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He became aware that there was a faint noise emerging from his helmet. He raised it to his ear.

“Gaunt, Sand, this is Hoth. Come in.” The voice was mechanically distorted and deepened, not clearly recognizable as either human or female, but it was definitely Winter, using the call signs they'd agreed upon for him and Tahiri. “Gaunt, Sand, come in.” Even through the distortion, there was an edge of worry to the voice.

“Hoth, this is Gaunt.” Talking hurt. Jag paused to draw in a pained breath. “Sand is down but recovering. Mad Nek is separated from us, continuing his mission. Are you intact?”

“Gaunt, Hoth. Not badly hurt.”

Jag looked at the debris mound. He switched his glow rod over to a focused beam, shining it across the top of the mound. There were gaps there. It was a precarious, dangerous thing, but there might be a way across. “Call in the rest of Darkmeld. Bring in whoever you can. Bring them in close and have them stand by. If we're lucky, this won't be a complete foul-up.”

“Understood.”

“Gaunt out.”

“Hoth out.”

Tahiri's eyes opened. There was no confusion in them, only anger. She experimentally moved her head, then rolled over onto her back. “Did he have to hit me with a whole cargo ship?” Her voice was almost distinct; Jag's hearing was returning.

Jag pulled his crushgaunt back on. “Turns out that just because he's crazy, he's not inept. Who would have guessed?” He donned his helmet again.

She rose. “Where's my lightsaber?”

He stood as well, looking over the mound. “Somewhere under that, I suspect.”

Her expression turned sour. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

Seff peered around another sublevel corner, spotted the security holo-cam down the corridor, and caused it to fuzz for a moment as he ran past.

He'd had no pursuit, nor was there any sign that the prison's internal security forces were alert to him. And now he could feel Valin, a dull, faint light in the Force, very close—one or two levels up, not more than forty meters laterally from his position.

It only took a simple bypass to get this level's turbolift doors open. The prison designers had done him a disservice by making the air shafts far too small for an adult human to crawl through, but air shafts were not the only accesses. Now he stared up the turbolift shaft. The lift car itself was far above him, not moving—Seff suspected that the state of alert caused by the explosion had resulted in all the turbolifts going to a certain level and locking down. So much the better for him. He leapt across to the ladder rungs on the back of the shaft and began climbing.

The door two levels up would have been even easier to bypass—he was operating from the undefended shaft interior instead of the exterior—except that he had to do the delicate electronics work with one hand while hanging by the other from the top of the access box. But finally it offered up a little spark of defeat and the door slid open.

Three security guards, armed and armored for a riot, stood on the other side. They'd had their backs to the lift door but turned in surprise as the door slid up.

Seff jumped to stand in their midst. “Sorry,” he told them, then kneed the one on the left viciously in the stomach while putting an elbow into the temple of the one on the right, cracking the man's helmet.

The one in the center backed away, bringing his blaster rifle into line, and got a shot off. Seff sensed his intent, a chest shot, and twisted out of the way. The blast passed close enough behind him to sear his shoulder blades.

He ignited his lightsaber and cut the blaster rifle in half at the base of the barrel. The guard, wide-eyed, continued his backpedaling and reached for his comlink, but Seff kicked him square in the jaw. The guard fell, unconscious, his jaw disturbingly askew.

Seff took a look around. This level of the prison, still below the surface, was dimly lit and quiet. The high-ceilinged main corridor and its all-metal walls led right and left from the turbolift lobby. It had many doors, some of them