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The flight deck around the Bright Hope was filled with wounded soldiers. Medical droids moved among them, trying to stop the most seriously wounded from bleeding to death.

And more wounded were being carried in.

We will all die here, Toryn thought, or worse: the Empire will capture us alive. She never once thought that any able-bodied Rebel would desert wounded comrades, and she saw no way to load all the wounded onto the transport before snowtroopers would be upon them. They were already reported in the ice fortress itself.

A blaster shot slammed into the back of the man who stood next to Toryn. He fell dead on the ice, and Toryn and everyone near the tunnel scrambled for cover behind crates stacked by the door.

Snowtroopers—behind them in the corridor!

Toryn returned fire. Only then did she realize she had taken cover behind crates of thermal detonators. Her first thought was to run for safer cover.

But she did not run.

She tore open a crate, activated three grenades, and threw them up the tunnel. The grenades emitted clouds of smoke, and for a few brief seconds she saw the feet of snowtroopers kicking the grenades around the tunnel-floor ice—trying to boot them back out into the hangar.

But they did not have time. The grenades exploded and brought down tons of ice in the tunnel, choking it shut.

And buying the Rebels precious minutes to save their wounded.

“Get these soldiers on board!” she shouted, and she rushed to help carry the wounded to safety and escape.

“Does Darth Vader know?” 4-LOM asked Zuckuss after another 8.37 minutes.

“Yes,” Zuckuss said. He straightened his legs and opened his eyes.

4-LOM immediately began programming the ship for a second, desperate jump away from their destination. They could not change course in hyperspace, but their ship could execute a second jump so quickly it would appear for only a brief moment on the Imperial’s screens. He calculated that it would be a brief enough appearance for them to escape.

Zuckuss put a hand on the droid’s forearm. “This is not necessary,” he said.

4-LOM continued his programming. The last four words Zuckuss spoke made no sense—the “logic” of nonmechanical sentients often made no sense to 4-LOM: of course they had to flee to safety.

“Darth Vader knows what Zuckuss and 4-LOM have done, but he does not care,” Zuckuss said, as usual referring to himself in third person. “The acquisitions he sends us to hunt matter more to him—to the Empire—than one hundred Governors Nardix: and the Empire needs our help. They know that. Zuckuss and 4-LOM are safe in accepting this contract and the Empire’s credits, for now. But if success is not achieved …”

Zuckuss did not finish his sentence—an annoying habit of most nonmechanical sentients. It made accurate communication difficult. 4-LOM quickly computed seventy-six variant endings to that sentence, all with a probability of better than 92.78363 percent of being what Zuckuss might have gone on to say, all predicting the Empire’s wrath and their doom.

Our probable futures have shrunk to this, Zuckuss thought: he and 4-LOM had this one chance to redeem themselves. If they succeeded, the Empire would forget their involvement with Governor Nardix. If they failed, the Empire would stop at nothing to exact its revenge. He and 4-LOM would have to use all their combined skills to hide for a time, create new identities, and survive.

Zuckuss smiled. Days lived under threats like these were days worth living.

Among the last soldiers waiting to be carried aboard the transport, Toryn found Samoc, her younger sister. Samoc was one of the Rebel’s best snowspeeder pilots. That her ship had gone down meant the fight outside was truly horrific. Samoc’s red hair was mostly burned away. Her face and hands were burned. No one had treated her or helped her at all, except to bring her here.

She was conscious. She blinked up at Toryn, through lids that now had no eyelashes, and she tried to reach a hand to Toryn.

“Imperial walker shot me down—” she whispered.

A