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“Somebody wasn’t paying attention in physics lectures,” Tahiri said.

“Nope. Mind the roof.” And then they did jump, pushing away from the lift floor with the Force, up through the jagged hole, into the turbolift shaft. Below them, the car hit bottom with a terrific din. Once again they drifted each other down upon it, but this time the car wasn’t exactly level. It had wrenched the lowest doors from their hinges, and they were able to step through.

The Rebel Alliance had converted square kilometers of Massassi caverns into hangars, but below that there were chambers and caverns more or less untouched. The turbolift went down only as far as the Alliance had used the caverns. After that it was stairs, winding corridors, and secret panels.

“They’ll look up there first,” Anakin said. “They’ll think we went through into the hangar where I cut the wall. By the time they think to look down here—in fact, hang on.” He activated his wrist comm.

“Fiver.”

AFFIRMATIVE. Fiver’s response scrolled across the small display.

“I need you to fly the X-wing out of the hangar. Avoid all pursuit until I call you again. Got that?”

AFFIRMATIVE.

“Good luck, Fiver,” Anakin whispered.

After a long descent, Anakin stopped in front of a blank wall. “Remember this?”

“Is Dagobah up to its neck in mud?” Tahiri pushed a patch in the wall and it swung open. The two stepped through and closed it behind them. Anakin felt around in the rocks and came up with one of the two glow lamps that were usually secreted there.

“Master Ikrit has already been here,” he murmured. “With Valin and Sannah.”

“Yeah. I can feel them.”

“That was, umm, good back there,” Anakin admitted. “Where did you get the lightsaber?”

“Anakin Solo. You don’t think I can build a lightsaber?”

“I didn’t say that. I just didn’t think—”

“Right. You didn’t think, and you’re still not thinking, and you’d better fix that before you say anything else. Now, let’s find Master Ikrit.”

The pungent, rotten-egg scent of sulfur would have led them to their destination if their memories had not. Ikrit, Valin, and Sannah sat on the edges of an underground hot spring, just outside of a shaft of light that fell from a hundred meters or more above, where some long-ago force, natural or artificial, had cut through the soft stone.

“I’ve never seen it in daylight,” Tahiri murmured.

When they were younger they had come here with Kam and Tionne to drift in the warm water and turn from inward to outward in the Force, to contemplate the stars above and the person within. It was a place all the students knew, but which was never spoken of to anyone else.

“Good that you have come,” Ikrit sighed.

“You knew I would,” Anakin said.

“Yes. Still, it is good.”

“What will we do now?” Valin asked. He was trying to look brave, but Anakin could feel his fear.

“Now? You guys will keep waiting here. It should be safe enough. I’m going to climb up there—” Tahiri elbowed Anakin in the side. “I mean,” he corrected, “Tahiri and I will climb up there while we have light to see by. Then we’ll hide until dark and stea—er, commandeer one of their ships, one big enough for all of us.”

“And small enough to bring down here,” Tahiri added.

“Right. There’s a light transport I think might fit the bill.”

“Do you remember the way up?” Tahiri asked.

“You two did this before?” Ikrit asked. “Climbed up to the surface from here?”

“Um, yes,” Anakin replied. “When we were bored, once.”

“I thought I always had my eye on you,” Ikrit said. “I must be getting old.”

Somehow, the Jedi Master looked old, older than Anakin had ever seen him. He sounded old, too.

“Are you ill, Master Ikrit?”

“Ill? No. Sad.”

“Sad at what?”

Ikrit ruffled his fur. “It is inappropriate, my sadness. It is nothing. Go, succeed as you always do. Remember—” Ikrit paused, then began more strongly in a voice that made Anakin feel, suddenly, that he was eleven again. “Remember. You two are better than the sum of your parts. Together, you two could—” He paused again. “No. Enough. I’ve said enough. Together, that’s the important