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“And avoid detection—before, during, and after,” Boiny completed.

“Set course for one-one-seven, freighter’s bow,” Cohl told them. “Accelerate to point five. Fusial thrust on standby.”

He reclined his chair and switched on the starboard display. The Hawk-Bat and the support ships had managed to hold the Acquisitor at bay. But the Trade-Fed’s starfighters were all over the arena, harried by Nebula Front pilots and confounded by the torrents of cargo gushing from the Revenue’s hangar bays. Still, it was just a matter of rendezvousing with the Hawk-Bat and putting a couple of parsecs between the gunship and the Acquisitor.

Rella leaned toward him to whisper. “Cohl, if we survive this, I forgive you for saying yes to this operation to begin with.”

Cohl had his mouth open to respond when Boiny said, “Captain, something peculiar. Could be a fluke, but we’ve got one cargo pod hanging dead on our six.”

“Show me,” Cohl said, cutting his violet eyes to the screen.

“Smack in the center. The one with the pointed snout.”

Cohl fell silent for a moment, then said, “Alter our course to one-one-nine.”

Rella set herself to the task.

Boiny squeaked a nervous laugh. “The pod’s changing course to one-one-nine.”

“Some kind of gravity drag?” one of the others asked—a human named Jalan.

“Gravity drag?” Rella said in obvious derision. “What in the moons of Bodgen is gravity drag?”

“It’s what keeps Jalan from thinking straight,” Boiny muttered.

“Fasten it, the bunch of you,” Cohl said, stroking his bearded jaw in thought. “Can we scan that pod?”

“We can try.”

Cohl forced a breath and folded his arms across his chest. “Let’s play this safe. Steer us back into the thick of things.”

“Master, they’re scanning us,” Obi-Wan said. “They’re altering course, as well.”

“They’re planning to hide in that cluster of cargo pods,” Qui-Gon said, mostly to himself. “It’s time we give them something else to worry about, Obi-Wan. Activate the thermal detonator as soon as they’re a bit farther from the freighter.”

Cohl gripped the armrests of his narrow seat as the terrorists’ pod took a buffeting from its neighbors in the throng that was pouring into the space between the two Trade Federation freighters.

“We can’t take much more of this,” Boiny warned, his sucker-fingered hands gripped on the instrument console.

“Cohl,” Rella said harshly. “Unless we get out now, we’re going to end up in the middle of a starfighter engagement.”

Cohl kept his eyes glued to the overhead display screen. “What’s the pod doing?”

“Matching our every maneuver.”

One of the humans cursed under his breath. “What’s in that thing?”

“Or who?” another put in.

“Something’s not right,” Cohl said, shaking his head. “I smell a womp rat.”

Boiny glanced at him. “Never met one that could pilot a pod like that, Captain.”

Cohl slapped the armrests in a gesture of finality. “No more wasting time. Engage the primary fusials.”

“Now you’re talking,” Rella remarked, carrying out the command.

Without warning, Boiny all but shot from his seat, gesticulating madly at one of the console sensors and tripping over his own words.

“Boiny!” Cohl shouted, as if to break whatever spell the Rodian was under. “Out with it!”

Boiny swung about, his black orbs radiating incredulity. “Captain, we’ve got a thermal detonator affixed to the pod’s drive core!”

Cohl stared at him in similar disbelief. “How long to detonation?”

“Five minutes and counting!”

With its sterile surfaces, sunken control stations, and circular plasma screens that shone like aquariums, the bridge of the Acquisitor was identical to that of her sister ship, save that it held a full complement of bridge officers, and all eight were Neimoidians.

Commander Nap Lagard gazed out the forward viewports at the distant Revenue. At this remove, the bulbous-nosed pods and barges flooding from her cargo holds were mere specks glinting in the sunlight, but magnified views had revealed hundreds of burst pods—the result of collisions and of starfighter laser bolts—their payloads of lommite