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Breathing fast and hard, Callista set to work. She heard the thrum of battle echo through the hull of the Knight Hammer. She hesitated a moment, telling herself she didn’t care—but she had to find out what was going on.

She raced over to a wallscreen and requested a current battle display, surprised to see the Millennium Falcon disappearing into Admiral Ackbar’s flagship, the Galactic Voyager. The stakes were now raised. Ackbar’s Calamarian Star Cruiser bore heavy weaponry, but not even the combined New Republic ships could stand against a Super Star Destroyer.

Admiral Daala fired, pummeling Ackbar’s shields, and the Star Cruiser backed off. Callista knew she had to hurry, but just before she turned away, she saw another fleet of Victory-class Star Destroyers appear out of hyperspace and join the trouncing of Ackbar’s fleet. The New Republic rescuers would be cut to ribbons in no time—if Callista didn’t move soon.

She code-locked the bay’s access door from the outer corridors to ensure her privacy. The protection wouldn’t last long if an Imperial slicer tried to break in, but she just needed to hinder any interference.

Callista sprinted back to her damaged TIE bomber and opened the armament reserves, where she assessed the cargo of concussion missiles behind their launcher systems.

Rushing back to the wall, she studied the simple schematic of the Knight Hammer. It wasn’t very detailed, designed mainly to aid new recruits lost aboard so vast a vessel—but Callista recognized that her greatest hopes had been fulfilled. The TIE bomber bays were far to the rear of the Knight Hammer, separated by thick bulkheads from the immense engine and propulsion systems.

Callista fixed her gray eyes on the armored wall at the far end of the bay and pointed the leftover missiles from the TIE bomber directly toward it. She set their timers for automatic launch. It should be enough for a breach. And that would be just the beginning.

Then she raced to the next TIE bomber and opened up its launcher, fiddling with the full rack of concussion missiles. Her breath came fast, her thoughts pounded loud and heavy in her head. So many explosives, and so little time! she thought with a smirk.

Long ago, she had attempted a similar thing to stop the Emperor’s automated death machine, the Eye of Palpatine, from destroying former Jedi colonies. Her spirit had been trapped inside a computer, where she had hung in limbo for decades. Her sacrifice had indeed diverted and delayed the Dreadnaught in its mission, until Luke Skywalker had finished the job and rescued her at the same time.

Luke. She forced the thought away, concentrating on her mission.

Right now Callista was all alone—and she liked it better that way, because then she needed to worry about no one but herself. She didn’t have to argue with Luke about the best way to salvage a mission. The risks and the costs were hers alone.

She wished desperately that she had found her Force powers again, that she and Luke could have made a life together as two powerful Jedi. She loved him very much … but this was more important right now. All the new Jedi Knights would be killed if Daala’s Knight Hammer was not stopped. And she would stop it herself.

Callista had a second chance. She had tried to save the children of the Jedi so many years before, and now that the new Jedi were so desperately few, she had to make a terrible choice. A personal choice. But since she had none of her powers anyway, the loss of Callista would not be such a terrible wound to the New Republic.

Would it?

She could strike a great blow against the Empire. Nothing else mattered.

Callista raced from bomber to bomber setting each store of missiles on target, diverting a few to strike the fuel tanks of other bombers in the bay so that the explosion would be perpetuated, a chain reaction, building and building.

The Knight Hammer would fall.

With all the charges set, Callista locked the access door behind her and raced along the harshly lit corridor, finding an empty