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He would make it to the evacuation point or he would not. There was no reason to hurry.

Sivrak activated the blaster.

Dice’s body shimmered with the disassociative energy of the beam. She became fiery, incandescent, and somehow, Sivrak thought, she might have appreciated that transformation. And then the fire that consumed her reached out for Sivrak, engulfing him too as—

—a single TIE fighter emerged from the carbon cloud with all weapons firing blindly. Blinking with surprise, Sivrak felt the chill of Hoth still pulsing through him as he instinctively switched from his etheric rudder to full atmospheric controls, and dodged the killing strands of the TIE fighter’s beams until his rear sights locked and he fired.

The TIE fighter flew apart as Sivrak’s beam tore open its skin and the moon of Endor’s atmosphere instantly ripped the Imperial craft to dust-sized fragments. The hunt was over.

But now the Endor moon filled his canopy. Sivrak slammed at the atmospheric controls, fighting to reduce the X-wing’s roll. The navigation display showed his two possible courses. One to safety. One to the generator. The rear display showed the Death Star firing at will. The X-wing shook as it tore through the thickening atmosphere. Sivrak’s claws dug into the yoke. He was less than thirty heartbeats from the point of no return. Again, he had to decide. He couldn’t decide. The atmosphere sang to him. Like music. Like music from—

—the cantina. Sivrak leaned against the wall inside the doorway, trying to understand what he heard outside on the streets of Mos Eisley. Fighting. Rioting. Speeders rushing. Detonations from the direction of the spaceport.

He stumbled down the stairs to the bar, breathless, feeling the panic of time running out.

It was night. The cantina was deserted. The music was recorded. Something was wrong.

Sivrak slumped against the bar, feeling it shudder as if it coursed through atmosphere.

“Jabba is dead,” Dice said.

Sivrak looked up from the bar to find the lamproid close beside him, studying the reflections in her snifter of clarified blood.

“How …?” Sivrak rasped. His question took in everything that had happened but Dice heard it in only one way.

“Strangled on his sand ship,” Dice said. “A human slave girl, of all things. Used her own chains.”

From somewhere outside, there was an explosion, much closer than the spaceport. The bottles and glasses stacked up behind the bar rattled.

Dice picked up her snifter. “Mos Eisley is in flames. No one knows who is in control.” She unrolled her drinking tongue into the blood and ingested.

Sivrak smoothed the fur around his muzzle in agitation. He knew there was something he had to do, but he couldn’t work it out. He had to discover what was out of place here.

“If Jabba is dead,” he began uncertainly, “then Hoth … Hoth has already been evacuated.”

Dice put the snifter back on the bartop. “That’s right,” she said.

Sivrak felt the fur lift along his spine. “But then,” he said, “you’re dead.”

Dice slid the tip of her tail across Sivrak’s forearm. “Do I feel dead?” she asked.

The Wolfman closed his claws over the tail tip, focusing only on the magic of her improbable presence. He heard other sounds now. Shuffling. Voices. Boots grinding sand into the floor. He looked up at Dice. They were sitting at the table in the corner, the horned Devaronian nodding to the music behind them. Now the cantina was full, bustling. As it had been, long ago.

“The golden droid will come in soon,” Sivrak said. He wasn’t sure how, but he was beginning to understand what was happening, the choice he must make. “And then the golden droid will leave again.”

Dice’s light sensors were unfathomable, as deep as a gravity well. “And what of you, this time?” she asked, as if she had read his mind. “Will you choose to leave as well?”

“The Force,” Sivrak said with wonder as understanding finally welled within him. “The Force is with me, isn’t it?”

Dice smiled, an irksome habit in those who