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Yes, he’d fight his way out. But he had something to do first. He gestured upward, toward Gilatter VIII, and put his whole heart into two thoughts: It’s a trap! Mines!

“It’s a trap,” Luke shouted into his comlink. “He’s visualizing mines. I say again, mines.”

“Acknowledged, Stealth One,” came the voice of the Voyager’s comm officer. “Be advised, with that transmission, your position is compromised.”

“No kidding. Stealth One out.” Luke switched his comm board over to squadron frequency.

“What now?” Mara asked.

“We go in,” Luke said. He could hear the reluctance in his own voice. “And rescue Jacen.”

Over the X-wing’s intercom, R2-D2, directly behind Luke, offered a melancholy trill.

Every officer on the Galactic Voyager bridge waited for the order to come—the order to take a new heading, to circumnavigate the mine grid ahead of them.

That’s not what they got. “Continue all ahead slow,” Niathal ordered. “All forward gun positions of all lead vessels, open up in a sweep pattern directly forward. Second-tier capital ships and starfighters still in formation, drop in behind the capital ships. The order is given for Anakin Solo and all outlying vessels to jump.”

There was the briefest delay, and then the bridge crew turned to its new tasks.

Galactic Voyager’s commander, a Quarren named Squinn, edged toward Niathal. His face-tentacles were motionless with forced calm, but a question burned in his eyes.

Niathal answered it. She had to speak more loudly as Voyager’s weapons batteries began firing. “If we hadn’t gotten Solo’s warning, Captain, what would have happened?”

“We would have advanced into the minefield.”

“Until?”

“Until our forward ships began hitting the mines.”

“And then?”

Understanding dawned in the Quarren’s expression. “We would have set a new course, a lateral course. Into more mines that have been maneuvered into place while we were waiting here.”

Niathal nodded. “Mines we couldn’t detect because of the thicker atmosphere around and below us. Mines that would continue to close on us. This way, we’re going to be hammered, but with the fewest number of hammers they currently have to swing against us.”

“Understood.” Captain Squinn edged away again.

“It’s a trap,” Leia said. Though Jacen’s Force-based warning had not been intended for her, she could not have missed it—not a panicky emotion from her own son.

She leaned forward in the copilot’s seat of the Falcon, but the only thing visible from the Gilatter system was its yellow star, straight ahead, distant and tiny. “Han, did you hear me?”

“I did.” Han’s face was, for once, a mask of indecision.

“We have to go in and get him,” she said. The words hurt. Her anger at Jacen’s actions had not abated. She didn’t trust him.

But he was her son. She had to save him.

“We’re waiting for news about Alema,” Han said. But there was pain in his voice, too. His protest sounded weak.

“Go, Han.”

“Yeah.” He hit the thrusters. The Falcon was already oriented straight toward Gilatter VIII. All they had to do was engage the hyperdrive.

Lando rose from the navigator’s seat behind them. “Not that I’m part of this conversation, but I suspect I should operate one of the laser turrets. Right?” Receiving no answer, he sighed and headed back to the turret access tubes, his cloak swirling behind him.

The Turr Phennir hologram had appeared so close to Alema that she was, initially, partly within his right leg. She edged away, disappearing into the crowd.

Getting to this meeting had been easier for her than for any other infiltrator, she thought. After all, memories of her presence faded from the minds of those she encountered mere minutes after she departed. That, and her Jedi skills, made it child’s play for her to bypass guards, eavesdrop on conversations, and never stain the memories of those whose resources they used.

Unless she wanted them to remember, like Captain Lavint.

Now she hoped she would not be noticed as she made her way from the main hall. She didn’t think she would be. Jacen Solo was doing too good a job of attracting