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Han drew a blaster. “Hold it right there, Randa. If I let you do this, there’s no stopping anyone.”

Randa halted, glaring back over his shoulder. Refugees paused to help up the ones Randa had bowled over, then streamed around him.

Jacen spotted a young mountain of belongings alongside the gate, and an officious-looking Twi’lek in a SELCORE chem suit directing refugees to drop their bundles before he let them pass.

Jacen sidled alongside the SELCORE man. “Look,” he murmured, “these people have hardly got anything left to call their own. Don’t beggar them all over again—”

The Twi’lek spread his pale hands. “We will send back for your belongings. For now, saving life is our priority—wait! What’s that?”

An elderly human woman clutched one hand to her chest and supported her husband with her other arm. Something black and furry stuck up out of the woman’s bunched coat. The Twi’lek seized the coat and fingered it open. A furry bundle clung to the woman, splaying four scrawny limbs against her tunic. Jacen recognized a young whisperkit, betrayed by one quivering ear.

“Sorry,” the Twi’lek grunted. “Don’t know how you got a pet this far, but it can’t come aboard.”

The woman’s blue-gray eyes thickened. “Sir, we’re keeping it safe for our grandson. He’s with the Fifth Fleet, and we promised—”

Saving life. Priority. The galaxy, teetering on a balance point the size of one frightened whisperkit.

Jacen shoved forward and tugged the Twi’lek’s fingers off the woman’s coat. “If we don’t see it, it isn’t here.” He turned around and glared at the SELCORE official. “How much,” he muttered, “does a whisperkit eat or breathe, compared with what leaving it here would do to morale?”

The Twi’lek set his knobby jaw. “What whisperkit?”

Jacen backed away. The Duro-stink grew stronger with every breath. The last mixed mob of Ryn and Vuvrians pressed forward, dropping bundles in their haste to reach the cofferdams. The final refugees trampled the bundles.

Droma flicked Han a salute. “That’s everybody, Solo.”

Han lowered his blaster. “Go on, Randa. Jacen? Stun him if he gives you trouble, but don’t leave him here.”

Jacen followed the fuming Hutt up the near crawler’s boarding ramp as Han sprinted past. Randa halted just inside the hatch, blocking Jacen’s way.

Three SELCORE crewers loped up behind Jacen. “Come on,” one urged. “We’re moving out.”

“Randa,” Jacen shouted. “Farther in!”

The Hutt turned his head, rumbling angrily. “Your father said I would be the last one on board. So this crawler is full.”

Something pushed Jacen from behind. He fell over Randa’s surprisingly solid body. The Hutt’s muscular tail whipped around, flinging several Ryn against other refugees. One fell senseless.

Jacen thumb-checked the stun setting on his confiscated blaster, leveled it at the Hutt, and fired. Randa drooped. Hoots, whistles, and muffled applause broke out on board.

Something dug into Jacen’s ribs. “Nice going,” Jaina growled.

He exhaled. “Glad you’re aboard.”

“What was that about not being aggressive?”

“He was hurting people.” Jacen returned the blaster to his belt. “And I wasn’t using the Force.”

“And the Yuuzhan Vong aren’t hurting people? So they shouldn’t be stopped with everything we’ve got?”

Ignoring her sarcasm, Jacen braced himself against the hatch. The crawler started to vibrate.

“Everybody get steady,” he shouted. “This road’s a little rough.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

As the crawler lurched along, the warmth and odor of several hundred none-too-clean bodies—compounded by nervous sweat—made Jacen wrinkle his nose. He felt lucky to be next to a hatch. He’d be one of the first off.

“Lovely,” Jaina murmured. “Where’s my breath mask?”

At the far end of the hold, someone started singing. Singly and in groups, Ryn joined the melody, some whistling harmonies through their perforated beaks. Jacen didn’t need words to recognize a traveling song. The perennial outcasts were moving on to their next adventure.

His comlink chirruped. “Excuse me,” he said to the Ryn he elbowed while raising it to his mouth. “Sorry,” he told the one he