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One flight below ground, Leia paused with Olmahk and waited for her twins to catch up.

“Laser,” she murmured, pointing toward a side chamber.

Two blurred smudges marked the dust beside it, and she knew Abbela’s guards had met their mistress’s fate. Between those smudges, not quite so close to the laser, a broad swath had been swept in the dust, as if an even larger corpse had been dragged away.

Randa? she wondered. Where was Basbakhan?

“But I’m going to show you the way out first,” she said.

Jaina shook her head. “I’m going up to the roof with you.”

“No.” Holding her blaster at the ready, Leia silently pushed the next door.

A storeroom filled with storage crates—nitrates, potassium compounds, micronutrients—was dimly lit by a glow lamp near the exit. Leia saw no sign of intruders. Even the dust had a spackled, untrodden look.

Leia stepped through, toward a hatch that looked like one more permastone panel. She tugged it slightly open and jerked her head aside.

“Tunnel. To the mines,” she murmured.

Jaina rolled her eyes. Jacen frowned at his twin, crinkling his lips.

Leia led the way back out. From a canister beside the metal-sheathed power conduit, she took a handful of sand and strewed it out onto the floor, masking their footprints.

Olmahk lingered at the door. As Leia opened it again, she heard harsh voices from the main level and heavy footsteps going up the steps. She held still and waited. In a minute or so, the voices stopped.

But were they really gone? She’d gotten used to being able to sense living presences through the Force. Around Yuuzhan Vong, she felt half-blind.

She glanced aside at her daughter, wearing her mask, then at her son, with his cap pulled down snugly. She pushed the door the rest of the way open.

No one challenged her.

She led across the open area, headed toward the laser.

She’d almost reached it when a harsh shout spun her around. A Yuuzhan Vong warrior in black armor stood on the stairs, sweeping something off a bandolier.

“Go!” she shouted. “Back!”

She fired off a shot, but her blaster bolt only glanced off his armor. She aimed under his arms, at the known weak spot.

A gray streak vaulted past her. Olmahk plunged toward the Yuuzhan Vong’s throat.

A second alien vaulted over the balcony, hit the ground running, and came at her. Leia fell against the duracrete door, slamming it shut with her children on the other side. She didn’t stop firing until the alien’s hands closed on her shoulders, wrenched her away from the door, and then drove her against it.

She crumpled into darkness.

Jacen pounded down the laser-straight tunnel, chasing Jaina. She ran as if she had an assassin droid at her heels.

“Do you have any idea what direction we’re going?” he demanded.

“North. When we hit the main mines, bear to the right, toward the transmitter.”

The main mines. Was Nom Anor still down here?

Jacen grabbed her hand. Jaina almost yanked it free.

“What?” she demanded.

“We’ve got to go back,” he said. This made no sense, but at the back of his mind, something huge and white was spinning. “We can’t leave her.”

“What? Hello. Duro to Jacen. She sent us away. She’s getting real good at that.”

“This doesn’t feel right.” Jacen listened hard, to the place inside himself where he used to find wisdom. It lay silenced. Help, he begged. What do I do?

“This doesn’t feel right,” he repeated. “Go ahead, get to the freighter. Warn Dad what’s going on, call Luke and Mara. Tell them I’m going back.”

In the distance, there was a throbbing head.

Leia didn’t want to get anywhere near it, but something kept pushing her closer, until finally she went inside.

Then she realized she was lying on her back, eyes tightly closed.

Memory returned in pieces. She didn’t move, barely dared to breathe, waiting for some hint, some clue, of where she lay. She didn’t feel any bonds, any shock cuffs, any binders—anything amiss except that horrible headache, centered behind her left ear.

She did know enough about using the Force to turn that