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“Good, good,” Tol Sivron said absently. “How soon will I be able to shoot again?”

The stormtrooper studied his panels. The white plasteel helmet masked any hint of expression. “The spacetroopers are suited up and on their way. They are descending the catwalks now.” He pointed his featureless black goggles at Sivron. “If the repair work goes as planned, you could fire within twenty minutes.”

“Well, tell them to hurry,” Sivron said. “If Daala destroys Maw Installation before I do, I’ll be very annoyed.”

“Yes, Director,” the captain said.

Tol Sivron watched with simmering frustration as the Millennium Falcon disappeared toward the other fighting ships inside the Maw. He noticed the New Republic battleships that had overrun his facility; he noticed the large conglomeration of planetoids where he had spent so many years of his career. And then he looked at Admiral Daala’s Star Destroyer. Daala, whom he loathed, who had deserted him and her duty at the time of greatest need.

Tol Sivron muttered to himself as he fidgeted in the command chair. “So many targets,” he said, “and so little time.”

38

The battle-sacarred Star Destroyer cruised so low over the Maw Installation’s weakening defensive shields that Luke’s instinct was to duck. The complex clutter of the Gorgon’s hull flowed like an unending river past the skylights, showing just how immense the battleship was.

“Shields just failed completely,” one of the technicians said. “We won’t survive another pass, and the reactor asteroid is going critical!”

Wedge punched the facilitywide intercom and shouted orders. His voice echoed through the labyrinth of tunnels in the clustered asteroids of the Installation. “Last call for evacuation. Everyone to the transport ships. Now! We’ve only got a few minutes to get out of here.”

The alarms somehow grew even louder. Luke turned to follow the troops running toward the doors. Wedge grabbed the thin blue arm of Qwi Xux, but she resisted, staring in horror at the computer screens. “Look!” she said. “What is she doing? She can’t!”

Wedge stopped to glance at the streams of data flying across the screens at high speed. He blinked and saw rapid-fire images of blueprints, weapons designs, test data.

“Admiral Daala must have known Director Sivron’s password,” Qwi cried. “She’s dumping the data backups we couldn’t crack. She’s downloading all the weapons information!”

Wedge grabbed Qwi by the waist and yanked her away from the terminal, rushing her toward the door. “We can’t do anything about that now. We’ve got to get out of here.”

They ran down the corridors with the assault troops in the lead. Qwi’s feathery hair streamed behind her, glinting in the harsh white light from the glowpanels.

Wedge felt overwhelmed, his tension rising, as if his internal chronometer were ticking down the seconds until the explosion of the fragile reactor asteroid, until Admiral Daala’s next attack, until the whole Installation bloomed into a white-hot cloud of rubble.

Wedge had never wanted to be a general anyway. He was a good wing man, a fighter pilot. He had flown beside Luke down the trench of the first Death Star, and next to Lando Calrissian to destroy the second one.

By far the best assignment had been to escort the lovely Qwi Xux. Even frightened and dismayed, Qwi looked exotic and beautiful. He wanted to hold her and comfort her—but he could do that on the transport back to the Yavaris. If they didn’t get out of here immediately, they would all die.

As the refugees scrambled across the takeoff area, one of the transports declared itself fully loaded. Wedge grabbed his comm link. “Go, go! Don’t wait for us!”

They charged up the ramp of another waiting shuttle. The remaining troops scattered to their seats. Wedge took a second to make sure Qwi had a safe place to strap herself in. Luke bolted for the cockpit and threw himself into the copilot’s chair, powering up the sublight engines.

Wedge took one last glance back at the personnel compartment to verify that everyone was at least close to being seated.