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the small opening. Several somethings cracked against the metal bulkhead—thud bugs, probably. Then he was through, turning a corner in the corridor behind Tahiri, and they were all running as fast as they could manage. They passed through a pneumatic bulkhead. Anakin slashed the controls as it sighed closed. He caught a glimpse of a Yuuzhan Vong face turning the corner, and a second later heard a thud on the other side of the door, then several more. Glancing back over his shoulder as he continued to run, he didn’t see it open.

“You did that on purpose!” Corran accused. “I thought at first you were just fighting sloppy.”

“We need to find berth thirteen!” Anakin gasped.

“On it,” Corran shouted back. “This way.”

“How far do we have to go? Because—” Tahiri began to ask.

“Just keep running,” Anakin urged.

“—because my ears are popping,” she finished.

Anakin realized that his were, too, and that he was a lot more winded than he ought to be.

“Sithspawn,” Corran said. “The Givin have opened the station to space. We’ll never make it to berth thirteen.” He stopped, looked around. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Follow me.”

He led them down a side corridor, where he paused.

“They’ve changed the designations,” he muttered, “but I think this is it.” He keyed a door open.

“We might make it to the ship,” Anakin shouted, following him into the room beyond. It was wall-to-wall storage lockers.

Corran sounded as if he were across a space twice as large when he replied. “No way. We’re not even to the docking ring.” As he spoke, he began cutting though the locks on the lockers with his lightsaber.

“Check the unlocked ones, you two,” Corran ordered. “We’re looking for vac suits. This is the sector Illiet told us to go to.”

Anakin did, feeling the air grow thinner and colder as he did so. Most were empty. “But what if Illiet was in with Nom Anor?”

“I doubt it. If he was, why such an unwieldy trap? Nom Anor must have contacted the other Yuuzhan Vong to meet him, to get him off the station. Hah!” He yanked a large vac suit from one of the lockers. “Look at this thing,” he said. “It must be twenty years old.”

The next locker turned up an airpack, but no suit. Neither did the next few, and Tahiri was starting to giggle with hypoxia. Anakin felt symptoms himself.

“Okay, that’s it,” Corran said. “You two. Get in there.” He pointed to one of the large lockers.

“Why?” Anakin asked.

“Just do as I say. This one time, please, without questions, just do what I tell you to.”

It seemed funny that Corran was shouting at him again. Part of Anakin knew that was a bad sign.

He grabbed Tahiri’s hand and pulled her into the locker. Corran shoved the airpack in behind them.

“Minimum feed to keep you alive. Remember the locker is probably leaky.” He swayed on his feet, seeming to nearly collapse. “I’ll be back. There’s another set of lockers down the hall.”

He slammed the locker door, and they were in total darkness. Anakin felt around for the feed valve, and soon a small hiss escaped the airpack. He turned it up until his dizziness subsided.

“What if he doesn’t have enough strength to get the suit on?” Tahiri said. “What if it’s leaky?”

“Don’t think about it,” Anakin said. “We can only wait now.”

“The walls are getting cold,” she said.

They’ll get a lot colder before it’s over, Anakin thought. Unless the Yuuzhan Vong light the station up and blow it to atoms. Either way it won’t be long before we don’t care anymore. Maybe Corran was right. Maybe his luck had finally run out.

“Don’t worry, Tahiri,” Anakin said, contrary to what he was thinking. “Corran’s been out of more scrapes than the two of us put together. He’ll be back.”

FORTY-ONE

The space around the Sunulok birthed stars. That’s what it looked like, anyway, and in astrophysical fact that was more or less what was happening.

The cloud of boiling liquid hydrogen had enveloped most of the Interdictor, and wherever a laser beam or concussion missile pierced that gauzy haze an unbearably bright pinprick of light erupted, then quickly blossomed larger before suddenly going out.