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Then a cry went up, as someone in the gathering saw that the tiny ship that had been circling over Nine South was moving to a new position over Nine North. In a matter of moments, the crowd broke and ran, some for the feeble but comforting shelter of the terminal buildings, some for the open spaces beyond the city, as far from the city as their legs would carry them. Mallar fought free of the sudden stampede, then turned and ran as well.

Twelve students in Mallar’s second-form engineering classes had been granted the privilege of learning to maintain and fly the TIE interceptor berthed in 10S Technical Institute’s docking bay and equipment garage. The bay was halfway around the terminal hub from where he had stood with the crowd, and though he ran as hard as he could, he didn’t expect to be the first of the twelve to arrive.

But he was. The bay doors were standing open, and members of the junior form were hastily clearing away the droids and vehicles blocking the entrance, but the cockpit of the interceptor was still unoccupied.

Mallar did not hesitate. Grabbing a helmet and re-breather from the equipment lockers, he clambered up on the interceptor’s right-side wing brace and popped the access hatch release. “You!” he shouted, pointing at the nearest student. “I need a power droid over here, now!”

By the time Mallar settled in the cockpit and started the power-up sequence, two other would-be pilots had arrived. With a cool and purposeful efficiency that would have done a carrier deck crew credit, they helped hasten the dull gray power droid into position beside the fighter.

The moment the power coupling clicked in the starting port, Mallar ran up the capacitors for both ion engines, then dropped them back to a neutral idle. There was no point in completing the rest of the system checks. There was no time for repairs, and crashing was no more fearful a prospect than the next attack from beyond the clouds.

“That’s got it,” Mallar called over the microphone. “Uncouple me, and then clear the bay—I’m flying her out.”

Ordinarily, the TIE would have been towed out of the bay and onto the landing pad on her skids by a tug droid. But that would take precious time, and Mallar was already afraid he was far too late. The moment the last of the other students fled out the bay doorway, he shoved the throttle forward.

The interceptor jerked forward as the engine backblast lifted loose debris and rained it on the fighter’s combat-hardened solar panels. Picking up speed rapidly, the ship began to lift just as it passed through the bay doorway, and the upper edge of the left panel dragged against the durasteel frame with a screech that shivered everyone in earshot, including Mallar.

Then, with a bump and a lurch, the ship cleared the bay, bursting out into the bright, diffuse light of a Polneye midday. Pointing the twin booms of the wing-mounted cannon skyward, Mallar threw the interceptor into a full-power climb.

The tiny black ships were still circling high in the air like carrion birds. Activating his targeting system, Mallar was heartened to see that three more of the settlement’s TIE interceptors were in the air. Selecting the nearest target and steering toward it, Mallar then did something no instructor had ever authorized—powered up the four Seinar laser cannon.

With an insistent beeping, the targeting system informed Mallar that it had identified the primary target as a TIE/rc reconnaissance fighter. But to Mallar’s surprise, there was no safety interlock preventing him from firing on what the interceptor took to be a friendly target. Moments after the target was identified, the attack computer locked on.

TARGET IN RANGE, said the cockpit display as the indicators changed from red to green.

He squeezed both triggers, and the ship quivered around him as the quad cannon spoke.

No one was more surprised than Mallar when the target stayed in his sights and then exploded in a yellow-white gout of flame. Whether