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“The garrison moon,” Kyp said. “It’s gone.”

“We’ve been detected,” Luke said. “Ships coming in.” He sensed the anger and dismay from the pilots in the attack ships now gathering speed and converging on the Sun Crusher.

The speaker buzzed with a forceful female voice. “This is Kithra of the Mistryl guard, representing the Smugglers’ Alliance. Identify yourself and state your business in the Kessel system.”

“This is Luke Skywalker,” he said, restraining a confident smile. “We’re here on business for the New Republic. Our mission is to destroy the Sun Crusher, and we had hoped to hitch a ride back to Coruscant with one of your ships. Mara Jade cleared us by subspace transmission only yesterday.”

“Commander Jade is not here now,” Kithra said. “But she did notify me you would be coming. As you can see, though, we have recently been under attack.”

“Tell me your situation,” Luke said. “Where’s Mara? Is she okay? What about Han Solo?”

Kyp let his eyes fall half-closed, reaching out with the Force, searching. He jerked his head to the left, toward the swirling mass of the Maw. “Han’s there—he’s over there.”

Kithra’s voice came over the speaker again. “A Death Star prototype attacked us,” she explained as the smuggler ships swarmed around them in a protective contingent. “We suspect it was fleeing the New Republic occupation force that recently entered the cluster.”

“Wedge and Chewie are inside the Maw, too,” Luke said to Kyp.

“What happened to Han?” Kyp said into the comm with rising urgency.

“Our ships struck at the prototype and caused some minor external damage, but Han Solo flew the Millennium Falcon into the superstructure. Commander Jade ordered us to fall back. The Falcon was carried along as the Death Star retreated toward the Maw. They were going to attempt to sabotage its power core, but we’ve heard no word from them since.”

“How long has it been?”

“Only a couple of hours,” Kithra answered. “We’ve been considering our options.”

Luke looked to Kyp, and their eyes met in shared concern. “We don’t have any options,” Luke said.

Kyp nodded. “We’ve got to help Han.”

“Yes,” Luke said, swallowing hard. “Into the Maw.”

For two Jedi, finding a safe path through the labyrinth of gravity wells proved simple enough. Working together, Luke and Kyp reinforced each other’s perceptions, flying the Sun Crusher in tandem, like linked navicomputers.

The Sun Crusher rattled and vibrated with the strain. Luke experienced a stretching of his mind as he let his senses extend outward, as if dragged downward into the bottomless black holes.

Kyp flew with his eyes closed, his jaws clenched, his lips drawn back in a grimace. “Almost through the wall,” he said through his teeth.

After passing through an eternity of superhot colors, they fell into the quiet bubble within the center of the cluster.

Clearing his vision, Luke searched for the Death Star prototype, expecting to see it firing at Wedge’s assault fleet. But instead he saw quite a different space battle in progress: New Republic forces blasting, starfighters launched in frantic dogfights—arrayed not against the Death Star, but against the deadly spear-point shape of a battered and blaster-scarred Star Destroyer.

“It’s Admiral Daala!” Kyp said, his voice thick with hatred.

34

The wire-frame prototype hid, powered down, on the far side of the Maw cluster as Tol Sivron, Golanda, Doxin, Yemm, and the stormtrooper captain held a meeting to discuss the implications of their changed situation.

It had taken some time to find an empty storeroom that could be converted into an appropriate conference chamber, and they had to forgo their hot beverages and morning pastries. But these were emergency times, Sivron admitted, and they had to make sacrifices in the name of the Empire.

“Thank you, Captain, for pointing out that loophole in our procedures,” he said, flashing a pointy-toothed smile.

The stormtrooper had shown them in an appendix to the emergency procedures, under the subheading “Dissemination of Information,” a clause pertaining to the total secrecy of