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His face was cut and scraped from flying debris, but somehow—probably through shielding himself with the Force—he had managed to avoid the worst of the explosion. Before she could reply, he had ducked around the corner of the shuttle, disappearing from sight once again.

A few seconds later she heard the unmistakable sound of the lightsaber shearing through metal yet again from the far side of the hangar.

She broke into a run, heading in the direction of the noise. She was only halfway there when another explosion knocked her to the ground. When she got back to her feet she saw that a second shuttle had been disabled.

Knowing his next target, she turned and ran toward the Stalker. She pulled up short when she came around a corner and saw her opponent standing beside her shuttle, his hand gently gliding along the hull.

“What are you doing?” the Huntress shouted.

“All I want is to get out of here alive,” he explained. “But for some reason you seem intent on killing me.”

“You took the first swing at me,” she reminded him. “When I caught you about to steal my ship.”

“A simple misunderstanding,” he said, waving his hand to dismiss her accusations. “There are two shuttles left. You take yours and leave the other one for me, and we never have to see each other again.”

“What if I say no?”

“Then I destroy your shuttle and we see if you can stop me before I get to the last one. My guess is you can’t, and then we’re both stuck here when these walls come crashing down.”

“You’re a coward,” the assassin shot back. “You wouldn’t even stand and fight me. Now you expect me to believe you’d sacrifice yourself to trap us both here?”

“I’m a realist,” the man explained. “If we fight, I’m dead. If I trap us here, I’m dead. Either way the outcome is the same … but if I destroy the shuttles, then at least I take you with me.”

She didn’t answer right away. It was possible he was telling the truth: people did desperate things when cornered.

Her thoughts seized on the hooked handle in her belt; he wasn’t the only one armed with a lightsaber. She briefly considered trying to use the weapon she’d taken from the Sith Lord’s mansion to block the attack if he tried to damage her shuttle, then dismissed the idea. She had no training or experience; she’d never even held a lightsaber until a few days ago. Even if she did, by the time she crossed the distance between them the damage could have been done.

Next, she tried to calculate her odds of getting to the last remaining shuttle before her enemy could disable it. She might be able to beat him there, but as soon as she climbed inside the cockpit he’d be able to run up and wreak havoc on the engines.

Finally, she weighed the possibility that he wouldn’t actually go through with his threat. Even when faced with a hopeless situation, few people would have the strength of will to destroy their only chance of escape. There was a very good chance he was bluffing.

But even if he was, what did she gain by calling his bluff?

She didn’t know anything about this man: who he was, how he got here, or why he had shown up in the first place. What did she really accomplish by killing him? And what did she lose by letting him go?

The only reason she hadn’t left yet was the belief that this was where she would find her destiny. Whether this man lived or died was of no consequence compared with that.

A deep thrumming boom rolled through the cavern. The silver-haired man swayed slightly on his feet.

“We’re running out of time,” he warned, cocking his arm back and taking aim.

“We have a deal,” she shouted.

“Stay where I can see you,” the man warned, backing away from her carefully.

Keeping his eye on her, he scooted over to the other shuttle. He disappeared around the far side of the vessel. She heard him fumbling with the access panel as he sliced the security systems, followed by the unmistakable whoosh of the boarding ramp descending. A few seconds later he reappeared, visible in the cockpit viewport.

The Huntress simply watched, knowing there was nothing she could do. Unlike