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“We’ll talk about it,” Han interrupted. “Piani, what—”

Scowling, the Ryn whirled her chair away from her set. “I can’t even get through to Dizzlewit. He left orders. ‘No civilian use of relay without authorization,’ ” she mocked. “So I applied for authorization.” She shook her long, sleek mane of hair. “I can notify you as soon as I get it.”

Han glared. He and the Duros Admiral Darez Wuht had ended up crosswise twice before his first week on Duro ran out. Admiral Wuht hadn’t even tried to pretend he felt hospitable toward refugees.

It’d been hoped that the Yuuzhan Vong wouldn’t be interested in a planet that was nearly dead. SELCORE, searching the Core region for a place to locate millions of war refugees, had struck a deal with the Duros High House, one of the few remaining local governments that still seemed willing to accept refugees at all. Displaced people could help reclaim its surface, bring abandoned manufacturing plants back on-line, and take over the food-synthesis plants that still fed Duros in their orbital cities. Duros who had worked groundside could go home. Refugees with military experience, it had been argued, might even help defend Duro’s vital trading hubs, including one of the New Republic’s top ten remaining shipyards.

Except that the refugees weren’t volunteering for military service in anything like the numbers Wuht anticipated.

Commanding the orbital cities’ overlapping planetary shields, four squadrons of fighters, and the Mon Cal cruiser Poesy, Admiral Wuht provided the refugees some cover, even as the orbital cities retooled for military production. With the Fondor shipyards lost and all the other main military shipyards such obvious targets, the New Republic was hastily decentralizing military production.

Unfortunately, most of the New Republic’s other warships in this area had been redeployed to Bothawui, or out the Corellian Run. Jacen had heard that the Adumari had attempted a flanking attack on Yuuzhan Vong positions up near Bilbringi. He hoped it was true.

Jacen eyed Piani’s comm board. “How’s the cable to Gateway? Could we get them to send out a signal faster?”

Thanks to SELCORE’s official presence at that nearby settlement, Gateway reportedly had a dependable uplink, even an outlink. Insulated fiber cables connected the two domes, but Duro’s only surviving fauna—mutant fefze beetles—found fiber cables perfectly tasty. Duro’s corrosive atmosphere was too murky for line-of-sight transmitting or satellite bouncing.

Predictably, Piani shook her head. “Gateway’s scheduled to send out a cable rider in two days.”

Gateway was bigger, just older, and much better established than this settlement. Better organized, Jacen guessed, not that he meant to criticize his dad. Han was giving Settlement Thirty-two his all. Thirty-two maintained a pipeline that provided Gateway with water, which was reclaimed from an ancient numbered pit mine. Gateway maintained the communication cable and supplemented Thirty-two’s food production.

Han thrust his hands into his pockets and eyed Jacen, raising one eyebrow. “You’re not chasing mynocks with a flitterfly net?”

“I hope I am.” Jacen fingered hair back behind his ears. “I didn’t want to get you worried—”

“We’re at war. Everybody’s worried.”

The moment passed without either of them mentioning Chewbacca, and Jacen drew a shallow breath of relief. These days, nearly everyone had suffered at least one loss. Piani’s mate hadn’t reached Gyndine’s capital city in time to catch an evac ship. He was likely dead, or worse. They all had to carry on.

“What can I do to help?” Randa slithered closer.

“Nothing,” Han snapped. He turned to Jacen. “Tell me if it’s important. If you need this checked, I’ll see what we can raise on the Falcon.” He gestured toward the dome’s main entry.

A caravan’s worth of ragtag ships had been hauled from the landing crater by mammoth cross-terrain crawlers—equipment courtesy of SELCORE, designated for reclamation work—and parked under tarps, protected from corrosive