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Daala rewound the holotape to listen to his words again, thinking she had been on the verge of capturing a crucial insight. But the door chime interrupted her. She switched off the holoprojector. “Lights up.”

Stocky Commander Kratas stood stiffly at her door, his uniform wrinkle free, his hands clasped behind his back. He was trying to mask a smug grin of satisfaction, but the expression displayed itself in a small facial tick and the slight upturn of his vanishingly thin lips.

“Yes, Commander, what is it?” she said.

“We have intercepted a signal,” Kratas said. “It appears to be from an Imperial probe droid transmitting covert data gathered on an important Rebel planet called Calamari, the site of one of their prime starship-building facilities. We can’t tell how recent the information is.”

Daala raised her eyebrows and let her colorless lips form a smile. With both hands she swept her molten-metal hair behind her shoulders, feeling static electricity crackle through her fingertips, as if generated from the excitement building within her. “Are you certain this transmission is genuine? Where was it directed?”

“It was a broad-spectrum signal, Admiral. My assumption is that these probe droids were deployed in a widely scattered pattern. They would not know the location of any particular Star Destroyer when they transmitted a report.”

“Could it be a hoax sent by the Rebels? A trap?”

“I don’t believe so. It was heavily encoded. We almost couldn’t crack it ourselves until we double-checked against one of the new codes Grand Moff Tarkin delivered on his last visit to Maw Installation.”

“Excellent, Commander,” she said, brushing her palms down the smooth olive-gray of her uniform slacks. “We’ve been looking for a new target to strike, and if this is an important starship-construction facility, that sounds like a good candidate. As good as anything, I suppose. I want you and the captains of the other two ships to meet me in the war room. Prepare the Star Destroyers for immediate departure. Recharge all turbolaser batteries. Outfit all TIE fighters.

“This time we will follow Grand Moff Tarkin’s strategy to the letter.” She punctuated the last phrase with an index finger jabbing the air. “Have everyone review their tapes. I want no mistakes. A flawless attack.”

She dimmed the lights as she stepped into the corridor. Her two stormtrooper bodyguards fell into ranks behind her. Their boot heels clicked on the floor in perfect echoing unison.

“We are through practicing,” Daala said to Kratas. “After our strike the planet Calamari will be nothing more than a rubble heap.”

Leia piloted Ackbar’s open-canopied wavespeeder as they rushed over the oceans of Calamari. The sky was still a congealed soup of dark clouds, but the previous day’s storm had run out of energy. The wind remained fresh and cool, tossing droplets of salty spray into their faces—but Leia could not stop smiling with relief just to know that Ackbar had agreed to come to Coruscant with her, if only to speak with Mon Mothma.

She and Cilghal would take him back to Foamwander City, where he could turn over his seismic data to other Calamarian scientists. Sitting in the backseat of the wavespeeder, Ackbar seemed deeply troubled and unsure of himself.

The lumpy hemisphere of the Calamarian city looked like a gunmetal-gray island. Other small seaskimmers drifted in and out, gathering up nets and dashing back to access openings.

Ackbar sat up stiffly. “Listen!”

Over the rushing noise of the wind and waves, Leia heard the sharp tones of an all-hands alarm. She grabbed the comm unit, punching buttons for Foamwander City control. “This is wavespeeder seventeen-oh-one/seven. What is the cause of the alarm?”

Before Leia could receive an answer, a curtain of brilliant light sliced through the clouds, slashing the ocean surface near the floating city. Geysers of suddenly vaporized water plumed into the air with a whoop.

“Those are turbolasers!” Leia said.

Ackbar gripped the side of his seat.