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Reck! Han said to himself in astonishment.

The Peace Brigade was after the defectors. Reck might already be aboard the Queen, he thought. With luck the mercenary would turn out to be the one Showolter claimed to have killed.

“Why are we standing here?” Elan asked anxiously. “The agent who escaped will be searching for us.”

“That isn’t a Yuuzhan Vong ship,” Han told her.

“But that is,” Droma said, pointing.

Han followed the Ryn’s thin, velvety finger. High up in the blister, starlight glinting off a curve of scabrous surface, a flattened oval of yorik coral was paralleling the corvette, as if waiting in the wings. Fear laddered up Han’s back as he recalled going to guns with similar Yuuzhan Vong at Dubrillion and Helska months earlier.

He turned to Elan. “I take back what I said. You must be pretty important for them to send a warship.”

“As important to my people as I am to yours,” she answered in a rush, without a trace of arrogance. “I have vital information for your Jedi Knights.”

Han’s brows knitted in interest. “Concerning what?”

“An illness my people introduced.”

Before he could stop himself, Han had taken her roughly by the shoulders. “You’re serious about this?”

She nodded, seemingly unruffled by the pressure of his hands. “I am against the use of bacterial weapons. Such a tactic demeans the Yuuzhan Vong.”

Han tightened his grip and held her gaze. “Don’t toy with me, sister. I was at Sernpidal and Dubrillion. I know exactly what you people are capable of, and a little thing like disease wouldn’t rattle the Yuuzhan Vong conscience for a moment.”

She raised her head haughtily. “It prompted me to secrete myself in an escape pod and allow myself to be captured by your forces.”

Han looked over at the woman’s wondrous companion. “And you?”

Vergere regarded him calmly. “I am with her.”

Han let go of Elan and jerked a thumb toward Droma. “Yeah, well, he’s with me and that doesn’t say a whole lot.”

“I couldn’t have put it more delicately,” Droma muttered.

Vergere looked at Droma, then Han. “I’m Elan’s familiar. Where she goes, I follow.”

Han ran his hand down his face. Out of nowhere another choice had been forced on him. By remaining on the Queen he might be able to finish the business with Reck, as Roa had put it. But if Elan was who she claimed to be, her safe conduct to Coruscant could mean a cure for Mara’s illness.

He blew out his breath. Reck would have to wait.

“Maybe you are worth the effort after all,” he said at last. “Which means we should be thinking about getting you some different clothes.” He glanced at Droma. “Think you could rustle up new outfits for these two?”

Droma rocked his head from side to side. “Provided that they’re not particular about size or fashion.”

“They can’t afford to be.” Han paused to study Elan in earnest. “Is that the real you or are you wearing one of those living body sheaths?”

“I am adorned with an ooglith masquer.”

Han nodded. “Well, a Yuuzhan Vong in a masquer fooled the members of the ExGal team on Belkadan. Let’s see if it works as well with the Peace Brigade.”

The Queen shuddered concussively as the corvette fastened herself alongside.

“The raiders will hook up with the survivors of the team that hit Showolter and begin a deck-by-deck search,” Han said, his nose all but pressed to the transparisteel bubble. “They might sweep with sensors or dose the ship with obah or some other disabling gas.” He whirled from the view. “We need to move fast.”

“Where to?” Droma asked.

“The docking bay. Our only hope is to make off with one of their own ships.”

A hatchet-faced Peace Brigade member met Reck Desh and his heavily armed escort as they emerged from the docking bay. Reck was outfitted with only a hand blaster, but his riot-helmeted cadre carried stun batons, stun nets, flechette launchers, and other antipersonnel weapons. By Reck’s side marched the Yuuzhan Vong overseer he’d persuaded to join them in the retrieval operation, cloaked to conceal the telltale markings of his kind.

“Bridge is secured?” Reck asked as he brought everyone