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Near the door, someone shouted, “Jacen!”

The warmaster sprang toward him.

He felt the Force bring the desk back around. He heard a satisfying crunch of armored scales. The warmaster tumbled out the window. The priestess and her remaining harper lay twitching on the stone floor, plainly stunned.

Jacen scooped up the furry red garrote creature. Jaina sprang through the doorway, lightsaber drawn and ready. She blinked as objects fell helter-skelter. Jacen arranged the red creature around Leia’s legs, just above her knees. It hung limp. Struck by inspiration, he whacked the priestess’s abandoned drum. The red creature tightened like a tourniquet.

“Wow,” Jaina muttered. “I take it you’re back to using the Force.”

Jacen slid one arm around his mother’s shoulders and slipped his other arm under her bloodied legs, already wondering if using the tourniquet was wise. If he cut off her circulation completely, for long enough, she could lose both lacerated legs.

It might come to a choice between saving her legs and saving her life. “You’ve got to run interference,” he told Jaina. “If I use the Force to control her arterial blood flow, I can’t concentrate much on where I’m going.”

“And you’re bleeding, too.”

“Not serious,” he insisted. “Not like—this.”

Jaina raised her lightsaber again. “Follow me.”

She led to the stairway, paused only a moment, and then vaulted over the railing. Jacen jumped next, slowing his landing as well as he could so not to jostle Leia. Hurry, he told himself. Hurry. In his mind, he saw Anakin’s haunted eyes, his dad’s horrible grief for Chewbacca. Again he plunged deep into the Force.

Tsavong Lah struggled to his feet, then tumbled sideways. Besides the crushed armor scales along his side, his left foot would not hold his weight.

He made it up onto his knees.

Three warriors, on guard outside this built-thing, rushed up to him. Two averted their eyes, afraid to observe his humiliation. The third glanced up at the window, tightening his lips.

“You were attacked, Warmaster? We will avenge you. Take my life as offering, and make it certain.”

Nodding at the perfectly appropriate offer, Tsavong swept out his baton. The warrior knelt, bowing his head. Tsavong swung, putting all of his fury into the gesture.

The underling collapsed lifeless.

“All glory to you, warrior.” Tsavong wiped spittle from his fringed lips, then motioned for the two others to remove the fallen one’s body to the burning pit.

Four more warriors arrived on the run. Deep, grinding pain jabbed up from Tsavong’s wounded foot as they steadied him in a standing position.

“Bring Tu-Scart and Sgauru,” he ordered, “and take down this built-thing.” He ordered another, “Divert the outflow from the deep well underneath it. Flood the tunnels.”

Nom Anor hurried up to his side. “They will not escape,” he assured the warmaster.

Tsavong Lah glared at the executor, who had fled while the others fought. “Hope that Yun-Harla favors you today,” he said through clenched teeth. “Your—”

“I was forced to retreat.” Nom Anor interrupted before Tsavong Lah could lay the charge of cowardice. “The watchers still indicated another Jedi’s approach.”

Two massive shapes slithered up the street, driven by handlers with heavy amphistaffs, and Tsavong brushed Nom Anor aside. Serpentlike Tu-Scart looped the built-thing with his coils. Chitinous Sgauru attached herself to him, raised up, then let her powerful head fall against the windowless lower story.

Duracrete blocks crumpled like pveiz twigs. Sgauru’s maw closed on a cascade of them, feeding with delirious joy. Then she took a second swing.

Han sank down on the Falcon’s captain’s chair. “Get up here, Goldenrod,” he shouted. “Move, move!”

The droid sashayed into the cockpit. “But, sir—”

“Sit,” Han ordered, “or I’ll replace you with a pair of clamps.”

Han flipped a row of power switches. For once, the old bucket didn’t whine and die.

“Buckle in,” he muttered. “This won’t be one of our smoother runs.” Why had he sent Droma off on the refugee ship? C-3PO