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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 in confusion. Kyp wondered if he was drugged. “Twenty-one twelve,” he said.

“Not your service number, your name!”

The young man paused for a long time, as if pawing through rusty, unused memories until he came out with a word that sounded more like a question than an answer.

“Zeth? Zeth Dur … Durron.”

Kyp didn’t need to hear him speak his name, though. He remembered the tanned, wiry boy who swam in the lakes of Deyer, who could catch fish with a small hand net.

“Zeth,” he whispered. “I’m coming.”

The comm officer waved his hands. “You can’t make it in time,” he said. “You must stop the Sun Crusher torpedo. Reverse the chain reaction. That’s our only hope.”

“I can’t stop it!” Kyp answered. “Nothing can stop it.”

Dauren screamed, “If you don’t, we’re all going to die!”

“Then you’re going to die,” Kyp said. “You all deserve it. Except for Zeth. I’m going to come for him.”

He plowed like thunder through the high atmosphere of Carida. Heated air pearled off the sides of the superweapon as a shock front pushed a shield in front of him. Sonic booms rippled behind him.

The planet surface approached with gut-wrenching speed. Kyp soared over a cracked, blasted wasteland with craggy red rocks and fractured canyons. Out in the flat desert he saw geometric shapes, tracks of precise roads laid down by the Imperial corps of engineers.

The Sun Crusher shot like a meteor over a cluster of bunkers and metallic huts. Isolated stormtroopers marched about in drills, unaware that their sun was about to explode.

On the chronometer seven minutes remained.

Kyp called up a targeting screen and found the primary citadel. The air tugged at his ship, buffeting him with heavy winds, but Kyp did not care. Flames from the ignited atmosphere flickered off the quantum armor.

“Give me your specific location,” Kyp said.

The comm officer had begun sobbing.

“I know you’re in the main citadel building!” Kyp cried. “Where exactly?”

“In the upper levels of the southernmost turret,” Zeth answered precisely, responding in a military manner, slipping back into stormtrooper training.

Kyp saw the jagged spires of the military academy rising from a cluttered plateau. Kyp’s scanners projected an enlarged image of the citadel, pinpointing the turret Zeth had mentioned.

Five minutes remained.

“Zeth, get ready, I’m coming in.”

“To rescue us both!” Dauren said.

Kyp felt a twinge inside. He wanted to leave the comm officer who had lied to him, who had made him despair and forced him into the decision to destroy Carida. He wanted to let the lieutenant die in a burst of incinerating solar flame—but that man could help him, for now.

“Get yourselves into an open area. I’m going to be there in less than a minute. You can’t get up to the roof