friend." Raynar was surprised to note as he said it that this was true.

Zekk was a friend, and the dark-haired young man had risked his life more than once for each of them. "He believes what you told him about all humans being in danger. He wanted to help you, so he came to get me-he figured you wouldn't trust him alone."

Borran Thul's haunted eyes closed for a moment, and he nodded.

"Your... friend was right. I wouldn't have trusted him." Raynar's father lowered the blaster and extended a hand for his son to help him out of the escape pod. Raynar had thought about this too long to be embarra.s.sed anymore, although his family had rarely engaged in physical contact when he was growing up. Even before his father's feet were firmly on the deckplates, Raynar threw his arms around Borran in a fierce hug. And his father, perhaps because he was unsteady, or perhaps because he'd also had months to reflect, did not hesitate in returning the embrace. Only the sound of his friends' footsteps descending into the cargo hold brought Raynar bask to reality. His father flinched and reached for his blaster, instantly suspicious again.

"These are my friends, too," Raynar said, and introduced them one by one.

"They're all Jedi trainees, except of course for Em Teedee, who is the best miniaturized translating droid ever to be retrofitted on Mechis Ill-and a pretty good navigator to boot."

"Speaking of navigators," Zekk said, "what about the module Nolaa Tarkona wanted so badly? Was it onboard your ship when it blew up?"

Bornan Thul pointed into the emergency pod.

"No, I brought it along. It's here with me."

Raynar felt giddy with relief.

"Then you don't have to run anymore," he said. "All we have to do is destroy the information."

His father's mouth formed a grim line. All the blood seemed to drain from his once-round cheeks. He shook his head.

"It's not that simple. Before I got into the escape pod I noticed that the computers on my ship were all being accessed at once. I don't know how, but someone was slicing into them remotely."

"Ah. That would probably be Boba Fett," Zekk said.

"He did that to the Rock Dragon when we were in the rubble field of Alderaan," Jaina explained, then looked questioningly at Boman Thul. "But you have the navicomputer with you. Boba Fett couldn't have sliced into it."

"You don't understand." Boman's voice rasped as if it were painful for him to speak. "I knew that even if I destroyed this navicomputer Nolaa Tarkona would never stop looking for the weapons depot. That's why I went there myself, hoping to destroy it. I couldn't find a way, though, so I left again, planning to buy supplies and weapons so that I could return to blow up the storehouse." Raynar blanched. "But that means that the location of the plague storehouse - "

"-was in your ship's own automatic navigation log before it blew up,"

Jaina finished for him.

"In that case," Zekk concluded, "Boba Fett has the information. And he won't hesitate to give it to Nolaa Tarkona."

NOLAA TARKONA GRITTED her sharpened teeth when she learned of the impending arrival of the New Republic inspection team. Her hirelings had failed to find either Bornan Thul or the location of the Emperor's plague storehouse. And now she was being pushed against the wall. Her glorious political movement was in grave danger. Her finest plan, her highest expectations, had been thwarted-so far. The Diversity Alliance might never be able to unleash its storm of vengeance to obliterate the human race in punishment for the evils of the past. She had tried, and she had failed, because of one missing piece of information. Her hopes of liberating all oppressed species had collapsed like an imploding star.

Even so, Nolaa did not intend to give up willingly.

She would make her mark in blood if nothing else. When pushed to the wall, some creatures turned very vicious indeed. She summoned Rullak, the Quarren representative, and Kambrea, the Devaronian female whose wily ways had allowed her to move up quickly in the ranks of the Diversity Alliance. Kambrea had recruited many members, both from her own race and from other downtrodden species. Nolaa also sent for Corrsk, her reptilian Trandoshan general wounded in combat by the young Wookiee who had betrayed them and fled back to his cronies in the New Republic.

She looked stonily at her three generals as they came forward. All had increased in rank since the untimely death of her wolfman Adjutant Advisor, Hovrak.

"The New Republic is sending a team to inspect Ryloth," Nolaa said, "and we must choose whether to surrender meekly, or fight to the death. We can either be cowards or martyrs-and I know which I must choose."

She didn't ask for their decision. She knew Corrsk would fly into a battle frenzy, but Rullak and Kambrea were not quite as determined to lay down their lives for a dream. They had come to the Diversity Alliance to gain personal glory, and Nolaa doubted they would sacrifice their own blood for the cause.

"We've gathered arms, weapons, explosives," Nolaa pointed out. "We have a few fighting ships, enough for a small armada. And we have sufficient weaponry and devoted soldiers to make a stand here. We can fight! We will lure the unsuspecting New Republic team into our catacombs and slaughter them. Then we declare Ryloth neutral-exempt from human law-and refuse to grant them any further access."

Kambrea looked astonished.

"But they will never let you get away with that. They will force their way in, howling for revenge!"

Nolaa stiffened. Her tattooed head-tail lashed back and forth.

"We have the power of righteousness on our side. If we become martyrs, the whole galaxy will see how humans treat any resistance to their domination. "

Kambrea took a step backward. The Quarren fidgeted, his face tentacles quivering. Corrsk stood like a towering statue.

"Kill humans," he said in his gargling voice. A signal alerted Nolaa, and she felt cold inside. She hadn't expected the human team to arrive for another day, at least-but it would be just like them to attempt to catch the Diversity Alliance unawares. One of the Duros command system operators signaled her.

"Esteemed Tarkona, Boba Fett's ship has arrived. He bears urgent information for you."

"Boba Fett!"

She did not allow herself to hope. The masked bounty hunter had already reported failure too many times. Still, he would not have come without good reason. She waited for the Slave IV to enter the landing bay and for Fett to be escorted into her presence. Ignoring the guards, the masked bounty hunter strode directly up to Nolaa Tarkona, his shoulders squared.

In one gauntleted hand he carried a data cylinder. The slitted visor showed nothing of his face.

It was difficult to read his body language, but Nolaa thought she detected a swagger of pride that had been missing the previous times he had come to her.

"We cornered Bornan Thul," Fett said without any greeting. "He escaped in a small lifepod and triggered his ship to self-destruct."

Nolaa wanted to strangle something, someone nearby.

"So he got away again? You dare to report another failure?"

"No," Fett said. He held up the data cylinder. "Before his ship exploded, I sliced into his computers and drained the files. I sorted through them during my flight here." He handed the cylinder to her. "Thul took Fonterrat's navicomputer with him, but he went to the place you seek-five days ago. His ship's own log carried the precise coordinates."