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A soft chill of danger sense tickled her between the shoulder blades. She slipped her thumb off the transceiver pad and went into an evasive climb, juking and jinking so hard she felt the craft vibrate as Rowdy slammed into the walls of his droid socket. The crimson streaks of cannon bolts began to brighten the void all around, flashing past a lot closer than she would have liked. Even without a comm signal for their targeting systems to lock onto, the pirate gunners were doing a good job of keeping her in their crossfire.

The gravelly voice came over the cockpit speaker again. “That wasn’t much warning, Jedi Solo.”

Instead of replying, Jaina ordered Rowdy, “Get me a location on that transmission. Is it coming from one of the skiffs or the mother ship?”

Before Rowdy could answer, the voice spoke again, “You didn’t even give me time to issue a recall order.”

Space outside turned crimson as a cannon bolt glanced off the StealthX’s weak shields. Knowing the enemy would see the bolt’s change of vector and realize exactly where she was, Jaina instantly rolled into a spiraling dive … and cringed as space again turned red. Half a heartbeat later another bolt struck, then blossomed into a golden spray of dissipation static.

An alert buzzer sounded inside the cockpit, and Jaina glanced down to see a message flashing on her display: SHIELD OVERLOAD.

“No kidding.” She pulled her nose up and corkscrewed back toward the two shuttles, and the stream of fire quickly drifted away from her StealthX. “What about that transmission source?”

THE SIGNAL ORIGINATED FROM THE MOTHER SHIP.

“Thought so.” Jaina swung onto an interception course with the nearest shuttle, then said, “Arm bomb four.”

She had barely spoken before cannon fire began to flash past again, turning the void as bright as a bonfire. She spun into an evasive helix and continued toward her target. The enemy continued to close in on her, the bolts streaking past so close that the canopy’s blast-tinting went dark and stayed that way.

“Rowdy, are we still transmitting?” she asked.

A negative chirp came over the speaker.

“What about leaks?” Unable to see her target through the darkened canopy, Jaina dropped her gaze to her display and began to fly by instruments. “EM radiation? Fuel? Atmosphere?”

Again, a negative chirp.

“Keep checking,” Jaina ordered. “They’re tracking us somehow.”

A message scrolled across her primary display. BY SILHOUETTE? ASHTERI’S CLOUD IS STILL BEHIND US.

“I don’t think so,” she said, fully aware of the difficulty of tracking a distant speck of darkness by sight alone—especially one that was spiraling toward its target at thousands of kilometers an hour, with the gunners blinded by the flashing of their own laser cannons. “Not without the Force.”

A soft ding announced that they had closed to launching range of their second target. With the canopy still darkened by the constant barrage of cannon bolts, guiding the bomb to its destination by sight was out of the question. So Jaina expanded her Force awareness in the direction of the shuttle until she felt the living presences inside. She was not surprised to sense a heavy taint of darkness in them, but she was shocked by how calm they seemed, by how focused and disciplined they appeared to be.

Of course, that was about to change. “Launch bomb four.”

Jaina felt the gentle bump of the shadow bomb being forced from the torpedo tube. She reached out for it in the Force—then grew distracted by the all-too-familiar bang-screech of a cannon hit. Alerts and alarms immediately filled her ears, and the StealthX went into an uncontrolled … twirl? It felt like she was in one of those thrill rides that spun around the central axis of the car, plastering their passengers against their seats. Jaina eased the stick in the opposite direction and slowly brought the starfighter back in line … then realized she had lost control of the shadow bomb, and her heart rose into her throat.

“Uh, Rowdy?”

YES?

“Any idea where number four went?”

IT DID NOT STRIKE THE