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Wedge typed in the next turn’s series of commands to the simulation program and leaned forward to watch the turn’s results. While locked in that pose, he groped around carefully under the desk and located the power cable that ran from the system’s main processor up to the monitors around the desk.

Two minutes left. He watched the Imperials on the screen slaughter the Rebels at Derra IV, as they had more than thirty years before. He made an exasperated noise. With his free hand, he powered down the terminal. Then, with his other hand, he pulled the power cable loose and drew it to him, gathering all the slack he could obtain. Only then did he lean back in his chair.

The door behind him slid open. Titch entered—Wedge recognized him by the sound of his heavy, confident stride—and asked, “Not going so well, is it?” Then the man moved into view, Wedge’s meal in his hands, and walked up to desk number two. He set the tray down. For a brief moment, he looked confused as his fingers contacted water on the desktop.

Wedge powered up his monitor and tossed the power cable onto desk number two.

Titch jerked and began to shake, trapped in the spasms of electrocution. The overhead lights dimmed.

Wedge stood quickly, propelling his rolling chair back and away from him. He glanced behind him. The chair came to a halt a hand span from where he’d aimed it, dead in the center of the open doorway.

Wedge watched the security man being electrocuted. It was now a waiting game, duration measured in seconds. If Barthis did not act before Titch suffered irreparable damage, Wedge might have to—

Finally it came, Barthis’s voice from the next chamber: “Power down Block Forty-five-zero-two. Do it now!”

Nothing happened. Wedge waited. He heard running footsteps, a single individual approaching—Barthis. He could imagine her with a blaster pistol in her hand, and he was still armed with nothing.

Then the lights went out. Wedge heard a gasp from Titch, a metallic thud as the man hit the floor. This was followed within half a second with a whoosh as the depowered door slid down and slammed into Wedge’s rolling chair.

Wedge located Titch by touch. The man moved feebly. Wedge found his belt, removed the blaster from its holster, and switched it from its burn setting to its stun setting. He said two words: “Remember, refreshers.”

Then, on hands and knees, he scooted over toward the chamber doorway. Just before he reached it, he could feel air flow into his makeshift prison, and then his free hand encountered one wheel of his rolling chair. Carefully, quietly, he slid past the chair, which creaked under the weight of the door it held.

He listened and could hear Barthis’s voice, a few meters away: “Send a security detachment to Forty-five-zero-two. The prisoner was contained when the power cut dropped the door, but he has Lieutenant Titch as a prisoner. No, for the moment, we’re secure.”

Then the emergency lighting, dim orange glow rods installed where the ceiling met the walls, came on. Wedge could now see the desk stations here in the outer chamber, could see Barthis where she stood a few meters away, a comlink in her hand.

And she could see him, too. Her eyes widened.

He shot her. Nerveless, she hit the floor with a much less resounding noise than Titch had.

He appropriated her comlink, blaster pistol, identicard, and other effects, stuffing them in his pockets. In seconds, he hauled her over to the door to his prison, shoved her through, and then kicked at his chair until it was forced back out of the doorway. The powerless door slid down into place with a thump.

Beginning on the far side of the chamber, beside the door by which they’d entered this complex of offices, Wedge methodically smashed the emergency glow rods with the butt of Titch’s blaster. Completing the circuit of the room, he smashed the last rod, then situated himself under a desk beside the exit.

Sixty seconds later, there was a whine from that door as the temporary power supply someone had attached outside was activated and lifted it out of the