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Had Shadowspawn’s teeth always been so large? And so white … and kind of pointy-looking?

He couldn’t remember. In fact, now that he thought of it, he couldn’t remember ever having seen Shadowspawn smile. Until now. Which could not bode well for his future.

Maybe this was why his commanding officer, Group Captain Klick, had insisted that he report this personally. “I had, uh, thought, my lord, that my lord might find this to be good news.”

“You thought?”

“The, uh, death of Luke Skywalker,” the wing commander struggled on gamely, “will be a substantial blow to the Rebels—”

“It would be a substantially greater blow to me. Tell me again. Slowly.”

“The gravity slice worked as well as can be expected, given that the Rebels fired first,” Prang said.

“They have been known to do so.”

“While the Rebel flagship was not entirely destroyed, the g-slice did manage to cut it into three pieces, of which the two largest are currently derelict in orbit. The smallest section included the bridge, which retained some manu—”

“Wing Commander.”

Prang felt himself swallow again. Involuntarily. “Yes, my lord?”

“Speak to me of how you plan to capture Luke Skywalker.”

“Plan to—? My lord, the only evidence we have of his presence is a single unencrypted EM transmission, which could easily have been some kind of a trick.”

“A trick? Luke Skywalker doesn’t use tricks. The only evidence we need is that someone landed a third of a Mon Calamari starship using nothing but attitude thrusters. That’s a Skywalker at work.”

“My lord, the bridge section exploded on impact.”

Shadowspawn’s interstellar-black eyes narrowed dangerously.

“If Luke Skywalker had perished, I would have felt it in the D … in the Force. Find him, Wing Commander. Find him and bring him to me. Alive. No harm must come to him, do you understand? Do this as though your own life depends on it.”

The wing commander threw his hand up in an enthusiastic salute. “It will be done, my lord.”

LUKE TOILED UP THE OUTER SLOPE OF THE CRATER LEFT by the final destruction of the Justice: a ring of half-fused volcanic rock thrown up five meters above a hillside that was itself piled and fused rock. In fact, from here it looked like the whole planet was nothing but fused and blasted rock; the only colors were the dull reds and shabby blues, rot-green and vomit-yellow of exposed minerals, and the iridescent metallic smears left by meteorites from the daily rock storms.

At the lip, he lay flat and slowly, cautiously, lifted the rad sensor above the rim. He used his artificial hand. The scant bacta he and the crew had been able to salvage from the wreck wasn’t sufficient to treat the casualties they already had; no sense adding to the burden by getting himself rad-burned.

At the base of the ring below him, R2 bounced from side to side, whistling a caution. “I know,” Luke said, squinting up at the rad sensor. “But I have to confirm destruction before we abandon this position—we can’t afford to let these guys get their hands on next-generation Mon Cal tech.”

R2’s answer sounded vaguely scolding, and Luke let himself smile. “Once you get that rollerped back in working order, you can do these jobs again. Till then, though—”

This time, R2’s terrooweepeepeep came out distinctly defensive.

“If you worried as much about yourself as you do about me, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Honestly, I think you spend too much time with Threepio.”

The rad sensor flickered blue, then red, then blue again; radiation levels were low enough that Luke decided he could risk a peek. The interior of the crater was only about fifteen meters deep at its lowest point, though it was several hundred meters in diameter; the sponginess of the volcanic rock appeared to have absorbed a lot of the blast. As for the Justice itself, Luke could see that Mon Calamari scuttling charges were as efficient as everything else they made: he could spot no remaining piece of the ship bigger than his doubled fists. He would have taken a longer look, but the smothering-hot wind was whipping streamers of dust into his face.