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“Why did you terminate your search? A Strike-class cruiser has two hundred fifty-eight compartments.”

“Colonel, with the conditions over there, I wasn’t going to find out any more in an hour than I did in fifteen ticks,” Hammax said. “I thought the best thing was to come back and leave it up to you whether to commit the time to take it further. If you want all two hundred fifty-eight compartments searched, I’ll turn around and get started on it.”

“Is it your report, then, that Calrissian’s party is not aboard the cruiser?”

“I can’t tell you with absolute certainty that the general wasn’t aboard when the balloon went up,” said Hammax. “But in my opinion, it’d take a forensic salvage team the better part of a week to be any more certain. Your call.”

“Stand by, Colonel Hammax.” Pakkpekatt rubbed his temple crests as he checked the comm queue. The “Fleet Intelligence” dispatch was still spooling into Lady Luck’s comm buffers, pouring in at 94 percent efficiency of the highest available error-checking transfer rate. But even at that rate, the counters predicted it would take another twenty-three minutes to complete the transfer.

“All stations, conference,” Pakkpekatt said.

“Hammax here.”

“Taisden here.”

“Pleck ready.”

“It is my belief that the most probably scenario to explain our findings is that this vessel was destroyed by the vagabond by means of a weapon not previously seen. The vagabond is likely to have been damaged in the confrontation, prompting Calrissian to recall his yacht. Concur or dispute.”

“Concur,” said Pleck.

“I concur,” Hammax and Taisden said simultaneously.

“Proposition: The degree of damage sustained will dictate the current location of the vagabond. If not seriously damaged, she will have jumped out. If seriously damaged, she will have moved off in realspace, perhaps to make repairs. If mortally damaged, she may still be present as an undetected debris field.”

Pleck and Hammax agreed.

“Or she may have tried to jump out and broken up in the process, in which case there might be very little debris to find,” said Taisden.

“Yes,” said Pakkpekatt. “Disposition: We will remain at this location while we conduct a maximum-aperture deep scan for the vagabond, and until we examine the debris field more closely. Colonel Hammax, stand by for possible debris recovery operations. Agent Taisden, please return to the second seat to supervise the deep scan.”

As Taisden reached the flight deck Pakkpekatt was turning the bow of Lady Luck away from the cruiser. “You said there was a possible body?”

“Let me locate it for you,” said Taisden, reconfiguring the displays. “Twelve hundred meters, bearing two-one-zero, plus four-four, relative. A lot of smaller stuff between us and it, though.”

Pakkpekatt responded by reactivating the particle shields so that they could shoulder aside any debris in their path. “Please begin your scan.”

“That’ll scatter the field,” Taisden said. “Standard recovery protocol calls for deflectors only, with particle shields at zero.”

“I know that,” said Pakkpekatt. “But this is not a junker, Agent Taisden, and we are not scavengers.” He pushed the yoke forward, and Lady Luck eased away from the shattered cruiser. Within a minute, it had entered the cloud of debris.

The “body” proved to be a curious object—a rough-surfaced sphere two meters across, carbon-scorched over one third of its surface and encrusted with a thin layer of fragile, long-crystal ice.

Pleck had come forward to the flight deck for a closer look. “Could it be some sort of escape pod?” he asked. “I’ve heard that spaceliners used to be equipped with something like the ferry bags S-and-R units use—you know, not much more than a soft-sided ball with a rebreather, so you can move people off a disabled ship without having to try to get them into spacesuits.”

Taisden shook his head. “I’m still on passive sensing only, but the thing looks solid to me. If the colonel will let me strobe it—”

“No,” said Pakkpekatt.

“Colonel, if it’s something interesting,