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Another new skip vectored low and to port. Jaina feathered her etheric rudder and shoved the stick over, chasing while stars spun. Just that much closer, Vong. Just that much closer …

Her torp brackets went red with a lock-on. Triumphant, she squeezed off a proton torpedo. As it rode blue flame toward the alien fighter, she held course, squeezing off more scarlet splinters, distracting the dovin basal—

“Eleven,” a voice cried in her ear. “Break starboard!”

Hutt slime! Jaina goosed her throttle and broke, pitching against her flight harness. The X-wing shuddered. “I’m hit,” she cried. Adrenaline made her clench the controls. She eyed her primary board. “Still got shields, though.” She feathered stick and rudder, bringing the X-wing about. “And maneuvering.”

But now she was mad. Coralskippers, designated scarlet on her heads-up display, swarmed Champion and its defenders. But one, swooping back toward Champion, had to be the skip that just put scorch marks on her S-foils.

She rammed her throttle forward.

Now she saw the big enemy ship astern of Champion. Just smaller than a Star Destroyer, its configuration reminded her of some weird marine creature. Its thickest arm pointed forward, probably command and control. Two thinner arms stuck out dorsally, two ventrally. From the ventral arms, blinding plasma was already pouring out at Champion.

Two flights of New Republic E-wings swooped in to hit the new arrival. Staying hot on her skip’s tail, Jaina squeezed her stutter trigger.

“Rogues.” The colonel’s cry caught her off guard. “Somebody just sucked Champ’s shields. Get clear!”

What had they done, brought in another big one just out of Jaina’s line of sight? She wrenched her stick and punched for full speed.

She was passing Champion’s port nacelle when light broke through from deep inside. Slowly, with an eerie, fatal beauty, a seam opened on Champ’s glossy side.

“Sticks,” a voice shouted in her ear. “Eleven, get clear!”

“Full power, Sparky!” Jaina called. “Go—”

The blast flung her against her instrument panel. Rudder pedals seemed to crush up through her legs. Her cockpit’s sides buckled, then vanished. A siren shrieked in her ears, blaring in rhythm with a synthesized voice.

“Ejection. Ejection.”

She flailed down into the Force, grasping desperately. Almost …

A white explosion of pain washed awareness away.

CHAPTER ONE

Jacen Solo stood with his father outside the mudblock refugee hut they were sharing on Duro. Jacen’s brown coveralls had accumulated a layer of grit and dust, and his wavy, dark brown hair fell over his ears, not quite long enough to pull back into a tail. Under a translucent gray dome, tension wrapped around him like a Zharan glass-snake—invisible, but so palpable through the Force that he could almost feel its coils constrict.

Something was about to happen. He could feel it coming when he listened through the Force. Something vital, but …

What?

A Ryn female—velvet-furred with a spiked mane, her tail and forearm bristles graying with age—stood talking to Jacen’s dad, Han Solo.

“Those are our caravan ships,” she bellowed, waving her hands. “Ours.” She snorted, and the breath whonked through four holes in her chitinous beak.

Han swung around, narrowly missing Jacen with his left arm. “And right at this moment, we can’t afford to take them offworld to run systems checks. You’ve been in a restricted area, Mezza.”

Splashes of red-orange fur highlighted Mezza’s soft taupe coat. Her blue tail tip trembled, a gesture Jacen had learned to interpret as impatience.

“Of course we’ve been in the ship lot,” she snapped. “There’s never been a security fence Ryn couldn’t get inside, and those are our caravan ships. Ours.” She tapped her threadbare vest, which covered an ample chest. “And don’t tell me to trust you, Captain. We do. It’s SELCORE we don’t trust. SELCORE, and the people up there.” She waved her arm skyward.

Han’s mouth twitched, and seventeen-year-old Jacen could almost feel him trying not to laugh. Jacen