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Too late, Ben realized that the ball was still an extension of the vehicle, an extension of himself. Even now, he could steer it a little, deflect its course. But he instinctively knew that turning it around and sending it back against the freighter would take too much of his energy.

Ben’s vehicle flashed past the freighter, and it turned to follow. It began turning well before they were past, in fact, keeping its bow and starboard side toward the Ziost vehicle, and Ben thought he saw something twisting and changing on the freighter’s port side.

He sensed his vehicle’s desire to fire with its bottom weapon, to splash laserfire across the enemy, but Ben was focused more on what he’d seen. Turn around, he thought. Dive toward Ziost. Come around the other side of the freighter.

His vehicle inverted with the speed and turning radius of a modern starfighter and angled down to come up on the freighter’s port side. The enemy commander sensed his intent, tried to turn to keep his bow and starboard side facing him, but the Ziost craft’s speed and maneuverability were too great. When the angle was right, he could see that a large panel on the port side was locked open, with another TIE fighter there, ready to launch.

Anger roared up inside Ben, anger remembered from being strafed, anger at what the other TIE had done to Kiara and her life—and a second ball left his top weapon before he realized he had launched it.

The freighter was rolling now, trying to bring its bottom hull into line to take or deflect the shot. But Ben applied himself through the Force and saw the ball change its arc, rising to avoid the freighter’s bottom—all but ignoring the shields, hurtling straight into the open hold, angling toward the stern.

The ball emerged through the starboard side, carrying with it a debris cloud that had once been atmosphere and thruster components.

The freighter’s course and speed were unchecked. In punching through it, the ball had imparted little of its own kinetic energy to the target and seemed at first to have done no damage of consequence. But then the freighter rolled and began an immediate descent toward the atmosphere.

Now Ben let his craft open fire with the laser. Red beams jittered their way across the freighter’s top hull, putting just enough energy through the shields to scorch the paint and sever a comm antenna.

Ben shook his head, ordering his craft to cease fire, and oriented himself toward space. He relaxed, sitting instead of kneeling.

“What happened?” Kiara asked.

“We won.” Now all he had to do was find his way home—use a spacecraft that had no navigational computer, might not have a hyperdrive, to reach the nearest civilized star system, probably Almania again. Coruscant was too much to hope for…

In his mind’s eye, Coruscant grew large, and he could simultaneously see it as a distant gleam in the sea of stars.

Can you take us there?

He knew the vehicle could.

Before we grow old and die?

The vehicle didn’t have a precise understanding of human time, but Ben could feel that the trip would take hours or days, not lifetimes.

So he sent the command.

GILATTER SYSTEM RESORT SATELLITE

In the shadow where she was hiding, Alema saw two figures force their way in through the streams of actors trying to escape.

They were Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade Skywalker, dressed in black jumpsuits with X-wing pilots’ accoutrements, and Alema nearly passed out from happiness. Luke was here and would see Mara die, Leia was still coming…the universe was about to experience some much-needed Balance.

She stopped bouncing up and down long enough to find her comlink. She spoke into it: “Activate and execute approach two.”

On the Duracrud, now floating with all the other arrival craft steered to the holding area by resort security personnel, the nav computer would be loading and implementing a set of simple maneuvers. The Duracrud would move to a position directly above the resort’s dome, a few kilometers away, and then begin accelerating.

“What are you doing, dancer?” The voice was cold, amused, familiar, and it