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A blast of laserlight barely missed her port side. She checked her scanners as Anakin flashed past under the Shadow’s belly.

“Good try,” she said, “but it’s still there.”

She couldn’t fight coralskippers or go to lightspeed trailing that piece of garbage.

The she heard another welcome voice, sensed another strong presence in the Force. “Hold course, Mara. I’ll get it.”

She clenched both hands on the stick and throttle. From behind, a brilliant light shaft passed so close that the canopy’s radiation shield momentarily darkened. Another XJ fighter followed the energy blast, S-foils deployed in combat configuration.

“About time you showed up, Skywalker,” she murmured. “Thanks.”

* * *

Jacen slipped deeper into the Force, committing himself utterly. Though the building seemed to be both spinning and tipping, his senses flooded with a reverent, joyous sense of thanksgiving and homecoming. Yes, he was small. Small people had to offer their hands, or else for all the Force’s magnificence, it could do little. He longed to fall into that vortex. To serve the light, and transmit its grandeur.

Wait, he sensed again.

Ignoring his throbbing scalp wound, he slashed at the warmaster’s arm as it dangled the red garrote creature over Leia. The big Yuuzhan Vong drew back and dropped it. Writhing, it curled up on the rough floor.

The warmaster whipped out a short, snake-headed baton and held it against his forearm. “Do-ro’ik vong pratte!” he shouted. He circled left, taking Jacen’s measure.

This one’s armor was different. Those scales grew out of his body, giving no clue where its weak spots might lie. Jacen still couldn’t sense him in the Force, but now he felt a rippling of anticipation. He would know, microseconds ahead of the moment, where and when the muscular alien would attack.

He also knew that amphistaffs could spit venom. He backed out of range.

“Coward,” the warmaster growled. “Unworthy.”

Jacen sensed his mother’s weakening presence. He buried his worry and used a light, slightly mocking tone to answer, “I’m just not stupid.”

Sensing an odd flicker in the Force, he brought his lightsaber up to parry. In the next instant, the short black baton stretched its mouth wide, revealing four white fangs against a cottony membrane. A stream of venom sprayed at him. It boiled and hissed against his shining green blade.

That might be all the poison it could eject for several seconds. Jacen swept in, centering his lightsaber, then slashing wide and down.

The warmaster deflected his cut with the baton, whipping it away from his body, spinning and jerking. Jacen leapt back. At the corners of his vision, the priestess and her musicians edged toward the wall. The middle-sized Yuuzhan Vong had vanished, taking Leia’s lightsaber. A door guard paced closer, holding something between hands that suddenly bristled with elongated claws.

Binding jelly? Jacen had time to wonder. Extendable fighting claws? “How many of you does it take to kill someone you call coward?” he taunted.

“You are beneath me,” the warmaster said. “You are not worthy to die at my hand.”

Now, a voice whispered at the back of Jacen’s mind. Fall in, and stand firm.

Staring the warmaster fully in the face, Jacen dived into the magnificent depth. The galaxy spun and tipped around him.

Seemingly at the galaxy’s very edge, the black-robed priestess raised her hands.

Jacen stepped over Leia and raised his own. Power flowed through him, around him, inside him.

A decorative iron sconce flew off the wall, piercing one crab-harp with a spang. A chair slid past the warmaster. The alien gave it only a glance, but it struck his door guard broadside, toppling him.

From another corner, several massive equipment lockers rose into the air. Leia’s focus cooker floated, hovered a moment, and then joined the spinning vortex with Jacen and Leia at center.

Finally, Leia’s massive desk started to slide. It struck the befuddled warmaster, knocking him toward the north window. Jacen half saw one musician fall, struck by the same sailing wall