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“Maybe it’s time I started repaying that debt I owe your family.”

Leia watched as Kyp raced to his ship and lifted off, swinging into position on Jag Fel’s port flank. She reminded herself that this engaging man was the same person who had destroyed Carida, who had fallen to the dark side and nearly killed her brother Luke, who had tricked Jaina into using her name and reputation to bring the Rogue Squadron into his latest vendetta.

“Bring her back, Kyp,” she said softly, “and you’ll make a good-sized dent in that debt. But if you hurt her again, or anyone of mine, you’d be safer turning yourself over to the Yuuzhan Vong.”

FOURTEEN

Zekk lowered himself into the pilot’s seat of the captured Hapan ship and then reached over to help his copilot with her restraints. Like Zekk, Tenel Ka was swathed in an evac suit, a helmet near at hand. She waved off his assistance and buckled herself in deftly, completing the task more quickly with her one hand than Zekk could with two.

The look she sent him was faintly challenging, and the energy she projected through the Force had an edge to it. Zekk understood that this had very little to do with her missing limb. Tenel Ka hadn’t become any more competitive since her injury, but then, Zekk hadn’t noticed that she’d become any less competitive, either.

He pretended to scowl. “How is that fair?” he said in mock complaint. “You’ve had more experience with Hapan vessels.”

“Results, not excuses,” she advised, but a ghost of a smile touched her lips as she turned to the console and began to power up the engines.

Jaina thrust her head into the cockpit, and the grin on her face was that of the girl Zekk had known long ago. “Turn up that music and let’s get ready to dance.”

The Jedi pilot smiled faintly, understanding exactly what she meant. The hum and whine of the Hapan ship’s engines was surprisingly welcome after the eerie silence of the dovin basal.

Her smile dimmed as she studied Zekk. “You sure you want to do this?”

Zekk didn’t see much of a choice. The two ships were still connected, firmly melded together by the strange substance the Trickster’s coral hull had secreted. They were as open to each other as two enjoining rooms. Zekk could hear Lowbacca’s deceptively fearsome howl as the Wookiee herded captive pirates through the portal to the Yuuzhan Vong ship.

And that, he noted grimly, was the problem—that two-meter oval doorway between the two ships. Tahiri claimed the Yuuzhan Vong ship could heal itself, but there was nothing to be done about the breach in the Hapan vessel. Cutting the ship loose would leave nearly a fifth of it open to the vacuum of space. They could abandon it, of course, but that would mean losing a salvageable cargo ship and, more important, the fourteen short-range fighters stored in the hold.

At the moment, none of this seemed terribly important to Zekk.

“It should be an adventure,” he said, trying to keep his tone light. “I’ve never flown in tandem before.”

Jaina came up behind the pilot’s seat and leaned down, resting her chin on his shoulder and sliding her arms around his neck in the sort of casual, friendly embrace they’d exchanged many times over the years. “It’s not the stupidest thing we’ve ever done.”

“Who could argue with that?”

She chuckled and rose. The quick click of her boots faded as she passed through to the Yuuzhan Vong ship.

Zekk glanced at Tenel Ka. The warrior studied him with cool, gray eyes that saw far too much. He grimaced and looked away.

“It is difficult to live among Jedi,” she said, acknowledging his chagrin. “I was not able to grieve Jacen in private.”

“And I can’t worry about Jaina without everyone knowing about it.”

“Worry?” Tenel Ka repeated the pale word, rejected it. “You are afraid for her. You are afraid of her.”

“Shouldn’t I be?” he said softly.

“She’s not Jaina as I knew her at the academy, but who has not been changed by this war?”

He couldn’t dispute this. “Still, I don’t like it.”

“Neither does she,” Tenel Ka said evenly.