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“I don’t understand, sir,” said C-3PO, in a hopeless and subdued voice. “What could liquid hydrogen possibly do against—”

“Watch and learn, Threepio,” Han said. Then, under his breath, “At least I hope.” He fired three of his six remaining concussion missiles. “Leia, Jacen. Target the Interdictor, full power. Give her everything you’ve got.”

“But the hydrogen won’t burn without oxygen,” C-3PO said.

“Sure won’t,” Han replied.

The lasers lanced out just ahead of the missiles. At about the same moment, the Falcon’s shields went down and the skips started taking her apart.

And then everything broke loose.

Shok Choka was big, even for a Yuuzhan Vong warrior. Each ear had three large chevrons cut from it, and a mounded scar ran from his chin, sliced through his lips, and continued along the ridge of his skull. He held his amphistaff behind his back, the hand grasping it a little lower than his waist. He locked his amber gaze on Anakin’s ice-blue eyes. His knees were bent, and though he was perfectly still, he somehow projected corybantic motion.

Anakin cut his lightsaber off and held it loosely at his side. He began to circle the warrior slowly in a relaxed, almost contemptuous manner. Calm flowed through him. Shok Choka followed him with his predator gaze.

Anakin stopped, smiled faintly, then stepped into the warrior’s range.

The Yuuzhan Vong moved almost faster than vision could process, the rigid amphistaff chopping down. Anakin’s saber burred on, and he raised it in a wide, high block. Choka, anticipating that, arrested the slash and instead lunged in to spear Anakin in the throat. Anakin retreated, dropped his parry, again low and wide, as if he were defending for two people instead of one. That placed Choka’s weapon so far out of line he couldn’t make the third parry, but instead had to flip back toward Anakin and Tahiri. His still-live blade, slashing wildly, scored a meter-long cut through the bulkhead that only just missed Corran.

Stamping and howling, Shok Choka came on. Anakin blocked a powerful blow that carried his blade into the bulkhead for a second time in a long, elliptical slash. He ducked a vicious jab that spanged into the wall and rolled forward, past Shok Choka’s stamping feet and back out into the center of the room. Even as he stood, the warrior was renewing his attack.

Now, suddenly, Anakin tightened his defense, so that rather than pushing the Yuuzhan Vong’s blows as far away from him as he could, they were missing him by centimeters. Still smiling, he fell into the counterrhythm of the dance, the amphistaff whipping and whirling, spearing and slashing.

The warrior suddenly dropped and swept Anakin’s feet from under him, something the young Jedi hadn’t seen coming at all. He thudded to the floor awkwardly and threw his blade up to catch the inevitable downward blow, but the staff whipped around and cut his shoulder, the deadly poisonous head slapping against the floor centimeters from his arm. Anakin caught the amphistaff with his left hand and with his right, lifting from a prostrate position, drove his weapon through the knee joint of Shok Choka’s armor. The warrior grunted and aimed a powerful punch with his left fist toward Anakin’s head, but Anakin wasn’t there. Releasing the amphistaff, ignoring the cut in his hand grabbing it had caused, he bounded up and was suddenly standing above the warrior, who had overcommitted to the punch. In the split second while Shok Choka decided whether to tumble forward or attempt to regain his balance, Anakin cut his head off.

Before the body could hit the floor, Anakin bounded toward his friends. Corran had already seen the plan, and with a single swipe of his own blade finished cutting the bulge-sided triangle Anakin had begun in the bulkhead with his “wild” parries. The other Yuuzhan Vong, stunned by the death of their war captain, hesitated an instant too long. One got a parting shot at Anakin, the last of the three to duck through