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Realizing that the bridge had oxygen, everyone removed their rebreathers. Chewbacca dogged the hatch to the corridor while Filli centered himself at the ship’s control console and activated the bridge’s emergency lights.

“Gossams have longer fingers than I have,” he said in the scarlet glow of the illuminators. “This could take some time.”

“We’re running short as it is,” Cudgel said. “Just get the main cannons enabled.”

Battle droids on the far side of the sealed hatch were already trying to pound their way onto the bridge.

Filli went back to work, but a moment later said: “Uh-oh.” Chewbacca loosed a trolling roar at him.

“Uh-oh, what?” Starstone asked.

Abruptly the destroyer lurched and began to nose about toward Kashyyyk’s crescent of bright side.

“The brain wants to complete the task it was in the middle of when the ship was shut down,” Filli said.

Starstone turned to him. “What was the task?”

“It thinks that the Separatists are losing Kachirho. It’s converting itself into a giant bomb!”

“Can’t you retask it?”

“I’m trying. It won’t listen!”

Cudgel muttered to himself, and Chewbacca issued a sound that was somewhere between a growl and a groan.

“Filli!” Starstone said sharply. “Let the brain think what it wants. Just assign it a new target.”

His blank stare yielded slowly to a grin of comprehension. “Can do.”

Starstone returned the smile, then glanced at Cudgel. “Comlink the Drunk Dancer to prepare to receive guests.”

As soon as Jula received word that the drop ship and transport had exited the Commerce Guild warship, she left the Drunk Dancer in the capable hands of Brudi Gayn and Eyl Dix and headed for the docking bay. Her eagerness sabotaged by the lightsaber gash she had suffered on Alderaan, she moved slowly and carefully, arriving just as the two craft were drifting through the hatch. Forewarned that both were carrying injured, she had ordered the ship’s med droids to rendezvous with her there.

Forewarned.

But not thoroughly enough to prepare her for the number of wounded evacuees who hobbled from the ships, Wookiees squeezing out like circus performers from an absurdly cramped vehicle, and many of them in grave condition.

As for the Jedi, only five of the original seven had survived, and just barely, from the look of them. Jambe Lu, Nam Poorf, and Klossi Anno especially were in a lot worse shape than when they had first come aboard the Drunk Dancer, weeks earlier.

Even the ship’s med droids were dismayed. “This may prove overwhelming, Captain,” one of them said from behind Jula.

“Do all you can,” she told the droid.

It was an unnerving sight, however, and she felt a bit panicked. But the tears she had been holding back since learning of Roan’s sacrifice didn’t gush forth until she set eyes on Filli and Starstone. Seeing her standing distraught, crying into the palms of her hands, Starstone hurried over to wrap her in a comforting embrace.

Jula allowed herself to be held for a long moment. But when she finally stepped out of the embrace, she saw that Starstone’s cheeks were slick with tears, and that only got her crying again. Gently she stroked the young woman’s face.

“What happened to avoiding attachment?” Jula said, sniffling.

Starstone backhanded tears from her cheeks. “I’ve lost the skill. It doesn’t seem to fit well with the Emperor’s New Order, anyway.” She held Jula’s searching gaze. “Your son saved our lives. We tried to go back for him, but …”

Jula averted her eyes. “Someone had to try to stop Vader.”

“I don’t know that Vader can be stopped,” Starstone said.

Jula nodded. “Maybe if I’d raised Roan, he wouldn’t have turned out to be so stubborn.” She frowned in distress. “Some people can’t be talked out of being a hero.”

“Or a Jedi.”

Jula nodded. “That’s what I meant.”

Starstone smiled sadly, then turned to regard a Wookiee and a bearded human who were standing at the foot of the transport’s boarding ramp, speaking with Filli, Archyr, and Skeck. Taking Jula by the hand, Starstone led her over to the unlikely pair, whom she introduced as Chewbacca and Cudgel.

Clearly