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His confederate nodded. “But we’ve got problems. Which do you want to hear about first?”

Reck glanced around. “Where’s Darda? Has he got them?”

“Darda’s dead. The Rodian took a beam, too, but he’ll live. Capo being the only one who’s seen the defectors, we had him patched up. He’s waiting for you in sick bay.”

Sudden blood mottled Reck’s face. “The two of them tried to take on the Intelligence team?”

“There were only three agents. Capo swears that two of them are dead, and the third is badly wounded. Besides, Darda insisted on it.”

“And Capo listened to him,” Reck grated. “I’ll deal with him later.”

“This was supposed to be in and out,” the hulking human to Reck’s left said. “There isn’t time to search the entire ship. I say we abort.”

Two of the other men grumbled agreement.

“Stow it!” Reck told them. “What else?” he asked the bearer of bad news.

“A Yuuzhan Vong ship has shown up.”

“What?” Reck stared in disbelief, then swung to the Yuuzhan Vong among them.

The enemy operative nodded. “I was compelled to reveal the nature of this operation to my superiors. It’s likely that the ship has been sent to support us.”

Reck gestured broadly and furiously. “That ship’s going to draw New Republic forces into this! They’ve got too much to worry about to bother with chasing pirates. But with the Yuuzhan Vong involved—”

“Maybe the ship can buy us the time we need to flush out the defectors,” the sharp-featured messenger said. “Even if New Republic forces do show. So long as we’re the ones to return the defectors, nothing’s changed, right?”

Reck tugged at his jewel-studded lower lip for a moment, then nodded. “Time the passengers knew the score.”

The messenger pointed to a comlink on the bulkhead. “We can tie into the public address system.”

Reck took the comlink in hand while one of his men fiddled with the channel selector. The man nodded when he found the proper channel, and Reck switched on the handheld device.

“Attention, all passengers,” he began in Basic. “Just to set all of you at ease, we have no designs on hijacking, piracy, or turning you over to the Yuuzhan Vong. We’re looking for two passengers in particular—a human-looking female and a nonhuman female, probably in the company of a wounded human male. If they want to come forward and save everyone a lot of grief, they should report to the bridge. If anyone has information on their whereabouts and is interested in collecting a substantial reward, they should also come to the bridge.

“If no one comes forward and we’re forced to conduct a deck-by-deck search, we’re going to go hard on everyone, and you just might end up in enemy hands after all.” Reck paused briefly. “Oh, and a note to the two we’re searching for: we have ways of identifying you. If you think you can hide or lose yourself in the crowd, think again.”

An ovoid of yorik coral, nubbed with cone-shaped projectile launchers and propelled by a dovin basal of the highest caliber, Commander Malik Carr’s personal ship was the swiftest vessel in his flotilla. From the bridge, Nom Anor addressed villips consciousness-joined to the commander and Harrar. His view through the crystalline viewport took in not only the Peace Brigade’s gunship and the Queen, but also several cratered planetoids and the distant sun beyond them, all in near syzygy.

“I have my agents under surveillance,” Nom Anor updated. “The capabilities of the dovin basal aboard the gunship have been neutralized, and I have commanded our own dovin basal to prevent the gunship from separating from the starliner. Should the Peace Brigade succeed in locating Elan, any attempt at embarkation will fail.”

“That corvette may carry fighters that will be able to launch,” Harrar’s villip relayed with a grimace.

“Three vessels have already done so and have docked aboard the liner. I will utilize our dovin basal to thwart their return to the gunship.”

“House a dovin basal in a remote to accomplish both tasks and prepare to withdraw,” Commander Malik Carr’s villip relayed. “By the time your agents discover what has happened, New Republic