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“Let’s contact the real government, then,” Anakin suggested. “Let ’em know what’s going on before their defense grid fails.”

“That’s a problem,” Corran said. “We don’t know anything about who we just dealt with. It might be the local chapter of the Peace Brigade, or it might be a faction in the Body Calculus. Either way, the odds of contacting the wrong people are way too high.”

“Maybe we should just get out of here and alert the New Republic military, then,” Anakin suggested.

“It’s an idea, but it will lose us Yag’Dhul. There’s no way to get a fleet here in fifteen hours. If the Givin had their own fleet scrambled, there might be a chance of holding the Yuuzhan Vong off long enough for a New Republic force to arrive, assuming the Senatorial Oversight Committee releases them to do so. No, we’ve got to get the attention of the right people, before the defense grid goes down.”

“Umm,” Anakin mused.

“What? Out with it.”

“Well, I have an idea, but you aren’t going to like it.”

“I’ll take anything I can get right now. Talk.”

“We attack Yag’Dhul before the grid goes down. Whoever comes out to stop us, that’s who we want to talk to.”

“I don’t like it,” Corran said.

“I didn’t think you would.”

“I don’t like it, but it will work. Anakin, calculate a jump that will put us as close as safely possible to Yag’Dhul—or better, the space station. Tahiri, can you figure out how to lay it in?”

“Sure. All I have to do is see it in my mind.”

“Let’s get cracking, then. I want to do this before common sense sets in.”

They reverted two hundred kilometers from the orbit of Yag’Dhul’s farthest moon, a short distance from the military station that Booster Terrik had once commanded. Corran had fond memories of the place, because it reminded him of his early days with Mirax. It felt strange to be attacking it.

The station, which had been Rogue Squadron’s base during the Bacta War, was now part of an expanding Givin military-industrial complex. Unhappy with having their system being used as a battleground by foreign forces, they had demanded and been ceded the station a few years after the truce with the Imperial Remnant. It now protected their shipyard.

“I’ll bet they’ll notice us,” Anakin remarked, watching through a transparency that Tahiri had opened up to give them a view of surrounding space. “Hyperwave dampeners or not, rocks this size don’t just appear out of nowhere.”

“Unless the grid is already down,” Corran replied.

“Oh, I don’t think it is,” Tahiri said. “Or at least, that would be a big coincidence. Twenty somethings are on their way.”

“Twenty what?” Corran asked. “Starfighters, corvettes, capital ships?”

“I don’t know,” Tahiri replied. “I don’t know a lot about ships.”

“Well, how big are they?”

Tahiri didn’t answer for a few moments. “I’m not sure how to read that,” she said. “They’re sort of clusters of spindly rods. Three engines each. Real fast.”

“Starfighters? How far away?”

“Fifteen phons and closing.”

“What’s a phon?” Anakin asked.

“I don’t have any idea,” Tahiri replied. “They just implanted the language, not conversion charts.”

“Bring her around, thirty degrees starboard,” Corran said.

“Starboard?”

“To your right! Your right hand!”

“Don’t get touchy, Captain Horn,” Tahiri said. “I’m doing my best, but I’m not a pilot! And I can’t tell if I’ve turned fifteen degrees or not.”

A dull thud echoed through the ship. Tahiri gasped.

“What was that?”

“That hurt!” Tahiri said. “Something just blew up part of us.”

“Are they hailing?”

“I—” She broke off again as several more impacts rocked the ship. The last one was very loud.

“That broke the skin,” Tahiri said. “We’re losing air. I’m going to shoot back.”

“Don’t shoot back,” Corran said. “Do you hear me, Tahiri? Do not shoot back.”

“The ship wants to,” she wailed. “It’s hurt.”

“Don’t let it.”

“They’re hailing,” Anakin said. “Standard frequency.”

“Answer, then, fast. Tahiri—turn away from those ships and run as fast as you can.”

“They’re a lot faster.”

“Well, use the dovin basal to absorb their shots, if you can figure out how to do that.”

“The