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Two days became three, and three stretched to five. The ultimatum was retransmitted daily at 1700, but there was no response of any kind from inside Koornacht Cluster. It became increasingly clear that the Yevetha were ignoring the messages.

On the sixth day an Alpha Blue stationary probe came out of hyperspace near Doornik 319 and recorded the arrival of a small flotilla—three spherical thrustships and an Imperial-design Star Destroyer. The recording was relayed successfully to a repeater outside the Cluster, but the probe had been on station long beyond its endurance and disintegrated when it tried to disappear back into hyperspace.

As soon as they reached him, Drayson brought both the news and the dispatch to Leia at the residence.

“I’m afraid our probe will have left debris in realspace,” he said apologetically. “That may complicate matters.”

“All it tells them is that we’re watching—and that they can’t detect it when we are,” Leia said. “Maybe that will help us a little.”

“But the reality is that that was my last asset in that system,” Drayson said. “And placing them is harder than hiding them once they’re there. This is likely to be the last report from Doornik Three Nineteen for the foreseeable future. They’re all going to be expiring.”

“Let me get Han, and we’ll take a look,” she said. “And we should contact Behn-kihl-nahm and Ackbar.”

“I took the liberty,” Drayson said. “Bennie is on his way over. But Admiral Ackbar is getting in some time in a TX-sixty-five and won’t be here for at least an hour.”

“All right. We’ll wait for Bennie.”

“He said not to.”

“Well,” said Leia. “Then I guess we won’t.”

Together Han, Leia, and Admiral Drayson watched the four minutes of data—twenty capture clips, each twenty seconds long, spanning a six-hour period. They documented the arrival of four ships and landings at widely separated sites by three of them. When the recording was finished, Leia looked up in surprise.

“That’s not enough,” she said. “We can’t tell whether those ships went down empty or full. We can’t see if they left or stayed.”

“Wait,” Drayson said. “The recording is ER—enhanced resolution. We can zoom on the last two clips, when the second thrustship was almost directly under the probe.”

The enhanced images resolved the ambiguity. They revealed a glassy landing pad in the middle of an empty, undeveloped plain, and a train of cargo pallets, each nearly the size of a light freighter, being towed away from the thrustship.

“That’s it,” Leia said. “That’s their answer.”

Han shook his head and frowned. “I think the translation is ‘Oh yeah? Make me.’ ” He drew a deep breath and released it noisily. “What now?”

“We wait for Bennie,” Leia said. “In the meantime, I want to see it again.”

Eventually the meeting at the residence grew to include Engh, Rieekan, Falanthas, Behn-kihl-nahm, and Ackbar. There were several showings of the recording, particularly the later clips. No one who saw it failed to be concerned.

“Bennie? What do we do?” Leia asked. “Send another ultimatum? Tell them we know what they’re doing, insist that they stop? Maybe a firm deadline this time, and a clearly stated consequence for missing it.”

Behn-kihl-nahm’s jaws worked at her use of the nickname in that setting, but he said nothing of it. “It’s difficult to see what magic words would make another warning any more credible than the ones we’ve already sent.”

“We should give them more time,” Minister Falanthas said. “There may be an internal struggle over this—a split between the military and the civilian government. What we see at Doornik Three Nineteen may not reflect the ultimate resolution. If we respond too forcefully, it could force them into an adversarial position.”

“In the little we know, at least, there is no evidence the distinction is meaningful in the Duskhan League,” Ackbar said. “Nil Spaar acts with the singular initiative and decisiveness of an autocrat—an absolute ruler.”

“He’s calling your bluff, Leia,” Han said. “There’s no other