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“Hold on a moment, little guy.” Ben closed his eyes and concentrated.

Through the Force, he could feel the looming mass of the Y-wing, even trace its contours. And there was Shaker, too, but he couldn’t separate the droid in his mind from the starfighter. He didn’t want to pick up the whole starfighter, didn’t even want to try.

Then Shaker made a noise of curiosity, and suddenly the droid was distinct from the starfighter, its own lines clearly defined. Ben grinned and focused on the astromech.

He gently pulled upward, as if trying to extract a plug from an engine. The plug proved to be stubborn, so he pulled harder.

Shaker’s sudden squawk of alarm almost broke Ben’s concentration, but he frowned and kept at it, and could sense the astromech rising into the air and floating free of the Y-wing. Ben gestured laterally, and Shaker drifted to one side.

Carefully, Ben brought the droid down to the ground and opened his eyes. Swaying a little, tired from his effort, he said, “I guess you’re coming with me.”

The droid chirped, its tones suggesting relief.

Heading westward, the direction in which Ben felt the distant glee, they plunged into the forest of Ziost.

It was a cold day. Though Ben had felt comfortable out in the clearing, in the cloud-muted sunlight, here the forest canopy cut off most of the sunlight, and Ben felt a chill. The massive, dark, twisting tree trunks, looking like pain-racked bodies flash-frozen and preserved in their agonies, added to his unease. He pulled his Jedi cloak from his backpack and donned it, grateful for both its warmth and the symbolic protection it offered.

There were no trails through this forest, just dense undergrowth. Shaker’s limitations in the environment—the droid could move briskly on its wheels on flat, hard surfaces, but had to waddle slowly on legs on uneven terrain—kept their progress slow. But in the first hour of travel, Ben did not feel the glee he was pursuing become more distant. If anything, he and Shaker seemed to be closing, very slowly, on his quarry.

Then he heard sounds from the direction they’d come. The sounds were far away, muffled by distance and the oppressive forest, but Ben thought he recognized the scream of ion engines, the thoom of laserfire.

Shaker began tweetling a complicated message. With a sinking feeling, Ben pulled out his datapad and opened it. A series of diagnostic reports scrolled by on the screen too fast to read, but then the message scrolled to a stop.

The last line read:

Y-WING DIAGNOSTIC SUMMARY: ASSESSED DAMAGE PRECLUDES FUNCTIONING. COMMUNICATIONS ENDED. PROBABILITY 84% THAT Y-WING HAS BEEN TOTALLY DESTROYED.

Ben sank down to sit on the powdery snow cover on the forest floor. Faskus’s enemies had come back and destroyed his transportation, the only way he knew to get back offworld.

The files he had suggested that no one was sure of any sentient beings still left on Ziost. There might not be anyone to help him get offworld, ever…and no one who cared about him knew he was here.

He was going to die alone on Ziost.

He forced himself to stiffen up. Whether he died or not, he had a mission to finish. And once it was done, he had a second mission, a personal one.

To punish the people who had tried to exile him on this lonely world.

CORUSCANT JEDI TEMPLE, COUNCIL CHAMBER

They met in their circle of chairs—elegant stone seats, far short of thrones in lavishness, and not comfortable enough to encourage meetings that lasted for hours. The others—Mara, Corran, Kyle Katarn, Cilghal, Kyp Durron—waited for Luke to sit, a tradition they’d informally adopted and which he wished, just a bit, that they’d abandon.

When all were seated, Luke said, “Cilghal, I’d appreciate it if you’d take the role of taras-chi for this gathering.”

The Mon Cal Jedi Master blinked at him. Her protruding eyes made the action more impressive than it would be from a human. “I’m sorry, Grand Master. Take the role of what?”

Kyp made a tiny noise. It could