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“Still here, boss. They tickled us, but we can still keep up.”

“One more hit like that and you’re ions,” Karrde disagreed. “Peel off. You’ve done enough.”

“Sorry, boss. Can’t hear you. Something wrong with my comm unit. Hang tight, we’ll get you there.”

The power on the Wild Karrde suddenly dimmed and reasserted itself, and a distant vibration shivered the hull. The two ships still running escort weren’t keeping everything off of them; the Demise had flamed out in the first exchange, probably with all hands.

Good people. He would mourn them later, when he had time.

He saw the Idiot’s Array take her final hit, right through the engines. Plumes of plasma streamed from her, and atomic devils danced in the ruined aft section.

“Get out of there, Shada!” he shouted into the comm.

No answer came.

“The Idiot’s Array is still keeping pace with that destroyer, sir,” H’sishi reported. “I don’t understand it. Her engines are gone, and their reactor is building to critical.”

Karrde blinked. “Shada!” he snarled. Then he snapped at Dankin. “Alter course two degrees to starboard and brace.”

“What’s she doing, sir?”

“She’s got a tractor lock on them. She must have diverted all of her power to that. Everything.”

An instant later the Idiot’s Array vanished in a sphere of pure white light, taking most of the Yuuzhan Vong destroyer with it.

“Shada,” Karrde murmured again, feeling very tired. He’d lost more friends than enemies through the years. He’d faced death himself enough times that he had no illusions; one day the game would go against him and he would die. But somehow, of all the people he knew, he’d imagined that Shada would outlive him.

“One destroyer down,” he gritted, “and one to go.”

“We’ve just lost the Etherway, sir,” H’sishi said.

“Destroyed?”

“No. Her power grid is down.”

“Then it’s just us.”

“Yes.”

“Against all that.”

“Unless you want to wait for everyone else, sir, I—sir, behind us!”

Karrde saw the ship appear on the screen; sheer conditioning kept his heart from jumping up into his throat.

The ship that had appeared, almost on top of them, was an Imperial Star Destroyer.

A red Imperial Star Destroyer.

“Message, sir,” Dankin said.

“Put it on.”

A bearded human face appeared. “Well, Karrde,” he growled. “I suppose I’ll be pulling you out of this mess, as well. I hope you have something appropriate to compensate me with.”

“Booster Terrik!”

“None other.”

“I’m sure I can dig something out of my warehouses.”

“Never mind that. Where’s my grandson?”

“We think he’s on the transport that big Yuuzhan Vong ship’s about to swallow.”

“That’s all I wanted to know. See you on the other side, Karrde.”

“The other side of what?”

“The nebula I’m about to make.”

The screen went dark.

“All right, everyone,” Karrde said. “We’ve got a new game here. Let’s play it well.”

Anakin kept the turbolaser pumping steadily, causing plumes of molten yorik coral to spew from the destroyer analog. It didn’t seem to notice, even at extreme close range, which was where they were—a few tens of meters from its surface.

He had to admit Vehn wasn’t doing a bad job of flying—dropping in close to avoid the big guns, playing an elaborate spiral dance around the ship’s axis, dodging out from the gravitic embrace of the dovin basal. If they cleared the big ship by much, their luck would change. One good hit by one of those big plasma cannons would be the end of them.

“Heads up, back there,” Vehn’s voice crackled. “They’re launching coralskippers.”

Anakin saw. The Yuuzhan Vong didn’t localize their fighters in bays, but kept them attached all over the outside of the ship. Anakin had nailed a few of the inactive ones already. Now they were detaching in swarms.

“You’ll have to keep them off, Solo,” Vehn said, his voice tinged with desperation. “If I try to outrun ’em, we’ll be sitting pretty for the destroyer.”

“Understood,” Anakin replied. He didn’t have time to talk after that; everything in him focused on the weaving, organic forms of the enemy. He couldn’t begin to count them.

They came, and he