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“That was at Kalarba,” Ganner said.

“Where are we now?”

“Fondor.”

Skidder showed them a startled look. “Why—”

“Fondor was always the target,” Kyp said. “The fleet has been caught by surprise.”

Skidder shut his eyes and nodded. “I tried to learn our destination—the yammosk’s destination.”

Kyp compressed his lips before replying. “We managed to cripple the ship before it made planetfall, but the Yuuzhan Vong are prevailing even without the war coordinator.”

“There are captives aboard,” Skidder said, as if suddenly remembering. “The plan was to familiarize the yammosk with our thought patterns—”

“We’ve got them,” Ganner cut him off. “Deak and some of the others are with them. Now we just have to see about freeing you.”

Wurth laughed, shortly and bitterly. “Chine-kal promised to break me, and he has.”

“Chine-kal?”

“The ship’s commander.” Skidder’s face contorted and he moaned in pain.

Concealing his hopelessness, Kyp took a closer look at the surge-coral protrusions that anchored Wurth to the pliant deck. “Our lightsabers should make short work of these,” he started to say, when Wurth shook his head violently.

“There isn’t time. You have to leave.”

Kyp looked hard into his comrade’s eyes. “I won’t leave you, Wurth. We’ll find a way to help you. The Force—”

“Look at me,” Skidder interrupted firmly. “Look at me through the Force. I’m dying, Kyp. You can’t help me.”

Kyp opened his mouth to reply, but instead loosed a resigned sigh.

Skidder smiled with his eyes. “I’m prepared, Kyp. I’m ready to die. But there are two things I need you to do before you leave this ship.”

Kyp nodded grimly and leaned his ear closer to his friend’s mouth.

“Randa and Chine-kal,” Wurth managed to say. “Find them.”

Alone in the Falcon’s cockpit, Han had one hand gripped on the yoke and the other on the servo that operated the dorsal quad laser. Triggering staccato bursts from the weapon, he blew away two approaching coralskippers. From somewhere behind the Falcon a third skip vectored in on a strafing run against the shipyard, but before Han could even swivel the gun turret, the enemy craft was pulverized by fire from one of the battered X-wings that flew with Kyp’s Dozen.

“Good shooting,” Han said into the mouthpiece of his headset.

“Thanks, Falcon,” the voice of the ship’s female pilot came back. “You soften them up, I’ll put them away.”

“Will do,” Han told her.

He brought the Falcon about to recon the Rimward side of the empty yard in which the Ruan refugees had been marooned. Below, Droma, the second fighter pilot, and some of the pirates were organizing the recovery, with the Trevee berthed where a construction barge or tender might have anchored if the facility had been operational. With the Yuuzhan Vong fleet continuing to encroach on Fondor, the Tholatin crew—reluctant rescuers early on—were suddenly desperate to wrap the mission and launch for clear space.

Noise crackled from the cockpit annunciators, and a grainy video image of Droma appeared on the comm display screen.

“Han, the Trevee is loading, but fifty or so folks are still unaccounted for. Apparently they figured they could escape detection by hiding out.”

Behind Droma, grinning broadly, were clustered some ten other Ryn, including the two he had introduced earlier as Gaph and Melisma. Melisma was now cradling a Ryn infant in her arms.

“You can’t hide from plasma,” Han barked toward the audio pickup.

Droma nodded. “We’ll search them out.”

“Yeah, well, don’t waste any time. Looks like a Yuuzhan Vong carrier escort has taken a sudden interest in the place.”

Droma nodded and signed off.

As the Falcon came full circle around the shipyard, the Trevee once more loomed large in the forward viewport. The transport’s hyperdrive was ruined, but the sublight drives were more than capable of moving the ship out past the enemy fleet—providing it got away in time.

Even as Han was thinking it, the Yuuzhan Vong carrier escort hove into view off to port, keen on targeting the shipyard with the projectile launchers