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Ninety seconds later a cycling light came on over one of the unused stern air locks of the Authority assault craft. No one was there to notice, because, except for a skeleton watch, the entire ship’s complement had been turned out to rescue the Viceprex, at his order.

The lock opened. Through it stepped a very incensed Wookiee, hefting a captured wide-bore blaster. He was pleased, however, that he hadn’t been compelled to waste time and power burning through the lock doors. He’d secured the outer hatch open. Behind him, floating in the weightlessness of the extended tunnel-tube, were more prisoners, waiting with weapons and with claws and stingers and pincers and bare, eager hands. Even farther back, at the junction station, other prisoners were being crowded aboard the Falcon, while more waited to leave the tower. Since the freighter could never hold them all, this ship had to be captured.

Chewbacca gave a hand motion and set off. The others drew themselves in after, touching down as they entered the assault craft’s artificial gravity.

The lock’s opening had been noted on the bridge. An Espo crewman, coming to check out what he thought would be a malfunction in the air-lock apparatus, rounded a corner and almost fetched up against the Wookiee’s enormous, furry-haired torso. A stroke of the blaster’s butt sent the Espo flying back through the air. He landed in a brown-clad heap, his helmet skittering along the deck.

Another Espo, down a side passageway, heard the noise and came running, tugging at his holstered pistol. Chewbacca stepped out of concealment and swung the blaster’s stovepipe barrel, downing him. As prisoners rushed to pick up the felled men’s weapons, Chewbacca led the rest on, past engineering and crew’s quarters, as small parties split off from the main group to take and hold those areas. More and more prisoners poured from the aft lock, making way quickly for the many who were to follow.

The Wookiee came to the hatch of the ship’s bridge. He hit its release and, as the hatch slid up, stepped through. A junior officer did a foolish double take and fumbled for his pistol, saying, “How in—”

Chewbacca struck the officer down with a giant forearm, then threw his head back and roared. Those behind him surged into the bridge. Little of the fighting done in the next twelve seconds was with artificial weapons. None of the bridge watch ever reached an alarm button.

Setting the wide-bore aside, Chewbacca prepared to cast off from Stars’ End.

Atuarre watched anxiously as she and a few chosen helpers in the big tier-level cargo lock almost threw milling prisoners into the tunnel-tube, where they thrashed like swimmers, moving and helping one another toward the junction station. Doc had already gone ahead to take the Falcon’s controls. As soon as Chewbacca had control of the assault craft, he was to free it gently from the tower so that it couldn’t be retaken, and the Espos’ withdrawal route would be cut off.

So many! Atuarre thought, hoping there’d be room enough for all of them. Then she saw a familiar face in the crowd and abandoned her place, keening with joy.

Pakka came, too, and clung to his father’s back, holding on to both his parents for the first time in months, his wide eyes tearing.

Just then, Stars’ End’s general power conduits, weakened by erratic flow management, began to explode.

Up on the landing, Han heard it, the beginning of Stars’ End’s death throes. He was holding with three others, all of them armed. Hirken’s people had been quiet for the last few minutes; the Viceprex was probably hoping that relief wasn’t far off. And he could be right, since Espo assault troops were working their way up through the tower quickly, mowing down the prisoners’ opposition.

But the exploding conduits constituted a new factor. Han ordered everybody back. “We’ll hold at the tier-block level; pass the word below to come running.” They could pull back to the air lock, which lay beyond the fifth tier block, if they had