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Roa loosed a sigh and turned to help a Ryn female out of the airlock. “Han, I’d like you to meet—”

“Any chance you have a clanmate named Droma?” Han interrupted.

The female looked surprised. “I have a brother named Droma.”

Han’s grin broadened. “You’ll be seeing him soon enough.”

Roa scratched his head. “Seems I’ve a lot to catch up on.”

“That doesn’t begin to say it.”

The clustership was already beginning to come apart. Han’s fear that he might have to separate prematurely from the trembling ship only made him work harder at getting all the rescued captives aboard. By the time the last of them boarded, the forward hold, bunk rooms, galley, and utility spaces were packed. Han could only hope that the Falcon’s air scrubbers would hold out long enough to sustain everyone through a jump to Mrlsst or elsewhere in the Tapani sector. Even assuming that life support continued to function, they were going to be a hungry, dehydrated lot when and wherever they ultimately touched down.

With the airlock resealed, Han, Roa, and two of the Ryn threaded their way to the cockpit. Han squeezed into the pilot’s seat and began to maneuver the Falcon away from the Yuuzhan Vong vessel. Through the forward viewport he could see what remained of Kyp’s Dozen launching through the hole they had blown in the ruined module.

Roa helped bring the quad lasers on-line as Han nosed the Falcon over the top of the spherical module, expecting to have to engage the enemy warships that had broken from the armada to render aid to the crippled yammosk vessel. Instead he was greeted by a sight that tugged a gleeful cry from him.

“Hapan Battle Dragons!” he said, glancing at Roa. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

He was about to add that Leia had more than likely been responsible for enlisting the Hapans’ support when an intense, white radiance blinded him. The Falcon died, then was tossed through an end-over-end ride that deposited her two thousand kilometers from where she had been.

The Yuuzhan Vong had coaxed Fondor’s sun to go nova, Han told himself. They had wiped out the entire system.

When his vision returned and the moans and groans of his tumbled cargo had died down, Han saw that three-fourths of the Hapan fleet and half the Yuuzhan Vong armada were gone.

On his helix flagship, Nas Choka recaptured enough of his self-control to keep some of the dismay out of the incredulous look he showed Malik Carr and Nom Anor. Against the backdrop of a razed moon, the villip-choir field showed the blackened skeletons and husks of untold numbers of Yuuzhan Vong and enemy ships.

“They killed most of their reinforcements to eliminate half of our force,” the supreme commander said. “Is such savagery commonplace?”

Nom Anor shook his head, as much in response as to clear it. “A mistake. It has to be a mistake. Their reverence for life has always been their weakness.”

“Then perhaps we’ve managed to bring out the primitive in them,” Malik Carr said in a stunned voice.

A herald appeared. The villip in his trembling hands bore the strained features of Chine-kal.

“The yammosk has been killed,” Chine-kal gasped through his communicator, “and the ship is dying. The Hutts betrayed our location to the Jedi. The Jedi captured on Gyndine will die with us, but two of his confederates and Randa Besadii Diori—the murderers of the yammosk—escaped. We—”

The villip fell silent suddenly, then everted to its featureless form. Chine-kal was dead.

Nas Choka turned away in disgust. “Recall all operational coralskippers,” he instructed his subaltern. “Order the rest to commit what destruction they can. All warship commanders will prepare their ships for departure. We have accomplished what we set out to do. Now we have a score to settle with the Hutts.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Viqi Shesh sat regally in the straight-backed chair at the center of the deposition balcony, adjusting the fall of her long skirt while Gotal Senator Ta’laam Ranth, head of the Senate Justice Council, studied the display of the personal data device he wore on his left wrist. Shesh