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Reversing propellers, Ackbar lifted them away. Craning his neck so he could see better through the front viewport, Ackbar pushed the ACTIVATE button. With a vibrating thump that Leia could feel through the sub’s hull, the seismic canister detonated its tiny explosive. A long rod plunged deep into the ocean floor while spraying out a web of secondary detectors symmetrically around the core like a shooting star.

“Now we’ll send a test signal,” Ackbar said. With a whirr he lifted the sub through the densely tangled seatree forest, moving slowly enough so the fronds could be nudged out of the way, slithering over the rounded hull.

Leia fidgeted, swallowing numerous phrases that sounded flat to her. “Admiral, you know better than anyone on this world how important it is to have the right leadership, to have everyone working toward a common goal. You helped lead a band of Rebels from a hundred different planets, turned them into a united fleet that was able to defeat the Empire, and you guided them as they formed a new government.”

Ackbar let the sub drift and turned to meet her gaze. She continued rapidly, hoping to cut off any arguments. “At least come with me to Coruscant and talk to Mon Mothma. We’ve been part of the same team for many years, you and I. You won’t stand by and watch the New Republic fall apart.”

Ackbar sighed and gripped his controls. Seatree branches flapped against the viewing windows. “It seems you know me better than I had thought. I—”

A pinging alarm beeped from the control panel. Ackbar reacted smoothly and swiftly, slowing the sub. He peered into his widely set stereoscopic sensor displays. “This is interesting,” he said.

“What is it?” Leia said.

“Another large metallic mass tangled in the weeds right above us.”

“Maybe it’s part of that crashed ship,” Cilghal said.

“If something fell into the seatree forest, it could have been swallowed up for eternity,” Ackbar said. He eased the sub ahead.

As Leia saw the outline of a large multilegged thing wrapped with seatrees and overgrown with algae, she thought it was some kind of alien life-form. Then she recognized the squashed elliptical head, the segmented body core trailing jointed mechanical arms, its nonreflective black surface.

She had seen something like this on the ice planet Hoth, when Han Solo and Chewbacca had stumbled upon the Imperial probe droid. “Admiral—” Leia said.

“I see it. Arakyd Viper Series Probot. The Empire dispatched thousands to all corners of the galaxy to hunt down Rebel bases.”

“It must have landed years ago on Calamari,” Cilghal said. “The wreckage we found below was its landing pod.”

Ackbar nodded. “But when the probe droid tried to rise to the surface, it tangled in the seaweed. It must have shut down.” He nudged the sub closer, shining his depth light on the outer surface.

But when the beam struck the probot’s rounded head, its entire bank of round eyes blinked to life.

“It’s been activated!” Leia said. She could hear the high-pitched vibrating hum of powerful generators as the probe droid began to move again. The head swiveled and directed its own glowing beam at the sub.

Ackbar pushed the propellers into reverse; but before the sub could move away, the probot launched out with its spiderlike claws. Mechanical arms latched on to one of the sub’s rounded fins. The head of the probe droid rotated slowly, trying to bring its built-in blaster cannons to bear, but the seatree fronds tangled its joints.

Ackbar threw all the sub’s power into pulling away and succeeded only in yanking the probe droid along with him, tearing it free of ancient strands of weed.

Ackbar dug his flippers into the wide gloves that controlled his sub’s articulated arms. He brought up two of the segmented mechanical tools, wrestling with the probe droid’s gripping black claws.

Through the speakers of the comm unit, a sudden static-filled burst of subspace gibberish blasted out from the probe droid in some kind of powerful coded signal.