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“It is only that things have been strange,” she said, in a rush. “Master Yim stayed apart from us, working alone. She was totally absorbed in some new project none of the rest of us knew about. And then the Jeedai came, and took her away, and whatever it was, I know not what, but Ahsi Yim—” She broke off.

“Go on,” Shimrra breathed.

“Ahsi Yim—did not seem surprised. And I heard her tell someone, They took the ship.”

In fact, Ahsi Yim had seemed as surprised as anyone, and she had said no such thing. It was actually a warrior who had told her he’d seen a strange ship fly out from the damutek. By now, everyone knew it.

“You think Ahsi Yim had some part in Nen Yim’s kidnapping.”

She lifted her head and spoke more boldly. “If it was a kidnapping, Lord Shimrra. The damutek’s defenses failed. I do not see how infidels could accomplish this.”

“The Shamed heretics were also involved,” the Supreme Overlord pointed out.

“With respect, Lord—would they know how to disable a damutek’s defenses and leave no trace of how it was done? I could not do so. Was some shaper greater than Nen Yim Shamed, that this knowledge would reside with the rabble?”

Shimrra somehow seemed to tower even higher, filling the room, the world, the universe.

“What do you know?” he thundered, and she suddenly realized she had somehow misstepped. “What do you know of the ship?”

A great invisible claw seemed to clamp about her head, its grip growing swiftly tighter. She felt the joints of her body twitching strangely. Her nerves turned to fire, and she sought something, anything to say, and anything that would turn his gaze away from her. If he had asked her at that moment if she was lying, she would have admitted it, admitted that her words were nothing more than thud bugs cast toward Ahsi Yim, so that Qelah Kwaad might be master shaper.

But he hadn’t asked that. He’d asked about the ship.

“Nothing more than that it exists!” she moaned.

“Nen Yim told you nothing of its origins or nature?”

“Nothing, Dread Lord,” she gasped, swaying. “She stayed to herself! She did not speak of it!”

The pressure suddenly dropped away. The pain recoiled itself back into her brain.

“Your ambition is clear,” Shimrra murmured. “But you raise interesting points. They bear investigation.” He glanced at Onimi. Then he looked off at some unseen thing above her.

“Go,” he commanded. “Return tomorrow and learn your fate.”

She left. When she returned the next day, she was again directed to take up her master’s hand, and she never saw Ahsi Yim again.

FIFTEEN

The ship’s scream was a distant thing somewhere in the back of Corran’s mind. The thudding jolt of sudden hyperdrive decantation was more immediately tactile.

“What the—” He leapt up and stumbled toward the helm.

“Are we under attack?” Harrar asked.

By that time, Corran could see stars through the transparent canopy. “I don’t know,” he said. “But given my luck so far on this trip, I wouldn’t doubt it.”

“This region isn’t charted,” Tahiri said. “Maybe we hit a gravitic anomaly.”

Corran bit back a reprimand for telling that much, but decided to take his own advice and not dress the young woman down in front of the Yuuzhan Vong. “We’re in charted space,” he said, instead. Which was true, barely.

“Then what could it be?”

“Dovin basal interdictor mine, maybe. The Yuuzhan Vong have them set up all along the major routes to pull ships out of hyperspace.”

“Right. Millennium Falcon got pulled out by one on the Corellian Trade Spine.”

“Yep. Let’s hope we have an easier time of—oh, Sith spawn.” He’d been rolling the ship to try to discover the cause of their sudden reversion. Now he saw it.

It wasn’t what he was expecting.

He was staring down the pointy end of a white wedge larger than many planetbound cities, and he suddenly felt much younger, not in a good way.

“That’s an interdictor, all right,” he said. “An Imperial interdictor.”

“I suppose there’s something to be said for not jumping to hasty conclusions,