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The shields went down completely, laying Dualli bare to the enemy attack. He flicked a spindly yellow arm toward the escape pod activation switch, but nothing happened.

Total system malfunction—the CloakShape was dying.

Laserfire strafed the ship. Dualli glimpsed orange flickers with his third eye as flames licked at the cockpit.

" Chsthiss," Dualli had time to whisper as another torpedo screamed toward him.

The CloakShape exploded.

The Leilana's Dagger bounced and shuddered in the rain of debris from the exploding CloakShape fighter. Jayn threw power to the front deflectors, praying that the ion-flux stabilizers would keep him from spinning out of control. A chunk of the CloakShape spiraled into the distance, disappearing in the black. I could be next, Jayn thought, trying to keep his hands from shaking. It wasn't like him to get rattled on the job, even in an ambush. But this time was different.

Just one last job. That was what he'd told himself. For years Leilana had begged him to settle planetside, live a nice quiet life with her. A safe life. He'd put her off, again and again. Next year, he'd told her. Next job. But now Leilana was gone.

He'd missed his chance to do the right thing by Leilana. One last job, one last payment, and he'd have enough to move them to Laressa, Phindar's capital city, where they could have the life they deserved. But the job wasn't exactly working out as he'd planned.

Two of the other ships had already peeled out of orbit and winked into hyperdrive.

Jayn decided to follow them. He could do without the credits. He would find a way to make things work in Laressa. He could find a nice, boring job ferrying rich guys to and from their rich homes. He could do anything if he could just maneuver out of here. He plotted a course out of orbit, zig-zagging through space to avoid the laserfire. Debris pummeled the shields, but the freighter could take it. As long as—

"No!" Jayn shouted as a burst of laserfire took out his port ion engine. He increased power to the thrusters, but a plume of flame shot from his main drive nozzles. The ship vibrated beneath him, as if it were about to fly apart. He tried to pull up, to avoid an incoming blast, but the controls were nonresponsive: A torpedo blasted the reinforced hull. He heard an alarming metallic scream, and moments later a sizable chunk of his starboard wing floated past his cockpit. The Leilana's Dagger began to drift.

"No," Jayn said again, slamming a fist into his useless control panel. "No. No. No!"

The engines were toast. And according to the monitors, fires raged throughout the ship, causing multiple systems failures. Weapons. Navigation. Deflector shields. He was dead in the air. Laserfire pounded the defenseless ship. Acrid smoke billowed into the cockpit. I'm sorry, he thought, choking in the thick, foul air.

Don't be sorry. It was Leilana's voice. At least now we can be together.

He smiled. As the storm of fire consumed him, he searched for her face in the flames.

But there was only light and pain.

And then darkness.

Div pulled his ship into a steep dive, dodging the whirling storm of flak. Laserfire streaked past the cockpit. He veered starboard, angling the ship away from the barrage of fire, but took a glancing hit on his port wing. The deflector shields were taking a beating.

Another hit and he'd be cooked.

Then it's simple, Div thought coolly. I won't let it happen again.

Three of the other ships had exploded before his eyes. Two more had fled. If the job had paid any less, perhaps Div would have followed them. But he needed the credits—and he was more than a little interested in meeting the man who'd set him up.

So he steered calmly through the laserfire and debris, letting his instincts take over.

The ship dipped and rolled, spun and corkscrewed, tracing an intricate path of steep dives and hairpin turns. Nothing could touch him.

His ship was hot off the assembly line, one of the first of KSE's revamped Firespray line. It had been a serious indulgence, but it had been worth it. With its rotating twin blaster