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More quietly, Limpan added, “Communications, let Blue Diver know that as soon as we reach Point Bleak, she’s to come alongside. I’ll be transferring the flag to Blue Diver.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Limpan saw several spines stiffen at the announcement. Good, she thought, they still have their pride. It was one thing they hadn’t completely lost.

Dodonna poured damage down onto Centerpoint Station, digging a latitudinal trench of melted metal and scoring to match the longitudinal one Blue Diver had gouged. But the pursuing Bothan and Corellian starfighters, unchecked by a sufficient starfighter screen, continued to hammer away at the battle carrier. Blue Diver broke away from the station to follow the flagship, using her batteries to eliminate as much of the starfighter pursuit as she could, but it was like a novice Jedi trying to protect a haunch of blood-warm meat from a swarm of piranha-beetles.

Finally Dodonna jumped, joined shortly thereafter by Blue Diver and the hyperdrive-equipped starfighters supporting them. Anakin Solo was the last to enter hyperspace.

Arriving at Point Bleak, the three capital ships maneuvered close to one another, the better to exchange aid and support with overlapping fields of heavy-weapons fire.

But no enemy vessels followed them out of hyperspace. They had time to assess damage, to communicate with Coruscant, to gather data.

It wasn’t long before the HoloNet churned with news reports from Corellia. Prime Minister Dur Gejjen almost glowed with the victory of “casting free the yoke of Galactic Alliance oppression,” and offered praise to the forces of Bothawui and Commenor, and to his own battle coordinator, Admiral Delpin, who was conspicuously commended for doing “what Admiral Antilles could not”—as if she’d had any role in bringing the Bothans and Commenorians to the table.

Admiral Niathal ordered Dodonna back to Coruscant. She ordered Limpan’s task force to effect repairs, stand by, and use its resources to monitor activity within the Corellian system. She also warned Limpan of possible treachery or sabotage—it was clear that the Bothan fleet’s departure from the Bothawui system had been kept secret owing to some catastrophic failure of the Alliance forces monitoring that system.

Within a day the Galactic Alliance declared that the state of war previously enacted against Corellia now extended to Bothawui and Commenor as well. Holonews political analysts, sober or gleeful depending on the political and exploitative leanings of their own news services, speculated on which systems would be next to join what they now referred to as the Corellian Confederation.

Commendations were offered on both sides. Memorial services for the dead took place.

And with the political climate changed—with a negotiated peace between an isolated Corellia and the Alliance no longer possible—Jacen Solo and the Anakin Solo were ordered back to Coruscant.

chapter fifteen

ZIOST

From high orbit, the world of Ziost didn’t look like a place of evil.

It was a typical blue-green world, a good mix of landmass and open water, ice at the poles, white cloud formations everywhere, including the characteristic spiral of a hurricane over one of the oceans. The landmasses at the equator seemed to be almost entirely green, graduating to green-white up through the temperate zones and turning to pure white soon after, giving the world large polar ice caps. There was no hint of desert or any terrain other than forest and tundra.

It was, in fact, a beautiful place, if one looked only with one’s eyes.

But Ben had other senses, and through the Force he could feel something else, something malevolent about the planet. It seemed to be staring at him, as if it were a mottled eye belonging to a hideous, hate-filled face he couldn’t quite make out.

Ben stared at Ziost, and Ziost stared at Ben. Ben gulped.

“Shaker, do you pick up any thruster trails?” Ben asked. He didn’t really expect much help there. Thruster emission trails dissipated rapidly, and since a planet’s vehicle and vessel traffic