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An excellent plan, Zuckuss thought. Depending on the oxygen supplies available, he and 4-LOM could take as many as twenty-six people, shoved side by side into the cells.

But Zuckuss was suddenly afraid of sucking additional oxygen into his own ship. He would have to carefully monitor that procedure himself. He was still dressed in his ammonia suit. He put on the helmet and gloves, to prepare for boarding, and double-checked all seals.

4-LOM completed his course calculations and began flying the ship toward the Rebel transport. Subprocessors in his mind then began a complete analysis of his first attempt at meditation and intuition.

He realized he had not been completely truthful with Zuckuss.

He had told Zuckuss he had not achieved intuition. But the thought had occurred to him in his meditation that the Rebels had left the galaxy. His logic programs quickly discounted that idea—but the idea had been there, if only for the briefest of moments.

Under normal conditions, his logic programs never allowed an illogical idea to enter his conscious mind at all.

That it had was something new.

It had not occurred to 4-LOM that to achieve intuition he would have to override logic.

He said nothing of his discovery to Zuckuss.

Toryn stood in front of the computer console in the pod bay. She had her list of survivors: one hundred and eight of them. She began scrolling through the list a second time, reading names, reading their qualifications. She had eight pilots, thirty-two soldiers newly inducted into the Rebellion, support staff from the command center, hangar crew, others with specialized skills: cold weather, Hunting, one cook. She had teams of people stocking the pods with all the food and cold-weather gear they could find.

Thirty-three people had survived on freight deck two. She brought them all to passenger level one except for two Rebels hurt too badly to be moved. Friends stayed with them, and Toryn sent the medical droids. Twenty others from freight deck one had climbed up to the pod bay. It was a crowded space.

Seito stepped up to her. “Imperial Star Destroyer is moving to a second transport.”

The Imperials would be busy for quite some time. Distracted. The pods could launch as soon as she got people aboard them.

She instructed the computer to show her the names of everyone hurt too badly to be moved or who the med droids felt could not survive on Hoth.

A sublist of fifty-two names appeared. Samoc was on that list.

She copied those names to a separate file named SHIP STAY. The main list reduced to fifty-six names.

Next, she listed everyone on the main list with broken legs.

Sixteen names appeared. She also copied those names to SHIP STAY.

She still had forty names to work through, and she could send eighteen. She decided everyone on the transport should help decide who should go. If everyone participated in that decision, those left behind would find it easier to accept.

Next, she worked with the comm system to hold a shipwide conference. It proved quite a challenge to track the voices of everyone speaking on this ship, no matter how many spoke at once, and to let the rest of the survivors hear the other decks. But she succeeded in setting up the conference and copied a complete list of survivors to each functioning screen. When she next spoke, everyone on the ship could hear her.

“This is Toryn Farr,” she said. The crowd around her grew quiet. Everyone on the other decks grew quiet. “I have just been informed that the Imperial Star Destroyer is moving toward its second Rebel transport. Our comrades there will keep them busy for a time. This gives us an excellent launch window, but we have to move quickly to make it. Eighteen of us will have a chance to try to reach Hoth and survive there till rescue. We need to send those whose knowledge and skills equip them to best help the Rebellion after rescue, but who can also make a team prepared to survive under the conditions Hoth presents. I am sending Seito and Crimmins, both with excellent combat skills; Sala Natu, cold-weather survival