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The thing looked like a huge armored rat with spines along its back and tusks coming out of its mouth. It had the tail of a krayt dragon, flicking in its final convulsions as black-purple blood oozed around burned craters of blaster wounds in its hide.

“Guess it got hungry waiting in there,” Wedge said. “Your fearless leader needs to be a little more careful from now on.”

He sent the bobbing lights through the opening to illuminate the chamber ahead. Nothing else seemed to be moving inside. Behind them the giant armored rat shuddered with a last groaning sigh, then sagged.

In pairs they pushed through the opening into the isolated chamber. The metal-plated floor was strewn with cracked bones and skulls from the subhumans that lived in the city’s lower levels. “I guess it found something to eat after all,” Wedge said.

On the far side of the dark room, they found another tunnel from deeper underground where a grate had been peeled aside. The grate was rusted, but bright score marks from large claws showed where the rat-thing had torn its way through.

“Not it—a she,” Lieutenant Deegan said. “And now you can see why she was so upset.” He pointed to the corner where the worst damage had occurred.

Broken blocks of building material lay piled on the rat-thing’s nest. Bright smears of blood showed where three of the creature’s young—each one the size of an Endorian pony—had been crushed by the boulders.

Wedge stared for a moment before he looked around the rest of the gloomy room. Adjusting the light-enhancers on his visor, he could see dark gadgets, consoles, bed-platforms with manacles and chains. Parked and dormant on two stands were glossy black Imperial interrogation droids; secret computer ports stared gray and dead like amphibious eyes.

“Some sort of torture center?” Lieutenant Deegan asked.

“Looks like it,” Wedge answered. “Interrogation. This could yield a lot of information the Emperor didn’t want us to have.”

“Good thing you shut down the construction droid, Wedge,” Deegan said. “It’s worth the delay.”

Wedge pursed his lips. “Yeah, good thing.” He looked at the cruel interrogation droids and the torture equipment. A part of him wished he had never found this place.

The sculpture on Leia’s crystal table jittered forward, stopped, then rose into the air.

The figure was a fat man with spread palms and a grin wide enough to swallow an X-wing fighter. The dealer had assured Leia that it was a genuine Corellian sculpture, that it would make Han think fond memories of his own world just as Han’s images of Alderaan did for her. Upon receiving the anniversary gift, Han had thanked her profusely, but could barely control his laughter. He finally explained that the statue was a trademarked figurine stolen from a chain of cheap Corellian eating establishments.…

“Keep concentrating, Leia,” Luke whispered into the silence, leaning closer. He watched her intently. Her eyes were focused in the far distance, not seeing the sculpture at all.

The statue continued to levitate, rising higher off the table; then suddenly it bumped forward to topple onto the floor.

Leia heaved a sigh and slumped back in the self-conforming chair. Luke tried to cover his disappointment as he remembered his own training. Yoda had made him stand on his head while balancing rocks and other heavy objects. Luke had received other training from the twisted Joruus C’baoth, and he had learned the depths of the dark side from the resurrected Emperor himself.

His sister’s training had been much less rigorous, and more haphazard as she continually rescheduled lessons to accommodate her increasing diplomatic duties. But Leia concerned him: he had been working with her for more than seven years now, and she seemed to be blocked, having reached the limit of the powers she could master. Given her heritage as the daughter of Anakin Skywalker, Leia should have been easy to train. Luke wondered how he would manage to instruct a large group of students