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Furgan screamed at him, “The sun is going to blow up, General! How do you propose to fight that?”

“Evacuation on the basis of rank?” Dauren said in a small voice, looking up from his panel. “But I’m only a lieutenant, sir.”

Furgan scowled down at the man hunched over his control panels. “Then that gives you all the more incentive to find that kid’s brother and force him to rescind that torpedo!”

Through half-polarized viewports Kyp watched the surviving TIE fighters pull away and swoop back toward Carida. He smiled with satisfaction. It would be good to watch the Caridans’ panicked scramble as they tried to grab everything of value on an entire planet.

Over the next twenty minutes he watched streams of ships launch away from the main training citadel: small fighters, large personnel transports, StarWorker space barges, and one deadly looking Dreadnaught battleship.

Kyp was annoyed at himself for allowing the Imperials to haul so much weaponry away. He was sure it would eventually be used against the New Republic; but at the moment Kyp took his pleasure from eradicating the solar system.

“You can’t escape,” he whispered. “A few might get away, but you can’t all escape.” He glanced at his chronometer. Now that instabilities had begun pulsing out of the star, he could get a more accurate determination of how long it would take for the sun to explode. The Caridans had twenty-seven minutes before the first shockwave struck.

The flow of ships had petered out, and only a few scrap-heap vessels struggled out of the gravity well. Carida did not appear to be well supplied with vessels; most of their prime equipment must already have been commandeered by Grand Admiral Thrawn or some other Imperial warlord.

The holopanel flickered, and the image of the comm officer appeared. “Pilot of the Sun Crusher! This is Lieutenant Dauren calling Kyp Durron—this is an emergency, an urgent message!”

Kyp could well imagine that anyone still on Carida might have an urgent message! He took his time answering just to make the comm officer squirm. “Yes, what is it?”

“Kyp Durron, we have located your brother Zeth.”

Kyp felt as if someone had thrust a lightsaber through his heart. “What? You said he was dead.”

“We checked thoroughly and found him in our files after all. He is stationed here in the citadel, and he has not managed to find transport off Carida! I’ve summoned him to my comm station. He’ll be here in a moment.”

“How can that be!” Kyp demanded. “You said he died in training! I have the files you sent me.”

“Falsified information,” Lieutenant Dauren said bluntly.

Kyp squeezed his eyes shut as hot tears sprang to fill his vision: sudden overwhelming joy at knowing Zeth was still alive, anger at having committed the most fundamental mistake of all—believing what the Imperials told him.

He snapped a glance at the chronometer. Twenty-one minutes until the explosion. Kyp wrenched at the Sun Crusher’s controls and shot back toward the planet like a laser blast. He doubted he had enough time to rescue his brother, but he had to try.

He stared at the time display ticking away. His vision burned, and he felt a jolt go through him every time a number ticked down.

It took five minutes to get back to Carida. He orbited around the massive planet in a tight arc, crossing over the line from night into day. He set course for the small cluster of fortresses and buildings that made up the Imperial training center.

Lieutenant Dauren appeared again in the small holographic field, dragging a white-armored stormtrooper into view. “Kyp Durron! Please respond.”

“I’m here,” Kyp said. “I’m coming to get you.”

The comm officer turned to the stormtrooper. “Twenty-one twelve, remove your helmet.”

Hesitantly, as if he had not done so in a long time, the stormtrooper tugged off his helmet. He stood blinking in the unfiltered light as if he rarely looked at the world through his own eyes. Kyp saw a heartrending image that reminded him of the face he saw when he looked in a reflection plate.

“State your name,” Dauren said.

The stormtrooper blinked