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further diverting the bombs’ trajectories so that they would not only miss the task force, but avoid the planet altogether. The final two Slash-Es, however, were stationed on the opposite side of the gravity bombs’ path; the first’s task was to direct the bombs back toward the planet. Not at the planet, but along a tangential parabola that would allow the final Slash-E to drag them into a trajectory that had been precisely plotted by the titanic processor array that was the brain of Remember Alderaan.

All of Captain Patrell’s training had insisted that the gravity-well projectors of interdiction ships were never to be activated any time the ships were deep within a natural gravity well, such as that of a planet, because the projectors themselves created much too powerful a gravity field of their own. For Mindor, it was equivalent to having four medium-sized moons suddenly pop into existence entirely too close to the planet’s surface.

The first groundquakes began only seconds after Wait a Minute initiated the sequence, as whole sections of the planetary crust were sequentially lifted and dropped and twisted and wrenched. These quakes were exacerbated by the close passage of the stream of gravity bombs as their altered trajectory became a slingshot maneuver described by General Calrissian as “Right back atcha, scumball; see how you like it.”

In roughly eight and a half minutes, the first of the slingshot gravity bombs would reach the near vicinity of the flying volcano and begin to rip it to pieces.

Unfortunately, the movement of the gravity gun and the physics of gravity waves meant that all the calculations included a small measure of uncertainty.

It was that uncertainty that caused the second in the crooked line of the Slash-Es, the Hold ’Em—instead of diverting one particular gravity bomb farther from Mindor and the task force—to divert the bomb toward Hold ’Em’s own hull, just forward of the portside projector array. Hold ’Em’s captain had just enough time to understand the sensor readings and remark “Whoops …” before the gravity bomb’s impact.

The point mass of the gravity bomb lanced through Hold ’Em almost without resistance, but the effect of its passage was very much like that of the gravity slice that had cut free the flying volcano: an instantaneous burst of high-energy radiation powerful enough to vaporize a hole so big that a fair pilot could have flown an X-wing in one side of the ship and out the other. The shock wave blew the ship in half and sent the remnants tumbling away from each other.

Even before the radiation flare from Hold ’Em had died, Captain Patrell was on comm. “General Calrissian,” he said calmly. “We have a problem.”

“So I see.” Lando was already watching the laser-straight streak of blue-white radiation that marked the path of the first of the gravity bombs to enter Mindor’s atmosphere. The impact lit up the distant planetary horizon like a fusion bomb. “I’m taking the rest of the task force back up into orbit; it’s our best chance to survive. Except—”

Except that Remember Alderaan’s ultrasophisticated sensors had already detected a widening gravitic anomaly, spreading through the planet’s crust from the huge crater left by the volcano’s departure, and the ship’s brain had already calculated that in approximately two Standard hours, the planet would no longer be a planet. It would be an expanding spheroid of newly formed asteroids … and every impact of every gravity bomb would shave those hours ever thinner.

When the planet broke up, there would be no more shadow to shield the Republic ships from Taspan’s ever-increasing flares.

As the task force left the atmosphere, Lando could only stare back down at the impact flares. It didn’t seem possible. Luke was down there somewhere. And Han, and Leia. And Lando had just helped blow up the planet.

His only consolation was that he wouldn’t live to regret it. None of them would. He turned his gaze on the flying volcano and thought about the slingshot stream of gravity bombs, eight or ten of them on their way, and his lips peeled back off