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With a curse he had not intended to utter in front of his daughter, Caedus grabbed the Blur’s control yoke and hit the thrusters.

Not fast enough. The inner surfaces of his solar arrays flashed red and his Blur kicked as it was hit from behind by a full-strength laser shot. The Blur spun from the impact, then the thrusters kicked in and he was hurtling away from that spot in space, executing one more tumble before he could gain complete control over his prototype TIE.

Use shields or continue to use stealth technology? Each choice was equally good, equally bad. He decided on the latter, hoping that his sudden burst of speed had taken him out of direct view of his attackers.

He could begin to make out the identity of his ambushers now. Luke, the shining presence. Kyp Durron. Corran Horn. Two or three others he didn’t know well enough to recognize.

Three Masters this time. They’d learned their lesson at the Senate Building when he’d finished off Kyle Katarn.

Both times they’d attacked when he was in the company of his daughter. His anger grew, ready to fuel his powers.

He felt his enemies seeking him, felt them turning after him. He made himself smaller in the Force, reducing his presence to nothingness. He would give them nothing to work with.

Lasers erupted behind him, missing by meters. He veered to starboard. The laser burst tracked his movement, clipping his port solar array wing before the burst ended.

Caedus growled. They were doing a fine job of tracking him. Either the Blur was not all it was cracked up to be, or they had some other means of determining his location.

Then Allana started crying again, and Caedus knew he had his answer.

They were homing in on Allana’s Force presence, they had to be. They were using her to target him. Hypocritical opportunists—for all their talk of protecting the innocent, they were now going to use a blameless little girl, shredding her life to get to him.

His anger grew, consuming him, casting everything he saw within the cockpit, every star outside the viewpoint, in a haze of redness. So great it was that he could no longer contain his presence in the Force—his anger flowed through him, through Allana, through his pursuers, through everything in tune with him or the Force.

The Love Commander waited, clamped by magnetic landing gear to the stern of the Anakin Solo, Han and Jaina staying alert for an opportunity to launch when the ship’s gunners were likely to be distracted. The opportunity had not yet come. The Star Destroyer’s complement of starfighters had launched, joining the engagement between the capital ship fleets, leaving none behind to harass the yacht, but the instant the yacht moved away from the vessel it would come within sight of its turbolasers and ion cannons.

Leia, seated in the captain’s chair, grew more restless…and then was hit by a wave of hatred. Redness and heat swamped her—hatred for the Jedi, hatred for Luke, for the Confederation, for lasers and explosives and chaos. She gasped, her back spasming from the overload of emotion. In the starboard seat ahead of her, she saw Jaina jerk, but her daughter was less affected than she had been.

“Sweetheart? Leia! What’s wrong?” In an instant Han was by her side, gripping her flailing hand, helpless concern on his face.

“It’s Jacen. He’s out there.” She gestured to starboard, well away from the Anakin Solo. “He’s…I don’t know. I’ve never felt him like this.” She shook her head to clear it. “Luke’s there, too.”

Han’s expression shifted from concern to grim determination. “All right. We’re going now, turbolasers or no turbolasers. Time to prove that I can fly a sand bucket through an ion storm.” He returned to his seat, strapped himself in.

Jaina’s voice was a rebuke. “That we can.”

“Right. We’ll argue over who’s second best when we’re out of here.”

chapter nineteen

Luke felt the wave of hatred flow through him. It was so strong it felt like a kick in the gut, and he wondered for an instant if Jacen had perfected some new Force attack.

But no, the undercurrent was of