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“It didn’t look like that before,” Jaina said. “It was just an ovoid.”

“What you and Gavin saw was hardly more than a seed,” Kyp said. “That thing could swallow Death Stars for lunch. And no one has done anything.”

“We’ve had our hands sort of full,” she replied, aware that her voice was hushed. “How did you get this? Surely after Rogue Squadron’s recon, the Yuuzhan Vong buttoned up the system.”

“Oh, indeed they did,” Kyp replied. “And for anyone besides someone trained as a pilot and a Jedi, I would say it was nearly impossible. But I’m the guy who guided your father through the Maw, using nothing but the most rudimentary command of the Force, and I’ve come a long way since then. Fluctuations in gravity are always squirreling little hyperspace entry points in and out of existence, spalled off larger ones. The Sernpidal system has been unstable since they destroyed the planet, which is how Darklighter got in. The Yuuzhan Vong have mostly corrected their earlier mistakes, but they can’t cover all of them, especially those near the primary—and also when they’re creating their own gravitic anomalies.”

“Maybe because they think no one would be stupid enough to jump that close to a star?”

“Stupid or not, it worked. Despite that they very nearly interdicted me. I lost a wingmate and made a jump out that nearly shredded me near a neutron star.” He grinned again. “But it was worth it. I got a good, close look.”

“You know what it is?”

“Yes. The whole thing isn’t on-line yet, but they were putting some of its systems through trials while we were there.”

“So what is it?”

“A gravitic weapon.”

“Like a dovin basal?”

Kyp laughed. “Dovin basals, the big ones, can pull down a moon. They can generate anomalies that resemble quantum black holes. This thing could collapse a star.”

“How do you know that’s what it is? Why haven’t we seen something like this before?”

“It’s taken them a long time to grow it, Jaina. They couldn’t grow one out there in the void between the galaxies, could they? And maybe not just any planet will do—maybe there was something special about Sernpidal. But remember, this was one of the first things they did when they began the invasion of our galaxy.”

“There is some evidence they’ve been out on the Rim for at least fifty years,” Jaina pointed out.

“I’ve seen a little evidence of that, too. But they weren’t ready to invade, then. Blowing up a planet might have attracted someone’s attention.” He held up his hands. “I don’t know. I only know one thing—that thing has to be stopped, now, before it’s operational.”

“I still don’t understand how you can know what it is,” Jaina said. “You’ve never been shy about jumping to conclusions.”

Kyp tapped the holo console again. The view zoomed out.

“This is time lapse,” he said softly. “Remember that Sernpidal was a hundred and fifteen thousand kilometers from its primary, which is still the approximate position of this weapon.”

Jaina watched, at first not understanding what she was seeing. From the primary’s corona, a small flare erupted, something she had seen happen on numerous occasions around numerous stars.

But the flare kept going, first a full solar diameter, then two. And as it grew longer, it gathered strength rather than diminishing, became a ribbon of superheated hydrogen and helium, dimming and cooling as it went but still clearly visible. In the artificial quickness of time lapse, it was only moments before the streamer reached the gigantic Yuuzhan Vong construction.

“Emperor’s black bones,” Jaina breathed.

“You see?” Kyp said. “Extrapolate. Only about an eighth of its systems seem to be ‘alive,’ yet it can generate a gravity well powerful enough and focused enough to pull enormous quantities of solar atmosphere over a hundred thousand kilometers. The dovin basal on Sernpidal pales to absolute insignificance next to that. Think of the size of the singularities it can create—big enough to swallow a ship? A planet? If we let them take that thing out, nothing can stop them.”

Speechless, Jaina could only nod